I hosted a US billionaire in Lagos… and I didn’t even know it would actually happen.
In 2019, Jack Dorsey tweeted he was coming to Africa — and Nigeria was on the list.
By the Way, Jack Dorsey was the co-founder and CEO of X, formerly Twitter. He is currently worth $6.3 Billion.
The moment I saw that tweet, I told my team: we have to host him.”
No invite. No connection. Just belief.
I started reaching out to anyone I knew at Twitter.
Eventually, one person replied: ‘I’ll check who’s handling the trip.
Days later… silence.
Then suddenly, I get introduced to his Chief of Staff.
And everything started moving fast.
Next thing: background checks.
The security team shows up in our office 2 days before for inspection.
At that point, it became real.”
Then boom,
Jack Dorsey and his leadership team are sitting in my office in Lagos.”
That one visit changed everything for us,
It turned our office into a global stop for international leaders.”
But here’s the craziest part…
There was no special access.
No guaranteed outcome.
We just decided it was possible — and moved.
So next time you’re doubting yourself…
Try first.
You don’t need permission to go for big opportunities.
My church preached on the raising of Eutychus (Acts 20:1–16) two Sundays ago. Yesterday we had our own Eutychus-type incident.
In the middle of my sermon, a woman fell into the aisle. She was having a stroke or a heart attack. Apparently she had been unresponsive for a minute or two, and some quick-thinking person near hear had already called 911. The EMTs arrived in 2 minutes, and it’s a good thing they did, as she not breathing and had no pulse by the time they arrived.
One of them broke out the AED pads while the other began performing CPR. The entire church was watching with horror, so I asked them to bow their heads and pray with me.
I prayed for over 3 minutes (the audio guy later told me), but I have no memory of what I said—not even one word. Mutatis mutandis, it was Luke 12:12 and Romans 8:26 moment.
When I finished praying, I saw the woman’s body jolt violently. I had assumed it was the shock paddles, but I was later told that the CPR had resuscitated the woman just as the EMTs were about to put the AED pads on her.
I wasn’t sure how long the paramedics would be working on her, so I told the church we would adjourn, and I invited them to continue in prayer for her as they went. But as soon as I said this (literally the moment I finished), the EMTs took her out of the building on a stretcher.
Now I was of two minds: We could recess, as I had originally said—which seemed like a prudent thing to do, given all that we had just witnessed. Or we could continue the service, hoping that somehow the Lord would give me the wits to continue and give his people the ability to worship.
I told the congregation that I felt torn and wasn’t sure what to do. I looked around as I announced the two options, and there seemed to be no strong consensus to depart. So I told everyone that I would continue, with God’s help, and I gave permission for anyone to leave who needed to do so. Everyone stayed except for the family of the resuscitated woman and one nurse who had been attending to her until the paramedics arrived.
When I finished preaching, I had significant feelings of doubt about my course of action. I was preaching Acts 20:17–38, about how pastors are called to lead God’s people. I wondered whether my choice had seemed wise or compassionate. I feared that many would I think I had acted in a foolish manner.
But then one of the other pastors, who had been in contact with the family, came over and told me that the woman was alert, responsive, and appeared to have suffered no brain damage from the event. (She knew her name, knew where she was, and had no slurred speech.)
So we were able to tell the good news to the church before we rose to sing together as a congregation. Had we dismissed early, everyone would have left wondering whether they had seen a woman die that day. Instead, everyone stayed and thus was able to hear that God had answered our prayers for mercy, reviving this woman from a state of death.
After the service, over a dozen congregants reached out to me, pointing out the parallels to Paul’s situation. I hadn’t miraculously raised a “Eutychus” from the dead (I’m no apostle), but I did continue preaching, as Paul did, after someone had died and was brought back to life.
So, not only was the Lord kind enough to rescue this woman but also he had providentially prepared our people for this moment by having us hear the story of Eutychus the week prior.
God is good all the time, as we rightly say. But he was especially good to us yesterday. And that’s a Sunday I’ll never forget.
I just had the craziest experience at the airport.
We are about to board a flight to Atlanta when the pilot from the incoming plane walks out of the jetway. Guy is probably late 50s, salt and pepper hair, military look. The kind of pilot you instantly feel good about seeing on your flight.
Pilot walks over to the counter, gets on the PA system, and starts addressing everyone. “Folks, I’ve been doing this a long time. Flying one of these jets is easy. The hard part is looking at 130 people and telling them their flight is going to be delayed.”
Audible groans throughout the boarding gate. Most people here are flying to Atlanta as a layover before another flight. 130 people just had their day become a complete mess.
The pilot goes on. “I get it, trust me. But here’s the deal: During our landing, we had a small mechanical issue. I’m not your pilot for the next leg, but I don’t feel confident the jet’s safe to fly until we have a mechanical team look it over, and I don’t feel comfortable asking the next pilots to fly you guys until we get confirmation.”
He points at the agents next to him behind the counter: “Now, none of this is the agents’ fault. Please be kind to them. I’m the one who made this decision, not them, so any inconvenience you experience is my fault. Just please know that I don’t do this lightly, and I’m only doing it because I believe it’s in the best interests of everyone’s safety.”
Now this is where the story gets crazy. The pilot puts the microphone down, grabs his suitcase, and all the people in the gate…
Start clapping.
I’m not joking, everyone starts clapping for the guy. 130 people who just had their travel plans ruined give an ovation to the guy who made the decision and delivered the message.
All because he addressed them with decency and transparency, took ownership of the decision, made it clear that it was necessary, and explained why it was in everyone’s best interest.
It’s honestly one of the best examples of strong communication—of strong leadership, for that matter—that I’ve seen in a long time.
@Delta, whoever your Atlanta to Wichita pilot was this morning, he’s one of the good ones. Please tell him the delayed passengers of flight 1637 appreciate what he did.
As I entered the plane, I asked the air hostess for some juice because I felt like I might collapse. I drank the juice, and a few hours later the meals were served. Eventually, I landed in Nigeria via Dubai.
I remembered this story recently because of the situation in the Middle East.
I began to think about what would have happened if, at that time, I was stranded in Guangzhou with almost no money, just waiting to finish my meetings and catch my Emirates flight back to Nigeria, only to hear that flights had been cancelled because a war had started.
It would have been devastating.
I honestly do not even want to imagine how much that could have affected me at that time.
May God never give us more tribulations than our capacity can handle.
Today, although I am in Nigeria, I am supposed to travel to China this weekend with five members of my team. We had booked Qatar Airways, but since Qatar could not go, I simply told the team to book all of us on another airline.
We have come a long way, God is great.
There is a man in the Bible most people have never heard of. His name is Mattithiah, which in Hebrew means “gift of Yahweh.”
He appears in only one verse, 1 Chronicles 9:31: “Mattithiah, one of the Levites, the firstborn of Shallum the Korahite, was entrusted with making the flat cakes.”
That is his entire biography.
Who was he? Mattithiah was a Levite, part of the tribe God set apart for service in his house. His father, Shallum, helped guard the temple gates, and Mattithiah was given a different but equally important job: baking the flat cakes used in the temple offerings (Leviticus 2:4–5; 7:9).
That might sound small, but it mattered. His work made worship possible. Every offering required care, purity, and faithfulness, and Mattithiah provided that.
This baker in the temple did not have a glamorous job. He was not a prophet or a king or even a priest. He was not someone who spoke to crowds or led armies. He was a man who quietly served.
Yet the Holy Spirit saw fit to record his name in the Bible for all generations.
That tells us something about how God sees service. In the community of faith, there are no trivial people. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12:14–18 that every member of the body of Christ is vital. Some serve in visible ways, others serve quietly. Both kinds of service matter equally to God.
When you serve in your congregation, whether by cooking meals, sweeping the floors, teaching children, greeting worshipers, or praying, you are doing holy work.
Like Mattithiah, you are a “gift of Yahweh” to the people of God.
I met recently with someone debating whether to go back for their MBA.
Smart, capable, mid-career professional.
But as we talked, what struck me wasn’t their indecision.
It was their bitterness.
They said, “I just don’t want to spend that kind of time and money on myself.”
That mindset really hit me.
We’ll spend hours scrolling through other people’s success stories…
…but hesitate to invest in our own.
The truth is, there are no shortcuts anymore.
No hack will outlast consistency.
No viral post will replace excellence.
I told them what I tell my students:
“The return on investing in yourself is never immediate, but it’s always exponential.”
Over the past decade, I’ve worked with thousands of people on their books, courses, and thought leadership. And the pattern is clear:
Those who bet on compound learning, building skill by skill, year by year, are the ones still thriving long after the others have moved on.
We live in a world addicted to short-term validation.
But I think the real flex is long-term commitment.
If you’re thinking about investing in yourself, with a class, a mentor, a community, a book, stop waiting for the ROI to make sense.
Because the real ROI isn’t in your bank account.
It’s in your momentum.
Many years ago, a customer walked into our Lekki outlet, visibly very upset. She had ordered a smoothie and angrily complained that she could taste banana in it. The problem? That particular product wasn’t supposed to contain any banana at all.
My team replied, saying there was no way banana could have found its way into that drink. We are very strict about following our standard recipes, but the customer insisted. She demanded a refund and said she would never come back. Then she added that she was actually allergic to bananas and was having reactions already. Allergic to bananas? That was a new one for us.
My team collected the drink, tasted it, and held their ground. We can't taste any banana, ma, and it was simply impossible. We would never add an ingredient that wasn’t listed. But the customer remained firm, insisting she could taste it and was reacting to it. She left the store angrily, never to return.
At that point, they reached out to me. I told them to call her, apologize sincerely for how she was feeling, and deliver a fresh drink right away. Then I spoke to her myself, apologise and reassured her that we would investigate, and promised to find out what really happened and her next smoothie order would also be free.
So, I immediately asked the QA Manager to dig deeper. If the customer insists, I told the team, we owe it to her and to ourselves to find out why. The investigation revealed something we had completely missed: the person who made the smoothie had used the same knife to cut banana for another product few minutes earlier, then used that same knife to cut the fruits for her smoothie. Woah!! The smallest of cross-contamination. A tiny action, but for someone highly sensitive to banana, it was enough to trigger a reaction.
That single complaint led us to introduce major changes in our production process. It changed how we handled tools, tightened our production and hygiene standards, and reinforced a stronger culture of listening.
The best customers aren’t always the happy, smiling ones who never complain. Sometimes, the best customers are the ones who challenge you, who point out what’s wrong, even when it’s uncomfortable to hear.
Never see a complaint as an attack, see it as a gift. The truth is a complaining customer still cares enough to speak up instead of walking away. And if you listen, investigate, and act, you don’t just fix a problem, you make your business better for everyone.
So, the next time a customer comes back to complain, don’t dismiss it. Lean in, listen, and learn. That’s where real growth begins.
Of course, you guessed right, she remained a very loyal customer.
this is today's reminder that you DON'T need to quit your job to build a business nowadays
PLENTY of iconic companies started off as side projects!
YOUR JOB IS THE SEED ROUND
YOUR EVENINGS/WEEKENDS ARE THE SERIES A
@Thatnsukkaboy_@gideonodoma Further down the line, it was evident that Gehazi got healed. 2 Kings 8:4-5 NIV
[4] The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God... It appears this incident happened after the Naaman incident. A leper cannot appear before the King
Now, let me tell you a quick story. One morning, the Holy Spirit pulled me aside and gave me a serious heart check.
See, I used to get really worked up over little things in my relationship. I’d major on the minors. One of those “minors” Nene (a.k.a. Management), and her habit
Nervous? Anxious? Shaking before the moment?
That’s not pressure.
That’s punishment....for slacking.
Kobe wasn’t confident because he was gifted.
He was confident because he was OBSESSED.
He bled in practice so he wouldn’t bleed on game day.
And when the lights hit? He didn’t flinch.....because he’d already lived that moment a thousand times in the dark.
Confidence isn’t magic.
It’s preparation in disguise.
So if your hands are sweaty, your voice is shaky,
Don’t blame nerves. Blame the lazy version of you who skipped reps, dodged discipline, and prayed for a shortcut.
The truth? You’re not scared.
You’re just underprepared.
Fix it.
Train so hard that pressure becomes peace.
Because when you’re truly ready,
The moment fears YOU.
the worst position to be in is lacking both the agency to be a founder and the tolerance to be an employee. unable to build your own vision yet unwilling to execute someone else’s. kind of like a self-imposed exile from both ambition and stability
1. To be poor is NOT to be close to wickedness. To have an UNREGENERATE HEART is to be close to wickedness. For a person to judge another’s moral standing MERELY by their financial situation is ACTUALLY the thing that is close to wickedness. It is inhumane. It is unkind.
work of ministry/gospel, are really desires from the levels of comfort we aspire to. They honestly do not have any direct impact on the actual labor of ministry that is necessary to nourish souls.
The Gospel needs more willing and obedient men than it does money.
"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today; we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late...
This is the time for vigorous and positive action." Aig Imokhuede #HerbertWigwe