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One of my 2022 resolve is to follow and learn from great people who have made significant impact in their career path.  Beginning on that journey I stumbled on one of the most powerful women on planet earth.  She becomes my Newest Mother Eagle.  Her name is Indra Nooyi. She's Indian.  She was the former CEO of PepsiCo and also the Chairman of the Board of Directors.  She was CEO for 12 years-2006 to 2018. Chairman Board of Directors 2007-2019. She started her life in India. Came from a family that helped support female education strongly.  Had a degree in Chemistry and Physics.  Went on to have a Masters.  Worked with Johnson and Johnson and then a Textile company in India. Later went to the US and got a Management Degree at Yale. She then worked with a company in Boston and later Motorola where she rose to become a Vice President.  She joined PepsiCo in 1996.  By 2001 She rose to become President and Chief Financial Officer.  In this capacity she helped the company expand by acqui

To conclude what I've been writing on why in my opinion many businesses hardly make it past the first generation let me share my experience like I promised to.  A few years back I was approached by someone through a close friend to come and help start a diagnostic centre. The owner was a civil servant who worked in one of the Teaching Hospitals in the country.  After asking some questions and all, I agreed to give my off days at work to come to the centre to offer my services and help oversee the runnings of the place.  So we began, the location was very good and strategic, great facility. Good working environment. The admin staff who happened to be a relative of the MD was quite cooperative and easy to work with. We would sit and brain storm and I would give some ideas on how we could do things better.  Gradually things began to pick up and we were having patients visit the facility and feedbacks were good.  Then a 'marketer' was brought in to help

Two weeks ago I wrote about a particular business brand I'd been observing over the years and from my observations I shared what I thought among others helped them succeed. I remember talking about consistency and affordability. Today let me talk about another one. For those who are know Kaduna very well, it's a state that is home to virtually every category of educational I know in the country. And primary and secondary schools are not left out. One of the thriving businesses is the establishment of private schools. I remember growing up and knowing some schools that were making waves in terms of quality education and excellent facilities but as time went on one by one we began to see the 'death' or the folding up of these schools. And from my little observations and thinking I'll share what I felt maybe have been the reasons for such folding ups. First among one of the things I observed was the absence of long term vision. The Bible says where there

I have this funny habit of wanting to know why things work or not. I don't know maybe it's a side effect of being a Physiologist. 😀 Because in Physiology you are trained to study the various systems of the body to understand why and how things work and function to achieve a state of balance. I've keenly observed lots of businesses especially in the city where I live and I've discovered some interesting things about them that I'd like to share. It's no news that in Nigeria many businesses hardly make it past the first generation. Many die with the founders. I still remember from childhood till now how many businesses I know that have collapsed. I remember writing a post about one of such last year. It used to be a popular furniture company but has become a shadow of it's former self. I've also seen a few that have made progress over the years inspite of all the odds. One of such is a popular bookshop that sells bibles and Christian literature

As I round up my series on my career journey let me talk a little about a career break i took. So I left where I trained and worked as a sonograher for four years. Basically I had this feeling that I had outgrown the place and needed n new challenges. Plus some little management "ish" also happened. It was a very hard and scary decision for me but I had to take it. I left not knowing exactly what I would do but I chose to trust my inner leading( that's how I live by the way and it's never failed me). I sat down though and took in the implications. No more money. And after four years I shouldn't be thinking of going back to being dependent on my parents. So I resigned. Spent a lot of time at home reflecting on what next steps I should take. I knew i loved my job at wasn't sure yet if I wanted to pursue it for life. I needed to settle that clearly. But then I used to nurse this ambition about working with NGOS mostly WHO, UNICEF and the like

 I spoke about how I volunteered in my last post. So let me talk about how I got into what I'm currently doing which happened to be my dream career path. I remember I said at the beginning of 2010 I wrote down on a piece of paper the exact kind of job I wanted. Well it happened o. I got it. Same year. Somewhere around September, I was in the bank one day and bumped into a senior colleague at the University back then. We got talking he asked what I was doing and I said I'd just resigned from a teaching job a few months back. So he just said casually if I'd be interested in getting trained in Medical Ultrasound. I said yes and we fixed an appointment. I got to their Medical centre, he gave me a briefing on how things were done. I met the MD, who asked a few questions and I was admitted for the training. I was slated for weekends initially, then later also during the week. Funny enough that senior colleague happened to be my major instructor alongside someone I

So this week in continuation of my series on my ten year journey in the labor market. I'll talk about my experience as a volunteer. In my last post I ended by saying that i resigned from the school where I worked for two terms. Now this was year 2010. Before i talk about my volunteerism let me say something. Beginning of that year I just felt dissatisfied with what I was doing then, teaching in that school.  I needed something else. Something that had to do with my degree ( I've a medical degree in human physiology) and I really wanted to work with it. It was my lifelong dream from school. So I sat down, picked a piece of paper and clearly wrote out the kind of job I wanted and kept the paper somewhere.  I didn't know if i would get it or not but I just felt it was time to clearly define my path in this career journey before I get lost. I did that, prayed and just went on with my life. I'll share the result of that action in my next post. Now back to being

Last week I talked about my appointment as principal and the challenges I faced. Today let me talk about how I handled them. For the gross indiscpline and late coming, I made sure there was some punishment for late coming. It wasn't there before. Wasn't something harsh, no flogging but strong enough to send the message across. And it stopped. I now also decided to make the assembly time an interesting one. I had some outlines from my church Bible studies then that had stories of people in history who made some mark like Abraham Lincoln and the rest. So each day after the regular assembly i read those stories to them and insipired them. That also helped reduce the late coming as they were always eager to always listen to those stories. Then school fees owed. It was tough. I worked hand in hand with the headmaster on this. We sent them home and also met with some of the parents who told us why they had challenges paying. We designed a system for those of them who w

 Dysfunctional  uterine bleeding that is not associated with the normal monthly cycle is one common case that keeps popping up among women of reproductive age.  This post is aimed at educating women about what it is and what to do when they experience such.  What is Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding? It is no news that once a woman has attained puberty,  she begins to experience the regular menstrual cycle that involves bleeding once in that cycle which is monthly. Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding therefore is any kind of bleeding from the female reproductive tract that occurs outside of this normal monthly cycle. Causes of Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding. 1. PCOS( Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). This is an endocrine disorder that affects the ovary causing it to produce lots of cysts and by extension excess female hormones such as the estrogen and progesterone. This excessive production will lead to a distortion of the normal levels required in the body and so lead to excessive

When we went from placing value on what really matters to just external things humanity fell so hard and broke it's back. The impact of that fall is why we have so many people with low self esteem and terrible identity crises. Much more than failing economies, hunger, disease, widespread poverty is the crisis of the individual.  The crisis of seeking validation, of feeling some sort of worth and value. That inner questioning and probing that requires an answer. Sadly many people do not have the answer to that inner question. They then turn to things, all kinds of external things and invite them to come in and answer that inner man. Unfortunately the externals can't do so. They lack the capacity to answer those questions and the individual in a bid to either answer or silence that question seeks more of these externals and at every point they keep saying No, we don't have the answers. The individual is now confused, what do I do? Then he sights another human li

This year 2019 marked exactly ten years when I officially joined the labor market in my country Nigeria. This was after my National Youth Service.  This is a one year compulsory service to the nation that every graduate goes through before officially going to the labor market. I began the series by talking about my dad's career life because of the impact it had on my own journey through my career  so far.  So I'll be sharing my story and experiences in the different places I've worked and the lessons I have learnt. ----- ------ ------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------- During my NYSC days, we were constantly bombarded with the unemployment statistics. We were told how jobs were becoming scarce. This was 2009 o. If only they knew it would get this bad, they would have spared us the news then.😁 Naturally that created fear in our hearts but I always did something each time I heard those words. I always told myself I would find a job despite the scary stati

My Dad's birthday was on the 15th of October. I write this post in honor of his impact on my life as a career person. I hope you find valuable lessons from it. -- ---- --- ---- ---- ---- ------ ------- ------- ------ ----- My Dad's  career life was in two major phases. First phase; he worked in the textile industry for close to two decades. Second phase; he went into the academia and remainded there till his demise. The first phase of his working life was in the textile industry. As at the early 80s way into the late 90s this industry flourished greatly in this country till it was grounded. He worked with the Funtua Textiles back then in Katsina state where they specialized in making plain cotton fabrics of different colors and texture and also cotton bed sheets of different kinds. Luckily for my dad he got a job in line with what he studied in school which was Textile science and technology. The job was very demanding especially since they worked with lots of