Growing up in the city of Ilorin, I have always thought success comes when you hustle, I mean real time hustle. My father who happened to be a fashion designer worked very hard every day.
He started his day very early and returned back home late at night but even with the level of hard work my dad was putting in, we were still very poor.
In fact I can say I inherited the hardworking spirit from him. But in my own case, I didn't actually follow the direction of seeing clothes, I divert my own hustle spirit to do business.
When I was around 25 years old, I tried a whole lot of things. I have sold fairly used clothes even from different states of Nigeria. I have also tried the business of importing phone chargers and even tried crypto space.
But nothing actually worked for me. Instead, whenever I thought I was really closed to making it. The plan in the business will just fail.
There was this fateful day, one of my uncles told me to follow him to his village meeting that he usually visits in Kwara State. At first I didn't really want to go. But in the end, something in me just allows me to follow him. That was the place I met Chief BabaJide.
At first, he was not looking like a big man. He wore a very simple dressing that at first you can actually be so quick to misinterpret him as a suffering man. He was giving advice to some folks. I actually respected him.
One of the chiefs. "Chief, do you know that we can actually trick people so that they can give us a promo price and then we will increase it later after they have trusted us"
The chief shook his head and responded.
"You know something about life, you cannot climb far with a weak ladder. If people know your business has been based on lies, sooner or later, it will break later"
I was there when he said that statement and that particular statement stayed in my mind for a long time. There was just something that told me deep within that this wise is actually so wise and I need to learn from him.
The next day, I went to his house. At first I was really optimistic about visiting his house because I thought he might chase me away. But he actually welcomed me.
"Hello young man, do you want to learn?" The chief asked me.
"Yes sir, I really want to build a business that lasts"
"That's good but you will need to forget about everything you think you know"
Every Sunday of the week, I will plan my schedule earlier and will visit his house in order to learn. He was the big owner of one big garri company. When I did a little bit of research on how he started, I discovered that he started small and grew in it.
Chief BabaJide taught me something profound in business and that is the fact that it is important for you to be honest in business much more than wanting quick profit in the business.
There was this day, one of his competitors lost a very huge customer. I was thinking the chief will have been so happy but he still went ahead to help the competitor to even win new customers.
I was shocked
"Sir, why do you help someone that is competing with you?" I asked in curiosity.
"Young man, we are building roads and not fences. There is always enough space for all of us"
That single statement really changed my mindset for good.
I applied that statement and other lessons that the chief taught me in my next business I eventually started where I packaged it(locust beans ) for sales.
Overtime, a lot of people started to trust me in my business and at the end of the day, my business became so successful in the city. Thanks to the lessons I picked from chief BabaJide.
Every month I will visit chief BabaJide in his house to thank him.
"Sir thank you so much for what you taught me. I am still even learning from your book."
"One day, someone will also learn from you too" he laughed
Truly I was able to pick a leaf from the chief BabaJide book and it transformed my life around positively.
