While we celebrate several forms of Independence Day, it’s important to also mark several events in our lives as Independence Day.
One of those days was back in 2017/2018.
Mine is nothing like October 1st 1960 with lots of parades or a grandeur of people congratulating me.
I remember the day I was to leave Kaduna for Lagos when I got my admission to study Mathematics at Lagos State University.
For me, it was independence and a chance to finally be free to explore the dreams I’ve always read about in books; and listen to through friends and the media.
For my mum who was there to bid me goodbye, it was a sad moment. She knew I was going very far away from her. She will definitely not see me as often as she wanted.
Today, I am not writing to make you feel melancholy.
There is an event that marks your independence, for some it’s birth and for others, it’s leaving home.
For this letter, we will be treating the independence that comes with changing our environment.
Environment is one major key factor that transforms our lives.
The reason why it does so much good or bad is because it changes you gradually without you even realizing it.
Your environment holds the power to either make you or destroy your vision of what you can achieve.
In our previous letters, we’ve successfully covered two series – Purpose & Power.
If you are new to this letter, you can go back to read the previous letters – HERE
To kickstart this series on environment, I would like to share a Newsletter I received from my former boss at Salesruby on his Birthday.
In the coming letter, I will probably share my testimonial of how changing an environment changed the trajectory of my life (for good & bad)
Please read the letter from my boss below:
Sam, It’s my birthday today.
As I celebrate another milestone in my life, I would like to let you a bit about my life.
I recall some decades ago how I was a very poor student who was unable to speak a single word of the English language even at 9.
In a class of 30, I was frequently rock bottom. I was hopelessly distracted from the meaningful things of life. I lived at the time with my parents in a remote village in Ondo State where ambition was scarce and misery was abundant.
My only ambition was to be a village ring leader. At the time, every boy or girl who came over to the village for holidays who could speak a word of “pigeon English” were “oyinbo children” to us.
It all looked like I wouldn’t amount to much!
Then my dad took a decision. He convinced my mother that I needed to leave the village and that except I had access to an inspiring environment I might never fully realize my potential.
It was a Monday morning. My uncle; Ajiboye took me by hand from the hinterlands of Akure all the way to Ibadan by bus in search of ambition and hope. I was to go and stay with my aunt Adebimpe Adeoje, we called her Mummy Ibadan (God rest her soul).
On that morning, I cried like a baby. My mother cried inconsolably. But my father was resolute. I needed to go and find meaning for my life.
I got to Ibadan in search of a better life. I was to be enrolled into an elitist Montessori-styled Nursery and primary school. Before then I had only been a pupil of a very backward St Luke Local Authority School in Akure. The language of instruction was typically Yoruba and sometimes the teachers spoke very “conc” Akure dialect. I was like fish out of water in this new school.
I was a student of Primary 4 going to 5 at St Luke. I was now made to sit a test for admission into Primary 3. I failed woefully. I only managed to pass French; precisely because the teacher who was to supervise me was so concerned that I would fail too miserably and may end up being demoted to Primary 1 and she was the French Teacher. Her intervention did not help much. I passed French but failed every other subject. How is that even possible?
The school authority concluded that I be demoted to Primary One. I cried and revolted. There was no way I would ever accept myself to be placed in Primary one below my brother who was then in Primary two. No way! I revolted that I would never go to Primary one. I can stomach being in the same class with my younger brother but not being his junior. They conceded with the caution that I would be demoted by the second term if my result was bad.
It was the turning point in my life. For once I got serious. That particular term as I was just settling-in I came last amongst 27 or so students. But by the next term I moved to 16th and then 12th. I moved further to 8th and the next term to 6th and then 4th and then 3rd. Eventually, I was the second overall student in that same school.
Sam, I left that school a champion. I went from there to the very best secondary school in my home state where I consistently came first out 40 students in eleven out of 14 subjects.
I started from the rock bottom. And it took a single decision- a decision to change my environment. I am eternally grateful to my parents for the wisdom to understand the impact of environment on the ambitions and the potentials of a man.
Dear Sam, whatever you do in life, whatever you are doing in this season, immerse yourself in an environment that nurtures hope and ambition. Never get trapped in an environment that kills hope and frustrates dreams. Never allow a negative environment to swallow your ambitions.
Happy new week Sam. I believe in you.
I hope the story hits a chord in your soul.
I believe in you also.
How do you decide your environment?
Here are questions you can ask yourself today.
- What’s your dream environment?
- Does this environment bring you closer to your dream/vision/purpose?
- If you can’t move there, can you visit there physically, through books or media?
Today, all we did was set the foundation, we will build on that in the coming letter.
I have written some action steps below, you can start this week.
I will be writing to you again.
Talk soon, Friend.
Action Steps
- Write down what your dream environment should look like.
- Write down what it would take to move there or visit there.
- Take a step – Visualize, Get pictures, learn their language, visit, and network with people there.
This Week’s Ponder
Here is something you should brood over for the week.
We all don’t know the end, we barely know how it ends.
We can only try to make the best of the journey to the end.
– Sam Femi
Remember, the Journey is the destination. Enjoy now, Live today!
What am I Reading?
Still reading: Marketing by Patrick Forsyth (Chapter 7)
I finished reading: Tomorrow Died Yesterday by Chimeka Garricks & 16 Rules for Living with Less by The Minimalists
My current reading style: One Fiction| One Non-fiction
What am I Watching?
Here is the series I am currently seeing: I stopped watching Breaking Bad
Currently Watching: Arnold (a documentary)
Finished Watching – Alexander the Great & One Day & Live to 100: The Secret of the Blue Zones & Furiosa ( A Mad Max Saga)
My current watching style: One Documentary | One Movie
What am I Selling?
poems you can share to woo your loved ones are here – CLICK HERE
learn to write and publish a book – CLICK HERE
join the next Early Career Accelerator Program – Coming Soon!
What am I Listening to?
I vibed to one of my favourite podcasts – Roadto30Podcast, – LISTEN HERE
