Good morning, my people.
It’s lovely to see you.
We don’t have a lot of time, so let’s get right into it.
This year I am celebrating 25 years of working in the media.
I turned 40 this year. So that means I started my career at the age of 15, with just my WAEC and NECO certificates.
Before I even entered university, I already had a job.
At fifteen, I was already working.
At sixteen, I was already working at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
I already had this sense — this stubborn sense — that I could take charge of my own destiny.
That I didn’t have to wait for anyone to “allow” me.
But here’s the irony: even though I was aware, even though I was an outlier…
I didn’t believe it.
I doubted it.
I began to gaslight my own vision – and my own ambition.
You have to understand how different the world was when my career started.
Which is why you must never play with democracy, capitalism and technology. They’ve changed our world completely.
Understand that when I started my career, there were less than 10 TV stations in Nigeria I could work in. And now, there are over 500 TV stations locally.
When I started my career, there was nothing like fintechs that were able to run a billion-dollar finance business based solely on technology. You had to have branches across the country. And now, none of you even knows where the Paystack office is.
So 25 years ago, when the industry was so much smaller and everything depended on a very small group of people, it was easy for me to doubt that the vision I had for my career was truly possible, using the new digital tools that were emerging.
So I started a blog — it became popular — but I still wanted to follow the “proper” path.
I was a freelance interviewer and could have made it into a powerful brand, but I still wanted the formal career the way I had seen it in the media when I was growing up.
I wanted to be on NTA Channel 5. I wanted my work to be on Ovation magazine.
I wanted the validation of sponsors, executives, and the old systems.
Meanwhile, my peers like Linda Ikeji and Uche Pedro of Bella Naija — they understood the moment better than I did.
They were not waiting for permission.
They were not explaining themselves to the gatekeepers.
They just went ahead — and created their own platforms.
Over the years, I’ve made up for lost time by building my own powerful platforms. But it took more time than it needed to take. I shouldn’t have doubted what my eyes were seeing and the historic moment that I was in.
So I don’t want you to make that same mistake.
I don’t want you to slow down.
I want you to recognize the acceleration of opportunity that you’re fortunate to be in the center of today.
Because what’s happening right now — in this generation, in this Lagos, in this continent, in the world — is historic.
And I want you to own it.
Let me tell you how exactly the my career started at 15.
I wrote a novel at the age of 14 and at age 15, my first book was published. My publisher didn’t know how to do proper publicity, but I knew. And to make it happen I needed the gatekeepers. needed to get it on TV and radio, newspapers, magazines.
So what did I do? I began to walk into TV stations and radio stations, and newspaper houses and magazine houses to meet the producers and the editors and the presenters, and to show them my book.
Two of them, after they had me on, took a chance on me and offered me a job.
But today, the difference is, I wouldn’t need to walk into a radio station. Like many influencers, like many content creators, like many small businesses, I would put up my content about my book online. I would create shareable content around it. I would tag people who are interested in what I’m doing.
Today, the game will be completely different. Just by getting their attention of those who matter in a costless way in what we now call the attention economy.
I could even go viral without knowing anybody. Just the same way the influencer Enioluwa Adeoluwa got a job offer in my company in 2019 just because I saw a viral tweet he made saying ‘I have a first class, I am looking for work in these sectors, please retweet, my helper may be on your time.’
Because he was a young man who understood one crucial truth even when he was only 20:
The world of work has changed forever.
My dear young people, it has completely changed. Even from how it was 5 years ago.
AI, remote work, digital platforms, global recruitment.
Industries are being disrupted: tech, creative economy, agriculture, health, media, finance.
Artificial intelligence can now do in 30 seconds what we spent four years studying.
Remote work means your competitor may be sitting in Nairobi, or Toronto, or somewhere in Ibadan wearing boxers and a singlet.
The jobs we were raised to chase are disappearing.
But new ones — new, limitless ones — are emerging.
Entire industries and jobs have been created that didn’t even meaningfully exist in this country 10 years – podcaster, YouTuber, TikToker, streamer, Short-form Video Producer, Analytics & Insights Manager, Short-form Video Producer, crypto investor, Cloud Engineer, Fintech Compliance & Risk Specialist, Blockchain / Web3 Developer, Cybersecurity Analyst / Ethical Hacker, Product Marketing, Customer Success Manager, YouTube subtitle translator, NFT artist, NFT / Web3 Community Lead, Thumbnail Designer, personal content creator.
When my show started in 2020, it was the first podcast in the country that began to go viral constantly – and this was barely five years ago.
Things have changed so much that people saying ‘readers are leaders’ are now finally wrong.
Podcast listeners are leaders.
YouTube Longform watchers are leaders. Things have completely changed.
For a long time, you have been told:
“Work hard. Follow the rules. Be patient. Wait your turn.”
But this generation is living through a revolution that destroys that advice completely.
Even overnight successes are now a thing: I have seen many overnight successes over the past few years.
This is why in 20 years of running a business, I have never hired a person based on whether they went to university.
That is why I just launched a personal investment fund for creators (you can apply on Fourthmainland.com) and it doesn’t matter to me what their age, location or qualification is.
The global digital economy and with it the creator economy has broken the gates and scattered the table.
It has destroyed the idea that only one path leads to success.
Creativity – and I don’t just mean the creative industries, I mean creativity in terms of how you view the world and how you show up in the world – is the currency of the economy today.
Because, whether you are a teacher, a lawyer, a chemist, a fraud analyst, or a comedian — you can create value for yourself doing the thing you actually love. Whether in a company working for others, or outs de a company working for yourself.
For the first time in human history, the system is optimised to favour the individual voice, the individual brand; you.
Now, a young woman in Enugu is making $20,000 a month from her art on Etsy.
A skit maker in Ogbomoso earns in dollars from YouTube.
A fashion designer in Kano is selling to customers in New York — without a visa, without an agent, without a middleman.
A data analyst in Calabar can get a job paying in dollars in Manchester, without a CV and without leaving her house.
That’s not hype.
That’s a structural transformation of the world economy.
And you are standing right in the middle of it.
It is important for you to understand this deep in your soul.
This is not the economy of your father. This is not the work place of your mother. This is not the structure that your uncles and aunties had, even your role models. You are living in a time of the most seismic change in human history. Where technology, artificial intelligence and the breakdown of typical gatekeeping has led to a massive unleashing of opportunity.
You don’t see it clearly because you were born into this era. But the lease do not miss it because you are inside of it. Do not be like the fish that doesn’t know what water is because the fish was born in water. Understand that old rules are gone. That power has changed hands. And begin to locate your reality practically in the future that exists today.
Not what you used to respect in the past.
In that past, gatekeepers built gates. They made rules for entry. They demanded permission slips.
They told us who was “ready,” who was “serious,” who was “too loud,” who was “too small.”
But today — the gatekeepers don’t own the gates anymore.
The internet does.
So if you take one thing from me today, let it be this:
Overtaking is now allowed.
You do not need permission to build the career, the business or the brand that you have the capacity to build.
You don’t need anyone to validate your dream.
If you wait for permission, you may wait forever and for no good reason.
Yes, you may be called arrogant. You will be called presumptuous.
But that is what they call those who realise the power they already have inside of them.
Overtaking is not disrespect.
Overtaking is vision — moving faster than those still arguing at the toll gate.
Overtaking means taking control of your destiny, irrespective of what gatekeepers might think or want from you.
If those gatekeepers had their way, we wouldn’t have Afrobeats.
We wouldn’t have Nollywood.
We wouldn’t have influencers, creators, or start-ups building billion-naira companies from one laptop and a phone.
They said “this can’t work.”
And then it worked — spectacularly.
That’s the power of creativity.
That’s the power of not waiting for permission.
I will now give you four practical steps for you to take to make this work for you. Call it a guide to building your career and business in this new world.
- Know Yourself
Power starts with self-awareness.
Don’t just ask, “What jobs are available?”
Ask, “What problems do I care enough to solve?”
As I write in my new book that just came out, How Depression Saved My Life (flask the book). ‘What am I supposed to do to find a career that makes me happy?’ is not the right first question.
The right first question is, ‘Who am I?’
Only after we answer that can we understand our needs and desires.
And only that understanding can allow us get on with the serious business of what we are supposed to do with our life.
Do this by asking yourself 3 key questions:
- What are you deeply passionate about? Discover what your unique gifts and talents are. What do you really want from life? (Not what you have been told to want, or what you believe you will get, but what you really want). What do you enjoy doing? When have you been your happiest at work? Or even at play?
- What can you be the best in the world at? This isn’t just what you’re good at now, but what you can become the absolute best at with time, with practice, with improvement.
- What drives your economic engine? In answering this, you take the first two answers and you match them with what the world needs today, what people pay for today, what the market will place a value on today. You need to understand the most important metric that will drive your financial success. How can you meet a need the world has and will pay you for either as an employee, an entrepreneur or what they now call a solo-premier?
In 1999, the legendary management consultant Peter Drucker wrote a seminal work called Managing Oneself, written about how to survive in the new knowledge economy.
In it, I have drawn out three further questions you can answer to deepen this process practically:
- What are my strengths?
First and foremost, concentrate on your strengths, he said. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.
- How do I perform?
Amazingly few people know how they get things done. Indeed, most of us do not even know that different people work and perform differently.
And what does Drucker mean by performing? It’s about plain results. In other words: How do I achieve results?
Think about these things: How do you get things done? How do you learn? How do you focus? Do you perform well under stress? Do you work well in large teams? Do you work better at a small company or a big one?
Are you a reader? Or are you a listener? Do you work best in the morning or in the night? Find out what your strengths are, and then build on them. Don’t waste your time on skills you can’t and don’t need to be good at – because it is easier to go from good to better than from bad to good.
‘How do I perform?’ is perhaps the most important question of your career.
When you find out how you perform, you will benefit from that for the REST of your life.
It’s important to know yourself on that level. You must find a combination of factors that make it possible for you to reach your full potential.
- What are my values?
To work in an organization, country or sector whose value system is unacceptable or incompatible with one’s own condemns a person both to frustration and to nonperformance, Drucker wrote.
Ask yourself: What do you believe in? How do you see the world? What will you say no to?
What do you want to be known for – internally and externally?
After answering the above, add two steps:
- Take baby steps in matching what you can do with what you’re learning — through experimentation, revision, and sustained action. That means you may get it wrong at first, but as you keep trying, you keep improving.
- Embrace whatever situation comes — good or bad — and then pay close attention to it.
That means don’t panic; instead, be curious — What can I learn from it? What can I do with this? How can it help me grow?
All of these are about knowing yourself deeply.
Because true personal power starts with this depth of insight into yourself and the world around you.
The most successful person is the one who knows themselves throughly, and watches their reality to their nature.
If you understand yourself deeply and hold competence from that space, no matter what happens with the digital economy, you’ll never be replaced by a robot.
- Keep Learning
Be a lifelong learner.
Because overtaking is allowed yes, but first you need to have fuel in your car.
Almost everyone in the current music industry most likely taught themselves via YouTube and other platforms like that. Almost any Nigerian undergraduate or graduate or dropout who is a coder certainly learnt online – while others were busy complaining about NEPA and ASUU strikes.
Even the old rule that you have to go to school to be educated, to gain skills, to understand systems and structure…
(laughter). It is already a lie.
There are so many places to learn today in and out of the internet. Young people can learn more on Canva, Figma, Pinterest, Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare, Udacity, Adobe, Fiverr, Upwork, AltSchool Africa, Hubspot Academy, Twitter threads, Telegram groups, and the podcasts of Steven Bartlett, #WithChude, Lex Fridman and Ali Abdaal than they can learn in universities anywhere in the world.
Take advantage of these abundant avenues, many of them free.
Learn to write. Learn to think. Learn to lead. Learn to empathise and in that way you’re able to adapt to whatever disruptions and innovations happen in the world.
The future belongs to the curious.
A famous young influencer, when he was starting his career 5 years ago, asked me in an interview on LinkedIn: How have I always stayed relevant across 25 years?
I said to him: It hasn’t been by following trends or by looking for ‘what makes the most money’.
I said to him:
Life is always posing new questions and challenges.
Just ensure your skills and your work respond to those questions and challenges.
Once that is sorted and you are constantly improving and getting better, you remain relevant.
It’s that simple.
Stop debating whether AI was made for Africans or not.
Begin to use it aggressively because it is inevitable and train it to work for us; to work for you.
That is how you automatically learn new skills and find new opportunities.
This is a formula that will never fail.
- Build Relationships That Build You
Don’t network, build relationships.
Don’t waste your time getting the card of all the speakers here today if you really don’t need them for where you are going.
In any case, the fact you get someone’s number doesn’t mean they will pick your call.
Stop this whole business of ‘Abeg help me’.
Find the people you actually need for where you want to go. Focus on them. Build a real relationship with them.
People who will stand with you even when you’ve done something foolish and tell you what you did wrong.
Stop finding ‘mentors’. Start finding ‘champions’.
People who know you so well or know your path so well that they see you even when others don’t, but who won’t lie to you when you make a mistake. People who care about you and your potential.
The people you need for your success may be in your church or your mosque or your mother’s office. It may be the person sitting right beside you this very moment.
Segun Johnson, who sang the popular ‘Sia Pawon’ song was on my show a few weeks ago and he told me that the most important person in his life was a man who is now a commission in Ogun State but who used to live in his area and buy ‘akara’ from
Segun’s mom but didn’t have money to pay.
But in return for the ‘akara’, the man saw Segun’s leadership potential and began to give him a series of books to read.
At the time Segun wanted money not books. But he says as he read each book, they gave him a clear vision and clear tools for the future he wanted to build. And those books are what have made him the number one band-artiste in the country.
Some of you are so busy looking for one rich person or one CEO to have mercy on you, that you miss the helper that is down the road.
Change your perspective.
What you need is a person that truly sees you, that believes in you, that supports you. That person can be your university roommate. That person can be your band member. That person can be the person in the church who talks to you after every service. That person can be your mom.
Find your tribe.
Support each other.
Build networks that compound value.
- Take Action
Start small — but start.
Creativity isn’t theory; it’s motion.
You don’t need perfect lighting or perfect conditions.
You need courage and consistency.
Innovate where you are. Being in Abakaliki or Abeokuta is no longer a disadvantage.
Whether in entrepreneurship or employment, excellence creates visibility.
Internships, volunteering, side projects.
Monetising skills via digital platforms
Your social media page is your CV. Your Instagram, your WhatsApp, your Telegram is now your pitch deck.
Take the action that you can even within what you or others think is a limitation – whether it is living in a patriarchal society or living with disabilities.
Don’t let what you’ve been told limit your reality.
Ask yourself, what can I do with what I have?
Thank God: with the digital economy, this is even more possible.
Creator platforms for instance have created a deep well where any kind of content can find an audience.
Because the gatekeepers have lost their power, you can find your audience and your customer directly.
Your destiny is now in your hands.
So my dear people, start moving, from where you are.
Lagos and Nigeria can be chaos. But tue beauty of the jungle is that there is abundance – and you can make your own rules.
This is one of the few cities where you can go from shooting a skit in Yaba to signing a brand deal in Lekki in the same week.
This is one of the countries where you can build your career from scratch in spaces where no one else has – unlike in London or Berlin where the systems are harder to reshape.
So use your city as your studio.
Volunteer. Intern. Take side projects.
Turn your frustration into a portfolio.
Think like a brand — with a story, a mission, and an audience.
The world will try to make you small.
Don’t shrink. Expand.
When I was fifteen, I didn’t know the world would change this much.
I didn’t know that one day, you wouldn’t need to beg to be seen.
That you could just show up online, and the world would see you.
But here we are.
So don’t make the mistake I made — waiting for validation from people who couldn’t imagine your kind of future.
This is your time.
Own it. Shape it. Build it.
Be like Wizkid, who knew when it was time to leave his record label at the age of 24 to start his own when no one expected a 20-something year old to be so bold, but I tweeted then that he has made a wise decision because I could see the future clearly.
Be like Douglas Kendyson, who, while working on Paystack, saw an opportunity in the creative tech industry and left to start the multi-billion-naira creator-tech company called Selar.
Be like Odun Eweniyi and the other young Covenant University graduates who came together and started a couple of businesses that failed, but then kept going until PiggyVest happened.
Be like Julian Duru, who took a risk to join the business of his peers as a software engineer and went viral this year – for retiring after serving for 10 years at MoniePoint.
Be like Jay On-Air, who sent me an Instagram DM to intern with my show, and who I encouraged but didn’t onboard. And he didn’t wait for me to get back to him. That same way he began to blow up, and now has more followers than I do across social media.
Be like the young woman who just made hundreds of thousands of naira in Abuja last weekend working for me as a personal content creator.
Be like Hadiza Ango, the Arewa food creator who has built a major media business while remaining rooted in the North. No need to move to Lagos.
Be like my former assistant Bolu Akindele – who had the audacity to quit school in Ilorin, despite what everyone told him, come to Lagos to build a career without a degree, then got a scholarship to read the course he wanted at the Pan Atlantic University – and is now head of content at one of the biggest fintechs, rising incredibly fast within 3 years.
You don’t have to quit your job. But you have to quit playing small.
Be humble but be confident.
Be thoughtful, but be audacious.
Permit yourself even to be presumptuous.
My people, don’t wait anymore for anybody else’s permission.
Let this speech today give you all the permission you will ever need.
Overtaking is now allowed.
Thank you and God bless you.
