#THEBIZMICGOTTHINGSTOSAY PART 1(B): BEST DECISION EVER!

Its all part of the Plan!

As it turns out, coming back home was the best decision I have ever made in my whole life. I am now over the crisis that was my premature “akwaaba”, taken from another perspective it was pure destiny. I am still not over the trauma of the local educational system I had to wade back into and the ensuing long and painful readjustment phase; lets just call it a process of reverse culture shock. I have still not fully come to terms with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Sorrows and Tears (KNUST) and until I do, I shall not write much about it; save the necessity of inking that degree onto my CV. I mean I remember how the Frankly Unaccomplished Cabal Keeping Ebullience Radically Short nearly succeeded in preventing a conclusion to my quest for purpose; but like I said, now is not the time. I digress; the topic at hand is that coming back home was the best decision I ever did make. In retrospect I would not have said this and meant it the way I do now a few years ago, but still I can even claim some level of prescience. I remember sitting down with one of the dearest women I have ever met, a counselor at the International Students Office in ‘Cuse who took me under her wing and advised me against coming back to Ghana; she felt it would be a mistake. I told her, “Back home, there are far more opportunities and far less distractions for me; there is a lot less pressure and I really understand the system, I will be able to mature and fully realize my potential.” I was right!

I knew deep down that in the US, I would at best be comfortably mediocre, but that in Ghana I could be truly great; I tired of having to choose between being the token African dude, or part of the close knit African clique – after all I am by nature an outgoing loner. I realize now though that I came to Ghana at precisely the time that the country was on the verge of leaving behind its past of obscurity in favor of a more robust exploitation of its huge potential. It could not have been a better-timed return; within a year of my arrival Ghana discovered oil and I found my calling in life; to be to Ghana what Rockefeller was to America. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the plan! Since our discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities I have been learning and soaking up so much information and experience that in my own biased opinion, I have become quite an astute local expert on the nascent petroleum industry – at only 24. At the same time I was slogging it out with the academics, I was also running around busily building the right connections, networking in the business circles and getting practical on the job expertise the hard way; the entrepreneurial way. I am glad to say that bit-by-bit, we are bringing the plan closer and closer to its fruition, we still have quite a lot to learn before we get there, but it is nice knowing that you are way ahead of the game. Nowadays, I regularly meet a lot of people who are only now trying to do what was done years ago, or learning what has long been known; they are new to the system and frankly they are behind and will be playing catch up for a while.

It has not been easy at all, in fact at times I almost gave up and run away back to the States – I raised the money myself and seriously contemplated that possibility a few times. However I remained in Ghana for so many reasons; first of all I cured myself of some dangerous habits; certainly not all of them but a marked improvement from before. Also I fell deeply in love and suddenly had a reason to be truly happy for once, though that proved to be another failed attempt at searching for an extrinsic source of joy; karma is only pleasant to the guiltless. Thirdly, I made some great friendships with individuals who had been through similar traumatic experiences and they helped me to settle down and re-appreciate the sun, the heat, the food and the sights and sounds of the land of my birth. Another reason was the onset of the Global Economic Crisis, which had very little effect on Ghana but left the prospect of working and financing the rest of my US college education by myself and in such a climate very unpalatable. But the most compelling reason is that I had a very supportive family; the parental unit was constantly admonishing me not to blame external sources for my troubles, but to reflect on the internal causes for my mistakes and seek to correct them. Thank you so much Mum and Dad for not coddling me into a dullard but forging me into the man I am today, a man who can truly survive in any circumstance.

As I gradually went native again, I suddenly began to realize the vast business opportunities available in a region of Africa that has been enjoying some unbridled growth over the past decade. So great was this epiphany that I knew my destiny was to become one of the rising stars of Africa, but only if I put in the necessary quantum of work and sacrifice. Sometimes I miss the good old days when I was carefree and spoilt; but I am far better at being mature, thoughtful and meticulously calculating. I think, I plan and I execute with the calm and precision born of constant practice dealing with both structured and unstructured situations. I am equally comfortable in a Tro-Tro station educating passengers on the recent petroleum product price increments or negotiating a multi-million dollar investment with a foreign investor at the Holiday Inn. I have not finished paying my dues in the school of hard knocks but I can smell the faint fragrance of graduation into the Big Easy, so I have been spurred on even more. I recently read “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin and became even more convinced that all this stress I am facing; all this pain I am enduring; all this sweat, blood and tears are not being shed in vain. I am not going to be Rockefeller without it. Please note, he begun working in 1855 at age 16 in very modest circumstances, and it was not until 1865 that he made the decisions that launched him on his career to become America’s first Billionaire. I begun my career at 20, I am four years into the hustle and I have not made much yet but I bet you that by age 30, I would have been already set on a similar upward trajectory – this is not a boast but a simple statement of fact. You see I do not only aspire to be like these people, I know in my very marrow I am capable of doing what they did or even better – these are the personalities that I would deign to compete with and nobody else.

And this is not simply about money or accumulation of wealth for its own sake, this is about showing people that it is possible to achieve anything that you want in this world if you are willing to work hard enough at it. It is about leaving a legacy of hope and opportunity to the masses of African youth who have little chance to better themselves and their circumstances. If they can be shown that they can make their dreams a reality through consistent hard-work and not via any shortcuts, they shall have hope and will be galvanized into action, into developing their nations and bettering their own circumstances. That is the legacy I want to leave this world with and I get personal satisfaction from knowing that I am trying as hard as I can to make this happen; and it can only happen right here on the Dark Continent. I only pray that God grants me life that I may enjoy the blessings that are still accruing and may He be graceful enough to amortize my sins.

Cheers,

TheBizmic

L.J.J @ 2:59am 14/01/11

#THEBIZMICGOTTHINGSTOSAY pt 1(A): BEING BOLD

Posively Yankefied; BTW the Lip Gloss is very necessary for winter if you have big juicy African lips :)

{Memories – Kid Cudi ft David Guetta}

Fresh from the Jet and Seething with Rage!!

When I returned from my aborted attempt at a US college degree in 2006, I was a ragged mess, seething with rage, despondent and simmering with a mix of confused emotions and haunting memories. I was broke, angry, depressed; suffering from withdrawal symptoms and most importantly, I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. What was I going to do now? I mean contrary to what I told most people - that I was coerced into coming back to Ghana - the truth is that I voluntarily decided to come back home. I had simply had enough of America; I remember effortlessly gliding back and forth through various cliques in a deeply splintered social scene but still remaining on the fringes. I was an authority all to myself in a teeming mass of youthful faces. One of my favorite pastimes was to get stupendously high, dress up in a fancy outfit, put on my aviators, light up my clove cigarettes, grab my iPod and go dance walking on campus (Dance walking is when you walk to a beat and move in time with the rhythm in subtle but recognizable dance moves). I never planned it but somehow I became quite popular for all the wrong reasons – I have a natural magnetism that can at times prove to be my very undoing.

{Want U – Lo-Fi-Fnk}

I reminisce about all of my ridiculously wealthy friends and associates and all the amazing and crazy things we did; and I still smile over those precious memories. I lived the flashy life of an African Prince in college. I was the classic truant; I spent approximately 20% of my time in class and 80% doing what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted. I was a crazy party animal who was down for anything, anytime – anybody that knew me in 'Cuse can verify this. However, though I projected such outward glee, I rarely experienced inner bliss. I was always very depressed so I coined the term “The Bleak Existence” to describe my life as it was then. Another problem was that I was always broke no matter how much money my folks sent me; which was considerable seeing as I never worked a day in my college career. But for all this I was still considered extremely intelligent, I cannot remember how many times my lecturers and academic counselor sat me down and tried to help me utilize my sharp brain but they were many. I even had the entirety of the International Students Office take an especial interest in me – one of their most promising stars had faded into academic obscurity in favor of extra-curricular shenanigans of the most unnecessary kind. A lot of people really tried to help me out but I did not appreciate all these things until much later; sadly all the advice fell on deaf ears.

{Angel On My Shoulder (EDX's Belo Horizonte At Night Remix) – Kaskade & Tamra}

So I got tired one day; I was like to hell with all this crap. What am I doing here anyway, wasting my life away and remaining so unhappy? I don’t know why, perhaps it was because I went to college too early, I was only 17  at the time. Perhaps it was because I was coddled into feeling very special once people realized that I was very unlike all the other African students on campus – I was accepted into all the in-crowds because I was a “rich kid” just like everybody else. I refused to accept that I had obligations to my folks who were financing my education and inadvertently, my flamboyant lifestyle. Perhaps it was because I had everything so easy so I took it all for granted thinking it would always be there. It definitely had to do with my inability to sustain this lavish lifestyle at a certain point – I became the classic moocher flitting from clique to clique. Eventually you will get spurned because there are unwritten rules in social interactions; one has to always bring something to the table. As I became more and more depressed I also became less and less gregarious. I preferred to stay in my vast apartment and just get high, write my science-fiction novel (which I subsequently lost when my Powerbook G4 went on permanent leave, but that is another story) and receive visitors; people still found me fascinating even at that point.

{Burn For You - Kreo}

Recovery 101 - Make a Plan

I personally orchestrated a series of events that culminated in myself on a plane with a one-way ticket heading back towards West Africa. It was not an act of a victorious conqueror returning home from a successful campaign abroad; it was more the scene of a defeated general hastily retreating into his impregnable fortress to lick his wounds from a failed crusade. I wanted to relax for a while and detox myself and then go back and fulfill my true potential - I was severely burnt out. As fate would have it I never did go back to Syracuse – said financiers had decided to cut their “losses” and restructure my educational direction. I remained in Ghana and had to restart my tertiary education all over again; in what was to me the very decrepit educational system I had studied so terribly hard to escape from as a kid. That experience was so traumatic that in order to deal with it I decided that I needed to face reality and grow up. I needed a strategy to survive in the very primitive system from whence I was raised – and so I came up with a Plan!


To Be Continued......
CHEERS :)
TheBizmic {*U*}
PS: The inserts are the songs I was listening to at the time of writing this blog.....(Favs of 2010)