Positive Life & Relationship Blog

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Fela Durotoye. This session and a major part of the notes you'll read below, was contributed by Tobi Afolabi (TA Speaks), the pioneer of the Let's Talk About Series. ---------- Let's talk about Fela Durotoye – Why he started his initiative (find out the name and focus) – Passion and interest – His leadership style and attitude – His legacies and values that he holds dear which you will like to imbibe – Major take away from the discussion of the personality ----- Who is Fela Durotoye? Fela Durotoye is the Chief Executive Officer of the GEMSTONE Group, a leadership development institution with a distinct mandate to raise a Generation of leaders that are Empowered, Motivated and Stirred To Operate with Natural Excellence (GEMSTONE). Fela has a Bachelor of Science Degree (B.Sc) in Computer Science with Econom...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Bimpe Bamgbose-Martins. A major part of the notes you'll read below, was contributed by Tobi Afolabi (TA Speaks), the pioneer of the Let's Talk About Series. ---------- – Biography of Mrs Bimpe Bamgbose-Martins – Why she started her initiative (find out the name and focus) – Passion and interest – Her leadership style and attitude – Her legacies and values she holds dear which you will like to imbibe. – Major take away from the discussion of the personality. ----- Bimpe Bamgbose-Martins is an alumni of Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, United States of America. An astute trainer, learning and development professional. Bimpe is an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), United Kingdom. She is a member of the Board of Trustees and the Regional Ambassado...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Martin Luther King Jr. ---------- Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first President. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the 196...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Olajumoke Adenowo. ---------- (Diligent Amaka speaking) Olajumoke Olufunmilola Adenowo (born in 1968) is an award-winning Nigerian architect, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, as well as a speaker, radio host, and author. She is the founder of the boutique architecture and interior design firm AD Consultin, based in Lagos, Nigeria. CNN described her as "Africa's Starchitect" and The Guardian (Nigeria) has described her as "the face of Architecture in Nigeria. Adenowo has several philanthropic ventures. In 1999, she founded the Awesome Treasures Foundation (ATF), a faith-based NGO in Lagos, Nigeria. She has been outspoken about taking pride in her Nigerian heritage and her hopes to unleash the potential of Nigerian youth. Much of the programming works with under served women and children. ATF runs Camp Dawn...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Tony Elumelu. ---------- (Diligent Amaka speaking) Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu (born 22 March 1963) is a Nigerian economist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa, Transcorp and founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation. Elumelu holds the Nigerian national honours, the Commander of the Order of Nigeria (CON) and Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR). He was recognised as one of "Africa's 20 Most Powerful People in 2012" by Forbes Magazine. Following his retirement from UBA in 2010, Elumelu founded Heirs Holdings, which invests in the financial services, energy, real estate and hospitality, agribusiness, and healthcare sectors. In the same year, he established the Tony Elumelu Foundation, an Africa-based and African-funded philanthropic organisatio...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Nelson Mandela. ---------- (Diligent Amaka speaking) Nelson Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, Politician, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. What interest me most about Nelson Mandela is the fact that he was so resilient and so keen on a favourable change to help his people. He was going to give his life just to make sure his people's welfare are well protected. He w...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions held earlier this year, on Self Esteem and Confidence Building by Yetunde Abisoye. ---------- Miss Yetunde Abisoye is a social entrepreneur, passionate about youth development and mindset shift of underserved communities. She is president of Doyen Initiative Africa, an NGO set up for transforming youths through career,  entrepreneurship and innovation development. An alumni of Strategy for Mentoring Initiative and Leadership Empowerment. A member of Young Africa Leaders Initiative. She currently studies Business Administration at Yabatech college of Technology. ----- Yetunde Abisoye : I've been emboldened with the responsibility of speaking on self esteem and confidence building. But I'd start with a briefing of my story. If I had done nothing about my perception in life and yearned for more, I would have been an Onion seller in Alaba market and mar...

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions we had this year. The session was on Mahatma Gandhi. ---------- (Tobi Afolabi speaking) An amazing man I must say. Over sixty years of exiting this planet, his name echoes like he still lives... (Diligent Amaka speaking) Brief history of Mahatma Gandhi – Mahatma (Mohandas) Karamchand Gandhi was born on the 2nd of October, 1869 to a Hindu Modh Baniya family in porbandar. Gandhi moved to London, England in 1888 and enrolled at the Inner Temple, where he studied law and jurisprudence. He later had a successful law practice located in South Africa. What was Gandhi's occupation? By trade, Mahatma Gandhi was educated as a lawyer, but he is best known for his role in the Indian Independence movement and his tireless efforts to promote civil rights through his philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience. Gandhi led national campaigns to advance causes he believe...

I was nothing special. I get that. I come from humble beginnings. Zero silver spoon in my mouth. In school, I didn’t fit in. Wasn’t given much of a chance. A teacher told me I’d never make a head-on in writing. I didn’t believe him (Trust your instincts versus your critics). I kept on moving ahead. I understood the power of ferocious learning – reading books constantly, studying the best consistently and putting in the effort relentlessly. I made seemingly insignificant small acts that to me revealed a beautiful progress. Quietly proving my naysayers knew nothing. Anyone can put someone down. Heroes lift others up. Thanks to another teacher of mine. In Jss2 – my Yoruba teacher. She saw something in me that nearly no one had. She encouraged me – and helped me believe in myself. Via her, my self-perception changed. My interior story transformed. I’ll always revere her for this. I've had disposed papers where I penned my writings. I couldn't get any published. I started with...

I started out from the bottom and I was never meant to rise. My father strolled out on me before I was even born and my mother did same when I was 11! At that age, I was given to a stranger who took me on a journey that was supposed to be my last which eventually became my first. We travelled by road and after two days, we got to Tudu park in Accra. He gave me 11600 cedis and asked me to wait for him to return but he never did. I was left stranded in a strange land with a strange tongue I could neither speak nor understand. With nothing but 11600 cedis, Primary Three education and a choice to either die or live, I was set loose into the Arena. But for me not to die like a coward, I chose to fight. At least if I die, let me die fighting. I fought for life even with my life! The best I could do was to hawk and I hawked my life out. I was both a mobile and stationary hawker just to make sure that I had something to eat, a point to prove and a possibility to create. I would trek unimagi...

I started masturbating when I was exactly 14 years old. It was such an experience I never believed I could break off from. I grew up in a 'ghetto-like' place, which exposed me to different kinds of persons and experience. I had to run errands for my Grandmother and in the process, stumbled on neighbours watching movies with Adult content and sometimes saw some of them in the act, and because they felt that I was a small boy, the girls either didn't bother to cover themselves leaving their bodies bare as they attended to me, or continued in the act and never cared to pay attention to who it was that was around. Some of the ladies around who were not married would then touch my private part and tell me things they would have done with me if I was older. These were seeds that were being sown in my mind, and unknown to me that it would later lead me into a deep mess. The kind of friends I had both in school and home were those from the privileged class who had access to th...

This is a Success Story shared by Olusola O'sola Fapohunda, a graduate of the Federal University of Technology, Akure. ----- In early 2010, I went with about four other guys in my department - to visit our level registration officer. We wanted to check our result. Each one of us, was with a paper and a pen. The lecturer in charge asked for our matriculation numbers and one after the other, he was reeling off grades, GPA and CGPA. He eventually got to me and I heard a digit that sounded like I've been shot. God! Me! 2.29. I've earned myself Grade E in some three unit courses and my best course was APH301, which I had a B with a score of 69. About six months later, I went to check my 300 level second semester result and I now had a CGPA of 4.00. That was the happiest day of my University education. I was rolling on the floor of the room. The previous semester has been hell, yet the one that followed it yielded this awesome result! What did I do? What did I change? What s...