Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo is a journalist, recipe developer, children food blogger, and the Founder of August Secrets Nigeria, a baby and toddler food solutions company. Toyin, who holds a B.A in English and Literature, and Masters in Public and International Affairs, gives a peek into her journey to entrepreneurship in this interview with me.
Month: June 2017
Real Estate Investment Secrets Every Young Nigerian Should Know
I’m not wealthy yet, not by a long shot. Editors don’t earn much, and writers are paid even less, so when a client I have great respect for invited me to a real estate investment seminar last week, I wondered why.
Perhaps she has seen into my future and I’m about to come into money! After all, investing in real estate is for rich, financially free people, isn’t it?
Since she was inviting me on her own account, I gladly went, eager to learn something I could use in the not-so-near future.
It turns out I was wrong. Real estate isn’t just for the rich and established! Real estate is for me, a young woman in her 30s trying to build a career and raise a family. Real estate is for you, too. And we can start now. Continue reading…
Two Babies in the Womb – An Allegory
I just had to share this lovely little piece by Útmutató a Léleknek. Enjoy.
In a mother’s womb were two babies.
One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
– Útmutató a Léleknek
Dear Professional, Are You Wasting Your Time?
Whether you work for yourself or you’re an employee, if you have your heart set on success then you are already familiar with the benefits of time management. You also have been a victim of one or more pitfalls along the way. In fact, from the moment you wake up, several of them are waiting to bite a huge chunk out of your productivity, if not swallow your day whole.
There’s social media, for starters. You reach for your phone or tablet just to check your Twitter feed, and before you know it you’ve been drawn into a vortex of mentions, replies, DMs, and trying to find out where this hot topic actually started from. The same thing happens with Facebook and Instagram, depending on which ones have the strongest hold on you. Continue reading…
Billary: 7 Moving Excerpts from Carl Bernstein’s A Woman in Charge
“Their friends observed a remarkable chemistry. ‘She’s the one that gets up in the morning with a dark cloud over her head, and he gets up with the bright sun,’ said a photojournalist who followed the Clintons in Arkansas and in Washington. ‘As the day goes on, he’s the one who falls into a funk and she’s the one who will refocus him. It’s one of those things that if they had never met neither of them would have reached the heights that they did.’” Continue reading…
10 Things I Didn’t Know about Hillary Clinton Until 2016
The first time I felt remotely inclined to learn more about Hillary Clinton, I couldn’t go far because Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were simply more interesting to read about at the time. Eight years later, Hillary Clinton was running for president again and this time, she had my full attention.
And boy, did I learn things I should have known! How could I not have known this, I wondered over and over, feeling slightly ashamed of being so uninformed about a woman whose importance to womanhood and the world cannot be overemphasized. See what I didn’t know HERE.
Career of the Week – Amina Oke, Freelance Writer
Freelance writer Amina Oke has an undergraduate degree in English language from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, and a masters’ degree in International Relations from the University of Birmingham, UK. We chatted about freelance writing and the importance of having a niche in this interview.
#COTW
10 Questions for Uduak Isong-Oguamanam, Filmmaker
Uduak Isong Oguamanam is a talented writer and movie producer. With several screenplays to her name including A Piece of Flesh, Entanglement, Ekaette, Edikan, and Timeless Passion, she also produced the deeply moving Kokomma, the rib-cracking Okon Lagos and its sequel Okon Goes to School, and the riveting ROK series Desperate House Girls, a spin-off of the movie of the same title, all written by her. An alumna of the University of Ibadan where she studied Communication and Arts/Russian Language before proceeding to bag a master’s degree in New Media and Society from the University of Leicester, UK, Uduak Isong Oguamanam also has a diploma in French from Alliance Francaise. I had 10 questions for her. Read the interview HERE.
The Most Realistic Weight Loss Advice I’ve Ever Heard
You know that if you’re serious about losing weight, sugary drinks are a no-no; water should be your beverage of choice. You’re aware that lifestyle changes trump “dieting”, that you need lots of fruits and vegetables in your diet, and that you can’t lose tummy fat alone without losing weight all round.
However, there is one little piece of advice upon which the rest of weight loss hangs. A tiny truth which, if ignored, makes nonsense of all the exercising, intermittent fasting, and dieting in the world. See it HERE.
anafricandiva 