Some days back, I had the opportunity of speaking with a lady and ever since I have not been able to erase the lessons I learnt that day from my memory. I just couldn’t believe all I heard that precious night because it was like a story of impossibility. After listening to the lady’s story, I promised myself I will have to share the story with everyone I know. I have shared it with my fiancee and she was as dazed as I was afterwards.

Abigael is a lady I have know for some months because she was staying with my neighbours. It took a while before I warmed up to her but after I did, we started talking little by little. The first time I asked how her work is going on, I was replied that it is not work but tutorial center. Being the time for JAMB Examination, I concluded she was preparing for her the examination.

I started getting baffled considering her age because she was in her late twenties. The next time I asked why she was just preparing for JAMB and she told me she left Secondary School in the 90s but had some personal issues that didn’t allow her take her education seriously. I had no reason to doubt her but the next day, she came told me we needed to talk about our last discussion because she didn’t tell me the full story. I told her she is welcomed anytime she wish to talk to me.

The opportunity came when I walked up to her and started sharing my own story and also my philosophies and the lessons I have learnt in life. This spurred her to open up to me and it is one of the most amazing stories I have ever heard. She first started by telling me all she told me initially were cooked up by her. I will try as much as possible to share the story she related to me but I am not assuring you of accuracy but you will still get a lot to learn from the story of this amazing lady.

Abigael grew up in a family, in a town in Ogun State, that believed it is a sheer waste of time to invest in the education of a female child. To complicate issues, she lost her father at an early age and her hope of getting educated at all was thrown out of the windows because her father was still contemplating sending her to school. The next head of the family told them point blank that no female child will ever go to school. Every attempt to make Abigael attend school was rebuffed by this man. She said seeing other kids go to school is a sight that pains her but she is too young and helpless to do anything about her situation.

At about age 11 or so, she was apprenticed to a soap maker so that she can learn the trade but she was turned to an errand girl or better still a house help by this woman. She said she did so many odd jobs for this woman throughout her stay with her and when it was four months to her rounding up her apprenticeship, the woman told her brother she is yet to master the “trade” and she will have to spend more time with her. Her brother promised to come for her at the expiration of their agreed period, which he did. At the end of her apprenticeship, she couldn’t make any soap and she was asked to go into trading. She started with buying and selling of fresh fish and later turned into frying fish and then to frying Garri (cassava flakes) but all the businesses didn’t turn to success because a lot of people were buying on credit.

At the end of the day, she got frustrated and she decided not to do any form of trading again. Succour came in the form of her cousin that came to the village from Lagos in 1995 or so, this cousin facilitated her coming to Lagos and she was apprenticed to another woman that promised to help improve her entrepreneurship drive by investing in her soap-making experience. It turned out that this woman didn’t keep to her promise and she was turned to a sales girl.

Being in an academic community, the fire of getting educated was rekindled in her. Don’t forget that she has NEVER being in the four walls of a classroom for even a second in her life and she was around 15 years old then. The customers of her boss were also encouraging her to go to school because they noticed she was intelligent. Luck brought a lady across her path who told her to tell her boss she operates a coaching center for kids. As fate would have it, her boss and her family was transfered inside Unilag Campus and they had to stop operating the business they were running. When the woman asked her what she wanted to do afterwards, she told her she would love to go to school.

She started attending the lady’s coaching as a special student and she had to start from ABC at the age of 16 years. She was not perturbed by anything and she took everything serious. At a point one of the ladies on campus asked her what she was doing at the lady’s place and when she told her, she was told an evening school exixts somewhere around. She immediately asked the lady to take her to the place and that was how she started in Primary two.

Abigael finished primary school at about twenty years and started an evening secondary school afterwards. She was forced to quit the home of her boss because there were so much pressure on her which were causing her to lose concentration on her studies. She went through a lot after that and even had to pick up a job at a pure water factory just for her to be able to pay her way to school. People that saw her determination to complete her education, came to her aid and she was helped in various degrees to the attainment of her goal.

As there is always a light at the end of every dark tunnel in life, Abigael, completed her secondary education. She even passed all her papers! The interesting part is that she completed her education at around 27 years of age, an age a lot of people have started working after their University education. She is now preparing for the University Matriculation Examination.

I was speechless for a long time after she finished narrating her story. I kept looking at her and was wondering what could have kept her going despite all the challenges she faced while pursuing her dreams. I have met people who use their parent’s inability to send them to school as an excuse for not moving forward in life and here is someone that took her destiny in her hands and ensuring nothing stopped her from fulfilling her dream. I went to bed thinking about the lesson I have just being thought and I even woke up with the thought on my mind.

What will the world be like if we all follow our dreams? What would we have achieved if we have never allowed anything to stand in our ways of achieving our heart desires? As a dreamer, what price of discomfort are we willing to pay in order to achieve our dreams? This story calls for serious thought and decision as well. What are your excuses? What have you learnt from this story? What are you going to do about the lessons learnt? This is up to you.

My last challenge to you is this: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE IF YOU PUT YOUR MIND AT ACHIEVING IT!

I am looking forward to sharing your story on this website SOON! Make your life count.

I just finished reading a post by one of my friends, Jean - The Cheerful Monk, and the post inspired this. I have written this article some years back and after reading Jean’s post, I decided to dig it out and share with everybody.

I am sure it will inspire someone

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up again” - Vince Lombardi

Life is all about being knocked down but not out. As soon as you allow circumstances to knock you out, you become their slaves and they keep knocking you about till you are sent into your grave. Have you ever heard of the phrase “the path less traveled”? That is the path that the successful people are comfortable in taking. Though the road is rough and tough, yet they are willingly to take it because they know what awaits them at the end of the road.

Those who take the road most traveled are those who want to have things easier in life, those who believed life is meant to be lived without facing any form of obstacle, the lily-livered type. What do you think is awaiting these ones at the end of the road? Penury, obscurity and things related to them. These are the people that will end up blaming everything, apart from them, as the source of where they have ended up in life.

Our perception of failure needs to really change. It is something that is just a temporary event but people who dwell on their failures always make it a permanent thing. All they do is just give that as a source of excuse for them not moving forward. We all must fail at one point in our stay on this planet but our decision must be to march on no matter what life throws at us. I want you to know that the greatest failure in life is to stop trying. It is better to fail attempting a great deed than to attempt nothing and succeed.

Another thing I see about challenges, is that they make us become a better person. The mistakes you made yesterday, you find it difficult to make today. The wisdom we gain from our challenges will always be useful to us and those who listen to us. Why do you think people will pay huge amount of money to listen to people like Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, John Foppe, Michael Angier, Les Brown and several other speakers? It is because of the wisdom that is oozing out of them and where do you think they gained all these wisdom from?

Do you think they learnt it at an institution of learning? Or do you think by just sitting down and doing nothing that is how the wisdom flew into them? No! They really went into the world and experienced all that life has to throw at them. They went through tough times in their lives and life dealt several blows on them, but to life’s surprise they took everything and were still able to ask it if that is all it has to offer! Life, I am sure couldn’t believe it, it has to give them everything they required from life.

The wisdom they have didn’t come cheap! They fell several times and still dusted their pants and move on they did! Who won’t listen when these men talk? Have you ever lost a million dollars? How will you react if you happen to be in the shoe of someone who has? Won’t you listen when, someone who has passed through that experience and still made it back, talk?

That is simply what tough times and challenges do to us! They make us better, wiser and more resolute to succeed more than any other thing. Why is it that there is always a light at the end of a dark tunnel? If you know this is always so, why then do you think of giving up when you are passing through tough times?

Remember Sir Churchill’s advice to those kids then? PLEASE NEVER GIVE UP!