Take a Risk Now!

Sitting here at the Westown Hotel off Sheraton opebi link road Ikeja for the British Council Creative Industries Expo 2014, I flash back few weeks back when I could never have been 'allowed' to attend such expository and self improving seminar because I should be in the office observing the rituals that will drop meager stipends into my salary account.
You see, taking risk in life is the most tormenting thing one can do but as exhilarating as it is, it's also the most excitingly rewarding experience of it all.

I resigned from my place of work after several months of deceits, executive thuggery and wanton idiosyncrasies from my boss! Well, I wasn't surprised, he is the 'boss' and isn't that what the ones who grew up poor chasing wealth become once they acquire it? You know how you come for an interview and he's (boss) all nice, telling you things he will do after 6 months and how he has a vision for his company and if you buy into it, how rewarding it will be for 'us' all?

Yeah right! The attendant problems of a one man business. Words got out that he wasn't like that till he got married last year September. The birds twitted that he was all loving, seeing to the needs and personal issues of his staff without recourse to charlatan recalcitrants. The situation now can't be farther from the truth. He is uncanny, deceitful, boastful, and revengeful. From such boss; flee!

So I left a short note, that I wasn't coming back and off I went, to better myself in life.
The issue is that taking calculated risk in life is the bane of advancement. If you remain in a place because of the little rewards you gain now for the bigger picture you might lose in the future because of the price you have refused to pay, you will hurt for the rest of your life. Yet you will still pay the price for not chasing your dream when you could have.

I have met with top top guys who wished they had taken the steps their minds told them to take when they were much younger and because of the fear of the unknown they'd stayed back at the 'big' companies so as to receive 'fat' salaries. Alas, today they are comfortable and rich but not accomplished! People say they are successful men but deep within them they are not feeling as such because apart from having 'money' to acquire what they need or want, they don't have a signature on the businesses they manage today because truly, it's not really their 'business'.

The truth is, we will not all be entrepreneurs but nothing gives you joy than when you know a path that leads to your happiness which is filled with thorns yet you dared consequences, braced the pain
and weathered the spikes just so that you can 'accomplish' your mission. That was what my ex-boss
did, left his fat paying job and took the risky route of entrepreneural tunnel and that is why I will respect him always and allow his spirit of risk taking be the propeller that will engineer my route to greatness.
Oh, you think I hate him. I'm far from hate! Hate is the easiest way to lose focus, and lose yourself in a process. He might have done what he did in spite but like the biblical Joseph said, 'you did it for evil but God planned it for a purpose'. It's the purpose I will focus on.
Let me leave us with this story before I go.

A certain man called Hanibal who lived in 247 BC of the old Tunisian empire then called Carthaginian empire is today arguably considered the greatest military strategist and general in history.  Why is this so? He dared to do what others fret to even think about. One of his most famous accomplishments was him marching his army including elephants from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the alps into Italy, Rome, which had world dominance at the time. His armies saw mountains, he saw opportunities.

What do you see today?