The accidental entrepreneur is an
article I wanted to write several weeks
ago but never got around to writing,
mainly because I was watching Lupita
Nyong’o videos on youtube. The article
was going to be about entrepreneurs
who stumbled upon success
accidentally. Entrepreneurs who
started something like blogging,
singing, speaking and became suddenly
successful at it. When they started out
their original plan was not to start a
business or make money out of what
they did…but somehow they stumbled
upon success. I call these people
accidental entrepreneurs. Beware of
taking advice from such individuals…
because they will tell you do what your
passionate about and boom you will be
successful. (Ha please ignore him on
this; it is not true, lol). But before you
start singing “Ofili you don come
again.” Make una hear me out…
Because weirdly enough this article will
not be about entrepreneurship…but
rather relationships, particularly
Omotola’s article on gender equality or
inequality depending on your stance. In
her own words, no editing, she says:
“I don’t believe in gender equality. I do
not believe that God made man and
woman to be equal in any way. I believe
that in every organised institution,
there is always a head and an assistant.
It doesn’t mean that one should take
the other for granted, or disrespect
the other. I believe the husband is the
head of the home and the wife is an
assistant. My husband is a pilot, I have
flown with him several times and I
understood that here is a captain and a
co-pilot. They are both responsible for
the passengers’ lives. But when there is
a final decision to make, it is up to the
captain to make it. He is more
experienced and the one with the
responsibility.”
“When there is a quarrel, I usually
apologise first. He doesn’t say sorry.
Overtime, I have come to realise that
it is an ego problem. Even when he
knows he is wrong, he will rather do
every other thing or buy things for me
than say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Fortunately, the
‘sorrys’ are not too many. He is very
responsible and more hardworking than
me. By God’s grace, we have been able
to understand our routine.”
Similar to the accidental entrepreneur,
I term this situation the accidental
relationship…that is that girl or guy
that stumbles upon the perfect first
girlfriend or boyfriend. They
eventually get married and have a
successful marriage and instantly start
dishing advice and people start eating
up the advice… please don’t.
Because the advice they give you is one
dimensional. It is based on this belief
that whatever they did worked. So you
hear silly advice like “as a woman just
cry and your husband will hug you” or
“be submissive to your husband and he
will cherish you” or “just tithe every
Sunday and your relationship will be
fine” or “my Husband never apologizes…
that is a good thing!” like wtf!
The thing is that tantamount to the
accidental entrepreneur they
(especially Omotola) stumbled upon
their relationship. In Omotola’s case as
her husband states in the same
interview, there was no courtship, they
never dated, she was just 18 and had
never been in a relationship and yet it
worked out….but accidentally.
Accidental because her situation is an
exception and not the rule as marriages
with young couples and no courtship
have a higher chance of breeding
domestic violence. And this violence is
powered by the misconceived notion
that somehow men are more equal than
women especially in Nigeria!
Yet the advice pours out and people eat
it up, not realizing that the person
dishing out the advice may never have
met that abusive husband that hugged
choked his wife when she was crying or
that woman that tithed every Sunday
but yet her Husband molested her every
Monday or that submissive wife that
was so submissive even when her
Husband left her for another woman
she still hung around.
So when they (the accidentals) give
advice they tend to give it from a
disney world perspective where every
man is a Prince and every woman is a
Princess. They just have one view…the
fairy-tale view…it worked for me so it
should work for everyone. So when this
people talk I barely listen.
But do you know who gives the best
relationship advice? People that have
been divorced…then got remarried and
eventually found the right one. They
talk from a multi-dimensional
standpoint. They know what causes
marriages to fail and the real reason
why it succeeds. And do you know the
people who give the really good
entrepreneurial advice? The same
type…the entrepreneurs who have
failed…started again and then
succeeded. Those are the people that
you should listen to for business advice
because they won’t give you BS advice
like, bepassionate and you will succeed!
Now I am not saying that you cannot
ever receive good advice from the
accidental’s or that anything a failure-
now-turned-success tells you is going
to work for you. Rather what I am
pushing you to understand is that there
is not a one size fit all advice for
business or relationships…you will need
to get advice from multiple sources to
help you make an ultimate decision that
fits your unique situation.
So before you young girls and boy go
jumping on Omotola’s advice and start
thinking that a man is more equal than
a woman, I urge you to listen to Hilary
Clinton, Maya Angelou, Chimamanda
Adichie and many other strong women
out there, listen to their stories, their
struggles and their triumphs and use
their collective experiences to help
make a wise decision.
That’s my article for today and
although it is ironically accidental in
nature, I hope the message in it will
help someone somewhere. Be awesome
and be kind to someone today
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