DO IT EARLY!

It's indeed important to follow one's passion. Late last year, my parents came over to Lagos for a wedding and as usual, I had a “gisting” session with my Dad. I asked him questions about his work and he went ahead to tell me about his "latest love - farming", he had recently made some hundreds of thousands of naira on farming within a short while. In order to give us a background, my Dad is a Medical Doctor, a Specialist Pediatrician who has been practicing for well over 30 years. He's been really committed to it over the years and has gotten several awards, locally and nationally. He has also been running his own private practice for over 20 years and it's obvious he's very good in Medicine. His hospital is located in his home town and most of the work he does is humanitarian, everybody knows and claims to be related to him, so he doesn't get to make much money from Medical practice. However, he has always loved farming but didn't visualize possibilities of making it big in it, now, he sees the possibilities, but he's in his sixties, and I’m sure he would be thinking, "if only I had blown this bigger much earlier".

I was reminded again of a lesson I’d learnt before which I’ll like to share with all.

Knowing your passion is one thing; following it early is another. Looking back now, I can say he had always loved farming; he has a small poultry, a snailry, a plantain, banana and cocoa plantation, all these have never been for commercial purposes, he enjoyed doing them, it was obvious anytime he talked about it; his face lit anytime he spoke about farming; only recently did he think of employing people to run it for commercial purposes.

When one has a passion or an interest and follows it, there will be a time to derive economic value for it; there’s no phase of human endeavor that one can’t money from doing. There’s no use pushing what comes naturally to you till later, you might not see now how you’ll make money from it; all I’ll say is “Keep doing it!”