2016 IN A BIT

02:00

Wow, today is the last day of this year. Thinking about 2015 and all that came with it makes me really emotional and teary. This year was the most challenging of all the years I have spent on earth, I probably cried the most this year, I was probably down for the most part of the year. At a point I just wanted to sleep and not wake up. I passed through trails, tests, temptations, disappointments, losses, heart breaks back to back without any breathing space. I suffered from depression, anger, loneliness, sadness, grief, pains, just name it.

2015 was a real battle ground for me. I was pulled beyond my elastic limit, I was tried and tested on every aspect of my life, I was thrown to the ground, wounded and battered by life's challenges.

First, I graduated from the university or college in December 2014, exactly a year now. I can remember vividly how I prayerfully planned my 2015. According to my plan I should be rounding up my service year (NYSC - the compulsory one year service to my country Nigeria) but as I write this now I have not started it. A mistake was made in one of my courses so I could not graduate with my mates. The first batch went in May 2015, I cried, became sick, cried and cried again. I asked God what was happening, I felt terrible, I created a shell and coiled into it. I didn't want to talk to any body, the NYSC uniform tormented me, I felt miserable.

I was assured that the issue would be rectified and I would go in the next batch in October, 2015 but it was not possible. I felt terrible again but not like the first time.

Next, I had a very painful surgery that I wrote about here. My junior sister had an accident that left her with a fractured right arm, she is completely fine now. I made some crazy mistakes that I will remember forever, my relationship with God was not what it should be at. I lost money, friends, personal belongings and opportunities..

NOW, enough of the sad stories.... 2015 was an awesome year, I met great people, likes of Bankole Williams, Detuke Morgan, Chinenye Nzom, Funto Ibuoye and her wonderful husband Gaise Baba, Jimi Tewe and his beautiful wife Lola Tewe, John Obidi, Stephanie Obi, I can go on and on. Trust me I would not have met these guys If I had gone for service in May 2015. Meeting them helped me to start living my life intentionally, living each day with purpose.

I started this blog this year, WHOOP WHOOP, and it has been a wonderful experience connecting with y'all. Your comments, nice words of encouragement and advice kept me moving always. I love you all dearly..

I started my natural hair and beauty care line Shanyi Organics.

I learnt better and more effective ways to tackle life challenges. I'm going into 2016 with my head high because I am Victorious. The fact that I overcame all the challenges of 2015 and I'm alive, healthy and sane enough to write this post means that I can go through any challenge with God by my side.

I'm not quite sure of what 2016 holds but I'm sure that God's got my back and I'd be just fine.

Thanks so much for making 2015 a remarkable one for me, thanks for yours calls, text messages, comments, likes, shares and all those good stuff. Let's do it again and more in 2016.

There would be give aways, freebies, collaborations, more features, meet ups maybe, better photography, better content and yeah we are moving to our permanent site, lol (shanyitots.com) in 2016. Stay tuned for more goodness and 'yumminess'...

Stay safe and see y'all in 2016...

Photo credit :Google images.

Faith

WHAT WOULD THE BIRTHDAY BOY WANT??

22:00

Lifestyle

#STEPH-NOTES: HEART TO HEART WITH IBUKUN AWOSIKA

03:00

Hello beautiful people. Happy Hump day!!

If you follow me on facebook, you would know that I'm presently in the heart of Anambra State on vacation with my family. Trust me, I have been having a good time eating REAL FOOD, resting, spending time meditating and reflecting on 2015 while making plans for 2016. 2015 has been amazing in all forms and 2016 would be better but we need to prepare adequately to get the best in 2016.

I recieved a mail sometime last week from a lovely lady Stephanie Obi, which linked to an article on her website but I could not read the article then. I stumbled on the article again today on Tosin Alabi's blog here and could not help but share with you guys.

Stephanie Obi had the opportunity of interviewing the great Mrs Ibukun Awosika on a women’s mentoring initiative by Tara Durotoye (CEO House of Tara). If you don’t know Ibukun Awosika I advise you check her out. She’s a believer, a business giant and a woman of virtue worthy of emulation.

Stephanie Obi said she wrote 42 Pages on the personal development session but had to summarize it for her blog’s sake. It’s centered around business, marriage and self growth.

Below are the lessons in three solid points.

ADVICE FOR SINGLES

If you are walking down the road, with the wrong man, you are in trouble. You cannot afford to make a mistake.

Don’t get married until you have a sense of who you are.

You have to take this seriously because your life is on assignment. You are accountable to God for your life.

Your life has three parts:

1. Who you are
2. After a while, you get the added responsibility of a wife. This does not replace who you are. Your role as a wife is to help a man be the best of himself, not to diminish yourself
3. After a while, you get the added responsibility of a mother

One part does not remove the other, and it is your responsibility to work out how the three will combine together.

When you know who you are, you will know what to look out for when you are looking for a partner.

You won’t be carried away by “Rich, Tall and Handsome”, Instead you will be looking for someone who can help you to achieve what you are born to achieve.

If you marry the wrong person, and there is a mismatch, there will be a great conflict.

You owe it to yourself not to settle.

Don’t ever settle until you are comfortable that this person you want to marry has your back and will allow you to fly.

If you don’t know who you are, you can start by knowing what you don’t want, and be honest with yourself.

Don’t get carried away with the butterflies in your tummy.

When you are deciding on a man to marry:

Pick a man who is responsible and who is working hard. He may not have made it yet, but at least he is working and he has a vision.

It is not your job to give your husband-to-be a vision. You can’t change him. Make sure that he already has a personal vision of what he wants to become and is already working towards it.

Please take note of this:

The son of a rich man is not a rich boy.

He will take you out on dates in a big car. It is not his car, it’s his father’s car. He borrowed it.

His father will throw a big party for the two of you when you are getting married. This is for his own ego. The father can even pay 2 years house rent for you to impress the inlaws, and hence you might not realize that you are in trouble.

When the marriage starts, it will dawn on you that the boy you married, does not have any money.

He is always dependent on his daddy.

The day daddy does not give him money, you guys will not have money.

All the responsibilities will fall on your head, and this will cause friction in the marriage.

Be warned my daughters.

You can prevent yourself from entering trouble.

2. ADVICE FOR MARRIED WOMEN

At first when you start a business, your husband might seem supportive because he thinks it is just a business to keep you busy.

But as the business becomes successful, he gets scared.

He gets scared because he feels that you might become something else. He has heard so many stories of women who have become rich and are now terrible. He is scared that you might not be able to balance it all.

You have the power to manage this transition.

1. Don’t start what you cannot finish

Breakfast in bed
Cooking fresh food everyday

The day you become busy and you cannot make breakfast in bed, he will say you have changed and will start treating you as if you are a horrible person

2. Make your husband a stakeholder in everything you do

You must have heard people say:

Your husband’s money is your money
Your money is your money

This is bad advice

If your husband has no stake in what you do, what is his benefit? You are making money everyday and you are still asking for housekeeping. After a while, he will begin to despise you.

All this money you are making, you can’t even help out in the house.

One of the wise things you can do is to empower him.

For example, you can say, “Let me take care of the house bills, you can use your money to build us a house”

When he sees how your money is helping him, he begins to get invested in what you do; he wants you to succeed because your success takes some burden off his shoulders.

Please note: This is why you should marry a hardworking man, who will not take advantage of you because you are contributing to the homefront. If you marry a reasonable man, he won’t start spending his money on other women because you are helping out.

Money is a very sensitive topic in a marriage because it can break a home. A lot of ladies take advice from the older generation, forgetting that the generation of our mothers is not the same as our generation.

In that generation, not a lot of women were career focused.

In this generation, it is the norm for women to be career focused, and hence, the dynamics has changed, and we have to deal with that dynamic.

God knows what he was saying when he said, husband and wife are one

The two of you are one and he can bless the one through any of the halves of the one. He can bless the husband or the wife, but it does not change who is in charge.

Your husband is in charge of your home and you should never have illegal leadership because you have money

Money is nothing.
It is just a tool you can use to achieve what God has ordained for you.

Don’t allow money to control your home. If you do, you are in trouble.

When you understand this, you won’t become arrogant because you are making money.

I want you to understand this because we need to raise a critical mass of women who can be successful and use money wisely, so that men can become comfortable with successful women and it can be easier for our children to become successful

You also need to understand that your husband is facing so many things:

Pressure from inlaws
Pressure from friends

They will be telling him things about you, hence you have to be careful.

Don’t keep secrets from him, secrets breed mistrust.

If you want to invest in property, let him know what you are doing.

If you don’t trust your husband, you can keep the asset in your name or in your children’s name.

If you trust your husband, you can buy property and keep the asset in the both of you’s name.

If you have plenty cash, invest in assets immediately. If your husband knows that you are sitting on so much cash, he will ask you for it and if you don’t give it to him…trouble. You become the enemy.

Wisdom my daughters, you need wisdom.

3. BUSINESS ADVICE

What business do you want to do?
Do you even know the business?
Have you empowered yourself to make the right decisions?
Have you done due diligence…and this is not about asking your friends for their opinion.
After selling your products to family and friends, how can your business idea become commercially viable?
What pricing and evaluation models can work for your business?

As you go along in your business, it is foolish to not understand the numbers.

Invest in yourself.

There is nothing wrong with not knowing, but you have to have the courage to ask someone to teach you.

Go to Business School.

If you can’t afford it, attend business workshops and trainings.

You might think you are smart, but really, what do you know?

We are all smart, but we don’t know everything.

If you think about how many different topics exist, you will realize that you don’t know a lot.

I’m always in school, I spend what people use to buy houses to go to school.

If everybody is deceiving you, do not deceive yourself, nobody knows where you are going but you. You owe it to yourself to invest in yourself.

After you invest in yourself, the knowledge is yours, and you will find yourself in places you don’t feel you are qualified for.

What am I doing on the board of a bank? I am a Carpenter. My first degree was in Chemistry.

It is your responsibility to empower yourself with information that can help you.

Be honest with yourself and identify what your gaps are.

Invest in yourself.

This is what will separate you from the crowd.

Another thing you should note, is that it is important to treat people right.

This is how I have gone so far without bribery. I treat people with kindness, such that they do things for me out of love instead of “a cut”.

Everybody from the gateman, to the house keeper, to the driver, to the secretary to the oga…everybody.

It is the gateman you are nice to, that will open the gate for you and find parking for you when you are late to a meeting.

It is because I have help at home, that is why I can be here today.

I have delegated some responsibilities, and hence I can have time to focus on what I know how to do best.

If I did not delegate these tasks to other people, and if I did not treat the people who were helping me out well, I would have to do everything by myself.

Human beings in your life are very valuable.

By yourself, you are limited.

Everybody doing something in your life is valuable.

You lose when you think that you are the most important person in the room.

The way you make people feel affects the extent to how they can help you achieve your potential.

Love people.

Show care for people

Be kind to people.

If you work with artisans (tailors, carpenters, etc), Be kind but firm.

Be firm, but just.

Don’t become a fool, be firm but nice.

When you are fair, people will fight for you the day you make a hard decision.

I have fired a whole factory before. I was younger than my staff and I was equally pregnant. They decided not to show up at work on one day and we had a deadline.

I found other carpenters to complete the work during the weekend and by the time they showed on Monday, their sack letters were waiting at the gate.

Do not let anyone despise you because of your age and gender.

Keep your word

If you give your word to your customer, keep it.

I really loved this article and I thought to share with you all. I hope you find it useful and edifying as I did.

Do check out Stephanie HERE, She is lovely, intelligent and has a contagious smile.

Enjoy the rest of your week! Merry Christmas in advance.

Events

NITC, 13 RECAP

02:56

Events

NATURALS IN THE CITY, 13

03:00

In this post, I promised to give you details about the natural hair meetup happening in Lagos on the 12th of December 2015, here it is. Hope to see y'all there.

Originally posted here
This Saturday is NITC13. We have quite the line up for you. This is an important time of year as it is the time before we start making all our resolutions. I want to share mine with you because Yes! there is a step above going natural and I have started taking baby steps to embark on it. Interested? Join me on Saturday where all will not only be revealed, you will be given a blueprint of how to start on this next step if you haven't already.
🌳 There will be organic (yes organic), wheat free, sugar free desserts by @organicdorothy. Come by and taste them and you can even book Christmas cakes.
🌳 There will be food by @kitchenbutterfly. My people, no be small thing. Now that Agbalumo/Udala is in season, I fully expect that we will even see things like Agablumo/Udala ice cream on the Menu. I will share a full menu soon.
🌳 Certified Health coach, @eze.onwugbenu of Creative Juices will be selling his probiotic drinks as well as giving a talk on a topic of your choice. Look out for my next few posts for a chance to choose. He used to write for my blog and wrote several posts including Lime For Fertility and the Dangers of Vegetable Oil. This is a session you want to be there for.
🌳 @sisimiblog will talk about her passion - Organic farming/eating. I don't want to say too much about her part because I don't want to let too much out of the bag. But this is very very important so please be there. 🌳 Crafties will be there! Bring the kids and leave them at the crafties stand to pick up a craft or two while you enjoy the show!
🌳 so much more to enjoy.... will write more soon. #nitc #lagos #naturalhair #naturalnigerian #events

Venue: Cafe Neo, 6 Agoro Odiyan street. Off Adeola odeku, Victoria Island. Lagos.
Date: December 12th 2015.
Time: 1:00pm - 6:00pm
Gate fee: N1,000

Follow @naturalnigerian for more details.

Lifestyle

NEW MONTH SURPRISES

22:01

Helloooooooooo!!!
How are you doing beautiful people. I have been missing in action for some weeks now and I'd tell you why. First of all, I'm very, very, very sorry for my absence. I'm sure you guys did not miss me as much as I did.
I hope its not to late to say HAPPY NEW MONTH. Just like yesterday we are in the last month of the year. This year has been super tough and great for me, that's a story for another day.

Few minutes into December, my friends on BBM were charging their display pictures and personal messages and I felt I should change mine too. So I used the picture above as my display picture and I started thinking of what to use as my personal message. I did not want to write the usual 'Happy new month', I wanted something deeper. Then this dropped in my spirit 'Welcome to December, a month of pleasant surprises'. Before the end of that day, I got a pleasant surprise from some one I least expected. Its very important to constantly speak positively to ourselves, even when it seems like things are not working as planned.
So folks, I have a pleasant surprise for you today. Few months back, when I talked about how to make natural hair products (you can read more about that here), I got several requests asking If I sell those products and my response was No, not yet. I have always wanted to start a natural hair and beauty care line but I was waiting for a prefect time, and the truth is there is nothing like 'prefect time' on this planet. So dear,the best time to start that project or business you have been thinking and making plans for is NOW. You can check here for some business tips.
Back to my surprise, I have finally started my natural hair and beauty care line, Whoop Whoop, called Shanyi Organics.

At Shanyi Organics, we cater for your natural hair and beauty needs using purely natural products. Please like us on Facebook Shanyi Organics and follow us on instagram and twitter @Shanyi Organics. We would be giving out freebies and selling at discounted prices for the first few months starting from January 2016, so be on the look out.
Finally, there would be a natural hair meet up on the 12th of December 2015. Details would be in my next blog post.

Enjoy the rest of the month, Merry Christmas and Happy new year in advance.

Pages

2016 IN A BIT

WHAT WOULD THE BIRTHDAY BOY WANT??

#STEPH-NOTES: HEART TO HEART WITH IBUKUN AWOSIKA

Hello beautiful people. Happy Hump day!!

I recieved a mail sometime last week from a lovely lady Stephanie Obi, which linked to an article on her website but I could not read the article then. I stumbled on the article again today on Tosin Alabi's blog here and could not help but share with you guys.

NITC, 13 RECAP

NATURALS IN THE CITY, 13

NEW MONTH SURPRISES

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