My First Book - Coming Soon
Why you don't need a paycheck after graduation
A practical conversation about work, skills, money, opportunity and what it really means to create value after school.
Why this book
We were promised that a certificate would lead to a salary. For millions of young Africans, that promise has quietly expired.
This book was written for the young person holding a degree, a dream and a lot of questions, and for anyone ready to think differently about what comes next.
What we were told, and what we found.
We were told
Graduate, then get a job.
We found
Jobs are scarce, and the queue keeps growing every year.
We were told
Your certificate is your value.
We found
Employers and clients pay for skills and solved problems.
We were told
Security comes from a salary.
We found
Real security comes from being able to create value anywhere.
About the book
Not anti-work. Pro-value.
An honest, practical look at skills, money, opportunity and work, and how you can start creating and capturing value right where you are, with what you already have.
- 01Students
- 02Corp members
- 03Recent graduates
- 04Young professionals
About the author
Joshua Odaf
Joshua Oghenejaboh Odafe is a marketing systems consultant, Founder of SMM Sidekick, and Head of Marketing and IT Infrastructure in 3 African fast-growing startups.
He learned early in life what it means to be useful. This book is his honest conversation with every young person wondering what comes after the certificate.
Read the Preview
Introduction
Nothing Happens by Chance, but by Choices
Nothing happens by chance, but by choices.
Simply put.
When you look at your life today, you are looking at the result of thousands of decisions you have made, and thousands of decisions other people made around you. Some were deliberate. Some were made without thinking. Some opened doors. Others closed them. Some taught you what to do. Others taught you what never to do again.
The interesting thing is that most of us do not realize how much our choices are shaping us until we look back.
I know this because I have had to look back at my own life many times.
I did not wake up one morning with a complete understanding of what I wanted to do with my life. I did not have a perfect skill set. I did not have a perfect business idea. I did not have a special connection that was going to change everything for me.
I was simply curious.
I wanted to try things.
I wanted to make money.
I wanted to understand how things worked.
And, most importantly, I wanted to become someone who could solve problems.
That mindset did not come from a textbook.
It started at home.
My father was an entrepreneur. He was not running some massive corporation, but I watched how seriously he took the people who depended on him.