Hey Sisturr 👋
How are you? May I be the first to wish you a very happy New Month 🎉
I hope the month of
May treated you nicely. Actually, mine did. And I can't wait to share with you all the fun things I was up to.
I took an anxiety-inducing job
So, if you read my newsletter from last month, I mentioned that I had fallen really sick and had to take a week of bed rest.
Thankfully, by the 1st of May, which happened to be a Monday, I had resumed work.
I also mentioned last month that I signed on a new client for social media management.
So, here's the full gist:
This client was a lady I had worked with around August 2022.
She was the social media team lead, and I was working directly under her.
We were both working for a business based in the UK.
The business was a group of companies with three sub-companies.
The main company and the 3 sub-companies all had 4 social media accounts each (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter).
To worsen it, the company also took up a job to create social media content for one of their clients, since it was a consulting business.
So, altogether, just I and the lady in question were in charge of creating content and managing 20 social media accounts.
You won't believe how much I was paid 😥… during the interview, I was way too excited to take the job and failed to ask important questions.
So, for the one month I worked with them, I was completely stressed out!
I discussed 100K with them during the interview, and you won't blame a girl 🥺
That was the first-ever time I was earning up to 6 figures from any job. So, I was happy.
If I look back and think about everything, I feel extremely cheated.
My standard rate today for that sort of job is 300,000 NGN.
So, I was paid one-third of what I was supposed to earn because I was ignorant of the worth of my skills.
The lady that was working with me (the social media lead) told me after we got laid off after a month, that she agreed 400,000 NGN with them.
I felt even more cheated 😥
That was PAY INEQUITY 😞, and this doesn't just happen to me. It happens to lots of people around the world.
Coworkers should feel very free to discuss salaries and negotiate salaries before they accept any responsibilities from employees.
Although managing and creating content for 20 social media accounts wasn't funny, what was actually worse was the fact the lady I worked with.
She somehow always complains about my work - like claiming the fliers I posted on the pages were blurry and reporting me to the manager.
So eventually, her task was to post all the fliers, while I was doing ALL the content creation. It was so crazy 😥
I would work and work and work on content calendars ehn 😐
Somehow, when this lady reached out this year, I had completely forgotten about all that happened last year.
She wanted me to manage a brand's LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter pages, as well as write a LinkedIn Newsletter for the brand, once every month.
She said the job was 50K. I tried negotiating, but she claimed that's all the brand could afford. And then, I accepted.
I was happy for an extra source of income. We signed a contract and she paid my first 50% (25,000 NGN), and then I started working.
That's how I brought calamity upon myself 😔
The first red flag was - she wanted me to manage a page, but she wasn't ready to give me the login details.
And that made me start remembering what happened the first time we worked together.
The second flag was - I'll create a content calendar, and she'd refuse to follow the sequence.
The third flag - I'll create a flier design, and she'll use the same template and everything, but just try to change something about it.
The fourth flag - I'll create captions for social media posts, and she'd complain they're too long. I'll take my time and shorten them, yet, when I check the page, she'll post an entirely different caption.
So, why was she stressing me? Why did she hire me if she had better ideas and could do a better job herself? Why was she paying me if she felt my skills weren't good enough?
Just within our short-lived contract that got aborted after 2 weeks, I always got scared of staying online on WhatsApp because I was sure she was going to send a message.
I was always feeling anxious and inadequate 😥… I always had heart palpitations when replying to her messages.
I'm so glad I was able to speak up and end the contract when I did.
How I want to spend the next third of my life
Earlier this month, I was having a conversation with my friend, Chidera.
Amongst all the things we talked about, a sudden realisation dawned on me: I have lived one-third of my life already.
The average life expectancy in the world is around 70 years. The average life expectancy in Nigeria is 52 years.
So, let's just go with the average life expectancy in the world. One-third of 70 years is 23.33 years, and that's exactly how old I am right now.
In May, I crossed into 23.5 years, and that means I'm already in the second-third of my life.
And a question was heavy on my heart: How do I want to spend the next third of my life?
For all those who still believe in 2023 that life begins at 40, it doesn't.
Actually, real life begins after you turn 23. Those first 23 years might have been spent getting educated, having trauma experiences, and healing from them.
In this next third of life (between ages 23 and 46), I want to be the best I can be!
I want to stop living a lie and living a life that makes other people feel good about me and makes me feel miserable about myself.
I want to build systems and processes!
I want to make loads and loads of money!
I want to build and fail in entrepreneurship and learn all the lessons I can!
I want to travel around the world and enter rooms with world leaders!
I want to work hard and play hard! (Go on vacation 3-4 times every year)
This is how I want to spend the next third of my life. How do you plan on spending yours?
By the time I'm 47, I want to be very proud of all the things my hands have done, sit back and become a mentor to younger people, or just play the game of being a venture capitalist.
My mum is only 51, and lately, she always has loads of complaints about parts of her body aching her. These are things that never happened to her before she entered menopause.
The same goes for my mentor. She's 53, and also has complaints and an inability to focus for long hours or do any tedious activities.
Listening to podcasts like The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett makes me think deeply about how finite life is and how we should make the most of every day we have.
Thinking about life in this way has made me make a few crucial changes in my life that have resulted in a high ROI, and I'm loving everyday 🥰
I journaled for 22 days in a row. This is what I learned.
I hear a lot of people rave about the wonders of journaling, but I've never really taken it seriously until this month.
One of the things my journaling helped me do was get myself into a daily routine.
So, every morning, once I wake up, the first thing I do is journal my thoughts.
Honestly, it's been extremely helpful.
Every day in May, except on the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 19th, 20th and 22nd, I journaled 😊 and boy it was so good!
Journaling helped me think clearly and plan every day as they came.
Journaling helped me make both long-term and short-term goals and monitor their progress.
Journaling helped me create a notion database where I manage both personal and client projects more swiftly.
Beyond just having an unending to-do list, the notion kanban board helps me see where I am on the execution of each task, and break big tasks into smaller tasks I can tick off.
Journaling has helped me plan my finances and budget better.
I would highly recommend that everyone gets involved in journaling every morning/night (depending on what's most convenient), and feel free to email me back on how your experience was after 30 days 🤗
I participated in a blog writing contest for $500
So, I randomly stumbled upon a call for blog writers for a writing contest organized by an arm of the World Bank known as the International Corruption Hunters Alliance.
It was a blog on ways we think we can end corruption in our counties as young Africans.
The blog was supposed to be 500 words, and the deadline was the 20th of May, 2023.
The reward for winners was either an invitation to attend the ICHA event in Cote d’Ivoire or a $500 USD cash equivalent.
As theNigerian girl that I am, I already knew what option I was going for. (The money of course!)
It wasn't really easy to make time for the writing process.
I created a task on my Kanban board, and then broke the task into sub-tasks.
Now, here's the irony of sharing your work with other people. They'll pull you in different directions cos they have different identities and personalities!
I took all the relevant feedback I got, wrote the second draft of the blog and sent it out to the team at ICHA.
They sent me an email confirming the receipt of my blog, and I'm hoping they get back to me soonest 🥺
I'm really hoping my blog is selected, and that I win the prize money. With that, I can facilitate my house hunting, and leave my current apartment 😊
Please, if you love me, pray for me 🙏
Hilda Bassey broke a Guinness world record
One of the most exciting things I loved seeing last month was how a 27-year-old Nigerian lady named Hilda Bassey challenged herself to break an existing Guinness world record of longest cooking hours by an individual.
The existing record was 87 hours 45 minutes. And, our dearest Hilda outdid herself! She got to 88 hours, went to 96 hours and eventually stopped at 100 hours.
It was 100 hours of no sleep, standing and cooking, and serving the public of supporters who came to cheer her up!
I was blown away by her doggedness to hit the record in the face of tiredness and fatigue, that girl kept showing up!
Hilda's success story taught me so many things:
There's no such thing as IMPOSSIBLE.
Dreams remain dreams if not acted upon!
Success has plenty of friends.
With Hilda breaking the world record, I felt extremely challenged and charged up!
What's one thing I really dream of but haven't put in adequate work to achieve it? And then, it dawned on me…
For the longest time, I've dreamt of working with a remote-first company based in the USA, UK or Canada with great people culture.
I've dreamt of earning $1,000 to $5,000 monthly as a Nigerian living in Nigeria with my skill set level. I know this is possible because I know people who have.
So, why have I been unable to achieve this goal for the longest time?
Laziness. I haven't put in the hard work. I have just been hoping that it will miraculously happen someday 😊
I haven't applied for enough jobs, and I have been taking it too casually.
With Tinubu as Nigeria's newly sworn-in president, Nigerian youths know we're in for trouble! But it's easier when you're making your money from outside Nigeria, because you have options and a higher spending power.
Hilda Baci's Cook-a-thon spurred me to force myself into a 90-days job hunting challenge. The challenge is:
To source 5 job links that match my skill set & salary expectations every day, and collect them on a spreadsheet.
To send a cold email to one of my favourite creators or people I follow on social media every day.
To spend one hour every day learning something new about job search, CV writing, cover letters and portfolios.
To spend 2-3 hours every Sunday evening applying for all the job links I've collected within the week while on a coworking call with my 9-members Accountability Group.
This challenge starts today, the 1st of June. And it doesn't matter how tired or exhausted I am, I'm going to reach my goals every day/week.
My goal is to land a job with a tech startup in the web2 space (a software development or SaaS business), a creator economy business or something in the digital marketing/social media space.
P.S. I'll give you feedback on my results in a month's time 😁… wish me luck, guys 😥
I attended a Web3 Conference
Sometime last year while I was seriously job hunting, I found an opening for a content writer at a Crypto business called XT.COM.
To be very honest, I lied in my cover letter and claimed I have a good knowledge of how Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology work, but I didn't know shit.
I tried my best to watch tons of videos on YouTube and managed to impress the hiring manager in my first interview, and got sent an email telling me I qualified for the second stage of the interview.
The second interview was with the Chief Marketing Officer of the business who was based in Dubai, and I don't think he was impressed 😞
They never got back to me! I tried following up, but the HR manager said they haven't concluded with the hiring.
There are a number of Substack newsletters I'm signed on to and other job boards that always post jobs about crypto and web3.
The truth is - All these jobs have very juicy benefits! But I don't understand anything about crypto. The concept seems so complex to understand.
So, when I saw the Web3 & Digital Economy Conference on a friend's WhatsApp status, I made up my mind that I was going to attend. And I did!
It rained cats and dogs that day, but I eventually reached the venue.
Although I arrived late, I still learnt so much from the resource persons that attended. I made up my mind to create time in my life to enter that rabbit hole of learning all about Web3 & Cryptocurrency sometime in the near future.
One of the lessons I learned from my Ireland-based client is organizing projects by sprints.
Starting today, the 1st of June, and going forward, I'm going to organize my life by sprints.
Sprint 1: 90-day job hunting challenge (1st of June to 29th of August, 2023)
Sprint 2: 100-days Write-a-thon on Medium (around September to December 2023)
Sprint 3: 100-days Write-a-thon on LinkedIn Pulse (around January to March 2024)
Sprint 4: 100-days Write-a-thon on Quora (around April to July 2024)
Sprint 5: 90-days learn all about crypto, Web3 and Blockchain Technology challenge (July to September 2024)
Sprint 6: Learn all about how to start and launch a successful nonprofit organization in 90 days.
Sprint 7: Learn all about how to start and launch a successful consulting business in 90 days.
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And then, the list goes on and on. I think this new strategy will help me have goals for each quarter of my year, and not get lost working for clients and do nothing for long-term goals.
I got an invitation to speak at an event, and it was beautiful ❤️
Anyone who has been following my newsletters would know that I'm very passionate about growth and self-development.
I love speaking! And as a young person, I've gotten a couple of speaking opportunities (both in-person and online).
Since I started living in Port Harcourt in 2018, I've only gotten 2 invitations to speak.
The first was from a former roommate (Faith), who invited me to speak to the youths of her in Port Harcourt.
The second was during a menstrual hygiene awareness day in a community secondary organized by my fellow PANsites. It went so well!
And then, a few weeks back, Loveth reached out to me concerning an event where I'll teach a group of people about career opportunities in tech, it was more than amazing 😍
For people conversant with Uniport, the event happened at Aminu Kano Hostel Block B common room, and yes, I spoke to a group of boys.
I spoke all about the career opportunities in Digital Marketing & social media, and they paid attention.
I asked them to reach out to me afterwards if they were interested, and a few did. I was so happy 🥰
Here is a picture from the event:
In Conclusion…
The month of May came with loads of opportunities for me. With lots of prospective clients knocking down my door, even though I'm currently at maximum capacity 🥺
To stay saner, I turned off notifications on all my socials, and I feel so much more in control of my life and time.
I can't wait to see all the beautiful things that June births and I can't wait to share them with you without holding anything back.
Figure-8 Connect is a community that's all about helping women own their stories - be they good, bad and ugly.
Every month, I write to you and own my stories with y'all.
I look forward to hearing you own your own stories with me! Feel free to write me an email at bookieeyes19@gmail.com.
Till the next time I write to you! Keep staying awesome 👍
Your Sister,
BOOKIE.
There's always something to learn in every newsletter.
I love reading you.
Keep writing.