I most definitely was not prepared for the world and life inside Lagos Business School. A classic case of ”Trouble sleep yanga go wake am” is a Nigerian slang that expresses the impact and import of underestimating people, places, or things.
Growing up as a young girl in the city of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, and watching my mother rise to the peak of her career and education, I knew I wanted to have the best of education in the best of schools.
During my University days, I will read about great women who have gone ahead to like my mum deliver greatly on their jobs or built great businesses that are now been modeled and spoken extensively of nationally and even globally. When I drew closer to a few of them by attending a few seminars they would organize for young leaders and listening to their profiles as it was been read, I would 90% of the time hear their profiles speak to their academic growth and achievements as either MBA holders in Global Business Schools like Harvard, Warwick and of course the prestigious Lagos Business School. I immediately knew I was going to do an MBA and attend one of these schools.
My desire to stand out just like the great women that I have watched from far and near, kept me grounded in my choices of a career path after my university degree. I got into the labor market and got a job, and for every job I had, I made sure I delivered excellently. After some years of being in paid employment with a robust salary, my passion for business and building a brand that is transgenerational could no longer take a back seat. I had at the time already saved up enough to resign and begin my business. I left with the full support and mentorship of my past employment and began Zetile Oil and Gas Ltd. After one year of running operations, I knew it was time for me to acquire more knowledge to grow a sustainable business, it was time to do my MBA.
Following the fact that it was a new enterprise and wouldn’t afford me the luxury of traveling the country for two years for my program, LBS was my best option. However, one factor I did not put into consideration was how in many ways the process of becoming the business leader I desired was going to stretch me. Getting into the school from the pre-module online classes and assignments that followed back to back, to the 1 full week intensive classes that came with a huge number of case studies that must be fully read and understood so one could contribute meaningfully in class thereby earning scores for class participation, etc 70% of my brain and body was already telling me “Girl Japa oooo” the remaining part was the ambitious and spiritual part of me telling me “Girlllllllll try, you can do”, so I decided to pace myself and every day show up, putting a foot in front of each other and most important finding joy in the entire process. You can definitely guess right which one I followed because I definitely won’t be writing this blog post if I did “Japa”.
My LBS experience so far is indeed one for the books, will continue to stay and look forward to the process of learning, relearning, and unlearning tools/skills to thrive as a business leader.
Meanwhile, remember how in primary school or college we all somehow had our best teachers for one reason or another? yes, so I have just finished our first semester in LBS and I have my best faculty member lol, feel free to guess who “she” is (yes I gave a clue, lol) and hopefully before our blogging period ends I will be able to tell you about her and why she was the one.
Talk to you soon.
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