The Lagos Saga

In Which The Season Turned Again

This next one is going to be a looooooong letter, but I guess it deserves to be since it’s been ages since the last one.

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I’ve got several updates and some opportunities you may not want to miss, so stick around to the last word.

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Most especially if you’re a woman.

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A woman in Ministry.

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aka building.

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Remember one of the last letters I wrote you? I will tag it here:

MEDITATION I

. I talked about the different seasons of life and how I was in my season of silence.

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Although I struggled with that season up to a point, God in His mercy helped me come to the realization that silence can also be worship.

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So I sat in silence.

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Now, I really don’t know how long I thought that would last, but I sure didn’t expect it to be so short.

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Because I don’t think I hit the 6-month mark before the season turned again.

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This time, it looked like moving from my beloved Ile-Ife with 2 days’ notice.

So This Is Exactly What Happened

Mid May, I called my brother Gabriel Kuti to say hello to him like a good sister.

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Now, on a normal day, that would have been all, but you need to understand who my brother is.

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He is the founder and CEO of one of the largest print and packaging manufacturing companies in most of Africa, and he is also a lil bit cuckoo if you ask me.

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Why?

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Because how did a check-in call turn into an invitation to pack up my things, leave Ile-Ife with my husband, and come take up a co-founder role in said business?

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To be honest, I don’t look down on my life’s work up to this point.

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I have built some pretty cool stuff, both before and WHILE building The Cave.

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But I’ll be honest with you: I did not feel at all qualified to be placed at the very top of such a business.

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Since this is a heart-to-heart essentially, I will tell you the truth.

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Even now, I still don’t think I am qualified.

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And this is why.

The First Thing I Felt Was Panic

I don’t know about most people, but when something really cool happens to me, say I hit a milestone, or I get a promotion, or an appointment, my first instinct is not really to celebrate.

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Perhaps I should learn to do more of that.

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My first instinct is to panic.

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To start calculating how I am going to fulfil my new role and steward whatever this new thing I’ve been given.

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And the sense of responsibility can be super nerve-wracking.

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So it’s not enough that I’ve just gotten married, which, ladies, is perhaps the most transformational thing that can happen to your existence, for good or for bad!

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Believe me, married people do not live in the same world as single people.

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And I don’t mean that in a taunting way.

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In fact, not even relationship people understand what it truly means to be married.

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All I will say about that is that you will feel like you were taken back to Nursery 2 of learning about yourself and life, after you thought you were in SSS3.

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But that is not all.

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You now ALSO have to enroll in an extra course called Mr. Husband 101.

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I can promise you, that thing is harder than the hardest course you have taken.

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Now add to that the fact that I’m building a fresh community under the grid.

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Then bring in the ELEPHANT in the room and consider that I have also been plopped into a new role, in the middle of a totally new industry, and in the middle of one of the biggest companies in said industry.

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My question is simple:

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How do you cope?!

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Especially when all around you, you see almost everyone faltering and messing up big time.

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How do you cope?

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Even when you know that there is more at stake than you have ever had to juggle.

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If you mess up a project, it could cost you millions, when before it was just tens of thousands or at most 6 figures.

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Now if you fail, lots more people stand to suffer, and the dent on your name will not only be known in a small corner of WhatsApp.

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Not to mention that the inner standards you have for yourself will not allow you rest easy.

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You built the level of competence you have with painstaking and longsuffering effort, and somehow you have come to see that you have some level of competency that you pride yourself in.

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And now, you have to seemingly start from scratch.

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It is not easy, and I have a lot of stories to tell.

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A few wins.

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A few losses.

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But here are a few things I have learned in the short time I have been here, in case you are currently in a similar season of life.

1. Skills Transfer

You see, both soft skills and hard skills are not limited to the things you learned them for.

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Leadership is leadership, whether you did it at the house fellowship level or as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

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Sure, it may not look like it, but all it takes is adjusting your mind for scale and identifying the points where they begin to require similar things:

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• Communication.

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• Emotional intelligence.

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• Ownership.

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• A service mentality.

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It is like maths actually.

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You learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc., but you learn them using smaller numbers and less complicated scenarios.

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But if you master those smaller ones, you can employ the same logic in more complex scenarios.

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For the first week I was here at Cubic, honestly, the first month literally, I carried this idea around that I was a total novice at this thing.

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I hardly knew the business of manufacturing.

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The process of making a proper packaging item seemed like rocket science to me.

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I was in semi-panic mode 60-70% of the time, even while outwardly looking all calm and collected.

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So what did I do?

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I simply immersed myself in the work.

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I started with Sales because I wanted to understand the process from the area I believe I was already proficient in.

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Otherwise, I wouldn’t even know what good work looked like, so how could I oversee the work of others or even produce it myself?

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I had to become a novice and ask a lot of questions.

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Plus, I had to deal with a few disgruntled customers.

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Let me tell you something, it was TERRIFYING!

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The first time that happened, I had to enter the toilet, sit down, and pray in tongues for a few minutes before placing the call.

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The whole thing really taught me the difference between talking about doing stuff and doing stuff.

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It also taught me that I am better than I actually thought I would be, and worse than I need to be.

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I have learned the lessons of probably a whole year in 2 months, and there is still a lot more to learn.

2. Some Lessons Are Not Meant For Certain People Yet

One of the most important lessons this taught me is that some lessons are not meant for certain people.

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If you are faced with classwork that is above your level, it could break you or even lead you astray.

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The laws of mathematics, for instance, when it comes to subtraction, are not the same for a nursery school kid and a senior secondary school student.

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At some point, you realize that there is such a thing as minus a number.

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That is, bigger numbers can be subtracted from smaller ones, and it is not really impossible like Aunty Funmi told you back then.

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But if you covet these lessons and that growth, you will need to put yourself through the discomfort of stepping out into new places where you are probably on the lowest rung of the ladder.

3. Impact Goes Deeper Than Engagement

Impact isn’t just about running events, making content, and getting engagement.

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Not that I actually believed it was, but sometimes because you’re online and can’t really experience the lives of the people you’re working with, that can create a disconnect between you and the real effect you are having on others.

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Somebody can come to your DM and write a long-ass epistle of how you have helped their life while actively contemplating suicide in their room.

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If you do not have discernment, you wouldn’t even know.

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You would think the written testimonial was a testament that you’re doing great with them.

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Am I saying online engagement is bad?

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NEVER!!!!!

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What I am saying is that impact goes deeper than that.

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Having to deal with staff and my team, as well as our clients, made me so glad that I already had the chance to raise people in a physical environment.

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Because believe it or not, it’s different and harder to deal with people when they are present with you.

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Maybe it’s because you can read body language and see other behaviours that are typically hidden online, but it grows and grounds you more deeply.

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All the patience you thought you had online, you will need buckets more.

4. Money Is Not Everything

Money is not everything.

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It’s not even the first or best sign to look out for in growth or impact.

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In fact, if I were to give any young person advice, I would say in your early 20s, don’t make money a priority in everything you do because it could blind you to everything else you need to build a successful life.

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There are things more valuable than money:

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• Relationships.

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• Service.

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• Practice.

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• Training.

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Many times, being money-centric blinds you to these opportunities, and honestly, the best of them cannot be bought with money.

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Yes, you need to survive.

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So actively seek to earn, service problems, build solutions, and charge for them.

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But if I were to give you a good ratio of what you should charge for and what you shouldn’t, I would say 20:80 the younger or earlier you are to giving value.

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And as you grow in purpose, skill, and impact, the ratio may increase, especially when you start to both solve higher-leverage problems and have more responsibility.

There Is Still So Much To Say

Each of these points deserves to have a newsletter of its own because I’ve got storiesssssss for daysssss to explain each one.

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But this letter is already getting overlong, and I haven’t even shared half of the news I’ve got.

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There’s my TEDxUNILAG story.

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My Tech Sis story.

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The deep and hair-raising adventures I have had in my first days at Cubic.

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And the lessons I’m learning building as a Christian, newly married woman.

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I have been thinking that it’s stuff that would hit deeper and carry more weight with the right audience.

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People who are exactly on that same journey as me.

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Not necessarily complete beginners, but those who have started the journey and are already facing the obstacles that show up at that unique part of the journey.

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I haven’t fully constructed it yet, but I think it will be a separate newsletter.

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And it will be gatekept.

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It will be intimate, and I will share deep secrets in there, and it will certainly be for women.

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Sorry guys.

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I will screen those who are allowed to receive it.

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But in the meantime, I think I will expatiate on everything I’ve said in this letter in future ones, and all my subscribers will get to read it.

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I’m sure you can tell from the way this one differs from all my other letters that I was just trying to dump all my thoughts on paper first.

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It may not have been the most aesthetically written letter, but I hope you learned something.

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And if you did, can you do me 2 favors?

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Actually SHARE this as far as you can on ANY PLATFORM.

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And do leave me a comment about what you learned and what, if anything, you disagree with.

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I’ll read it all and respond.

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I hope you have been well.

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Do let’s catch up in my WhatsApp DM if you’ve missed me and have gist.

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P.S. If you think you fit the criteria of women that I mentioned for my upcoming private newsletter, you may want to join the waitlist for when it comes out.

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Just send a mail to me at Priscillakutiukaegbu@gmail.com and I will let you know when I proceed.

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Thanks for reading up to this point.

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I love you.