Being bold works wonders. The reason why getting started is usually the hardest is because it’s the loneliest phase of the journey. You have to make the decision, build conviction, and go from 0 - 1 on your own. No one else can do that for you.

However, once you get past the starting line, you often realize that there’s an army of people waiting on the other side to support you. People have a good recognition instinct for bold effort, and more people are willing to support bold effort than people are willing to tear them down. But you have to get started to find out the precise proportion. 

You also have to realize if you’re the sort of person who enjoys going from 0 -1 or 1 - 100. It’s usually rare to be both.

The sort of person who will start something is usually the exact opposite of the sort of person who will build and run systems to scale that thing. I’m the former - I enjoy tinkering, taking reputational risks, and getting things started. I think I do an overall good job of it. However, I do not enjoy running the systems that scale things.

It’s critical to identify where you play the best, as it allows you to be bold in a productive manner. There are unproductive ways to be bold. Recklessness, mania, poor planning, and unwillingness to accept feedback, are some examples of unproductive boldness - they rarely yield any meaningful results.

“But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.” - Romans 14:23.

An effective way to build conviction is by taking the time to actively explore the unique things that genuinely pique your curiosity. The more niche, rare, and seemingly obscure, the better. The greatest opportunities to build conviction lurk in those offbeat interests, often dismissed as too niche.

The mistake I’ve often made is simply skimming the surface of my interests, especially when they are unpopular or may be perceived by others as 

me. 

The more you lean into your intrinsic interests, the quicker your convictions develop. And I’ve realized that this is contagious; conviction spreads to other aspects of your life, personally and professionally. Many things can pull you off course when building conviction, especially around what to do with your life. Like trying to impress others, following trends, fear, chasing money, getting caught up in politics, or doing what others want. 

But if you focus on what truly interests you, none of these things can mislead you. If you're into it, you're on the right track.

to James Okina, Faithfulness Okom, and Anesi Ikhianosime for reviewing drafts of this.

. I recently discovered the concept of “Intelligence’ in Igbo epistemology. The Igbo word for intelligence is a compound word “ako-n’uche”; translated to English means “craft and thought”. But it means more than that, it means the human ability to solve problems and create new things.

In the Igbo knowledge system, an intelligent person is one who can make things and think — in that order. Ako-n’uche is not an adjective reserved to describe some intelligent people, it is something we all have. If there is a criticism of us sometimes, it is that we don’t use it.

I believe this to be the case. The utility of your knowledge is limited until it is used to create something, by you, or others.

If you had to choose, it’s preferable to be someone who creates things, than someone who knows things. If you’re competent, it’s probably easier to be someone who knows things, because it’s relatively low-risk and quickly confers status in certain domains. For example, it’s much lower risk - and sometimes, higher status - to be a professor of war history, than it is to make weapons of war.

Becoming someone who creates things, no matter how small, makes the learning process much more efficient: you naturally become more curious, study faster with higher retention, and often tend to be happier. As I have realized, the process of creating organizes your perception around a goal that provides a container for negative emotions.

The biggest lesson I learned in 2023: working in alignment with God’s purpose makes life most meaningful. No true meaning can be found outside of God’s will. Different people describe God differently. For some, it’s the universe, providence, conscience, karma. They all point to some form of transcendental truth that necessarily exists. 

greatest conceivable transcendental truth as early as you can. Everyone eventually turns to God at some point in their life, the problem is that some don’t do it soon enough.

As someone who spent the past 10 years being flaccid about this subject, I underestimated how important this was for filling the gaps in my knowledge and alleviating unnecessary suffering that stemmed from the finitude of my human mind.

While these are not complete and exhaustive reasons to attain alignment with God, it’s a permissible selfish reason to begin the journey. Eventually, your horizon of meaning will be expanded to overtake the selfish reasons why you began the journey. Some people only realize this on their deathbeds. I think it’s better to not. 

Finding an assembly of others who are genuinely striving for progress in the faith is a good way. There is a striving for progress that isn’t virtuous. It’s mere virtue-signalling. You should avoid communities like that. When searching for communities, it's crucial to consider the visionary leader, often the Pastor or Apostle, and grasp the scriptural basis of their vision. I find interpretive skills, particularly in hermeneutics, to be of utmost importance. Hermeneutics pertains to the interpretation of texts, especially the Bible or literary works.

To quote Peter Abelard, the medieval French philosopher after he was prosecuted for heresy and condemned to death by the Ecclesiastical Council at Sens in 1141:

“

I do not want to be a philosopher if it is necessary to deny Paul. I do not want to be Aristotle if it is necessary to be separated from Christ

It’s worth spending a lot of time figuring out what to work on.

Finding our life’s work usually takes a few years of tinkering. However, it requires patience and the humility to accept the ambiguity that comes with tinkering. 

We’re better served by figuring out what we should work on, especially if you’re someone who could easily have alternatives. When your direction is right, you can go from being good to being great by grinding and putting in the hours, but if your direction is off, no amount of time and effort will yield any meaningful results.


As opposed to what I believed a few years ago, I've come to realize that genuinely good ideas are not abundant. 

The most exceptional ideas often seem so simple, making you question why no one has pursued them. Seemingly straightforward ideas are frequently overlooked due to their apparent simplicity. 

The reason why good ideas are limited in supply is that most good ideas are only good ideas in retrospect. They require a significant amount of work to become good ideas, so we have an intuitive sense of their complexity at scale. 

There are a lot of ideas that were good on paper and turned out to be bad ideas and the same is the other way around. Airbnb is a popular example of an idea that is good, but only in retrospect. In 2008, the idea of having strangers sleep under the same roof as your kids did not seem like a good idea. It took a lot of work to make that idea a good idea - because the founders had a strange belief in the idea and singlemindedly pursued it, even when it seemed crazy. 

Embrace your strange and unique interests—strange is good. Strange tastes often mean you're really on to something, and that passion will make you super productive. Look where not many people look, and you're likely to discover new things. 

When you discover new things, do not water your excitement down because you’re worried about what other people will think, or how it makes you look. Anytime you think of something that seems simple but hasn’t been pursued, you should pay attention. 

At the very worst, you’ll learn more about why it hasn’t been pursued. At best, you have the seed of a massively successful endeavor.

The most scarce resource in our generation is the capacity for independent thinking. The easiest way to differentiate yourself in any field of endeavor is to be someone who attempts to think independently. 

There’s a triple reason why this is important: first, thought is synonymous with moral personhood. You’re unable to fully unlock who you could be as a human being without independent thought. You will remain an average of the overall net intelligence of the group. 

The fact that there’s only a few people thinking independently means that you’ll have very few competitors for scarce resources and attention. 

Finally, independent thought is an intrinsic source of meaning: it carves out a space for continuous self-refinement, allowing you to evolve as your thoughts evolve. It is not merely a means to an end but a journey that inherently enriches your human experience.

Every year, I engage in a reflective exercise, writing an annual review that I share with intimate friends and mentors. In the process of preparing this year's review, I reflected on the significant life lessons I've learned and decided to compile a different list to share publicly. 

Although many of these themes have been integral to my life for several years, my conviction in them deepened through firsthand experience this year. Everything here is easier to do when you’re young and are on a trajectory of some sort. But much of it applies to anyone.


First, it offers a man a thing to see what he is really like. If he gives it back, then it gives him more. If he clings to it, it takes it away.

Self-belief is the most powerful overlooked weapon for value creation. It is directly proportional to your capacity for independent thinking and vice versa.

Growing up in Calabar, I thought very highly of those who went to school at the best universities in the world and wanted to be like them.

When I began traveling across the world as a teenager, spending time with students across the world, I remember feeling disappointed by how little self-belief some of them seemed to have. Now I think I understand it.

Developing self-belief after experiencing success can be challenging if not cultivated from the outset. Throughout this year, there were several moments where my self-belief suffered, and my past achievements failed to provide solace. The insight shared in the last point of this article, however, proved to be my saving grace.

We’ll achieve greater things as a collective if we enable more competent people to develop self-belief. Your sense of self-belief gets stronger over time as you make decisions that prove you right (or wrong), so it’s important to start developing this as early as you can. 

However, self-belief does not replace competence when it comes to creating value. Incompetent self-belief is foolhardiness. So, competence is critical. The point here is that you may not actualize the maximum gifts of your potential if your competence is not matched with sufficient self-belief.

It is important to identify what aligns well with your strengths. Achieving this through self-reflection alone can be challenging. Ideally, seek input from mentors or friends you trust who can provide insights into your areas of strength. 

The environment and the people you surround yourself with profoundly impact the development of your strengths. It’s important to be around those who have a keen sense of the future. 

Being in the company of such people who not only entertain wild and improbable plans but also exude optimism can be a game-changer. They see possibilities where others see roadblocks, and that mindset can be infectious. 

I struggle to think of a better way to identify and hone your strengths than by associating with people who have a high idea flux, and most importantly, aren't overly concerned about what others think.

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