Episode 3: Large Dreams
One of the lessons I learnt over time was to never stop dreaming big, never to stop pursuing the dream because I could actually get lucky. I remembered how the small dreams of eating 50 naira suya, answering a question in the quiz competition, passing my WAEC exams in one sitting, getting into a college….all came true and were even surpassed. How the medium dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer, making hundreds laugh, growing my Twitter followers, becoming a well known and respected spoken word poet in Nigeria, becoming a manager….all became a reality and were even beyond my imagination.
Scrapped Title
Now my new dream was to get international experience; I started exploring the option of transferring to IHS in another African country. I also applied for a data center program manager role at Microsoft Nigeria, at least I would be able to go to some African countries once in a while for work. This was a large dream for me because I had never even seen a data center, I did not have a second degree yet, I just did not really see it happening. Luckily, I got called for the first stage with the recruiter after few days of applying. I thought I was dreaming. I passed the first stage, and then the second stage with the hiring manager, and then the 3rd and 4th interview. I was already thinking about the post I’ll share on LinkedIn, I would title it “Your Dreams Are Valid”.
Then I got the email from Microsoft. My hands were shaking as I scrolled to read the message. The “unfortunately” in the email jumped straight at me and I was numb. I mourned for a few days but picked myself up and looked at the bright side that I actually got to the final stage of Microsoft. This was huge! Few days after, another recruiter reached out to me for a Project manager role at a big African data center company. I started to sense that something big was coming soon, so I was expectant.
Then a colleague of mine who also did not have a second degree got an interview with Amazon UK. I was shocked and at the same time motivated, and I started applying aggressively to roles in Amazon UK, Ireland, Luxembourg etc. However, there was this data center Program Manager role in Dublin that I loved. I applied and then in few weeks, I got a mail to schedule my first call. I said to myself that even if I didn’t get past that first stage, it was enough bragging right for me that I got shortlisted, imagine.
The Call
Then I went past that stage, and then had another one and then moved to the loop stage. I remember telling the interviewers that I needed few minutes to think about some of the questions and I would blast out in tongues (praying) in my mind. That’s one advantage I have as a believer! One week of waiting for the result after the interview was the longest one of my life. I thought to myself, “what if I actually get the job?” I did not want to think about it too much.
After one week, I got a call from the recruiter congratulating me and trying to explain the package to me. See, I did not hear a single thing she said. I asked her again to confirm that I got the job, and send me a mail with all the explanations. I dropped the call and was speechless. Shared the news with my loved ones and then went into negotiations. I got the offer to relocate me from Nigeria to Dublin, including my family — pay for our flight, file our permits, help ship our luggage…and so many other benefits. My mum asked me why Amazon is going through all this stress to employ me. I responded confidently “It’s you guys in Nigeria that do not know my worth” lol. Oh I forgot to mention that I was not just going to be managing programs in Africa, but also in Europe, America and the entire world. The funniest part of it all is that everything happened in Surulere. Indeed, don’t allow your locus affect your focus!
How Big is Big?
On my flight to Dublin, I remembered a verse in the Bible that had always been my anchor — Ephesians 3:20 — God is able to do exceeding abundantly above what you can ask or think, according to the power that is inside of you. So whatever you can think of (no matter how impossible it seems), God is able to do above that. I saw that play out in my life story. I remembered the story I read few weeks before then about how Zuckerberg in 2004 was pushing to sell Facebook to MySpace for a ridiculously ‘huge fee’ of $75M. Of course, MySpace felt it was too much. Then 1 year after, Zuckerberg wanted to do the unimaginable and sell Facebook to the same MySpace for $750M. Sure, that deal did not happen. Look at Facebook today, it’s worth over $500 billion. But think about it, Zuck selling it for $750m would have been seen as a “big dream come true”. Same with me, getting into Microsoft Nigeria to handle projects in the whole of Nigeria and some parts of west Africa would have made me seem like a very big dreamer.
Since I started working at AWS, I’ve started dreaming bigger again. I then came to the realization that your dreams are NOT valid. There’s room for you to dream bigger than you currently are. In fact, if your dream doesn’t scare the hell out of you, then you are most likely not dreaming big enough. Please have more audacious dreams; don’t just think about taking your entire family out of poverty, think about creating wealth for a continent. Don’t just think about getting that dream job, think about creating people’s dream job. Don’t just think about solving a problem for Nigeria, think about it scaling to every part of the world.
Who says your $75m dream cannot become a $750m, or maybe even a $500B dream? Who says your Nigerian Program Manager dream cannot become a global program manager dream? There’s no cost or risk to dreaming, so don’t stop dreaming. Dream bigger!
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