Your Kids Are Watching: How Your Business Habits Shape Their Future

Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Before we begin, two things. I'm not in the audio booth, so expect to hear some interruptions in the background. And then second thing is the cold is still there. So this might be one of those sniffling episodes. Well, the good thing is I'm not high on what's it called period thing this morning just to glory to Dean instead. So hopefully in a couple of hours I should be OK. Then today I'm not going to be tackling any question per SE.

This one is more of a random thoughts episode. But before I get into it, let me just share a couple of stuff with you guys because my wife accuses me. She says I'm a nerd and I vehemently disagree. But still, let me just share with you guys what I have on the playlist. And yes, I'll leave it up to you guys to decide. So currently on Spotify, you know, while I'm working, I like to have music in the background. Yes, I know for those of you who have productivity geeks, you say music in the background while working equals zero.

You're not getting work done. And to a certain extent, yes, I'm going to agree because when music is on in the background, I do notice that tasks take a whole lot longer. But I've noticed that if I can have controlled distractions, at least I'm able to maintain the the pace for a longer stretch. So when I'll leave it up to, you know, you guys who are productivity hacks or maybe management specialists and, you know, stuff like that to carry on the debate.

But yeah, once in a while, I work with music in the background. So currently I'm listening to Serge Tankian. I'm not sure how to pronounce the name. For those of you who listen to that sort of music, hit me up. Let me know. And if you are late 70s, early 80s kid like I am in Nigeria, then you should be familiar with the group. Their System of a Down. One of my sisters think they are downright demonic, you know, because of the head thrashing,

the heavy metal guitar, what else, you know, makeup and all that sort of stuff. So surge tank. And that's what I'm listening to on Spotify. His band is System of a Down, but I'm listening to his solo stuff and some of his collaborations then on Netflix. If you guys want to check out what I am watching, I'm currently trying to finish Star Trek Star Trek Beyond. It's a what it was 'cause this is old now, was a reboot of the Star Trek series, although I

prefer the second one, which was Wrath of Khan, which was also based on the older television episodes of Star Trek. So that's what's currently on my playlist. So whether I'm in there or not, I'll leave it to you guys to decide. But then again, like I said, I vehemently object to that label because I just think I have fine taste. Let me just put it that way. Now straight to the episode for today, random thoughts. I had two business meetings today and coming back home just got me thinking OK, well one of them was a business meeting.

The other one was not really a business meeting was more personal when they coming back home and got me thinking about a bunch of stuff. Now the first meeting was supposed to be for 9:00 AM, but I was able to be there by 8:30 and so-called up the person like you know what's up was supposed to be 9 but it's 8:30 I'm in the neighbourhood so how far? And guys like yeah sure, let's get started and we did. Now the second meeting I told the person that I had some stuff to do in their neighbourhood for 9:00.

So anyhow, sure when that 9:00 finishes I'll hit you up. So, you know, she said OK, no, I'll like, I'll come through. But because I showed up at 8:30 and finished with the first guy at 9, I just drove to the second place and I'm like, hey Madam, sorry, meeting finished early, so I'm around. So what's up? She was like, yeah, sure, come up. So we came, had the meeting and summary by 10:00 AM. At the time of his recording, I

was back at my desk and ready to get some work. So I figured, so in those interactions, you know, a bunch of stuff got me thinking. I figured, let me just make a podcast episode about that. So one of them is this whole thing around the benefits of coming early or starting early. And the reason why I want to point this out is because, well, currently 56% of those of you who listen to this show are Nigerian. We still have 30 something percent of you who are Americans, but I don't know enough about what's it called?

What's this thing called? We are trying to figure out data. So I'm not I, I don't know if, you know, you guys are like American American citizens or you're just, you just happen to be Nigerians in diaspora. But either way, since more than half of us are Nigerians on the show, you know, we have this thing about African time, Nigerian time, you know, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I guess it's just one of those things, but still on the podcast, I've always advocated that as a professional salesperson and we should view ourselves as professional salesperson people.

We should not be late. I think it's unforgivable for a salesperson to be late because you're already beginning to set the impression that you're going to be sloppy about a bunch of stuff. And that is that is stuff that we we'll just make life difficult. Let me just put it that way. So let's go back to the wedding photography example, because that's where I started off my business experience as a wedding photographer. If the bride already thinks you're sloppy, then well, a day because you know, you do something she kind of expects you to be sloppy anyway.

And if there are legitimate concerns concerning delivery like that time when customs went on strike and I I couldn't get my albums through, you know, some of it will be like how much of it was really customs problem or how much of it was really down to the photographer. But because I always made it a point of call to be early and things like that, there are times when even when I've had legitimate business snafus like that, like people are willing to be forgiving because like, oh,

it's you, you know, that kind of thing. So there are benefits to coming early because it helps enhance your credibility with other people. They say that you're a correct guy or you're a correct girl and quite frankly helps you save time because you now get more done in a day. Because originally I was thinking that by 12 one I'll be back in the house and then it has I now have time to I get some stuff done before school work, but sign on school work.

I was called pick up and drop off school runs and well, because I was early, the other people were available or started early who are quite free to go about our day. And instead of getting back to my desk at 12 like I thought I was back at 10. And so I hope you guys can see that even though we are in a African time, Nigerian time culture, there are some benefits to starting on time. And so, of course, yes, you might catch the other people off guard, but sometimes the other people might be just as happy to, you know, get on with the agenda and get out of the way.

Because for the second lady, by the time I showed up, she was in the middle of some domestic stuff. So it actually turned out to be a good thing because like, OK, cool. So now we can get rid of this business conversation, sharp, sharp. And so I can spend the next, you know, however hours or whatever dealing with these domestic issues that I have to deal with. So it turned out to be a good thing. And then even if you're on time,

the other people are not on time, they're running late, things like that. For those of us who choose to do content marketing to promote our businesses, this is a good way to get content marketing done. And yes, this is the reason why sometimes I'm making the podcast episode and you guys hear cows in the backgrounds or chickens or whatever. It's because we're supposed to have a meeting. The person is not there yet. Rather than just sit down and do nothing and maybe drink Fanta or whatever, just go back to the car, make a podcast recording real quick, upload, and then go for the meeting.

And so you adopt this kind of mindset. You're going to be able to get a lot done. You don't have to be a podcaster. If you're somebody who is creating content like writing blog posts or stuff like that, then just whip out your phone and start clocking away and get things done. I strongly recommend everybody should have a Bluetooth keyboard. I know that. My advice is what's that word? It sounds like tech for tech sake, you know, like people see the keyboard are like, this is cool, but it's it's beyond cool.

Yeah. It makes you look cool. It makes you look sexy. It makes you look like Tony Stark. But really Bluetooth headphones you can call whenever you want to Bluetooth keyboard, you can type quickly. You don't have to do that thumb thing on your phone. So you guys think about it, Bluetooth headset, Bluetooth keyboard, basically you have a mobile office, you can work whenever or wherever. Just make sure you don't park next to a kitchen.

Sorry, I say kitchen to a chicken. So that the thing doesn't, you know, what do you think? What sounds do? They do chickens, they crow. So the thing doesn't crow in your ear. But As for cows, you, you can't avoid it. Abuja is all around by cows now. I mean, it doesn't matter where you go. Central area, there are cows, outskirts, there are cows, there are cows everywhere. So you can't avoid that one. You might be in the car trying to have a business conversation and then next thing cows like so you, you can't avoid that.

Hopefully you won't be on a Zoom call with someone in the international market because I can't imagine Americans, you know, listening and thinking like, what the hell is going on in that country? Like you're in Central District and you have cows just walking around. Yeah. So that's the first random thought. Their benefits are coming early, even though we are in an African time culture and in a Nigerian time culture. Now, the for the second meeting,

the lady that I had the meeting with, she's been in business much longer than I am. And of course, she's much older than I am because she has a bunch of kids. And our oldest has currently relocated and he's almost 30 years old. So there's quite a significant gap between us. So apart from business collaborations, you know, once in a while it's nice to talk family stuff and business stuff as well. Because most of my, most of my friends have kids around my age.

OK, well, apart from my brother who started when I was 25. So he's, his kids are teenagers right now, not big, big teenagers, you know, like small teenagers, you know, like 14/14/13, that kind of thing. Where was I? So in my conversation with her, I just remembered a bunch of things that I spoke about in an older episode, the podcast episode that I made about social capital. Now, social capital, hard to define, but in my own opinion,

do I like to define in social capital just the experiences, the sum total of experiences that people are exposed to in a domestic environment. And then that informs children's worldview and things like that. It's something I can relate to because, well, we should all be able to relate to because sometimes the difference between, OK, let me keep it in my family, the difference between me and some of my cousins, because there are some of my cousins who are a lot smarter, a lot ambitious, you know, stuff like that.

But due to circumstances of our birth, you know, we just had different social capital growing up. You know, I was raised by my parents in different part of the country, certain kind of income, certain kind of neighbourhood, you know, but a bunch of them, some of them raised in the village, things like that. So you can see how with different circumstances, with different social capital, you know, some of my cousins without turned out the whole lot different.

And I guess that is some of what Warren Buffett means when he says that for him, it's all luck because he won the genetic lottery being born in America at a time when he was born to those parents that he was born to, you know, stuff like that. So you can see that it's difficult to divine. Sorry, not divine to what's that word define. Yeah. So difficult to define, but it's the sum total of all these experiences. And in the older episode that I

made on social capital, basically I was saying that one of the reasons why we should all get involved in businesses is because we are enriching our children with social capital. We're informing their worldview, and we're helping them learn how to face the world. And that's because, but it's time. Me and Madame were done with business conversations. We started talking about our kids. And I've learned last week that my son, my son is into origami.

That's the Japanese art of Japanese art, of how I put it, paper art, basically. So he's making all this paper stuff, you know, those of us seventies, 80s, kids, all those things that we used to do. OK, well, we all used to make paper planes and then paper guns. We didn't do the fancy stuff because you can do all kinds of things. You can make frogs, you can make Swans, excuse me? You can make balls, paper balls, you can make Dragons, you can make all kinds of things.

So that sort of stuff. I mean, you young kids nowadays, you will know nothing about that because everything is digital for you guys. So you guys don't really play with wood and paper and sticks and stones like we used to. So my son is into origami and I just found out last week that he actually is selling some of his stuff in school. And it made me, it made me really proud. I've been waiting and looking for an inroad to have some of those conversations.

The first time we spoke about stuff, he was talking about lemonade stands. And, you know, I had to bring it back now to look. There's just some Nickelodeon BS as in it's not going to work in this environment. Like it can't work, but you know, whether sanitary conditions, blah, blah, blah, it's probably not a good business to get involved in. And so after after a while, I was wondering, like, did I do the right thing? Like, should I have shot him down?

Should I have said, oh, yeah, lemonade stand. Good idea. This is how we executed. Where are you going to sell? Is he going to be in school? Let's run this thing. Let's see how we can you can whether this thing can pop off or not. And I started feeling really bad and regretting that I had that conversation with him. But then now he has started this thing or selling origami. And you know, I'm glad that he's throwing his, throwing his head back in the game and, and he's taking, he's taking a shot at it.

And it made me really, really proud. And of course it's OK. I was going to say it's obvious. Maybe it's not obvious. But I think it's also a contributing factor that my son is watching because not only is my son watching me do what it is that I do when I, when we talk, I tell him stuff, you know, about my, my father, that's, you know, his, his granddad who is late at the moment. So, you know, we talk and I tell him to, oh, you know, your grandfather used to sell cement.

Grandfather used to do this. Grandfather used to run this, used to run this, this one worked, this one didn't work. This is why blah, blah, blah, you know, all these sorts of things. So my, my son is around. He's seeing me, the things I'm trying to run once in a while, he sees some of my friends. And then we have whenever I'm done with the client, I have the conversation with him, like, OK, yeah, so spoken with the client.

This is the client's business. And he's like, oh really? So people can't make money doing this? People can't make money doing that when I grow up around to make money. So with all these conversations, I think the young man is learning quite a bit. And so. Excuse me. So I guess it's not surprising that he has started trying. He's now currently selling origami to his classmates and I am keeping the the proceeds. This school has this thing where they they give out vouchers like virtual money.

Now people are able to cash at the end of the term. So he's collecting the vouchers and he's going to be able to cash it out at the end of the term. So I'm keeping the vouchers and I'm watching everything stack up and I'm real proud. And I'd be more happy because it's going to be two lessons in one because my guy, my son is going to learn about business when they learn about selling, meeting the market need. And he's also going to learn something because, you know, now that we're moving through this whole thing of Web 3 and blah,

blah, blah, you know, things being tokenized and things like that. He's also going to, I think it's going to be a good introduction for us having that conversation into Web 3 and tokenization because what he is selling the origami for is not money, but can be converted into money, you know, into something else. So that would also be sorry, excuse me, good conversations for the future. You know what NFTS where people talking nice things over the web.

You know, what is all that about conversion, convertibility issues, you know, naira to dollar, all these sorts of things. So room for good conversations there. So all these basically is I think it's a good reason to get involved in business because you can see that the social capital that is going on between me and my son. So it doesn't matter whether the thing works or it doesn't work. You know, like for my father, you know, none of the enterprises really took off the cement thing that the cement thing not want to have promise,

it had real promise. But because my father was a civil servant, it's unethical for civil servants in Nigeria to have a business outside anyway. So he have family members running and you know, some of you listening to the show now as far like, you know, like your father had a business. He tried to involve some uncles and cousins and things like that. And so we know how it all goes, even though they make well, funny enough, my wife also has that kind of experience to like our father also had a bunch of stuff and he wanted to help the community, help the family.

So, you know, I set up this business, you know, uncle, this come around, this cousin, this come around, this, sister this come around that and all these things in there. Well, but anyway, that's podcast episode for another day. But I'm not trying to say that my father does a bunch of stuff. Social capital transfers to me. I run a bunch of things social capital transfers to my kids. So you can see now how deliberately small by small, you know, the the what's that word?

I don't use destiny. Destiny is too is too big. The trajectory of of a family can be changed. So social capital, big things take advantage of it. So yeah, the reason why that came up actually is because like I said, this lady, her kids are much older. The 30 year old has already left the house, but the baby of the house is still there. She's a teenager, like proper teenager. And you know, while I was there, there were dogs all over the place.

I don't like dogs because I was attacked as a child. And yeah, it turns out that it's her daughter who has all the dogs because what she's doing is she's raising, what would I call them? I don't know the terms, you know, exotic. She's raising exotic breeds of dogs and she's selling them. So one of the, you know, the small ones that are hairy and fluffy, not Chihuahuas because they're bigger than Chihuahuas, but I don't know what they're called.

But they have hair, Sha, when you have a dog and it just looks like a white Afro running around. So the dog has gotten a bunch of children. What do you call dog children? The dog has pups. Yeah. So there are lots of pups running around the house. So those dogs everywhere. And that's the thing that her daughter is doing for business. And I'm like, Madam, like, this is correct. And this is a good hustle. And she's like, of course, now,

you know, when they were small, following me to trade show. Follow me here. Follow me here, that we've seen what it is that I've been doing. So everybody's running their own thing. So the 30 year old is abroad is running his own thing, the middle child abroad running his own thing. Daughter here in Niger has started her own thing. And that is really, really good experience because breeding dogs is not Manny's work, any kind of animal husbandry's work.

Veterinarian, you need to make sure that the animals are healthy. Of course, if you go to the vet now is not is not free. So the girl is having to pay from her own pocket veterinary costs. She's having to pay from her own pocket food costs, She's having to clean up after these things. And then she also has to do inventory management because, you know, sometimes these things are fashionable. Like there's a time when Bulldogs used to rain.

Everybody wanted to buy Bulldogs. Bulldogs mixed with what are they called when you take a bulldog and then you mix it with something. OK, Remember what all those breeds are called. So those time when I was always raining in Nigeria. So you also need to learn inventory management because if you're breeding the small furry things where everybody's trying to buy our station Smith mixed with pitbulls and all whatnot, then you're on a long team because you're holding inventory that nobody wants to buy.

So this teenager is learning a lot right now. And for those of you who we've been talking to one-on-one, because I've spoken to a bunch of you university people, NYC people still at home on C and there's one guy that I had to kind of school because he moved out of the house. And I'm like, what are you moving out for? Independence is overrated. Trust me, independence is overrated. Right now you're staying in Popsy's house.

You're staying in moms. He sells. OK, So they want you to come in by 8:00 every day. I understand it's, it's rough, but the fact is not rough. 8:00 is reasonable. Let's let's not be idiots about this. The popsy says be home by 8. It's reasonable because let's face it, once in a while, if you're home 8 every day, whenever Friday, you know, you disappear, you come back 11 worst case scenario, you know, Popsy, who born and he was strong face wasn't as if he's going to beat you and he's not going to kick you out of the house.

So I think 8:00 is reasonable. So this whole thing of you want independence, you want to be your own man. You want to this that that that that you want to be your own woman. You're tired of people stressing you, you know, just stay in the house. There are advantages staying in the house. You don't have to worry about your own feeding. I don't think popsy and Mumsy, if you're raising dogs like my friend's daughter is, they might not pay for the food for the dogs.

They might be like, look, that's your own business. I don't want shit on the floor in the house. I want to be able to sleep without noise. Don't disturb me. Just do your business. You can use this room or you can use the back of the house, whatever. So the advantages for those of you who are still teenagers, don't do this. I want to be my whole man my my own man thing. Just stay at home. First, just stay in the house.

You don't have to worry about food. Transportation is your own most likely, but at least you don't have to worry about food. You don't have to worry about rent. This is the time to start running your thing. So for those of you who say you want to do copywriting, business, blah blah blah and all whatnot, yes, pop season argue every day. It's annoying, I understand. But stay in the house now continue to crash on the floor or whatever.

But The thing is at least you are not paying house rent and at least you're not paying for food because how mumsy cook and because this Nigeria mumsy won't cook. Mumsy can cook and they say you should go and pay. You know, I understand that in the UK and in some parts of America, you know, they're hush like that. Like one more time has reached, you know, you're 18 years old, It's time to start paying room on board, you know, pay for food, contribute for this,

contribute for that. But Nigeria is one of the benefits that we have of being in Nigeria and we haven't reached that level yet. So stay at home and take advantage of these sorts of things. Anyway, bottom line, for those of you who are thinking should I start a business? Should I not start a business? This is one of the reasons social capital, The children are watching, your sons are watching, your daughters are watching.

And when they watch, it looks doable, it's not so scary and they will start somewhere and you'll be around to guide them and say, Oh my daughter, this your dog bearing business. Remember when I was small and I used to do this one, I used to do this one and I used to go for this trade fair. And that trade fair, there's something that we call inventory management. This is how you do it. You do it like this, you do it like that, you do market research, blah, blah, blah.

Just like the conversations that me and my son are going to have. So social capital really good. Both of our children are learning lessons about selling. In fact, that's the one that really suits me the most because my son, well, he's been always good at talking to people anyway. So he's going out, he's talking to people, random people, different classes, two classes above. OK, he doesn't sell to the juniors, so he's his classmate.

And then people above. Let's see what else learning how to meet marketing demands like my friend whose daughter like this lady or let me just say acquaintance. She's not only my friend. Besides she's older than me. So we can't be friends. So this lady hope we do some business together. Whose son is learning. Sorry, whose daughter is selling the dogs? Then I guess The funny thing is by our kids trying to run this hustle that they're running,

they actually are becoming very, very good at socializing. And they are becoming better at socializing than other kids. So fancy that the children take a liking to business and it helps them be better adults in the future and it helps them be better kids for now because they can socialize a whole lot better than the other classmates who just bury their heads in tablets everyday. So that's it. This is another reason to start a business, social capital,

teach your kids about the world. Even if you don't say anything, by watching you, they're learning about the world and it'll give them confidence to face the future. So that's the end of my round of episode today. Connect me on WhatsApp, phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. If you're not Nigerian, also connect with me on WhatsApp, the name to look for establishing my IED. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link where you're listening to this episode.

So highlight, copy paste and LinkedIn. My handsome face will show up. And then they can connect with me on either of these avenues for insights, tips, questions. I mean, for those of you who reach out to say I listen to this, but I disagree. I love having those conversations with you guys. It also informs future updates and episodes that I have to that I make later on. And then, yeah, I think I'll share some more if you represent, share some more stuff, you know, stuff on my playlist.

So you guys decide. Let me know if you agree with my wife, whether I'm a nerd or not. But yeah. So while you're working, just put on some surge Tankian. That's TANKIAN. Or just check system of it down. Really good music there. But if your mumsy is born again, please do not play from speakers through the house. She will come out and say, what kind of demonic music is this Come out. Will you shut that thing off then? Star Trek.

Yeah. Star Trek Beyond or Star Trek, Wrath of Khan, both of them equally good movies and no nudity, no violence. So that'll be OK. Well, there's this scene where Captain Kirk kissed an alien who was green. So yeah, your mom sees born again. She might not like that. Like, what kind of rubbish is this? Committing fornication with an alien? Will you turn this thing off? So yeah, that's it for today. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.