NeNe SoUL diVA was on HoLyHolla recently..

Post by HolyHolla.

so Arthur and I (hosts of your favorite morning show HolyHolla) got the chance to interview the very talented Nene Soul Diva on our show and it was a very inspiring session. In this interview she talks about Her near death experience Dying and the impact of that experience on her life and ministry. I hope you enjoy it like we did and more importantly that you learn from it.

Listen and let me know your thoughts in the comment box below.

- @gozzim

#bEiNspiReD- hOw UbER bUiLt a MuLti BillioN dOLLAr bUsiNess in 5yrs

Founded in 2009, Uber is a ride sharing service with Head Quarters in San Francisco. The company was founded by Travis Kalanick & Garette Camp and is now worth about $18.2B after its last round of funding.

In just 5years, the company has positioned itself strategically to serve the world. Uber is what you call a text book case Disruptor. Not just in terms of the generation of founders and users involved by with respect to the amount of protests around the world thier business has sparked. You know you are a disruptor when traditional communities begin to kick against your business activities. 

Taxi Drivers in Germany, France and England have staged fierce protests against Uber because they claim the company uses unfair business practices and endanger the lives of its customers. How? i wonder, but for the unfair business practices i totally get that since Uber with its technology and service spares us the exorbitant prices from traditional cabbies.

The company  initially founded as Ubercabs, uses an iOS & Android based application to connect customers with potential pre-certified drivers and cars. The App was launched a year after and the company and has since raised capital in a series of funding deals with angel investors totaling about $11B.

Uber has faced regulatory opposition so far from Belgium, canada, Australia, Germany, India, Philippines and the United Kingdom, and the general bones of contention for them has always had to do with the disadvantage the service puts on Local taxi operators. In this brief piece i would like to share 10 things you didn’t know about Uber:

1. Uber has a 3 employee per city policy it operates in meaning that if for example it operates in 6 Nigerian cities, it has 18 employees. ( Lesson: Keep your overheads down)

2. Uber was founded by a college dropout Travis Kalanick & ‘StumbleUpon’ founder Garrett Camp. ( Lesson: a Degree can be a self imposed limitation or a key to a bigger picture)

3. Uber rates its users which is weird considering that customer care is usually the other way round.

( Lesson: may be you don’t need ever client, some customers will destroy your business if you let them)

4. Uber offers free rides and heavy discounts for new and existing customers.

(Lesson: Everybody likes freebies, it builds product loyalty)

5. All über drivers get new iPhones

6. Uber has a no cash policy (Lesson: Plug potential financial leaks especially if you are in a mass market business)

7. Every time you patronize Uber you send money out of the country 

8. Uber doesn’t own any cars, it serves more as a broker ( Lesson: why buy it when you can borrow it and make money off of it?)

9. You will never find Uber branding on the UberBlack cars ( Lesson: most customers appreciate secrecy and discretion)

10. Drivers get paid seven days after you have taken your trip after the money has been re routed through an Uber bank account in Amsterdam, then to the US at Wells Fargo.

Overall i think there are global smart business practices to learn from this company. The first step to building a global brand is to have a great and grand idea first then through a process of 'Glocalization' adapting your great idea to local communities you have to operate in.  I hope you get to work on that fabulous idea and remember that the best time to start that business is now.

- @gozzim

sources: wikipedia, IndiaTimes

#diARyofaGoOgleDad- #2 (The Welcome!)

This is my third attempt at writing a second installment. I did try to write last on a flight back to Lagos last week but there were just too many distractions. 

So in my previous post i mentioned that you could never be fully prepared for bringing a child into the world not even if you had all the money in the world saved. I recall a conversation i had with IK sometime last year in his car about children, paying, school fees and bills, and how much sense it made to start saving in anticipation of having babies after marriage. That conversation would have made much more sense sense if Nigeria were not so much a peculiar country.

So here we were after 9months of adapting to the psychological and physical changes my wife was experiencing we were almost there. Between visits to a very outspoken Indian Gynecologist and an Elderly Mischievous Nigerian Gynecologist, my wife had no short supply of physical observations to tender, chief of which were her weakening pelvic bones (we had since found out from the internet that it was totally normal). we eventually made it to the 24th of June, at which point my wife was a little over 9months. We had developed a private joke where i called her a 'kidnapper' for holding my son hostage in the oven and not letting him out...lol. 

So that morning we visited the Doctor to get a final verdict, this was only after we had been earlier advised to wait 2weeks for the process to begin naturally. There was still no sign, no broken water, nothing. I was beginning to get worried so while at the Drs. i flipped out my phone and clicked on the HealthTap app on my iPhone to double check some of the medical mumbo jumbo this Dr. was 'spewing'. After that day's consultation we were advised to go get her stuff (which we had already been driving around with for months) and come back later in the evening for her labour to be induced. Little did i know this was me being ushered into a new realm of fear and uncertainty i had never ever experienced.

Don't get me wrong, over the years i seem to have developed a thick skin, call it intentional stubbornness, the things that tend to terrify people hardly ever makes a dent in my Armour of courage but mehn i had no idea. So that evening we went back to the hospital and i felt like my anxiety switch had been flipped on prematurely. 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm nothing then shortly after the nurses walked in and put in some lines and then more waiting till late at night. 

At about 2am i was called that it was time and my wife had to be wheeled to the delivery room so we went down the elevator, I changed into a surgical robe and went in then the mathematical Drs and their crude Dilation calculation techniques came in..lol (wasn't particularly easy for me to watch them measure..). I had seen too many women freak out during labour in movies, and husbands pass out, ever so brave i refused to be any of those men but deep down i had died maybe like 432 times already..lol. That morning of the 25th of June was the day i realized how strong my wife was. I knew she was hard, being a former karate student but this was different. In the next delivery room a woman also in labour constantly screamed and made prophetic declarations to her unborn child to come out, my wife was almost calm ..well she was every 3mins after each contraction but all through it was more moans than screams. I began to worry that the other screaming woman would transmit fear to my wife through the walls. 

My wife had one basic rule in that delivery room. DON'T TOUCH ME! (especially during contractions). 2 of the 3 doctors who checked up on her learned that rule the hard way. I went in to that room initially half expecting to be yelled at and insulted by her during the pain, but na lie o she was even too happy to see me there through the pain when she could actually see...lol.

So for over 14hrs my wife remained in Labour, and i was up by her side all through it all, i was pretty much emotionally destroyed by the 10th hour. For someone like me who had witnessed the gore of spilled brain matter and intestines after cult clashes as a student, i thought that maybe prepared me for this but i was so wrong. After prolonged labour the lead doctor made a decision for a Cesarean to be done at that point i just wanted my Wife and Child out of this situation alive. My wife was immediately wheeled into the theatre  and the medical personnel fearing that i couldn't stand the procedure refused to let me in.

Unfortunately for them i was too emotionally vested to not have eyes on them, so once i observed they were all in the Theater I found a vantage position between one of the doors and began to peek through partly 'cos i was very paranoid and refused to give room for any negligence from them. That was the first part of this ordeal.. 

in my next post i will detail how God saved us from a certain negligent maniac in the theatre and how i found the strength to stay on the Pediatrician after my son was brought out. 

I hope you keep reading and the most important lesson of this post is:

"Never leave anything to chance, during Pregnancy/childbirth. Research everything you hear from the Drs. and know the whys and the Hows and Women ensure you have a loved one around through all this cos as i learned, these Drs. will cover for each other and the hospital to the detriment of the patient. 

I would like to know your thoughts on this post in the comments box below. Thank you for reading.

- @gozzim

#diARyofaGoOgleDad- #1 (meEt NiGeL)

Its been exactly 4months & 12 days since I became a dad for the first time (its also kind of hard for me to to imagine what life was before this little emperor arrived, like how did we survive without him?) and since then i have contemplated if writing about my experiences as a first time dad is even a wise  and safe choice. 

For a while my wife and i decided she would do the writing about our experiences but for some reason i guess she has had her hands full. My interest in writing about these experiences is not just because ours is a peculiar case of parenthood, but that it occurred to us that we are in a culture that provides support from Family members and parents after child birth, but in our case we have had almost no elderly support or 'Omugwo' as people from the Eastern parts of Nigeria call it, why? Both our biological moms are late.

My wife Dammz & the Emperor of the Daniels' Dynasty

The little we know about the right things to do in caring for a new born has been through Google, YouTube, friends and the few experienced & elderly people around us, Hence the title of this series.

This journey started late last year when my humble self scored... well the news of a baby in the human oven didn't seem so overwhelming for me like some said it would, since in my mind i had prepped even before marriage, but you see sometimes its not about your plans but about what God's big picture for your life is. 

I knew our lives and routines were about to change forever, my wife had to stay away from Caffeinated drinks (Coke & co ...lol), I had to drive her to and from work everyday which wasn't a bad experience fast forward 8months and hundreds of Google searches and Dr. Appointments later we had to start driving around town with several bags in the trunk. I have to hand it to my wife at this point, that is one very strong woman. All through the pregnancy, she never fell ill once, save for the gradual softening of her bones and the kicks she had to endure. That whole 9month experience opened me up to a new level of deep respect for women. 

I haven't said anything here some don't already know but the things i will reveal in subsequent posts under the same title about our experiences might help some upcoming parents better prepare for such a time. That said please understand that you can never ever be fully prepared for this life changing experience no matter how hard you try its okay to just do your best, attend your appointments, take the necessary drugs and precautions (for women) and hope and pray for the best. In my next post i will share some details of how i watched my wife for 13hours in labor and how God protected us from the negligence of some people. till next time let me know your thoughts in the comment box below.

- @gozzim

tHe nEw pLan

I haven't had the chance to put in a new posts for some time now, the fact that i am not super human means i can't handle all the business that comes to me and stay consistent sometimes.. lol 

So i have come up with a plan to keep my posts consistent every week. Hence forth i will be blogging under the following categories/tags every week:

1. #dOiT - motivational posts that call for action.

2. #bEiNspiRed - inspirations stories about successful individuals who came from nothing.

3. #diAryofaGoogleDAddy - my challenges and experiences as a first time dad learning to deal with developmental situations of my son.

4. #BigScreenBuff - my interest in the big screens, happenings would come alive here..

5. I will also have generals posts and #podcasts from my Sunday morning radio show with Arthur on Rhythm93.7fm (Lagos), and random creative videos that catch my eye, and political and social commentary.

I do hope you find this personal experiences and posts interesting enough to share and keep coming back. Have a fantastic weekend.

- @gozzim