2020: The Year I Hit Refresh.
Honestly, I was feeling too lazy to write a year in review but then again it occurred to me that I haven’t really written anything this year aside from my weekly journals which I didn’t publish because it’s personal.
Losing my dad to cancer on November 20th of 2019 really hit me hard. I wished I was there by his bedside when it happened, I wished I had spent more time with him in his final days or maybe if I became a doctor like he wanted me to, I would have saved him. All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind.
I bottled all the pain into this year, pretending to be fine but even hard guy dey hide cry sometime. 2 months later, and I was still struggling to be productive at work. I really needed to clear my head and luckily it was time for the annual SMW Lagos so I felt it would be great to kill two birds with one stone.
Attending an event as SMW, filled with a lot of creatives, for a week, brought my mojo back. Connected with old friends and new acquaintances.
I resumed work with the right energy and a few weeks later, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, and lockdown happened. We had to start working from home. Before then, I was already writing less code at work as a Sofware Engineer and doing more Business Analyst related things. Working from home gave me enough time to reflect and reevaluate what I wanted. Though writing code was great, I wanted more; I want to be in the room where business decisions are being made so I enrolled in Nexford University(NXU) to get a business degree.
Although this new direction made me drop a lot of things I was working, it actually the best decision I made this year.
Aside from getting into NXU, another highlight for me was taking out time to finish some of my pending courses on Coursera, Linkedin, etc.
I also joined a book club called Book Hangout and read 24 books:
- Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- The 5 love languages by Gary Chapman
- The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
- Power Moves by Adam Grants
- Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
- How to be everything by Emile Wapnick
- Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
- Getting to Yes by William Ury
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
- The Path Made Clear by Oprah Winfrey
- Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
- Get some headspace by Andy Puddiecombe
- Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor E. FrankL
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Seriously… I’m Kidding by Ellen Degeneres
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel
- Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop
- Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella
- The Monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
- Clueless To Designer by Mitchelle Chibundu
- Quiet by Susan Cain
Other highlights worth mentioning:
- I joined the Market Intelligence Network run by Venture Garden Group.
- I led the AI6 Lagos media team and we launched its newsletter called The Encoder. So far 7 issues have gone out.
- I got an invite to watch my new favorite band The Cavemen perform live.
- The joy of seeing people in my circle winning.
- The #EndSARS protest that claimed a lot of lives, but we would never forget the people that died on 20-10-2020.
- The annual Dyna Cup by Project Candlelight which was a success and I like the direction it’s heading for the next year.
- Corona ruined Detty December but we had to improvise…
This year has been batshit crazy but I am grateful to God for making it this far.
Plans for 2021
- Drink more water and mind my business.
- Learn to live in the moment.
- Follow the kaizen philosophy.
- Explore product design.
Special thanks to my Uncle, Umar Damcida, for giving me a safe haven to grow as an individual.
The End…
