AN IDEA

Recently, When I tell people about my business and bedsheet designs, I often get the same set of questions as an answer. Those questions are " do you design clothes?" or "do you sell dresses?" Often I wonder why that is  but I'm beginning to think they might have a good reason to and it might not be a bad idea. Afterall an idea from my mum prompted my current business of bedsheet designing. You see, acting like a dedicated girlfriend, I saw the need for new sets of bed linings and duvet for my fiance and decided to make some for him, my mum saw the work and said in passing "you could make some of these and put in the furniture shop for sale. Being me however, I told myself that if I was going to be making bedsheets for sale, I'd have to do it in a never before seen way. My fiance then decided he loved the bed linings so much maybe he should change his curtains too and I should be the one to do it. And that is how kays fittings came to being. From bedsheet designing, I incorporated curtains, throwpillows, general interior decor and organising.

A friend of mine, a hardworking Nigerian I met while I was in India - Emma Ugolee always sends me some words of inspiration and he sent me something on Ideas I thought I should share with you. Hope you enjoy and appreciate it as much as I did.

Here it goes;

"Just last month, he was an averagely paid, common placed copy writer in one of the many advertising agencies in Lagos. This morning, he woke up a Landlord in his own house with a new car to his name. The new life was a reward that came to him for being the one who wrote the copy that used Saka, an Etisalat model to mark the telecoms porting exercise in "favor" of MTN. Yes! both MTN and his bosses had to jointly turn his life around for such a brilliant idea. His idea had become allegedly the countries most popular advert in the last 6 years since Udeme the great man of Guinness fame had arrested everyone's attention. 

Next to "FAITH" I think "IDEAS" is the most powerful 5-letter word in the world. Ideas are so powerful, they run the world (and not "girls" for the records). Once saw a message that read "there's is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come". Words soaked in undeniable truth. When hit by ideas for your life or others, you never know what transforming powers they hold even though they are just a thought. Never underrate your ideas. My consciousness for the phenomenon of ideas has led me through a path where unforgettable lessons lay. The strongest of them being: 

*An idea is only as good as its implementation, so hold your dreams tight but please start work now on the bridge that converts to reality.

*Great ideas are scarce. Millions of Millionaires chase ideas everyday, searching for the best ones to invest in. Interestingly, the resources (especially funds) for execution of ideas often lie with men who own the dumbest ideas while the brilliant ideas abound with the 'not so buoyant'. 

*If you do not hold your dreams tight, vultures lurk around with the plan to take flight with it. Make a hit of it with no credit to you. The same reason why names like Zeb Ejiro and Amaka Igwe are bigger names than Okechukwu Okejiofor and Kenneth Enebue who both conceived and wrote the 1st Nollywood movie (living in bondage). Made in the same Ibo language which is the only language today not used in making home videos, hence no Africa Magic Ibo.

*The most successful ideas will often arrive with unrecognized greatness. Most of them are even laughed at, at the onset. So the owners must be resilient in the beginning. I so remember my boss giving me a 12 midnight - 1 am time slot for my TV program idea to have the 1st all Nigerian top 10 music video countdown where we celebrated the directors. My boss tried so hard not to laugh at me to my face. (I ran it like that for 6 months). Today I dare say the music industry is the most developed in the Nigerian entertainment world & directors too are now millionaires. Imagine if I had the balls to build an empire from that foundation.

So please respect your ideas, work to make them real, ideas are a scarce commodity that many would exploit without credit to the source or originator, expect to be laughed at but stick to it and you would be glad you did.

GET INSPIRED

DEVELOP YOUR IDEAS!!!

Image - philipvickersfithian.com