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History, Heritage, and Art: Njideka Akunyili Crosby Creates the First Official Joint Portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama

VIctor Akinwale
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History, Heritage, and Art: Njideka Akunyili Crosby Creates the First Official Joint Portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama

On June 14, 2026, Barack and Michelle Obama stood before a 9-by-10-foot canvas and fell silent. What they were looking at was not just their portrait. It was their life.

The woman who painted it was Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based, and now the author of one of the most historic art commissions of the twenty-first century.

The painting, titled The Obamas: Springing Forth (2026), will be permanently installed in the Hope and Change Lobby of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, a public space that requires no ticket to enter. It is the first official portrait of the former president and first lady together, unveiled just days ahead of the public opening of the Center on Juneteenth (June 19).

For many, the moment was a celebration of the Obamas’ enduring legacy. For Nigerians and Africans watching from around the world, it was something more. A reminder that excellence knows no borders.

A Portrait That Tells a Story

Akunyili Crosby did not simply paint the Obamas. She built a world around them.

The starting point was a photograph she took of the couple herself. From there, she layered in decades of memory. Michelle Obama’s Chicago childhood home visible through the window, her father’s Buick parked out front. The Charles Alston bust of Martin Luther King Jr. that sat in the Oval Office. A photograph of the 1963 March on Washington. The four Grammys the couple won for narrating their memoirs. Okra and coral hibiscus woven through the composition. Faded photographs of the two of them, quiet and tender, tucked into the layers.

Every detail was chosen with intention. “I wanted to make these decisions that tapped into those memories,” she told the Obamas, “so when you saw this, it felt familiar.”

Even the way the figures sit was deliberate. Michelle is seated cross-legged just in front of Barack, who is perched on a desk, slightly angled toward her. Neither dominates the frame. “I was thinking of a composition that would not preference one over the other but to treat them equally,” Akunyili Crosby explained. “It’s like, ‘Yes, he was the president and she is this incredible, powerful, amazing, super-respected person.’ They are like, equal.”

When the Obamas saw it for the first time, Michelle pulled the artist into a hug. “Oh my god, you got everything. You know how long I’ve been waiting for this woman to do something with and for me? I mean, we did it!”

From Nigeria to the Global Stage

Long before her work hung in some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, Njideka Akunyili Crosby was a young girl growing up in Nigeria.

She is the daughter of the late Professor Dora Akunyili, the renowned pharmacist and public servant whose courageous leadership transformed Nigeria’s fight against counterfeit drugs. Growing up in that environment exposed Njideka to the values of discipline, integrity, and excellence. Yet her path would take her in a different direction.

She moved to the United States as a teenager in 1999, and her work has since reflected her hybrid cultural background and experiences. In her methodically layered compositions, she combines painted depictions of people, places, and subjects from her life with photographic transfers drawn from her personal image archive as well as Nigerian magazines and other media sources.

Rather than treating the distance between her two worlds as a gap to bridge, she turned it into her greatest creative resource.

She is a recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, and her work sits in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tate. Years of that kind of sustained excellence are what made the Obama commission possible. It did not arrive because of luck.

What Her Journey Reveals

Excellence travels. Akunyili Crosby did not become globally recognised by chasing visibility. She became recognised by dedicating herself to mastering a craft that was unmistakably her own.

Your identity is an asset. Much of her work draws from her Nigerian heritage and her experience navigating multiple cultures. Rather than distancing herself from her roots, she leaned into them and in doing so, transformed her personal story into a source of creative power.

Historic opportunities often follow quiet consistency. The unveiling of the Obama portrait may appear to be a defining moment, but it is really the outcome of many years of unseen work. Success is often less about one breakthrough and more about a thousand faithful steps taken before anyone is watching.

Representation matters. Every major achievement by an African on the global stage expands what others believe is possible. Akunyili Crosby’s commission is significant not only because of who she painted, but because of what her presence in that space represents.

A Brushstroke Beyond Art

At first glance, The Obamas: Springing Forth is a portrait. Look closer, and it becomes something more. A story about identity, memory, and the power of remaining true to one’s voice.

Akunyili Crosby has said the piece pushed her out of her comfort zone. That she did it anyway, and did it this well, is the real lesson. Her brush did not simply paint a portrait. It painted another chapter in the story of African excellence on the global stage.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons.

Passion is not a strategy, Grit is

Seun Tayo-Balogun
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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but here it is: anyone can start a business, but building a profitable one takes far more than just passion. Passion may spark the fire, but it’s the ability to deliver real value that keeps it burning.

You need competence to deliver value.

Competence is the foundation of every successful business. Without the knowledge, skill, and expertise to meet customer needs, your passion will remain just that, an idea, not a profitable reality. You need to understand your craft, the market, and the dynamics that drive your business forward.

You need discipline to stay consistent.

Discipline is the backbone of consistency. The road to success is long and often winding, and only those who are disciplined enough to stick to their plans, even when the thrill of passion fades, will see it through. Consistency, day in and day out, will compound and eventually lead to results that match your ambition.

You need ingenuity to manage your resources.

Ingenuity is your greatest asset when it comes to managing resources. In business, especially when starting out, you’ll often have limited resources. How you choose to use them, whether that’s time, money, or talent, will make or break your success. Creativity in solving problems and leveraging resources efficiently is what separates the sustainable businesses from the fleeting ones.

You need perseverance to stay the course.

Perseverance is required to weather the inevitable storms. There will be setbacks, challenges, and failures. But it’s not about avoiding failure, it’s about learning to rise each time you fall. The most successful entrepreneurs are those who can stay the course even when the going gets tough.

You need optimism to keep going forward.

Optimism is the fuel for your forward momentum. Without hope in the face of adversity, it’s easy to get stuck. Optimism allows you to focus on the possibilities, to find the silver lining, and to move forward with confidence, even when the future is uncertain.

You need courage in tough situations.

Courage is necessary in tough situations. There will be moments when the decisions you need to make are not easy, when risks seem overwhelming, or when you’re standing at the edge of the unknown. It takes courage to take those steps, to trust yourself, and to make the hard choices that shape the future of your business.

You need a growth mindset to keep learning.

A growth mindset is essential for continual improvement. The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who never stop learning, who are constantly seeking ways to innovate, improve, and evolve. Whether it’s through mentorship, books, or trial and error, the willingness to learn from every experience will keep you ahead of the curve.

In Essence, What You Need Is Entrepreneurial Grit

Entrepreneurial grit is the combination of competence, discipline, ingenuity, perseverance, optimism, courage, and a growth mindset that will allow you to turn your vision into a thriving business.

Passion might light the spark, but it’s grit that keeps the fire burning strong and ensures it turns into a profitable, lasting venture.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons.

From Frustration to Shopify: How Tobias Lütke Built a Platform That Transformed E-Commerce

VIctor Akinwale
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From Frustration to Shopify: How Tobias Lütke Built a Platform That Transformed E-Commerce

Many of the world’s most successful businesses did not begin with grand plans to change an industry. They started with a simple problem that someone was determined to solve.

That was the case for Tobias Lütke, the founder of Shopify.

Tobias Lütke was born in Koblenz, Germany, in 1981. His interest in technology began early. By the age of twelve, he was already writing code and experimenting with computer hardware.At seventeen, he made a decision that many would consider reckless: he dropped out of high school and entered a computer programming apprenticeship at Siemens.

In 2002, at twenty-two, he left Germany and relocated to Canada. He arrived without a university degree, without a local network, and without a clear path forward in a new country. What he had was the ability to build things that worked. That would turn out to be enough.

It was in Canada that he met Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand. The three shared a passion for snowboarding and in 2004, they launched an online snowboard store called Snowdevil. Like many first-time entrepreneurs, they believed they had found a promising opportunity. What they had not anticipated was how difficult it would be to actually sell online using the tools available at the time.

The e-commerce software of that era was expensive, inflexible, and built without the small business owner in mind. Every solution seemed to create a new problem. Most people in that position would have accepted the limitations and kept moving.

Tobias did something different. Drawing on his programming background, he built his own e-commerce software from scratch using Ruby on Rails, a framework he was already contributing to as a core team member. He completed it in two months. His goal was not to start a technology company. He simply wanted a better way to run his store.

The software worked. In fact, it worked so well that it pointed to something much bigger. As they continued refining the platform, it became obvious that the problem they had faced was not unique to them. Thousands of entrepreneurs were running into the same wall. Business owners everywhere needed a simpler, more practical way to sell online, and nothing on the market was giving it to them.

That realization changed everything. The team made a decision that was equal parts bold and uncertain. They stepped away from the snowboard business and turned their full attention to the platform they had built. In 2006, that platform launched publicly as Shopify.

Walking away from an existing business to chase a software product with no guaranteed market is not a comfortable decision. Tobias made it anyway, because he believed that solving a widespread problem was a bigger opportunity than selling snowboards ever would be.

In 2009, Shopify launched its App Store and API, opening the platform to third-party developers and transforming it from a selling tool into a full commerce ecosystem. Between 2010 and 2013, the company raised $92 million in venture capital and grew its merchant base to over 80,000 businesses. In 2015, Shopify went public at a valuation of $1.27 billion.

Today, the platform serves millions of merchants across more than 175 countries, powering businesses of every size, from first-time sellers to globally recognised brands. Behind the growth, the valuations, and the headlines is a story that began with a straightforward decision: instead of accepting a broken system, one person chose to fix it.

What to Learn from Tobias Lütke 

Tobias Lütke’s story shows that problems often hide opportunities. Instead of accepting the limits of existing e-commerce tools, he solved the problem himself, and that decision became the foundation of Shopify. It also shows the power of building real solutions, starting small, and thinking long term. What began as a simple snowboard store tool grew into a global platform because he was willing to pivot when he saw greater potential. His path also proves that you do not need a traditional background to build something impactful. What matters most is skill, initiative, and the willingness to act. In the end, lasting success comes from creating value for others.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons. 

Hamdi Ulukaya: The Immigrant Who Turned an Abandoned Factory Into a Billion-Dollar Brand

VIctor Akinwale
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Hamdi Ulukaya: The Immigrant Who Turned an Abandoned Factory Into a Billion-Dollar Brand

Meet Hamdi Ulukaya, the man who transformed a shut-down yogurt factory nobody wanted into one of the biggest food brands in America.

Today, millions of people know Chobani as one of the most popular yogurt brands in the United States. But behind that success story is a man who arrived in America with little money, barely speaking English, and no clear plan for how his life would turn out.

Hamdi Ulukaya was born in eastern Turkey to a Kurdish family of nomadic sheep farmers. Growing up, life was simple and connected to nature. His family raised animals, made cheese, and prepared yogurt the traditional way. Food was not business to them; it was culture, survival, and family. As a young man, Hamdi attended university in Turkey during a politically difficult period. He spoke openly about issues affecting the Kurdish community, and eventually decided to leave the country.

In 1994, he moved to the United States.

Starting over in a new country was not easy. He struggled with the language and had to adapt to a completely different environment. Like many immigrants, he had no powerful connections or financial safety net waiting for him.

At first, he focused on something familiar: dairy products. He began importing feta cheese made from his family’s recipes. It was a small business, but it kept him connected to the world he understood best.

Then came the opportunity that changed everything. In 2005, Hamdi received a random flyer advertising a shut-down yogurt factory in upstate New York. The factory had been abandoned by Kraft Foods and was sitting empty. Most people would have ignored it, but Hamdi drove there to see the building for himself.

The place was in terrible condition. Machines were broken, dust covered the floors, and even his lawyer advised him not to buy it. Still, Hamdi could not stop thinking about it. He believed yogurt in America could be made differently. The yogurt he grew up eating was thick, rich, and natural, and he felt there was room for something better on grocery shelves.

So despite the risks, he secured an $800,000 loan and bought the abandoned factory. At the beginning, things were extremely difficult. The company was small, and one of the first tasks for the team was simply cleaning and repainting the building. Hamdi spent months working on the recipe before launching the product because he wanted to create yogurt that tasted authentic and stood out from everything else on the shelves.

He called the company Chobani.

When Chobani launched in 2007, success did not happen overnight. The company started by selling to smaller grocery stores. Customers tried the yogurt, liked it, and began recommending it to others. Slowly, the brand grew through word of mouth.

Then demand exploded. Within a few years, Chobani became one of the fastest-growing food companies in America. By 2012, the company was making over a billion dollars in annual sales. But what truly made Hamdi Ulukaya stand out was how he treated people as the company grew.

As Chobani expanded, he began hiring refugees and immigrants who struggled to find work. Some could not speak English well, while others lacked transportation or opportunities. Instead of seeing problems, Hamdi saw potential.

He provided transportation, translators, training, and jobs. Many of those workers became some of the most dedicated employees in the company.

That experience later inspired him to launch the Tent Partnership for Refugees, an organisation that encourages major companies around the world to hire and support refugees as they rebuild their lives.

Then in 2016, he shocked the business world by giving shares in Chobani to employees. Not symbolic rewards, but real ownership in the company. Some employees received stakes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because Hamdi believed the people who helped build the company deserved to share in its success.

Over the years, he has also supported refugee causes globally and encouraged other businesses to hire displaced people and help them rebuild their lives.

What makes Hamdi Ulukaya’s journey inspiring is that he did not start with perfect conditions. He started as an immigrant trying to survive in a new country. He took a chance on a factory everyone else had given up on and built something extraordinary through patience, consistency, and belief.

His story is proof that opportunities do not always arrive looking impressive. Sometimes they look broken, risky, and impossible at first. But with courage and persistence, even an abandoned factory can become the foundation for something remarkable.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons.

Damilola Olokesusi: The Founder Behind Shuttlers Reimagining the Urban Commute

VIctor Akinwale
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Damilola Olokesusi: The Founder Behind Shuttlers Reimagining the Urban Commute

Every morning across Lagos, millions of professionals brace for the same ordeal. Not the work waiting at the office, but the journey to get there. The gridlocked bridges, the danfo buses stuffed past capacity, and the uncertainty of whether you will arrive at the office on time. For most people, this is simply the price of living in one of Africa’s most busiest cities. For Damilola Olokesusi, it became a problem worth solving. 

Olokesusi is the co-founder and CEO of Shuttlers, a technology-driven ride-sharing company reshaping how working professionals commute in metropolitan cities like Lagos. What started as a personal frustration with public transportation has grown into one of Nigeria’s most recognized mobility startups, one that has clocked over 3 million trips, expanded across Lagos and Abuja, and raised a combined $5.6 million in funding. 

Damilola grew up in Ibadan and studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Lagos, with hopes of working with energy giants like Shell or Mobil. Her exposure to entrepreneurship came during a lengthy university strike in 2009 while she was studying at UNILAG. She used that period to learn new things and began to question so much happening around her, unconsciously looking for problems to solve.

After graduating, she worked as a trainee engineer at Marine Professionals Ltd. and as an intern at Pan Ocean Oil Corporation. She later interned at Asset and Resource Management Company (ARM) before joining the Global Shapers Community as Vice Curator of the Lagos hub. These experiences gave her a close look at how systems functioned in practice. The one that failed most visibly was public transportation in Lagos.

The decision to build Shuttlers did not come from a business plan. It came from fear. One of Damilola’s sisters boarded what appeared to be a regular commercial bus on her way to work, only to find herself in a “one-chance” vehicle, the term Lagosians use for buses operated by armed robbers using public transit as cover. The passengers were taken to another location, robbed, and held against their will.

That incident, combined with the daily grind of Lagos commuting, pushed her toward an idea she had been carrying. During her internship years, she noticed that large corporations ran dedicated staff buses for their employees. She kept asking herself why that same option was not available to smaller companies and everyday commuters. That question, sharpened by her sister’s ordeal, became the seed of Shuttlers. Her family pushed back hard. Her mother was convinced she was throwing away a hard-earned degree on the wrong bet in the wrong country. Damilola moved forward anyway.

Shuttlers was founded in 2015 alongside Damilola Quadry and Busola Majekodunmi. The three women put their savings together and officially launched in October 2016. There was no app in those early days. Customers booked rides through WhatsApp, email, and Slack, receiving route details and schedules through those same channels. One of their first corporate clients was Andela, which used the service to transport its staff across Lagos. It was enough proof that the model worked.

In 2019, Shuttlers launched a dedicated mobile app. Passengers could subscribe to a plan, book seats in advance, and track their bus in real time. The service ran on fixed pricing with no surge charges during rush hour or bad weather, making it a more predictable and affordable option than conventional ride-hailing. Not long after, the founding team began to change. Damilola Quadry had returned to the United States in 2016. Busola Majekodunmi later stepped back to concentrate on a nonprofit education venture. Damilola Olokesusi was the last co-founder standing.

She kept building. Commuters could book seats on fixed routes at prices between 60 and 80 percent lower than ride-hailing services, riding in air-conditioned buses with trackable arrival times. Each bus on the road displaced as many as 14 to 29 private cars, quietly cutting congestion and emissions across a city that carries more than its share of both.

In 2020, Damilola partnered with Ford Motor Company and the Global Water Challenge to launch She Moves Shuttles, an all-female shuttle service built around the safety concerns women face on Lagos roads daily. The initiative also turned commute time into learning time, connecting passengers with online courses and peer networks. More than 600 female professionals have benefited from it.

For its first five years, Shuttlers was entirely bootstrapped. By the time the company closed a $1.6 million seed round in November 2021, led by VestedWorld, it was already generating consistent revenue. That discipline carried into the next raise. In April 2023, Shuttlers secured a further $4 million Series A led by Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures, bringing total funding to $5.6 million. Between those two rounds, the fleet grew by 150 percent, route coverage expanded 25 times over, and daily passenger numbers rose by 280 percent.

Recognition followed the results. Damilola was named to the Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 list in the Technology category in 2019, received the Digital and Tech Award at the Women in Africa Contest in Morocco, and won the Best Idea Award at the Aso Villa Demo Day. In 2020, the UK government selected her for a technology exchange programme. Two years later, Vulog named her one of the Most Influential Women in Mobility globally. She also serves as UNCTAD’s eTrade for Women Advocate for Anglophone Africa.

What We Can Learn

Damilola’s story carries a thread that any founder can follow. She solved a problem she lived personally, started without perfect conditions, and built revenue before she built a pitch deck. She watched her co-founders leave and kept going. She endured family resistance, five years of bootstrapping, and the unpredictability of doing business in Nigeria without losing sight of what she was building. The lesson underneath all of it is straightforward: clarity about the problem, and the stubbornness to stay with it, will take you further than the best circumstances ever could.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering.

Lessons from Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

VIctor Akinwale
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Lessons from Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

If one personal finance book has shaped how millions of people think about money, it is this one. Robert Kiyosaki published Rich Dad Poor Dad in 1997, and it has never really left the conversation since. The premise is simple: Kiyosaki grew up with two father figures. His biological father, a highly educated government employee who struggled financially his whole life. And his best friend’s father, a man with little formal education who became one of the wealthiest people in Hawaii. Two dads. Two completely different philosophies about money. One book that forces you to ask which mindset you actually have.

Here are the core lessons that make this book worth reading, even decades after it was written.

1. Stop Working Only for Money

This is the foundation everything else is built on. Most people wake up, go to work, get paid, pay their bills, and repeat. Kiyosaki calls this the “rat race,” and his argument is that working harder inside that loop never breaks it. The rich, he says, don’t trade time for dollars indefinitely. They build systems and acquire assets that work on their behalf.

“The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.” – Robert Kiyosaki

This does not mean the wealthy never work hard. It means they direct their effort toward building income streams that do not require their constant presence. The shift is from being an employee in someone else’s system to building your own.

2. Financial Education Matters More Than Most People Think

You can graduate at the top of your class and still have no idea how a tax bracket works, what a liability is, or how to read a balance sheet. The lesson is not to distrust education. It is to recognize that formal education and financial education are almost entirely separate things, and most people only pursue one of them.

“Intelligence solves problems and produces money. Money without financial intelligence is money soon gone.” – Robert Kiyosaki

3. Learn the Difference Between an Asset and a Liability

Among all the lessons in the book, this is one of the easiest to use in real life and one of the easiest to misunderstand.

“An asset puts money in your pocket. A liability takes money out of your pocket.” – Robert Kiyosaki

Most people believe their house is an asset. Kiyosaki pushes back on this hard. If your home costs you money every month in mortgage payments, taxes, maintenance, and insurance, it is functioning as a liability regardless of what it might be worth someday. True assets generate income or appreciate reliably without draining your cash flow. The rich build portfolios of real assets. Everyone else accumulates liabilities while calling them assets.

4. Build Your Own Asset Column

This lesson is often misread as “start a company.” That is not exactly what Kiyosaki means. He is drawing a distinction between your profession and your actual financial business. Your job is what pays the bills today. Your business is the asset column you are quietly building on the side.

“The rich focus on their asset columns while everyone else focuses on their income statements.” – Robert Kiyosaki

The point is that most people pour every dollar they earn back into expenses and call themselves middle class. Building wealth requires keeping some of those dollars and deploying them into assets, even while holding down a regular job. Your day job funds your life. Your asset column funds your future.

5. Train Your Mind Before Chasing Wealth

All the financial principles in the world are worthless if the person reading them has not developed the mental discipline to act on them. The mind, he argues, is not just a tool for problem solving. It is the primary engine of wealth creation.

“The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind. If it is trained well, it can create enormous wealth in what seems to be an instant.” – Robert Kiyosaki

This connects directly to every other lesson in the book. Your ability to spot an opportunity, manage fear, push past cynicism, and stay focused long enough to see results all come down to the quality of your thinking. A trained financial mind sees what others walk past.

6. Keep it Simple

Kiyosaki references the KISS principle throughout the book. Keep It Simple, Stupid. When it comes to money, complexity is often the enemy. People overcomplicate their way into paralysis, convincing themselves they need more information, more time, more certainty before they act.

The simplest version of his financial framework is this: buy things that put money in your pocket, avoid things that take money out, and keep doing that consistently over time. That is it. The people who overthink it rarely get started. The people who understand the basic structure and act on it tend to build wealth steadily.

7. Create Opportunities Instead of Waiting for Them

Most people wait for opportunity to arrive. The financially educated create it. They see a deal where others see a dead end. They use knowledge, negotiation, and creativity to generate returns that do not show up in a savings account.

“Financial intelligence is simply having more options, figuring out ways to create opportunities or altering situations to work in your favor.” – Robert Kiyosaki

This lesson is the most aspirational in the book, and also the most demanding. It requires that you actually develop expertise, whether in real estate, equities, business, or something else. You cannot invent money without knowing something most other people do not.

8. Let Failure Teach You

Kiyosaki is not saying failure is fine or that you should chase it. The point is that the way a person responds to failure is what separates those who ultimately build wealth from those who never get there.

“Failure inspires winners. Failure defeats losers.” – Robert Kiyosaki

Winners take failure as information. They ask what went wrong, adjust, and try again with a better approach. Losers allow the fear of failure to stop them before they even start. The people who avoid losing at all costs also avoid winning. Risk cannot be removed from the equation of wealth building. It can only be managed by people who have trained themselves to handle it.

9. Master the Skills Behind Money

For anyone who wants to build a business or manage investments seriously, Kiyosaki lays out three management skills he considers non-negotiable.

The three are management of cash flow, management of systems, and management of people.

Cash flow management means knowing exactly where your money goes and making sure more is coming in than going out, at all times. System management means understanding the structures your business or investments operate within. People management means having the ability to lead, motivate, delegate, and build relationships with those who help you execute. Weak any one of those three and the whole thing eventually breaks down.

10. Work to Learn, Not Just to Earn

One of the more counterintuitive ideas Kiyosaki raises is that early in your career, the skills you build matter more than the salary you earn. He describes taking jobs specifically to acquire knowledge, sales ability, communication skills, and management experience, even when higher-paying options were available.

“Job security meant everything to my educated dad. Learning meant everything to my rich dad.” – Robert Kiyosaki

The argument is that a person with a wide base of skills and real-world knowledge will outperform a narrow specialist over a long enough timeline. Financial success, he suggests, requires the ability to sell, manage people, understand systems, and communicate ideas. Most schools teach none of these.

So, what’s the point?

Rich Dad Poor Dad challenges many of the ideas people grow up believing about money, work, and wealth. That mindset shift alone makes the book worth reading.

Get the book here.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons

Building Enduring Wealth: Lessons from Aliko Dangote on Financial Mindset, and Long-Term Success

VIctor Akinwale
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Building Enduring Wealth: Lessons from Aliko Dangote on Financial Mindset, and Long-Term Success

There are people who make money, and then there are people who build wealth. Making money can happen quickly. Building wealth is different. It takes time, structure, patience, and vision. One can disappear overnight; the other can outlive generations.

Aliko Dangote understands this better than most people. Born in Kano in 1957 into a family of traders, he started small, borrowing money from his uncle to begin trading basic commodities. Over time, he built what would become the largest industrial conglomerate in Africa.

His story is bigger than business. It is about discipline, long-term thinking, resilience, and the ability to see possibilities where others see limitations. He did not simply become wealthy, he built industries, created jobs, and showed that African entrepreneurs could compete on a global scale.

Here are seven lessons from his journey that go beyond money and speak to the mindset required to build something meaningful and lasting.

1. Start Where You Are, But Think Bigger

Dangote did not begin with factories or billion-dollar investments. He started by trading everyday products like rice, sugar, and flour.

What made the difference was his mindset. While others focused only on selling products, he paid attention to how markets worked, where shortages existed, and how businesses could grow beyond simple trading.

Your beginning does not define your future. Every successful journey starts somewhere small. What matters is your willingness to see your current position as a foundation rather than a limitation. Many people delay action because their starting point does not look impressive enough. But growth rarely begins with perfection. It begins with movement.

2. Think Long-Term in a Short-Term World

Many people chase quick profits and immediate success. Dangote chose industries that required patience, cement, sugar, fertilizer, and oil refining. These were investments that took years to mature.

That patience became one of his greatest strengths. The people willing to think long-term often build stronger foundations because fewer people are willing to wait. Real growth usually happens quietly through years of consistency, reinvestment, and gradual progress.

Patience is not passive. It is the discipline to keep building even when results are taking longer than expected.

3. Build Systems, Not Just Income

There is a difference between earning money and creating systems that continue to generate value.

Dangote moved beyond buying and selling products. He focused on building industries and infrastructure. Instead of depending on imports, he invested in local production and manufacturing.

That shift changed everything. A business that survives only when you are constantly present can easily become exhausting. Sustainable wealth is built through systems, structures, teams, and processes that continue to function over time. The goal should not only be to make money today, but to build something that can keep creating value tomorrow.

4. Discipline Matters More Than Opportunity

People often talk about luck, connections, or timing. But many opportunities are wasted because the discipline to manage them is missing.

Dangote became known not just for making money, but for reinvesting it wisely and staying focused over the years. While others spent heavily after early success, he concentrated on expansion and long-term growth.

Without discipline, even great opportunities can disappear quickly. Discipline influences how you spend, how you save, how you work, and how you respond when progress feels slow. In many cases, consistency matters more than talent.

5. Understand the Environment Around You

One of Dangote’s strengths was his understanding of the African market. Rather than copying foreign business ideas exactly as they were, he built businesses around local realities and local needs. He recognized Africa’s dependence on imported goods and saw the opportunity to produce many of those goods locally.

He understood the challenges, infrastructure, regulations, supply chains, and built with those realities in mind.

Too many people try to build for an imagined audience instead of the people directly in front of them. Success often comes from solving real problems within your own environment. Before building anything, understand the people, systems, and needs around you.

6. Vision Gives Direction to Hard Work

Hard work alone is not enough. Without direction, effort can easily become wasted energy.

Dangote consistently focused on industries that could shape the future of the continent. He looked beyond immediate gains and paid attention to larger opportunities connected to industrialization and economic growth in Africa.

Vision allows daily decisions to connect to a bigger purpose. It is possible to work extremely hard and still feel stuck because the work lacks clarity and direction. Knowing what you are building and why you are building it changes how you approach everything else.

7. Never Stop Growing

After succeeding in cement, sugar, flour, and other industries, Dangote could have chosen comfort. Instead, he pursued one of the biggest projects of his career: the refinery in Lagos.

The project faced delays, criticism, and enormous pressure. But it moved forward anyway. That decision reflects an important truth: success should not become a reason to stop growing.

Many people become attached to what they have already achieved and lose the willingness to take new risks or pursue larger goals. But growth requires continuous learning, adaptation, and courage. Every new level demands a new version of you.

What Enduring Wealth Really Looks Like

Dangote’s journey is not only about becoming rich. It is about building with purpose, patience, and long-term vision. His story reminds us that lasting success is rarely built overnight. It grows through discipline, smart thinking, consistent effort, and the willingness to keep evolving.

Start where you are. Think long-term. Build systems instead of chasing quick income. Stay disciplined. Understand your environment. Let vision guide your efforts. And never become too comfortable to grow further.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons

Jessica Matthews: From a Class Project to Building an Energy Company

VIctor Akinwale
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Jessica Matthews: From a Class Project to Building an Energy Company

Jessica O. Matthews is a Nigerian-American inventor and entrepreneur. She was born to Nigerian immigrant parents and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her story however did not begin in America.

It started with a wedding in Nigeria. A teenage Jessica watched as diesel generators roared to life, filling the air with toxic fumes just to keep the lights on. When she complained to her cousins, they told her she would get used to it. She never did and the world is better for it.

That moment stayed with her. In 2008, as a college student at Harvard, Jessica and her classmate Julia Silverman invented the Soccket as part of an engineering class assignment. The Soccket was a soccer ball designed to store kinetic energy during play. A half hour of kicking the ball around was enough to power a small LED light for three hours. Children in off-grid communities could study after dark. Their classmates saw a clever project. Jessica saw a starting point.

In 2011, at just 22 years old, Jessica founded Uncharted Power on the conviction that reliable access to energy is a human right. What began as an energy-generating toy grew into a full-scale infrastructure technology company. She knew the soccer ball was not the real invention. The technology inside it was.

She developed and trademarked MORE. It stands for Motion-based Off-Grid Renewable Energy. The system harvests kinetic energy and can be integrated into floor panels, streets, speed bumps, sidewalks and subway turnstiles. Everyday movement becomes usable electricity. The Pulse came next. It is a jump rope built on the same technology as the Soccket. Fifteen minutes of jumping generates three hours of power for an LED light.

Building a company is one thing. Funding it as a Black woman in the technology space is a different challenge entirely. In 2016, she raised $7 million in Series A funding. Uncharted Power was valued at $57 million. It was the largest Series A round ever raised by a Black female founder at that time. That same year, the company had been profitable for three consecutive years. The gross profit margins doubled year on year.

She never forgot the communities that inspired her. By 2017, over 500,000 Socckets and Pulses had reached developing regions across Africa and Latin America. She also co-founded a hydropower dam project in Nigeria. It was a 30-megawatt development among the first hydroelectric projects to be privatised in the country.

The recognition came steadily. In 2012, President Barack Obama invited her to the White House for the signing of the America Invents Act. She represented small companies across the country. In 2014, she appeared on the cover of the Forbes 30 Under 30 issue. In 2016, she rang the NASDAQ opening bell representing all Forbes 30 Under 30 alumni. 

For a young Nigerian-American woman from Poughkeepsie, that was no small thing.

Leave with this 

Jessica O. Matthews did not wait for someone to solve the problem she saw at seventeen. She carried it with her through college. She built a company around it. That is the part of her story that deserves the most attention.

Most people see problems every day and move on. They tell themselves the problem is too big. They assume someone else will handle it. Jessica made a different choice. She decided that what she saw was not a distraction. It was a direction.

Consider the problem you keep walking past. The gap you notice but leave for someone else. The idea you have put aside because the timing never feels right. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

The world does not need perfect conditions to change. It needs people who are willing to start.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons.

10 Lessons from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

VIctor Akinwale
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10 Lessons from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

What if the single biggest factor standing between you and the life you want is not your talent, your background, or your circumstances, but simply the way you think about yourself? That is the central question Carol S. Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist, answers in her landmark book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Published in 2006 and updated in 2016, Mindset has become one of the most influential psychology books of the past two decades, reshaping how educators, athletes, business leaders, and parents think about human potential. Drawing on decades of research, Dweck argues that the beliefs we hold about our own abilities are not just thoughts, they are the invisible architecture of our success or failure.

If you have not read the book yet, let these ten lessons give you a taste of what is waiting for you inside.

1. There Are Only Two Mindsets

Everything begins here. Dweck’s foundational discovery is that people operate from one of two core beliefs about their own abilities. In a fixed mindset, you believe your intelligence, talent, and character are static, you have a certain amount and that is that. In a growth mindset, you believe these qualities can be developed through dedication, learning, and hard work.

“When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world, the world of fixed traits, success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other, the world of changing qualities, it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

This is not a small distinction. It is the difference between spending your life proving yourself and spending your life improving yourself. One mindset keeps you playing small. The other keeps you growing.

2. The Way You Think About Yourself Determines How Far You Go

Your self-perception is not just a private matter, it is a blueprint. The story you tell yourself about who you are and what you are capable of becomes the ceiling of your ambition and the floor of your effort. People with a fixed mindset are constantly trying to look smart, avoid failure, and protect their image. People with a growth mindset are focused on learning, regardless of how they appear in the process.

“For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

This plays out every day in small but consequential ways. Do you avoid the meeting where you might say something wrong? Do you skip the application because you might not be qualified enough? Do you hold back in a conversation because you are afraid of looking foolish? That is the fixed mindset at work, quietly shrinking your world. The way you see yourself is not a reflection of reality. It is a decision. And it is one you are making every single day.

3. The Way You Are Praised Can Shape How You See Yourself

One of the most startling findings in Dweck’s research is that the kind of praise you received growing up has a direct impact on the mindset you carry today. When children are praised for being smart or talented, they develop a fixed mindset. They become afraid to take on challenges in case they fail and lose the label. But when children are praised for their effort and their process, they develop a growth mindset. They learn that hard work is the point, not the outcome.

“Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance. The minute they hit a snag, their confidence goes out the window and their motivation hits rock bottom. If success means they’re smart, then failure means they’re dumb. That’s the fixed mindset.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset

The words we speak over people, especially children, are not neutral. They land somewhere. They take root. Telling a child they are clever feels kind, but it teaches them that their worth depends on always being the smartest person in the room. Telling them you are proud of how hard they worked teaches them that effort is something to be celebrated. The praise we give is well worth examining because it shapes the person standing in front of us more than we realise.

4. Seeking Approval Keeps You Small

When your primary goal is to be seen as smart, capable, or impressive, you will never take the risks that actually make you those things. You will play it safe. You will stick to what you already know you can do well. You will choose the comfortable path over the stretching one.

“Fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you’ll be judged; the growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.”  – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

Approval-seeking is the fixed mindset’s most seductive trap. It feels like confidence but it is actually fear wearing a nice outfit. The moment you stop performing for an audience and start growing for yourself, everything opens up.

5. The Success of Others Is Inspiring, Not Threatening

People with a fixed mindset feel genuinely threatened when someone around them succeeds. It feels like a mirror held up to their own inadequacy. So they discount the achievement, question the person’s character, or pull away.

Someone else winning does not mean you are losing. It means the ceiling is higher than you thought. It means it is possible. The growth mindset turns comparison from a weapon into a compass, pointing you toward what you too could achieve with the right effort and the right attitude.

6.Effort Is Not a Sign of Weakness, It Is the Path to Mastery

In a fixed mindset world, effort is quietly embarrassing. If you have to try hard, it must mean you are not naturally gifted. But Dweck’s research dismantles this idea completely. Effort is not what you resort to when talent runs out. Effort is the mechanism through which talent is built.

“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

And as she puts it well elsewhere in the book: 

“In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you’re not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn’t need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.”  

Every master you admire got there through thousands of hours of deliberate, often frustrating effort. The overnight success is almost always a decade of work the world never saw.

7. Embrace Challenges and Failure as Opportunities to Grow

People with a fixed mindset avoid challenges because every challenge carries risk. If you try and fail, it says something terrible about who you are. People with a growth mindset seek out challenges because every challenge is a chance to stretch further than they were yesterday.

“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

And when failure comes, as it always does, the growth mindset does not treat it as a verdict. 

“Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up call.” 

8. Criticism Is Valuable Feedback, Not a Personal Attack

In a fixed mindset, criticism feels like an assault on your identity. If someone points out what you did wrong, it feels like they are saying you are wrong, as a person. So you dismiss it, deflect it, or resent the person who gave it. The feedback never lands. The lesson is never learned.

“In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail or if you’re not the best, it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

But in a growth mindset, criticism is one of the most useful gifts another person can offer you. It tells you precisely where to improve. It saves you from repeating the same mistakes and shortens the distance between where you are and where you want to be. The people who grow the fastest are often the ones who have learned to receive hard feedback with open hands rather than a closed heart. Handled well, criticism does not diminish you, it refines you.

9. Your Mindset Shapes Success in Every Area of Life

It would be easy to read this book and think it only applies to school or career. But Dweck makes it well clear that mindset reaches into every corner of life, relationships, parenting, sports, leadership, and personal identity. A fixed mindset in a relationship leads you to believe that love should be effortless and that conflict means incompatibility. A growth mindset leads you to believe that relationships, like people, can be built and deepened over time.

“A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no ‘they lived happily ever after,’ but it’s more like ‘they worked happily ever after.'” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset 

The mindset you carry does not stay inside you. It spills well into everything and everyone around you, your children, your colleagues, your community. This is why mindset is not just a personal matter. It is a social one.

10. You Can Change Your Mindset

This is the lesson that makes everything else matter. Because what would be the point of understanding fixed and growth mindsets if you were permanently stuck in one? The great hope at the heart of Dweck’s work is that mindset is not a life sentence. It is a belief. And beliefs can be changed.

Change begins with awareness. It begins with noticing the voice that says you are not smart enough, not talented enough, not ready. Then it requires the deliberate decision to respond differently. Over time, that decision becomes a habit. And that habit becomes a new way of seeing yourself and the world.

As Dweck puts it simply and well:

“Becoming is better than being.” 

You are not the sum of your past performances. You are the sum of your willingness to keep growing.

Is It Worth Reading? 

This is not a book you read and forget. Mindset works its way into your thinking. It makes you look at the way you have been thinking, about yourself, about the people around you, about success and failure, and wonder how much of your life has been shaped by a belief you never even knew you held. 

Whether you are a student, a professional, a parent, or simply someone who wants to live more fully, this book has something urgent and necessary to say to you.

Get it here: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons. 

Start Where You Are: The Mindset Behind Janice Bryant Howroyd’s Billion-Dollar Journey

VIctor Akinwale
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Start Where You Are: The Mindset Behind Janice Bryant Howroyd’s Billion-Dollar Journey

There is a question that haunts many aspiring entrepreneurs and business builders: What if I don’t have enough to start?

Not enough money. Not enough connections. Not enough experience. Not enough time. The list of reasons to wait is always longer than the list of reasons to begin. 

Janice Bryant Howroyd answers that question with her life. She is the Founder and CEO of ActOne Group, the largest privately held workforce solutions company in the United States owned by a woman, and the first African American woman to build and own a billion-dollar business.

To understand Janice Bryant Howroyd, you have to go back before the billions. Back to Tarboro, a small town in North Carolina, where she grew up as one of eleven children during segregation. Her parents played a defining role in shaping how she saw herself and the world. Her mother taught her to work with what she had and to leave things better than she found them. That mindset stayed with her.

In 1976, she moved to Los Angeles after her sister encouraged her to stay beyond a short visit. She found work as a temporary secretary at Billboard Magazine. Through that environment, she was exposed to business leaders, creatives, and a different level of opportunity.

It was at Billboard that Janice noticed something the staffing industry was missing. Most agencies of the time presented clients with a picture of a potential employee and a price. There was very little humanity in the process, no real understanding of culture fit, no genuine advocacy for the worker. Janice saw a gap. And where others saw a gap, she saw a door.

In 1978, with $900 borrowed from her mother and a small space at the front of a rug shop in Beverly Hills, she started what would later become ActOne Group. She began with simple tools and the relationships she had built.

“I wanted a really classy address, but I didn’t have really classy funds, so I borrowed $900 from my mom. That gave me about $1,500 to start my business,” she later recalled.

Her tools? A fax machine, a telephone, and her contacts.

“I thought I was Judy Jetson when I got my fax machine,” she said. “My business literally started with my fax machine, my phone, and my contacts.”

It is hard not to smile at that image, a young woman, full of conviction, sitting in a borrowed office in Beverly Hills with a fax machine and an unshakeable belief that she was onto something. But that is precisely the point. She did not wait for the perfect conditions. She started with what she had.

The early years were not easy. Building a business as a Black woman in 1970s America came with real barriers. Earning trust took time. Growth was slow and required consistency.

What set her apart was her genuine commitment to the people she served. While others sold placements, she advocated for workers. She made the job seeker the centre of her attention, treating every person who walked through her door not as a transaction, but as someone whose career and livelihood mattered.

Word spread. Clients came back. Referrals followed. She called it Womb, “Word of Mouth, Brother!”, and it became the engine of her early growth.

She also moved with the times. When the internet arrived in the 1990s, she made a bold move: in 1995, she launched AppleOne, one of the first staffing agencies on the World Wide Web, positioning her company ahead of the wave of demand for tech workers. Where others hesitated, she invested in the future. 

The Mindset Behind the Empire

What separates Janice Bryant Howroyd’s story is the thinking behind it. Her success was not accidental. It came from how she approached business, identity, and value. She never confused her worth with her resources. 

Starting with $900 did not define her. She thought beyond her circumstances and positioned herself accordingly. She treated her values as a competitive advantage. At a time when many chased success at any cost, Janice built her empire on integrity, respect, and genuine service. Her philosophy was simple: if you take care of people, people will take care of your business. That conviction became her company’s greatest differentiator.

“Never compromise who you are personally to become who you wish to be professionally,”

Words she describes as her personal mantra, and a commitment she has kept across more than four decades of business.

She also embraced discipline. 

“Discipline is not a dirty word. There is far more freedom and opportunity for creativity and success in enjoying discipline. The reason successful people are successful is that they embraced doing what other people resent or are reluctant to do.”

Today, ActOne Group operates in 19 countries. Janice has served as an advisor to Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. She was appointed by President Obama to the Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She sits on boards at Harvard, USC, and North Carolina A&T State University. She has written books, mentored thousands of entrepreneurs, and continued building platforms that give others access to opportunity.

What We Can Take From Her Story

1. Start where you are, with what you have.

$900 and a fax machine were enough to begin. The conditions will never be perfect. The moment you are waiting for may never arrive. What matters is that you start.

2. See the gap others overlook.

Janice did not invent the staffing industry. She saw what it was missing and filled that space with something better. Every industry has a gap. The question is whether you are paying close enough attention to find it.

3. People are your most powerful asset.

Whether it was the workers she advocated for, the clients she served, or the employees she invested in, Janice built her empire on relationships. Genuine human care remains the rarest and most valuable competitive advantage. 

4. Your values are not a liability, they are your foundation. 

She never compromised who she was to become who she wanted to be. In business, your character is your brand. Build it carefully.

5. Discipline is the bridge between vision and reality.

Dreams without discipline are just wishes. The daily, unglamorous work is what turns a $900 idea into a billion-dollar business.

6. Invest in the future before it arrives.

Launching an online platform in 1995 when most businesses were still figuring out the internet was not luck. It was the result of paying attention, thinking ahead, and having the courage to move before the crowd.

The Brief Network: Inspiring Stories and Empowering Lessons.

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