Notes with STB

The recent sanitary-pad conversation raises a much bigger question: what happens when consumers can no longer trust the products they buy? Nigeria’s fake and substandard-product problem is not only about consumer safety. It affects purchasing power, competition, legitimate businesses and something every functioning market depends on: trust.

Nigeria has had oil for decades, but having a valuable resource is not the same as creating value from it. As Dangote Refinery prepares to go public, its IPO offers a timely lesson on industrialization, capital and what happens when countries build productive capacity around the resources they already have.

Getting rich slowly rarely looks impressive while it is happening. There are no dramatic milestones, no overnight transformation, and often very little to show from the outside. Just ordinary decisions, repeated consistently, while time quietly does the work.

Almost 20 years ago, a Harvard Business Review article completely flipped how I view productivity. Its core argument was simple but practical: time is finite, but energy is a renewable resource. As a mom running multiple businesses, trying to squeeze more hours out of the day simply does not work. The research backs this up—productivity drops off a cliff after 50 hours a week. The real secret to building momentum is not about working longer hours; it is about protecting your peak two-hour window for the tasks that matter most. Here is how to stop playing Tetris with your calendar, step off the hustle treadmill, and align your daily focus with your actual stamina.