As for me, I cannot count how many times I have had setbacks and my stories are too many to tell. My life is packed with stories worth telling, and no one can tell them better than me who lived them. In my primary two (2) second term, my father told me to stop going to school and go learn how to repair bicycles in my village, and I told him that I didn’t want to be a “Bicycle Repairer” that I wanted to continue with my education like every other kid back then in my community. As punishment for my refusal, he stopped taking care of my education in my primary two (2nd) second term.

Some months later, he called me one very good day with a new proposal as if he wanted to change his decision. But the reverse was the case, as he told me that, if he must continue to train me in school, I must join him in his newly joined church “The Seventh Days Adventist Church”. To those of you who do not know, Seventh Days Adventist Church worships on Saturdays, and I was born and brought up in Qua Iboe Church which is a Christian denomination church that worships on Sundays and existed in Nigeria since 1887, presently called the United Evangelical Church of which the majority of families in my community worship there every Sundays.

Everyone in my family was attending Qua Iboe Church every Sunday. But for reasons unknown to me, my father stopped going to Qua Iboe Church and joined “The Seventh Days Adventist Church” and was going to church every Saturday.

As a young boy, we used to play football on the street every Saturday and go to church every Sunday, so I could not factor in how I would be going to church on Saturdays and stay back home every Sunday when the majority of people in my village go to church every Sunday. My father’s second demand wasn’t pleasant to me at all, so I refused for the second time.

My father saw this as a second challenge. One day, he told me with African proverbs that “A Dog trained by a woman will eat people’s eggs; which means that any young man trained by a woman will not amount to anything and as a result will not be successful in life”.

On the other hand, my mother started taking care of my education with the use of her little income from her petty job; and as early as Nine (9) years old, I was doing unskilled jobs in my village and neighboring villages to support my mother with my training.

My father’s declaration was the first encounter that ignited me like putting fuel in a burning flame, which motivated me to persist in becoming somebody nobody thought I would become, as I refused to give him the pen to write the story of my life. The journey on my foot showed that, irrespective of low background, your location, or not having formal education, setbacks, or color; you can still achieve your visions and goals in life if you persist.

Someone once asked me, Mr. Gabrich, you seem to have double layers of skin that you replace after each downfall, that keeps you going, considering all that you have been through!!!; I smiled and said to him, WILL-POWER & HARDWORKS are the only rituals that ignite me, AGAIN and AGAIN, to keep on trying even in the middle of the Deep Ocean where I see no means of continued existence.

My exceptional dedication and ambition of achieving something as a young man was unquenchable and remains unstoppable as a businessperson today, despite all the rises and falls experiences in the success of my company.

All I applied was DETERMINATION IN BECOMING SOMEBODY NOBODY THOUGHT I COULD BECOME….

Although I’m still striving to make success through a journey that appears endless and tough. I’m still making moves to excel and not waiting for God to throw manna for me.

My advice for every young person and upcoming entrepreneur is that you should not let people who have had food provided for them all their lives, people whose education has been paid for by hard-working parents, distract you from working hard into greatness.

Never let anyone govern your destiny, and do understand that you were born in the slums does not mean you must do what everyone in the slum is doing for a living. Put in more hard work and let my story motivate you to maximize your potential.

Anyone can DREAM BIG but it takes an annoying spirit of NEVER GIVING UP, mixed with D.I.E
DILIGENCE
INTEGRITY
EXCELLENCE to achieve your DREAMS.

You can only be successful in life; if you can listen to your heart when the universe speaks to you and evaluate your actions well – not from FEAR but from INTELLIGENCE and take a COURAGEOUS, CONFIDENT, and FEARLESS STEP and be ready to take RISKS.
ANYONE CAN COME FROM ABSOLUTE SLUMS AND BECOME HEIGHTS OF FAME.
Gabriel Chinedu UFOMBA,
Founder of GABRICH Group