START SWIMMING IN DEEPER WATERS By Edirin Edewor

I’m going to use the story of Jesus and Simon Peter to drive home my point. Stay with me. 

When Jesus was recruiting Disciples for his ministry on earth, he happened upon Simon Peter who was a fisherman. 

Peter and his guys had been toiling all night to catch fish, to no avail, and were getting ready to retire home for the day when they met Jesus. 

Jesus asked to use their boat as a pulpit as he taught a sermon. After the sermon as the crowd dispersed, He asked them to go a-fishing. 

Peter being the expert fisherman that he was, tried to explain that there was no fish to catch. They had tried every skill possible and still caught nothing, nevertheless, he obeyed and went back to sea. 

The story goes that Jesus told them to cast their net over the side of the boat and by the time they tried to pull back the net, it was so heavy, it threatened to sink their boat and actually tore the net. 

They had to call James and John to bring an extra boat to help. They didn’t even have the right equipment for the blessings they “caught”. 

When people talk about leveraging all the advantages you can muster so you have a better chance at life, you also see many people argue that it is possible to succeed without these advantages because they know somebody who has done it. 

Some of these advantages include: 

Going to school and graduating with good grades (whether it’s a public university, polytechnic, private university or study abroad)

Getting a Second Degree

Having a valid passport

Having visas

Having a business registered in countries with functioning systems

Joining international associations

Getting published internationally

Having travel history

Having extensive emergency savings

Having a consistent source of income

Having investments

Having income streams that are independent of the naira or any other currency that fluctuates and devalues heavily

Etc. 

I taught this extensively in one of the lessons in School of Influence Online Course.

You don’t have to have all, but if you can, get them all. If you don’t have one, get the others. It’s not the end of the line for you because you didn’t go to University or that your grades were poor. However, if you’re still in school, this is your cue to sit up and improve your grades. 

When you tell people to go to school and ensure they graduate with good grades, you see them argue that “school na scam” and that there are people who are doing well without an education or that jobs are hard to find in Nigeria.

They’re practicing what is called “survivorship bias” or “forgotten failures” and they don’t even know it. Go and google what that means. 

Who told you that just because it happened like that for A, B and C, it means that it must happen like that for you too? 

This is just one example of misplaced arguments and a limited understanding of how the world works. 

Twitter is awash right now with trending stories of American Companies hiring staff from all around the world, including Nigeria, and moving these staff to countries like Canada, the UAE and many European Countries because of America’s restrictive immigration policies. 

Now that the world has truly gone global and the Work From Home/ Remote Working arrangement is no longer a myth but a reality, Big Companies are casting their nets wider. 

What does this mean? It means that for you to be caught by their nets, you must be swimming in deeper waters. 

You cannot swim in deeper waters with the same instruments you use in swimming in shallow, localized waters. No, you need better equipment. You need all the advantages you can get. If you don’t have one, get the other. 

You don’t get to cherry pick which factor of success you want when you’re from a third world country. The fact that Bill Gates and Uncle Mark dropped out doesn’t mean anyone can do it. Again, there’s the survivorship bias. how many Bill Gates and Zucks are there?

What you don’t see is that there are millions of students who drop out every year. How many of them do you know, who became successful after they dropped out? That’s what motivational quotes and Instagram pages will not tell you. 

Let me tell you this. I graduated at the top of my class from Faculty of Agriculture, University of Benin. I majored in Fisheries! I’ve never ever gotten a job with my degree. 

However, the opportunities I have gotten simply because I have a degree and was Best Graduating Student, are too numerous to count. 

Want to register a Business here in Dubai? You need to submit your University Certificate as one of the requirements. 

Want to Apply for an O-1 Visa to the US, you need to submit a CV before you’re even considered to apply. 

Don’t play with your future by choosing whether to have all the advantages or some of it. Get them all so you can swim in deeper waters. 

I’ll stop here for now. Perhaps I’ll do a live broadcast tomorrow morning if I get enough interest.