TODAY ON FRANKLY SPEAKING – YOU CAN BOUNCE BACK.04-10-2017

I want to share a true story with you this morning about a friend who’s really inspired me in consideration of her inner strength, psychological and emotional stamina and gracefulness. She’s just a wonderful young woman.

Susan, as i’ll want to call her, got married at 24 to her husband who was 15 years older. She studied business management at one of the federal polytechnics and got married immediately after her final exams. She got pregnant with her first child during her one year NYSC program just after the marriage. Her husband, a general manager sales was doing very well as an employee in a leading multinational in Nigeria. He did well to provide all the essential needs for his family and based on his hard work, dedication and skills in sales, he was rising pretty fast and enjoying his career.

As a salesman he was mostly on the road; travelling all over the country to different regions and markets to ensure their brands were doing well across the nation.

Susan agreed to her husband’s counsel not to take on any employment yet, until she was done having her kids, then she would be able to focus squarely on her career without much maternity distractions. Susan felt she was still young anyways and had time, so she agreed. When Susan turned twenty nine, she had her third and last child hence she began to plan on how to secure a good employment and start pursuing her career. While at it, tragedy suddenly struck, her husband went on field visits as usual to a distant part of the country but never returned alive, he died in a car crash.

Susan, left with three children, no job, no income, no experience; buried her husband, she became a widow at just 29. Her husband’s relatives weren’t so kind to her, they took over all the properties her husband left behind, and at a family meeting agreed to collectively send money to an account for Susan to draw from to take care of herself and their brother’s three kids; this promise they never kept.

Susan after several months of loneliness, grief, mourning, depression, self-pity, anger, complains, fights, and arguments finally gave up any hope of help or support from her late husband’s family.                                                                              

Subsequently, a secondary school classmate assisted her and she enrolled in a computer school to at least become familiar again with the use of computer applications and become employable. Her parents weren’t of much help, they weren’t so rich and they had her four younger ones to still carter for – feeding them and paying fees at the university.

. Being a very beautiful lady, she had several men show up with all kinds of offer of help and assists but she refused their help or assistance as terms and conditions applied. Susan had a rough time but was determined to fix her life by herself.

When she concluded her computer program, she got financial help from this old schoolmate and purchased an old laptop from the owner of the computer school and she came up with an idea. She opened a social media account and began to sell online, things she really didn’t have but knew where to buy and supply.

With focus, passion, dedication, respect for her customers and determination to survive, her business began to grow.

Fast forward, Susan is one of the most successful small business owners in Lagos today, her sales figures daily run into tens of millions – selling mother care products, beauty products, imports and distribution of female shoes, bags, accessories and hair extensions. She’s bought a duplex in a prestigious neighborhood in Victoria Island and her three children attend one of the best schools in Lagos.

Susan today is an employer of labour, with almost 30 employees on her payroll every month.

Now in her late thirties, she’s fully recovered from the tragedy of her husband’s demise, her state of lack, depression, frustration and hopelessness all gone.

She did not compromise herself, her values, principles and self-respect to earn gender favours. She planned, labored, studied, strategized and with diligence became victorious in less than a decade.

Today her late husband’s relatives especially her mother in law, come to visit every now and again, under the pretext of checking on the grand kids, and shamelessly request for personal financial favors.

A few weeks ago, I was in conversation with Susan and she needed my opinion and counsel on a fantastic gentleman who wants to marry her. She’s a bit skeptical and she needed me to help her psychologically, give a positive consideration to a life of submission to a man in the name of marriage after her tragic experience in her last marriage. Susan bounced back, she recovered well.

Ladies and gentlemen, I may not know exactly what you’re going through or what you may have being through. You may have suffered a similar tragedy or even something worse than what Susan suffered. But I want you to know this morning, that no matter how bad things are right now, you can come out and you are coming out. The hurt, the tragedy, the disappointment, the loss, the setback is only temporary as all things in life are for a reason, and for a season and shall definitely come and pass.

Perhaps it’s time to take counsel in yourself and decide to lift yourself out of the ashes of despair, regret and self-pity. Maybe it’s time to let go of all those who hurt you, messed you up, disgraced you, uncovered you and brought you down. Maybe it’s time you draw on your powerful inner self to overcome your crisis and chaos in life.

May be the help you’re desperately seeking out there is right within you if you’ll only choose to look inwards.

Perhaps it’s time you quit the blame game and begin to harness all that you have left and can still use to raise yourself  up and bring back great glory into your life.

You may have been oppressed, used, abused, cheated, disgraced, embarrassed and relegated but your attitude towards the situation and your determination to win will make that big difference in your life. There is a king in you, there is a champion in you, within you are great prospects, potentials and possibilities, you carry great talents and ideas that can definitely shock the world.

It’s time to arise from your desolate place, pull out your tent pegs and get ready to move forward. That very thing you’re afraid of is probably even more afraid of you. The mountain that seem to be in your way, may just be a mirage, totally unreal. I guarantee, there are great possibilities within you if you’ll only look inwards. You are unlimited, unstoppable, un-mitigatable and inexorable.

There is power within you your world has no choice but to bow to, if you would this morning choose to unleash great ideas, think deep, think far and think wide, you will bring forth that fantastic brain child.

Every problem has a solution even yours. Being overwhelmed is just a state of your mind, there is nothing you can’t overcome and subdue if you choose.

You’re created, fashioned and designed for success and greatness.

It’s time for your recovery, it’s time for you to bounce back, it’s time for you to burst forth in a new dimension; it’s time for an upward trajectory in your wellbeing, relationship, marriage, career, business and financial health.

Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me introduce you this morning to a brand new successful you, you are back, in glory, success, greatness and uncommon accomplishments. Welcome to the beginning of the best days of your life.