Unwind with KAM4T

By Comfort Umoren-Olorunnisomo                                   Source: Shutterstock (First posted on September 8, 2023 on the Atlas Corps website:  https://web.archive.org/web/ 20231021091556/https:// atlascorps.org/valuable- career-lessons-i-learned-from- the-ghetto-contd/ ) To Go Nowhere, Follow the Crowd : My parents sold some of the items (a washing machine and a gas cooker) I won from an Indomie essay competition  in my final year in high school because we needed money, and there was no space to keep the items in our 1-bedroom apartment. I was given N20,000 , which was a substantial amount to me back in 2006. As a teenager, I thought of how to invest the money so I could use it to pay for my university tuition in the future. Investing in the stock market was the ‘in thing’ at the time, as everywhere you turned, there was either a stock market investment seminar or people talking about ...

By Comfort Umoren-Olorunnisomo (Updated but first posted by the author on the Atlas Corps Fellowship site on June 28, 2023) I grew up in the ghetto and spent the first 18+ years of my life in  Olodi Apapa , popularly called “ AJ City ” or “Ghetto City,” in  Lagos, Nigeria . Survival of the fittest was the code, but there, I made friends like family and learned invaluable skills and life lessons that I have applied in leadership, business, career, relationships, academia, finance, parenting, and many other areas. In this piece, I will focus on some career lessons I learned as a child that have helped me grow professionally. Build Your Ark Before It Rains:  While in primary school, I was part of the school’s march past team. We represented  Wowo Primary School  in March Past competitions and during the  Independence Day celebration  march past ceremonies. We always came first, and our competitors accused us of either using ‘juju’ (black magic) or bribin...