I decided at 13 that I would have a global career @UN. My friends in secondary school laughed at me and called me a “dreamer”. I joined the UN at 29. In the 16 years in between, my vision never wavered. I passed up a chance to join a new bank in Lagos to go abroad for a master’s

in 1991. I knew where I was going, and applied the principle of delayed gratification- the long view. When I wrote to the US Embassy in Lagos that I’d been accepted @FletcherSchool and needed a visa, they were impressed. “Many of our best were trained there”, I was told.

“Just send your passport over”. I did. They returned it with a student visa stamped on it and a travel grant to cover my ticket plus some change. I left for the US without physically touching foot at the embassy, with a ticket they bought for me. 18 years later I returned home as

a Deputy Governor @cenbank. That wasn’t part of the original plan, but we are not in total control of our lives, and sometimes destiny plays out in ways unforeseen. The rest, including returning to the elite institution as a professor after my tenure at CBN, is history.

Have a vision. Hold it in front of your mind’s eye, work hard, and look unto God. The vision may try awhile, but it will be realized in due time.