Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

Traveling helps one gain useful perspectives and insights, making one broad minded. My travels have taught me that one does need to be rich, or make big money to enjoy great QUALITY of life.

In well managed societies, even the poor can afford a decent existence devoid of avoidable annoyances.

The story I share below illustrates a glaring contrast in the conditions under which people running the same type of business have to operate in their respective countries – which share a common border.

In Cotonou, most Cafe’s I use open as early as 8a.m, and I sometimes work in Cafe’s well past midnight.

I once arrived from Lagos about 15 minutes to Midnight and got a bike rider to take me around till I found a Cafe still open (and many users in it), where I was able to quickly publish my blog post for the day.

But no matter how late it was, I never had problems getting home. Within minutes of stepping out on the sidewalk, I would flag down a commercial bike rider, who I would confidently allow to take me home.

Whenever I’m in Lagos however, things get very complicated.

Cafes here open as late as 9.30 to 10a.m. The owner of the one close to my home told me his staff lives 2 hours away in another state (Ogun) and the traffic makes it hard to get in earlier.

So I’m usually waiting till 10a.m before I can start work. My attempts to use other cafes had taught me few promised good value for money and time. This one does. But unlike the Cotonou cafes, it closes, almost unfailingly at 9p.m(sometimes 8p.m, if the boss is away as the staff needs to leave for home early)..

I asked why, and the guy explained that staying open longer would expose them to thugs or robbers coming in to hold up the place, which had happened before, and the loss was painful.

Compare the guy in Cotonou with my man in Lagos, and it becomes obvious the latter has to battle daily to be profitable.

A. Starts 2 hours later

B. Stops 3 hours earlier

C. Incurs high generator fueling and repair costs due to poor public power supply

D. Yet he charges approximately the same rate per hour, as the Cotonou guy.

This means the Lagos cafe retains considerably less profits compared to the one in Cotonou, despite doing more work.

The above makes me empathize greatly with cafe owners here in Lagos, indeed Nigeria in general.

And that’s why I did not get upset when I had to miss achieving a goal I set to publish my new book on Yoruba proverbs on Thurs 8th Jan 2015, due to the unavoidable closure of the cafe at 9p.m as usual.

[NB: It’s now live: See Ten Storyfied Yoruba Proverbs for Children]

I had so much client work to do, and had been there from 10.30a.m till 6.50p.m, then went out to get a bite to eat and buy some groceries for the kids.

By the time I returned, it was 8.40p.m and I knew there would not be enough time to setup the book in the online store.

Pity.

That’s why my operational base for building my brand via passive income generating products creation is Cotonou.

Over there, I would have easily returned to the cafe and finished publishing the new book.

Generally, when I come to Nigeria I get much less creating done and focus more on promoting what is already created for sale.

But you probably wonder why I don’t use my own private Internet USB stick?

The answer is that I used to, both in Lagos and Cotonou.

However, being the heavy duty user that I am, I discovered that option rarely gave me value for money. The bandwith assigned either ran out too fast or poor connectivity forced me to keep shuttling to the cafes to get important client work done.

That made no sense, especially since one made a hefty payment for it.

In contrast, the bulk time purchase I make in Cotonou cafes especially, can be paused when the connection is slow. And the best part is that it never expires!

Hopefully this disparity will be rectified when a government that can deliver steady power and security of lives and properties comes into power in Nigeria this year.