Welcome To Elileojo's Blog

Are you tired of working each month with nothing to show for it? If so, you probably accepted your current job offer without truly understanding the concepts of "Gross Income" and "Net Income." You see, in expensive cities like Lagos, Nigeria where the cost of living is high - you might need to pause and reconsider the long-term financial impacts of accepting a salary offer and negotiate for a better salary if you have to. Not all that glitters is gold. While the salary offer might look juicy in figures, it is more important for you to ensure that most of it is not swallowed up by your monthly expenses like transport, feeding, utility bills, data subscription and house rent. This is because in order for you to live comfortably and grow your wealth, your expenses must be far less than your income. For my readers who don't have a background in financial accounting or business management, the two concepts below are very important for you to get familiar with: ~Net ...

If you lost your possessions today, will you still be valuable? ... Wait! Before you answer, continue reading. John Milton once said, "the mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of Hell and a hell of Heaven." Your mind is your most precious asset. With the right mindset, you can make miracles out of misery and create opportunities out of difficult situations. Like every other asset, your mind needs proper maintenance and management in order for it to thrive. This is why your "personal development" should be one of your top priority. Personal development involves learning new things, habits and building new skills that help you increase your chances of success, achieving your goals, and living your dreams. The sweetest thing about improving yourself constantly is that it prepares you for bigger opportunities and attracts the right people to you. Self development makes you an interesting and pleasant person to be around. So try and block out some time...

Life is all about self-discovery and self-improvement, this is why self-awareness is a very important aspect of human existence. Unfortunately, most people are more aware of things and other people than they are of themselves. I believe that the primary responsibility of a parent is to help their children discover themselves and improve themselves in that discovery. I also feel that the primary duty of educational institutions should be to guide, nurture and motivate children or young adults towards discovering and applying their strengths towards bettering the world. Stop having misplaced priorities by looking at what others are doing and copying them, following media and society's opinion of who you should be, or at worst comparing yourself destructively to your peers You are a project. You are 100% unique from everyone else on the planet even when you share a few similarities. Your mission is to discover and improve your authentic self and inspire others to do the same. Invest i...

  Before you apply the tips below, be 100% sure that your ideal customers use the social media platform you are considering advertising on. Failure to do this would result in wasted time and financial resources. Let's proceed... Not studying advertising best practices before running an advertising campaign on a particular social media platform. Not clarifying your social media advertising goals, strategy, and success measuring criteria. Failure to create an image of your ideal customer based on things like their occupation, age, location, marital status, hobbies, interests, and income brackets. Bad copy-writing or not testing your advertising language before running an advert. Not studying your competitors, their social media pages, and how they advertise. Over-copying how your competitors advertise. Using low-quality visuals (graphics, videos, and animations). Using too much texts (words) in your advertising post. Not targeting a broad audience or being too specific about your tar...

  Shocker: Your Pension or Retirement Savings Will Not Save You This article is for young and middle-aged professionals who desire a happy life and financial freedom at retirement, but don't know the right way to use their savings to get there. By the end of this article you would know how to choose a good investment asset that always puts money in your pocket. Let's proceed... The truth is, you cannot save your way into financial freedom. It's just not sustainable. You'd always be restricted in your spending. Am I saying you shouldn't save money, not at all. But what I'm saying is that you should invest as much or even more than you save after careful assessments of the risks involved. However, there are only 3 things I recommend you save for: 1. Save For Emergencies: Life doesn't promise you that things would always be the same. Change is constant. So always ensure that you have at least 12 months worth of your basic living expenses saved a...

Before you apply the tips below, be 100% sure that your ideal customers use the social media platform you are considering advertising on. Failure to do this would result in wasted time and financial resources. Let's proceed... Not studying advertising best practices before running an advertising campaign on a particular social media platform. Not clarifying your social media advertising goals, strategy, and success measuring criteria. Failure to create an image of your ideal customer based on things like their occupation, age, location, marital status, hobbies, interests, and income brackets. Bad copy-writing or not testing your advertising language before running an advert. Not studying your competitors, their social media pages, and how they advertise. Over-copying how your competitors advertise. Using low-quality visuals (graphics, videos, and animations). Using too much texts (words) in your advertising post. Not targeting a broad audience or being too specific about your t...

Being exposed to trauma or abuse as a child or an adult can severely injure the human mind such that almost everyone appears to be a potential threat to our well-being. It makes us create mental walls that isolate us from fully experiencing beautiful realities and new opportunities. Evolution has taught us to be defensive or protective for our survival and this dates back to primitive times when we humans were constantly living under threat from wild animals. But today we live in safe cities with people who are mostly unarmed and we still feel like we are being hunted, this is not the best way to live - it's abnormal. Critical thinking is not negative thinking. Negative thinking is feeling like people are out to get us or the world's against us. Critical thinking on the other hand is considering the kind of impact that our actions or inaction under certain circumstances can have on us. To avoid being victims of our own perspectives, it is essential that we always keep an open-m...

Not having adequate knowledge of the right things to look out for when buying real estate in Nigeria could result in unpleasant financial situations and you do not want that to be your story. So here are some tips to help you know what to prioritize when buying your next real estate property in Nigeria.  1. Verify Property Title: This involves carrying out title searches at various registries where the records of properties and restrictions on properties are documented. Investigating property title is very important so that you do not buy a property with faulty title. This process may require visits to state lands registries, searches at the corporate affairs commission, the seller's family house, king's palace, charting at surveyor general's office, searches at the probate registry, and searches at the court registry depending on the type of property and the persons involved in the transaction. 2. Request for Development Permits: The reason you should ask for this is to a...

The average Nigerian income earner often shies away from discussions about life insurance because they think life insurance does benefit them while they are alive and in good health. Some are not even aware of “money-back life insurance” plans, while some others believe that their pension (RSA) is enough security for them despite the fact that many retired folks still struggle financially. Apart from this, many are not well informed about the various categories of life insurance products available, such as: endowments, term-life, and whole-life policies; nor the unique benefits each of these products do offer. You see, life insurance is actually meant to provide financial protection for only the living - but maybe you weren't initially aware that life insurance will save you from the following situations while you’re still alive, hale, and hearty here in Nigeria: 1. Paying High Taxes: One of the benefits of having an active life insurance policy is that it provides you with signi...

Your investments are always prone to "threats" and "risk". These risks and threats could be due to unpleasant events, changes in market trends, world politics, government policies, socio-economic dynamics, new industry trends, or even technological advancements. This is why you need to create some sort of balance in your financial life, and the way to guarantee this stability in your finance is through diversification - dividing your financial resources (money) into several segments like slices of pizza. You should not be putting all your eggs in one basket in a world filled with various risks, especially if you are a breadwinner. So what is the solution? The solution is to frequently allocate a certain percentage (or a fixed amount) of your monthly/yearly income into the 6 KEY AREAS OF LONG-TERM FINANCIAL STABILITY, which include your: - Bank account balance - Personal/life savings - Equity investments - Property/Life Insurance - Emergency funds, and - Business inv...

A common question my clients ask when we sit down to discuss about financial planning with focus on family goals, children's progress, and retirement aspirations is "Chris, how do I  manage my income with all these bills I always have to pay?“ This is the simple tip I give them, which they find to be very effective - but before I talk about it, here are some things you should consider: 1. If you worry about it, there's a 90% chance that you can fix it. 2. The foundation of financial progress is constant earning and saving.  3. Financial success is in how much you keep & give, not how much you spend. 4. Life is about giving and receiving.  5. All through your life you will pay money to other people in the form of taxes, bills, fees, and charges; but the money you save and the assets you keep is how you pay yourself.  Now here's the tip. 1. Make a list of all your weekly necessities (not wants) and calculate how much you spend every week and every month on them. Fo...

In my humble opinion, I think it's always more rewarding when people take job offers in industries that they can have fun at - yes! fun, work should always be play because those few who truly excel and stand out in their industry are those who play their best game in a field where many basically just work.  You know what's worse than fooling others - right, fooling yourself. It's nice to welcome people's good wishes and standards for you, but you will almost never feel as fulfilled in life as much as when you follow your core childhood dreams. Majority of our most productive years would be spent at work, therefore it is important that we choose career paths or accept jobs that we truly are wired for - in terms of natural abilities.  Stop playing it safe, stop doing it to have others' approval, stop doing it to impress - Start doing it for you, for impact, for the audience that really wants to have a piece of your uniqueness.  Your childhood interests, pa...

Progress and Productivity are never the same thing as being "Busy" - you can actually be very busy and still remain stuck at the same level for eon, and that's not the same as being productive. Presently, we live in a world where tonnes of "life-transforming" information and resources can be accessed in just about a short period of time; from eBooks, to videos, and podcasts, literally there's no excuse not to make progress in the direction you truly desire at this time in history.  The underlying problem with this information overload is, over-consumption of unnecessary-yet-irresistible information can leave you directionless in life. Yes my dear, it is true that no knowledge is a waste; but have you ever stopped to consider how much you stunt growth in your true-north (areas of greater impact)  by jumping at every opportunity presented to you. I get it, you mostly jump at these opportunities for fear of missing out or be...

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." — Mark Twain  Did you know that an estimated 70% of people experience " Impostor Syndrome " at some point in their lives, according to a review article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science.  Yes, more often than not we fail to see how much this feeling of self-doubt suppresses our courage to go after new opportunities, explore potential areas of interest, and put ourselves out there in a meaningful way. Impostor Syndrome, the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck and not because of your talent or qualifications; was adopted by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, after studies showed that despite obvious adequate external evidence of accomplishments, most successful people remained convinced that they don’t deserve the success they have and often dismiss it as luck, good timing, or as others’ believing they were smar...

1. ON RISK TAKING: Keeping your life cheap and flexible for as long as you can is a powerful way to master the art of risk taking. When people get used to a comfortable life, a predictable job, and a reputation of succeeding at whatever they do, it gets very hard to leave that behind (and people have an incredible ability to always match their lifestyle to next year’s salary). Even if they do leave, the temptation to return is great. It’s easy—and human nature—to prioritize short-term gain and convenience over long-term fulfillment.  It’s often easier to take risks early in your career; you don’t have much to lose, and you potentially have a lot to gain. Once you’ve gotten yourself to a point where you have your basic obligations covered you should try to make it easy to take risks. Look for small bets you can make where you lose 1x if you’re wrong but make 100x if it works. Then make a bigger bet in that direction. 2. ON FOCUS: It is much more important to work on the ...