How to Have A Very Bad Year in 2015 (Episode 1 of 5)

I met Kenny some weeks ago and I could feel the pain in his voice; a full grown man was almost sobbing in my presence. “What could be hurting you so much? Tell me what the problem is. I said, trying to pacify him. "I have one thousand naira in my account but it could have been a million if I wasn’t so shy.” He answered. I became confused. What is the relationship between one million naira and being shy?




Apparently, Kenny had spent his life savings alongside getting a credit facility to publish a book. He had been so excited about it but he didn’t know that publishing a book was probably the easiest thing to do; selling them is what you should get commended for. He had sat next to a lady at an event and had heard the lady say on phone that she was willing to invest a million naira into a CSR project. She was interested in spending one million naira to buy gifts for people, offer them a service or support them with it and here was Kenny who had published one thousand copies of his book – a book that was written as a solution to most of the problems facing the younger generation. Kenny interacted with this lady but he was too shy to talk about his books. He was too shy to discuss ‘one million naira’ with the lady; he was afraid he would be seen as a gold digger. He was afraid that she would think he wanted a relationship with her. Did you realise that I have just used the word ‘afraid’ twice instead of ‘shy’? It was deliberate! Being shy is synonymous to being afraid of something, have distaste for something, to avoid accepting or be involved with something.



This is how most of us have been ‘shy’ and that is one of the reasons why you had a bad year. By all means, be SHY in 2015 if you want to have a bad year – you know what to do if you don’t want to have a bad year.

Kenny ran into the lady in December of 2014 and he finally showed her his book and Kenny was dumbfounded when the lady said, “I wish I knew about this earlier. My company just spent one million naira buying inspirational books for young undergraduates”. This was why Kenny was almost sobbing when I met him few weeks ago.

So I have come to encourage you that after hearing this story, PLEASE be SHY in 2015, be shy about your dreams in 2015, be shy to ask for help, be shy to market and promote the work of your hands in 2015, be shy to discuss with people about buying your products or services, be shy to express yourself to that woman or man you love, be shy to walk up to a mentor. Please be shy in 2015 and you will have a very bad year.

I hope and pray that you don’t heed my advice.



(‘How to have a very BAD Year in 2015’ will run every Monday in January 2015 and will be facilitated by Gabriel Olatunji-Legend; Next Monday’s episode will blow your mind)

Gabriel Olatunji-Legend is a Transformational writer and the Founder of Africa’s No 1 Blog on Inspiration – OLATUNJISPEAKS.com. He tweets from @OlatunjiLEGEND