The One Thing

The One Thing   (Extracted from The Half Story of My Life-Follow Your Heart, Live Your Dream, By Ojijo-ISBN 978-9966-123-07-7 (2012)) When I started out in my consultancy three years ago in 2012, I wanted to overflow with expertise in law, public speaking, collective investment schemes, strategic planning, business coaching, and business systems consultancy. However, I realised it was too much, too all over, and too broad. I was getting broad knowledge, but not rising high. I was not being called to speak in conferences, invited to motivate organisations, paid to inspire groups. That is when I decided I needed to find the one thing: The One Thing. I needed to identify my dream, and make it a reality, or else, I was going to be a consultant and employee, and make other people’s dreams become realities. I realized that most people are losers and failures not because they do not work hard, but because they work hard on the wrong things, or they work on too many good things. The good, then, becomes the enemy of the perfect. That is when I decided to identify the thing. The One Thing. And I realized that the one thing was not law, or to practice law for the rest of my life. I realized the one thing was not to be a motivational public speaker. I realized the one thing was not to be a money lender. Rather, these are things which I needed to do every day, to pay rent, to send money home to my mother, and to be relevant to my people-my family, my friends, my clients and my colleagues. I call this the Two Leg Theory, one leg should pursue what I must pursue to eat today, and the other leg, must pursue my life goal, The One Thing. And as the one thing becomes stronger, and starts earning me income, then the other leg starts becoming weaker, and weight shifts to the leg of my life goal, until when my life is just about the one thing, through and through. I realized that my consultancies, and my books, and my companies, and my investments, were The Other Things, and not The One Thing. I realized that my one thing was GoBigHub, a franchise to help the entrepreneurs access capital from their communities, and create products, build companies, create employment, a generate wealth, and improve the quality of lives of people, communities, countries, and continents. I realized that my one thing I wanted bad enough to go out and fight for was GoBigHub, an institute to connect dormant capital to creative ideas, and produce industries and companies. I identified GoBigHub as the one thing I wanted bad enough to work day and night for. I knew that the one thing I would give up my time, my peace and my sleep for was GoBigHub. I realized that the only thing I was dreaming and scheming about was GoBigHub. I realized that life seemed useless and worthless without it. I knew that I would gladly sweat for it, cry for it and plan for it. I lost all my terror of the opposition and fear of failure for it. I knew it does not take effort, motivation or drive to be a loser, a failure, and a low life. I knew it takes hard work, perseverance, and determination to achieve what I wanted. I was ready to give anything for GoBigHub. I felt inside me, deep inside me, that if I simply went after that thing that I wanted, with all my capacity, strength and sagacity; with all my faith hope and confidence and tenacity, I would get it. I deeply believed that neither cold poverty, scarcity or shortage, sickness or pain of body and brain could keep me away from being the greatest institute for connecting entrepreneurs to capital in African. I could feel that through it I would apply all my past knowledge and experience in law, financial literacy, coaching, mentorship, strategic planning, and entrepreneurship. Through it I would leverage all my present connections and networks in academic, media, civil society, industry and government. Through it I would achieve all my future goals and dreams of owning a franchise investment bank, GoBigCapital, travel and experience the world, inspire and motivate the world, and own various businesses in various sectors, to contribute to employment, better livelihoods, wealth generation, and happiness. I could feel it was GoBigHub, because I was doing it for more than money, because I was doing it for more than fame, because I was doing it for me, because it was The One Thing. Because it is The One Thing. Author’s Profile-Ojijo Pascal Ojijo is the Founder & Lead at GoBigHub.com, the solution to the ever present cry for youth that they lack capital for doing business. GoBigHub creates provides a monthly meeting entrepreneurs to meet and pitch to local institutional and individual investors, as well as business coaching, office space, and online crowdfunding platform. GoBigHub is leading the move away from grants, promoting trade, not aid, by offering African entrepreneurs a chance to get equity funding, with board positions, transparency, and scrutiny to make sure businesses funded are scalable, and hence, profitably sustainable. Ojijo has also worked extensively with collective investment schemes generally (namely, investment clubs and cooperatives), as a consultant on financial literacy, legal advisory, strategic planning, and leadership dynamics. In this area, he has also authored two leading texts on collective investment schemes, with one on Cooperatives, Successful Cooperatives - Managers' Guide to Acquire, Retain and Grow Membership, Savings and Assets and one on investment clubs, Making Money Together - Ojijo's Investments Club Manual. He sits in bank of Uganda Financial Literacy Advisory Group/ Financial Literacy Sharing Group (FLISG), and is a co-founder of Uganda Ministry of Finance sponsored committee of Champions promoting Investment clubs, Investment Clubs Association of Uganda-ICAU. He has helped in the training and or setting up of various cooperatives, including ministry of foreign affairs cooperative; finance ministry cooperative; NEMA; NARO; Gender Ministry cooperative, and Nsamizi Institute cooperative (Mpigi), to name but a few. Ojijo is also a lawyer and guest lecturer in Financial Services Law, ICT Law, Legal Rhetoric and Law Firm Management; and a communications expert specializing in strategic planning, public speaking, and writing skills. He has worked with various clients including ministry of finance (Uganda); Bank of Uganda; Ministry of Gender; Technoserve; AIESEC; AYDL; UMYDF; CCEDU; PEDN; Foundation for Human Rights; several universities, companies, and individuals on personal branding, financial literacy, business coaching, and entrepreneurship. Ojijo is an author of 49 books; Inua Kijana Fellow; Performance Poet’ Armature Pianist; and entrepreneur owner of luopedia.com, commonsenseapp.net,  lawpronto.com, naniwapi.com, gobighub.com, allpublicspeakers.com,   uzimafoods.com, and achibela.com. M: +256776100059. E: ojijo@gobighub.com