Entertainment

“I worked for seven years straight without a day off” – Dayo Adeneye

Published

6 years ago

November 17, 2017

Just because Success Stories Africa 2017 is still the rave of the moment!

Maybe you live under a rock if you have not heard of what went down on Saturday, November 11 at TLC auditorium in Abule Egba. You might want to stop for a minute and ponder on this very inspiring quote before reading on.

“History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.” – Robert Penn Warren

In line with the theme for this year’s edition ‘Change history’, Success Stories Africa 2017 was truly an impactful day as participants left the venue with their hearts burning with inspiration and lessons learnt from the amazing speakers to launch out and replicate successes in every area of their lives. The event which was powered by Africa’s No.1 success website, Topnaija.ng, featured an exceptional line up of speakers including the Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Ogun state, Dayo Adeneye, popularly known as D1.

The veteran media personality spoke from his heart as he shared simple but deep success principles from his life. The audience was left in awe as he was so vulnerable to share his past mistakes and how he slowly climbed the ladder of success. The underlying message was that of persistence and commitment to their passion and dream in spite of what was their present situation. The crux of his session focused on what he called his five basic tips to attaining success in life.

From getting an education to having a life plan as to where you envision yourself in two to five years, he urged everyone at the gathering to stick to whatever it is they enjoyed doing and strive to be the best at it. It was at this point he made a statement that cannot be forgotten in a hurry. “Find something you enjoy doing and you will never have to work again in your life”. He then revealed that he earned 17,000 per month at the time and worked tirelessly for 7 years without a day off. At this point, need I say more? The lesson to be learned is staring at us right here on our screens. Nothing good comes easy, you have to work hard and keep at it until you become it.

For D1, it is not just hard work as he advised everyone to work smart and leverage on any opportunity they find in order to make progress in life.

Still speaking about the basic tips for success, he encouraged the audience to remain optimistic at every point or situation, as the case may be. “It is not about how many times you fall, it is when you refuse to get up, then that is failure” he said. He also spoke on the importance of surrounding yourself with good friends as he went ahead to thank God for the fruitful partnership between him and his long time friend, Kenny Ogungbe. The duo established Kennis Music, the music label which became the leading record label in the country for close to a decade at the time. They also went ahead to create Primetime Entertainment, their own production company and played a significant role in raising many successful Nigerian talents we now celebrate today.

Still discussing his journey to success, he emphasized the need to give back and help others, where he mentioned that Kennis Music came about because himself and his long time friend, Kenny Ogungbe were trying to help young men at the time and not because of the money.

Amidst threats of being fired from work, threats of being disowned by his own parents, earning a meager sum of money and was still owed about nine months salary, moving out from a three bedroom apartment to a one bedroom flat at Ebutte Meta, waking up at about 3am and closing from work very late at night and other tales of his not so smooth journey to success, Dayo Adeneye has proven that you can be whatever you aspire to be if you would roll of your sleeves and put in the hard work on your path to success.

In these times of an erratic job market and a volatile economy, you have to keep pushing forward and stick to whatever it is you are very passionate about, it will definitely come to you and pay off in the end. “I have never chased money in my life, the seven years I spent in Raypower were the happiest moments of my life”, he said.

In a nutshell; here are seven major lessons to be learned from Dayo Adeneye’s very impactful session at SSA 2017;

You have to wait and persevere. Do not join the bandwagon, keep at it and it will come to you.
It does not only require hard but SMART work to succeed in life.
Avoid the bandwagon effect. Do what you are passionate about, which you usually find in your moment of zen. Believe in your dreams and chase it
Look for a gap in your society and fill it. Seek for ways to add value and impact individuals and the society at large (which is why he had ventured into politics)
Do not go around like the world owes you. You have to put in the work by yourself.
Your friends can determine whether or not you become successful in life.
In helping others, you are also helping yourself, hence, giving back cannot be overstated.