MEET THE FAB MENTEES… CHIDINMA’S JOURNEY

Hello everyone.

My name is Chidinma and I’m one of the ladies who had the privilege of being mentored by Mama Eziaha these past weeks. I’m super excited to share all that I gleaned from my 5 week stay in the Fab Sistership Academy. I came in weak but I didn’t leave the same way. Strength and wisdom was multiplied for me, yeah.

Just a little back story before I dig right in. I first heard of Eziaha Bolaji-Olojo when a mentee of hers, Rosee, told me about a job role at Mama’s company, CoachE’ Squad Ltd. To help me get a hang of the business, Rosee gave me a link to Mama E’s websites and referring to her personal blog, eziaha.com, she told me to ‘binge on everything’. In my mind I was like, ‘Binge ke?’ But I’d later find myself coming for more as the messages there spoke to me in no small way. 

Fast forward to my working in her company for a few months and even though our relationship was on employer-employee basis I can’t deny that her life was the life!! Wow. So when TFS came up this year, I applied and I’m glad I was one of the girls picked.

TFS was a whole 5 weeks of intensity. Sense was literally knocked into me, from the week devoted to productivity to that of prayer and spirituality, friendship, mentoring and slipstreaming plus the week for question and answers. 

The first week, we started with a live meeting via Zoom and Mama quoted some scriptures per our eyes being open to see our teachers, discipline and prayer.

This was a huge one for me because I had never seen the fruitful prayers contained in scripture up until then. The next time, she talked about the importance of planning my day and said that there’s purpose and intention when you plan each day.

Before TFS I used to plan my day but I never knew I had to allot time to each thing I was doing and by at the end of the day I’d be wondering where all my hours had gone. Mama opened my eyes to the treasure of filling up every hour right from the time you wake up to when you sleep. And if you don’t have anything to put within a period of time, you can leave it free.

Ah, I also learnt how to schedule my social media time and not leave anything to chance. Then, game changer, I heard that I could mute WhatsApp notifications so that whenever I go online it’s not impulse driven, but I’m intentional about it. Wowza.

I discovered that I had been planning my day but I was still accomplishing only little because nothing was time bound. Mama’s teaching per scheduling has since changed a lot for me and I’m more productive than I ever was. We were also paired with accountability partners, all from the TFS group, to help monitor our progress and spur us on.

Mama E’ encouraged us to read books and said that everyone who’s going somewhere reads. And in this case, it’s not about reading story books/novels or anything that doesn’t contribute to our overall development.

In fact, I had to go and delete the crap books I had on my phone and the many many books that were not helping my life. Before, I could be reading and even surfing the internet but when Mama mentioned that doing that means I’m reducing my mental capacity, I adjusted.

She taught us to graduate to doing the hard stuff. I learned not to have too many books on my phone except the ones that I have confirmed to be beneficial and that I’ll read self. Because the truth is I can’t read everything so I learnt early to only engage myself in the most profitable ones.

This also applies to my use of technology, I realized that I don’t have to incorporate every new app/technology that is created but I must instead make the most of the ones available to me now. I mustn’t go for every event or church program that anyone and everyone tells me about. I should only attend the ones that’ll give me the most investment on my time cause this thing called time is really precious, laidat.

Plus, I stopped feeling entitled to people’s time such that if I want you to help me do something, I give prior notice as against just coming and asking for help and then maybe feeling offended if I don’t get what I want.

On my own part, I stopped allowing anyone feel entitled to my time. By nature, I find it difficult to say no but now I create time for things on my own terms.

Moreover, I started to predetermine my wake up time a day before rather than just waking at anytime I want and later rushing through my morning. I learned from Mama that the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night are very important.

Before, I could sleep off while pressing my phone, watching a movie (my room mate used to call me a legend in this) but not anymore as now I either pray, reflect or when I don’t do any of that, just sleep.

While doing household chores or when I’m on a bus, standing in a queue I am either listening to a podcast, my audio Bible,music. Or reading if I’m waiting somewhere. This is what Mama called, ”Maximizing your fringe hours”

She taught us to make daily musts: these are the things I must make time to do everyday. Some of mine are spending time with God, reading at least 20 minutes each from my 2 books of the month and saying my confession.

In the academy, we were given assignments right from the beginning of the program till the end and these assignments were time bound. Failure to do them could earn you a removal. All these really stretched and kept me accountable.

I’ve been a quitter of many things but this time there was no quitting for me. This period I also completed a 21 day Bible plan. Yay.

On the week given for prayer and spirituality, I learnt to make my time with Jesus sacrosanct and nurture my relationship with God. Creating confessions was another huge one for me.

According to Mama E, If something is not working in your life, don’t laugh about it, create a confession about it. She taught us that confession is made from scriptures. It is God’s word put in your own words as if they have happened so as to change your life.

Some of my own struggles have been this feeling of not being good enough. I also hate being ignored by people and I can just take offence so I created confessions for as many areas of my life as I needed God’s help and I said them daily and still do.

Mama taught us how to fight discouragement from Satan. She made us know that those evil thoughts that ring in my head are not just emotions. It’s the devil and I must fight Him with all that I have; prayers and the word.

This season has been full of discouragement but confessing God’s word has been an encourager for me. I also learnt to be specific in my prayers by creating a prayer schedule that covers different aspects of my life. Still, Mama said we should be flexible to the Holy Spirit and not just say, ‘I’ll stick to my schedule’ when the Holy Spirit is saying something else.

On friendship, I learned not to neglect my friends. For some time, I’ve failed at keeping in touch with my friends but after this week on navigating friendships, there was a change on my part. I also learnt that friendship must be equal hence I must know where I stand with people and stay on the level that they put me.

I have to bring something to the table as well and not just come empty handed asking someone to be my friend without having anything to offer such as my strength, listening ear and so on.

I must be discerning enough to know when a friendship is over as well as talk about it with the person instead of just keeping quiet. I must also make time for friendship by scheduling a time and date for when I’ll see a friend and not just leave everything to chance.

Also, the week for mentoring and slipstreaming taught me how to service my mentoring relationship. If I am still in the phase of slipstreaming, I must be faithful to slipstreaming but I don’t have to start feeling entitled.

Feedback is very critical in mentoring as well so I have to carry my mentor along. Because mentoring is a two way thing I mustn’t just expect to be poured into but must bring value as well, serve where I can, care for and pray for my mentors, especially that they continue to submit to Jesus.

I mustn’t be a comedian but instead be the kind of mentee who earns things. I learned that it’s important to ask deep questions from a sincere heart too per finance, marriage etc. One thing is to also never beg for money in a mentoring relationship.

Mama E’ did not stop emphasizing the importance of discernment and my relationship with God being on track. Indeed, many times when she taught us my heart literally burned within me at all the things she said( Remember those men who walked with Jesus to Emmaus and what they said? Lol) Mama literally spoke from a place of submission to Jesus during these 5 weeks.

Finally, on the last day of the mentoring we had another meeting where we prayed. Mama had earlier talked to us about being responsible as against the casual attitude that’s everywhere among young people these days.

Ah, she told us to shun this culture of silence where you don’t even give feedback to people when you should. I’ve been guilty of this and I retraced my steps, apologized to someone who had told me to do something and I had neither done it nor explained myself. I also went on to do the job I should have done earlier.

Kai, growth is all over me from having been in TFS this year. Mama told us to stand out and be exceptional where others are doing as they like. Whether it’s at a job, volunteering etc, turn up and go the extra mile. She said, “Don’t be the kind of person who only works on supervision; someone is always checking up on you. See yourself as a meaningful specific and be responsible”

Trust me, I could go on writing about my stay in TFS but let me stop here. The academy was and still is a huge goldmine. In a mere 5 weeks, Mama gave me a roadmap for navigating life and removed the fog that had formerly covered my eyes. It’s so true that a mentor helps you to see better and go farther. Thank you so much ma for giving of yourself to me and all the ladies.

And dear reader, I hope you gained a thing or two from this post.

Love,

Chidinma.