(Part 1/2) I’m a man of many parts. From a professional point of view, I run an organisation called Inspiro Consulting. It’s an HR and career services organisation and has been running for 6 years. Prior to that, I had worked with different organisations in consulting and banking at senior management levels. Today, I do a lot of career coaching, counselling, and public speaking. I also pastor the Lekki arm of my church – Kingsword International Church. I’m an author of 5 published books.
The truth is, I wasn’t always like this. I remember some time ago, my mum called me and said there was a friend of hers that wanted to speak with me. So the woman was given the phone. I knew her when I was in Secondary school. This is how the conversation went:
Mum’s friend: “Hello, is this Jimi?”
Me: “Good afternoon ma. How are you ma?”
Mum’s friend: “My children have been telling me about one Jimi Tewe that is going around talking everywhere and I was like it cannot be the same Jimi. Because the Jimi that I know cannot talk.”
So, that is an exact picture of who I was growing up versus who I am right now.
I am the 1st of 4 kids. I grew up in a regular nuclear family. My father is a lecturer and my mum taught English Language – she later became a principal of several schools. For some reason, I grew up with a heavy sense of poor self-esteem. I remember I had a permissible excuse why I couldn’t talk to people or why I couldn’t answer questions in class – I was shy. So, shyness was my excuse. I coldn’t even talk to a lady.
I wasn’t too good in my academics either; I was below average. In a class of 40, my position would be 20 something. I remember when I was 19th position. It was like a miracle. Meanwhile, my siblings were always in the top three positions in their respective classes. The one after me was the head boy of the school. My sister was head girl too. I, the eldest brother was always at the back of the class. So, I didn’t feel I was smart. I was just going through life essentially.
(Part 2/2) I grew up in a Christian home and I got born again when I was in my 2nd year in Junior Secondary school (JSS2). In JSS3 we were about writing the exams that would take us to Senior Secondary School, but my dad was concerned about me. He got the Maths teacher, Mr Balogun from school to come be my home teacher because that was my worst subject. I just couldn’t understand it. And in spite of that, I was still failing.
So I remember it was some weeks to the exams and my dad came to school to see Mr Balogun. My dad told him, “Mr Balogun, Jimi can’t fail this exam o. Please o, does he need more classes?” And Mr Balogun had a startled look on his face and he said, “Jimi? Which exam? Maths? No o. Jimi will do very well.” All the while he was speaking, I was wondering which Jimi they were talking about.
To my surprise, I finished the exams and I got just one A, and it was in Maths. That’s where I learnt the place of believing in others and how that can transform people’s lives. Nobody had believed in me like that and I don’t blame my parents because I had given them enough bad results. I don’t know what Mr Balogun saw in me or why he said what he said, but I remember that his belief alone helped me. From there I said to myself, “I like Maths.” It changed my perspective.
I started getting better results, results I’d never had before in my entire destiny *laughs*. So, by the time I got to SS2, I wrote JAMB, WAEC and I passed. I gained admission to the University of Ibadan and graduated with a 2.1 CGPA in Agricultural Economics and the rest is history, though it is still being written.