Who are you?

Advise to Ladies by a woman of substance - Married and singles:

Advise for singles

If you are walking down the road, with the wrong man, you are in trouble. You cannot afford to make a mistake.

Don’t get married until you have a sense of who you are.

You have to take this seriously because your life is on assignment. You are accountable to God for your life.

Your life has three parts:

1. Who you are

2. After a while, you get the added responsibility of a wife. This does not replace who you are. Your role as a wife is to help a man be the best of himself, not to diminish yourself

3. After a while, you get the added responsibility of a mother

One part does not remove the other, and it is your responsibility to work out how the three will combine together.

When you know who you are, you will know what to look out for when you are looking for a partner.

You won’t be carried away by “Rich, Tall and Handsome”, Instead you will be looking for someone who can help you to achieve what you are born to achieve.

If you marry the wrong person, and there is a mismatch, there will be a great conflict.

You owe it to yourself not to settle.

Don’t ever settle until you are comfortable that this person you want to marry has your back and will allow you to fly.

If you don’t know who you are, you can start by knowing what you don’t want, and be honest with yourself.

Don’t get carried away with the butterflies in your tummy.

When you are deciding on a man to marry:

Pick a man who is responsible and who is working hard. He may not have made it yet, but at least he is working and he has a vision.

It is not your job to give your husband-to-be a vision. You can’t change him. Make sure that he already has a personal vision of what he wants to become and is already working towards it.

Please take note of this:

The son of a rich man is not a rich boy.

He will take you out on dates in a big car. It is not his car, it’s his father’s car. He borrowed it.

His father will throw a big party for the two of you when you are getting married. This is for his own ego. The father can even pay 2 years house rent for you to impress the inlaws, and hence you might not realize that you are in trouble.

When the marriage starts, it will dawn on you that the boy you married, does not have any money.

He is always dependent on his daddy.

The day daddy does not give him money, you guys will not have money.

All the responsibilities will fall on your head, and this will cause friction in the marriage.

Be warned my daughters.

You can prevent yourself from entering trouble.

Advise for Married Women

At first when you start a business, your husband might seem supportive because he thinks it is just a business to keep you busy.

But as the business becomes successful, he gets scared.

He gets scared because he feels that you might become something else. He has heard so many stories of women who have become rich and are now terrible. He is scared that you might not be able to balance it all.

You have the power to manage this transition.

1. Don’t start what you cannot finish

Breakfast in bed

Cooking fresh food everyday

The day you become busy and you cannot make breakfast in bed, he will say you have changed and will start treating you as if you are a horrible person

2. Make your husband a stakeholder in everything you do

You must have heard people say:

Your husband’s money is your money

Your money is your money

This is bad advice

If your husband has no stake in what you do, what is his benefit? You are making money everyday and you are still asking for housekeeping. After a while, he will begin to despise you.

All this money you are making, you can’t even help out in the house.

One of the wise things you can do is to empower him.

For example, you can say, “Let me take care of the house.

- Ibukun Awosika

Heart to Heart with Mrs Ibukun Awosika.

Entrepreneur and business magnate.

First female Chair person of First Bank Nigeria PLC.