This picture brings back such a sweet memory.

I was sitting at a global event at Eko Hotels and Suites, smiling because, somehow, my handwork had reached places my “legwork” had not yet reached. One of the facilitators at the event was wearing a beautiful piece I had created.

I had always been able to do quite a few things with my hands. Designing, video editing, putting things together, fixing things, and sometimes just figuring things out as I went.

But I did not think there was much to it.

I called most of these things “side hustles”. Something small. Something extra. Something I could do when I had the time.

Then one day, I created something for a client.

When she saw it, she said something I did not expect:

“You did not just design this piece. You reflected me.”

That sentence stayed with me.

I kept thinking about it because, to me, I had just done what I knew how to do. But she saw something else.

She saw herself in what I had created.

And that made me look at my work differently.

I began to realise that before I picked up my tools, started designing, or put my hands to work, there was already a lot happening in my head.

I was listening.

I was observing.

I was asking questions.

I was thinking about what the person really wanted, not just what they had asked for.

That was when I started asking myself a question:

Was I just a creator?

Or was I a creative?

I think there is a difference.

A creator makes things.

A creative looks at an idea and starts asking questions.

What if?

Why not?

How can this be better?

What is missing?

How will this make someone feel?

How can I take what is in my head and make another person understand it?

That was me.

I had been doing this without having a name for it.

My hands were doing the work, but my mind was always somewhere in the process.

That was the part I had overlooked.

I was not just making things.

I was thinking.

I was solving problems.

I was connecting ideas.

I was telling stories.

And sometimes, I was saying things through what I created that I could never have explained with words.

That changed how I looked at many of the things I had previously called “just something I can do.”

I think many of us do this.

We downplay the things that come naturally to us.

Because it feels easy, we assume it is not a big deal.

You might be the person everyone comes to when they need help putting an idea together.

Maybe you are the person who can walk into a room and immediately notice what is missing.

Maybe you can explain difficult things in a way people understand.

Maybe you can bring people together when nobody else knows how to get everyone on the same page.

Maybe you can write.

Maybe you can design.

Maybe you can organise.

Maybe, like me, you can make something with your hands that other people have no idea how to make.

And because you have been doing it for so long, you may never have stopped to ask what that ability actually says about you.

For me, my hands gave me the clue.

Today, that way of thinking has followed me into the digital space.

When I work on content or social media, I am not only thinking about what looks good or what we should post.

I think about the story behind it.

What are we trying to say?

Who needs to hear it?

What do we want them to feel?

What will make them stop scrolling?

Does this actually sound like the person or brand behind it?

Those questions matter to me because good communication is not only about putting something out there.

It is about making sure what you put out there actually says something.

A beautiful post can still say nothing.

A well designed video can still feel empty.

And a brand can have all the right colours and pictures and still struggle to connect with people.

The thinking behind the work matters.

That is what I understand now.

All those years of making, designing, and figuring things out were also teaching me how to think creatively.

So now, whenever I create, I try not to stop at “Can I make this?”

I ask, “What can this say?”

That small shift has changed a lot for me.

I have learnt that there is a creator in many of us.

But there is also a creative behind the creator.

The creator may hold the tools.

The creative holds the ideas.

Sometimes, we spend years celebrating what our hands can do without paying attention to the mind that keeps telling our hands what to do. I did that for a long time, until I truly met the creative in me.

I hope you will too.

I Met a Stranger. We Ended Up as Partners for an Outreach.

Everyone was locked in during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for me, it became a period of deep reflection. I journaled a lot and held several meetings online. It was my way of staying connected with my teams, family, and mentees when we could not be together physically.

At some point, I started making nose masks to sell, but there was still something missing. I was keeping busy, but I was not feeling fulfilled.

A friend who knew me well and knew my passion for community service told me about an organisation called FoodClique that was going around giving food items to the needy. She encouraged me to volunteer with them to pack and distribute food. Perhaps, she thought, that would give me the sense of fulfilment and joy I was looking for.

She was right.

I immediately indicated my interest and was brought on board. I went to the warehouse every day to help with food packaging, and whenever there was an outreach, I followed the team to the selected location. Sometimes, we even travelled out of the state. I genuinely enjoyed being part of that humanitarian work. I went to bed each day looking forward to the next one.

I showed up for several months. Normally, when volunteers arrived at the warehouse, we were divided into teams. Some worked on sorting, others on packaging, sealing, or tagging. One day, I was assigned to the packaging team and noticed an unfamiliar face. As I had guessed, she was new. Just like I had been on my first day, she seemed a little nervous and kept to herself.

I noticed her and decided to start a conversation.

Her name was Amah.

As we talked, we discovered that we shared the same birthday, and our birthdays were only a month away. But it was not just our birthdays that we had in common. She was just as passionate about community service as I was. We knew we wanted to stay in touch, so we exchanged contacts.

We kept in touch, and one day, while working in the warehouse, we started talking about giving back to children living in a slum community on our birthdays. We decided to make it happen.

We had less than a month to prepare, so we kept the idea simple but meaningful. We first needed to find a location and get the necessary approval before moving further with the preparations. Our plan was to play games with the children, cut our birthday cake with them, and give them back to school packs.

We created a planning team of 10 people, made up of friends and family members from both sides. Amah and I shared the vision with them, and they largely bought into it. That was our starting point.

From there, we worked together to bring the idea to life. Amah and I visited the community leader to explain what we wanted to do and seek permission to celebrate with the children. The approval was granted.

Because the team believed in the vision, raising the funds we needed was not a major challenge. Amah and I contributed a significant part of the budget, while the rest of the team helped make up the difference. We printed T shirts, planned the logistics and gave everyone clear timelines for their responsibilities.

The day finally came, and I honestly could not tell who was more excited: us or the more than 100 children who attended.

Someone from our team played the guitar. We played games, taught the children about hygiene, ethics and etiquette, cut our birthday cake with them and prayed together. Later, we shared the back to school packs we had prepared for them.

It was a very joyful day, and we were glad that we had made the decision to do it.

We may not have had the resources to send these children to schools with better infrastructure, but at least they would be returning to school with new books and writing materials. That alone gave us so much joy.

We kept in touch with the person who had given us access to the community for some time afterwards. We were happy to hear good reports about the children and how some of them had become more composed and better behaved since the outreach. For me, that was more than enough reason to keep serving.

I no longer live in the country where I met Amah or the children. I am now far away in the Netherlands, but whenever I think about that experience, I smile.

I think about how I met someone I barely knew, discovered that we shared a value that mattered deeply to both of us, and within a short time, we worked together to put smiles on more than 100 children’s faces.

That experience reminded me that meaningful partnerships do not always begin with years of knowing someone. Sometimes, they begin with a simple conversation, a shared value, and the willingness to take the first step.

I would gladly take that step again with someone I barely know if our values align and we can work together to make a difference in the lives of others.

I was in secondary school when I realised my passion for personal and people development. I would always look forward to the next networking opportunity. Any space where I could learn and sometimes impact the little I knew.

I was convinced beyond doubt that everyone was unique and had something to give.

In 2018, I was home from university, meditating, when I thought about my alma mater, my secondary school. I thought it would be a great idea to give back some of the knowledge I had gained so that they would not make some of the mistakes I made in my career choices, socially, mentally, and otherwise.

I knew I really wanted to do this, but I wasn’t sure exactly where to begin.

The following day, I got dressed and took public transport to my secondary school. I met with one of the administrators and poured out all I had in my heart.

To this day, I don’t know where that audacity came from.

They agreed to have me over.

I got to work immediately. I contacted a few friends who had a similar passion, drew up a plan, and the programme came to life with over 300 students in attendance.

I was in awe. I hadn’t overthought it. I just moved in the direction of my burning passion, and young lives were impacted.

That first event taught me a major life lesson.

Visions die when you make no move at all.

Every year following that event, I began to put together programmes for young people who were trying to discover their purpose and navigate life. I called it the Teen Empowerment Movement360.

As the years went by, I began to understand more clearly what I wanted the movement to achieve. I really wanted to inspire and guide a community of young people toward the right direction in life and help them avoid mistakes with the right information and guidance.

I wanted young people to start living intentionally from an early age. I wanted them to have access to information, resources, and people who could help them make better decisions as they grew into responsible adults.

That became the heart of the movement.

We believed that getting it right young and getting it right now could make a difference in the kind of impact these young people would eventually have on their communities, their nations, and the world.

Our approach was simple. We built the programmes around mentorship, skill acquisition, personal development, demonstrations, seminars, and conversations that young people could actually relate to.

Funding became a challenge as we grew.

My team and I would contribute a huge chunk of the budget and then solicit the rest. Sometimes, we shared some materials and light refreshments after the event. It wasn’t always much, but we did what we could with what we had.

I had also built a strong network of very influential people who could add value, so I would invite them to come and impact these young ones.

For each event, I usually created a team and gave everyone roles according to their strengths. We had people handling media, sound, publicity, fundraising, and secretarial duties. I would just coordinate, and together, we would make sure the vision came to life.

Then in 2020, COVID hit.

I had many reasons not to host any event that year, but the passion was so strong that each time I closed my eyes, I couldn’t seem to find rest.

Thank God for technology.

Immediately, I decided to make that year’s edition virtual.

Again, I established my team. We got a good number of teens to register. Going online allowed us to spread our activities across weeks. We had assessment reviews, case study groups, mentorship sessions with facilitators, and many other activities.

In fact, I still consider that year’s edition the most impactful to date.

One of the participants is a graduate today and still thanks us for that event because of the impact it had on her career choice.

COVID did not stop us. It simply made us find another way to do what we had always done.

Eventually, things returned to normal, and we kept going, year after year.

That same year, I decided to celebrate my 25th birthday with some kids from the slum. I collaborated with a birthday mate I had met while volunteering to share food at an NGO, FoodClique.

We shared back-to-school packs with the kids, played games, and cut our birthday cake with them.

I really couldn’t have done this without the help of my family and friends who came out to support me with their presence and financially, too. I’ll always say, people are my greatest resource.

Looking back, I think what has kept me going all these years is that simple belief I had when I was much younger.

Everyone has something to give.

Sometimes it is money. Sometimes it is knowledge. Sometimes it is your time. Sometimes it is simply showing up for someone.

I have never gotten paid for any of these things, but I can’t stop.

It feels like humanitarian service is my purpose, and I am happy I am living it out.

Every opportunity I get, I would love to keep sharing knowledge and love.

I may not have had everything I needed when I started. I didn’t even know exactly what I was doing. I just knew there was something in my heart that I could not ignore.

So I moved.

And perhaps that is the biggest lesson all of this has taught me.

You don’t always need to have everything figured out before you start. You don’t need a huge budget, a big organisation, or a perfect plan.

Sometimes, you just need to care enough to take the first step.