LONG-TERM C.E.O.

CHAPTER ONE

BECOMING A C.E.O.

There are many reasons why people become C.E.O.s. But your reason should be fundamental enough to keep you locked into the success of your company.

I was inherently gifted to sail through High School and College with Top Grades. Based on my natural talent, I thought I would go into Medical School, but ended up loving Engineering enough to settle for a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. I had a natural talent for teaching and found the Academic Industry to be a Natural Fit for me.

I thought at some point I would work in the Engineering Industry for a bit to get practical engineering experience before returning back into the Academic Industry to become a full professor.

Unfortunately, I ended up working in an Institution called Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE) that paid well below minimum wage, offered no promotion, had no facility or structure to teach anybody, and no opportunities to attract funding for research, which is a vital requirement for any professor. After years of slaving away to hone my ability to teach with no funding, I was finally able to come up with an innovative research idea for the Oil and Gas Industry. I entered the idea into a competition and won a National Innovation Award for the Research Idea in the Oil and Gas Industry.

With this achievement, I was confident that I could begin to attract funds for the Institution and Improve their ranking in the Academic Industry. This was when the Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE) informed me that I would only be given 40% of any funding I attracted to the University with my National Innovation Award, and the remaining 60% would be kept by the University.

I promptly left and began the process of founding my own Engineering Company. I had no background in Business, or any Business Training at this point, but I was sure that I would do better on my own if I was given 100% of the funds that I could attract for my Engineering Innovation, rather than lodge in an Institution that would steal 60% of my hard-earned income and leave me with 40% to try to rustle up something respectable in Engineering.

I chose to go out on my own and establish my own Engineering Company, RACETT NIGERIA LTD., based on my first Innovative Research Idea, with little or no money in my pocket. I succeeded in acquiring the National Patent for it, and my Company got invited and sponsored to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, in 2017 by MIT, because of the Patented Oil and Gas Engineering Product I developed with my own company.

You do not want your life and your income to be dependent on the whims of a System or Institution that is unpredictable. Becoming the C.E.O. of your own company gives you the right and ability to procure funds, chart your own career at your own pace, and build a future you can depend on.

No matter where you are in life, becoming a C.E.O. should be on course for you. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first year of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first ten years. But if you are thinking long-term, and plan for it very carefully, your company will be the one-in-three that gets to the 10-year mark with great success, will give you the platform to amass funds in the millions, and is a far better retirement plan than any job could offer you.

You will always do better on your own earning and generating your own income, instead of depending on someone else to fund you. Even if you do not have the confidence to branch out on your own solely, still go ahead and open up a company for yourself while you work at your day job.

If you are able to generate an income of $100,000 USD per year for 10 years with your own company, you would have earned $1,000,000 USD to retire in comfort. It is certainly easier to reach for that kind of money than to demand someone pay you $100,000 USD for 10 years in order to reach the same goal.

Regardless of what your career path is, become a C.E.O. as early as you can. While it is true that you will need training along the way in order to attract funds and earn a living, at some point, you should have gathered sufficient experience and expertise to try something on your own. You should come to the place where you have been sufficiently trained and have become a master of your own inner gifts and talents to be able to sit as the C.E.O. of your own company, and run it successfully.

CHAPTER TWO

FAMILY AND BUSINESS DO NOT MIX

When you do decide to become a C.E.O., it may seem like the most natural and safe thing in the world to pick a family member to be in your company. After all, they may be the people you have trusted the most, the people who have shared bonds with, the people you feel you know enough trust with everything you have. But that will be the biggest mistake you will ever make as a C.E.O.

I was at the point of a great break-through, when I decided to become the C.E.O. of my own company. I mean, I had come up with an innovative research idea for the Oil and Gas Industry, for which I had received no prior training before, and the Industry itself had given me a National Award for my Innovation, proving to the whole world that I was acceptable to them, and I had something worth selling in their industry. The sky was the limit as far as I was concerned, and rightly so. It gave me the confidence to turn off that blasted Institution that demanded that I pay them 60% of the profits that my Innovative Idea would bring forth to the Institution.

At that point, I walked out of the Institution in a rage. I had a very wonderful friend who I worked with in that Institution, who kept me alive when they paid me little or no income, and who worked with me and alongside me to come up with something innovative for the Oil and Gas Industry. It was a dream we had shared for years that we would own something in the Oil and Gas Industry that would make them pay us millions of dollars in the Institution, and we were at the point where it was coming to pass.

This wonderful friend of mine put in a funding application to the Oil and Gas Industry for the two of us to receive funding from the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) at the Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE). It was expected to have pulled in millions of dollars to the Institution. But when faced with the information that my friend and I would only be entitled to 40% of the proceeds from our Innovation, I walked off. I didn’t discuss it with my good friend, which I should have. But I felt that I needed to do something for the two of us that would salvage our career and earn us some money for all the years of hard work that we put in. So I decided to present myself as the C.E.O. of my own company in the PTDF application to the Oil and Gas Industry. I left my friend to sit his own seat in FUPRE, because I did not want to jeopardize or interfere with his career. However, I was the main applicant for the funding application and I knew that if we applied with me as the C.E.O., the funds would come into my own personal company, instead of the institution, and in that way, I could ensure that