About two decades ago, Kunle Soriyan was filled with excitement as he got ready to sit for his degree exams and earn his Bachelor of Science honors. But there was a huge problem; he was a deadly cult boy and the university had found out.

Soon enough, just before his final exams, news got to him: he had been expelled from The University of Lagos.

He gladly went his way, and didn’t break a sweat. A drug addict and scoundrel, Kunle wandered around with his gun. He eventually met a man who preached Christ to him; he got born again, denounced cultism and parted ways with his gun and corrupt life.

He applied for admission with the same university he was expelled and got an offer. He became a pastor and worked hard to maintain a good GPA but could not graduate at the set time; somehow, the university administration still doubted he was a changed man.

Kunle applied for an admission a third time, despite having spent eight year trying to earn a four-year degree. He endured the shame and disdain; being the oldest man in the midst of much younger, high-spirited students who often ridiculed him. And after another four years (making a total of twelve years), Kunle finally graduated.

It’s a wonder what would have happened to Kunle had he not turned back to understand the value of life and pay the price to be educated because today; he is a multi-millionaire, action coach and one of the foremost motivational speakers and mentors Nigeria has seen in recent times.

The road to success is a long drive up a rocky hill.

Everybody likes the byproduct of success, but not many people hold on enough to make it through. It’s scarcely a smooth sail and will never be.

If you are headed on the road to succeed, you’ll most likely do it alone. This is a path where each person bears his burden as he plods along, not knowing how far or close he is to the end of the tunnel. It’s not a dance in the rain.

After Jack Hansen formed a partnership and completed his book; he was so optimistic that the book would sell and so he wasn’t too discouraged when the first publishing house threw his manuscript out the window.

He was sure of his book, so he decided to try someplace else. The same thing happened. Little did he know that he was only at the beginning of a slew of rejections to come; the book was rejected for 138 times more.

Somehow he found the nerve to try again. One last time and that was it. It was accepted by a publisher and the moment copies were made available, sales began.

The manuscript that was rejected 140 times ended up as a book that sold over 100 million copies and remains one of the bestsellers in the US.

Success doesn’t come swiftly or softly as we often expect.

When John Roebling started out with the Brooklyn Bridge, America and the larger world almost laughed him to silence.

Everybody knew him as a skilled bridge builder but his plan to build East River was a plunge headlong into the impossible. It wasn’t just a river; it was an estuary prone to tidal disturbances or turbulence.

The criticisms and mockery mounted when a canoe accident eventually left him paralyzed.

Roebling did not let his paralysis kill his dream; he soon devised a means to communicate his ideas to his wife as he could not execute them himself.

After years and years of drudgery, the same critics who raised their voices against Roebling’s structure plan, claiming East River would collapse, joined all of America and the World to celebrate the wonder of science of their time and longest bridge America had ever seen, even though Roebling did not live to see it. And what was scorned as a process in error is one of the many monuments America prides itself in today.

If we must succeed, we must also learn to tarry in patience while success crawls towards us.

Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up- Thomas Edison

I put it to you, how long can you hold on while toiling and hoping for success?

@jobbermandotcom

@poster U should be drowned.

Olakunle soriyan graduated from LASU not UNILAG.

He was in my church early this month....He is a great man.