The April cover for Forbes Africa is out this week and that statement is a quote by the personality we profiled, Mr Tonye Cole.

We did the interview a month ago and I remember being gripped by his account of how he overcame the most difficult day of his business life. Cole and his colleagues had invested over $400,000 of their total life savings into the business, which they lost due to a change of government.

As he recounts his experiences, I begin to finally understand something my mum used to tell me when I was younger; it does not matter whether you fail peace, what matters is that you at least try.

Mr Cole went bankrupt twice before rising from the ashes of failure to creating one of the largest indigenous oil companies in Nigeria. His story was both inspirational and highly informative.

Here are some of the few pearls of wisdom I learnt from him.

1. I do not fear failure, but I must learn from it.

2. Relationships are key and you must do whatever it takes to foster good relationships with people.

3. A good name is the most important thing you can have. It takes years to build a reputation but only seconds to destroy it.

4. In everything that you do, always make sure you work hard and diligently towards your goals, that is the only way you can succeed.

5. Never depend on only one market and one product. Always diversify.

6. In everything you do, people may think you have 10, but make them believe you have only one but for goodness sake make sure you have 100.

As I recount my interview with Mr Cole, I begin to look at my own personal journey. I have certainly failed at some things and at the time of that failure, I thought it spelled the end of my world.

I thought the sun would never rise, the world would randomly combust and everyone would be destroyed. Obviously, none of that happened. I was down for a while and then decided to pick myself up and move on to the next opportunity.

Isn’t it funny how really bad events seem not so bad after time has passed? You may be at this point in your journey. You may have failed at your exams or even gotten fired from your job. You may even have made a mistake you shouldn’t have made and currently debating how to fix it.

No matter what you are going through, just stop and take a deep breath. Failure teaches you a lot. You find out about what type of person you are, how resilient and determined you are and most importantly, it shows you that you are much stronger than you ever imagined.

Do not stay down for too long. Keep your head up and keep fighting for what you want and no matter what you do, always remember to be yourself because everyone else is taken.

Much Love,

Peace Hyde.

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