3 lessons I learnt on my way to winning a BEFFTA

So, I woke up around 0500hours on Saturday (October 29, 2016) and turned on my phone. Saw four unread messages in my Facebook inbox – and I knew. Read the first one and confirmed: my blogazine “Memo From A Fearless Storyteller” had won the 2016 BEFFTA for Blog of the Year.

But I blinked and read the congratulatory message again – just in case … you know how someone can hallucinate at a certain time in the morning.

It was with shaky hands that I opened the other messages – yep, same. I'm definitely a BEFFTA winner. I am one of those who's always got her eye on the next goal, but this is a BEFFTA. BEFFTAs are called “the Black Oscars” for a reason. So, I will not be recovering any time, soon. Yet, three things I cannot help but remember:

1. Success in one field, does not preclude you from success in another

A couple of years ago, I was minding my own business in London when my mother called me to tell me that she had received a call, that I had won a literary award in Port-Harcourt (the city where I was born). And she would have to go pick it up at the ceremony, because I wasn't in town.

A few weeks after I returned to Nigeria, my discover that I'd been nominated for a BEFFTA (Best Author category) triggered an asthmatic attack; long story, don't ask. This was followed by another Best Author BEFFTA nomination + a DIVAS OF COLOUR nomination + an offer to host my own radio show at a London-based radio station (why won't I take it, when it's not like 'they' are doing me from the village) + a Creative African Award nomination + birthing my own company (The Fearless Storyteller House Emporium Ltd).

2. Find your tribe

When my début novel, “Forever There For You” was released, I got into that funk that new authors often find themselves. You hear a voice in your head that tells you that everyone who's ever said, “You should totally write a book” will buy it. Or even mean you well.

There was a time I would let clueless people diss me, because I was trying prove my 'maturity'. Now, I tell the aspiring authors who come to my company to be published: some of the people who tell you on Facebook that you are the shiz-nizzle are not your tribe.

People who will not pay a dime for your product, yet want to be allowed to abuse you online because a) they're cowards and b) you are in the public eye, are not your tribe; do not make the soul-destroying mistake of drowning out your own voice, in order to pander to them. Some people don't have anything against you personally, but your stuff doesn't appeal to them – they are not your tribe.

3. If you have a skill that can be packaged into a product or service, there is a market

I happen to think that my mind is so amazing, that if I think of something, it is possible. Did you just call me 'arrogant'? Yeah, me too. I also happen to know that it takes a healthy dose of arrogance to actually succeed at anything.

That's why after I attended this meeting with this CEO who didn't understand who I thought I was, I wasted no time in calling Ibukun Onitiju (who designed my blogazine) to ask him to work faster, because I'd just seen a new target market.

I'd already talked to my friend, Dr Nkem Ezeilo, who did not understand why I was twiddling my thumbs. Today, among other things, I run a BEFFTA-winning blogazine, on which I have been privileged to feature some of the most influential Africans on the planet. I remember Dr Nkem, I remember Ibukun, I remember the times people have shared and re-tweeted my posts – including those asking others to vote.

I remember every single person I've ever interviewed for the “Black Power” column, every guest-blogger, every reader's message. I will remember the feeling of winning this BEFFTA for a very long time. But that CEO who tried to undermine me a year ago, had a dead-on-arrival product that he couldn't even pay me to push … the same bloke whose audience I swore I would take, a year ago? I can't even remember his name.