This subject of this week’s #NairaLife is an investment manager. He is in the business of helping people make money, and he has learned how to do the same thing for himself. What is most interesting about him? His motivations.



What’s your oldest memory of money?
Growing up, my dad did this thing where he would give me money and say:” Put this money in an envelope and keep it. I’ll ask for it later.” It may be weeks before he’d ask, but he usually did to confirm I still had it. Then he would give it back to me and ask me to keep it again. The lesson was, you don’t touch the money that’s not yours. After he died a few years ago, my mum found an envelope labelled “Daddy’s money” in a drawer at home. It’d been there for years.

I’m sorry about your dad. It must have been a profound moment when your mum told you about that envelope.
It was. My parents taught me how to respect money at an early age. When I got money gifts, they made sure I spent half and saved half. I grew up interested in how money works.

What was the first thing you did for money then?
After I graduated from university in 2001, I offered to work at a stockbroking firm for free. I studied psychology and had no major prior experience in the financial markets. However, the firm I worked at didn’t have much business to do at the time. After three or four days, I quit. A friend of a friend had a forex exchange company in the same building as the stockbroking firm, and he offered me a job at his.

What was the job about?
He sourced forex and sold to his clients, who were mostly merchants. He was like the average Bureau De Change guy, but he did more volume. When I started working for him, I was earning ₦5,000. I was his runner, doing administrative work and helping him facilitate transactions. He increased it to ₦8,000 during my service year. In the two years I worked for him, he gave me a few raises. When I left in 2003, I was earning ₦30,000.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/the-nairalife-of-an-investment-manager-intent-on-building-generational-wealth/