Segment:- From Messenger to Millionaire: The Inspiring Journey

A single storm can erase a fortune—but it can’t erase the person you became earning it. We sit down with a former street seller from Labadi who took a messenger job, treated every small task like a test, and turned that discipline into real capital. He walks us through the practical playbook: seasonal arbitrage in maize, margin stacking by buying a truck, and the leap into exporting coffee. Then the turn—an uninsured warehouse, heavy rains, total loss—and the decision to sell his car to pay his team. The lessons hit hard: hedge concentration risk, insure inventory, build liquidity buffers, and never confuse hunger with greed.

What sets this story apart is the mindset. He calls his first million “an opening,” not a destination, and shows how composure beats drama when markets break your plan. We dig into the three seasons of work—grind early to build capacity, work smart in midlife to compound judgment, and let your network become your net worth. He shares simple, durable tools: evaluate before you escalate, design out single points of failure, and protect reputation like an asset. Leadership, for him, starts with feelings under control; if you can’t master your own state, you can’t pilot a team through turbulence.

We also talk about family and legacy, where values meet practice. He chooses tough schools, real entry-level roles, and clear boundaries around money so his children learn the dignity of work and the value of a dollar. Success, he says, is being outgrown by your kids. If you’re building a business, navigating volatile markets, or rethinking how you raise resilient humans, this conversation offers a grounded blueprint for ambition with guardrails and calm under pressure.

If this story moved you or made you think differently about risk and resilience, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s grinding, and leave a quick review so more builders can find it.

Chapters

• 0:00 From Messenger to Mindset
• 1:25 Owning the Small Things
• 2:10 First Million Through Maize and Coffee
• 3:15 Losing It All and Insurance Lessons
• 4:05 Mastering Emotions and Leadership
• 5:00 Tough Love and Raising Children
• 6:00 Work Hard Young, Work Smart Later
• 6:50 Network as Net Worth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I lost everything. First question. I've read a bit about you, watched a lot of interviews, and you know you keep talking about starting off as a messenger.

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

Starting up as a messenger is the greatest opportunities that I've ever had. Though at times it's not the big things that make the difference, it's the small things. And how you take the small things very seriously. What I am today, I owe it to the person who gave me the job as a messenger. So a poor young guy from Labadi, selling on the street of Labadi. I need to move on, feed myself, and clothe myself, and there's an opportunity. But you were a driver's mate. So when I got there, a man just asked my name. I said, I'm coming from this man. So okay, just go and sit at the corner there. I sat there the whole day, not a word to me. The following day, I went, and his assistant asked me to clean the office. I started cleaning the office, buying food for them up and down, doing photocopies. At the end of the week, I mean, they gave me some small bonus for cleaning and running the errands for them. So the little things, I mean, I was I was quite dedicated to the little job I was given. And one day, one of the managers asked me to pick a document and go to the White House to look for cargo. Well, I mean, the little corner I had, the little opportunity I had to start there as a messenger, change everything. What do you think made you different? Well, I could say there is discipline. It's discipline and focus. I was hungry. To do something for myself. Who I am today, I have never reached half of what I want to be. So we're gonna go back to how you made your first million. At that point, I was working between airport and tamoport, and I started selling maize. So Fridays, I leave for Teichiman to buy maize during Bumper. During late season, I could sell the same maze four times the same price. Whenever it's sold, I add the profit and I'll increase my quantity. There's a lot of coffee in the Intel. So I started buying coffee. The raw coffee. So I started exporting the coffee. So I had to buy, instead of hiring trucks, I have to buy my first truck out of the profit to be able to make more profit to make my first value. Did you see the money in cash? No, you go and lie down, you feel like God. But you step out of the room, you feel humble. At a boy coming this way, but you cannot notice what I was making. I was driving fiat ritual. You you bet your first million dollars, the car I was driving was fiat ritual. What was your plan that time?

SPEAKER_00: 3:04

That's that if we take you back to that first million, what was your plan to grow that money?

SPEAKER_01: 3:12

It wasn't enough for me, honestly speaking. I knew I could do more because it was like an opening. I said, just keep going, just keep going, just keep going. And eventually I lost all. I have to sell my car to pay my three, four workers' salary. You know, greed, you know, greed can when you are too much hungry and uh grid setting, it's okay. That's all the path, the experience that you have to. I I lost all I bought a whole uh warehouse of coffee, and the price of coffee went down, and I decided to keep it for another season for the price to rise again. Little did I know that I have to insure the whole stuff. So I didn't ensure it. So I dashed to school, I was there when I got on a heavy rain and wash away the whole warehouse. And wash away the whole warehouse in the western region. That was the end of that. But it wasn't the end of me. I've never reacted to problems. I don't react to problems. When God wants something to happen, it happens. So at times you you need to leave the space for God to let it play out, to use feelings to deal with issues. You see, what you accept would never upset you. What you accept in your life will never frustrate you. What you accept will never depress you. So you need to be a master of your own feelings. If you want to be a very good leader, be in charge of yourself first. You made your first million. At what age? I want him to be tough a little. I want a school that uh use a rod. I want a school that uh you can walk in and out and understand that look, you can't take a lunchbox to school. Take money and go and buy some watching by the street and sit in the classroom and like I want to give him that kind of training to see, and I have not regretted doing. I I you know I cannot be more successful than my children. Immediately I become more successful than my children, my fellow. You know, in our quest, nowadays, in our quest, trying to give the best to our children, we'll rather destroy them. Let them be normal. Yeah, I mean, my son started working my company as a security guard. So you see, let's say that's that's normal. The mindset, you see, I look at my son's face and I said, Do you understand the value for money? You understand?

SPEAKER_00: 5:59

So there is a stage in our lives where we make money, then we learn to keep money. Yeah, you see, there's three stages of life.

SPEAKER_01: 6:06

When you are young, you work hard, very hard. The number of hours you work. I remember one time I was selling books. I was a canvaser, going from office to office to sell books. One day I sat down and said, Coming home at 2 o'clock, what do I use the rest of the time for? Though I was teaching the children around my area, and I was making some backpack banners, something small from the parents. One day I said, No, I can do more hours. So I changed the concept and I started selling the books in the Mokola market. So when you're all young, you work very hard. When you read middle age, you work smart. Working smart is you have to evaluate yourself well, you have to analyze things well, you have to work with a different level of mindset while you are you are using your network. Network becomes your net worth at that level. You take a gentle giant steps, that is, you're working smart.