Everything has a cycle.

You will never understand a cycle until you have gone through all its seasons.

Best to avoid cycles that have destroyed those who came before you.

And embrace cycles in which many before you have blossomed.

– Osasu Oviawe

It takes a lot of work to hold your place in any venture.

It takes a lot of luck to gain ground in any venture.

Without the work, luck becomes a curse.

With work, luck becomes a lever.

Get to work.

– Osasu Oviawe

Anything that is easy to get into and hard to get out of should be entered with a healthy dose of caution.

Whether it is marriage, legal tussles, or debt, in fact, it may be best not to enter at all.

The asymmetry between entry and exit costs is one of the most underappreciated traps in human decision-making.

– Osasu Oviawe

Everything you are is shaped by people.

Everything you do is to connect with people.

Everything you will become is determined by people.

Never lose sight of this.

– Osasu Oviawe

Your job is not yours. It is given by another and will ultimately be given back, peacefully or otherwise.

Your work is yours. It is shaped by you and will ultimately shape you, slowly or otherwise.

Your job is your undertaking. Your work is your life.

Don’t mix up the two.

– Osasu Oviawe

Price and time are the two levers that investors use to capture value.

Price is weighed on two scales: cheap or expensive.

If you see the price as cheap, no matter how high, you will feel you are getting a good bargain and commit.

If you see the price as expensive, no matter how low, you will feel you are being fleeced and not commit.

That feeling has nothing to do with the price and everything to do with future value.

Value is a fleeting and subjective emotion, which is why the best investors build criteria for defining value that serve as guardrails to keep their emotions in check.

Time is weighed on two scales: long or short term.

If you are a long-term investor, time is in your favor, and timing the market feels like you are not committed to your strategy.

If you are a short-term investor, time is against you, and not timing the market feels like you are not committed to your strategy.

Timing is seen as a burden to the former and as wings to the latter. 

Understanding your default feeling towards timing can help strengthen the criteria you use to set for value.

– Osasu Oviawe

The story those you love tell about you becomes your destiny.

You cannot choose the story people tell, but you can choose those you love.

Choose people who are kind. They tell the most beautiful stories.

– Osasu Oviawe

Ignorance serves enterprise.

If you knew how hard it would get, you wouldn’t start anything.

The not knowing is what helps you commit. It is the only way the impossible is made possible.

Those who wait for all the facts before starting serve those who start before all the facts are in.

Whatever lights a flame in your heart does not need to first fog your brain with the smoke of overanalysis. Start immediately the fire is lit. When the path gets hard, that fire will melt a way through.

– Osasu Oviawe

What is not said holds everything that needs to be heard.

I am a good listener.

– Osasu Oviawe

Ignore the urge to show personal success and keep it as the one thing that is yours.

Until your success gets tired of being ignored and speaks for itself.

Then you stop ignoring it and just stay silent in its presence, soaking it in.

– Osasu Oviawe