A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step!

When I came out from jail for the second time in February 2015, I had almost lost faith in myself and my abilities to do things.

I was on Facebook 24/7, applying for the kind of job that I saw matched my profile. I wanted to get reintegrated back into society. I wanted to leave the house every morning and come back in the evening purposefully. But the society rejected and rebuked me, doubling my frustrations. Even when I was opportune to have a job, I was rejected the moment I honestly told them I was in jail.

For a while I was indoors 24/7, surfing the net and looking for online jobs, until one day in the middle of the night, I received a friend's request from Oudney Patsika of Zimbabwe. He is a Media Personality and a strong Christian. I started following him on Facebook. Most of his posts were spiritually uplifting.

We started chatting and most of the time we prayed together. I was about to go to court. Two days to that day, I opened up to him about my fears. He said nothing will happen to me and we prayed together.

Nothing indeed happened to me. I went to court came back and we were happy I came back free and safe. Then he said he had a revelation that I was going to be a great media woman.

He asked what I could do and I told him I could write. He said I should write five different stories and sent to him. When I did, he was impressed and created me my blog Henriette Thatcher's Lounge.

I thought blogging would make me rich overnight, but I was wrong. He bought me a domain to make my blog professional.

I blogged 24/7. I was born with good writing skills, but my educational path (Technical Education) could not perfect the skills, though it was there, waiting to be fine-tuned.

My audience criticized my poor language power because I had lost the little command I had in English to French, during my University days and after, since I never went back to settle in the English zone.

Their critics discouraged me at first and I almost gave up, but my coach and mentor Oudney gave me courage. Moreover, the money wasn't forthcoming. He kept saying 'Henriette work hard, because 'Rome was not built in a day".

I went back to nouns, adjectives, pronounce etc, to know where and how to use each word properly. I am still learning till date, and those who have been following me since November 2015, can testify that my language power has increased impressively.

Yes, it takes patience, hard work, determination, devotedness, love for what you do and the desire to succeed, for one to get there. Every step on the way is worth it. If you hurriedly skipped one or two steps to take a short court, you will find yourself going back to correct the missing steps someday.

There were months where I worked just $20 from Adsense and $12 from Content Ads. This was from the ads displayed on my page.

I was not spending less than 20k ($40) monthly for data to put up contents. I had not started having local sponsors or promoters. Those who wanted me to promote them and their businesses wanted it for free, and I had no choice than to do it so as to draw traffic to my blog, to get the active supportive and encouraging audience I have today.

At times I fought my impatience when I felt exhausted. I was busy round the clock, but could not put food on the table, but then I didn't stop, because I was determined to get there.

It wasn't until after the seventh or eighth month into blogging, that I qualified for the first payout by the two above mentioned advertisers. You have to earn $80 or so before Adsense pays you and $70 for Content Ads.

The payment was either through PayPal or Western Union for Adsense and PayPal only for Content Ads. In Cameroon, PayPal is just payable but not receivable. Meaning you can use your PayPal account to pay out money or bills, but you can't receive money into it.

Since Oudney had a PayPal, I used his PayPal, and he will transfer the money to my brother's PayPal in the US before my brother will cash out and send to me through any money transfer agency.

You can imagine how much money I lost in the process.

I didn't give up, consistency, determination, hard work, patience with love and passion for what I did, got me to where I am today, though I am still going.

The reason for this write-up is because today I see many young people wanting to reach up there like now.

A young Blogger once contacted me, and I told him that blogging is a slow, steady but sure venture and that he cannot live on blogging from the start, more especially, in this country. I advised him to get a side business or job if he wants to survive as a start-up Blogger. The young man thought I was jealous of him, and he even went as far as condemning me to people that I was a jealous person who didn't want others to become like me.

He started blogging, made so much noise online for a very short while, got the likes and comments to keep empty fame, and suddenly disappeared online till date because he thought fame came with money on Social Media. The last time I saw him, he was doing a small roadside business.

He apologized for disregarding my advice. I told him not to expect even the business to flourish at a go, and that he should be patient and work hard if he wants to become a successful businessman tomorrow.

Dear friends, success in life is just like a farmer, who sees a piece of land and thinks if he plants groundnut there it will do well. He goes ahead, clears the land, plant the groundnut, water it, and weed it from time to time so that it grows well and bears fruits.

During harvests, he either makes a good harvest or a bad one, depending on how much he took care of the groundnut when it was germinating. If he was not there when it was germinating, birds will pluck off the eyes. If he did not weed it, grass will grow and choke them up, and if he doesn't harvest on time, it will get rotten under the ground and become useless.

But if you followed the required process, then you will enjoy a bountiful harvest

Are you looking for a job? Start by writing job applications corresponding to your profile, and drop them in companies. Apply on and offline, and don't get discouraged, until you see a result.

Are you a businessman, woman, you need to, first of all, identify the kind of business you want to do and your potential clients. Invest in the business and don't give up, if at the start you don't see the desired results. Work hard patiently, until you conquer a client base, then you will start seeing the results.

People give up too soon and they give up just when the sun is about to shine.
Remember when you are on a journey, you get tired on the way, and take a short rest, drink some water and continue till you reach your destination.

Don't turn back. Take a bold single step, and you will soon discover you have already walked a thousand miles. Every wait and effort you put on a venture will pay off BIG someday.

Every step on the way is worth it. You cannot get a job without applying (that is if you don't have godparents working on your behalf). You cannot be recruited without being interviewed. Same as you cannot have an O/level without going through Form one and so forth.

Take every single step with love, and by the time you get to the thousandth step, you will meet with success.

Qui va lentement, va surement.

Bonjour les amis.

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