Surviving my biggest rejection in life (this was haaaard)
That was it. I was done. I did not expect that to happen at all. But, you know how life is.
I remember calling my best friend at the time using the nearest “Simu ya Jamii” (some form of public phones you’d use at a fee).
“My life is over,” I said, balancing tears.
“Hang on Walter, I’m coming.” Said my friend. See, my friend knew that I was ever-smiling, inspiring and optimistic. To my friend, those words would only come out of me when things were real bad.
It was the start of a difficult, painful part of my life. I don’t even talk about this often. It’s painful
But I want you to have courage and succeed more in life. This post may just increase your faith and make you BELIEVE, ACHIEVE and HELP OTHERS…
What was this rejection? What does it have to do with you?
I wasn’t selected to do Law in campus. Instead, I was selected for something else; Landscape Architecture (Land. Arch. as we called it). I missed my dream course.
Just a minute:
What does this have to do with you? Simple. You may get some heavy rejections in life. Big blows that may threaten to blow out your candle.
Maybe your candle has been blown out already. If so, consider this a message of hope and strive to read to the end.
Law was my life-blood. It’s what made me wake up every morning and read. But it was gone. Maybe forever.
I was the best performing boy in my school in primary school. The trophy is still there in my mum’s house. My late dad really encouraged me to pass in school, more so just before he passed on. His last words ever to me were something like this:
“Congrats son. You made it to a national school”. Never heard from him again. Stroke. Hospital. Death. Tears.
I got an A- in high school. I have the silver plaque I was given in my place. Looking at it right now.
It took blood, sweat and tears to get that A-. Life happens, you know. By form 3, third term, I’d gone down from an A student to a C student. I created an intricate plan to get back to an A student.
“I’ll get an A-“, I told my family members, when still a C student.
They really encouraged me, these great folks. Each promised me a gift if I’d get that.
Funny what happens when you BELIEVE. I got those exact marks I was praying for. In the order I’d predicted.
What’s more? I was blessed to help many C students to get between A and B!
My family members gave me the gifts they promised e.g. my bro gave me a phone (Nokia 2100 which was cool at the time!), another bro bought me a watch, mom gave me some cash etc.
When it came to course selection, I made a HUGE mistake
If you’re wondering why I’m so passionate in helping the youth, it’s because I don’t want them to make the same mistakes I did. I want them to believe and achieve earlier. And yes, you can bypass the bottom and start at the middle if you’re taught to do the right things.
Here I was. So confident that I’d get selected for LAW. With my ignorant overconfidence, I just selected Law and other courses without thinking.
In my mind, there’s no way I’d miss LAW. Remember my grades were just as I’d predicted.
I MISSED! AND OH GOD I MISSED BIG!
I was called for one of the “other” courses I’d selected without thinking. One called Landscape Architecture. A prestigious course that earns people six figures and above. But it required a lot of drawing and design.
That was torture. I can’t draw. Let alone design.
Let me describe the torture in detail for you
I went down from 70kgs to 53kgs.
I went from being the ever-smiling, ever-optimistic, confident, friendly, inspirational guy… to a very quiet, withdrawn, never-smiling, ever-sad guy.
In short, it was done. My life was over. Thank God for good friends. My friend above spent lots of time with me and encouraged me to BELIEVE.
A drowning Walter clutching at a straw
I ruffled all feathers in the administration. From the director of our school (or faculty) to the dean of students…all the way to the vice chancellor’s office.
I needed to change course to another university. My current one at the time, JKUAT, didn’t offer any course I’d want to do. It’s a science/technical based university. I wanted to change to something more on the arts/business.
The ship sank. I failed miserably. Or did I?
I’d tried to be good in that course for 2 years. I did well in theories. But I couldn’t draw. Or design.
Hehehe…the marketer in me was still at work. My friend, Enoch, was one of the best designers in class. We’d go with him to big homes and I’d do all the marketing and talking. We actually got some clients to say YES, and made some decent money designing landscapes in some places – 2 posh homes and a church.
I really did my best.
Those here who’ve done that course (Landscape Architecture) know this: That if you fail in the design unit (we used to call it ‘studio”), you’d be forced to repeat a year. If you repeated and failed, you’d be kicked out.
I failed.
There were two options for me:
- To repeat 2nd year and get a “pass” in that design unit (which was weighed as 6 units)
- To drop out of campus
If you read back above you’ll notice a few things.
– I tried to love the course and actually performed decently in the theory units.
– Through the encouragement of my friend, I ruffled feathers trying to get an inter-university transfer.
– I actually STAYED in for two years, doing what I could to become a good landscape architect.
I had no passion. No skill. Life was quickly draining out of me. I was withdrawn and sad all the time. I had done my best. So I had only one decision to make:
I quit campus. Dropped out and never looked back.
“Winners never quit”.
“Without a degree you’re nothing in this country.”
“I’m so disappointed in you.”
“You were the brightest in your family. What happened?”
“Why is there no picture of Walter graduating in this family wall?”
I heard it all.
To the world, I was a failure. And for a while, I walked, talked and acted as a failure. Not for a month or two. For years!
Flash forward. I became a family man at 22. Got saved at 23. Through the help of my friend above and others, my hope came back.
I felt like I got my purpose back. I could smile again. I could laugh and crack jokes again. I became active in many fronts. Church stuff, family stuff, a mental health NGO etc. I even did a couple of odd jobs to get my family something to eat.
It wasn’t easy being a broke young family man and full-time caregiver with absolutely no credentials.
Whenever you hear someone saying “I dropped out of campus”, don’t always think it’s some cool thing people say. Or some spoilt young man talking.
People go through stuff out here. I know you have gone through stuff as well. Never give up.
Regardless of my financial situation, I found ways to impact my friends, family and the society. I was beaming with hope and optimism.
“Hurray! Walter is BACK! Bigger and better.”
The conversations changed! And all the above negative statements were nullified. You’re in charge. It’s up to you to decide how your narrative will go.
Welcome to the world of big dreams
If you’ve been here for a while, you know the story from here.
Let me just do a quick recap just in case:
After a couple of years of being broke with no credentials, I decided to just try out online work part-time. I was 26 at the time. Back in 2011.
It wasn’t easy at the start, but it worked. I could finally afford to get my family a decent meal, pay rent without delay, buy new clothes instead of the second hand stuff we were used to and even save something small. The best part? I could once in a while take my family out.
Only those who have ever been broke parents will properly understand how heavenly that feels.
I dropped out of campus. But now I’ve trained over 2,000 people. And mentored thousands. What more can you do?
You get what’s in your mentors. In fact, you can outgrow your mentor. Why? Because good mentors give you all they’ve got, with the hope that you’ll impact generations after them.
Think of how Solomon, and not David, built the temple. Solomon was richer than David. Bill Gates is richer than his dad (his dad was rich too). And so on.
I’m reading this book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. I love the way he says this:
An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.
You’ll not be paid for what you know, but for what you DO. Whether you have a degree or not, DO things that matter.
Another quote from Think and Grow Rich (just spent an hour reading it this morning):
Thomas A. Edison had only three months of “schooling” during his entire life. He did not lack education, neither did he die poor. Henry Ford had less than a sixth grade “schooling” but he has managed to do pretty well by himself, financially.
You can google who Thomas Edison and Henry Ford are.
I decided to do something with my life. To just try out this “writing thing” and see where it would take me.
My prayer was, and is, to help make people BELIEVE, ACHIEVE and HELP OTHERS.
What can YOU learn from my biggest rejection?
- Whatever God gives you, give it your best shot. See, I really tried to be a good student before I dropped out. It would be sad if I’d just drop out without doing anything.
- Yes, winners never quit. But what if you’re a shark in the jungle? Or a lion in the sea? A lion wins in the jungle, a shark wins in the sea. You win when you excel in your true purpose. Find it. This may involve trying out different things first before you find your jungle or sea. Or whether you’re a shark or a lion.
- It’s okay to be sad, just don’t wallow in it for too long. Bad things happen. Learn from them and become BETTER. You don’t have to take as long as I did to decide to take decisive, positive action.
- Your mind is your biggest asset, with infinite monetary value. I mostly choose to be friendly, hardworking, optimistic, energetic, industrious and helpful. I choose to believe in the abundance mindset. That we can all make it if we try. To win anything, you first win in your own mind. In fact, overcoming self is even more important (and harder) than overcoming others.
- To succeed at a higher scale, you’ll need to help other people to succeed, too. You can’t be HUGE without cooperation with other people.
- Frequency and habit matters. Decide and learn success habits that you should be implementing DAILY. This may include things like reading, exercising, doing something to build your courage/confidence, doing something that earns you money and generally doing what makes you better, daily!
I close with a hard teaching, but one of the most important you may have ever read about in life
It’s very simple. I’ve written it here more times than I can count. It’s hard in itself, but may just give you the biggest success you’ve ever dreamt of. It goes like this.
When you overcome something, help others.
Yes, that simple; when you succeed, help others.
Here’s an example of how I’ve been blessed to do so:
– I “failed” in formal education. According to those who consider quitting campus a failure. But I’ve educated over 2,000 people through my premium course and thousands through my free stuff like this post. I guess I created my own campus hehe.
– I was once conned so much money by bad clients. I started my blog, Facebook groups and creating such posts so that you make the right choices and don’t fall prey to cons. This has helped thousands earn legit income.
– I chose the wrong course in campus (big mistake). I dedicated quite a number of years leading teens and mentoring them on how to make the right choices in campus and other things.
– I lost so much money in 2015 due to a business going bad. Check out my blog. You’ll note that from 2016 till now, I’ve helped people make so much more money than I’ve ever done before. Some of my trainees/mentees may actually now be earning more than I am!
This is just a pinch of what I’ve done since there are other things I do to help guys in business, spirituality, youth problems, poverty alleviation, philanthropy and so on.
Whenever you overcome a difficult challenge, try help at least 10 people do the same.
It’s genuinely not been easy to write this post. Takes me back to the pains that came in sudden storms back then.
I wrote this post from the heart, praying it helps someone to BELIEVE, ACHIEVE and HELP OTHERS.
Never give up!
God bless you.
