UNDER 30 AND KILLING IT

 Marilyn Atakpa is  a 26 years old Nigerian real estate mogul (in the making) who like many others, did not choose her career, rather the career chose her. She explains how fate made her study Estate Management at the Obafemi Awolowo University, building her international portfolio, starting her own channel of opportunities and so much.

Marilyn's interview with me was everything I always thought she was from afar and more. I hope her story inspires someone as much as it inspired me. Please enjoy as you read below:

1) TD-  What inspired your choice of professional career?
            
     Marilyn-  Firstly, there was no inspiration for choosing the career path "Estate Management", Instead it chose me. 9 years ago I didn't know what Real Estate was. I remember before getting into the university, I wanted to study Accounting. At that time, I was passionate about Finance, I had begun my ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria) classes, with the hope that I was going to get the Accounting course. I was all about accounting, I saw myself being a chartered accountant in the future. But you know, sometimes we plan, we aspire to be somethings in life, but God always has the bigger plan. After sitting for my Jamb exams , and also taking the Obafemi Awolowo University Pre-degree exams, when the admission list came out, I wasn't offered accounting, instead I was offered Estate Management.

I didn't fall in love with my course until my penultimate year, when I had to take a compulsory 6-month Internship. I had to experience the practical aspect of Estate Management. That was when my mind was opened to the bigger picture. I did excellently well during my internship that I was offered an Automatic Employment. I realized I had fallen in love with real estate. After my internship, I began reading about the Nigerian real estate market, the opportunities it had, the work that needed to be done, etc There and then, I knew this was the path I had to thread on, I was convinced God had chosen this for me.

2) TD- Tell us a little about your Marilyn channel; the full name, what you do, what inspired it, how it has helped people and how others can be a part of it.

    Marilyn-  On March 21, 2015, Marilyn's Channel Opportunities For Youths (MCOFY) was birthed. It sprung out of the passion to satisfy a need as well as to impact the world in my own little way. It's an Online Channel that connects youths within the age bracket (18-30) to the latest life changing opportunities such as; Internships, Scholarships, Fellowships, Contests, Leadership Training, Volunteering and Career Opportunities across the Globe.

Before now, while I was an undergraduate, I was still very passionate about finance, I also saw finance an important part of my career so I was always on the look out for various international business/finance opportunities for students to participate in. I sourced these opportunities all night most times because I had to focus on school during the day. I have taken part in various international opportunities such as "University College London Finance Conference" , "Bank of America Merrill Lynch Student Ambassador Program" , "17th World Business Dialogue, Germany" , & "40th Steve Forbes Business Today International Conference, New York where I was able to garner first class business ethics and learn a lot from top world business executives. While I represented my university and the country in general, I was exposed to international dialogues with key notes speakers from General Electric, the New York Times company, Barclays Bank, Blackstone, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and many others. I participated in discussion panels on Mergers & Acquisitions , attended seminars on the economy in general, I was exposed to equity markets , regulations , interest rates etc presented by industry leaders from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Having participated in all of these, I realized in most of these international conferences I was usually the only Nigerian delegate, which wasn't a good thing. I sat down to figure the cause of this, and then I realized that a lot of Nigerian youths are ready, but do not know where these opportunities are. In my final year, I had a group of students from other department I mentored by basically teaching on how to write good resumes, cover letters and how to put up a good application, these were the students that benefited from the various opportunities I had sourced daily.

On graduating, I thought about how these mentees were going to continue being that I was leaving school. That was where the need to create a channel came in. I also wanted more youths to be able to participate in these opportunities and also putting Nigeria out there. I realized not everyone will sit down to source for opportunities like I did passionately & effortlessly, I decided to impact other youths across the world by creating a portal where these life changing opportunities can be displayed for ALL to partake in.

So far, we have people from over 100 countries across the world signed up to this channel , just last year we recorded over 5,000 views and more than 2,500 visitors .  I receive over 10 "Thank-You" emails daily from people I do not know. Also testimony mails from people saying "oh I got through with the application/scholarship",  thanks to your channel. These emails keep me going. Also receiving testimonies from people I have coached over the years doing excellently well and getting international recognition, my Joy is FULL knowing there are thousands of people I am impacting daily.
I implore every youth out there to be a part of these life changing opportunities, you never know if you don't try. All you have to do is go to www.marilynschannelofy.com and subscribe with your email to receive daily posts.

3) TD-  What are the other things you do that can help other Millennials?

     Marilyn-  For me, I believe in the Law of Giving. Even God approves giving. I grew up knowing that it's better to give than to receive. God blesses a cheerful giver and I can confidently say I have seen this happen in my life. It could be your time, resources , words of encouragement. Once you are able to develop the habit of giving, you add value to people and automatically add value to yourself. I am blessed today because of the things I have sowed in the past. I enjoy giving & helping others. Most of the time, I am thinking of what I can participate in to impact people. I joined NGO's such as ONE.org to participate in impacting people and giving back to my nation as a whole. And this has opened my eyes to social change. You can only impact/change an environment/society, if you can Impact/change a person's life and that will only happen if you have a giving spirit.

Also, I work on myself daily and  here's how I do it; I pick a Mentor, someone I look up to and hope to be like, I research about them, what they have achieved , how they achieved it (Success Story) and I try to draw a list of things they did that I have to also do. Hence, making me a better person and getting me closer to my dreams.

I also enjoy reading books, if some of these mentors ever wrote a book, get one and read. It could be a random motivational book or a professional career book, I engage in both. There is wisdom in learning from others. I strongly believe in Life, you don't have to experience it before you learn from it, you can mostly learn from others who have gone through the same path, let their experiences teach you. Learn from them, you can only get that by reading books or listening to their tapes.

Lastly, Cultivate the habit of writing down your ideas, dreams, goals (more of short term goals than long term), set a target for yourself. Learn to put pen to paper. I got this from my Dad from years back and it has positively paid off. I remember when I would write it all out on a sheet of paper they would seem too big, yet I would paste it on the wall of my room where I get to see it everyday, every month and I am constantly reminded to continuously put in the hard work until those goals are achieved. I still do it till today. Same goes with my money. As I write down my goals, I would draw out a feasible budget for the year and follow it till the last day of the year. This has really helped my finances hence, reducing expenses and saving more.

4) TD-  What do you do for fun?

    Marilyn-  I enjoy watching movies; mostly crime scene investigation. I also enjoy traveling and learning new things. 

5) TD-  How do you shield yourself from the display of "perfection" on social media and what is your mantra for staying strong?

     Marilyn- I like to think the main purpose of social media is to connect people, but lately it's become a platform where people showcase themselves, news moves faster, businesses thrive, opinions aired etc we now see social media as a "Demand" and to meet this demand, very many people put themselves in a marketable position for reason(s) best known to them.
Social media has now ceased to be that platform for connecting people to a platform where people market themselves, I mean that's why you have all the filters; literally meaning people are allowed to filter what they put out there which we can all equate to (non- existence) and that includes their personal life.

This is why everyone seems to have it all figured out on social media, one should never equate that with success because we never get to see the real picture of what goes on behind social media. For me I'm not moved by what  people do on social media. I think people should focus more on themselves and not what is being painted on social media. To move forward in life , you must never compare your life with that of another person. We came to this world separately and our races are different. The only thing we should pick from social media are things that are motivating and inspirational. Things that will improve our life and move us a step closer to achieving our dreams. Always tell yourself, you have a purpose and real life is outside social media.

On my mantra; there's a saying that goes "Only the strong will survive" and this has always being my watch word. To succeed in life, being strong and tough is a necessity. Because the road is never smooth. You are bound to experience challenges, pain, failures etc, life will throw all these at you, and for you to be able to overcome, you need to develop a strong/tough mind and a never-give-up spirit. As a kid I have always been self-motivated. Apart from the fact that I know God got me and has a good plan for my life, I have always seen pain/challenges as a phase. I always give myself reasons to keep pushing, there's always light at the end of the tunnel. I say to myself, if is for me, it will come and I'll get it , and if I don't get it , then it's not for me! But one thing I'll never do is give up! I have failed many times in life, I remember when I had applied to various investments banks for internship scheme but I failed at it, I didn't see it as failure, instead I said to myself, "this isn't happening because it's not for me". Still, I wasn't discouraged, I kept pushing, kept sending out applications and then Boom! it happened! And when it happened, it was like God was blessing me in multiple folds; all I thought I had failed at. Alas, He had a bigger plan. A lot of things started to happen, I started to receive congratulatory emails month after month. I became globally recognized, my name appeared on international websites, journals, boards etc. I found myself speaking on global platforms, being recognized internationally in places I never thought I would be in my wildest dreams, God took me there. 

Failure taught me Patience, it taught me to wait for my time, for things to happen, most importantly it taught me to wait on God's time. Failure taught me to do it again, this time a better effort. Failure taught me in life you have to fail to get success. So the moment you start to experience failures/pain/challenges, see it as a phase, you begin to tell yourself "I will not give up" and that way you begin to put in extra effort to do better, to get better and achieve success!
Your Dreams are valid! If you can dream it it, You can achieve it, even if you fail once or twice, keep moving and always remember God rewards Hard work.

6) TD- What is your 5-year plan?

     Marilyn-  My 5-year plan focuses more on taking my professional career to the next level. Which for me means Internationally. Real Estate is a global thing and one of my plans is to go global which is why I recently obtained my certification in Commercial Real Estate from the New York Real Estate Institute. Over the years, I have developed interest in this sector of real estate and I am looking forward to exploring the opportunities that comes with it. I also figured there isn't many people in the commercial real estate sector in Nigeria mostly because of little or no expertise. So I have decided to do this Long term.
That said, I also have in plan to start up my real estate company that will focus on "Real Estate Consulting & Development", and more importantly, commercial real estate.

Several times I have been told to consider motivational speaking. Most times I find myself ever ready to encourage people, giving people reasons to positive thinking and having the right words to say at the right/wrong times. I plan to look into that soon. Also in my plan is to make my channel a global brand by getting more people on board and being out there. I am also looking into helping more people, partnering with volunteers to doing things to make the world a better place.

7) TD- Thank you for sharing your story with us on here.

     Marilyn- Thank you for having me.

It was pleasurable having these conversations with Marilyn as I am sure it was for you to read it. To keep up the positive energy and utilize some of her resources, you can connect with her on various social media platforms via the following handles:

- LinkedIn - Marilyn Atakpa
- Facebook - Marilyn Atakpa
- Instagram - @pweetymarilyn