Temi Ajibewa is a foremost home business coach in Nigeria focused on helping women who are stay-at-home mums or housewives to start, grow and profit from their home businesses by helping them open their minds to opportunities around and within them, especially their God-given potentials. Her passion to empower housewives came about when she herself began a home business that propelled her into 7 figures from the comfort of her home within four short months. Hence, she became an evangelist and mentor, helping more women to achieve this feat.
She is the founder of The Millionaire Wife Business Academy, an online hub with over 10,000 membership strength, for women who are looking to build profitable businesses. Temi shares her story in this interview.
Growing Up
To a large extent, yes. I grew up with a very entrepreneurial single mother as an only child. My mum was an opportunistic business woman in the sense that she practically conjures money-making ideas from needs around her. By the time I was age 10, I had known my mum to have ran about 5 businesses successfully. At age 9, I hawked plantain chips before heading to the secondary school. By the time I was in the University, I just couldn’t resist making money off people’s needs. From laundry to registration processing, to selling bread, pure water, noodles, etc to catering breakfasts for corporate events. I did just about anything to make money and it wasn’t because I was starving or needed to make a living for myself per se. I found out that I just always had the knack for seeing wealth in problems. I see opportunities in needs and until I meet those needs, I don’t rest.
I can say, I got this from no one but my mum and this, to a very large extent is what I coach other women to do now. I teach them to take advantage of opportunities around and especially within them (such as their passions and God-given talents) by meeting needs and getting paid for the solutions they provide.
Meet Me
I was born and bred in Lagos, Nigeria as an only child of my single mum.I schooled in Lagos for the most part of my educational life. I studied English language at Lagos State University and went on to University of Lagos the same year I graduated from LASU.I’m happily married to the most supportive man there is with 2 children.I’d say I’m a pretty passionate woman with so much fire to help people discover themselves and their potentials especially as it relates to financial freedom. I hate to hear or see lack around me and so I do my best to empower individuals with information on how they can fish themselves rather than always give them fish to eat. One word that describes me is ‘tenacity’ which makes me incurably optimistic. No matter what happens to me, I do my best never to cry over split milk. This makes dogged with a life-long belief in the saying ‘where there is a will, there is a way.’
The Millionaire Wife Business Academy
Sometime in late 2014, I started a small telecommunications business with N10,000 from the comfort of my home on my mobile phone while I nursed my new-born son and under 6 months, grew the business to over a million naira. This was a great feat for me and from there, I began to train other stay-at-home mums how they could do the same and that was how I got The Millionaire Housewife title actually. From there, other home business opportunities began to open to me and I taught even more women in closed BBM and WhatsApp groups.
Then I began to teach financial management. I had to get more trainings and coaching, one of which was Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) where I became a certified Results Coach, Performance Consultant and Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic programming. Things got bigger my mid 2016 and the need to actually have a support/mentoring group for the women who had gone through and those who would like to go through my trainings came up.
Facebook group as a solution
The Millionaire Wife Business Academy started out as as a result of this in order to be an online business support group for housewives who wanted to start and grow their own home/online businesses from the comfort of their homes but has gone on to grow far beyond that to now empower women (professionals and business owners likewise) who want to start and build highly profitable and fulfilling businesses around their areas of expertise, experience, passions and God-given abilities.
What and who inspires you?
What inspires me is this deep knowledge that the world needs me. I don’t know where, when or how I came about that knowledge but there is just this thing inside me that gets restless whenever I know I have a message or a service I need to deliver to someone that will either liberate them or propel them to the next level of their financial freedom. Another thing that inspires me is the transformation I see people go through after encountering me.There is this glow that burns deep within me when I hear someone say because of me, something positive happened to them.
At the very beginning of my life, my mother was a great inspiration to me. Her hardwork and doggedness is second to none. Having to take care and train me by herself since she was pregnant with me till she passed away when I was just 21 years old. The several great women who have risen against all odds inspire me as well. First of who is Mrs. Folorunsho Alakija. Then I have Mrs. Ibukun Awosika and Mrs. Tara Fela-Durotoye both of whom I’ve been privileged to meet and been mentored by.
Challenges
Personally, having to juggle family life and business hasn’t always been easy for me even though I work from home (hey, I’m the millionaire housewife). Sometimes, I get so consumed with work that I neglect my home duties and only have to rush through them at die minutes (soft laugh) while some other times, I just lazy about the house with no energy to do any work.However, specifically in doing what I do, my major challenge is the mindset of majority of women.
Another level of challenge I face as a business coach is the mindset of ‘get-rich quick’. Most people who at least try to start a business are often in a hurry to start making money from it and to make matters worse, rather than work hard at the business and nurture it to maturity, they give up too easily. I find this very very challenging than anything else.
Projects and Activities?
As a trained lawyer with flair for corporate law, I do a lot of Corporate Affairs Commission registrations and compliance consulting. As a serial entrepreneur, I’m involved in real estate, network marketing and several online businesses.
As a results coach, I help people move from being frustrated to being fulfilled no matter the area of their lives concerned. I do this by taking them through my 5-step formula which I call the ‘Fulfilment Formula’ – mind work, vision-work, daily-work, net-work and capacity-work.
For charity, I’m involved in back-to-school projects for the less-priviledged children and also start-up contributions for women.
I’m also involved in public speaking, consulting, writing and facilitating corporate trainings.
No giving up
Severally. But only at the beginning. After a while, all the hardwork began to pay off and I just began to tell myself ‘you were born to do this, Temi.’ So now, I can say giving up is not an option. There’s too much at stake. (Laughs)
What makes you a woman of Rubies?
I think the fact that I do not only do well in my businesses but also help other women do the same makes me phenomenal.
Final word for women all over the world
I’d say women need to know and constantly live in the consciousness that we are the pillars of the society. We are the mainframe that holds it all together and the earlier we start living in that consciousness, the better for us. We can do so much than we can and there is no point hiding all that awesomeness from the world.
Our fears are not real and if only we would face these fears and receive the help available to us, we would live a more optimised life.
Women also need to place a premium on self a development rather than vanity-buyings. With the aid of the internet, anything is learnable right from our mobile devices. We should give premium to developing our minds through the use of available information online.
As the pillar of the home, we need to raise our children to become the best of themselves and there is no better way to do this that to show these kids how we are becoming the best of ourselves daily.
Finally, there is no point in being competitive with one another. Rather let’s collaborate and support one another so that the womenfolk will progress.