Richard Namme

RichardNamme

My name is Richard. This page was set up to share some of my life and business experiences with friends, family and those referred to me seeking a career mentor.
I currently work as an independent business analyst consultant, with experience spanning over 16+ years in Retail, Telecom, Wireless, Banking & Insurance, Academia and publishing fields.

I attended college in 3 continents, studying Economics and Management Information Systems as my disciplines at the undergraduate and graduate levels, respectively.

My long term interest is to set up a business portal that can effectively integrate the needs in the global market place with opportunities in "emerging markets." The end goal is to create employment, equip the younger generation with relevant skills to play an active role in solving social problems in their communities and elsewhere.

To some extent, I am what some call a "social entrepreneur".

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Richard Namme

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	FAMILY
	In West Africa and particularly in Nigeria, being successful in typical middle class families back in the days, included not only the ability to provide comfortably for one's nuclear family, but to acquire landed property and to build a comfortable home where each family member had their own rooms. These days of course, most children raised from middle class homes that I grew up with, have set slightly higher expectations and aim not only to provide the best education possible for their own children, but to leave a legacy for the next generation. I was born at a time when my parents were at the peak of their professional careers, so they named me ILOME (my traditional name), "Our child, born in our first home". In our custom, this signifies that I came to them at a time of "plenty". Their worries, then, included not only providing the best for their own children but also being a guardian (and somewhat of a "BIG Uncle/Aunty") to quite a few extended family relatives. Though this sounds almost ridiculous today, this was quite common with first generation educated Africans. First generation educated African parents were expected to take on major responsibilities of mentoring and supporting multiple relatives through high school and college in some cases, with absolutely no expectations of being paid back in kind. The mindset was simply that when you help others in the family develop their gifts, you not only bless their lives but you directly impact your local community. This extended family set-up was quite characteristic of my childhood years. I grew up always having an older family member, in addition to my parents, to learn about life from. My Mom unfortunately passed away in 2016, while dad is still alive today. Both were retired from active service. My mom (Janet Namme), worked in education for over 35 years taking on many roles as a school teacher, principal and educational administrator, including being a principal to Nigeria's premier girls college - Queens College Yaba in the 80's. She retired and had experimented with setting up a Non-Profit program to promote the study of English and Mathematics among high school students. My dad (Chief Laban Omowale Namme), was in the media & publishing business for more than 45 years, a position he retired from in 1991 as the Executive Chairman, of the Daily Times Group of Companies. Dad, also served in various public service roles, including being a founding executive director of Nigeria's Central Bank. An appointment from Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa administration that he held from 1959 - 1963. My parents were married for well over 56 years. By now, you may have already guessed that I must be the "baby in the family". Well you're right! I am the last of three sons from my parents. My elder brothers are Albert and my late brother Viv, who sadly passed away in January 2008. Mom and Dad at AVMC Church

	FRIENDS

	Most of my friends are scattered all over the world, since my educational pursuits took me everywhere. However, for the most part, I still keep in touch with my high school classmates King's College Lagos, where I also graduated from in 1988. Years after we graduated, we have successful remained in touch online through our 15year old community. Most of my classmate are already fairly successful in their respective careers and I think we have kept up with each other because of the unique bond we established, being the "guinea pigs" or "outliers" of a new educational system, that brought together 100 of some of the best brains in the country but also tested our endurance for rigorous training in the Arts and Sciences. The early 80's was a period when the Nigerian Government was somewhat serious about promoting quality education. Fast forward, almost 30 years later, aproximately 28% of our graduating class became trained physicians (with 6 classmates from my graduating set alone, specializing in post doctoral studies in Medicine to become US trained surgeons, while another 5 are UK trained surgeons). Aside from these physicians, the rest of us (36% of my graduating set) went on to do post graduate degrees in the sciences and in business and pretty much every single one of our graduating class finished college(University level training). Sadly, the quality of public education has rapidly declined in favor of private institutions, which simply has not matched the level of training and exposure we experienced at either King's and Queen's colleges in the 70's, 80's and 90s. In January 2001, I took the initiative to set up an online mentoring program for younger Alumni grads so some of my classmates could act as mentors to others in similar careers. My goal was to get at least 150 Alumni's sign up. While we reached 207 members, we have since leveraged other social media platforms. This took time and a lot of patience in the early stages, as most successful professionals seem to want to do things on their own and did not care so much about being part of the group. Other friends are from NIU, where I last studied and was an active and influential student leader. Unfortunately, I haven't kept close contact with them as I would love to. But social media has helped me reconnect with most of them

My sporting hobbies include Racquetball and I am trying to pick up yoga. I also love to watch historical documentaries, when I can squeeze in time. More recently and because I live in Texas, where we typically drive several hours to get from city to city, I spend my drive-time listening to audio books. Well some day, I would love to travel a bit more to other parts of the world. On my bucket list, I would love to learn to speak Spanish, become better at my Latin dance, Learn to play a music instrument and become an visiting lecturer somewhere.

So now that you know a bit about my background and hobbies,and interests. This section of my page, is dedicated to mentees, who like me at some point, have to grapple with being a highly skilled career professional, with a mind full of ideas and a vision to "leave the world a little better than we met it" at some point in life. If you ever faced tough questions like; "how do I go through the process of birthing my idea(s) and bringing it/(or them) to fruition someday, while maintaining a healthy balance of juggling personal, family life or a career?, then you probably understand what I am talking about."? I will share some helpful wisdom nuggets and strategies, that I have found useful in my life so far and hope that these are helpful to you, in realizing your plans to achieve the goals that you set for yourself:

The first thing you must do is to identify what your "strengths and weaknesses" are. Essentially, know what you are really passionate about. This is an important first step, and it comes to everyone at different stages in life. Do not despair if you are much older and feel that you still have not pin-pointed what your true passion is. For example, Col. Sanders began his work in earnest with Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) at the age of 65. Granted he had gained experience in several businesses before KFC really took off. There are numerous success stories of folks out there who achieved their dreams later in life, but I will cut to the chase and provide another remarkable story also to encourage those that are younger. Jesus - the Christ, turned the "religious" world upside down within 3years of launching a ministry that today has reached all corners of the world. You may not realize that his ministry ("his passion") actually took off, from age 30 - 33? Fast forward 2000 years later, the entire world still feels the impact of his message and purpose? So if you have a burning desire to do something, seek to discover what you are talented at doing first. If you believe that you are uniquely made by our creator (Jer 1:5), then you start understanding that you have a purpose and your journey in life is to discover what your passion is, nurture and "perfect it" and use your talent for the good of mankind. You are almost guaranteed that if you are passionate about something that solves a useful problem, you will be rewarded for being a problem solver. However, let me caution you that you may have more than one thing you are passionate about. It is your responsibility to make sure that your passion solves someone else's pain to the point where they are ready pay you RIGHT NOW for it. A lot of people die without birthing their ideas. They say, the cemetery is where a lot of ideas that were never realized can be found. You may say, "well what if my idea is not solving a current problem"? My answer is simple. Unless, you have "wealthy parents or relatives" who can bank roll your future problem solving ideas" then by all means, Go for it ! . However, if like most of us, you have bills to pay today, then you better come to terms with your reality and solve today's problem first, while creating a little buffer for yourself to work on future projects. The point is, approach your passion in phases, with the goal of reclaiming time and resources spent on Work, Family and other activities, so you can focus on your passion. For me I nailed my passion down to 3 areas in my life, I have always had a natural passion for:
a. Assisting businesses (or organizations) solve difficult business problems - Hence I love my work as a Business Analyst/Solutions Architect, and especially love those challenges, where I am forced to come up with creative and cost effective solutions. For professionals just starting out in the consulting field, even when a project is going bad due to: the poor execution of tactical or strategic goals by leadership, or because management's vision is not communicated effective throughout the organization, especially when you try to earnestly advise your stakeholders and client, you actually may find that you are learning a few things about what not to do when you one day become a leader yourself. Know in your heart that your creator never makes any mistakes and that "your steps in life are ordered." So unless you forced yourself into that consulting role, hang in there, and always ask yourself, what am I learning from this situation, during the process.
b. Real Estate Investing- My 2nd passion and lately is gradually becoming my #1 passion. I started investing in my early 20's, while studying in the UK at which time, friends my age, lets just say .. had other priorities as young adults (::). After making several mistakes and also achieving some successes along the way, I realized that this was truly something I enjoyed doing. When my team and I provide excellent service to all our corporate rental guests and receive the occasional positive reviews from guests on their stay and experience at our rentals, it brightens my whole day. We also take their feedback seriously, and I have sometimes had to make changes to members of my team to make sure we stay aligned to providing a "Best in Class" corporate rental housing experience. Outside the service aspect, once you find your niche in real estate investing, it provides a very reliable source of residual or passive income and you can use that income or assets accumulated to leverage other investments. However, for the skeptic out there, that thinks real estate investment involves fixing toilets at 3am and dealing with horrible tenants all the time etc., there are several strategies you can learn to minimize your risks. I am not trying to sell you on being a real estate investor, if you are a hands-on-investor like myself, consider that over 50% of the Forbes List Billionaires each year made their fortunes from Real Estate. It is the only resource that continues to diminish as the world population grows and it continues to remain a scarce resource with growing climate catastrophe incidents worldwide. This is really a no-brainer for some, and especially for me, with a background in Economics and Statistics and someone who likes to work with proven numbers. It makes sense not to argue with the odds, if building wealth is a personal goal of yours.
c. My third passion, is in assisting communities become Self Sufficient and Reliant I strongly believe in encouraging talent wherever I come across people that just need to be pointed in the right direction. I see a world in the near future where the global economy grows based on contributions from International Trade and Knowledge transfer. Thanks largely to the internet, smart phones and applications that have encouraged knowledge sharing without borders. My passion in this area can be summarized by my ultimate goal of becoming a Social Entrepreneur, that encourages "enterprise," instead of beggars among nations, thriving communities, instead of depressed people and people who realize the value that they can bring as a willing and skilled participant to the global economic community. For example, there is absolutely no reason, why people continue to die of certain cancers, when cures have already been figured out in some emerging countries for centuries. Similarly, there is no reason for shabby energy supply problems, or deaths caused by diseases like Polio in certain countries, when it is known worldwide that vaccines to cure this already exist. These problems could be solved by mutual knowledge sharing, especially if knowledge and skill sharing create situations of mutual benefit to all parties concerned. The key goal is finding out how to create win-win situations in the process. So I have shared 3 areas in my life I am passionate about, hopefully this has made you think of what you are passionate about doing: Once you figure that out, here are some suggested strategies for your next steps:
Task 1: Tackle your ideas in a systematic way, i.e Write them down, develop simple steps and processes(how to's) to accomplish them, analyze how they fit with the vision you have, analyze your current situation - family, finances, and commitments, and BE REALISTIC.
Task 2: Seek to Acquire Knowledge & Skills to Accomplish your Plan - This is where education, training and work experience is critical. In the information age, there's a lot of stuff out there, remain focused on studying what is relevant to your plan. I recall during my period of graduate studies at NIU, I would go to my professors and propose a project or topic related to the course I was taking, that I felt was relevant to a future business idea I had. This made my classes more exciting and school all of a sudden became fun. While in Grad school, it kept me motivated to research deeper and eventually earned me all "A" grades in my final semester in Grad School. Then over the years since graduating, I have continued to work on missing pieces of my ideas, albeit at my on pace. In the future, I am hoping this idea employs at least 100,000 unemployed youths worldwide. Next, find a reliable mentor who you can share your goals with and who will ensure accountability for milestones you commit yourself to. Being "book smart" is one thing, getting your hands dirty a little by actually running a business is very essential to learning a thing or two about being an entrepreneur. Write down and review "lessons learned" from failures too. A business venture I was involved, didn't make any money in its first 18months, then it operated successfully for 2 years and then folded up 9months later. I learned the following in the process: managing employees, maintaining cash flow reserves and effectively managing customer relationships. After 4+ years the business closed shop, but I took away valuable lessons as an entrepreneur and will never repeat those mistakes again. Best of all I did not get discouraged at the end not to start another venture.
Task 3: Learn to cut off all unnecessary baggage that puts a drain on your life & finances. Seperate wants from needs and unhealthy relationships from those that help you realize your dream. For me this involved not only cutting excesses with what I spent money on, but also my time and the scope of things I embarked on at each stage of my life. Cut off things that are a mental or physical drain and focus on what you are good at. True, this is easier said than done, when you are not debt FREE. So your first goal is to be Debt free. It is essential and boy! it is the best feeling in the world. A debtor remains a Slave to his/her lender and please don't fall for that cliche talk out there of being a good debt manager. That is just "bull." My principle is to only borrow funds through a well structured business and for business purposes only. Also borrow, when you have tested your proof of concept and demonstrated that your idea can stand profitable on a smaller scale, irrespective of any business financing you can potentially get from Angel investors etc. Also, when you do borrow, my rule of thumb is only borrow 30% of your business networth at any point in time. There is nothing wrong in sensible leveraging as long as you can account for where the funds are going at all times. The truth is that if your business idea makes sense and is solving a business need, the financing will come. These days, I only use a little of my money in real estate dealings, I get other partners to share the risk. The best part is you get to choose who you want to partner with. Remember there is nothing wrong with STARTING SMALL. Build a proven system, test your system and then expand.
Task 4:Take stock and assess your current stage in life and how much time you can realistically commit to running a business. This is one of the most difficult steps, because starting and running a business takes time. One final word of advice, DO NOT PARTNER EQUALLY with "regular working Joes", unless they have proven themselves to have the same passion level and commitment as you do and can demonstrate that they can put in the same amount of time and dedication to seeing your idea through. Good luck if you can find regular 9-5'ers like that. Ha! Ha! let me know your secret if you do. But seriously, save yourself from that heartache. Negotiate equity upfront and plan for partners not to put in the same effort as you do. Assess the level of work required and monetize it, so that if you got funding, you could employ professionals to take on the vacant roles or handle the tasks you have outlined in your overall plan. If your partners actually do the work, consider that a surprise bonus in your favor. You, my friend!, are likely to end up doing most of the work at the early stages. Human nature is just what it is, everyone likes you when you have already succeeded. So start practicing humility early enough, so it does not get to your head.
Task 5: Plan to leave a legacy for the next generation. A favorite quote I like to share is from King Solomon -the wisest King that lived. He said "Of what use is money in the hand of a [self-confident] fool to buy skillful and godly Wisdom- when he has no understanding or heart for it?" (Proverbs 17:16)- AMP version. To paraphrase, this means "of what use is money in the hands of a fool, if he/she has no desire to gain wisdom". It is not uncommon to see people fail to plan for the next generation. Most times, we are caught up in the endless rat-race cycle, leaving the hope for tomorrow (our children) with the mundane task of "reinventing the wheel again. Agreed! the children should work hard, learn interpersonal skills, make their own mistakes and so on, but lets admit it, if we had learnt certain skills about business from our parents, we may have had a better foundation to be better business managers.

There are a lot of distractions - TV or print media Ads about quick money making schemes (GRQS) etc. RUN AWAY from these. Politely, tell the friend or associate that your hands are full right now and you simply will not be able to focus and you just don't do anything you can't focus fully on. Think deeply about this and ask yourself "what do I really love to do, that I already have the skills and training for. If your skills/ideas can solve others problems, you will surely make a good living doing that". Remember to prioritize your ideas based on its ability to solve problems that people will pay you RIGHT NOW vs. later. The "market" will pay what your skills are worth, so if you are not earning what you feel your work deserves, it simply means you are not solving a big enough problem for someone to pay you what you think you are worth.

To summarize it all, the wealth building process starts with you knowing your passion and really believing in your ideas, planning and evaluating your current situation, acquiring the right knowledge and skills, and then critically evaluating what value you can create for stakeholders who can positively influence your idea. You have a whole lifetime to do this, so pace yourself, but make progress each year. Remember, God has made you unique and bestowed on you special talents, so never worry about others stealing your idea(s) to the point that you let it die with you. Only you, when you are ready to embrace the challenge, with the right mindset, and skills can execute and deliver your unique gift to the world in the most outstanding way. Finally, plan to transfer knowledge to others, so you are creating a SYSTEM that adds new value to all stakeholders at each stage. When you really think of it, this is how successful businesses and countries actually operate. Economists refer to this as creating a "multiplier effect". I am sure there are different ways to describe this concept. The concept is simply that, "each additional unit of work or resources added to a business venture MUST be able to multiply profits in significantly greater units than its initial input/materials". This is only attainable, when you build a business system and engage others to be part of it and you can step away for a while and still produce the same output, because the business is not relying on your efforts alone to succeed. There is strength in numbers, you will need to engage the right people and form a good team to attain this level.

I end here, by saying that the most important part of my life so far, has been learning to find some peace in the midst of "life's noises". My search to understand my purpose in life led me to a closer relationship with God. With all the challenges that life is sure to throw at you, it is important to develop yourself spiritually. I certainly cannot tell you who to believe in, I can only share with you the source of my peace and joy. I am sure everyone's story is different because the Creator made us all unique and our experiences have shaped us differently. I hope at the end of my life, I would have found all my unique "talents," applied them and left the world with a better understanding of what it means to "live life more abundantly".(John 10:10).

This is my life so far and I hope my story inspires you to be all that you can be. May you be blessed richly to touch the lives of others in your own journey.

Please feel free to email me at any time.

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