"If you were 28 like me, with what you know now, what would you be doing?"
Orji Matthew asked me that in a LinkedIn message this week, from Abuja.
My first answer was a joke. Something about working hard every day.
They didn't take it.
"I'd like to plead to not accept surface-level answers. What does working hard mean to you, please?"
So I gave them a proper answer.
Build skills that are hard to copy.
Learn how money and businesses actually work.
Get very good at turning problems into outcomes.
At 28, compounding matters more than almost anything: skills, reputation, relationships, capital.
Then they said the thing I have been thinking about ever since.
"Once in a while I find myself feeling like I'm behind the times because I have a deep sense of urgency with which I run my life."
Feeling behind is normal now. Every feed is full of people who look finished.
What I would really tell my 28-year-old self is not about working harder.
Focus on your strengths. Find people who are strongest where you are weakest.
You will go further building on what you are already good at than dragging yourself from bad to mediocre at what you are not.
I don't know if that is the right advice. It is the advice I wish someone had given me.
They wrote back: "Holding engaging conversations appears to be one of my strengths."
Then: "People here find it weird when I tell them that my hobby is deep and creative thinking."
They were right. It is how they got a better answer out of me.
And the thing people find weird is usually the thing to build on.
When did someone younger than you last refuse to accept your first answer?