From teen blogger to digital brand strategist, Abraham Ologundudu stresses the importance of teenagers taking the personal responsibility for growth like he did. This is what he has to say in support of the Teach a Teen Campaign
Hi! My name is Abraham Ologundudu. I am a Digital Brand Strategist, Blogger, Author, and Speaker. I am the founder of Bramo Digi, a company that help Individuals and organizations simplify the process of building a profitable and influential brand online. I am also the founder of Seasoned Life Journal, a platform where I help passionate individuals get the clarity, boldness, strategy, and tools to Intentionally execute their ideas, and impact the world with their genius.
It all started late 2010, and I was just 15 years old. It was shortly after I graduated from secondary school, and I was just discovering the direction my life would take.
I was curious to learn some more even when I didn’t get an admission to the University that year. I spent my time studying online about technology, neuroscience and psychology. I was basically fascinated about how people create things. Along the way, I was helping some friends simplify their challenges and it felt good. With just a Nokia C1 phone and a notebook, I ended up creating a Facebook group that was called Royal Youths Forum back in 2010. In today’s terms, we would call it a Facebook community.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now believe I have the innate ability to help others simplify challenges that have to do with materializing their ideas, and also to inspire them to action.*
At that point it was just a motivational group, and we had over 600 teenagers. We did everything from quotes, to motivational stories, and the likes. Anything to just keep us actively hopeful for the future. It was an important phase of our lives.
The following year I discovered blogging and that was the beginning of amazing things yet, but I had no laptop. I really wanted to know how all these websites things work! Yes! But I had a Nokia C1 mobile phone and UC browser was compatible with blogger.com (Google’s blogging platform).
So the journey started. Typing long articles on that phone was real pain but my newly found hobby was exciting and that kept me going. It got to a point I could send text or chat without looking at my phone’s key pad and I was so fast!
Many times, as a teenager I would deprive myself lunch, so I could save up some money to alternate between Internet cafes and my home. Late 2011, I got admitted into Lagos State University and I got a personal laptop shortly after. It was now bye-bye to Internet Cafes. I wanted to have a better blog but I couldn’t afford to pay an expert. That motivated me to spend extra time learning about Website coding, website designing; then I moved to content development & marketing; then to brand design, etc. It was from one thing to another. It was at first, an effort to learn about these things in other to improve myself but in the long run, I began getting questions from people on how to build a brand online; how to develop a website, and many more digital marketing related questions.
It took a while before it dawned on me thatI had acquired a great skill, and people have a demand for it! In other words, it’s valuable and can be profitable to me and na so business start fully!
All these experiences have indeed led me somewhere I never even envisaged. The skills I gained while blogging for the past 6 years has led me to consult for individuals and small organizations in the area of branding, digital marketing, platform building, and product creation. Furthermore, by virtue of these experiences, I have come to know some of the finest professionals in my country and in other countries.
I used what I had at every point in time and I am glad I did. The truth is that most times, we tend to underrate what we possess and overrate what we do not possess. Blogging from my phone was a hectic experience but it also taught me a lot. I often got upset whenever I saw my friends whose parents could afford to get them laptops and better phones playing games from dawn to dusk when the gadgets had other productive uses. From the use of my phone, my platform http://www.seasonedlifejournal.com has evolved since then. We have birth the Leverage Conference brand and Lead Your Life Podcast. And we definitely have some new projects coming soon.
I often think of what would have become of me today if I didn’t consciously get engaged in personal development outside what obtains in the classroom. So, from my experience, I would say Academics are massively important but the most valuable things in my life right now are those skills and knowledge that I acquired beyond the four walls of a classroom.
My name is Abraham Ologundudu and I support the #TeachATeen campaign
