The spreadsheets are open. The investor deck sits half-finished on my second monitor. My phone has 47 unread messages from the leadership team. And I... I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I'm supposed to have answers. That's what CEOs do, right? We see the vision. We chart the course. We inspire confidence even when the market turns against us.
But tonight, I have no answers. Only questions that sound too much like defeat:
What if this doesn't work?
What if I've led everyone down the wrong path?
What if I'm not capable of what I thought I was?
I Used to Be So Sure
There was a time God, it feels like a lifetime ago when I walked long distances just to get to school. When studying under a single dim bulb felt like privilege because at least we had light that night. When adults would tell us about Africa's bright future, and I'd look around at the poverty, the broken infrastructure, the promises that never materialized... and I'd think: "I'll be different. I'll change this."
That child believed in impossible things.
Now I'm the CEO that child dreamed of becoming, and I'm not sure he'd recognize me. I'm exhausted. Disillusioned. Confused.
The growth metrics are slowing. Investors are asking harder questions with increasingly skeptical eyes. My team these brilliant people who trusted my vision are burning out. I can see it in their Zoom faces, hear it in their delayed responses.
And the weight of it... the weight isn't just professional failure. It's ancestral disappointment.
When you're an African leader, you don't just represent yourself. You carry your grandmother's prayers. Your cousin's hope that maybe one of us will make it. The kid in your old neighborhood who sees your LinkedIn profile as proof that escape velocity is real.
You become a symbol before you become successful.
And when that symbol starts cracking? It feels like betraying everyone who ever believed in you.
The Question I'm Afraid to Answer
So I asked myself tonight really asked myself the question I've been avoiding for months:
Should I just... stop?
Walk away. Shut it down. Admit defeat while there's still something left to salvage. Let someone more capable, more connected, more everything take over.
The rational part of my brain has already started drafting the announcement. "After careful consideration... strategic pivot... grateful for the journey..."
But then.
Then I heard something. A memory, maybe. Or a stubborn echo from that child who walked to school in worn shoes.
"Yet."
Yet The Most African Word I Know
We grew up with "yet."
You don't have shoes yet.
The power isn't stable yet.
Your breakthrough hasn't come yet.
Africa will rise yet.
It was the language of waiting. Of surviving. Of persisting through circumstances that should have crushed us but somehow... didn't.
And I realize now, sitting here in my expensive office chair in a building I couldn't have imagined as a child—"yet" wasn't about waiting passively.
It was about enduring actively.
It was survival disguised as hope.
I Don't Know If I Believe Anymore
Here's what confuses me: I was trained in Western business schools. I learned about quarterly targets, growth hacking, product-market fit. Clean frameworks. Clear answers.
But being an African CEO means operating in the space between frameworks—where corruption slows your permits, where infrastructure failures kill your logistics, where the "best practices" were written for economies that actually practice the rule of law consistently.
Nobody teaches you how to lead when the game is rigged.
Nobody prepares you for the exhaustion of explaining Africa to investors who've already decided it's "too risky" before you finish your first slide.
Nobody warns you that you'll believe harder than reality rewards you for.
And I'm tired of it.
I'm tired of fighting systems built to exclude us. Tired of being resilient. Tired of inspiring my team when I can barely inspire myself to open my laptop some mornings.
I'm just... tired.
But That Child
That annoying, persistent, unreasonably hopeful child the one who studied under dim light and believed in promises that hadn't materialized yet is still somewhere inside me.
And he's refusing to let me quit.
Not because things are good. They're not.
Not because success is guaranteed. It isn't.
Not because the path forward is clear. I can barely see past next quarter.
But because he survived worse with less.
That child didn't have capital, connections, or credentials. He had "yet." And somehow, impossibly, that was enough to get him here.
I Still Don't Know What I'm Doing
I wish I could end this with clarity. With renewed vision. With the kind of inspirational pivot that makes for good LinkedIn posts.
But I can't.
I'm still confused. Still considering giving up. Still not sure if I'm the right person to lead this company through what comes next.
The difference is... I'm going to show up tomorrow anyway.
Not because I'm brave. I don't feel brave.
Not because I have a plan. My strategy is mostly hope and stubbornness at this point.
But because "yet" doesn't deny the struggle. It doesn't pretend the road is fair. It doesn't promise easy answers.
It just says: this isn't the end of the story.
To Anyone Else Who's Barely Hanging On
If you're an African founder reading this at 3 AM, wondering if you should quit I see you.
If you're a leader carrying the weight of everyone's expectations while privately falling apart I understand.
If you feel like a fraud, like you've bitten off more than you can chew, like the world wasn't built for people like us to win you're not alone.
We come from a continent where endurance isn't a choice it's inherited. Where hope is practiced like discipline because giving up would dishonor everyone who survived worse so we could try at all.
I don't know if my company will succeed.
I don't know if I'm making the right decisions.
I don't know if this will all be worth it.
But I know that the hardest chapter is usually the one right before the breakthrough. And I know that "yet" has carried our people through worse than quarterly earnings calls and difficult board meetings.
So I'm not quitting. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Even though I'm confused.
Even though I'm exhausted.
Even though I have no idea what I'm doing half the time.
Because "yet" isn't a delay.
It's a promise still loading.
The balance sheets are still open. The numbers are still unforgiving. But tomorrow, I'll try again.
Yet.
I Don't Know If I Can Do This Anymore.
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