My Lessons from 2025:

Growth, Grace, and Getting Better

When I think about 2025, I do not think of it as a year of dramatic breakthroughs. I think of it as a year of quiet refinement. A year that reminded me that experience does not exempt anyone from learning, and that wisdom—if it is real—keeps evolving.

Having built businesses from the ground up, worked within the constraints and complexities of the public sector, consulted across multiple nations, and spent significant time mentoring entrepreneurs and engaging young minds in universities, I entered 2025 believing I was prepared. I soon realized preparation does not mean completion. It only means readiness to be taught again.

Growth Beyond Expansion

For years, I had measured growth by expansion — new markets, larger teams, higher budgets, wider influence. In 2025, growth redefined itself.

In business, growth meant learning when not to scale. I saw firsthand how premature expansion destroyed promising ventures. Some entrepreneurs I mentored had impressive traction but weak foundations; unclear governance, poor financial discipline, or an unhealthy founder mindset. The lesson was clear: growth without structure is fragility in disguise.

In the public sector, growth took the form of institutional thinking. Unlike private enterprise, results are rarely immediate. Policies take time, and impact often shows up long after applause has faded. I learned to formulate and prescribe ideas that would work even when the original drivers were no longer present. That shift —  from personal effectiveness to institutional sustainability —  was one of the most important professional transitions of the year for me.

True growth, I learned, is not acceleration. It is alignment.

Grace as a Form of Wisdom

2025 deepened my understanding of grace — not just as elegance, consideration and charm or even as kindness alone, but as mature leadership.

Consulting across borders taught me that intelligence must travel with humility and consideration. What appears obvious in one context can be deeply offensive or ineffective in another. I learned to pause, observe, and ask better questions before prescribing solutions. Grace became the bridge between expertise and acceptance.

Mentoring entrepreneurs reinforced this lesson even more. Many founders carry invisible burdens; financial pressure, family expectations, imposter syndrome, and the loneliness that comes with leadership. I learned that sometimes the most valuable mentorship is not strategy, but reassurance. Not answers, but perspective.

Grace meant allowing people to fail safely, to learn without shame, and to grow without comparison. It also meant correcting firmly when necessary—because grace is not indulgence. It is truth delivered with respect.

Nurturing Young Minds: Building Foundations, Not Just Ambition

One of the most fulfilling and instructive parts of 2025 was working closely with students in universities. Young people today are remarkably exposed — globally connected, technologically fluent, and fiercely ambitious. Yet many are standing on shaky foundations.

I realized that nurturing young minds is less about motivating them to “dream big” and more about helping them think well.

Many future entrepreneurs fail not because they lack ideas, but because no one taught them fundamentals early enough—how to understand their environment and the systems governing it, how to manage risks, how to separate personal identity from business outcomes, how to understand cash flow before chasing valuation, how to work in teams, and how to lead ethically even when no one is watching.

In 2025, my focus shifted from inspiration to preparation. From applause to grounding. I learned that laying a solid foundation early helps future entrepreneurs avoid obvious and expensive mistakes — mistakes that confidence alone cannot fix later.

I also learned to respect their curiosity. Younger minds ask uncomfortable questions — about fairness, systems, legacy, and meaning. Engaging them required me to update my own thinking and remain intellectually honest. Teaching, I discovered, is one of the most effective ways to stay updated and relevant.

Lessons from Mentoring Entrepreneurs

Mentoring entrepreneurs in 2025 was both energizing and sobering.

I saw brilliant ideas fail due to poor character alignment among co-founders. I watched promising ventures stall because founders confused visibility with viability. I observed how fear of failure often leads to reckless decisions disguised as boldness.

One recurring lesson stood out: entrepreneurship amplifies who you already are. It does not fix discipline, integrity, or emotional maturity, it exposes their absence.

As a mentor, I learned to spend less time discussing success stories and more time dissecting failure patterns. I learned to challenge founders not just on strategy, but on self-awareness. And I learned that the goal of mentorship is not dependence, but clarity — helping people make informed decisions, even when those decisions are uncomfortable.

Getting Better as a Discipline

Perhaps the most personal lesson of 2025 was accepting that improvement is not automatic with age or experience. It is not an event; it is a habit.

Most importantly, getting better required accountability — to myself and to those who trust my leadership. Despite years of experience, I discovered gaps in my thinking — outdated assumptions, blind spots, and skills that needed refining. The world is changing too fast for anyone to rely solely on past relevance. So I read more, asked better questions, and surrounded myself with people who were not impressed by my résumé.

Getting better also meant unlearning; letting go of the need to always be right, accepting that younger professionals sometimes have better tools and fresher insights.

Getting better meant acknowledging that rest is productive and that burnout is not a badge of honor. It meant choosing reflection over reaction, and depth over constant visibility. It meant understanding that relevance is earned repeatedly, not inherited from past achievements.

A Fuller Definition of Success

By the end of 2025, success looked different to me.

Success was not just businesses built or contracts delivered. It was seeing my student argue a case in a way that reflected good insight, meticulous research and a fearless interpretation of the law. It was seeing a mentee make a better decision because of a conversation we once had. It was watching a student choose patience over hype. It was bequeathing a mentality of stronger thinking, not just impressive outcomes.

2025 reminded me that legacy is formed quietly through systems, people, and principles that continue long after we move on.

Looking Forward

If 2025 taught me anything, it is this: experience grants perspective, but humility sustains progress.

I carry 2025 with gratitude. It stretched me, corrected me, and refined me. It reminded me that leadership is service, growth is continuous, and grace is essential.

As long as there are young minds to nurture, entrepreneurs to guide, institutions to strengthen, and ideas to refine across borders, my commitment remains the same — to keep growing, to lead with grace, and to keep getting better.

That, to me, is the real work. It is the way to navigate this 2026 with grace.

Fatherhood with Ibe

Promises Fathers Make Quietly at the Start of Every Year

You know that moment when the New Year countdown ends and everyone’s cheering, and you’re standing there holding your drink, and suddenly, there’s a moment of realization? Yeah, that moment! That’s when we do it. That’s when fathers everywhere make these quiet little promises to ourselves that we never quite say out loud.

I’m not talking about the resolutions we joke about at work or post on social media. I’m talking about the ones that hit you at odd times in the new year, probably as your mind goes racing through the events of the past year, or during your commute when a song comes on that reminds you about your child or children, special moments in your family life and the fact that the children are growing up faster than you can keep up with. In the case, where the children are all grown up and you can’t tell where the time went, I am talking about the promises that are fueled by our guilt over absences and unmet appointments, promoted by a desire to do more. Yes, those promises.

This Year, I’ll Be More Present

This is the big one, isn’t it? Every father I know makes some versions of this promise. We tell ourselves this is the year we’ll actually put the phone down during family meals. We promise ourselves that we’ll listen when they’re telling us about that thing that happened at school, even if we’ve got a hundred emails waiting and our mind is already at tomorrow’s meeting.

We promise we’ll be there, really there, not just physically present but mentally and emotionally showing up … because if we’re honest, we know the difference. Our kids definitely know the difference. They can tell when we’re looking at them but thinking about the project deadline or the bills or whatever’s eating at us.

It sounds simple, but it’s hard. The world doesn’t make it easy for fathers to be present. Everything’s designed to pull our attention in twenty six different directions at once. I can’t tell how many times I made this silent promise, to be more available. Sometimes … many times … I tried, but often, I just let their mom do the job.

I’ll Lose My Temper Less

Here’s one we don’t talk about enough. How many of us promise ourselves we won’t raise our voice this year? That we’ll count to ten, take that deep breath, respond instead of react?

We know our kids will test boundaries. That’s literally their job. They’re supposed to push and explore and sometimes drive us absolutely up the wall. But somewhere around January 12th, after they’ve spilled juice for the third time on our favourite furniture or ignored our advice to be prudent with funds for the fifteenth time, we snap. And then we feel awful about it.

So we promise ourselves we’ll do better. We’ll remember that they’re not trying to ruin our day, they’re just being kids or, for older children, just figuring things out for themselves. We’ll model the patience we want them to have. We’ll be the calm in their storm instead of adding to the chaos.

This Time, I Won’t Let Work Consume Everything

Every January, we swear we’ll set better boundaries. We’ll leave work at the work place. We won’t check emails after 7 PM. We’ll actually use our vacation days instead of hoarding them like they’re going to save us from something.

We tell ourselves our kids won’t remember the promotion or the extra project we took on, but they will remember the soccer games we missed, the bedtime stories we were too tired to read, the weekends we spent glued to our laptops instead of having that urgent discussion they have been hinting at.

The thing is, we mean it when we make this promise. We genuinely believe this year will be different. And sometimes it is, for a few weeks at least, until things get busy again and old patterns creep back in.

I’ll Take Better Care of Myself

This one’s tricky because it feels selfish, doesn’t it? Taking time for ourselves when we should be spending every spare moment with our families? But somewhere deep down, we know we can’t pour from an empty cup.

So we promise we’ll get back to the gym, eat better, sleep more, see the doctor about that thing we’ve been ignoring. Not because we’re vain or self-absorbed, but because our kids need us around and healthy for the long haul. They need us to model self-care, to show them that taking care of yourself isn’t selfish, it’s necessary.

Plus, we’ll admit it, we want to be able to keep up with them. To play without getting winded, to lift the little ones up without throwing out our backs, to have the energy for one more game even when we’re exhausted.

I’ll Connect With Each Kid Individually

Again, you mixed up the gifts for the kids. Perhaps you bought Arsenal Club polo shirts for your two sons but one is really a Chelsea fan. You watched as his face fell while his brother squealed with joy. You made a silent promise again to connect with each kid individually.

For those of us with more than one kid, this promise hits different. We swear this is the year we’ll find special time for each child, one-on-one because it’s easy to parent them as a group, to treat them like a unit, but each of them needs to know they matter individually to us.

We promise we’ll learn what makes each of them tick, what they’re passionate about even if it’s not something we understand or care about ourselves. One kid loves dinosaurs, another is obsessed with coding, the third just wants to talk about their feelings. We promise we’ll engage with all of it, genuinely.

I’ll Say ‘I Love You’ More

Why is this so hard sometimes? We feel it constantly, this overwhelming love that sometimes makes our chests ache, but the words don’t always make it out of our mouths as often as they should.

So we promise we’ll say it more. Not just the casual “love you” as they head out the door, but the real deal. The “I’m proud of you,” the “you make me so happy,” the “I couldn’t imagine life without you,” conversations that might feel awkward because we didn’t hear it growing up ourselves, but matter so much.

I’ll Apologize When I Mess Up

This might be the hardest promise of all. We promise ourselves that when we inevitably break some of these other promises, when we snap or forget or disappoint, we’ll own it. We’ll say sorry and mean it. We’ll model accountability and humility.

Because our kids need to see that nobody’s perfect, not even dad. They need to know that making mistakes doesn’t make you a failure, but refusing to acknowledge them does.

The Truth About These Promises

Here’s what I’ve learned about these quiet promises we make: we’re going to break most of them, probably by February. Some of us by mid-January. And that’s okay.

The point isn’t perfection. The point is that we keep trying. That every year, we look at ourselves honestly and think about how we can be better fathers. That we care enough to make these promises in the first place.

Our children don’t need perfect fathers. They need dads who show up, who try, who love them fiercely even when we’re exhausted and overwhelmed and have no idea what we’re doing. They need dads who make quiet promises to themselves at the start of every year and do their best to keep them, even when it’s hard.

So here’s to another year of trying, of stumbling, of picking ourselves back up and trying again. Here’s to the promises we make quietly, the ones that matter most because they’re just between us and the little people who depend on us. If you haven’t thought of these situations and promises yet, do so and join the rest of us as we try daily to do better no matter what.

We’ve got this … most days, anyway.