 About 34 years ago, I was born in a little town in Nigeria. Growing up, money was a stranger. I rarely saw it or even see anyone who had enough of it. Everyone seemed to wake up every day to hustle for money and after 35 years of hard labour, nobody seems to have anything. Luckily for me, when I was around 11 years old, I made friends with a guy of my age who would later make me love books. When I started reading books, I started seeing life beyond my little African village. I started reading about the possibilities in the world and I started expanding my dreams. By the time I was an adult, I had become this crazy guy who wanted to overcome the world. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be successful. I probably dreamed of a life where you never have to work, but such dream quickly got replaced by another one which is a life where you don't have to work for money. I built my first successful company in the year 2016. It is an agri-technology company and every other thing we have in my company today followed after then. So, in today's video, I'm going to share with you the journey of my life and how I got to a period in my life where I don't have to work to live. Please note that I am not selling the fantasy of a life without work. I'm not promoting or even claiming that I'm no longer working because no human can ever be happy waking up to bitches every day I still work as hard as anyone else but the difference is I only do things that give me a lot of fun. To me, that's the best retirement anyone can hope for. Mark Twain said, find a job you enjoy doing and you'll never have to work a day in your life. So, let's get started as I share with you three important things if you ever want to get to a point in your life when you no longer have to work to pay bills but for the fun of it. 1. Start pursuing your dreams early Today, as I look around and see many of my age mates who are broke and struggling financially what I see isn't a lack of intelligence or even efforts. Often, I see people who didn't get to know who they are early enough. Even though I was born into poverty and suffered from sickle cell disease or my childhood I got to know what I want out of life very early. And, I was this guy who loved selling things. As a child, I sold brown nuts, corn and even sand. I started a bicycle-reading business, a photography business and a few other things. When I was 20 years old, I already knew that I would either become a successful entrepreneur or die trying. Nothing else, ever, was of interest to me. Now to you, especially if you're still in your 20s you have to take time to know who you are and exactly what you want out of life and you have to start pursuing your dreams as early as possible even if that means you'll sacrifice something else. Let me explain this with a story. In the year 2008, I decided to drop out of school. Not because I hate a school or I think school is a complete waste of time but because I was afraid that my time is going. I'm getting old. This is my advice for every young person out there. Start pursuing your dreams right now. Today, yes, you'll make mistakes and have some failures but that is exactly why you have to start early. The earlier you start, the faster you'll fail and the faster you'll succeed. Then someone might ask me, how can pursuing my dream make me retire? Well, most people's dreams have something to do with financial prosperity and what they love so if only people can fight hard, pursue their dreams till they win they'll get both money and pleasure which is what I call retirement. 2. Worship Time Many people in their 40s or older might feel like my previous point is not for them. Here is what everyone can do to achieve success in record time. Worship Time You see, seconds and minutes are what our life is made up of. Not in mouse, in human existence is as important as time because that's the only thing we all have equally. Again, I feel lucky that I've always respected time right from when I was a little child. I was a teenager when I learned how to set goals. Even as a 15-year-old boy, I would not watch television because I had goals I was pursuing. And I didn't want to waste my time. Today, I am always suspicious of anything that may waste my time social media, TV or even my phone's notification. Do you want to be rich and successful and do it earlier than most people? Try and achieve in one year what most people achieve in 5 years. This is possible because most people simply waste too much time. If you honor and respect time, if you invest your time into your personal development and pursuit of your goal, you'll achieve your life's dream and you'll never have to work because you want to pay bills but because you love to. 3. Don't wish life was easy About 12 or 13 years ago, when I started telling people that I would build a company what everyone was telling me was how difficult it is. But wait, why do we have this city idea that life should be easy? Well, it has never been easy for anyone. Everyone who has ever achieved significant success in life had fought hard for it. After failing in the business world for many years, everyone in my family was worried about me. They were afraid that I would destroy my life or even die. These people don't know that I knew exactly what I signed up for before I decided to build a business. Today, I know people who try to build a business then fail a few times and look for who to blame. If life were easy, everyone would be rich, happy and successful. Think about that for a moment. The reason why only a few people ever get to the top in any field is that it is extremely difficult to do it. So if you ever wish to pursue your dream, build a business or do anything worthwhile you have to delete from your mind the expectation of quick, cheap or easy success. Now, let me round off this video with another advice. Never let your goal be about retirement but about getting to a point when you wake up with excitement. Everything we were made to believe about retirement is not true. Traditionally, retirement is a period when people no longer have to work. They wake up every day to beaches and have fun all day. I bet you no human can ever be happy being idle. The reason why people think they need to stop working is that they hate their work. That's what you have to deal with. How can you get to a point in your life when you wake up excited every day because you're working on things that interest you? That should be your focus and I've shared with you the three things that helped me. Start as early as today. Worship time and stop expecting life to be easy. My name is Steve Courage. I am a Nigerian and I live in Lagos. If you wish to know more about me, see my ugly face or consume videos I specifically make for Africans, check the description box and join my new channel where I show my face and teach Africans how to build successful businesses. I love you.