Personality of the Week: Rosebud Anwuri

Full name: Rosebud Anwuri Onyinyechi (no, I am not Igbo)

Birthday: 27th November

What do you do? Right now I work at PwC (PricewaterCooper)

What was growing up like for you? Mostly lonely. I have four siblings which the youngest is 5 years older than me and the oldest is 14 years older. So in the first place, I never grew up with the first two and I was never really in the same school with any of my siblings. By the time I was 10, they all had left Nigeria so from then till now I've been like an only child. I spent most of my time watching cartoons, teaching myself to swim and reading little fictional books.

Role models: My role model would be Sheryl Sandberg

Favourites (person, movie, artiste, music genre & song, food): My favourite person is Rosebud. :) For other things I'm quite eclectic and I don't have favourite things in general.

Biggest achievement so far: I'd say finding my passion. Honestly, it just made everything in my life better and brought out the grit I never knew I had. 

Main aspiration in life: To be as general as possible as I don't believe in limiting myself, it would be to make an impact wherever I find myself and whatever I'm doing.

What do you dislike the most? Witchcraft. No I'm not joking. How will you just be eating people like jollof rice?

Your hobbies and interests: My hobbies are mostly singing. I looooove to sing and I'm very good at it. Yes I can brag about this one because all my life I've never been good at other stuff. Then reading. I am (or used to be. God will epp me) an avid reader. 3-4 books in a month and it really helped me. Then swimming also.

Does it matter to you what people think of you? I wish I could say no and be doing bad guy but honestly people's perception is their reality and you were not born just for yourself, you were born to help others. As they say, some people's destinies are directly intertwined with yours so you cannot afford to mislead people. We are not independent and if everyone has a bad impression of you can you really achieve what you've set out to do? As much as possible I want their perception to be my reality. The person I really am is what I want them to see so that I'm not faking it. I honestly think this way because in the long run, I care how they see me or what they think of me for my own good. How I seem to them doesn't really affect them. As Richard Branson has said 'Doing good is good business'. I slip sometimes and have a lot of bad perceptions about me (if you're in this category, I'm sorry. I truly am) but in general, I think it's good to manage your perceptions. I've given speech sha.

Most important lesson(s) you have learned from life: Manage the expectations you have of yourself. I don't know if that's the most important but it's the first thing that popped in my head. All my life I've held myself to high standards. Some I may reach, most I don't even come close to. I'd spend my time stalking people on social networks and be like 'see my life. At my age, this person was already doing this and that'. To a very large extent I still do it but when I've learnt to also cut myself some slack when I deserve it. Even when I put in my best and didn't get the outcome I wanted, I've learnt to accept it (maybe after wailing and eating comfort food) because if you don't manage those expectations you have of yourself, you'll keep on failing and instead of accepting the failure as part of the learning process, you'll start to see yourself as less and less of the person you really are and start saying stuff like 'I'm not good enough' 'does Tobi have two heads?'. You're young (I hope) be patient with life and stop trying to time yourself on other people's clocks.

What is your idea of a better Nigeria like? Hmmm. I'll say that it would be when everyone has enough empathy for the other person, tribe or religion that they realize that Boko Haram overtaking the north is just the same as Boko Haram over taking Nigeria. When we stop treating Nigeria like it's a collection of sorority houses and treat it like a nation, we will build our country together.

What would you like to do to make Nigeria a better country? Most likely be a technocrat.

A funny thing about you that not many people know: I'm a very silly person. As in PH (Port Harcourt) girl kind of silly. You should meet me sometime.

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