Welcome Note

Welcome to the Life-by-Design Blog. My name is Joe Abass Bangura. I am a Chartered Accountant by profession. A fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (FCCA-UK).

I have recently just returned home to Freetown from an Executive Education Program at the Maxwell School of Public Administration, Syracuse University, New York; a proud beneficiary of the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship scholarship, funded by the US States Department.

I have a lifetime passion to pass on the lessons of my life to my generation. One major lesson I have learnt is that  success in life is always intentional and not accidental.  No one succeeds  by accident. People do not get promoted on their jobs; graduate from University; grow successful businesses or lose weight by accident.

In perfect agreement with the law of cause and effect and the sowing and reaping principles; personal achievement can be said to be a science. There are specific tried and tested principles you can put to work that will guarantee the future you desire.

I was born more than four decades ago to illiterate parents; the fourth child in a family with 6 kids, sharing a single bedroom house. My parents were nevertheless very determined to ensure that we were educated to the full extent of their limited resources. This meant that they were only able to meet our bare necessities.

Coupled with some bad choices I made, the end result was that I  failed my final High School Exams (GCE Ordinary Level exams) woefully. I dropped out of school and took on one odd job after another. I ended up being employed by a Government Agency in February 1987 for a monthly salary of Le. 300.00 (three hundred leones); this is less  than ten US cents.

I would be so poorly clad to go to work that every now and again, I would have to switch sidewalks to hide from my former classmates who by that point in time had completed their graduate university education and were now working in Banks and other prestigious offices.

At the zenith of my frustrations,  I had a destiny meeting with Rev. Bobson Turay (Blessed Memories)  in 1989; who became a life coach to me. He brought back confidence and hope to my life; he caused me to see the virtues in my life that nobody else had seen. He made me realise that if anybody was to shoulder the responsibility for turning  the ship of my life back on course, it would be me.

Bobson ignited a fresh passion to succeed in my life that caused me to take some major life-altering decisions.  I decided  I was going to let my faith in God affect my lifestyle.  In religious terms, “I got born again” I went on to set  new standards for myself; things I would no longer accept from myself or no one else for that matter. All the lifestyles and friends that were inconsistent with the new standards I had set for myself, had to go.

I went back to School to retake my Ordinary Level Exams in 1991.  With just three months of preparation, the results were a resounding success.  As they say “Success begets success” and the rest is history.

My life has since been transformed from a school dropout to a Chartered Accountant; from an audit clerk to becoming the Finance Director and Regional Operations Director of the Biggest Mobile Phone Company in Sierra Leone – Africell (SL) Ltd

Life has armed me with very valuable secrets of personal and corporate success that I must pass on to my generation. These secrets have the potential to provoke dramatic changes in the results and quality of your life.

It is my prayer that as you visit the Life-by-design blog and act on the things you learn here, you will ultimately be ushered into the future you desired and designed and become the person you were meant to be.

God Bless you.

in 1989