Bamidele Famoofo‚

ASelf Discovery

s a young man studying engineering at the university, Shyllon discovered who exactly he was and what he wanted to become in life. Knowing that he was cut out to become a technocrat, and not an entrepreneur, given his low appetite for risk, he decided early in life never to borrow money or lend money to people; but to cultivate the habit of saving at least 10 percent of his earnings which he religiously put aside to invest in businesses that would later yield good fortunes for him. “An entrepreneur borrows to maximize returns because of his huge-risk appetite. But technocrats don’t have such an appetite for risk. So they refrain from borrowing,” he explains. “I was a bureaucrat and had never pretended to be an entrepreneur. I did not borrow to be able to build the wealth l have today because l knew l must save. You must always save your income regularly. At least 10 percent of your income must be put aside as a saving.”

While everything around him suggests that he is wealthy, Shyllon will never agree with that notion. Rather, he says, “I’m not a rich man, l never set out to become rich, but to be comfortable and live a simple life.”

He warned that a lot of people have got their fingers burnt by trying to do things they are not cut out for, reiterating the need for every individual to decide very early in life the path they wish to follow to become what they want to be in life. “I have done more than just to work to satisfy my appetite as l have been able to set aside enough to make me live a comfortable life,” he points out.

Planning for retirement

Because Shyllon had a difficult background, he took the decision early in life to make the best of every opportunity that came his way to become comfortable as he would say. Life after retirement was indeed a big priority to the billionaire.

“l remember on one occasion when l was an executive director in a multinational company. I had an expatriate working for me. He was 60 years old at that time and during a dinner with him, l asked him: ‘What are you going to do when you retire?’ He answered, ‘Are you sacking me?’ I responded in the negative. He told me he had never given retirement a thought.

“Though l was young at that time, about 33, l had started planning my retirement. You have to start planning your life early in life so that you can have early rest from your mid-50s and you can live comfortably. Otherwise, you will find out that you are old and you have nothing to fall back on. You must be ready to acquire education on how to invest your savings to get optimum returns while planning your retirement,” he recommended.

Passion for arts

Shyllon’s upbringing as a prince did not have any role to play in his success. He says growing up in the palace did not spur his interest in arts collection. “If you go to the palace in Abeokuta, you won’t see the kind of things that you find in my place now. I think what prompted me to invest in arts is first that I’m an artist. l can draw.”

Shyllon would have opted to study arts at the university but for