Nigerian Man Shares Reasons Why He Resigned From Shell On 40th Birthday

Nigerian man named Micheal Taiwo shares reason he resigned from shell on 40th birthday

In his words:

“I earned $120K a year working for Shell in 2012.

Ten years and multiple promotions later, in 2022, that figure has doubled to $240K a year.

In 2023, I stumbled on an internal, confidential, document that showed the salaries of my superiors.

I saw that even if I were promoted multiple times again, the best I could hope for in another 10 years was another doubling to around $480K a year.

This may sound crazy saying it out loud but that wasn’t cutting it for me.

I simply didn’t want the next 10 years to be a repeat of the last 10.

I wanted geometric progression, not an arithmetic one.

On my 40th birthday, in 2023, I was asked to make a wish as a blew the candles on my birthday cake.

“Get the hell out of Shell,” I quietly whispered. Months later, I was out.

In 2024, my businesses grossed $500K; in 2025, they did $1M – geometric progression.

It required me to be delusional about my abilities, to bank on the faithfulness of God and to trust that inner voice that always nag at me that I could be more, I could do more and I could have more”.

Credit: @AskMichaelTaiwo

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com