She was having a perfect ending to her forty-two-year career. From the time she was a young girl my mum had dreamt of working with large organizations. In retrospect that had happened. She educated her children from the best schools, retired to a sizeable piece of real estate on a hill and had a fair a mount of assets.

Suddenly the last two years something happened. “Kaka I want to come with you to your trainings”, she told me. She attended, took notes, asked questions.

On a sunny evening while driving back home after facilitating a training for Congolese women entrepreneurs we has a conversation:

Mum: “Kaka I admire what you do. You enjoy what you do. I wish I had taken a similar path”

Kaka: “Why didn’t you take it?”

Mum: “I had children to raise…….”

My mother retired, tried to pursue her fashion dream but she passed on without ever living that dream to the fullest.

What does imagination got to do with career growth? A lot!

Firstly, imagination is not what you think but how you think. There are two routes to career growth; predictable and unpredictable. Predictable growth is what most of us are exposed to; you start out as a clerk and grow through the ranks just like my mum did.

Unpredictable career growth on the other hand is wild. It requires one to take uncommon paths to destinations not clear or chartered before. It involves lots of risk yet fulfilling in the end. Very few take this route

Born in Nigeria in the 1950s, Aliko Dangote was born into wealth of the Detanta family on his mother’s side. When he was eight, his father passed on living him some money and assets as inheritance.

Dangote started trading cement after returning from Egypt where he had attended University. Business was fair but not fine.

What began as a normal day would define the business career of Dangote later catapulting him into Petroleum, banking and owning cement factories. A famous evangelist needed to board a flight with his wife.

Unfortunately, there was no space, Dangote sacrificed two places of his assistants to provide space for the two people. From then onwards his career moved in directions opposed to conventional wisdom. He started building wealth in ways never imagined before. Whether you believe in divine meetings or not is not the point. The emphasis is on a career taking unfamiliar paths.

With a net worth of $16.5billion, Dangote’s career is an example of seeing things we don’t know- unpredictable growth based on imagination.

Let’s have a chat. When you imagine your career growth, is it predictable or unpredictable? Predictable will give you some comforts of life but unpredictable imagination will bring you fulfilment. Its your choice

The pursuit of opportunity will require you to think differently and break the rules that paralyze change. You can keep things the same or you can make a difference, but you can’t do both.