I slid a four-year plan across the table.
July 2008. Final year of university in Owerri, Nigeria. I was broke and short on prospects—except for one thing: a North Star I could see so clearly it felt like memory.
In my notebook I wrote a page titled “Four-Year Plan” It had five elements:
- Win a scholarship
- Study abroad
- Work for two years and save
- Return to Nigeria and marry my sweetheart
- Bring her abroad—all within four years
We’d been friends for years, and I had started catching feelings. My palms were sweating, my heart was pounding, as I laid out this vision over a plate of food. The restaurant was noisy, plastic chairs scraping against the floor, but in that moment, it felt like the world had gone quiet, waiting for her answer.
It wasn’t a marriage proposal. It was the audacity of a broke student saying: believe with me.
And here’s the part I still marvel at, maybe it was the clarity, maybe the fact I’d written it down, maybe that I’d already placed her at the centre of the vision, but she said yes.
Three years later, when the scholarship came through and I held my UK admission letter, I finally asked her to marry me.
She said yes again.
Looking back, every major breakthrough in my life has followed the same pattern: North Star/Vision → alignment → action → partnership.
✨ What’s your North Star?
Write it down. Speak it out. Align your actions.
Don’t worry about the how. Start with the end in mind, then work backwards to chart the path. Because once clarity is set, nothing you imagine will be impossible.
And if you can find someone to partner with you in that vision? Even better. Because one can chase a thousand… but two put ten thousand to flight. That’s a multiplier effect no one can ignore.
Bonus: the framework we still use
Here’s the North Star Map I return to whenever I’m at a crossroads. Use it as is; adapt it as you like.
1) Name it (1 line).
Write the destination in a single sentence. If it needs a paragraph, it’s not yet a North Star.
2) Backcast it.
Work backwards from the destination. List the 3–5 milestones that must be true just before the goal is real.
3) Align it.
Choose one daily action and one weekly action that keep you moving toward the Star (words, thoughts, actions in agreement).
4) Partner it.
Share the page with one person who will believe with you. Ask for accountability.
5) Start within 72 hours.
Send the email. Book the call. Submit the form. Begin.
Want help turning your North Star into a one-page story you can use in interviews, reviews, and “visibility” meetings?
→ Get the 5 ChatGPT prompts I use to write career stories (free)
Behind the scenes (what I didn’t put on LinkedIn)
After that dinner, we set a simple rhythm: Sunday reviews. We’d read the one-pager aloud, note tiny steps for the week, and pray for the next door to open. Most weeks looked uneventful. But a scholarship form appeared. A contact replied. A deadline moved. The page stayed the same; we changed—steadier, clearer, aligned.
Maybe you’ve felt this too: ideas that glow for a moment, then fade because they were never written down.
Take ten minutes today and try this:
- What do you desire most right now?
- What are the 3–5 milestones on the path?
- Who could you invite to believe with you?
Hit reply and share one line of your North Star. I read every response.
Choose your next step
—
Jonathan — The Faceless Coach
P.S. Thank you for being here. Subscribers get the behind-the-scenes details and frameworks I don’t include on LinkedIn—because this is where we do the real work together.
