For Oyinkansola Ogunyinka Edem, getting an international job felt like proof that her career was finally going somewhere.
She had gone from working in content in Nigeria to teaching, mentoring, freelancing and eventually working with clients outside the country. She was earning in dollars and had built the kind of career she once hoped for.
Then she lost one of her biggest international contracts.
It was a difficult moment, especially because she had been earning significantly more than she had before. But losing the job also changed how Oyinkan thought about work. Instead of simply finding another job to replace it, she started building a career that did not depend on one company.
That shift has shaped the way she works today.
How did Oyinkan get into international work?
Oyinkan studied Mass Communication and started working at 19, straight out of university. Her first job was at a startup, where she learnt by doing and moved through different parts of content and communications.
Over time, she started teaching content and copywriting, mentoring people on ADPList and building relationships with other professionals in the industry.
Those relationships eventually opened the door to international work.
A former colleague recommended her for a role at a US-based company. She was hired as an independent contractor and, after sharing her salary expectation, received an offer that was about 20% higher than what she had asked for.
It was a reminder that international opportunities do not always come from applying to hundreds of jobs. Sometimes, they come from people who already know what you can do.
Oyinkan has found opportunities in similar ways since then, by telling people she was looking, staying in professional communities and maintaining relationships with people she had worked with before.
Not every dollar opportunity was worth taking
Working internationally taught Oyinkan another lesson pretty quickly: getting paid in dollars does not automatically make a job or client good.
One of her early US clients once offered her $500 after assigning a large amount of work that had taken up a significant part of her time. She looked at the scope and decided the money did not make sense. It changed the way she approached pricing.
Today, she considers the client, company size, budget, scope and value of the work rather than having one fixed rate for everyone. She also tries to work with two to four clients at a time, depending on the workload.
The goal is simple: have enough income streams that losing one client does not completely derail her finances, without taking on so much work that she cannot deliver properly.
When it comes to managing her money, Oyinkan also likes having options. She keeps foreign currency accounts across multiple platforms, rather than relying on one account for everything.
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Losing the job that changed everything
Around the time Oyinkan was getting married, she lost a high-paying US contract.
The difference between what she had been earning internationally and what she eventually made at a Nigerian company was significant. But the new role came with something she needed at the time: stability and health insurance.
It was a reminder that even a career built around international opportunities can have uncertain seasons. She also had to dip into her savings.
That experience changed how she thought about money. Having a high income was not the same thing as being financially secure. Now, she puts more emphasis on having liquid savings that can carry her through an unexpected loss of income, while continuing to spread her money across different accounts and currencies.
It also made her more conscious of lifestyle inflation. She advises people not to increase their lifestyle every time their income goes up, but to make subtle changes so that when there is a dip, they still have somewhere to land.
A good income month can make it easy to start spending as if the money will always be there. Oyinkan has experienced what happens when it isn’t.
Then the money got bigger
Oyinkan’s ambition around money started long before she began earning internationally.
Around 2021, when she was earning about ₦500,000 a month, her father told his children that his minimum goal for each of them was to earn $1,000 every month.
She thought he was being ambitious. But she had already experienced an early version of that ambition herself: she made her first million naira from selling her first book.
Her parents have been part of her career journey from the beginning. When she was 18 and wanted to publish her first book, her father researched printers and publishers with her and encouraged her to get copies into the hands of her lecturers. Even now, conversations about career decisions, pricing and money often involve her family.
But earning more was never the whole point for Oyinkan. She was also interested in what came with it: growth, exposure and the freedom to choose what she wanted to do next.
She has worked on projects involving AI and world-model technology, built relationships across different countries and grown a network that is now about more than finding her next job.
She has also used that network to help other people find opportunities and connections.
That is the kind of professional network she wants to build: one where people are not only asking who can give them a job, but also thinking about who they can help.
Today, Oyinkan earns more than that dream international job once offered her. The $1,000 monthly target her father once set now feels like a very different starting point.
So, what’s next for Oyinkan?
She is still building.
Oyinkan is currently looking for a stable, well-paying full-time role while continuing to freelance and develop a pool of people she can work with on future projects. She is also reprinting her first book, working towards selling 100 copies in 30 days and considering a reprint of her second.
Her career has changed quite a bit since she started working at 18. But the biggest lesson may have come from losing the opportunity she once thought she needed to keep.
That’s the gist.
