Latest / King Dems Podcast | Growth Mindset, Leadership, AI and Business Insights / Ep. 13 with Charles "Young Jollof" Oche

Transcript

Ep. 13 with Charles "Young Jollof" Oche · King Dems Podcast | Growth Mindset, Leadership, AI and Business Insights

• 0:01
  Welcome to the Kingdom's podcast sharing the stories of ordinary
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  Face and My job is to help you understand how sales helps you
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  succeed at. Life.
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  By the end of that phone call, my hand was shaking so badly I
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  could not hold a pen to write. I called my manager John and I
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  said I might have just killed Jeff Bezos.
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  It it is the best experience that you can have, you're going
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  to see some truly remarkable. Results.
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  Let's go. This is a lifetime lesson, so
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  start now. OK, ladies and gentlemen, we are
• 2:14
  like on the Kingdom's podcast. Welcome to the Kingdom's focus.
• 2:18
  And of course today I have with me a very special guest and of
• 2:22
  course I'm going to give him the Bruce Brother introduction.
• 2:26
  Ladies and gentlemen, we are live from the King James
• 2:31
  Podcast. We have with us Charles A Douche
• 2:37
  Arche, AKA Young Jolo, professional record of two wins
• 2:45
  and 0 losses fighting out of the capital of Nigeria, Abuja.
• 2:52
  Welcome to the King's podcast Archer Young Jolo Dache.
• 3:00
  Thank you very much brother. Actually, thank you.
• 3:04
  Thank you. That was, I don't think anybody
• 3:06
  has introduced me like that on any podcast before.
• 3:09
  So yeah, thank you. I'm doing great, man.
• 3:11
  I'm doing great. Fantastic one you know you're a
• 3:15
  great man and of course like congratulations on your on your
• 3:18
  role as a commentator. You know in in Envy Nigeria
• 3:23
  you're you're one of the front line guys when it comes to the
• 3:26
  MA in Nigeria. When you think MMA Nigeria you
• 3:28
  think you know you're one of those faces in the front line.
• 3:31
  So how, how, how does it feel being in the front line for MTN
• 3:36
  Nigeria? OK, first of all, it's humbling.
• 3:39
  It's it's humbling. I can't, I can't use any other
• 3:43
  words to describe it besides humbling because we started
• 3:48
  doing, I started doing MMA five years ago.
• 3:52
  I started with the aspirations of being an athlete.
• 3:56
  I wanted to go to the UFC. My coach back there, Mayo Ice
• 4:00
  Box or couldn't. The head coach at Body Rock
• 4:03
  Fitness Studios, he was, he had this whole amazing trajectory
• 4:07
  for my career. We did.
• 4:09
  We're going to have a few local fates, so Mayo was the
• 4:18
  mastermind, if you could, behind my growth in the sport of mixed
• 4:24
  martial arts in Nigeria. Mayo of course is was my head
• 4:28
  coach. Is is one of my closest friends
• 4:30
  and one of the actual pioneers behind martial art, mixed
• 4:34
  martial arts and combat sports in Abuja.
• 4:39
  He was the first person that that popularised setting up a
• 4:42
  cage as opposed to using a boxing ring to conduct your
• 4:47
  sport. MMA shows.
• 4:48
  He employed a lot of the international rules sets in the
• 4:54
  early ME competitions that used to take place here, and it was
• 4:58
  under his five promotion that I had my 2.
• 5:02
  I'm not sure MMA fights and that spring, but that was the
• 5:05
  springboard for my career as an analyst, as a commentator, as a
• 5:09
  coach. Because I coached under his, I
• 5:11
  started coaching fighters under his gym as well, Cornered
• 5:14
  fighters on that, his gym. Then I started doing commentary
• 5:18
  where my commentary career started coming with commentating
• 5:21
  shows with him. Then we launched the Combat
• 5:23
  Culture Africa podcast together. So Mayo I can talk about my rise
• 5:28
  or my growth in this sport, even my understanding on the
• 5:32
  technical level, my development as an athlete without giving
• 5:35
  thanks to God and then calling Maya's name afterwards because
• 5:39
  Maya, Maya, Maya really put me on the right track.
• 5:42
  So that's the first thing. I think having a solid team,
• 5:45
  having intelligent people. Despite the fact that we're in
• 5:48
  Nigeria, we still come together. Despite the challenges, despite
• 5:53
  the pitfalls that surround us, we still put one and two
• 5:56
  together to make magic happen and we've done it consistently
• 5:59
  for five years. And another thing that you have
• 6:02
  to be grateful for is wisdom and foresight.
• 6:04
  So if you if if as early as 2019, if you go on YouTube, you
• 6:08
  see videos of me saying yo, I can see the development of the
• 6:13
  sport. We need to we need to start
• 6:16
  getting smart people involved now before things get popular.
• 6:19
  We need to start getting things regulated right.
• 6:22
  We need actually pay to be negotiated properly.
• 6:24
  We need athlete representation, the health, health insurance.
• 6:27
  We need people to be more, better taken care of in their
• 6:29
  health in their recovery phase during their training.
• 6:32
  Like these are things that four of us me, Mayo, Chidi, and Scary
• 6:37
  on the on our little desk at the back of the gym.
• 6:39
  After we would be done training, we'll do jujitsu on Saturday
• 6:42
  morning. Then we would go to the back of
• 6:44
  the gym, then turn on the lights, get off our get our
• 6:47
  little cameras, get our mixer, connect my laptop and then we
• 6:51
  the record. You would see us saying a lot of
• 6:54
  the things that are now happening.
• 6:55
  Kamaru Usman coming to Nigeria. We called it out a month or two
• 7:00
  before. Manifested.
• 7:03
  You know global betting organisations, we we did, we
• 7:07
  were ahead of the curve. We still are and I just feel
• 7:10
  that that's that's one those are some of the the elements that
• 7:14
  that and then just raw like look at my cup.
• 7:17
  Like look I was written on my cup.
• 7:19
  This is my motto for life. Yeah it might be it when when I
• 7:24
  die this might be written on on my tombstone that's how that's
• 7:27
  how near and dear this is to me. So a lot of discipline late
• 7:32
  nights, early mornings, not just on the on the physical side of
• 7:36
  training, the mental side, understanding the business side,
• 7:39
  understanding the media side, understanding the legal side,
• 7:42
  how it all comes together and how can we make it better for
• 7:46
  Nigerians. How can we take what the UFC has
• 7:49
  in America and then further distil that and make it perfect?
• 7:54
  An African martial arts promotion and African martial
• 7:59
  arts representation agency for African athletes, Nigerian
• 8:03
  athletes. How can we take the good that
• 8:05
  we've seen manifested by the UFC over the past 25 years, then
• 8:08
  compress that into like the next 5-10 years?
• 8:12
  And and most importantly, because we're trying to do this
• 8:15
  to alleviate the poverty of the athletes, it's not about making
• 8:19
  money, it's about making life better.
• 8:22
  There are so many poor people here, many of them if you come,
• 8:24
  when you come Nigeria will go for a fight show together.
• 8:29
  You see how these guys with the little they have some of them
• 8:32
  it's just bread and coke. Coke road to eat and drink
• 8:35
  before coming for their fights that they have seen guys have
• 8:37
  come for fight took. They'll fight a boxing show.
• 8:40
  Now you with you 6:00 PM they go get into the car with their
• 8:44
  manager. They are going to another fight
• 8:46
  through somewhere by 9 and they are fighting two times in one
• 8:49
  night. How much are they paying them
• 8:51
  here? They gave they gave one guy 25K
• 8:53
  to fight. They gave another guy and his
• 8:56
  second fight they gave him 30K. Maybe the second fight he lost,
• 8:59
  they only give him 15,000. So that's what, 45 to 30,035
• 9:03
  thousand naira for fighting two times in one night?
• 9:07
  We can do better. That's crazy.
• 9:10
  So that's sort of where I come in.
• 9:12
  And yeah, I I hope I answered the question.
• 9:16
  You more than answered the question and of course, right
• 9:18
  would definitely like to know much more about like the MC
• 9:22
  Nigeria, right. But then before we get back to
• 9:24
  the MC let's you know talk much more about you.
• 9:28
  So for you, how do you describe yourself on a personal basis?
• 9:34
  Hmm. Well, I would start by saying
• 9:37
  I'm deeply flawed. But my awareness of my of of my
• 9:42
  flaws is where some some of my greatest strengths manifest.
• 9:47
  I used to think that I was a lazy, lazy person.
• 9:51
  And because I used to think I was a lazy person, I acted in a
• 9:56
  lazy way. I always made excuses.
• 9:58
  I never took response stability. But life comes at you hard.
• 10:03
  As much as I don't like Nigeria, I don't like what Nigeria does
• 10:08
  to people. I don't like how Nigeria forces
• 10:11
  people to lower their standard of living.
• 10:13
  I don't like all those things. There are many powerful things
• 10:16
  about being in an environment that forces you to be under high
• 10:21
  levels of stress and high levels of pressure.
• 10:25
  Morning, afternoon and evening now.
• 10:28
  So you have to acknowledge the downside.
• 10:32
  The downside is that so many people get trampled as a result
• 10:37
  of how inefficient and how, how, how, how.
• 10:41
  I'm picking my words very, very. I'm trying to pick my words very
• 10:45
  carefully. Yeah, right.
• 10:50
  Yeah, yeah. Wrote to you right.
• 10:53
  Speaking, yeah, yeah. Speaking of market
• 10:55
  inefficiencies, so I I studied economics, right.
• 10:58
  And it's like one of those things that you know where core
• 11:02
  especially in terms of development, development
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  economics, so development economics basically the
• 11:07
  economics of countries that are developing, right.
• 11:11
  So you see that there are a lot of inefficiencies within those
• 11:15
  markets and however, even with those inefficiencies, right, it
• 11:21
  creates a lot of market gaps that if you as an individual are
• 11:26
  able to identify those market gaps, it could help you and
• 11:29
  reach yourself as a. Person, of course, of course,
• 11:33
  of. Course I see you.
• 11:35
  I see you closing some of. Those gaps as well.
• 11:38
  Yeah. Yeah you you've had I said how
• 11:44
  how I think how I think in a nutshell that's my philosophy
• 11:47
  right there. I because you're in this
• 11:49
  environment where all these efficiencies exist economically
• 11:52
  and infrastructure the everywhere you look nothing
• 11:55
  helps you grow in this environment it forces so.
• 11:59
  So what I was trying to say earlier is the drawback is so
• 12:02
  many people get lost by the wayside.
• 12:03
  So many people get their dreams get trampled.
• 12:05
  So many people don't don't just get broken emotionally
• 12:09
  physically traumatised and that kind of damage it can take a
• 12:12
  lifetime to recover from it while all recovering from it
• 12:15
  every day and every day the environment is putting more on
• 12:19
  you. So that's the drawback.
• 12:20
  But the positive now is if you do manage to find some light at
• 12:27
  the end of the tunnel, and this is not about financial or
• 12:31
  monetary gain, now you find a way to live a meaningful life in
• 12:35
  this place. Amidst all these challenges,
• 12:39
  amidst all the pressure, amidst all the stress, what you will
• 12:42
  find is the people that will come out on the other end of
• 12:47
  that tunnel. As narrow as it is, there may be
• 12:49
  some of the most resilient, tenacious and creative people
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  you will ever meet. Just because the environment has
• 12:55
  honed them and polished them and forced them.
• 12:58
  It's not like they want to, like any of us wants to suffer.
• 13:00
  It's just like now just be in the course of us recording this.
• 13:03
  I had to go touch switch to my investor.
• 13:06
  That inverter has at last year it cost about 650,000 naira just
• 13:11
  to put that together. But that had to be done.
• 13:13
  If I'm going to have a career as an analyst, as a commentator as
• 13:18
  and you make those sacrifices, where did that money come from?
• 13:21
  Blood, sweat and tears. But you make the sacrifices.
• 13:24
  You have to. So that's that's on a personal
• 13:27
  basis. If you want, if I want to
• 13:29
  describe myself, say my floors are the things that have led me
• 13:34
  to the place of my greatest joy, The place of my destiny, The
• 13:37
  place of my fulfilment. The things that used to make me
• 13:40
  insecure. My my body, my my, my, my, my
• 13:48
  resilience. How lazy I was.
• 13:50
  How I couldn't start a project and finish it.
• 13:53
  How I would go on Instagram and just be scrolling and looking at
• 13:56
  meaningless things and chatting with girls that I had no
• 13:59
  business chatting with, but just because I had no self-control,
• 14:02
  no discipline, I didn't know. I didn't have a direction.
• 14:05
  I didn't have a place. But martial arts helped with
• 14:09
  helped with many of those things.
• 14:11
  When I was competing, the only thing that mattered was who I
• 14:14
  was fighting. It only thing that mattered was
• 14:17
  my training. I and and because of I I'm also
• 14:20
  an obsessive person. So I started with my flaws.
• 14:23
  But my strength is I'm deeply obsessive.
• 14:27
  If I love something, I will go to heaven and I will go to hell
• 14:32
  to make sure that I see it, that I enjoy it, that I witness it at
• 14:36
  the highest level. I also don't believe in making
• 14:38
  excuses. I am delusional in that sense.
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  I create myths in my head that helped me navigate the turbulent
• 14:45
  those of Nigeria. So if you mix those personality
• 14:50
  traits, coupled with the discipline, the focus, the
• 14:55
  mental skills, the soft skills that martial arts builds for
• 14:59
  you, it does all those things. It it.
• 15:02
  If you mix all of them, then you have me and you just have a guy
• 15:05
  that just wants to keep doing better every day.
• 15:07
  I believe in discipline. I believe in pushing myself.
• 15:09
  I believe in being delights. When things are dark.
• 15:15
  I believe that your your salvation comes from your own
• 15:19
  your own self. I don't.
• 15:21
  My government has failed me. My, my my my dreams.
• 15:24
  In the past, what I thought I wanted, they failed me.
• 15:27
  But the thing that hasn't failed me is what I have here.
• 15:30
  And so I've learned to hone that and harness that.
• 15:33
  And I've seen that beautiful things come, come, can really
• 15:37
  do, happen when you sacrifice yourself and put your best foot
• 15:41
  forward. And MMA is one of the
• 15:43
  manifestations of that. I've seen it in my career, I've
• 15:45
  seen it in software development. I've seen it in my social
• 15:49
  development. Like just how I can even narrate
• 15:51
  this with clarity with you. These are mental skills that I
• 15:54
  didn't have before, but having just time and discipline and
• 15:58
  repetition and study and every day just chipping at that block
• 16:03
  every day a little bit, even though it's not.
• 16:05
  I don't get the full statue in a month, but at least if I chip at
• 16:10
  it one day every day for six months.
• 16:12
  So your uncles can happen, and exactly and that's the.
• 16:16
  Hmm. Interesting.
• 16:18
  Like, why are you speaking about, you know you think of
• 16:21
  yourself as a lazy person, right?
• 16:23
  It kind of resonated with me. And I think when I was in my
• 16:29
  20s, I when I told my mom that I feel like I'm, I'm quite, I'm
• 16:33
  lazy. But Britney.
• 16:34
  Yeah, that's that's, that's where I used to put it.
• 16:36
  Lazy. Bob Brainy.
• 16:37
  And then she told me, you know, you're my son.
• 16:39
  I know I know you. I do not think you're lazy.
• 16:42
  I only think you've not found something you're very passionate
• 16:44
  about. Yeah, that that that could
• 16:51
  actually you as well, right? You could passionate about
• 16:54
  something and you're somebody who is of above average
• 16:59
  intelligence, right? And you're able bodied.
• 17:02
  Trust me, you would always, you know, putting your energy
• 17:05
  towards, you know, making that thing happen.
• 17:07
  So a lot of people do not realise that they lack
• 17:12
  motivation, right? They lack motivation.
• 17:17
  However, motivation is like fuel, and sometimes it gets
• 17:21
  exhausted whenever motivation is lacking, Whenever motivation
• 17:29
  feels you, Discipline is what takes you through.
• 17:34
  And I love the fact that you also spoke a lot about
• 17:37
  discipline earlier, right? When you when, when, when.
• 17:41
  When you mix the ingredients of motivation and discipline, you
• 17:45
  become a very, very unstoppable human being.
• 17:51
  I will see you and how are you doing?
• 17:54
  And by God's grace, I hope to see you do a lot of great stuff
• 17:57
  in the future, So just keep it up.
• 17:59
  Thank you. Thank.
• 18:00
  You and the motivation, definitely.
• 18:03
  He's going to take you places. But then I think that I've seen
• 18:06
  in my own life as well. So, and you know, I think the,
• 18:11
  the, the, the, the tagline of this podcast, right, is sharing
• 18:14
  the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
• 18:18
  So we are ordinary people, but then we've been able to like, do
• 18:22
  extraordinary things, you know, in the course of our lives.
• 18:25
  But then he sees just that extra you add to the ordinary that
• 18:29
  makes you extraordinary, right? And that 100%?
• 18:35
  Gives the right motivation and of course discipline.
• 18:37
  A lot of people are motivated, but then they don't have that
• 18:41
  discipline to pull through, because discipline is what helps
• 18:44
  you ensure consistency, right? That that days you wake up, you
• 18:48
  don't feel like training. What the disciplines were pushes
• 18:52
  you through, of course. Of course you couldn't see you
• 18:59
  on that one. Thank you.
• 19:02
  You're welcome. You're welcome, Sir.
• 19:04
  The next question, right I have is, how was childhood and
• 19:08
  growing up like for you? Because in order to understand a
• 19:11
  person well and, you know, ask every guest of this question,
• 19:14
  I'd like to know what their childhood was, because their
• 19:16
  childhood is the bedrock of the foundation or forming the
• 19:22
  personality that is you. So what would you say about your
• 19:26
  childhood and, you know, the brain?
• 19:29
  First of all, shout out to my mom and dad.
• 19:33
  Do it. Do it.
• 19:33
  The amazing people, the the pillars of my of my childhood,
• 19:38
  my mom and dad. It's really hard working, really
• 19:43
  devout spiritual and consistent human beings.
• 19:48
  They were there for me at every single point that I could have
• 19:51
  gone wrong. Because for all these positives
• 19:54
  that that all of us are blessed with, if you harness your skills
• 19:58
  in the wrong manner, it can still, it can be a source of
• 20:02
  disaster for you. And my parents were always there
• 20:04
  to just consistently put me at the right right path.
• 20:07
  Now my I had I have 5. Blinks I am the last child and
• 20:14
  my immediate senior brother is older than me with six years.
• 20:18
  So what that meant was there was a there.
• 20:20
  There was a massive gap between my siblings and myself, and
• 20:24
  there was a massive variety of personalities to choose from
• 20:28
  between all of them. So they all rubbed off on me in
• 20:31
  different ways. I have two sisters and I have
• 20:33
  three brothers. Then I'm the last child and the
• 20:36
  last son so my brothers were all athletic they they they all
• 20:43
  still play basketball. One of them represented Nigeria
• 20:46
  national team for basketball. The other two played actively
• 20:51
  all through and still play actively.
• 20:53
  The other is an active is it really fits and athletic human
• 20:57
  being. So that would be my mom also
• 20:59
  competed in her school inter house sports you almost
• 21:03
  represented when we states in athletics.
• 21:05
  So my mom was an athletic person and my dad is a farmer so my dad
• 21:10
  loves to provide food. My dad also still goes to the
• 21:13
  farm every single day even till today I'm sure right I'm
• 21:16
  supposed to go visit him after this podcast and he's likely
• 21:19
  going to be at the farm. I don't get there get there on
• 21:22
  time and he's and he's 79 years old he walks the entire length
• 21:26
  and breadth of the farm. He he he plucks the oranges he
• 21:29
  does everything. So there was a heavy it there.
• 21:32
  It was instilled in me from an early age that there's just an
• 21:35
  importance on taking care of yourself, learning about your
• 21:39
  health and what you're eating and being competitive.
• 21:43
  Like being an athlete. I always wanted to be an
• 21:46
  athlete, but I always felt insecure because I used to be.
• 21:50
  I used to and I still am a very lean person.
• 21:53
  But despite the fact that that my my family yeah I can't I
• 22:00
  can't talk about my family without.
• 22:02
  Like if I was talk about my family it would just take the
• 22:05
  entire podcast. Like they they I look at them
• 22:08
  and as individually and I can just the myself like I can see
• 22:13
  who I can see this person and their personality inside of me.
• 22:17
  I can see my father and his person.
• 22:18
  I can see my mom and that having that solid structure just to
• 22:21
  ground me. Whether I was skinny whether I
• 22:22
  was lazy. Whether they all of them rubbed
• 22:26
  off on me and and they really helped sharpen me.
• 22:27
  So my early childhood was just mainly spent just copying and
• 22:31
  imitating them. I I think one of my, one of my
• 22:34
  skills is I'm, I'm a very good imitator.
• 22:36
  Like I'm really good at seeing something and just picking it
• 22:38
  once. And I think that came from a
• 22:41
  childhood of just being surrounded by siblings that you
• 22:43
  just wanted to impress, that you just wanted to spend time with.
• 22:46
  You always wanted to be cool enough to hang out with them.
• 22:49
  You always wanted to be interested in things they were
• 22:51
  doing so they would spend time with you.
• 22:53
  So you just land, end up learning how to copy.
• 22:55
  And I learned very early that's copying.
• 22:58
  Copying is copying and copying can help teach you a lot of
• 23:01
  things. So yeah, that's that's my
• 23:03
  childhood, I believe. Replicates.
• 23:08
  Interesting. So like I said, you probably
• 23:10
  like Who were the other early life influences that shaped your
• 23:13
  character? Umm, it's going to sound really
• 23:19
  funny, but the two, the two, the three things I can point out
• 23:23
  that will tell that that influenced me the most growing
• 23:27
  up where one church, because my mom is a spiritual Co person, my
• 23:32
  mom made me go to church with her every single day.
• 23:35
  Catholic mass every evening, 6:00 PM.
• 23:37
  So I used to spend a lot of time in church.
• 23:40
  The second was that I used to play a lot of video games as a
• 23:45
  child. Because when you're going to
• 23:46
  church every day as a kid, all you want to do as a kid is play
• 23:50
  and play. You can't play when you're going
• 23:52
  to church. So my outlet was video games.
• 23:55
  I used to play so many. So like up till now I have a
• 23:57
  YouTube channel dedicated to video games like so video games
• 24:00
  where my way to learn. I learned so much of my English
• 24:03
  vocabulary through playing video games.
• 24:05
  And I coordination, repetition skills, rhythm pattern
• 24:11
  recognition, so many things that video games helped me learn as a
• 24:15
  child. Then the third one, the third
• 24:18
  one was TV, American TV, American entertainment.
• 24:22
  I I consumed so much TV as a child, so much like even now
• 24:26
  that I'm doing all this streaming and stuff.
• 24:28
  I know part of it is rooted in just Western entertainment.
• 24:33
  I used to go out and play with my friends, but my parents were
• 24:35
  were strict so I used to spend a lot of time indoors.
• 24:38
  I go exposed to the Internet very early.
• 24:40
  I so yeah that video games, video games America, Western
• 24:46
  entertainment and church. Those are the three things that
• 24:50
  I would say the size of my family.
• 24:51
  Yeah, it's just that, you know, while I was in Genie, right, I
• 24:56
  did some elective courses in sociology and then in sociology
• 25:01
  they say the the institutions, right?
• 25:04
  That influence some people. I think #1 institution is, is
• 25:08
  the family social institutions, yeah, say family, say religious
• 25:13
  institutions, the media as well. So you you were actually
• 25:18
  referred to those institutions which just rather be off, you
• 25:23
  know sociology classes from back in the day.
• 25:25
  So each interested. So it's nice to see that you
• 25:27
  know those institutions whose fundamental institutions teeth
• 25:31
  actually influence you as a person.
• 25:34
  But why so? So what were your childhood
• 25:36
  dreams and aspirations? I wanted to be a video game
• 25:41
  maker. See how how quickly I answered
• 25:43
  this. I've been able.
• 25:44
  This is the way I've answered this question.
• 25:45
  Since I was 8 years old. I wanted to make video games.
• 25:48
  I've always wanted to make video games.
• 25:51
  I will make video games, but I have to take a temporary bus
• 25:55
  stop now to develop myself as a human being so that my
• 25:58
  experiences can further shine forth when that time comes.
• 26:03
  But yeah, video games where what I would answer.
• 26:05
  But then as time went on I wanted to to play basketball
• 26:08
  competitively. So I played really hard in
• 26:11
  secondary school. I got the award for best
• 26:13
  basketballer in my sets. CC Argolida Shadows to my sets
• 26:17
  who graduated in 2718. Yeah, shout out to them and then
• 26:23
  but after basketball, because you know athletes as a Nigeria,
• 26:27
  Nigeria comes at you hard. When we were playing playing
• 26:31
  basketball, we were like 17. We were saying OK, we'll
• 26:33
  graduate and we'll get to try and you send our footage.
• 26:36
  We're already trying to come up with cameramen to the basketball
• 26:39
  court to record us doing stuff so we could send out our these
• 26:42
  things out to scouts because we didn't even know that we were
• 26:46
  disadvantaged. We just said OK, this is what we
• 26:48
  can do to put ourselves out there.
• 26:50
  So even after we would, we would go finish from school, we would
• 26:53
  go to the basketball court in Area 10 on an afternoon when
• 26:56
  nobody is there. So one day there was a cameraman
• 26:58
  with camera crew and they recorded us playing and then I
• 27:01
  don't even know what one of us tried to use it to go, but he
• 27:04
  ended up not getting in. And that window.
• 27:06
  By time we're eighteen, we saw that you, the people that you
• 27:08
  would be competing against, are like 16 years of age and they've
• 27:12
  been doing this since they were nine.
• 27:14
  And you're just watching videos on the Internet.
• 27:16
  I'm going to the basketball court.
• 27:17
  You're so far behind on on the curve in that regard that I
• 27:22
  ended up letting that dream go. Then I started focusing on
• 27:24
  software development. I wanted to be a web developer.
• 27:27
  Thank God, shout out to God almighty in heaven.
• 27:29
  I managed to pull that one off. I went to the University of
• 27:32
  Bolton, Greater Manchester after the sacrifices of my parents.
• 27:35
  My dad especially sold his shares and let me know if you
• 27:39
  spill the beans too much. But he sold the shares just to
• 27:41
  give me the opportunity to complete my education.
• 27:45
  My friend, my best friends. Mom also sponsored my first year
• 27:49
  of of tuition so I managed to get into the UK.
• 27:51
  Because there was no money, got into the UK, failed.
• 27:56
  My first semester bombed completely because I got into a
• 27:59
  relationship with this baby that I just had no business dating at
• 28:03
  the time. But I was a young man free from
• 28:05
  my parents house that I had been going to church every single
• 28:08
  day. So I needed to explore my
• 28:10
  freedom a bit and it led me to get almost all AFS in my first
• 28:13
  semester. And I had this conversation with
• 28:16
  my mum and dad. Yeah, and I got, you know, it's
• 28:19
  a second year. I didn't start from first year
• 28:21
  because I I did a diploma course in Abuja that earned earned me
• 28:27
  credits with specific institutions in the UK because
• 28:30
  you have to understand I didn't have money so I had to cut as
• 28:33
  many corners as I could towards getting a higher education in a
• 28:36
  foreign institution. So what I did was I did a
• 28:40
  diploma course with Aptech in Abuja.
• 28:41
  Then I transferred their credit to the University of Bolton
• 28:44
  which got me to skip the first year.
• 28:46
  Then I got in on the second year meaning and it's a three-year
• 28:48
  course, meaning I only needed to do 2 years in college university
• 28:52
  instead of of 33. So getting it on my, you know,
• 28:56
  my second idea. I failed my first semester
• 28:58
  horribly, and I've always been an honest, straightforward
• 29:01
  person. Even when I mess up, I I try to
• 29:03
  own up to it. So I called my parents and I
• 29:06
  emailed them the results and they saw it and I called them
• 29:11
  and my mum. This is one of this conversation
• 29:13
  I'm about to tell you about, is possibly the conversation that I
• 29:17
  don't know which other conversion.
• 29:18
  Well, there are a few conversations, but this one with
• 29:20
  my mom possibly set me up for who I am today.
• 29:22
  Like who I I probably would not be talking to you right now if I
• 29:25
  didn't have this. Conversation.
• 29:27
  And my mom just asked. Yeah, she just asked me on the
• 29:30
  phone. Actually, I've seen your
• 29:31
  results. Is this the best you could do?
• 29:34
  And I said yeah, yeah, I failed. But it really was my best.
• 29:38
  I couldn't with everything going on here.
• 29:40
  I'm learning how to live. I'm learning how to provide for
• 29:43
  myself, take care of myself. I, I, I really, this is the best
• 29:46
  I could do. And she just said one thing.
• 29:48
  She said if it if it was the best, you'd do your that you
• 29:53
  that you could do your dad. And I just want you to know that
• 29:56
  we love you grew as that call ended.
• 29:59
  I just went to my room, cleaned my room, took off my laptop,
• 30:03
  cleaned everything that was a distraction.
• 30:05
  Deleted all the video games. I stopped playing video games
• 30:08
  for like a couple years after that just because of that
• 30:12
  conversation. And I went to the library.
• 30:15
  I went to the to see my, my professors, told them you what?
• 30:19
  What are the chances of me bouncing back from this set?
• 30:21
  You. If you're serious, you can still
• 30:23
  get yourself a good grid when you graduate because you started
• 30:26
  from the second year. You didn't start their idea like
• 30:29
  the other Nigerians that came. So I said OK, what do I need to
• 30:32
  do? He gave me some ebooks.
• 30:33
  He gave me some extra books in the library that I should go
• 30:36
  read and I just went. I spent my entire Christmas just
• 30:39
  studying, preparing because remember, I'm an obsessive
• 30:41
  person and that my mom had finally given me something.
• 30:46
  She had given me what, like how you highlighted earlier
• 30:49
  motivation. I had somebody to believe in me.
• 30:51
  I had somebody in my corner and that was the game changer.
• 30:54
  So I went to the library. Sorry, my they just brought the
• 30:58
  power and my inventor is is signalling me.
• 31:00
  Just give me a second. Let me switch it back.
• 31:03
  OK, fine. Yeah, I'm back.
• 31:41
  Just let me take your soup. OK.
• 31:42
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:43
  We still like. Yeah, So I yeah.
• 31:49
  So remind me, where did I stop exactly?
• 31:54
  Talking about the motivation from your mom.
• 31:57
  Yeah. And I just went and I studied.
• 32:00
  I went. I've, I've made, I, I, I, I just
• 32:03
  studied. I just studied.
• 32:05
  I got myself enrolled in extra classes to learn how the British
• 32:09
  British education system works. But how to just better prepare,
• 32:12
  present my essays. How to better answer questions.
• 32:15
  How to better study. How to better code programme.
• 32:19
  So I learned just reading. And my my results came in for
• 32:24
  the next semester and I got all ease that semester and my by
• 32:28
  professor Rob Patterson shout out to Rob Patterson Rob was Rob
• 32:32
  said you if you keep if you keep this up you might be able to get
• 32:35
  yourself feel really really good grade he wasn't specific and
• 32:39
  that was extra fuel continued made some good friends but don't
• 32:42
  get me wrong I was still a wild animal because I still used to
• 32:45
  go to the club almost every day. It's just that I I, I I knew
• 32:49
  that there was a greater add my priorities right now and so I
• 32:53
  would go clubbing every like when I when I would have money I
• 32:55
  would even trek from from accommodation to city centre to
• 33:00
  go to the free clubs have free entry so you don't have to pay
• 33:02
  money going in Just Dance have fun talk to girls then walk back
• 33:07
  home in the morning. But still make your make sure
• 33:09
  your house is in the library by 6:00 AM And so that was how I I
• 33:12
  managed to get through and my final year I graduated the first
• 33:15
  class and it was the first class in computing.
• 33:18
  Yeah so that was in 20/20/13 and I came back to Nigeria
• 33:25
  afterwards. Yeah so.
• 33:27
  So that was it. That, that, that, that's the
• 33:31
  great comeback story. That's a great comeback story.
• 33:35
  But then you know me, I, I, I can't, I can relate to with your
• 33:42
  story to some extent. So Speaking of being an
• 33:46
  immigrant, right, I'm an immigrant in the UK and I can
• 33:50
  understand you being an immigrant in the UK, act in the
• 33:55
  students. It's even like more difficult
• 33:58
  because you're not like earning money for yourself.
• 34:02
  I think there's a maximum number of hours you can even work
• 34:05
  that's like 20 hours, right? You're allowed to work as a
• 34:08
  student and when people ask me about adjusting to life in the
• 34:15
  UK, Alistair that the very first year is the toughest.
• 34:18
  If you're able to scale through the first year, it becomes
• 34:22
  easier going forward because you would have seemed to have
• 34:26
  cracked the codes of the environment.
• 34:28
  But then their love culture shocks.
• 34:31
  Coming from Nigeria, there's a lot to adjust to, especially the
• 34:35
  weather, right? And if you're fortunate to to to
• 34:41
  be coming in around winter, winter could be depressing and
• 34:45
  being alone in a new environment can really mess up with your
• 34:51
  mental health. So our lack of for you to talk
• 34:53
  about your time in the UK, right, the first year, the
• 34:58
  second year, were you two years right in the UK 3?
• 35:02
  Years. Two years.
• 35:05
  Ideas, right. So, so, so, so let's break it
• 35:06
  down the first year versus the second year.
• 35:09
  So how did you adjust? And then you spoke about that,
• 35:12
  you know, wrong relationship that you were in.
• 35:14
  You know, sometimes you know, relationships can be a blessing
• 35:18
  or a curse, depending on who you are you're mingling with.
• 35:23
  So touch on that app a little bit out before we proceed to
• 35:27
  say, ohh, how, how did you adjust the environment?
• 35:30
  OK. OK.
• 35:32
  First you have as a second year, First year I got in in in in
• 35:37
  this January, so I got in in winter I had.
• 35:42
  In the heat of winter. It's it's in the literal heat of
• 35:47
  winter. I got in, didn't have any way to
• 35:54
  get to my destination. So I got I made the day one
• 35:57
  mistake of booking one of those black cabs.
• 36:00
  I didn't come into the UK with a lot of money.
• 36:02
  I came to the UK with 320 lbs. That's that's what my parents
• 36:05
  gave me and I came in with that. So on the first night I spent 25
• 36:09
  of those of out of that already just getting to student
• 36:14
  accommodation. Then there was the understanding
• 36:19
  transportation how to navigate the environment using the bus.
• 36:24
  Get lost. Yeah.
• 36:27
  You always get lost. And then walk in, I started.
• 36:31
  I had to. I started Walking Dead like
• 36:33
  because my parents were made us have physical activity.
• 36:37
  It was something my parents encouraged.
• 36:39
  So walking was something that that has always come naturally
• 36:41
  to me. So walking everywhere, then
• 36:44
  walking in the cold, then making friends.
• 36:49
  Because the first people you you run into obviously will be the
• 36:52
  people of your culture, people in your classroom, but that are
• 36:55
  generally Nigerians. And sadly we didn't have.
• 36:59
  It wasn't always the best crop of guys.
• 37:00
  A lot of them got into credit card fraud.
• 37:02
  The lot of them got into really terrible things that that it's
• 37:06
  like it's happy classmates that was featured on Linda Ikeji's
• 37:10
  blog for internal cross-border like fraud, like that's how deep
• 37:15
  fraud went in that part of the UK and and just around the UK
• 37:19
  Nigerians really just got their hands into all sorts of dirty
• 37:23
  things. So I was approached on a number
• 37:24
  of occasions to join, but I've never been that kind of person,
• 37:28
  so I I never said yes. To give us a bad reputation.
• 37:32
  Gives us a bad reputation, man. And then navigating relationship
• 37:36
  friendships now was hard. So I I I had to.
• 37:40
  I was alone most of the time. I was already an introvert
• 37:43
  before I went to the UK. But because it was hard for me
• 37:45
  to make friends like, especially because I, I initially I was
• 37:49
  trying to make friends with Nigerians because those are the
• 37:51
  people I could relate with. That made me really introverted
• 37:53
  in my first year. But and then money too, because
• 37:56
  there was a lot of insecurity for not being able to pay rent.
• 37:59
  I like not even being able to pay rent.
• 38:00
  Just I couldn't afford to do things like I I never really
• 38:03
  went to McDonald's, never really went to KFC, Not because I
• 38:06
  didn't want to do those things, but just because I couldn't
• 38:08
  afford it. So I was the guy that from day
• 38:10
  one I found out where they sold into me.
• 38:12
  I found out where they sold eggs and I cooked at home and it's
• 38:15
  because my parents had drilled it in my head down.
• 38:18
  No, we don't have one. You can see we don't have.
• 38:21
  So just go out there and do the best you can.
• 38:22
  So from day one my expectations were very low.
• 38:26
  I didn't do even the club. I used to go see how I
• 38:28
  highlighted it. I said I used to walk because
• 38:30
  that means I don't have to pay any money.
• 38:32
  I can just go have a good time, some new friends.
• 38:36
  But that was yes. The free ones were the free
• 38:39
  ones. Once in a while, something good
• 38:41
  might come my way. Somebody might really like me, A
• 38:44
  friend might Take Me Out. But for the most part, my first
• 38:48
  year in the UK was just spent indoors and adapting to all
• 38:51
  these new changes that you highlighted.
• 38:53
  This culture shock, the weather, the either food, the getting
• 38:59
  from place to place, navigating transportation and it was hard.
• 39:03
  It was hard. I I won't lie, I wasn't really a
• 39:05
  fan of my entire experience like while I was there because it was
• 39:09
  it was coloured with hardship and I think it's a fair
• 39:12
  assessment for me to make. It's not.
• 39:14
  I don't have that many like I had a few things.
• 39:17
  One of them was basketball. Let me give my, let me give,
• 39:19
  say, give credit where credit is due.
• 39:22
  The both the Boltons and university basketball team gave
• 39:25
  me a direction because I I joined the team.
• 39:27
  We used to go to Manchester to play against of the schools.
• 39:30
  We used to go to Salford, we used to go around and then we
• 39:33
  would go out as a team on nights out, go to clubs, go go
• 39:36
  drinking, go bowling. And I used to give feeling my,
• 39:40
  my, my idle time. Then and then I I had some a few
• 39:44
  friends that I made one of them. Mohammed Bika is an amazing guy,
• 39:51
  amazing guy. We met in the final our final
• 39:53
  year of university and that it was just like like white on
• 39:57
  rice, like we were inseparable and we both used to go to the
• 40:00
  library together. And he was one of the people
• 40:02
  that got me to graduate with a first class because we both
• 40:05
  graduated with first class degrees together and where I
• 40:08
  think only four of us graduated with first class degrees and two
• 40:11
  of us were there. And he was one of the first
• 40:13
  people that told me or chair, I believe in you, you can turn
• 40:16
  this like this thing around and get turn your results.
• 40:19
  To be fair, so I made some solid relationships and I learned the
• 40:22
  importance of hard work. That's what the UK did for me.
• 40:25
  So, so I've given you my first year.
• 40:27
  I'll be very brief with the second year.
• 40:29
  The second year my confidence started to grow.
• 40:31
  I started to learn about my myself of more because I I spent
• 40:37
  so much time alone. So I used to spend a lot of time
• 40:40
  advertising myself for jobs now like customer service jobs,
• 40:44
  jobs. I had to do it be an outgoing
• 40:45
  things that Nigerians and internal and immigrants
• 40:48
  generally wouldn't do. You would see me on the on the
• 40:50
  front you're saying I can do it's like my cuz I was just so
• 40:53
  much more confident because I had survived that firstly and
• 40:56
  hunger and poverty teaches you a lot of of things like you just
• 40:59
  you just start to harness your personal treasures and.
• 41:04
  That's. Why the second year I got a job.
• 41:06
  Yeah, the drive. So second year, second year, 22
• 41:09
  notable things happen. Second year I I did security
• 41:13
  work for the London 2012 Olympics, which led to a whole
• 41:17
  suite of experiences that further changed me and defined
• 41:21
  me. And then in that same year, and
• 41:25
  that was the first year I I got, I got 1200 lbs for doing about
• 41:30
  15 days of work with the London 2012 Olympics and that was the
• 41:33
  most money I had ever earned in my life at that point in time.
• 41:36
  But at the same time it meant we had to.
• 41:39
  I was the first time I was sleeping in a tent and I was
• 41:41
  sleeping in outdoors and we had to be there at really odd hours
• 41:45
  to make sure that the place was secure for the athletes and you
• 41:48
  would just. I had never done a job that
• 41:50
  consisted of standing for 9 hours straight.
• 41:53
  Then you have like a 3030 minute breaking between.
• 41:56
  I'd never experienced that before then walkie talkies and I
• 42:00
  had. It was just the whole thing and
• 42:02
  there were so many positives because it's it broadened my
• 42:06
  horizons. But at the same time.
• 42:11
  Yeah, right now. Yeah, You.
• 42:13
  You said there are so many positives, right?
• 42:15
  There's something I like to tell people it is essential to push
• 42:19
  yourself, to push yourself beyond frontiers, beyond
• 42:24
  boundaries of things that you typically do.
• 42:28
  Because in those moments you get to learn more about yourself.
• 42:33
  If you don't push yourself to do things that you don't do,
• 42:38
  typically you will learn more about yourself.
• 42:44
  So in order to bring you back, right?
• 42:47
  So Please ensure to to to to mention, to highlight things
• 42:52
  that you learned about yourself from this particular experience
• 42:56
  of pushing yourself to earn you know so much money as that in
• 43:01
  time. Because 1200 lbs is a lot of
• 43:05
  peas for students. Yes please, yes, yes, yes, Do
• 43:12
  full time jobs. Right.
• 43:14
  And and 1200, yes, yes, please just.
• 43:22
  The positives were many. The positives were many.
• 43:24
  The positives were really many. We let I learned the important
• 43:29
  tonnes of clarity and communication because you, you,
• 43:32
  you are dealing with people from so many varied nationalities, so
• 43:36
  many different backgrounds. It's the Olympics.
• 43:39
  People are flying in from South America, are flying in from
• 43:42
  North Africa, all kinds of things for different roles there
• 43:46
  of them are journalists, some of them are media people.
• 43:48
  And yeah, you, you're just a regular security guy standing at
• 43:51
  your post and reporting on the on the walkie-talkie.
• 43:54
  But when a call comes through on your walkie-talkie, you have to
• 43:56
  be clear in one understanding what this person is saying.
• 44:01
  And to what you're responding back to them is your information
• 44:06
  making sense like are you just saying responding because you
• 44:09
  feel the pressure to respond or do you have something something
• 44:13
  to communicate. So communication.
• 44:16
  I started to learn the importance of communication
• 44:18
  because I was like this is the first time I'm I'm on a global.
• 44:21
  I'm seeing what the global scene is like, what it's like to be at
• 44:24
  working at the forefront of at the the entire world is watching
• 44:28
  this Hussain bolt was that was in pics like that was a big
• 44:33
  Olympics and I was there. So in my mind as a young student
• 44:37
  with limited opportunities, I was like what can I learn, what
• 44:40
  can I take from this. So the first thing I saw was
• 44:43
  that the guys that did well were people who could communicate.
• 44:45
  They were not. They were not the people who
• 44:47
  were the most skilled or experiences, the people who even
• 44:49
  when they will be asking you questions they would be very
• 44:52
  clear in what they were requiring you, requiring from
• 44:55
  you with the question. And it even made answering the
• 44:57
  question easy. So I was like, OK, that's
• 45:00
  something I need to learn about. I need to learn how to
• 45:02
  communicate briefly. I need to learn how to
• 45:04
  communicate succinctly. I need to learn how to
• 45:06
  communicate, so communication. The next was just understanding
• 45:11
  that a lot of what is required to perform at the highest level
• 45:16
  is just doing the low level stuff with high efficiency.
• 45:19
  So even though you're standing for 9 hours and it's really
• 45:22
  exhausting to stand for 9 hours, all you need to be able to do is
• 45:26
  your job with the utmost efficiency.
• 45:30
  You don't need to be Michael Jordan shooting threes every
• 45:32
  single day. It's just why am I here to do
• 45:35
  what is the mission at hand and what is the bare minimum I need
• 45:39
  to do to accomplish this at a decent level?
• 45:43
  And for me, now, in that case, it was saying hi to people,
• 45:45
  showing them where their seats are, and just being a
• 45:50
  representative for the Olympics as a security guard.
• 45:53
  So you make sure your boots are clean, you make sure that you
• 45:55
  have a smile on your face, and you just don't do anything
• 45:58
  unnecessary. Don't walk around too much,
• 46:00
  don't play too much, don't laugh too much, because you're gonna
• 46:02
  get exhausted and it's going to show on your face and then
• 46:05
  you're not going to get more jobs.
• 46:06
  So you have to just learn to be efficient, even under high
• 46:09
  stress, be able to give out what is required, review consistently
• 46:14
  and efficiently. I'm not saying the number one
• 46:17
  all the time because that was a mindset because you look at from
• 46:20
  our one, you look at it, your knees are already already
• 46:23
  paining you and you're like, God, I have to do this for
• 46:25
  another seven hours and I have to be nice to people and I have
• 46:28
  to be talking on walkie-talkie then those.
• 46:31
  But but our one becomes our two, our two becomes our three and
• 46:35
  bro, there were so many lessons. We woke up in our tents 1
• 46:38
  morning and it was soaked full of rainwater because one
• 46:41
  Nigerian my my tent mate was in Nigeria and like me Steve shout
• 46:44
  out to Steve who went to the Olympics together.
• 46:47
  We just woke up in the dead of night and it rained and our our
• 46:50
  entire tent was was flooded with water.
• 46:53
  I was lying down inside 2 inches of you know how cold the weather
• 46:58
  is, how cold the UK can be. Then you just wake up soaked
• 47:03
  inside water. My phone was soaked my clothes
• 47:05
  were soaked and that that was like 2:00 AM and we had to be at
• 47:08
  at the at the sporting venue by 7.
• 47:11
  It just and and that was like that was our my phone just got
• 47:14
  bad my family couldn't reach me anymore.
• 47:16
  I was out in the middle of London.
• 47:18
  The only thing I could make sure I could do was make sure I was
• 47:20
  at this on the staff bus on time getting to the venue and on the
• 47:24
  staff bus coming back and make sure that when it's time to eat
• 47:27
  food I'm there because I had no money I it was mad.
• 47:31
  So on resilience I had to get I go to the party, won't go and
• 47:34
  beg for food like what some. Of you are reading my you're
• 47:37
  reading my mind in my head. What What else Thinking right
• 47:42
  now is either, if anyone word I can pick out of this mastery
• 47:46
  right here it is the word resilience.
• 47:51
  You beat me to it Very. Resilient through the
• 47:57
  resilience, yeah. He never knew.
• 48:00
  How he got it done. So my second year was Nah, Nah,
• 48:05
  Nah. You don't.
• 48:06
  You don't know. You don't know.
• 48:07
  You don't know. And and that's why you, no
• 48:09
  matter how how good you are at anything, you need other people.
• 48:12
  There's just a point you get to where collaboration is the only
• 48:15
  way for you to excel. It's just it's just a universal
• 48:19
  truth. So you don't know.
• 48:21
  You need you need other people to bring out the best in you.
• 48:24
  You need experiences to bring out the best in.
• 48:26
  You can only do so much alone. So, so second year was a stark
• 48:32
  contrast. Second year was me.
• 48:34
  Filling my own shoes was me. Finding out what I was capable
• 48:38
  of was me graduating. Even after I had that really
• 48:41
  terrible start with all the FS in my first year and graduating
• 48:45
  with a fight with the I didn't want to end my graduation.
• 48:47
  I could not afford it. I couldn't afford to come back
• 48:49
  to the UK for my graduation. So it was a story of I was in
• 48:53
  the UK for a good time. I was in there for a long time.
• 48:57
  I made sure I got my good grades.
• 48:58
  I made sure I got I had fun, I made sure I had got good
• 49:01
  experiences. But once I was done, I and I saw
• 49:04
  that I had succeeded. I came back.
• 49:06
  So that was the the, the contrast.
• 49:09
  I also set up a cleaning company.
• 49:11
  Let me shout out Roland Marshall.
• 49:14
  We set up a cleaning company over the summer of 2012, after I
• 49:17
  got back from the Olympics, because my my awareness of what
• 49:20
  was possible began to shift. So I started watching a lot more
• 49:23
  entrepreneurship stuff, a lot more business stuff, and I was
• 49:25
  like, OK, while while there's no work coming in, what can I what
• 49:28
  service can I render to people? And I I already seen that I was
• 49:31
  strong physically. I can stand for 9 hours
• 49:34
  straight. I walk all these long distances
• 49:35
  so I don't think physical labour is on until I should shy from
• 49:39
  even though I was. I was leaner and skinny back
• 49:42
  then. So Roland and I Roland is a
• 49:45
  Cameroonian. If he had he put me in touch
• 49:47
  with two of his other Cameroonian friends who were now
• 49:49
  immigrants in the UK. They were engineering graduates
• 49:51
  but them too they had that dogged resilience.
• 49:53
  We can do anything mindset and we just said you will set up a
• 49:56
  cleaning company and and then the one of us had a company that
• 50:01
  he worked with and he knew that they needed a cleaner.
• 50:03
  So we set up the company bought cleaning utensils then then told
• 50:07
  him to tender an application for us to clean.
• 50:10
  So Saturday and Sunday when he would be off work, we would walk
• 50:13
  or drive to that place, mop the floors, clean the toilets, sweep
• 50:18
  the everything, just take out the trash.
• 50:21
  And then that gave me is the side of the income to cut.
• 50:24
  That was coming in while I was still going to school, playing
• 50:28
  basketball, trying to get into live streaming because I was
• 50:31
  trying to get into live streaming in the UK as well.
• 50:33
  Many different experiences. The UK was just, I have so many
• 50:37
  stories I can tell you about the UK.
• 50:39
  It's so despite the fact that I can tell you I associate the UK
• 50:42
  with pain and discipline, I can also tell you that I had a lot
• 50:46
  of fun while doing it because I did so many things.
• 50:50
  I travelled. I had so much fun before coming
• 50:52
  back. OK, so it's a it's, I think it's
• 50:56
  a young thing. It's balanced.
• 50:58
  Interesting. One thing 11 beautiful thing
• 51:01
  assist you with your UK journey is the word resilience right.
• 51:05
  And you never know how resilient you can be as a human being
• 51:07
  until you push yourself beyond, you know setting boundaries And
• 51:11
  then you discover more about yourself.
• 51:13
  You learn more about yourself and I, I for one can very much
• 51:17
  unbelief with that. Speaking about the combat sport
• 51:20
  scene right I've learned Olympics shout out to Anthony
• 51:25
  Joshua and Alexander Oosik. Anthony Joshua won his Olympic
• 51:30
  gold medal, super heavyweight division and that will epic
• 51:34
  games and then music. Music won his gold medal in
• 51:38
  heavyweight boxing as well in that Chinese over Olympics.
• 51:42
  So it's fantastic. I did not.
• 51:43
  I did not. Know that?
• 51:46
  Ohh, wow. You see, I'm an analysis of
• 51:48
  analysts, right? You are you are you?
• 51:52
  Are I our compass? Fortnite?
• 51:56
  Right, right, right. From time.
• 51:57
  So yes, tracking back right, like you are one of like the
• 52:02
  true Blazers in enemy in Nigeria.
• 52:06
  So how did you get into Enemy? Like, we know more about you as
• 52:12
  a person. You know, the whole.
• 52:14
  Thing. So one of the two things I see
• 52:17
  your personality, right I connect from your personality
• 52:20
  into martial arts are resilience and discipline.
• 52:26
  And those are two things that are required in martial arts to
• 52:30
  very, very important ingredients.
• 52:32
  So how did you sparked that interest in martial arts?
• 52:37
  How did you go into it? And you know, how did you leave
• 52:40
  being a fighter to becoming a lover?
• 52:45
  So we we have, we have the fighters and the lovers.
• 52:48
  And you have you have stopped being a fighter, you are now a
• 52:51
  lover. So how did you, Asha?
• 52:57
  How did you achieve that? Transition.
• 53:00
  OK, so I came. I came back to Nigeria in 2013,
• 53:04
  and that that sparked up a whole journey about figuring out who I
• 53:09
  was going to become in this environment.
• 53:11
  I needed to figure out NYC. I needed to figure out whether
• 53:16
  which kind of work I wanted to do, how I was going to make
• 53:18
  money. And it led to so many things.
• 53:22
  So I started up the business. The business did dwell until
• 53:27
  2015. Then we had the elections in
• 53:29
  2015. Administrative changes happened
• 53:32
  and that's turned my every promise, every contract I had
• 53:35
  worked for as a young man. Back then, everything just went
• 53:38
  down to dry and I started. People stopped answering my
• 53:40
  calls. I couldn't afford to pay rents
• 53:41
  in the little office that I used to rent out to do my work back
• 53:44
  then as a web designer, because I used to build websites.
• 53:46
  That was what's the service I rent at as a living.
• 53:49
  So I used to do that. I would even, I even did
• 53:52
  complementary cards for people. I did, I did.
• 53:55
  I did a lot of stuff with Photoshop, so whenever people
• 53:57
  would bring me websites, let's say, OK, why don't as an extra
• 54:00
  service, why don't I do you your complimentary cards?
• 54:03
  Why don't I do your logo if you haven't had?
• 54:05
  If you don't have a logo, why don't you and I use that to
• 54:07
  sustain a parent. But 2015, all that went right
• 54:10
  down the drain and eventually I had to get a job.
• 54:12
  It took me a year to get a job. I got a job with an NGO that,
• 54:18
  for reasons best known to me, I won't call the name of I was the
• 54:21
  head of. Them.
• 54:24
  It's just that I used to. I used to work in an edgier as
• 54:27
  well in Abuja. Yeah.
• 54:28
  So yeah, it's interesting things are common.
• 54:31
  You see, so I worked with the IT and that lasted for a year.
• 54:39
  Yeah, I was there for a year from like 2017 till about 2018.
• 54:44
  And then I got, whoops, am I still connected?
• 54:48
  Can you hear me? Yes, I can.
• 54:52
  OK, all right. OK, So I got I got the job.
• 54:56
  I I I was there for a year. Then I started working with the
• 54:58
  National Assembly, worked with National Assembly for a bit.
• 55:01
  Then I eventually started working with the presidency, and
• 55:05
  I've been there for the past six to to to go off on its own.
• 55:33
  How did they get these conversations?
• 55:35
  Really interested. Fantastic conversation so far.
• 55:39
  Too. All right, so I I I worked with
• 55:46
  NGO for a bit, worked with National Assembly, then
• 55:48
  eventually I got a job with the presidency as a software
• 55:53
  developer. Did that for a bit.
• 55:55
  But then your question is how did I get into MA?
• 55:58
  What I've how I got into MA is really funny and your answer is
• 56:02
  towards the back. The the the the transition is is
• 56:07
  2 words man is back pain. I went to work one day to talk
• 56:10
  to type code as a software developer and I just noticed I
• 56:13
  couldn't stand. I was in so much pain and I was
• 56:16
  just like yo what's that? What's all this?
• 56:18
  Then I went to the hospital I went home and I tried to lift a
• 56:20
  metal bucket and as I tried to stand up like because I was
• 56:24
  trying to carry water into the bathroom as I tried to carry
• 56:27
  stand up with the pain, I just felt something snap in my back
• 56:30
  and it was the most agonising pain I've ever experienced in my
• 56:33
  life and I was like, what's happening.
• 56:35
  This led to me not being able to walk properly for two weeks.
• 56:38
  I was just lying down on the floor, just constantly in pain,
• 56:41
  that I went for X-rays, went for scans, and then they told me,
• 56:44
  yo, that one of my, that my discs one where it's like, it
• 56:48
  slipped slightly, like and it was slightly slightly, yeah, so
• 56:52
  in the spine. And it's because I'm too weak.
• 56:54
  And I was like, that was the first time it even dawned on me
• 56:56
  that all those years sitting down somebody in the library
• 57:01
  typing code, not really taking care of my, my, because it's one
• 57:05
  thing to play basketball. It's one thing to be to be an
• 57:08
  athlete. Not, not, not.
• 57:10
  You know not every athlete is fit.
• 57:12
  Not every athlete, not not every athlete is healthy.
• 57:15
  Let me put it that way. So you can be athletic.
• 57:18
  You can be doing athletic things but, but, but there are parts of
• 57:21
  you that are just not working right.
• 57:23
  Your joints, your mobility. You might be dealing with
• 57:25
  inflammation. You might be too acidic.
• 57:27
  You might be taking too much sugar, all sorts of things.
• 57:30
  Too much oil and you just you don't know.
• 57:32
  Because you you're still as a young person, you're able to
• 57:36
  pull out your, your, your whatever energy you need to put
• 57:39
  out just based off of your youth.
• 57:41
  Alex Subarus and stuff. And I I fell into that bracket
• 57:44
  after training. I wouldn't eat right, I wouldn't
• 57:46
  stretch. I wouldn't do anything.
• 57:47
  I would just come to my computer, type code for hours,
• 57:51
  design websites, play video games hunched over like this for
• 57:54
  hours on end. And doing that for the better
• 57:58
  part of 10 years, we'll ruin your spine.
• 58:00
  So that was. Really something called the
• 58:03
  technical. Yeah.
• 58:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I can very I can very
• 58:11
  much relate. Yeah, yeah, so.
• 58:16
  To chiropractors. Yeah, yeah, Everything I did, I
• 58:19
  did physio, I did physio, I did everything.
• 58:21
  And it was painful. And I was obviously, you're
• 58:24
  thinking to yourself, while this is happening, how can I never
• 58:28
  make this happen again? How can I make sure I never
• 58:31
  experienced this again? And that led me to the doors of
• 58:35
  Body Rock Fitness Studio where I met my older brother's best
• 58:39
  friend, Mayo Icebox Nukunu, who eventually became my head coach,
• 58:42
  who eventually became my manager, who eventually became
• 58:45
  my business partner and friend, and who was even on my podcast
• 58:49
  last episode of my podcast Amazing guy and my my style to
• 58:53
  coach me. He started to teach me about the
• 58:55
  human body. I eventually started got really
• 58:59
  fit, like really buff really you what the what the typical
• 59:03
  picture of fitness is when you think about fitness.
• 59:06
  The guy with the big chest, big big biceps, big legs really just
• 59:10
  sold abs. That was me up until 2018 and
• 59:15
  all through this, even when I was in the UK, I remember there
• 59:17
  was an M1 MMA gym in Bolton and I always used to walk past it
• 59:20
  and and that's myself. Will I ever have the courage to
• 59:23
  step into the doors of this gym? And I missed that opportunity
• 59:27
  And I was just think to my part of the reason I haven't missed
• 59:29
  it was because my best friend then used to tell me, oh, you
• 59:31
  know you are so skinny if somebody just punches you, you
• 59:34
  might just break, bro. Like it is not everybody that is
• 59:36
  meant to do that kind of stuff. And I let some of those.
• 59:39
  He and I have talked and laughed about this countless times
• 59:41
  because he was at both my fights when I retraced fighting.
• 59:44
  So we eventually went full circle and cashed out or
• 59:47
  announced. But I always wanted to do ME.
• 59:51
  And when I was strong, long and and aesthetically pleasing,
• 59:58
  quote, unquote, I start thinking to myself, you know what, what
• 1:00:01
  next? What's Because I'm always,
• 1:00:02
  that's what I've always been about.
• 1:00:04
  I've always been that guy. I always ask, OK, now that we've
• 1:00:06
  done this, what's next? Like, I'm hardly ever content.
• 1:00:10
  And it's. I used to think it was yeah, I'm
• 1:00:12
  always, I'm always like, what's next?
• 1:00:14
  OK, we have a podcast. What's next?
• 1:00:15
  We have this one. And then I was like, I looked at
• 1:00:17
  myself and I was like, OK, you can lift all these weights.
• 1:00:19
  You can do all the deep squats you can run.
• 1:00:22
  But what's next? And I searched my my conscience.
• 1:00:26
  And I knew there was one thing I was afraid of and I was fighting
• 1:00:30
  Mayo as God would have it was a is a retired fighter now with 16
• 1:00:36
  fights and and I think 2 losses in the UK.
• 1:00:39
  Amaya just one day I had pulled up the courage and I approached
• 1:00:42
  him and said I want to learn how to do this thing and he said Are
• 1:00:45
  you sure? I said yeah, but I told him he
• 1:00:47
  should give me one month, that I need to just finish your fitness
• 1:00:51
  programme. I'm on.
• 1:00:53
  So I was doing this programme called Athlean X, which is like
• 1:00:56
  an athletes, athletes ready programme by what's his name?
• 1:01:00
  I've forgotten his name, but at Lenexa they're really popular on
• 1:01:04
  YouTube. So I did that for 30 days, make
• 1:01:06
  sure I finished that challenge. I was thinking to myself, you
• 1:01:08
  know, by the time I finish at Linux, I'm going to be really
• 1:01:10
  fit and my cardio will be good. I'll do MMA and then I'll start
• 1:01:13
  doing boxing and doing them and I'll be yo.
• 1:01:15
  I did that for one month, came into the gym.
• 1:01:18
  Mayor just gave me a basic work out.
• 1:01:21
  You just like this is the one, this is the true through this
• 1:01:24
  one, through these two. Step in, step out.
• 1:01:25
  Do this for two minutes. And by the end of it my
• 1:01:29
  shoulders were burning my spine and everything was hurting my
• 1:01:33
  body and I was like, you used to think I was fit.
• 1:01:35
  He said yeah this is a beginners workout.
• 1:01:37
  Like it's just the day one just to get your body used to the
• 1:01:39
  movements. And that was when it dawned on
• 1:01:41
  me. This is a whole different level.
• 1:01:44
  You can lift all the weights you want.
• 1:01:46
  You can run all the track and field you want.
• 1:01:48
  Like fighting is different. I knew that This is that the
• 1:01:52
  reason I had been of this because it's exactly what I
• 1:01:54
  needed. It's exactly what I needed.
• 1:01:57
  It's a different kind of a mixes everything.
• 1:02:00
  Your your brain, your cardiovascular capacity, your
• 1:02:04
  strength, your mental fortitude. All those soft skills that I
• 1:02:08
  used to build, that have been building through my struggles in
• 1:02:11
  the UK, through everything. That first day just dawned on
• 1:02:14
  me. This is what I can use it for.
• 1:02:16
  I can learn this thing and all these skills I have will come
• 1:02:19
  together. I this is the thing that will
• 1:02:22
  break me. I don't think I can.
• 1:02:23
  I even think I could do it. Fact that I even imagine I would
• 1:02:26
  have two fights. I was just like, I just want to
• 1:02:29
  learn. I just want to learn because I'm
• 1:02:31
  I'm obsessed with learning so I'm just like OK, my or teach me
• 1:02:34
  and that's sparked from 20 from 20, 18 all the way to 2021.
• 1:02:41
  I think almost every single day of every week.
• 1:02:45
  I was, I spent it. At least I was in the gym at I I
• 1:02:48
  was in the gym. I was with Mayo.
• 1:02:50
  I was with Chidi. I was with Marcus.
• 1:02:52
  I was with shags. I was with anybody that could
• 1:02:56
  teach me something. Coach Andrew for jujitsu.
• 1:02:59
  I was under Coach Wally all and you see that obsession that I've
• 1:03:03
  always had. It now became a tool for my
• 1:03:06
  personal betterment because the health issues that's when I
• 1:03:09
  started to learn. Oh you you know everybody there
• 1:03:11
  is. Tell me OK, you're so stiff.
• 1:03:12
  You're so stiff. Then I just think, oh some
• 1:03:14
  people are just born stiff. Then I martial arts taught me
• 1:03:17
  you can train flexibility, you can train anything.
• 1:03:21
  You can train reactions, you can train your posture, you can
• 1:03:24
  train the way you breathe. That was when I asked that
• 1:03:26
  learning that ohh, there are different ways to breathe so
• 1:03:29
  that your heart, your heart responds physiologically and you
• 1:03:32
  get the required outcome in real time.
• 1:03:35
  You don't have to be reactive to your environment.
• 1:03:37
  Martial arts taught me how to slow things down.
• 1:03:40
  I was just like these are things that seemed like mysteries like
• 1:03:45
  people be talking about them to me before and I'll be like no,
• 1:03:47
  maybe you you went to some school you trained on that some
• 1:03:50
  guy. Mayor in this heart of Abuja
• 1:03:53
  here waiting at the fine for Sokoto.
• 1:03:55
  I just see him for my Sokoto. Mayor just gave me everything
• 1:03:58
  Mayor thought me. Mayor.
• 1:04:00
  Mayor gave me like the world what I was thinking about.
• 1:04:03
  Have to travel to the UK, travel to the US, travel to Thailand to
• 1:04:06
  go learn. Mayo just opened the doors for
• 1:04:08
  me. So it came from asking myself,
• 1:04:12
  what next and going for that first sparring session, seeing
• 1:04:17
  my own blood for the first time, getting beaten by somebody so
• 1:04:21
  casually, so effortless that it's not about how intelligent
• 1:04:26
  you are. You have to be strong.
• 1:04:28
  You have to be conditioned. You have to be built for this.
• 1:04:32
  Not anybody can do it. Not everybody thinks they can
• 1:04:34
  fight, but not everybody are fight does you have to.
• 1:04:37
  And. And I made that choice.
• 1:04:38
  I sacrificed everything. Sacrificed relationships,
• 1:04:41
  sacrificed friendships, sacrifice businesses, sacrifice
• 1:04:44
  my expectations, sacrifice money.
• 1:04:46
  I changed what my expectations of myself were because it
• 1:04:49
  consumed me. I found the journey that has no
• 1:04:51
  end, but every step of the journey for it rewards you for
• 1:04:56
  the rest of your life. Every technique that I managed
• 1:04:59
  to learn, every technique I managed to Polish and dust up I
• 1:05:02
  make my own has changed my brain, changed my perception.
• 1:05:05
  Perception of myself in ways I cannot even clarify.
• 1:05:09
  I cannot even communicate with you.
• 1:05:10
  Martial arts changed me. It saved my life.
• 1:05:13
  Like it gave me some thing to fight for every day.
• 1:05:18
  And that's why I train every day.
• 1:05:20
  I have not. I have not missed training for a
• 1:05:22
  day and training involves rest and recovery as well my friend.
• 1:05:26
  So it's like you you fall into this rhythm and pattern of OK,
• 1:05:29
  my body needs this. And you understand that even in
• 1:05:32
  training, even in rest, there's different things you can do to
• 1:05:36
  improve yourself. OK, you're resting your back.
• 1:05:39
  OK Why don't you work your hamstrings?
• 1:05:40
  You're resting your hamstrings, your hip flexors.
• 1:05:42
  OK, you can do rotation on your on your legs so that you get
• 1:05:45
  higher ring, move on with your kids when you're doing your
• 1:05:50
  multi cakes. The martial arts just get so I'm
• 1:05:53
  never bored. I always have something to work
• 1:05:55
  on and coupling that with the mental stuff that schooling in
• 1:05:58
  the UK, learning all the other soft skills that we've already
• 1:06:01
  gone over. Martial arts just found it just
• 1:06:03
  gave me this package, this confidence that nothing I could
• 1:06:07
  not have harnessed on my own. I needed to go out and get
• 1:06:09
  beaten. I needed to go and rebuild
• 1:06:11
  myself. I needed to forget about money.
• 1:06:14
  That was another one. Money was another thing because
• 1:06:16
  there's no money. Why are you fighting?
• 1:06:18
  Are you fighting because you want to the money?
• 1:06:19
  No. You can't get who pay you in
• 1:06:21
  Abuja, who pay you in Nigeria. So you have to genuinely do it
• 1:06:24
  because you love it. And I thought my first fight, I
• 1:06:28
  got paid 15,000 naira, did I care?
• 1:06:30
  I took my friends out and we just spent it on drinks, having
• 1:06:32
  fun that evening because I had one.
• 1:06:34
  I had done this thing that I had never thought I was going to.
• 1:06:37
  I didn't care if they like I I told mayor that night I would
• 1:06:39
  have done it for free. Second fight I got paid for
• 1:06:42
  about 45,000 naira. I think that he came to show 15K
• 1:06:47
  to win. I I killed the guy in the first
• 1:06:49
  round and then I got my my pay. But I didn't do it.
• 1:06:53
  Money and that has translated into other things in my life.
• 1:06:56
  Now I really don't care about money like that.
• 1:07:00
  Like I've seen what the journey like.
• 1:07:02
  Now, if I didn't say yes to all those opportunities, regardless
• 1:07:06
  of how little payer what no money at all, would I be on the
• 1:07:09
  Kingdom's podcast today highlighting my experiences with
• 1:07:13
  you? The true wealth comes from the
• 1:07:16
  experience. And you know, yeah, you you,
• 1:07:19
  you, when you. I don't remember how everyone my
• 1:07:21
  biggest paychecks as a commentator.
• 1:07:23
  I don't remember what I used them for.
• 1:07:25
  Why? I can't tell you where I was.
• 1:07:26
  What I was wearing, who won, what round they won the strike
• 1:07:30
  they used, which stands they were in.
• 1:07:32
  Because that's what it's about for me.
• 1:07:34
  I love it that I've seen that as I if I love it more, it will
• 1:07:38
  reward me more. The money will come through.
• 1:07:40
  The opportunity is that come from being in those closed door
• 1:07:44
  conversations, being in those rooms where they could be.
• 1:07:46
  The future is being plotted out in real time.
• 1:07:49
  Being there, that's where you make money.
• 1:07:50
  That's opportunity. It's not from taking advantage
• 1:07:53
  of your of the guy on the streets.
• 1:07:54
  I've never taken money from anybody for training them.
• 1:07:56
  Anybody that has met me and said I want to learn this thing you
• 1:07:58
  do as much as long as I have time.
• 1:08:00
  That's my own money, my own currency.
• 1:08:03
  Now martial arts and life and everything is time.
• 1:08:06
  If if I have time I can give you, I'll train you for free.
• 1:08:09
  But if I don't, I won't take money from you.
• 1:08:12
  And also through Abuja. The past five years, I've
• 1:08:16
  trained with athletes, I've trained with regular newbies,
• 1:08:18
  I've trained with. I've sparred.
• 1:08:20
  I've never taken money from anybody.
• 1:08:21
  And I'm proud of that because I've still been able to figure
• 1:08:25
  out a way amidst all. Because now the final thing I'll
• 1:08:28
  say is I look at this environment, I look at Nigeria
• 1:08:34
  and all I see is opportunity. Whereas all eyes used to see
• 1:08:38
  before was the failures of the government, the failures of the
• 1:08:42
  people in power failures. But now, because of what I've
• 1:08:46
  had to go through to be here, I really do believe that anything
• 1:08:50
  is possible. I'm not, and I'm not saying that
• 1:08:53
  as in as a as a fairy tale fantasy kind of statement.
• 1:08:56
  No, I've been this whole story. I tried my best to because I
• 1:09:00
  knew I was going to arrive here at some point.
• 1:09:03
  Going through all of this for the past 10 years, anything is
• 1:09:08
  possible. Anything is possible.
• 1:09:10
  And so it's it's it's it's changed me.
• 1:09:14
  It really has. All I see is possibilities.
• 1:09:16
  If you tell me why the fighters getting hurt, I'll look at you
• 1:09:19
  and be like, OK, so why don't we get doctors and train them as
• 1:09:22
  cageside physicians. If you tell me, why don't you
• 1:09:24
  guys do more jujitsu, I'd be like, OK, why don't we set up a
• 1:09:29
  Brazilian jujitsu facility in Abuja who has the space.
• 1:09:32
  Who's willing to to do it for us free of charge Who can we fly in
• 1:09:35
  for to give us seminars. If you tell me the commentary
• 1:09:37
  level is low I'll tell you. OK.
• 1:09:39
  I'm a good. I'm good with communication and
• 1:09:40
  speaking. Just give me a microphone.
• 1:09:42
  I'll handle it for you. That's how I am now I am.
• 1:09:45
  I'm like that with my relationship.
• 1:09:46
  I'm like that with my with. My.
• 1:09:49
  Like that with my yeah, I can't and I can't.
• 1:09:52
  I can't turn it off. But martial arts, and that was
• 1:09:55
  my transition into martial arts and it it became this thing
• 1:09:58
  where the more I gave to it, the more it gave back and the more
• 1:10:03
  the less I could leave. I can't leave anymore.
• 1:10:05
  I'm too, it's true. It's become too part of who I
• 1:10:08
  am, too part and parcel of who I am.
• 1:10:10
  I'm I'm a fighter. Like I think.
• 1:10:12
  I think of everything about me has been shaped by this thing
• 1:10:16
  called martial arts. The way I think, the way I speak
• 1:10:18
  to represent myself, the way I walk, the way I talk, the way I
• 1:10:20
  breathe, everything, everything. Look at the poster behind me.
• 1:10:24
  It's. It's like I I was gonna talk
• 1:10:27
  about that right style Bender. Style Bender.
• 1:10:30
  Like yeah yeah I'll Bender. He's actually my my favourite
• 1:10:33
  right. He's my favourite, our mutual
• 1:10:37
  friend Jibril Aminu ohh wow. So shout out to stop and I hope
• 1:10:42
  he sees this. He sees this.
• 1:10:47
  What's your friend you will let me do?
• 1:10:48
  He calls me the president of Israel Adesanya Fans
• 1:10:51
  Association, right? I I celebrate him.
• 1:10:55
  Which I think is hilarious, by the way.
• 1:10:57
  Yeah. I bet I see.
• 1:11:00
  I see similarities between yourself and him and him.
• 1:11:05
  So you guys are both are lovers of anime.
• 1:11:08
  You're both lovers of martial arts, right?
• 1:11:14
  And of course you both have that speed of resilience and to self
• 1:11:21
  belief. So I see, I see a lot of dots
• 1:11:24
  connecting between yourself and himself.
• 1:11:28
  So like how how much of A motivation would you say he has
• 1:11:30
  been for you, and in what ways would you say he has actually
• 1:11:33
  influenced, you know, your own character?
• 1:11:40
  In 2020 after SO I had two fights.
• 1:11:44
  I had one in 2019, I had another one in 2020, then 2021.
• 1:11:48
  I told my Mayo and I had this really had this idea that we
• 1:11:51
  want to do it international. And we said we're going to go to
• 1:11:55
  Thailand to train and do it a training camp there because I
• 1:11:59
  wanted to work on my Muay Thai and my kickboxing and that at
• 1:12:02
  the end of it I would have your professional fights in Thailand,
• 1:12:04
  then come back. We had this whole plan to make
• 1:12:07
  it happen. Now COVID struck.
• 1:12:10
  And we couldn't do any of those things.
• 1:12:13
  Everything we had planned, we went into the drain.
• 1:12:15
  We couldn't do any of the beings.
• 1:12:19
  As a alternate plan during COVID.
• 1:12:22
  I trained my ass off specifically because I wanted to
• 1:12:26
  go to city Kickboxing. When everything was done, I
• 1:12:29
  wanted to go train in City Kick Boxing under Eugene Berman.
• 1:12:32
  And impossible. I was already looking at soft.
• 1:12:36
  Yeah, I was already looking at software development jobs in New
• 1:12:39
  Zealand. Then I was already talking to my
• 1:12:40
  girlfriend then about it. And she was zoo like she's she's
• 1:12:45
  the most supportive human being in the world.
• 1:12:46
  She was she she was with me through my she would she saw me
• 1:12:49
  through my fight career. And when I knew that I was that
• 1:12:51
  we were going to get married. I decided that I was going to
• 1:12:55
  put everything on pause and just focus only on my really anything
• 1:12:58
  that get to me because fighting requires a kind of dedication
• 1:13:00
  that I wouldn't want to to give while I'm trying to to to be
• 1:13:04
  married to somebody and start up a family.
• 1:13:06
  So that was that. That's that that that was by the
• 1:13:09
  way. But to answer your question
• 1:13:11
  about Israeli desires inspiration, we were going to
• 1:13:14
  City big boxing. Like that was my plan that once
• 1:13:17
  the cold COVID was over I'm gonna go to City kickboxing and
• 1:13:21
  start up a new career there. That was my plan.
• 1:13:23
  So Israel, Israel, there are so many parallels in the sense that
• 1:13:28
  I see so many there are many things overcoming your
• 1:13:31
  insecurities. Overcoming adversity, staying
• 1:13:35
  true to who you are. Being being the style Bender,
• 1:13:39
  quote unquote, literally and figuratively.
• 1:13:43
  He's like he's it's because of Israeli dedicated so much time
• 1:13:46
  into learning how to fight either stance So if you've if
• 1:13:49
  you ever trained with me if we do it 1 technique on our right
• 1:13:52
  on with Orthodox we're probably going to do it maybe 100 times
• 1:13:55
  we're going straight into Southport and we're doing it
• 1:13:57
  because I'm like you Israel. Israel always used to say be
• 1:14:00
  Bistan Shore. I'm the I'm the only bystander
• 1:14:02
  shower fighter in the UFC and I was like you.
• 1:14:04
  If I ever get to the UFC, I want to be that gay, to only be able
• 1:14:09
  to do this special thing. Israel affected so many aspects
• 1:14:13
  of me and one of the things I'm proud of is I learned what his
• 1:14:18
  role was in my life, like in my development as an athlete, as a
• 1:14:22
  fighter early. And I didn't hold any of those
• 1:14:25
  expectations. Once I learned that this is what
• 1:14:29
  this guy was supposed to be, like, a guide, a figure and I
• 1:14:32
  learned what I was supposed to learn.
• 1:14:34
  Now I look at him like a human being.
• 1:14:36
  I've I've, I've, I've, I pardon him.
• 1:14:39
  I used to always look at him as this mythical figure before.
• 1:14:42
  But now after growing, after going through my own
• 1:14:45
  experiences, after seeing all the things, I just look at him
• 1:14:48
  now and I'm just like he's, I I can relate with you now, bro.
• 1:14:52
  Like it's no longer a fan thing. It's loud, a thing of I just
• 1:14:55
  wish this, I I just want him the best in life.
• 1:14:58
  Like I don't even look at it. Like all the day I meet Israel.
• 1:15:00
  This is gonna. Nah, it's now like, I just want
• 1:15:03
  him to be a winner at life. Like I just wanted to make all
• 1:15:05
  the money. I want him to be happy Israel.
• 1:15:07
  That's why I'm just trying to let you know how my trajectory
• 1:15:09
  with him. Because I've gone through this
• 1:15:11
  phase of having idols then having to let my idols go so
• 1:15:15
  that I can become who I am. There's a there's so much to me.
• 1:15:18
  Too many chefs ruining the soup, you know.
• 1:15:21
  And you can. You can.
• 1:15:21
  Idolise. People So much, so much that you
• 1:15:24
  you forget who you are. You are.
• 1:15:26
  You are special. There's nobody else like you.
• 1:15:28
  And it's your job to figure that out.
• 1:15:29
  So learn what you need to learn from people, but sharpening
• 1:15:34
  yourself in the process get your diamond shining rights and so is
• 1:15:38
  Usman had to go through the same process with Usman prior to
• 1:15:40
  meeting him. I had to do so many things to
• 1:15:42
  get to the point when he and I met and we talked and I
• 1:15:45
  interviewed him and that was a big milestone for me because
• 1:15:47
  that year I said I wanted to work with Kamaru Usman.
• 1:15:49
  I wanted to interview him. So I did everything I needed to
• 1:15:52
  do despite the part, the no power despite all of that to be
• 1:15:55
  the the best analyst that could be and it led me to the
• 1:15:59
  opportunity. I I I knew it was coming just
• 1:16:01
  because of the trajectory of the sports conversations I was
• 1:16:04
  having with people my own in-depth analysis and research.
• 1:16:07
  I just knew that something big was coming.
• 1:16:09
  So I needed to align myself as early as possible.
• 1:16:12
  I don't want to do to be having the 9:00 to 5:00 for the rest of
• 1:16:14
  my life. I don't want this is this is
• 1:16:16
  this is eventually something that is building into a bigger
• 1:16:19
  picture and plan that I've laid out for myself.
• 1:16:22
  So meeting Usman I had to that Usman was one of the people I
• 1:16:26
  had to go through that with as well and you know why it was on
• 1:16:28
  my list next. But my plans have sort of
• 1:16:30
  adjusted a bit now and I'm and I have different things I'm trying
• 1:16:34
  to cook up. Or I met Usman and I had to
• 1:16:38
  understand that this guy his style because Usman Tudor was a
• 1:16:41
  time my wrestling. I had to tailor my wrestling to
• 1:16:44
  kind of mimic a lot of the things he would do on the cage.
• 1:16:47
  So cage side wrestling, his work on the cage was something Mayo
• 1:16:50
  and I went and spent hours in the gym together just working on
• 1:16:53
  because I wanted to use it in my second fight.
• 1:16:55
  And I met him and I just thought to myself, I'm so immensely
• 1:16:58
  grateful for, for the opportunity that this this
• 1:17:02
  career. Yeah, I don't have.
• 1:17:03
  I don't have the money in the bank.
• 1:17:04
  Yeah, things aren't great. Yeah, people like the the
• 1:17:07
  country doesn't provide us. But look at what we did.
• 1:17:10
  We're here. There could be anybody else in
• 1:17:13
  this room right now, but it's you.
• 1:17:17
  That's a testament to the fact that you're right.
• 1:17:22
  You've been right. All that work, all that
• 1:17:24
  studying, all the neighbours, getting the injuries in the gym,
• 1:17:27
  fighting the analysis, the commentary.
• 1:17:30
  You were right. You always felt stupid when
• 1:17:32
  nobody would tune into your podcast because you always felt
• 1:17:34
  you're giving them the the real juice, the real source.
• 1:17:37
  Why do is why do is going for like the spectator store?
• 1:17:39
  Why he's going for the knockout. Why don't want to listen to you
• 1:17:41
  when Nigerians are always complaining.
• 1:17:43
  We need, I need a way to to to break out of my freedom.
• 1:17:46
  I need a job. I need this.
• 1:17:47
  I'm just like, can't you see if you can figure this out?
• 1:17:51
  Now what? What, 25 years in the past and
• 1:17:54
  these guys are coming to Africa? If we can figure it out quickly,
• 1:17:57
  jobs won't be your problem. Naira, Enemy Naira won't be your
• 1:18:02
  problem, but we have to do the work.
• 1:18:05
  Now, not, not very many people heeded that call, but it led,
• 1:18:10
  it's led me to so many things. So I've had to respect my heroes
• 1:18:13
  enough to let them go and to focus on who I because there's
• 1:18:17
  nobody else. I keep telling myself there's no
• 1:18:20
  word to describe what you're trying to become.
• 1:18:22
  And I say that with all humility.
• 1:18:24
  It's like you're building fighting through media, through
• 1:18:28
  athlete representation, through training, through coaching,
• 1:18:31
  through the the electronic content online.
• 1:18:33
  You're trying to build something that has never been done.
• 1:18:37
  Give yourself some props. Give yourself some credit for
• 1:18:40
  how far you've come, but at the same time realised that only you
• 1:18:45
  can walk this path. Nobody has done it before you.
• 1:18:47
  Nigeria is such a volatile environment.
• 1:18:49
  If I say I want to study what Dana White did to the letter and
• 1:18:52
  come and implement it here, it will fail inevitably.
• 1:18:55
  You cannot replicate it. You cannot change your
• 1:19:00
  application, right? Bro, it's a new, different it's.
• 1:19:05
  It's a new frontier. It requires a.
• 1:19:07
  New way of thinking. That that that is, that is
• 1:19:10
  catered to this environment. It's and so that's so in my mind
• 1:19:13
  I so that's why I said I had to let the thoughts of Dana being a
• 1:19:18
  go because that back then my goal was get the UFC to Africa
• 1:19:21
  give our boys on the ground opportunities.
• 1:19:23
  But I've seen how how things can just change.
• 1:19:26
  Economics, war, geopolitics, all these things can just change the
• 1:19:32
  trajectory of your life. Two years, three years, five
• 1:19:35
  years down. Are you gonna be waiting for
• 1:19:37
  people to come and save you while that is happening?
• 1:19:40
  No, I don't think that's wise. I think we need to build what we
• 1:19:42
  can right now. We need to solve the problems
• 1:19:44
  internally. We need to come up with
• 1:19:46
  solutions that are, that are, that are centric to us.
• 1:19:50
  And that's what I I obsess over. I'm always trying to solve
• 1:19:53
  problems. I'm always trying to figure out
• 1:19:55
  ways we can move the sport better.
• 1:19:56
  I'm trying to find ways we can get the guys better, shine, get
• 1:19:59
  them better representation. I'm always trying to do that
• 1:20:02
  stuff and. Yeah.
• 1:20:04
  So that's that's. Interesting that creates, you
• 1:20:09
  know a long rants, right? But then you know, 2 themes, 2
• 1:20:14
  themes that are important. And OK, these two things I'm
• 1:20:20
  about to say are also aligned with why I resonate with Israel
• 1:20:26
  Adesanya to two things I like to tell people, and I have done in
• 1:20:31
  my own life as well, is believe in yourself and stay true to
• 1:20:37
  yourself until I tell people. So I'm one person who likes to
• 1:20:43
  talk the talk and walk to talk right You.
• 1:20:47
  Nobody can't believe in you. For you, I can tell you for
• 1:20:51
  free, there were quite a lot of people.
• 1:20:53
  That's that meant a lot to me when I wanted to start this
• 1:20:58
  podcast. They discouraged me from
• 1:21:01
  starting it, like quite close people, but now they see it.
• 1:21:07
  I do like ohh wow. I'm really proud of what you're
• 1:21:09
  doing. Hmm.
• 1:21:11
  So nobody is. It is your responsibility to
• 1:21:16
  believe in yourself and of course stay true to yourself.
• 1:21:20
  Because sometimes in life when people start to elevate the want
• 1:21:26
  to become like other people and then he makes them lose their
• 1:21:31
  own self identity. It is always very important to
• 1:21:34
  stay true to you. So when you stay true to
• 1:21:35
  yourself, you do not lose your identity.
• 1:21:38
  And that's what those are two reasons why I very much connect
• 1:21:42
  with each other. Yeah, I see him as, yeah, an
• 1:21:46
  immigrant Beach. I am an immigrant as well,
• 1:21:50
  right? Who has defied many odds, you
• 1:21:53
  know, faced adversity, conquered adversities, right.
• 1:21:57
  Which I have done myself as well.
• 1:22:00
  And he's he's your brother. And I have your voice as well,
• 1:22:06
  right? His father's father is a
• 1:22:10
  chartered accountant. I am a chartered accountant, so
• 1:22:14
  they're like so many dots that connect and.
• 1:22:18
  He is somebody who is. Quite outspoken, eloquent,
• 1:22:22
  Believes in himself and has stayed true to himself.
• 1:22:25
  And he has accepted himself. Yeah, accept.
• 1:22:28
  Accepting yourself comes with accepting both your strengths,
• 1:22:30
  your weaknesses, your flaws and you know the the the perfections
• 1:22:36
  and imperfections of yourself. And it is very important because
• 1:22:41
  until you accept yourself, you cannot achieve true growth and
• 1:22:45
  development as a person. And this goes out to you know,
• 1:22:48
  everybody, our audience, right? It is very important to stick it
• 1:22:53
  to yourself right? Own up to your failures in life
• 1:22:57
  and celebrate your wins as well. Accept your weaknesses, right?
• 1:23:02
  And work on them to become a better person.
• 1:23:05
  And never let anybody make you believe that you are somebody
• 1:23:11
  that you're not. It is very, very important for
• 1:23:15
  you to teach you to yourself. Keep believing in yourself
• 1:23:18
  because people, people have people.
• 1:23:20
  Put people in boxes. They make you feel like ohh
• 1:23:23
  young to love. You are meant to be this, this,
• 1:23:25
  this. But then who wrote that script?
• 1:23:29
  You're not my God. You're not even my parents or
• 1:23:32
  something and then yeah we believe that this is what I
• 1:23:35
  should be. So never believe you know what
• 1:23:38
  people say you should be. There have been friends you know
• 1:23:41
  when I wanted to start this podcast right.
• 1:23:43
  You know. Yeah the finance guy and the
• 1:23:46
  corporate world people like ohh why not just stick to your
• 1:23:49
  corporate world thing like it is difficult to become a chartered
• 1:23:53
  accountant. You have to write a lot of
• 1:23:54
  professional exams. You know it's it's highly
• 1:23:57
  procedures would be like oh why would they chat to the contact
• 1:24:00
  and be in front of a mic right. But there it is, God-given
• 1:24:04
  talent, and I I'm about the life of impacting people positively,
• 1:24:11
  right? That's the idea that a lot of
• 1:24:14
  people have when it comes to podcasters, who people to grow,
• 1:24:19
  grow, grow up men, you know, being in front of a mic, talking
• 1:24:24
  a load of rubbish, right? Talking about women, talking
• 1:24:27
  about crazy stuff in society? No.
• 1:24:31
  You can change the narrative. You can be the reason why.
• 1:24:35
  Of course, a lot of people will not give up on their dreams.
• 1:24:38
  You can be the reason why people vote.
• 1:24:42
  Be filled with hope to its achieving their dreams.
• 1:24:46
  You can be the reason why people get motivated.
• 1:24:49
  And that's of course why I came up with that concept of you
• 1:24:52
  sharing the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary
• 1:24:54
  things in in our agent time. A lot of people struggle with a
• 1:24:57
  lot of, you know, mental health challenges.
• 1:25:00
  They struggle with depression and they struggle with, you
• 1:25:02
  know, being discouraged. But then where we share our
• 1:25:05
  stories, we share our failures, you know, and our successes as
• 1:25:10
  well. You see?
• 1:25:11
  Wow, Like you said, this person is just a human being.
• 1:25:16
  It's nothing. Idle.
• 1:25:17
  Then you let them be. You wish them well, but then you
• 1:25:20
  draw. Yep.
• 1:25:21
  You draw inspiration from their life stories in order to become
• 1:25:25
  a better person in life. You know that is you know what
• 1:25:29
  it is about. So big shout out to the style
• 1:25:32
  Bender for being a source of hope and inspiration to to the
• 1:25:37
  young up and coming people and of course even persons like
• 1:25:40
  ourselves, right. You see people like that staying
• 1:25:43
  true to themselves and, you know, achieving immense success
• 1:25:45
  in society. And yeah, it makes you want to
• 1:25:47
  stay true to yourself because it is important to keep your
• 1:25:51
  identity, protect your identity and protect your energy.
• 1:25:55
  People, people want to put in a box but do not know that box.
• 1:25:59
  Like, yeah, to achieve, you know, impact, positive impact by
• 1:26:05
  being yourself, right? And they'll never apologise for
• 1:26:09
  yourself. Version of yourself.
• 1:26:13
  Yeah, of course. There's also, there's also that
• 1:26:17
  thin line between, you know, being yourself and being
• 1:26:21
  somebody who is resistance to change and correction and
• 1:26:24
  improvement, right? That is not like what we are
• 1:26:27
  saying. Like, it is essential to stay
• 1:26:29
  humble, stay, have that learning attitude.
• 1:26:32
  Because when you learn, when you're open to learning, when
• 1:26:35
  you're hungry to learn, you discover that you the more you
• 1:26:39
  know, the more you discover that you don't know.
• 1:26:42
  Uh-huh. That's what I did.
• 1:26:43
  I had this problem with my friends that are doing a PhD
• 1:26:46
  programme and asked them like, what would be your research, has
• 1:26:51
  it going, you've learned a lot, your PhD.
• 1:26:53
  And they're like, wow, it is a humbling experience.
• 1:26:56
  The more you get to know in life, the more you get to know
• 1:26:59
  that you actually do not know anything.
• 1:27:01
  Right. So it's important to also you
• 1:27:05
  don't know, but then you are learning and you're helping
• 1:27:09
  others you know. Coming along the way to also
• 1:27:11
  learn and you know. Be a better person, be open to
• 1:27:14
  correction. Always try to impact you know,
• 1:27:18
  the society, your community positively and you know.
• 1:27:22
  You always see you that way, you.
• 1:27:24
  You don't need to worry about your legacy.
• 1:27:26
  Your legacy Take care of yourself because you would have,
• 1:27:29
  you know, impacted people. And that's my, that's my,
• 1:27:33
  that's, that's my, that's my goal.
• 1:27:35
  Yeah, Legacy, that's all for me. You just hit my.
• 1:27:37
  That's what keeps me up at no, it's what wakes me up in the
• 1:27:41
  morning. I'm thinking about my death.
• 1:27:43
  I'm thinking about what I'm leaving behind.
• 1:27:44
  I'm not and I'm not saying that with any martial artists, you
• 1:27:48
  you that we we kind of developed this really friendly
• 1:27:52
  relationship with the uncertainties of life.
• 1:27:54
  And one of them is death. Because anytime you step into a
• 1:27:57
  cage or a ring you you know that the worst case scenario is that
• 1:28:00
  something can go wrong that could heavily impede your life
• 1:28:03
  or end it. And when you when you it's it's
• 1:28:06
  you get desensitised to it over time and it becomes a thing, a
• 1:28:09
  well of knowledge you can pull out from.
• 1:28:11
  Because you ask yourself, what do I care enough about to do so
• 1:28:18
  much, even at the risk of my own life?
• 1:28:21
  What? What really is that thing?
• 1:28:24
  And trust me, when you start looking at life through that
• 1:28:27
  lens, many things start to fall by the wayside or necessary
• 1:28:31
  habits. How you spend your time, who you
• 1:28:33
  spend your time with, food you eat, how much water you're
• 1:28:36
  drinking. Because you're not living for
• 1:28:39
  now. You're living for two years from
• 1:28:41
  now. You're living for one year.
• 1:28:42
  Why? You training.
• 1:28:43
  You're training so that you can enjoy your life.
• 1:28:44
  So you can enjoy your life with your children, so you can have a
• 1:28:46
  good quality of life. You're not training so that you
• 1:28:48
  get followers on Instagram. You're training so that your
• 1:28:51
  life can be more meaningful. So when you look at start
• 1:28:55
  looking at life through the view lines of Legacy, because I had
• 1:28:58
  the benefit of seeing Kamaru, Usman, Israel, Adesanya,
• 1:29:03
  Francis, Angano, all these guys. I had the benefit of being able
• 1:29:07
  to call the the better part of the later stage of their career,
• 1:29:10
  the most prominent part of their career.
• 1:29:11
  I saw the things that they did that worked for them.
• 1:29:14
  I saw how you should switch from fighting to analyst.
• 1:29:17
  I saw how you should not overstay your welcome as a
• 1:29:20
  champion because your prime as a fighter, it doesn't like, it's
• 1:29:23
  not like it goes gradually. You go to sleep and you wake up
• 1:29:26
  and you're out of your prime. I saw all these things happen
• 1:29:28
  and I'm just like, OK, So what is the end goal?
• 1:29:33
  Why are we all doing this thing? We all know that it's a short
• 1:29:36
  trip. We all know that it's going to
• 1:29:38
  be, it's for it's it's not a thing that is going to feed you
• 1:29:41
  for the rest of your life. Why are we doing it?
• 1:29:44
  It's legacy. And I started to look at things
• 1:29:46
  through legacy. I'm just like, OK, so how does
• 1:29:48
  this impact me? Does this conversation, this
• 1:29:50
  thing build towards that legacy? Like when I die is this is this
• 1:29:54
  going to be that towards that? And yo, my brother, that's how
• 1:29:57
  things changed though. I was just like you.
• 1:29:59
  Legacy. Legacy.
• 1:30:00
  You have to always think about what's coming.
• 1:30:04
  How does this look five years from now?
• 1:30:06
  If someone heard that, that, that, that this guy said this,
• 1:30:09
  said this thing a year ago, how would they look?
• 1:30:11
  I mean, how does it affect my reputation, my reputation and my
• 1:30:14
  time? Those are my most valuable
• 1:30:15
  assets. How does it, how does it affect
• 1:30:16
  them? Does it grow them?
• 1:30:17
  Does it kill them? What does it?
• 1:30:18
  If you look at it like that, then money can now take his
• 1:30:20
  side. It's the side seats and you
• 1:30:23
  start to focus on only the things that matter.
• 1:30:26
  Trust me, that's how growth comes.
• 1:30:28
  That's how we have. So we bring stars into this
• 1:30:30
  country. You see Israel, you see the
• 1:30:32
  Canadians. If you see all the outcome
• 1:30:34
  because it's it's excellence that it's it's about character
• 1:30:38
  loyalty at the highest levels. It's not about how much you got
• 1:30:41
  paid in your contracts, about the relationships you can
• 1:30:44
  utilise so that your happy ending after fighting your
• 1:30:47
  fantasy ending after fighting is secure.
• 1:30:49
  You want smart people. You want forward thinking
• 1:30:51
  people. You want people who are at the
• 1:30:52
  cutting edge of the sports become that person.
• 1:30:55
  It's really, it's really that's how you create the
• 1:30:59
  opportunities. You've actually spoken about
• 1:31:03
  being smart, you know, twice in in this conversation, right?
• 1:31:07
  And I remember Michael Bisping, ex UFC middle weight champion,
• 1:31:13
  and of course he's now an analyst, commentator.
• 1:31:16
  He said something along the lines of in order to be an elite
• 1:31:19
  level fighter, you need to be a smart person, you need to have
• 1:31:24
  that, you know, IQ. So for for you, G resonates with
• 1:31:29
  that sentiment. And do you think that general IQ
• 1:31:32
  actually translates also into fight?
• 1:31:35
  Thank you. I I think, OK, so fighting is so
• 1:31:39
  beautiful in the sense that you can analyse it from so many
• 1:31:42
  different angles. Now you can have good reactions,
• 1:31:46
  but you might have poor spatial awareness.
• 1:31:48
  If you have poor spatial awareness and I can corner you
• 1:31:51
  to I can get you to the corner of the cage, Your reactions
• 1:31:54
  don't mean Jack anymore. So all of a sudden your
• 1:31:57
  intelligence in one end, in one spectrum can be can be turned
• 1:32:02
  over on its head and made into a weakness if I'm able to exploit
• 1:32:06
  it. And that's that.
• 1:32:08
  The truest guy is the best guys. They they have timing.
• 1:32:12
  Timing is, timing is is. Is a byproduct.
• 1:32:16
  You know you're talking like Conor McGregor, right?
• 1:32:21
  Kind of McGregor search interrupt.
• 1:32:22
  You don't come about Gregor. Said timing beats speed and
• 1:32:25
  precision timing. Power timing, yeah.
• 1:32:29
  That's how true is that. Yes, you know, Conor McGregor,
• 1:32:31
  Timmy, Timmy. Beat speed.
• 1:32:33
  And it's true. It's true.
• 1:32:34
  It's one we speak. Yes, present this power.
• 1:32:38
  It's true. It's true.
• 1:32:39
  It's true. Trust me, it's true.
• 1:32:41
  Being able to throw the fastest strike is not half as important
• 1:32:44
  as knowing when to through it. Like if I know when to throw, no
• 1:32:48
  matter how fast you are, when what I throw will hurt you more.
• 1:32:52
  So timing now is now a byproduct of many different things.
• 1:32:56
  It's understanding the persons takes.
• 1:32:58
  How do they move when they are nervous?
• 1:32:59
  How do they move when they are confidence?
• 1:33:01
  Do they move with their left hand now?
• 1:33:03
  They move. We got right time.
• 1:33:04
  It's some and you cannot be able to admit all those analysis on
• 1:33:07
  the fly without being a brilliant mind or even the
• 1:33:10
  fighters that can't speak English.
• 1:33:13
  But I are going zero and three in the UFC.
• 1:33:16
  They still still still fall within the 0.1% of the best
• 1:33:19
  fighters in the world. Like they're still the best guys
• 1:33:21
  in the world. So even if they are losing, they
• 1:33:23
  are still losing to the best guys in the world.
• 1:33:26
  So the kind of intelligence that you have to have to operate in
• 1:33:30
  that space, because you have another team now of guys that
• 1:33:33
  their entire job is to do the same thing your team is doing to
• 1:33:36
  their guy. To their understanding your
• 1:33:38
  nervous ticks, the understanding what your tendencies are, which
• 1:33:41
  hand you like to use, whether you you like to cover yourself
• 1:33:43
  on defence when you throw an offence like all these things
• 1:33:46
  and it's now about who can adapt faster and like there's no way
• 1:33:50
  that person is not brilliant. It's like they might not pass
• 1:33:52
  your standard IQ test but the kind of intelligence especially
• 1:33:56
  to do it under pressure with such high stakes Damola, I think
• 1:34:02
  they deserve. They deserve the highest like.
• 1:34:05
  Yeah, it's crazy to tell people that a lot of people will never,
• 1:34:11
  will never in their lifetimes experience the kind of, you
• 1:34:14
  know, pressure that, you know, fighters experience inside that
• 1:34:19
  Octagon, inside the cage, inside the ring.
• 1:34:21
  It's a different level of pressure it's it's easy for it
• 1:34:26
  but then you know let let, let's let's come back to yourself like
• 1:34:29
  what would you what would you say your highs and lows but
• 1:34:32
  generally in life like your highs, the major highs and lows
• 1:34:36
  basically. OK, so I I think in 2020 I had a
• 1:34:44
  series of bad just I just had bad outings.
• 1:34:47
  I was going, I would go train expiring sessions were going
• 1:34:51
  bad. I was getting injured.
• 1:34:53
  My right eye got got really badly damaged.
• 1:34:56
  It was out of alignment for a couple of months, read
• 1:34:59
  completely unused because my sparring partner went a little
• 1:35:02
  too hard. Inspiring, and I wasn't even
• 1:35:05
  being as defensively responsible as I should have been.
• 1:35:07
  And it he collided with my right eye on an upper court and the
• 1:35:11
  cage of the decade. The door of the cage was left or
• 1:35:15
  open so my back collided with the cage door and I fell
• 1:35:20
  backwards out of the cage fell like on my back on the floor out
• 1:35:23
  of it was really bad. Then my birthday that year I
• 1:35:27
  yeah, I had to get 6 stitches in in May of that same year because
• 1:35:33
  I was invited for a sparring session with some boxers and
• 1:35:37
  boxers just have a reputation of going a little too hard in in
• 1:35:41
  Nigeria is something that if you ever, if you ever talk about in
• 1:35:44
  the been like fighter circles, everybody just like and so they
• 1:35:47
  like, they do this. OK, so I went and I wasn't as
• 1:35:49
  experienced as I am now. So we had a sparring session and
• 1:35:53
  it went really badly. Very badly.
• 1:35:55
  Very badly. And this was the weekend of my
• 1:35:57
  birthday so I had to get 6 stitches in my lips.
• 1:36:00
  I had to get this shit. I couldn't eat food properly for
• 1:36:03
  like a week or two. And but those experiences led me
• 1:36:07
  to a period where I couldn't train actively.
• 1:36:10
  I had to use other things to occupy my mind.
• 1:36:12
  I had to occupy my my myself just to get through that.
• 1:36:16
  And that was when a lot of my analysis, my breakdown videos on
• 1:36:20
  YouTube, on Instagram, I started working, learning how to do
• 1:36:23
  visual effects. I started learning how to do
• 1:36:27
  animation and editing so that the videos have more
• 1:36:30
  presentation. I started trying to think about
• 1:36:33
  how we could use social media differently.
• 1:36:35
  So those were my lows. But I'm just trying to highlight
• 1:36:38
  that despite the fact that they were lost.
• 1:36:39
  Because this is how you have to understand that this is how my
• 1:36:41
  brain works. I I can't take an Li just can't
• 1:36:44
  like I've been handed else all my all my life.
• 1:36:47
  So I really can't take an L anymore.
• 1:36:49
  Like if it's an L, it's I'm just learning something.
• 1:36:52
  It's just something I need to just figure out.
• 1:36:53
  So I was like, why am I getting injured so much?
• 1:36:56
  Am I in line with my purpose? Am I in line with what I'm
• 1:37:00
  supposed to be doing? I've fought twice already.
• 1:37:02
  I already have fame. I would be going places in
• 1:37:04
  Abuja, Lagos, travelling around and people would be stopping.
• 1:37:08
  I had like foreigners, expatriates.
• 1:37:10
  Come meet me. Or a guy came and met me and
• 1:37:11
  told me his wife is my biggest fan.
• 1:37:13
  She attended my fight, my first fight, and she's been following
• 1:37:16
  my career. I went to Lagos.
• 1:37:18
  People just come and meet me on the beach.
• 1:37:19
  People come and tell me you. I saw you on super sports.
• 1:37:21
  I know. So I had achieved fame and I
• 1:37:25
  discovered I don't want fame. I don't like it and what I'm
• 1:37:28
  trying to accomplish. I discovered that fame was
• 1:37:31
  getting in the way of that, and I felt that me still fighting,
• 1:37:37
  still spark, still making all that, still pursuing that line
• 1:37:42
  was going against what I needed to be doing, which was creating
• 1:37:45
  the way for the next generation of athletes.
• 1:37:48
  It was no longer about me. Already fought twice I had read.
• 1:37:51
  He got infamous, I already got. Like I told you before, you
• 1:37:53
  can't. There's no money.
• 1:37:54
  There's no belt. There's no there's no legacy to
• 1:37:57
  be gotten from fighting as fighting exists right now and
• 1:38:01
  identified that as of early as five years ago, four years ago,
• 1:38:05
  and I was still fighting. So when I was getting these
• 1:38:07
  injuries and I couldn't compete, I announced that thinking to
• 1:38:10
  myself, OK, with all this experience we've gathered for
• 1:38:13
  the past three years, how can we flip it around so that we start
• 1:38:17
  creating opportunities for men after me so that they have more
• 1:38:22
  stuff to fight for, they have better opportunities, they
• 1:38:24
  better taking care of. And I started developing combat
• 1:38:27
  culture, deeper developed style, working behind the scenes, help
• 1:38:31
  some guys get signed, get some guys contracts across to the
• 1:38:35
  people that need to see them. Because of all the the I have
• 1:38:38
  the benefit of being educated and being a fighter.
• 1:38:40
  So there are many different things that I can take advantage
• 1:38:43
  of that the regular guy just might not because he's just a
• 1:38:47
  guy off the streets. All he has is fighting.
• 1:38:48
  I have the benefits of both. So I said OK, it's time, let's
• 1:38:51
  utilise all those skills and let's see what we can create And
• 1:38:55
  yeah, this is the outcome now I guess.
• 1:38:58
  Interesting. So, so how about the heights?
• 1:39:00
  What would you say up in the Heights so far?
• 1:39:04
  The highs. Well, I think working on Super
• 1:39:08
  Sports two times in a row and getting all that feedback that
• 1:39:12
  it was an excellent performance by myself like I I that was a
• 1:39:16
  really humbling experience for me.
• 1:39:18
  I think that was definitely because you never.
• 1:39:20
  When I started, I started by doing Bakali shows in Abuja.
• 1:39:24
  Should I used to do shows in night clubs?
• 1:39:25
  I used to do any show that I could get my hands on just to
• 1:39:28
  clean up my analytic skill, analytical skills of the sport
• 1:39:32
  and being able to do it on that. Like, I just wanted to learn
• 1:39:34
  because I always my dream, my current goal is to do analysis
• 1:39:38
  on ESPN beside Joe Rogan when the UFC comes to Africa.
• 1:39:41
  And that's I've been working on that for like 2 1/2 years now.
• 1:39:45
  So when I got to super sports, I was like, yo, we're actually in
• 1:39:50
  the big leagues now, bro. Like you you you started off
• 1:39:53
  from the bottom, but you are literally here.
• 1:39:55
  Like there's gonna, this is gonna be viewed live in 54
• 1:39:58
  different countries and it's your face, it's your voice and
• 1:40:03
  it's your it's also your time. Like go out there and do all the
• 1:40:06
  stuff that you've been doing in the seat behind the scenes when
• 1:40:09
  people were laughing at you, when people were making fun of
• 1:40:11
  you getting beat and when you got your eye shots, when you got
• 1:40:14
  the stitches. It's time go show the world what
• 1:40:17
  you can do. So being on that and and
• 1:40:20
  commentators. Risk.
• 1:40:21
  And then seeing people send me messages from around the world
• 1:40:25
  telling me you you look good on camera.
• 1:40:27
  You your analysis is spot on or you.
• 1:40:30
  I'm loving this. I can't stop watching because of
• 1:40:32
  you. That was a that was a high doing
• 1:40:34
  that. Then being told immediately
• 1:40:35
  afterwards that you they they want me to talk to Kamaru Usman
• 1:40:39
  about his plans for ME in Nigeria.
• 1:40:41
  That was a big high too. We talked, shook hands.
• 1:40:45
  He laughed at even cracked jokes about his Leon Edwards knockout.
• 1:40:48
  Because this was after Leon Edwards knockouts and we talked
• 1:40:50
  about it on camera, like he joked, uh, he joked he joked
• 1:40:54
  about it, which he he told me what his plans were.
• 1:40:57
  And that was another moment, because I remember when I was
• 1:41:01
  living in my parents house in Mabushi.
• 1:41:02
  I know you told me that you lived in Mabushi.
• 1:41:04
  I didn't tell you that. Yeah.
• 1:41:06
  That's where I used to live, yeah.
• 1:41:11
  So I remember when, yeah man, it's a cool place and it's
• 1:41:15
  improving as well. Like, there's so much
• 1:41:16
  development there now. It's it's a really nice place.
• 1:41:18
  So I love the fact that, yeah, it is, It is, it is, it's it's
• 1:41:23
  I, I I consider it's one of the best places to own a house in
• 1:41:26
  Abuja because it's just central. You have access to the roads,
• 1:41:31
  the power situation is good, it's nice, it's peaceful, so
• 1:41:35
  everything. So I would remember nights where
• 1:41:39
  I would be lying down in my my bedroom, in my parents' house
• 1:41:42
  editing videos for YouTube. Back then, I still cared about
• 1:41:46
  views. I don't care about views
• 1:41:47
  anymore. I don't even care about
• 1:41:49
  engagement or all those things. It's just about getting to work
• 1:41:51
  done. Just do the work.
• 1:41:53
  It's not. I don't.
• 1:41:54
  So back then I'll be getting sad some nights or nobody watched
• 1:41:57
  this video. Look at how nobody cared about
• 1:41:59
  this. We asked them to send emails.
• 1:42:00
  Nobody sent this. Well, I remember when I would
• 1:42:03
  want to motivate myself. I would think many days is going
• 1:42:07
  to come when I'm going to interview Kamaru Usman and I'm
• 1:42:11
  talking to you now. And I've done it.
• 1:42:12
  I've I've met him twice. I've worked with him, I've
• 1:42:15
  worked under him. I've interviewed him.
• 1:42:16
  And this is as late, as early as four years ago.
• 1:42:19
  This is not like I'm saying 10 years ago.
• 1:42:21
  This isn't this like how how long has Kamaru Usman's time on
• 1:42:25
  the top bin? It's not.
• 1:42:26
  It's just been about 3-4 years. I in that period I said no, day
• 1:42:29
  is going to come and interview and keep working, keep working,
• 1:42:32
  keep working. And the day it was as it was
• 1:42:34
  happening, I remember looking at it, I was like God or more now.
• 1:42:37
  So life be is this life like? You can actually.
• 1:42:42
  You you can. You can create an.
• 1:42:45
  Even worse, when when the time comes, you can look at it and
• 1:42:50
  you'll be like, yeah, this is just another day, man, I have
• 1:42:52
  work to do tomorrow. Like there's more stuff to do
• 1:42:53
  tomorrow. When you even get there, it
• 1:42:55
  won't even be as much of a big deal for you anymore.
• 1:42:57
  And I'm like, is this, is this it is this life, This is life.
• 1:43:02
  So you can keep getting this every single day of your life.
• 1:43:07
  I'm an addict. Yeah, I'm an addict.
• 1:43:11
  Yeah, exactly. You know, it's it's interesting
• 1:43:14
  how sometimes you, you, you yearn for something, you desire
• 1:43:18
  something so much, right? And it.
• 1:43:20
  Does happen. To me a lot.
• 1:43:22
  You know, anytime I make like a major achievement, I'm usually
• 1:43:25
  not excited. Like, OK, yeah, yeah.
• 1:43:27
  What? Next.
• 1:43:28
  What next? I requested it like I've seen it
• 1:43:32
  coming. I wanted it to happen.
• 1:43:35
  So for me and I'm like, there's a major achievement.
• 1:43:38
  I just, I don't know it it, it works differently for different
• 1:43:42
  people. For me, I just stay reserved.
• 1:43:45
  I just keep a low, a low profile.
• 1:43:49
  I probably just stay alone and, you know, reflect.
• 1:43:54
  I don't go celebrating. Yeah, I just, you know, Yeah,
• 1:43:58
  well, yeah, it takes a while for it to kick in.
• 1:44:01
  I. Understand.
• 1:44:02
  Because if I head out like, OK, I'm already working on the next
• 1:44:05
  thing. Yeah, so.
• 1:44:07
  So I can I can very, very much indeed with that.
• 1:44:10
  It's, it's interesting. It's, it's, it's the Johnny
• 1:44:13
  Court life. Right.
• 1:44:15
  Right. But then I feel like it's not
• 1:44:17
  like it. Love it.
• 1:44:19
  Love proud, proud moments. And of course I do.
• 1:44:23
  I have one. I'm proud of you.
• 1:44:26
  Thank you. Thank you, man.
• 1:44:33
  Thank. You.
• 1:44:34
  You're welcome, my brother. So how would you say your team
• 1:44:38
  work life balance? Whoa, how do you see that?
• 1:44:45
  That's right. And and and and what are your
• 1:44:47
  major hobbies and personal interests?
• 1:44:50
  Yeah, so that's a 2/1 for you. OK, yeah, two in one.
• 1:44:56
  Alright, so work life balance for me is complicated because
• 1:45:00
  I've had to change what my expectations of certain words
• 1:45:04
  are. The English language, even the
• 1:45:06
  English language. I've had to change my
• 1:45:07
  expectations. I've I've discovered that when
• 1:45:09
  somebody says ohh, I went through a traumatic experience
• 1:45:12
  and when I say I went through a traumatic experience, they both
• 1:45:15
  mean trauma in English language. But in terms of the weight of
• 1:45:19
  the experience they may be very different things going both ways
• 1:45:23
  and so these days when people like so.
• 1:45:25
  So I think it's very important when I before I answer that
• 1:45:30
  question this loaded like how do you achieve work life balance to
• 1:45:33
  to define what work life balance is for me because what I what
• 1:45:37
  the social general knowledge or online or whatever is and what I
• 1:45:42
  have been able to carve for myself or understand for myself
• 1:45:46
  might be different. So for me work life balance is I
• 1:45:49
  need to get to a place where I'm always playing.
• 1:45:53
  I'm always playing. Literally.
• 1:45:55
  I need to get to that place. That's why.
• 1:45:58
  Because and like, let me bring it back to fighting.
• 1:46:00
  Since so much of this is tied to my my combat career.
• 1:46:03
  When, when? Because I discovered that I
• 1:46:05
  didn't care about the pain. I didn't care about this
• 1:46:09
  ordinance. I didn't care about the injuries
• 1:46:11
  because I I was playing. I was having fun.
• 1:46:13
  I was loving what I was doing. So you don't, even if your left
• 1:46:16
  leg is paining you, you just learn how to do it with your
• 1:46:18
  rights. And so for me now, it's become a
• 1:46:21
  philosophy in life. I believe that why I'm here is
• 1:46:25
  to discover my potential I had when I was a baby, when I was a
• 1:46:28
  child and I had all that boundless curiosity, all that
• 1:46:31
  boundless potential inside of me before life actually started to
• 1:46:35
  chisel me down and break me down.
• 1:46:38
  I I'm in a place now where I'm and what our kids always doing.
• 1:46:41
  Kids are always playing is they're eating.
• 1:46:44
  They are eating, sleeping or they're playing.
• 1:46:48
  They always want to play. And so now work life for me is a
• 1:46:51
  thing of OK, somebody else might say, you've been on the podcast
• 1:46:54
  for one hour 45 minutes, but I'm like, yo, man, we were just
• 1:46:58
  catching up on MMA stuff. I was just telling him about my
• 1:47:00
  stories. I was, I'm having fun.
• 1:47:02
  It's not work anymore. If you ask me.
• 1:47:05
  How did you do the podcast and them all that stuff you do, you
• 1:47:08
  don't. You post every day.
• 1:47:09
  You and you still train every day.
• 1:47:11
  I don't train. I play every single day.
• 1:47:15
  The train, the trade, the play. I I play can just be called
• 1:47:18
  training. But I'm literally playing.
• 1:47:20
  I'm playing, doing, solving problems with my mind.
• 1:47:22
  I'm doing memory exercises. I'm balancing on one leg.
• 1:47:25
  I'm running distances. I'm seeing how far, how my heart
• 1:47:28
  holds up and playing. I'm not training.
• 1:47:32
  If you ask me how the podcast I'm so for me, work.
• 1:47:35
  Life balance is a thing of OK, how much play can we fit into
• 1:47:38
  one day? Then how much of that play can
• 1:47:41
  be productive? Like how much of that play?
• 1:47:43
  Because Nigeria has showed me the value of time.
• 1:47:46
  I don't have the luxury of going to the club.
• 1:47:48
  I don't have the luxury of womanising because time is so
• 1:47:53
  valuable. It is literally, I don't have
• 1:47:55
  money, even the money to say let me go and do those things.
• 1:47:57
  I don't have it. Everything I have is literally
• 1:48:00
  going into this one thing that gives me joy while I'm here.
• 1:48:05
  So if you ask me, how do I achieve work, life balance, it's
• 1:48:08
  play. My play has become the things
• 1:48:12
  that give me fitness, that give me health, that give me wealth,
• 1:48:15
  that give me that give me wisdom, Most importantly, but
• 1:48:20
  I'm always playing. Even right now, as I'm talking
• 1:48:22
  to you, I'm storing, I'm storing things in my head and I'm like,
• 1:48:25
  OK, how, how long can we hold this thing so we don't forget
• 1:48:28
  it. Then just when the point is
• 1:48:29
  about to leave and bring it back.
• 1:48:31
  That play, that's a jab, that's timing.
• 1:48:33
  Infighting, that's play. So for me, it's work, life,
• 1:48:36
  balance. So, So I wake up 4:00 AM
• 1:48:38
  everyday. People that know me know this
• 1:48:40
  and so I can train from training.
• 1:48:42
  I'm. I'm doing my morning routine,
• 1:48:44
  drinking my smoothie. I'm studying.
• 1:48:46
  I'm reading the news. I'm doing everything I need to
• 1:48:47
  do before work starts by 7. That's the most fun part of my
• 1:48:51
  day. When the sun is low, there's no
• 1:48:54
  sound. I can edit the podcast, I can
• 1:48:56
  read record the the to my writing, I can do my reading, I
• 1:48:59
  can read my books. 7. I'm on my way to the office
• 1:49:02
  because my colleagues will get in around 9:00, so I have a two
• 1:49:05
  hour in the way. I can now focus on professional
• 1:49:07
  developments because this is what I mean time.
• 1:49:09
  It's like I've seen that it's not enough to just be a top
• 1:49:11
  level MMA commentator, analyst, fighter in Nigeria.
• 1:49:16
  No, it's not enough to be a a software developer.
• 1:49:19
  No, these are and it's not there.
• 1:49:21
  But yeah, it's life. That's the these are the cards
• 1:49:23
  we've been given in this, in this country.
• 1:49:25
  And you since. I've learned that it's no longer
• 1:49:28
  about money. It's about time.
• 1:49:30
  It's like, how quickly, how well can we utilise this?
• 1:49:31
  So from work, I'm coming. I train in the morning, go to
• 1:49:34
  work, do my my studies at work, come back from the office around
• 1:49:38
  4:00 PM. I train in the evening, do
• 1:49:41
  whatever else I need to do, edit, do my whatever.
• 1:49:43
  If I'm really in a good mood, I might drive to the park, run
• 1:49:46
  around the park, do my 10 kilometre run.
• 1:49:48
  I try to do that twice a week. I do my mobility work before
• 1:49:51
  sleep, my flexibility, everything, breathwork,
• 1:49:54
  everything I tried to do. Make sure every day I do all
• 1:49:59
  those things. Why?
• 1:50:00
  Because I'm playing when you want.
• 1:50:02
  If you ever want to see me in a place where I'm anxious, where
• 1:50:05
  I'm not too great, where I'm not as calm and composed as I am,
• 1:50:08
  and everybody compliments me on on my composure, and I give God
• 1:50:13
  the glory for that. I've always had it.
• 1:50:14
  But if you want to see me anxious, I'm the worst when I'm
• 1:50:18
  anxious. And it always happens on the
• 1:50:21
  days that I rest, when I'm supposed to have trained.
• 1:50:23
  Because for me, you have the anxiety, my way of of of pushing
• 1:50:28
  the anxiety out of my body, of pushing the stress out of my
• 1:50:31
  body by making myself stronger. So if I don't train, you will
• 1:50:35
  see me very anxious. You see me complaining, you see
• 1:50:38
  me worrying about the future. You see me saying I'm, I don't
• 1:50:41
  want to work, I'm too tired, I'm this, I'm that.
• 1:50:44
  But if I'm if I'm doing what I'm supposed to.
• 1:50:48
  So basically that's my how do you achieve work, life balance.
• 1:50:50
  I don't want to beat it too much play, just turn it into play.
• 1:50:55
  Interested. So like your your your hobbies,
• 1:50:58
  right? What?
• 1:50:59
  What would you say those? Are Ohh I love learning man.
• 1:51:04
  I love learning. I love DVD and I love learning.
• 1:51:07
  I love watching people teach. I love seeing masters at their
• 1:51:11
  craft. In any craft, be it cooking, be
• 1:51:14
  it fighting beats, beats, paragliding, snowboarding.
• 1:51:19
  I just love seeing because I've just, I've seen that mastery is
• 1:51:23
  a transferable skill and all masters know this and the
• 1:51:27
  students get stuck in trying to be the student.
• 1:51:30
  But the Master is a true Master understands that his job is just
• 1:51:34
  to create more masters like him. And you get to mastery through
• 1:51:37
  efficiency. Ohh, distribute.
• 1:51:38
  It's it's just I love learning. I love seeing masters at work.
• 1:51:41
  I love reading books. I love understanding history.
• 1:51:43
  I love understanding the psychology of people.
• 1:51:46
  I like talking vulnerably with people so that they know it's
• 1:51:49
  not about being an inspiration or anything.
• 1:51:51
  It's just like everybody. I just need everybody to know.
• 1:51:53
  I've discovered most of us don't realise that everybody is a
• 1:51:56
  human being. Just like you, like as as
• 1:51:58
  grandiose as all these stories I've told you have been.
• 1:52:02
  Every human being on this planet is going through it in their own
• 1:52:05
  way. It's just that we don't talk, we
• 1:52:08
  don't share, we don't everybody. We have all these them, all
• 1:52:11
  these books, all these boxes that we we fit very neatly into
• 1:52:16
  and I just like to talk to people.
• 1:52:18
  I like people to know that you you can you can have a beer in
• 1:52:21
  the evening with your friends, have a good time and still go
• 1:52:24
  around 20 kilometres in the morning and be great by the
• 1:52:27
  afternoon and have an amazing day and have an amazing life
• 1:52:30
  like you can cause. Something I need to highlight
• 1:52:33
  for you is so, so one of the reasons I'm saying I like
• 1:52:36
  learning is because Nigeria has shaped me so much in terms of
• 1:52:42
  the like I all of us in this country are always problem
• 1:52:47
  solving. You're always solving the
• 1:52:48
  problem. You're always solving the
• 1:52:50
  electricity, always solving your power.
• 1:52:53
  You always solving water. You always you're always.
• 1:52:55
  So one of the things that I've seen is that if you can just
• 1:53:03
  focus on being that guy you can just if you can just be at least
• 1:53:08
  it it it it just be that stability in the life of one or
• 1:53:12
  two people in your life like great things, great things can
• 1:53:16
  happen. So learning has been a way for
• 1:53:19
  me to to to cover of those gaps mean like I can't.
• 1:53:23
  I've read, I read, I read, I read sociology papers, I read
• 1:53:26
  psychology papers like I I I I read I I should be just because
• 1:53:33
  the environment has put it in my head that I'm on a clock.
• 1:53:36
  Like I'm on a really tight clock.
• 1:53:38
  I need to find a way to have fun.
• 1:53:39
  They used to go to the club every day when I was in uni, but
• 1:53:41
  as an adult now still be able to have fun that that same way but
• 1:53:45
  still be putting out world class level stuff every single day.
• 1:53:50
  And so my hobbies have very have very much, very much become one
• 1:53:56
  with my habits. And like when I'm playing video
• 1:54:00
  games I because I still play video games, my PS5IS right
• 1:54:03
  beside me. When my girlfriend comes
• 1:54:05
  tomorrow, like we'll probably play God of War together.
• 1:54:07
  But like when I'm playing video games now I'm.
• 1:54:11
  I'm trying to understand the storytelling.
• 1:54:14
  I'm trying to understand narratives, what the animations
• 1:54:17
  animators did. Because remember I told you I
• 1:54:19
  want to make a video game at some point.
• 1:54:21
  So for me, the incentive to keep doing this thing I love is that
• 1:54:24
  I get to learn. I'm getting.
• 1:54:25
  I'm seeing how the top, the greatest minds in the world
• 1:54:28
  apply art, applied music, apply rhythm, pacing and storytelling
• 1:54:33
  to video games. I'm learning and I'm having fun.
• 1:54:36
  I'm doing what I'm playing. It's my philosophy.
• 1:54:39
  And so when I'm done, that knowledge translates into my
• 1:54:42
  Nigerian, my Nigerian nerd YouTube channel I try to distil
• 1:54:45
  that's to teach other Nigerians that, OK, look at what people
• 1:54:48
  are doing and look at how they break this, look at how they
• 1:54:51
  take inspiration from modern religion and apply it to this
• 1:54:55
  fantasy world that they are building.
• 1:54:56
  And I get it doesn't the videos don't get a lot of views.
• 1:54:58
  But if 500 people view you, breaking down is is really
• 1:55:03
  simple topic that can make their lives better.
• 1:55:05
  Me even just 10 people viewing a YouTube video is is a win for
• 1:55:08
  me. Even just five.
• 1:55:09
  I can barely fit 10 people into my living room on a good day.
• 1:55:12
  So just 10 people, 500 people. I don't.
• 1:55:16
  And that's why I mean when I say the views, really, I've had to
• 1:55:18
  change my own meaning of what these things.
• 1:55:21
  Are so. I I'm so yeah, all my hobbies be
• 1:55:24
  bleed into into what I do like fighting bleeds into combat
• 1:55:28
  culture, gaming all that other stuff training, reading studying
• 1:55:32
  leads into Nigerian nerd and all those things are building into a
• 1:55:35
  future that God willing our manifest for myself and those
• 1:55:38
  around me when the time comes. Interesting.
• 1:55:42
  So. So what skill or competence
• 1:55:44
  would you say you have right and you're proud of, but people do
• 1:55:47
  not know about? Ohh man, critical thinking and
• 1:55:55
  analysis, I think. I think I I think I'll give
• 1:55:58
  myself props there. It's the thing I I've, I've
• 1:56:02
  been, I've been, I've been tested on occasion, on several
• 1:56:05
  occasions, and so far I haven't been found wanting to the glory
• 1:56:08
  of God like I keep trying to improve in that regard, empathy,
• 1:56:13
  being able to to relate with people.
• 1:56:16
  I've been able to talk to fighters from the Democratic
• 1:56:20
  Republic of Congo. I've spoken with fighters from
• 1:56:22
  the Niger Republic, I've spoken with fighters that can speak
• 1:56:25
  English, letters that speak exclusively French.
• 1:56:28
  I need to get a translator in and I've been able to make all,
• 1:56:31
  all of them laugh. I've been able to make all of
• 1:56:33
  them smile. I've been able to make all of
• 1:56:35
  them tell me their stories and it's because I'm a real guy
• 1:56:38
  myself. I don't.
• 1:56:39
  I don't hold back my punches with people like I'm I come at
• 1:56:42
  you straight. If you give me 100%, you, you
• 1:56:45
  always receive 100% from me. So generally what I've
• 1:56:48
  discovered is people give me 110 back when they see that, that's
• 1:56:52
  that, that honesty is there. So empathy, being able to feel
• 1:56:56
  what people are feeling, being able to let them know that you
• 1:56:59
  are listening to them. They are not just tearing them
• 1:57:04
  down and that has helped me become a better person, just as
• 1:57:07
  a whole better friend. So I'm I'm usually the guy
• 1:57:09
  people lean on when they need something, when they need
• 1:57:12
  advice, when they need support, When everything is falling to
• 1:57:16
  hell, I'm usually the guy that they call to to to to come and
• 1:57:19
  turn out the fires. And I've learned to embrace
• 1:57:22
  that. I I love pressure.
• 1:57:24
  Pressure makes me happy. Like it gives me.
• 1:57:27
  It gets me excited when they say 55 different people like 5
• 1:57:31
  countries are going to tune in and or 10,000 people are
• 1:57:34
  listening to you speak right now and you can't make a mistake
• 1:57:36
  while you're speaking. I love it.
• 1:57:39
  It makes me happy. He gives me excitements.
• 1:57:41
  It's a way to give glory to God as well.
• 1:57:43
  That's the most important thing because I always let people know
• 1:57:46
  that as much as it sounds like I'm disciplined and I'm this and
• 1:57:50
  I'm that is God like last last night God like I could have died
• 1:57:54
  on so many different occasions before getting to this point
• 1:57:57
  that I just have to give God glory.
• 1:58:00
  So so yeah man. It's another thing I try to do
• 1:58:04
  which is now which is now the this thing.
• 1:58:07
  Let me tell you the hardest thing.
• 1:58:09
  Don't take it any of it too seriously.
• 1:58:11
  Don't take any of it too seriously.
• 1:58:13
  Don't take the wins seriously. Don't take the L seriously.
• 1:58:17
  Don't take the mistake seriously.
• 1:58:18
  Don't take yesterday seriously. Don't take tomorrow seriously.
• 1:58:21
  I'm taking seriously is right now this conversation.
• 1:58:24
  After I'm done this conversation what am I doing next.
• 1:58:26
  And don't take any of it seriously If If people laughed
• 1:58:29
  at you. I have.
• 1:58:30
  I looked at my old boxing videos like hitting the bag you this
• 1:58:34
  morning I couldn't even watch more than two seconds of it.
• 1:58:36
  I was like, whoa, but I had the courage to post it up and and
• 1:58:39
  now that I'm so much better, I'm it's the the the improvement is
• 1:58:44
  so much clearer and I'm just like, yeah, I'm really happy.
• 1:58:46
  I didn't take it too seriously back then.
• 1:58:47
  Like I'm really happy that I didn't care when people laughed
• 1:58:49
  at me. I'm really happy that I didn't
• 1:58:51
  care when I failed, when I was making mistakes.
• 1:58:53
  I think I really don't care about those.
• 1:58:55
  I don't care. I've cried in the middle of the
• 1:58:57
  gym because I got beaten so hard, like tears were coming out
• 1:59:00
  of my eye. I've been through so much and
• 1:59:04
  I've just discovered, don't take yourself too seriously, man.
• 1:59:07
  Like all of us are on this rock, spinning in space, living by
• 1:59:10
  God's grace and just gonna die. So just have.
• 1:59:13
  Just have fun every moment of the day, yeah.
• 1:59:17
  Interesting. So Speaking of your critical
• 1:59:20
  thinking skills and of course your empathy, we're going to put
• 1:59:25
  facts to test in the last few questions that we have on the
• 1:59:29
  product. Right?
• 1:59:30
  So typically on the port the last question usually is what
• 1:59:35
  advice do you have for upcoming, you know, professionals,
• 1:59:39
  businessmen, young people and young people generally in
• 1:59:42
  general, rather than just what advice do you have for the young
• 1:59:47
  up and coming, you know, individuals in society.
• 1:59:50
  So would that be? OK, it's important to remember
• 1:59:59
  at every point in time that this is the very first time that this
• 2:00:06
  point in time has ever happened or will ever happen.
• 2:00:12
  What do I mean by that? You are literally the first of
• 2:00:16
  your kind. Like there's never going to be a
• 2:00:18
  Demola ever again. 20 whenever I'm talking to you now, 2020,
• 2:00:24
  323rd, there is never going to be another Demola.
• 2:00:28
  And by virtue of that, everything that Demola is doing
• 2:00:30
  now, he's the first of his kind. And to ever do it, there's
• 2:00:35
  nobody else has ever done. There's never been a guy named
• 2:00:38
  Imola. I went to to to the UK.
• 2:00:40
  It's like did accounting started up with this with your same
• 2:00:42
  background? Never.
• 2:00:43
  It's you, and you are very much the if you look at it that way,
• 2:00:49
  then that means you are very much the rider of the horse and
• 2:00:52
  the horse at the same time. You are both the captain of the
• 2:00:57
  ship and the ship at the same time.
• 2:01:00
  And what that means is that you should make it a priority to do
• 2:01:07
  everything that you are supposed to be doing.
• 2:01:10
  Make it a priority to do all the things that are chair is
• 2:01:14
  support. Because nobody else is going to
• 2:01:16
  do what the chair or chair this. This is this is the only or
• 2:01:19
  chair. That chair that has ever lived
• 2:01:21
  and is alive at 2023 and is an MMA podcaster and is this and
• 2:01:25
  that and that. OK, so we know who our chair is,
• 2:01:28
  right? Let's go do what our chair is
• 2:01:29
  supposed to be doing. I'm not asking the question what
• 2:01:33
  am I supposed to be doing? Or no, no.
• 2:01:35
  I have the benefits now of knowing what I'm supposed to be
• 2:01:38
  doing. I've suffered.
• 2:01:40
  I've gone through all these experiences that I've I've I
• 2:01:43
  laid out for you really life altering experiences that have
• 2:01:46
  shaped me. And now the benefit of that is I
• 2:01:51
  know what I'm supposed to do. And so now that I know it, why
• 2:01:55
  don't I just go and do it? It might mean waking up early in
• 2:01:59
  the morning. It might mean reading new topics
• 2:02:02
  and learning new skills. It might mean studying what the
• 2:02:05
  greatest minds in commentary and analysis in combat sports do.
• 2:02:08
  How do they pace themselves? How do they talk?
• 2:02:10
  How they analyse the situation. It also means innovating.
• 2:02:14
  It means putting my or chair into everything I do.
• 2:02:18
  It means this podcast has to be the only podcast that sounds
• 2:02:21
  like or Chair Charles Headache with King James ever.
• 2:02:25
  It's going to be in the annals of history.
• 2:02:27
  That's how I look at it. It's I gave my best.
• 2:02:30
  I gave my best for these two hours and one minute.
• 2:02:33
  Now that we've just hit, it doesn't matter how many people
• 2:02:36
  watch. What matters is you have.
• 2:02:38
  I give you my full, uninterrupted attention.
• 2:02:41
  I've won. I've won.
• 2:02:43
  This is, this is this is it has it has shaped the rest of my
• 2:02:46
  money and it's why I did what I was supposed to do.
• 2:02:50
  So it sounds like really really old man village advice, right.
• 2:02:54
  Well if I this is, this is how I get things done.
• 2:02:56
  It's it's really it's really it's how I get things done.
• 2:02:59
  You know when you need to train, you know when you are fit, you
• 2:03:02
  know when you're not. When you're drinking and eating
• 2:03:04
  the wrong things. You know when you're when you're
• 2:03:06
  spending time with the wrong friends, you always know.
• 2:03:09
  So just do the thing you're supposed to do.
• 2:03:11
  Figure out why. The first of all, just figure
• 2:03:14
  out why they always root causes. There's traumatic things.
• 2:03:16
  There's mental disorders. I used to have.
• 2:03:18
  I used to believe that I had ADHD.
• 2:03:20
  I never thought I'd be able to. That's why I I keep telling you,
• 2:03:25
  oh, I'm playing games with myself.
• 2:03:26
  I have to keep an idea, then go far away, then come back and
• 2:03:29
  catch it because I'm testing. Do I really have that ADHD?
• 2:03:32
  Let me let me show myself I can do it.
• 2:03:34
  I can push it a little bit further.
• 2:03:35
  I can test my memory a bit further.
• 2:03:36
  I can be a bit more engaging without losing the topic of the
• 2:03:40
  conversation. Just push yourself, which then
• 2:03:41
  come back. It's a game, but it's a game.
• 2:03:44
  But I'm giving you my best at every point in time, so this is
• 2:03:48
  what makes this What makes me happy is going to be different
• 2:03:51
  for everyone. But figure out what makes you
• 2:03:54
  happy. Figure out what something.
• 2:03:56
  That can give you this. Kind of.
• 2:03:58
  I wake up by the dead of night and yeah, that's what works for
• 2:04:02
  me. Thank you.
• 2:04:04
  Interesting. So we have a tradition at the
• 2:04:06
  end of the port, right. So the previous guest leaves a
• 2:04:09
  question for the next guests and of course the current guest
• 2:04:13
  leaves a question for the next. So the question that has been
• 2:04:18
  left for you is a question from Nancy Corsa.
• 2:04:22
  She is the CEO and founder of the black business enterprises
• 2:04:29
  in the United States. They have presence in I think
• 2:04:32
  about 48 states in the United States and she these are very
• 2:04:36
  influential black woman right. She, she, she, she has done a
• 2:04:40
  lot for the black community and she's dropping this question for
• 2:04:43
  you. It's it's a very simple one, she
• 2:04:46
  says. What would you what would you do
• 2:04:48
  to end world hunger? All right, so hunger can be
• 2:04:57
  described in many different ways.
• 2:04:59
  There's the most literal sense, which is physical sustenance.
• 2:05:04
  There are but but you can attest I can look at them all now and I
• 2:05:10
  can tell Demola is not hungry for food.
• 2:05:13
  But you're still hungry. Today I'm hungry.
• 2:05:18
  No. Let's, well, let's say we're
• 2:05:22
  fasting. You can eat, you can provide for
• 2:05:28
  yourself, but but that's but not but.
• 2:05:31
  Does that mean your capacity to give yourself food now?
• 2:05:35
  Does that translate into you saying that you're not hungry
• 2:05:40
  for anything at all? No.
• 2:05:42
  Your your your goals change as you aspire towards more.
• 2:05:47
  And if I'm going to give you an answer, and I want to be honest
• 2:05:51
  with you intellectually, I can't just give you an answer about
• 2:05:55
  how do you get people to eat more, How do you get more people
• 2:05:58
  out of poverty? Because that is the hunger that
• 2:06:01
  is most pressing and we see. I would like to give you an
• 2:06:03
  answer that is a bit more whole, holistic and a bit more
• 2:06:06
  horizontal. In my thinking, I look at people
• 2:06:10
  every day, and as somebody who discovered that it's possible to
• 2:06:16
  achieve your potential with the most limited resources without
• 2:06:20
  anybody believing in you, without any support from your
• 2:06:23
  society or your environment, I've I've seen that it's truly
• 2:06:26
  put it's really possible to reach your potential with
• 2:06:29
  nothing at all. All of us have it inside of us,
• 2:06:33
  but the issue now is most people so far from what I like to call
• 2:06:39
  poverty. But it's not poverty in terms of
• 2:06:42
  wealth. It's poverty of the mind and
• 2:06:44
  poverty of the body. Poverty of the body translates
• 2:06:50
  into your health and your Wellness.
• 2:06:52
  Most of us are unhealthy. Most of us eat the wrong things.
• 2:06:54
  Most of us are inflamed. Most of us have poor range of
• 2:06:57
  motion in our hips, in our spine.
• 2:06:58
  Most of us aren't flexible anymore.
• 2:07:00
  Most of us wake up with all sorts of pains in our necks and
• 2:07:02
  our bodies. Most of us are not healthy now.
• 2:07:07
  Our translation for what freedom from this kind of unhealthiness
• 2:07:11
  means spur comes from money. We think about.
• 2:07:14
  If I'm rich enough, I can have I can afford the best healthcare.
• 2:07:17
  If if I have enough money, I can fly my, my family outside of
• 2:07:21
  Nigeria to to have a better life.
• 2:07:23
  First class, it will be first class citizens, you know in a
• 2:07:26
  first world country all of that. But I'll give you an example
• 2:07:31
  that recently turned that philosophy on its head and its
• 2:07:35
  recently Glaxo Smith, Kline and a few of the pharmaceutical
• 2:07:39
  industries that produce in Nigeria left in 2023.
• 2:07:43
  The cost of medical care in Nigeria now is in my opinion
• 2:07:49
  it's it's it's it's it's irresponsible of you to expect
• 2:07:54
  that you can get healthcare to solve your problems because it's
• 2:07:58
  so expensive. I have a friend, Alan.
• 2:08:00
  Alan. Alan had kidney kidney
• 2:08:02
  replacement surgery done three years ago.
• 2:08:04
  So he's always on medication to keep his immune system in check
• 2:08:07
  so that his body can keep taking to the new kidney that he's
• 2:08:10
  taking. Alan used to spend about 90K or
• 2:08:12
  something a month for his medication before he after GSK
• 2:08:16
  and these companies left overnight.
• 2:08:19
  He spends about 250,000 naira now every month we're talking
• 2:08:23
  like a 300% increase overnight your earning power, you know
• 2:08:28
  increase the the cost of your of your currency.
• 2:08:31
  The value of your currency is dropping but that's his new
• 2:08:35
  normal. Nobody is going to apologise,
• 2:08:37
  nobody is going to compensate him.
• 2:08:39
  There's not. That's his new normal and that
• 2:08:41
  is Nigeria. So for me now, it's a thing of
• 2:08:46
  you need people to be free. You need people.
• 2:08:48
  You need people. And when I say free, I need.
• 2:08:50
  I mean poverty of the body now is taking control of your
• 2:08:53
  health. It's taking control of what you
• 2:08:55
  eat, When you sleep, when you wake up, when you train, how
• 2:08:58
  much you eat everything, how you breathe air.
• 2:09:01
  Are you breathing through your nose?
• 2:09:02
  I breathe through your mouth. OK, stop breathing your mouth.
• 2:09:04
  Breathe out so that your brain can get more oxygen.
• 2:09:06
  Your immune system gets the strengthened more.
• 2:09:08
  OK, What do you drink? You drink sugar.
• 2:09:10
  OK, we can have sugar anymore. That ruins your immune system.
• 2:09:12
  That causes you inflammation. And that's why you have all this
• 2:09:14
  swelling, all this pain. We need to get to a point where
• 2:09:17
  people start to look at their health as something that they
• 2:09:21
  have complete and utter control over.
• 2:09:24
  Now somebody will got me on see who's this guy?
• 2:09:28
  Bald head just isn't here in his house in Abuja giving giving
• 2:09:31
  their all this advice for something that he doesn't know
• 2:09:34
  and just just just stay with me. I'm asthmatic.
• 2:09:38
  I used to be asthmatic all my life.
• 2:09:40
  Secondary school was a living hell for me because I used to
• 2:09:42
  once. It's hammer time like it's
• 2:09:44
  hammer turn right now. Asthma would kill me for the
• 2:09:49
  three months that were in school.
• 2:09:50
  Misery, just health and breathing issues, Long issues.
• 2:09:54
  These are tell me take your Ventolin inhaler.
• 2:09:56
  Take steroidal inhaler, take this, take that.
• 2:09:58
  And I used to take those things and they will provide you
• 2:10:00
  temporary relief. But when I started to understand
• 2:10:05
  my body, not the human body now, not medicine.
• 2:10:09
  Not what medicine. My body.
• 2:10:11
  My own cycles. My own macros.
• 2:10:13
  My own macros. How do I operate?
• 2:10:15
  How do I operate efficiently? I said to understand it.
• 2:10:19
  I started to see that, oh, they were inefficiencies in the way I
• 2:10:21
  breathe. I used to prioritise my left, my
• 2:10:24
  left side, my right side over my left side.
• 2:10:26
  Oh, there's this, there's that. I have posture issues.
• 2:10:28
  I have Dimola step by step. Over the past four years, all
• 2:10:32
  those issues have been solved not by virtue of seeing a
• 2:10:35
  chiropractor, not by saying I am the most healthy I've ever been
• 2:10:39
  in my life. I don't have asthma.
• 2:10:40
  I run 10 kilometres in Matalan Harmattan, and asthma patients
• 2:10:45
  will tell you running Hamilton is death.
• 2:10:49
  It's akin to suicide. I do it now twice a week,
• 2:10:52
  effortless. I just need to focus on how I'm
• 2:10:55
  breathing. I have freedom in the sense that
• 2:10:58
  I have not caught malaria. Innovate in getting to four
• 2:11:00
  years now. I don't wake up with body pains.
• 2:11:03
  I train every single day and I don't get sore.
• 2:11:06
  I don't lose my consistency for anything because there's a
• 2:11:13
  freedom that my body has now afforded me.
• 2:11:15
  I'm support. I'm malleable.
• 2:11:17
  I'm able to adapt to my environment.
• 2:11:18
  When there's no light boom. If I don't, if I don't need to
• 2:11:21
  go to the gym anymore, I set up a gym at home.
• 2:11:23
  As I told you before, I have freedom.
• 2:11:25
  I can truly speak to the fact that you can be free of your
• 2:11:30
  body despite your limitations. Mosquito bites me.
• 2:11:32
  Where are the Commons? Mosquito bites me.
• 2:11:35
  Is not a thing of you. They spray your house.
• 2:11:37
  Mosquito. Mosquito device.
• 2:11:39
  You want to tell me? I don't get that I don't drink
• 2:11:42
  water. That isn't Isn't that isn't that
• 2:11:45
  is 100 no water I drink so I know it's not.
• 2:11:47
  It's tainted. I know that it's still.
• 2:11:49
  But why am I not falling sick? Why am I healthy?
• 2:11:53
  I understand my body. And that's the first freedom I
• 2:11:57
  feel everybody if you can give because me now I ask people,
• 2:12:01
  what's the difference between what I'm telling you and you go
• 2:12:03
  into a church and pastor touches your head and then gives you
• 2:12:06
  this thing that he wants you to do at this specific time every
• 2:12:10
  day. And then every day you do it for
• 2:12:11
  like 3 weeks. And they say on the third week
• 2:12:13
  pastor my neck stopping you I could not walk my knees no
• 2:12:16
  longer paying me. I wish to wake up by that 3:00
• 2:12:18
  AM and do that exercise that used to tell me to do what he
• 2:12:21
  said. What he said.
• 2:12:22
  Miracle. But if I come at you now and
• 2:12:25
  tell you no, no, no, we can actually look at this and work
• 2:12:28
  on it together and we'll get your knees straight, we'll get
• 2:12:30
  your back straight, we'll get your eyesight sharper, We'll get
• 2:12:32
  your reaction time, we'll get your long stronger, We'll get
• 2:12:35
  your cardiovascular. Is that is it?
• 2:12:37
  Would you tell me? No.
• 2:12:39
  Yeah, I'm coming with all this mumbo jumbo, all these things.
• 2:12:41
  It's not. It's not.
• 2:12:42
  But if somebody else with a religious backing of an
• 2:12:45
  institution does it, it's it's so basically freedom of the of
• 2:12:49
  the body, then freedom of the mind.
• 2:12:51
  This is what I want to round up on.
• 2:12:53
  The only way you can get people to no longer be poor, to no
• 2:12:57
  longer be poor is to let them understand that there is an
• 2:13:01
  entire universe of potential lean dormant inside of them.
• 2:13:05
  And your job as a as a friend, as a brother, as in Nigeria, as
• 2:13:11
  an African, should be to educate them on the power that they have
• 2:13:15
  inside of their mind. If they can utilise the tools at
• 2:13:17
  their disposal, if they can teach themselves key skills that
• 2:13:20
  they are passionate about. The way I taught myself and I
• 2:13:23
  went to seek out just in combat because I was passionate about
• 2:13:26
  combat and it has given me a layer of freedom that most
• 2:13:31
  people may never experience. That's the same way anybody can
• 2:13:35
  achieve it. It's literally just about taking
• 2:13:37
  advantage of what is inside of you.
• 2:13:38
  So you need to educate people on how to educate themselves.
• 2:13:41
  I'm not saying educate people on being programmers.
• 2:13:43
  I'm not. No, you people need to learn how
• 2:13:46
  to learn. Like you need to be able to look
• 2:13:47
  at life as a series of transferable skills.
• 2:13:50
  OK, I have all these good interpersonal skills as the
• 2:13:54
  podcaster, how can I translate that as a salesperson?
• 2:13:57
  How can I translate that as if anything, it's just transferable
• 2:14:01
  skills. But you can only achieve that
• 2:14:03
  level of freedom if your mind is open, if you're able to take on
• 2:14:06
  new ideas, if you are, if you have, if you are not poor
• 2:14:10
  mentally. So a question that I will since
• 2:14:14
  I know I'm going to send my own because I have my own ideas for
• 2:14:18
  a lot of these things, is why I. I think so much.
• 2:14:25
  The question the question is if you were to free people of of
• 2:14:29
  mental poverty. If you were to free people.
• 2:14:32
  Me, I've told you the body, the the poverty of the body.
• 2:14:35
  You come, you can figure that you can learn, you can, you can
• 2:14:38
  be. You can't build that.
• 2:14:40
  That is something that any human being can do.
• 2:14:42
  But the one of the mind is tricky because you need other
• 2:14:45
  people. Even the one of the body, you
• 2:14:47
  still need other people. I'm speaking from a place of
• 2:14:49
  experience now so I can say, oh, I give I do it myself so I can
• 2:14:52
  do it. But before I got here, I had a
• 2:14:55
  slow, like series of coaches, from my icebox Okunnu to Marcos
• 2:15:01
  Cortez to Sham shags, Ogunnaike to Chiliboy in the middle, one
• 2:15:06
  core, all these. People.
• 2:15:08
  And I shout out, shout out to all these guys, shout out to
• 2:15:11
  shake shout Taurus martial arts and wife take it.
• 2:15:14
  I have my own thing now that is now uniquely mine and and I've
• 2:15:17
  infused it into it and it's now giving me dividends.
• 2:15:22
  So my question to the next guest is how would you free people
• 2:15:29
  from the poverty that they experience in their minds?
• 2:15:32
  That's it. Could use three people from the
• 2:15:36
  poverty of the night, right? That could be the reason for the
• 2:15:40
  next guest. And they've got their work cut
• 2:15:42
  out for them. Chris, would that we call me to
• 2:15:47
  the end of the part today. It's been a really long and
• 2:15:51
  interactive session, right. And it's been very insightful,
• 2:15:56
  very inspirational at some point, emotional as well.
• 2:16:00
  But really, yeah, I'm always very, very big on gratitude,
• 2:16:05
  right. I have a very big attitude of
• 2:16:08
  gratitude. And with that, I would like to
• 2:16:11
  see a very, very, very big. Thank you for your time.
• 2:16:17
  I I was telling somebody yesterday, the Unit of
• 2:16:20
  measurement of life this time. And once somebody waste your
• 2:16:23
  time, they waste your life, right?
• 2:16:26
  So thank you very much for sharing your life with us on the
• 2:16:31
  Kingdom's podcast. Right.
• 2:16:33
  And the sharing of your life is actually going to be very
• 2:16:39
  inspirational to people who are going to listen to this.
• 2:16:44
  Thank you very much. I wish you the very best in all
• 2:16:47
  of your future endeavours. God bless you, my brother.
• 2:16:50
  Thank you, my brother. Thank you, man.
• 2:16:53
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 2:16:56
  OK, I'll give you an opportunity.
• 2:16:58
  Do you wanna give anybody a shout out before we eat and ohh.
• 2:17:04
  Uh, shout out to my girlfriend Christina.
• 2:17:07
  Louise faltas. OK, like without my babe?
• 2:17:11
  Damn. Like this would be so much
• 2:17:13
  harder. But she's always.
• 2:17:14
  She's a consistent constant force of reassurance and
• 2:17:20
  inspiration and support. And Omar, I cannot wait to see
• 2:17:25
  how tomorrow, man. So yeah, shout out to my baby.
• 2:17:27
  Shout out to my family. Because my family too, I've,
• 2:17:30
  I've, I've had the pleasure of being looked at as the
• 2:17:35
  neighbourhood fool, like the guy that is just doing the thing
• 2:17:37
  that people are like why the hell are you doing this?
• 2:17:39
  You're getting hurt. You're getting beaten.
• 2:17:41
  What's one of the things that made that a period good for me
• 2:17:45
  was my family. Even when they understand.
• 2:17:47
  Even when my parents were worried, even when my sisters
• 2:17:50
  didn't want me to do it, they would always look me in the eye
• 2:17:52
  and ask me, do you want to do this and are you OK?
• 2:17:55
  And I'll say yes. And they would always say, in
• 2:17:57
  that case you have my blessing. My older brother covered my
• 2:18:00
  fight. Both my brothers were at my
• 2:18:02
  second fight. They both covered my one of them
• 2:18:04
  was the car was with the camera, my brother, Other brother walked
• 2:18:07
  me out. He was even the person that got
• 2:18:09
  the picture of me when I won. So shout out to my girlfriend,
• 2:18:12
  shout out to my family and then shout out to my friends.
• 2:18:14
  They're not very many anymore but the few that have stuck
• 2:18:17
  around again and my brother, man, Kyle, Alan, my coaches.
• 2:18:27
  I can't stop man. Like cause it's it's it takes a
• 2:18:30
  village to raise a child and I'm definitely still a child as
• 2:18:33
  I've, as I'm playing along with all this.
• 2:18:35
  So yeah, they shout out to all those guys and thank you for
• 2:18:38
  giving me the opportunity. OK.
• 2:18:41
  Thank you very much once again. God Bless You Piece by UH.