Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Cultural Intelligence and Interpersonal Dynamics

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Cultural Intelligence and Interpersonal Dynamics · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

• 0:37
  Hello, everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of Chatting
• 0:42
  with the Experts, TV show hosted by me, Paula Okonneh, where I speak
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  with women, accomplished women, established women from Africa, from
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  the Caribbean, and in the diaspora.
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  The mission of this show is to empower women, is to educate
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  women, and inspire women globally.
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  And that's what my guests do every week.
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  I've had a few men join us, but most of the time it's women.
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  Today, we're going to be talking about Living on the Edge and Thriving
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  in Multicultural Life Situations.
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  And with me to do that, it would be Dr. Otito Iwuchukwu.
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  But before she comes on, I'll tell you a bit about her.
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  She's a pharmacist, scientist, educator.
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  She's an organizational psychologist, and a consultant.
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  She's also a career strategist, an international speaker and author, and
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  she helps her clients learn how to live and thrive in the spaces in between.
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  So our conversation will be on belonging, paradoxes in families, in
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  friendships and work and parenting and reminders that belonging is found
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  both within and outside of ourselves.
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  Isn't that amazing?
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  And so now I will invite Dr. Otito Iwuchukwu to join us.
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  Hello everyone.
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  Thank you so much, Paula.
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  Thank you for inviting me to the show.
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  Absolutely.
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  You know, I am, I say this over and over that I have fabulous guests.
• 2:34
  Yeah.
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  Of course, when I spoke with you and you said...
• 2:37
  Yeah.
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  And I invited you to be on the show and you said yes, I was honored.
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  So thank you for saying yes.
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  Yeah.
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  So I gave a snippet of your bio, but of course I can't give everything.
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  So would you mind filling in any gaps that I might have.
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  A gap since, you know, we're talking about belonging in different life spaces,
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  one big gap will be a mother, right?
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  I'm a mother, daughter, wife, auntie, like all of those things that we
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  are in our different life spaces.
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  In relation to work, though, I am, you know, as you said, a scientist educator.
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  I'm also an author.
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  I've written other books on marriage.
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  I strategize marriages for people because I tend to look at that
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  institution as an organization, like being an organizational psychologist.
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  So that's what I'll add.
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  Awesome.
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  Awesome.
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  Wow.
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  Yeah.
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  From your bio, I can see that you love the academics, right or wrong?
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  I do.
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  The Life of Mind as they call it.
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  Yeah, I do.
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  That's awesome.
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  I commend you for still going ahead because many times it's hard to
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  marry the two, you know, academics with life , especially as we, you
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  know, compound things into our lives.
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  Yeah.
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  Married for some of us.
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  We have children.
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  And so working and have children and their household and you
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  know, it can be overwhelming.
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  And then when you add academics to that, whoo, hat off to you.
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  I think it's because it's impact work in my mind, right?
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  People think about it maybe differently.
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  But I think about all the students that kind of come through my classroom,
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  especially the ones, you know, the diaspora, migrants, female students.
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  And I consider myself a beacon for them, like, you know, they see me,
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  they work with me and, you know, they realize you can do this, right?
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  Just like you're saying, all the things we compound into our lives.
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  So it's like a window for them to say, Oh, okay, you know, I
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  can do some of these things.
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  Yeah.
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  And you know, sometimes I like off camera, we're talking about our life experiences
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  and sometimes our life experiences, you know, are influenced with our external
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  personalities and how we relate to people.
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  Because many times the shoes that you've walked in you see other
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  people walking in those shoes and, you know, you know where it pinches.
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  And you can help them make the walk easier.
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  Yes, absolutely.
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  Yes.
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  Absolutely.
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  So, you talked about how you're a Nigerian and how our family
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  culture influences our person.
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  Let's talk a bit about that.
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  Okay.
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  Family systems, in other words.
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  Family systems, right?
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  I mean, that's one of the things that I cover in my book, The Belonging Paradox.
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  I literally started from family systems because how you kind of
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  approach the world and how you enter the world can be determined
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  by the family that you come into.
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  Whether you consider yourself a part of that family or not, because I know, right,
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  we're in a country where there's a lot of estrangement, right, in this country.
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  People sometimes, you know, almost like leave their families behind.
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  I say you can leave your family behind, but your family doesn't
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  leave you behind, right?
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  You're embedded in them.
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  Just the systems, the way you grew up, your birth order sometimes can
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  really influence just the way that you kind of show up in the world.
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  As an example, you know, people who are military and people that call themselves
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  culture kids might understand this.
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  My family moved a lot or my dad moved a lot because of his work.
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  So I was born in one city, we moved, what, 600 miles to another one and then back and
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  back again and another city for school.
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  So what that meant was, you know, you kind of didn't have
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  any friends just growing up.
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  And many times for many individuals, the, the early years, so the birth
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  to about nine years is when you make yourself concept as it is.
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  That's when, you know, your self esteem is built.
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  You kind of almost like find yourself reflected among your friends or among
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  people with whom you have company?
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  So every time that changes, then you become a person who is like,
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  I'm not sure you become hesitant about, you know, coming into group
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  situations sometimes, and that could then impact you as an adult.
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  Again, I'm using the word cooled because you know, we, I would built this things,
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  but just saying that the impact of that Sometimes we don't, you know, we don't
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  speak about it enough, or we minimize it.
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  Another thing that could impact your sense of belonging, which I cover in the book,
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  is literally, right, your birth order or how people are treated in a family.
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  So, you, if you have many children, if you have more than one child, you know this.
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  Let me not say many.
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  But we have more than one child.
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  More than one.
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  You know this for certain that each child is born different.
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  Like they kind of come to you different.
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  And so sometimes unconsciously, our behaviors right towards those children
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  and vice versa from our parents to us, it's different, especially if you are
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  one of the younger children, right?
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  They've gone through these phases.
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  And maybe they just, tired, right?
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  Who knows?
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  The parent that a last child sees is not the parent that the first child sees.
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  Tell me about it.
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  All right.
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  And so sometimes that family dynamics, it literally can impinge, right, or
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  impact our sense of belonging sometimes.
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  And then we go out into the world with some of that.
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  And that really influences some of the ways that we behave in
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  interpersonal relationships.
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  You hit the nail on the head saying the parent that the last child
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  sees is so different from the parent that the first child sees.
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  Yeah.
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  And I elaborated on that, I wasn't a first child, I was a middle child.
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  My mom was a first child.
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  Middle
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  child syndrome.
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  Yes, there is a middle child syndrome, I spoke about it for years.
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  And.
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  It only ended when my mom and dad had a sixth child and suddenly, all right, I had
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  a buddy with me in the middle position, you know, but yeah, it is so different.
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  And, the thing is I didn't have a big family.
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  I mean, when I had children, I only have two and interestingly
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  my daughter in particular always say, I wish I had no siblings.
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  And I'm thinking when I was growing up, I used to tell my mom, why
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  didn't you stop when you had me?
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  Because yeah, you do see the world differently.
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  All right.
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  Okay.
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  So you address that in your book.
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  Yes.
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  And, oh, any personal stories?
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  Yes.
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  Yes, personal stories and it's generational, right?
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  So I think about me and my mother and me and my sons.
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  So I have two sons, you know, like you.
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  And honestly, they were the reasons why I'll say that they were the reason why
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  I eventually decided to write this book.
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  Because I think that some of these things, those threads, right?
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  They come back to bite us.
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  That's what I'll say.
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  The thread of whatever happened in your household that you say, I'm not going
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  to do this when I have my own children.
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  You kind of find it being, you know, you kind of find that same dynamic
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  sometimes being unconsciously created.
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  And so I wanted to bring that, you know, into the conscious and say, this can
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  happen and we need to be aware of it and how that impacts our children's sense of
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  belonging as they go out into the world.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  So how does that now transcend into adult friendships and adult relationships?
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  Because, I mean, yes.
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  The adult is the child that has grown up, in other words.
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  Yes.
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  So let's talk about that.
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  What she said is so important because I think that now the way, you know, children
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  are being treated, I feel, I tell people, these children are gonna grow into adults.
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  They're not gonna be children all, you know, all their lives.
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  So we
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  needs to be mindful of
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  that space of coddling versus, you know, letting them be their own persons.
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  So in terms of friendship, then, you know, there are people that enter into
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  friendship situations with a desire to... I don't want to use the word
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  loved, but that's what it is, right?
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  In my mind, you come into this friendship and it's almost like you
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  come with everything because you're placing the weight of that connection
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  needs right on that friendship.
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  And sometimes for the other persons, it may be a lot and they
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  just don't know how to handle it.
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  And so you have this dynamics where it seems that you may be
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  having friends and not having them.
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  So, you know, back and forth.
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  So especially as we get older, you know, from the adolescent years and older, those
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  dynamics also again tend to impact on our sense of self because, you know, as
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  Africans or at least people from what you call the more collective societies where
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  it's like us, us, that's how I put it.
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  Your sense of self is built in the society around you, or the
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  community around you, right?
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  It takes some time for you to go and say, okay, I'm actually a different person.
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  So when it comes to friendships then, right, people either accepting
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  you or not accepting you into their friendship circles, especially in
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  those adolescent years, can then, to me, impact how then you make
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  friendships as you get older, right?
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  I don't know if you've I've heard a lot of, you know, people say, Oh, I'm
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  careful about making friends, right?
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  That care is not a care of sorting through my friends is
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  literally anxiety or nervousness.
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  Like I don't want to make this friend and have them betray me or have them, you
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  know, treat me somehow, things like that.
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  So that sense of safety, people are always looking for it.
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  And it was built right from interactions that we had over the years.
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  And so we cannot.
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  As they say now, armor up sometimes, and you know, if you armor up,
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  you don't really go out and meet new friends in that sense.
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  And obviously the older we get moving around, going to different parts of
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  the world, work, you may need to keep up with your older friends, right?
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  In as much as you're making new friends, you don't want the friendships that
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  you made in the past to, you know, kind of get lost, but then people change.
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  And so that changing sometimes you don't know how to translate
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  it over into friendships.
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  And so to me, that's smoothing over of saying things have changed.
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  How do we navigate this new era of relationship or friendship?
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  People don't do that sometimes.
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  They just ghost you, right?
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  They just stop being friends.
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  And so you're left in this situation where you're wondering, OK, what is
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  going on, right, in terms of meeting that belonging need for friendship.
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  So, yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And don't you think that's compounded to now we live in a very transient world,
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  you know, and you mentioned, you know, growing up that your parents, your
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  dad moved you all to different cities.
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  Different cities in Nigeria, yeah, they're different, as we know, different ethnic
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  groups and so things can be spoken in different languages and even though we
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  speak English, but still, I mean, our culture within that is still different
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  depending on what city you are in.
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  And now, in 2025, we have expanded, especially as Nigerians, not
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  just living in our country, most, a lot of us have moved abroad.
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  We brought that transiency into a different, a completely
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  different environment.
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  Now, we're not even talking about just Nigeria.
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  Yeah.
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  It's expanded.
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  Yeah.
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  So, you know, how do we keep our friendships authentic?
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  Yeah.
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  Let's start with the friends before we go into even how do
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  you parent within an environment that you are not even familiar.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  So in terms of friendship, right, I do think that, you know, sometimes
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  their friends that do last distance, but you know when they say you have
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  friends that you pick up the phone, you're kind of back, you just kind
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  of pick up right where you went.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  But if you're not spending time, you know, if you're not being intentional
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  about being, you know, making those little decisions or moves or gestures that keep
• 15:18
  the friendship as with anything, right?
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  If you're not generating, it's degenerating, right?
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  That's the way I see it.
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  And so when you think about friendship, the foundation is not just the feeling,
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  it's also the behaviors, right?
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  So, I look at it this way to say, someone might call my close friend
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  and we say we're friends, but then the person checks on you only maybe once
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  in six months or once in a year, right?
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  That, you know, they kind of check on you.
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  Yes.
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  When they call you, you talk, everything, everything seems good.
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  But then if you see that same friend in another circle of friends and they happen
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  to be meeting with those friends weekly or monthly, then you quickly realize that
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  person is not your close friend, even as much as they've said, it's only because
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  the actions are not matching, right?
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  The supposed feelings.
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  And so for me, the older we get, the more intentionality we have
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  to put behind our friendships.
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  And that's the feeling, right?
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  Or the weight, the value that we've placed on it to say, this person is
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  my friend and the action, because if you value something, you should
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  invest in it or you will invest in it.
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  And so those two things, I don't think we can, you know, diverse them for
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  one another, because here's the thing, it's easier than ever before, even
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  with a transiency to keep in touch.
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  Now, we may not see each other physically, but what we're doing
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  now becomes an important part of, you know, keeping in touch.
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  So the FaceTime and all of that.
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  And so then you find out what we're then lacking.
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  I don't want to say lacking, but the thing that is impacting a lot of friendships
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  is time and not the technology, not the distance, not the everything.
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  It's that devotion of that time, which is a huge resource now in the
• 17:05
  times that we're in, no pun intended.
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  So one has to be able to spend that time with the people that
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  they consider their friends.
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  So yeah, so time becomes the element.
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  And again, I think that's can also be cultural, because some in some cultures,
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  time doesn't really mean anything.
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  I mean, you say, I'm coming to see you just to have a big window
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  of time and expect to see that.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  And then other cultures, if I say I'm coming to see you say okay,
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  so what time and fit them into a narrow, you know, timeframe.
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  That's the yeah.
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  You know, that's the collective culture I was talking about.
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  Like in, you know, I tell when sometimes people around me.
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  It's almost impossible for them to comprehend the concept or someone just
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  knocks on your door and just open it.
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  It's like, there's no, I'm coming.
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  I'm not coming.
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  As long as you're home, you know, they knock on the door and you
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  open it because that's just, you know, how we grew up, right?
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  Obviously.
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  Nigeria has changed.
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  I'm not going to, you know, deny that, like, we've all, you know, also taken on
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  certain ways because of globalization, but growing up it was, it wasn't even
• 18:15
  a thing, like, okay, someone is in your house, you leave what you're doing and
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  then you come, you know, say hello.
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  Sometimes they come without you even being home, right, but there was no offense,
• 18:24
  nothing taken, you're just like, oh, you know, you are even thankful, right,
• 18:28
  that people kind of came to greet you.
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  Greet you, right, that's what we'll say, they came to
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  Yeah.
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  Greet you.
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  Like you can't put me on the phone, right?
• 18:38
  So, yeah, yeah.
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  So how does that impact, like, work?
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  You know, we're talking of a collective, and now you're in a different environment.
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  Yes.
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  You, as you say, your family, your life journey through
• 18:54
  adolescence, young adulthood.
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  Now you're going into the workforce and you're bringing
• 19:00
  all those things with that.
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  How do you belong?
• 19:03
  Yeah.
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  Okay.
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  I don't know if it's, maybe I haven't made it clear, but all of
• 19:07
  these things we're talking about.
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  Transitional spaces, right?
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  We talk about transience.
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  And so that's why in this book, I kind of almost like focus on what I
• 19:16
  call liminal spaces, those spaces of transition, spaces of movement, spaces
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  where psychology threshold, right?
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  Threshold of adolescence to adulthood, careers to come with thresholds
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  where you move from one job to another, or you're entering into
• 19:31
  the workforce initially, right?
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  So those places where it's like I'm moving from one life stage to another
• 19:40
  or one, you know, life space to another, there's always a hesitancy, right?
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  How would I be accepted?
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  How would I be welcomed?
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  How would I fit in?
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  Right?
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  There's always that thing at the back of our minds.
• 19:52
  And so when it comes to work, you know, we're coming with our education, but
• 19:56
  we're also coming with our culture, whether we like it or not, we're
• 19:59
  coming with our cultural ways of being.
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  And so what then happens for many of us from diaspora, as you
• 20:05
  might be aware, is that we then have to go through acculturation.
• 20:09
  That is, you kind of have to almost like the learn the ways of the new space and
• 20:14
  the new world that you find yourself.
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  And that can be really hard on the psyche, right?
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  Because it's almost like you're straddling two people in one and
• 20:26
  you're having to deal with all of these experiences, behaviors, and ways
• 20:31
  that are just so strange as it were.
• 20:34
  It's strange to you, but people don't acknowledge it at all because
• 20:38
  it's like, you're in here now.
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  You should do what we do, right?
• 20:42
  You're in Rome now.
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  You have to do what the Romans do.
• 20:45
  And, I actually kind of ascribe to that a little bit, but I also say before you
• 20:50
  became Roman, there was a process, right?
• 20:52
  So it's that process that one has to think about.
• 20:57
  And remember I said, the things that the way our self concept is sometimes
• 21:02
  driven by the way people see us.
• 21:04
  So that belonging at work is really also driven by the people at work because you
• 21:09
  may be the most friendly person, but if you enter into an icy environment, it's
• 21:14
  going to take you some time to change it.
• 21:15
  And by icy I mean, you know, where people are not warm, you know, and that warmth
• 21:21
  sometimes has nothing to do with you.
• 21:23
  It has to do with their own culture, right?
• 21:26
  You know, there's this concept people say about warm and cold climates that
• 21:30
  really track distance from the equator.
• 21:33
  In terms of...
• 21:35
  I believe that.
• 21:37
  In terms of how friendly and warm people are in bringing other people in.
• 21:43
  I don't know how to explain.
• 21:44
  It's really hard because most people sometimes, think of,
• 21:48
  okay, America, they're friendly.
• 21:51
  That's kind of the stereotype that is around.
• 21:52
  They're friendly, they're loud.
• 21:53
  You know them when you see them.
• 21:56
  But then within the country, right, there are all these buckets.
• 21:59
  It's, it's like our country or the country we were from.
• 22:03
  It's a United States, right?
• 22:05
  So it's a united conglomeration or amalgamation of different
• 22:11
  people and different places.
• 22:13
  And these people come to work, right, as we do.
• 22:17
  All of us come to work with all of these things behind.
• 22:21
  And so the first step is knowing this, because if you don't
• 22:26
  know this, you'll be shocked.
• 22:29
  So it's having that clear awareness that at work, I'm not just dealing with a
• 22:33
  person I'm dealing with their culture.
• 22:35
  And that culture could be their personal culture, their family culture, their, you
• 22:41
  know, environmental culture that comes with them, even though it's not conscious.
• 22:45
  And so some of the things that we see may not be about us at all,
• 22:49
  but about, you know, that thing.
• 22:51
  And so just that awareness, I think, can be very helpful
• 22:54
  to know this is not about me.
• 22:56
  Because most times when things happen, we kind of, you know, personalize it
• 23:00
  and think, Oh, I didn't do something right or I didn't do this right.
• 23:03
  Sometimes it's not about that at all.
• 23:05
  It's just about the environment itself.
• 23:10
  I hope that, I mean, I know that you address that in the book and I
• 23:13
  hope that, you know, you continue to talk more about that because yes.
• 23:18
  The first thing that people tend to react when they react, and then they
• 23:23
  internalize and say, Oh, it must be me when you take it off you and you try
• 23:28
  to understand them or the other person.
• 23:33
  Yeah.
• 23:33
  And it takes the pressure off you because you're spending the time
• 23:36
  understanding them, then you can understand yourself better and how
• 23:38
  to even navigate within that space.
• 23:41
  And the way that I talk about in the book is that this should
• 23:44
  be a shared understanding.
• 23:45
  So it's not just you understanding people all the way, right?
• 23:48
  The burden is also on the other party to understand other people, right?
• 23:53
  In that sense.
• 23:54
  And if they don't, then you just know, okay, that's what it is, but don't
• 23:59
  almost like, don't take all of that shared burden of, Oh, I understand.
• 24:02
  And then theirs.
• 24:04
  So you kind of want to also almost like put the responsibility a little
• 24:08
  bit on the other party, right?
• 24:10
  So that it's not just, which is why I talk about this concept
• 24:13
  of cultural intelligence.
• 24:15
  You know, I'm a cultural intelligence facilitator.
• 24:17
  And this is what we do to really say, learning to understand people
• 24:21
  has nothing to do with you changing.
• 24:23
  Cause that's normally the fear.
• 24:24
  Oh, are you saying I should be a different person?
• 24:27
  But it's like, no, we're just saying, how do you work effectively with other people?
• 24:32
  You don't have to be friends with them, but you can walk in a more effective way
• 24:36
  without all of this conflicts, right?
• 24:38
  Seen and unseen, you know, uh the work relationship.
• 24:42
  Love that.
• 24:42
  But how do you do that?
• 24:44
  I mean, okay, you're aware of it.
• 24:46
  So you under, you within yourself say, okay, I'm faced with it.
• 24:51
  It's not me.
• 24:52
  I have to realize that this person or persons have, you know, their
• 24:56
  family, their personal personality, their environment, their culture.
• 25:01
  How do you now convey that to them that, okay, I understand you because it's a
• 25:07
  choice on their part to say, okay, I appreciate you understanding me or us.
• 25:12
  We want to understand you too, because if it's not two ways, then
• 25:15
  you are aware of their space, but they're not even aware of you.
• 25:18
  Yeah.
• 25:18
  How do you change that or how do you navigate that?
• 25:22
  Yeah, so I say this is where, and you know, I wouldn't be the first person to
• 25:26
  say, but it's, you almost like putting out that beacon first to say, Hey, I need
• 25:33
  you to know that people from my part of the world may do this or may do that.
• 25:36
  And so if you see certain things, don't take it personal, right?
• 25:40
  Or don't take it, I just want you to understand, right?
• 25:43
  So you come in almost like presenting the understanding initially, right?
• 25:48
  And so from that point, you can then say, okay, I've told you
• 25:51
  this, help me understand you too.
• 25:53
  Like you're also, you know, offering that let's understand.
• 25:56
  And what that does is at the very beginning, you can have a bit of a shared
• 26:00
  understanding of, you know, culture or cultural things that might impact people.
• 26:05
  So as an example, you know, I say to people, my voice may get loud,
• 26:10
  but that means I'm being passionate.
• 26:12
  I've already told you ahead of time that the loudness is passion, right?
• 26:19
  And so
• 26:20
  ... I love because I know as Nigerians, we can be quite loud and it is passion.
• 26:24
  It's not because I remember my children.
• 26:27
  Why are you all shouting like this?
• 26:29
  And we are having fun.
• 26:30
  We're having an interesting discussion.
• 26:35
  That's it.
• 26:36
  Yeah.
• 26:37
  We're not angry.
• 26:38
  So yeah.
• 26:39
  So, you know, and so like in the classroom, I tell my students, I
• 26:43
  said, this is not the way that I talk.
• 26:45
  I have to adapt, right?
• 26:47
  Because I'm here, I know my accent is there.
• 26:50
  I know the pace, you know, and my pitch is not like this at all, right?
• 26:56
  And so when I'm here, I have to slow down, make sure I'm talking,
• 27:00
  you know, slowly and all of that.
• 27:02
  And so that's me already telling them, right?
• 27:04
  You're seeing a different person.
• 27:06
  I can't hide the color of my skin, right?
• 27:08
  I'm different.
• 27:10
  But there's a reason why I'm here, right?
• 27:13
  Which is my education, my accomplishments.
• 27:16
  However, I'm also adapting to you all, right?
• 27:19
  I'm adapting.
• 27:19
  So it's that like nuanced adaptation.
• 27:22
  Obviously, if I leave the classroom and you see me in, in, in another
• 27:26
  setting, don't be surprised because I already told you.
• 27:31
  I like that.
• 27:32
  I really like that.
• 27:35
  Wow.
• 27:37
  Education and awareness, you know, emotional intelligence, all these.
• 27:42
  Well, somewhat new, I would say, because I was speaking a day or
• 27:47
  two with someone else and we were saying, you know, our parents
• 27:50
  generation, we weren't aware of that.
• 27:52
  It was just, this is who I am, accept me, leave me, you know,
• 27:55
  but with all the research that has been done, this is so helpful.
• 27:59
  It helps break down barriers and it fosters better understanding
• 28:04
  and cultural integration, you know, which is what we need.
• 28:08
  The thing that I want to say is that our parents experienced this.
• 28:11
  They just didn't have the words, right?
• 28:12
  I just think that that's what we're doing now is being able to, like I said, bring
• 28:16
  the unconscious, you know, conscious.
• 28:18
  I do think that they experienced this, right?
• 28:21
  You've been people with different settings, you get treated differently,
• 28:24
  but again, you know, from the society back home, that difference is that you kind
• 28:30
  of, you know, you go to a party, everybody eats and drinks and they go home, right?
• 28:34
  And so there's that almost like shared consciousness of we are a people, right?
• 28:41
  I'm not looking at myself as an individual versus you as an individual
• 28:45
  versus you as an individual.
• 28:46
  Not to say at all that things, malevolent things don't happen, you know, in
• 28:51
  societies like ours or anything, but that shared understanding you didn't
• 28:55
  have to think about what was different from you apart from language, right?
• 28:59
  For instance, apart from, I come from one part of the country and you
• 29:02
  come from one part of the country.
• 29:04
  So here, there's so many things that come in, right?
• 29:07
  Especially for us sometimes you're just like, what is the issue?
• 29:10
  Right.
• 29:10
  And you're not able to sometimes place your hand on it, but now all
• 29:16
  of this language helps us better understand so that we're not mired
• 29:20
  right in our own thoughts around this and thinking that, you know, one is
• 29:24
  inferior or anything like that, because there's no reason to feel that way.
• 29:31
  Yes, yeah, that's so right.
• 29:34
  So, wow, I always say this, I can't believe we've been
• 29:38
  speaking for 25 minutes.
• 29:41
  But I do want to touch on two things if possible.
• 29:44
  Okay, we've talked about family systems and we've talked about, you know,
• 29:48
  being in a different part of the world.
• 29:52
  Parenting.
• 29:54
  Yes.
• 29:55
  I do want to talk about that.
• 29:57
  Yes, this one.
• 29:58
  Sometimes I always shy away from this topic because it is a topic
• 30:02
  that is so personal to me and I'll tell you why, because I have
• 30:05
  a child who is on the spectrum.
• 30:09
  But, you know, it's funny because this is one of those things, like
• 30:12
  if I say this, every time I say this, I keep saying to myself, I am
• 30:16
  not categorizing this child well.
• 30:18
  It's almost like you have that sense that something, you know, you don't have
• 30:22
  enough words to describe it because it is not, it's not, you know, when you talk
• 30:27
  about the spectrum, people think autism.
• 30:29
  It's not necessarily that it's one of the, you know, associated, I would
• 30:34
  say diagnosis around it, which has to do with social communication.
• 30:37
  So these are the kind of children, they say socially awkward, but very
• 30:41
  intelligent, like so, you know, their intelligence is like notches
• 30:46
  above their age grade, but their social path is almost like lagging.
• 30:51
  And so you have this, and then they happen to be male as well.
• 30:55
  So you have this thread that you can't really, you know, put together,
• 30:59
  but such a brilliant child, right?
• 31:01
  And so you can imagine that we've had our back and forth with the school system.
• 31:06
  Very nice.
• 31:06
  I'm using the word back and forth with the school system.
• 31:10
  And so that really, you know, that whole, every time you're being called, right.
• 31:14
  Every time you're being called, Oh, the child didn't sit down today.
• 31:17
  They didn't stand up today.
• 31:18
  They didn't do this today.
• 31:20
  Over time.
• 31:21
  I mean, there was a day I remember saying, I'm just going to go pull
• 31:24
  him from school and sit at home.
• 31:25
  Like, what, what do you want me to do?
• 31:27
  You know?
• 31:28
  So for us parents, and everyone, I've seen many people who
• 31:33
  are in this same bind, right?
• 31:35
  It really impacts your belonging as a parent.
• 31:38
  Because I say, if someone rejects your child, they've eventually,
• 31:42
  they essentially reject you.
• 31:44
  Yes.
• 31:44
  Right?
• 31:45
  They do.
• 31:46
  And so it's like, how do you then be that person who is able to still
• 31:49
  advocate for the child in spite of what you're feeling in spite of the, you
• 31:53
  know, that sense of alienation that you feel because you can sense it.
• 31:59
  You can just see like your child is a problem, right?
• 32:02
  That's kind of what they're saying without saying it to you.
• 32:05
  And so you kind of go through this.
• 32:07
  I've been in parenting groups where this is like our, you know, our
• 32:12
  albatross that we have to bear.
• 32:13
  And so we kind of are always teaching each other how to be and how to then
• 32:17
  be with the child and be for the child.
• 32:20
  And so that's kind of, you know, the part that I talk here to say,
• 32:24
  anything that impacts your child impacts you and will also impact
• 32:28
  your sense of belonging in that area.
• 32:30
  Because now you're like, if I go to be with other parents, I'm always going to
• 32:35
  have to be explaining away this child, but I'm not trying to keep him in the house.
• 32:40
  We're going to do everything we have to do.
• 32:42
  My children, for instance, were traveling from the time they were babies, right?
• 32:46
  And that's because in my mind, they are part of the world I should not
• 32:50
  be making excuses for them everywhere I go simply because of who they are.
• 32:54
  So it kind of boils back to what I said, the family system.
• 32:58
  You have to now be that person who's going to create the environment where
• 33:02
  they know that they belong no matter what.
• 33:05
  And so for me, it's how do you be in that mindset as a parent?
• 33:09
  Because you're also your own feelings and that can then impact
• 33:13
  how you treat the child sometimes.
• 33:14
  So one has to be very mindful of that balance.
• 33:17
  And I talk about that in the book.
• 33:21
  I gotta get this book.
• 33:22
  You'll show it there soon because I want to touch on something else that's dear
• 33:26
  to me and I know is dear to our faith.
• 33:30
  How do we belong in our faith?
• 33:32
  Because faith and culture do go hand in hand.
• 33:35
  Yes.
• 33:36
  So, the belonging part as an African woman, I don't think you can talk about it
• 33:42
  without talking about hospitality, right?
• 33:44
  That welcoming of a stranger, you know, as we say here now the poor, the
• 33:49
  oppressed, open house, like an open room.
• 33:51
  And so, you know, as people of faith, the way I think about it is that we
• 33:56
  have to be the ones shining that light.
• 33:58
  Like you should not be, you know, differentiating with an action
• 34:02
  or thoughts or anything of people that are in that house, right?
• 34:06
  Because that house is a different house now from the one that we,
• 34:10
  you know, physically live in.
• 34:11
  This is what we'll say house of God, right?
• 34:14
  In that sense.
• 34:15
  And so from that perspective, everyone who comes in there is a child of that
• 34:20
  family and should be treated as such.
• 34:21
  And this is what I say in every place where we use the mantra.
• 34:26
  It's like family.
• 34:28
  You belong here.
• 34:29
  Every single person should be valued, you know, for who they are
• 34:33
  and not for what they can bring.
• 34:35
  Not for, you know, what part of the world they come from, not for
• 34:40
  anything other than just who they are.
• 34:42
  Right.
• 34:42
  And that's why I say in my book, that to be human is to belong.
• 34:45
  You don't need any extra thing.
• 34:47
  Right.
• 34:48
  In that sense.
• 34:49
  So, yeah.
• 34:52
  Man, I could talk with you forever.
• 34:56
  We're going to open up the floor again to everyone who has joined so they
• 34:59
  can ask you questions because I can't ask all the questions because I can't.
• 35:04
  But people who join will ask you.
• 35:08
  But, in the interim, because this is going to also be on a podcast and
• 35:12
  on a TV show, how can anyone who is listening in after this live stream,
• 35:22
  how can they get in touch with you?
• 35:24
  Okay.
• 35:24
  So you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 35:26
  I call myself the Belonging Whisperer, but it's Otito Iwuchukwu on LinkedIn.
• 35:31
  It's a unique name.
• 35:32
  I don't think that there's anyone that has that combination on LinkedIn.
• 35:35
  You will see Otito's, but not Otito Iwuchukwu.
• 35:38
  I think I saw two or three Otito's when I just searched the name.
• 35:41
  And then, my website, otitoiwuchukwu.com, and that's where you can, you know, learn
• 35:47
  more about the book when it's coming out and how to get it into your hands.
• 35:51
  And then, my author page, right, which really speaks all about the
• 35:54
  book on Facebook and on Instagram,
• 35:59
  On the page, on Facebook and Instagram.
• 36:02
  Awesome.
• 36:03
  Awesome.
• 36:04
  Yeah.
• 36:04
  And I always say to everyone, I speak to amazing women, and if you are
• 36:11
  an amazing woman and I do sometimes have men, please reach out to me if
• 36:16
  you'd like to be a guest on the show.
• 36:19
  My website is www.chattingwiththeexperts.com.
• 36:24
  I am also on LinkedIn.
• 36:27
  I love LinkedIn.
• 36:28
  LinkedIn, take note.
• 36:30
  I love LinkedIn.
• 36:31
  On Facebook, I'm Paula Okonneh.
• 36:37
  And, on Instagram, you can find me there.
• 36:40
  My handle there is at chat_experts_podcast.
• 36:46
  And we also have a YouTube channel, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• 36:51
  Chatting with the Experts, as I say, is to inspire, educate, and empower women
• 36:57
  globally, and Dr. Otito did exactly that.
• 37:01
  Thank you so much.
• 37:02
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 37:05
  Thank you.
• 37:06
  And now we will open up the floor to all who have joined us.
• 37:11
  Thank you.