Latest / Masterminds Podcast / From a Third Class Degree to Box Office King: Deyemi Okanlawon || Masterminds Podcast EP108

Transcript

From a Third Class Degree to Box Office King: Deyemi Okanlawon || Masterminds Podcast EP108 · Masterminds Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Every Yoruba name is a combination of Doremi Adeyemi.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think my first memory of life is in a library.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: First memory is in a library?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I fell in love with books with stories.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: As a child, I kept visualizing myself in the story.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today, on Masterminds, the actor behind some of Nolwood's biggest books off his hits, Daemi Okanwa, is the two-time highest grossing Nollywood star, the most featured Nigerian actor in Netflix original history, who worked away from acting entirely, then returned on his own terms.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is a masterpiece in knowing your work.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I graduated with a third class degree in chemical engineering.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I graduated scared.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: I worked with my mom for two years, a pastor that was going to church.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: And after greeting, he asked to see what was in my hand.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: I showed it to him.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: He asked if he could keep it.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: In my mind, I'm like, yo, that's my last card.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: He was making announcements at the end of the service and says, hey, if there's anybody in this church who is a business person and is not on this publication, you know nothing about business.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is the most creative thing I have seen.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: My guy, I was fully subscribed.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was so broke.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: I would walk from Shomulu to Suruliri.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: So my first audition, I got two roles.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see quitting as failure.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: The only thing that I'm that I've ever been intentional about was being excellent.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_05: What mindsets do you think you've had that was able to keep taking you through this?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: Before we jump into the conversation, I wanted to take this moment to thank you for choosing to be here.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: The fact that you're here watching this video tells me that you're ready to sharpen your mind and elevate your life.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_05: Now do me a favor, hit that subscribe button so that you can join the community of masterminds who are ready to lead the next generation.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_05: His mind is showing me this conversation is going to be an amazing one.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_05: But let me still do my intro.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome to the Masterminds Podcast.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_05: My name is Richie Mensa, and I am just your tour guide on this amazing journey to sharpen your most powerful tool, your mind.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_05: Now, you know what we're about here.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_05: We're about having conversations that delve into the minds of the people who have been through it and found a way to succeed in this very difficult life.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: He says he's not succeeded, and that's because he knows he's going to succeed even more.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_05: So please help me welcome my esteemed guest who's going to show you the way to calve through the difficulty in your life and also come out on top.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_05: Please welcome Day Me.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, Richie.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_05: It's about to pronounce your surname right.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: Did I get it right?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Not quite.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um la won.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, because Yoruba names um there are three, do you call them notes keys in that music space?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: So every every Yoruba name is a combination of you know those three.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: So Doremi, Ade Yemi, Remy, Remy, yes.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it helps because if you can do do remi, then you can pronounce a Yoruba name.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_05: That explains why Yoruba is already musical when you yeah, okay.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: Okonlao.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okonlao.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_05: Okonlao.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, that's perfect.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's perfect.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, let's jump into it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I always like to start by figuring out how life started for you that set you on this course.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_05: Because with everybody, with every great person, there's a story from childhood that started this journey.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_05: So, what was it for you?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess the story starts with a man and a woman falling in love.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Do we want to go in that direction?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: No way.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: The person of bees.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I think my first memory of life um is in a library.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_05: First memories in a library.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's in a library, um books.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: I fell in love with books, with stories.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And matter of fact, it wasn't until later I realized that there was something different about how I read stories uh than most people.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I found out that when I was reading as a child, I kept visualizing myself in the story.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I was always in this three-dimensional, you know, oh, I can see the faraway tree or some, you know, some enchanted forest.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it was it was it was pretty interesting to find that out.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I started off um primary school doing all the school plays, and uh I again discovered later that there's a correlation between me being allowed to be creative and me being scientific, being in the arts and being in the science.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: There was a strong correlation because all through that time in primary school, I did every um the Christmas play, you know, Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Bruh, I played Jesus, I played Joseph, I played the one of the three wise men, I played every single character.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: I was afraid you were going to say play Mary.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_05: Did you play?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I well, no.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was good times, you know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: We kept things straight.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so uh I um I would then be in every stage player.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time, I was top of my class every single year.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Every single year.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um up until this is me just being extra honest, up until like my final primary, I think I was in primary five.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: I skipped six.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um when you were shop.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when two girls came in from another school and they took the first position to second, and I and I went to third.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um for one of the terms, I think I came back and I massacred I read for the first time.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, um, so there was a strong correlation between that, but then I got into high school and it just wasn't considered cool to be in drama.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't considered cool.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be in drama or literature, and because you have to be in sports, you have to be a cool guy.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was the sports era.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the sports era.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, so high school.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so no, there was no drama in high school, and that's when I started to struggle academically.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: When you lost the creative, you lost yeah, I started to struggle.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and whilst there's some backstory, you know, there somewhere with your family and the whole setup, uh I I well I had this conversation during that first struggle period with uh an uncle of mine.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's more of a family friend than an uncle, but he's a very close family friend, um Uncle GD.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember just him just taking me out of that space where my family was, and I would stay over at his, him and his family, and he would sit me down and just talk to me and listen to me and open up my books and you're smarter than this, you should know this.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember I just locked in, you know, with his help and guidance and I guess motivation.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I you know started to get good grades again.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um when that happened.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I guess because he was really patient with the math, I fell in love with math.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so I became like leader in math.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um basic math, high school math.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I don't remember my final exams in high school.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I got to the math exam and I finished my exam, looked around, people were still working.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: I got scared.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, wait, did I miss something?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a sharp thing?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Is it like a second booklet?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and then I started all over again to make sure that I didn't make any silly mistakes, and then I was done again and I looked around and nobody was done.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, you know what?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm done.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: It is what it is.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and near perfect score.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Near perfect score.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you were back?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Engineering.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: So you went from high school to engineering.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, engineering.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I I was in uh International Secondary School Lagos, which is on the University of Lagos campus.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I literally went from the high school in this university environment to the university uh to study chemical engineering at the University of Lagos.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, not so interesting.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: How did that go?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh prior to that there was a summer gap, and there was this thought that you know, because other people in my family had traveled, it's my turn, you know.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was out of high school and I was 16 years old.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to the States on holiday, was also studying for my SATs.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: The person who was supposed to take me in, you know, say to my face, I'm a 16-year-old kid says all that, you know.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: He can't do it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he couldn't do it.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: He just can't, no reason.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't it doesn't really matter.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was an expectation because of some things that have been done for him, and he wasn't ready for it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: So he voiced it out, which is fair.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and my parents were like, Well, you know what?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: You're just 16, you can go back when you're 18.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: You've already got an admission into the University of Lagos, we can have to talk to anybody, your grades did all of that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, why don't you just come back, you know, for those two years and you know, before you go back.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I got into the University of Lagos and I did everything you could possibly do on campus, except read my books.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was whiling away time.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was just like Yeah, because you're waiting for the opportunity.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just 16, bro.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: In my head.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Lord, did I know?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I woke up about to start my third year on campus.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um by this time, my parents had split.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and a lot of stuff was going on.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: All the background story that I don't need to share.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was stuck.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: The worst grades, bro.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: The worst.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_05: I can imagine, because when things aren't good at home, it becomes difficult to feel like.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I wish I could blame it on that, bro.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was partying.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: I like the responsibility.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_05: I like the fact that they're taking accountability.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: I partied hard.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I partied so hard, bro.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to party again in those two years.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, I got a letter from the University of Lagos saying, look, your grades are so bad if you know you don't shape up, you're out.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: So all this was happening at the same time.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Then I went to school with my mom to see the to see the HOD.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was talking about leaving engineering, going to some other course.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, let me not mention any course because the others are somewhat easier, right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um no shade to the one he's thinking.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: To the one you're thinking.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh I then they said it and spoke to my course advisor.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, hey, look, if you just get a 1.0, let me just tell you how I just said he said all I needed to do for the semester was to make a 1.0 GPA.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: That tells you that's like how bad where setting the bar like on the floor.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's yeah, a little bit under the floor.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so just do that.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, cool.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um here I was studying.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I changed all of my friends, I took all my nice clothes, took back home, regular houseware, so I didn't want to be seen.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I would study all of my friends, all of my friends had either a first class, they were on the first class or second class proper.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: All except one.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: The one who was doing the exact same thing I was doing.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's my kid.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's we needed help, so so you know that you know what did you get?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I started studying and I remember one of them, his name is Superboy Dereh.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Superboy.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um he was up until recently, the I think the managing director uh for um slumber.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: First class, and he would break things down into the simplest form, you know, he was quick to get out, you know, really good.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: About the same time, first heartbreak, uh, and I was in out, you know, I was in that space where I was struggling with school, someone broke my heart, and I found myself going into church.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that at least uh gave you a place to be.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Gave me a place to be, uplifted in my spirit, and brought me back to drama.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, because I was instantly drawn to the States and I joined the drama department on campus.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then my next semester, the the semester exams had happened, I'd studied, I'd read, and I went home for holidays, came back to check on my results, and then I get a letter from the school saying, Hey, you didn't do well, uh, so you're out.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, wow.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then I went home.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: I in fact, I didn't go home.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: I went to my cousin's house to tell his mom.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Cousin's my best friend, to tell his mom, and then she called, and then it became an African disappointment.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: The whole community will come in, yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh Lord God.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, I can imagine how you felt.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean they try to get me into other schools throughout the next few weeks to see how we this our pretty girl's son.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Let's help him.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, while we tear him apart.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, they were like they went in.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Someone told me how they knew I'd be a failure because when I was five years old, I said something.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Something happened when you were five years old.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's good.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I'm thankful that you know those shards didn't they landed, but they didn't they didn't destroy.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: So um we did all the growing up on land school.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, one day I said, you know what?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: I studied, right?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let me go see my results.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because when I went to check, the results weren't ready.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: I saw the letter.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Let me go see my results.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Bruh.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: I had a 3.0 GPA for the semester.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, for the semester.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: For the semester.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, but because of what had happened, yeah, 3.0 GPA.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: But then, but wait, that's unfair.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Then so I go to my course advice.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, sir, you see me as a column.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so impressed.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: I saw your results, did very well, did very well, congratulations.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: I said, yes, sir.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but sir, I got this letter, and he read the letter and he said, Oh, please disregard this letter, it was sent in error.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, oh my god, my cousin had come to school with me, so he was downstairs, and I just walked.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was dazed.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_05: So you received all that blasting from the community for nothing thing, reminded of your five-year-old thing.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So now I had holy anger.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: You people did what and um I guess it helped me to realize that in life you're you're mostly alone, yes, and to to depend too much on other people is setting yourself up for failure, yeah.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so it helped me kind of like understand that you know, while I'm able to trust people and somewhat feel like I can depend on them because they can depend on me, it might not always work that way.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Don't be too dependent on people.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that's sort of like taught me that lesson.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so um now I'm studying and all that drama is gone, and um I had to start in my third year, I had to start from my first year courses all over again.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I could have chosen another course to do, but somehow the 18-year-old me decided, I remember this thought very clearly, that I looked into the future and I said, Hey, you know what?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think that if I start quitting now, I might be quitting for the rest of my life.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: I said, you know what?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm serious.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly the thoughts in my 18-year-old mind.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: I would never forget that.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know what, I'm going to do this thing, and I did it, and I had those extra years added on, uh, and I went from this 16-year-old, smooth skinned face, fresh, cute kid.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: I graduated from that school, a man with a full beard after many years.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: But I learned a lot, and I learned I think the most significant thing that I learned really was about people.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: I met so many people.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think I met twice the number of people that the average university students would meet because I was just around for so long.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I met people, I did different things, I hung out with different groups, and I guess I absorbed all of that.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Still trying to figure things out.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even though I started studying, I started doing good grades with a semesterly GP, my final semester GP was 4.0, but the cumulative was so bad, yeah, it held me down, and there was nothing I could do about it.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: I tried.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I should have tried harder, but I did try.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_05: But I mean, it's still so many valuable lessons from there because I like the fact that you first of all you went back to go and check.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_05: You know, most people after getting that letter and after being berated by the family, yeah, would have been so defeated they wouldn't have gone back.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_05: But you went back and you fought harder.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_05: But I like the extra lesson you learned that no matter how well you fought, no matter how much you've improved, your past actions still affected it.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, still affected it.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it would make you sharper in life every time you make sure that no, no, they're coming correct all the time.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Trying to, yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_05: But that uncle who said the five-year-old thing, like he's the person, yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's one of that's why you need to be careful what you say to people.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you need to be very careful.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: People don't forget.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know it's easy for you to say, it's difficult for the person to receive.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: So be very careful.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so me, I I then started to study, as I said, and I just kept doing well.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I still finished um I graduated with a third class degree in chemical engineering, and I graduated scared.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: And this is me also, by the way, as I said, 4.0 GPA semester.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was always on stage.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so you're combining it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_05: I was always on stage.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, it just felt really weird because as I said, the more I was creative, the better I was, you know, with my academics.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember there were times when I would have done mostly church stuff during the semester.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then exams are coming, and I feel like I'm not really prepared.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and for some reason, I would just figure it out.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: I would figure out okay, I think this man may repeat these questions that he repeated two or three, four years ago, because I was gonna get all the materials and you know, use past questions to prepare.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: And for some reason, some of those questions, the majority of those questions would come from there.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: He's emphasized certain things whilst in class, and then I pick on those things, um, and it worked, it worked, and I I did graduate um with that scared.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: I can imagine because I'm like, okay, where do I go from here?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the great thing was my mom owned this bakery, one of the biggest bakeries in Nigeria at the time.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was called Baker's World.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'd always been in that entrepreneurial space.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, sometimes I'm in the kitchen baking cakes.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes I'm decorating the cakes, helping my mom.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, most times I'm talking to the customers.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I'm exposed to people.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I'm talking, I'm selling.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: How can I help you?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just that little helper around the store.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, while I was on campus, I was studying engineering.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: I joined the school um Christian fellowship group, and um I was selling my mom's bread and cake on campus.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: So I was doing three things on campus, and it's like the more you did, that the better you got.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_05: I think most people get that wrong.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_05: They think you need to do less to excel, but sometimes the brain loves the activities, yeah.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes, sometimes it worked.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: I made money, um, and then I was trying to figure out what to do next.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: My mom says, Hey, um while you're trying to figure it out, come work for me.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: So what I did on campus was I had, you know, sometimes at night I'll project Valentine's cakes in February on the walls of the female hostels.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: So when boys come to visit the girls, they'd be like, That's the one I want for my Valentine's.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was right there with cake samples, flyers, prices, and everything, take orders, you know, made a bit of money.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so graduated, joined my mom's company, and I replicated that same system across six um major universities in southwest Nigeria.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and I outsold my mother.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_05: The best way to truly build wealth is over time with discipline and a system.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_05: Now I struggled with how to be able to invest until I found Achieve by Petra, which allowed me to deposit any amount at any time at my own convenience.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_05: So download Achieve by Petra now so you can join us on the journey to build wealth.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_05: Instantly turn it into you know any outfit.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I worked with my mom for two years and I I just felt intrinsically, intuitively, sorry, that they weren't going about the business the right way.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know the right way.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: If I knew the right way, maybe I thought I did.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: But they wouldn't listen.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so in a fit of anger, I quit and moved out of home at the same time.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: First time in my life.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what I was thinking.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I do not know what I was thinking, uh, but I discovered the truth.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: What was the truth?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I had nothing.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're working the mother's pay for everything.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they gave me a stipend, it was more like uh yeah, a stipend.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I would save half of that stipend, put it in mutual funds.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: My younger brother advised him to do the same thing, put in mutual funds.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, we don't need the money for anything, you know, everything gets paid for.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I did that, and then I quit.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, guys, I'm done.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I I wanted to grow the I wanted the business to grow.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't say I wanted to grow the business.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I'll have done it well, but I wanted the business to grow to a point where it was generating a specific amount for me, and I felt that would be okay to live on, but it meant the company had to grow.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought they weren't doing the right thing, so I I just left.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_05: So I just um your mom must have must have been heartbroken, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I don't know.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think she was also trying to kick me out of the nest.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think she was also trying to kick me out of the nest.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's about time.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Get out.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, get out of there.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so I I was working on a business idea with some of my then now church fellowship.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I left University Um Fellowship Group and I joined the a church.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: The bigger church fellowship.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: A bigger church.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: A totally different church.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I met this girl in fellowship.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: She was cute.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't see that come back continue.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: She was cute, she was cute.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, very deep spiritually, you can have conversations, you know.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: I really like that.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I invited her to my church, uh, my fellowship.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and she came pretty cool about it.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Then she invited me to hers.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then I met this um man called um Bodre Emade.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: He's my pastor.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, pastor Bodri Emade.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And another source of motivation, inspiration, guidance, you know, very, you know, critical thinking.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And even though, yes, it's faith-based, it's just he talks about life.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that really, really helped.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was probably where I got some of my inspiration from.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh for the things I did.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: So a few of my friends and I had gathered and we said, hey, how do we help our businesses grow?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: I had my mom's cakes and bread.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's another lady who does uh, I think she did some some catering then, and another friend who did web design, you know, and graphic design.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, hey, yo, guys, how about we how about we just do a simple flyer, but we pull all our resources together, all our funds together, so we can do a whole lot more.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: The idea was if there are two of us now and you have 10,000, I have 10,000 error, your 10,000 can get you 10,000 copies.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: My 10,000 can be demonies.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: But if we come together 20,000, we wouldn't get 20,000 copies, we get 25 or 30,000 copies.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: So this some of the parts um being greater than individual units.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: So um we came together and said, let's do one flyer or split it three ways.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Hit the same target audience and everything.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: While we're brainstorming, we're like, hey, yo, how about we make that even much bigger?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Newspaper size and get other people to come on the flyer.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: To print it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I was the salesperson, so I would go and uh that was my job to to do sales attribution.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody else was doing graphics and the lady was doing attitude.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: We then started something called quick links marketing solutions.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: The quick links add letter.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: So this quick links add letter was as I described.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Just a flyer.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Newspaper size flyer, each size.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well designed.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: We did a prototype, I spent the last money that I had prototype.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta yeah, you gotta, you know, get the word in.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um when I wanted to have going to church.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And after greeting, he asked to see what's in my hand, I showed it to him, he asked to see if he could keep it in my mind.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yo, that's my last card.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm like in his hand, ah, well, my prayer is done.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: I left it.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: He went to church, did a whole paper service, and he was making announcements at the end of the paper service and said, Hey, there's anybody in this church who's a business person and is not on this publication, you know nothing about business.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: This is the most creative thing I have seen by the guy.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was fully subscribed.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Fully subscribe.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: First initial.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: Oh god.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I took the profit and I told my people, we can't share this.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's not excellent.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: We printed it again.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we printed it again, and we did a bunch of jobs, 10,000 copies on that flyer, distributed to churches, to malls, to the traffic sometimes.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I was there at the time in my life, and my job was to share flyers on the shoes of the house.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_05: You are the definition of hustler.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_05: You are hustled.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um during that point, I told you I didn't have anything I was in my friend's house.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: In his living room.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I don't know if you don't know.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: I I know every day.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: Every day just so I would have money to spend any money on.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: It just wasn't and just kind of worked.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh through the business after a few months.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized we're kind of stuck with uh the I couldn't expand the the economics behind it.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if I increase the number of pages, I increased my distribution costs, it just wasn't a tally boxing.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: I said, look, I need to break this thing.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Create different verticals.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Let me create different verticals.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: I have one for this, and I was like, oh, you know what, I'm gonna go ready for it.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, you know, let me go create one.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to call the waiting business.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: My mom is like business, that's the waiting business.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: I knew people, a couple of people together.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Did my first edition and my friends and I had this big problem and I walked away from the business.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh went into a training program.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: A training program.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, employability skills development program.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: A few months ago, a week ago, a few weeks before that I interboard.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's an employability skills development program happening.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I was like, yeah, that's the kind of thing I should go to.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_05: You have to sacrifice one thing for the other.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a there's a something I posted this on my Instagram.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: I actually typed it out and I posted it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's a story during that time when I was got up in the morning, walked.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: My church then was halfway between the two points.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I I would usually walk to church and then stop say hello to everybody.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: At least they thought I was saying hello.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was just air conditioning.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Air conditioning, you know, sometimes you know, they just feel the spirit of God, you know, and then get that hug, exactly.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like hey, the same thing.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh, and then I'll continue the walk.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: And this day it was raining.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: It started raining halfway through my walk, and it was pouring.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: One of those really nasty rains.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, have you seen the Lagos floods?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I saw I saw it online.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was that type of time was wading in water, there's rain, I was already feeling bad.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then this car comes and passes by.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this guy, he didn't he didn't splash water on me.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's not how I would describe what happened.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: He lifted a wave and dumped it on my eyes.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was drenched.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Oh, Charlie.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, and I remember where I'm coming from.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: We had cornflakes, bro, cellogs.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yo, this cannot be me.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: I broke.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Charlie, I cried.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was I felt that, and I was like, but I'm not the bad guy here.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not the pretty girl song like that.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is this feeling like I'm eating with the pig.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh bruh, I burst out crying.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and for some reason, I I just went through that process and eventually went to that program I told you about while I was there.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in my I'm a CEO bus type guy.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna come for this program that's supposed to teach um young people employability skills, you know, in different departments about accounting, finance, um, customer service, marketing sales, and they were exposing us to all this knowledge.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: A one-month program, I passed the exam, so I got a scholarship.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I was there to say, hmm, I'm the best, let me know how I'm going to start employing people.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, I got in there and I realized how much because the facilitators will talk about the corporate experience, they talk about salaries, and I'm like, wait, what?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: People are making this kind of money, and I'm here slimming away, letting them splash.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Bruh, uh this thing was done by an HR company uh called Workforce Management.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and I went there for a month, I developed a relationship with my course mates, with the facilitators, and with the company, the HR company.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're almost done when they sent me um three offer letters for three different companies.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: I picked one, I became head of marketing for uh Pro Share Investor Relations.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Pro Share is yeah, yeah.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_05: Just like that.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_05: So you see your experience with people from uni, I can see how it keeps guiding you through understanding when to do what, how to connect with people, and it's just taking you all the way through.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you make some silly assumptions that's I don't know.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it worked.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: I got in this gig, I gave myself a target higher than what the company gave me, and I went to work.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I stumbled the first six months, kind of as you should.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I didn't know then.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: I used to pick myself up.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then you know, something happened.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: There was this project that came up, and we were needed to consult for the project, and I broke down what we're going to do, and I and my boss asked, what should we charge?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he mentioned an amount that would have been my target, but because I hadn't met my targets in the last six months, I 10xed the fee and said, I needed to beat my target.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, sir, you know I'm the one that's going to do this work.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is how much we should charge.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: The guy looked at me.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Are you sure?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Yes, sir.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is that important?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he put the amount.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Bruh, it went in.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it worked, it went in, it worked.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um maybe, maybe uh I could have handled things a little bit better, but there was a misunderstanding somewhere.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'll believe it at that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, I was young, yeah.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, you know what?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not built for this 9 to 5 thing.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: I need to get back to the streets.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_05: You've had a crazy journey.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because yo, bro, I I now believe that I can make this kind of money for somebody else.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: I might as well make it for myself.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and so I started my consulting firm called Sales Target Company.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: So Sales Target Company was a sales consulting firm for small businesses, and I had four clients.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: One of the clients was my mother.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_05: See?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I started off the Princess Cupcake line.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: We had this stuff that was always in the stores, the cupcakes, and I I asked them to box it and I'll take it around Lagos and sell it to you know small businesses, supermarkets.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um did that for about maybe about a year-ish.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was consulting for several other companies, hair and makeup company, flawless and becca.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then I had um a friend of mine who had just come back from the UK.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: He went to study um something along graphic animations and things like that.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: So came back, it was like he needed help setting his business.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: I went to 20 top agencies, got him his first big check.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um so at the time you're like a sales expert.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was just, yeah, but then I it was too much work.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Too much work.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_05: Quit again.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was just too much, it was too much.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was going crazy.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was it was way too much work.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: I looked, I was like, no, it shouldn't be this hard.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it shouldn't be this hard.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, enjoying it though.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I was enjoying it, but it was difficult.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Way too difficult.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot, a lot of effort, yeah.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I I didn't see how it could scale.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because you can't scale yourself, you can't scale yourself, yeah.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm done.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: I fired everybody, every client.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm not doing again.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_05: You know what's funny?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: You started saying in the beginning that you realize you can't quit.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: You got it, you got it.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was getting there.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think the last, I mean, so I can fast forward it to get to where I am today.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's sort of I spent 10 years in sales and marketing, went from Pershare to my sales target company.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: From there, I got hired by Dilfish.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Dillfish was a digital version of the physical paper that I was distributed to.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: And part of the reasons why my friends and I saw like split up was because I said we have to go digital to scale this business.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: So these guys had scaled it, you know, came in from outside the country, they saw my resume and they hired me.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, then OLX came and bought over a Dilfish and I became the head of marketing for OLX Nigeria with no degree in marketing.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_05: Well, but you had the experience.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: You know how when you go for a job interview, they want 10 years' experience when you are one year out of school.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_05: So you had the experience.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: I had the experience.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I figured if you can't beat them with the grades, yeah, you have to beat them with experience.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: You have to work.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why it's very important for me to get to a company and achieve results so that I could take those results and show them.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, hey, this is what I can do.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: Forget what my grades look like.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is what I can do.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, all the while I was on stage in church.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_05: I was going to ask that.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_05: That did you ever put aside the acting?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was always there.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was always doing three things.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was there where I was, you know, on stage in church, and we had real thespians, like people who studied theater arts, okay, train us.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for me, it was ministry.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Was my service, you know.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, nice.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_05: Because it wasn't like something you were doing for money, yeah.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_05: Something you were doing from the heart.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_05: I absolutely loved it.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes, and and then I Pastor Bodrew called me up one day and he was gonna I I someone sent word to me and said he wanted to have a meeting with me.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, ah man, I'm not ready to to be psyched into joining any serious church activities.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I felt if he did that, I was just gonna leave.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, then he mentioned oh, that he had always had the uh thought about doing something for the younger people in church, like a concert.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Okay.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: Concert.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that that you can get behind.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I party, do you remember?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_05: Two years.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: No stop, no stop, non-stop.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I can't remember this two years.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, so I I did the I did the concert, we called it Extreme Reaction.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we I put this crew together, music, dance, drama.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: So while I was doing the serious theater, you know, senior theater group, I also had this younger concert group that I was um doing in church.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where all the I think that's where the learnings came from.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: I remember the day um Duka Kachi, one of our trainers, um kept complaining about how I was walking on stage and I didn't understand.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Stop, you know, stop something, something footing around the place.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I just said, I don't understand what you're saying.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he got on stage and he moved, and I watched him move.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh, now I get it.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I got on stage, and many years later, I I Here the same thing.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: You have a very strong presence on screen and on stage.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_05: Explain this for the the young actors.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: There is there.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's probably what the younger guys call aura.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a presence.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a presence.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's knowing, it's knowing how the human eye directly when you're on stage or how the lens, you know, operates.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you can maximize that presence in a frame.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it requires training.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went to this random audition.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was selling something to a guy, you know, and we spoke.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: He studied engineering in Texas.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: I studied engineering here.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he asked, so what else do you do?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: I do a little bit of acting.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: I have some friends that studied film in the US and they're coming to shoot a film in Nigeria.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Would you like to go to the audition?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure, why not?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: Went to the audition.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: Aced the audition.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: But there were some other guys who came to watch the audition who were trying to do their own film, small film, but they didn't have budget to hold an audition.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: So they came to watch.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_05: That's a good idea.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna steal that.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then they approached me.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: And asked me to be the lead in their short film.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: So my first audition, I got two roles.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the film's um A Grain of Wheat um was directed by two guys, but Daniel Letime, I think, was one of the directors.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um the other film was uh Red Red House 7, something like that.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Red House 7, feature-length film.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then people saw those films and reached out.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, one guy who I had the guy who gave us the biggest check from an agency from my friend, saw the trailer for one of the films and calls me up and says, Hey, I know you, you're the I saw you in this thing.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've always been thinking about doing a short film.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: Come, let's talk.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we did a short film together called Blink.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, it blew up that year.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: 300,000 views was a lot.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, first scene is me sitting on a chair, my hands cuffed behind me underwater.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that was probably the first underwater, you know.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: But you did actually shoot it underwater, yeah.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we don't we didn't have there was no AI.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I nearly died.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: Not really, because uh we we practiced we did breath training for so many weeks.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, um, I think at some point sitting, I could hold my breath.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: I might be wrong, maybe I'm forgetting that now, but well over two minutes.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well over two minutes.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking maybe four, but I'm not sure.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we got to the pool that they were gonna shoot, and then we realized we couldn't take in all the air because we would float.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we had to go in half tank somewhere and sit, and then they would run, and then when I can't breathe again, oh god, yeah, but it was fun.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was fun.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: I did that for I think two years, three years.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was head of marketing for OLX.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: So while you were doing this, you're head of marketing for marketing.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this um, and so we had done Gide Up, was uh one of the first web series from Nigeria owned by Ndani TV, um GT Bank Indani TV.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, they did this web series and you know, take off time from work, maybe weekends, after work, we shoot.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: Came out, was a hit.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: Then they came back and said they now wanted to make it a proper TV shoot, and they needed three months to film.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're doing 95.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I was earning a lot of money, but I was also saving a lot of it.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_05: That means you had your money smart already.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you read Think and Grow Rich, Richest, you know, Rich Dad, poor dad, richest man in Babylon, if you read those kind of books, you'd be a bit careful with money.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I I wish I knew more.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh I had some money saved.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: This time I was married, by the way.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I got married in January of 2013.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: This was happening in August of 2013, and I just looked at my wife.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yo.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: I always said something like this could happen.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I didn't expect it to happen this soon, but this is where it is.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in the bank accounts, we have this invested here, there's that.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: Just give me one year.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you know, to fair request.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: Give me one year to do this thing and let me, you know, scratch the itch.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_05: And this was 2013.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I guess the one year.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_05: That one yeah.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Ah in the sixth year, she tapped me and said, I thought you said one word, but it's working.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is working, um totally changed my life, and uh, I guess I would I'd I'd just drop this little one and give you some time to to ask me questions.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I love that I've only asked you one question.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_05: I hope you know that the question was literally how did life begin for you?
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm bringing up speed, bro.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: Give a long life.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_05: Anyone who knew me before Masterminds, you know that I've spent the past 20 years dedicating my life to bringing you the best music and the best sound, and now I put those years of experience into creating a way that you can experience that sound, and that's why we brought you the Lynx Reverb headphones and the Lynx Octave Portable Speaker, so that you can enjoy crisp sound with premium quality.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so in in 2019, I I got tired of the kind of work I was doing.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um I felt I wasn't I wasn't doing the films that the level of skill that I had worked so hard to develop um would be most um would fit most.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't I wanted to do more, and I wasn't seeing that more.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a bit of there's always gonna be a bit of who do you know, you know, what kind of packaging do you have?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that kind of was not a packaged guy, like nobody wanted to manage me, nobody was going to represent me.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't fit the picture of what a star looked like.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um 2013, 2014, I tried, kept trying, kept talking to everybody.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody listened to me.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: So 2014 I started my own management company to represent myself.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: I have two emails, my personal email, company email.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: I promise you, Charlie, I can be having a conversation.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'll copy an email without a conversation between me and my management company.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: You have no idea.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_05: I have an artist friend who used to have his manager phone and his personal phone.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: So he called his personal phone and you say, Call my manager, then you pick up hello.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it it it it it worked um until you know I started to get help, you know, to manage the uh the business.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I quit in 2019.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_05: So when you quit, weren't you afraid that you were leaving something that you loved?
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was devastated.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I'd found my purpose and for some reason it wasn't working.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I decided to pivot.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um from the moment I got into the industry, I've been consulting for filmmakers, marketing.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: And because of that, they'll take their marketing plans, go to the distributors, the film distributors, and my name was always on the plan.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how I got closer to the distributors.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: One of them approached me to start consulting, start consulting for Silverbird Film Distribution.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then many years later, there was a job opening, they offered me the job, and I took it.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: Head of marketing, head of marketing for Silverbird Film Distribution.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I quit acting and I was done.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was from Silverbird, the plan was to find my way to an international distribution company.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: It could be Netflix, it could be Amazon.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, or let's say you thought you were done.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_05: I was done.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I was done.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then COVID happened in 2020.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_05: The life changer.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: COVID happened in 2020.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: I felt I felt there was more that the company could do.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I know where this is going.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: I felt there was more than the company could do.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I even went as far as you know, just developing the whole the whole process to say, look, this is how we start to win.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it may not take us to the promised land, but it will get us a few steps ahead.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt that management wasn't ready for those ideas.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um at the same time, throughout COVID, there wasn't work to do, and I would start getting these calls from my friends in Hollywood.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'd be like, okay, not doing anything, so let's do this.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: But those were the films I had been waiting for that I never got.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_04: Interesting, yeah.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so I got called by Tonkey Akindili, I got to work with Muabudu, I got to work with Jadisola, Shibiru, Kemi Aditiba, Kunia Fonlayo, and it was back to back.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: Funkindile's saga came out in December of 2020 and became the highest grossing movie in the history of Nollywood.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I was playing the lead character for that film.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_05: That's when you became the box office kid.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that that was that was that.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I started getting the calls.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody just come to me.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, nope, I'm done.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm work has started, I don't have time for this anymore.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: My money is on how do I jack bar?
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: Unless I'm making money in dollars.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that coincided with I put out the plans, yeah, I don't think you're taking them seriously.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I have to be in a place where you know I feel like I'm moving the direction I want to move, and so I quit.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_05: So let's let's go over this again.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: You started the conversation by saying you learned at a young age to never quit.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_05: To never quit.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_05: And now you've told me about 20 stories where you quit, but I would say you never actually quit, you always sort of just evolved.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I I like how at every point in time, when you face a situation and you want to move to the next level and your environment doesn't seem to want to move with you, you break out.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's what that a lot of people are afraid to do, so they stay small forever, you know.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like I watched somebody say something, I was like, Yeah, that's so true.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_05: They said if you are growing a plant in your bedroom and the plant isn't growing, do you throw the plant away or do you change the environment?
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I think you've always had that mindset to keep it.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it was because I don't see quitting as failure per se, I see it as redirection.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: I see it as redirection.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um maybe I should have quit engineering.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: I would say no.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows though?
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: I might be with Denzel by now.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe some grits.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: Taught me how to quit.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: Quit by your head, for example.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_05: Somebody watched this, watch this interview for only the first 10 minutes, they'll be a completely different message.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: Watch till the end, guys.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: There's more.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so now I want to jump into the lessons that you've been able to learn from this because one thing I I noticed when I was reading your story is I feel you've been intentional.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, they say that everything happens organically in life for success to happen, but the real people who are successful are those who see intentionality through the organic.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like you know when to jump ship, you know when to pivot, you know when to add up.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_05: So do you feel that you as you've learned those lessons now you were praised better because you can predict trends with your intentionality?
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I always argue with people when they when they talk about me seeming like I was very intentional.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_05: I you you just love quitting.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't the only thing that I'm that I've ever been intentional about was being excellent.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_05: That's great.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's all.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was 100% focus on being excellent.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: So every decision that I was making, therefore, was aligned with what I thought was excellence.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do you hear what I'm saying?
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and of course, growth.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_05: So it's not per se that you want to do this versus that, it's you want to go where excellence is.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I wonder, and I follow that.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if I see a script and you know, I I it's a great story, it's a great cast, it's great director, great producer.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's great money.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because if you don't have great money, it's hard for you to achieve a great film.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: It is, except you have a great skills, yeah.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you cut down what you need, resources that you need, you know.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm testing, I'm always looking.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: So what do they have?
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: What do they have?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, this guy doesn't have a lot of money, but man, there's uh there's huge potential over here.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it, let's do it.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: It comes out, people see they love it, it gets me somewhere else.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I'm just following excellence.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: Excellence, yes, yes.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I want you to do this for me.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_05: So they say the only time you know if a decision was right was on is on hindsight.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_05: So if you look back on your journey right now, what mindsets do you think you had that was able to keep taking you through this?
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't gone through what I went through.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of times while I look back and I'm like, why did this happen you know, why did it happen?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: Why did this have to happen?
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's immediately followed by thank god it happened.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'm where I am today.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um I learned very early to let go of the past not the lessons of the past.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let go of the baggage um or try to.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's some things that yeah, still there.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: We're human, right?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: So let go, just keep forging for that.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's a doggedness.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: You sink your teeth into something, the only thing that's going to give is that thing.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, until I I'm faced with superior wisdom.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I pivot at superior wisdom.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always stubborn about my goal or about my ideas.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not moving until superior intelligence just arrives.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh snap.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh snap, okay, this is the way to go.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm now back to oh, this is what I'm really.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh I guess at some point I started to figure that I likely have an international standard skill set as an actor.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so I felt you know it would be great to start looking to do international work.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_05: Which you have.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_05: I've seen some projects in Japan, like, and you're you're you're the actor who's been in the most Netflix movies in Africa, if I'm right.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_05: Unless my research is lying to me because they count.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_05: You might need to check.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um so in deciding that I never had representation in Nigeria, so I know in the international space you really need representation.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I decided to try to find representation, and it was the most difficult thing.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'll go to TIFF and Toronto, I'll meet with people, they're excited about my showreel, my headshots, and the whole thing.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, what's your status?
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I got a green passport, guys.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: End of conversation.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've gotten requests for gigs in theater in New York, in um in films, and what's your status?
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Until I I then realized there was a huge like blockade between African talent and the rest of the world.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: And in some places in the creative space, like music, for example, with Afro-bits, that seems to have shifted.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe art to fashion, I'm not sure.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it seems to movies still seem to be a bit of an issue.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how many Nigerian actors have gone to work in South Africa, for example?
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: How many compared to the amount of how the big art industry is?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: Why haven't we seen that sort of collaboration internationally?
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_05: What do you think is causing that?
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um We have a very big distribution problem.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a weird answer to that question, but we have a huge distribution problem.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: How do we get our content across Africa and across the rest of the world?
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: The channels for distribution are owned by everybody else but us, even here, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so when your industry is not connected to a thriving distribution channel, right?
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: Owned by you, where you fully monetize the middlemen are cut off.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't be bullied because they have more money, you know who we're talking about.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's hard for you to to grow because why do we need to put an African in our movie?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why the eyeballs?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but what's the value of the eyeballs?
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_05: Because eyeballs benefit from distribution.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: But what's the value of that?
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh is are the eyeballs you know far reaching?
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then what's the value of the eyeballs that are reaching?
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: What's the per capita income of the people?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, are they in thriving enough economies that you know we regard their industry as big enough?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of disregard.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so that for me might be one of the reasons.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're just not connected to a thriving enough um industry.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we need to stop looking to the rest of the world to save us.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I really mean to the rest of the world, I don't care what part of the world they're from, but they are not our saviors.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: We need to fix our own thing and create our own channels and create our own content and have laws to protect us.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that's the only way that we can be regarded.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you would one day find that, oh, it's difficult to hire.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: You need to have a strong African actor so that we can get the African eyeballs.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: And because it's in a thriving industry, you can't come to pay peanuts for an actor, you know, disrespect.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: They come with respect.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then there's luck.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's luck.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because for me, I got on LinkedIn and I started looking for agents around the world.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: New York, LA, Atlanta, Vancouver, Toronto, parts of Europe, the UK, South Africa, Kenya.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_02: I remember searching for agents around the world, and every day I would send out 50.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was the limit, 50 LinkedIn messages.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think that might have been the limit.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_05: I hope people are listening to the volume of that.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_05: You know, everyone are sending one a week and they think they've done.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_02: Every day for 20 straight days, a thousand agents around the world.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: About 15 of them responded.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_02: Went to emails, headshots, show reels.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Regime.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then nothing.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: In twenty twenty-two.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_05: And this is at a time when you were the king.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_02: In a small pond.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're looking for blue ocean.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're trying to yeah.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so that happened.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: Then I get a call in 2024.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_02: Hi DM.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: Two years later.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a role in a Japanese sci-fi T T V series.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hi DM, there's a role in a Japanese sci-fi TV series for an African actor.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: Are you interested and available?
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_05: And that was delay is never denial.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: That was it.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_02: That was the beginning.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because now that's happened, other things have happened.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've done uh Crown of Blood, which is a British theatre production, Sheffield Theatre Production in conjunction with um Utopia Theatre, decided to do Macbeth.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: But this time they placed the Macbeth story in 19th century or your empire.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_04: Interesting.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I played the Macbeth of that story.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_04: Interesting.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_04: You're doing good.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the hardest and the movie will be the most fulfilling, fulfilling work I've ever done.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_05: You're doing good.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_05: And it's that hard work and the pushing and the consistency.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_05: But I only I don't want to backtrack.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_05: I think what you've said, you know, we need to cut that clip and send to everybody in the movie industry in Africa because you've hit the nail on the head when you say distribution is the one thing that is holding us back.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_05: Because I keep talking about the fact that it's over 1.4 billion people in Africa.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_05: If there was a way to distribute to every African, then the only conversation you have is like in the movie.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: In a way that Africans want to consume.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_05: In a way they they can even consume.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_02: Don't let's not create something outside the norm, outside what we are used to.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_02: Something that works for us.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: Something that works for us.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_05: A solution for Africans.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_05: By Africans, yes.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, the only way.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_05: Then when you're a film producer, your only concern is is my movie good or not?
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like I always break down businesses into three sections: production, marketing, distribution.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_05: When distribution fails, the first two are inconsequential.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_05: Because you can produce the best movie.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_05: But if I haven't seen it, if I can't pay for it, where you're gonna sell it.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's simple markets.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's why you have companies like Beak or companies like St.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_05: Louis Sugar who don't care much about markets.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because they're distributed everywhere.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's a demand for it.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_02: The people want it, they can get it.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's that simple.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we need to build.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm currently um testing an idea.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: In Ghana.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because Ghana is chilled.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: If I need to chill, you know, I can't.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: Ghana is the place of there's Abuja.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_02: We have Abuja.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'll save this fight for later.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't been to Abuja, so I can't.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been to both.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_02: I've been to Akron Kumasi.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I've had a great time in Ghana.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_02: But so we're we're testing on something out in Ghana.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and hoping that when we incubate it there and we we see the results, we'll scale it um as much as we can, and it's something that we can bring to Nigeria, maybe a few other African countries.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um let's see if we can do something about our distribution.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, we're trying to raise$100,000.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_05: Let me let me sign a check.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_05: Let me sign a check.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_05: That's why I'm here.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_05: I I hear you're the man.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, to to do that.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that's again, that's for distribution, but also still trying to figure out the international export of our talents.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Which is another thing that we just need to work really hard on.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Really hard on.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: We need talent managers, people that actually understand what it takes to get um African creativity and creators, you know, out there to the rest of the world.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still looking for you know that type of person or those type of people.
• 1:11:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_05: I think these kind of conversations, one thing I always say is that you have a lot of brilliant people, especially in Africa, working in silos.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_05: So sometimes these kind of conversations let somebody, somebody sitting there watching right now, thinking, Oh, I never knew that me is looking for something like this.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_05: Next thing you see, he's hitting you up on LinkedIn, you know, 50 messages a day to respond.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Someone actually goes into my DM on time and said, I'm gonna be messaging you on to your response.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I waited.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: The person messaged me three, four times and stopped.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, ah, yeah.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_05: Oh people, guys, but let me tell you this.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_05: You have to keep going.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I tested it, I was like, oh, really?
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people don't know how politics.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_05: You know, when I was coming to Nigeria to come and do interviews, my target was to do 20 interviews.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I reached out to over a hundred people, and I'm doing 15.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_05: I'm close to my target.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_05: But if I had reached out to 20, I'd have done two.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_05: But somebody else will try and say, Oh, try the one, try the two.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're not available.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean these people, these are there.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, knocking, knocking, knocking.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Something's gotta give.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Something's gotta give.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_05: Do this for me.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_05: You mentioned in the beginning that your your first memory is in a library.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_05: You already mentioned three books, so I'm taking that out.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_05: Think and grow rich out, richest man in Babylon, out, rich dad poor dad, out.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_05: Give three books that my audience can read to start elevating their lives.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Good to great.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, one Built to Last.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steve Markov.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_05: You have an amazing mind.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_05: Has anybody ever told you that before?
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an actor.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I am pretending to have an amazing mind.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_02: You can't pretend.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_05: Look, one thing I say is creativity is intelligence having fun.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I hear that.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_05: So most people who think being creative is a lack of intelligence don't understand that.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_02: They don't understand it.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a type of intelligence.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_05: Then before I let you go, do one thing for me.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_05: I want you to look in that camera.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_05: Imagine that the person watching you, that young person watching you, you have the opportunity to stretch your hand and drop one mindset shift that can help them be a mastermind and head towards success.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_05: What would it be?
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's uh one principle that I have lived by for maybe two decades now.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it was when I discovered that no one should ever let their environment limit the size of their dreams.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: I repeat that.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do not let your environment, the people, society, whoever, whatever group is out there, do not ever let that environment limit the size of your dream.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Dream, dream big.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Dream smart.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Dream big.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And understand that no matter how big you dream, you can break those dreams into small bits.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Success is defined as the gradual realization of a worthy ideal.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: So if your goal is a hundred kilometers, the first kilometer is successful.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_02: You've succeeded with the first kilometer.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Next kilometer, next kilometer.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Just make sure that you keep pushing that limit and the world will try to limit you.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's your job as a human being.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you are, a being.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_05: You know, just your last 30 seconds is a whole episode on its own.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_05: That's so deep.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you for honoring the invite.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you for sharing your story.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_05: I personally feel this story that you've shared is going to inspire a lot of people to realize that they can also make it.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_05: And the fact that you are where you are, but you want to keep pushing further is inspirational.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_05: I really applaud you for it.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate the invite.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_05: And to you watching this, I really hope this conversation has brought you another step closer to being the mastermind that I know you are determined to be.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you for watching this video.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_05: The fact that you're still here tells me you're someone who is dedicated to mastery.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_05: Now, you're officially part of the mastermind community, so let me know in the comments any guest recommendations or any topics that you would want me to talk about personally.