I'm not, you know, the classic Silicon Valley CEO.
You know, I think that for me I used to believe
that that meant that I could never really achieve what they achieved
that there were certain parts of the world, certain levels of success
certain levels of business that were just going to be too big for me.
It's like how can I dare say "I'm going to run an energy company"
like that "I'm going to build wealth for a community."
Like who am I?
I made the mistake freshman year of college of
going in and having no goals.
Freshman year, you know I actually did horrible in class
because I didn't know my goals of what I wanted to achieve academically
I let my body fall apart I just, I let my, I lost myself.
And because of that I realized that I'm the kind of person who needs to work
to know herself
and consistently keep track of who she is.
In the end, you know, it's about recognizing the value in our own struggle
being appreciative and aware of our privilege.
So that we can have empathy for others in their experience
it can- we can bridge the gap for them.
And then being able to take all of that and own it
say "This is who I am."
This is who I am
Hello, who to who you are into who you are. That's great.
But this who I am
take it or leave it, like I know that...
no matter what happens
if I stay who I am I will feel good about it at the end of the day.
The only thing that's going to be constant in this ever-changing world is
who I am.
I understand what I'm doing
I know what I'm doing it for
I know what I'm fighting for
I understand the steps
in terms of what's involved to make sure that I never lose sight
of what I'm fighting for.
So everything else is just kind of going through the motions
the motions that I... I know to be valuable.
I can hear the advice of a lot of different people
and say, "Okay, thank you, thank you, thank you."
"This is what I want to do"
and I'll stand by it, I will never blame someone for my decisions.
No, it's my life.
Conflict
Fight back
I'm saying this,
put together your thoughts logically
and come back at me like I want you to convince me
that I'm wrong, like find the holes in my argument, find the gap in my thinking.
It's like here's my strategy
and I am prepared to do what it takes to stay alive.
Like, what I tell my investors is like
all you need to know is that I will be standing at the end of this match.
That's it, and like if I have to all of a sudden
do an uppercut that I've never done
or like switch to Southpaw out of nowhere, hey
I'll do what I have to do because I'm going to win this fight.
In the end
say whatever you want to say about someone fighting's style
if they won, they won.
Wanting very much to make sure that little girls who look like me
believe that they can do anything.
And believe that they can do more than just media and entertainment in particular
and believe in the value of their perspective.
And so that's what gets me up in the morning.
And then everything else
the details, it's like it kind of, I can push through that day.
And what I found is that
instead of trying to live a successful life
if you aim to have a successful day
If you have 13 out of the 24 hours of your day, if you won those hours
you won the day.
And if you win most of the days in a week you won the week,
you know, we just need a simple majority here.
If you win, you know most of the weeks in a month, there you go
most of the months in a year, most of the years
and, and all of a sudden look at that without even trying
you've been able to kind of get somewhere.
When I say, you know, I know who I am
I guess the- the unsaid portion, though, is like
and then for the things I don't know about myself
I'm open to finding out.
And so I think the idea is to
think about our lives as a constant research experiment.
Who I thought I was, and what I thought I wanted.
When I was 19, it's to a certain extent similar, to you know now,
but there's also a lot of..
a lot of difference in the nuances and the details of the execution.
And I think what it is, is that like we..
we all have a core that like is our soul,
that is our kind of ethos that were born with, that's..
that's our ethical nature that we get from
our families and our friends
and like where we grew up that you know
ideally and hopefully it's good.
And I think that nugget, that's always unchanging
and you have to figure out who that is
What, you know, what that is inside of you as soon as possible.
And I've always been a very reflective person.
I've always been someone who..
who will ask myself, you know every six weeks or so
am I happy?
This, and it's a really simple thing.
It's just like the answers are either yes or no.
And if it's a no, it's like okay, well
am I doing things that well right now maybe I'm not like blissfully happy?
Or working towards something that I know will make me happy,
you know what I mean, like am I generally happy
with the idea of the trade-offs that I'm making right now
or that I have to deal with.
You know, does that make me happy?
And if that's a yes, it's like okay, cool.
But if it's still a no, it's like stop everything.
No, this doesn't make sense
But so with that you come and go, and you go okay, I need a solution
And so I started doing the check-in which I do just
it's more like you can sense if you take some time to be quiet
You can sense when you're not in equilibrium,
And then that's when you ask, that's it.
Just running running running running running
without taking a time to just know where you are
I mean then there's probably going to be other symptoms where you're just
overeating or overdoing this or not sleeping, like..
you'll, people will be able to tell you,
"Yeah, you don't look balanced" if you asked.
I was able to stay who I am
by being open to learning about who I am
from those who had been working to figure out themselves as well.
And I think it takes a certain sense of humility
to be willing to listen to those people
But also I think it takes a certain sense of logic I guess
and just like dynamic thinking to realize that what they're telling you is simply
part of your full concept of yourself
not the all you know, not the total of it.
And you know, it is your life, it is your unique perspective,
it is who you are that has brought you here.
So anyone who invests in you is going to want you to be who you are.
They're going to have to trust that being who you are
even if it's different from who they are
that that's going to be the thing that's going to take this
to the next level no matter what.
And I think for me that was..
that was the critical piece of advice, right?
Like we all need someone to say the thing that's been so obvious,
but we've just been to head down to realize.
You know, we all have our struggle
regardless of who we are, whether you're male or female
Black, orange, green who cares
we all have our struggle
And we all have our privilege,
you know, I consider it a privilege to be born of Nigerian parents
like that to me is privilege to have parents who believe in you
irrationally so.
You know, I feel..
I feel privileged to have gone to the schools I've gone to, right?
But in the end,
you know, it's about recognizing the value in our own struggle
being appreciative and grateful for what you have and the life you have.
You, you want to give back, you want to make the most out of it
and you want to make sure that on your last day, you don't have regrets
because that to me is the only solution, you know, to death is
accepting it.
And so being a 100% just focused on profit
in the end, if you have to look in the mirror, you know,
you have to be with just yourself when you close your eyes at night.
If that's, if that's, if that completes you, dope, dope
And I mean and again, I try not to be too prescriptive
in what people, you know,
I can only speak for myself
and what I understand in my limited number of years on this planet about life
But I don't think there's anyone who said on their deathbed
"So glad I made that billion dollars."
We live in a world that's so complicated
that it's not enough to just say,
"Oh, well one of us succeeded or there's one example"
like it's going to take so many different things happening
to really shift the way we not only learn how to love each other
but learn how to love ourselves.
The solution to the world's problems
because I truly believe that there's..
given how complex our problems are
there is no one person or company that's going to solve all of them.
The only chance that we have is if
as many people as possible are engaged
and feel empowered to be part of that solution.