Confidence, Ethical Coaching and Influencing Change
Episode 61
Tiwalola Ogunlesi is a confidence coach, self-love activist and founder of Confident and Killing It, a purpose-driven organisation on a mission to make self-love and confidence the norm for women, not the exception.
In this episode, Tiwa tells us that we are living through a self-worth pandemic, evidenced by the rising suicide rates in young women. The conversation explores why women struggle with their confidence and how to break the cycle of negative thoughts. Frankie asks Tiwa about the differences between self-love and ego, and if self-love really is possible for us all.
Tiwa and Frankie also discuss the ethics of the coaching industry and Tiwa tells us how she felt a moral obligation to use her voice and platform in the campaign to #EndSARs in Nigeria. And finally, Tiwa tells us that “women who want to make positive change need to be loud”.
This conversation was recorded on 11th November 2020. We hope you enjoy listening.
Listen Now!
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Episode Chapters
03:26 Chapter 1 - Where it began
07:34 Chapter 2 - The self-worth pandemic
11:53 Chapter 3 - Stepping into your power
14:54 Chapter 4 - Self-love vs. Ego
18:16 Chapter 5 - Your life is *your* responsibility
20:49 Chapter 6 - Imposter syndrome = temporary memory loss
26:12 Chapter 7 - Ethics, authenticity and integrity in coaching
35:28 Chapter 8 - Using your voice and platform for positive change
41:17 Chapter 9 - Utilising your confidence toolkit
44:54 Chapter 10 - Final words of wisdom
Connect with Tiwalola & Confident and Killing It
Connect with Frankie Cotton
Team
Guests - Tiwalola Ogunlesi
Host - Frankie Cotton
Production Support - Georgia Buchanan
Sound Editor - Beth Davison
Get in touch
Send your feedback to hello@thewotpod.com
Tweet us https://twitter.com/TheWotPod
Join us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thewotpod/
Or hop over to Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thewotpod
EPISODE 60 TRANSCRIPT
Frankie Cotton Tiwa, welcome to Women on Top.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Hi, Frankie. Thanks for having me.
Frankie Cotton Firstly, how are you? How are things?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I'm good. Yeah, I think this year has definitely been a bit of a roller coaster. I've had my really good days. I've had my really down days. But I'm, I'm coming out of quite an emotionally unstable a bit extra. I wouldn't say I was actually unstable but just like October was quite a heavy month. So, yeah, I'm, I'm loving the lightness of November so far. I'll say that.
Frankie Cotton I love that 'it sounds a bit extra'. It doesn't sound extra at all in the context of this year. It really doesn't. But Tiwa, I'd love to, I'd love to start really and sort of set the scene by asking you what was the catalyst for you starting Confident and Killing It. Where did it all come from?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah. So I graduated from university in 2015 and I initially wanted to work in fashion, but all the job interviews I went for, for the internships were just so like fluffy. And I was like, I want to get down to real work. I don't want to come into this internship and you're asking me, oh, do I know what tube I'm going to take in the morning like, no, I want to do some, like, real work. So I applied for loads of different jobs. And then I eventually got a job in an engineering company in Oxford to work in their digital marketing department. Now, at this point, there was just so much pressure to get a job, not necessarily from my society or my parents, but just like internal pressure. You know, it's like you graduate, what's next? So I get this job in Oxford. I move there. I don't know anyone in the city and I absolutely hate it when I get there. I took the job because I was like a really passionate, I am a really passionate person. And I said I'm passionate. I'll be passionate about anything. It's fine. But that's not how passion works. Passion only works with the things you actually care about. So I'm working in this job I realised that I hated, I'm literally crying every other evening. And so I said to myself, there has to be more to my life than being stuck in a job that I hate. And there was so I started volunteering as a youth leader and I'm mentoring girls who are around age 15 to 17. And I asked them what they want to get out of in life. And they all wrote it down on a piece of paper. And I was super, super excited to see what they had said. I got home. I opened the first piece of paper and I was like, I want to learn to love myself more. And I was like, oh, my gosh. My heart literally just sank the next piece of paper, 'I wish I was more confident', third piece of paper, 'I wish I was more confident', fourth piece of paper, 'I wish I loved myself more.' And I was like every single girl said something about wanting to be more confident and loving themselves more. And I literally was like, enough is enough. You know, I remember when I was 16 and I didn't love myself and I hated my looks. I hated my body. All of these things. I was like, here we are again, almost ten years later and another generation of young girls are growing up. And the main thing is them not loving themselves. And I said, we can't we can't keep living like this. This is not OK. So I literally just grabbed my phone. I literally remember the day so clearly my heart was like on fire. And I just grabbed my phone and I just recorded a video of myself talking about how important it is to love and believe in yourself, because I was like so many women are living on autopilot where their default is self-hate and that shouldn't be anyone's default. Our default should be self love. And I had been on the confident journey myself. So by this time when I was working and living in Oxford, I had gone through my own insecurities and built up my confidence. And so I knew what a life of feeling confident and loving and believing in yourself looked like. And I was like, I need women all over the world to access this because this is where life really begins. So, yeah, Instagram videos led to more Instagram videos led to events in person and yeah Confident and Killing It was born.
Frankie Cotton And I think this is probably the million dollar question. Right. But why do you think from the work that you've done, that women struggle so much with confidence generally? What is it that we that we really struggle with that makes it so almost elusive for a lot of us?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, it's it's the it's society, it's the media and the patriarchal society that we live in right? Society benefits off women feeling insecure. If you think about the media you consumed when you were growing up and things like that. You need this cream to look good enough, you need this lip gloss to feel confident, you need this hair to feel like you're worth it, right? Society has sold us this dream that external things are what give us worth as women. And so we keep spending money buying all these things so we can feel good enough. But the gag is that your worth is intrinsic. Your wealth comes from inside of you, not from external things, you know? Yes, definitely, when I wear makeup, I do feel more confident sometimes in a good outfit, you know, but that is only adding to whatever confidence I have internally. Right. So it's it's the messages women are sent, it's the way society has, like, you know, the conversations that we have, the advertising, the media we consume. All of these things are sending us subliminal messages about how we are not good enough. And so women internalise that and then we end up in this kind of situation.
Frankie Cotton And I guess this might be a strange question, but I wonder, does it frustrate you sometimes that you even have to do this work, you know, counterbalancing this patriarchal influence? You know, it must be sort of fulfilling in one sense but also, do you have days where you just think the world that you're trying to build, this shouldn't even be an issue?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, definitely. It's so it does make me really, really angry. And, you know, when I see things like what's called the Social Media Movie?
Frankie Cotton Oh, The Social Dilemma.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, Social Dilemma. You know, when I watch that and I see suicide rates of teenage girls have been increasing with increased use of social media, I'm like I'm pretty sure a lot of people just like swept past that. They're like, OK, yeah, sure. But it's like that is a pandemic in itself, like, are you kidding me? You know, like suicide in teenagers is one of the highest death causes. Like that is not okay. Like, how will we just normalise that? Young people deserve a future. They deserve a life and they're not committing suicide because they don't think that they're good enough they weren't born thinking they had no worth they've learnt that based on the society we live in. So actually, what really annoys me is that people don't actually take this as a serious problem as they should, you know. And I think that's why I love social impact and companies with actually a moral compass and, you know, companies who want to do good in the world. And I always say people who want to do good in the world need to be just as loud or even louder and more strategic than the people sending all of these subliminal messages that we are not good enough because they are there and they are unapologetic. Right. They put budget behind these things. And then the people who want to do good in the world are like, oh, no, I have to stay humble and, you know, just like in my own little lane. And what if no one likes this and it's like we can't be thinking about those things. We have to be loud and show up and create new types of media that actually makes women feel good about themselves, you know?
Frankie Cotton Yeah, I think you hit on something really important there. And I and I think that I find that and certainly, my own experience is sort of finding my own voice was quite a painful experience, sort of in my late twenties. And you know well, I'm only thirty now, but in my late 20s certainly was sort of like, well, actually, what do I think? Where are my opinions? Why are they so buried beneath everything else? And why am I so afraid of having a voice? And I wonder, you know, what this sort of process looks like and how women can really start to step into their power and really find their inner voice.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, great question. So the mission of Confident and Killing It is to wake women up to their worth so they can be confident, unstoppable, and really live the life that they truly desire. Because I was noticing women were really allowing fear and insecurity to get in the way of their dreams. So the first thing to owning your voice and to being confident is to wake up. You need to wake up to the greatness within you. You need to wake up to what your strengths are. When I ask people what their strengths are, they're looking left, looking right, looking up to heaven, hoping something just drops down. And I'm like, that is not how this works. You know, if if you want to be confident, you need to put in the work, growth is intentional. You don't just wake up one day and you're like grown, like I used when I was twenty one, I used to think, when I'm twenty five, I'll be making money, I'll be grown, life will be good. And it's like, no, there are, you know, forty year olds out there who have not grown a bit because they have been in this negative cycle. So actually growth is intentional and we have to be intentional about knowing the good things about ourselves. So what are your strengths? What comes natural to you? What sets your heart on fire you need to find out what your strengths are, find out what your interests are and align the two things together and live in the alignment that is your power circle, because a lot of people, you can be the most confident person but if you put yourself in an environment where you're not using your strengths, you're not doing what you love, you will feel insecure. It's so simple, you know, so confidence is a practice there is a science to it is not like, oh, you're either born with confidence or you're not. Not at all. If your confidence has been broken, there are strategic things that you can do to rebuild it. And so knowing your strengths, knowing your interests, challenging your negative thoughts when they arise, so many women just let negative thoughts come into their mind and they believe it, like the automatic truth. Why? You know, a voice that tells you you're not a good communicator. Question it! Where is the evidence that you are not a good communicator? Right. Or you are not good enough? Where is that evidence coming from? You can't just believe every single thought that comes into your mind. Your mind is a battlefield. So you have to get your positive strategy up and running so that when the negativity comes, you can actually challenge it and say something back and defend yourself in a positive way. And then the last bit to like, help you own your voice and own your story is to celebrate yourself and be unapologetic about it. And it's something we'll probably go into later. But, you know, women always dim the lights were told to dim our light, we're told to be quiet and things like that but you need to celebrate yourself, because when you do, you literally send messages to your brain that you are rewarding yourself, that you have done amazing things, and that makes you more optimistic and more confident so you can take on whatever you have coming your way.
Frankie Cotton And that's that's really interesting because, you know, talking about women perhaps dimming their light is how is this sort of self-love that you're talking about? How is that different to ego? Because I feel that a lot of resistance that often comes from women is that, you know, oh, I don't want to sort of come across like I'm full of myself or, you know, it's this sort of fear of of almost perhaps and not always, but a male ego that we don't necessarily want in our lives. You know, that's not something we aspire to be. So how is self-love different to ego?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah. So I often say confidence and arrogance are not the same thing. OK. When you are arrogant, you're all about I'm the one at the top, everyone else needs to be beneath me. There's only space for one person to be at the top. I don't need to listen to anybody else because I am the best in this room and everyone should be listening to me. So, when you're arrogant and when it's ego, it's all about you, you, you, how can you advance, how can you get to the top, how can you, you know, shine your light and make everyone else's light dimmer? Right. That's what the ego and arrogance does. When you're confident on the other hand, you understand that there is enough room for everyone to thrive. There is enough room for everyone's light to shine and not take anything away from your own light. So ego and arrogance have a scarcity mindset and confidence and self love have an abundance mindset. Right? Just because I love myself and I'm confident doesn't mean you can't be confident in your own lane and do great things to. So when you're confident, you bring other people up. Right. It's about everyone stepping into their power and you use your gifts and your talents to create room for other people to come in with their own gifts and their own talents. So, self-love is about knowing that I am worthy, I am good enough just as I am, and my worth doesn't affect your worth. Right. And we can both exist in the same space and be killing it and not diminish, you know, each other's light. And it's when we come together, if I love myself and you love yourself and we come together, that's like double the light, right?
Frankie Cotton Yeah, yeah. And what would you say to someone perhaps who's listening to this podcast right now who feels that self-love is just unachievable for them?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi That's a choice you're making 100 percent. That is a choice, you are making to believe that self-love is not achievable for you. Your life is a summation of the choices that you make so you can either make choices that move you closer to the life you want to live and closer to your goals or you can make choices that keep you stuck in life and, you know, make you feel like a victim and make you feel insecure about yourself. If you hold the belief that self-love is not possible for you, then guess what? It will not be possible for you, right? Our beliefs aren't hardwired into our heads. We choose what we believe. We 100 percent choose that.
Frankie Cotton Well, and this is what I find really interesting about this work, is because, you know, when we're looking at things like causation and saying, well, well, why do women feel this way? And and we can look to external sources and society and the patriarchy for those reasons. But then, you know, the if you go too far into that, you can adopt this sort of victim mindset, which I think is what is what you're talking about. So I guess there is, is there some sort of sort of journey or evolution with sort of having that patience and understanding for yourself and the grace to say this isn't your fault, you know, to get here and the things that you believe about yourself isn't your fault, but then you sort of need to evolve that and say, yes, but now you have the choice and now you need to you know, you are the only person who can be responsible for making change.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Exactly. Exactly. It's almost like a poker player. I think, you know, you get dealt a set of cards and you have to do something about it with the cards that you have to win the game. You can't no poker player goes 'aw these are terrible cards I'm done for. I might as well just quit now.' No, you're like, OK, I got dealt a bad hand let me try and make this work. Let me see what I can do to turn this around so I can win the game. And that's exactly how life is. Not everyone is going to be dealt, you know, a confident mindset when they're born. I'm quite lucky. I grew up in a very positive, loving household. My mum is an incredible woman. You know, she always encouraged me, my grandma as well she was super adventurous, she paved the way. And so I've never had a limited mindset when it comes to what women are capable of doing. But I had my own insecurities where I felt I wasn't creative enough and I wasn't skinny enough and things like that, but I said, that is not the life I want. OK, so if you know what you don't want, what do you want? And then focus your energy on getting that. So I said, I want to love myself. I want to build a business where I see growth. I want to do this. I want to do that. And I said, OK, if that's what I want, let me break this down. How can I start becoming the woman I want and achieving the things I want to achieve? That's where your energy should focus on if you choose to to think, oh, no one ever told me they love me when I was growing up. Or, you know, maybe your parents are separated and things like that and you don't have a good relationship with them. That's the bad hand. But you have the power of choice to do something about it, because at the end of the day, your life is your responsibility. You're not going to get to the end of your life and blame your parents on your deathbed. Like that's not how it works you know. Your life is your responsibility. So if you don't want to feel a sense of regret, you have to make the choice to make better decisions that serve you and and break you from the bondage of low self-esteem and fear and anxiety.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, that's really powerful. I think that's such a great image. And I'd love to ask you Tiwa actually about sort of imposter syndrome. And it's a word that gets sort of thrown around quite a lot. And I guess how can we identify what is imposter syndrome vs. actually what are very useful signs that we need to gain more skills or do more research or perhaps that we're not yet experienced enough in a particular arena? Because I feel that sometimes the messages around lack of confidence or imposter syndrome are a sort of, you know, just bull your way through it. Just, you know, don't don't listen to those voices and keep going. But sometimes they can be very useful signs. So I wonder what your perspective on that is.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Absolutely. You know, there is such a different energy when you realise you're work in progress and you can have compassion towards yourself versus thinking you're not good enough and, you know, you need to work harder and harder and harder. So one person has a goal. And there's two ways you can get to it. One path is the really heavy path where you're walking down on this path with a ton of bricks on your shoulder. And that's where your mind is saying you don't work hard enough. Look at everybody else working super hard. People are going to think you're a fraud. You need to work harder. You need to go, go, go, go, go. Right. That might motivate you, the fear of feeling like a fraud might motivate you, but it's with a ton of bricks on your back and you will probably burn out before you get to your destination. OK, so that for me is the sabotaging negative thoughts. I was saying that is what you need to challenge. On the other hand, right you have the self compassion and understanding you're work in progress. Right. So no one is saying you're perfect, there's still some skills you might need to learn and some and some help asking for help and things like that. But it goes like you're amazing and we can do more. So let's go. What strengths do you have? Let's use some of those strengths. Is there anyone we can ask for help for? Right. You're doing so well, like keep going. You've got this. So that is a lot more like to look at the difference in the energy between those two things. Both might motivate you to get to the end points, but one is so much nicer and lighter and empowering than the other one which makes you want to give up, you know, so I think it's important to acknowledge your weaknesses and to know where you need to develop yourself, because once you stop growing, that's the end, right? So you've got to invest in yourself and keep growing, but you don't need to do it from a place where you are sabotaging yourself and you can actually grow your skills from a place of kindness. So I call imposter syndrome temporary memory loss where you actually forget the bad ass that you truly are.
Frankie Cotton Yeah.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi You actually, forget it's memory loss because you're going into that meeting and you're like, oh, do I have what it takes? Everyone in here is smarter than me. What am I going to say? What if I mess up like I've never done this before? That's not true. If you look back in your life, you will see that you have the skills, you have the talent. There are multiple examples where you have killed it. You need to remember those. So when you walk into that meeting, you walk into it with a sense of confidence like you deserve to be here rather than people are giving you doing you a favour for being in the room.
Frankie Cotton And why do you think that imposter syndrome is is such a hot topic for millennials and Gen Z, why now? Why is it they're sort of buzzword that we're all talking about? Do you have a view on that?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I think I think it's always kind of been a buzzword. You know, I think it's always kind of like it's just something that's always lingered. And I think a lot of people really experience it. And so it's just but the thing is, it's a natural part of life. Everyone will have imposter syndrome at one point or the other. I remember when I got invited by this magazine to leadership women and leadership roundtable, and this is when I was still at my day job, I hadn't even quit to run Confident and Killing It full time. And I was like me? Women in leadership? Like, do they get the wrong e-mail address? Like, why would they invite me? Like, I don't even, like, run a business full time. Like, I don't even have employees. I'm not I'm not a boss. I'm not a CEO. And my mom was like, are you kidding? Do you know how many things you've done? You inspire women. You do this, you do that, you bring people along. You have empowering conversations. Of course you're a leader. Go on YouTube and look at what John Maxwell has to say about leadership. And I went on there and I watched videos of five laws of leadership and I'm like, oh, actually, I do tick a lot of these boxes, you know? So I think everyone will have imposter syndrome at some point in their life when they're doing something new, when you know, they're putting themselves out of their comfort zone. It is a natural part of life. But I think we've just kind of coined it and it just encapsulates the real insecurity driving a lot of people.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Also, someone told me something once and they said that you belong where you are. And I thought, yeah, you know, wherever, whatever situation and circumstance you find yourself in, you're there because of whatever forces that put you there. So just crack on, basically.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Literally. Yeah.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. Well, Tiwa a slight sort of gear change, I suppose. But I'm really interested to know your perspective on coaching. So coaching has been the subject of, you know, some scrutiny recently, actually, with some unethical practices that are being called out. And coaching generally is unregulated in the UK. And an aspect of the work that you do is obviously coaching women.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah.
Frankie Cotton And I wonder, how do you feel about the industry as a whole and yeah, what's your sort of sense of what's going on at the moment?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, I think, you know, I always have these debates with people. You know, sometimes coaches make money not because or business coaches in particular often make money from their clients rather than because they built a successful business and they're teaching people how to make money. But actually, the money that they have doesn't come from the business that they build. It comes from selling the story and all the clients that they have buying into it. So I think when it comes to business coaching, you need to have built a successful business on your own before you go into coaching people on how to build their own business, because it's kind of unethical for you not to have a successful business, but you're trying to teach other people how to build a business without, you know, actually being through it yourself. But you're saying, oh, you're making all this money, whereas it's not from your business, is from people paying you to teach them how to make money.
Frankie Cotton Buying into that story, absolutley.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, exactly. So with business coaching, I feel like you do need the qualifications and you do need to to to really have an in-depth knowledge of how businesses work and have run a successful business to coach people on that. With life coaching, I think that's where the waters get really blurry because a lot of the times it's based off the person's personal experience. And another thing is a lot of people don't actually know what coaching is really about. They think it's about, oh, I've been through something in my life, so now I can coach people on how to overcome it, too. That is not what coaching is about. Coaching is about understanding where you are, where your client is and where they want to go. And your job as a coach is to grow them so that they begin to see windows of opportunities and they can step over their hurdles. Now, coaching isn't mentoring. Coaching isn't therapy. Coaching isn't having a casual conversation. Coaching is about asking your clients powerful questions so that they find the answer within them, you know, and so a lot of people just call themselves a coach because they're sharing their story and they want to coach people through it. But I think actually, you know, if you are dealing with people's mindsets and their life you have a moral responsibility to make sure you're not bullshitting them and to make sure that you have gotten your qualifications and things like that, like I'm not saying you need you need to become a therapist or anything like that, but there are coaching qualifications that you can get. There is training you can do from like bodies that are certified by the International Coaching Federation. Right. You can you can get that qualification if you want to. So I will always be wary of a coach who doesn't have any qualification whatsoever and just woke up one day and said, I want to start coaching. I would be very wary of that because the option is there to get certified, and if you really want to do this in the best interests of your client, you will go and get qualified and certified so that, you know, you are running the right practices and not just like kind of going willy nilly with people.
Frankie Cotton Do you have any feedback from from your clients or prospective clients who are perhaps worried about some of these aspects? And how, as consumers do you think we should really look closely at, before we sign up for something? Right. And just make sure that we know we're going to get something really valuable and really useful for you as somebody who does this for a living. You know, it must be, is it is it frustrating sometimes to see what else is going on in the industry?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, I mean, life coaches in general have a really bad reputation. So I tend not to call myself a life coach. I call myself a confidence coach or a mindset coach because I'm working in that niche of that specific area. And I feel like that's that's what has really helped my practice. Because when you go life coach, people are just like like, OK, but what exactly? And so I think if you're a coach and you're struggling to build your reputation, probably better to have a niche rather than just call yourself a life coach, because that just seems like, oh, you're saying you can do everything for everyone, for every single person, whereas I'm a confidence coach and I primarily work with female entrepreneurs and, you know, career women who want to build their confidence and believe in themselves more. And so that is my main goal. When I'm going into a coaching session with a client and we write down the goals and after our five sessions we review them and we see the outcomes and if the goals have been achieved or not, whereas life coaching often just sounds like, oh, I want to get my life better, but it's like life has so many different paths you can go down, right. So I think it has been a bit annoying, like, oh, should I call myself coach? Should I not? I've changed my Instagram bio so many times because I'm like, oh, maybe I should say I'm an entrepreneur so maybe people will take me more seriously. But I'm just like, you know what? I think I just have to be my true authentic self and, you know, have my case studies, have my testimonials, you know, live from a place of authenticity and integrity and do my best. And, you know, people still come to me for coaching regardless of everything that's going on in the world, because I think a lot of the times they relate to me as a human being, which I think is very important before they even see me as a coach. So someone said to me they signed up for coaching with me because they saw me dancing in my bathrobe on Instagram and they were like, oh, I just really love her energy. And then they went on my website and they saw I'm a coach and they signed up to coaching, you know? So I'm always going to focus on living from a place of authenticity and integrity and and people who see that and they see my confidence and they want a part of that can come to me for coaching. But you're not going to win everybody. There will be still some people who think, how is this her career? You know, how is this what she wants to do with her life? You know, all coaches are a scam, there will be that but you're not here to satisfy everybody. Right? So what I'm here to do is focus on women who actually want the change, and that's who my audience is. So if you don't believe in coaching, that's on you, not me.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're right. You know, anyone who anyone who speaks with you would understand your ethics and your integrity. And I think that that's very clear. And I guess just perhaps what has been troublesome for people recently is, you know, during times of economic downturn and, you know, financial hardship and panic is is people do panic and they make choices based on, you know, pressure or sales techniques rather than coming home to their truth. And I wonder if, you know, I guess this is all interlinked with the experiences that we've all had of 2020 and perhaps of refinding ourselves and realigning.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I mean, I've fallen for those as well. I was doing a yoga, doing a yoga exercise on YouTube. And then an ad came up about like, oh, becoming an e-commerce specialist because the e-commerce world is going to be blowing up. And, you know, this coach was doing it. And that was literally in March where I had lost all my bookings, I had lost all my money. And I literally was like, oh, my gosh, maybe I should become an e-commerce specialist. And then I signed up to this course and I'm like, oh, what the hell did I just do? Like, I just paid 200 pounds for this why? They they understand, you know, marketing can really go two ways. It can be manipulation or, you know, so I completely understand, it's, we are vulnerable as human beings. And when things are going wrong and things are falling apart, you know, you don't really see a way out, and then when somebody speaks to that insecurity, all of a sudden you think, bingo, that's my solution. And I think, you know what? Everything happens for a reason. I've learnt my lesson now I will never click on another YouTube ad from you know, a random coach without going to check on their profiles and getting feedback and things like that, you know, so. Yeah, if you have been in one of those situations where that's happened to you, now you're smarter and now you're not going to do it again. OK. And it's as simple as that.
Frankie Cotton Exactly. If you're not winning, you're learning.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, I love that.
Frankie Cotton And Tiwa, I'd love to ask you as well. So I know that recently you've been you've been using your own voice and your own platform in the campaign to #EndSARS in Nigeria. And was that an intentional decision to use your platform and the voice that you've really curated and created for yourself to to kind of get involved in sort of political activism? Or is it something that just really sort of struck you in the moment?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, I think I've always kind of been pushing for positive change. You know, so I was born and raised in Nigeria and I moved to England when I was 15. So my parents still live in Nigeria. All my best friends live in Nigeria. So I'm definitely connected to Nigeria and my roots there. So it was a no brainer that when human rights were being violated, I spoke up about it because, again, like I said, people who want to see good in the world need to be loud. Everyone's voice matters. And so with somebody who has a platform like me, that is what my platform is for. I can't, you know, talk about, oh, how I love going to Nigerian weddings. But when the time comes when innocent people are being killed, I don't say anything about it. That's not cool, you know. So and I think that's that's what happens a lot in in the world that we live in. People just pick and choose which parts of a culture they want to use and celebrate. And it's like, no, you can't do that. You got to take the whole package. And so that's why a few celebrities were under the heat in the last few months, because they always talk about, oh, Africa, this oh, Nigeria that or Nigeria this. And, you know, and it's like, OK, well, when we really need you to spread awareness of the cause, where were you? That sort of thing. And people always think, oh, Twitter activism, what does that do? It actually does a lot. You know, in a country like Nigeria where the news is controlled by the government, Twitter was our only platform to actually get rich people and actually connect and get that information out there that was actually the truth, you know. So I think you do have a moral obligation if you have a platform and if you have influence and people listen to you to use your platform in a positive way to talk about things. I mean, I was always going to share about the #EndSARS, but I went to the protests and I think one of the organisers of the protest knew about me and so she asked me to speak at the protest. And I was like, oh, wow, OK, I was not expecting that, but I just spoke at the protest and I spoke from my heart. And then Arise News was there and then they asked if they could interview me and ask me a few questions. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've never been interviewed by the news before, OK? And yeah, she literally interviewed me on the spot with all the noise of the protests going around, and I think that video has like two hundred thousand views on my Instagram page, right which is incredible, but I almost didn't post that video because I was like, oh, do people really care about this? Like, I messed up my words here and there. But the feedback I got was like, oh, I was super articulate. I was super passionate, but like, I made not that I made it up on the spot, but, like, that was just me speaking from the heart, because these are things I genuinely care about, you know, like sometimes I will have sleepless nights as to why there are some countries in the world that just literally have laws that hold women back, like why does domestic violence exist? You know, if you're angry, you just leave the house. Why take that out on somebody else? You know? So I've always kind of been a very compassionate person to social issues and for people in need. I really, really hate injustice. I think it's so unnecessary. And so I've always been somebody who wants to do something about injustice. So it's like when #EndSARS came, it was a no brainer. I was like, right, let's do this. Let's get let's get people's voices heard. Let's educate people so that they can support as much as possible.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. And what I found really interesting in the article that you wrote for Glamour was you talk about the resilience and the self-sufficiency of Nigerian people and in particular your own parents. And you mentioned your mom and your grandma earlier. And I wonder, has that really influenced your own work that you're doing now, do you think, with Confident and Killing It? Do you think that's been a part of what's led you here now?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Well, definitely. I come from a family of very strong women. Like I said, my grandma, she was a complete game changer. She was a Scottish woman who married a Nigerian man in the 60s when interracial marriage was not a thing at all. Her parents disowned her. She moved to Nigeria on a boat. It took her two weeks. You know, she didn't know anyone there, but she just fell in love and she moved. And so, that spirit of adventure, of being a bad arse, of going after what you want and not letting anyone get in your way literally runs in my family. So like I said earlier, I've always had this mindset that women can do whatever they want to do in life, because I've seen my mom build her own company from the ground up. I see my grandma do the same. And so I always thought it was possible for me. So I think that definitely the Nigerian resilience and the being able to bounce back from challenging situations time and time again is definitely something that's a part of me, that Nigerian hustle. And, you know, like we are such hard workers with such innovative people. I think that definitely does run through my veins and and feeds into Confident and Killing It for sure.
Frankie Cotton And Tiwa looking back over the last sort of three years, coming up for three years, isn't it, since you founded Confident and Killing It, have there been and I'm sure there have been incidents where you've had to call on your own confidence toolkit to get you through those fears. Can you share some sometimes maybe with us that you've done that?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi All the time, you know!
Frankie Cotton Every day.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Just because literally, like being confident does not mean you're going to be confident 100 percent of the time. I think it's super important to mention that life is a roller coaster. So there are times when I am like, yes, I'm as confident and killing it. And there are times when I'm crying some really ugly tears in the shower or I'm in my PJs all day and I can't get out of bed –completely normal, I am a human being as well. I mean, I would say the unique thing about me is that I never stay in that dark space for too long because I have literally programmed my mind to challenge the negativity. So just because I challenge the negativity doesn't mean I don't experience the negativity. I still have some really dark thoughts sometimes, I still have that negativity coming in. So like there was this one time, I think it was last year. Yeah, I was running an event back then.
Frankie Cotton Back in the days.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I know! There are about 50 women in the room and I'm speaking and everything is going really well. But then all of a sudden my negative thoughts come in and they're like, oh my gosh, look at all their faces. They're bored. You need to end this right now. They're so bored. You need to shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Like you've been talking for so long that like they're ready to go home. It's been over an hour now. And I'm like, I'm in the middle of speaking to women about owning that story and being confident and my negative thoughts think this is the great time to come in and sabotage me it's insane. Yeah. So at that moment, because I have already been putting in the work to build my positive mindset, my principles just came in like, no, no, no, no, no.
Frankie Cotton Not having you!
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Hang on a second we are not doing this. People have paid to hear her speak. She has been flown all around the world to speak to people. She has been told that her voice has changed people's lives and that, you know, her voice has been super powerful. You need to shut up and get to the back. And this is all going on in my head while speaking to women, literally. So, yeah, it happens to me all the time. Before I posted my first video on Instagram, I was in my room shaking. I was shaking because I thought, oh, what if they what if people laugh at me? What if they judge me? My voice is too deep. I sound like a man. My skin isn't clear enough to be on camera, all these negative thoughts and I had to remind myself that the message in me is more important than the fear I feel you know? So I need to focus on the message that I'm delivering to the world, not my own personal insecurities. And that is literally the message that has got me through this work, because putting yourself out there every single day, it can be really taxing.
Frankie Cotton Yes, it is, yeah you're right.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi So learning that is not just about me, but it's about people who need to hear the message is what I focus on. And so that allows me to put my insecurities to the side, because who cares if I have a spot on my face? If I'm sharing a message that's going to help another woman do something on her goals that she needs, you know? So, yeah.
Frankie Cotton Exactly. I couldn't agree more finding a way to let that life energy come through you and and not get slowed down by that negative voice. Well Tiwa, thank you for sharing such brilliant insights. I just want to give you the opportunity. Is there anything that we've not mentioned that you would like to leave us on?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Mhm. Yeah. I think one of my favourite quotes is 'she knew the power of her mind so she programmed it for success.' And I really love that quote because it goes back to your point on somebody asking what if I'm not loveable, you know, or what if I just can't do self-love? And it's like actually you can programme your mind to love you rather than to hate you. And your thoughts lead to your feelings and your feelings lead to the actions that you take or you don't take. So before you launch that business, before you get that promotion, you have to know yourself first. That is the most important thing. Everything else flows from that. So I would say invest in yourself, take the time to actually figure out who are you, what are you good at doing? Why do you love yourself? What are your strengths? And then live from a place of strength and live your life rather than, you know, trying to get all the material things that society wants you to get whilst neglecting who you are and the soul inside of you.
Frankie Cotton What a wonderful way to leave us. Thank you so much.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi My pleasure.
Frankie Cotton I feel inspired for the day.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, yes, yes. Love that!
Frankie Cotton Tiwa, welcome to Women on Top.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Hi, Frankie. Thanks for having me.
Frankie Cotton Firstly, how are you? How are things?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I'm good. Yeah, I think this year has definitely been a bit of a roller coaster. I've had my really good days. I've had my really down days. But I'm, I'm coming out of quite an emotionally unstable a bit extra. I wouldn't say I was actually unstable but just like October was quite a heavy month. So, yeah, I'm, I'm loving the lightness of November so far. I'll say that.
Frankie Cotton I love that 'it sounds a bit extra'. It doesn't sound extra at all in the context of this year. It really doesn't. But Tiwa, I'd love to, I'd love to start really and sort of set the scene by asking you what was the catalyst for you starting Confident and Killing It. Where did it all come from?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah. So I graduated from university in 2015 and I initially wanted to work in fashion, but all the job interviews I went for, for the internships were just so like fluffy. And I was like, I want to get down to real work. I don't want to come into this internship and you're asking me, oh, do I know what tube I'm going to take in the morning like, no, I want to do some, like, real work. So I applied for loads of different jobs. And then I eventually got a job in an engineering company in Oxford to work in their digital marketing department. Now, at this point, there was just so much pressure to get a job, not necessarily from my society or my parents, but just like internal pressure. You know, it's like you graduate, what's next? So I get this job in Oxford. I move there. I don't know anyone in the city and I absolutely hate it when I get there. I took the job because I was like a really passionate, I am a really passionate person. And I said I'm passionate. I'll be passionate about anything. It's fine. But that's not how passion works. Passion only works with the things you actually care about. So I'm working in this job I realised that I hated, I'm literally crying every other evening. And so I said to myself, there has to be more to my life than being stuck in a job that I hate. And there was so I started volunteering as a youth leader and I'm mentoring girls who are around age 15 to 17. And I asked them what they want to get out of in life. And they all wrote it down on a piece of paper. And I was super, super excited to see what they had said. I got home. I opened the first piece of paper and I was like, I want to learn to love myself more. And I was like, oh, my gosh. My heart literally just sank the next piece of paper, 'I wish I was more confident', third piece of paper, 'I wish I was more confident', fourth piece of paper, 'I wish I loved myself more.' And I was like every single girl said something about wanting to be more confident and loving themselves more. And I literally was like, enough is enough. You know, I remember when I was 16 and I didn't love myself and I hated my looks. I hated my body. All of these things. I was like, here we are again, almost ten years later and another generation of young girls are growing up. And the main thing is them not loving themselves. And I said, we can't we can't keep living like this. This is not OK. So I literally just grabbed my phone. I literally remember the day so clearly my heart was like on fire. And I just grabbed my phone and I just recorded a video of myself talking about how important it is to love and believe in yourself, because I was like so many women are living on autopilot where their default is self-hate and that shouldn't be anyone's default. Our default should be self love. And I had been on the confident journey myself. So by this time when I was working and living in Oxford, I had gone through my own insecurities and built up my confidence. And so I knew what a life of feeling confident and loving and believing in yourself looked like. And I was like, I need women all over the world to access this because this is where life really begins. So, yeah, Instagram videos led to more Instagram videos led to events in person and yeah Confident and Killing It was born.
Frankie Cotton And I think this is probably the million dollar question. Right. But why do you think from the work that you've done, that women struggle so much with confidence generally? What is it that we that we really struggle with that makes it so almost elusive for a lot of us?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, it's it's the it's society, it's the media and the patriarchal society that we live in right? Society benefits off women feeling insecure. If you think about the media you consumed when you were growing up and things like that. You need this cream to look good enough, you need this lip gloss to feel confident, you need this hair to feel like you're worth it, right? Society has sold us this dream that external things are what give us worth as women. And so we keep spending money buying all these things so we can feel good enough. But the gag is that your worth is intrinsic. Your wealth comes from inside of you, not from external things, you know? Yes, definitely, when I wear makeup, I do feel more confident sometimes in a good outfit, you know, but that is only adding to whatever confidence I have internally. Right. So it's it's the messages women are sent, it's the way society has, like, you know, the conversations that we have, the advertising, the media we consume. All of these things are sending us subliminal messages about how we are not good enough. And so women internalise that and then we end up in this kind of situation.
Frankie Cotton And I guess this might be a strange question, but I wonder, does it frustrate you sometimes that you even have to do this work, you know, counterbalancing this patriarchal influence? You know, it must be sort of fulfilling in one sense but also, do you have days where you just think the world that you're trying to build, this shouldn't even be an issue?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, definitely. It's so it does make me really, really angry. And, you know, when I see things like what's called the Social Media Movie?
Frankie Cotton Oh, The Social Dilemma.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, Social Dilemma. You know, when I watch that and I see suicide rates of teenage girls have been increasing with increased use of social media, I'm like I'm pretty sure a lot of people just like swept past that. They're like, OK, yeah, sure. But it's like that is a pandemic in itself, like, are you kidding me? You know, like suicide in teenagers is one of the highest death causes. Like that is not okay. Like, how will we just normalise that? Young people deserve a future. They deserve a life and they're not committing suicide because they don't think that they're good enough they weren't born thinking they had no worth they've learnt that based on the society we live in. So actually, what really annoys me is that people don't actually take this as a serious problem as they should, you know. And I think that's why I love social impact and companies with actually a moral compass and, you know, companies who want to do good in the world. And I always say people who want to do good in the world need to be just as loud or even louder and more strategic than the people sending all of these subliminal messages that we are not good enough because they are there and they are unapologetic. Right. They put budget behind these things. And then the people who want to do good in the world are like, oh, no, I have to stay humble and, you know, just like in my own little lane. And what if no one likes this and it's like we can't be thinking about those things. We have to be loud and show up and create new types of media that actually makes women feel good about themselves, you know?
Frankie Cotton Yeah, I think you hit on something really important there. And I and I think that I find that and certainly, my own experience is sort of finding my own voice was quite a painful experience, sort of in my late twenties. And you know well, I'm only thirty now, but in my late 20s certainly was sort of like, well, actually, what do I think? Where are my opinions? Why are they so buried beneath everything else? And why am I so afraid of having a voice? And I wonder, you know, what this sort of process looks like and how women can really start to step into their power and really find their inner voice.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, great question. So the mission of Confident and Killing It is to wake women up to their worth so they can be confident, unstoppable, and really live the life that they truly desire. Because I was noticing women were really allowing fear and insecurity to get in the way of their dreams. So the first thing to owning your voice and to being confident is to wake up. You need to wake up to the greatness within you. You need to wake up to what your strengths are. When I ask people what their strengths are, they're looking left, looking right, looking up to heaven, hoping something just drops down. And I'm like, that is not how this works. You know, if if you want to be confident, you need to put in the work, growth is intentional. You don't just wake up one day and you're like grown, like I used when I was twenty one, I used to think, when I'm twenty five, I'll be making money, I'll be grown, life will be good. And it's like, no, there are, you know, forty year olds out there who have not grown a bit because they have been in this negative cycle. So actually growth is intentional and we have to be intentional about knowing the good things about ourselves. So what are your strengths? What comes natural to you? What sets your heart on fire you need to find out what your strengths are, find out what your interests are and align the two things together and live in the alignment that is your power circle, because a lot of people, you can be the most confident person but if you put yourself in an environment where you're not using your strengths, you're not doing what you love, you will feel insecure. It's so simple, you know, so confidence is a practice there is a science to it is not like, oh, you're either born with confidence or you're not. Not at all. If your confidence has been broken, there are strategic things that you can do to rebuild it. And so knowing your strengths, knowing your interests, challenging your negative thoughts when they arise, so many women just let negative thoughts come into their mind and they believe it, like the automatic truth. Why? You know, a voice that tells you you're not a good communicator. Question it! Where is the evidence that you are not a good communicator? Right. Or you are not good enough? Where is that evidence coming from? You can't just believe every single thought that comes into your mind. Your mind is a battlefield. So you have to get your positive strategy up and running so that when the negativity comes, you can actually challenge it and say something back and defend yourself in a positive way. And then the last bit to like, help you own your voice and own your story is to celebrate yourself and be unapologetic about it. And it's something we'll probably go into later. But, you know, women always dim the lights were told to dim our light, we're told to be quiet and things like that but you need to celebrate yourself, because when you do, you literally send messages to your brain that you are rewarding yourself, that you have done amazing things, and that makes you more optimistic and more confident so you can take on whatever you have coming your way.
Frankie Cotton And that's that's really interesting because, you know, talking about women perhaps dimming their light is how is this sort of self-love that you're talking about? How is that different to ego? Because I feel that a lot of resistance that often comes from women is that, you know, oh, I don't want to sort of come across like I'm full of myself or, you know, it's this sort of fear of of almost perhaps and not always, but a male ego that we don't necessarily want in our lives. You know, that's not something we aspire to be. So how is self-love different to ego?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah. So I often say confidence and arrogance are not the same thing. OK. When you are arrogant, you're all about I'm the one at the top, everyone else needs to be beneath me. There's only space for one person to be at the top. I don't need to listen to anybody else because I am the best in this room and everyone should be listening to me. So, when you're arrogant and when it's ego, it's all about you, you, you, how can you advance, how can you get to the top, how can you, you know, shine your light and make everyone else's light dimmer? Right. That's what the ego and arrogance does. When you're confident on the other hand, you understand that there is enough room for everyone to thrive. There is enough room for everyone's light to shine and not take anything away from your own light. So ego and arrogance have a scarcity mindset and confidence and self love have an abundance mindset. Right? Just because I love myself and I'm confident doesn't mean you can't be confident in your own lane and do great things to. So when you're confident, you bring other people up. Right. It's about everyone stepping into their power and you use your gifts and your talents to create room for other people to come in with their own gifts and their own talents. So, self-love is about knowing that I am worthy, I am good enough just as I am, and my worth doesn't affect your worth. Right. And we can both exist in the same space and be killing it and not diminish, you know, each other's light. And it's when we come together, if I love myself and you love yourself and we come together, that's like double the light, right?
Frankie Cotton Yeah, yeah. And what would you say to someone perhaps who's listening to this podcast right now who feels that self-love is just unachievable for them?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi That's a choice you're making 100 percent. That is a choice, you are making to believe that self-love is not achievable for you. Your life is a summation of the choices that you make so you can either make choices that move you closer to the life you want to live and closer to your goals or you can make choices that keep you stuck in life and, you know, make you feel like a victim and make you feel insecure about yourself. If you hold the belief that self-love is not possible for you, then guess what? It will not be possible for you, right? Our beliefs aren't hardwired into our heads. We choose what we believe. We 100 percent choose that.
Frankie Cotton Well, and this is what I find really interesting about this work, is because, you know, when we're looking at things like causation and saying, well, well, why do women feel this way? And and we can look to external sources and society and the patriarchy for those reasons. But then, you know, the if you go too far into that, you can adopt this sort of victim mindset, which I think is what is what you're talking about. So I guess there is, is there some sort of sort of journey or evolution with sort of having that patience and understanding for yourself and the grace to say this isn't your fault, you know, to get here and the things that you believe about yourself isn't your fault, but then you sort of need to evolve that and say, yes, but now you have the choice and now you need to you know, you are the only person who can be responsible for making change.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Exactly. Exactly. It's almost like a poker player. I think, you know, you get dealt a set of cards and you have to do something about it with the cards that you have to win the game. You can't no poker player goes 'aw these are terrible cards I'm done for. I might as well just quit now.' No, you're like, OK, I got dealt a bad hand let me try and make this work. Let me see what I can do to turn this around so I can win the game. And that's exactly how life is. Not everyone is going to be dealt, you know, a confident mindset when they're born. I'm quite lucky. I grew up in a very positive, loving household. My mum is an incredible woman. You know, she always encouraged me, my grandma as well she was super adventurous, she paved the way. And so I've never had a limited mindset when it comes to what women are capable of doing. But I had my own insecurities where I felt I wasn't creative enough and I wasn't skinny enough and things like that, but I said, that is not the life I want. OK, so if you know what you don't want, what do you want? And then focus your energy on getting that. So I said, I want to love myself. I want to build a business where I see growth. I want to do this. I want to do that. And I said, OK, if that's what I want, let me break this down. How can I start becoming the woman I want and achieving the things I want to achieve? That's where your energy should focus on if you choose to to think, oh, no one ever told me they love me when I was growing up. Or, you know, maybe your parents are separated and things like that and you don't have a good relationship with them. That's the bad hand. But you have the power of choice to do something about it, because at the end of the day, your life is your responsibility. You're not going to get to the end of your life and blame your parents on your deathbed. Like that's not how it works you know. Your life is your responsibility. So if you don't want to feel a sense of regret, you have to make the choice to make better decisions that serve you and and break you from the bondage of low self-esteem and fear and anxiety.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, that's really powerful. I think that's such a great image. And I'd love to ask you Tiwa actually about sort of imposter syndrome. And it's a word that gets sort of thrown around quite a lot. And I guess how can we identify what is imposter syndrome vs. actually what are very useful signs that we need to gain more skills or do more research or perhaps that we're not yet experienced enough in a particular arena? Because I feel that sometimes the messages around lack of confidence or imposter syndrome are a sort of, you know, just bull your way through it. Just, you know, don't don't listen to those voices and keep going. But sometimes they can be very useful signs. So I wonder what your perspective on that is.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Absolutely. You know, there is such a different energy when you realise you're work in progress and you can have compassion towards yourself versus thinking you're not good enough and, you know, you need to work harder and harder and harder. So one person has a goal. And there's two ways you can get to it. One path is the really heavy path where you're walking down on this path with a ton of bricks on your shoulder. And that's where your mind is saying you don't work hard enough. Look at everybody else working super hard. People are going to think you're a fraud. You need to work harder. You need to go, go, go, go, go. Right. That might motivate you, the fear of feeling like a fraud might motivate you, but it's with a ton of bricks on your back and you will probably burn out before you get to your destination. OK, so that for me is the sabotaging negative thoughts. I was saying that is what you need to challenge. On the other hand, right you have the self compassion and understanding you're work in progress. Right. So no one is saying you're perfect, there's still some skills you might need to learn and some and some help asking for help and things like that. But it goes like you're amazing and we can do more. So let's go. What strengths do you have? Let's use some of those strengths. Is there anyone we can ask for help for? Right. You're doing so well, like keep going. You've got this. So that is a lot more like to look at the difference in the energy between those two things. Both might motivate you to get to the end points, but one is so much nicer and lighter and empowering than the other one which makes you want to give up, you know, so I think it's important to acknowledge your weaknesses and to know where you need to develop yourself, because once you stop growing, that's the end, right? So you've got to invest in yourself and keep growing, but you don't need to do it from a place where you are sabotaging yourself and you can actually grow your skills from a place of kindness. So I call imposter syndrome temporary memory loss where you actually forget the bad ass that you truly are.
Frankie Cotton Yeah.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi You actually, forget it's memory loss because you're going into that meeting and you're like, oh, do I have what it takes? Everyone in here is smarter than me. What am I going to say? What if I mess up like I've never done this before? That's not true. If you look back in your life, you will see that you have the skills, you have the talent. There are multiple examples where you have killed it. You need to remember those. So when you walk into that meeting, you walk into it with a sense of confidence like you deserve to be here rather than people are giving you doing you a favour for being in the room.
Frankie Cotton And why do you think that imposter syndrome is is such a hot topic for millennials and Gen Z, why now? Why is it they're sort of buzzword that we're all talking about? Do you have a view on that?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I think I think it's always kind of been a buzzword. You know, I think it's always kind of like it's just something that's always lingered. And I think a lot of people really experience it. And so it's just but the thing is, it's a natural part of life. Everyone will have imposter syndrome at one point or the other. I remember when I got invited by this magazine to leadership women and leadership roundtable, and this is when I was still at my day job, I hadn't even quit to run Confident and Killing It full time. And I was like me? Women in leadership? Like, do they get the wrong e-mail address? Like, why would they invite me? Like, I don't even, like, run a business full time. Like, I don't even have employees. I'm not I'm not a boss. I'm not a CEO. And my mom was like, are you kidding? Do you know how many things you've done? You inspire women. You do this, you do that, you bring people along. You have empowering conversations. Of course you're a leader. Go on YouTube and look at what John Maxwell has to say about leadership. And I went on there and I watched videos of five laws of leadership and I'm like, oh, actually, I do tick a lot of these boxes, you know? So I think everyone will have imposter syndrome at some point in their life when they're doing something new, when you know, they're putting themselves out of their comfort zone. It is a natural part of life. But I think we've just kind of coined it and it just encapsulates the real insecurity driving a lot of people.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Also, someone told me something once and they said that you belong where you are. And I thought, yeah, you know, wherever, whatever situation and circumstance you find yourself in, you're there because of whatever forces that put you there. So just crack on, basically.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Literally. Yeah.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. Well, Tiwa a slight sort of gear change, I suppose. But I'm really interested to know your perspective on coaching. So coaching has been the subject of, you know, some scrutiny recently, actually, with some unethical practices that are being called out. And coaching generally is unregulated in the UK. And an aspect of the work that you do is obviously coaching women.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah.
Frankie Cotton And I wonder, how do you feel about the industry as a whole and yeah, what's your sort of sense of what's going on at the moment?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, I think, you know, I always have these debates with people. You know, sometimes coaches make money not because or business coaches in particular often make money from their clients rather than because they built a successful business and they're teaching people how to make money. But actually, the money that they have doesn't come from the business that they build. It comes from selling the story and all the clients that they have buying into it. So I think when it comes to business coaching, you need to have built a successful business on your own before you go into coaching people on how to build their own business, because it's kind of unethical for you not to have a successful business, but you're trying to teach other people how to build a business without, you know, actually being through it yourself. But you're saying, oh, you're making all this money, whereas it's not from your business, is from people paying you to teach them how to make money.
Frankie Cotton Buying into that story, absolutley.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, exactly. So with business coaching, I feel like you do need the qualifications and you do need to to to really have an in-depth knowledge of how businesses work and have run a successful business to coach people on that. With life coaching, I think that's where the waters get really blurry because a lot of the times it's based off the person's personal experience. And another thing is a lot of people don't actually know what coaching is really about. They think it's about, oh, I've been through something in my life, so now I can coach people on how to overcome it, too. That is not what coaching is about. Coaching is about understanding where you are, where your client is and where they want to go. And your job as a coach is to grow them so that they begin to see windows of opportunities and they can step over their hurdles. Now, coaching isn't mentoring. Coaching isn't therapy. Coaching isn't having a casual conversation. Coaching is about asking your clients powerful questions so that they find the answer within them, you know, and so a lot of people just call themselves a coach because they're sharing their story and they want to coach people through it. But I think actually, you know, if you are dealing with people's mindsets and their life you have a moral responsibility to make sure you're not bullshitting them and to make sure that you have gotten your qualifications and things like that, like I'm not saying you need you need to become a therapist or anything like that, but there are coaching qualifications that you can get. There is training you can do from like bodies that are certified by the International Coaching Federation. Right. You can you can get that qualification if you want to. So I will always be wary of a coach who doesn't have any qualification whatsoever and just woke up one day and said, I want to start coaching. I would be very wary of that because the option is there to get certified, and if you really want to do this in the best interests of your client, you will go and get qualified and certified so that, you know, you are running the right practices and not just like kind of going willy nilly with people.
Frankie Cotton Do you have any feedback from from your clients or prospective clients who are perhaps worried about some of these aspects? And how, as consumers do you think we should really look closely at, before we sign up for something? Right. And just make sure that we know we're going to get something really valuable and really useful for you as somebody who does this for a living. You know, it must be, is it is it frustrating sometimes to see what else is going on in the industry?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, I mean, life coaches in general have a really bad reputation. So I tend not to call myself a life coach. I call myself a confidence coach or a mindset coach because I'm working in that niche of that specific area. And I feel like that's that's what has really helped my practice. Because when you go life coach, people are just like like, OK, but what exactly? And so I think if you're a coach and you're struggling to build your reputation, probably better to have a niche rather than just call yourself a life coach, because that just seems like, oh, you're saying you can do everything for everyone, for every single person, whereas I'm a confidence coach and I primarily work with female entrepreneurs and, you know, career women who want to build their confidence and believe in themselves more. And so that is my main goal. When I'm going into a coaching session with a client and we write down the goals and after our five sessions we review them and we see the outcomes and if the goals have been achieved or not, whereas life coaching often just sounds like, oh, I want to get my life better, but it's like life has so many different paths you can go down, right. So I think it has been a bit annoying, like, oh, should I call myself coach? Should I not? I've changed my Instagram bio so many times because I'm like, oh, maybe I should say I'm an entrepreneur so maybe people will take me more seriously. But I'm just like, you know what? I think I just have to be my true authentic self and, you know, have my case studies, have my testimonials, you know, live from a place of authenticity and integrity and do my best. And, you know, people still come to me for coaching regardless of everything that's going on in the world, because I think a lot of the times they relate to me as a human being, which I think is very important before they even see me as a coach. So someone said to me they signed up for coaching with me because they saw me dancing in my bathrobe on Instagram and they were like, oh, I just really love her energy. And then they went on my website and they saw I'm a coach and they signed up to coaching, you know? So I'm always going to focus on living from a place of authenticity and integrity and and people who see that and they see my confidence and they want a part of that can come to me for coaching. But you're not going to win everybody. There will be still some people who think, how is this her career? You know, how is this what she wants to do with her life? You know, all coaches are a scam, there will be that but you're not here to satisfy everybody. Right? So what I'm here to do is focus on women who actually want the change, and that's who my audience is. So if you don't believe in coaching, that's on you, not me.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're right. You know, anyone who anyone who speaks with you would understand your ethics and your integrity. And I think that that's very clear. And I guess just perhaps what has been troublesome for people recently is, you know, during times of economic downturn and, you know, financial hardship and panic is is people do panic and they make choices based on, you know, pressure or sales techniques rather than coming home to their truth. And I wonder if, you know, I guess this is all interlinked with the experiences that we've all had of 2020 and perhaps of refinding ourselves and realigning.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I mean, I've fallen for those as well. I was doing a yoga, doing a yoga exercise on YouTube. And then an ad came up about like, oh, becoming an e-commerce specialist because the e-commerce world is going to be blowing up. And, you know, this coach was doing it. And that was literally in March where I had lost all my bookings, I had lost all my money. And I literally was like, oh, my gosh, maybe I should become an e-commerce specialist. And then I signed up to this course and I'm like, oh, what the hell did I just do? Like, I just paid 200 pounds for this why? They they understand, you know, marketing can really go two ways. It can be manipulation or, you know, so I completely understand, it's, we are vulnerable as human beings. And when things are going wrong and things are falling apart, you know, you don't really see a way out, and then when somebody speaks to that insecurity, all of a sudden you think, bingo, that's my solution. And I think, you know what? Everything happens for a reason. I've learnt my lesson now I will never click on another YouTube ad from you know, a random coach without going to check on their profiles and getting feedback and things like that, you know, so. Yeah, if you have been in one of those situations where that's happened to you, now you're smarter and now you're not going to do it again. OK. And it's as simple as that.
Frankie Cotton Exactly. If you're not winning, you're learning.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, I love that.
Frankie Cotton And Tiwa, I'd love to ask you as well. So I know that recently you've been you've been using your own voice and your own platform in the campaign to #EndSARS in Nigeria. And was that an intentional decision to use your platform and the voice that you've really curated and created for yourself to to kind of get involved in sort of political activism? Or is it something that just really sort of struck you in the moment?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yeah, I think I've always kind of been pushing for positive change. You know, so I was born and raised in Nigeria and I moved to England when I was 15. So my parents still live in Nigeria. All my best friends live in Nigeria. So I'm definitely connected to Nigeria and my roots there. So it was a no brainer that when human rights were being violated, I spoke up about it because, again, like I said, people who want to see good in the world need to be loud. Everyone's voice matters. And so with somebody who has a platform like me, that is what my platform is for. I can't, you know, talk about, oh, how I love going to Nigerian weddings. But when the time comes when innocent people are being killed, I don't say anything about it. That's not cool, you know. So and I think that's that's what happens a lot in in the world that we live in. People just pick and choose which parts of a culture they want to use and celebrate. And it's like, no, you can't do that. You got to take the whole package. And so that's why a few celebrities were under the heat in the last few months, because they always talk about, oh, Africa, this oh, Nigeria that or Nigeria this. And, you know, and it's like, OK, well, when we really need you to spread awareness of the cause, where were you? That sort of thing. And people always think, oh, Twitter activism, what does that do? It actually does a lot. You know, in a country like Nigeria where the news is controlled by the government, Twitter was our only platform to actually get rich people and actually connect and get that information out there that was actually the truth, you know. So I think you do have a moral obligation if you have a platform and if you have influence and people listen to you to use your platform in a positive way to talk about things. I mean, I was always going to share about the #EndSARS, but I went to the protests and I think one of the organisers of the protest knew about me and so she asked me to speak at the protest. And I was like, oh, wow, OK, I was not expecting that, but I just spoke at the protest and I spoke from my heart. And then Arise News was there and then they asked if they could interview me and ask me a few questions. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've never been interviewed by the news before, OK? And yeah, she literally interviewed me on the spot with all the noise of the protests going around, and I think that video has like two hundred thousand views on my Instagram page, right which is incredible, but I almost didn't post that video because I was like, oh, do people really care about this? Like, I messed up my words here and there. But the feedback I got was like, oh, I was super articulate. I was super passionate, but like, I made not that I made it up on the spot, but, like, that was just me speaking from the heart, because these are things I genuinely care about, you know, like sometimes I will have sleepless nights as to why there are some countries in the world that just literally have laws that hold women back, like why does domestic violence exist? You know, if you're angry, you just leave the house. Why take that out on somebody else? You know? So I've always kind of been a very compassionate person to social issues and for people in need. I really, really hate injustice. I think it's so unnecessary. And so I've always been somebody who wants to do something about injustice. So it's like when #EndSARS came, it was a no brainer. I was like, right, let's do this. Let's get let's get people's voices heard. Let's educate people so that they can support as much as possible.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. And what I found really interesting in the article that you wrote for Glamour was you talk about the resilience and the self-sufficiency of Nigerian people and in particular your own parents. And you mentioned your mom and your grandma earlier. And I wonder, has that really influenced your own work that you're doing now, do you think, with Confident and Killing It? Do you think that's been a part of what's led you here now?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Well, definitely. I come from a family of very strong women. Like I said, my grandma, she was a complete game changer. She was a Scottish woman who married a Nigerian man in the 60s when interracial marriage was not a thing at all. Her parents disowned her. She moved to Nigeria on a boat. It took her two weeks. You know, she didn't know anyone there, but she just fell in love and she moved. And so, that spirit of adventure, of being a bad arse, of going after what you want and not letting anyone get in your way literally runs in my family. So like I said earlier, I've always had this mindset that women can do whatever they want to do in life, because I've seen my mom build her own company from the ground up. I see my grandma do the same. And so I always thought it was possible for me. So I think that definitely the Nigerian resilience and the being able to bounce back from challenging situations time and time again is definitely something that's a part of me, that Nigerian hustle. And, you know, like we are such hard workers with such innovative people. I think that definitely does run through my veins and and feeds into Confident and Killing It for sure.
Frankie Cotton And Tiwa looking back over the last sort of three years, coming up for three years, isn't it, since you founded Confident and Killing It, have there been and I'm sure there have been incidents where you've had to call on your own confidence toolkit to get you through those fears. Can you share some sometimes maybe with us that you've done that?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi All the time, you know!
Frankie Cotton Every day.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Just because literally, like being confident does not mean you're going to be confident 100 percent of the time. I think it's super important to mention that life is a roller coaster. So there are times when I am like, yes, I'm as confident and killing it. And there are times when I'm crying some really ugly tears in the shower or I'm in my PJs all day and I can't get out of bed –completely normal, I am a human being as well. I mean, I would say the unique thing about me is that I never stay in that dark space for too long because I have literally programmed my mind to challenge the negativity. So just because I challenge the negativity doesn't mean I don't experience the negativity. I still have some really dark thoughts sometimes, I still have that negativity coming in. So like there was this one time, I think it was last year. Yeah, I was running an event back then.
Frankie Cotton Back in the days.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi I know! There are about 50 women in the room and I'm speaking and everything is going really well. But then all of a sudden my negative thoughts come in and they're like, oh my gosh, look at all their faces. They're bored. You need to end this right now. They're so bored. You need to shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Like you've been talking for so long that like they're ready to go home. It's been over an hour now. And I'm like, I'm in the middle of speaking to women about owning that story and being confident and my negative thoughts think this is the great time to come in and sabotage me it's insane. Yeah. So at that moment, because I have already been putting in the work to build my positive mindset, my principles just came in like, no, no, no, no, no.
Frankie Cotton Not having you!
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Hang on a second we are not doing this. People have paid to hear her speak. She has been flown all around the world to speak to people. She has been told that her voice has changed people's lives and that, you know, her voice has been super powerful. You need to shut up and get to the back. And this is all going on in my head while speaking to women, literally. So, yeah, it happens to me all the time. Before I posted my first video on Instagram, I was in my room shaking. I was shaking because I thought, oh, what if they what if people laugh at me? What if they judge me? My voice is too deep. I sound like a man. My skin isn't clear enough to be on camera, all these negative thoughts and I had to remind myself that the message in me is more important than the fear I feel you know? So I need to focus on the message that I'm delivering to the world, not my own personal insecurities. And that is literally the message that has got me through this work, because putting yourself out there every single day, it can be really taxing.
Frankie Cotton Yes, it is, yeah you're right.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi So learning that is not just about me, but it's about people who need to hear the message is what I focus on. And so that allows me to put my insecurities to the side, because who cares if I have a spot on my face? If I'm sharing a message that's going to help another woman do something on her goals that she needs, you know? So, yeah.
Frankie Cotton Exactly. I couldn't agree more finding a way to let that life energy come through you and and not get slowed down by that negative voice. Well Tiwa, thank you for sharing such brilliant insights. I just want to give you the opportunity. Is there anything that we've not mentioned that you would like to leave us on?
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Mhm. Yeah. I think one of my favourite quotes is 'she knew the power of her mind so she programmed it for success.' And I really love that quote because it goes back to your point on somebody asking what if I'm not loveable, you know, or what if I just can't do self-love? And it's like actually you can programme your mind to love you rather than to hate you. And your thoughts lead to your feelings and your feelings lead to the actions that you take or you don't take. So before you launch that business, before you get that promotion, you have to know yourself first. That is the most important thing. Everything else flows from that. So I would say invest in yourself, take the time to actually figure out who are you, what are you good at doing? Why do you love yourself? What are your strengths? And then live from a place of strength and live your life rather than, you know, trying to get all the material things that society wants you to get whilst neglecting who you are and the soul inside of you.
Frankie Cotton What a wonderful way to leave us. Thank you so much.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi My pleasure.
Frankie Cotton I feel inspired for the day.
Tiwalola Ogunlesi Yes, yes, yes. Love that!
Listen Now!
or search ‘Women On Top’ wherever you listen to podcasts!
