518. The Discipline That Helped Bode Olushi Build a Sustainable IT Career

Email: contact@bolog.io

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde speaks with Bode Olushi, a Cloud Solutions Architect, to explore the human story behind building a career in technology. Bode reflects on his journey from Nigeria to Canada, the challenges of establishing himself in a new country, and why he now mentors others seeking similar opportunities. How can technology become a path to economic mobility without consuming your identity? What should immigrants and career changers understand about adapting, building credibility, and finding community? The conversation offers a non-technical look at resilience, mentorship, personal interests, and the life decisions behind a lasting IT career.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

So thank you for joining me once again on another episode of this podcast. Um, here with a special guest from Open Canada. Over to you, sir.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Thank you. Thank you, BDM. My name is Bode Bode Urbushi. Um, originally from Nigeria, just like you, BDM, and currently live here in Canada. Uh, professionally, I work as a cloud solutions architect uh with a company in the US and essentially just focused on helping customers modernize their applications into the cloud, right? Uh I'd say maybe over the years I've worked in the IT field for I think about 15 years down. Uh and my focus has mostly been about just deploying technology and being able to solve problems for organizations, right? So I spend a lot of time listening to customers, understanding their business challenges, and then designing cloud solutions and sometimes explaining technical concepts and calls with them. I'd say my journey has not been a straight line. Uh it's been a series of learning, taking risks, uh relocating to a different country, adjusting to new job markets, you know how it is, uh making mistakes and earning certifications, building relationships and all of that. Uh, but I think the focus has also has also just been uh reinventing myself back and forth every time.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Wow, wow. And that's something I can agree with and relate to because we have, like you mentioned, so many things in common. I also moved from Nigeria to the US um 14 years ago. My cousin is actually your close friend, which is how we met many years ago when you were in Orlando for a conference. And just like you also mentioned, I've had to, you know, learn so many different things, new ways of doing the same thing we were used to doing in Nigeria, reinventing myself, learning new skills, hard and soft skills, which we'll talk about later on. And it just boils down to well, I find myself in this new country. How do I make the best use of my time, my resources? Because resources available to me now are much more than when I was in Nigeria. Good example is the school library. You go to the library here, either here or in Canada, you can borrow a book from anywhere in the country, and they will give you the book within one week. That's not possible where we came from. So now we don't have an excuse to not get an A in the course, and you see somebody getting a D or F, and you're like, how did you manage to? But anyway, that's by the way.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Fair enough, fair enough, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So um early foundations, um, you went to school in Nigeria, your undergrad was in Nigeria, and you studied computer science at the University of Lagos. How did that experience shape your approach to problem solving and even career possibilities before you ever thought about going to Canada?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

I think we'll spend the whole day here for sure. But but yeah, uh, I'd say, as you know, growing up in Nigeria uh uh helped shape not just my quality, but pretty much every Nigerian you know today. I think Nigeria kind of teaches you how to be resourceful. Uh you learn how to make progress even when you do not have uh when you don't have enough, when you don't have a perfect condition, let me put it that way, or you don't have any complete information. And most of the time we don't have all the resources we want, right? So uh yes, so I did attend the University of Lagos, uh, where I studied computer science. Uh interestingly, I believe before I even uh before I started my computer science program, I believe I initially wanted to study something else called geographic information systems, but I ended up changing my mind. But anyways, I'll come back to that later. Uh so my my I remember while I was in the University of Legacy studying computer science. Uh during the first year, uh I we were mostly given programming assignments. And I remember then uh in the first year, I would struggle to be able to complete this programming assignment because I didn't know it. Uh and then we had someone in our class who had he had experience with programming. He had already attended N IIT, which is an institute for learning IT courses. Uh so most of the time, when we give an assignment, he would normally do this assignment for us and would pay him money. And I was like, why am I paying this guy money every time? Like, and you know the funny thing, he was the classware. So because he was a classweb, it makes it easy for him to just say, you know what, bring your assignment, I'll do it for you, and I'll store money for you. So at some point, I was like, you know what, after that first year, once we had our holiday, uh, and I told, I remember talking to my sister then, I was like, I wanted to go learn programming. And then I signed up for the same in our IT program uh and to learn Sun, like it's called Sun Java, right? Uh that's Java, SunJava. And I think that kind of shaped my knowledge and experience and gave me that much more confidence in IT in general. Right. By the time I returned to school the second year, uh, I had developed so much stronger understanding of programming that I now began to do assignments for people. Right. I also helped people do their projects. Uh when we even got the final year. So you might see that a lot of that kind of shaped my career and my experience and also kind of gave me the confidence that I was kind of looking for as well. Right. I think it also taught me the importance of taking ownership. Uh nobody forced me to attend an IT in any way, but I simply just recognized that I had a weakness and then I decided to do something about it. And I think that same approach helped me throughout my career, where whenever I don't know something, I just take up that task to just pick it up and just learn it. Like uh so that has kind of changed my my perspective with respect to how I how I think. Like, like I said, it like Nigeria would uh would teach you, I think teach you to be very resourceful.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Like I put a pause there. Yeah, yeah. When you mentioned NIIT, I actually attended NIIT as well to learn um CTIE, Cisco Certified Um Internet Expert, CT NP CTIE. So it was, I did that during my national service year. And after undergrad, I served in Lagos. So it was one of those places where, okay, well, you want to get into IT, you kind of have to go and learn there. Yeah. So it's I believe NIT is the global um body, but they have offices in Nigeria, of course. So that that brought me back to those years of was it 2010, 2011?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I know, it's been a long time. I think I think as I did mine in a Kedja close to a background. Um, yeah, yeah, very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Uh so you relocated to Canada. Um, how did that new experience shape because understanding what relocation means is different for everybody, regardless of whether you relocate to UK, Canada, US, or even some other European country or even China. So, what did you notice was different in terms of workplace culture, in terms of adapting to a new job market?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Um, that's a good question. So, first, I think relocating to Canada uh was put an exciting opportunity for me. Uh, and I'll say a major adjustment as well, because I had to stop working and then move to a new country uh and then go to school. Like uh unlike most people who who are coming recently now to come to the permanent residence program, I had to go to school. So it was it was kind of tough. Uh, but I think uh in terms of how that in terms of how that kind of how you can adapt to a new job market or maybe how the work culture can can help influence you. I think one of the first things that that I came to understand was that the experience you have does not always translate automatically between countries, right? Because you'd know a lot of people have that concern whereby you've worked in the uh you've worked in the perhaps in the finance sector and the banking sector in Nigeria, and then you get here, you realize that what you did is totally different. And then you are you have to start over again. You see people coming in as managers and then being able to pick up rules uh uh in a lower level role. So what I did understand was that uh that experience might not always translate automatically between countries. Uh so you need to be able to understand your own background, you need to be able to uh to see how you can improve your own self, right? Uh for me, it it was a major shift uh given the fact that I had to go to school. Uh and when I did change when I did go to school, I I went to school to study geographic information systems. I thought I was going to talk about this. Uh so for me it was a big change. I was moving from someone who was already in IT doing cloud computing, and I went to go study geographic information systems. Uh that led me down to the path of working in the geographic information system space for one year, and then realizing to myself that I might not get to reach if I continue doing GIS. Right. Uh but I think coming back to your question with respect to the workplace culture, I think workplace culture can be very, very different. Uh uh, but I think in many North American workplaces here, uh, you're expected to clearly communicate what you've accomplished, right? So you'd see that a lot of folks uh have not taken a lot of time to review the resume uh and critically adjust your resume based on what should you want you want someone to be able to review your resume with you, more like peer review, right? Uh and then see how you can improve that. So I think what what what you get to realize is you need to be able to ask people the right questions, uh document your work in terms of what you want to be on your resume, discuss that impact uh uh with people, right? Uh that have been in the field, that are working in that in this sector here. Uh I think, like I said, communication adjustment is one big piece. For me, one way in which I had to adjust from a communication standpoint was I got to realize that I needed to be more confident and fluenced the way I speak. So in order for me to be able to do that, what I would do is I would I the way I would prepare for prepare for interviews is I would typically write down all the possible questions and answers that will come out, document that in like a word document. And then I would ask myself that question. Uh, tell me about yourself. I would I would say to myself, I will record it, right? And you know the funny thing, when you do a recording of yourself and you listen to it, trust me, you're gonna hate it. Right? You're gonna you're gonna hate it as much as you're gonna be like, no, I don't want to listen to it. But you have to listen to it simply because you'd realize that when you're talking, you're not as fluent as you should, right? You would even ask yourself, I wouldn't hire myself. Right. So what I began to do was I started recording myself, uh, and then making conscious effort to ask myself these questions and answer uh in a much more fluent approach. Sometimes I will have my wife ask me these questions and then she would give me feedback, right? So I think a lot of people don't do that. Uh you just realize that, okay, I've learned these technical skills uh as we able to go into the job market. Oh boy, it's communication is a key difference. Because now you're competing with uh not just you're competing with a lot more people who have more experience, you're competing with people who are much more fluent, right? Uh so you you have to bring something else to the table, right? You have to find a way to improve yourself, right? So I think that's that's I'll take a take a pause there before I keep going around.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Definitely. So everything you said, I was just nodding and saying, well, that's exactly what I went through. And documenting everything you've accomplished. Because in North America it's a merit-based system guaranteed. However, the merit-based systems will work for you if you position yourself in a situation where they can call on you to put you on a short list. Because if nobody knows, or even your manager doesn't know everything you are doing. A lot of people think, okay, well, I have I attend this daily call with my manager. He or she should know that, okay, I give this update every day, Monday to Friday, they should know what I've been working on. No, your manager has a manager. Their job is to make themselves look better for their own manager. They listen to you Monday to Friday on your 8 a.m., 9 a.m. call. Well, they've forgotten everything you said. Immediately that call was over because now their mind is thinking of 200 other things that they have to do before 5 p.m. So, unless you get into the habit of, okay, well, every Friday evening, I would send a summary email to my manager saying, okay, remember what I mentioned on Monday. This is how I then followed up on that thing. So every Friday, your manager should be in a position to say, Oh, okay, now I understand what this person is working on. And there is an email that is proof. So that when performance review comes at the end of each quarter, your manager can search for your name in is our email. And all your Friday emails will pop up, and then they'll be like, okay, now this person is supposed to be on this short list. Not just saying, okay, well, I tell my manager what I do Monday to Friday on this call. No, that's not. So documenting when you are saying it, I was just like, Yup, this is something I had to learn to. And just when it's time to now review your resume, even you yourself will remember, because you can then search your own email that you've been sending every Friday and just pick, okay, let me pick this one thing from this week, let me pick this other thing. Because you literally wrote that email to your manager. Because it's easy to forget the things you've done in January when performance review comes in June.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

But get into the habit of documenting everything, it could even be a notepad that you write to yourself and you just click save. Not even necessarily something you send to your manager every week. Yep. Yep. Documentation. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

And and just to add to that, right, the one thing that has worked for me effectively has been that this document documenting that. But so I have I kind of have this kind of mindset whereby if I once I go into a company, that first year I want to I want to overachieve, right? I I want them to see me as the critical person of interest that has that knowledge and experience, right? And I normally set a goal that that first year I would overachieve. And what will normally happen is that after that first year, I would simply I don't wait for performance review. I'll simply go to my manager and I'd say I want an ink, I want an increase. I can speak to that because of what I brought to the table over that first year, right? And they'll simply know at the back of their mind that, oh, but it's good, right? I can't afford to lose this guy. So so the way my mindset works is first year kill it, right? Uh such that if you come for an increase, you you get the pay. And trust me, there's always money at the table. Uh a lot of people just leave money, money, money, money, money lying out lying there on the table, right? Uh so uh I so another thing to also add as well, just uh just occurred to me earlier talking about that is I think networking is also kind of critical as well for anyone who's also moving, who's immigrating, right? Uh I think it's important that you build genuine professional relationships, right? Uh because you're moving to a new country where you don't know anyone. I remember back then I would go to LinkedIn, I would try to ask people uh that are working at certain companies, reach out to them. Uh I'll try to reach out to friends who know someone in this company. Because I realized that uh the fastest way you can you can break into the job market is is by referral. Right. So if if someone refers you, that's the quickest way you can be in front of front of an interviewer, rather than you spending hundred spend sending out hundred resumes out there, right? So I think the location experience has taught me one to remain confident and to also kind of push yourself, right? Uh and just being humble to the new system as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Networking is just something most people don't understand because it doesn't come naturally. Well, like I always say, if you want to get results that most people don't get, you should be willing to do things that most people are not doing. Networking is a big one that is underestimated, underrated. People apply to jobs every day, and now they are using AI systems to screen people's resume. If someone refers you, they will put your resume in a different bucket. Because they're like, well, this bucket is for people that we 100% can vouch for them. Because someone we know internally has referred them from outside to coming. So it's yeah, it keeps coming up, but maybe the more we talk about it, the more people start to say, okay, well, I have to now pay attention to this networking thing, and so on and so on. So let's talk about transferable habits. Um, there are so many different transferable habits that cut across different industries. One of them the ability to learn quickly, the ability to communicate clearly, like you mentioned, the ability to solve visible and invisible problems. So looking at these three transferable habits, which one would you prioritize?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Can you can you can you call those again?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Right, right. The the ability to learn, learn quickly, communicate clearly, or solve visible and invisible problems.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

I would say communication will be key to me. Communication is because when you think about it, just assuming assuming you go into an interview, the first five minutes of an interview or first 10 minutes of an interview would allow the interviewer to know if you're gonna get the job. And most times, if your communication is poor, it's bad, uh they've already asked you, right? Uh and this is typical. I I do the same because I I conduct interviews, right? And normally within the first 10 minutes, I can tell if this candidate will proceed to the next stage, right? So uh I can easily tell. You sometimes you tell how confident someone speaks, right? If they have a passion for something, you can you can you can tell how it's just oozing out of them, right? Like they're just so excited about it, and and you can tell, right? And also the communication, like I mentioned as well, is key. Like once you have that passion and then you have that communication behind that, uh, it makes it much more easier. I've seen I've been in interviews whereby this the person I'm conducting an interview for doesn't have the it is not technically strong for the rule, but he is a good talker. He was a good talker, and I was like, you know what? I'll I'll I'll consider recommending him for the next phase of the interview. Uh because he also has the passion and the drive as well. So so you can see how communication plays a key role there, right? And that's what salespeople do, right? Most most times sales folks uh might not have a strong knowledge of the technical solution they're building, but they know how to sell, they know how to talk to a customer. They know what to say. So I will go with communication.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on that one. So I also prioritize communication because one thing I've learned moving to a new culture, a new country, and so on is like I was mentioning earlier, even your manager doesn't remember everything you tell them that you've done Monday to Friday for three months. If you can write an email every week or every two weeks, or even once a month to summarize what you accomplished that month to your manager, that email communicating is not just talking, it's also writing. Sending that email that would capture everything you've worked on, and your manager can read it under one minute. That goes a long way. Because I've received emails that I'm like, okay, well, just saying the name, the sender, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to read this email because it's going to be too long. They're going to be talking around and round. And at the end of the email, I will feel like I've wasted five minutes of my time and have not learned anything. So the email should have just been a text message. So communication is, okay, well, I can go on a Zoom call or I can go in a physical meeting and I can open my mouth and they won't start, you know, pressing their phone, leaning back in their chair, or they won't start thinking of, okay, what time do I need to pick my kids from school? They would actually want to listen to me from minute one or the first five seconds I open my mouth to start talking. The same thing goes for emails or reports and so on. If I want to write a one-page report, the first line of that word document should make you want to read to the end. But a lot of people don't even grasp that context, that concept. They type a report, one page, and you already know that you are not going to read that one page. And it's an attachment. Even the email that is pointing you to the attachment is too long. So what are we now? What are we doing? So for me, communication is like number one. The other one's okay, the ability to solve problems. That is a byproduct of communicating clearly. The ability to learn quickly. That is a byproduct of communicating clearly. I'll do with that order.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah. So let's assume there is a newcomer who is listening to this episode, and this person wants to enter IT and tech and so on. What would you advise them to do in the first 12 months of trying to enter a new career, maybe they are pivoting from somewhere? Should they prioritize finding mentors or learning or communication skills and so on?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

I think the advice I would give to someone who's coming into a new country, uh within that first 12 months, uh, one of the first things you said there was being able to find the mentor. Uh the mentor is critical uh before even before you start thinking of what are the pathways for opportunities or or jobs that I can start looking for. Like for instance, I would normally get folks who reach out to me and say they're trying to pivot from it could be from a business analyst or from even from I've had folks who have pivoted from uh who's a chemical engineer and then pivoted to to cloud entirely. Right. The first thing I'll say is get a mentor, right? Uh and part of the reason why you do need a mentor is you need someone who can coach you and guide you simply because you're you're switching to something that is totally new. Um you would need it's just like the same way when you go to when you go to school, right? The essence of your teacher is for your teacher to be able to guide you and nurture you in the right direction. Right. So find a mentor, someone who can who can guide you on that path. Uh and then once you found a found a mentor, part of the things that you want to be able to do then is the mentor will normally tell you, okay, based on your knowledge and experience, right? Uh go read about uh for instance, let me give an example. You could have a folk who said, Oh, I'm interested in IT. IT is bored, right? So what I'll typically tell them is, okay, there are different rules within IT. There are a data analyst, there's you can become a data engineer, you can become a cloud engineer, you can become a software developer. Now say go read up on each of those rules, right? Which of those rules kind of which of those rules sparks your interest? Which of those rules uh do you think you would uh you would you would do better? Right. And by doing that, you're changing the conversation and making them go do some deep deep dive, right? You want them to do a deep dive on on those roles to be able to see what which what would be the best pathway for them. And they might come back to say, Oh, I think uh I might go for either I might either become a data engineer or I might do a data scientist, and then you can then coach them to say, okay, this is what a data scientist does, what a data engineer does, and then you pass you carve that pathway for them, right? Uh once you do that, uh part of the things you want to be able to do next is being able to learn the skill in order for you to be able to get a job. And in order for you to learn that skill, most times the way you do that will be either you're going to school or you're taking short focused targeted boot camps, right? Uh that might just be six-month boot camp, uh, and that will give you that practical knowledge, right? Uh, and once you do that, part of the things you want to be able to do next is maybe you're working towards the certification, right? Uh, but it's not just about working towards the certification. This is where you also still need a mentor to be able to guide you what certifications should I take. What should be the right order and pathway for the certifications? Because what certifications will do is it will certifications don't really guarantee you of getting a job. What it's simply doing, you what it's simply doing, it's putting you in front of an interviewer to say this guy has all the technical knowledge and skills, right? But it doesn't necessarily mean you can do the job. You get so so uh so what I normally tell people is work towards certification, they help uh put you in front of an interviewer, uh and then uh from there, what what you can then begin to do next is like I said, work on your professional communication, like uh work on interview communication, uh work on how on presentation skills, depending on the role you're going for, like uh and as you begin to do all of this, uh one of the key things I also kind of mentioned as well, uh, for people who are coming into the country as well, is because you don't know anybody, it would make sense for you to be able to check out how do you build relationships. Uh and where you build relationships could be maybe you could maybe you attend some church uh events uh to meet more people, uh or it could be you attending like a professional event on that uh job role you're trying to get, right? Uh and I did the same thing too. Uh when I came, I forced myself out of my comfort zone. I'm a very I'm an introvert, I don't like to talk too much, right? Uh, but I had to force myself out of that comfort zone to say, you know what? I will spend my money and go to Toronto uh and go to this event where I don't know anybody and just try to just listen and try to build uh relationships, right? And and that helped along the way. Uh it also helped along the way because now I go every year I go for uh professional events and I meet a lot of people around the world, right? Uh some or one of them has actually influenced me in getting a job, right? So so you never know when where where that might come. But I'll say the first year for you like this is very important because you need to be able to have that exposure, like uh uh exposure to to building that relationship. Uh, but more importantly, as well, I would say it makes sense. There might be times whereby you might get a job, and the job might not be a high-paying job, it might be a low-paying job simply because you just break it into a new role. Like, uh, it's okay to take those roles, right? Uh it's not gonna be easy. Uh I'll be very honest, right? You break it into a new rule, uh coming into a new country, it's it's very hard, right? So it all comes down to one financial planning as well, making sure that you've when you're coming into the country, you've done proper financial planning to ensure that you can sustain yourself for the next six to twelve months. That's why you'd see when uh the countries you're coming into will tell you make sure you have a you have a financial backing, right? Uh you have enough funds to be able to carry for the next six to twelve months. Part of the reason why they're saying that is because things will be expensive, right? Because you're just landing into a new country, you have no job, right? Uh you want to make sure you you're able to prepare yourself for that, right? So I think this is one of the things that I would recommend to the newcomer that's simply just coming into the country, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

And I agree with everything you said. It's one of the things that you you won't know how it how it is until you are inside that system, until you are inside that country, breathing in that country's oxygen, and you have to go to, okay, well, there is this supermarket and there is this other supermarket. You can get the same things from both supermarkets, but one is more expensive than the other. The expensive one is far from you, or the cheaper one is far from you. So now you have to think, okay, I can't be going every week. I can I should go once in two weeks, meaning I should only buy the things I need. And it brings us back to, okay, well, spend less than you earn, and so on, and so on. And having the willingness to leave your comfort zone, to go and meet people that can recommend you for something. Like I said, everything is merit-based. But somebody who doesn't know you cannot mention your name to a recruiter or a hiring manager. They have to literally know you, know what you can do, and so on, because it's their name on the line as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

They can't recommend you and you don't do a good job of even talking about yourself, that makes them look bad.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yep, yep. So yeah. And the same thing, just to add to that as well, uh, I remember uh like I often get a lot of messages on LinkedIn whereby uh a lot of people from from uh where we come from would reach out and would say, uh, can you recommend me for this opportunity? And most times, because I don't know them, so what I'll simply do is, especially the ones that I see from their LinkedIn profiles that might have a that might have that potential, uh potential to be able to get the job. Right, so what I'll do is I'll say, you know what, let's set up a quick 10-minute call. Like, and a 10-minute call is for me to quickly assess them to see if they're truly the right feet. Because I understand it's hard breaking into breaking into the job market in a new country. So what I'll quickly do within the first 10-15 minutes, I'll just quickly assess them and I'll say, and most of the time, I'll tell you, I'll be honest, 80% of the time, you'd see most of the people don't have that knowledge. They're they're still they're still getting that knowledge, right? Uh I I've I've recommended someone before, I remember someone who walked me, which was when I was working at a different consultant company back in like 20, it was 2019. And he reached out to me on LinkedIn and he asked me about applying for a role in the company where I was then. Uh, and I had the same chat with him. Uh he was good, I'm not gonna lie, like very good. Uh, and guess what? I recommended him for the role. He had interviews back and forth. Uh he did get the role, but interestingly, he got a better role elsewhere just when he got the offer. Right. Uh, but he still once in a while he still messages me and reaches out to me. Right. On the other hand, I've gotten a lot of folks who have reached out, and once I have that first 10 minutes with them, I'm I'm like, you can't, you can't, I can't, I can't refer you because I'm putting myself on the line for someone that I don't know, right? There's two different things. There's there's the technical knowledge, knowing that you have the technical knowledge, but there's also the personal trait as well that I don't know, right? So if I'm to go off the technical knowledge, right, I need to make sure it's strong, right? Um get it, get, get a sense to be able to know you better, right? But that's that's what I often see, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about um work ethic. And it's one thing to be able to do the job, it's another thing to now have the ability to balance work and life. Because many people make the mistake of saying, okay, well, I come into this new country, this new job, and so on. I want to prove myself, which is good, which is needed. However, proving yourself while making sure you don't burn out, big difference. So, what are some strategies that you've practiced that you can share with us and say, okay, well, this is how I make sure I don't overwork myself. This is how I make sure I actually spend time with my family. This is how I make sure that every Sunday night I don't dread going to work on Monday morning and so on.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Uh good question. So I strongly believe in hard work. Uh at the same time, uh I do not believe that success requires constantly exhausting yourself. Right. Uh you need to have periods where uh you you need to rest, right? And you need to be able to have periods whereby you you study or you're preparing for a particular certification or working towards a project or learning a new skill. I think the key thing here is planning, right? It's it's all about planning. How do you organize yourself, your tasks, uh on it's kind of like look at it this way. You move into a new country, you're trying to to you're trying to break into new opportunities. Uh and then if you're spending uh if you're spending a lot of time of that watching Netflix, like it's not gonna help, man. So I think I tell people that okay, you know what, you need to be able to plan, right? Uh that at this point you there's some things you need to cut off, like uh because you because the time for Netflix will come. The time, the time for all the time for Netflix, the time for all of this will come once you get what you're looking for, right? Uh so I think it's all about planning, uh being able to make sure you're spending time to be able to work on yourself, right? Uh at the same time what is also important as well is that you have rest, right? Uh you don't want to have a burnout, right? And you and and most of us might probably have burnouts simply because we're you're you're overstretched, right? You need to spend family time, you need to do this. Uh and it all comes down to the same planning which I'm talking about. You need to make sure there's planned time for family activities, right? And that family activities could be Friday nights, right? Friday night, uh, we spend some time to make sure that we're just staying home, watching a movie. That might just be the family time you need. Uh, it might not necessarily be in going out and going to go spend money, right? So it's all about being able to set those boundaries, right? Uh the the way I see it, the the objective is not for you to hustle and endlessly, right? Uh the objective is for you to be able to build a career that can sustain you for many years. And the way you do that is making sure you're you're planning, you have a good habit, right? Uh I'll stop there.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Yeah, yeah. And it's definitely something I also practice the ability to just spend scheduled time to do nothing. Because you mentioned Netflix and a lot of people also struggle with social media. Me personally, I use Instagram, but on a time limit. A restricted time limit of 15 minutes per day. Anytime I say it, thank you. Anytime I say it, people are like, that's not possible. And then I show them my phone where I set 15 minutes per day on screen time app. If you use Apple iPhone, you should check it out. And every phone company has a similar thing, screen time, set limit, and so on. Even LinkedIn. I have limit on LinkedIn, I have limit on Zoom, I have limit on Slack, even email. There's a limit for all these different apps because if you're not careful, especially social media, you just scroll, scroll, scroll. Before you do it, one hour has passed.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

And you're wondering wait, I've actually been here for one hour because you go back to the message you sent before you started scrolling, and the message was one hour ago. So addictive. Yep, yep. So there's time for everything, like you just said, there's a time when you will be able to watch a whole day of Netflix. Maybe that time is not now, and that's fine. Netflix is not going anywhere. The show you think is the best show now will become forgotten five years from now, and then there will be a best show in five years' time. So, what are we now saying?

SPEAKER_00 41:28

But the opportunity, you might lose the opportunity if you're if you're uh spending a lot of time on uh doing the social media activities, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:37

So I I saw one ad on TV recently that says if you have time to scroll, you have time to call. Basically saying you should call people and talk to them, like your family members, your friends. And the ad was showing somebody calling their grammar, somebody calling their best friend from high school, instead of spending that time just scrolling on social media. Because think about it you have time to scroll. Meaning you are sitting down, your phone is in your hand, you're looking at your phone. Well, you might as well do a video call. You are sitting down, your phone is in your hand, you're looking at your phone. That's a good way to put it. I like that. Yep, yep. So um, I want to be mindful of your time. This has been a very insightful conversation. And one thing before we leave, um how do I which question do I even ask? Okay. In in one year's time, one year from now, what do you think um would be the state of this job market and people immigrating every day and so on? And the existing tools now, how do you think is going to shape the way people pivot their careers and grow their careers and so on, and especially in terms of networking, in terms of using AI to enhance your resume, using AI to compose clearer emails so that your emails don't sound like two pages of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Yeah, so I'll say in in one year's time, I think the onus is always on, irrespective of what the job market is, right? The job market could be good, it could be bad. Uh, the onus is always on your individual self to see how you can improve yourself. I like to think about it differently and not and not necessarily say because of the job market, I'm not seeing opportunities, right? Uh I think people are getting opportunities. Uh the like we say in Nigeria, they don't have three heads, right? Uh they're doing something different, right? Uh so the way I'll put it is the owners will be on one's individual self to look at how you can improve yourself uh over the next one year. Like uh the if if I were to answer your question without uh my own bias of way of thinking, uh would I say the job market is would be better in the next one year? Uh it's hard to tell, right? But one thing I do know is with the advent of AI, right, there is that potential for new opportunities, right? So how do you tap into that? Right? How do you like I have a friend uh of mine who who I know works as a financial analyst, right? And he's always worked as a financial analyst and he's kind of tapped into AI right now, right? Whereby his his focus has now been how can he tap into AI to strengthen his financial analysis background and experience, right? And recently he got a job uh because he's been he he started building AI agents and tools himself, playing around with it. Uh and he learned so much that he built a whole project around that. Uh and that led to him being able to get uh a job that is within the financial AI uh stream, right? Uh so I think there's there's a lot of opportunities with respect to uh with AI coming out, right? There's a lot more that you can do that you can prepare yourself from an interview perspective, right? Uh that you can easily just copy the job description and then you start to be able to uh query the LLM and then see what are the potential uh questions that people get asked, right? How do I prepare for this interview? Like you didn't have all of this before, right? So there's a there's a whole lot of improvement happening, right? How do you also improve yourself? So you're also catching up to that piece as well, right? So that that's that's the way I see it, and that's the way I'll normally just put it. Like lastly, lastly I'll say uh I I strongly believe that people can can go, right? Uh your current level is not it's not your permanent level, right? Uh but however I'd say go to requires you taking ownership, uh it requires you taking discipline, right? Having that humility, being humble, right? And you having that willingness to begin uh before you even feel completely ready. Like that's the way I'll see it.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Wow, wow. The humility, the willingness to take that jump before you feel ready. That's the perfect way to land to learn this insightful conversation. Thank you so much once again. And I pretty much reached out to you and you are great, which is you know the best I can. It it just shows the kind of person you are. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

More than happy, more than happy to hop on the call and help. Uh definitely, definitely. But yeah, definitely good talking to you, PDME. I enjoyed this conversation very much. Uh, and I've also been listening to some of your previous conversations as well. Uh so good stuff. You're doing you're doing uh incredible stuff. Really, really love it.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

I try, I try, thank you so much. No worries, man. That's you, sir. All right, no worries. Have a good rest of your day, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

You too. To be in touch.