Ronu Spirit

Episode 6: A journey of heritage and identity with Peter Fashesin Souza

• Ronu Spirit • Season 1 • Episode 6

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In this insightful episode of the Ronu Spirit Podcast, host Hameed converses with Peter Kolade Fashesin Souza, a Nigerian professional with Brazilian ancestry and extensive experience in the financial and technology sectors. The discussion delves into Peter's unique name origin, tracing its roots to the legacies of slavery and his family's return journey to Nigeria. Peter shares his educational and professional journey, emphasising the importance of community, resilience, and continuous learning. The conversation touches on efforts to empower African nations, the necessity of a mindset shift, and the role of technology and innovation in shaping the future of Africa. Join us for a compelling dialogue on history, identity, and the path towards a more empowered and respected global African community.

Peter:

what the slaves did then was, they were forced to abandon their religion, their traditional religions from Africa, and were forced to become Catholic. What they did was now to match the different saints with African deities

Hameed:

ohh the Yoruba gods

Peter:

exactly Wow. yep That's so wild to say. Today you invest in slavery. Wow. I was at the Liverpool Slavery Museum and you could look into the ledgers of the different expeditions where you'd have the names of the investors and how much each person put down for that expedition, as we call it

Hameed:

welcome to another episode of the Ronu Spirit podcast, where you follow my learning journey as I explore potential ways to empower African nations, addressing the legacies of colonization and enhancing the global respects for black and African people. My name is Hameed and As usual, we have Dr. Sumaira Farha in the background serving as my clarity coach. So say hi,

Sumaira:

Hello?

Hameed:

Wonderful. my guest today is Peter Kolade Fashesin Souza. He is of Nigerian descent with traces of Brazilian heritage. He works in one of the key financial services organizations in the UK. With over 25 years of experience in the financial and technology industry. He's also actively involved in leading employee resource groups for minority ethnic colleagues within those organizations. And he is a amazing illustrator and hobby cartoonist. So welcome to the podcast, Peter.

Peter:

Hi thanks hameed for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm really excited to have this conversation.

Hameed:

yes. This conversation can be anything. we are going to talk about all kinds of stuff today. I want to begin with your name. I think that is the most interesting part because, when I first met you, that story that you told me was what really lit my brain on fire. I'm like, Ooh, interesting. I'm from Nigeria and I didn't know this. so your name is quite unique. Peter Kolade, Kolade is Nigerian Yoruba. So that's normal. Fascism Sousa. that's different. Tell us about the name. Where is that name from? Why do you have that name?

Peter:

Yeah, it's interesting and you will never find anyone else with that combination of names apart from someone from my family. so it helps to be unique wherever you go. I don't know how many people know about the legacies of slavery outside of North America. I don't think it's a very popular story.

Hameed:

yeah, I can say it's definitely not that popular outside of North America. when I was doing Basic Nigerian History, I learned a little bit more about it, but I realized that it was extremely brutal, way more brutal than Up North in the sense that, they were literally killing slaves off regularly. and they just didn't see them as humans. I know North Americans didn't see them as humans, but they were trying to breed slaves. In South America, from what I studied, they were just happy to let them die get more in,

Peter:

it was more brutal justice, but that's the past experience. but we then had abolition of slavery in North America and Caribbean. It took another, I believe it's about 50 years. Before slavery was abolished in South America, so Brazil, Argentina, and those countries. after that, the slaves had the option to stay there. Or go back to wherever they could identify as home. there were some people who made that brave journey to go back, to their homeland. settled in. First of all, it was a very tough journey back. Buy, ticket, buy your way onto a ship and then make the journey back, which I think took, I'm not sure if it's three weeks or three months, but I have to go back and read the books I read about it again. But it was a long time. Some people died on the journey. Some people were really old coming back and then you had some young children that came back. So this particular book that I have. called Waterhouse, right? We talked about the journey of the, a young girl who came back on the ship and arrived in Lagos, and when they arrived, they were quarantined for about Two weeks on the ship by the colonial masters at the time, so quarantined to ensure that they didn't have had any illness or anything like that before they were allowed onto the mainland. Now, the whole community of them came back and settled, in a place on Lagos Island it was called Brazilian quarters at the time, but now it's a commercial, part of Lagos called Marina. Right. mostly skyscrapers there,

Hameed:

Oh,

Peter:

yeah, at that time, the houses that were built by this Brazilians or returnees, as they call them, well, the style that you will find in Portugal or in Brazil, because that's the trade. That's how they learned how to build houses. yeah, so many of the people that came back. Now, they couldn't really well, they had two identities, right? You had the identity that you brought back from Brazil and that you had, with your homeland. So a lot of them kept. Brazilian names. So you had Daza, DaSilva, DaCosta, Fernandez, those kind of names. So you'll probably have met somebody, that comes from Lagos who has that kind of surname, but will then have a Yuba name. there are quite a few of them, my uncle and his family, they just kept the full, the Dasuza name, but my dad, was the child of a second wife, so he chose to have her surname in addition to his surname. And that combined to fascist in Sousa, so the fascist in part is from Elisha, in Nigeria, which is outside of Lagos, and that's where his mom was from. that combination is how that came about, and of course, my first name, Peter I was born, baptized as a Catholic, most of those, the Brazilians, that Catholicism was. The prevailing religion, I was raised a Catholic and I just kept that name. It does help in the UK actually, it makes life less complicated when you have an English name. but there you go.

Hameed:

interesting. I guess Kade is your yoruba name,

Peter:

That is my Yoruba name. It means, the full name is Oluwakolade, which means God has brought, wealth.

Hameed:

does anyone call you that at all?

Peter:

yeah, most of my mates from secondary school,

Hameed:

Okay. so they. didn't go the peter route

Peter:

no, my mates from university, not because my secondary school mates call me more than call me Peter because, I didn't really have a choice at the time was what was in your parents put down as your name. When I got to university, I went to University of Ibadan, then I consciously asked that I introduce myself as Kolade, Not Peter. you'd have people that know me as different things. Some just know me as Sousa, there's a book called The Adventures of Sousa. it was one of the books that we all read in primary school, or secondary school, so literature books. Adventures of Sousa. Sousa was a very notorious naughty child that was always getting into trouble. Just like Bino,

Hameed:

Dennis the Menace

Peter:

dennis the Menace, yeah. there's a book about it. It's an old book. about this troublesome child called Sousa I'm called different things at different places, but it's one of the three.

Hameed:

I think it's very interesting the Catholic side, cause I don't know many Yoruba Catholics, I know a lot of IBO Catholics because of de missionaries that went over to. The Southeast during colonial times were mostly Catholics, right? So I know a lot of Igbo Catholics, Yoruba Christians tend to not be Catholics, but it's so interesting that the Catholic side was to retain from colonial time of their time in Brazil and returning from Brazil. Cause almost everybody in South America is like Catholic, aren't they? Like Latinas and Latino people. They're

Peter:

It's Yes, it's very Catholic. That's we know you've got that. And that statue of the Jesus statue in Rio, that's a huge symbol of faith that they have, right? And interestingly though, what the slaves did then was, they were forced to abandon their religion, their traditional religions from Africa, and were forced to become Catholic. What they did was now to match the different saints with African deities

Hameed:

ohh the Yoruba gods

Peter:

exactly. so when I'm talking about St. Peter, St. Matthew, they had a matching deity of a god that, they were also worshiping at the same time. So there's this faith it's called, I think it's Candomblé or something like that. a blend between Catholicism. And African, religion if you go to Brazil, I think it's in Salvador or Bahia, you will find a lot of that, faith, being practiced there.

Hameed:

interesting. to be fair, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that, the Catholicism, remained and came from Brazil because when I think about how South America got colonized, it was mostly with the Portuguese and Spanish. Right. they were both like. beholden to the Pope, they both went to the Pope and be like, Oh, it's our responsibility to colonize the world and bring the infidels to justice.

Peter:

Yeah.

Hameed:

everything that they were doing

Peter:

Crusades and all that

Hameed:

Yeah, it was sanctioned by the Pope, basically. I guess it's normal that Catholicism plays a big part in South America, especially considering they went over to South America and really stayed there. Whereas the British and those guys went more to North America. I guess when they were doing it, they weren't using corporations they were using the power of monarchy, the power of the Pope. because I think the reason why the British was so successful in doing this was because they started doing. what the Dutch were doing. it became capitalism and they're just like, it's all about making money and anybody can invest in slavery basically

Peter:

yep yep wow. Yep. That's so wild to say. Today you invest in slavery. Wow. I mean, I was at the Liverpool Slavery Museum and you could actually look into the ledgers of the different expeditions where you'd have the names of the investors and how much each person put down for that voyage. to go on that expedition, as we call it, but there's a whole massive story of how that played out that hasn't been properly told yet the commercial side of it from getting the cowrie shells from the South Pacific. taking that to Europe, trading the cowries on exchanges, like you're right now, you're trading gold or metal or whatever on the commodities exchange. People will then buy those cowries and then use them to go on these voyages to go and do the slave trade buy them.

Hameed:

that is so interesting I remember in the past, they used to say that cowry shells were like money, but

Peter:

Yeah.

Hameed:

as money by the British?

Peter:

no by the Africans, cowries had, religious significance or, spiritual significance. it was a symbol of fertility, right? the more cowries you have adorned in your garment, the more fertile you will be, and then the more children you have, and that means that community will grow. you have more resources to farm, to do whatever it is. So the more cowries you have, the better. cowries were seen as, good value. they were being extracted from the Pacific Ocean. Cowrie shells. so now, there's extraction of oil, right, for powering industry. Back then, the extraction was the shells. And that was then shipped in bulk and taken to Europe to be traded on the exchanges.

Hameed:

why

Peter:

let's say you buy 1,000 bags of cowries for 50 pounds, right? That 1,000 bags of cowries, what you can do with that, when you actually go to West Africa to then trade and buy the slaves, you get so much more money from it, right? Just like you're doing a currency exchange, you're going to Uber, so you buy. Euros,

Hameed:

yeah. just thinking about this and hearing about this just annoys me and angers me so because this is another example in my head of them taking advantage of us The cowrie shells situation was like more of a spiritual element.

Peter:

it was rare at time. No, it was useful for trading. You could buy and sell with it. But it was scarce. But what then happened was, because to this lift rate, they now were to get huge volumes of it. then be able to buy as many,

Hameed:

basically they weren't even trading for something useful. They were just getting everything for free, because all they had to do was go into the ocean, dig up a whole bunch of shells

Peter:

it wasn't easy to extract it in that volume, but yes, pretty much, well, you can say oil is free, right? If you say someone just goes and digs it from the ground,

Hameed:

true.

Peter:

to get?

Hameed:

but I mean, in today's day and age, when I'm in Nigeria, cowry shells are everywhere.

Peter:

Yeah, because people don't, there's no value to it now. it's not a recognized medium of exchange, right? I mean, you can buy them on Amazon you can buy plastic ones of it and put it on your hair if you want.

Hameed:

we've just started this episode with history, which I love. It's my favorite subject. love to explore history. But then let's talk a little bit more about your personal history and, how, You got to the position that you're in now, because obviously You grew up in Nigeria, you went to university in Nigeria, and now you are in the UK working in one of the key financial services institutions. In the UK, how did you get to that stage? What was your journey? Like, I'd love to hear your personal story starting from, anywhere you want to start from, let's say university times. what was university like? Was it free education in Nigeria?

Peter:

yeah. It was free. I mean, I'll go way back. I was born in Lagos, family of, Seven children. so big family. We had to have a minivan. We couldn't have a regular car to go to church.

Hameed:

Station Wagon.

Peter:

Minivan, proper like your boss to get around when we're going to church when the whole family is going. so seven kids. My dad was a lawyer. My mom was a stay at home mom. And, the priority for them was, education of their children. And it was so important and also there was an emphasis on speaking English. whilst I grew up in Nigeria and everyone around me was speaking Yoruba, I didn't speak much Yoruba, so I didn't really have a very strong Nigerian accent.

Hameed:

Oh, really?

Peter:

Yeah.

Hameed:

like, you didn't even like, even when you were on the streets on the playgrounds playing with the kids, you didn't.

Peter:

on the streets because my parents didn't let us go out to play with the other kids. We were always studying at home during the holidays, during the summer breaks, you had to go for summer lesson and

Hameed:

Oh my God. education education.

Peter:

buy the book, the books for next term or next year and during the summer holidays, you will read the whole book. Before you start school. So by the time you're going to run into your classes, you would have read everything before you even started the lesson.

Sumaira:

Wow. A very studious household.

Peter:

there was an expectation that, you were either first, second or third, every at the end of every term. if worst case is maybe 10th, but wow, anything below that, yeah, you are in trouble.

Hameed:

you know what we're talking about?

Sumaira:

What in terms of grading systems?

Hameed:

Yeah, in Nigeria, they position you,

Sumaira:

I got positioned too, by the way, cause I went to boarding school. So yeah, top 10 was like top three, but then if you made the top 10, then that was like really good. yeah, I do understand

Hameed:

I completely forgot about that system, that shows how long I've been in the UK, because when I was in Nigeria, that system used to scare me, I was never, I used to be like 27th.

Sumaira:

There is a lot of pressure. on children Yeah.

Hameed:

was so stupid and like, my parents would be like, my mom would be like, what, the person that came first, wasn't he born by somebody like you? Like, what's going on?

Sumaira:

But somebody has to make, like not everyone can be the top three.

Hameed:

has to be 27, Sorry.

Peter:

Oh, my God. anyway, we're brought up to be very. studios, we didn't go out and play with other kids. That was in primary school though, so secondary school, I went to boarding school. went to boarding school,

Hameed:

Did you

Peter:

Lagos.

Hameed:

You spread your wings a little bit in boarding

Peter:

a little bit, yeah, I got into a bit of trouble. but then, my dad was the, chairman of the Parents Teachers Association.

Hameed:

Oh, wow.

Peter:

my older brother, myself, and one of my younger sisters were all in the same school, but my older brother left before my younger sister came.

Hameed:

This period of, that you were going to school, this sounds like the good like, I don't want to say good times, but when Nigeria was still kind of respectable

Peter:

yeah,

Hameed:

educationally,

Peter:

It was not as bad as now education was still good,

Hameed:

those education institutions where they're free, where you're able to attend them for free,

Peter:

Yes.

Hameed:

where they good quality?

Peter:

Yeah,

Hameed:

compared to what we have now,

Peter:

the federal government colleges were set up by the government and you had to pass some tests before you could get into those schools, just like you've got grammar schools in the UK

Hameed:

I see I see,

Peter:

you have to pass some tests. but they had a quarter for, Diversity. We had diversity at the time. DNI is not new.

Hameed:

what year was this?

Peter:

Oh My God. In the eighties.

Hameed:

Nigeria had D. I quota

Peter:

yeah. Yep. For people from underprivileged, ethnic backgrounds. mostly from the northern states. and they'll go to different schools around the country. they didn't have to pass the same test that. All that privileged, people did. anyway, so it was boarding school. it was hard, when you were a junior and there was bullying. There was lots of stress, but you also had, your free time. So we got into lots of naughty, naughty things. that was, and it was a mixed, my school was a mixed school. So some people got really naughty.

Hameed:

Okay.

Peter:

and go into trouble and then, yeah, they were just mischievous. But anyway, during that time, I found out from primary school, I'd been drawing. I've always been good at art. I used to draw superheroes. I would draw Spider Man and I'll cut out the shape of Spider Man. I used to sell it to my mates in primary school for like 10 cover. I used to buy sweets and stuff.

Hameed:

Yeah.

Peter:

then in secondary school, I was using it to make the girls, like me. I used to draw all their art homework and their geography homework. I'd draw there, I'd draw all the maps and everything. The biology assignment, I'd draw it,

Hameed:

but you never thought, being an artist was a real thing, I'm sure, with your parents being so focused on education.

Peter:

yeah, my dad didn't. I appreciate that I was drawing more than I was studying. I used to go during holidays. we have this art shops where you can buy art stationery and I was just like sniffing the smell of the paper and the pens and when I had a little bit of money I would buy some particular pencils, all the B range of pencils, I'll buy cartridge paper, and I will draw. but when my grades started going down and I didn't look like I was going to be a doctor, like my dad wanted, yeah, he just took all my stuff and just destroyed it. It took all my art stuff and that I, till today is still painful, because it took me. Years of, buying two pencils and one, sketch pad and all of that. but, it is what it is.

Hameed:

And you're not a doctor now anyways,

Peter:

not. I'm not.

Hameed:

what happened? how did you change?

Peter:

I still didn't do well with my physics and chemistry and biology, right? but I was okay with other things, other subjects. So straight away, I wasn't going to be into the sciences. I ended up, going to University of Ibadan, to study economics, so I got a degree in economics and, well, of course, in my university days, what I used to do with my art, I used to make valentine cards,

Hameed:

Oh,

Peter:

right? So every valentine's day for two weeks before. I won't go for lectures because I've got orders for cards,

Hameed:

your making money. you were a full entrepreneur.

Peter:

yeah, I made, at least six months of maintenance money from valentine cards. I used to read poems so I could write, love pieces and valentine cards and everyone was just like, this guy is just churning out all of these amazing things. I did that quite a bit, in my university days. but yeah, it wasn't UI finished, My economics degree and then, what did my national youth service in, in Pricewaterhouse? No, in Coopers and Libran at the time before it became Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Hameed:

they had a branch in Nigeria?

Peter:

yeah. They had Coopers and Librans and Pricewaterhouse in Nigeria. that's why I started my career anyway. I joined Coopers and Libran. Then there was a merger with PWC and. at the time, you have to be an accountant to work in an audit firm. I had to go up in doing accounting that didn't work either.

Hameed:

I'm not surprised. You have a very creative mind

Peter:

creative accounting means you're a criminal.

Sumaira:

Yeah.

Peter:

you can't break the rules when you're doing accounting, you have to follow the rules. And that's not my style. that's not my natural space. in that whole process, I had this vision of, wanting to be, because the way I spoke was slightly different, right? I wasn't speaking with Nigerian accent. I wasn't speaking Yoruba. I sort of felt like. I belonged in a bigger space, in a different, I want to be a globally recognized professional in my field. That's just the statement I had in my head. How that was going to happen, I don't know. I didn't know at the time. So I said, okay. and ah, while I was in university, we had lots of, university lecturers going on strike. Okay.

Hameed:

That was happening even in your time.

Peter:

yes, and they were going to strike for like six months,

Sumaira:

wow

Hameed:

Oh my God. Samira, this is the same problem that we discussed with Awe when she was in university it's still happening till today I'm assuming what was the reason for those strikes?

Peter:

It was pay, wasn't It

Hameed:

Yeah.

Peter:

Anyway, the strikes were good for me because I got a job in a graphic art studio. and I would work throughout the strikes and make some money. I also got a contract to do a comic book for. friend of mine. he had a script for a play and couldn't make the play. So can you make a comic book out of this? And I did that like three weeks in front of a mirror, mixed posing and all of that and drawing the poses, made some good money. Really. I had so much fun.

Hameed:

what? This was all before digital art. This was all traditional.

Peter:

Yeah. I drew it on paper, you have to do the frame, 50 pages, and first of all, create the characters, and you have to read in the script, say, okay, what does this character look like? How would they stand? And all of that. So I did all of that, during the strikes, I was just doing other things, anyway, when I started working in this digital studio, I used to make cards digitally now. So I got really familiar with computers. I worked with Macs and PCs and all of that. in PwC, trying to be an accountant, didn't like it, we had another team that went into IT consulting, I said, you know what, I want to work in that team. I asked if I could change my job to that team and they said, oh, no, you haven't got an IT degree. I said, ah, okay. I'll go and get one then. every month for two, maybe three years, when I get my salary, I would go to this, unofficial foreign currency traders, right? They call them the malams. I will go and buy, pounds. And I'll deposit it into a domiciliary account because the Naira was losing value, right? I know this is the school fee. I was going to travel to the UK to do a masters. That was my plan.

Hameed:

wow. back then, changing careers is not like today where you could just become a developer on it, person without getting a degree. you literally had to, even though you already had a degree, you had to go back and get another degree.

Peter:

I had to go and get a masters. Yeah. I wasn't told you have to get this. I was just told you don't have it as the excuse.

Hameed:

Mmm.

Peter:

okay, if I have it, you have to come up with another excuse, right?

Hameed:

Fair enough

Peter:

and I did want to travel anyway, it was hard. I had three suits, one nice Toyota Camry, and I was living in a one bedroom flat. All the money I was earning, I was just buying this foreign currency and dumping it until I made up to about, I think it's about 6, 000, maybe 7, 000 pounds that I was able to use to pay half of the fees. and then I came to the UK, went to London South Bank University.

Hameed:

wait, did you come to the UK by yourself? Okay. and when you were saving up that money and buying pounds in order to come, how much of your salary was that?

Peter:

I can't remember the actual amount, but it was like 80%.

Hameed:

Wow. so you were like putting 80 percent of your salary away constantly just so you can go do masters and Man. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter:

Yep, but I was living at home in my parents house, but we had, I would call it a boy's quarters at the back. So I just had a little space there and, bed, TV, small radio. I was also reading for exams at the time, so there was no time to mess around. You go to work, you go for, you go and study for your accounting exams. then I think I switched to ACCA at the time as well. And it was just a triangular life, right? but anyway, long story short, came to the UK. my sister was living here, though, in the UK, so I had somewhere to live. had to work, night shift, security guard, while doing the Master's, so you could get the rest of the fees.

Hameed:

I

Peter:

also pay for my transport to get to work and back, to get to school and back. So I did that for another year and a bit. The winters were hard you had to patrol Canary Wharf at night, right? 12 hour shift from 7 a. m. This is me coming from 35 degrees, in Lagos

Hameed:

basically during the day you would, you were doing your masters and then from 7pm you were on the security guard job.

Peter:

yeah.

Hameed:

so you could continue to pay for the Masters that you were doing.

Peter:

Yeah.

Hameed:

Okay.

Peter:

it got really cold, I bailed on that security job, though. I went to work in PC world. But I was, AWOL, as they say. I just took off. I didn't take any shifts. Just forget about me. And then, the PC, it wasn't paying as well.

Hameed:

What year was it?

Peter:

2001, 2002.

Hameed:

2001. 2002 was when you came to the uk.

Peter:

yeah. it was hard. I did the masters and, I finished with a distinction. Top student in the class.

Sumaira:

Congratulations

Peter:

and information systems management. then I went back to Nigeria, right? Because I took study leave. I took study leave. I took a year. Io for my job in PWC. I didn't resign. and so when I didn't want to go back at first, but I tried to get, there's this, immigration visa program that was going on at the time and tried to get that. But my, I couldn't get a job that got me into the salary range to, for the location I was based in. It's just in the UK. However, I looked at the salary range for someone that was applying from outside of the country from Nigeria and my salary back in Nigeria actually met the range. I said, you know what, better go back, get the 12 month payslips because you have to show 12 months of working in the, at that pay level and then reapply. So as I got the. basically for the 12 months when I came back straight into the application and I got the, the work permit. so in that time, when I went back, got married and my wife and I, We sold everything that we had, and that came to 3, 000, and so 3, 000, two suitcases, and my wife was five months pregnant, we came to the UK in 2004, I think it was July or something like that. so just, certificates, two suitcases, three thousand pounds, five months pregnant. So we're on the clock, right? We need to settle down before this baby pops out. and yeah, that was 2004. So this is 20 years now since then. And a lot's happened. but I, when I came, so I then joined PWC London. I applied directly, got a job in PwC London, doing, work.

Hameed:

Were you able to get that job immediately?

Peter:

yes, well, about three months, I first tried everywhere else, but PwC, PwC again. I'm going to go to everywhere, nice places, Goldman Sachs and all these brands I've heard about. anything there. when the money ran out, I think. the last 1, 200 we had, was what we paid for the deposit for rent for one bedroom flat and then the actual rent. you have to pay your deposit and then you pay the rent for the month. Yeah, I did that. I just bought my travel card for the, for that month and I didn't have any money.

Hameed:

there is no more money left

Peter:

my first salary came in just as the money ran out. but yeah, I mean at the time it was just focus. single minded focus and just, one step at a time,

Hameed:

and now you've gone past multiple levels

Peter:

to be where you are today I'vee I've done quite a bit, so I've worked at PwC for quite a few years. then moved to Shell for about nine years, from Shell HSBC to the current organization where I'm In, I've been there for nine years now. but I think the biggest role that I had was at Shell, when I joined PwC, I pretty much took a demotion from the grade I was in Nigeria. I was happy to do that. Then I got a promotion really quickly. then I joined Shell again, I also got a demotion and then I got promoted really quickly again, because, they don't expect you to be that good, that level.

Hameed:

why? They don't expect you to be that good. Because usually when people switch jobs,

Peter:

Yeah.

Hameed:

are going up along. you're switching jobs where you're going down before you go back up.

Peter:

yeah, man,

Hameed:

is that?

Peter:

it's because of what you look like, there's an expectation of less competence. but, it is what it is. I think my view on things is that the society is that you have a society. It is what it is. So how are you going to thrive despite? the challenges you face, just don't be surprised when you experience that kind of thing.

Hameed:

Yeah. basically, you know that saying because you're black, you have to work twice as hard and blah, blah, blah. That saying was true for you every time you switch jobs, you have to constantly prove that you are good enough that they could promote you again.

Peter:

absolutely. within a year, I was promoted, Which is very different from other people in the company. And then after that promotion, within another maybe four years, I was promoted again, to a fairly senior role. I got to a role where I was one of the few black people at that level in a company. and. And that's when I started becoming more conscious about how I can help other people. I watched a book that I read, but it just say, open yourself up to new experiences. Just say yes to everything that comes your way. if someone asked me to do whatever, I would just say, sure, why not? I'll do it. I just kept saying yes. that's when I was asked, do you want to be part of the employee resource group in Shell at the time? And I said, yeah, why not? I joined the group as the communications leads. It was called the shell African network at the time I joined as the communications lead and I unleashed my creativity, onto the newsletter rebranded it, called it, I think we called it the fan vibes is what I called it. And I just put some. African fabric kind of patterns on here. And the story was written, it was just different. everyone was like, Whoa,

Hameed:

did you do some illustrations?

Peter:

No, I didn't. I started going for creative writing lessons as well. the way I wrote the stories and things in the newsletter was just different, very refreshing, new, I quickly made an impact, and after a year, they were looking for someone to become the chair of the network and I said, yes. I was job network alongside my regular job for about three years. And that's when I met a lot of people. I met Yvonne Thompson there,

Hameed:

Dr. LeVon Thompson.

Peter:

I met, Tommy Lube's brother, Rolando Lube, he actually works there, I met quite a few people, I think I might have met Diane Abbott at some point,

Hameed:

Oh, wow.

Peter:

but, the network was, was a high profile. one at the time. yeah, that helped start developing the profile. that's gotten me into lots of different spaces now.

Hameed:

Amazing. basically around this time was when you were like, okay, how can I use, I've gone through all these challenges. I've had to work twice as hard. I've had to do all this. How can I then make things better for other people so they don't have to go through what I'm going through right now. And obviously you got involved in the employee resource groups. I guess this is a great segue to the main part of of the podcast conversation that we usually have, which is how can we in this day and age that we're living in today, continue to help our people, how can we continue to empower Africans and increase the respects that, we get in the world? How can we continue to increase ourselves so we're not at the bottom of the social status ladder?

Peter:

that's a really good question. I think there are a few things, but the key thing for me is community. Let's build a united, integrated community. Let's not compete with each other. Let's share when you have insights, knowledge, networks, Share with people, some of the resources that you have that you don't really use. Someone else might actually. Need that resource. And all you have to do is make an introduction and that person can fly once you do that. All right. for me, it's always been about. people to connect across the structures that might have kept them separate. you can just create a forum for everybody in the company to come and sit down and have lunch together, right? You work in accounting, you work in IT, you work in HR. And if you're just stuck with your job, you have never even known each other at all in the company. Or if you just open a space where people talk to each other. Oh! You know this person. You know that person. I need this help.

Hameed:

Oh, this is so true. this is actually valuable gems that you're dropping here,

Sumaira:

hope

Peter:

ha

Hameed:

no, only because when you give a real life example, then it made sense to me because first when you said community, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's good. But how are we going to do that? what did you mean by that? But this was the prime example, you're working in a company, there are other people, other black African people, black people in general in different departments. And just having that little, Oh, let's meet up once a week or once a month or whatever. And from all the different departments and just talk and have a conversation and just get to know each other. That is actually pretty. dope and pretty important. And the reason I say that is because, I worked at Sky for a while. And, most of my time at Sky, I was a contractor. I didn't really try to embed myself too much in the politics. Cause it didn't bother me. Cause I'm like, I get my money and I bounced,

Peter:

yeah.

Hameed:

towards the end, I eventually went perm, I think for like two years or something like that. There was, towards the end before I left, there was a period when I think I was walking through around lunchtime and I just saw all these Nigerians just chilling I was like, yo, cause I've seen them around and every time I see them, I give them another, I say, what's up, how far? we just do a little bit of high, but we don't really talk. And then I was working. I saw all of them saying, I'm like, I see you. I've seen you. I've seen it. Why are you all here? What's going on? And they're like, Oh, they just wanted to have a get together. I'm like, okay, let me join him. I abandoned everything I was doing. I was join him because this rarely ever happens. And. Through that, I got to know more about what each of them were doing. I'm like, oh, you're opening a restaurant. One of them was, Femi Fish. he has a restaurant in somewhere in South, like a seafood restaurant. he does some amazing things. Another guy was like working on a startup, financial tech startup, in his spare time. Someone else was doing other things. I was just like, I didn't know any of this about any of you people. one was a photographer. I'm like, I work for you guys all the time. We know how to say what's up, but we don't actually, That example you've just given is an actual real life one that I can relate to that I feel like if we had done that earlier, only God knows what all the amazing things that would have come from all those connections. if we had tried that earlier and spent more time together

Peter:

That's right. if we can change the mindset that we're not competing with each other, I'm not trying to. be better than you or not tell you how I succeeded, not give any secrets or whatever it is, then everybody wins.

Hameed:

Can you give more examples though? Because that was a great one, but can you give another great one? Can you double down?

Peter:

another example is around. the society we're in, right, don't expect anyone to have to change for you, right? Because if it's not in their interest to change, nobody's going to change anything, right? if someone changes something, receive it, accept it, can be surprised and say, oh, wow, thank you. I appreciate that. But don't expect that. Other people would change as your right, like it's my right. I find there's human rights and all of that, but everyone just, that's a basic thing. But don't say, oh, I'm going to make a special arrangement for you. Don't expect it unless that person, if it happens and you make the most of it. What you can change is your mindset your attitude, If you have to work twice as hard to get where you need to go. Get on with it. Don't expect that someone is going to compromise their own self interest. If you work twice as hard and you get the outcome, the knowledge that you've built and the resilience that you've built by working hard that way you for greater success. In the other things.

Hameed:

you can also share that in the community if you also do that community thing at the same time, you can help other people avoid that and help other people do it faster.

Peter:

Absolutely. apart from working twice as hard on the technical knowledge that you have, and black people are really smart, Start learning new skills, Skills of networking and communication, right? It's because if you cannot communicate about what you have to offer, No one will know, If you want to wait until you've done the work and then you show people, It's until someone, you will only be able to show your manager or head of department, whatever. But if you can tell people what you do, and then they also see what you've done, It makes a difference. Now, to find those people that you're going to tell about what you do, you have to get out there and network. And you need to get into spaces where. It's not just people that have exactly the same profile or the same mindset as you, Go to spaces where you're meeting different types of people, Because you can only be the first black person in a particular organization. If you actually go to the organization and say, hello, I would like to work here. But if you self exclude yourself from there, there will never be a first person that goes there to actually look for a job. So that ability to, put in the work, talk about the work and go sell the work.

Hameed:

change mindsets. I'm just making a note of this change I'm going to recap this at the end of the podcast. I'm going to, I'm going to recap this in terms of when we talk about advice for our listeners

Sumaira:

in terms of mindset, not competing. Everybody wins. Learning skills, accepting you have to work twice as hard and not to self exclude. And having the attitude of being, maybe one of the first black individuals to do something because there has to be a first,

Peter:

right?

Hameed:

I want to dive deeper into this community thing, cause I really like it. I like the idea of using community as a way to increase the empowerment. And you gave a great example with the work one, but can you expand a little bit more on it?

Peter:

Yeah, the good thing about community is that it's not just physical spaces right? You now have online communities. this podcast, for example, and what's going to come out of it. It's going to be part of community building because you then have people that will follow, like it, watch it, and spread the word about it. creating that kind of multi channel community. goes a long way in achieving that and that online community can then become a physical community where you then, actually do a physical event, have a physical panel session and you invite people, 30, 40, a hundred people to a space then you have your networking activity after that.

Hameed:

But you see, my fear with all this is that you do all that, yeah, and you're building this community and you do all these events, you're just help, okay, maybe you're helping the people that are already in the diaspora that are already in the UK, but does that really have an impact on the global status of Africans as a whole, because the continents are still messed up. The politicians are still doing what they're doing. The nations are still corrupt. majority of people are still poor. I'm just like, how can we impact that?

Peter:

Okay. now we're talking about how do we. Start to invest some of our capability and experience exposure to help, the motherland, all of these challenges.

Hameed:

friend of mine said something when I was in Nigeria recently for a wedding. she, she said Nigeria's greatest resources are its people. And she just said it in person whilst she was saying something else. But when she said I to stop and think, Oh my God, the people are so smart. They're so entrepreneurial. I keep telling people, if Nigeria just gave its people power 24 seven, Oh my God, the amount of entrepreneur ideas that would just sprout out of Nigeria would be crazy. The amount of startups that's going to come out of nowhere, just give us power 24 seven and you'd be surprised at what we can do. it's greatest resources are its people. And I feel like it's great doing the community here in the UK and in the diaspora. I'm not knocking that, but like, how do we help those people?

Peter:

I think a lot of people come, they leave Nigeria to come to UK for a better life. I've gone through that experience and the many more people are jack by, as they call it now.

Hameed:

for the listeners that don't know about that. that's just when people are trying to leave, it can, in this case it's Nigeria, but it can be any African country go to the West for a better life. Yeah.

Peter:

and the full meaning is when you say the word Ja, means to, tear something off something, and then the. The pa at the end is permanently,

Sumaira:

oh that's so interesting

Peter:

you get away from Nigeria permanently, that's what that means.

Sumaira:

Yeah.

Peter:

That's in Yoruba. Yeah.

Sumaira:

Jah means to go as well.

Peter:

All right. Interesting.

Sumaira:

Interesting.

Peter:

look at that. Okay.

Sumaira:

collectivist overlap.

Peter:

there you go. when people come here and when they're successful that we create then they're able to feel empowered to actually do something back home. Right. Apart from just giving money, they start getting new ideas, new skills, new capabilities, and can then be taken back. All right. Now, there are two things. You can either just send money back to Africa, whichever country you're from. Or you can, if you don't have money to send, you can share some skills, do some training, education, That allow people to have access to those new learning, new ideas for free. Particularly things that they can do easily. I know you're into animation, right? There's so many artists, creative people. In Africa, who would love to have a way of expressing their art that allows them to reach a massive, customer base, if you've got someone that does, pottery or wood carving or something, but that person can actually transfer those skills into another form of expressing their creativity, or actually take that and do something with it, maybe do 3D imaging or whatever, And then they can use that. once it becomes digital, it can become global, right? And they have access to the entire world. And they start generating an income stream for that. so there's the investing piece where someone has an idea and then you invest, in that if you can. But there's also the sharing of capabilities and knowledge and things like that. if the power issue, right? I think. Just like mobile phones have changed the world and changed the lives of many people. I think there might be, but what's the version of mobile phones that produces power, right? I'm thinking of this portable solar panels of some sort. everybody can get because the abundant resource, the greatest resource we have in Nigeria, for example, is sunshine. There's so much sunshine. Oh my God, it's so hot. People use air conditioning everywhere. people hiding shades. To not skin burns or whatever,

Hameed:

Yeah. it's interesting you said that because today I was listening to a podcast and I guess this is part of what you talk about when you talk about sharing knowledge and resources and community. So I might as well share this on this podcast. I was listening to another podcast today, called This Week in Startups and In the episode that I was listening to was a company called XO Watts, EXO, wat as in the units of power measurement. they've actually developed the simplest, but apparently most efficient way to give data centers A lot of power, because now there's a rush to build a lot of data centers because of AI and, AI requires a lot of powerful GPUs and CPUs, the data centers needs to be bigger and they consume so much power. I think they said like a 100 megawatts data center is, consumes the same power as 800, 000 homes. that is how much power these data centers are consuming. what this company has done, Exowatts, is they've built a container and inside the container is a material let me simplify it for the audience. It's basically like a rock and on top of the container are solar lenses, not solar panels, solar lenses. And what those lenses are is like holding a magnifying glass to the sun to concentrate heat onto a rock and you heat that rock. Yeah. And that's basically the mechanics that they're going through, with regards to how they are. Storing or charges this material. And the thing is when the sun hits those solar lenses, it it heats up the material and the material stays hot during the night. I don't know what is so special about that material that allows us to stay hot during the night, but it just keeps the power and heat. it doesn't convert it to electricity because that's when it starts becoming inefficient. It just keeps it As heat. And these containers, it's literally like a shipping container. And now these data centers are now buying hundreds of thousands of this because like, these things are so power dense that if we just have like, a thousand of these, we can power our entire data center factory next to it. And a single one of those things will be more than enough to power any home. it's. When I was listening to the podcast, I was like, this thing is revolutionary. If they can take it to Africa, we would completely remove the whole power problem. There would be no need to rely on the grid. I think they call it the P3. P3. That's the name of this thing that they've developed. are they sponsoring this podcast mate?

Sumaira:

Yeah, I know I was gonna say.

Hameed:

no, no, they're not. They're not. They should reach out. But the reason I mentioned them as a way of maybe solving a problem is because the data centers are interested in buying thousands. So that's going to be like millions. And they're willing to pay for that because they want to win this AI race. But how much is one of those containers? And one of the containers, I think he said it was like 7,900 dollars. and it's more than enough to power your home a whole container is probably too much to power your home. They'll probably give you like half of it just for your home, so 7, 900 to power your home for life using that thing is pretty impressive, but yeah, these are some of the things that we need to be aware of. These are some of the things we need to be exploring.

Peter:

Yeah, those kind of things, if we can find all the smart people outside of Africa, I should think about how do we make energy, how do we democratize energy, In the form of, as small as, or, Reasonable sized device that gives you enough power depending on anything. no need for cables, no need for generators, no need for diesel or whatever it is. It's just free sunshine. that will be the next thing that will just take Africa way beyond, our imagination really.

Hameed:

Yeah.

Peter:

the rest of the world is not going to try and solve that problem for us because it's not in their interest to do that. We need to solve that problem for ourselves. And once we do that, then we completely no longer actually need the rest of the world

Hameed:

Yeah. to be fair, I've always been telling Samara that, we can't rely on them to help us up because I feel like the entire capitalist world structure relies on the cheapening and the labor of the global South. if we want to improve ourselves, if we want to help ourselves, we have to do it ourselves, which is part of the reasons I'm doing this podcast, because I don't think there's only so much they would do. They're not going to go against their best interest. Like I said, no one's going to go against their best interest for you. if they do a little bit to help you, sure. that's fine. But you have to be willing to, Take it on and go on that journey yourself. your other advice also very useful.

Peter:

Okay. Thank you.

Hameed:

Yes, I'm deep in your advice a lot more. The more I think about it, the more I. expand and explore it. but yeah, another interesting thing that I wanted to explore with you was actually, you said you would bring it up if you feel like you want to pick it up. I shouldn't just say it, but

Peter:

Oh, fine.

Hameed:

to.

Peter:

Ask me. Ask me. Go ahead. I forgot. Anyway,

Hameed:

All right, cool. You are an NLP practitioner. neuro linguistic programming.

Sumaira:

practitioner

Hameed:

Explain it. and And sumaira this is your chance to question him, question the life out of him.

Peter:

Okay. well, yeah, I've done lots of interesting things on my journey of, I'll say, developing confidence and, Understanding human beings. I've done acting and drama lessons, I've done creative writing courses. I've gone on art, when people go to art galleries and then as a group and in the draw and all of that, I've done that as well.

Hameed:

Wait, are you just interested in all these things randomly? Or like, where is this need to understand human? Where is this coming from? what is driving this exploration?

Sumaira:

what I'm hearing is, just any skill that I'm interested and I want to acquire, I will, try and develop it

Peter:

To be able to effectively communicate with people, you need to understand their context. You need to understand the words that you choose to connect with that person in that particular point in time. And you also need to have the persona for that context that allows them to be ready to receive what you're saying. If you go in front of an audience and you have to be an Indiana Jones character, right? You need to be able to say, okay, I'm going to do Indiana Jones today and I'm going to say these things because these particular people have this kind of profile, And then you'll switch on that character. And so that's the acting and drama, right? And the public speaking. Then the creative writing is how do I then prepare the script I'm going to say when I'm doing that thing, and then the understanding of human behavior, so I can know the choice of words to use is where some of the NLP comes in, what's the identity that this person has? What's the environment that they find themselves in? What's driving their behavior? What's motivating them? What's their goal? And then you can craft. What you're going to say, because you have context and a framework that you're going to use, to have that conversation. the NLP is a tool, that allows you to bring lots of capabilities into play. whatever works, as they say in, in NLP, to make change happen, is just, that's what it's all about. at some point, I didn't, I had, a confidence challenge as well. and, I had to say, no, why am I not confident and that's after I moved to the UK. But again, growing up, I wasn't always in front of people. I wasn't always talking and things like that. I was a very more of an introvert, finding yourself in a space where you're, in fact, even now, a minority and you're an introvert, how do you flip that? I had to focus on, learning the skills that allow me to be able to switch on, an extra version as and when I need it. I think people like me are called ambiverts now, where, when you're in your own space and you're comfortable, you just, do your thing and when you have to switch on. Then you do that as well, but the ability to make that change, it just doesn't happen. You have to learn the skill. I did an NLP practitioner course just by accident. I can't remember how I got this email. It was this group on voucher thing where you get discounts on. I was looking at my group on and I saw, oh, two days, NLP costs for 49 quid. No, actually, when I found out about NLP, my kids went to private school and when they went in the primary school, I was having a chat with the. head of the school, the head teacher, and She just said, Oh, have you heard of Paul McKenna? I was like, what's that? Oh, yeah, he teaches NLP. I said,, what is NLP? and then she said, Oh, go and find out yourself. I went and researched and, okay, this looks interesting. And then I saw that group on thing that says, for 48 pounds, come and do two days of NLP calls. Oh, that's really cheap. I'll have a go. So went there for a weekend. And of course, when you go there and you pay the 48 pound for two days and and For the remaining five days of a seven day course, just for 200 pounds more, you get This full seven day practitioner course that normally goes for 2,000 pounds. I said, Oh, shit.

Sumaira:

They know how to sell, right? Using their own NLP techniques.

Peter:

I was already in it, but I was loving it so much. I said, okay, you know what? 200 quid for this kind of knowledge. Oh my God, I'm gonna be like, people's minds everywhere. so I did that and absolutely loved it. And I attended a few NLP conferences. This is a really strange conferences. You have like 250, maybe 300. And all the practitioners in one massive conference center. I was like, Oh God, everyone's like looking really strange and all with different techniques. And they're like, don't hypnotize me. But they're really good fun. Honestly, they're really good fun. you talk about really different things. you talk about some sub modalities. Yeah, it's a tool. like any tool, you can use it for good or for bad. Right.

Hameed:

Do you know how to use that too? Samira,

Sumaira:

So clinical psychologist, we don't train in NLP. the overlap is that you can use NLP. to help people, right? Psychology and NLP, the bigger aim is to be able to help people and make change. the way we do that will be slightly different. I'm sure there's so many overlaps from the little knowledge that I have about NLP. There's a lot of overlap in some of the languages. There are some clinical psychologists who also Mostly in America, also training NLP. I guess we work more with mental health difficulties and issues, especially within like a clinical setting. whereas if we were to work privately as psychologists, there is this more, space for people to grow and change. less about treating and more about growth and changing of behavior. But yeah, there's a lot of overlap and I guess the training is very different and the accreditations and the science behind it all. I wanted to ask Peter whether, you did the course mostly for yourself and you utilize it in kind of your current work, or do you also work as an NLP practitioner?

Peter:

I don't. do that. I've got too much going on to start developing that personally, when I have conversations with people who are. Distressed about something that happened at work or challenge that they've experienced and all of that and they're upset, I just have a conversation with them. They don't come to me saying, oh, I've got a problem. Come and treat me or whatever. the way I have that conversation with them, I ask some questions that challenge the way they're thinking about it. And they help them to think, to reframe, the context, reframe the situation and then start to see things differently.

Sumaira:

Yeah.

Peter:

And it helps them to move off from that experience and say, okay, actually, I feel more empowered now. I can go back to that space and I can have a different conversation. I can ask a different question.

Sumaira:

it's really good. I suppose it's a bit like, psychologists who have friends that are not psychologists or someone like Hameed when we're having conversations, I suppose the kind of, even though you're not being a psychologist in that moment, naturally you're going to. ask certain questions and be able to get to a point. That's why we end up being the therapist friend, even outside of our work. yeah, you know you can switch it on and off, but naturally, you're not going to not use skills that you have if it's going to be helpful.

Peter:

I get told off sometimes, stop that, don't use that NLP shit on hahahahaahaha

Sumaira:

yeah. I analyzing me right now, but yeah, I would say NLP and some of like, the neuro linguistic is, very connects to cognitive behavioral therapy because you're thinking about the brain, the cognitions and the thoughts and then the behavior. I think for me, that would be the closest connection I can make.

Hameed:

Do you know, can I just say for me, I actually don't fully know what NLP is. We've been talking about it for so long, I know what it stands for, but what does it actually mean? What does it do? What is the point? What is this?

Sumaira:

how does it help people change their behaviors? You mean by using neurolinguistic programming

Hameed:

Is that what it does?

Sumaira:

Yeah. Peter, go ahead. The floor is yours.

Peter:

the use of language, Where you talk with people and ask questions that allows them to explore their internal. Framing of situations that they find themselves in, and you ask questions. if you understand the fact that when you're looking at something, the information you're receiving in your head, your brain is distorting, deleting what you're getting in, to only focus on the things that you. Care about at that point in time, And once you narrow your attention to those things, it would always be within the context of your identity, your behavior, your experience over the years. And that then determines how you react. So what NLP does is for you to be able to think differently about situations. So you start to notice what you notice. Okay. And then you ask yourself, why am I noticing only that thing? And then you step back and look around and say, oh, there's more to notice. And you expand your mind. And then you say, actually, this thing is not all about that one thing that went wrong. Because now you see that actually there are other things that were working at the same time. And then you have more choice. More resource that allows you to then attack that problem in a different way,

Sumaira:

It's very changing patterns and behaviors. Yeah. but everything you've said is something I would describe in psychology. Context is really important. Your identity, how you're influenced, your behaviors are a product of your influence growing up in your context. and context can mean. Many different things. But yeah, even like reframing, as you say, like, cognitive reframing, restructuring all techniques and how to help people change patterns and behaviors.

Hameed:

Interesting.

Sumaira:

which is, kind of required, especially if we're thinking about the aim of this podcast Hameed always talks about this mindset shift. Like, how do we get people To shift their mindsets because,

Hameed:

I'm trying to spark a revolution.

Sumaira:

Yeah so he is basically asking, how do you do that using NLP?

Peter:

The unfortunate thing that people see some kind of dark psychology

Hameed:

you guys have powers.

Peter:

I mean, there's a part of it where you then go into hypnosis, To cure phobias and things like that. Let's say someone is afraid of heights or, a particular smell or something, then you can use hypnosis

Hameed:

Not me, by the way. I'm not afraid of spiders.

Peter:

it was this weird guy. On the course, really weird. The guy, he had lots of hair, However, he only shaved half of his face. he shaved half of the beard. Shaved all the way up, like that, alright. This side, everything was, there was nothing. I was looking at this guy, like, Did you like, run out of power with your shaving thing, or whatever? But, the guy was expressing himself, that was done intentionally to just shock the person that you're interacting with. But I've never seen the guy since that course, but yeah, I was with him for seven days and I got to meet different people. there's all of those things, Tools that you can deploy at different times, and it does help to change mindsets. Now, one thing that we have, this is going to be controversial, part of the challenge we have is there is so much expectation. of religion and faith to solve problems.

Hameed:

Well, in Africa. Yeah.

Peter:

Yeah,

Hameed:

Yeah. that's a big issue. Big thing. People just say, God will solve it. when will god fix Nigeria, when will god fix Ghana

Peter:

exactly.

Hameed:

we god fix put a country, whatever country they just put the country's

Sumaira:

like a defense, isn't it? Because if we externalize it to this power, then it's really not on us

Hameed:

to do something about it

Sumaira:

and it perpetuates the cycle of hopelessness.

Peter:

well, not hopelessness, a cycle of hope because that hope without action, to think about the solution, means that it looks hopeless, but people are in such a terrible state, but they still have hope because they've prayed about it, but they don't take action. They don't go and take the 80 percent of the salary and go and buy the pound sterling and put it in the bank account. I know I'm going to reach 6,000 pounds in 18 months time so that I can do this.

Hameed:

I don't want to encourage that because

Sumaira:

people are gonna leave.

Hameed:

Yeah, everyone, brain drain, all the smart people are just leaving,

Peter:

I agree with you, At that time, that was the only thing I knew I wanted to do. That was what was available to me in my mind. And back then, we didn't have mobile phones, Now, with all the technology that you have, there is so much access to so much information, so much knowledge around the world that you don't need to leave. Africa to see what's going on around you, in fact, now we are exporting content from Africa globally. it's very different now. But taking action rather than waiting, because, I've said, okay, let's pray about. This money and 6,000 pounds is going to come from somewhere, It's never going to happen, well, maybe it would have. But, it would be on a different clock. not the clock that I was walking to, yeah, it is what it is. I don't know, maybe things would have been different. but, where I am right now, but it's just that, so there's a whole part of the way people, we think are, that's our own beliefs, right? What's our belief system, what our values and that belief system that says something, some way is going to fix it. Right. It's something that we need to say, something, some way is going to give me the opportunity to fix it, but I now need to go and work on the preparation for the opportunity. So when I'm prepared, I will start noticing the opportunities when they are lying in front of me. But if you've not prepared yourself for how to use that, but you want to recognize it, so yeah, it's that whole mindset of saying I need to put in the work,

Sumaira:

Yeah.

Peter:

Before things start to happen. it's a serious issue.

Sumaira:

Yeah.

Hameed:

I definitely agree with that.

Sumaira:

it's the idea of being proactive, right? Instead of just being passive recipients. And as much as I agree that, externalizing can, maintain and hold on to hope. It allows for the person to kind of not assume a level of proactiveness or responsibility, right? it's kind of keeping them in a very comfortable. place. And sometimes that's not necessarily a bad thing because it's also about self preservation.

Peter:

Yeah,

Sumaira:

and obviously we're here, we're talking about it from a country where we have a lot more privilege at times, depending on, how you've been born and raised. Cause there are people who live in Africa, in very privileged, communities. So it's not all bad, but we're talking about maybe. the regular working class family. I know the class system is another whole debate. Yeah. What I mean is the people who don't have access to resources,

Hameed:

I was gonna say about what Peter said this is the one thing that I've always had frustration about. And this, I guess, One of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast, when Sumeru, you said, I'm always trying to do a mindset shift. I don't like the fact that people just say, one of these days God will fix it, or, I want people to take charge of their own destiny. And I feel like the best way to allow that is to empower them, through a mindset shift, but also through information so they can know what is possible. And what isn't so education is quite important. And we don't want to do education the boring way. We don't want to do education the way that it's been done over the years, that industrialized type of education that is just boring because nobody wants to do that. If we can make education entertaining, engaging, and fun, then We can give people that information on Mars and then we can also inspire them through some sort of story, some sort of creative element. that is my, that is what I think would be a cool thing to do.

Sumaira:

And I think it kind of goes back to what Peter was saying earlier about, community and connecting and shared resources. And this is what's pivotal, right? The, people in the diaspora, the African communities, the richness in their different, skill sets and connecting that. To the people in Africa and being able to do some kind of interlink or inter exchange or something where it's like a mutual, beneficial exchange. Cause there's amazing things happening there. Amazing things happening here. How do we combine those forces and connect them? So that's about sharing resources. One of the ways is this platform. We've spoken to people who live in Africa and different countries in Africa. Haven't we, Hameed? And like making people more aware of like, what are people doing and hopefully how can they contribute as well. So this is another example of what Peter was talking about earlier. because you like examples, don't you, Hameed?

Hameed:

I like things to be real But yeah, I think we've come to the end of the conversation. We've gone over one hour 30 minutes. I would like to say thank you so much, Peter, for your time. I've really enjoyed this conversation. we usually conclude by asking people to provide advice for our listeners, but I feel like you've been providing advice. throughout the entire conversation. that's why I was taking notes. I'm going to recap the advice that you've provided and you let me know if I missed out on anything. Also, maybe you can let me know if I missed out on anything that Peter has said throughout this conversation. first one is to build community wherever you are with like minded individuals that are also, Interested in, actually, I was going to say interested in lifting up Africa, but they don't have to be, you just said build community in general, just build community with other Africans, other black people in your area, network with them, and then learn new skills, learn how to communicate your ideas, and then don't self exclude. That's another thing that you mentioned. Don't self exclude from certain places. Don't say this place is too good for me. don't worry about being the first person because, there needs to be a first person in order for more people to, there needs to be a first black person. So I've done this in order for more black people to join. So if you have your community, that's another support system you can rely on whilst you do that dangerous, adventurous thing where you are the first person to step forward. what else did you say? You said, ah, I love this one. So I wrote this one down. On the continent, we need to change our mindsets. instead of thinking that, God or something somewhere is going to fix the situation magically, what we should think is something somewhere will give me the opportunity to fix the situation, but I need to go prepare for that opportunity. I really love that. I really love that. if people can just. Do that little switch, there'll be a whole lot more proactiveness going and there'll be a whole lot more action on the ground. And maybe we can even see change pretty quickly. so how do we get that message, that line you just said now, and it's to somehow that in everyone's heads.

Peter:

Yeah.

Sumaira:

Yeah, definitely. There was the also, thinking about how to become digital, to become global as well that I really liked as part of our conversation

Hameed:

Okay. Amazing. thank you, Peter, for your time. was there anything else that you wanted to mention? Anything that you're working on that you might want to highlight? Because we're going to put links and stuff in the description for every episode. So what do you want people to go in the description or find out about you?

Peter:

I just survived Black History Month. Did a whole range of events. at work. Which, I was, my, my LinkedIn is popping with lots of people saying, mentioning me and saying,

Hameed:

Should I put LinkedIn in the description

Peter:

Oh, God. Yes, you can do that. You can put my LinkedIn there. but I've got a project that, because I'm trying to do something with my art. I'm trying to get my cartoons up on Instagram. So

Sumaira:

hmm.

Peter:

when I eventually get around to that, I'll share that on LinkedIn as well.

Sumaira:

while just witnessing this, sorry to kind of, just interject, but like, even in terms of your skills and versatility, when you were talking about your story and, studying, becoming quite studious and some people, they. become doctors out of pressure, like, culturally or engineers, lawyers, that's the go to stereotype in a way. but how you've been able to kind of stay authentic to yourself and find ways to remain versatile. you work in this big company, you have a very important role, that's the corporate side of you. And then you've also got this very creative side of you and why can't you do both an honor. these different parts of you, right?

Peter:

Yeah. so well challenge is when you start having a family, then you need to focus on that well, kids are grown up now, so I've got a bit more time and, but that's an excuse really, I just got a bit lazy. but, yeah, so that, that's the project I'm working on, drawing cartoons about idioms

Hameed:

aI want a timeline,, please. I want a want a deadline.

Peter:

let's see what I can get it done in two months,

Hameed:

Okay. two months,

Peter:

sort of mindset changing thing where, just make really deep idioms, funny or fun to, engage with and use that to help peoplenderstand things better.

Sumaira:

It's about. making knowledge more accessible. Right. I mean, that's the whole

Hameed:

Yes.

Sumaira:

Yes. I like the fact that you keep saying that somehow I keep saying entertaining, but that's what I mean when I say entertaining. I mean accessible. I mean something that everybody will want to learn about because they're bored or whatever. they can listen to the podcast, but they can also watch it because people learn

Hameed:

Yes. Yes, indeed. thank you so much, Peter,

Sumaira:

for your time. Nice.

Peter:

Yeah, same here. Thank you for the opportunity to share. It's not a lot of time I get to tell my story, so I appreciate it.

Hameed:

Awesome. Awesome.