EP. 41 Adeoti Onabolu on the Friendships That Hold Women Up

Adeoti Onabolu spent nearly twelve years in the energy sector, managing commercial operations across several countries. She left it to build Fola Keona, named after her mother, focused entirely on how people relate to each other – in the context of friendships – and how much rides on getting that right.

Adeoti talks about what she absorbed watching her mother navigate friendship long before she had language for it, why so many women stay quiet about what's actually going wrong in their working relationships, and what happens to a woman's confidence and career when she's surrounded by people but genuinely alone. She's run over two dozen small-group sessions built around exactly this, and she's blunt about the patterns she keeps seeing — including who she's realized she can't help, and why.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the WeWin podcast, powered by Accelerate Her Africa in partnership with the Human Pattern Institute. You are also welcome today. I am your host, Lolita Edgefall. Today's guest spent nearly 12 years in the energy sector, managing commercial operations across multiple countries, and then did something the corporate world rarely sees coming. She stopped. She listened. And she built something rooted not in targets or hierarchy, but in friendships. Meet Adeoti Onabulu, founder of Fola Kiona, a tribute to her late mother and a living testament to the belief that the most powerful professional tool a woman can have is a friendship where she can tell the truth. Through her no bean sessions, intimate honest group gatherings now held over 24 times, Adeoti has created space for professional women and men to say out loud what they have been quietly carrying alone. She offers one-to-one friendship clarity sessions, tools like the friendship deck, and a philosophy that dares to ask the question most boardrooms never will. Who do you actually have in your corner? Because Adilte knows what it costs a woman when the answer is nobody. And she has made it her life's work to change that. For every woman navigating her professional world in quiet isolation, stick around because this conversation is for you. Let's go. Hi, Adilte. Welcome to the WeWin podcast. I'm so excited to have you here with us today. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Hi, Lolita. I am amazing. I've actually been looking forward to this conversation. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Awesome. Okay. Adeote, you spent almost 12 years in the energy sector doing what most people classify as serious corporate work, handling commercial management in multiple countries. And then you built Fular Kiona. What were you seeing or experiencing that made friendship the thing you couldn't leave alone?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Okay. So, first of all, would you believe me if I said I stumbled on this career or this business? It might be hard to imagine that, but that's kind of what happened. And I think to answer this question fully, it would be good to sort of backtrack a little into my childhood and my background. So I had an extremely extroverted mom. Um, for an extrovert, she was extroverted. And then I had a completely introverted dad. So, in a way, I'm a good mix of both of them. And I sort of knew how to enjoy my own company and be by myself, as well as do friendships really well. So as a child, I went to different primary schools. I went to about three or four primary schools, and in each school, I had a best friend. Moving on to secondary school, I had a best friend. University, I had, I think, two best friends. I think essentially I just never had a problem with friendships. And I absolutely wasn't thinking about it as a career, obviously, but just giving that background that it was just easy for me to have conversations with people. It was easy for people to confide in me. And I just grew up with that reality, thinking that everybody was like that, but apparently not. Um, so now to corporate life, I worked in corporate for about 11 years. And at the time I left, I was the chief marketing officer for one of the entities in the company. Great role, right? Um, and he really was, and it is a great company. However, maybe about four or five years into being in the company, I started to observe some restlessness. And I resonated because I read what you had said about your own journey and you had experienced some restlessness, and I really resonated with that. And I started to feel dissatisfied. I started to feel like something was missing, right? But then right around that time, I was moved to Ghana and I spent the next five years there. So I guess that period sort of quietened that noise for a little bit temporarily, and then it came back. The restlessness came right back. And this time it was more intense, and it started to feel like I wasn't a good fit anymore for the role. I started to feel that I was losing confidence, the challenges were not exciting anymore. They started to drain me, and just I started to feel less motivated and you know, all of those emotions. So, right about that time, I sort of started to feel like, okay, what next for me? What next? What next? What next? And I would say coincidentally, but I think maybe another word that you might recognize will come up a lot in my journey. But around that time, there was some decision that was about to be made internally where I was supposed to be moved to another unit, so some sort of parallel shift. And at that time, long story short, was I decided that you know what, I think I need time to find myself again because I really feel like I had lost myself. And I resigned. And the only plan I had when I resigned was to rest because I was really tired. And around this time as well, I experienced what you know people would call friendship drama. I had these two best friends that I had mentioned earlier. We had a sort of falling out, and after this falling out, mind you, it wasn't a dramatic experience, it wasn't a huge dramatic experience. However, those situations, because they happened back to back, just sort of pushed me into this period of serious introspection. I thought about things, I questioned a lot of things, and during those months of questioning and thinking, I came to a point where I don't know how else to describe it, but I had to write about it. I guess it's similar to breathing. Like you have to breathe, right? I think for me, writing that book was something I was responding to. I had to write about it. And there wasn't any grand plan. I just needed to write about it. And I put it out. The book came out, it was an e-book, by the way, and really short book, about 20, 15-minute read. And in about two days, 100 copies of the book were sold. And I'm like, huh? What is this? So what is going on here? And you know, that was really what started this traction. I mean, after the book and the overwhelming response from men, from women, from people that were younger than 30, because the book was based on my experience as a 30 plus, and just thinking that my experience will resonate more with that audience. But then there was feedback from all sorts of people. And also I didn't mention, but while I was in paid employment during COVID year, obviously that year was, you know, there was a lot of introspection happening in different people, and it was the same for me. And just looking internally or just looking on my insights and trying to identify things that came naturally to me, I then went into training as a life coach. The options then were counseling or coaching. So coaching was a great alternative because it also involved having conversations, listening actively to people. And then so that happened. Um, so basically that's how we got here. Friendship for me started off really naturally. But then during the course of just moving one step at a time, I started to realize that this is actually a problem for people. I didn't know that at the time, but I was like, oh, people were sharing their struggles, people were sharing their friendship issues, their problems, and they were expressing the fact that the book was addressing those problems and they were starting to say, Oh my goodness, thank you for seeing me. Thank you. And I was like, wow, I didn't know this was a problem. And yeah, so that was basically, I would say, the feedback sort of validated the demand and led me into my next steps that I think I'll talk about later on in this conversation.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Yeah, uh, it's an incredible journey, very pivotal. Your restlessness led you to resign. And putting your thoughts in a book is what helped to resonate with a lot of people. So that's why you're on this journey now and you're absolutely living what you want to be. So you are a friendship coach, and friendship is what we need in the world today.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

It is, it is, yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Okay. Corporate environments run on a particular kind of currency: performance, targets, hierarchy. You now work in a completely different register.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

What did you have to unlearn? And what did you find you were actually carrying with you that still matters?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Um, so the one thing that I absolutely had to unlearn, and maybe I'm still learning, was my identity. I really, really struggled with this when I left. I still do, to be honest. I mean, these days, one of the questions I dread or dreaded the most is what do you do? Because I'm like, where do I start from? When okay, do I need to say that I resigned? Do I it just it just shakes me a little every time I'm asked that question. And I would cringe a little before I can respond, but I'm definitely getting better now. Typically, when I'm asked the question, I would say, oh, I worked in this place for this number of years before I then start to explain the unconventional space that I am now in. So I know that working in corporate and just being in that position or that journey for those number of years definitely did something to my self-esteem in terms of just being, I would say, falsely confident because of the title, the position, and you know, just all the things that came with it. And I realized that that process of becoming, I mean, after the fact, after resigning has shown me a lot in the context of value. I think that moving from a place of structure, a place of certainty into something really uncertain, like what I'm currently doing, required a lot of education, emotional education, and just education in self-confidence and in identity. I've had to go through a process of knowing who I am without all those labels. Right. Knowing who I am foundationally. If I didn't have all the things that I had, who am I really? So I started to ask myself those tough questions and try and find out the answers. So that's one thing I would say I've had to unlearn. But then on the flip side, I honestly don't know that I would have been able to even consider doing what I'm doing now if I wasn't in corporate. Because what that environment did for me was it helped me with structure, it helped me with my mindset to have an entrepreneurial mindset, even though it was, you know, obviously working for someone, but it helped me to build my mind, to tackle challenges in a structured way. It helped me to be resourceful, it helped me to build contacts, to be able to communicate better, it helped with interpersonal relations, it helped with managing, you know, my bosses, managing upwards, managing downwards, and managing parallel as well. So it helped in dealing with a lot of what I'm currently faced with. So all those elements definitely contribute to this me. So I can say for sure that yes, I on one end had to unlearn who I really was. But then what I'm still carrying now would be the fact that just in terms of mindset, in terms of structure, in terms of goals and managing what I want to achieve on a day-to-day, a lot of that foundation I got from corporates. But one funny thing I would add is that while I was in corporates, I dreaded Mondays. Mondays, oh my goodness, Mondays were the worst days of the week. In fact, by Friday, I'm already dreading Monday. And you know, we would have these company meetings. And so when this transition happened, I was like, it is necessary for me to take my Mondays back. So I declared Mondays a day off. So typically these days, I don't have coaching calls, I don't book certain kinds of meetings on Mondays. Mondays are days that I would typically get my nails done or just do something really relaxing. And for me, I was like, you know what? If I've achieved anything, it is taking my Mondays back. So that's it for me.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Oh my goodness, you claim back your Mondays. I love that. Um, and I totally relate to your journey coming from a corporate myself and having those awkward uh questions, what do you do now? And having to explain. But I think you've owned what you do now, and you've even taken back the narrative of how you see Mondays and you're doing what you enjoy, and that restlessness, I'm sure it's gone.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

All right, so you've lived two lives that most people would never put in the same sentence. An outsider looking at your journey would probably just see a career change. What do you see?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Lolita, this one. I I definitely see God, number one. I see purpose, I see conviction, and I see courage. You know, because in hindsight, I see very clearly now that my entire life was leading me here. I mean, the parents that I have, the childhood that I had, my specific personality, the fact that I'm ambiverted, the work experience that I had, those exact challenges that I had in terms of identity, in terms of friendships. I mean, when I look at all of those themes across my life, the thread that connects all of that randomness is God. Because I could never ever have plotted this. I could never have put this together on my own. I mean, there are days that I am in shock at how my life is playing out. Because I never really saw myself as an entrepreneur. Never. I would always say, I need structure, I need, you know, the four walls of a company and a business to motivate me. I always said that. It was never a plan for me to sort of branch out on my own, you know, up until the last minute. In fact, even when the book came out and, you know, the momentum had started, I would still say, you know what, I need to get back into a nine-to-five. I would still have those conversations within myself, but it got to a point where it was obvious and I had that conviction that, you know what, this is actually full time because if I'm going to divide my focus, there's no way I'll put in as much as is required here. And, you know, I'll give a recent example of this. There was someone I met at a wedding, and he asked me that question that we both hate the what do you do question, right? And I started to explain what I do. And he then goes on to tell me that, you know what, his company, he has Gen Z's on his team, they don't get along, it's affecting their bottom line. And, you know, he was curious and like interested in having me come in to help them. So we scheduled a pre-call some days later. And when we were on this call, we were talking, and it occurred to me that I understood very clearly his pain points. I understood the language use, I understood the scenarios, I understood everything he was saying really clearly, and I knew what I needed to do to put in a proposal together for him. And I remember on this call, I was saying to myself that wow, this is why I had to work in corporate for as long as I did. Because it makes sense that I'm able to have this conversation with him very clearly because I understand, because I was there, right? And the reason I'm sharing this example is to say that for anyone listening, our lives are not mistakes. Right. Our lives are not random. Every single detail, every single mistake, every single failure, every single challenge, they're all necessary pieces in the puzzle of our lives. And though it doesn't seem like, because it didn't seem like that for me, but it is that. And now like I'm looking back and realizing, my goodness, this is why I face that challenge. So that when I'm speaking to a person now, I'm not speaking blindly, I'm speaking from a place of actual understanding, you know, and it also even helps me have better empathy for people because I have been there. I've had those, you know, experiences. So when someone is explaining, instead of the natural urge to judge them, I'm able to understand because I have been there, you know. So I think for me, it's just very clear the hand of God in my life and in this journey. And the courage bit for me is just there were loads of times where I experienced fear. I still do, because of how uncertain this is, there are times I'm second guessing myself. I'm like, oh my goodness, can I do this? Who am I to do this? You know, but for me, what has always remained constant is the fact that we have to do it regardless. I mean, we've heard do it afraid a lot of times, and it's real. We need to get to a point where we are comfortable doing hard things and doing things that scare us. That's the way we're going to grow, that's the way we're going to expand our minds and we're going to, you know, keep doing exploits. So, yeah, that's how I would answer that question.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Yeah, I mean, your journey definitely mirrors mine because everything you said uh happened to me. Um, I think also just imagining being an entrepreneur and imagining stepping out alone was just nothing close to reality until now. And so, yes, God does play his role in helping us realize who we are and finding that courage to step out and take the ball by the horns and say, I am doing this, I firmly believe in this. And I look at you helping Gen Zs, you know, become more productive and add to the bottom line. So your purpose is already being fulfilled, so it's great. Okay, so you built all of this under the name Fola Kiona, a tribute to your late mother. Before we go further, I want to ask about her. What did watching her friendships teach you about what friendship is actually for? And what did those friendships look like in the ordinary moments, not the grand gestures, just the everyday texture of them?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So my mom, my mom was spectacular with people. Um without you know, her sitting me down to teach me these lessons, she taught me that friendship actually serves different purposes. So watching her, she had you know different friend groups, she had really close friendships with you know certain individuals, she had work friends, she had church friends, she had male friends, she had younger friends. She just, I don't know, somehow built this entire community outside of us. And even with us, her family, and even her siblings, she was close to them. She had a close relationship with us as individuals and even her siblings as well. And what I noticed was that these people all catered to her different parts and her different interests. And I must say that those connections made her more authentic and made her to be more fully who she was. Because I can also imagine if she was constrained to just her family, there will be parts of her that we wouldn't have expected. Experienced because there was no way to express it. Right. So she made me appreciate people on a general scale. And I say that because sometimes there seems to be a heavy focus or a heavier focus on our inner circle and our close friends. But those casual friends, those acquaintances, those colleagues, they all have a role to play in our lives. And whilst it's also essential to recognize that their roles in our lives are different so that we manage our expectations, we mustn't trivialize them. Sometimes it really takes one conversation with someone at a random time that can move the middle, the needle significantly in our lives. And I'll give another example. So there was a virtual speaking engagement that I was invited on just to speak about friendships. And months after, there was this event where I reconnected with someone that I hadn't seen or talked to in maybe 10 years or more. And we were catching up, and I was again telling her what I do, and she was so interested. Coincidentally, she heads a training academy and she was like, Oh, would you be willing to speak on this platform? And I was like, Yeah, of course. And she proceeds to send my details to, I guess, someone in her team. And so she walked out and then she came back and just handed me her phone. And she was showing me basically the chats she was having with her team member. Apparently, the person she was sending my details to was the person that anchored that virtual event that I was in.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Right. This is someone that I don't even know if I remember her name per se. That's the anchor. But essentially, you know, we focus a lot on our on our close friendships, and rightfully so, because they influence us massively. But also, there are casual connections. There are people we just say hi to here and there. And I observe this a lot in my mom's life. There will be one person she just meets randomly that she will just have a huge impression on that person, and somehow they will just become friends or partners in one project or the other. And the relationship will just end up blossoming into something really material. And so for me, I think the big thing I learned from her is that yes, whilst certain connections play bigger roles in some sense in our lives, there are people that we might not even think about that in other seasons of our lives will play other significant roles. So essentially, it's just important to be mindful of our interactions and be good to people. I mean, not in a transactional manner, hoping that something comes out of it, but genuinely working on ourselves such that every interaction we have leaves people better than before they met us.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Very valuable lesson there. You said we should be mindful of how we interact with people. So clearly, your mother, she was very interested in her friendships and not just her inner friendships, but others who she just met casually, leaving really lovely impressions with them and leveraging those friendships to do other things. So not transactional. You've built something called the no-bean sessions.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Intimate group gatherings, and you've now held over 24 of them. After that many honest conversations, what do you notice women are most reluctant to say out loud about their friendships at work?

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Okay, so just before I answer, the no-beans came from the title of the book. The first book was called Adult Friendships, no beans. So it was just a quick, easy flow into the sessions, right? And yes, we've actually had 28 of them now. And before I go into the context of work, I think that what women generally are unwilling to talk about or just unwilling to say is that they might actually be bad friends, or they might actually have made the wrong decisions themselves. So essentially, I find that women are reluctant to take responsibility for their own faults. So it they mostly point fingers, they mostly blame the other person for being a bad person, as opposed to recognizing that we are all works in progress and we're not perfect, right? So that's one thing. But I think for work specifically, I think that there is an unwillingness to talk about the fear. There's the fear of doing too much in the workspace, right? You know how some people say colleagues can never be friends and those kinds of myths, I would call them. There is a fear that women are unwilling to talk about. There was this lady that I listened to, I think she's a psychologist. She talks about this concept of the paradox of people, that the fact that the very same people that can improve our well-being, just in terms of company, in terms of their emotional imputes, they can bring us so much joy and happiness, are the same people that can hurt us, they can reject us, they can betray us, you know, and cause us pain. So the fact that that paradox is in existence, it causes people to be, in quotes, afraid of building friendships because they don't want to be hurt and they want to protect themselves. And you know, when you think about the workspace or corporates, there are a lot more stakes to consider, right, than the conventional organic type of friendship because there are other conflicting priorities present. You have the work politics, you have your bosses, you have your targets. It's a lot more tense an environment to build friendships, right? Because there again, there are a lot more emotions. You might be dealing with competition, there's comparison, you might be dealing with self-esteem and so on and so forth. These things show up more. And you know, like when you think about shows like Big Brother, for instance, not necessarily the same context, but you know how when we watch them and you see that a couple has fallen in love in 24 months, and you're like, ah, what is going on here? And when they come out of the house, they've broken up. You know, it's just different environments here, and it's it's also the same in the work, in the workspace. It's just very important to understand the workspace dynamics, even in the context of the friendships that we have. And that context is important because it will determine your expectations, it will determine what you're giving, and it will determine what you're also receiving from people there. You know, I said earlier that people say, oh, colleagues are not friends, but for me, I don't quite agree because some of my closest friends, I met them at work. And what I do say is that wisdom is necessary. It's important for you to be wise in what you're sharing, in how you're sharing. Um, when you think about it, for instance, it might be a disservice to you if you share some personal secrets with a work friend that you haven't tested their character. You know, that information can be used against you. So why are you sharing it, right? But on the flip side, workplace friends, they have a unique access to you professionally and they can help you spot your professional blind spots. They can help you grow, they can give you, you know, information that is beneficial to you. They can be a source of confidence boost for you as well, even at the workspace. So, as much as yes, there's that fear, but on the other side of it, there's a lot of possibilities in friendships at the workspace.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

I totally agree with you. I think when you mentioned the context and all of those things that can interfere with the way friendships at work are perceived, then distrust sets in and there's paranoia, and there are other fears of comparison and so on and so forth. And it it makes people feel that I need to have a divide between friendships outside of work and friendships at work. And some people have learned how to curate them separately, completely separate from each other, so they can protect themselves from the context which you refer to. But you have also said something important to apply wisdom and discernment in the kind of people that you entrust with your personal sensitive matters. Yeah. Because when it works, the benefits cannot be overstated.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

All right. You help women build better friendships through your sessions, through tools like the friendship deck. I suspect some of what you're also doing is helping them see the habits they've built, you know, the ones that are quietly working against them. What do you find yourself returning to most often?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, so for women, you know, especially as adults, and with all those changes that come with life, right, when we compare it to childhood, that gift of proximity is no longer as present. And just all those infrastructures that aided friendships aren't there anymore, right? So right now, it requires a lot more effort to make new friends and skills, certain skills that we never really had to use prior to now. And so what I see as a recurring theme is that concept of conflict management and reconciliation, right? That's that is a sour spot that I see quite regularly. And I think what the issue is, is that we find it hard to realize that just like every new thing that we're getting used to, there will be tension, there will be conflict, and just those normal processes of learning a new person, right? And I see that this issue of conflict slash reconciliation affects how people navigate friendships because one, they want to preserve themselves from hurt, from pain, and you know, so on and so forth. So on that spectrum, it's either you find people that have zero conflict or tension with their friends, or on the extreme end is there's this inordinate amount of conflict. And, you know, what I'm really learning is to continually recognize that conflict can actually be a tool for experiencing growth in your friendships. And for me personally, I grew up never really seeing my parents argue or fight. And I realized later on that growing up, I was a little conflict avoidant because I didn't know how to handle it, right? And this then led into just me bottling my emotions and running away from things that were uncomfortable. And it ended up being very unhealthy because I would then blow up later and I'm blowing up for an issue that happened weeks before, but you know, the emotions are coming out months after, and which was very, very toxic and not good at all. So basically, what I would say is moving forward now, I think whilst it's still a bit of a struggle, I'm not perfect yet, but what I'm learning is the art of reconciliation. And, you know, what I would say to that is really truly apologizing, learning the art of apologizing, not just saying sorry that they felt the way they felt, but actually realizing the role we play in that issue and that matter. And being able to say it like is one thing to apologize, is another thing to actually recognize and restate what you are apologizing for, regardless of the other person's place. Now, yes, the other person might have their own fault, but in reconciling and in managing conflict, the focus is on ourselves. Like, what did I do to contribute to this issue and what am I apologizing for? And especially speaking about the issue from a place of love as opposed to a place of you know intense emotions and high tension. Also, like very recently, I had this friend that shared with me some, this was actually maybe like two days ago. She shared something with me that I did that hurt her. And Lolita, the way she communicated this to me, it was so obvious that she had done a lot of work to taper down her emotions because it was a big thing. And she told me the issue with so much love, and I thought it was so kind of her, right? Even though I was able to see things from my own perspective and try and say, oh, this is what I was trying to do or whatever. But the way she communicated it to me was just so kind and so full of love. And I see that this is missing in how we approach conflict because most times we're communicating from that place of hurt, that place of you know, unhealed trauma or whatever it is that we might call it, and a bit of lack of self-awareness because we are either unwilling to recognize our fault or we are ignorant of it. So I think that this is an issue or a recurring thing that occurs. And often actually I think that friendships can fail because sometimes there's no goal bigger than the friendship itself. Like when we look at spouses and marriage or like workplace friendships or interactions for marriage, we'll look at things like children, things like you know, the families of both of the couples that have some stake in that relationship. When we look at work, we look at our salary has to come in, bonus, career growth. There are other things that contribute to us ensuring that we are managing that relationship. But when we think about friendships, what is the material goal attached to it? You know, I think it's something we should also think about before we say bye-bye to someone or just mismanage a conflict because genuinely sometimes there are friendships agreed that are not very good for us. We need to be objective about that. But also we need to start to tell ourselves how important certain friendships are to us on a bigger scale than just the companionship. And when we are able to see things from that perspective, it would help us in you know managing the conflict and addressing that issue in a healthier way.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

Yeah. Oh wow, you you you said a lot of things, um, but I want to comment on conflict resolution between friends. It is something that each party would probably be thinking, how much vested am I in this friendship to want to resolve this from a place of love? And how you described your friend, the way she approached the matter, the conflict between you both, it coming from a place of love, showed how much she was vested in your friendship. So it's not just a friendship to its own end, but she must have seen a future in your friendships growing long beyond where you are right now, which is such a beautiful thing. Yes, that's that's about it, exactly. Ideote, what does it cost a woman in her career when she doesn't have at least one friendship in her professional world where she can tell the truth?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

From that workplace perspective, I think that it would cost us our growth and authenticity. I think I alluded to it a little in the previous question, but when we have people around us that we can share with in a wise way, share vulnerably enough in a wise way and share truth with them and can also share truthfully with us, we have an opportunity to get to know ourselves even more fully because they're able to see our blind spots clearer, and we also, even as we're talking out loud, we're simultaneously introspecting as well. And these processes help us to know ourselves more, right? And it's also, I think it's also important that I mention that because the word friendship is used quite loosely, it's good to be aware that there are different categories under that term friendship, and each category plays a different role, right? Because when we use the word friend across the board, we tend to then be speaking subjectively because what one person is referring to as a close friend using the same word friend, another person is probably referring to an acquaintance, but using that same friend. When you look at and you unpack both words, the expectations are very different, right? So it's just important for a person to have that at the back of their mind because in the context of workplace especially, this awareness is very important so that you avoid some problems that can come up. And you know, when I think about these different buckets of categories, I guess for the workspace again, let me just touch on a couple or three in particular that are important to us to have. I think that it's important to have pair-level friendships. I think it's important to have mentor-level friendships and then mentee-level friendships. So I think these three buckets offer something entirely different to an individual. For the pairs, as you can imagine, these friends would offer you truth, real feedback. They'll give you day-to-day information and insight that can help you, can help you in practical ways, like even negotiating a better salary, for instance. You know, they can help you, you know, with information that would open up a door or open up an opportunity in some work-specific example. So those pair-level friendships are important in that way. They can also offer emotional support to some extent. Then you have your mentors that are more advanced in their career that can also offer you a higher perspective or a higher vantage point in terms of their view of your role within the company. They can offer you certain benefits that you would not have had the opportunity to be a part of without them. And they sometimes speak about you in rooms that you are not present, and they would give you access to certain events or information that you might not have access to otherwise. I think even for me, I had those kinds of um mentor-level friendships. But then what I realized at the time was that I was making a mistake that I think people also make. Sometimes we tend to want those mentors to be our friends. We tend to treat the relationship like we would treat a peer-level friendship. Sometimes we might erroneously call to just check up on them. Whilst, in a sense, it's not a bad thing, but we need to have a change of mindset in recognizing that these people are actually not your friends. They are mentors for a reason and their role is different. Their role in your life is one to provide you a sense of value, a sense of legacy. They want to help you be better. So the conversations they want to be having with you is not I'm calling to check in on you to say how are you. No, the kind of conversations they want to be having with you are conversations that can help them see that you are moving from one point to another on a progress scale. Like they want to be able to influence your life and make your life better for you. So if you're now expecting day-to-day interactions from these sets of people, it would affect the relationship on the long term. So it was something I learned earlier that I think will be good for people to also understand. And then you have those mentees and those individuals that are also growing in the career that would offer you the ability to refine what you know and even just improve your leadership skills. And all these things are important to that woman that we're speaking to as a whole. You know, building friendships in these different buckets, they offer something to you as an individual that would help you in one way or the other. So that's that's it.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I'm hearing three things um boundaries, authenticity, and pouring into others. Um, from the perspective of authenticity, I'll start there. It's really important to be honest. It's the only way that you can have honest conversations and you both know where you're where you're at. And then boundaries, when you mentioned the mentor and mentee relationships, the mentee should not see the mentor as someone they could just check on and have these conversations which are outside the boundaries of professional etiquette. Exactly. And then the mentor, mentee relationships. Relationship, as you said, is an opportunity for the mentor to pour into the mentee. So to consolidate what we know as mentors and provide them to someone else to learn from and progress with. So I everything you said was just spot on. Okay, so you know, professional women talk a lot about self-doubt, the feeling of not being good enough, not belonging. You work closely with women in these environments. What do you think is actually producing that feeling? And what role can a strong friendship play in a woman's ability to hold her own self-image steady?

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Self-doubt is real. It is real, it is real. And in terms of what is producing it, I think it's a number of things. And I don't even quite want to dwell on what is producing it per se, because I think what is producing is not the real issue. I think is the reframing of it. Because what I'm learning is that sometimes what we term as not being good enough is really not being good enough at this task yet. Right. The emphasis on the word yes. You're not yet good at this thing, as opposed to I am as a person making it an identity sentence, right? Because the truth is, this usually comes up in new situations. Maybe we've got in a new role, or we've just been promoted to a higher capacity, or we're in some situation that we are unfamiliar with. And because of the unfamiliarity, is like our minds just automatically tell us we are not good enough. But it's really just a situation where there will be time required for you to learn what you need to learn to then get good enough or good in that situation, right? So I see that a lot of times as women, we struggle with pain, with discomfort. You know, I mentioned unfamiliarity. There's some level of discomfort there because it's like, ah, this is not natural to me, right? I'm not familiar, it's not my default. And when something doesn't feel good, it must mean that something is either wrong with that thing or something is wrong with us. And it's, I think it's good that we reframe the mindset. You know, we always say nothing good comes easy, right? But do we truly believe it with our actions? If, you know, when something that is not easy automatically means we're not good enough. It means that there's a conflict between what we really believe and what we're doing. So I think that what the antidote or what an antidote for this is, is actually normalizing discomfort and doing hard things regularly. I think when we put ourselves in positions where we're constantly doing things that aren't necessarily natural to us, it registers in our brain that this thing just requires reps. It requires repetition and effort. And when we put in that work and we also recognize areas that we need to improve on, I think that our brain does that reframe for us. And I remember there was this time, I can't remember some years ago, I was trying to build discipline. I think I was really struggling with discipline in an area. I think it was in working out or something. And I think I'd read it somewhere. So what I started to do was that I started to take cold showers, right? I think what I'd read said, you know, taking cold showers is very uncomfortable. But when you keep doing it, you're telling your brain that this uncomfortable thing is not beyond rich. I can't do it. So I remember I started, I started to take cold showers every day. And obviously it was very uncomfortable initially. But then I noticed that as time went on, I started to get used to it. And before I knew it, I started to anticipate it, I started to look forward to it, and I noticed that I was then less averse to discomfort in that particular area, but it also now spilled into other areas in my life because it was like the fact that I was able to do something hard consistently meant that I was giving myself some sort of permission to do that or replicate that in other areas in my life. So I definitely experienced self-doubt at different points in my career. And I know that one part of it, one big part of it was an unhealthy identity, right? But I think that another thing was that I was also not putting in enough effort to get to a point where that thing became easier. So what I think would also help anyone dealing with this is apart from putting in the work, actually building some sort of monument or documenting your achievements, I think that helps because a lot of times we forget what it is that we've achieved. So that when a new challenge comes, we're starting from scratch and feeling all those emotions all over again. But when we have some sort of structure or system that documents our previous achievements, it really helps us to reinforce the confidence that we need for new tasks. And obviously, for you to do that, you need to actually achieve stuff in the first place, which goes back to then doing hard things, right? And I guess all of this I'm saying to say that a lot of that heavy lifting will be on us. Friendship in this context, it will play a role, but it will be a supportive role, right? It will be a strong role nonetheless, but it will be supportive because nobody can do the work for you. That work, you will do it yourself, right? And you know, a friendship in this context would help you in the sense that, you know, just having someone that knows you speaking to you specifically, reminding you of things you've achieved, reminding you of who you are, reminding you of what you may have forgotten about, that acceptance can really help to boost your confidence. So I think that a strong friendship can help you, but it will be a supportive role it will play, and the heavy lifting will be on you as an individual.

SPEAKER_03 50:11

Yes. Wait, before I respond, did you say taking a cold shower is an issue? I bet you didn't go to a Nigerian boarding school.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

I know. I have all Lolita. I was in secondary school, but I forgot about that experience when we moved on in life.

SPEAKER_03 50:27

Okay, but on a more serious note, you know, you mentioned a very valid point. Self-doubt never bothers you when you're comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:35

It never is when you're stretching yourself, when you have seen a task where you're uncomfortable, it comes at the time of discomfort. So that's a very valid point. And you will know that that is an opportunity to grow when it kicks in. One of the quieter threats to friendship between professional women is when their paths start to diverge, when one moves ahead and the other doesn't, or not yet. What does it take to build a friendship that can actually survive that?

SPEAKER_01 51:09

So, I mean, this is actually a very real situation, and to be honest, it can be tough to navigate, right? Because on one end, I think it's important to be honest with ourselves. I mean, it is normal to experience feelings of like comparison or envy or you know, jealousy, maybe when you notice that a close friend has something that you want. Um, I think I say close friend because it seems like this feeling doesn't necessarily affect us if the person is distant. I think it's when there's some sense of closeness that we might feel that, okay, why is this person experiencing this thing that I want? We're sharing experiences, we're sharing the same space or environment. So why are we not getting this thing together, right? So, I mean, I say that to say that I have been there. I mean, it wasn't necessarily a work situation, but I think it's also relevant because there's this friend that I have and really, really care about. And I suddenly started to feel a sense of jealousy towards her. Not my best or proudest moments, but I did start to feel a certain pain because she was getting something that I wanted, right? And I was really ashamed to have this feeling, and I was very tormented by it because I was like, oh my goodness, what is this? You know, and it was new to me to be feeling this towards someone that I thought I cared about. And I started to even withdraw it. The situation started to make me withdraw from her, and it hurt our friendship for a while, to be honest. But what that experience helped me to see was that the feeling itself wasn't the issue. It was what action after the feeling that that was the part that was, you know, more important. And I think it was recently that someone shared some research about envy with me that was so interesting. And apparently, based on that research, there are two types of envy. There is benign envy, and then there's malicious envy. And benign envy is the one that leads you to put in effort to get whatever that thing is as well, right? But then the malicious envy is the one that pushes you to want to either hate the person or make sure that they lose that thing that they have. And I think that from this, it helps to just recognize that the goal is to have the first one. You know, if you even feel any sort of jealousy, it should be the benign one where yes, the feeling of discomfort is there, but you're not trying to be rich haunting the friend or, you know, talking negatively about the person or whatever the case is. I think it's just important that that should be fuelling you to achieve that thing as opposed to, you know, hurting the person. So that said, I mean, moving ahead professionally, there are certain skills that are required to move up because from the question, let's just assume it's a case, maybe it's promotion. There's someone that is your friend at work and they've promoted her a lot more than they've promoted you. And you might now start to feel, you know, some type of way about that. The truth is that promotion required certain skills. And I mean, at this point, I think we are probably inundated with the whole visibility conversation of how it's not just enough to do good work, you must be seen to do the good work. And I think we hear this so much that maybe we forget about it. But the truth is, you know, it's necessary to assess yourself honestly. Just look at the areas where you need improvement. Is it communication? Is it the technical work itself? Is it trying to navigate workplace politics that you're probably not good at? You know, at the end of the days, it could even be this friend that will teach you some of the skills required to do better, right? So, as much as this is a reality that exists, right? But what will build that friendship or what can build that friendship is really just having that mindset of growth, you know, just having that mindset that, you know what, I can also do it, I can also be better. And sometimes you it might be that friend that would help you, you know, be better. And yeah, so I think one fundamental skill that would help for survival of this kind of dynamics is having that growth mindset that even though the pace is different, that growth mindset still exists, such that even if she's moving three positions within one year, even if I am moving one position per year, I'm still growing through it. And when you're able to recognize that you are growing regardless of the pace, it helps you focus less on the other person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

I think it comes back to self and love. Um having that kind of benign envy, as you put it, is something that comes naturally to people. But it's even calling it out for what it is, like you recognized it immediately and you felt bad about it. But I think it's how you frame it. Like, oh, I would love to grow the way my friend is progressing, but again, you have to look at your own journey because everyone is on a journey, right? You you cannot be progressing at the same time, at the same pace, in the same areas. But if you look at your own pace with gratitude and have that open mindset, the growth mindset of achievements and have that healthy relationship with who you are, then being delayed somewhat as it appears in progressing as someone else is is no longer seen that way. It can be healthier. And as you also mentioned, your friend could also give you the leg up and the support and the love so it doesn't become a thing to worry about or compare notes with. I love that. Okay, you've held over 24 no-bibean sessions. You offer one-to-one friendship clarity sessions. You've built a body of work with a very specific philosophy at its center. That kind of clarity about what you do also means clarity about what you don't do. Is there a kind of person you've learned you can't help? Not because of who they are, but because of where they are.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

Okay, so initially I started off writing the book with a 30 plus women audience in mind, and just because that was who I thought would relate mostly with my story and with my journey. And in some sense, they still remain a major audience, but I was so, so surprised by the positive feedback that I got from men. And men still remain a big part of even the one-on-one sessions that I have now. We have such rich conversations and interactions, and you know, my niche is not limited to the gender, of course. And even on an age perspective, there isn't a limit as well. Recently, um, apart from the men that I spoke about, I was on a school tour and I was speaking to teenagers about friendships, and even on that level, there was so much value exchange that was present there. And even some months ago, I think that was the most surprising. I was having a friendship conversation with my friend's daughter. One of my friends says to me that, oh, my daughter wants to speak to you. She's having friendship drama. I'm like, huh? She was nine at the time. And during the conversation, Lolita, it was a whole blown-out conversation. I remember her saying things like, oh, this person can't be in my inner circle. Oh, I don't have the mental capacity to deal with her. I said, huh? Excuse me, Max. Inner circle at nine. What are we talking about here? And we had a whole full-on session, even complete with assignments, right? So I'm saying all of that to say that I've learned that the people that I cannot help are people that do not want to be helped. What I see is that this shows up as a fixed mindset, you know, victimhood, feeling like it's always my fault, or everybody's to blame, or just this unwillingness to accept responsibility and just ignorance. I think that those are the people that I cannot help because we we all have personal agency, right? But when you meet people that seem like the whole world is against them and their background and their situations are what has contributed to who they are now, without realizing that the answer is within them, right? These are people I think that I can, I really cannot help.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:24

Yeah, I suppose it's where they are in their journey. And as you rightly said, if they are not willing to be helped, they can't be helped. So we move on, right? Okay. For the woman listening who recognizes herself in this conversation, who knows she's moving through her professional life without a friendship where she can tell the truth and isn't sure how she got here. What would you want her to understand before she does anything else?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Um, so I I would say start with yourself. You know, I think for the woman in this situation, you have personal agency. Start with yourself. I mean, friendship is beautiful, friendship can be a source of immense growth, but you will have to do the work. You have to do a lot of work on yourself. So start with yourself, start with self-awareness, try and look inwards, try and ask yourself hard questions, try and answer some questions that you've been avoiding. I think that will be important to train your mind because as you train your mind and do the work, you will start to see that great friendships actually exist because we attract who we are. Yeah. Right. So when we start to do the work of improving ourselves, we are then better able to identify people that are on that journey as well. Great friendships exist. And, you know, as adults, sometimes we forget that or it's harder to build friendships. So we tend to feel like they don't exist. But great friendships exist. Yes, it requires more effort, but it's possible. So I think that before you start to look for the friends or start to do anything else, start with yourself. That's that's what I'll tell her.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

Yes, and that is such a great note to end this session. Adeot, I've learned so much uh from you with regards to friendship and especially professional friendships. And I'm sure our listening audience have learned a lot too. So thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on the WeWin podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

Thank you, Lolita. I had a great, great, great time. This was so fun, and I loved the questions. They were so personal. And thank you so much for having me. And I hope your audience has a great time listening.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

You're so welcome. Wow, Idioty has just taken us all on a journey to understand what friendships, true friendships, are about. The key word that comes up in my mind is authenticity. But another word that comes up is boundaries. We need to assess the kind of people that we call friends. And it's also important that we ourselves are open to real friendships. We need to check in with ourselves. Who are we? What are we attracting and what are we putting out there? In the workplace, are we performative or are we authentic with our colleagues? Let me leave you with a scripture, Proverbs 18 24. A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Ponder on that. Thank you once again for listening in. Have a great day. Goodbye.