The Toya Talks Podcast
The education system teaches us to learn and recall information and at the end of it we are tested and expected to then pass exams. After all said and done the reality is, we are supposed to get a job at the end of it. I was unaware of the difficulties I would encounter at work especially as a Black Woman. How do I navigate work and how do I keep a job? Education institutions do not prepare you for work, racism, bullying, and oppressive managers in the workplace. Where the education system has not prepared you, I will. Toya Talks is a platform birthed on my day to day uploads on Snapchat. I discuss the realities of work from the perspective of a Black Woman and how I have successfully navigated work using my experiences. Toya Talks Podcast covers the world of work and not just the corporate world. Black Women for too long have been overlooked and underrepresented in the workplace. Toya Talks is a safe place and a platform to share, grow and learn, more importantly, educate ourselves and everyone else so we can navigate and grow in the world of work more smoothly. This Podcast contains my opinions and feelings based on my lived experiences, my opinions and my Black experience. My views and experiences are in no way intended to cause offence. Lets put the sensitivity to one side, prepare to laugh, learn & grow!!!!
The Toya Talks Podcast
The Common Sense Revolution
Ever felt like you're navigating a world that wasn't built for your success? This deeply personal episode unravels the complex journey of achieving professional excellence while wrestling with life's most challenging transitions.
I'm celebrating passing an international certification with distinction – an achievement that came while balancing new motherhood, marriage, and career demands. This victory wasn't just academic; it represented overcoming postpartum depression, therapy struggles, and the persistent pressure to overachieve that many Black women know intimately. Your career can become a lifeline during periods of emotional displacement and loneliness, but there's danger in becoming defined solely by what you do professionally.
The conversation expands beyond personal experience to examine how systems consistently cap Black success – whether through UK taxation policies that punish achievement, workplace cultures that view Black women as threats rather than assets, or the persistent colonial mindset that extracts value without giving credit. Drawing powerful parallels between personal career liberation and the broader decolonisation movements happening across Africa under leaders like Captain Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso, we explore what true freedom looks like in both professional and global contexts.
Throughout this episode, we discuss navigating environments not designed for your advancement: understanding organisational politics, recognising your value as a subject matter expert, creating leverage through continuous learning, knowing when to walk away, and strategically planning career moves without revealing all your cards. Whether you're feeling stuck, undervalued or simply seeking a more strategic approach to your professional life, this conversation offers both practical guidance and the emotional validation that your experiences are real.
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Music (Intro and Outro) Written and created by Nomadic Star
Toya Talks to navigate and elevate. That's what we do.
Speaker 2:Black queen energy growing. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the toy talks podcast. My name is toy washington and we're live. How is everybody doing? It's been some time, but now that I've passed my exams I can come here and kind of speak a lot more freely. Y'all know I'm spiritual in practice, in heart and by nature, and something that I hadn't shared is and if you follow me on my Instagram then you will be aware of this but I enrolled on an international course and I had enrolled when I was actually on maternity leave. I needed something to focus on.
Speaker 2:I've shared with you kind of some of the struggles that I had in terms of my maternity leave. I had to go into therapy, like there was a lot that happened as a result of giving birth to my daughter. I suffered from postpartum depression but also as well, being a firstborn daughter overachiever. It came with its complexities when it came to self-worth and I've had to go back into therapy and deal with a lot of that. But definitely overachieving has become like a backdrop of my life and while some people will be saying, well, you're still achieving, it's the need to constantly be achieving something that I think is quite unhealthy. That being said, I'm working on it. I'm in therapy.
Speaker 2:I was in therapy, um, during my maternity leave, but I'd enrolled on this international course and in, for all intents and purposes, I was given a year as part of this course to complete it. Unfortunately, because of the stresses of being a new mother, and to reasonably think that I could actually pass this course in a year was crazy. But I was studying, I was revising, and then I got to a point where I contacted the institution and the boards and I was like, listen, um, I'm a new mum and I was just very honest about some of my challenges, what I was going through, and I asked for an extension, completely expecting to get a three-month extension. I actually got a six-month extension and I passed with a distinction, and it's an international recognized course. That's on par with kind of what I do for a living, but more so. Um, it gives me, um, it gives me an edge. It gives me the opportunity to widen the scope of what I do and, as part of being a subject matter expert, I've always told you all it's important to keep being in a continuous state of learning.
Speaker 2:You know, no one knows everything and for me, I, you know, my dad's an amazing example for me when he retrained to become a barrister after being an accountant for over 20 years, um, and when he um went back into education to retrain to become a lawyer and a damn good one he was. But the point is, if my dad could do it with three kids, a wife, a household and all the complexities that come with kind of being a black man in the UK, then it you know, if my dad could do it and set the example for me, I felt you know I could do that. So, in a nutshell, every time I've been recording, every time you see me on Instagram and I'm stressing or looking into the distance, I was preparing for these exams and balancing motherhood, being a wife, a home, just work, career, everything. It was bloody difficult and this is why I always say to people and we're going to get into this a little bit later on, because I was asked a question and I will be discussing later Before you have kids, try and do as much as you can, because once you have the responsibility of a child, things become difficult, especially when you want and it's not impossible, it's just difficult. There's not enough hours in the day already. So I'm here to say that a lot of me being distant, not being able to kind of release a podcast every week, not being able to kind of be present Up until recently I've been a lot more present on social media, but there was a point where I wasn't.
Speaker 2:I was revising for these exams because for me that was more important than anything else. So, yes, I passed these exams, I got a distinction. I am so happy. I got my certification literally within a few hours of sitting the exam and I had already, like, saved up a pot of money to retake because I was like you know, I'm going to have to retake and I didn't. And I hope this serves as inspiration, encouragement for those of you who are studying, because it's not easy with or without children.
Speaker 2:Studying is not easy, especially as adult, when you, when you have responsibilities, when you're having to deal with the the treacherous waters that is the world of work, especially as a black woman, it's just not easy. So I'm hoping that this serves as an encouragement and I'm done, um, and I don't think I actually sat in in it and again, this is part of the whole overachieving thing. But even Kay was like you need to sit in this because you did this and, if anything, you're inspiring me because of your drive to continuously just want more. So that was actually really nice for Kay to say. And you know, for me I need to be in a constant state of spoiling myself, but yes, I do need to definitely take the time to really appreciate my hard work. But, yes, I wanted to explain that very important. There is a lot that's happened since I haven't posted um, haven't posted, haven't posted a podcast in the last couple of weeks. So we had the Met Gala and you guys be asking Rihanna for an album and she gives you a baby each and every time and she does it so gracefully.
Speaker 2:Something I really respect about Rihanna is she doesn't have a need to return to music, because I think that her creative her creative creativity is being served in other business ventures, one being Fenty Beauty and one being Savage Fenty. She's a billionaire in her own right. If she's going to release an album, it's going to be because of the love of music or it's something that she knows that in herself she needs to fulfill, not something that she needs to do, because I don't think she needs to do anything, and I love the way that Rihanna just lives in her grace, like she's in her motherhood era, and she's embracing it in such a graceful way. And I love the fact that Rihanna doesn't feel the pressure to release anything that she doesn't want to do. All she wants to do is release them babies, and I love it for her. So congratulations to Rihanna. I love Rihanna's attitude. I love it for her. So congratulations to Rihanna. I love Rihanna's attitude. I love her. I think me and Rihanna would be really good friends. I need to know her star sign In my delusion. I think we would be great friends.
Speaker 2:But talking on the Met Gala, the theme of the Met Gala this year was super fine tailoring, black style, black fashion and dandyism. Fine tailoring, black style, black fashion and dandyism. And you can't talk about those key themes without mentioning Andre Leonteli. I was first introduced to him on America's Next Top Model I think most of us were, who maybe wasn't in the fashion industry. He epitomized the reclaiming of fashion and he was very tailored, very creative, majestic, very fashion forward and for me he embodied the theme of the Met Gala this year.
Speaker 2:What I was kind of disappointed at is that they didn't send to the Met Gala around him to pay respect and homage to him. Um, I know that the was it the creative director of Vogue allegedly, him and the creatives I can't remember her name, but they based the Devil Wears Prada on her allegedly, but her and um, andre um Leonteli did not get on very well. In fact, it's been alleged that she really mistreated him, treated him really really badly, um, but I think this is an opportunity and during the Met Gala for fashion and black fashion and tailoring, to really kind of push forward and demonstrate how black culture used fashion to almost demonstrate against oppression by using creative expression through fashion. And this is the bit about the Met Gala that I don't think people tend to understand. That's why this theme this year was so important, because it's about recognising the cultural strength of the Black community, both in America, in the UK, internationally, globally, and all the Black celebrities showed up and showed out and those who really understood fashion did pay homage to Andre Leontali, but I just felt like they could have really promoted it around him and gave him the respect he deserves through the Met Gala. Because I'll give you an example he deserves through the Met Gala. Because I'll give you an example um Jidenna.
Speaker 2:Anyone who knows Jidenna the musician will understand that the theme this year of the Met Gala is so him, the dandyism of it all. Yet he wasn't invited and this is the problem I have with. This is the problem I have. When you have white people, non-black people, on the marketing and creative development of themes, things that are centred within black culture, it will never be reminiscent of what the core of black culture is. So for me, jidenna not being invited was problematic because he epitomizes the kind of that's, that type of tailoring, that clean cut dressing, that kind of the era of fashion at its finest.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, don't get me wrong there were some celebrities that paid homage to Andre Leontali, the late Andre Leontali, but I just kind of felt like they could have just made it about him and really kind of demonstrated how his fashion evolved over time. That would have further kind of represented what the themes were at every era, um, up until the present day. And this is just my opinion, right, but saying that, um, they raised 31 million dollars at the Met Gala and it's the highest amount raised on record since the Met Gala began, and for me that just speaks volume about black culture and it speaks a lot about the history of fashion and the history of our culture and the evolution of our culture. You have people who appropriate, dip into and steal black elements of our black culture. That makes us rich and I think part of it is because, as a community worldwide, we don't actually know the value of our culture. To know the value is to understand our history and we haven't gate kept it enough.
Speaker 2:Hence why you've got people you can name so many people who still who pillage continuously, do this and on a actually on a micro level, but it becomes macro when you really understand how much money a lot of these celebrities make out of the black culture without giving respect to the black culture. Somebody who I can't stand is jlo. She is heavily inspired by the black culture, heavily inspired by Beyonce. A lot of her vocals, for some of her music, was by Ashanti. But have you ever heard JLo at any awards acceptance speech, at any interview, ever reference the black culture as her inspiration or ever talk about the women who held her up when her notes were flat? No, no. But that to me, epitomises how disrespected our culture is and how misunderstood our history is. And I think that if, as a community, we gatekept and protected our culture more, then other cultures and other institutions would have more respect. We do not allow ourselves to bask in our riches because we don't know how rich we are in culture. And it takes the Met Gala themes, like we had this year, to really emphasise how important the black culture has been to fashion, to music, to everything. In fact, we're often imitated, but we can never be duplicated. We are the original.
Speaker 2:Most recently in the UK, the Supreme Court provided a definition of a biological woman and I'm going to kind of I'm not going to go into chapter and verse of kind of the verdict if you like, but it's basically being born a woman and it goes into the description of what being born a woman is. So, for the purpose of this podcast, being born a woman with women body parts you are born a biological woman. Some people will say, well, did it really need to go to the supreme court for that definition to be understood? And I will encourage you to listen to the most recent episodes um, the last couple of episodes of the toy talks podcast, and I spoke about the committed effort um to erase um biological women. Now I personally and I've said this before in previous podcasts I don't care what you identify with, I don't care how you live your lives, but I don't like the agenda of corrupting children and not allowed allowing children to bask in their innocence and allow children to be children. But second to that, I have a massive problem as myself a biological woman. I have a problem with the committed erasure of biological women.
Speaker 2:There seems to be a commitment to want to be a woman but not respect women who are born women. It's almost like there's a resentment that we were born women. And how dare we describe ourselves as biological women? Because it leaves out a community of people who have decided who they want to be women, and they should be included within the definition of a woman. I think the problem that we have in this country is the need to be PC, to not offend, and I don't think identifying as a biological woman should be offensive to anybody who was not born a biological woman. And if you are offended, it's more. I think personally about the fact that you resent women who are born biological women and feel ostracized from that definition because you were not born a biological woman. That's just my opinion, um that, going on to to actually further emphasize this point, in the definition of biological woman, it was observed that the rights of the trans community should not be ignored. Like people in the trans community have rights, they should be respected. They should not be persecuted, disrespect, um, uh, discriminated against because of how they identify. But this is very separate to the definition of of a biological woman, and one of the reasons I always tell you guys that I will always speak on us politics is because to educate yourself and expose yourself to what's happening in the US is to also prepare yourself for what is going to happen here in in the UK, because the UK do not are not. It's not great Britain, you, the UK Britain is no longer great. I think there was a point in history where they were great, but I think now what we're doing is in the UK is imitating and and and we are adopting, rather than being the leaders and and the trendsetters in in in in UK culture and in the UK in the in the US.
Speaker 2:Donald Trump was very clear about the definition of a biological woman. He was very clear about removing, so, for example, he has signed an executive order to remove any trans, anyone from the trans community who is sitting in the army. So if you're a trans man, he is not allowing you to serve in the US Army, to serve in the US Army. Now, I can't speak to his motivations, other than the fact that he believes in the definition of a biological woman, is upheld by the Supreme Court and, as part of his manifesto, he was very clear in making it clear what a biological woman is and the protection of children, in terms of young kids being indoctrinated to identify as, uh, as anything other than what they were born, and I think I think I agree to an extent when it comes to the kids, and I've said this before leave the children alone, let them enjoy their childhood, let them bask in their innocence for as long as possible, because they're going to spend most of their life as adults. But I do think that when it comes to weaponising, weaponising, the identification of anything against biological women is also seen in the in in the US. So I definitely understand part of of Donald Trump's motivations and I think it's important to recognize that we were always going to get to this point because of the committed erasure of biological women, the, the correction of actually being able to identify the offense and and and the aggro um, and jk rowling is very clear about that and I really, I really, you know, I really support jk rowling's voice and her need and her wanting to use her voice to protect women, and I think it's really important that we recognise that it's not an attack, it's not a eradicate, it's not a condemn. It is standing up for women who were born, women who identify as women and want to live our life without having to justify our existence.
Speaker 2:Moving on, and before I get into into his excellency captain ibrahim trore, which I did speak about a few weeks ago. Listen, I'm very, I'm very forward thinking. I spoke about um booking of faso. I gave you guys like a high level understanding and an overview of what's happening, why it's happening, the brief history, and I'm hoping that you really truly listened to that episode and really understood why it was important for me to discuss that on here, one being African, being a proud African woman but also understanding the history of how Africa is rich in natural resources but very poor. It's important to understand how colonialism has played a huge role in how poor Africa is as a continent, and individual countries having to serve the West to survive when they don't need the West to survive. And I think those things are really, really important and it's important that I raise it here because unless we're willing to have open and honest conversation, there's no way for us to educate ourselves and be able to be at the forefront of what is happening now in Africa. The change is coming and for me, ibrahim Chore, his excellency Captain Ibrahim Chore, is a face of change for Africa, but we'll get into that in a little while.
Speaker 2:So I have a question to ask you all, the current Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, keir Starmer. Is he pandering to the right, to the right wing? Is he pandering to them? He pandering to the right to the right wing? Is he pandering to them? Today he announced an immigration overhaul which will reform immigration and he has gone on record as saying that there will be an additional requirement to speak english as part of like immigration controls here in the uk. He's also spoken about the reform to international workers. Specifically, I mean care workers, for example. A lot of care workers are in from international countries and there's certain immigration requirements that they would need to have to come here and satisfy, but most care workers, for example, get their staff internationally.
Speaker 2:Now, if you reform immigration and you provide this massive overhaul and make it harder to recruit internationally, what do you think is going to happen to those roles? They will become vacant, nobody will fill them, and we live in benefit brit Britain where they'll tell us to go back to where we came from, but are unwilling to take up the jobs that are open to them. We're living in a hypocritical society where the economy is built off the back of immigrants. Yet you're now saying to said immigrants new immigrants. Actually, we're going to set the bar really high, make it near impossible for you to come over here. Then we're going to have a black hole of of staff where we will have a pool of vacancies that we cannot fill domestically.
Speaker 2:I remember somewhere where I had worked during Covid and remember I had a couple of contracts running at the same time and we needed some logistics drivers and unfortunately, because of Brexit, we had no domestic logistics drivers and we'd made it hard for them, so they'd gone home. They were like well, you, you know, do you know that, because of this massive shortage in logistics truck drivers, we then had to run a campaign. Those logistic drivers like, fine, we'll come in and do your logistics and drive your vans and drive, drive your trucks, but this is how much it's going to cost you. And the company I worked for paid through the nose. They fast-tracked their immigration requirement, things that they had to do, and they were working for a lot of money because, ultimately, you've sent them home and now they know there's a desperate need for them. Your negotiation leverage is eroded and who has the upper hand? It's the truck drivers who, fine, will go back to wherever the country of origin is, um and we'll find work, but obviously money is to be made here in the uk and for for those truck drivers in that company I was working for they were like listen, this, these are our terms. We had to contract. We had because there was a desperate need. It was, it was during a pandemic, a medical crisis. We had no choice and that, to me, signified where we are in the UK. We had no UK truck drivers not definitely not to the scale in which we needed. We had to go abroad.
Speaker 2:But I think that Brexit was the biggest, single, biggest, massive mistake that removed the great in Great Britain that once was Great Britain, and I think that it's important to understand that. We work and we exist in a society where, in my opinion, immigrants are not respected for what they have always brought to the economy and to society, and when we are made to feel like we do not belong if we were to return home, those people who tell us that we don't belong don't belong themselves because they're unwilling to give to their country what their country needs. So I'm going to leave that one. So I'm going to leave that one. I think the issue you know I have with Keir Starmer is I definitely believe that he operates as a Labour leader, but his ideologies and the way he runs the Labour Party is. Running a country is easy, but I definitely think it shouldn't be Keir Starmer.
Speaker 2:There were local by-elections that happened recently and Reform UK basically took the conservative seats. Now Keir Starmer went on record to say that he's not surprised at the outcome of the by-elections. That it's to be expected and he completely understands why the voters voted the way they did. But I couldn't help but feel that Keir Starmer was very arrogant in his response. Does he not realise that the by-election is almost like a test ground as to how good or how bad the Labour Party are operating and doing and running the country? And it's really bad Because if care is not taken, reform UK will stand a massive chance of winning the leadership of this country in four years.
Speaker 2:Is it four years? I think it's four years and Reform UK with Farage at the helm is bottom barrel hell. Farage has already basically said that effectively, he's going to be mimicking what Trump is doing. You know, monkey, see monkey do. He's talking about completely removing remote working from government roles, which, to be honest, I think of all the things to discuss that should be at the bottom of the list. But he does talk about a lot of the reforms happening in the States and kind of, you know, replicating them here in the UK. This country is not set up the way the US is. I just want to say this country is not set up that way. But I think it's a really real consideration that Reform UK in four years' time could be running this country and and Farage is a very, in my opinion, a very problematic and the people that follow him are very problematic. It's giving very much Trump mega vibes and and, honestly, in a country that is so diverse, I think that Farage at the helm, reform UK running this country, it will make this country intolerable. I think at that point people will voluntarily be wanting to leave and go to any other country than here at a rate that will be diabolical for the economy.
Speaker 2:So, keir Starmer, I hope that you, just upon reflection, sit back and really think about your arrogance here, because it's not about you. It's about how well or how bad, in your case, the Labour Party, are leading this country. You're not doing a good job. You can't reform, overhaul the benefit system and overhaul it in such a way that these people can't get jobs, and I'm not saying that being on benefits is the answer, but what I am saying is tightening the ropes of the benefit system doesn't actually help the economy, because you're not helping these people get back into jobs.
Speaker 2:For example, I know that they've cut money and funding um. So if you get a job, you've been on benefits for a while and you get a job, there is no money that they will be able to give you to at least um follow you through for the first month so you can get your travel card and stuff like that pending your pay after a month. That doesn't exist. So my question is where are people getting the money to be able to go to to to this new job? So you can't afford to get to the job because you've been on benefits, so you'd either have to save the benefits, which is peanuts, and even then, if you can't save but you have this job, how are you supposed to get to the job if you've got no money?
Speaker 2:Like this is what I mean about overhaul and reform. That's not practical, like when we, when you talk about supporting people to get into jobs. When they get the jobs, they can't get to the jobs because they can't afford it and, mind you, the cost of transportation is diabolical, absolutely diabolical. So they can't afford that. They don't. They can't afford any clothes to wear to this job because they've been on benefits make you know the benefit doesn't stretch enough for them. So how are you actually reforming or overhauling the benefit system that supports people back into jobs? Because the current state of it ain't good, it ain't great.
Speaker 2:And whilst Keir Starmer sees it as checks and balances on an Excel spreadsheet, who's paying the price for this? It's the individuals that live as citizens in this country and I'm not joking. I'm really starting to feel like the UK resents its citizens. Because you hinder success. You cap success at 100,000. That's a capping of success Because over 100,000, then where? The percentage of tax I've discussed this before is crazy. The amount of tax I've discussed this before is crazy. The amount of tax we pay in this country versus what we get out of this country is is is not great. You've got the nhs system, which is completely broken. Then you're paying double for private health care.
Speaker 2:Then they talk about child tax credits. Again, it's capped, because even those people that qualify for child tax credits you do realize that they may get 33 hours, but independent um teaching institute, like nurseries, will still pay. You still have to pay an additional top up. It's not enough to just have the 30 hours. Like these nurseries, these, these, uh kindergartens are allowed to add a top up. That makes it more competitive when children or parents are applying for their children to go to this nursery or kindergarten. But people don't talk about that. They talk about salary sacrificing. But you get to a point where you sacrifice so much of your salary to be under 100k that it makes no sense anymore. It doesn't make any sense. So then you stop salary sacrificing. You take the hit of the 40 or 60% tax whatever the fuck it is now and then you're placed in a position where your success is capped at 100k. When you cap success, you cap people's ability to be great and this is why I tell you there's no great in Great Britain.
Speaker 2:I recently had a conversation with someone and this person basically said to me I posted something on Instagram and this person and it was basically reflecting over the last, I'd say, 10 years, but really it's probably more than that. It's probably about I've been in my industry now for about 15 years. I keep saying 10 years, but I think it's because I almost hit the 10 year mark in terms of contracting. But actually I've been in my industry for 15 years and I don't know what it is about us as black women when we downplay certain things. I don't know what that is and I'm very guilty of that, of downplaying certain things and not necessarily recognizing my where my flowers are when actually I've given a lot to my career.
Speaker 2:But I also recognize that at certain points in my life and I've shared, like a lot of my struggles in earlier podcast episodes that my career saved my life, not because I love my career and I'm so in love with it, but it gave me routine, it gave me objective, it gave me focus and it kept me company, because loneliness is, is a was a big thing for me, if I'm really honest, especially because I had a really fractured relationship with my family, especially when my dad died. It was a very lonely, a very painful and a very heart-wrenching time, not just because I lost my dad, but because that protection from my narcissistic mother had gone. So I was fully vulnerable and fully exposed. I was the scapegoat. My brothers were well, one of my brothers is the golden child and he would trade places with my other brother. So they were basically the golden child at different times, but I was always the scapegoat.
Speaker 2:Now I left home at 21 and I've always shared that that was not an age to leave home. I was so young, I didn't know anything. I was such a baby fresh out of university, trying to figure out my place in the world. So you know, I had so many jobs, like I worked for Hackney Council at one point I worked for Redbridge Council. I worked for various um other local authorities. I'd I'd worked for independent organizations that had no HR. I'd worked in so many places to get to where I am now. If I was to write on my CV everywhere I have worked, they'd stop after the fifth page. And I'm serious. I've worked in a lot of places, not to mention when I was in law school.
Speaker 2:I was working as a cleaner in the evenings, a couple of days in the week, because I had to pay for certain things, like you know, taking out overdrafts and stuff. It just wasn't enough. It wasn't sustainable because I'd already left home at that point. So basically on Instagram I'd reflected over the last 15 years about kind of how I got to this point and how I see the world of work and I was asked if I could share those reflections on a podcast and I was asked more directly about how I did certain things. So I kind of want to get into that.
Speaker 2:So I just touched upon loneliness and I think we don't really talk about loneliness a lot and I feel like there is this stigma attached to if you are working, your bills are paid this, this and this, then loneliness shouldn't factor and it's a bullshit. Loneliness isn't about career. It's not about being able to pay the bills. It's about feeling emotionally displaced and feeling as though you are not accepted or understood in a world that you're forced to operate in, not knowing how to operate in or where you fit in in the world. For a really long time I never understood my place in the world because for me, my dad was my go-to. He made the world make sense for me and that's something I've always maintained, because the world seemed like a very confused, a very convoluted place.
Speaker 2:Now I know that a lot of obviously, what I was feeling is my undiagnosed ADHD, and the reason I call it undiagnosed is because I haven't got an official diagnosis. But I have been diagnosed by my GP. But obviously I need the referrals and stuff and I'm gonna have to pay for this out of my own money. But that's another story. But the point I'm making is there was there was a time I was walking home and I was studying for my CIPS, so my SIPS, and um, it was like 10 o'clock at night and as I was walking home I was thinking I had work the next day, so after work I had to go to this, my course and everything. And I was walking home and I was like there's no one ringing me to ask me if I'm okay. No one's asking me when am I getting home? No one is. If somebody done something or I was abducted on this one road, nobody would know.
Speaker 2:For a while, and that was quite lonely, the recognition and the realization that I was operating and living my life very singular and it kind of scared me. It scared me because I felt as though no one cared. And it's not that I was desperate for someone to care, but just to take an interest would have been okay, that would have been sufficient. So for me I kind of saw work as my comfort. It provided me with money which gave me opportunities to do certain things. Um, it gave me focus because now I started to look at my career from a more strategic standpoint and I started to operate from a space of grace as in grace for myself, and I had gotten my law degree, I'd done my master's, I'd done all of that. My SIPs was a top-up for me of being able to be more of a specialised subject matter expert, so that I gave myself opportunities to pivot wherever I wanted to. I wanted the freedom to choose, so for me, further education was that opportunity for me.
Speaker 2:I remember even passing my exams. I kind of never really celebrated, because when you're lonely you recognize that it's only you. Do you understand? So for me it was like even when I passed my driving test, I remember sharing it on on snap and I had a lot of like people who followed me on Snapchat and that became like my little community and at the time it felt so sad to admit it, but I'm actually really proud of it Because I feel like social media gave to me what I did not have at the time and it was escapism. It was when I was doing Snapchat.
Speaker 2:I was talking about the world of work and stuff. It was very organic for me to just talk about my day, what I'd gone through, what I was doing, and if I didn't post for a day, somebody would always message me and be like, oh, we haven't you know, and that's what I was lacking in real life. So for me, social media wasn't real life for me, because real life would have been me saying hey guys, you know as well as everything else I share I just want to top up and tell you I'm lonely, you know. I just I felt shame for feeling that lonely. That being said, I think I'd gone through so much in the world of work as well. So I always maintain that my biggest bully was my mum.
Speaker 2:Second to that was the world of work, because, again, I had a naivety about work. You know, they prepare us for so much, but they didn't prepare us for the, the emotional gymnastics of the world of work and navigating um non-black people who would always see black women, specifically black women, as a threat. I was always perceived as a threat and I was just trying to pay my bills. Um, that was really, really difficult. I'd been in situations where my bosses were bullying me, I was showing up and I was ill, I was tired, I was choking on the loneliness I felt.
Speaker 2:I always felt like I wasn't good enough and I just got to a point at work where I recognized and realized I was being taken advantage of because I was actually good at my job. No one would ever tell me I was good at my job, but it would be the addition of further work and not getting the recognition for what I delivered. It would be, you know, a particular workplace. They would get contractors in because we had like an influx of work, but I was having to train those, those, those, those um, um, interim workers, and they would make me feel as though it was my duty to do the work for them so they could get paid. And I just had enough. One day I was working in a particular organisation and one of the interim workers that they'd got in had promised something to a key stakeholder. He was unable to deliver it. We had an interim boss because they managed to manage my boss out of that role, and he came to me and he was like you have to do this. I was like why do I have to do it? I never promised the stakeholder this guy did. He was like well, I don't care, I'm telling you. So you do it and I was like no, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2:I think at that point I realized my power, and when I say my power, I mean my superpower. I was fast becoming a subject matter expert. That was power, that was leverage, that was if you don't fuck off and leave me alone, I will leave here. And I did, and they begged me to stay, and you know all the all the drama and the theatrics of it. But I think at that point I realized, and I think, as black women, there has to come a point where you have a like, a limit to what you will accept. There has to be way, like you know, some people that will just continue to accept the disrespect. They will continue to accept, you know, being treated as less than and being emotionally abused. But there has to come a line and when it's crossed and I think we all have a duty to ourselves to understand where that line sits this is the line and for me it was crossed. When my boss shouted at me, it reminded me of my mum Shouting at me for not doing what she wanted, for feeling as though my boss tried to bully me. I told you, my biggest bully was my mum. Who the fuck do you think you are, sir? So I think once I remember, once I knew what my superpower was.
Speaker 2:I think I became fearless and I realised the more I grow, the more I'm a subject matter expert, the more I'm willing to open up myself to learning, the greater position I'll be in. And I get to choose. I'm the architect of my career. I get to decide my trajectory. No one else gets to do that. But I need to strategically understand how to manoeuvre and grow and move upwards, to maneuver and grow and move upwards. And I then, obviously um, took another role. I then, um, started working for a massive telecommunications company and then it was literally a learning curve for me. I just was like a sponge and I would learn everything, and I would not everything, but you know what I mean. I'd learn the key things. I had my own business unit that I was designated to. I understood how to navigate people. I created the burn folder. I really understood the systems and the policies that I was working in and it's like we're going to get into systems and policies a little later, but for me that was the turning point for me. And then I went into contracting and the rest was history.
Speaker 2:People tend to think that at the time when I was like learning, growing and coming up, people tended to think all right, you do law, you become a lawyer, and I think I've shared this before, but if I haven't, I'm sharing it now. I had about six months left of my training contract and I was working on this big case and the case disturbed my soul and I remember going to my dad and I was like dad, I can't do this. You know, I was like I do not want to be a lawyer because I do not believe in the justice system here in the UK. It's racist. If you live in a fundamentally racist country, the justice system will reflect that and the justice system is dominated by white people, specifically white males, and I'm watching it being used and weaponised against the black community and, in my case, a black woman. I said I can't do this, dad, I don't want to be a lawyer.
Speaker 2:And he looked me dead in my eye and he said you know what? You have the gift of education. You do what you want to do because I've given you, supported you. You want to do because I've given you, supported you, encouraged you through your education. The world is your oyster. He literally was like you know, and I've said this before and when I was at law school I had a natural like a natural understanding of contracts.
Speaker 2:It was something that came naturally to me and it was something that challenged me and my tutor was like right, I think you need to look into this. And then I kind of fell into it. So most procurement teams would have um contract managers, but they would be doubling as both, but you would have a leaning and I really do not like procurement. I find it boring, labor intensive, repetitive. I just don't like it.
Speaker 2:But the contract management, the commercial contract management, I love. Well, I don't actually. I loved because I did. At one point I did love it. I fell out of love of it when I realised that love wasn't the emotion that you should attribute to your career, I think for me I became. I understood that I was naturally talented and I could you know I was I was okay with kind of doing that as a career as long as I was continuously evolving and growing, and that what I thought was love was I was in love with what it gave me at a time when I had nothing and I still didn't have anything, but I just knew that that feeling of love was a crux. It was a crux to keep me where I was, so I needed to fall out of love with it and fall in like with it and fall in respect with it, and once I got to that point, um, I then started to see the evolution of my industry, where, then, roles did start turning up for either commercial managers or commercial contract managers and being able to contract and grow and work in different organizations three months here, six months there, two months there.
Speaker 2:It was the best thing ever because at when I was contracting, I became in charge of kind of like, my trajectory in terms of like, how senior I was becoming, and I was commanding a certain amount of money and, for me, my CV. It was important for me, and that was part of my strategy, that my CV needed to read like the who's who of my industry and I would go into interviews and understand how to get roles, and this is why I did the interview masterclass and I've spoken on here several times and even on my TikTok about interviews and how to manage them and how to navigate them and know what you're looking for and where your walk away point is where is the compromise? Is this an organization I want to work for? This line manager, are they a control freak? Or is this the type of person that will allow me autonomy to do what I need to do while still support me? If? Is this a helicopter manager, like for those? Those things became even more apparent as being important the more I was growing.
Speaker 2:But the question that I was asked is like where, like how did I manage to make that switch? And I don't think there was ever one given moment. I just attribute where I was in my life and how I was feeling, to kind of understand the power of my career, and I think a lot of people fail to see the power in their career. And don't get it twisted. I have an episode called walking in the wilderness. It's one of my earlier episodes in the podcast life cycle and I think you need to listen to it because I walked in the wilderness for a really, really, really long time before I got to a point where I was like, all right, cool, I'm just gonna like roll with this and I always say you have to be in a continuous state of development because if I wasn't, I would have been in the wrong field because I would have gone towards more procurement, but because I was constantly reading up on staff, I was kind of networking um online because I didn't like in-person networking. I was not like that, I just didn't like it. Um, being on the course that I did you get to meet people as a form of networking in person. That was as far as I was willing to go with it. But also we're we're in a technology, social media age where access is even more now than what it was when I was coming up. Does that make sense? I'm still not exactly where I want to be in my career, but where I want to be, as in where my utopia is, if you like, I'm on the trajectory of where I thought I'd be right now. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:But I think, upon reflection, over the last 15 years, some of the biggest lessons I've learned is you know, I'm so glad I found my voice. I'm so glad I understood strategy. I'm so glad I trusted myself, because I feel like when I went through the emotion of loneliness or feeling misunderstood or feeling all those emotions, I couldn't. I felt like I couldn't trust myself. How could I trust my own decisions when my primary caregiver is basically questioning my ability to think for myself, or causing me to really question the foundation of who I am. How do you trust yourself? I couldn't trust myself, but what I could trust was my career. It never failed me. It it gave me a lifeline, and I know it's kind of crazy to look at it like that, but that's the truth. So that's why, for my career, I always have respect for it and I went hard in just wanting some type of freedom and, for me, having choices gave me freedom. I'm a free spirit by nature, so being controlled doesn't work for me. I need to feel like I have autonomy to choose.
Speaker 2:Recently, I had spoken to my manager about what my career trajectory kind of looks like in terms of what I need, what I wanted to do that would add to my catalogue of experience, and I had said to him that I have all this experience spanning 15 years. I've worked in all these organisations, years I've worked in all these organizations. But there are certain experiences that I would like to add and and I told him this is specifically what I want to do, and he was like, yeah, we could do that. I get those opportunities in the team. I'll give that to you. So then obviously, it's obviously understand this strategy and how to navigate. I tied that into my objectives because it held him accountable for providing those opportunities that would give me the opportunity to then deliver on that objective. Does that make sense? So when we had a follow-up meeting, post-objective setting, he was like yep, 100%, toyah, da-da, da da. That was many months ago and it hasn't happened. And I'm not angry. Toya in her 20s would have been pissed. I'm not angry, and I'm not angry because you are the architect of your career. I have a podcast called that you are the architect of your career. I have a podcast called that you are the architect.
Speaker 2:As far as I'm concerned, the success of my career doesn't begin and end with my manager. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. Just because you manage me doesn't mean that you hold the key to my future. You don't the ancestors hold the key, it's my future. I'm walking in the present. So I already decided if I don't get those opportunities, I'm not gonna sweat it. You are gonna give me my bonus, though, because if you ain't done what you need to do for me to get the objective, that's up, that's on you on the list of objectives. I've met every single one of them. So this one that we haven't met, and it will reoccur in every objective setting until he recognizes that that's something he has to do. Um, but my decision has been um, given the fact that he's not presented those opportunities to me that have arisen in the team, because, again, I have been told he has said certain things that I know. Those opportunities are there, he's just not willing to give it to me. And I've already decided I'm quite happy to look elsewhere. I'm one of those people. I will never tie my identity to any job. My identity stands independent and I'll look internally for other opportunities. I'm willing to do that A hundred percent. I've already started. But I had to also ask myself why? Why is it you're not giving me these opportunities? And I'll tell you why because I'm a mum.
Speaker 2:Some of you are like what, what, what? There is a stereotype about being a mum, about time, and we don't have a lot of time. But what we do great as mothers is utilize the time. We have to do what we need to do, and I have. You know, I have really gone leaps and bounds in my career. Before I had my daughter. Having my daughter, no one knew I was contracting. I had what? Three, two or three contracts running at the same time. No one even knew I was pregnant.
Speaker 2:So the determination to succeed, it's all there. All the, everything that I I feel like I would need is there. I've done it, I've seen it. But there's this one thing I need, I really need to do and, in my opinion, just to give me that edge, and he could give it to me, but I definitely think he thinks, because I'm a mum, I'm just not going to have the time, but I'm the person that will work late, I'm the person that will log on on the weekends when my daughter's asleep. I'm that person. If I need to go to a six o'clock, six in the morning meeting, I will do the. Six am meeting with my headset on my daughter's watching her program and I'm getting her ready for nursery. You'd be none the wiser, but I'm not sitting here convincing somebody of anything, because I believe that my experience, my academic achievements, even most recently, speak for itself in terms of my, my determination.
Speaker 2:I got this recent qualification as a mum, so I don't feel like I've got to prove anything and I think, once you get to that point where you recognize your greatness enough that you don't have to prove yourself. That, to me, is enough ammunition to know your worth in the market, and it takes time. But you have to know where your line is. That's what I said earlier. You've got to know where the line is and once it's crossed, you need to be fully focused on where it is you want to go. You need to have those vision boards. To be fully focused on where it is you want to go, you need to have those vision boards. Vision boards are so important. I have a podcast about vision boards and how I do my vision boards. I still do my vision boards till today, the 31st of December every year. I'm doing the vision board. Be under no illusion when it comes to me, because I tell you the blueprint, I don't care.
Speaker 2:I'm honest, no illusion when it comes to me, because I'll tell you the blueprint, I don't care. I'm honest, I still do vision board till this day. I have objectives on my vision board that I need to achieve and, believe me, you, I am focused and for me, I understand the power of the mind and the power in us that sits in us as black women. We're living in a society that basically has removed self-belief, capped success. If you don't know who you are in a world that's telling you you're no one, you're in trouble, and you have to know that opportunities are not always going to sit in front of you. You have to go out and get them them. You have to be motivated enough to want more. If you're motivated by money, that's not going to be enough. You know it needs to be money and something else, because I feel like when the money comes in, then you will that fulfill you do you know? I mean, one of my motivators is money, but one of I also like to be in a continuous state of learning. I need my brain to be ticking. I need to be challenged. I need to be in a continuous state of learning. I need my brain to be ticking, I need to be challenged. I need to be able to think outside the box.
Speaker 2:I was asked to provide a contractual review on something quite big and because I've done this course, because of my 15-year experience and because of everything I'm learning on the job, I was able to ask certain questions boom, boom, boom, boom. Speak to this, ask for advice here, do this, do this, do this, do this. And now I'm submitting something to get that will enable me to provide that commercial contract review. Do you understand? This is what I'm saying about understanding that your destiny doesn't need to lie in just one one place and it's easy to get comfortable. Oh, my god, you know my current place. If I wanted to get comfortable, I could, but I can't afford to, because getting comfortable will find you the first on the list for redundancy. Getting too comfortable will have you out of a job because you won't even see it coming. You won't even understand what's happening until they hit you with a email um, cc and hr and, and, and and your manager sorry, we need to discuss with you, toy, putting you on notice. I don't want that for myself.
Speaker 2:So I have to always allow myself to be in a continuous state of growth, learning, understanding what's happening in my industry. You know my contacts are still there. I get called all the time, even still until now, I got presented with an opportunity to go back into contracting. That would have been very lucrative but for what I'm trying to attain, contracting ain't it for me right now and, and given the taxes and the increase of um national insurance for companies it's too much for me. I'm not. I'm not doing all of this. It's not viable.
Speaker 2:Outside roles made contracting so much more lucrative, but given that I don't have the same rights as I would do as a contractor inside IR35, I think I made the decision, the right decision to go perm. Now it's about the next steps for me to get to certain things. So I'm hoping that helps in terms of the question I was asked and being reflective enough to share it here and understanding that you know when you're in your career there's a level of vulnerability because you're in the unknown, hoping for the best, and I think that's okay. But you have to have personal goals, you have to have personal objectives of your own, and these things you don't necessarily have to share with your organisation or with where you work, with your line manager. You just need to know right the next two years. This is my trajectory and then in a way it kind of feeds into your work objectives because you know you need A and B to connect for you to get CDEFG, but your boss doesn't need to know about CDEFG. Do you get what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:I was listening to highlights of a podcast, actually, and I don't know if you guys follow NFL and Dion Saunders and the draft picks, but they were talking about how black people, their child, will be exceptional at certain sports and they put them in them sports, they put them in the sports camps, they get them there. They're the elite athletes. But white people will get their child into sports but also will make sure the child knows the business of the sport that they're operating in. And it's so true and true of that is of the working world. It's not just about going into the world of work that education doesn't prepare you for anyway, but it's not about being a good employee. Do you know what? It's about? Understanding the strategies to achieve and attain success, understanding how to navigate. Understanding how to navigate, understanding how to discern in an organization, understanding how to achieve your objectives and knowing when to leave. It's about knowing how to deal with difficult managers or the managers that will take the credit for your work.
Speaker 2:How are you navigating that? I've got podcast episodes about that. I, I've got so many podcast episodes. I take fucking offence when somebody messages me and says, toya, do you ever talk about this, this and this topic? Which episode can I find that in? I'm always going to ignore you Always, because if I take the time to do the work, the research, and I take the time to record, edit and pour into an episode, I'm not going to, you're not going to labour me to then go through every episode so I can find what you want. That's your job.
Speaker 2:And when you tell me that, that means you're not even invested enough in your own success, because if you are invested enough in your own success, you go looking for the information. That's what I had to do. I was navigating before there was there's an explosion of podcasts that talk about all these world of work stuff. I'm giving you guys the fucking blueprint here. So if you can't do the work by listening to the podcast, don't come to me to try and find a shortcut, because I'm not giving you that. There are no shortcuts to success. Honey, we're all on the long road, honey. We're just in different lanes, that's all. We're all on that long road, just in different lanes. And I'm sitting here telling you, as a successful black woman, I still have successes to achieve. I'm not where I need to be right. I'm telling you right now I've got shit to do. I've got shit to do. Honestly, I'm busy trying to figure out how do I close the gap here, how do I navigate here?
Speaker 2:It's really important that you start taking your career seriously, start taking your life seriously, because let me tell you, they're increasing the age in the UK of retirement. So we're going to work until we're dying. We're going to work till we're dead. Yeah, forget enjoying retirement. You'll probably enjoy a couple of years of your retirement, maybe two, three years. You'll be dead Because if they increase retirement age and it keeps on increasing, it keeps on increasing. This country disrespects the elderly on a mad scale.
Speaker 2:So the fact that, for example, I had a guy and he dropped off my Sainsbury's shopping right and he dropped stuff and as he was dropping it, my husband Kay went to go and help him and his foot was hurting him and everything. And whenever I get a delivery guy, I always offer them water or whatever. I always do it. Electricians, anyone that comes to my house that is a labourer, or anyone who is a delivery person, I will offer them something, because I know how hard it is and I know you're on the clock. God knows the conditions you're working in, especially in this socio-economic climate. I'm offering you something, honey. You want to use my toilet? You want to drink? You're not. You don't seem crazy. My spirit agrees with you. I'm gonna do that shit.
Speaker 2:But this guy was complaining that his feet were hurting him, that how he has to wear these like metal cap shoes um, because he's obviously saying to his delivery driver that's part of their uniform. And he was saying to my husband. He was like you know, I've come out of retirement to to come back into work and I've had to take up this job. This is not, you know, the job I retired from. But I've had to take on this job because we don't earn enough in our retirement for me to fully retire, my wife has had to come back off work, so I had to. I couldn't believe. I literally had to hold myself with tears coming down my eyes.
Speaker 2:This is the world in which we live in, so you need to switch your brain on. You need to get busy. You need to have a better relationship with money, and it's difficult to have a good relationship with money in the current socio-economic climate. And, I'm not gonna lie, it's hard because even the money you're saving, you're even hoping that you never have to use it in the present, because in the future you still need that money. Do you know? They tax your pension. So whilst you think, all right, I'm going to make this salary sacrifice, I don't have to pay tax on it, okay, you don't have to pay tax on it. But when you need it the most, when you retire, you're going to have to pay tax on it. So that's like delayed tax. It's bullshit, absolute bullshit.
Speaker 2:This country, the economy, the tax system, the functionality of this country is disgusting, and I've been paying into this system since I was 15 years old, since I could work, since when I got my NI card. That's when I started working. That's when, actually, do you know what? I didn't even get my NI card. It was two weeks before I got my NI card. I was doing the pizza round. Pizza round you know where you put the pizza leaflets in. Then I got my card and I was official then 15 years old. I've been working. I've been in my industry for 15 years.
Speaker 2:Do you know how mad that is? That there's not enough in my pension. Right now I've got a healthy pension, but it's not enough to sustain me. If I was to, if I was to retire at what? I don't know what the pension age is here in the UK now it's gone up, so it's 67, 67, 68, bloody hell. By next year will be 85. I don't fucking know. But the point is, if I continue paying into my pension until I was like 60 something, there still wouldn't be enough for me to survive on. If I live for another 20 years.
Speaker 2:That's fucking crazy, isn't it? Because even with your investments to take out the money capital gains tax they're still considered an income. You'll be taxed through the nose Stamp duty when you buy a property. What does stamp duty actually go to? What does it actually? What does it do? But then you've got the kings and queens of this UK that we pay to be kings and queens.
Speaker 2:I didn't fucking ask them to be. What are you doing for me? What have you done for me lately? Do, do, do, do, do. Ooh, yeah. What is going on in this country. The UK ain't it. I've got to be honest the UK ain't it.
Speaker 2:And if it wasn't for that orange bandit called Trump I'm an American babe I'm telling you, in a past life I lived in America. Honestly, I've got so many people that live in America that message me all the time Toya, you need to live here, but you lost gun crime. You guys access to guns, I like it. I like it. Look at me mixing my pato and my Nigerian accent. I like it. I can't do it. So I'm just trying to figure it out. I think we're all trying to figure it out, but yeah, those who have ears let them hear. You know the saying. If you don't hear, you feel Eh, we are all suffering in this socioeconomic crisis. We're all feeling the pinch, from people on low-rate incomes to those in the higher two. Is it three percent? We're feeling the crunch.
Speaker 2:How can plantain be two pounds? Was it two pound fifty? What the fuck that plantain looks like. It is pissed off itself that that plantain inside is so soft. You, you will fry it. All the oil will just be inside. Nonsense. Yam, that's looking like a tree shrub will be £3. What's going on? Tolly boy rice. When I need rice, I just close my eyes and pay for the ting. I'm an idiot. £160 I spent on a food shop the other day in Sainsbury's. I had two bags of food. What was in the two bags? That's £160.
Speaker 2:I don't understand my daughter's nursery fees. We don't qualify for child tax credit. My daughter's school nursery fees is more than our mortgage and has risen and is set to rise again. Try and not give me that bonus. Don't play with me, sir. I even said to my boss my daughter's school fees are increasing so my salary needs to increase. I said it in a team meeting. They were all laughing because he was talking like he was trying to back out of giving us the maximum. Nah, it's not me. You know I will call your ass out.
Speaker 2:When you set your objectives, you have to really tie it to them. You understand, if they're not giving you opportunities, how are you going to deliver this man anyway? Long story how my boss found out I was doing this qualification and he didn't find out from me. It was so fucking annoying. Anyway, he then put it in my objectives. Maybe he thought I wasn't going to achieve it. He needs to check my resume because I don't know. I don't understand. We're taking that off the list because I fucking achieved that, mate anyway.
Speaker 2:Um, can we like really just give His Excellency Ibrahim Chore, captain Ibrahim Chore, the common president of Bukhara, fasa? This man is setting a standard and there's so many lessons to learn. This man is giving us a history lesson In decolonisation. That's what he's doing. We're talking about If you understand how he became president and everything. We're talking about somebody who has Consistently Carefully in prison and everything. We're talking about somebody who has consistently carefully removed the colonizers from the country.
Speaker 2:He said listen, listen, france, hello, are you there, france? Your troops need to be out. You do not have a military presence in America. You don't have a military presence in Russia. Why must you have a military base here in Burkina Faso? Oh yeah, carry a load and go. All the debts that Burkina Faso had, I think, with the IMF, and they had another debt. Burkina Faso have paid all those debts off.
Speaker 2:If you want real freedom, take the power away. This is what I'm saying to you about your careers. You hear what I said. You have to be the architect of your destiny. If you want to achieve greatness. You cannot be tied in the hat. You can't be tied and oppressed by your current employer and organisation. That's madness.
Speaker 2:Captain Ibrahim Chouret said get out. He said you. And then, you know, france retaliated. They stopped flying planes into Bukina Faso. Burkina Faso were like eh so what? Stay where you are, we don't need you. And actually all those that are digging our natural resources golden, whatever, get out, because you have not been paying us, you haven't been paying the fee, you're just coming here to dig and take back Go.
Speaker 2:Then Macron, the Prime Minister or President of France. He had a scathing speech and he called. He said that Africa needs France. And how are they going to survive? And everything. Burkina Faso was like watch. Do you know that Burkina Faso was like watch? Do you know that Bukina Faso have developed their own electronic cars, working on their infrastructure, using the young people and the talents in their country, engineers, the alliance they have built with Russia.
Speaker 2:If you saw this weekend how Russia welcomed Captain Ibrahim Chouré and his party and his delegates to Russia to celebrate VE celebration, if you see the way Putin was looking at Captain Choré, the respect level was mad. I've never seen that level of respect for an African leader, that genuine respect. And I'm going to tell you something Russia never colonized Africa. You know they have never colonized Africa. Go and do your findings. But Bukhina Faso understand they have to align with Russia and, like, every relationship is give and take at the end of the day. So obviously Russia is going to want access to Burkina Faso's gold at a tariff, at a rate that is acceptable to Burkina Faso, and Burkina Faso needs protection.
Speaker 2:They have made attempts on Captain Chore's life. They did it to Gaddafi, they did it to Thomas Sankara. The list is endless. Any African leader who is wanting to liberate Africa and the countries within Africa have always found themselves dead Suspicious circumstances. The West Allegedly I have to say allegedly, but we know what it is. Africa is rich, but it's poor at the same time. But certain countries within Africa can never be free under oppression. The colonisers say, oh, people seem to think okay, there's no slave trade, people are free. No, they're not. It's not true freedom, true respect.
Speaker 2:Macron showed his discontent for Africa as a continent. He showed his discontent how dare these Africans, these countries within Africa, liberate themselves from us? They need us, but you'll be telling us we're so poor, we don't have this, we don't have have that, but you want your military bases in the country. Make it. Make fucking sense. If you saw how chore can speak different languages, or if you hear this man talking with authority, but he is so humble booking a photo. Please protect um captain Chouret at all costs. He is the face of freedom for Africa, the face. And you can see the other countries within Africa and we spoke about the Sahel agreement and we spoke about. You know why it happened and everything, but you can see even Mali. Mali has even told them ah, france, on your military base. Oh, yeah, be out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Other countries now are rising within Africa to say we want to own our country, we are in charge about who we do business with in terms of our natural resources, and you'd be surprised how much the West depend on Africa. Don't allow them to fool you. Go and do your findings. For me, it's very spiritual. Africa is very rich for a reason it's spiritually very rich, but unfortunately, we have very poor leaders who are mentally poor in their understanding of the richness that they hold. Nigeria I've never been more ashamed of the president of Nigeria in my life. I'm really ashamed because the way he was with Macron, you would never believe that Africa is actually rich standing and really I was very ashamed of Nigeria. I was Because, instead of them to support Captain Choré, instead of them to really lift him up, I feel like the double cross anyway comes from the insiders.
Speaker 2:You know, it's been alleged as well. They tried to turn one of Troy's inner circle, give five million, yeah, and that inner circle, that person in the inner circle, went and gave Troy the money and said this is the five million they tried to get. And they offered me what do you call it? Not just immunity, safe passage to another country, status, all of this. All of this, all of this, yeah, he said that I cannot do that to you, allegedly. I cannot do that to you. I cannot take your life. You're my brother. There's no amount of money that's going to cause me to double cross you. They also caught somebody in the inner circle who was a double agent.
Speaker 2:Listen, there's a lot of things in the in they don't report. So, for example, all the protests in support of captain chore that has happened in in booking of faso's embassies here in the uk, the marches of support. Bbc haven't covered that. What they want to come and talk to us about is tv license. Sod that, you're stinking tv license. Stick it up where the sun doesn't shine. Why don't you report the things? That's what's happening in in in the world. We want to know what's happening in booking officer.
Speaker 2:Then they try to. They try to distract us. When the pope died, is there going to be a black pope? There haven't been a black Pope in 1500 years. Motherfuckers, we ain't going to get one now. Are you joking? Stop allowing the media to distract you. They treat us like we're a bunch of motherfuckers. To be honest, if you don't shine your eyes and if it's not for the advancement of social media, we'd be finished. Our brains would be cooked, cooked and fried like pancake. Honest to God.
Speaker 2:I think what disappoints me about the UK is the lack of honesty. You can't sit in my face and tell me racism doesn't exist, but then you have leaders like, for example, rishi Sunak. He suffered direct racism as a result of racist people who believe that he doesn't have a right to be here. How dare you? You want to pretend like things. Just admit it. The UK was front centre involved and basking in the slave trade. Centre involved and basking in the slave trade.
Speaker 2:Talk about the colonisation and the committed, persistent objective to destroy the black community. That continues to be the case. Now, why don't you want to talk about how you invaded africa and said no, no, no, no. You see all your spiritualities and your deities, that's rubbish. You're gonna adopt christianity or catholicism? Africa was not built on christianity and catholicism. It was built on spirituality and the deities and the ancestors. That's what Africa was built on.
Speaker 2:But the problem Africa has is because it's lost sight of our history. You adopt what the white man left you and they use religion as a source of control. They'll tell you you're evil, you're good, this is bad, this is who are you to come to our country and tell us that worse, like worshipping, in terms of spirituality and the deities, is wrong. But yours is right and yours that is right is white. It's not even, it's not even reminiscent of our community. Do you know how mad that is?
Speaker 2:But this is the society that we're living in and I genuinely think that if you want to enlighten yourself, you're going to have to do the work to research and understand who you are, where you're from and the superpower that exists within the black community. Listen, being in this country is understanding that we're so diverse as a country and actually, if we, if we were open to the honesty of our history, that would be a starting point. But to completely pretend as though the uk didn't have a hand in in slavery is mad to me. In colonization, this pill, do you know how disrespectful it is that you would steal and loot and then put in a museum and tell us to pay to come and look at it? So that's that's. I think that's crazy.
Speaker 2:But I also think that whilst we're here, it's important for us to be very aware of who we are, our identity. It's the example I gave before about. You know, white people will put their children into sports and teach them the business of the sports sports. It's the same way as black people. We need to understand the strategy and the business of the, where we live, the society we live in, the organizations we work in. It's not just doing your role and not wanting to be seen, or doing your role and trying to do it the best you can, so so they'll accept you.
Speaker 2:I think understanding the strategy of how to navigate is fundamental for our survival in in anything, and I think it's really important to understand that, as diverse as the uk is, until it addresses systemic racism on different levels, both macro and micro levels. I think we're always going to be in a position where we're having to argue about whether racism and discrimination exists. To be honest, and it's really disappointing because I feel like the UK is such a melting pot for diversity. But until you embrace the differences that diversity brings, and the differences by respecting our history, by acknowledging it, we talk about reparations. For me, the real reparations is returning stolen looted and admitting it. For me, admitting the UK's role and returning things and and put trying trying to, trying to recognise the wrongs by doing the right things, to me is a step in building respect.
Speaker 2:Do you get what I'm saying? My parents came here for a better life. They believed in Great Britain, but for many of us it's becoming a nightmare. But for many of us it's becoming a nightmare because what we once thought and once told was great is actually difficult, as, as a black woman in my current organization, I do feel as though I feel very blessed in in the teams that I work with, but I know that the hurdles I've had to climb are very different. To say, my white counterparts. The fragility there they are allowed to inhibit and enjoy and bask in will never be afforded to me and certain experiences I've had lends itself to the fact that I will never be um seen or given the grace of softness. So I have to always operate from a space of strategy and hardness and I'm always having to be on alert. And it's exhausting, it's fucking tiring, we all know this. It's exhausting.
Speaker 2:Capping success in the UK by not allowing for anything over a hundred thousand without being punished through a taxation system I mean I just don't understand it. And and and. A lot of first generation children of immigrants. We, a lot of us not every one of us, I mean lot of us we understand what success looks like for us. So the drive, the constant, building on education, the constant is part of that drive towards success. If you cap success, does that mean that you're? That's not success then? Because if you cap it, you haven't reached the full potential of success. Then after question am I getting, is it reciprocal, what I'm putting into the system? Is it reciprocated? Am I getting something? They call it reciprocity? You put into a system, you sow the seeds into a system. You want to enjoy the benefits of what you've sowed into a system, but instead you're being punished for wanting more out of a system that you're continuously feeding into, the system is broken. Oh, that's enough food for thought.
Speaker 2:I was going to discuss the recent Piers Morgan interview, but maybe I'll leave that to next week. I am planning to record next week, by the way, so maybe I will leave the my evaluation of that Piers Morgan interview that included Lily Gaddis, and we can talk about that next week. But I hope this episode is timely for you. I hope that you're able to pick what you need from it. I hope that the podcast continues to serve you, to support you, to open your eyes, to enlighten you, to show you the paths of success or allow you to evaluate what you define as success and create a path of attaining that success.
Speaker 2:I don't want to seem like doom and gloom about the UK, but I have to talk about what has changed within the UK that makes it very difficult to operate at our optimal level of success and, like our parents, you know they came over here. We're not stuck here. Mobility is accessible. You don't have to stay here, and I think that's something that I do want to touch on in future episodes the um, our ability to have mobility, not feeling as though our success, our success is capped, but our mobility isn't capped and I think we need to be open to exploring what the possibilities are outside of the UK, especially, especially because our parents left their family, what they knew, their upbringing, and they came and started again. But at what point did we stop doing that? At what point was we discouraged from seeking success elsewhere, like are we in a system that wants to keep us still and doesn't allow us to really kind of consider the possibilities of of what honey could taste like outside of the UK? That's something that we should discuss.
Speaker 2:You know, if you want to follow me on social media, I'm very active on my personal Instagram, which is toy underscore Washington. Um, I do have a toy talks instagram page. It's toy underscore talks. I am also active on tiktok toy washington. All one word um.
Speaker 2:If you have a dilemma life dilemma I do have a couple of dilemmas in the mailbox and I am planning to record an episode next week, so I will address your, your dilemmas that have come through anonymously. Please be clear in the subject box that it is a dilemma, um, so it's not overlooked, um, or missed. It's. That's that's really important, and be clear about what you want to gain out of the advice. What's your utopia, what's your target state, if you like, so that the advice that I give you could be it in support of that. Um, while still being completely honest about whatever it is you are writing in about.
Speaker 2:Um, I just want to thank you all for supporting. I want to thank you guys for sharing the podcast and appreciating the podcast. A lot of you re-listened to previous episodes and I'm very comfortable that I have a good body of work that you can listen to over and over again. That will help you in different stages of your career and I'm hoping that I continue to add to that by, you know, recording and releasing episodes like this one that not only educate you about the socio-economic environment in which we currently live in in, but also using world events to really kind of illustrate the point of where we are in our career and how we should navigate and the strategies that we should embody. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you. Thank you for seeing me.
Speaker 1:My name is toy washington and you have been listening to the Toy Talks podcast. From classroom dreams to boardroom walk black woman power watch it shine. Breaking barriers, redesigning time from tottenham roads to ceo, every step, teaching what we know, not just surviving but thriving more, opening every closed door. Toyah talks, toyah talks, toyah talks. Black queens to the top. And we're still going.