Who’s Goodness?
I was born in Life Camp, Abuja. I’m Igala, although my Igala isn’t as good as most people’s, so I still get teased about it. Most of my relatives never let that one go.
I’ve looked after myself for a long time. Long enough that independence stopped being something I was proving and became something I just am. It made me practical. It also made me slow to ask for help, which I’m working on.
What people tend to notice first is that I’m easy to talk to. What they notice later is that I pay attention, and that I can be funny. I want the person across from me to be comfortable, and I’ll do a fair amount of work to make that happen without making it obvious.
I love the people I love properly. I keep a small circle, and I guard it. The thing I’ve slowly realised connects most of what I care about is that I want to make places where people feel safe, connected and valued.
That’s marketing, sometimes.
It’s also why I want to fund women who have the ambition but not the tools, why I have opinions about how houses get built, and why I keep sketching a building with a gym, a garden, and somewhere to sit that feels like comfort.
My beliefs
Not a philosophy exactly. More a set of things I keep coming back to.
There is almost always a way through.
My mother says it in Igala: something that looks like there’s no way around it; the solution is by the corner. You just have to look.
Difficulty and impossibility are not the same thing. Sometimes the first attempt simply isn’t the way through.
Look again.
Enjoy the day. Plant the tree anyway.
Live like there’s no tomorrow. Enjoy today, love people, travel, experience things, don’t postpone your entire life. Live like there’s forever. Invest, learn, build wealth, protect your health, cultivate relationships, build things that outlive you.
I don’t follow rules just because they’re old.
A lot of what gets called culture is simply a collection of habits nobody thought to question. I’m not interested in following something just because it’s always been done that way.
What matters more to me is whether what I’m doing is right, whether it’s fair, and whether I’m causing harm.
I don’t need to announce my standards.
The people who speak the least about their standards usually have the highest ones, not those shouting it everywhere. Respect you have to ask for isn’t really respect.
How I live
Resourcefulness
If the obvious route is blocked, there’s another one, and I’ll go and find it.
Learn the thing. Ask the person. Build the workaround. Negotiate.
What I won’t do is decide something is impossible because the first attempt failed.
Ownership
If it’s mine to move, I move it. I don’t wait for permission, a clearer brief or a better moment.
That doesn’t mean doing everything myself. It means not handing someone else responsibility for how my work turns out.
Trustworthiness
If I say I’ll do it, it gets done. That goes for clients, colleagues, friends, family, and the promises I make to myself.
Communication
I try to say what I mean in a way that’s difficult to misread. I also try to separate facts from feelings before I react. That applies to every part of my life, including the conversations I have with myself.
I think about
Nature. Community. Tech. Economies. Popcorn, which deserves more respect than it gets.
Nature
I want to see as much of this world as one life allows, and share it with people.
There are places worth crossing a continent for, and I intend to enjoy the inconvenience.
Community
Almost everything I want to build is some version of it.
A fund for women with the ambition but not the equipment. Homes designed for the people inside them. Somewhere you can spend a whole day and not be bored.
I also think about how spaces are put together, how they can look prettier yet be better arranged to fit the unique needs. I’m sure I think about this more than is probably normal.
I occasionally consider why people behave the way they do, what factors may have influenced their reasoning, and what thought process led to their decisions.
Tech
I’d like to understand where this is going rather than find out afterwards. AI, mostly, and what it does to work.
Economies
How economies are built, how money and resources move through them, and what makes them grow, stall or fall apart. I’m interested in the decisions behind the numbers too: why people spend, save, invest, panic, take risks, follow trends and respond to incentives. The more I learn about economies, the more I realise that they are really stories about people, power, resources and the choices we make.
Popcorn
It’s great. Full stop.
Pair it with a good film and a late night, and you’ve got a complete evening. I will not be taking any questions on this.
More of this in Interests.