Lead To Excel Podcast
Welcome to the Lead To Excel Podcast, hosted by Maureen Chiana, the visionary behind The Mindsight Academy and a trailblazer at the intersection of faith, neuroscience, and self-leadership. With a steadfast commitment to intertwining Christian principles with cutting-edge neuroleadership strategies, Maureen empowers leaders and business owners to transcend traditional boundaries and achieve unparalleled success.
Through the lens of faith and neuroscience, Maureen unveils transformative insights that enable you to 'Rewire Your Brain' for success, illuminate your blind spots, broaden your perspective, and significantly influence outcomes to exceed beyond expectations.
This unique approach not only cultivates high emotional intelligence, confidence, and resilience but also fosters the development of positive, faith-centred relationships, ensuring you thrive with ease and grace, free from stress or overwhelm.
Whether you're a high-performing leader, an ambitious business owner, or someone seeking to integrate your Christian faith with excellence in your career, this podcast is your sanctuary. Maureen has devotedly applied these neuroleadership techniques to assist a global community of women, executives, managers, and entrepreneurs in elevating their performance, productivity, and profitability, all while nurturing their spiritual growth.
Join us on the Lead To Excel Podcast, where faith meets neuroscience, and discover how you can excel in your professional journey without compromising your values.
Let's embark on this transformative journey together, where being a high-performing individual also means being spiritually fulfilled and grounded in your Christian faith.
Lead To Excel Podcast
Weaving a Legacy of Empowerment with Dr. Chichi Menakaya - E104
Embarking on a journey that embodies the convergence of leadership, growth, and resilience, Dr. Chichi generously shares the experiences that molded her into the influential force she is today. Her mother's values, a beacon of wisdom, played a crucial role in shaping her character and guiding her through life's trials and successes. Tune in to our latest podcast episode to witness this testament to maternal wisdom.
Experience the evolution of the Annomo Foundation, a beacon of hope birthed from Dr Chichi's profound desire to honour her mother's legacy, as it stretches its arms to embrace and empower survivors of domestic violence while fostering community healing. Dr. Chichi's life is a tapestry woven with eight sturdy pillars—faith, kindness, determination, empowerment, confidence, leadership, excellence, and resilience—that have buttressed her through life's inevitable setbacks. This episode promises to leave you with a renewed belief in the human spirit's capacity to triumph over adversity and to use one's own trials as stepping stones to aid others.
As we conclude, we delve into the transformative power of dreams and the strength one can draw from the memory of a lost loved one. Dr. Chichi's reflections on the parting words with her mother and how they've fueled her mission to create a legacy of service and empowerment for women in the UK and Nigeria are a testament to the enduring impact of maternal wisdom. This episode not only honours the legacy of a remarkable woman but also serves as a powerful reminder that in the face of loss, resilience and purpose can lead to extraordinary achievements and a lasting influence on the world.
Connect with Dr. Chichi Menakaya:
LinkedIn | Annomo Health | Facebook
Stay Connected with Maureen:
Mindsight Women's Network | Mindsight Store | The Mindsight Academy
Christian Women’s Leaders Guide on Decision-Making
Articles on Brainz
Book A Consultation: https://calendly.com/maureen-77/30min
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Hello and welcome to Lead to Excel podcast, where every story sparks inspiration and every conversation brings you closer to your best self. I'm Maureen Chiana and I'm here to explore the extraordinary fusion of leadership, emotional intelligence and the groundbreaking insights of neuroscience. Together, we'll uncover secrets to unlocking your potential, enhancing your decision-making and elevating your performance to new heights. Whether you're leading a team, building a dream or simply on a quest for personal growth, you're in the right place, so let's dive in and transform the way we think, lead and live. Welcome aboard. Hello again and welcome back to another episode of Lead to Excel podcast. And today I've got a lady who I met her once and I said I've got to get you onto this podcast and we've been trying to do this. I'm so pleased and honored to have you, dr Chichi Menakaia, on our podcast today. Thank you so much for making out the time to come and, guys, you wouldn't believe it, this is Good Friday holiday and she woke up to do this podcast with me. I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, maureen. Honestly, I think it's long overdue. We should have done this ages ago, but I'm really grateful. And yes, I know it's Good Friday, but I think it's good. We're actually doing something good on Good Friday, so I think the work you do is fantastic. I've been following the stuff that you send to me and I'm really grateful to be here. Thank you so much, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:I love that. Doing something good on Good Friday, that's so cool, right? So Dr Chichi Menakaia is an award-winning trauma and orthopedic surgeon. She commands the global healthcare stage with unparalleled expertise and influence. I hope you heard that, because we are going to dig deep into this guys. She was nominated Best of the Best in 2022 by the British Orthopedic Association and bestowed with esteemed international awards, including prestigious WJ Little Medal for Orthopedics. She epitomizes excellence in her field as the CEO of Anormal Health, a trailblazer in premium medical concierge services, she orchestrates bespoke pathways connecting elite clientele with top-tier global healthcare and wellness. She founded Anomal Foundation, a charity dedicated to supporting individuals in developing countries through healthcare access, education and financial empowerment. Driven by an unwavering commitment to global wellbeing, she shapes a legacy of exceptional leadership, leaving an indelible mark on healthcare and humanity. Wow, wow, wow, dr Chichi, thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, maureen, honestly thank you. Like when you read that thing, I'm like, wow, this is just little me or nobody else, right? But God has been merciful, so thank you so much. Thank you, I think I give god all the glory for everything. He's the one that made the path to make it possible. Thank you so much and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So what, let's let me start by asking a question and she doesn't know. I'm gonna ask her this question what does chichi start? What does chichi? What's the full?
Speaker 2:name, okay, so my full name is actually chinyelo, which means God has given me a child, right? And basically my mom has always called me Titi, so everyone calls me Titi, and obviously. So if people call me Tinyelo, when they call me Tinyelo, it means I'm in trouble, right? So my full name is actually Tinyelo, because it means God has given me a child and it's got a story, because my mom says that I'm a gift from God to her and that's just what it was right.
Speaker 1:Now I know why we are connected so much. My name is Chinye Lu. Oh, my God, exactly, wow, yeah. So my name is actually Chinye Lu and I'll tell you a story. So my name is Chinye Lu, but when I was young, they called me Chinye Re. Okay, so I remember Chinye Lu, but when I was young, they called me Chinye Re. Okay, so you see, because Chinye Re is Imo state, isn't it exactly?
Speaker 1:Chinye Lu is Anambra and I'm from Anambra, so, but they called me Chinye Re, not sure why, and at a point I saw my birth certificate with Chinye Lu and I was so confused. So my birth certificate is Chinye Lu, but why do people call me Chinye? I was so confused.
Speaker 2:I've had the same thing like you've had. Like literally some people call me Chinye Lu and I'm always like my name is not Chinye Lu, my name is Chinye Lu, and for a long time it was like a big deal. So I just said, listen, I'm going to stick with Chi Chi, because that is the name most people that are close to me call me and I think everyone says, like this week actually, someone at work said to me what does Chi Chi mean? I said it means God, god Chi Chi. And she said why is that your name? And I said, listen, that's not really my name, it's obviously my pet name, but I think, like I feel like I resonate, like what it is very meaningful to me. But for me, when I call myself chichi, I know that everything I do is standing on the grace of god and actually, and that's what really gets me going and that's why I use that as my name everywhere, even at work, I'm called chichi, because it's just what I use as my name I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that. Oh so now, now I know why the why we're so strongly connected. My god, it it's so weird, isn't it? I know, and I really didn't know that. So, chichi, tell us a bit about you in terms of background, where you grew up, and just kind of bring us up to pre-uni and let's get a feel for who you are Okay.
Speaker 2:So I always say to everyone, everyone, I'm just a little girl, right, that loves playing with lego a game, and I grew up like. I was born in enugu, nigeria, right, and then I grew up in onitsha for a big part of my life. And if people that don't know, onitsha is in eastern nigeria and it's a lot of people know onitsha because of business and also because it's um and I I think for me, anicha is really close to my heart because a lot of things I do today is because I have the Anicha spirit in me and if you know Anicha, which is in um in southeastern Nigeria, it's they're known to like to be hustlers. That's where business happens. So I did my primary school and my nursery school in Anicha. I went to. Initially I went to All Saints, um, so's called. It was called Cathedral Nursery School and eventually got changed to All Saints. Then I went to All Saints Primary School. Now All Saints Primary School has got like a bit of a fix because initially it used to be owned by the government and it was called Premier and then the church took it over and it was called All Saints.
Speaker 2:Then I went ahead to go to Baptist High School, joss, and it's really funny because I went all the way from anita to just to do high school, but I only spent three days in that high school and I came back. And this is really important to tell the story, because prior to going to baptist I wanted to be. First of all, I wanted to be a pilot. Then my mom showed me like all those picked planes falling off the sky and I got too scared because I'm like, literally but when it comes to planes. And then I wanted to be a musician and I didn't actually want to be a musician. I wanted to be Michael Jackson, if that makes sense in any way, because that was like my thing. It says what do you want to be when you grow up? I said I wanted to be Michael Jackson and then I went from there wanting to be an actress. Then I went from there actually wanted to be an automobile engineer because, as I said to you, I love Lego, because I love building things, and for me, doing automobile engineering was supposed to be like to build new things and build cars, because I have a lot of interest with cars. And then I went to Baptist High School, joss, and I only stayed three days because I became really unwell and at that time I was diagnosed with typhoid fever. So my mom took me back to school and brought me back on her way back Right, and I got home to back to Onitsha.
Speaker 2:And I think this point is really interesting story because I could remember being at home and someone connecting an IV line to me, and this person wore a white dress and had a beautiful heart, and imagine when you're in pain, you're drenched with fever and all of a sudden you look at this fluid coming to your hands and a few minutes later you actually feel better, right, and this person comes into a white coat with a stethoscope and actually looks after you. And even though I was born in a medical family, medicine wasn't what I wanted to do. I just saw it as this thing where my father is always at work, my uncle's always at work, and I think that really changed my life. So from the time I then recovered, all I wanted to do was actually to be able to help people, and that's why I did like almost like a 360 degree stern and decided I wanted to study medicine. I then went on to go to a federal government girls college in Onitsha and that was where it stopped before you said pre-high school, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and that's where the story then changes for my life, to be honest. So I think like that's what I've done and as a child. I just loved climbing trees, playing with lego, and I used to be very, very borstress. I really really like, almost like a little girl that had like a spirit of a boy inside of her, something like that yeah, that's how you describe me as a child.
Speaker 2:Has it changed? I think a lot of things have changed. I think for me, even though I had all these different things I wanted to do, I think I'm able to achieve them now in what I do because I'm able to like literally bring them all in one, and that's what medicine signifies to me. I think I'm still like that, in a bit of like. I still have that spirit of on each, I mean, that wants me to do more and make a difference, and I still have the spirit of actually constantly exploring. And I think one thing that that beats pre-university has done for me is that I have this spirit of wanting to always change people and like literally make an impact in everything I do, because that singular act changed the trajectory of my life Right, and I think that's really important. I think I'm still the same person Everyone says I've never, I haven't changed since I was a child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting how one incident, or one singular incident can actually impact you. It shows how deep that was embedded in your brain. That's interesting, really interesting.
Speaker 2:So you then decide to go to uni and study medicine because this has inspired you and, you know, take us through there so, um, I went into medicine, obviously, but for my father it was like a welcoming thing because he was like, oh, he's a doctor, I come from a family of, like, medical people. My mom was a lawyer also, so I think for them it was different, because this is a girl that wanted to be a pilot, that wanted to be like a singer, what have you. And then I went on to University of Ibadan and I think University of Ibadan was really unique for me to go to for different reasons. Again, as I said to you, I love making impact. So I had left like the place I had never left home before I went to university. So it was like a really big step, like I never went to boarding school, like most people did, and so, going home, my mom drove me to uni and it was really a difficult time for me because I was leaving home for the first time, right, and even though I had other options which I didn't mention.
Speaker 2:So I went to Ivato Ibado only because I was a bit of a stubborn child, also because I did get admission to go to the States to go to pre-med and also I got admission to go to the UK to actually study medicine, right, but then what happened was to do, sorry, to do like my A-levels before medicine. But what happened was I wanted to go to the States and my father says no, no, I'm not going to let you go to the States. I wanted to go to the UK and I said no, I don't want to go to the UK. So when I've ended up in the UK and therefore we had a compromise, which was I went to Ibadan and I chose Ibadan because it was supposed to be the first university in nigeria and it was really well respected and, as I said to you, that was the first time I was leaving home, so I got driven to school.
Speaker 2:My mom was there with me, with my siblings, for a few days and then I started university and it was initially it was quite. I think I had two different issues. One was separating from the family system that I was used to, even though I had like a foster mother in Ibarra who was also looking after me. I was in her house for some time and then I went into like boarding. I went into like an Anglican boarding place to live in right, like a hostel, right. But then one thing that really helped me when I was in first year was I met amazing people who were able to give me that support. I had a like my godparent's son was also in Nigeria, I'm sorry in Ibada at that time, so that also gave me a cushion. I had a cousin in the university. My mom made like connections to make sure I got protection and then obviously I could still go home to the east every time because someone came to get me, to take me home. So I think that's how I went to Ibada.
Speaker 2:Then I did preschool, pre-medical school, for the first three years, like you do then went on to university of ibada and I and so university, college, hospital in ibada, right, which is the medical school you go to, which is somewhere else, and inside ibada, and I think that was really good because I got to meet other cultures, I got to like literally interact with a lot of people, right, and it changed me, changed me and I think at that place, as a first year student in the university, I all of a sudden built a community of women who continue to support me to date.
Speaker 2:My best friend I met her in Ibadan in my first year. My second best friend I met her in Ibadan in my first year and I'll say to you today they're still my best friends. We talk every single day, we still do the same thing. So we then built a small group of women who have been able to support each other and I think, like I would never exchange anything to have gone to university of ibadan because it shaped my life, really shaped my life. It taught me how to like, appreciate other cultures. It taught me how to deal with other people's differences. I think that's really important for most people growing up in a place like Nigeria.
Speaker 1:Actually, you answered the question I was going to ask you in terms of how it changed your life, and I think that's so powerful in terms of being able to live diversely, understand other people, understand what makes people different and embrace the beauty in that. That's really good. Beauty in that, that's that's really good. So, um chichi, how did you find studying medicine? Were there challenges the way that? Was there time when you you kind of asked, you know, questioned what you were doing, but also when it came to specializing, why orthopedics?
Speaker 2:okay, so I'm going to start with one. How did I find medicine medical school school? In medical school it was challenging. That was really true because I was this like high-flying student and I come to this place where I knew nobody, like sort of I was starting again and initially the long like the long lectures, the having to read till really late you had to really really be like principled to be able to do those things Right. But then I'll say something that really helped me was I had a good support system and I think without a support system, a lot of things that we achieve we'll never be able to do it Right. So I had a team of people that were constantly like we're either studying together, we're discussing, we're going out to study.
Speaker 2:But I think for me also, I had this noise in my ear or a voice that followed me through our medical school. My mother would say to me do you know whose child? You are, right? So I knew I had to succeed. I don't know it wasn't an option for me that I couldn't come home and say, oh, I decided to go patting. Therefore, I forgot to do an assignment because it was impossible and because my mom especially, and also my father had provided things to make me comfortable, right.
Speaker 2:I was naturally expected to do well, like in my family. You don't come back and say, oh, I didn't do well because this happened. We weren't really brought up to bring excuses. We were brought up to realize that to give me a lot is given, a lot is expected, right. So I think for me that kept me tuned in. The other thing that also kept me tuned in is that by the end, by the end of first year I had I was born in the church of england, for example by the end of first year I had discovered something called opus day and I had started going to the center and I had a bit of reformation and therefore it kept me focused also about the fact that I was also working the path of faith right. And that meant that as a child of god I always like, quote the um, the parable of the um, of the, the parable of the talent, where God says I give you for different things and therefore what you make of that time was important. So for me I was like okay, they've given me like two shillings. What do I do with two shillings? Right? And again I always say the spirit of Onitsha lives in me.
Speaker 2:A lot of people know about evil people, that they give us nothing and you make something out of it. So I think for me, medical school was all about I had to study, I had to pass, I had to not let my parents down, more especially, and I just had to succeed. And my mom had, like, given so much for me to get to where I was and I had to make sure I came home making her proud, and I'm going to share a moment with you. I remember leaving medical school my youngest sister sister I'm three years older than her and she said to me you're going to medical school now, please do not change. And I can never forget this, right, because the first time I was a young girl, I went to school like really young, and she said don't change, I want you to come back as the same sister that left this house, the same person. You are thinking about us, right, and I get emotional when I talk about it. Actually, I feel emotional.
Speaker 2:And then what then happened was I remember um, um coming back the first time and then happened was I remember coming back the first time and this is very funny I remember coming back the first time and they'll send the driver to get me from then and I had stopped on my way to from Ibano to back to Onitsha and I had bought my mom my mom likes like a lot of stuff that used to decorate the house I bought her some vases that were made with clay right, but handmade vases that were made with clay right, but handmade in embado, and I bought a couple of them and, as I was walking in and the car stopped to open the gates.
Speaker 2:I came out of the car and carried the vase so I could greet her with that massive vase right and like a massive, like flower vase right. And then what?
Speaker 2:I then did, as my sister ran to me to see me and I startled and dropped it and he fell right and I didn't feel bad. He had fallen even though I had traveled like more than six hours with this because I had another option for them. And she said to me you haven't changed because I didn't shout about it. We just laughed and we accepted it had happened right, and I think that's really important. That really was important to me. So those were things that helped me get to where I was. And then you asked me a question about orthopedics. To be honest with you, I went into medicine to do cardiothoracic surgery. That's what I went in to do because I decided, if I was going to do medicine, I needed to do something that was supposed to be wow and impactful. I don't know how to explain like.
Speaker 1:I wanted that wow factor right, and then I had just read about healing hands.
Speaker 2:That's um Ben Carson, and he was a cardiothoracic surgeon and I was really intrigued about him and that's what I really wanted to do, and I felt like the heart controls the body and therefore I wanted to be able to do that. You know, like if you're going to do medicine, you have to do the one that he said controls everything you know something like that.
Speaker 1:So I said I'm going to do that haven't heard about me.
Speaker 2:You're going to see me. And then I remember 40 in medical school, right, we had just had a clinical practice and I had gone to see this consultant and I was walking away they had like a thing. He called me back and said listen, there's been a mass casualty in accident and emergency. There's two buses collided, 40 something victims. You're gonna come? I had never done clinical medicine, so he dragged me to a and we're jumping over bodies, right, and we're doing different things, setting a line. And let's have set a line in that circumstance. They just teach you one, see, you do one, and they let you do, which is what medicine is all about, right. And then I said, and the thrill of it was amazing, I'm not joking, it was like trauma everywhere. Right, we're saving people. Obviously we lost some people.
Speaker 2:And then I I walked, and then after that I walked into the next day to go see some of them had broken bones. We had to put like x fixes on them, like things to like split their, their wound, and it was fascinating. So I went and saying, okay, this is actually another option I hadn't thought about, right, and I think what really also was important for me for it was that there weren't a lot of girls doing this right. And I keep saying why shouldn't girls be able to do it right? Because I was brought up and told everyone is created equal in the eyes of god, so there's nothing about difference. But then what I saw that day of that accident was the fact that things were changing rapidly right. It was like I was fixing the hand the next minute, I'm fixing the leg, the next minute I'm fixing the um. The next minute I'm fixing the um, the, the pelvis yeah, the next minute I'm fixing the pelvis, the next minute I'm doing something else. And then I thought this is a specialty that is very dynamic, right, and at that time it gave me some curiosity, but I hadn't decided I was going to do it.
Speaker 2:Then, by the time I moved to the UK because from medical school I came straight to the UK my story is also different from every other person's story. I went straight from medical school to my first job being in the UK. I then decided, yes, I'm going to do surgery, but what would I do? So I said, okay, I'm going to test that. I had never worked in orthopedics. I'm going to test out orthopedics. I'm going to test out cardiothoracic surgery and I'm going to decide what I want to do, but what I know I wanted to do was to rebuild things because I love to play with lego, so I just wanted to play and that and that was it and that was my story.
Speaker 2:And then, obviously, I did cardiothoracics for six months. I loved thoracic surgery because it was very big, you open it up. But cardiac surgery is long, you have to put the hat somewhere and I was like man, this is not for me, right. So that's why I ended up with orthopedics. So orthopedics is very dynamic. It changes, changes. You're either fixing something, so you're either there's a broken bone, they're in pain, you fix it. Or somebody's spine is turned funny because they've lost confidence you straighten them. Or they're in pain, so their legs are hurting and give them a knee replacement surgery and they have a new lease of life. They're back the next day, standing, going to their parties, doing things that they want to do, and that's what I wanted to do have toys, and then when I don't know, when you walk into an or with orthopedics, there's so many toys to play with.
Speaker 2:I'm a toy person. If I sit here at this age I still own like dolls. You're gonna laugh. It's not because I just love playing with things, because that's what creates me. I like to tell stories because that's life. Life is so exciting about. You know, you want to play, you want to be happy, and I think that's what orthopedics represents to me. It represents a specialty that makes global impact, that changes someone's life in so many different ways, and I think every part of medicine is interesting. But for me, orthopedics is like I'm playing every day. I'm playing with toys, I'm doing something different right, and I'm recreating things or rebuilding, and I think that's really important. Honestly, I can talk about this all day.
Speaker 1:I'm worrying, so I'm going to stop now I can see that, I can see, I love it.
Speaker 2:You can see the passion coming through which is so good and I think it's amazing because it's it's helped shape every part of my life. Everything I've done relates to the same thing I'm doing to rebuild, to make a difference. They're all the same. Chichi, do you have a daughter? I, I don't know. It's amazing. No kids, no husband. I've got this amazing like I've got, um, I've got three nieces and two nephews and I'm really close to them and I also have more nephews and nieces. I'm very close. Do you know what I?
Speaker 1:asked is when you said that you were playing with dolls, that you still love playing with dolls, and I was thinking cause usually sometimes an adult that still plays with dolls.
Speaker 2:and I was thinking because usually sometimes an adult that still plays with dolls maybe has daughters no, but that's with my niece, but with my nieces and I play with them a lot with dolls, okay do you know why?
Speaker 1:because I love playing with dolls and I have, in fact, my friend's daughter and daughters bought me a doll for my birthday. Oh my god. So it's so funny. I have it here and I keep looking at it.
Speaker 2:I said, okay, I need to go and buy a stroller for it, I need to buy this for it, so I can so I like, so for me it's so weird, like so, um, during the pandemic, my sister and her kids were with me, so I had this really nice dolls. My sister's kids like literally changed the shape, ripped off the hair, you know, like they literally played this and my poor dog got destroyed. These are babies I've had for like I don't know for like 20 years or something right. But listen, like, for me it's like is that love in sharing, is that love in the laughter and the play and the things? And I'm like, and they're like auntie, why do you still have this?
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, because I like them, you know, and it's like I still keep them because they just are things that I love toys, which makes sense and it's interesting because, looking through your journey, you know, when you mentioned what you actually wanted to do be a pilot pilot, be a musician, be an actress, automobile engineer In a way, all that has come into what you're doing. Now you kind of get a piece of each of those in medicine generally, yeah, absolutely. And there's something that I've noticed that's come through from what you you know when you were talking, and it's belief. It's almost like believing in what you can do, believing in yourself, believing in God, believing, you know, belief seems to come through.
Speaker 1:You did mention your mom at a point in terms of what she reminded you when you were at uni. Can you just touch briefly on how you know your upbringing? That upbringing actually shapes, or shapes what you do and the belief you have, because one of the things that comes across a lot life there's always challenges, but there's something you talk about in how you navigate through challenges and it's you mentioned support system. You've mentioned belief seems to come through, your belief in god as well, and I also want to see how that thread comes through from mom to you know, and you mentioned opus when you discovered that. You know what does that mean as well?
Speaker 2:okay, good to just okay, yeah so I'm going to start with my mom, right? So I say to everyone my mom like. So when people say to me who is a woman, I say my, the woman, for me, a woman, is my mother. That's what she represents for me and she represents a mother, a father, a friend, like a sister for me, because she's actually the reason why I always say to people I am because of her, if that makes sense, not just genetically, because obviously she, she, um, she, um. She bettered me and she had me in her tummy for nine months and then gave birth to me. She's built everything I've become today, right, and my mom wasn't when I, when I say this about her, people think, oh my god, she was, like she must have like pampered you.
Speaker 2:My mother was tough on me as a child, right, because this was a child she had waited for for some time and the child came and she didn't like hug me every day and pat me and say, oh my god, you're the best thing that happened to me. Never, I'm telling you, never, none of that ever happened. Like, literally, what she did was actually teach me that you have to have a solid foundation to be able to actually get to anywhere you can, and my mom will say to you anywhere I leave you, you should be, survive there. So she was, and I'll describe her as she was a disciplinarian, but she was also my friend. So the same way she will discipline me, she will hug me when I did well, she will turn me off when I didn't do well. And unfortunately, my mom passed away seven years ago, this year, and it was and I, and for me, her voice follows me everywhere and I'll give you an example. And for me, her voice follows me everywhere and I'll give you an example. She'll say to me, I'll give an example.
Speaker 2:One time, when I was a junior doctor, I went to work this day and I was really stressed because I had to take the bus. I wanted to be on. It was really chilling, cold, and I called on the phone. I was going. I said, mommy, I'm so stressed. You know I feel a bit depressed and I used that word. She literally didn't say to me oh, my God, spoil you. She said to me my friend, people survive.
Speaker 2:Biafra. That's like everything that's happening. Pull up your trousers and get going. You can't even have those words and I think that's really important and I think for me every single day. She told me whose daughter are you? And I think that's really important, because when I step out of my house, that leads me to everywhere I go.
Speaker 2:I always say I want to show who like, I want to show the best version of myself. And I still want to be authentic, but still show the best version of myself. And I think, also, when you talked about it, I'm a dreamer. Right, and luckily for me, I grew up in a home where dreams were allowed. Right, because you have a right to dream. It's free of charge.
Speaker 2:Right, but my will say to you, you can dream as much as you want because it's free, but for your dream to become reality, you need to put in the work in it. Right, and you need to put in the work in terms of the physical work that you do and, obviously, the prayers that comes with that work. Right, because, as you said, like we're faith-based people. Therefore, we know that the power of God is great. But the power of God is great. But the power of God doesn't happen because you sit down and pray. The power of God happens because it gives you a talent to go out there and you find a right foundation and you cultivate it and then you make it happen, right, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and I think again, when you talk about faith for me, right, faith for me is also like I talked about Opus Dei and Opus De within the Catholic church, where most of the attendance is about being the best version of yourself and actually giving the best of you, because God has actually blessed you with the talent and the skills to do more than you're doing at the moment.
Speaker 2:We don't actually understand the power that lies within us, and I discovered Opus Dei and it helped my formation right In terms of it taught me that, listen, I'm in school to study. I'm in school to make friends that will make a difference in life, but I have to surround myself also with only people who will want lift me up, who want to be lifted as I grow, but, more important, who wants to make a positive change. Because the truth is that you're going to meet people that just don't want to do anything positive with their lives. You're going to meet people that will pull you down and say, oh my god, they've never done it. So I. So I always say to people me, my speech is very simple. If you're someone that likes to say I can't, I can't, I can't, I just say kick off the tea and just so I can do everything I can because you've got the power, even if you're saying, oh, let me be biblical about it.
Speaker 2:God has said it's made you in his image, right? So why can be able to achieve so much? And also, if you ain't been biblical about it, why is it impossible for you to do when somebody else has done it? I make jokes like this. And I say I make jokes like this and I say, listen. Some people say to me why are you awake, why are you not sleeping?
Speaker 1:I say well, wow if they don't go to sleep.
Speaker 2:I'll go to sleep Because he has hands, same nose, everything. So if they can achieve and obviously he's about representing financial achievement, right, but there's also people that represent power, like example. I look at a lot of people's lives. One of my biggest mentors is Richard Branson and everybody laughs when I say Richard Branson, because I said Richard Branson was told when he was young that he was dyslexic. He will end up either in jail when he left high school or he'll end up being a millionaire. He didn't end up in jail. He's taking the second option, right, and if you read about him, he'll tell you I've done 800 companies.
Speaker 2:Majority of them haven't worked but have kept dreaming. And I think that's the problem people don't understand is that we're too scared about taking risks, right? Oh, I don't want to do this in case it doesn't work. I don't want to go to this interview because they might say no to me. I don't want to do this um, apply for this job, because they'll say no. And I always say to people, right, maureen, is that before I decide to apply for a job, I have no job. For example, right when I apply and they say no, I still don't have the job. So nothing has changed exactly. If I get that job, then that's something great. But what I haven't? But if I decide, oh my god, I don't have a job, let me not even try to do for the job. The job is not going to come to you, right?
Speaker 2:Therefore, I also said, like I think when I was in primary school, year two or year three in primary school, I read this book in comprehensive. No, not secondary school, sorry. Second or third year in secondary school, I read this book called comprehensive in. We used to read this book in nigeria called comprehensive english right, and there's a poem in that book that really really also has helped me and it's one of my guiding lights. Apart from obvious, my mom has been phenomenal, to be honest that's how I describe her is.
Speaker 2:The man was writing a poem to his son and he said to his son if you treat success and failure as two imposters, right, the world and everything else that is in it will be beneath your feet and you will succeed. And that's really true. Can you repeat that again? So if you treat failure and success as the same imposters, right, the world and everything else in it will be beneath your feet. And I'm going to explain this better by saying if you fail and you're running a race and you've come last. If you stand on that spot crying because you failed, the people that are starting the next race will come and get past you and therefore you'd have failed two races. True, if you win the race and you're celebrating and you're celebrating so much that you stand on the finish line celebrating the people- that came last will come and run past you and they will still be there, and I think that's really guided me.
Speaker 2:I have failed so many times, right, and I always hear my mother voice saying you've got to pick up your trousers and keep going. She always says that Pull up your trousers, girl, and keep going, and I think that's really important and for me, these things are the things I stand on. I think I wrote something recently about the eight pillars right of my life, and it's really funny we're having this conversation and I sat down and I thought about and I said life is difficult, but I have this eight pillars that really guides me. One of them is that my love for Jesus means that I know that my situation will get better, right, because I have faith. And I also have faith knowing that he knew me by name before I was born and I know that he said onto my head that I will be, I'll be successful. Success doesn't really mean financial, successful in terms of impact, because Cause I think in life, if you're not impacting people, then you're wasting your time, if that makes sense, right.
Speaker 2:Cause everything in life is about service to people and that is global impact, right, and I also know that God will make it possible for me and that's one. Then the next thing I really stand on is compassion, because kindness is important and I think for me it's really important because I had people that were compassionate to me and therefore I'm able to give compassion and that's why my career comes, because medicine is a compassionate career, right. And then the other things I think about is determination, empowerment and actually being able to like okay, it's not working, let's keep going. Let's keep going, let's try, rather than saying I'm not going to try, right. And an empowerment is in terms of I have to make impact on other people, either through my work or through my life, or through what I say to people.
Speaker 2:And, to be honest with you, anyone that sees me knows I'm extremely confident, yeah, and I think that people, when I tell people that I never used to be confident when I was 12 years old, they don't believe me, right, but I used to be scared of speaking. People still say it's not true, it's not possible. You always know that's not true, because there are times and when I even say to people now that before I even have like an if. I said to you mind that, two minutes, if I had this in there, I'm like I need to make sure it goes well. I don't really want it not to go well. What if I don't say the right thing? What if I say the right thing, which means I've built that, even though I still have self-doubts, I still will take that step in confidence, because what's?
Speaker 2:the worst that can happen right, I do it wrong, exactly.
Speaker 1:I go back and I will do it properly.
Speaker 2:And I think the other thing that really helps me is leadership, about being able to lead people or even lead just myself. To the next point, and again I think I stand on like excellence. I want everything I do to be very perfect and I think the best word that I have for my pillars is resilience. Right, because it's okay to fail, it's okay not to get it right, it's okay for me to mess it up and introduce myself like like satisfy and say, oh, my god, I'm not really sure what maureen is asking me. Why don't you rephrase this?
Speaker 2:But the resilience to keep going is so important and I think that's what I want people to take out and say it sounds as if when you read about me, it sounds like, oh, she's done so many great things. But there's also times when it hasn't worked right. But I think what's helped me is knowing that the next time I can try again. The next time it's going to work. And even if it doesn't work the next time, then there must be another trajectory, because I stand on a faith that it's going to be okay, right.
Speaker 1:And it's okay to retry again, but it's not okay not to take that risk. I think that's what I'm trying to get across. That's fantastic, and I'm so pleased you shared these, your eight pillars, because I saw it, I saw your post, actually, and I think it's on that post I said Chichi, we've got to do this podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It was that post, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put a link to your Facebook as well in the description so that people can read that post. It was amazing because you went into a bit more detail about the eight pillars. Just makes sense. And that last one of resilience, or even the confidence one that you mentioned, we still get nerves, you'll still be fearful, but it's doing it with fear, it's still doing it, it's still moving ahead. And that question of what have I got to lose? You know, and even if it fails, you pick yourself. I love what your mom says Just pull up your trousers and keep moving.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, she says that like a million times. She says that like a million times. And she says something that is so funny. She always says to me you have to be cool, calm and collected right, wow.
Speaker 2:Cool, calm and collected right, and it's like, like I remember the words, like I'm saying to you, like I say to you my mom's like my guiding angel, so like funny, like it's seven years, it's been a hard time, this seven years, single day. Sometimes I hear the voice that says to me what will your mother do, right? What will she say to you? And a lot of people think, oh, did she like? And it wasn't a pampering thing, it was the fact that she was strict so that I could be a better person right and she did those things for a reason for me yeah, chi Chi, uh, you know, the more I speak to you, the more you know.
Speaker 1:I just feel God is just so amazing because you're talking about your mom and it's listening to you. It's like you're talking about my mom and it just shows the power of of women, of mothers, and your mom passed away seven years ago. My mom passed away 17 years ago this year, oh, wow.
Speaker 2:God, I'm having goosebumps now. I'm so sorry, like, but they're always looking after us. You know that, do you know?
Speaker 1:that. Yeah, there's a post I'm going to put out on 1st of April, because that's when she died and in it I was talking. You know, I'm talking about how, even though it's 17 years ago, I still hear her voice, I still hear her guiding me, even when I'm feeling low. I still hear her say get up, you can do this. It's amazing, even though they've gone for so long, that impact is still there and that's why it's so powerful in terms of whatever we do, to keep serving, keep doing, because that's the legacy you leave that helps people after, or even helps people that hear what you're, you know what you're saying. It's so, so, so, so impactful, chichi. I'm going to just jump a bit into the charity or the. I know is it is it pronounced a normal, a normal health a normal foundation, a normal foundation.
Speaker 2:So basically, and I'm going to say something to you Anomo Foundation is actually my mother's name is Anomo, so her name is Anne Okuchukumenakaya Orakwe. That's her name and it's mixed up because Anne is my mother's first name. Her second name is Okuchukumenakaya, which is the voice of God and her maiden name is Orakwe, but obviously her married name is Menakaya, which is my name and we've just put it together. I didn't find that name. My brother actually coined that name when we were kids right.
Speaker 1:And he always said oh, he's going to wake up.
Speaker 2:Like my brother actually coined that name, I said I'm going to get a company and I'm going to call it that. So the foundation wasn't started as a normal foundation. As you know, we started this foundation as Okwui Maskim and Okwui Maskim is also my mother's name, because Okwui Chukwu is my mother's name and that was the voice of God. And the reason why we started Okwui Maskim in 2016,. We started was because we wanted to. A lot of people go around wearing masks and they don't tell people what's really going on. And I'm going to take you back to Ibadan because I said to you, I built a team of women when I was in the University of Ibada. So when we were in Ibada in our first year, we realized that a lot of girls were in bad relationships, and I'm going to do that and I'm going to circle back to the originality of the whole thing, why we started talking about so we noticed that a lot of girls were in bad relationships with boys. I was in a relationship from when I was 15 years old and my relationship wasn't the best either, but I'm still gonna say like I had a bit of autonomy, I had a bit of authority in that relationship, right. But then a lot of girls will come to my room and be like cry about, so my boyfriend's done. So we time we just started trying to support people. It wasn't formal, we just will support people because they're having one problem or the other. My friends used to laugh and call me mommy I and I your means joy, right. And my best friend Carol. My best friend Carol, will say to me oh, mommy, you started again, right, trying to help everybody. And so it was an informal thing that we did as girls, like we'll support each other, our relationships forth. And then when I moved to the UK after medical school, I again would come to work and I would like to know the name of the cleaner, I like to know the name of the nurse, because I think everybody's relevant for me and that's who I am. I'm like I love people, right.
Speaker 2:And then one day, while I was, I had started my surgical training and and higher specialist training and we were in a hospital. In one particular hospital there was this girl that worked with me that every time she came into my room she was the health care assistant. She'll panic, right, and she'll be fidgety. And one of the nurses said she talked to him because for some reason, I didn't see this in myself. Even though people tease me, mommy, I have people who gravitate to calling me for their problems. I've never been married, but people call me for their marriage problems. Right, and I'll say to my, to my mother.
Speaker 2:My mother is always like what are these people listening to you that you're always talking about? Right, like you're constantly on the phone talking to one person or the other. And when I spoke to her, she said to me listen, chichi, after you spoke to me, we started noticing changes and she said why haven't you actually done this in terms of from the proper group where you're actually supporting people? So I went back to my mom and said listen, I really want to do this.
Speaker 2:But my passion is domestic violence and I'll say the first time I ever heard about anything domestic violence was when I was about 10 years old, when um, a friend of ours, um lost, lost um, their mother, because apparently it then came to light that their father had been beating their mom and on this particular day he pushed her and hit her head and died. And that changed everything, because the man himself committed suicide a few months later because they were going to arrest him for killing this person, and then, years later, our friend died also all related to that problem of that foundation and, as I said, to you, my mom was a lawyer and a magistrate and she used to support a lot of women that had gone through this.
Speaker 2:And I must tell you this my parents got separated when I was 12 years old, right, and for me, when I started understanding domestic violence, I could not understand how my parents could have separated and me keep like, literally split up, and there was no domestic violence, there was no physical abuse, and they were still able to co-parent, right, yeah, to an extent, right, and therefore I've got both parents. I'm close to both parents, even though I live with my mom, right, and I couldn't understand why, if we could be able to do this, obviously, I'm sure there must have been other type of things that were maybe emotional or whatever, right, but what I? And at that point, I only saw domestic violence as just a physical problem, right? So when we started this association in 2016, started this association in 2016, we started it then, right, and I'm going to say something that's very funny we then decided we're going to launch the charity.
Speaker 2:So our first event was about february 2016, where we had something called our mom, mary t, and we got people that were survivors of domestic violence and normal people to come in and listen to speeches, and we had nlp trainers, motivational speakers, and we talked about the work we wanted to, because what we wanted to do was not support you. What we wanted to do was help you rebuild to get better. Because I told you, my thing about my life is about rebuilding right, and what I wanted to say was that oh wow, you're not a victim, you're a survivor. Therefore, how do we rebuild in such a way that that person that abused you will see him two years and say, oh my God, this person's become phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? And that is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:So we had our first event in February and then subsequently, we had a launch event, which was supposed to be the 10th of September 2016. And I'm going to tell you something that is really shocking the 10th of September 2016, my mom was obviously a charity with my mom. Like cause, my mother's name is Opie and the charity is my mother's name, right? So we had this launch event in Mayfair on the 10th of September 2016. And Maureen would not believe me. My mom would ask me every day when are we even launching this charity again? I said, mommy, saturday, thanks, okay. Exactly six days before the launch and this is very critical, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly six days before the lunch, at 12 30 in the afternoon, I had come back from church, I went to my mother's room and I said, mommy, I'm gonna go buy the champagne for the lunch, right, because they said we could bring our own champagne, because obviously we had little funds on the day. We were lunching and I went out at one o'clock. I had a conversation with my mom. At 3 30, I came home, my mom wasn't at home and I called her phone. She didn't pick, which was normal, right? And then she calls me back and she wasn't the one on the phone. It was somebody else on the phone and my mother had collapsed. Wow, I got to the place where my mother had collapsed before she got, before the ambulance got there in london, I held my mother when I was unconscious right six days to the launch of the charity, and we ended up in hospital and my mother died on the day the charity was launched.
Speaker 2:What, I'm not joking wow so and I will tell you. The moment my mother died I was talking about us and a few minutes before then I had to. Obviously we had the event all planned. I had to leave my mother's bedside and go to give a speech and I said to her mommy, please, I need you to hold on for me. By the time I was finishing the speech and I dropped the speech, there was a car there to take me because my mother had passed away, right and it was, and I could remember like it's so weird about you know, when I talk about faith being the thing you stand on and for a long time I was like I didn't want to go to this speech. But she asked me so many times in that week. She was hell and hearty. There was nothing wrong with her. She had exercised that morning. There was nothing wrong with her on the day, exactly six days, right, and exactly at nine o'clockclock. My speech finished at 9 0, 5 or whatever.
Speaker 2:My mother died around 9 00 am that night, right, and I think it's really phenomenal, because this was some legacy she had given me about protecting women. That's what she's done all her life helping to support women that had been through violence with her law, helping. She adopted so many children for so many people, and it was difficult for me because I was I was like conflicted on whether should I go, should I not go, and she was, okay, this is what I mean. Like, what do I do? Right, yeah, should I go to this event? And everyone, and I knew in my heart like, obviously that time I didn't know, I was feeling so angry with myself for actually leaving that bedside and going there. But my brother was there and then obviously, I ran back to the hospital. She was still there and that was that was her lifeless body, right, and we then went on to do the job just for domestic violence. So we're supporting women in refugees across the uk.
Speaker 2:Then we started supporting men over the years also, and what we did was, as I said to you, our main ethos is to help you rebuild. So when people came into a refuge, we'll give them this really nice pack that has a love sign on top of it. They're called Kickstarts by Okwui. They've got all the toiletries they need, but they have a card from us, right, they have a postcard that says a lovely message to that person. You stick it on the wall and it has all the guides that helps you to rebuild. And then we went on.
Speaker 2:In Nigeria we started something called First Day Woman, because my mom was all about fostering somebody for somebody else. And then what we will do is start businesses for women. We started a poetry, we've done a lot of fashion houses, we've done a lot of things, and then we started saying, listen, my mom is grounded on designs and I have designed clothes since I was 12. So we said we'll do designs now so we can raise money to help people. So we started drawing designs to do fashionable things and therefore we're able to support more fashion houses, for most people have gone from staying in a kiosk to starting a shop. We've got women that had no houses and stood in their house and now they own flats, you know. And we've had people that have just had to do that. And we've also supported men. Also, we've had a guy that started out with like literally a small kiosk somewhere in Lekki. Now he has a chemist and he has a proper shop. We saw the better of his twin girls. We supported them as a family, right.
Speaker 2:And then obviously, the pandemic. Things changed. We couldn't really do the work that we did in the pandemic. So we did a lot of like um health retreats in the pandemic, where we're sending like n95 masks to hospitals to market women, to women in churches, so they could keep on in their business.
Speaker 2:Right and after the pandemic I think we sat down and we said listen, we can do more than just domestic violence. We've done things on health care. How do we do things? So we then integrated all our work together and said listen, animal health is the business that does support people in communities in nigeria, but it's a business business. So we brought it together and we said we'll start the foundation called animal foundation, which is added last year, we'll put okima scheme within it. And and we said we'll start the foundation called Animal Foundation, which started last year. We'll put OKIMA scheme within it and do empowerment schemes, but we'll do healthcare schemes.
Speaker 2:So part of our thing that we want to do with healthcare is actually health education more than anything else. Right, because people lack education, as you know, that right, and we want to give out a lot of free health education. So that's what we're trying to do with health. We also want to do affordable health care. We've got something on the on the map and that we're planning on for this year, which is to launch a big affordable health care for people that cannot afford health care, in nigeria especially, and then go out to the rest of the africa, and the whole idea is to give people health care for a nominal fee or even for free, if it's possible.
Speaker 2:Right, and then, and then we were also this year for our empowerment project. We started something called Vantage Point, which is basically about goal setting, supporting women again to rebuild and be the best versions of themselves. We had our first retreat in January. It was amazing, like within two weeks we planned this retreat and I said to you, everything we do is because of service. Somebody we knew was struggling. We wanted her to come to this retreat, but we couldn't get her in because she would feel like she was singled out, so we opened it up to other women.
Speaker 2:Yeah you guys come in so we can support one woman right and that's what it's all about and I'm really grateful like I don't do this on my own. I have a massive team of people. I have friends and the same friends I've had from ibadu and the same friends that we took the foundation together.
Speaker 1:I don't have to explain it right, because what they.
Speaker 2:They're passionate about women. They're passionate about giving, and we're not only doing stuff for women, we're also doing for men, because we have men domestic violence survivors that we're supporting. So we're doing a movement for men and we're also trying to, like, make sure we get people involved and actually try and get people young and train them up to become the best versions of themselves. That's the whole idea and I think that's why we have the foundation and that's what we're doing to get it to where we want it to be chichi, well done it's.
Speaker 1:It's what you do is so incredible. And so I'm listening to you and I'm just saying god is just. You know, the way god connects people and the way he leads us in part is incredible. And I must say that how you set up the charity, how, how your mom passed, that is something For you to even go and do. That speech just shows that it wasn't you, it was just God walking through you, giving you the strength. And you know what I found really interesting my mom, the day she passed, the day before I spoke to her. In fact, when my mom goes to bed early and I normally, you know, at about nine o'clock the night, the day before I felt go and call your mom and I said to myself but you know she would have slept and I just had call your mom. So I went, called her. She was in Lagos, I was in the UK, spoke to her, great conversation, she was fine and I said to her okay, I'll speak to you later, I'll call you tomorrow soon. 3am that night my mom passed away.
Speaker 2:She wasn't ill.
Speaker 1:I know she wasn't ill. It's interesting the way God works and you know the way people go so suddenly, but you still have the strength to keep carrying on.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I like what you said to me is like so sad, but what I can hear when you said it to me is that the fact that God gave you an opportunity to actually say goodbye, right, and I think that's so important Because I keep saying to myself if I didn't have those six days in hospital, I'd probably not be here.
Speaker 2:My mom was my killer, right. I wasn't prepared like this was like my worst nightmare. I woke up one day and I was a child, and then the next I was an adult, right, and then I was an adult without a guide almost right, I was an adult without someone to guide me, and that was very difficult for me and I know how you feel and I and like I thank god that you have the opportunity to speak to her. Does that make sense? Like for me, those six days in hospital. I needed it to be able to get you like, and I think we should be grateful that we've been blessed by mothers that are now angels. I know it's 17 years, it's seven years, but let's really, we were blessed to have these people with us.
Speaker 2:You know absolutely and honestly I'm so grateful you had that opportunity to speak to her honestly, because I don't know what you would have done, because it's almost impossible. It's like you wake up on the entire she's gone. You're like, how did this happen?
Speaker 1:exactly, exactly. But that's just the mercy of god, isn't it that you know? Even listening to you, the, the, in fact the god, you, I just see that God had a purpose, he had something he wanted to do through the charity. And if she hadn't gone, you probably wouldn't even have put in the amount of, um, energy or emotion or passion, or you just don't know how things would have panned out. But the fact that she kept asking Maureen, you're so right.
Speaker 2:Let me be honest, be honest with you, right, if I think God gave me the foundation and the things I do as a gift, because there is no way, if I didn't have them, I would have survived. I'm being honest with you because what I then did was I was in so much pain. I was in unimaginable pain, right, and because I had unimaginable pain, I wanted, wanted to do more, not just to make her legacy real, but also so that I'm able to impact on other people's lives, and I think that it's so important. So that's the foundation, the business, my career as a whole helped me get to the moment. And I still say to people I still feel the same way I feel the day my mom died. But what I feel now is, even though I'm sad, my sadness is not that sadness that drowns.
Speaker 2:The sadness I have now is the sadness that tells me okay, yes, girl, you're sad, right, but how do you make sure the next person isn't sad, right? And I think that's very important for me. I don't know whether you feel that way, but that's what's really important for me and I was really important for me and, I think, for everything that we do. It's helped me, like, kind of cope right. It's also helped me know that I have so much love to give. I have so much message to give. I learned so much from this woman who I describe as my woman of sense. I call my mom my like. I call her my mom, my angel, my womb baby, because I laugh, because she's always fashionable and so beautiful. And she tells me, because I never wear makeup and I and I'm like, listen, I have so much to teach. I have so much to share with the world. I have so much love in me to give because I received so much love, if that makes sense, and I think that's so important and I get emotional about it.
Speaker 1:We're so blessed. We're blessed by great women, absolutely, and it just shows how great women raise great women, doesn't it? Yeah, no, it's so cool, chicha. I could go on talking to you, but I think what I'm going to do I know we've come up to the end of this podcast, but we're going to have to continue our conversation because there's so much to still unpack in terms of you know where you are, what you do, and I just no, we can do that.
Speaker 2:That's okay If you want us to no problem.
Speaker 1:I think we should Thank you so much so I'm going to put all Chichi's details in the description below. So please look at, look her up, look at the foundation, and if there's anything that you can do to support the foundation, please do. I'll put all the details below. Chi Chi, honestly, I am just so inspired by what you're doing. Thank you so much. Your faith, your belief, your confidence, the work you do is just incredible, incredible. So keep going, keep soaring. And then one final word from you to our listeners anything you want to just give them as a word of wisdom, um, anything that comes to your mind, please do so, then we'll round it up, okay.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, maureen. Honestly, I cannot express my gratitude. I'm so happy we had this conversation and I'm really happy, like I just got to speak my heart Right. But I think, for everyone listening, what I'm going to say is that dreams are free. You have to dream right, you have to work on your dream and I think what you should also remember is that when this game is over, you want to be able to, like, look from your spirit world and look at your headstone and say to yourself, even though you're not physically there, I came here, I dreamt, I played my dream and I did it right.
Speaker 2:I think what you should never do is live in regrets. Things will go wrong, things might be difficult sometimes, but you need to pull up yourself and pull those trousers if you're a trouser wearer, like I am and just keep going. You know, and I really wish everyone the best, and the truth is that life is not always rosy, but it's not how many times you fall, but how quickly you can get up and keep rising. And I think that's what I need to say to people, and as one of my mentors is Michelle Obama, she'll say when they go low, we go higher. So just remember that right, when people try to pull you down, you're like not today, satan, I'm going to get it done, you know, I think that's really important. And so, whatever you are, even if you're not Christian, if you're not a believer, just remember that you have the power within you because you've you've been created to actually excel in whatever you do. So best of luck everyone. And obviously it's Good Friday, so it's a significant day. Let's do some good for everyone today.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, thank you so much Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a way to end. Dreams are free, you know, and it's. It's how quickly you get up, not how how many times you fall. I love that. I love that, chichi, thank you so very much. Good friday we'll keep doing good and please listen to that advice. Just do good. Do good and, as you know, as a woman, raise other women, do good for other people, raise people. There are people that really need our help. Just go out there and be a blessing. Chichi, thank you so very much.
Speaker 2:Thanks, so much, maureen. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Look forward to part two. Have a fantastic weekend and we'll catch up soon.
Speaker 2:Okay, my darling, have a good Friday. Okay, god bless you. Thank you, bless you, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on today's episode of Lead to Excel podcast. I hope our discussion has inspired you. Remember, achieving excellence is a marathon and every step counts towards your goals. If today's conversation sparked any thoughts or questions, feel free to share them with me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. You can also find this podcast on YouTube. Your feedback helps us grow and reach more listeners. Don't forget to subscribe to never miss an episode filled with expert insights and inspiration. Until next time, this is Maureen Chiana, reminding you to stay curious, stay driven and together let's remain limitless and change the world. Bye for now.