The my guest today glow at the time I stepped on a plane with a one way ticket and five hundred dollars years back. She knew she wanted a life that was different from the one that she was expected to live, one filled with adventure one that really broke the mould of how others had always told her life was supposed to be in what unfolded has been, life of not just adventure, but also profound exploration, growth, connection and impact a life of stories in over a period of years. So figured out how to build a powerful living around her quest as a creator entrepreneur and online educator, starting out as travel blogger venturing to over eighty countries across six continents and telling the stories of destiny?

around the world. She leaded features in forbes, Oprah, canniness essence: bbc collaborates with major brands and host the glow show podcast, but over time, her journey also has morphed into something bigger and deeper specially over the last four years, as she felt call to speak honestly and openly on issues of equity, race and community in a more intentional way. She's, the founder of the social educators, a cat we helping people leverage their social platforms to make a difference and make a living and, as we spoke low, shared, really powerful reflections on the travel centered life that she has been living on her experience, both in the u s and on the road as a black woman and how she is continuing to evolve her focus life and livelihood. new directions, as we all emerge back into a changed world

so excited to share this conversation with you, I'm jonathan field, and this is good life project the. we live in a world, it's more digital than ever, with nearly every want or need just a tap away. In so many of our favorite digital services seamlessly meet the physical world when their deliver to your front door. But until now that hasn't been true for crypto digital currencies have been tied up online, with no easy way to bring them into the real world Why were so excited to share that you can now cash in and out of, select digital wallets at participating, money, grand locations without a bank credit card or debit card flex. Your finances, using the only digital wallets with real cash access activated by money. Gram, learn more money, grandma com, slash, stellar, wallets.

So the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Happiness is still that you can it's a. Why not embrace it. It's hosted by dan harris journalists who had a panic attack on national television and then send out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help. Others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked you top scientists, meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and lightness, psychedelic and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from bernay brown to cerebral ass to SAM Harrison more. I love learning from his questions and experiences and incredible guess think of listening to ten percent happier as a work out for your mind, fine ten percent happier where every listen to pot casts The project is supported by the economist, so the world seems to be moving faster than ever. Climate economics politics, a eyeing,

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you and I sit here Jemmy in different parts of the country. You are literally on your way back out of the country you just came back into the country from grenada Yeah where you were for, I guess, is about a week or so the here's. My reality around this right. You have, for the better part, of your adult life been deeply. Did in the pursuit of travel in living, basically around the world. Almost perpetually. It's your devotion, a deep love of europe as for a chunk of time, a substantial part of the way that you sustained yourself in the world. and then the last sixteen months happens right and I curious for somebody like you where this is not just something that you happen to do on vacation, but it's so woven into the fibre of your being white? Was

this last window like for you unless a fairy reminder to fit the heck down and what I think quarantine and the height of the pandemic allowed for us high, achieving restless souls to do is sit with ourselves and say: ok, are we running toward something or running away from something? What is this need to constantly beyond the go stem from, and I had a very chaotic childhood- I'm the daughter of nigerian immigrant parents, one of six kids and so chaos became my norm. It's like if the house is too quiet. I might let me start a fight with one of my brothers and sisters and I think, with just being able to sit still like I'm thirty one now getting my first apartment, just the first living space at thirty years old I felt so behind. I was asking my

It's questions like okay, so when you pay rent is also utilities and water and like trash, because at air bnb you just pay one fee. So like hotels, you pay one fee and as a quitter, all these extra expenses. So I was like asking me is like very like basic questions, but again, what I do appreciate is that I was able to just sit still and reflect what am I building? Where do I want to go? Okay, I reached my dream to get paid to travel. The world is this: it do I sit comfortably at this. The top of this. and feel like I've made it, or do I climb back down and start something another one? Yes, it s so interesting. I because on from the outside, looking in the it be easy to assume that light out. This had to have been a devastating time for you like this had been a time at em for a lot of different reasons. I know it's there's been a lie, To deal with it in the context of travel What it sounds like is that

was also a time of just really rich fertility of just the and deep exploration I have okay light. Let me look back at what got me here and then take this time as a pause to figure out. Where am I going from here? I love that word of exploration because it was like that outward exploration was what I was doing, but that inward exploration was missing. and I was just constantly at the mercy of bees, brands and sponsors and tourism boards were I've just like constantly churning out content for them. There messaging their content, their market, their country. Just boom boom boom just spamming. My audience, like travel, is amazing, embedded in DA, but I was a glow way well

Have you healed leg, you're you're, talking about all the the beauty of the world? What's the beauty in you like? What do you love about yourself, like these naturally entrance at questions, that most people should ask themselves at some point in life? I think I was able to avoid that because I had such an adventurous outward life so again with just the stillness like, even something as basic as able to sleep in the same bed for like more than a week such a luxury jonathan I was like. Oh, I get like. Actually that, A mattress for this topic is like this is so cool. I get too like invests in something that I'm gonna go to bed in every night, so it really felt like I was on like this new kind of journey, which also fought like an adventure for me yeah and I mean the young to be able to do that. Incredible you mentioned your parents. Nigeria immigrants, six kids in the family.

it was not the happiest upbringing free asserts that travel was part. Coping mechanism. distraction, slash escape, but over the time and maybe even before this, What were the things that worse or receded in your early life. What were the the awakenings eve had? Were you said? Oh, Well, you know this is the staff that it actually revisit now process? Jonathan with the good questions wow? Well, I also group at a pastoral order. So again, as I still love Jesus and I still a guide in the church- and you know what christianity represents, but I think because it was shut down my throat and

I didn't have a say in how it got to let my life it's like. This is who you are what you believe in anything that you do to try to bring bell. You just get your, but what do you know? I grew up in a spanking households. I spanked a lot, but we would go to church three to four times on sundays and it was just it became this chore rather than something that, like I, actually got to participate in and that spilled in oak christianity spilled into education that spilled into what we were allowed to watch, and I remember watching the first peachy thirteen movie at seven years old like that, it was like there's restrictions like that the media puts out and then there's restrictions that nigerian culture also like implements act. No, no! You mean another. Four years before you can handle it peter their team is an even peachy. Movies is like those like. I think we started watching that maybe at sixteen like it was just so delayed

and so going to school. You know in your formative years as a teenager I just want to fit in. You want to be able to have the water cooler talk and know what everyone else's like referring to, but the music, the movies the tv show- I didn't have access to any of that. I always felt so behind and so awkward, because I couldn't relate to any of my peers but like education, that that was like a massive priority, which I do appreciate, because that is like instilled this discipline in me and I think, even to this day, I'm still able to value education and learning and growth so much because that was deeply embedded into my childhood. But I will say one of the first things that I revisited was just how I thought about the world. When you grow up in a very constructive culture, tells you what you think you could have just take that as bond you take. That is like ok. Will my parents know better than me: they're grown there at their adults. In my life I would just listen to whatever they say, but then you start growing older and getting cured

like we know actually, even though I'm a christian, let me explore what what buddhism stands for it. Let me explore what hindu ism is like it it just for the sake of having that awareness and that education, because I believe awareness and education breeds compassion, and I didn't want to be this person where I was like forcing goddamn people's throats, because I was holier than thou like no. I just I invite people into my perspective a what christianity is, because I have seen how god has moved in my life, and so that became the way I started to revisit everything in life. Everything became an invitation to deeper perspective as to why I believed what I believe, and I think if the world can have that approach as like. Let me make my belief in invitation to a new perspective, rather than you need to think this,

You need believed this way. You need to act. This way, because it's the right way and the travel taught me that there is no right or wrong, it's just different and we can all coexist in our differences yeah. I mean what a powerful lesson to learn and wonder also like when you start traveling you're sort of like you started back in two thousand and thirteen. Basically, five hundred one way ticket. I am out rightly surly tapping out of the mainstream choices and we need to go back I wondered light back, then it sounds like you're just saying I'm exiting light all this really traditional expectations to just go. Do this thing, but I wouldn't imagine, and tell me tell me, is right or not that that back and then you started to realize part of what I'm actually doing is, exploring so many different parts of the world of culture of geography of society, so that I can start to understand. There is something bigger than you. The police and the culture that have been raised in with them must have been sir Lucan emerging part of the experience. I would imagine absolute

it was an act of rebellion, but then it is also an act of freedom, and you know it's funny. They say during culture, you're a doctor, a lawyer or disappointment, and so I was in that third category, for you know most of my twenties and actually tell my mom, I was no longer a pre major until ten days before graduation. That's how deeply embedded the fear was that I was like. I am disappointing her this gonna like ruin are released like everything is going to be destroyed and I went to school. I went to a university in Kansas, so my mom legionnaires zone at the time, so I was like, after a graduate. technically I'll, be you know I'll need a place to live. I can't go back and live under the roof of someone who I just told like. I cannot be the person you need me to be so leaving the country was also like. Look, I'm gonna run away from all these expectations that you ve placed on my life because

I don't think I meant to be a doctor. I don't think I'm meant to be a lawyer either as good with words as I am, I believe, there's more to life than just having a career, that's financially stable. I was willing to chase this like sporadic crazy, almost lawless industry of influencer marketing, because it didn't even have a word back then, but I was willing to chase that because I was like I rather start from the bottom and build a path, build a bridge, build away and then leave a path behind me, because when you go where there is no path, it's like okay, at least you build one for the next people after you, and I've always been that kind of like self starter leader and even in my basketball team, that is always a team captain cause I love to mobilize and help and like bring things together, and sometimes you look at you look back on your childhood, like the things that made you

france, a kid is what like will making money as an adult and being able to be so observant because I never fit in. I was like dorky goofy, weird poor. I got all these reasons that no one wanted to be my friend, you know as a kid, and so it made me really observant. Ok, how do the rich people interact with each other, but they had of the jockey used in the chair leaders kay the the emigrant kids like one had their clicks even at the youngest elementary school, and I was able to just had that like bird's eye view of like okay, this is these are like the societal norms and the the things that people buy into at a very young age happens naturally and like how can I find a way to blend in with all communities, and so some days I would With the cheerleaders of her days with the chess club another day with the immigrants, you know- and it was almost like that adaptability that chameleon Nyc way of like surviving as a kid as a teenager is what allows me to be so open minded when I traveled, because I was like I was doing this before- I even knew what I was doing like I can be in jamaica

in japan, sri lanka, norway and still feel like. I belong because I found a way to observe first and then blend in later and yeah. I find that to kind of be a cool skill, yeah, so it's almost like the earlier version of different countries, for you were different clicks. oh that have been put in the pieces together, so coke bears it was effectively training for where you do, but here's my the curiosity around this you know, I know you also bounce around your family moved a whole bunch when you were younger so if my curiosity around that also end because of what you just shared is. Was this curiosity and serve lake nearly putting on the scientists had an deconstructing. The social dynamic of the different groups was that entirely when curiosity or was it, do you feel like some of it was also the manifestation of a the level of hyper vigilance that you tend to see with kids, you see military families yelling where they have to their constantly

dropping into new environments and they needed to them the skill of scanning the horizon, so they feel safe and they feel like how can I navigate this world? So I feel ok yeah reading the room that it's act of survival, yeah you're, right, yeah. I think during those times you you, don't you never really look at it like I'm doing this, because this has happened so often I need to be able to like get through the days and weeks in new cities but yeah. I look back on that and my guy at that was like a sense of survival because, as a teenager, really you put so much value into belonging and having your people, your click, your friends until when you don't have that sense of community or that tribe that you've built around people who are not just like minded but like hearted, you feel out of place. You know so yeah. I think for me that definitely a sense of like survival and then also just like. How can I get through my day? You know with without feeling like isolated, the entire time then other makes a lot of sense to me.

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It in that genre and I think it would be so cool if I get leary learn from him, which is why I so excited you discover I actually could, and so can you on mass class, so with master glass, you can learn from them best in so many different fields to become your best anytime anywhere and at your place there are over a hundred and eighty classes, and not just writing, is literally everything from the signs of better sleep with matthew, walker, cooking with Thomas keller, that Thomas Keller, gardening, with wrong faintly to relational intelligence, with stare peril and just new classes added monthly, and now that David about archie classrooms, but I learned so much like how to find an idea using his writers, prism or had outline that idea and how he bills suspense, using red herrings and plot to ascend, cliff hangers and what he calls ticking clocks. It was like I got this incredible people.

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an amateur dismember. I'm really curious. How you navigate that? Also, because what first tell me what you make big xenophon I've heard people use that word in different contexts and entered to mean different things. Tell me what that means to you and then had it? How did you really show up for it? Yeah, you know, is a taxi driver in a random country who just made the an observation like you have each has p. Don't you your highly sensitive person and even in the brief moments that I was in his car he could tell, but which is picking up on senses and things and everything around me

I think as an empath either something from our childhood or something that we've experienced makes us feel like. We need to feel for other people not just observe what they're going through but feel with them, and I think it could be a blessing and a curse. The reason I'm able to communicate well, I have a communications degree, but the reason I'm able to communicate so well with people and you know- share such in depth stories on instagram that gets thousands to tens of thousands of shares is because I'm able to put into words what a lot of people are thinking and feeling, but aren't able to really say and when you're an empath again, you probably have been very observant as a kid. You probably have been

in situations where you saw someone get deeply hurt and you you had to sit in that hurt with them and yeah. I think, because I've also just been through so much trauma in my life. I can see when someone elses is in a traumatized position and I I rather than just sympathize like oh that sucks so sorry for that. It's like I'm sitting there in the depths with them like. Oh no, I know what this feels like. Let me shoulder some of this pain for you and again blessing and a curse, because it's like it makes you have thicker boundaries, because I do you know there. There was a time where I shared and twenty nineteen had an ovarian, cyst ect me and it was basically a watermelon sized cyst that was growing on my ovaries, while

travelling and I kept ignoring it finally had emergency surgery and it was insane, but when I, when I finally show that story, so many women came pouring in my dams and email, saying saying: oh, my gosh! This is my story. I've been so embarrassed about it. I couldn't find information online, thank you for sharing, but they were pouring so much of their pain. Not there. I'm triumphs on me and I was a lie. I literally had this like vulnerability handled right, just felt so heavy, because I was now carrying the weight of all these people who this really traumatized surgery or going through the pain, and yet you have to really step away from that every now and then, but I see see it more as a blessing. I'm very thankful that I think I have a deeper level compassion because of that empathy that I can feel people and you look at it as a superpower. At the end of the day yeah I once heard em

answer mine whose a neuroscientist describe it in these first one. Whoever sorely made this distinction for me he described. Is it a distinction between what he called emotional empathy and cognitive empathy, and he said in others. There is the empathy where you can like natively. You can certainly be shocked and feel what other people are feeling and you feel some of it also and then there's emotional empathy were effectively. You feel what they are feeling is it near. The problem with that is, on the one hand, it's beautiful it's good, because you can rely on a profoundly deep level to almost anybody and their suffering in particular the problem with it is, if you feel theirs, for their pain on the same level that they feel it. You lose the capacity to be of service because you're you're you're just right there with them and so like it so important to figure out. How do I allow enough in too feels enough, so that I can be of service in whatever way, makes more sense, but now

hardly had that boundary so that you, or just not constantly in the wound. With them. That's powerful thing for sharing that I'm gonna Oh I'm going to I'm going to marinate on that tonight: cognitive vs, emotional, empathy, that's so powerful, because you're right losing that ability to be of service when you're just sitting in the the sulk with them hoof. Good, it's interesting, so I have to imagine also with you. You know because you ve spent so many years now dropping into situations, where you couldn't control the circumstances you couldn't the control who is coming at yale, you referencing on mine, a pure point, your dams, but you also put yourself in situations where you are now

in a safe container, you just dropped into a world where you knew you had to figure it out, that being an m path and are being highly empathic in those areas. Again was probably a bit of a mixed blessing. Absolutely absolutely, and I think, there's a quote by less brown gosh. It's it's gonna slip by me, but it has to do with like something about being willing to put up with the unknown challenges rather than the safety of existence, and I think that uncertainty and twenty robins also has. You know the six levels, six human needs and one of them being variety session certainty. That's probably in my top too there's something about me that crazy was an familiarity almost like a commitment to my uncommitted ways like I I can't commit to buying a house like I want to buy a home. I don't know where I want to live like I'm at a place

where it might go. It's time to you know. Maybe there's you know, investment property, but I want like to start buying my forever home because I you know, built up my savings and I'm like ready, but I'm like I don't know where I want to live and I'm afraid to start building my dream home in a place where I'm like changed my mind email, so you gotta do even with dating it's, not that I can't commit to to one person. But I get bored very fast because I have to feel like you're a different adventure every week. Like if we go through every conversation impossible and I feel like I can no longer learn from you, I'm going to get bored. I want everything to feel like an adventure and that's not sustainable or probably possible marino realistic. So I had to come to terms with that. You know my therapist and I were unpacking that, but I gathered there's so many interesting things that I've learned about myself again, stemming from just sitting still during the pandemic. Yeah I mean I mean I would imagine like the idea of serve constantly me, finding a sense

adventure externally on the one and amazing, because you know when the world is open. There are endless opportunities to do that, but he noted what an interesting sort of question to say. Well, is it possible for me to get that same feeling through more of an internal experience anywhere, I am for as long as I'm there with any anyone who I'm with for as long as word kneeling together in relation in some way, shape or form. That's got to be interesting exploration? I think that's the power of books, take me out of my world and into someone else's and even in my apartment, like I've decorated it beautifully, but I'm already like time to redecorate, because I'm poor

it's like a glow? It gives isn't a good use of your money like it's beautiful, you don't need anything different, but I'm just like I've seen it for too long like. I need to switch it up and you're right. It's like how can I make that adventure or that variety inward, rather than constantly changing the outward appearance or location of something yeah. I'm here I remember the cognitive scientific then hate saying he like one of the first books. I think it was his first book ashley's near a lesser born in leading voices in the world, the puzzle site, which I am sure you know already. He wrote a book called the happiness, hypothesis and affair. italy summed it up by saying happiness is in the end between its in the end between your relationship with you, with other people with location circumstances the world. But I wonder like if what, if we re imagine the in between you now as the in between our ears

whew I like that. I like that. I know you you do have to find that self love and that happiness enjoy of like yourself, your circumstances, your position, your career, what your building? Your purpose, your legacy, your mission, like all of that, has to come from within before ever trying to project that on a person or a place. You know, I think, back in twenty, no thirteen, twenty fourteen when the rise of slovenia travel blogger started like really take off. I remember that a lot of the hate mail that we received was like what are you all running away from like? What are you all in search of? Are you trying to find love, and what are you trying to find? It is like it that sensitive adventure, it that that we craved was just it was inherent, but I think until we find a way to create that adventure inside of our day to day or in the mundane, the monotony of a sunrise and a sunset that is

the thing where I'm like every single day. I have an alarm, I'm like nope sunsetting, who is gay, get a coffee or a tea. Maybe a glass of wine, and it's just like. I sit in that moment of gratitude of like what went well today. What could I have improved? What would it would put an I enjoy about today and those moments I spend my myself I might journal, and it's really so powerful when you're able to have those small routines, that you can really build for yourself, yeah I would imagine, especially when you're on the road, a bunch having some sort of ritual this portable or practice has gotta, be it's like you, ve got is moving foundation. That always goes where you go. Yes, absolutely looking for short and is one of them. I have like six journals from eighty six countries, so it's like

yeah, I just so many. It's so cool to look back. Sometimes I'm like no, I'm gonna wait. Ten years before I ever reread any of them, but it's really cool to look back five years ago, where I was what I was doing, what I was building, because for for many months I was actually living on ten dollars a day, eating bread and butter cause. That's all I could afford- and I didn't wanna give my mom the gratification that I was failing. You know when you're in the infancy stages of a new dream or a new goal, you don't know what you're doing you're you're building on the way up, you're building out the blueprint as you go, and so, when I didn't have money, when I couldn't feed myself, I like rather starve than call her and say hey. Can I borrow hundred bucks mom like I'm right now, I'm not in a good place

and right now you know, one of the sponsors is three months late on a payment. I don't know when my next gig is going to be signal I'll just I would take a nap actually. That was like my best way to overcome the stomach growls. I would be sleeping in my hostel and for those that don't know, hostels can be like rooms of like twenty different bunk beds, and you have people from like twenty different countries. It could be a really kind of like funny experience, just the the side conversations that can happen, but I would just like force myself to sleep all day, because I'm like I'm literally so hungry that hearing my stomach growl like if I could just avoid hearing that sound, because that sound reminded me how how much I was struggling, how poor it was so

no, but I would get backup I'd write, a blog post. I would pitch another company out pitch another brand. I would walk into different restaurants and just pitch myself on the spot. Like hey, you know I I know this is like I'd be in spain, for example, and I would just ask to see their menu and I would like a spot all their errors and I'm like hey, I'm I can like cause. I was a graphic designer to like. Let me redesign your menu like just fifty euros. Let me redesign your menu. Let me also correct all of yours I suppose you know the translation is bad, so I met a gun. You know I'm like I can do this for you and I was just like create opportunities as I go so yeah and that just like hungary, hustle, like my goodness teach that at any moment, when I like got down to my last dollar, I could have been like alright glow. Well, he gave it a fair shot time to just pack. It up call your mom ask her to book you a ticket home and go to grad school like she wants you to do, but

like nope give me another year again another month another day, if I could just afford the next day or the next week. That was enough reason to keep giving myself a shot. It's almost like failure, wasn't even an option for me like I would. I would go broke so many times, but it was like okay that didn't work. Ok, that didn't work, because what what what did I learn? What can I do better? It was just I was just so hungry and eager to figure it out that it was like. I was almost such a threat because it was like nothing could get me down. I was like ok been broke, been hungry, slept on a park bench when I couldn't afford a hostel like I've been at my lowest so many times, I'm like what it doesn't get lower than here. So all I can do is keep rebuilding keep trying keep working towards something different until you know I figured it out and then eventually the five figure jobs and the six figure gigs in the first class.

Tickets. All of that started playing out, and it's like you, look back and you're like well. What, if one day you just gave up, you know yeah, I mean that that is the question right, because so many people, I'm so fascinated by this journey of creation. You know and effectively you're creating a business here, your creating a livelihood. Yet you win doing something that has existed before you there's no certainty no guarantee. There's like new york out there world and there's there's nothing especially when you were doing it, there weren't a whole lot of other people where he could point to and say like this is. This is definitely possible, and here are the steps to make it happen. You're kind of building that bridge as go and there's you wake up. Every morning and unfair needed by by the process of convincing yourself that I Leave enough that this is possible, then go

spend another day doing it even on all those days where it feels like the universe is telling you you're dead wrong. I hate- and it's almost like, because building this brand as a reputable travel writer travel blogger. I mean I share it enough, where I was like transparent about what I was doing where I was going next, but you can't really dispose like guys I haven't eaten in a week, but still guy, like you, can't win your building, your brand, your your building, travel content, you're telling stories when people are following you there, therefore your story they they. You know at the end of the day. You're still living a very privileged life, and I was joke that, like you know, if I'm gonna be broke, I want a pinch, my pennies in paris, the quick.

Rather be looking over the river scene and eiffel tower and not have money there than you know somewhere in, like my home city, Greg grew up in hayward california, so it was a sense of like, even though I was struggling, I still felt very privileged because I felt like I didn't have the confinements of a boss that I hated or a nine to five that didn't fulfill me or a job or coworkers that I didn't agree with or alight. I still got to create my every day, MIKE okay, I'd wake up like What opportunities can I create they? Who can I pitch? What can I work towards? What can I do to just like bill with a little bit a momentum? The momentum is lucrative. Alot of people want those big winds right away, but if you just take that one step you get that one small when it leads to the next one so every day I would try to do just one small thing that built a little bit of momentum to give me a little bit of hope

it's enough to keep going yeah. I love that, and- and it's interesting also so you mentioned that you also have your background in design. Was that part of what you studied in school? Also, I mean said: communications was a design also. Yes, I was an interdisciplinary major of marketing communications and design early adopted? A social media back in two thousand, for is when I had my very first blood and that platform is called examined out, which is now defunct, but every single social media platform that came out almost twenty years ago. I was on the tumblr blogs by that just the oji platform. for my space and facebook. So I really like I got into that world of like learning coding, learning design and teaching myself photoshop so yeah. It's interesting even to this day my instagram handle still glow graphics, because glow graphic designs was my very first like for an aerial endeavour have actually been wondering about that answer. Yes, it can also interesting.

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fascinating. To me, too, is that there's the way that you approach travel is very much like a human centred design is a design thinking approach to it. It's like serve saying, ok, so this is a design problem right, Can I actually make this work? Can I build a life that is filled with adventure and experience and shared humanity and the way that you are describing figuring. This out is like this iterative design, thinking deconstructing what the real questions are. Let me lead with empathy. Let me prototype every day and try something new and gouty back until I figured out it's like. It's kind of a fascinating overly in the way that you have approached it, yeah I think I also started to understand that if my travels or my journey or my brand just became about showing off how luxurious are amazing. My life was there's no substance in that, nor is it there's no quality.

To that end, I knew that, like it, I was gonna maintain impact, and I wanted to encourage people to see the world or change their opinions about a different religion or a different the world that they didn't have any experience in other than what the new showed at the six o clock segment about the violence that happened there. You know, I really always wanted the approach to be like. How can I bring more humanity to the early in a way that was also relate, and that's sometimes bringing in humor and its talking on socio economic talkin about politics I also became like a little bit of a risk like when brands and agents that hire me like ok, you're, working with glow, be careful because feet she might be on its the hip, and I was willing to like even like turned away money, even when I was so building, but to say no to money. If the message jean was like, ok, you have to make sure you only talk about the positive that you're.

only promoting this that you don't show the poverty and I'm like wait, but if that's the country story- and it wasn't that I was going to highlight like look, how broke people are here was like no. If this is a part of this country's history, why not shed light on it to make people more informed, and I think one of the hardest countries that I had to cover was brazil because Brazil, a lot of people, think you know the? U s. You know slavery was the biggest in the us, but brazil. actually had the largest sleep port in the americas. So color ism is a huge issue there. Where, instead of just saying ok, slavery. Let's finish it lino in and that's you know, move on. It was like, let's send all the black people into the jungle, so they can die off and that eventually or we're going to force all the black people to reproduce with the white people so that you know we can eventually get rid of black skin tone altogether and that history showed up in, like me, being at my five star hotel, you know with a brand on the brands time and someone come

so a worker in the hotel yelling at me in portuguese, so that the language they speak in brazil you. Let me in portuguese like what would you do it like it is? You could tell that. Was it anger out of what they do What I do in the night before I checked another about eleven p m. So this is just my first morning in rio de Janeiro and I just bring out my room key like what's the issue and then she goes back to who goes back to their front desk. They realize I'm actually guessed. They thought I was a sex worker, soliciting other people, and I'm just like that idea that, like, if you have darker skin that you probably

are here for sex work, and I had to literally learn portuguese phrases. Elena follow Portugal, Elinor follow portuguese, so that people can see that I was american, that I dont speak portuguese, that I'm not a local sex workers, but like telling those stories wasn't just it wasn't about exposing the country. It was so that other black women who travel to brazil if they experience it too, for them to know that their not alone and for them to say like hey if it happens, a glow in oak. It happens to me too and having like that shared sense of like ok like you know, but the world is still a good play still. Ninety percent positive, but at this It is now that you're not alone, so that became a part of my brand as well. Yes, sir, it's really you for you at the weaving values into it. It wasn't just one of the core values beyond ventured seemed like really was integrity like you, a set of values and beliefs, and that has to be at the centre, nothing. You do. I mean what you're doing being, is you know it is horrifying and also I'm sure, to everyday experience for so many people in some indifferent place in countries including were like where we are

You and I were had an interesting experience once was a couple, spat. We are on this arab house we're in a room. You know was fairly new to it. I think you probably learned that at that point also- and there was a conversation going on- I think we both got invited up to the stage which meant, like you know, for some some reason people felt like they wanted to hear our voices, and I was kind of keeping quiet the whole time, because I had nothing to contribute and I was just listening- contently and the commerce was about europe and a woman surly chimed in an and shared her too. Around race and was deep deep that she loves sharing and here, we are on this sort of like small virtual stage. I believe it was her a handful of middle age, white guys and yeah and you'd enter the in relation to that point, in a way that was so profound and moving and open, would you share a little bit about your experience of that?

and you know- and I think when we think about meeting people, whether at and acknowledging pain, most people, especially underprivileged communities. They just want that acknowledgement of like hey. This is what we are going through and a lot of the times in some rooms at speak to business or speak to healing or human psychology. It can feel like it's only targeting and talking to one demographic of people, and so her pain really stemmed from like how come no one is addressed. These issues how come no one is understanding that it's more than just not having the funds to start a dream. It could be like systemic and all these either shoes and racial- and you know- and she just wanted to be held in that moment- and I can tell it again- that's where that empathy really has benefited me on my journey, because I felt the tears. I felt the pain I've been in rooms, where I knew that despite my journey in my struggle was an acknowledged. My demographic was just kind of like it could be a trigger. You know- and I think

In those situations- and I always I have appreciated it- I believe I'm someone also stepped in and try to just you know, navigate and appreciated that even you know what to say something. I know how delicate of a situation can be especially when it comes to race, because everyone wants to make sure you're not saying a wrong word or really acknowledging and holding someone and in the right kind of way so get out. But that was a special moment. I had a lot of people in a reach out and my dams after that, and it did it honestly. I feel kind of colleagues in that way where I found that I was kind of like a bridge for different communities like

I went to a school that was ninety five percent white, so I've been in a lot of rooms where a lot of triggering and insensitive things were said and because I was the only black person. I'm like this isn't a time to speak up. I can't defend myself because no one's going to defend me, so I I can see that world, but then also growing up first generation nigerian, but then also you know every everything I grew up in black culture. So I am standing in the middle of these two worlds, trying to figure out. How can we get both of them to communicate and understand each other's struggles, and even last july, during George floyd or last may, even like I committed my page to just creating these carousels they're, just educated on the black experience, and I mean that exploded at my account grew about two hundred thousand and I think it was because just having again the way that I teach in the west open this world, I never wanted to feel like force. Obviously, if I'm feeling trigger and aggression, it can be valid, but I knew glow if the impact you want to.

is to invite people into a deeper perspective. You ve got to figure out a way to invite people into the conversation and not force it that my throat- and I think it's been a while, if even at all, like the race has been talked about, like that, you know as a waiver. Its lightweight. This doesn't have to be this awkward, uncomfortable situation. It can be something we're I'm just learning about the life and the experience of everyday people of neighbours of coworkers. You know, and I think the hardest thing was when my sister told me that she went to work the next day and she said it was like, as if all issues, only black woman, of course in that office, which is the experience for many black women in corporate, but she said it was as if every if the person was afraid to talk to her afraid to be around her afraid to look at her in the eye and she felt like a ghost. It was as if people were just afraid of her and she she had done nothing, and it was just the fact

it was black. It was like. Oh, I don't want to oh there's a lot of racial reconciliation and protests going on. Let me just pretend that she doesn't even exist and that's even worse and again, aesthetic knowledge meant most black is what this country to acknowledge the history and see that, like there are so many reasons even to this day, it's like you, look at. You know that. one hundred years of the slave background. But it's like oh no one, no one own slaves any more, but it's like there's things deeply embedded in this country's constitution and systemic laws that keep black people oppressed. You know, and it's like once that can be like a common truth. Then we can start working towards like reconciliation, but I think there's still a lot of denial. There's still a lot of. Let's just pretend it's not happening and hope that one day it goes away and that george floyd in what it did to the country and just like I did in the amount of like hundreds of like white people, friends, colleagues, professors texting me like

how do you feel? Are you okay or like? Where do I start? I I couldn't hold space for the black trauma and white guilt. It's not that I want white people to feel like, oh feel, bad about your ancestors and what they did. It's like no just, acknowledge and know that, like this is still an issue, even though the past isn't your fault that the the future of this country is your responsibility. So what active role do you want play in making sure everyone in this country has a level playing field. I mean this so powerful and I wonder whether You know why you're moving through this dismal men. Also. Your asking yourself shouting like what role do I wanna play in in the commission? yeah. I remember a lower back talking to us, enchanting brown and who may like a very deliberate choice is she said you know for years I took on

role of education serve at the point of entry. In the conversation mostly for white folks yeah, organizations and she's, like you like reached a point, I want to put words in her mouth seasoning, credible, human being the I love it. I heard in the conversation, was you know reach a point in my life and my career in my thinking in my earlier contribution, where I want to operate at a different point in the compromise what were further down the road daddy where, like want to be, and these are the types of conversations I want to have and very clear on the types of conversations she doesn't want to have yeah, I'm so curious. what your thought process has been around occasionally how are obviously each year in europe a woman's, so your in this. The way that white folks are the way that, but but blatantly because we're all living different experiences great, but when George Floyd happens and things break open in a very different way right, I'm so curious.

what your inner experiences of the process of us thoroughly saying. How do I want to be in this? It was almost like the calling was bigger than me, didn't feel like. If it was up to me, I would have just like uninstall social media for another two months. I remember praying outside godlike, Where am I needed like? Let your will be done in my life cause? I don't. I don't want to show up at all. If it were up to me, I would just disappear and like It stayed all day and like find my own healing, because there was a lot of black people that we just felt broken and tired, and just we just didn't want to be around people. We didn't have the energy we didn't have the strength we were hopeless. You know so I'm like I didn't want to do that, but I felt like there's this like fine inclination where it's like. Ok, a lot of people are open their eyes for the very first time and when you think of like a new born baby, are you telling your new born like come on, get up and walk? It's gotta be coddled.

little bit you know, and so on. I saw that the content I was making was attracting newborns and toddlers, and so in a way I did feel like. I had two spoon feed a little bit and really meet them at very basic and beginner levels and some of my most viral carousel, It's like one of them has reached. I think four million people has been shared over half a million times and the question is: is it rude to say black and I'm like? Sometimes I create these carousels, I'm like oh, this is so obvious, but put it out anyway, and little did. I know people thought black was derogatory. They thought african american was like a rule like they grew up. Maybe they were taught that maybe that was you know the media they consumed, but black was actually the preference and a lot of people actually african american mean something different than black american and so just even categorizing the labels, because labels do mean a lot, especially for underprivileged communities. So I found myself just real.

It just extending probably overextending in the first, like three months I mean I, I even created an ally resource guide that people can literally it's like thirty days and thirty ways to be a better ally, because my capacity was, I can create one carousel a day, but the the dm, the hundreds, thousands of dmd, like ooh, teach on this teach on this and I'm like wait. This is not my job. I'm doing this as like, I feel called to, but like my capacity is this so creating this like twenty seven dollar resource guide was also way to say: okay, if you want to go at your own speed and also have a deeper reason, here is a handbook that you can do with your family, your kids with your partner, and that was also great because it allowed a little bit of abound your he that I didn't feel the needs it.

creating at a faster rate than I could, and then I would say about november. So I'm doing this for about six months, just like leaning in and just stepping up being a voice that I think I reach my burnout about november. I was like wait, I'm not a racial educator and I was getting like literally fortune five hundred companies like hey. Can you speak to our c suite team and our executives, reinterpreting department. I was like I don't see. I could just like already sent the awkward it's me speaking on a zoom call it three hundred middle aged white men, because those are mostly the c suite departments and I'm just like. I don't see that being enjoyable for either side. You know- and I was like there's gotta be a better way- and I just I started turning it down and referring other practitioners that of pine join that, and I also didn't want this be my entire identity. I don't want to be the race girl. I don't enjoy talked about race out, I'm doing it because I see a need and that's what leaders do when they had and find me they step up and they're. Usually you know call

by this new divine inclination or whatever, but I felt called two in that time, because people were actually paying attention, but when I got back to the root of what I love and enjoy was that story telling it was the travel? It was the adventure it was onto pronuba ship, it was dream chasing, and so now I'm back. My account is back at a place or unable to mix in a little bit of both storytelling every now and then our ship education, but at the core of it. It's like just chasing freedom, creed. activity, what it means to build a life of your dreams and that feels really good to get back to that place yeah. I I love that it's so fascinating to hear shirley how you processed the decision about where you are willing to go, not going to go, how you want to be of service here, you didn't want to be of service and where the boundaries were as people just and more and more and more and more and more like ok, so I need to be really. We and set expectations to a certain extent. I am also fascinated

for the last six months or so when everything was pretty much lockdown gaelic were were in this country during during this year. stomach and a lot of racial reckoning. Conversation in the country then, as soon as it opens up? You take a trip to create it which is a majority black country yet which is swans and fast, like after sort of lake being in this country, and in That's the way that society is here and then dropping into completely different place where its majority black How do you move into that? How does it affect you? Has it changed the way that you feel and move through the day it's therapy like I even just I felt myself just like because I'll be honest, Jonathan there's, no tip going like I live in a very like nice, highrise building, it's mostly white men that you know live in this building and I could be walking down the hallway read them, you know good afternoon good morning and others

got me and then looked back down as if again that that uncomfortable feeling of just like a black person like what am I could smile. So you see we ve got so approachable it doesn't matter if this idea that I've created my opinion on what black people are. Therefore I will not change that, Not communicate org knowledge, you you experience that so often and adjust starts to drain you and you get exhausted by an you. Do seek places where you can just slip in and just below. long and I've never really felt like. I belong in any of the states that lived and I never felt like I belonged anywhere because I was always met with It- could just take one or two people to look at me in scrunch their nose to cross the street prematurely to like be hesitant to get on the elevator. If I'm I'm just like really also grenada, grenada that such such you know you. You have beautiful weather, beautiful beaches in the black culture where it says this invitation to just be, and I felt so

Three there are literally kept the word freedom just kept being this recurring theme in my mind of like while this is what it's like to just be, and oh my goodness, I want that for every black person I don't know they can find that in a specific city and obviously it's a privilege to be able to just uproot yourself in your family, but I hope that wherever I do call for ever home, I feel that sense of freedom when we think about the moment that were in right now, like I feel like we're all? Yet, there is a sense of emergence as eating because you're out in the world, are you have you literally back again another playin after this conversation with an end, you ve, been through neg. This imagining process well, knowing that you're a pretty intention as much as you hold a lot of yeah like space for serendipity in your life, there's a lot of intentionality, also at the same time when you think about what's coming next, like what how you would love to influence the creation of this next season

What is I feel I too, what what's what's coming up or free round? That is scary, because I think this next chapter of my life is something I've been putting off for a while, but it's now I feel thrust it into this space in it, and it feels good to feel like your level of competence matches your dreams. Can I think, a lot of what keeps. It's back. It's like! Oh, I need another degree and I need another certification and we just slew. We we diminish what we know, because we don't have the whatever resume. But I look at les brown inspires me so much I love the man and I just the way he speaks the way he moves the room. The way he combines humor motivation and a little bit a church in these talks, I'm like to be the female version of that would be incredible and I'll be doing to speak.

tor next year, where it'll be a kind of like you know, we will look at Brennan bashar, AL. You know seminars and its high performance academy, but this will be a little bit smaller and more intimate, but first, reaching people where there at and just giving a little bit of everything, because I feel like I've. I've lived six la it's an you know. I don't know if you know this black replayed semi pro basketball in spain for a season because that was able to get me residency, gave me a stable income. I an insurance. So every there's so many things I've done in my adult life that, like I don't really talk about or not many people know, but it's added to my level of wisdom are the lessons that I've learned in life and being able to share that on a larger scale, being able to package that in a two hour keynote or presentation or documentary something. But I am ready to to get my story out in a bigger way. I'm working with my lit agent on my book as well, so I'm ready for that exposure. I think I've even

If the exposure comes, I still be like, oh well, maybe next year I still high, because I just I know the level of criticism that also comes with that and I've always been afraid of like well. What? If people think that my story is not good enough? What if they think, I'm too this and too that you know you, let the fear of what nonexistent critics could say about you, keep you small and at the end of the day you got you gotta, really to say I think benet brown always says I am not interested in your opinion. If you're not in the arena, getting your butt kicked like I'm down here, willing to fight if you're in the nose bleeds, I'm not interested in your opinion and most critics are in the nose bleed. So I have to remember that easy thing to know not necessarily so easy, just really integrate You know that but yeah when you about yourself like doing there.

thing I'm going out into the world, and we just described and creating these experiences in these moments, bearing on the level you're talking about. Do you have a wish or an intention for those who participate in those experiences, those moments that community yeah, one of my favorite comments to get on social media? Is I needed this or this was for me and I remember in school I was always so appreciative. I dont know what administrators arthur overbooking, those speakers, but you get every now and then in third grade and sixth grade and ninth grade you get someone to come, manages to talk to you about your feet. Sure about your dreams and your goals and even though you know you'd see people on their phones and you'd, see people talking, you look see people look around in their board by it. I would just be like at the edge of my seat on the guys I know it. I know this is This is for me like this. There are speaking up my life, like I always felt so reignited by those talks, because I knew that I never fit, and I knew I was

were meant to be what whatever people consider normal, nothing about me as normal. think about where I'm going is normal and I always felt isolated by that, and so in these experiences and cure, I want to not only liberate people but to make them feel like goes another way, because I often times you get trapped by our circumstances or brought by the lives that our parents or partners have already dictated for us, and so, if I can just liberate zone for someone to walk out and feel like they ve got a breakthrough, they just seen what's possible, liberates people and what we joke in the black community that So many times we gotta see someone else, do it before we do it. You know people come to me. Let glow and is waiting for you to go to romania to make sure it's ok for me now glow. What's russia like once you go I'll go here, so we have to wait for someone else to give us permission like give you the thumbs up like ok, entrepreneurship, it's scary, but it's not that bad any could come come along

and there's always admiring you meant is everyone meant to be an entrepreneur? I don't think so, but everyone deserves more, whether that's more freedom, more creativity, more time with their family and loved ones. Everyone deserves that and I want to show people how they can start the ways to make that possible love. I remember when you for shared about and that you work in a book I lily This down, you rode. I have a journal where I document the emotions. A book makes me feel and try to use that as a guideline for how I want my book to make others feel, like you, have a devotion to creating moments. Experiences insight was and reach a feeling of possibility and other but why I, if I can't wait to listen to this episode, because he Hugh poured into me so much that that is perfectly said. I think that's exactly it. All of that is a good place for us too

come full circle as well so sitting here in in this container, because life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up, who live a good life to me means a life filled with alignment. You are living according to your divine purpose, something that you feel is so uniquely you putting it out into the world, you are loving and living in a way that just set you free, that's others free you, fine joy in every circumstance either. in the bad times you're like. Well, I'm going to learn something from this. You know, but there's this level of peace that just floods, your life, that's what the good life means to me. Thank you, yeah.

Fifthly, we ve been here before you leave if you loved this episode safe, but you will also love the conversation we had with chris gill about who has spent over a decade travelling to every country in the world, while building a global community fuelled by impact and adventure. You'll find it later Mrs episode in the show nuts, and even if you don't now be sure to click and download. So it's ready to play when you're on the go and of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to follow a good life project in your favorite listening app. So you never miss never episode and then share the good life project, love with friends, because when ideas conversations that lead to action. That's when real change takes hold see you next time the

the.