The British Blacktrepreneur Podcast
Welcome to 'The British Blacktrepreneur' My name is Jason Lazarus
This podcast aims to promote black businesses, in the UK, educate entrepreneurs on all things business, and inspire you on your entrepreneurial journey. Growing up, business was just foreign to me, I knew nothing about it, I was taught that being a consumer and working a job was the only way to really succeed in life. My West African would preach ‘Education, Education, Education’ which I hated at the time but have grown to appreciate how invaluable knowledge is. My goal is to curate conversations with Black Entrepreneurs in the UK to find what their ‘WHY’ is. Furthermore, I’m on a mission to get black entrepreneurs podcasting! I’ll be dropping in my expertise about podcasting whilst bringing on inspiring guests to keep you going on your entrepreneurial journey.
The British Blacktrepreneur Podcast
Unleashing the Hidden Potential Within (Ft Alex Onalaja)
Discover the incredible story of Alex Onalaja, a Nigerian entrepreneur who transformed his struggles with dyslexia and depression into a successful business empire. Featured in Forbes Magazine and named in the top 50 inspiring prominent influential voices in UK Black Tech by Tech Nation, Alex opens up about overcoming challenges and finding his hidden potential. Learn how his journey from hating education to unlocking his true potential has enabled him to help businesses and nurture startups.
Our conversation delves into Alex's difficult childhood, where he faced constant comparison to his siblings and struggled academically due to his dyslexia. Find out how he tapped into his hidden potential, overcame depression, and sought inspiration from his father's book to get back on track. We also discuss society's tendency to box us in and the importance of identifying what brings us joy and drives our passion.
Alex shares his experiences helping businesses adapt to the digital age and the work he has done to uplift disadvantaged communities. We talk about the need for entrepreneurs to stick to their strengths and avoid the pitfalls of instant gratification. Join us for this insightful and inspiring episode as we uncover the secrets to Alex's success and how you too can discover your hidden potential to achieve greatness.
My parents basically migrated into the UK and obviously for better lives, as we all know, as diasporas, and we migrated over as well to join them here. And the same problem is to continue because I was like, okay, right, i've left all my problems behind. Now I'm in a new country where there's more support for the academic system is much supportive. Now I'll do better. but to my surprise, that wasn't the case. I still continue to fail again. But yet again, i didn't actually get diagnosed for something called dyslexia. It's a learning learning. they call it learning difficulties, but I call it learning differences, and I did get diagnosed for it until I actually got to my final year in uni. So bear in mind this is someone that hated education. I wanna say education, i mean academic education. I like to teach myself how to design things, but I don't like to go to school and be sad now listening to things I'm not interested in.
Speaker 2:That was the voice of Alex and Alarger. Alex has been featured in Formos Magazine, named in the top 50 inspiring prominent influential voices in UK Black Tech by Tech Nation. He's an entrepreneur, author, speaker, mentor, youth activist, contributor at Global Business Playbook. Well, i hope today you'll enjoy this episode. Alex is a fantastic entrepreneur, a fantastic business owner, and we had a great conversation covering things like entrepreneurship, personal growth, growth, mindset, start up and finding your hidden potential. So all that will be unpacked in today's episode. It'll be great if you could leave a review of the show. It helps other people find the show If you're enjoying it, if you're listening regularly. That would be amazing ["The British Black Entrepreneur"].
Speaker 1:Welcome to the British. Black Entrepreneur This podcast exists to promote Black businesses in the UK to educate Black entrepreneurs on all things business and to inspire you on your entrepreneurial journey. Here is your host, jason Leshawes.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the British Black Entrepreneur, A podcast that aims to promote, educate and inspire you on your entrepreneurial journey. So, without further ado, here he is. it's Alex on Elarja.
Speaker 3:Alex on Elarja. Welcome to the British Black Entrepreneur. How are you today?
Speaker 1:I'm great. I'm great, Jason, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Great to have you one Looking forward to this conversation Now I know recently you kind of went away, went on holiday, got refreshed. How was it being away, and was it like coming back to work? I?
Speaker 1:won't say I miss work. That's for a start, but it's one of those. Basically Only there is a debt to be enjoyed And just here, just kind of recalibrate your mindset And just sometimes reward yourself as well, because I think that's something we tend to forget all the time. It's like we think it's all about work, work, work and family commitment and all of that, but sometimes we forget Also the process is also obviously extracting yourself from everything and just re-evaluating everything as well before the year runs out. So it's something that I do traditionally every November. Well, august to November time, just pick it away. Well, yes, it was nice, lovely.
Speaker 3:Now that's good. One of the things I really have admired and liked about what you do is on your social media, your Instagram you do a lot of motivational quotes. You've got a lot of things that are inspirational, that really help people. Where does that positivity and that kind of mindset to really help people come from? What's caused you to put that out there on social?
Speaker 1:media. Good question, actually, because for me it kind of started with because I had difficulties basically growing up and being motivated was actually not something that comes naturally. It's something about to kind of view confidence over time to do it, and I know that a lot of people are not at skin or tough skin like myself. They were to kind of just pick themselves up and obviously get on with life And I thought finding content that is inspirational. So if I'm going through something I share, a post that kind of reflects that, and people are like, oh, that's actually what I'm going through And thanks for sharing actually came at the right time. And it got to a point where even I was just doing on it I was getting one, two likes here and there.
Speaker 1:But it got to a point where people were like, if I don't post for a whole week, they're like, alex, is everything OK? Are you there? You know what I mean. We're looking forward to your next post. And I'm like, oh, i didn't know someone was waiting. You know, i just thought I was doing it for myself personally, the kind of thing You know and slowly kind of became a behavior. And now, well, it's become an habit. Sorry, shall I say And now God team, now basically also helping me alongside creating my content, revising it, you know, rewarding it And just kind of remixing it basically, and yeah, it's now time to something where it's now full brand of its own. Books have been sold off the back of it. You know, i think that I've been sold off the back of it And yeah, it's just becoming something really just helping people create content. I was inspiring people, so I should say Now it's good, fantastic, I mean.
Speaker 3:You know, keep it up. I think you and your team are doing a great job of keeping people inspired, so keep it going. Man, i really want to get into your origin story and how you came to become the business owner that you are. So, before we get into the meat and potatoes of your business, i just want some insight from my audience of who you are and how you got to this point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good question. Basically, i'm Nigerian by and, unfortunately, and spent, i'll probably say a good decade of my life basically in Nigeria with my grandparents initially with my parents, obviously with my grandparents And at that early stage it was pretty difficult for me for one major reason, and that was because I was not academically inclined. Like I hate school I don't know if it's something that kids would love to say these days Like the only thing I look forward to in school is seeing my friends, and that's about it. Like, but the whole idea of going to class, sitting down there listening to something that does not interest me in any way, shape or form, just literally, just makes me literally just want to cry.
Speaker 1:And I actually remember, basically back then my brother was actually the opposite of me. He loves education, he loves books. He loved, you know, he was reading Shakespeare from as little as three years old, So I probably have two, three years old from what I can remember. Like you know, you'd be seeing me just talking around the house to be or not to be and this, and I'm just like, listen, i don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what that book is called, you know, i just don't want anything to do with it, and I could not actually read and write correctly until I was probably about seven. And even when I say seven, i'm not talking like read and write, i'm looking at. That's just about right, just the basics, enough to not get in trouble. And yeah, just kind of from gone. And my brother is only just one year younger than me. So you can imagine is like constant competition for me and from you know black or you know an African home or a Caribbean home, basically, you understand, one of the biggest thing is basically everything is a competition. Like you know, you're competing with your not just only your siblings, you're competing with your cousins. You know everything, just like you know. Have you not seen this? They are doing better than you. And you know all those kind of comparisons from time to time, even if they don't actually do it purposely, it's just a natural thing that comes up. So I found myself constantly being measured against people that obviously seem to come across intellectually inclined And I was just completely not a good fit.
Speaker 1:I struggled all throughout education And I repeated the class that was actually in twice And the second and the third time they said no, it's going to be a shame on the family because if I go a class below my brother. So basically I left my class because I failed and then came to my brother's class And then I'm now in my brother's class. Now I'm about to fail again and go class below my brother. So you know, they brought my parents into a meeting. They tried to convince them that basically, like you know, maybe I should go and learn And the crafts like for school is just, maybe I should go and learn carpentry or mechanic or something like that. You know, and they don't mean it in a good way, because normally if you say something like that in the UK you'd be like, ok, well, apprenticeship or something you know, something more appealing like that. But in Africa when they actually say, go and learn mechanic, trust me, it's like the least, most unpleasant job ever because you literally have to be on the song that I'll be asking to go and buy a cup of tea and send you inheritance And just you know all the nitty gritty stuff.
Speaker 1:So I was actually more inclined to want to do that. I was like you know what? I'd rather do that than say you know, and spend myself this complete everyday torture. But my parents were like no, no, no, no, no. Ah, your grandpa is a lecturer, your grandma is a lecturer, your this is this, this one is a lawyer and that one is a doctor And you want to go and be make a make a war. So it's like I thought, you know, i just have to do it for them because you know, some of us as Africans we are obviously, as a black child, we hold it to our parents physically to kind of give back to them because we feel like they've devoted a lot and sacrificed a lot to get us to where we are.
Speaker 1:So I kind of just kept pushing and you know my grades were not really the most prettiest. It's often if I make E that's E for effort, f for fail. It's that simple. It does not go past that E for effort, f for fail. So and my brother basically comes, he doesn't even revise for nothing, it just comes into the, into the exam and just does the same. When he makes efforts basically gets B's and A's occasionally, but when it doesn't make effort you get C. You really get anything below C.
Speaker 1:So as a result, you can constantly imagine when we go home with our results He's not really bothered because he knows he's just going to show it and there will be obviously like, oh yeah, just do well next time. Ok, well, for me it's like ha, literally on the journey home I feel like the world should just open up. And you know the big bang theory, she's just up all over again. Just reset everything, you know. And because I know the whole day I'm going to be lectured, the whole month I'm going to be lectured. And yeah, it was quite, it was quite painful. And I remember then, like sometimes I actually ran away from home because of the consequences of, you know, thinking about what am I going to say? Or I would even explain my new efforts, you know, with the letter E. So it continued like that so many times.
Speaker 1:And one particular day I said to myself I'm sure I'm good at something, just one thing, because this thing actually carries on. You know, people sometimes think it's academically only, when you are telling all good at one thing, your confidence is knocked off and it kind of rubs off on other things as well. So it's like I wasn't really the best with football, for example. I don't watch football personally, i only watch it to socialize. When I look at the dynamics of football, when you there's a striker, there's a middleman, there's a you know sound that is skillful or what have you? There's a Ronaldo in every situation, you know, but for me, i realize it's like my actual strength has actually been a defender, so which means basically I have something that I do really well when it comes to defending and making sure they don't go past you know, myself to get to the keeper kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And I stopped to that And, as a result, it made me actually fall in love with football, because I felt like I'm actually good at something And if I stick to it and be the best at it, i can deliver. So I try to mirror that into real life as well. I'm like what am I good at? Can I just find one thing that I'm good at and just stick to and be the best at it? So one particular morning at school this is still all in Nigeria, by the way One particular morning in school we did an exam in a test of a class of about 200 students.
Speaker 1:I remember Yeah, about 200 students, and there was 14, sorry, there was 15 questions. And when the result came, basically the following day, they said oh, there's only two people who actually got 14 out of 15. So bear in mind when they say two people, that's two people out of 200 got 14 out of 15. So me at this point I was like you know what? me? I know where I belong, ok, and I'll stick to it. I belong in the effort and failure section. So let me just unboom myself and step out of the situation. But then they called out the first person who got 14 out of 15. That was obvious. The guys are genius, literally, even I see my blood. This guy is amazing. But then when they called out the second person who got 14 out of 15, everyone's jaw dropped, even including my jaw, because I was like I'm sure there's a mistake somewhere, because I don't, maybe my teacher marks it and they give someone a point pass to me. But it turns out I was the second person that got 14 out of 15.
Speaker 1:But then I took that moment and I didn't realize myself. Like that basically means I found something that I'm really good at and I just put my haul into it. I don't care about chemistry, biology and all that stuff, i just OK, right, it's just maths, right, i like numbers, right, ok, so find that thing and just stick to it And I make sure I put my haul into it and I got my result, a great result. So that mentality kind of stuck with me over time And I start using that into every way of my life, like I don't stick around things that don't compliment me. I stick around things that compliment me. I mean that I enjoy and obviously it brings out the best out of me.
Speaker 1:And then I surround myself with people who have strengths in my area of weakness and that knock on the face of you. Know, they said, if you have, well, five millionaire friends, basically you're probably the fifth or I'm not sure if I'm probably saying that firewood in the right direction, but it's like if you surround yourself with intelligent people, that intelligence kind of rub off on you as well. And that's kind of been my model of how to actually live a life where I feel like I'm getting the best out of myself. And yeah, the journey went on and I must tell you it's been a tough one. It's been a tough one But I'm sure, obviously, if I can probably carry on, we'll probably be here all day. But yes, yeah, it's been a roller coaster, i must admit.
Speaker 3:No, that's been incredible to hear, i mean, some of the great anecdotes you've just brought together, some of the stories about your time in Nigeria, and it kind of leads me nicely onto the book that you've written. Lost Now Found The Secret to Unlocking Your Hidden Potential in 30 Days.
Speaker 1:You know, based upon your history and what you've already told us, what I can kind of guess, but what sort of prompted you to write this And who would you say that this book's even for Right On the off the back of that previous story I was mentioning, my parents physically migrated into the UK, and obviously for better life, as we all know, as the Asperas, and we migrated over as well to join them here. And the same problems to continue. Because I was like, okay, right, i've left all my problems behind. Now I'm in a new country where there's more support for the education. Academic system is much, you know, supportive. I'll do better.
Speaker 1:But to my surprise, that wasn't the case. I still continue to fail again. But yet again, i didn't actually get diagnosed for something called dyslexia. It's a learning learning. They call it learning difficulties, but I call it learning differences, and I didn't get diagnosed for it until I actually got to my final year in uni. So bear in mind this is someone that hated education. I want to say I could be education. I mean academic education. I like to teach myself how to design things, but I don't like to go to school and be sad now listening to things I'm not interested in.
Speaker 1:So I got to your final year at university and they told me you're going to fail woefully if you actually don't get yourself together. I'm like, what do you mean? I've been getting myself together all my life, i've just never been able to actually achieve something. And that same thing happened in college as well, when they said, oh, you're gonna fail. I put myself together, did my best, i came out with double distinction, got myself into uni and I'm here in that same comment again saying I'm not doing enough. I'm like literally I'm in this place 24 seven. What else do you want me to do? Do you want me to cut my blood? You can have it. You know what I mean, because I don't know what else to do.
Speaker 1:And to my relief, basically I was diagnosed with something called dyslexia. I've never heard of it before in my life. That was the very first time I heard of it And I've given a bit of mixed emotions. One was being relieved that now I know what's wrong, but second is like how come nobody actually identified this a lot earlier? Because I'm sure if I had the right support in place, i would have been more engaging students, basically in my academic years. So leading back to your question, so imagine you've actually gone through all the inclined moment of trying to impress your parents and try to be the best you can possibly be, to then find out that when you graduate, you actually don't live happily ever after. But that's the kind of this, like you know, cloud that we get as young students kind of thing undergrads, basically with like oh, i can't wait to become a degree owner, so I can, you know, get myself a dream job, have a nice car, nice driveway and everything.
Speaker 1:And that reality basically became a nightmare very quickly when I graduated, because I graduated exactly in between 2012 and early 2013,. Which means I was literally graduating during the time of the recession, when obviously the recession was kind of literally still just about to kind of end. So that basically means there was no employment And no one was actually really inclined to actually want to employ a dyslexic kid a dyslexic black kid, to be precise Because I didn't actually know what where to put a filter. Do I disclose to my employer, do I hold it to myself? And later on they find out I'm struggling and obviously then I get sacked. So it's like, where do I place myself? So I'm constantly in this battle of trying to find where I fit And I applied for literally like a thousand jobs. I remember the last interview I did I mean interview I did where basically just said unfortunately, i just said please just spare me the. Unfortunately, and I'm afraid I've had literally over a thousand of it. I'm done now And at that moment I had this moment in my life where I had a complete breakdown like, just imagine the whole almost 20 something years of my life of struggling to actually just make something of myself and make my parents proud.
Speaker 1:All this now realize I'm not going to have to face this bigger order which is trying to fit into the employment space. I was trying to fit into school, but now I'm not trying to fit into a dream job And it just didn't seem realistic. It seemed absolutely depressing And at that time I didn't know it was called depression, but I literally didn't want to go to anywhere. I didn't want to do anything. I was even on job seekers allowance. I was just missed. I kind of was really speed the pin point, exactly what I was doing myself, because I gave up on everything. I'm like I've given everything, all I can give, but there's nothing else. And whilst I was in that moment it took me almost a whole year. I'm talking a good between 2012 to 2013. I was completely just a fool. I don't go anywhere, i'm completely in the house And even when I go, i'm just having friends with drink. No one knows I'm going through anything. I just go back home and I don't want to drink again. I just stayed asleep all day.
Speaker 1:So one morning, basically, i came across one of my dad's book. He wrote a. He's a book writer as well, in his prime days as well. He's given up on his vision as well, but in his prime days he's a good, you know, he's a good writer. That came across on this book called How to Be a Millionaire, and I read the book for the very first time because I'm like, you know, i need to read something, i need to do something. So I read the book for the very first time and I saw a lot of principles in there that I'm like yes, i can relate to this, but disagree with this.
Speaker 1:And as a result, i was like wait a minute, why don't I actually consider putting myself? I'm a good storyteller, why don't I actually try writing something like? or just, you know, instead of just being here doing nothing, let me just put my creativity into something, just do something. And I just started, you know, analyzing myself, analyzing my skillset, reflecting back on, you know, early days. What were my strengths, what are the things I was happy about and everything. And I started I don't like reading, i'll be very honest with you, because I'm dyslexic, so I really, really don't enjoy reading. So you know, at that point, physically, i used myself, or my darkest moments, basically to kind of reevaluate how I can tap into my hidden potential. And then, when I tapped into it, i realized I've been concentrating too much on the things I cannot do And instead of concentrating on the things I can actually do. So in the end I just thought you know what? yes, this is it, this is how you can find your hidden potential. And it worked for me.
Speaker 1:I wrote the book but guess what? I couldn't afford to print it. I couldn't afford to even take it fast, the actual papers I'm about to be written on. So I'm just typing it up and just left it there for another good five years until someone actually saw the copy of it one of my employees that she read and she said oh, by the way, i've read this, your book. I was like what book? She said this book, and I was like I didn't publish it. She said this book is amazing. I think you can turn it to a proper book. And I just revised it from there and, yeah, publish it in a media book And it's been read by over 3000 people to date and you know good reviews and everyone is saying you know, definitely thank you for basically putting this out there and hoping that obviously I'll do more of it. But yeah, that's 30 for another day.
Speaker 3:No, that's incredible. No, well done, and thank you for listening to people. There's 3000, hopefully, and some will be beneficiaries of the work that you've produced. So I want to kind of go now into your business life and just talk a little bit about. you spoke briefly there about finding your hidden potential. How can people find their hidden potential? How did you help clients or people that you work with find what they're really good at and what they're born or made to do?
Speaker 1:But by default we are all like an open book. When you were born, basically you're open book and to date You are basically a. You are an element of everything that's been poured into your book. So you're a blank book when you were born, okay, but your element of everything. People have come in and wrote their own chapter, like, for example, they'll tell you oh, don't open the umbrella on the, you know indoors, it's bad luck. Or don't break a glass, it's bad luck. All those kind of little things. They might not really matter, but they all kind of attributes into into your book.
Speaker 1:And the thing is, society has this way of actually keeping you to a box, because in the school system itself It's also a box. They teach you to actually get up every morning before a certain time, do it repetitively. They teach you to actually, like you know, you know, pass exams in a certain way, because basically they want everyone to do it Exactly the same way. So everyone feels like if it's not this way, then it's no way. But the reality of it is what majority of us? we have different learning approach. We have different ways of doing things. We have this ten thousand ways to get to the same destination. If you go in London, for example, you can take off anywhere and still get there in a certain way.
Speaker 1:So what I try to help people understand is that forget the distraction, forget what society says. What makes you truly happy, what makes you truly like? what can you do that would make you dive? when they're not paying you for it, you enjoy and continue to enjoy doing it. For some people, it's creativity, so for the people, its action. Some people is actually accelerating, some people It's like you know there's different things, and some people is even inspiring, but they don't actually know these things and they'd be like okay, right, so how do I turn this into something I can do? you know, if you're probably you know, not everybody's a born leader. Some leaders actually thought how to be a leader and some, obviously, they have the kind of like the natural instinct of obviously how to be a good leader, and It's just pretty much the same.
Speaker 1:Thing is like everybody has your ability in them to do the majority of the things that they think they can do, but until your back is actually against the wall, you actually don't know what you're capable of Like, for example, if you, i don't know, if you're probably scared of dogs. I don't know if you're actually scared of dogs, but when I was little I was scared of dogs. It's a bit of a deal with. So it's like sometimes you actually don't realize how fast you can even run or how fast you can even mitigate a situation until let's say, for example, someone drops a lion in this room and you be like hey, gotta go. You know literally like are you be sprinting out of that place like no man's business. It's just a natural thing. But until we actually put in certain circumstances We actually don't realize our full potential Abilities to do certain things.
Speaker 1:So some of the things I touch based on in that book, it basically is like identifying things that we enjoy doing. Okay, these are things that we can do effortlessly. So, for example, if it's yourself, if it's like you know verbal communication or social or emotional intelligence, little skill set, like that people think it's irrelevant. No, it's not irrelevant, it's to be a leader, for example, you need a bit of elements of, element of you know emotional intelligence you know. So that's different, different things. That could be someone in both. In tech, for example, it could just be a tech tech, naturally tech, you know, inclined person. You could be a problem solver because, obviously, because you, you can, you know you can pick up on patterns and things like that. So you just try to find things that you actually good at. So, for example, if you have the list can go on, but that's one area.
Speaker 1:The second thing, basically, is I find something that you used to do. For one reason or the other, you stop doing it. So this question be maybe you used to play basketball. All of a sudden you got an injury or you stopped. Or maybe you used to play basketball but they have kids and life going away and he stopped and you be thinking, right, why is this actually really relevant? But then, lastly, like, okay, right, so find something that you think right, yes, you think you might be able to do it, but for one reason or the other, you don't want to get involved in it. So, for example, it could be like right, i'm, you know, i think I can do a formula one racing, because you've actually done a driving one, you know the, the simulation one on a game or something before. And you, you know, naturally, on your first one You had a good go at it and you, you know, you came third, even when most people actually go have a go at it and come seven to 21 or something like that.
Speaker 1:So things like that in between that, basically you know, try to obviously the book then basically help you basically now articulate that into Something that you are to the good, as something that has a sense of direction, where most of your focus is actually good. So, for example, for me it's problem solving is actually my hidden potential. So when I go into certain things, i can quickly identify where the problem is. In situations, for example, like I'll give an example I was in a workplace where they used to use a certain process exactly the same way for 20 years. But when I start working there after like three but this is actually call center, by the way When I start working there for like about probably about one month, i realized it's a problem Because there's a loop, is like they keep falling this loop, when, when that problem escalates, basically it just goes around in a loop and, as a result, the customer keep getting frustrated, but the fact that nobody seemed to know what was going on in that, in that loop. So I had looked at the situation for wait a minute, something is wrong. Yet There's a better way to do this to mitigate that loop of customers getting frustrated.
Speaker 1:So I came up with my own little process which in my head after I was just it works for me, so I'll just keep it that way. But onto, my supervisor actually saw it and play, wait a minute, this actually makes a lot of sense. And then shared it with his own manager and manager, like oh, where did this idea came from? We say, oh, yeah, it was my idea. Well, no, is you know, it didn't mean me, it means meant is idea, because obviously is my, is my line manager. And Before I knew it, one month later, the road out, exactly that process to everyone that's been even people about to be there for 20 years. And just that's just from just me just working there. And this is that one I was actually working for all two telepathy days we call Telephone and Telephone Nica. Yeah, telephone Nica was the actual company, but it was actually off the back of all two the phone line company.
Speaker 1:So what am I trying to take away from this? is that I have only been able to achieve that because now I understand where my actual strength lies, even simple situation, for example, like even, let's say, everyday thing, because sometimes I think we kind of overthink the whole process. We think it's like it has to be something magical or something out of nowhere. No, it's something that's always been with you but you just never activate it. It's like having a Lamborghini and trying to go to a racing competition with a Toyota. It's like you have the best talent at home but you're trying to take the weakest you know your weakest position.
Speaker 1:So that's the whole point of that book. It's like it's to actually help you identify those things you actually, you know, turn a blind eye on because of busy life and everyday and people putting their own leaf in your book every single day. You actually completely miss the blind spot. So the book is not supposed to be anything magical. It's just gonna help you see that blind spot and bring it back to a point of focus And once you do that, your life moves in an arrow rather than actually in a flat surface. Because when you're in the arrow, your focus, you're moving forward, but when you're actually in a flat and everything looks like just everything that hits you basically drives the key backwards. So that's basically the goal of the book. Yeah, but I hope that kind of breaks the books down a little bit.
Speaker 3:Just to continue now, alex. I wanna just talk about your business and how you help people now. So if you were to describe your company and your business, what is it that you do and how do you go about helping clients and customers?
Speaker 1:Going back to the, my eating potential, which is solving problems and by finding patterns. I've actually got a consulting company on the side where I basically help businesses. It's like we call it digital transformation, where actually our businesses are actually dinosaurs going to the modern day technology and obviously try to find things like simpler ways to actually compile all the information that they have within the organization and run it in a smooth and effective manner or agile manner should actually call it And pandemic has actually been a perfect example of why they actually needed someone like myself to kind of help them make sure, if they were to work remotely, they can still communicate effectively. So that's one side of what we actually do. And I've also got due to marketing agency, where we also have teams like graphic designers, web developers, software developers and all the stuff of things creating the same thing finding real life problems in organizations, and obviously I'm replacing it with technology that actually help aid effective working process and, as a result, if they can save time, they save money and, in overall, they actually obviously get greater return on their investment. So that's something we actually do from that side of things, and my actual consulting company also comprised of my book selling my public speaking skills and all the stuff of things Off the back of that as well.
Speaker 1:I also work with a lot of charities across Manchester. One of mine is the one that work closely with is called Kaiso Project, cic. Well, obviously, we help over 100 young people every year to obviously avoid falling through the pitfall of disadvantage the bracket early, say the disadvantage communities and the life of the knife crime gang and everything. One of the most predominantly notorious area within the Manchester area called Moss side is actually where moderate majority of our members are actually from And we've been successful at it for over 12 years now. Yes, we're doing something right in that respect And I've recently obviously worked towards helping them raise a significant amount of money as well from like private and public funds as well And, yeah, just many more just costing businesses, helping startups literally everywhere and everywhere that you can actually think of.
Speaker 1:But it's just. My motto is exactly the same. It's just sticking to what I'm good at. I don't try to get distracted by anything I'm not good at. If you talk about something, some of this I'm not good at, i'm like seriously sorry, that's not my area of strength. Speak to this person Or, if you actually want problem solving someone to be eyeball from the outside to see the overview problem, then I'm your guy And that's basically my cup of tea and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 3:I say stick to what you know, stick to your strengths. Now I like it. No, excellent Alex. Absolutely. Stick to your strengths Yeah, now I know you were featured in Forbes magazine. Tell us about how that opportunity came about to be featured in such a prestigious publication.
Speaker 1:First of all, like it's actually all came down to the whole dyslexia situation, saying, obviously, what can employers actually do differently? Giving my personal experience as well, they don't find your whole idea of being neurodiverse sexy. The moment you declare your condition, basically you're automatically seen as a liability rather than actually as an asset. Trying to help employers change their mindset and change their approach to how they can actually correctly help people within that neurodiverse space, was it that identically? why did it even came about again?
Speaker 1:I think yes, one of my colleagues, basically she worked together on something a long while ago and she just said, oh, someone is gonna contact you in a minute regarding Forbes magazine. I'm like, what have I done? She was like, oh yeah, sure, don't worry, they'll tell you what you need to do. And yeah, before I knew it, the publication went out. Half of the time when these things actually happen, i don't even know what's going on. I just see someone just email me saying, oh, someone said I should speak to you and it just happens like that. So it's not really that I'm really doing anything magical, it's just people out there recognize the work I'm doing offline and obviously, and put my name forward in places where it matters Now.
Speaker 3:I know that you've nurtured many startups and help businesses get off the ground in those initial early stages. What are some of the common things that you see newbie entrepreneurs or new businesses make when they're starting up and getting the ball rolling in their businesses?
Speaker 1:Yeah, overnight success? There's no such thing. There's no such thing. It's like instant gratification is one of the biggest problems we see with a lot of entrepreneurs today, because obviously we have the whole social media demonstration that the lifestyle of an entrepreneur is supposed to be. You work less hours, you look this way, you drive this type of car and all those type of things and you buy these Rolex And, to be honest with you, those are all literally the wrong conception of how entrepreneurship actually works. The truth of the matter is you live up nine to five to be working basically 80 hours a month, sorry, 80 hours a week. So you go from basically your number nine to five to doing 80 hours a week because, especially when you're nurturing a startup, it's almost like a baby. He has no control over what's on whatsoever and you are the one that will mold it into a certain culture. You don't want molding it into a certain direction. You don't want bathing the division. You don't want trying to finance it and strategize it and build processes and all those type of things. So, as a result, you don't have time to sleep on it because the moment it snows you lose.
Speaker 1:And secondly, if you keep constantly taking money out of your, but they only say pay yourself first. You know if you have a business, pay yourself first, but how can you pay? You know where exactly you paying yourself like in minus zero. Minus zero is zero, because if you keep robbing your business off its own money, your business will never grow. A startup is actually meant to be something where you keep reinvesting until it gets to the point where it can actually afford to run itself without you. And if you can actually do that, the quicker you can get to that point the better. And obviously that kind of opens another conversation, for do you bootstrap or do you actually try to seek investors? That's a complete kettle of fish and I won't bring that into this conversation, otherwise it will be your day.
Speaker 3:But I do think it's fascinating what you said about. I saw that quote before where you're going to exchange a 40 hour working week for an 80 hour one, so that is quite interesting. I think that needs to be plugged more. I want to see more stock images of people working harder. I suppose what you're saying is those things are a byproduct of your hard work. eventually, when you get there So you don't know what I mean. So it's just good that you're saying those kinds of things, because I think there can be a wrong perception of it. Now I know that you've been named in the top 50 inspiring prominent influential voices in UK black tech by tech nation. How did you go about creating your tech products?
Speaker 1:With our software company. Basically we've actually worked quite a lot of software well, clients who actually require software to do bring the problems to us, obviously, proposal problems, And we obviously will try to craft a solution out of the back of that by developing a software that can solve that problem. So, as a result, I have my team. Basically collectively we have about 25 years experience within the software development space. Yeah, we've basically been helping a lot of clients within that space And, as a result, as well off my actual duty as a senior consultant, I'm also helping startups, advising them around how to get their products from ideas to prototype and from prototype to testing the market and obviously and getting funding and all that And actually even evaluate their software products or even tax tax affairs when it comes around like software development.
Speaker 1:So as a result, obviously that's going to give me a lot of exposure to helping a lot of businesses, getting a lot of insight about what they do and what they're doing wrong and how they can do it better, And I'm also learning in that space. So it's giving me a lot of exposure to the right people who have once again put my name forward to say this guy is a definitely go to guy for you know all things technology and yeah, it's black, it's prominent and yeah, championing his own rights.
Speaker 3:How important for you is personal development, entrepreneurial development. How critical is that for yourself and maybe other entrepreneurs that you know as well?
Speaker 1:The best advice that I always probably tell people is make sure you get a supplemental from a very early stage. It doesn't even matter if you've started the business or not. Get yourself a mentor that's relevant to what you're trying to do as early as you can. Because someone said to me before it's like if you were giving a million pound right before you know what you know today, the chances are you blow it up. That's why we see, if you see cases where someone who's actually never been fortunate enough to have a million pound in a bank account before all of a sudden sees that kind of money, they get reckless and they spend it all and they go back to being broke again.
Speaker 1:For someone who's actually acquired a lot of personal development on how certain things work, how to manage money, how to make money, how to make money work for you so you don't have to keep running around chasing money would better manage that same money in a different context. So, for example, if you say, obviously, starting a business you can raise one billion pounds to go bankrupt because you're actually not really taking time to understand how to manage one pound or how to manage 10,000 pounds, then before you have to start getting to bigger problems, because the bigger your ship gets, the more anchors you'll be getting. There'll be problems that obviously exist that you so high up in the organization that you can't really see that problem. So you have to understand people's management and leadership skills and recruitment processes And there's so many things you kind of have to understand. So give yourself time to actually kind of get good grasp of the basics, the foundation, before you try to walk your way up. And then obviously I order people to replace the positions you've left. So obviously that way you build your empire of that way And it works that way.
Speaker 1:Like you should always I always emphasize on this you should always be a student of long life learning. The day you stop learning is the day you die, and it's not something negative, it's just what it is Like. You have to constantly seek learning from anything, even from your kids, because kids now have these new ways of thinking, of approaching things And new technologies you know surface in this world And it's just constantly just be ready to just learn and adapt and evolve. And be agile is very, very important, because COVID taught a lot of people love lesson around being agile. But yeah, that's my take on that.
Speaker 3:A phenomenal And I want to just go back a little bit to sort of when you first started your businesses, because I know you do quite a lot of different things If you were to. When you kind of first started out, i know you did a bit of employment for you you as an employee for a while as well. You worked for some companies. When did you initially start to branch out into, like, say, digital marketing or the mentoring side of things? What was one of the first things that you started to do to help clients and realize I'm a problem solver, i could have a business here. What was that first thing that you kind of leapt into?
Speaker 1:The first now, probably because I did IT on a graded level basically, but I could not really apply to me, to businesses. So the first thing I actually did is basically I had to unlearn, because I wasn't employed for like a whole year. So I had to unlearn while I was at Lantz then and obviously try to relearn by looking at what's actually relevant. So at that time, google my business was not really a big thing. A lot of businesses actually do not use it or using direction or anything like that. So I reached out to the first three clients, some of which include my family, and actually say right, if I do this for you, would you be willing to actually pay me, or would you have to be willing to actually introduce me to three other customers who have exactly the same problem, who will be happy to pay me, and I wait for them to wait for me up from there. So it's a power of three. That's what I call it. So it's like if you that's how you grow anything It's like if you, let's say, know the first three people, try to get that three people to introduce you to another three people that they know and just keep doing that, but until you can actually crack the first three, make them the most happy customers ever and then try to replicate that process. Then, if you can't go past that state, then you're not growing a business, you're growing literally. You're growing it too much. So it's just that basics, because you can grow so fast and literally just come crumbling And that's why it's very. That's why there's always that old saying slow and steady, steady, sorry, wins the race. It's not about fast space. It's not about anything that happens overnight. Look at how long it's taking Jeff Bezos, for example. Or obviously because of our shows we need to come up with, like use Tyler Perry's. Look at how long it's actually been in the industry, basically before you actually became the ultimate go to person. That has become today, And it's not an overnight thing. The hustle starts as early as they possibly could and they have a driving force behind them that keeps reminding them to keep going at it, even when things are not going to be great, because things won't always be great.
Speaker 1:You can wake up one morning and some things just hit the fan and you have to kind of have the tolerance in you to be able to deal with those circumstances in the best way possible, and especially when you have family as well. You have your family live in a line. Your house will be repossessed in some situation, so it's like you have to try to make sure you meet to get a lot of things. Interpreting and running your business is not for everyone. It's okay to be a doctor. It's okay to be simple things. That, well, doctor, is not simple. I'll take that one back. Well, it's okay to do simple stuff, simple things. That just makes things easier for you. You're happy you can travel with a family and just keep things simple. But if you like chaos and you try well in chaos, then yeah, maybe entrepreneurship is your thing. You like to wake up on morning knowing that you're five of your staff saying, oh sorry, i can't come in today because I've got COVID. No, you'll still be able to function in that situation.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, it is what it is, if you could go back to when, maybe 10, 15 years what would you have told your younger self?
Speaker 1:Don't stop for nothing, because we only have just one life, just one shot. There's no other direction. It's like it's either we do it or we don't do it. There's no other way around it. Did you take the shot or did you just let it go? There's no two way about it, because you only live a life of regrets when you're actually so old. Maybe this holiday they see it, for example I'm like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have gone, or anything like that. And then next year they you know, i'm not trying to call COVID back, but imagine COVID plus three basically comes in, or COVID plus with another variation comes in again and shut everything down and blah, oh, now I'm stuck in this country for another five years, and I mean so it's.
Speaker 1:It's just a case of just if you put everything you have into learning something, being a master at something. Don't stop at nothing to actually achieve what it gives you desire that, yes, you have arrived. Of course, when you get, you know if it's financial goal, if it's power goal, if it's legacy goal. You always start setting new, bound, new heights once you've achieved the one you had before. But it's always best to, at least you know, aim for the sky And if you fall on the clouds, at least you're still in, you know, you're still hoping the air. But if you aim for the clouds and you fall on your ass, there's only one answer for that You flat out So, so, but. But yeah, it's, you know, believe in yourself and just aim. Don't let anything stop you. Don't let anything stop you. Society, anything. They all design materials of distraction.
Speaker 3:Alex, it's been great man. I mean, if people want to find out more about you, where can they go, like website or social media, to find out more about what you're doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just Alex. On a larger or most platforms LinkedIn, yes, so basically pretty much all Facebook products like Instagram, my website, as well as Alex and Elijah. Just put that in Google. Basically I'll come up as well, but prominently. If you want to get through to me personally, the one I actually tend to log into personally myself is LinkedIn And, yes, you can find me there.
Speaker 3:Alex, it's been tremendous talking to you. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Alex on a larger. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I appreciate you being here. Just a reminder please leave a review on Apple Podcasts if you haven't done so already, And I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening.