Legacy

Why you need a North Star

Why you need a North Star

Years ago, my good sis Michelle told me I have the gift of communication

When she said this, I thought, “Yeah, I have a way of communicating, I can speak to others, teach, write, and use my gifts to convey big ideas”

But what I’ve also come to realise over the years is that my gift of communication fuels my curiosity about language

Hi, I’m Nina, and I’m a word nerd

I get curious when I hear or see a word that I’ve never come across before or suddenly have the urge to know where the origins of a phrase comes from

Even if I’ve heard it lots of times in the past

One such phrase is “North Star”

We often hear people talk about something being their North Star

I’ve always understood what this phrase meant as the thing that gives us purpose or fuels us towards a particular goal

Or our why

But, recently, I’ve been curious about why we say “North Star” in the first place

Here’s what Google told me:

Why you need systems to achieve your goals

Why you need systems to achieve your goals

Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Monica Pierre on her show

The Powerhouse Woman Show

It was a great conversation

(Which I knew it would be since we hit it off so well when we met in Paris in October)

And during it, she asked me about the person who has most influenced my entrepreneurial journey: my mum

Why you should share your gifts with the world

Why you should share your gifts with the world

What kind of birthday celebrant are you?

Are you the sort of person who:

A) Is very low-key (as in “I don't celebrate at all” or “if I do, it's just on the day?”)

B) Is more of the mindset that the whole month is your birthday?

I'm the latter, as in:

I always say “October is my birthday” even though it’s only technically today

(October 3rd, on the day of sending this email)

This whole idea of October being my birthday is not just this self-centred wish to make it all about me, though

Believe it or not…

It has always been a celebration of life and an acknowledgement that there but by the grace of God go I

How to make a positive impact in the world

How to make a positive impact in the world

“Thank you for being the sent one to do and show us how possible it really is to execute an idea- a God-given idea… This is so deeply encouraging, Nina, honestly…”

This was a message that I received from my good sis, Rebekah, shortly after coming back from hosting Media Magic…

(the luxury retreat that I held in Tulum, Mexico in July teaching business women how to get PR for themselves)

…and updating her on how well it went

A theme that I was surprised to see come up in many other conversations that I would go on to have with loved ones afterwards

Aside from being beautiful words (that still have me emotional even now), there are a few key take-aways:

How to live your legacy now

How to live your legacy now

My grandma was born in the village in Nigeria at a time where girls were not sent to school

That meant from then until the time of her passing in 2022, she never learned to read or write

Despite this, she worked her butt off as a trader in order to afford my mum's school fees when she was growing up

This is because, to this day, education is not free in Nigeria

My mum was then able to move to the UK in the early 80s, where I've been born and raised, and push both me and my sister all the way to degree level

3 Secrets to PR Success

3 Secrets to PR Success

One of the proudest moments of my life was buying my first flat just before my 25th birthday. My dad helped me load my stuff into his car and we set off on our hour or so drive from my mother’s house in north London to my new home in the north-west.

“You know, you’ve done well. You did a good course” he began.

I turned to him in shock as he listed off my achievements since graduating as a Speech and Language Therapist- a “good job,” “promotion” and now “[buying] a house”- while some of his friend’s children continued to struggle for various reasons.

Now when I say I was shocked, I mean I was shocked. My dad had been completely against me studying speech and language therapy as, in true Nigerian fashion, he had wanted me to be a doctor.

“Thank you!” I finally mustered.

“Yes,” Dad continued. “All you need now is a car and a husband!”

Once again I turned to him in shock.

“A car and a husband?!” I said laughing. “Could I kill two birds with one stone and marry a guy with a car?!”

But the more I reflected on my dad’s words, the less funny they became. They niggled at me for the rest of the car journey and for days even after that.

I was frustrated because I had literally just achieved this house goal; yet I wasn’t even getting a chance to savour it properly before I was being pushed to achieve something else. I was also frustrated because I could feel myself being pushed towards something that I didn’t see as my next natural step.

Up till then, I had always towed the line that my parents set out for me. Medicine or not, the fact remains that I went to university and graduated. Everything that followed, that my dad had praised me for in the car, was also a part of the masterplan. This was the first time that I felt a deviation between my parent’s wishes and my own. This was the first time that I questioned their expectations of me and simultaneously felt the weight of potentially disappointing them, and robbing them of their dreams.

What made my resistance even more confusing is that I knew that my parents, and those of the same mindset, wanted the best for me. Marriage and motherhood are not bad things in and of themselves. It’s quite natural to want them for your child. Also, from what I was taught and could see from those around me, it was something that I was supposed to want too. Yet, as I’ve already stated, I didn’t.

Looking back, I see that this was a trauma response to seeing most of my female role models sell themselves short or stay in abusive situations due to factors such as tradition, control and low self-worth. Yet rejecting those societal norms helped me to realise that my measure of success is the freedom to live life on my terms.

In interviewing other black women about their measures of success, for my most recent Black Ballad article, it was interesting to see how these themes were echoed many times over. It’s also very interesting that, as I reflect on my journey from that part of my life up till now, I see how important having measures of success is, not just in life, but also for PR.