consistency

3 common misconceptions about planning

3 common misconceptions about planning

As I sat across from my good sis, Eunice, I felt defeated, like a failure, and that all the plans I had put in place had come to nothing

The other thing I felt was embarrassed (lol) because all these feelings were causing me to cry in public

Eunice and I had met up (as we normally do every month) at a restaurant and, what was supposed to be a fabulous girls' night out, had dissolved into this cry-fest that I was trying to hide by at least not crying loudly and attempting to wipe away all evidence of

But of course, the tears just kept coming and at a certain point, I just gave up and let them flow

You might be wondering why I was feeling this way. Well…

This moment was back in early 2023 when I first attempted to launch Media Magic

My retreat for business women, experts, coaches and authors who want to uncover a quick and systemised process to pitch the media so that they can get onto more top platforms, be seen as industry experts, and start raking in larger paydays

I first had the idea in 2022, but as you can guess from the scene I painted for you in the middle of that African restaurant, the first launch didn’t go well

Looking back now, and hindsight being 20/20, I can see that I hadn’t done everything correctly during that first attempt. But at the time, sitting across from Eunice in that African restaurant, I believed that I had done all that I could- making my poor results all the more painful

Flash forward to now and, not only did I successfully get Media Magic off the ground (in Tulum, Mexico last July), I’m currently planning my second one

(which will take place in Mykonos, Greece in October)

But the Nina of 2023, didn’t know this would happen. She wanted to throw in the towel, crawl into bed and not get out, to be honest

And, truthfully, I did do that for a while…

But then I eventually got myself back up

You may be wondering why I’m sharing this with you, sis

I’m sharing this story and the lessons learned because I know there will be people who will come across this post who have goals but are too afraid to say their goals out loud let alone commit to them

Why?

Because they're scared of ending up like the Nina of 2023 instead of asking, like Steve Mackey, “What if I become my wildest dreams?” (like the Nina of 2024 did)

Perhaps you’re one of them?

How planning helps you achieve your goals

How planning helps you achieve your goals

If you’ve been rocking with me for a while, you’ll know that I don’t buy in to new year hype but even I can admit that it has several benefits

Like a clean slate that gives us renewed energy to try again or try something completely new

And try as we may to run away from it, resolutions just hit different at the top of a new 365 days

Don’t you agree?

While we all have good intentions when we set our resolutions, statistics show that most people give up on them by February

I know, that’s crazy, right?! Especially when you think about the fact that, that’s typically a month after setting them

I know what you’re thinking, sis: What makes us give up so soon?

Why you should follow your dreams

Why you should follow your dreams

I'm so totally honoured to share that I spoke at The Rise to Millions Conference in Paris and received a Legendary Woman of Impact Award there recently 🥳🥳🥳

It was the last weekend of October to be exact

As I stood in front of the crowd, trying to find the words to express how honoured I was, I ended my speech by saying something like: “Well, this wasn’t on my bingo card, but it’s real, and it’s happening because I chose to follow my dreams...literally"

Here's what I meant by that 👇🏾

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

What to do when people don't support you

What to do when people don't support you

When I first started to gain traction with PR it was as a blogger in the first quarter of 2017. However, by that December, I was ready to quit writing all together

Here's why 👇🏾

"If someone who I've considered a sister for 10 years could so misconstrue and under rate my writing," I remember thinking, "What hope is there that strangers will get me?"

And so, like I said, I seriously considered calling it quits with The Far Above Rubies Collection and all the business ideas that I hoped would come out of it

Fast forward to now and I am an award winning blogger, international speaker and freelance writer who has not only been able to monetise my gift but get featured on platforms such as Thrive Global, The TEDx blog, HuffPost, Bustle, Mic, Addicted2Success, Black Ballad and more. I also just got rave reviews for Media Magic (the luxury retreat that I held in Tulum, Mexico in July teaching business women how to get PR for themselves)

What led to this success was...

What to do if you’re frustrated with your PR journey

What to do if you’re frustrated with your PR journey

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "It's not the destination, it’s the journey” that counts. Now, I’m sure we’ve all heard these wise words before, but how many of us really and truly apply them to our lives and businesses?

Often, we get caught up in wanting to see the results of our efforts without taking time to enjoy the journey and the getting there. I was reminded of the danger of this way of thinking when I listened to one of my favourite podcasts, The R&B Money Podcast, with Tank and J. Valentine, recently. In the episode I tuned into, they were interviewing someone by the name of Adrian Marcel, and he said something quite powerful and similar to Emerson's quote which was, “A lot of people get frustrated and they quit on their dreams [in this case becoming R&B artists] because they make the date the destination”. I.e., they start saying stuff like, “Man, I’ve been doing this for [years] and I’m not making the kind of headway that I would want to; so I give up.”

Even though we’re not all trying to be R&B stars, we can all relate to having a plan for our careers and lives that hasn't panned out by the time that we thought it would. This expectation of success and the frustration of failure is something I see a lot in PR especially when people end up hearing nothing back or they get a “no” after sending a few pitches. This makes them quit on themselves because when they’ve put in the time and effort with no result, they start thinking that no one wants to hear their story.

If this has been your experience; if this has been your frustration, I want to encourage you…

How to stay committed to your PR Goals

How to stay committed to your PR Goals

If you follow me on social media, you would have seen that I recently went to Germany for my friend's beautiful wedding.

In the few weeks leading up to her big day, my dear friend and soon-to-be bride, Kelly, asked if I could read a prayer at her ceremony. I was honoured, and of course, I said YES!

My first thought when she asked me was that all I needed to do was read a verse from The Bible. I was a little mistaken and would soon realise this, thanks to a message from the best man. Fast-forward to a couple of messages later, and worry starting to kick in (lol), I learned that it wasn't a reading of the word that Kelly needed from me. She wanted me to write a few lines that I would say in front of the congregation!

I won't lie; I was a little nervous because I was wondering what I could possibly say to the bride and groom. So, I took a few days to think about it, and these are the words that came to my heart and landed on my page:

What Tetris taught me about PR Success

What Tetris taught me about PR Success

One of the things that I like to do to de-stress is play Tetris.

For ages my high score was in the high 6000s and I spent ages trying to beat it until one day I stopped and just went back to playing for pleasure.

A few days ago, I opened up the game to play it again and had to laugh. My new high score was 7032 and I had absolutely no idea when I'd done it!