BY VIVIAN ONYEBUKWA
Bukky Adebola-Eze is a transformation coach. According to her, she works more in the business area, helping people to identify their unique identity, and how to apply it to their businesses or brands.
In this interview, she identified the reasons most businesses fail and how to fix them.
She also spoke on the use of the social media and it’s positive impact in business development, as well as on issues concerning women, among others.
What inspired the Breakthrough Blueprint seminar you recently organised in Lagos?
Myself and Monica Nnoka of The MOre Coach had worked together on zoom. We saw the gap in women not understanding their own identity. We also saw the gap in people who want to build their business. They build the first and second year and fail, and they feel that the life is not for them. A lot of people don’t understand that life is happening for them, not to them. So we thought that we could show people that all the challenges they have gone through in life are stepping stones. So if you look at them, rather than saying challenges, learn in your challenges. Then, you would be able to build the life of your own journey. In a society where everything we think about is a problem, why not look at it as an opportunity? So the Breakthrough Blueprint, for us, is to give people the blueprint to break through their challenges rather than problems, and find what they learn in their challenges and create the breakthrough of their own lives, personal business, or even in their career.
What informed your collaboration with Monica Nnoka?
People meet people through people. When you are preparing that God should give you something, you should open your eyes for when the opportunity comes. So, before I met The MOre Coach, I was praying to meet someone who is at the level of awareness, and the hunger to change other people’s lives. So it is not just about how much I am going to make, it is what impact I can leave, what people can remember me for. So, when I was introduced to her, it was easy for us to flow and collaborate. We have done things on zoom, Instagram, and so on. I have not been in Nigeria for 20 years. So I came because of her vision. I believe that together, we can impact over two million people within the next two years.
What skill or mind-set shift do you need to impact on people?
Right now, the world has become a smaller place. Many people think that if they do business in Nigeria it might not thrive. But having the mind-set shift that the world has become a smaller place, everybody can see and understand what one is doing. Then it gives one a better mind-set to go out there and create for more. It is shifting our minds to say, the world is my oyster, playground. I can go on and make the world a better place. So, it is no longer just sitting in the room or one’s bedroom, but creating a world that can impact on the people and the generations to come.
What do you consider challenges for some women in business?
One of the first that I identified is identity. Women were born like everybody else, given a name like everybody else. They go to school. Get a degree. Get married and take on someone else’s name. Then they get to that age of 29 to 39. So after this, what next? Really, women need to understand who they are, that they are all given assignments as women to help the generations to come. And until they own their identity, they cannot change anything because they keep looking for answers themselves, realising that if they know their identity and know who they are, the answer is on their side. So for women, it is knowing who they are, understanding their purpose and what they are supposed to be doing and knowing themselves. If you know yourself, you won’t have to copy anyone. If I know who I am, I won’t have to be jealous of you, rather, I would collaborate with your gift and make the world a better place. So when we own our identity as women, we will not fight. We will work together and change people.
Considering the role of women in the society, how can they strike a balance between business and home?
Life is in phases, and when we understand the phase where we are on our journey, then we are comfortable in that phase. I don’t mean comfort in just sitting down there and not doing anything. I mean comfort in saying that this is the step that I am right now but I am going to be working on myself in that step. When you were in primary school, you were getting ready for secondary school. Also, when you were in secondary school, you were getting ready for a degree. I am a mother of four (two boys, two girls), and I have been married for about 24 years. My oldest daughter is 20 years. There was a time in my life that I was raising my children. So, you as a woman have to understand the phase you are in at the moment. The phase I was raising my children, I was going back to school and learning. Now, I am building my business. My children are grown. It is easier for me to step out of my house for three weeks. So if you understand the phase that you are in on your journey, you will not be frustrated. You will be able to balance it. Understand the season you are in, be comfortable in that season while you are preparing for the next one.
What is your advice to business owners on how to scale-up, not just limit their business to small scale?
In your first year as a businessperson, you are figuring life out. The reason many businesses fail is because they have a plan and when it doesn’t work that way, they quit. As a small business owner, in your first year, figure your mind and the business out. Figure who your ideal clients are, and the people you want to work with. In that first year, you might be a solo-preneur, meaning, you are the manager, accountant, social media manager, and so on. You are living in your field. So by the time you are in your second year, and you are bringing in people to help you, you already have a foundation for what your business would look like. Also, use social media to your advantage because the world is a small place. I learnt social media during COVID-19. I used the Instagram for just pictures, but this time you can sell anything to anybody anywhere around the world. Take the time out, build calendars for yourself that works for you. Figure out who you are, then bring your unique you to the market place so much that you don’t get confused by everybody’s idea. To every business owner, first figure out who you are before you figure your business. This is because if your personal life is in tatters, your business too will be in tatters. If your personal life is not in alignment to what you are doing, you are going to get frustrated. So when you know where you are going, you are able to take your business there.
Why did you decide to go into this type of profession?
When I left Nigeria a little over 20 years ago, I have always had a dream that I was going to be my own boss. But when I got to the UK, life happened for me. My first daughter had her first stroke when she was four years old. It was the first time of being aware that my daughter had sickle cell, and between that time and as I am talking to you, she has being in coma twice. She was in coma during COVID-19. So I got to the level where I knew that with all my degree, nobody was going to hire me. And, there are other women like myself who would like to make something out of their lives, but they can’t because life’s throwing challenges at them. So I began to look at what I could do to help other women. That is why I said I started with women. Then I started looking at how I could help other women who are going through my own kind of challenges to build a life out of that challenge, because through my own challenges, I realised I was helping people more. I was talking to mothers, so I thought I could do this for a business because at this point, I was a sales person. It was taking me outside myself. I was fulfilling as a mother and I wanted to be there for my children. So my idea of working from home was also empowering other women to build life out of those challenges. Don’t let whatever you are going through hold you down. I began to queue into COVID-19. I started teaching the experience I had from sales, and teaching other women how to sell during COVID-19 from their houses, using the social media. Life happened through me to get here. I didn’t start off a life to be here, but then I found the opportunity and my calling inside my challenges.
You are talking all these about business because you are learned. Does it make any sense to illiterate market women?
Yes it does. My mum was one of those people. She did not get what I call learned education, but I saw her use what she had to get what she wanted. My mum had a restaurant but she was using that opportunity to raise us to go to school. For the women that are not learned, they can still use what they have to help the next generation to come back home and be better people.
Would you say your mum is your role model?
Yes, she is, one hundred thousand times. I celebrate her because she did not go to school, but it did not stop her from giving me the opportunity to be what I wanted to be. So for mothers out there who are not learned, I say to them that they can create a future that the next generation will remember their names. I will forever celebrate my mum because I said, if my mum could do it, I could as well do it.
From your experience growing up, what can you tell the youths of today?
We have to do better, not the youths. We have to be the role model that they see, but we also have to go back and live back. It is not everything on social media that is the truth. We need to use our wisdom to help the young people. It is high time the adults started mentoring the young people in a positive way.
Social media is part of the problems we have in the society today. What can you say about it?
You say problems; I say challenges. If we see something as a problem, it becomes a problem. There are so many positive things on social media. Social media is a tool; it’s just how do we use it? Television is a tool. The question is, are you telling your vision, or are you watching someone else’s vision? So when you go on the television, what vision are you telling? What vision are you teaching the next generation? When I tell a vision, I show them what is possible. When I tell a vision, I tell them what the vision is, and what they can achieve as young people. So it is high time that we took responsibility again as adults and start telling the right vision to the next generation. Social media is a tool. How we use it is important.
Do you also mentor women in politics?
Yes, but I am not a politician.
Do you think we have enough women in politics?
I think we still need more. We need more women in all aspects of life. We need more women CEOs. When we have representation in those areas, then it is easier for people to look up to us.
You have been out of this country for well over 20 years. Between then and now, what do you think has changed?
Everything has changed. The question is, what are you and I doing with that change? How are we impacting the change? What are we doing for the next generation for that change? What legacy are we leaving behind? So it starts with you and I. It is easy for me to point fingers, but what am I doing? When I look at myself in the mirror, what impact am I creating? Everyone of us should start looking at the mirror and ask, what are you doing to make the world a better place? The world would always change.
What is your advice to the government?
We should be the reason that somebody smiles. We should be better role models, the light that young people follow.
What can you tell mothers?
I want to be my children’s greatest role model.
How did you meet your husband?
I met my husband in a library in Enugu when I was in school. I went in to borrow a book and he was there. So I borrowed him out.
What’s your experience marrying outside your tribe?
It’s been an experience.