By Vivian Onyebukwa
Monica Nnoka is a Nigeria-based mindset and transformational coach. Popularly known as “The MOre Coach,” Nnoka is the CEO and Founder of MOre-Thenticity Ltd. She’s a speaker, trainer and author. She is also a known linguistic practitioner, community builder and therapist.
In this interview, she spoke about how to make the best out of one’s career by highlighting the limitations and proffering solutions to that. She equally narrated some of her life experiences while trying to drive her message home.
What is MOre?
It is an acronym manifesting originality to release excellence. A lot of people are operating in the ideas that people have of them, rather than who they truly are. So if you are a career professional in your job, or a business man, can you be more original and authentic in what you do? Can you operate where you are planted and start to identify who you are truly sent to so that in anything you do, you release excellence? If you are a manager, can you come on with that uniqueness and have less negative mental chatter, less trauma and all that would allow you to show who you are, release the essence that you came to the world with, because a lot of us are not here just to live, we are here to bring more to the people and to the world, solutions.
What is the idea behind MOre-Thenticity Ltd?
Everything I do is to help people, business owners, entrepreneurs and higher professionals to gain clarity in life, feel the traumas out that are holding them back from unlocking that potential, who they truly are, so that they can birth the more that they have within. So, it is very important to me because I felt stuck in life. For the first 35 years of my life, I was trying to be who I wasn’t; I didn’t believe in my own life, I was not authentic enough. That is why MOre is manifesting originality. It is very important because I feel that the problems or challenges in Nigeria is because the solutions are actually buried in the people and we are yet to allow those solutions to come out. So we need a lot of people that will help those career professionals, business people to have identity-led businesses that would have their visions, not the vision of those that they are trying to help to fit in to the economic issues, looking for just what sells when you can be more unique. What if you can be more impactful using that thing that you came to the world to share. That is the whole idea.
You sound abstract. Is this idea also for the less educated people out there?
I am not trying to get a hundred people in the world. I said I am sent to career professionals and entrepreneurs. How do you get a million or two people? We are going to reach two million people. The two million people will get a hundred million because when you work with 20 per cent, what you are doing will transcend to much more. You can catch a thousand alone. When you are two, you do 10, 000. So when you have done 20 per cent, they start to affect the people around them, their energy changes. So what I am saying is not abstract, I am saying that instead of one trying to be unique, trying to fit in to be what everybody is, and trying to compete with people when the person has something to share with the world, you can be yourself. What is that thing that you have come in the world to do? What is that original person that God created that the world needs to experience? We are different people and are unique in our own different waysWhy would one want to start a business because it sells? It is because there is self doubt in what the person thinks that he is here to give to the world. So, how can we help people to have more confidence? We are also helping people to have money so that they do not have a barrier on how much they can earn, because most of the people have beliefs that are holding them back from earning more money. Most times when we shatter those limiting beliefs, they start to earn money.
How does this relate to “The Breakthrough Blueprint” event which you held recently in Lagos?
We want to help as many entrepreneurs and careers professionals to actually breakthrough, but we don’t want it to be motivational. We want them to have a blueprint of things they need to follow, work from the inside, grow and elevate their inner influence so that they can now have the results that they expect in their businesses, life, work, and elevate that influence on the outside as well. The statistics is that most Nigerian businesses don’t last up to five years. Again, most career professionals are not happy in their jobs. The reason is because they did not build theinner influence. There’re traumas that are holding them back from unlocking that potential from getting to the levels they want in life. There are some traumas like travel trauma, things that are holding them back, making them to procrastinate, blame people, or hold themselves in guilt. Even sexual violence; All those things are traumas and may have affected someone when they were younger. We are not saying that we are accusing the parents because every parent is doing the best that they can at the level that they are, and with the resources that they have available to them. Can we help those that have forgotten their dreams, those that have forgotten whom they are, and are just struggling in this economy to thrive, because whether you like it or not, with the challenges, there are people that it is working for, because they see the opportunities in the challenges. So they have been able to position themselves and make more out of what is happening. I work as The MOre Coach here in Nigeria because I know that there is a lot of opportunities that Nigerians are missing out here.
When someone is not doing well in his career or business, can it also be attributed to spirituality?
You cannot differentiate between spirituality and this because we are all spiritual beings, so you have to operate from within a higher intuition. Can you see your beliefs with your eyes? No. It is spiritual, not physical. As long as it not physical, it is spiritual. So your beliefs are ruling like 95 per cent of what you are doing in life. What you are doing in life is affected by your thoughts and beliefs. You cannot see your thoughts, but they guide your decisions and they eventually become your actions, and your actions become your destiny because you have done it over time and it now looks like automatic response. Some people call it faith, but when we go back to the drawing board, the symptoms are what we have been treating when we give all those strategies. But what is the real root cause of everything? Your thoughts and beliefs that you cannot see with your eyes, and the unconscious rules that you have made for yourself from experiences. For instance, when I started doing my business, I wanted to do a women project and was stuck for two years. I could’t do it, but I had the strategies. When I started growing within and doing therapy and all that I was doing, I found out that I had trauma which has been holding me back for years. When I was 11 years old, I was body-shamed by some girls in school. As an11-year-old in all girls school, I held it back inside of me that girls are difficult to deal with. This has nothing to do with the government. Is it the government that will come and help me and clear the trauma and then help me to help women to do their businesses? No. If I didn’t find that out, I would have been stuck, and I would have thrown away that project and run to what I think is working, trying to fit in, instead of what I came here on earth to help and solve. There’re a lot of people that are doing that. They are stuck, and they don’t know why. Then they do it half way and leave it because it does not make sense again. But we now understand that, it is the symptoms that we all are dealing with, because I had all of the strategies, but I couldn’t do it. I worked as a banker for many years, so it’s not as if I am not educated or I don’t know how to go about it, but there was still something emotionally holding me back. There were some other people that gossiped about me and they were all girls too. So all added together at 11 years old. My subconscious which is also something that one cannot see, I decided that I wasn’t going to deal with women. Till that time, I did not remember but it was ruling my life. I Studied Arch/Geology in the University of Ibadan and became a banker. I was confused, just doing anything to fit in. There are some other people like that. I am not just talking from textbook stuff, I am talking to you from the pain and experience that I have also undergone. I was confused in my identity.
You talked about studying Arch/Geology and eventually went into banking. Did you do any banking related course?
No. I started doing banking after my NYSC because banking was selling.
Why did you decide to partner with Bukie Adebola-Eze, a Sales Strategist and Confidence Coach in your project?
Bukie bought into that dream because our dream and goal is to reach at least two million career professionals, entrepreneurs in the next two years. That is a big vision. When you align with yourvision, other people that have similar visions begin to connect with you. So when we connected, it was based on that. We have partnered to do this together. “The Breakthrough Blueprint”, is going to other states in Nigeria. We are also going to have a summit that will now become an African summit. The first edition will be holding in Lagos, Nigeria because charity begins at home. I want to make sure that as many people in Nigeria thrive on their businesses and work in their lives. We have done the event in Abuja and Lagos.