Transcript 0:00 Blowing phone does not mean you're communicating. It doesn't. You need to learn to speak properly because, you know, the cultural nuance of your new country is ex- entirely different from where you're coming. 0:13 Like, it's different. The way things are said, the unsaid things, the things that are... people mean in between the lines. 0:21 But I feel like people focus more on learning to speak with the accent instead of learning to understand what people are really saying when they say something. 0:31 And I think that's what Beyond Text talk a lot about that here, about, you know, how cultural nuance is communicating, trying to understand the culture. 0:41 Like, understand the culture, not saying, "Oh, I can speak like them." Like, yeah. You should listen to this episode. Don't, don't turn it off. Just stay, stay here. Just keep... Hold on. It's starting now. 0:58 [chuckles] See you on the other side. [outro jingle] You know, the first thing I was gonna s- we're, we're talking about, like, we're talking the pre-show was, 1:15 it's-- The, the question I really wanna ask is what was it like to move when you did? But I-- You were telling me something about you'd done this two times. Yeah, so. Yeah. So I had, I had done this two time. 1:27 I, I had come in, um, 2007. I did a master's. I worked for, like, two years after or so, went back to Niger. 1:39 Um, and then I came back again, and this time I knew I was coming for a much longer stint. Uh, and I think we're here, we're here for here now. 1:49 In, um, 2016, I suppose my story is kind of different because from that first time that we came, I already had indefinite leave to remain in the UK. 2:01 If I had stayed one more year then, I'd have collected my passport since then. But, you know, like- Ah.... Africa was, Africa was rising. Niger was rising. Niger was rising. 2:14 [chuckles] I said, I said, I said, "Let's go back and raise the kids." You know what? This thing, this thing you just said, 'cause I was about to ask you but, why you came back. 2:23 But I also remember that then there was this massive PR about- Well, it was... you know, Africa is rising- Yeah. You know- And then-... and all that... let me shock you. 2:32 Within six, seven months of moving back, our, uh, the, was it stock market burst. The, the bubble in the stock market burst. Everything just reset, and Africa hasn't really been rising since, [chuckles] since then. 2:51 Gosh. But, yeah. You know what? I, I, I don't even know what the answer is, but I mean, I guess, like, that's, that's something for another day. I wanna kinda explore, so how was it for you? 3:05 Like, so you came the first time to study, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so w-were you-- Were there any differences in how it was for you, you know, when you came that first time, "Hey, I'm here to study. 3:17 I'm gonna stay two year more, two years after." And then when you now came back the second time, like, "Okay, I am here for, like, I'm here for life." Any... 3:24 There were-- How-- Was, was there any differences in how you were settling in, you know, just adjusting back- Yeah.... and all that stuff? Yeah. 3:33 So, um, I'd just got married when I, I came to do a master's, but my wife had been here, um... [lip smacks] I mean, she, she'd come to school here. 3:47 So right now I can reel it back and tell you that my wife and I went to the same secondary school. We knew each other from secondary school. Da, da. Anyway. 3:53 [chuckles] Anyway, um, but so she came here after secondary school. She'd, she'd, um... Anyway, we got together, got married. I came here to do a master's, and, um, 4:06 I mean, I, I'd only been working for about two or three years then, so I think perhaps being less experienced as a professional. Um, and the society was-- I mean, societies are always evolving, and this was- Yeah... 4:23 I think at the, at the early stage of its beginning to accept professionals from different parts of the world. So it, I want to say it didn't feel as welcoming then in phase one as, as it did in phase two. 4:41 But I was also, like, a more established person professionally, more sure of myself, more, more confident in my dealings with, with anybody from anywhere, probably slightly thicker skinned. Yeah. 4:56 So maybe that also contributed to, you know, not, not really caring the second time around. 5:03 But I will admit that between that 2009, 2010 period when we went to Niger, and then coming back again 2016, 2017, in the context of British society and how, 5:18 how I felt or what I felt my place was in it, there, there definitely was a difference. Hmm. So, and we'll just go west. We'll stay on this topic a bit 'cause I like what you said about- Yeah. So-... 5:33 how, how the society evolves over time, you know. And it-- And I feel like that's happened to both societies in the West, where immigration wasn't a big thing. 5:41 Like, it feels like immigration has become a big thing in the past five, six, seven years. Like, it's become a conversation. It's become a global conversation. Like, oh, people are moving. 5:50 I mean, people have always moved. Yeah. But I, I, I don't understand why it has suddenly become, like, a PR thing in a way. But-What I'm curious about is one is... 6:03 So can you describe some of the cultural nuances you faced that first time that made you say it felt a bit un-unwelcoming at that point? 6:11 And while you're describing that, let's also explore was it a function of techs at that point didn't really understand the culture? Or was it a function of the culture didn't understand techs? 6:21 Or was it a function of techs and the culture needed to kind of make- [laughs]... two, three steps forward to [laughs] I, I, I think, I think it was probably a mixture of both. So, um, 6:40 so first time around, um, I guess it, it was just, it wasn't... Hmm. It's a good question you've asked and I'm, I'm trying to, you know, gather my thoughts to, to, to answer properly. 6:53 Uh, the first time around it felt not as welcoming because, um... So it was around the time that I think there was an influx of, um, Eastern Europeans into the UK. 7:10 So there was-- I think that, that was the start of, in my, in my reckoning anyway, the start of British society suddenly talking about it all the time. 7:23 I mean, if, if you dig deep into it, they'll tell you that since Windrush times sha, when, you know, people came from the Caribbean and, uh, East Asia and Africa, that there'd always been some hostility, 7:36 but it seemed like, like people got on a bit more. Then there was that influx of Eastern Europeans who were then... 7:43 And you know, British society is structured in a way that, yes, people go to uni, but lots of people are in the trades as well. You know, your plumber- Yes. Yes... your electrician, your... And, 7:54 and in fact, I, I suspect probably more people are in the trades. I don't have the data. Maybe I shouldn't. But anyway, there was that pushback against that. They are coming, um, they're, they're taking our work. 8:06 At times you watch "South Park," which makes me think it wasn't even like, uh, strictly a British or European thing. There was that episode as well of, "And they're coming in our country. They took the jobs." 8:17 It, you know, that, that's [chuckles] So- Right... but I guess to, to localize it to me, I just saw that everything... May-maybe I was too sensitive to it at the time. 8:29 Everything on the news and on the radio and immigration, immigration, immigration, and maybe because I was still in the process of regularizing my... But I, I was never, like, on the wrong side of it. I, I... 8:43 Once I finished school, I had that freedom to work as I liked. Um- Mm-hmm... and, and I think my, my wife became a citizen the year we moved back the first time. 8:53 So it was, it was always just a matter of time, but I just, just didn't really feel like, you know, I was, I was in a place where I felt comfortable in my skin. 9:02 Um, professionally, that was a problem as well because I had gone to... So I'm a lawyer by, by profession. Uh- Yeah... done my law school, worked for two or three years, worked in a nice, sexy Lagos law firm. Like, I was 9:19 not too far from the top of the food chain. Yes, I was a new lawyer, but pay my dues, stay in the zone that I'm in and things will just progress. 9:28 It didn't matter one bit here that this guy was a lawyer from a different... Okay, yes, this is a different jurisdiction, so you have to go back to their own law school and do their own exams. Done that now. 9:41 Um, and you know, I'd just done a master's, so you know that our Nigeria sense now, you lawyer, you don't do master's. 9:49 And then you're putting your CV out and you don't have experience, you don't have experience, and then you lower your standards a bit, you don't have experience. 9:56 Like, there's some admin jobs self that I put applications for, you know, just to get, like you don't have experience. I'm like, "What experience do, do I need to, to do this shit?" I mean, you know. 10:11 So I, I feel- Gosh... there was that, that, that indignation that, man, these guys should get lost, okay? Go sit in their, their country self. So all these book I don read now- Yeah... 10:23 um, you know, is to be hustling backwards. So there was, there was a bit of that. And then Africa was rising anyway, so the alternative, you know, go back to where- Became-... I'm a big, I'm a bigger fish 10:37 then, then, then- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm... seemed attractive. Um, this time around, so I, I moved back, and there's an interesting story about how I moved back. Um, but I moved back on the day of the Brexit vote. 10:54 So- Huh? [laughs] Yep. Yep. So immigration was also very high on the agenda then, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Farage was- Ooh... was cooking his thing. 11:08 In fact, whole point of Brexit was this Eastern European crisis in British society. So I heard Theresa May had started this hostile environment thing when she was home secretary, so it was all just... 11:25 It wasn't like I came into a friendlier, you know, immigration atmosphere. But friends and colleagues that didn't go back when Africa was rising had progressed in all their professions. They had bought houses. 11:41 They were, you know, they were, they were balanced. All the, the tech boxes of when you are, are moving to a different country, you want to do the certification, you want to, uh, tick off some, some life milestones. 11:55 They'd, they'd done all that. Um, 11:59 the, the work that I saw my peers doingPhase, at that beginning of phase two compared to that time everybody was just trying to get into project management because that was the, the big thing to just be comfortable. 12:14 Yes, indeed. But people were now, people were coming as doctors, people were coming as lawyers, people were coming as accountants. Like people were-- You weren't being boxed into that do project management or drive a bus 12:33 life of the mid-2000s is, I suppose, the shortest description I can give for how I felt, you know, things had evolved a bit, you know. Mm. Yeah. 12:50 It's, it's, it's always interesting because I mean, I feel, I feel like that's the same here because I, I know someone said to me that... 12:57 But give or take, if I had moved to Canada like five years back, like it wasn't-- things are much better right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The country has evolved. 13:05 People are more, people are more open to the conversation of can you hire an immigrant or, you know, like the cul- the work culture is more accepting. I mean, we still have- Yes... 13:16 the Canadian experience thing, which is probably what you're talking about, like, oh, do you have Canadian experience? Yeah. 13:21 You know, we still happens every now and then, but at least you even see provinces that are saying, "Hey, no, you cannot ask someone if they have Canadian experience." It's, it's il- it's illegal to ask that question. 13:33 Oh, that, that's interesting. And like to me, like that's a-- Yeah, like that's a massive jump itself in just like if the, if legalese starts to... 13:41 If you start having that in legalese across the country, then it means that the country is actually, you know, it's actually making its, its own move. 13:50 So [clears throat] just kind of still staying on that and just moving forward a bit is, so immigrants, I feel, I feel like there's something that happens, and I, I, I saw that we-- I think we kind of talked about this a bit on Twitter. 13:59 I, I, there was a conversation and all that. This thing about moving to a new country, you know, how to communicate, tone, expectations, work culture. Yeah. 14:11 And sometimes it feels like people, people take the trauma from their past work culture and bring it to the new work culture. [chuckles] You know, just all those things. Yeah. 14:22 The fact that how work is approached here is very different. Yeah. I feel like it's something that immigrants don't talk about. 14:28 We kind of gloss over it, but it's a problem because either some people kind of get on with the, with the, with the game. Some people are just faster than others. 14:37 Some people just complain, and they keep changing jobs over and over again. Yeah. You know, like any thoughts, like, yeah, just any thoughts on that and stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's absolutely valid. 14:46 So we all speak English, we speak English fluently, but there's no doubt that we speak English differently from, from each other. 14:53 The, the way we express ourselves, the way we gather our thoughts, the things that we would say with, with levity. I mean, so in my, my, my first-- so our first time, 15:05 uh, my wife got a new job, um, and she was still on probation, and as she describes it, it was office banter going on. She's like, "Ah, that stupid joke." You know, as Nigerian, you say that's stupid is, stupid is silly. 15:21 It's like, that doesn't make sense. However, the, in her appraisal, they, they referred to that incident, and she was like, "You know, but it was office banter. We were-- And this was the context in which I said it." And 15:38 when you explain it like that, obviously it makes sense. But if someone who wasn't there, who speaks the language in the code of everyone else in the office, there's a way they interpret it. So there's, 15:49 there's definitely a need to, to code switch or to learn how to code switch. And this is not a faux pas thing now, it's just w- certain words just have, words just have different connotations. 16:03 Expressions have different connotations, and you just have to take time. You know, so the way Nigerian people talk, we are-- We can be very forceful. 16:13 It's like how we go and drink beer in any beer parlor in Nigeria now, Friday, today, Friday evening. Men are drinking. They are yelling at... They're not fighting, no. But you know how we are yelling at each other. 16:28 We are-- And we are dismissing what-- That's how we argue. We, we dismiss what the person is saying. In fact, we dismiss the person first before we start. And 16:39 putting whether that's good or bad aside, you know, it's, it's, it's just not the way that other people do their own banter or do their own, you know, football gist of their own hanging out. So there was that. And then 16:56 I also-- So my own personal experience, um, you know, you always have to learn your boss, but... And, and, and that, that's universal, like anywhere you work, you need to learn your boss and learn to manage your boss. 17:11 But here, the, the English culture, when your oga says he's suggesting something or she's suggesting something, when I first came, even this phase two, 17:24 I thought if you're suggesting, eh, you're telling me, "Okay, this is just what you feel," but [chuckles] what made me, I still go use my church mind decide was... And I very, very quickly learnt 17:40 that suggest is not, is not suggestion like me and you would use suggestion. [chuckles] It's, it-- Here it is very, ah, if your oga suggests, just that's, that's the direction. That's politely told you what to do. 17:59 Um, and then there's... Okay, so even in Nigeria, like-That code-switching exists too. Hmm. I need to say this carefully because I'm, I'm not trying to make a classist comment, but 18:17 there, there is a way that some Nigerians, depending on which schools they went to or how they were raised- Yes. Yes... 18:26 there are some ex- there are some expressions that even in Nigerian society or even in other pockets of Nigerian society would be deemed offensive or aggressive. Um, 18:40 I, I don't know what the fix for that is, but I feel like those people are the ones that when they land, struggle more with the tones, you know, in their emails. So, 18:52 um, and it may, it can even be because it's just so professional training. Like 18:57 if you work in a lawyer's office, in the kind of offices I worked at, even in the in-house teams I worked in, an email of just two or three paragraphs can take two or three hours to write because words have meanings, right? 19:10 You, you need to make sure- Yeah... what you are saying, one, is clear. Two, you're not mistakenly insulting someone. If you want to insult, be clear that you want to insult and don't, don't do it mistakenly. Yeah. Um, 19:25 and three, just desp- ah, more importantly than even that one is being able to communicate dispassionately. So 19:35 you can piss me, I can really be pissed, or you could have done something that, you know, made me really, really, really mad. But when in professional setting, when I'm responding to you, I can say 19:48 all the things I need to say to you about, you know, what you said. "Here, here's what you did. Here's why it was offensive. Here is why I'm not going to accept it, and here's how I think we can move forward." You can be 20:03 forceful and dispassionate, but... And yeah, e-even Nigerian lawyers are guilty of this. 20:11 So in some other law firms, when they ask you to write a letter, if you don't make it bombastic, if you don't make it, you know, you have to write it strongly worded. 20:21 If you don't make it strongly worded, your guy can, you know... And I, well, so that, that I, I don't know what the fix for it is, but yeah, peop-people do need to be conscious about tone. 20:33 So, "I want you to" is you have to rephrase it. Could you, um, you know, this is rubbish. This is like, I don't think this is the best way. You know, you always have to think, 20:44 is this the most basic way of saying what I want to say? You know, and 20:51 or is this, is there a, a way I can say this as strongly as I want it to come across, but without any, you know, offense and heat and fire inside what I'm saying? And that, that, that I think takes 21:07 skill and coaching and, or being aware, first of all, and, and, and, and, um, yeah, looking for help. And it, and it's, it's an ongoing thing. I, I, I feel like I've always been conscious of tone, but till tomorrow, 21:26 you know, I'm always thinking, is, is there a way I, you know, I can tone this down? Sometimes I give something to my Oyinbo colleague to say, "Just help me look at it." 21:35 And then by the time they make their own adjustment, you say, "Okay, it's just one or two words." 21:41 [chuckles] And it actually brings the temperature of what you're trying to say down, but it still has, it still has all the gravitas that you are trying to attach to it. Um, 21:53 yeah, it's, it's immersion, it's practice, it's skill. It's, it's being conscious of it, I think. Yeah. 22:00 You know, you know, I really like how you explain it because I feel like, again, just repeating myself, we gloss over this so much. Um, [clears throat] we, we don't take time to think about that 22:12 code-switching is not funa. Like that thing- Oh, it's not- Like that is like, it's not funa. It's not- It's not funa... switching on your accent. That's not, that's not code-switching. 22:21 [laughs] Because sometimes, eh, so it's not even about fight. I will say something in a way that my Nigerian... The voice, so the voice in our head is always the voice in our head. 22:35 In fact, I like to say that code-switching chops bandwidth because- Yes. Oh, yes... y-you will always think, first of all, in your native internal voice. Mm. Yes. 22:46 You are then passing it through a filter or a translator to put it in a way that the people you are talking to will understand. So there are some things that, 22:57 you know, I will say and I realize, okay, they're not understanding me or they're not getting me because even though I've spoken clearly, I've, I've phrased it in a, in a Nigerian way. 23:10 And, and this is not about, this is not about... [tsks] So and some people who listen to this and be thinking racism, hierarchy, racial. It is actually not about that. It's, it's the same way 23:25 the Englishman comes to the pub in Nigeria, in a bar in Nigeria and wants to order something or ask something, and the person he's speaking to hears each English word, but as a phrase, what he's hearing 23:42 is not what the foreigner is saying. The Englishman. [laughs] You know? I- Poor communication. Is, is not, is-- 23:57 One of, one of the phrases that one of my old bosses in Nigeria used to, she had it a-as a signature to her email, was that the greatest illusion about communication is you think it has happenedBut, you know, that's where the quote ends. 24:14 But obviously the unsaid part is you can, you can be speaking- [laughs] It didn't happen. You can be speaking good, perfect, grammatically correct English, but 24:29 if the person you are speaking to doesn't understand... And again, yes, there are some people who 24:37 I haven't really experienced it so much, uh, so, but I understand that it's a common experience that because you're a foreigner, sometimes people won't even be patient, you know, to- Enough to, yes, yes... 24:48 to, to try to understand you. That absolutely happens. But like even as between us man to man, there are some things that as an Igbo person, you will say that the way it lands, 25:04 maybe not necessarily to me, but to my, my parents as Yoruba people- Will be very different. Like very different. [laughs] It'll be very, very different. And sorry, I'm assuming you're Igbo because your name is Dozie. 25:18 [laughs] So, but, um- Yeah, I'm Igbo actually. Yeah, I'm Igbo. [laughs] Uh-huh. [laughs] I'm Igbo actually, yeah. You know, so it's, it's, it, it's not necessarily a, a, an interracial thing. It's just paradigms. 25:33 Different, 25:35 different communities have their, their codes, their way of speaking to each other, and I think a key part of, of settling after migrating is just learning how to speak, not phoneme, but arrange your words 25:56 in the way that gives you the optimal results for your environment is, is how I would, I would leave that point. Yeah. 26:03 And, and I, I think that if someone sees us talking about racism, I think then they probably don't really understand it because, uh, like they say, there are things they call caches. 26:12 Like, so each culture, each culture has caches. Absolutely. And within those caches are the unsaid rules and nuances. How it's communicated to you will define how you take it sometimes. So you can meet some- Yeah... 26:27 people who are just assholes and who make you feel like- Ab-... you're less of a person. Yeah. That is bad. 26:33 But there are people who will help you explain that, like, this is not how, like, this is not how this culture does things. And I think 26:40 one important thing as an immigrant is kind of understanding that, like you see, if you call them, there are cultural paradigms that exist that are define how people behave and how things are done. 26:50 And like someone said on my podcast, the one I'm going, I'm going to release very soon, she said something that I really, I just, I keep thinking about. She says, 26:58 "It's so easy to say as an immigrant, 'They don't understand me.'" I'm sorry, I, I don't, they don't understand me b- or, or I don't understand them. 27:06 But it, it's also, it's, they're, they're, on the other side, they too don't understand you. It's a two-way street. 27:11 And so you assume, if you're saying, "Oh, I don't like what they are doing," do you, have you asked yourself if they like what you're doing? Like, are you-- Maybe you're doing stuff that they don't even understand. 27:18 They're like, "What is going on here? I've not seen someone do this before." You know? And just kind of finding like a middle ground between both of you. Yeah. 27:25 So both of you have to take steps forward, you know, to kind of say, "You know what? We'll, you know, we'll come together and do that stuff." Um- Absolutely... because it's so easy to get, sit in our heads and say, 27:36 "Um, these guys, they're not accepting who I am. They don't understand my culture," blah, blah, blah. Bruv, lady. Yeah. [laughs] There's, there's, there, there are two sides to this conversation. 27:47 [laughs] There, there are. There, there absolutely are. There absolutely are. And, you know- Yeah... uh, e-even when you, you do become a citizen, we are just products of how we were raised. 28:00 It's how-- I read in a book somewhere- Oh, yeah. And that doesn't change... a quote that you, that you, you, you can't, no matter who you are, you can't disguise your handwriting. That is a, it's a, it's a thing. 28:10 It's a scientific thing. That how, how you, you write, even if you try to, it, it will still come out. And I think- Sure... it, it's, it, it, it applies to our, our conditioning and how we were raised. 28:23 And again, I'll go to that voice, your internal monologue, how, how, how it sounds. It, it, it will not... It can evolve, right? But 28:34 it, it, it has its own identity and yes, it's, it, it's, it goes with you on the journey and it, it can evolve, but it needs you to, to apply the effort to, to bring it along with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 28:48 Like if you-- Like I feel like what, what I hear you say to me there is that if you think you can wing it, you can't wing that thing because that- You, you'll be frustrated... you think that you're, you're... Yeah. 29:01 You're underestimating the power your, that internal native voice has over you. You're underestimating the p- uh, the power that the, your nature and nurture... I mean, for example, like- Absolutely... my child. 29:16 I have a seven-year-old who was-- He moved here when he was four. So with that person, I'm like, he's probably Canadian-Nigerian, so he's very different from me. 29:26 Even though I'm raising him, I mean, Nigerian-Canadian, but I'm raising him, but he's very different from me because the culture I grew up in is not the culture he's growing up in. 29:35 So when we grow up, like if you think we're like, daddy and son are gonna be very different individuals, which is just what immigration comes with. They- You know? [laughs] They are. 29:44 And as, as you, you pivoted to children, I have, I have a perfect illustration here in our house. So I have three girls. Um, two are teenagers, and the youngest is 10. She'll be 11 this year. Um, we had the first two 30:02 in phase one, so they, they were both born while we were here. In fact, we, we moved back to Niger about two months after we had our second one.So she, she was in Nigeria as a baby. So 30:18 the two of them grew up with, you know, our Nigeria cooking. They had nannies who were in that Nigeria cooking. Their grandparents were there, they cooked that Nigeria way. 30:30 And then we moved back here when the youngest was three. She had barely started talking. So if you hear them talking, they don't really... 30:39 I, I don't know, even the older ones, no, they phone no grew form for their mouth, though. I, I don't know what's-- Uh, uh, that, that, that's not even the [chuckles] that's not even the point, you know. 30:48 The point is the youngest, eh, you can see that there's a stark difference in the way, uh, compared to her older sisters, the way that she relates with us, the, the things that she feels confident to say. 31:00 The, the other two, and yeah, oh, getting into teens is, and they're starting to challenge means that, okay, they are evolving into it. 31:10 But at that age, when we first moved here, they were still very, that very, you know, deferent to your parents Nigerian child upbringing way. And I think it illustrates that point you're just making perfectly that 31:28 we are Nigerians. Um, a child that was three or four years old when they immigrated will probably be, I guess, more, more British or Canadian than, than they are Nigerian. 31:45 Um, I think the, the, the older, the older you are when you move, the more of your, your parents or your, your native background you, you bring along with you. You carry. Yeah. Yeah. 32:03 Honestly, and I, I, like I say, I call immigrants the in-betweeners. That's what I call them. And I, I mean- [chuckles]... everybody is in between. Yeah, that's why I call them the in-betweeners. Yeah. 32:11 That's, that's- And so they're all, they're always in bet- in between somewhere. Even the kids are in-betweeners themselves, but they're, they're just a bit different from us. 32:18 Like, so me, I'm in between, but I'm more Nigerian than Canadian, so... And I'm adjusting as I'm going along. My child is Canadian-Nigerian. He's- Yeah.... growing a Nigerian home. Yeah. 32:28 He has Nigerian grandparents that come around, but he's Canadian. Like he- But he's Canadian first. You know, so- Yes. He's Canadian first. Like, that's the thing that is in his head. Like, that's the- Ex-... 32:38 thing that- Exactly. That's the society he's growing up in. [chuckles] Yeah. It's- Ex- exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, it's interesting. 32:48 So I think the last question I have for you is, so do you have like a, a how to hit the ground running playbook for tone, communication? 32:57 Like, do you have like any t- or tips maybe like you're just, you're, you're planning to move, like what do you do to start prepping yourself for, for the code switching you have to do? 33:09 Because whether you like it or not, like if you're going to work here, if you're going to do anything here, you're gonna communicate, then you need to learn how to adjust, like. 33:18 So yeah, are there like any tips, steps, and stuff? Oof. I think maybe first of all, just being aware that the way we communicate naturally as Nigerians is different from... 33:33 In fact, it's even different from the way- Mm-hmm... other Africans communicate. It's how people will say when you're in South Africa, as soon as you walk in, somebody will just know- Yeah, yeah... 33:40 this, this person is a Nigerian. So- Nigerian. Yeah... the, the, the way we communicate as Nigerians isn't necessarily the way other people do, and we just need to be aware that 33:55 we, we can come across quite forcefully. One. Yeah. Uh, two, uh, so being aware, I guess the question is then how, how do you dial things down? I don't think there's a ready-made answer. 34:12 So I think, for example, in, in the office, find someone-- [tsks] and, and I know that it means you make yourself vulnerable to, to strangers, and I was going to say find someone who- Mm-hmm... 34:23 for example, can just vet your emails before you send emails. So emails are probably the way we communicate the most in the office environment. [tsks] And, uh, yeah, uh, uh, 34:37 there's, there's a missing part in the advice because how, how, how do you find somebody you can trust? It needs to be somebody that you can trust and be open and be a bit vulnerable with. 34:45 And I don't know what the answer to that is, but I find that just having someone, "Can you just let me check this for tone?" Is, is, uh- Mm-hmm. 34:55 And if the person is an asshole, then yeah, you don't ask them again, right? But I think, I think you n- Yeah... you need to ask, you need to ask for help sometimes. Um, three, again, [chuckles] 35:10 I feel like it's hard for us to be our full selves at, at work. And that's, that's probably like a whole different podcast topic. Yeah. 35:21 You know, maybe, maybe one worth exploring is how, how much of your authentic self can you be at work? And I guess it depends on, well, how, how, I don't know, maybe old or young you are. 35:38 It's not about age, it's about your responsibilities and how, how stable you want to be. How, how stable you want your income and your enviro- do you want to be job hopping all the time? 35:51 Do you want to be somebody that people are uncomfortable working with, and so before you know it, they put you on performance improvement plan, before you know they've, they've- Yeah... exited you from the company? 36:00 Fired you. Because y- your colleagues need to be comfortable with you. And that's not to say pretend, 36:11 but it's, it's, it's really to observe cultureAnd, and, and take your lead from the culture. So when we were in uni, there was-- one of the electives we did was anthropology, and 36:27 part of, you know, a big part of anthropology is, is the observer participant thing, where you, you just sit down in the community and just observe it first. Don't, don't be too eager. 36:42 Le-learn the ropes, learn, learn the language, learn the cues, learn the... You know? There's... And perhaps a way not to be too eager. Again, because 36:57 one of our inherent problem as Nigerians is that we, we avoid each other abroad and we draw our hala. So I, I can understand people like... What I was going to say, 37:06 the point I was going to make, and I derailed myself, [chuckles] was your community should not be exclusively people that have just arrived like you. I think, I think, I, I think it's a, it's a recipe. 37:22 Seek people who have been around for longer and not in... You know, there was this video recently, a woman was like, "We were not student visa. We have been here before Japa. We didn't Japa." We are 37:35 not, not, not in that context, 'cause that, 'cause that bullshit. [laughs] We did, we did not Japa because of economy. No, that's nonsense, right? But just, you know, the, the... Ah, okay. 37:52 This is-- I think I've landed on a good example. So 37:56 I think social media has actually made finding this community thing a bit easier, and if you just spend a bit of time to curate your social media circle, I think it can be really fantastic. 38:09 So coming back for this phase two coming back, there are a few friendships that I had cultivated, people I thought, you know, I can actually be friends with this person in real life, you know. And 38:22 they've been here doing well in, in their professions, you know, well-established. And as it looked like I was coming back, I was like, "Okay, guys, this is happening now." 38:31 And, "Okay, just keep me posted, keep me posted." As I landed, you know, "Ah, come let's, let, let's go to lunch." And, you know, things I'm talking to fellow lawyers, somebody... Two of them were in finance. 38:43 People who were actually living the kind of life that I wanted to live, you know, as, as, as a professional person in this country. And it's, it's just listening to their experiences. Um, 39:02 yeah, just learning the cues. Um, you know, people who've, who've done the things that you're hoping to do, right? 39:12 Not, not in that student visa paradigm, not in that, um, "Hi guys, here's five tips for, you know, getting..." Mm-mm. It is, "So, okay, at work today, this happened. How, how do you think 39:24 I could have navigated it better?" Or, or, you know, asking them, "So how, how do you deal with this when you're at work?" Um, I think, I think having that sort of landing pad 39:39 was actually very good for me when, when I moved back for phase two. Yeah. And I, I don't think I've properly answered your question because what, what you asked was, yeah, how, how, how... 39:56 But yeah, there, there's no shortcut. How do you prepare yourself? Yeah. But I think that, I think, I think that's the answer actually. 40:02 I think that's the answer because really, you, you, you just summarized it with there's really no shortcut. There's just... Because what you've said is, "This is how I try to do it," and really that's all it is. 40:14 It's, it's, it's a function of you have to kind of put in the work, you know? And something you said here reminded me of an article I read by David Perell. It's that, the writing guy on Twitter, and it just, it's a... 40:26 It was a random theme. It was something about, I forget the name of the article, but the theme was when you move, when you go to a place, don't act like a tourist. I believe, like, act like a local. 40:38 And what I started thinking about when you were explaining that thing about being too eager, is that a lot of times when we come to-- When you come as an immigrant, you need to s-switch off the tourist hat. 40:48 The tourist hat is the fact that- Yes... you come and you're eager to, you're eager to experience everything. No. Like, you need to behave like a local. A local is, "Okay, okay." 40:57 Like, just calmly sit down and just observe, like, what are the things happening? What that does for you is that you start to see things that you wouldn't normally see. You talk to people you wouldn't normally talk to. 41:08 But you know that, that tourist mentality, you know, if you adopt as an immigrant, then you'll struggle because you're in a hurry. You're, you're trying to... You're just, you're just moving and 41:18 you'll get into places that you shouldn't get into yet, and you will struggle at those specific spaces and you'll be like, "Why am I here? What am I doing here? I regret coming here," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 41:29 But the f- the fact was just simply, you're not a-- You're a local now. You're not, you're not a tourist anymore. You don't have a return ticket. 41:35 You're not just gonna get up and get on a plane and go back because you don't like it. You're living here now, so behave like you live here. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. I agree 100%. I agree 100%. Yeah. Yeah. 41:47 Behave like you live here. Um, but yeah. Um, thank you so much. This has been, this has been good. 41:53 This has been a good class on code switching, to be honest, because I saw some mistakes I was making very well [laughs] landed. [laughs] No, I, I... Yeah. We're going to gawk. 42:03 I, I think it's, it's impossible not to gawk at first. It's impossible not to- Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It's like learning to walk. You'll fall a few times, you know? And as somebody like me, 42:15 you can obsess over your falls a bit too much. That's something I'm trying to work on. I do the, "Yeah, I messed up. Pack it." You, you learn your lesson from it and move on. Um- YeahBut yeah, it's, 42:29 it's just, okay, so here's, here's how they talk. Here's, here's how-- Here's the most productive way or the most efficient way for me to convey this thing I want to convey. You know? Um, yeah. L- learn. 42:45 Have, have a learning mindset. Don't be too... 42:48 Because again, because we come-- So those of us that I would say we emigrated in old age because, [lip smacks] you know, we didn't do that, we didn't come to do secondary school or A-levels- To school or university... 42:59 university and then start working. You came as a fully formed adult. But yes, I suppose. 43:08 But point I want to make is that when you first start working, a lot of the times your professional peers here will be much younger than you. Will beee- Yeah... will, will be people who you, you feel carry your, 43:24 you know, Niger swag that you should, they should- Mm-hmm... you should be a bit a few steps ahead of. Um, and it can be disheartening at first, but I think they're also a great way to just learn the code. 43:40 So if, okay, fine, this is where they put me for now. It's temporary. We know we didn't come to Overst, to Cam's Bridge or... But thankfully nobody needs to watch- Yeah... dead body like, like Backy did. Dead body joke. 43:53 [chuckles] Yeah. Back in the day. But, um, the, it's, it's, it's a great way to, to see what's expected of people working at that level, to see how they communicate to, you know, um, superiors in the office. 44:12 Um, yeah. A- and learn, learn the corporate social cues or learn the workplace social cues. Um, yeah. L- there's nobody we can't learn from. Yeah. [chuckles] Cool, cool, cool. 44:28 [laughs] Thank you very much. No worries. My, my pleasure. It was, it was fun. [chuckles] Honestly, honestly, honestly, thank you very much. 44:38 I-- 'Cause I, I feel like, again, I'm just saying it again, like we don't talk about this. We just, we gloss over it. But it is extremely important. Let me throw the... Use the mental health card. 44:48 It's extremely important for your mental health. Mm-hmm. It is. Because it is- Because- It is exhausting. It is exhausting, and then if when you fail at it, you can feel like you're, 45:02 like especially when you're much older, you're in a hurry, you're trying to quickly get going with the game and all that, and then you just, you're stumbling through these things. 45:09 You're like, "Well, what have I done to myself?" [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Yeah. It's good to shine a spotlight on it and yeah. Um, 45:22 be interesting to hear what, what the response is and, and, you know- Mm-hmm... people's experiences and- Yeah... 45:28 and whether any of this sounds like what, what, you know, any- anyone else has gone through or is going through. True. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, man. 45:37 Did you-- What did you think about when Rotimi talked about the native voice? [chuckles] Yeah. It-- That's something I think one needs to think about a lot. 45:46 Like, what, what's your native voice and what does it say to you? But while you're thinking about that, thank you so much for coming, getting to this point of the podcast. 45:54 Have a beautiful day, and please like, share, send it to someone who might find this useful. See you at the next time around. [outro jingle]
