“If you have your well-being, you should really try to understand everything about it and how to take care of it.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Chinazom Sunny Nwabueze, who is the Founder of Dreamcatchers Performance and a high-performance leadership coach and behavioral science consultant with BetterUp Inc. Chinazom also created a mental fitness online community, a video chat series, and delivers workshops and presentations on mental fitness. He has amassed over 2,000 hrs of coaching and recently published his first book, ‘Real Talk – A New Approach for Men’s Mental Fitness and Wellbeing’.
“I kind of went through crazy transitions. It was all just around the time before I met my wife. I stumbled onto something called performance psychology, which I really, really loved. And someone let me start working with their athletes, and I was enjoying it, doing it. And then my wife said to me, why don’t you give this a go and give it a try? So in 2018, I left my job and started doing this performance psychology.”
“So when I got there, I kind of realized I’m going to have to practice what I preach. Because if I’m preaching like, you know, this is what you do. This is how you do pre-performance routines and this is how you perform under pressure. I’m going to be under pressure. So I need to like, yeah, I need to practice what I preach. So that was the first thing of trying to like to understand what would help in my mindset. What would help when things weren’t going my way? I like to say when you get your ass handed to you, how do you take the lesson and then decide, OK, you still need to keep moving forward?”
“I was so excited, I was so terrified because thinking I don’t even have a work permit. I’m going somewhere where I don’t even have a permit to work, and my wife’s about to have a kid. So if I hadn’t made that decision, well I don’t know if I’d be here talking to you.”
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Hello, and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And today on the show I have Chinazom. Chinazom, how are you doing today, man?
Chinazom Nwabueze (00:12.618)
I’m doing very well Nick, very excited to be here to talk with you.
Yeah, I’m excited that you’re here. I know we’ve had to move things around a little bit, so I appreciate you and your PR firm being a little flexible. And I know time difference-wise, at first I thought time difference-wise was different, and I could hear it in your accent, but you’re actually in the States, right?
Chinazom Nwabueze (00:30.182)
I am in the States and I confuse people a lot because of the English accent but no, I’m in Maryland so we’re on the same time zone. I think the person who reached out to you, she’s in the UK so that might have been what confused you.
Maybe, yeah, that and I saw some of your videos. One of my friends is from, I think, right outside of London, and he’s been here for 15 years. Maybe even a little longer, but he still has the accent. So people ask him where he’s from. He’s like, oh, Pittsburgh. I’m like, come on, really? But hey, man, why don’t you get us started here? Why don’t you tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?
Chinazom Nwabueze (00:49.58)
Chinazom Nwabueze (01:00.088)
Chinazom Nwabueze (01:09.086)
Okay, so I’m a high performance leadership coach and I’m also a mental fitness. I love talking about mental fitness. I’m what I call a coaching strategy consultant. And one thing that people might not know is I love to dance. Only my close, close friends really know that. And I love to dance to Afrobeat music. And my son, now he loves to dance as well. So if you ever walk past our house, you’ll see us in the evening just dancing around while we’re making dinner and getting ready to eat. That’s one thing.
I think that’s a pretty good thing. Is there anything that’s a little odd or different other than dancing?
Chinazom Nwabueze (01:44.55)
The other one thing is I’ve rowed across the English Channel in a little canoe boat. A friend managed to talk me and her husband to be part of a group that rowed across the English Channel for charity and that was pretty crazy. Eight hours and 36 minutes of pure joy.
Cool. Wow. How long was that ride?
Now I feel like you’re lying to me.
Chinazom Nwabueze (02:11.228)
Our bums were not working for many, many hours after us. Just the sensation had gone.
Oh, I bet. Wow. So what was the charity that you guys did that for?
Chinazom Nwabueze (02:22.773)
It was a charity for young kids to help them learn how to sell boats and also learn about boat building. I forget the exact name of it now. It was based in East London.
Okay. Now, have you ever done anything like that before? Or you like even just rode on machines at the gym? Or is that your first time? You’re like, all right, fucking give me an oar.
Chinazom Nwabueze (02:42.006)
That was my first time. I was into triathlon and that was how the friend managed to convince me that Oh, you know, you’re into triathlon. Why don’t you come and sit in a rowing boat and row to France and come back?
Wow. Oh, so you went the entire trip there and back. So was it like four hours plus to get there and four hours back?
Chinazom Nwabueze (02:59.434)
Well, what we did was we went there three quarters of the way because we couldn’t land in France because you have to have a machine in your boat and it was just a normal boat. So we had to then turn around and come back to Dover and row all the way back.
she’s well so was that uh… before you moved to maryland i assume where did you go back okay
Chinazom Nwabueze (03:19.594)
Yes, yes. Yeah, long before I moved to the US. I think that was 2017 or 2016.
Okay, cool. And before we hit record, you were telling me that you got to the States in 2019. And I’d asked have you gone out and done all the touristy things and all that you said it was kind of it’s a it’s feels like you’ve only been there for about a year because of all COVID. So you had your wife had a baby. And then you guys got stuck in your house. And
Chinazom Nwabueze (03:32.3)
Chinazom Nwabueze (03:40.621)
Chinazom Nwabueze (03:46.364)
The rest of the world, yep, we got, yeah, we can enforce prisoners in the house.
Yeah, but you’d also said that you’d change careers when you left UK and came here So talk to us a little bit about that. Give us some background of that story
Chinazom Nwabueze (03:59.842)
So yeah, I kind of went through like crazy transitions. It was all just around the time before I met my wife. I stumbled onto something called performance psychology, which I really, really loved. And someone let me start working with their athletes and I was enjoying it, doing it. And then my wife said to me, why don’t you give this a go and give it a try? So 2018, I left my job and started doing this performance psychology. And my wife was, she’d grown up in the US and…
Chinazom Nwabueze (04:26.666)
I’d moved her over to the UK. She hated the weather. She’d always been complaining about it. So we started thinking, okay, we’ll look at moving to the US. But then, while we were looking, my wife became pregnant. So it became a little bit more, okay, we need to get this done now, otherwise we’re not gonna move. So we took the decision in 2019, we were gonna move to Maryland while my wife was six months pregnant. And I was just, I think, about a year into this new career, which…
Chinazom Nwabueze (04:54.098)
literally there was no kind of blueprint of how to do it so I was still kind of making it up as I went along. So then coming to the US yeah with a six month pregnant wife and couldn’t, I didn’t know when I would be able to work and having to start a new career so it was a lot of huge transitions all in one go and then the pandemic hit in 2000. So I think that was my son was born October 2019 we’d been here for three four months.
Chinazom Nwabueze (05:20.882)
And then by February the next year, yeah, the pandemic hit. So that was another something we’d not planned for at all.
Yeah, I mean, I guess we get into conspiracy theories about how the government may have planned for that, but that’s a whole different topic, different conversation, we won’t go there.
Chinazom Nwabueze (05:34.888)
One of my favorite questions, and I’m sure the audience knows this, is how did you manage your mindset through that? And I think of those sort of transitions, not only moving to the States, you have a pregnant wife, you just had a newborn, and a couple months later in a brand new country, brand new state, getting used to all this, you’re then locked in your house in a brand new career. I know it’s one big loaded-ass question, but break that down for us. How did you manage your mindset through that? And feel free to take it piece by piece if you want.
Chinazom Nwabueze (05:48.151)
Chinazom Nwabueze (06:01.746)
Chinazom Nwabueze (06:07.666)
I might have to take it piece by piece because yeah, now when you asked me that question, it’s just like, how the hell, how the hell did I get through that period? I mean, up until that period, I’d been working with athletes. So I’d started working with performance psychology, what’s required for you to perform under pressure. And before I moved to the States, I started like just, I just went on a lot of long walks, trying to prepare my mind for like, what’s it gonna be like? What are the things that scare you?
Chinazom Nwabueze (06:32.414)
There were too many things that scared me actually. Sounds like, okay, just start going through some scenario analysis of what, well, scenario, just going through scenarios of what would you do when you get there and what’s gonna help you with your mindset.
Chinazom Nwabueze (06:42.922)
So when I got there, I kind of realised I’m going to have to practise what I preach. Because if I’m preaching like, you know, this is what you do. This is how you do pre-performance routines and this is how you perform under pressure. I’m going to be under pressure. So I need to like, yeah, I need to practise what I preach. So that was the first thing of trying to like understand what would help in my mindset. What would help when things weren’t going my way? I like to say when you get your ass handed to you, how do you take the lesson and then decide, OK, you still need to keep moving forward? But I won’t lie to you. It was
Chinazom Nwabueze (07:13.13)
You can prepare for something and then when you actually hit the reality, those are two different things. So when I actually became a dad, that was when it was a lot tougher, the lack of sleep, becoming a dad for the first time. Throwing the pandemic, it was like, yeah, it was just crazy. But then what I learned was the ability to really prioritize because I feel like before I didn’t understand what prioritization was until my son came along. And when you have very little time,
Chinazom Nwabueze (07:40.022)
you actually realise, okay, what’s really, really important because I’ve only got two hours to do stuff, yeah. Because in the beginning, my wife is the one who’s working, I was still waiting to be allowed to work, so I spent a lot of time with my son. And that was really like a bit that really helped me learn how to manage my mindset, was really prioritising and then getting to spend the other time with my son and trying to make, I had to create my own joy.
Chinazom Nwabueze (08:04.094)
I couldn’t make friends, I couldn’t even go in contact with people. So I had to find things to create joy out of little things in that period. So it was, yeah, it was challenging, but kind of got through that period. And then the other bit was learning to be creative. And I kind of learned that thing is every time you got your ass handed to you.
Chinazom Nwabueze (08:24.738)
there was a lesson to be learned there. And how can you pivot and change and adapt from what you did? And what I realized is, no matter any situation, there’s always a lesson and there’s always a good thing to pick up from that. So having to pick myself up so many times, I’d learned a lot about self-compassion. I feel like before everyone said resilience is, you gotta keep pushing and keep pushing no matter what. I think in the pandemic, that’s where people kind of learned that there’s a lot that’s outside your control. And the best way if you wanna keep pushing and get through it,
Chinazom Nwabueze (08:54.792)
and maintain your mindset is you’ve got to be kind to yourself especially when you have setbacks.
So true for no matter if it’s during a pandemic or just a crazy ass time, like, uh, everything could be calm right now and in two or three days, you could have a big project at, at work or, you know, you could have some major setback with your health or anything like that. And I think a lot of people are still struggling through different traumas that they’ve had through the pandemic or things that have been brought up from the pandemic. And what you’re hitting on are all core pieces to all of this.
Chinazom Nwabueze (09:17.227)
into some of the dark moments where you felt like, fuck, am I actually going to be able to do this? Like, how do I do this? And how do I actually get through the mental fitness and give us some of the tactics that you use that you can look back to now and go, if I didn’t fucking do that, things may have been really, really bad.
Chinazom Nwabueze (09:49.194)
Hmm. That’s a good one actually. I mean, I think some of the dark moments would have had to be early on when my son was born. And then the stress of not having a job. My wife just started working. We tried to navigate her working, not having any support.
Chinazom Nwabueze (10:08.006)
So having to learn how to be new parents in that new environment while she’s working in a new country. So there was a kind of like a lot of dark times and the only person I could really count on at the time was my wife. So when things weren’t going so well and we were arguing, it was that those were times where it was like really dark. And then all of a sudden I came over thinking I’m a performance psychologist working with athletes, but there was no fucking sports for starters. So that took that out of the equation.
Chinazom Nwabueze (10:37.96)
like in that dark period I was like have I really fucked up here like who am I like who am I kidding there’s nobody there’s no clients to work with I’m arguing with my wife all the time money’s all of a sudden going to become an issue and I think in the darkest moments I had to like that’s when I had to say you have to practice what you preach so if you were preaching this and you believe it then well this is an opportunity to test it out so I just I had to then
Chinazom Nwabueze (11:05.666)
kind of realized that my wife is going through her own things. And I had to kind of, I had to learn to find joy and solace in myself first and make sure that I was okay and not blaming it on my wife, putting it on my wife. And slowly when I started doing that, we started to get along better and kind of just accept that we were both going through a tough situation and how can we make it work? And also just pivoting, because she was the one who occurred to me, okay, you wanted to do this, you thought this was gonna happen.
Chinazom Nwabueze (11:32.918)
You don’t have any athletes to work with. Who do you have to work with? What are the, you know, what are the advantage points? So I didn’t get so fixed on identity, like I’m this and this is all I can do. So I then had to start thinking, okay, who else can I work with? Okay, there’s still people in everyday work doing this who have to go out and perform. And then luckily I found a company who through Zoom, I was able to like do coaching through that to workers. And yeah, then slowly but surely just started coming out of it.
Chinazom Nwabueze (12:02.03)
and then started to get better.
Yeah. Wow. So let’s look at those.
Maybe the moments after the dark moments where you had that like, oh shit, well, I need to do things a bit differently. I don’t want to keep arguing. I don’t want money to be a problem. I have zero fucking sleep. And again, if it’s not with a pandemic, I think people will experience that within work or just having another child or just being stressed out. And there’s just a lot of things that make people anxious at times. Then I think that a lot of it stems from our childhood and just traumas that we’ve had in the past. But did you feel any of that start to come up?
older any traumas that you’ve had from your childhood that started to like compound and Really give you that negative self-talk to tell you like you’re not gonna fucking be able to do this You’ve made the wrong decisions and then how you can actually switch away from that be like, alright, I hear you I’m not gonna buy into it But that’s a you conversation just like with the audience when they have these conversations internally talk to your wife your partner whoever But that’s that you conversation to go
So what did that look like for you in those moments to be able to do that?
Chinazom Nwabueze (13:10.894)
That’s a great question you actually asked because it was reflecting on coming through that period. And when I say the dark moments, you know, it didn’t just happen overnight. That was probably a period of at least a year, if not longer, of going through that and trying to find your feet. And I call it no man’s land where I was going through because I’d left a career.
Chinazom Nwabueze (13:29.218)
which was all stability, I always had income and I knew, you know, I had a, I’d worked in that career for 20 years. To then come over here, I realised like there were two big things, your identity of who you think you are and then the narrative that you tell your head. And
Chinazom Nwabueze (13:45.434)
Weirdly enough, the pandemic was a good period to just have that, just be on my own to actually listen to the nonsense I was telling myself in my head. And I’m really into mindfulness and I know everyone, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me, you don’t have to just be sitting there meditating. It’s actually being able to give yourself a bit of space from your thoughts and listen to either journaling or when you’re going for a walk and actually listen to the crap that’s sometimes going on in your head and like, okay, that’s actually not me. So how do I want to engage in that?
Chinazom Nwabueze (14:13.406)
And that No Man’s Land was actually a beautiful thing because it made me realise there were so many identities I had in my head which I don’t even know where I’d got them from.
Chinazom Nwabueze (14:22.922)
I was like, okay, so I have a bit of freedom now. I can actually do whatever I want to do that really I’m passionate about. And once I got over that, I’m not supposed to be a man who provides for my family or all the other, fill in the blanks. Once I had that freedom where I knew that my wife trusted me and she trusted my instincts, then it was so freeing to then, as I started coming out, you take risk in a different way because you’re like, well, I don’t.
Chinazom Nwabueze (14:50.294)
That was the way I think about the pandemic. I had nothing to lose. I was already starting zero. And it was so freeing because then that narrative, I realized you feel like you… If you don’t have space from your thoughts, you feel like that’s you.
Chinazom Nwabueze (15:02.582)
But actually when you get a bit of space you’re like, okay, that’s just my survival brain that keeps telling me stuff. I can put that to death for some being. That’s another brain that always wants everyone to like you, okay, I don’t need that for now. And then you can start to be more intentional. What kind of, what narrative do I want in this period? And what new identities? I don’t like to say identity because it’s a kind of flowing thing, so you should be able to flow with it.
That’s interesting. You also touch on something that has really been on my heart and my mind over the past few months about how a lot of people think that life should be a certain way or it shouldn’t be a certain way. Like you shouldn’t do this thing and they’re just instantly judging or what have you because they believe that you should do it some way. And we do it to ourselves where we think, oh well, I moved here, it should look this way. And being able to separate from that, the should and shouldn’t is just a whole bunch of bullshit.
Chinazom Nwabueze (15:47.85)
it’s not real. But it doesn’t come from somewhere specific always, it can. But like you were saying, like you’re like, I don’t know where the fuck it all came from. Like it’s a conglomeration of just a bunch of shit that’s like, well, it should be this way, or it shouldn’t be that way. So how did you actually separate yourself? And let’s break that down a little bit. So we can give some useful advice for people to actually go, all right, I need to get away from the should and shouldn’t bullshit, and being able to separate so that they can be mindful and hear the stuff coming at them,
Chinazom Nwabueze (15:59.232)
Chinazom Nwabueze (16:25.879)
Chinazom Nwabueze (16:30.306)
I mean, I love the point you just mentioned about what should and shouldn’t because that causes so much heartache for so many people. And it’s like, for instance, when I came over, I’m supposed to be this performance psychologist now working with athletes. And then that’s like causing so much pain. And then my wife is like, okay, where did that come from? Why are you now locked with this new identity? So I think for me, like breaking it down, if you actually step back and start to think what’s the things causing you pain and where did these identity come from?
Chinazom Nwabueze (16:58.538)
And then a lot of that was, you raise the point of, in your childhood, I’m from a Nigerian family, being the firstborn son for my mom, you’re kind of, there’s expectations put on you. And then you don’t realize that those expectations have been guiding you all your life, the type of career you choose, the way you approach risk. And…
Chinazom Nwabueze (17:18.978)
Having those, I kind of had, I called it, I used to go on a lot of walks with my son, you know, I had to push him in the pram, so those walks were really good periods to actually, that’s how I started to realise the identities I’d created in my head. And almost the identities that had imprisoned me. Why, when I come to a certain situation, I’ll almost by default do a certain thing. And one of the things I started to break down was whenever I came into a new opportunity, I started to notice that I’d always look for what could go wrong.
Chinazom Nwabueze (17:47.906)
before I looked for what could go right. And so that was one thing I had to start, okay, well, why do I do that? And then I started changing, I was like, okay, next time, let’s look for what can go right, because we know we’re already expert at planning for what can go wrong. Let’s look for what can go right first, look all those possibilities, and then, okay, if we need to, we can plan afterwards if things change. That was a big shift for me, that started to change that. And then during that period, I also had issues, like family issues earlier on.
Chinazom Nwabueze (18:16.654)
in my marriage which had impacted me and actually having some therapy at that time kind of helped uncover a lot more of those narratives and identity and just talking with someone like a trusted person that wasn’t my wife or wasn’t somebody else it was very very helpful to .. there’s something about when you say something out then all of a sudden you’re like Jesus that belief I’ve been carrying in my head and I can’t tell you how yeah how free and
Chinazom Nwabueze (18:45.002)
uplifting that was to help to just feel like shaking certain things off and the way I kind of view it when I came out of that I kind of just realized that there’s only a certain things that you should really care about and the rest of it you should not be it should not be allowed you to put yourself in a prison and That period that was when I was able to like let go of a lot of the identities and change the narratives
What an important step. You know, think about if you didn’t do that, how wild the rest of this would have been.
You know, and for those people that are listening to the episode, they didn’t see his face. For those that are going to watch this on YouTube with that, yeah, like that’s, that’s a tough pill to swallow at that point. Cause if you don’t walk down that path and that’s something that I like to be able to talk even coaching clients about, or just friends and family of like, well, if you don’t change this thing, what the fuck happens from there? Like we get it. If you change it, things could be better. Things could be this, but what if you fucking don’t? What happens at that point?
Chinazom Nwabueze (19:19.409)
Chinazom Nwabueze (19:41.922)
Chinazom Nwabueze (19:48.088)
So did you think about that? Was that one of those things that was kind of a… Did that spur you on a bit of like, fuck, if I don’t change this, if I don’t get out of this rut or this loop, then things are going to go in a different direction.
Chinazom Nwabueze (20:02.354)
I didn’t think about that in that moment, but I’d already thought about that before I started my journey, before I decided to quit my job. And it was a moment where, I don’t know, I’d been partying for the weekend and I came back and then I started looking at myself in the mirror and just thinking, I really, I didn’t like my job. And then I thought, I flashed to myself 10 or 15 years later with a family and I was like, kind of saw myself, I was like, I didn’t want to be one of those people that didn’t try out of fear.
Chinazom Nwabueze (20:32.222)
and then say, oh, I did all this for my family and that’s why I kept doing a miserable job. You know, so that was already the spurt. I was like, that reality was too much for me. I was like, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. I don’t care if I fucked up and didn’t and failed at it, but at least if I tried, then at least I can look at myself. But I knew that I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t try. So that’s what spurred me to leave my career and start this new. So I was already in that mindset of.
Chinazom Nwabueze (21:01.558)
you just have to be honest with yourself. So when I’m in the middle of that, when you’re having those conversations with yourself, when you see a clear truth, you have to have the humility to accept it and say, okay, call out your own bullshit and do something about it. So I was already in that mindset, if you’d say.
That’s good. You know, let’s talk about the clients that you work with and the people that go through that. How do you help them get through it on their own? Because you and I both know we can say a lot of shit to different people, we can make suggestions, we can say I’ve seen this work with other people and they go, that’s cool, fuck off, I’m going to do it a different way. And you’re like, all right, you just pay me to help you, but fine. So in those moments, talking through with your clients, how do you guide them through that? And think about from the audience perspective of somebody that’s listening going, yeah, how
Chinazom Nwabueze (21:37.666)
Chinazom Nwabueze (21:51.978)
Luckily, I mean, the clients I work with, they already want to do the work. And I feel that’s the biggest thing. It doesn’t matter what I say or do. If you’re not willing to do the work, then nothing’s gonna happen. And there’s one client in particular I’m working with now. Once they’re willing to do the work, then it’s down for me to just ask them those questions. And I call it going below the surface. Let’s go below the surface to actually see what’s that real underlying emotion that’s driving this.
Chinazom Nwabueze (22:19.026)
And then it’s up to me to build that trust, to show that I’m there to really, you know, to hear to support you. And then once we go below the surface, then it’s keep that safe space for them to actually see, this is what’s driving you. This is what’s causing that issue. And I find that when the people are ready to do the work, once they have clarity on what that is, then the rest, yeah, they just say, right, okay, that’s enough, I’m not having any more of that.
Chinazom Nwabueze (22:45.878)
this is what we’re going to do. And then you just watch it like magic unfold in front of your eyes where they just start putting things into action.
So going below the surface, even for yourself, let’s take a little bit of a step back because you’d mentioned about the expectations of being, I guess, the first or only one in your family. Being the first boy or being the only boy even. I’m the only son of my mom, but I’m not the only son of my dad. He had somebody else. Yeah.
Chinazom Nwabueze (23:15.57)
We’re in a similar situation. My dad has 10 kids, but I’m the only son of my mum. So my mum has 3 kids. But he has another 3 boys, so there’s 4 of us.
Sounds like he’s got a whole lot of kids. That’s a whole lot.
Chinazom Nwabueze (23:31.528)
But having the expectations, you know, every culture has things that are different for them. Every region, even here in the States, there’s different regions that have different expectations of people. So if you take that step back and go below the surface, how did that affect you with your new business and your new family? And how do you see that? How did you see that working within what you were trying to build and trying to create for yourself?
Chinazom Nwabueze (23:34.527)
Chinazom Nwabueze (23:40.77)
Chinazom Nwabueze (24:00.45)
So how did the expectations, cultural expectations reflect me when I was, that was a great question because actually when I came over to Maryland, what I didn’t realize is that there was quite a big, I’m from Nigeria, so there’s quite a big Nigerian community here and I used to always remember when I’d go to parties or events and everyone would be coming up, you know, I’m the new person that’s just come over from the UK, they wanna try and help me and then I’d explain to them the career that I was trying to do.
Chinazom Nwabueze (24:27.57)
I want to be a performance psychologist and help people with their mindset. And everyone was just looking at me like, what the hell is he talking about? And I remember one particular person, we’re now friends, I hope he’s okay with me sharing his story, where I literally spent 45 minutes trying to explain to him what I did and he didn’t get it. And then at the end he was like, okay, so you work in finance, you want to work in finance? And I was so like, I was just so defeated at the end, I said to my wife, maybe I should just go back and get a job.
Chinazom Nwabueze (24:57.57)
back, you know, project manager and finance company, yeah, investment, I was so defeated by that. Fast forward, we come out of the pandemic. And then all of a sudden, well being everybody now knows about well being. The first part we went to he came running across to talk to me about well being and, you know, mindset coaching and everything. I was just like, what, what the hell happened? Like, how did that
Chinazom Nwabueze (25:24.386)
So I did struggle when I first came over where I could see all the things like, what is this guy talking about? Like your husband’s not, I used to see the looks they would give my wife, like your husband’s not serious, like does he realise he’s got a kid? He needs to like get a job that actually pays money. And one thing I have to thank my wife for, she never ever, she never ever like, I don’t know whether she had the doubts inside, but she never ever showed any doubt to me. And that’s where that kept me like, okay, if she believes in me, I’ll just.
Chinazom Nwabueze (25:54.122)
I’ll keep going at this and I know that we’ll find a way through it. But it did teach me about because I’m from Nigeria. I don’t know about the American culture, but Nigeria, people always want to tell you about yourself. They want to tell you this is what you should be doing. And this is what is expected of you. And that taught me a little bit of not to take that on board because I had to learn through that period to like, thanks for your viewpoint. Thanks for your opinion. Put it to one side and keep having faith in what I was doing.
It can be difficult to be able to actually separate from that. And it’s interesting because there are different pockets of the country that there are families that are like that. I have some friends, even people that are in my family where their parents were like, this is how you need to do these things. You need to be this way because this is what we were. I was actually having a conversation with my brother recently. My brother’s five years younger than me and my sister’s eight years younger than me. So they’re just different major differences that we’ve had. But those two went to college.
Chinazom Nwabueze (26:43.522)
went to college. Quick version, I had a conversation with a counselor in high school and she was like, well, you’re an art student and a musician. We can get you an art school or music school where you’re not going to make any money. I was like, okay, I’m out. I was like, I’m not going to, why go do that? But my brother and I were having a conversation recently about him going to school and how we were all taught that you need to go to college because our parents were taught you go to college, you get a good job, you have a career
Chinazom Nwabueze (26:56.587)
Chinazom Nwabueze (27:07.14)
and secure for the rest of your life. Millennials, Gen Z, etc. It’s just not that case at all. But they were still like, this is how you’re supposed to do these things and different people will kind of push that on you. So, were there any tips or tricks that you have of being able to kind of separate from that and understand like, I can appreciate when somebody’s giving me advice but fuck off in a nice way.
Chinazom Nwabueze (27:27.477)
Chinazom Nwabueze (27:50.719)
Well, I think that was like the last question of August from that conversation I had with that guy where he said you should go and do finance and I was getting a lot of advice from people in there. Look, you’ve done you’ve done this particular career for 20 years. Like what are you thinking? Like this is not the time to start switching careers. You have a family. There was loads and loads of that advice. And it’s like that’s where you really have to trust your instinct.
Chinazom Nwabueze (28:18.386)
and it’s very hard to trust your instinct. And I also feel like you need to meet good people along the way, because I actually did try to apply for one of those jobs. I tried to apply for a job at Amazon to be a project manager in finance, investment or finance something. And I’ll never forget the recruiter, he spent like 45 minutes talking to me and telling me why I shouldn’t take the job. And I remember thinking, does this guy just think I’m crap or not gonna be good enough?
Chinazom Nwabueze (28:45.654)
But he started explaining to me like you’ve done, you’ve gone so far in your career to make this change for a reason. Like you will be miserable if you take this job. Like, and I’ll never forget that conversation because literally a month or two after that conversation, I finally got a job as a coach on a platform, which I didn’t even know existed. But I love that conversation because I feel if that had been someone else and they’d put my CV forward, I had gone through the interviews. Me and you might not be having this conversation now.
Yeah, wow. That goes back to imagine if you didn’t make the change. Imagine if you did that and that recruiter wasn’t like, hold up, I can see more here, you know, and wasn’t just pushing you to get the job for him to make whatever, a couple hundred dollars because he sent over a candidate. Wow, what a crazy thing.
Chinazom Nwabueze (29:20.159)
Chinazom Nwabueze (29:26.283)
Chinazom Nwabueze (29:32.554)
Yeah, you just actually as you said that there’s probably two critical things like If I hadn’t made the decision to still push ahead and come to the us because when I found out my wife was pregnant It was such a crazy move to make where by the time we were moving like moving over with a six-month pregnant wife All through that decision part of my brain was just like what the hell are you doing? Like literally what? What is your plan? And even as we were getting on the plane i’ll never
Chinazom Nwabueze (30:00.014)
I forget where I had this most, I call it excited, I was so excited, I was so terrified because thinking I don’t even have a work permit. I’m going somewhere where I don’t even have a permit to work and my wife’s about to have a kid. So if I hadn’t made that decision, well I don’t know if I’d be here talking to you. And also if that recruiter hadn’t had talked me out of putting my CV forward for the job, yeah I would have probably not be doing this for sure. So those are critical junctures I think.
Yeah, big time. Like if you had to take something away from that, that you could give to somebody else, what’s that thing that you would give to somebody else from that?
Chinazom Nwabueze (30:40.534)
It would have to be that, well for the first one, choosing to come to the US is like when you feel that excited and terrified feeling all the same time in your stomach that’s a good sign because before I used to always run away from that sign I’d be like no, this means you’re about to do something crazy or stupid but I’ve now started to like, when I get that feeling I kind of like, okay that means I’m on the right path so, pushing forward and
Chinazom Nwabueze (31:08.626)
I think what I took away from him was like, trust in your instincts and there’s some bits where you’re just gonna have to keep pushing. You can’t see the light, but you have to just keep pushing and trust in your instincts that you’ve made that right decision.
Yeah, and those aren’t things that you’d be able to tell in those moments. It’s something you’d have to be able to look back on and see how that all worked out. So now you’re in your career, you’re, you’ve got a wife and a baby and you’ve been in the States for a bit, but you’ve also written a book. So tell us a little bit about your book.
Chinazom Nwabueze (31:44.598)
Yeah, the book is called Real Talk and it’s written primarily for men, but it’s not just it’s actually men and women because it’s just about mental fitness. And I wrote the book predominantly from what I saw happening during the pandemic where I get into coach different people. I kind of realized all of a sudden well-being just became at the forefront of everyone’s mind. And I kind of saw this shift in pivot that was happening. Coming out of the pandemic, I was like, how can I how can I put that in a story format?
Chinazom Nwabueze (32:12.778)
So that people, because I kind of also saw that when we came out of the pandemic, everyone wanted to go back to normal. Let’s go back to like just busy, busy and pretend that period never happened. And I was like, no, we actually, there was a lot of great revelation that we had in that period that everyone has to juggle so many different things because like before you put on your suit, you come to work and you just have this suit on and that’s all everyone sees. Well, suddenly when I look into your house, I’m like, Oh my God, you, you’ve got kids, you’ve got all these other things that you have to juggle.
Chinazom Nwabueze (32:41.71)
So how are you managing it? How are you coping? So I wanted to write a book that kind of forced people to start having that conversation. And I picked four, created four characters where there were friends who basically were having the first conversation after the pandemic. And then they started sharing with each other. And it’s found out that all of them had been struggling, but they hadn’t told each other about it. And then a sad thing was one of the friends that tried to commit suicide. So it was like trying to get people to start.
Chinazom Nwabueze (33:11.106)
Let’s start having those real conversations and really trying to focus on our mental fitness because I feel like for me, that’s the biggest thing. If you have your wellbeing, you should really try to understand everything about it and how to take care of it. Yeah, that was it.
Yeah. Wow. That sounds like such a probably more accurate and truthful story for most people if they actually sat down and had the conversations, like if they were sitting down with friends and stepped back and said, all right, well, here we are at 2023. How did you fare through the pandemic?
Chinazom Nwabueze (33:44.718)
You there probably more of those conversations where people were like, well, I almost committed suicide or this happened personally for me It started to walk down the path of a divorce and it was one of the most beautiful things ever It’s I didn’t get married to get a divorce But I didn’t get a divorce to die and I remember walking through all of that and having to be stuck in the condo being Like oh well you and I need to fucking talk about things and work through this shit and not everybody I knew
open up about it until a bit later on. So, but I think about the conversations that I’ve had with friends talking about that stuff which got them to open up. Yeah, well my wife and I had these problems or I didn’t know what to do with my job or I got laid off and somebody was in the restaurant industry or what have you. So I would assume there’s probably a lot more of those conversations that really need to be had but really aren’t being had. So I’m glad that you wrote that book.
Chinazom Nwabueze (34:32.546)
Chinazom Nwabueze (34:38.478)
Chinazom Nwabueze (34:43.995)
How did it work out in the end?
Oh great, we got a divorce and I found my partner, my match. Love of my life and it’s a beautiful thing.
I mean, sometimes you got to walk through the crazy shit to be able to find the right thing for you. And it’s not always easy to do it. I remember it took me probably two years to be able to actually grow the pair of balls to be able to say, I think we really need to talk about some shit that we haven’t talked about in a while. And there were even times back in 2017, 18, where I was suicidal in my own company, I built 40 foot walls around me and I didn’t know how to get out of it.
Chinazom Nwabueze (34:53.569)
Chinazom Nwabueze (34:57.431)
Chinazom Nwabueze (35:16.622)
top of the condo building. And there were only three people that knew about that. And they were all friends. My wife at the time didn’t even know about it. But I needed to talk through stuff. I needed to work through stuff and I needed to do what you were saying. Like I needed to work through my own shit, the way that I talked to other people and be able to actually work through it and have conversations with either therapists or coaches who were, you know, being mindful, like, uh, be in the pandemic, kind of sitting back and going, huh, well, a lot of this sucks. Why does it suck?
am I doing this? Why have I abandoned myself? Why have I done things this way? And how do I actually have these tough conversations, which, in all reality has led to so much, so much more life that has happened since then. And beautiful conversations that I get to have with my partner now where their times are I’m like, all right, what just happened triggered my trauma. Here’s what I feel. Here’s what I’m thinking. And this would have terrified me to fucking talk about this before because these things would have happened. And for the most part, she’s just like, cool.
Chinazom Nwabueze (36:07.593)
well, that’s not how I am, but we can talk about all this stuff and we can work through all of it. But being able to actually sit down, become aware of it and figure out what the inventory is, I work with coaching clients and people through my program of hitting the reset button and being able to understand how you can become aware of those things and actually figuring out what the shit has happened, what happened to you in the past and how it’s accumulated now. But those conversations like you’re talking about in your book, I feel like a lot of people need to
still have those conversations. We are somewhat back to normal, but not we shouldn’t just bypass everything. It’s it’s interesting because I’m watching some show, I think has been out for years at this point called a million little things. And it’s sort of similar to like what you’re talking about. There one friend committed suicide in the beginning of the show, and they all kind of band together and they’ve been through a lot of crazy shit. But I just reached the point I don’t know a few days ago where the pandemic is hit.
Chinazom Nwabueze (36:54.51)
Chinazom Nwabueze (37:01.634)
Chinazom Nwabueze (37:12.087)
and they’re talking about these things that are actively going on within the pandemic. And it was weird to me because here we are in 2023. If I see somebody with a mask, I think maybe they’re just compromised. Maybe they have somebody at home that’s compromised or they have something that’s going on, but it’s not the norm like it was then. But those tough conversations still need to be fucking had. And a lot of people, I don’t think a lot of people are actually having them.
Chinazom Nwabueze (37:23.202)
Chinazom Nwabueze (37:37.835)
Chinazom Nwabueze (37:50.058)
I mean, just thank you so much for sharing that. Just hearing your story just makes me realise how many of those tough conversations you have to have, not just with your partner, you know, you have to have a therapist, then you have to have friends around you. And I’ve got a couple of friends who’ve just, they went through a divorce and I know that it’s not left them in a good place. It’s so much so that they can’t even get on the phone with me to talk. So that kind of worries me. And it’s true where…
Chinazom Nwabueze (38:20.654)
There’s a way when we start getting busy again, we all pretend and then we start getting busy Oh, I’ve got this work and then all of a sudden we carry on and there’s just so many layers that you have to uncover to actually start to do the healing and I’m so happy now that you have a partner where you should be able to voice those things because a big part for me I’m not speaking. I mean I’ll speak for all men I never realized until I got married where I don’t even I didn’t even understand certain emotions that I had So if you don’t even understand the emotions you can’t even
Chinazom Nwabueze (38:49.102)
call it out to share with anyone because you don’t even know what it is that you’re feeling and that’s just no way to live your life. I do hope that people do realise, like we went, yeah the pandemic, I never wished the pandemic on anyone but I do feel like if you try to look at the silver lining in it, it was a great bit where we all stopped and had to like take a look at ourselves and started really ask ourselves some tough questions and I still feel like what you said.
Chinazom Nwabueze (39:18.766)
There’s still so much trauma and so many more conversations we have to have. So I really, I don’t want everybody to just go back into that busy and just pretend it didn’t happen.
It’s like a bandage. People just put a bandage on top of a bandage on top of a bandage on top of a bandage and it is then they have to go back through all those layers and it’s difficult for people to do it. It makes sense why people do it. I’ve done stuff I got before where it’s like, oh, well, I’ll just kind of work on this project or I’ll work on this client or I’ll work on this thing. I’ll do this thing or whatever. And you’re like, you’re just bypassing and like deflecting and trying to get away from the stuff instead of actually going through and doing the work.
Chinazom Nwabueze (39:51.65)
really do the work, but having somebody else there coaching or a therapist or even a good friend, you should be able to talk to your spouse or partner or whatever, but you shouldn’t actually put everything on that person to expect them to fix everything. It’s just a matter of actually being able to voice it at least and then be able to say, all right, here’s what I’m gonna do and be able to work from there or ask questions. Like I have times where people are like this is what I’m going through and honestly I don’t know what the fuck to do.
Chinazom Nwabueze (39:59.445)
Chinazom Nwabueze (40:12.696)
do because then at that point they’re at least open instead of just being like I’m just upset, I’m pissed, I’m going to go work on this thing because I don’t want to think about it. Or I’m going to go drink, or I’m going to go do whatever. And it can be difficult. I found for me personally, I drank a lot more. I remember my ex wife saying as we got closer to a divorce, she was like, Wow, you’re drinking a lot more these days. And I remember thinking like, fuck yeah, I am like, what the fuck? You fucking kid me? Like, look at what’s going on here.
Chinazom Nwabueze (40:31.084)
down I was like I’m done because that’s not who I want to be and I had bandaged myself with a lot of that and I tried to do the work but the work was being clouded by me just going out fuck it I’m just gonna get a go get a glass of scotch
and then start to work on something else. But once you start to peel away the bandage, you can start to kind of work on the other ones. And sometimes it just takes taking that first step to be able to do that. So on that note, what sort of advice would you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery?
Chinazom Nwabueze (41:30.758)
Um, on their path to a self-master, I think is…
Chinazom Nwabueze (41:36.13)
Just listen from what you just said is having that courage to take the bandage off and see what is there because there’s nothing worse than trying to hide from the truth in yourself and I think wherever you are just have that courage to see what’s there but don’t try and solve it on your own. So start like when your friends ask you how you doing they actually they do actually care and actually want to hear an answer.
Chinazom Nwabueze (42:06.09)
Sometimes just have a bit of faith and share. Let’s see what happens. Can’t be worse than just keeping it in your head. And then start to surround yourself with trust. Cause this was something when I was in the UK, we didn’t really talk to therapists or coaches or things like that. And this is something I feel like you should be talking to therapists, not because something’s wrong, just literally you should have somebody who, that’s their skillset. That’s what they do. You should have a coach that you talk to because you want to make sure that
Chinazom Nwabueze (42:35.214)
there’s no hidden trauma or there’s no bandages that you’re putting on top so that you can show up as your best self for your loved ones so that should be something you should be investing in and that’s for me one reason I wrote the book is like same way we go to the gym and we spend so much money on physical fitness is like you should have a therapist that you talk to, not because anything’s wrong but because you want to be a better person, you want to make sure that you’re not just having conversations with yourself you should have a coach that you talk to where when you want to take action and behaviour change that shit is not easy
Chinazom Nwabueze (43:04.526)
can’t do it on your own. So then you should have your friends that you speak to and you generally, not just to go and talk about sports and have, don’t get me wrong, talking about sports is cool as well. But you should also have your friends where from time to time you get together and you actually share what the hell is going on and what’s wrong. Because there’s, I’ve had situations where when you have it in your head, it becomes such a big, big issue. But once you share it with your friends, you’re like, okay, it’s not, it wasn’t the end of the world. We…
Chinazom Nwabueze (43:32.81)
you know you could start taking steps to solve it so that’s one tip I’d love to leave for people for stop mastery
That’s a great way to put that too. And just being able to have conversations. I think there are a lot of people that get afraid of being able to share with their friends or family that they’re going through some stuff because they don’t, they expect that they will not be, um, understood. And I, I know that’s how I’ve been. I’m a big fan of the Enneagram. I’m a four and I’m hyper emotional and think I’m a unicorn and all that sort of shit. So there have been times where I’m like,
Chinazom Nwabueze (43:56.963)
Chinazom Nwabueze (44:00.575)
Chinazom Nwabueze (44:08.462)
get it because they don’t understand me. But I’ve had conversations, I remember telling my dad and my brother at one point, like, hey, I was suicidal when I lived in Portland. And they were like, why didn’t you talk to us? I’m like, I didn’t think I could. They didn’t shame me for it, but they were like, man, you can always fucking talk to us. Even if we don’t know what to say, we’re gonna love you through it. And a lot of friends are gonna be the same way. So, man, I really, go ahead.
Chinazom Nwabueze (44:27.662)
Chinazom Nwabueze (44:30.218)
Yeah. I wanted to just, yeah, that point you just raised, because I actually had a friend who recently said when she lost her dad, she went through it and she tried to talk to people and they didn’t respond the right way. And I think sometimes people feel like they have to do something. Sometimes you don’t literally have to do anything. You just have to listen. And it’s only when the people who are going through that issue, they will tell you what they need. But I think sometimes people get so scared.
Chinazom Nwabueze (44:59.619)
When you share something with them, they’re like, oh my God, you’ve just shared with me that you’re suicidal. What am I supposed to do? It’s like, first of all, it’s just don’t judge the person, just listen. And then as you’re listening, that’s the first step. And then they can start to take it from there.
Yeah, we could probably just keep going with the episode with that because I think about people where they will judge because they may be they may be feeling that and you just called it out. They’re like, oh, fuck. What do I do? What do I say? There’s there’s a whole lot that we can go through. But I feel like people need to read your book. They need to go through that. They need to have the conversations. And if they have questions for you, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Chinazom Nwabueze (45:41.834)
Yeah, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. So you just put chinas on Sonny Wabweze. You can also my website is www.dreamcatchersperformance.com. So you can go on there and message me, chat. I’m also on Instagram, dreamcatchers underscore performance. I’d love to, yeah, if you want to reach out to me, I’d love to talk with people. I could talk about my book all day.
Awesome, man. Well, hey, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show. I appreciate your time.
Chinazom Nwabueze (46:09.09)
Thank you so much, Nick. This has been a pleasure. Thank you.
https://youtu.be/nYnISVW7Aq4
