The NDINI Podcast

“A lot of what we know, we actually need to unlearn to relearn the correct way...

A lot of people don’t understand that it’s the simple things that can change your life.” - Makini Smith

Makini was a straight A student when she was in high school, but her turbulent youth and environment at that time ended up causing her to become a mother at a very young age. She had to prove herself to her family and to society that she was not going to be just a statistic. She went back to school. 

“A lot of people are struggling with a lot of issues on their own, in secret, feeling ashamed. And shame loves secrecy.” - Makini Smith

Despite having to work full time to support herself in college and being a single mother of two small children all at the same time, Makini graduated with honors. Her challenges would not end here as she had to deal with difficult and toxic relationships after. She also had to deal with anxiety, depression, and health issues because of this. But Makini rose through all these challenges and was able to provide for her children and be present to raise them by becoming an entrepreneur. Makini shares how the passing of her sister greatly affected her change in perspective in life. Witnessing how her sister had made a difference in many people’s lives, this inspired her to do the same.  

“We create this community of connection through being vulnerable. A lot of people are afraid to be vulnerable because they see it as a weakness, but I’ve learned that it’s a strength.” - Makini Smith

Makini shared her journey in her book ‘A Walk In My Stilettos’ which has become a source of inspiration for many. She has also written several other books to help provide the tools needed to overcome self-limiting thoughts of doubt and fear, as well as to integrate the importance of gratitude in this process.

Makini Smith has also become an international speaker gracing platforms in Canada, the United States and Africa with her transparent storytelling of real life testimonies. Her authenticity and relatable message empowers women to walk boldly with their head held high. As an extension to her books, Makini also hosts a podcast called A Walk In My Stilettos Podcast.

“Fear and faith are both beliefs in the unknown. So if you have a choice, if you can choose, why not choose faith?” - Makini Smith

In this episode, we get to learn a little bit on how two specific parts of our brain work, and how we can make the most of it. Sandra shares The 3 steps on how to make a compelling vision, as well as her 5 'Core Desired Feelings'.

Robina Abramson-Walling, didn’t know who she was to her core most of her life. She worked as a nurse, got married and had children, then left her job to focus on raising her children. She had done what was expected of her and was living a life of how other people thought she should. One day she woke up and realized that she didn’t even know who she was anymore. She had given so much to everybody else that she stopped caring about herself. At this point, she knew that she had to make a decision to change.

“I believe that times are changing. Nobody wants to be sleepwalking through life anymore. And if they are sleepwalking, they just don’t know how not to do it. They don’t know things are possible. Everything starts with a decision” - Robina Abramson-Walling

Robina searched for ways to help herself, one of which was going to the gym. Eventually, this led her to go all the way  into fitness competitions. But even when she was competing, she realized that she was not happy. She needed to recreate who she was.

“I believe that the more you spend building your mindset and building your thought process, the better you’re equipped to develop whatever life that you want.” -  Robina Abramson-Walling

Despite the backlash and self-doubt, Robina decided to follow her heart and not her brain. She started building her character and mind by not only being physically healthy, but also mentally and spiritually. With the help of books, meditation, and surrounding herself with the right kind of people, she was able to develop the right mindset that helped her truly find her passion.

Robina is a mother of 4 children, a lifestyle entrepreneur with Arbonne, and a health and life coach. Her goal is to help women get unstuck in life and empower them to reinvent and recreate who they are and who they want to be. She started her own podcast called Unstuckable.

“I really believe that you can create the life you’ve always wanted. It’s just a matter of you being bold enough to decide.”-  Robina Abramson-Walling

This week, we talk to one of the honorees in Forbes Africa’s ‘30 Under 30 List’, Hadeel Osman.

Hadeel Osman has worked in the media and fashion industries for over seven years.

She had studied in Malaysia and the US, and had also worked in the United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe. But when she decided to return to Sudan in 2016, she found it hard to find visual inspiration from the streets. With limited resources, issues with infrastructure, and “mostly brown everywhere” as she described, Hadeel wanted to be part of the change and inspire visual creativity in her country.

“I wanted to inspire visual creativity… to help other entrepreneurs and other creators to create that standard… I wanted to be one of the people that are pushing this agenda that we as the people, we need to celebrate ourselves, our colors, our truths, our culture in all its diversity, and also have that addressed in a commercial aspect.” - Hadeel Osman

This desire led Hadeel to create DAVU Studio, a multi-disciplinary creative studio that fuses design, art, education and sustainability.

“DAVU stands for Designing A Visual Utopia. Coming to Sudan, you don’t really see a lot of visual inspiration… it’s hard for me to get inspiration. I couldn’t see a lot of what I wished I could see… I wanted to design my very own visual utopia with whatever I had.” - Hadeel Osman  

DAVU Studio offers an array of creative services in the form of art and creative direction, concept development, branding, styling and most importantly, informal education through interactive, immersive and creative workshops. Through this, she has had the opportunity to work with Sudanese visual artists and designers, and was commissioned by the Sudan Independent Film Festival to train costume designers, jewelry designers and filmmakers.

In this episode, Hadeel talks about her journey in her career, the misconceptions about Sudan, and the status quo of visual creativity in her country. She shares her inspiring dream-come-true story of wanting to be in the ‘30 Under 30’ list since she was 12. Hadeel also shares some valuable advice to the aspiring youth of Sudan, as well as her goals and dreams.

As a child growing up, Natasha’s hair was consistently relaxed by her mother to make styling easier. She was even convinced that her hair was naturally straight (or ‘wavy’ at most) and ironically always wanted curly hair. Through many chemical relaxers and weekly wash-blowdry-straighten routines, her hair got more and more  damaged, until she finally decided to cut her hair short. Doing this started to reveal her true natural curls the moment she started growing out of the relaxers. 

As years went by, eventually Natasha could not resist the urge anymore to do the “big chop” -- to cut all of her hair off -- so she could grow out her true curls from scratch.

Doing her own research on how to grow her curls and have proper hair care, she decided to start sharing her journey (via blogging, YouTube and Instagram), and continued learning until she became more confident in herself embracing her new found natural hair.

Natasha eventually learned enough to create her own formula and people started buying her products. This led to building her brand, Curlshoppe, which she now co-owns with her best friend, Rowan McAnoy. 

After being able to create her own business and brand, a lot of people would ask her how she was able to do it. With her own experience and strategies in this field, she and her partner Sanjay created Hustl works, a platform to help aspiring entrepreneurs start their own businesses.

In this episode, Natasha shares her story and journey to becoming an entrepreneur, specifically with hair care and products. She shares her goals, dreams, and challenges, as well as her own advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

“Just be really passionate in what you do… If your passion is there, you are going to make a great product or service. Whatever you’re putting out is going to be the best you, as long as you’re happy doing it. Expect the hard work. Expect things to go wrong and push through. But if your heart's in it and you know that you are doing a good job in the best that you can be, they will all work out in the end.” - Natasha Sheppard

“Sometimes being a hero is acknowledging that you need help. Sometimes being a hero is acknowledging that you need to just sit and be still.” - Sandra Chuma

How are you? Really, how are you?

Normally we ask that question, but we don’t really mean it. It’s courtesy. It’s a greeting. But now more than ever, we truly must ask each other, “How are you today?” for it’s true intent and meaning.

With the state of the world right now, I just wanted to remind you that the fact that we are where we are doesn’t change our goals. The goals and dreams that you had at the beginning of the year don’t change. The only thing that changes is the WHEN and the HOW. 

In my case, my big goal this year is Woman On Fire Summit which was scheduled for April 5th.  As you know, we had to postpone, as did so many other vents.  In all of our months of planning, I never imagined we’d have to postpone.  And of course I never could have imagined that the world would literally be shut down!

But what I know for sure is Woman On Fire Summit will happen when the time is right.

For this week’s episode, I also wanted to use this as an opportunity to share some wisdom from our phenomenal Woman On Fire Summit speakers -- Stephan Speaks, Gabby Bernstein, Lisa Nichols and Anna & Lindy from LovePowered Co.  

“Obstacles are detours in the right direction. Even the most difficult obstacles can be divine intervention.” - from The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein

This episode is a reminder and a love letter from me to you to remind you that everything is going to be okay. We just have to trust. And as Gabby Bernstein would say, “The universe has our back.” 

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a fantastic example of never, ever, ever give up on your dreams.  

She was born and raised in Uganda. While she won awards for plays that she wrote while in high school, she didn’t think of creative writing as a career, instead becoming an English teacher. But she longed to write, and decided to take the very daring step of going to the UK to do a Masters degree in creative writing. 

In 2003, initially inspired by her father’s battle with schizophrenia, Jennifer started writing what would become her first published novel ‘Kintu’. Jennifer was also intrigued by the way the western world characterizes Africa as a “place of madness”. 

“I need the world to know about Uganda. That is very important to me. Someone has gone out telling the world about Uganda, and all they said is Idi Amin, HIV, and homophobia. But I know Uganda. That is not Uganda. So I’m going to tell the world, and I’m going to insist and scream out loud. This is who we are -- we are both beautiful and ugly. We are wonderful and not so good. We are everything that other people are.” - Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Jennifer approached several publishers when she had finished the book.  But despite winning major awards, including the Commonwealth prize, the international publishing world didn’t take any notice.  In fact she was told by one publisher that the books was “too African”!

“When you read African novels, you can tell when an author is writing for the whole world. You try to explain things that are obvious to the immediate culture. Well I didn’t. When I read western literature, no one tries to think ‘Okay there are African readers. Let me make things easier.’ No. ” - Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Jennifer eventually won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013, and the book was published in 2014 by Kwani. In 2018, Jennifer was awarded the Wyndham-Campbell prize, which is considered the richest price in literature.  

Jennifer has also recently published Manchester Happened, a collection of short stories. Her second novel,The First Woman is expected to be published in August 2020. 

“The more we do for other people, the more there’s a ripple effect that just creates change within the different environments that we function in.” - Chioma Ifeanyi-Okoro

Chioma is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CMA) with over 8 years of experience working with corporate and nonprofit organizations.

 As a growth coach and consultant, Chioma has helped a lot of professionals and entrepreneurs build creative strategies and grow their revenue. In 2018, She was named by Elevate Tech Fest as a Leader in the Canadian Innovation ecosystem and nominated for a Toronto Region Board of Trade Business Excellence Award for Young Professional of the Year.

Her work had been featured in a number of publications including Canada's top outlet for senior executives and professionals (The Globe and Mail) and PayPal. She has also spoken in stages and universities. She currently sits on the newly formed CPA Emerging Leaders Advisory Board and is a mentor to various startups, business owners and professionals across the world.

Chioma is also the founder of My African Corner, a platform dedicated to accelerating entrepreneurs and professionals in the Black community. This platform holds various events like BUILDfest, which is focused on experiential education on business, and Dajara, which focuses on helping students and new graduates.

“My biggest goal in life is just to help people see their value, to help people truly see themselves for what they are.” - Chioma Ifeanyi-Okoro

In this episode, Chioma shares her story on how she became a CPA, and eventually fully going into entrepreneurship. She talks about her motivation and goals that drives her different ventures and platforms in business, the challenges, and her dreams. Chioma also shares the most valuable things that she has learned through her experiences, as well as some advice of her own.  

“Bilingualism is a fundamental gift that every parent should give to their children” - Faridat Audu

 It’s funny isn’t it how sometimes our inspiration to do something comes in the most random or unexpected way.

For Faridat Audu, the inspiration to become bilingual came in grade school when she admired her friend’s sister, who she thought was so elegant and sophisticated in part because she spoke French. This admiration inspired Faridat to move to Côte d’Ivoire for University, and to immerse herself in the language. This life-long interest has led to academic degrees for Faridat, and to her becoming a bilingual teacher and author, and most recently CEO of a company focused on promoting bilingualism.

“I want my children and my children’s generation to be able to visit each other’s country and be able to speak this language… without having any stress. That is my mission. That is what I call bilingualism in children.” - Faridat Audu

In this episode, Faridat gives us insight on language learning of kids and adults, as well as learning strategies. She also talks about the challenges of being an entrepreneur in the language education space, the importance of mindset, and the awareness of giving your child a global gift of learning to speak another language.

“I love to impact passion in children. I love to give a certain gift to children, that makes me happy. I love it when I give something to people, and I look back and I see them and I see something that I’ve contributed to their lives, it makes me feel accomplished, especially children.” - Faridat Audu

Camille Dundas loved reading and writing from an early age, and some of her fondest memories are of mornings spent reading the weekend newspapers from cover to cover with her father.  As a teen she got exposure to working for a local TV network….and she was hooked! She knew she wanted to be a journalist.  

“You have to do the small things first for people to trust you to do the bigger things.” - Camille Dundas

Camille’s journalism career started when she was just 15 years old when she got a gig as a part-time newspaper columnist. At 16, she was commissioned to write a biographical poem about Nelson Mandela.  She got to read the poem and present it to the late South African leader in 1998, which is a memory she treasures.  

Camille spent more than 10 years as a news writer and producer for leading Canadian news programs such as CBC National, CP24 Breaking News and CTV's Canada AM.

Camille also had a strong desire to create a platform for the black community in Canada to promote their businesses.  Camille and her husband Roger Dundas came up with the idea for ByBlacks.com. Since its inception, the platform has evolved into a full scale online magazine featuring stories of inspiring people from the Canadian black community. 

Camille was recognized by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for her media activism; and the ByBlacks team has won national media awards. She has been recognized as one of the ‘100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women’.

“Media portrayals inform your perceptions, and your perception will inform your reality, and your reality informs your biases.” - Camille Dundas

In 2016 Camille made a career jump from TV news to the tech industry, becoming a consultant for global social media management leader Hootsuite. She now uses her storytelling skills to show organizations how they can leverage social media as part of their digital transformation strategies.

Camille and her husband Roger, who are parents to two young children, are also business partners in publicity and marketing firm Konvo Media.  

In this episode, Camille talks about her journey to becoming a career journalist, and eventually “pursuing her own ideas on her own terms” by becoming an entrepreneur. Using her strong storytelling and journalistic background, Camille wants to contribute to changing the ‘norm’ of media for black people.  

“I want to be remembered as somebody who allowed everybody else to tell their truth from their point of view.” - Camille Dundas

Camille is also passionate about women's rights, and mentoring underserved groups. She is a prolific public speaker, delivering keynotes and workshops across all sectors.

“I am a woman of unshakable confidence… but I am also a woman who is unfinished -- who is a work in beautiful progress.” - Camille Dundas