From Rock Bottom to Harrods: Toks Aroture on Luxury, Resilience and Technology - ep 36

[00:00:12] Hi everyone, welcome to Talking Tech With Creatives. It's a podcast where we talk about the intersection of technology and creativity. And I always like to have different guests on the podcasts and you've seen quite a few from all backgrounds. I'm quite excited about my guest today. I've got Toks Aroture of the Baby Cut Shop here. She's a founder.

[00:00:42] She found an area that fascinates me that I want to talk about and we're going to delve into it because she got into the luxury space of nursery. So Baby Cut Shop does bespoke nursery for high-ended clients. And I don't want to say too much because Toks is going to tell us a lot about it. And I deliberately didn't want to even know too much.

[00:01:12] So because I wanted to get it fresh from Toks. So I got the barest minimum. So we're going to discover Toks and what she does together. So the Baby Cut Shop, like I said, they serve high-ended customers and beautiful parts of London. And also they've actually opened a shop in Harrods and they decorated the Lindo Wing. Now, for those who are royalists, the Lindo Wing is a very popular place. And they've actually opened a shop in Harrods and they decorated the Lindo Wing.

[00:01:42] If you're not a royalist, but if you know the Lindo Wing of Harrods is where royals go to have their babies. And it's been decorated by the Baby Cut Shop. We're in for a treat because this is a bit of a departure from all my filmmakers and books and all that looking at luxury spaces, which I love because I've got my series coming and it's all about luxury.

[00:02:02] So, books, welcome to Talking Tech with Creative Podcast. I want you, first of all, to tell us about yourself, about your background, and then we're going to start delving deeper and asking all those questions. Amazing. Ah, thank you so much for having me, Stella. I am super excited. It's been such a long time coming and our schedules have just not been aligned.

[00:02:24] But here we are, finally. So, background, I was born in Scotland, but obviously I didn't grow up there. I grew up in Nigeria, specifically Benin City. And yes, yes, we share that in common. I grew up in Benin. And Benin, I had the most wonderful childhood in Benin.

[00:02:46] I mean, it's compared to places like Lagos, for example, which is a bit more or more cosmopolitan. Benin is quieter, even though we're a city, but it's not, it's not like, so I just had the most peaceful, most beautiful, warm childhood and surrounded by a lot of love, surrounded by familiar face trust.

[00:03:07] And I think that formed the foundation for who I am today, because I was raised by parents who were so confident in their children. Whether they were or they were not, they definitely told us that they were. My dad would brag about me. He would say things like, oh, my daughter is going to win Miss Nigeria. Then my dad would say, not my daughter, she's not going to parade in anything that she shouldn't be wearing.

[00:03:34] And then they would go back and forth. But more importantly, it was, you're so intelligent, you can do anything. You're so intelligent, you can do anything. And so growing up in that space, I guess when you hear that often enough, you actually believe it. So I truly believed I could do anything. So I grew up in Benin. I schooled in the north of Nigeria, in Kaduna. So how? How come from Benin to Kaduna? Benin to boarding house. It was a military school. Wow.

[00:04:01] Yeah, I went to a military boarding school and my dad was in the military, so I didn't really have a choice. Was it secondary school? Secondary school, yes. So secondary school was in that. So that's where the whole discipline. Sometimes I think that my whole experience of military boarding school ended there. I don't think the discipline followed me outside the gates of the school.

[00:04:22] So I think I just stayed there. So I survived it, but I learned a lot of lessons, particularly one time I remember, which I love to refer to. I had a, my mom came to see me. This was, I think, in my, at the midterm of my first term there. And she came to see me because Benin and Kaduna are very, I like London's Scotland. She came to visit me, took me, well, we stayed in a guest house for the, for the weekend. And so how is school going? I was like, mom, it's horrible. The skip seniors are wicked.

[00:04:52] This senior slapped me. The food is this. And I'm going on about the weekend seniors. And she said, she says, what do you want to do? I said, I want to go, go to school in Benin or Lagos. I want to get, be closer to home. And she said, the problem is no matter what school you go to, you're going to face this problem. You're going to face seniors. They will be different. They'll have different names in a different location, but the experience itself will be the same.

[00:05:17] Now, how that served me and still serves me today is on my business journey. When I've been tempted to quit, I think, and then what? No matter what I do, I'm still going to face the same challenges in business. I can sell secondhand clothes or spare tires. Same thing. It's the same, regardless of what, what line of business you're in. The, the mindset required to run a business is the same, regardless of the kind of business you're in.

[00:05:45] So I grew up with a lot of life lessons like that. I think I naturally gravitate towards lessons or I tend to pull out lessons from it. And then, when, then my family moved to Lagos and not long after that, there was a mass exodus of Nigerians, young Nigerians from Nigeria. The, the, the economy wasn't so great. Everyone was seeking better opportunities.

[00:06:08] And many of us, there are many Nigerians who were born in the diaspora that grew up in Nigeria because our parents preferred that we had that kind of upbringing. And also many of our parents were not, did not, were not immigrants per se. Some came to study and go back. So during that time, it was like, you know what? You're British. You were born here. Just go back. And so I came to England, but then that whole thing of you're so smart. You can be anything.

[00:06:34] I took it too seriously because I was supposed, I came to do A-levels and I really wanted to be a doctor. And everyone said, oh, you make a great doctor. My dad wouldn't stop saying that. Came to, it came to England and I didn't study for A-levels. So I ended up failing woefully because I thought I was so smart. I didn't need to study. I ended up failing. The systems, systems are different. The systems were different. But in Nigeria, you can cram. That's it. We're trying to get away with cramming.

[00:07:04] I was trying to get away with pain. You cannot, you have to be missed. And then on top of that, growing up, being in boarding school, one of the advantages of boarding school is you're in a, you're almost in an incubator where you have no choice but to breathe the air that's in there. And it's study and success. You must come first in class. You mustn't be last. You must do. And so being in that environment in boarding house helped me to thrive academically.

[00:07:30] But then coming out of that, and then England is the exact opposite. Completely different here. Yeah. Open book test. What is that? Open book test. And then you're calling your lecturers by name. And if you don't show up in class, it's fine. Nobody cares. No one cares. And it was so different. And I think that freedom, I just, I don't think I... Yeah. I don't think I handled it quite well. I just like, hey, I'm free as a bird. Do whatever I like.

[00:07:59] So I ended up going into university to study pharmacology. And the plan was, because I had, when I was a kid, I always read my father's medical book. So I've always had a passion for the human body and for medicine. And I still do. So the plan was, okay, start a pharmacology. And then when you're done with that degree, then you go into medicine. But then in my second year, I got married to my best friend and we got married. And I found myself spending more and more time doing up our apartments in London, best time at lectures.

[00:08:28] And then eventually I admitted to myself that I had dropped out of school. Wow. You admitted to yourself that? I said, madame, let's be honest. You haven't been to lectures in how many years. You have been enjoying married life, eh? You're enjoying married life. You're painting in the middle of the night. You're spending all your entire working day at B&Q and home base. You have dropped out, woman. If I was okay, I was like, okay, I'll be fine. I didn't.

[00:08:58] Even though in Nigeria, education is the holy grail. I was confident that I'll be okay, even though I dropped out. So I dropped out. Then I got a job as a medical representative for a pharmaceutical company, which paid really well. So they paid well. Those jobs, they pay well. They give you a company card, an expense account and all that. Nice thing, yeah. Yeah. And I was young as well. I was my early, I was like 20, 21 maybe. Awesome. So all of that was happening. I was 23 at the time. Yeah.

[00:09:28] So all of that was happening. And then the children started to arrive when I had my third and I requested reduced working hours from my bosses. That's a lot. Yeah. They turned me down. They still, you know. Yeah, because it's still, isn't it? Once you're at full. Once you're at full. Exactly. Exactly. Back then, I'm talking, how old is Aaron? Aaron is 26 now. So 26, no, it wouldn't be Aaron. It would have been Zach.

[00:09:53] So 22 years ago, women's health and maternity entitlement and all of that was not what it is today. It was bad. It was really bad. So anyway, I happened to be reading a book at the time and the book in the books, the author had written, your gift is that thing you do so effortlessly. Everyone thinks it's such a big deal except you. And I thought, Hey, everybody loves my home. I don't think it's a big deal. I think it's easy.

[00:10:23] That's why you dropped out of school. You were decorating, going to B&Q. You're passionate. Exactly. Oh my God. Exactly. For real. Which most people tend to stumble on. A lot of people stumble on it. Because I was thinking about you going decorating. I was thinking, do I decorate anything? I buy paintings. It's amazing. That is amazing. I was. And because we were both students and we were broke, I'd go to B&Q and I'll go to their bargain

[00:10:51] bucket and I'll find a wallpaper. Then I'll cut, I'll lay literally across the flat on the floor and then use a knife to cut it into strips because I wanted to create borders around and I'd buy white paint because I wanted all the rooms to have. It was just one bedroom, the sitting room, the bathroom, the kitchen. I wanted them to be all different colours but I couldn't afford coloured paint because coloured paint was more expensive than white paint.

[00:11:20] But white paint was cheap so I bought white paint and I bought dyes, coloured dyes and I'll mix the colours up until I got the exact colour. For real? Yeah. Never? Never? Never? Yeah, that's what I did. I would do that with my writing. That was all I was crazy about. Oh my God. Writing is a beautiful, it's a gift. Oh my God. That is another, another, it's a conversation hopefully we'll have more on today because you're right in it. Yeah, I know that's a gift.

[00:11:50] So yeah, so that's how I ended up. So when I read that statement, your gifts is the thing you do so effortlessly. I thought, hey, it's easy for me. It's not a big deal. Good doing this? And it's because you're, when you're gifted in something or when you're passionate, it's so easy for you, right? You don't, you don't stress over it. So for me, it was really easy. And then I decided to go and get a, go to design school.

[00:12:17] So I enrolled in a couple of interior design course and I studied interior design. And then I set up a small outfit, like an interior design company from my home. I even remember, I remember I printed these fridge magnets. I was thinking, I'm so excited. I've got my own company. I printed this fridge magnets with a quote on it that I came up with about, I think I caught the name of the company was Spaces. How old were you? I was 20.

[00:12:46] By this time, Zach was born. So I was 27 at this stage. You didn't see so much of you. Oh my God. I was 27 then. I already had three kids. I already had three, yeah. Oh my word. I know. I had them quite close. Like one time I had three children, it's just three and under. I nearly died. I thought it was over for me, but yeah. Yeah. So I then had this company and I was so enthusiastic about it.

[00:13:14] I printed these fridge magnets and I went to give them out and I ran home thinking the phone would be ringing off the hook. I literally ran home. I'm like, oh my gosh, my customers are waiting. They're going to be, because I was so proud of what I did and I was so certain there was nothing quite like it. And then, and I called the service personality because I felt that everybody should have a room that's tailored to their home. That's tailored to their personality. And I get home, the phone isn't ringing. I'm like, what's going on?

[00:13:43] So obviously two things. Number one, I didn't realize that's how business was that, you know, it just doesn't happen that way. But number two, your girl forgot to put the phone number. So in some houses there are my, my best friend still has that fridge magnet on her fridge today. Yeah, until today. My God. What a story. So yeah. And then one day my husband, only a few months into running it, my husband came back from

[00:14:11] work one day and said, hey, why don't we move to the United States? And we loved America so much because we would go there every year. We'd go to a different state. Loved it so much. And we would go there, have the time of our lives, spend maybe two, three weeks there, then come back depressed. Like, yeah, we would go. Sounds like me. It sounds like me. Yeah. I'll go to, I'll go to Nigeria. I'll go to the States and I'll come back and I'll say, I'm back. I'm back. It just wasn't it.

[00:14:39] And that's the thing is you, I remember one time we were on the flight coming back. I think we went to Florida. I can't remember where we went, but we were not coming back. And the people on the plane were just very loud. Whereas you've come from the U.S., everybody's warm and friendly and all of that. But it wasn't just that. We came out of Victoria. We flew into Gatwick, took the train to Victoria, came out of Victoria Station and all we could see were. Yeah.

[00:15:07] And I just remember that vivid picture, which we'd lived in the UK for years, but I'd never quite noticed was gum. Gum dropped on the pavements and the pavements were blotchy and there was gum on the pavement, black round blobs on the pavement. And I just think it, and it must have been Orlando because Orlando is picturesque. It's not real. It's so clean and it's so perfect. I'm always in Orlando. Oh, really? Oh. Yeah. Orlando, yeah. It is, right?

[00:15:36] So when you compare that, then you come out of Victoria Station and you're seeing gum all over the floor. It was probably raining. When it rains, London just doesn't look. It's dirty. London is dirty and dirty. It does. Yeah. But anyway, so he said, why don't we just move to the U.S.? I was like, yeah, let's go. We're adventurous. I like that. Yes. We sold our home and we packed our three boys and we moved to the U.S. And in the process of the move, acquired a baby furniture store. For the?

[00:16:06] The thing, because for immigration purposes, we needed a business. So we needed a reason to go there. So one was like, we're going to just buy a business and that would be our, one of our two. We had two options. So you bought a, oh, you bought a business there. Yeah. How clever. And. But where did you go? What part of the city? Oh, we went to Georgia, Atlanta. Oh, my brother lives in Atlanta. Oh, really? What about you here? Like. Oh, yeah. It's a long story.

[00:16:36] It's a long story. I'll tell you, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, my brother lives in Atlanta, yeah. Really? Oh, my goodness. So, yeah. It, we had the time of our lives because it was everything. The way I see Atlanta, I see the parts of the South and let's say Atlanta is like Nigeria with an excellent infrastructure. That's what it is. Oh, good. It's Black Atlanta. The weather is hot.

[00:17:03] The people are warm and friendly. The cuisine, the food, everything about it, the schools, the homes, everything about it was, was literally everything that we dreamed of. And the boys, they settled into school very quickly. And life was literally perfect. I couldn't have wanted for anything more. Everything was going very well. The business was thriving. Yes, everything was going well. Business was thriving.

[00:17:31] And I, my, it was my first experience with a real business because I don't consider my interior design outfit as a real business. It was more of a hobby. So what was the business? It was baby furniture. That's how I ended up there. You just bought a business. Luxury baby furniture. So I didn't. What made you go for that? It wasn't intentional. We were just looking for a business that had good cashflow and was making money. Well, the fact that you guys were, what did you, what's your husband's background?

[00:18:01] I'm just. He's in IT. So he wasn't involved in the business. He was doing his IT thing. So he was completely. But so I looked at everything. I looked at sandwich shops. These are the, some of the businesses. So you were looking at, so you were very business minded then. I was adventurous. Maybe. I don't know if I was. Anyway. Yeah. I understand that anyway. So we're just thinking that let's look for a business. Because some people would not. But yeah. Yeah. Let's look for a business. We got some advice from a lawyer who told us a different way.

[00:18:30] He contacted an immigration lawyer in the US and he told us the different routes and different pathways. Exactly. Amazing. We can buy a business. We can. I'd looked at sandwich shops. I'd looked at dry cleaners. I remember the dry cleaner story. I also had a business lawyer as well in the US. And he said to me, because obviously I would see a business and then I'd fly over to go see it in person. I'm loving this. We're going to spend two hours on this story.

[00:19:00] I have no time. I'm telling you. I'm really. I told you. I said clean slate. So he, sometimes he would go and say, listen, just save your flight money, your ticket money. I'll go see it for you. And I remember looking at this dry cleaners and thinking, it can't be that hard. It can't be that hard. I'm psyching myself up. I'm looking at the sales figures and the cashflow and it all looked so good. How hard can it be? They had staff. I don't even need to be there and all of that. I'm telling myself all these things. And then he said, told me two things.

[00:19:29] The first thing he did was he went to the, to see the location for, and he said, I've been there talks and the machines are like, the machinery are like 20 years old. Oh my God. That means you have to buy new ones. If I had walked in myself, I'd be like, oh, it's working. Right. All right. Let's go. I would never have thought that I would never have thought to look at the ages of that. So, and that's why it's so important to have experts, the right experts in your business. So I looked at that.

[00:19:59] I'm like, okay. And then he, the second thing he told me was quite interesting. So he was a Caucasian American man being a lawyer for many years, quite experienced. The dry cleaning industry is owned and run by the Koreans in this. And so certain cultures and ethnic groups are experts in certain areas. And it makes sense that. They're accepted as experts. Okay. Maybe the word is an expert. Let's just say that they own the market. Yes.

[00:20:29] So it's the perception, the perception of knowing that this particular group of people have been doing it for a long time. They're more trusted. So when it comes to woodwork, the Eastern Europeans to me have perfected it. When it comes to, if you, if many. Because you know about woodwork. Probably because I know about woodwork. And then if you think about people who do flooring and they do, obviously once upon a time you walked in Britain, there was no option.

[00:20:58] It was just British people then, and then English people rather. And then now you have a lot of immigrants coming in. I'm very comfortable with an Eastern European building furniture for me. I'm very comfortable with them doing work in my house. And it's a combination of expertise, pride in their job, and a good price. Now with an English craftsman, you will also get, if you've got a good craftsman, you'll

[00:21:24] also get expertise, but you need to be prepared to pay sometimes up to double what an Eastern European would charge. And so you will start to find that many ethnic groups or many groups of people, I guess in back to your word, perceived as experts or accepted as experts, maybe that is really the right terminology is that it's an acceptance, but they've gained a really good reputation as honing in their skills in that particular area.

[00:21:54] So I also looked at Hallmark gold crown stores and purely by accident. I'm just going through, I'm looking at cash flow, I'm searching on the Biz Buy Sell, which is a website that sells businesses every day. I'd wake up and I'll check to see what's been listed. And I saw this Hallmark gold crown store. So in the US, you probably know this, that there are Hallmark card stores, and then there are Hallmark gold crown stores. The gold crown store lets you sell, I think it was 40 or 30% of whatever you want to sell,

[00:22:24] something like that. But the rest of it must be Hallmark owned products, or maybe they do gifts. And I can't remember quite well. But I went to see this Hallmark store and I fell madly in love with it. Because of the aesthetics. The aesthetics. Absolutely stunning. It was so beautiful. Right? Oh yeah. And it's just such a cool business. I'm not so good at making them. Exactly. You don't need to. You just need to be able to admire and recognize.

[00:22:54] I love things that are just beautiful things. Just oh God. So I look at this Hallmark gold crown store and I'm in love with it and everything about it. I could see my, and the location. I could see myself living there. It was only because we'd gone to the Census Bureau and looked at things like demographics. We wanted to know, because we didn't know anybody in Atlanta. I later discovered I had a cousin there, but we didn't know anyone there.

[00:23:21] So we were looking at demographics, looking at who lives, what kind of people live in different areas. Where are the gangs? The gangs are there. We're going in the opposite direction. We also wanted to live in a location that had a mixed demographic of people. We didn't want to live in a white area. We didn't want to live in a black area. We didn't want to live in a Korean area. We wanted a good mix because we wanted our children to grow up with a more balanced and

[00:23:50] expanded view of life and of the world. And then we also looked at education as well. What is the, what are the, because the Bureau tells you in this area, 69% of the people have masters or 30% of the people have first degree. So you know that you want them to be in an incubator again, where it's healthy for them. It gives them the best chance at life. So I'd looked at the Hallmark store and it was quite close to the area we had decided we were going to live.

[00:24:19] Long and short of it, it didn't go through. The sale didn't go through. Yeah, because the owners who were selling put a close that we needed to put money in escrow. And if for any reason whatsoever, the sale did not go through, we're going to lose our money. And it was quite a long time. That's risky. Yeah, exactly. We don't do that. So we pulled out of that. Then I became obsessed and started looking for gold crown. I must have one. I must get one. And that's how I stumbled across. I met this business broker who was selling about four of them.

[00:24:49] So he said, tell me about yourself. So I tell him, I'm married, I've got three children. They're quite young and we want to move. And this is this. And he said to me, you see the store you're looking at? The cash flow is amazing. Everything about is great. But the location, you said you're a young mom with children. I wouldn't advise you to go in that area. However, I do have this new store that has just hasn't even gone on the market. And it was this beautiful baby furniture store. I wasn't even interested.

[00:25:16] My husband was more interested than I was because I was like, baby, I have babies. Like, I don't need more. I don't need to be that more. You don't want to be surrounded by baby stuff. I don't want to be surrounded by baby anything. I was saying to her dog. I said, mom, look after you. I don't want to look after you. Let your owner come and look after you. Right. I don't want to look after you. Honestly. And so my husband really encouraged me. He said, at least go and have a look. So I flew again back to Atlanta and met the owners.

[00:25:44] And I went to the, we had agreed to meet at the store. I got there before they did. And I'm peeking through the door. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. I had never seen furniture so beautiful before. I'd never seen. Were they like? They were out of this world. They were just, they were very whimsical as well. But at the same time, they were, you could tell even from looking at it, the quality. My God. It was solid wood. Yeah. Hardwood. Painter.

[00:26:13] It was everything about it was so beautiful. And then we went to the trade show together and there were, these women were treated like celebrities because everybody wanted them to sell their products. And I thought, you guys must know something. I don't, if you're, there must be something about this. So that's how we ended up purchasing the business and, and moving and taking it over. And it's literally grew under my ownership. Okay. So just understanding who were the clientele?

[00:26:42] Clientele were young moms, expectant, affluent. So we were in an area called Buckhead, which is like the ninth grade. Oh my God. Was it shopping Buckhead? It was. Oh, oxy-toxy. Oh my God. You are a bold woman. Wow. Yeah. It was definitely. Oh, awesome. My God. Yeah.

[00:27:08] So it was in Buckhead and it was in a very prime location as well. Very well. And everything was going beautiful, beautifully well. It was thriving. Everything was perfect. And then we started to hear rumors of a coming recession. What year was this? This was in 2008. So yeah, that was, we called it the bloodbath because that's what it was. We said to hear rumors of a coming recession and the rumors took many different forms. There were in the US.

[00:27:38] If you see a store that's been around for 30 years, the equivalent of that in the UK is like, we've been here for 300 years, right? So there were these stores that were considered heritage brands. I can't remember their name. That had been there for 30 years. There were anchor stores and one of them closed. Chile went out of business. Oh my God. And that was sacrilege. Like how? And we were in a strip mall. So it was literally a domino effect. They closed. The store next to them closed. The one next to them closed.

[00:28:08] And it literally was like that. Almost in perfect order. But people were not buying. People were, yeah, people had lost homes. Yeah. People were losing everything. It was a subprime, wasn't it? It was. It was indeed. It was. Oh my God. People were losing their homes, losing their jobs. Oh my God. Organizations, banks, everyone was affected. Everyone was closing down. And we're watching and we're seeing this domino effect happening. And we know that we're on the line, right? We know it's coming to meet us.

[00:28:36] Because you would see from your, you would see from your selling as well. The business would have gone down a bit. Absolutely. I remember there was a store that sold shoes. My neighbor sold beautiful high-end shoes. And they went out of business and literally in the middle of the night came to clear all their stock. In the middle of the night. So you go into work one day and say, hi. You see the shoes on display, everything. The next day you see a completely empty shop. The very next day.

[00:29:06] Many of my suppliers were affected as well. You'd send in an order and how you will know they're out of business is the email just returns undelivered. Then you go to their website. And if I say we have seized trading, or if I say the website has been taken down or what have you, it was horrific. It really was that bad. I had friends who lost their homes as well. And for many of us, it was our very first experience of financial loss.

[00:29:35] So we didn't know how to navigate it. How to, yeah. Navigate it. Yeah. We didn't know how to navigate it. We didn't know whether it was a thing, whether it would last for a certain number of months, years, whatever. And so we're watching it. So we ended up moving back to England. And the plan was, okay, we'll come to England to weather the storm. Things are going to pick up again. We're going to go back. But we go back to England and I got returned pregnant with my fourth son.

[00:30:03] Hey, that season of my life is what I call the perfect storm because I don't know if you watched the movie, the perfect storm. I think I did it well back to England. There were multiple things that could have caused a storm and about, let's say four things can cause a storm and it's usually one or the other. But in that case, all four things happened. So there was no chance of them getting out of that storm. And that's why it was called the perfect storm.

[00:30:32] So it seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong was happening. Yeah. And I just couldn't catch a break. And we came back from the US and I'd called my friend. Funny enough, Susie, she wasn't even, she was a very good friend, but I wouldn't have necessarily seen her as my best friend at the time. She was a wonderful friend. But this girl tells me over the phone when I said we're on our way back home and I filled

[00:31:01] her in on what had been happening. And she said, come straight to my house from the airport. And when we got to her house, she had converted her dining room into a large bedroom for us. She had been on our- Sixth of you. Yep. Five plus one in the belly. Plus one, yeah, of course, yeah. Plus one in belly. She'd converted her dining room into a large bedroom. She put mattresses there. She had made us breakfast. And we stayed in her home for months until just before the baby was born.

[00:31:32] And she never, it's one thing, she never took a penny from us. If anything, I remember running up her phone bill because I totally forgot, literally forgot that I'm calling the United States on a British landline. She took, literally took care of us, paid for our everything. Never asked for a dime. But I think the most touching and the most important part is she never made us feel small.

[00:31:59] She never made us feel like, hey, you guys who lost it. She never- Looked in any way. No, she did not look down on us. She didn't make us feel looked down on. And she would encourage us constantly. Oh, it's going to be fine. Don't worry. She saw me where, and now by this time I've come back, I left with a lot of joy and partying and everybody crying at the airport and wishing us. Then we come back empty-handed. So I'm now covered and draped in shame.

[00:32:28] And I believe that when people see me, it is shame they see. But she didn't see shame when she saw me. She saw me. She was one of the few people who could still see me as I am. And so I began researching the baby furniture market. This is after I had spent weeks and weeks waking up crying. I'd wake up crying and I'll go to sleep crying. You're pregnant too. Yeah. And I was pregnant too. And I was like, man, this poor baby.

[00:32:55] I don't even know what's going to happen to this child because the level of sorrow that I was feeling while being pregnant, and I felt was going to affect the baby. One day, my mother-in-law said to me, she goes, people lose everything all the time and they start again. All over. It was the most intelligent thing I had heard. Yeah, people do. The most truest thing. You were so young as well. Yeah, you didn't know. I didn't know.

[00:33:22] But I just read about things like that. Yeah. Nobody. In fact, what you went through is a lesson for you. In fact, you would have succeeded because nobody would have taken the risk that you took. Nobody. A lot of people are not bold. Actually from Britain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially from Britain. People are not bold. People. Yeah. Very careful. Let's not rock the boat. Be like gentle. Be bold, you know. Gentle swaying.

[00:33:50] Yeah, so just sway along to your little gardening. Yeah. Your little holiday. Exactly. Twice a year or once. Just ride it over for 30 years. Yes. With Taya. You know. Yeah. Go on Wahala. Exactly, right. Oh, the fact that you went, you were bold, you did all this, you came back. My God is gold. You wouldn't have known. You wouldn't have known. No, no, not at all. All I felt was. And the thing is, I never felt a sense of regret. I didn't feel like if only I had.

[00:34:20] No, because I loved my life there so much. And I wanted my life back. How long were you out there for? We were there for about three years or so. Wow. Yeah. The entire process was probably. Amazing. But it felt like we had lived there for 10 years. It just. That would have been lovely. American life. Yes. That would have loved it. And they came back to Chukochu. My mom calls me. My mom. I used to do your rules. She's not wrong. You're England. You're 19.

[00:34:50] She's not wrong. She's not wrong. You're not saying, oh, I'm back here again. Back again. And then of course there's the kids as well. And I felt guilty. What could I have done to have prevented this? So you start looking for. No, nothing. But that's the thing though. You don't know at the time. Because you just. I think I've always been. I've always looked inside me. I tend not to look for solutions or causes outside of me.

[00:35:18] Because I feel that if I did. Then I've taken away the power and the ability to make a change in my life. It means that the external is what's controlling me. And so I like to think that everything good that can happen to me. Is happening because of who I am on the inside. And I also like to believe that anything bad that happens. I had a hand in it as well. It was a decision I made. It was something I said.

[00:35:48] And it's not beating myself up. I actually find that quite encouraging. Because I'm basically saying, hey, you caused it. You can fix it. But when something else causes a problem. That you have no control over. Then I feel like you would then be living a life. Of a level of fear. Because you're like, I don't know when the next tsunami is going to come and hit me. So let me just watch and pray that this doesn't happen.

[00:36:15] And then you end up living a life where you're not taking chances. You're protecting yourself from the dangers that are outside. Instead of just going out there and living. Right? So I began researching. When she said that to me. When my mother-in-law said that to me. It was a wake-up call. Literally a wake-up call. I just thought, it's true. True. And I got this surge of energy. I accepted. Two things. One thing. Two things happened. She said that to me.

[00:36:44] I think the first one came first. I accepted I had lost everything. Because the whole time. All our energy. All our resources. Everything was used to try and stop what was happening. We were trying to stop what was happening. We were trying to reverse the recession. The tsunami. The tsunami. We were trying to beg back to sender. But when I accepted that. You know what? We really have lost everything. When I accepted defeat. Which was something I was so scared of doing. And then my mother-in-law said what she said.

[00:37:13] I got this surge of energy. Like literally. Oh, okay. I can start again. Until this day. I say rock bottom is the best place to build from. Because you have nothing to lose. Nothing to lose. Nothing. I've lost everything. There was nothing. I could not. I couldn't fail anymore. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing to lose. You've lost it all. And that's how I started. So I ended up now researching the UK miles. They don't have anything like that.

[00:37:43] They don't have beautiful furniture here. They don't have interiors. They have nothing for babies and children. So I start. I initially had approached some UK companies. UK brands. Like, hey, I'd love to. I want to set up a website. And I want to sell your stuff. And it was all no. Can you imagine? Because they wanted me to. So let's start with in 2008. E-commerce was a dirty word in the UK. E-commerce. We're one of the early. We're one of the early. We're one of the early. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:12] Because Amazon and eBay. When you say e-commerce, that's what you think of Amazon. You think of eBay. Amazon started off selling secondhand books. If you remember. eBay. Very much. Was only secondhand goods for a very long time. Very much. So for them, what they were hearing is, you're going to put my products on the internet along with secondhand goods. And we're like, no. You need to have a physical location. Or you need to invest X amount of money. And buy this amount of stock.

[00:38:41] Which I didn't have a dime. I also, in the building of the website side of things, I had been working with a web designer in the US before we lost the business. And we were trying to build a super duper e-commerce site. He built a beautiful website that did not work. And we fell out acrimoniously because he wanted me to pay the balance. And I was like, no, you fix my website. Fix the website first. And then so we went back and forth.

[00:39:09] But the process of building the website exposed me to a few components. I got to understand some of what it entailed. Some of what that meant. So now I'm back in the UK. And I'm thinking, I need to build a website. I call a good friend of mine, Issa. I say, I need a website. And he used to live in the UK. Then he relocated to Nigeria at the time. And I knew he was in Haiti. We don't even know what a website builder is in 2008. We just know someone in Haiti. So he goes to me. I used to build websites. He used to build websites? Really?

[00:39:38] I used Dreamweaver. Oh my God. I was good at it. Because he could design from scratch. Listen, I need to know more about your life. Charge some thousands from it. It was good money. Before the old night, like you can. Now it's like in two seconds, you have a lot. That's how you can charge a few thousands. I need to know more about that side of your life, Stella. So I ended up, so I'd learned a lot about, so I called this.

[00:40:07] So my friend says, hey, give this guy a call. He's my friend. Just say to him, you're my friend. He'll sort you out. So I called this guy. I'm like, it's her sister. He said, you can help me with the website. So he tells me all the wonderful things he's built. And he said, oh, look at this. I'm like, just tell me. I had a deadline. I needed it built within 30 days. Because we had told the company, the store.

[00:40:30] When I closed the store in the US, I told the staff to tell us, our customers, that we were moving online. But I didn't have an online space to move to. Because I thought that the website we were building would be ready. But then we fell out. So I literally didn't have a website, an online space. Oh, for your customer. You told them you were moving online. Okay. Yeah. Because I'd given the landlord notice. I knew I couldn't continue to stay there. They had people in your books. Yes, exactly. So we said, oh, we're moving online.

[00:40:59] Because what we didn't want was for them to show up at the shop and then we're gone. So we're moving online. Don't worry. We'll be online in 30 days. In 28 days, we didn't have a website. So I tell this guy and he tells me, he goes, so how much do you have to spend? I said, how much is the website? He says, how much do you have? I said, no, you tell me how much. The guy said to me, I remember exactly. Because you're my friend's friend, I would charge you a thousand pounds. And I said, okay. He said, that's okay, Abi. I said, it's fine.

[00:41:29] Don't worry. I'll come back. Because if he had said to me a hundred pounds, I wouldn't have had a hundred pounds. If he had said 10 pounds, I still wouldn't have 10 pounds because I had to buy nappies for my baby. And we literally did not have an income at this stage. So when I got off the phone with him, it occurred to me that the guy who did the crap website that he built, this guy I just got off the phone with, another person who had built a website for us in the US, but I wasn't happy with it and I didn't accept it.

[00:41:57] And then the person who built our original, even though it wasn't a nice place, it just, I said, they all have one thing in common. And that is none of them were born with the ability to build websites. They had to learn and I can learn. So I go on Google and I type in how to build a website and I start learning all the different components. So back then you would know you needed to have the front, you had the front of the website, the client, then you have the backend.

[00:42:25] Then if you remember, you had to have a card processing, a card processor that took the payment details from the customer. Then you needed to have a connector that connected. It was all the integration, wasn't it? It was all the integration. You had to have a connector that connected it to your bank. So I now went shopping for all of these different components. Where can I find the cheapest? I found a template. I learned a little bit of coding.

[00:42:51] So I was able to learn how to change colors, put paragraphs and lines and all of that stuff. And I had the website up and running in 26 days or so. I built it for the US store, but I thought, but I mean, you in the UK, I'll just replicate the same thing. And this time I'll sell items in the UK. Suddenly I have two locations. I have a business in the US and yeah, I'm about to have one in the UK.

[00:43:18] So I speak to all these people and they're like, no, we can't have our products on a website, blah, blah, blah. So I head to Europe and I met people who made beautiful pieces that were very nice, lovely furniture for babies and children, bedding and all of these things. But they were not known outside of their little villages. And they were my targets because I wanted to sell items that were unique to me and nobody else had in the UK. Can I ask a question? So your shop in the US, how did it run?

[00:43:47] How was your supply? Why? We were very similar. So quite similar. So we worked with a few brands. Yeah, it was absolutely. We had actually, we did, it was a mix of brands. So we didn't have our own line of anything. We just sold an assortment of wealth. Because some stores would say they have distributors. So were you selling, you were like almost like you stopped them. Yes.

[00:44:15] Were you paying off front or was it, how did that work? So the bulk of the items, like, no, most of it was 30 day terms. So the bulk of our items was furniture. So furniture is made to order. Yeah. So we only, we make the, like what we do now. So we take a deposit up front. We make the furniture and we collect the balance from the client. And we are paying the supplier. You pay the supplier and then you take, you get the difference. Exactly. So that was how it ran.

[00:44:45] So going to those villages in Eastern Europe would have been, it would have been amazing because they'll be much cheaper. Oh, take your money, happy to take a quarter of whatever it is. And then you go, wow. And it wasn't even, funny enough, it wasn't even Eastern Europe at the time. It was Germany. It was the Netherlands. It was Belgium. Who took their time? Yeah. So they actually, wow. And they had done a great job making it. It was beautiful. It was available for everyone.

[00:45:13] But British people at the time did not sell things out that were found outside of Britain generally. So most people were either selling their own brand that was made in China or they were selling British brands. And that's where it ended. There weren't barely anyone who was selling items from Europe. And I don't know whether it just didn't occur to them. I don't know why. Another question I have, because when you were in the States, because you already bought into a business, it would have been easier to get those clients anyway. Oh, yes.

[00:45:43] But in the UK, what gave you the confidence to feel that you could get the client? Because one thing is being able to source the suppliers. Or the UK, we know how it is. So what made you so confident that you'd get people who would be able to afford to buy those, those furniture? That's a really good question, Stella. I was so confident because there was absolutely nothing like what we had. I think I had tunnel vision and I just believe that because I like it so much and there's no way you're not going to buy it. I like it.

[00:46:13] They're beautiful. They're stunning. You guys are not. And the other thing as well was I was very clear on who my market was. I wasn't trying to sell to everybody. I wasn't trying to sell. Because you already had the experience. I'd had the experience. So you knew. But knowing is different from getting those target markets. So I really want, how did you get your first? My very first client. Your first client. Because word of mouth, once you get your first or second, word of mouth works. But I just want to see how you... How the first one.

[00:46:41] So finally then builds the website and everything. Then I, my very, very first, my very first client was a lady called Caroline. Should, I forgot. I'm connected with her on LinkedIn. I've forgotten her surname. But Caroline. And she bought a rug from me. And I think, I can't even remember how I met Caroline. I may have gone to a networking event and met with her. And she had a directory.

[00:47:11] And she said she would list my business in her directory. Then she said to me, you need to do SEO on your website. I'm like, what is that? She said, it is the science of getting your products found on Google when people search for it. I'm like, okay, so how do I do it? She says, I'll introduce you to a guy. So she introduces me to this guy, Australian guy. I think he's Australian or New Zealand. I mix them up. Sorry, guys.

[00:47:39] And he says, tells me, oh, yeah, I can help you. I can do your SEO for you. How much is it? A thousand pounds. I'm like, I don't have a thousand pounds. Then we negotiated. And he said, here's what I'll do. I'll teach you how to do it yourself. And I will charge you a hundred pounds an hour. And that's how I learned SEO. And I could see why it was that much money. 2008, 2009. Keywords and all that. Keywords.

[00:48:07] Manual labor. It's manual labor. Then link building. Directory entries. And he taught me generously. I say that because some people would teach you, but they won't teach you everything. He taught me generously. And I began to implement it. And it actually began to work. And then I then began to reach out to magazines and publications.

[00:48:32] And they were only too happy to snap us up because no one had seen what we were selling before. And then eventually I took a risk. And I had a PR agent, a PR company. And she just helped to get us out there in magazines, newspapers. And then every year for quite a while, we were chosen as the Times would release, the Sunday Times would release their gift list for children every year.

[00:49:02] And then we would have the baby. Then the company was called Punkin Patch. We'll have Punkin Patch products in there listed in the Times and the Telegraph. We were in Vogue and in quite a few well-placed publications and blogs and so on. And that's how gradually I'm writing my book. And I'm at the point where I'm at a point and I was like, oh, no, I'm cringy.

[00:49:29] As I was writing, I was cringy because it was a memory that came back. My first furniture order was from a guy somewhere outside London. I don't remember where, Will's share or so. And he ordered a wardrobe. So I had figured out everything and totally forgot about shipping furniture. How am I going to get a wardrobe from Germany or the Netherlands to the UK?

[00:49:58] I hadn't thought about it. So I'd met this guy who he sold a component using jet fuels. He was my first English businessman that I met. And that was another thing as well was I wasn't really surrounded by people who were doing anything close to what I was doing. It was really hard to know what to do. Mentorship and all that. Somebody who would have mentored you and told you. Mentored me or even just to even ask them, hey, how do I ship?

[00:50:28] Simple question. How do I handle logistics across the UK or for large pieces? Or how do I get my card payment sorted out? Who do you use? There was nobody around me that could tell me that. So I met this guy. I was looking for, I just literally met him and he just took a shine to me and just we got along really well. He actually, I was looking for cardboard boxes when I met him. And I went to, navigation took me to his places. I know it's actually next door.

[00:50:58] Then we start talking and that's it. Anyway, he tells me that we have. So I call him in a panic. Someone's bought a wardrobe. I need to get it across. I don't know what to do. I don't know who to use. And he said to me, oh, don't worry. I know a guy. So I said, okay, fine. So he says, where is it? I said, it's in the Netherlands. He goes, okay, fine, no problem. So he gives me the guy's details and all that. And I call the guy. I've got a wardrobe. He goes, yeah, sure. I'll bring it for you. And I said, how much are you charged? I think he says, I mean, ridiculous. Like maybe 70 pounds or 100. I can't remember what it was.

[00:51:28] Very cheap. I was like, yeah, thank you. That's fine. So I'm really excited. I said, here's the address. You take it to the customer. He's like, fine, no problem. When he took the wardrobe, my supplier called me and he's all emailed and he's trying to explain, he wasn't, he didn't speak very good English. And he's trying to explain that. I don't get what you're doing here. These people are trying to take a wardrobe in a people carrier. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. It's a van.

[00:51:53] He's a delivery guy because I have such an imaginative mind that I create stories that don't exist. So when the guy tells me I've got a guy, my mind sees a man in a van, white van. I can't even see his face, right? I'm imagining all of this. I've just built a story. Nobody told me he had a van. He just said the guy could bring it. And I assumed it was a van. But anyway, it really was what the gets, he gets to the customer's house and the customer

[00:52:21] sends me a message and he says, I really love what you're doing. I can see you're trying hard. I can see you want to build something amazing, but these are not the people you want doing delivery for you. They strapped the wardrobe to the top of a people carrier and drove from the Netherlands to the UK. And I was like, oh. So the delivery was messy. It was quite messy. Yeah, but he was a very gracious man and he accepted it and he didn't arrive damaged. So that was a good thing.

[00:52:51] My God. That was just one of so many lessons. For the fact that you did it. What I'm saying is that the UK don't have, you should, I hope you're teaching people. Are you teaching? Do you mentor people? I do. I do mentor. But you know what it is, Stella? It's also the Nigerian spirit. You know how we are. Nigerians are go-getters. You can pretty much do anything. We do. Yeah. And that's...

[00:53:18] We do, but I know what I'm talking about. Because for me, for example, when I started out, I actually started out, I had a lot of adventure. Because I love adventure. So I've even, I remembered in my, I was like 24. And if my friend's father was quite well-heeled and he wanted to, he wanted to invest in the UK.

[00:53:40] And I don't know, and so my, his daughter, who is an accountant, decided, they said they were going to invest in real estate, but they were invested in the business as well. Where it came from, I don't know. We didn't even do any business research or anything. We just decided that we would open a boutique in Oxford Street. No! No, no proper research. No, no proper research. And then we now opened the boutique and we now, it was only when we got to Oxford Street, on the wrong end of Oxford Street.

[00:54:09] Because we now, that's how we realized that Oxford Street was split up into the one going towards Tottenham Court Road. Yes. Don't try and sell it higher than it's up there. Yes. Going towards... And the demographic was, the pricing was different. Anyway, we opened this store. Bought a business. There was somebody that was going out of business. She was literally closing down the boutique. She said she was getting married and she had the most beautiful clothes ever. The more... Oh my God. I still remember them. I see.

[00:54:38] And we put everything in the stall, waiting for customers to come. Wow. At the wrong end of Oxford Street. Oh, wow. That is a story. Seriously? 24. I was traveling to Paris. Wow. Dubai. And that's how I knew about Rue Saint-Denis. There was a community in Rue Saint-Denis that sold... At that time, people were... There were people that were manufacturing clothes in Paris.

[00:55:08] And all that area was all manufactured. It was all... So you go in and you can pick... Pick what you want. Pick it at ridiculous prices to come and sell. And we closed down. That is amazing. In here we closed down. But it was an adventure. So what I'm saying, that spirit is there. So as much as you say, Nigerian spirit... Yes, there is. But those are the high-ended. That's why I said, look at the experience I had with my friend. And it was my friend's father that oiled us. Yes. This is what I'm saying. It was our father's money.

[00:55:37] That oiled us. That we wouldn't have done it. Had almost like this sheer grit. That's the thing. What it was, I sat down and thought about it and realized that the amount of work required to sell a £30 table, maybe not work, the amount of time required to sell a £30 table is the same that you'd use to sell a £300 table. So why would I want to sell?

[00:56:04] And something else my business lawyer told me, which I don't know how I can say this so it doesn't sound offensive, but he basically said that the dry cleaning businesses I was looking at in the US, he says, do you know how they make a million dollars? I said, no. He said, they would dry clean a million shirts for a dollar each. Is that the life you want? So I thought, yeah. So which wasn't factual, but I got the message he was saying.

[00:56:32] You can either work like a dog and get a thousand customers paying you £10 or you can get 10 customers paying you £100 or £1,000. It's easier to deal with 10 people than it is to deal with a thousand people, right? So that was the mindset I had was. And then plus I'd had a little bit of experience in the luxury space. You had. I knew what was missing in the UK.

[00:57:01] I knew there is, they can search high and low. They were not going to find anything close to what I sold. I was so confident of that. And I had nothing to lose. And I think that was the main thing was, hey, if it fails, I'm not any different from when I started. I'm not, it's not like I'm going to lose money. It's because I've lost all the money. There's nothing left to lose. So that was really the thing. And so I, we then, many experiences like that, trying to figure out shipping.

[00:57:31] And then because I had gone through that traumatic experience of loss, it also left me feeling very vulnerable and exposed. So it meant that I was always, I was on edge and I really took rejection very seriously. I took it to heart. So if I go to a craftsman and I say, or go to a company and I say, I want to sell your products.

[00:57:58] And they're like, no, for whatever reason, even if it was illogical reason and it didn't work for them, I took it as yet more attack is coming to me after I've lost everything. You were just stressed. You were, yeah, I was stressed. I was. So that was the, so that was that experience. It was really, it was learning to keep going despite the pain that I was still feeling from losing everything. And at the same, even though I had left it behind, I was still carrying the scars. Right.

[00:58:28] And then I remember one time I went, I met this, I was researching online. I'm breastfeeding on a baby. So I'm always on my lap and I'm researching online for interior pieces and decorative items for children's rooms. I find this one, which I'm like, okay, this would work. Cause I wanted to have a different, I wanted to have various categories. I wanted baby furniture, children's furniture. I wanted artwork and decor and I wanted rugs as well as lighting as well.

[00:58:57] So I'm sourcing all of this from different places. Oh my gosh. I just suddenly remembered when I said lighting that there were this beautiful chandeliers that we were selling and I was importing them from the U S from my supplier in the U S. But I didn't know that the voltages were different. So I didn't know the voltages were different. Obviously nobody sold anything like that here. It's like voltage difference. So I call them, I call the manufacturer. How do you make this?

[00:59:27] How can we change the voltage? Adapted to the UK voltage. Exactly. And Americans are, I'm trying to think of a word to describe them with, but they tend to live in a bit of a bubble because their country is so large. So they don't know anything else that's, yeah, they don't know anything that's going on. So if I say to him, the voltage is different. If he's never even left the U S which many Americans haven't, don't even own a passport. He wouldn't understand what I'm saying. So I said, okay, just explain. I see the metal casing of the chandelier.

[00:59:56] I see where the light bulbs go. Where is the problem? Why is it? And it basically was the wiring as well as the container in which the bulb sat in. The, I can't remember what it's called, but you know, the two things on it was just not, it wasn't right. The light bulbs for the UK, when you put them in there, it would blow up. Or was it the other way around? So I found somebody who could rewire them for me. I found that they were, there was this thing called rewiring chandeliers.

[01:00:24] So really old chandeliers here in the UK. So not because they came from other countries. It's just, they're really old for whatever reason, the wires are burned out or whatever. Then they rewire them. It's actually something that companies do. So I found a guy who was, who said, yeah, I can rewire it for you. I'm like, really? So we got the cable. He takes out the old cable. He puts the cable. I'm like, oh my goodness. Then now I find out that the, the, the casing is wrong, but I find a company that sells odd bulbs.

[01:00:53] So I now started selling the chandeliers with the bulbs. And if you need more bulbs, you have to come, you're not going to find it anywhere else. And that's how we were selling those chandeliers for a while. But you learn as you go along. And one of the things that those kinds of experiences will do for you is give you an incredible amount of confidence that anything is possible. So now you're saying the impossible is happening.

[01:01:21] It's impossible to use a U.S. chandelier in the UK, but hey, we've made it happen. You found the way around. And it begins to tell you and rewire your brain into thinking there is a solution to every single problem. And then gradually you stop being afraid of problems because, you know, there's a solution. You just see it as an inconvenience. Oh, got to do this again. But really, there is an answer. Really, there is a solution there.

[01:01:49] So we kept going for a while. And one day I reached a point where I felt I needed a mentor. I was doing all the right things. The products were great. The website was beautiful. We were selling not as much, but we were selling a little bit. And I thought, I really need a mentor. So I and around the same time, one evening, I was sitting at home with the kids. My husband was home.

[01:02:15] And then all of a sudden I sat getting emails from my suppliers and all the emails said exactly the same thing. Dear talks, please take our products down from your website. We can't do business with you anymore. Sorry. I was like, what? You said no explanation, nothing. But one of them, I don't know if I realized it. I don't think I'd seen that second email at the time.

[01:02:42] So I just went running. I told my husband, I was like, you've got to go for a run, put on my trainers. And I just started running because I didn't know what to do. I also didn't want the kids to see me crying because now you're telling me that I don't have products, which means I don't have a business all in one evening. No one's telling me why. So I keep running and I start praying and I'm crying and I'm cry praying to God.

[01:03:10] And I'm like, God, before I get to that M&S down the road, I need an answer. You've got to tell me what to do, what's happening. You've got to speak to me. And as I get to the M&S and I'm doing a U-turn to come back home, defeated because no answer, the answer came. And the answer was design your own furniture and your own bed linen and your own interior pieces.

[01:03:34] And nobody will tell you where to sell it, how much to sell it for, what to do with it. It's yours. By the time I got back to my house, I was laughing. I was like, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to build my own collection. Then I find, I think a couple of days later, because I ignored their emails. One of them wrote back and said, please, can you take our products down from the website? Right.

[01:04:00] We've signed a contract with another company and we've given them exclusivity. The company was trying to do the same thing as you were doing and signed up all the suppliers. Absolutely. Undercutting you. But what was different, what the mistake that particular supplier did was they forwarded the email of the competitor that had done it. And it was another woman. I know. It was a woman. She knew what you were doing. She knew what you were doing.

[01:04:30] And she wanted to do the same thing. Yeah. And decided to use money. I'm sure she had a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah, she did. She made the rounds to all of my suppliers. Most of them said yes. Some of them said no. Yeah. Because she saw an existing business and she said no. Yeah. So they put, so literally they signed a contract with her and they're like, can you please not?

[01:04:53] I was so hurt because some of these suppliers were people who we had gone through the recession with together. We had cried on each other's shoulders and encouraged each other and come out scarred, but survived the other side. And now they were safe. So I did take it personally. And, but I decided I wasn't going to let it affect me. I'm going to revenge by building my own stuff. And that's exactly what I started to do.

[01:05:22] It took a while because I didn't, I was fearful. I'll start, I'll be like, hey, madam, do you know what you're doing? Are you sure you could do this? This is huge. So I'll start, I'll stop. And there was a guy I met who really helped me very knowledgeable craftsman. One thing that I would say, and especially for business owners, young business owners listening is do not ever burn your bridges.

[01:05:52] Even when you're justified, always be polite, always treat people nicely. Even if the relationship is no longer serving you, you've got to be kind, polite, warm, and good to people. Because this man had an experience from somebody else. And I've had it happen multiple times where craftsmen just come and spill all my competitor secrets to me because they got on their nerves because they did something to them.

[01:06:22] Would you believe that woman? I don't talk to her anymore. This is what she did. So we've got to be really mindful that in business, every relationship is valuable. Yeah. And then I started praying. I was like, okay, good. I really need a mentor. I feel like I've reached the point in my journey where I can no longer carry on my own. I can't grow beyond where I stand. This is my limit. I need a mentor.

[01:06:45] Around the same time, I decided that one way in which I'm going to gain customers is to go to baby shops, maternity stores, and do a talk there to their clients and teach them how to design their nursery rooms. And hey, I'm the designer. I can do it for you. Or you can use my products, my beautiful pieces. That way you get customers. That way I'll get customers. So that was the plan. And there was a shop on the King's Road that I went. I had been emailing and everything. One day I said, let me just go there physically.

[01:07:14] So I go to this shop and the owner wasn't there. It was a baby shop. As I come out of King's Road, I look left and right and I realize I'm on King's Road. Now, about maybe a year prior, I had heard about this thing called a vision board and I created a vision board. I wanted to have a physical location, but I wanted it on an affluent high street in London.

[01:07:39] So I typed in Google images, affluent high street London and King's Road comes up with the King's Road street sign with Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on it. So I clip that and I put it on my board. So I'm on King's Road. I'm like, oh, this is the King's Road that's on my vision board. So I start walking down just to see what's on there. And I find myself standing in front of Reese's clothing.

[01:08:02] So I and I just found myself just standing there and I was staring at the sign and I had no it didn't make sense to me. I wasn't buying or wearing their clothing. It wasn't a brand I was particularly interested in. But there was this force, if you like, that stopped me from leaving that spot. And I kept staring at the sign. I was also rebranding the website at the time, rebuilding the website. So I thought maybe God wants me to look at the phones. Maybe he's saying something was attracting me. Someone was attracting me.

[01:08:30] Then eventually I felt sufficiently released to keep going. So I keep walking. When I get home that evening, I received a text from a guy that I'd met at a networking event some maybe three years or so prior. This guy was always inviting me to events. He'll say, hey, I'm going to this network and I hope you can join me. I didn't even so much as respond. It was WhatsApp. Didn't respond. Never went networking. I was always so shy and also scared of my story as well.

[01:08:59] And then I'm like, no, let me. But I get home. I hadn't heard from him for two whole years. This message comes up. Oh, my gosh, this guy. So I open it and I check. And he says, I'd like to invite you to a networking event to the home of and the founder of Reese Clothing. I'm like, ooh, I just saw Reese this morning. I don't care what's happening. I've got to go. So I go for the event. I meet a really lovely man.

[01:09:27] He's taking our coats and everything. And we're going into the build, into the house. It was a private home in Holland Park. And there's only maybe about 89 of us in the room. So I quickly Google. They're doing introductions. I quickly Google founder of Reese and the name of the guy is David Reese. And nobody says their name is David in the room. I'm a bit confused. Okay, maybe the guy isn't home. Maybe they just borrowed his house. So at the end of it all, and I always say this part involves red wine. I had some red wine.

[01:09:57] And I don't know if it was the red wine that made me bold to go up to this guy who was so knowledgeable that during the talk, he kept chipping in and adding his two cents. I was like, older English guy. I'm like, wow, this guy knows his stuff. And I go up to him and I say, I need a mentor. And I want it to be you. And he just laughed. And he gave me his card. So I go home and I Google him and I find that he's the former CEO of Hugo Boss.

[01:10:25] And he proceeds to mentor me for, I think he must mentor me for about, consistently for about three years. And that's how I got my mentor. Now one day, and I also mentor, I also mentor younger business owners, right? And I had a meeting with my mentee one day. This was probably six months, maybe eight months into my mentoring with mine.

[01:10:53] I had a session with her and I was really excited about what she's, about what we had discussed, what she was going to do. I was really excited and I was getting ready. Now I was actually going to my business, my meeting with my mentor from there. And I thought to myself, but what has even changed in my own life? What has changed in my business? Nothing. It looks like it's the same. I keep meeting this man. Nothing is changing. He was perfect. There was, he was generous with his knowledge.

[01:11:22] He could not have been the problem. The problem had to be me. So I now decide and I sit down and I say, Tokes, be honest with yourself. What is going on with you in those meetings? And I dug deep down and discovered that whenever I was with him, I felt insignificant. I felt small and I'm looking at this man who has done amazing things with his journey and his life.

[01:11:51] I'm thinking experience, bank balance, position in life, in society. Wow. I felt small. Is it like imposter syndrome? It was. Yeah, definitely some imposter syndrome because I was comparing myself to him. Who sent me to do that? I was comparing myself to him and I felt my business is so small. And I am so small in the presence of this man. And how did I deal with that, Stella?

[01:12:20] I dealt with that by only talking about my wins. Oh, I had this football player order from us the other day. And my wins were not many, but the few that were there, I started talking about it in these meetings. So he's like, well done. You seem to be doing really well. Keep doing what you're doing. If I keep doing what I'm doing, I'm going to keep getting what I'm getting right. You want to 10x? You want to 20x? You want to get somewhere? Yeah. But my ego was under siege.

[01:12:50] My ego was ruling my mind. So I humble myself and say, I need help. I don't know how to do this. I felt maybe he might look down on me. Maybe this, maybe that. But the minute I admitted to myself that, listen, you need to fix up and stop letting your emotions lead you. I changed my conversations with him. And everything really did start to change.

[01:13:16] So not long after that, I got into House of Fraser, their concession, their online concession. I think we probably only sold one item for the period we were there. However, it was a huge success because the things that it did for my confidence, never have purchased that anywhere else. Yeah, because it's validation. It sounds like a kind of validation. You can put that anywhere.

[01:13:41] And also, there are some things and some levels we look at that seem too high for us and seem impossible. And then you get there, you're like, I'm here. I got there. Right? And so that was also, I learned that one of the most powerful lessons I learned and a phrase I coined out of that season was, there are many currencies besides cash because there is, I learned that I, while I may not have had the cash to pay for certain things,

[01:14:11] I could be kind to people. I could be generous to people. I could give them my time. I could learn. My ability to build a website was a currency. My ability to walk boldly to a man I'd never met before. Yes, the red wine held. That was a currency. The friends and the people in my life, my best friend Susie, that's a currency. My husband, ever so supportive.

[01:14:40] That's a currency. I have a very peaceful home. I come home and when I come home, my home is a sanctuary. It's not a place I run from, right? That's a currency. So I had to learn to start finding currencies, money, non-cash currencies everywhere. Like I would find it in me. If I was joyful, that was one. The fact that I'm a believer in Christ, I'm a Christian. That's a huge currency.

[01:15:08] I lean on God for my faith, peace of mind, joy. The fact that I can read the Bible and it uplifts me. That's a currency. So I had come away from this whole everything of worth is tangible and can be counted. And I'd come away from that and I began to find value in all the things. And when people say, how did you get to where you are today? How did you end up in Harrods?

[01:15:39] It's because I had many opportunities to quit and they were all logical, but I chose to ignore it because I found something deeper and I found something greater. And these are these intangible currencies I'm talking about. And those are the things that help us. Resilience is what takes you from point A to B, but resilience is inside you. It's not some external help. It's not somebody helping you get there. It's inside you.

[01:16:07] And we all have, we're all incredibly gifted with every single thing we need for our journey. Just because the gift doesn't come in the form you prefer, doesn't mean it's absent. For business, cash is king. Many people I know would not dare try and run a business without cash. But if you recognize that cash is not the only currency, you might be able to do it.

[01:16:33] So, question I wanted to ask you is you were able to build this luxury brand in the UK. Do you still have your clientele in the US? No, we have, no, we closed the US arm over the UK. So, you focused on the UK. Focus on the UK, but we do have US clients. We have quite a lot of US clients. Yeah. So, luxury brand, because like how many years experience have you got now? Ooh. It's a long time. It's a long time. It's a long time.

[01:17:03] In the luxury space, over 20. Yeah. Over 20 years. So, you'd have seen a lot. Yeah. So, you were able to build a luxury brand as a, I would say, black British Nigerian woman. Yeah? In this. Did you ever feel that you had to prove yourself differently? No.

[01:17:25] I did have a season where I didn't put my face on the website or any of my social media platforms, because I thought that people wouldn't, like, we're leaving a country that is only about four to six percent black, right? Yeah. I'm targeting the bulk amount of the country. I'm not targeting the six percent of us that are black. Yeah. And I thought, they see a black woman, they're not going to want to buy from me.

[01:17:54] So, for many years, I hid my face. I didn't want to be. I thought it would be a repellent for business. Right. You've seen it now. It's not. Yeah. And then I, you know what, when you're producing something that people want and it's beautiful, it's like they want what they want. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't, and the reason why I haven't seen it, my skin color as a hindrance, it's not because I haven't experienced discrimination,

[01:18:24] but it's again back to what I said earlier, that I truly believe that if I can point to an external source of my problems, then I'm in trouble. It means that somebody out there is controlling me. Yeah. Fantastic. So, why do you think that there are relatively few wealthy black women visible in Britain's luxury business space? Oh, I really don't know. I can't answer that.

[01:18:53] We followed you through the journey of what you've gone through. And when I think about luxury spaces, my brain is not computing, but I think there are. I think maybe I need to do more research. And wherever they are, there are not many. But they're there and it's quite discreet. Because I'm writing my luxury space book that I'm going to write. I've written it, but I'm rewriting it. The first one. I'm doing a lot of research on jewelry. Oh. They were able to, yeah, on, what did they call it? Precious stone.

[01:19:23] But really, like, ones that are unusual, that you have to source, just like a furniture. I was able to discover someone. I saw her in Rob Report. Oh, my. There's quite a few black, I was able to see a few black women who did it. They were not necessarily just in the UK. There's not many. There aren't many. It might just be, let's start with the fact that history, so generational wealth, sometimes propel people into that space. So it becomes a lifestyle.

[01:19:54] Being in a country where most black people, or I don't know my history as well as I should, but you can trace when black people first came to the UK and settled. It wasn't that long ago. So most of them were starting from scratch. So that's when it comes, that's as it relates to personal wealth. But in this business space, it just might be, I don't know that many black women have tried to get into luxury.

[01:20:22] I guess there are, to an extent, some possibly gatekeeping going on as well in some industries. Because in my industry, it's a bit easier in a sense where I just make beautiful products and sell it. But in the service space, it might be different. The barrier to entry might be higher. I'm not absolutely sure. And I don't want to speculate. That's all right.

[01:20:50] So do you think there's an issue with funding as well for black female entrepreneurs? Oh yeah, definitely. There's definitely an issue with funding for females period. And then for black people. And then for the double jeopardy of your black and your female. So definitely, for sure, there is issues with funding.

[01:21:13] But I also still like to believe that the drive and the ability that you have inside of you is more powerful than any external resource you can get. I truly believe that. So one thing that helped me on my journey was only reading stories of people whose journeys were similar to mine. I didn't read or focus on people who got investment. And I still don't.

[01:21:41] I didn't read stories of people who were trust fund kids. They inherited wealth and used it to build their businesses. I've only ever focused on stories of people like Sarah Blakely, who started from scratch with nothing and built a business from it. Those are the stories that inspire me. And those are the stories that shaped my own journey. Okay. So for just looking at blue sky thinking, where do you see the future for your business?

[01:22:11] And what would you ideally want? I'd want us to be the number one luxury baby furniture house globally. Fantastic. Yeah. And I know that it is possible. I think that much of my journey has been about building roots as opposed to growing a big tree.

[01:22:35] And I think the time is coming, if it's not here, where the stem is shooting through the ground. Expand. Yeah. Because there's need. How about do you have clientele in the Middle East, in Africa? Yeah. Because there's some money there. Yeah. We have a quite a large percentage of our clients now. And of course, being in Harrods meant that we're even more open to the Middle East than we were previously. So that's been really good.

[01:23:04] So what would you advise? What kind of practical skills do you think Black women require to enter this kind of premium or luxury industry? So someone is starting out. They have an idea for us. But we know from your own experience how difficult it is to try and enter these spaces. You virtually have to pay your dues. I know what dues I've paid in my writing life to make those connections. It's almost like it's difficult to give that away to anybody.

[01:23:33] What do you advise them to do? So one is have a very clear vision of what you want. Be very clear on the quality, the aesthetics, if it's a product, for example, or the kind of service that you want to deliver. Then paying attention to the detail of what you want. Because clarity is, what can I see? How do I see my business or my product? What does it look like? One story that I watched this documentary years ago.

[01:24:04] I think it was Homecoming, Beyonce's Coachella. I don't remember what performance. Beyonce did this Homecoming whole concert where many of the dancers were all dressed in HBCU outfits and all of that. I remember it, yeah. You remember it? Very much, yeah. There's a part where she said she knew what she wanted. She said, I could see the stitching. I could see.

[01:24:30] And she described in vivid detail what their outfits were going to look like. She knew how she wanted them to stand on stage. She knew she could see it before it even. And then when she put together, when they finally put it all together, all she was doing was assembling what she already saw. I think that when we build businesses, we need to see the stitching and the detail of what we want it to look like.

[01:24:59] And don't be afraid to dream. Don't be afraid to imagine what it could look like. And then on a practical basis is only working with the best of the best. On a personal basis, your conduct, your relationship building, get rid of any preconceived ideas. If you have a chip on your shoulder, if you have pain and trauma experiences,

[01:25:28] the way that my experience of losing everything was following me and making decisions for me, you've got to be honest with yourself and practice introspection to recognize the things that might trip you up. Because they're inside us, not outside. And how about a young school girl, she's about 15, who already has an idea of what she wants, but she's in a situation where she cannot even think that this will ever happen.

[01:25:55] That she could have, but there's already, let's say that 15-year-old is going to be another talks to the future. But she doesn't know that yet. We are way out. What are you going to say to her? I would say flood your mind with stories of people that have been successful, who have been in a similar situation as you and have made it. Every single bit of content and information that we consume becomes a seed that's going to grow.

[01:26:25] So when we look at our lives, we're actually looking at the result of what we consumed once upon a time. So be mindful of what you're consuming. Believe that everything that goes inside you, you're planting a seed. So you then get to choose what seeds you want to plant. And then journaling is my go-to tool.

[01:26:50] What journaling does is it exposes the contents of your mind on paper so that you can judge it fairly. A lot of times we have all these thoughts and we're not even aware of what we're thinking half the time. We don't realize what we're thinking. We think we do, but we don't. Until you put it on paper, you're like, oh my, like me finding out that I was feeling insignificant in my,

[01:27:15] when I was with my mentor, that's not information that would have come to me while I was riding on the bus. That came to me when I was intentional to empty my mind on paper and say what's going on inside there. Amazing. So let's segue a bit into technology. So how are you using technology now for your business? I'm so happy you talked about your website. Did you see how my face lit up? You did. An AI now.

[01:27:42] Listen, I have built, I think six different apps now that I am so, I was, I am so proud of. Really? Yes. So the first one is our nursery edit, which is trademarked. And it's a proprietary tool that helps you design your nursery. And that came about because, so we're getting more interior design projects because of our growth.

[01:28:13] And it's me. I've got an interior designer as well, but I wanted to be able to somehow translate how I design nurseries. I can't. She's got her style and I've got mine. How do I translate my style of building the nursery without totally losing it completely? And so that's when I decided to build. It's logic based. And you answer a series of questions.

[01:28:37] It asks you all these questions like what's the height of your ceiling and how much light comes into your room. And so all of these different questions, personal tastes and so on. And in the end, it gives you a breakdown of what your nursery should look like. It chooses furniture, our furniture, obviously. It says based on your personal style and the questions you've answered, this is the furniture you should go for. This is the, these are the pieces that you need.

[01:29:05] And this is the kind of curtains we think you should have. And then if you want to, and it sends it to you by email. So you get a full breakdown. It helps you with your color palette as well. Amazing. And everything. So that's one. And that's customer facing. And then the others are all internal tools. One is for our marketing. So we have a marketing platform where all of our marketing is consolidated on there.

[01:29:32] Then we've also got the people, a people OS, which is basically our HR tool. And then there is the bespoke for our projects. So it's a bit like project management for all of our interior design projects. And then there is one for running our boutique to make sure things like, if there's a leak, who do I call? It's all in there. We've run out of wrapping tissue or bags. This is what we order from, that sort of thing. And I also did one for myself.

[01:30:00] So that because I have some, not just my ideas, but a lot that I'm doing. Even though my transition into leadership has been gradual, I still sometimes feel overwhelmed. Like I have to do everything and I want to do it all at the same time. And I also want to build a business and I want my staff to be happy and all of these things. So what the founder one is, which somebody has told me they're interested in it as well, is helps me to score my to-do list and arrange them in order of importance.

[01:30:29] And then it bases it on my energy levels and my focus and my mindset for the day. So I start off by saying, I'm focused, I've got high energy and I'm feeling strategic. And it pulls from my to-do list and say these three things you need to do today because they require high energy and they require a lot of focus. Yeah. So yes. The simple answer is we use AI in the business. So do you think that all of this saves you time? It does.

[01:30:56] I mean, it does. I think we could certainly do better on the time set because what's happening now is that it's saving time, but we're pouring more work into the time that we saved. So it doesn't feel like if I was looking for, hey, I just want to be able to chill. I'm not getting that yet. Instead, what I'm having is the ability to implement things that I couldn't do before because I didn't have the time to.

[01:31:21] But at the same time, I find that I'm still incredibly busy, but I'm not busy with the little things that I used to be busy with. Because now AI is helping with that. So some of the big guests, things like in terms of big guests, operational or business challenges that you've had. What are some of those, you know? I think one of the early days. From my early days. Logistics is still quite a, it's still a bit of a problem. Much of our stuff is made in the internet.

[01:31:50] After Brexit, it just became expensive and difficult. Please compare to pre-Brexit, bringing things into the UK from the EU, where prior to that, we used to literally only work with very small shipping companies that had a small fleet of vans that would pick up from our manufacturer and bring it straight to us. It's not changing hands. It's not going to a warehouse.

[01:32:17] And because of that, the risk of damage is very little. Whereas when you use a large company, they take it from the warehouse in Europe. Then they take it to the central hub. It will change to a different truck. Then the truck comes to the UK, take it to their hub in the UK. Then they take it off the truck again and it goes on to a local hub. So every single time you're moving furniture, you're increasing the risk of damage.

[01:32:43] So I think logistics is still quite, I would love to, especially for our Middle Eastern clients, I would love to get to a place where we're able to be more efficient, where I would say even cheaper in the cost of shipping. Yeah. So that's definitely one area that we still. And you couldn't source things locally. Is it harder to say if you have a huge client base? Because they do that in real estate.

[01:33:09] If you're in real estate and you've got a huge client base, then you decide to just set up office locally. No, only because the cost of labor in the UK is crazy high. No, no. What I'm saying is that when I say locally, local to, if you have a huge client base. Oh, you mean over there. So if you had a huge, let's say in Saudi Arabia, you had a huge client base. Could you not maybe source local artisans or would that be difficult? No, because there's also, there's quality control.

[01:33:38] There is the craft, the skill itself is a skill present because everywhere, interestingly in the world, people make furniture differently. There are different styles. And then there is also the availability of the raw materials as well. Europe is, we have trees here. I haven't explored over there, but there is a, there's a whole lot more to it, but it is something that I guess we could look into in the future. Yeah.

[01:34:04] Because you could, because if it's a huge client base and you had local artisans and set up, of course you have to do quite a lot of research and everything else. Yeah. It might even work out better because it's there and then shipping will be less of an... Yeah, that's a valid point. Yeah. And you could even say they're using their local, locally sourced... Exactly. Which is also a, yeah, it's a big cause. Yeah, that's definitely something to look into. Yeah.

[01:34:29] So I was thinking about, when you think about the future of luxury design, technology and entrepreneurship, what excites you most? What is it about? I'm excited about it. I know as soon as I said technology or Facebook. I get excited when it comes to tech. My friend said to me, one of my best friends said to me recently, she said, if you were not doing what you're doing, you'll be in tech. And I laughed. Yeah. What excites me? I'm excited about AI.

[01:34:59] I am so thankful that I was born in the era that I was born in, that I get to experience this and I get to be a part of it, that I've seen what looks like the genesis of it and I'm growing with it. So that's for me personally. But I'm also excited to see this generation of young people and their interaction and interpretation of luxury. luxury. It's not like it was.

[01:35:28] So for our time when we were younger and we looked at the older people with their posh, this, that and the other luxury was stuffy and it was inaccessible to the average person. And it wasn't money. It's never been just, it's never been about money. There was class. There was aesthetics, craftsmanship. There were so many different aspects to it. There's societal positions as well.

[01:35:58] Whereas with the younger generation, much of that is missing, but you don't, it doesn't mean that it's not luxury. With the younger generation, they are definitely not stuffy. It's an open book on TikTok. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's just watching to see how they interact with luxury and how the market is changing and how the industry is changing. How do you chill out? How do you relax?

[01:36:28] Yeah. I've been relaxing by building apps. It's crazy. It's not, it's not. Building apps is your relaxation. Oh my God. It's really bad. I, I, the, the word workaholic popped into my head the other day. That was God warning me and telling me this is not a sustainable lifestyle. I really enjoy what I do. I enjoy what I do, but I also enjoy being a business owner and I enjoy many aspects of it. Not all of it, but many aspects of it.

[01:36:58] But truly when I want to relax, what do I do? I hang out with my friends, go out for a meal. I like Nollywood. So am I watching Nollywood movie? Hang out with my kids. I am, I'm a homebody. So I love to just, when my family's or everybody's home and they're all accounted for and there's good food in the house, that's me. And then of course I read and I write as well. Awesome. And out there in terms of black women, who do you admire the most?

[01:37:28] Well, if you. Beyond my mom. Beyond your mom. Beyond my mom. Oh, there's a few. I love Valerie Burton. She's an author and a coach in the United States. And she's really shaped a lot of my language over the years and how I show up. And I'll never forget how one time I was in a meeting with her and she said,

[01:37:56] you don't say I, you don't say I love, I hate smoking or I hate smoke filled air. You say I prefer clean. So it's always speaking with a positive, leading with a positive. So she's one that I really admire. I obviously love Michelle Obama. I love her. Down to earth. Oh, yes. Oh, even Oji. Did you say? No, I was like Oji. Oh, Oji. Yeah. She is an Oji. Exactly. Love her.

[01:38:26] I love the fact that she's so down to earth and doesn't see the pump and the pageantry that's around. She's just straight to the point. She's down to earth. The late Dr. Maya Angelou, another huge, she's my favorite author. My favorite author. Oh my goodness. Her writing is. It transports you. Yes. And it's her way with words. And there's a, there is a shamelessness with which she writes, right?

[01:38:56] She's self-deprecating, but she's just, she's just so open and raw and shameless. So I really am so inspired by her, by the life she lived and by her writing. Fantastic. What would you, I'll ask about what would you advise young people, but what's the last thing you're going to say to young people out there now? Out there. Out there, young people. Work on your mind.

[01:39:24] Don't leave it to others or the world to shape for you. You're responsible for your own mind. And your mind is the engine room of your life. Everything that happens in your life starts off in the mind first. So you've got to give time to working on your mind, finding out what's in there, anything that shouldn't be in there uprooted, anything that should be there planted, but really work on your mind and be intentional about your thoughts. Yeah.

[01:39:53] I'm sure you think we're coming to the end of the podcast. I have two more questions. All right. One question is what advice would you give to the Nigerian woman? Nigerian woman. Nigerian woman. Nigerian woman here in the UK or in Nigeria? Nigerian woman. Anywhere in the world. Because I have listeners from about 20 countries now. What? And UK, US, Vietnam and one other country. Oh, wow. Or whatever. Wow. So the Nigerian woman.

[01:40:22] Oh my goodness. Again, I might get crucified for this, but. Say it. Don't allow culture to become your leader. Because we're very cultural people. But many Nigerian women burned under the weight of our culture and have just accepted it. This is my lot in life. This is what I've got to do.

[01:40:48] But be curious enough to see what lies beyond culture and be brave enough to step out of it if you need to. And the other question was, I didn't ask about your TEDx and how you got to be. That's why I said. I wanted to ask that question. That question. When I created my vision board all those years ago, I also on my board, I had. I'll tell you what was on board. I still have the board upstairs.

[01:41:12] I had a picture of a meal from Applebee's because when I lived in the US, I loved Applebee's. But at the time I was creating. Applebee's. Applebee's, the steak restaurant. I don't. You're not familiar with it? I'm sure there's still a. There might be, but. I'm sure they even have. I don't know if they have one here. Maybe not. But it's a bit like CGI Fridays. And I had one of their menu, their meals on there because I loved it so much.

[01:41:40] Especially when I was pregnant with my fourth, I used to just literally binge on it. But at the time I was creating my vision board, I put on there everything I didn't have, but I wanted to have. One thing I couldn't do at the time was just go out for a meal. When I wanted to. I couldn't afford it. So I put there to say, I want to get to the point where I can just go out for a meal because I want to. It's not a birthday. It's not an anniversary. I just want to eat out and I can do. I also put my friend, my really good friend, Shade.

[01:42:09] She used to be a fashion designer and she designed this beautiful outfit. I put one of her outfits on there because I remember then it was like 400 US dollars. And I thought that is so expensive. And I thought I'm going to put it on there because I want to one day be able to wear clothes that cost $400. And then I had on there my dream car, which at the time was a Toyota Secua because I had my dream home on there. I had a stack of books to show that I was going to publish multiple books.

[01:42:40] I had a black woman standing in front of an audience with a microphone because I wanted to be a speaker. And I thought, but what is the, what's the top when it comes to speaking? How will you know you've reached the pinnacle? Oh, Ted. I want to be on Ted. So I had the Ted logo up in the corner. Of course, I mentioned I wanted to have a bricks and mortar store on an affluent high street in London. And I put the King's Road sign and I put the picture of my old store in the US on there as well. I wanted to support charities and kids in school.

[01:43:09] So I put that on there. Pictures of children in school and some charities. What the vision board does is that, and it's a little bit of faith teaching here very quickly because I know we're out of time. Your mind is sandwiched between your spirit and your soul. Your spirit is connected to God. And when God speaks to you, your spirit is what hears and receives what God says to you. Your body, sorry, I said your spirit and your soul. Your mind is sandwiched between your spirit and your body is what I meant to say.

[01:43:39] Your body is connected to the world. Through your senses, you retrieve information from the world. And whether it's your spirit collecting the information from God or your body collecting the information from the world, all of it is fed into your mind. And your mind is neutral. Whatever you tell it, it's going to do. And so what a vision board does is you capture the vision of your future from your spirit

[01:44:04] and you put it on paper so that your physical senses, your body is feeding your mind the same picture that your spirit is feeding your mind. Yeah, exactly. So you're bombarding your mind with the same picture of your future that you really want. And eventually there is this thing called a reticular activating system.

[01:44:28] What you start to see, what you've been looking at, you start to see the components of it as your journey. For example, I was driving from North Kensington. I was designing a nursery. This is before I had the shop. And I realized that King's Road was on my route back home. I didn't go on it, but I drove past it. And then I drove on, I thought, oh, this is the King's Road on my vision board. So I drove onto the road and I saw shops for lease.

[01:44:57] And because I also had TED on my vision board, I was one day on Facebook and I just saw an invitation they were doing, that somebody was doing a TED, wanted to do a TED event. Like if you're interested in speaking for, I'm like, this is on my vision board. And so I applied. So that's how it happened. Wow. And that's it. The next speaker. So now you speak. You do consulting. What are the things that, what are the range of things you do?

[01:45:26] The range of things I do. So, yes, I do speak. I speak on mindset to inspire people to take action and see beyond where they stand today. I also do business consulting, although I don't have capacity at the moment. I've got my podcast, which I feel so sorry for. I feel sorry for it because I haven't recorded in coming up to it. I was supposed to take like a six month break, but it's stretched, stretching into a year now. But I will eventually go back to it. It's called Living Inside Out.

[01:45:56] Another podcast called The Authentic Edge, which is just a three minute daily soundbite to get you going. And yeah, that's pretty much what I do. And then my book will be out one day. Oh, I can't wait. I think your story is amazing. Thank you. I definitely would be interested in reading it. Oh, so glad to hear. And support you when you launch it. You've got a really fantastic story. Thank you so much.

[01:46:23] So how do people, how do people, they want to reach out to you? Which way do they? Yeah. So I'm on, I've got my, thebabycotchshop.com. If you are looking for the most beautiful baby and children's furniture in the world, head to thebabycotchshop.com. And we're also on Instagram, same name. And then tokesarotere.com.

[01:46:48] That's my personal website where I write about my life lessons and inspiration and so on and so forth. I'm also on LinkedIn. And it's at Toksarotere. So everything is just my name. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Amazing. Thank you so much, Toks, for talking to us. It's been a fantastic journey. I think you're officially the longest. We've done, we did it in two hours. You're the longest. I think you are.

[01:47:18] I think you are. I'm not long. I want people that, you know, you know I can talk. I say. It's not wasted. It's everything. Nuggets of wisdom. I like the origin story. Thank you so much for coming. I absolutely enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. So that was Toksarotere of the Baby Cut Shop. And that was an amazing, incredible interview.

[01:47:45] She was very generous in giving us her origin story and how she developed from the early days. All of what happened to her in terms of starting all over again. So it's a lesson to learn and I hope that you have been able to take something away from this. As well as the fact that she loves, you can see she loves technology. She's harnessing technology in so many ways. Yeah.

[01:48:12] So now if you, because we've got listeners from 20 countries now, including from, this is like Singapore, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Spain. I can't name all of the countries, Nigeria, wherever you're listening from. Remember to follow, review and to subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe.

[01:48:36] The more you do this, the more it encourages me to actually get more guests. And also reach out to me, Stella at StellaOnidewriter.com. You can send me an email. Talking Text Recreative Podcasts, we're on Instagram. We're not, we're very tiny on there, but you can always DM me on there just to reach out and tell me the kind of podcast you'd like to listen to.

[01:49:04] Because I'm now at the stage where I want to hear from my listeners to see what kind of subjects, which area of questions you want me to ask and things like that. The website for the podcast is TalkingTapWithCreative.com. Yes. At least you know I'm not AI. This is a real me, tripping over words. Yeah. So TalkingTapWithCreative.com is a website.

[01:49:30] So if you go on that website, it gives you access to all of the different platforms, including Spotify, Apple. So the reason why I'm directing you to the website is I'm going to be doing a giveaway soon on that website. I'll tell you when you give away so that you can get a free kit. I'm developing a free digital kit that will be really useful for you. And number two, there are quite a few articles. I've done about two deep articles.

[01:49:57] The one on Robmo and the other one on Afrobit on the website. So that website is going to have more and more content. So I would love to hear from you. Do reach out. And you can message me on YouTube. So if you're watching me on YouTube, you can DM me. I would love to hear from you. But more than anything else, subscribe. If you're listening, subscribe. And that is what is going to make this podcast keep going.

[01:50:24] It's a section of culture, creativity, and technology. You don't see much of that out there. We're not just talking pure technology. We're talking about all that intersection. And you can see that we've had some fantastic guests. So for it to continue, I need your support. Thank you very much for listening to me. And enjoy your day, your night, your afternoon, wherever you are in the world. Thank you.