One of my most proudest accomplishments

 You probably thought I would talk about my A's all the way from Primary school to Grad School. You probably thought I would mention working in Wall Street, and other amazing organizations. 

Nope. 

It's rapping "Forget About Dre" with another person. I rapped the Dr. Dre part, and he rapped the Eminem part. I cringe at my opening though, don't mind me, I can't help my Naija accent, lol. 

I remember having the affliction of stuttering for approximately 7 years. That was not fun. In fact those were some of the most agonizing times of my life. 

But I fought that affliction and defeated it. I would say I'm about 97% cured. I've come a very long way. Curing the stuttering gave me a career and allowed me to have mundane conversations with friends and family like a normal person, haha. 

It is a miracle of a lifetime. 

When I die, hopefully at old age, I want the pastor or whomever reads my eulogy to read, "Folarin did a cover of one of the best and very difficult raps of all time, quite well. He was very proud of it especially because he used to stutter."

For those that don't like listening to raps that have the F-word in them, either tune your receptors, or I guess, with respect, don't listen. For others that don't mind, here is a rap-cover-duet of "Forget About Dre":

https://www.smule.com/recording/dr-dre-ft-eminem-forgot-about-dre/1460119290_2964562723

The Original "Forgot About Dre"

For those that want a more family friendly rap, here is my

"Getting Jiggy With It", originally by Will Smith. Cover by me and another dude.

The Original "Getting Jiggy With It"

Book "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance."

I like she told her father, who, if I heard well, was a bit skeptical of whether he thought she was smart of not. 

She responded that grit was more of a valuable trait than smarts.

Allow me to describe what I believe Intelligence is. First of all everybody is intelligent. Biologically speaking, we are literally intelligent beings. I think Intelligence is a combination of dedication, knowledge gathering, having a divine sense of self, and what Professor cornel west calls a "habitual vision of greatness". When people realize or decide to realize that they deserve to be smart or intelligence, they will be. 

On the other hand,  our community/ the people we surround ourselves with are a huge determining factor of our self worth.

For example, if a friend tells us "I think you should apply for that Project Management job" you would think, "You know what, yes I can do that job, I will apply".

On the other hand, if another friend, who maybe does not want you to succeed might say, "I don't think you can do that Project Management job. Maybe apply for the lower ranking job". Because that person is connected to you as humans, you may think, "she's right, I guess I can't do the big job...I'll go for the lower job."

So, please surround yourself with encouraging people and people that value you. Also value them too. It's a two-way street.

Everytime I re-watch Dave Chappelle talk about Jon Stewart, I shed happy tears

Never concede to a "No" from customer service

 Here is the story told in audio

Men, stop treating women like they are less intelligent than you.

Men, you've got to reduce or completely stop looking down on women's intelligence.

Science has confirmed, many decades ago, that girls, from a very young age, develop intelligence quicker than boys. Just ask parents that have at least a girl or at least a boy. Science does not know how to lie.

Years later, men, do you think somehow, the female slowed down her intelligence? When she got into high school, or university, or the corporate world...do you think she got less intelligent? No. Society caused it. Men caused it.

100% of women reading this, their intelligence get reduced/subjugated, or they are invalidated, every...single...day.

Men, imagine you walk into a room, and automatically, your intelligence is reduced, people treat you dumber than you are. Oh you have experienced it, and you hated it. Well, women get that unfair treatment, every...single...day. And then we expect them to like us.

Experiment:
Put the average woman in a room with 5 kids, a kitchen, and books to teach the kids.

Put the average man in a room with 5 kids, a kitchen, and books to teach the kids.

On average, the woman will wrangle the kids, make a meal and feed everyone, and educate the kids without giving up. On average, the man will get frustrated and/or will not be able to multitask as much as her... and/or the man will take longer to complete the tasks.

Sexism fighters:
Black people had people fight for us: Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks.

Women did not have sexism fighters fight for them, this means sexism happens to them...every...single...day, as if it is meant to be normal.

Correction: Women did have sexism fighters/ equality fighters



Imagine that, men.

Final short story
I once had a young beautiful lady that I dated for many months. She had to pretend to be uninformed/ without knowledge while dating me, because in previous relationships, and in her daily life, the men around her get intimidated by her intelligence and they treated her unfairly, or they got angry, or they subjugated her. She was a medical doctor.

This is what many women deal with...every...single...day.

Men, you reading this, it might not have been your fault. It might have been the decades of wrongful conditioning by where you grew up, your family system, your religious system, your work culture, the community, or the country.

However, our job, our burden, our duty is to unlearn that crap. Treat women with the same dignity and intelligence as you treat your male counterparts.

Thats all.

Folarin

"What do you like about me?"

I went on a few dates with a lovely young lady. We must have spent maybe 4 - 5 hours together in person, and many more hours messaging one another (text and mostly voice notes). 

We will not date (her choice), but I asked her "What do you like about me?"

I got her permission to post this on my blog.

This is what she said: What do you like about me - Date to Folarin Mon June 20 2022

Freewriting...deleting facebook friends...corporate abuse is normalized.

 Here I am again after many months. 

Freewriting...

I have this almost uncontrollable urge to tell people exactly what is on my mind or what I am doing...or recent life news. I am not unique in this. See Facebook, instagram, twitter posts. Most people have that urge. 

One of my weaknesses which I am working on to change is to tell people when they have wronged me. I am learning to hide that in order to preserve the relationship.

Anyway, I am on a mission to delete facebook friends. I had about six-hundred and something friends. I have deleted maybe 40 in the last 20 minutes. When I make a post and people I don't know, or haven't spoken in literal decades (high school mates) read it... it makes me feel weird that strangers read my thoughts, or get updates on my life. If I can delete most of them until I get to around 50, I would be a happier person. There is literally no value to me, to having over 500 people read my personal updates.

Facebook definitely exploited our natural urge to share a lot of things in the mid-2000s when social networking was burgeoning. I like that word burgeoning. It just came into my head when I started typing that sentence. 

Corporate abuse

I am really sick and tired that corporate abuse has become normal. Sometimes they are subtle. Often times they are not. In one of my past jobs, someone screamed at me, at the top of their lungs in a meeting of 9. That person, white, was given a gentle warning that "this behavior would not help your career". That was it, as far as I knew. That scream bothered me. Our manager, who was there, later said we should focus on business and technology at hand. What?? We should not deal with that?

2 weeks later, separate situation, I gave a recommendation not to skip a process that my superiors wanted to skip, to deliver a fix to the client. Me and Risk Manager advised that we not skip it. After I gave that recommendation, my computer access was disabled. ?? What?? Why??

If it cannot be explained logically, it is discrimination. 

I am sick and tired of discrimination. I am sick and tired of abuse. 

Different company, even worse abuse

I really wanted to work at this company. I had messaged the founder/ceo a few times to show my interest. People of the same title as mine interviewed me and recommended me to the founder/ CEO for the role. When I was hired, I had lots of questions about the company and how it operated, I messaged the ceo my questions. He replied but not a lot. 

1 week later, he called me to an office and said, apparently, to him, I sent too many messages. He said, "I did not want to hire you..." that's all I remember and I would never forget this. 

I remember immediately, I walked outside, I sat on a bench. I looked up and wondered, what a toxic thing to say to a person that reports to you. I drove long and difficult distances to the work daily. I am showing that I want to learn as quickly as possible so that the company moves and makes money. I wanted to quit that day, but I thought to endure. After-all, that's what scripture teaches us.

Back then, I did not know how to quit. So, after a few weeks, I just stopped going to the office. I could not bear going into that very toxic and abusive environment. Then he called and let me go. What a damn relief!

Oh, I just figured out how my "fb uncontrollable urge" ties in with corporate abuse. 

Normalized Nigerian/ Lagos abusive language
Part of the injustice of this world is many people abuse one another. I am originally from Nigeria. I lived in Lagos on and off for 25 years. My younger female cousin, who also grew up in Nigeria, is a family therapist. She told me Lagosians are aggressive. Not physically, but in the way we speak.

"What is wrong with you sef"

"What's your problem"

"Ah, ah, why is that bothering you so much"

"Abeg keep quiet jor"

"What is it nau?!"

What do these phrases have in common? They do not take a person's feelings into account. These are not gentle ways of speaking. 

For people that are gentle like me, first of all, these kinds of talk made me stutter for 7 years, so that was horrible. Secondly, I became overly sensitive to incoming talk that starts to feel abusive. 

When it would happen, I would react, tell the person, and risk ruining the relationship. 

I learned in my career, that people in organizations like to pretend. When issues like the screaming incident happens, human resources have greatly disappointed me. They would rather let the person go than solve the problem, especially when they are people of color. They would rather speak to the people separately, not really solve the issue, than to come together and properly sort things as a group. Am I the only one that is sane here?

I have to adjust myself to take even more abuse from corporations in order to stay employed. 

That is a very sad statement I just said.

Folarin

Embrace boredom, enjoy silence

Paraphrasing "Embrace boredom, enjoy silence" Amir Thompson/ Questlove. 

"I spent 2020/ pandemic on a farm sitting outside with chickens and ducks."

...Amir brilliantly said after during the Variety press conference after him and his team won the Oscars 🏆 for Best Documentary Film, 2022. 

Source: https://youtu.be/IyU_x1gynL4