Anybody who’s in entrepreneurship will tell you faith and believing in yourself are the two biggest things that will propel you you know if you think about like a person like thomas edison he failed like 999 times on the light bulb and then he finally got it right that’s
Entrepreneurship for you you know how many times are you willing to take a note how many times you really need to get rejected together yes that one yes can change your whole life so that’s entrepreneurship for me in a nutshell like people may see closed doors but i
See like okay we can we can cut this open and find an opening through here and make it happen welcome to third culture africans the lifestyle podcast for dreamers thinkers and doers we celebrate artistry share stories from those brave enough to create something and succeed listen to diverse perspectives on african success and
Those shifting the need along culture i’m zazuariaki sao your host on this week’s episode of third culture africans my guest is tiwa works also known as tua aganga williams he is a bold entrepreneur and a believer in investing in self-growth and development he also believes that you should be able
To take a step back to see the multiple verticals in any business venture so you don’t leave money on the table he has an incredibly positive attitude and believes that entrepreneurship is a lifestyle and uses his networks to get things done and build upon i hope you
Enjoyed this episode as much as i did sitting with tiwa this week Thank you for joining us to uh on this week’s episode of third culture africans thank you thanks for having me happy to be here so i have in my notes you’re a multi-premier community builder experiential and lifestyle guru real estate entrepreneur events and marketing sounds about right all true
Guilty okay fabulous everyone knows you as t-ro works yes they do but your real name a government name have you officially changed your name um not officially just by i guess it’s really time time has just given me that name because as i started business and whatnot people
Actually thought hero works was my legal legal name and started they calling me that so when i started as a young person i just started thinking you know what i should just allow this buffer to be there where tiwa works is this person and business and entity
And i it kind of gives me a separation from my legal real life and literally for the last 20 years really has just been tv works has been my name and it’s funny because people will meet my my parents and my parents would tell them oh do you
Know my son and say do you know and they’re like i have no idea who that is that yes but you know him he does all this and then he says oh his name is tiwa work oh of course of course yes yes yes yes so
It’s um i accept it and i enjoy it i enjoy that space of peace and um privacy with it you’re like um lady gaga oh pretty much like lady gaga double o seven you know code name call me bond yes how you work but aka tiwa aganga williams yes you
Were ganger williams you’re nigerian originally yes nigerian british born american so how long did you live in the uk for um so i was born in uk and london actually east london new orleans i knew him to be specific and i was there to about three years old
Then moved to nigeria with my parents back to nigeria and i think it was around 11 or 12. and that’s a story by itself i’ve moved back to london and i was there from 12 to 16 i was in boarding school out west in bath i went to boarding school and bought so
You did your gcses yes and no i was preparing for it and i left for america right before gcse started so i never really actually yeah it was it was no sorry i did gcse’s a levels i did not do i didn’t do a levels yes so that
Was because that’s like 11th and 12th grade um so i left at 16 right after gcse came to america and i’ve been here ever since since 17. oh wow so you’re a mix of nigerian brit american at different phases fused into one different phases of life three different
Parts of my life have just been fused into all these three countries and everything citizenship so it’s it’s um it’s very unique and blessed to be that you know very true how how is it adjusting i guess adjusting from nigeria to the uk is one thing how is the uk to
The us and plus you’d had the nigeria angle right so arriving in the us how was that for you so i’d been to the u.s maybe for holidays a couple of times i went to california but obviously as a i was a teenager i was young it’s probably about
Maybe i went to california when i was like 13 maybe but it’s not the same when you go back as you know almost 17 years old and you’re about to finish you know high school per se or secondary school and it was very different because
I had my own kind of coming to america type moments cultural clashes where and i think that one of the biggest things i i didn’t realize was i actually had an accent and hanging around american kids i’ll never forget i was in silver springs maryland and that summer i used to go
Out and play with the kids at the basketball park and they will mock that imitate every word i say oh why can’t you oh why this and that and and i said why are you why are you repeating everything i’m saying to say oh because you have an accent
I said i do like yeah you’ve got this british accent you sound like the queen mother and you know so i was like it was really shocking to hear that because i didn’t think i had one and um then you know the other cultural shock moments was people in america thinking oh
You’re british or you’re nigerian how did you did you get here by boat and i’m looking like my boat i said no i took british airways what are you talking about like oh my god that old chestnut yeah and then they’ll say things like okay when they now ask about
The nigerian part so do you see lions and tigers roaming around i said no i actually saw them in in america when i came here to the zoo like i’ve never seen one before like in real life like you know lions i have a dog you know does that count
I think the the questions you get sometimes are shocking because you’re you i used to think oh my god there’s a part of africa i don’t know because clearly these people know this africa that i’ve never been to and it’s crazy because one and and part
Of this the journey of me being here and being here for so long i kind of started to understand why a lot of them were thinking like that like what was being taught to them especially like these are other teenagers like me thinking and wondering oh people from africa or
Nigeria oh we must be lying it was like a very deep indoctrination of how the view people from you know africa like they’re like this yeah and i had to explain to them like no i i was in boarding school in nigeria no i had to wear a uniform like the driver
They’re like the driver like oh you don’t have to say what yeah the driver yeah the driver took us to school so it became an educational point when people had this kind of on unnoticed ignorance to now educate them like no like we lived you know not to say like they weren’t
There wasn’t poverty about the wars and dogs there’s classism everywhere but to understand that everybody like you’ve heard of is not from the jungle of the bush or live in mud huts we lived in a modern metropolis city and it was a great learning lesson from
For myself and for them as well you know but i i think being thrust into having to explain that as a kid i didn’t know how what how that sat with you or what that did to you but i know my experience was sort of like are you joking like
Especially considering your parents had worked so hard to in air quotes expose you to the world and then someone’s view of you is that you i don’t have a bone in my nose spear toting hot living do i wear underwear which is really odd which is really because even the the
Representation of that is beautiful and the story that comes with that is beautiful right but the fact that the rest of the western world somehow aren’t involved in that narrative is is quite shocking actually just to use the right word rachel very true but fast forward and then you go to georgia southern
South georgia southwestern state university correct yes and then while you’re there you become the mayor of all things writer photographer of the magazine the senator of the student government association you know it’s so funny like when i when i think back to it so when i
When i so story is i moved from england to maryland i was in maryland for probably maybe six months and you know my uncle my dad’s brothers wanted me to go to college and i’m like i’m 17 i have not done a bun if i’m america i want to
Experience the a lot of the american things i want to go to prom i want to go you know i can’t wait to go to high school i want to i want to wear regular clothes because keep in mind i’ve been in boarding school my damn
Name my whole life and um private school so it’s uniform every day i want to wear regular clothes oh my god so you were looking for that american i’m telling you yes saved by the bell you know the bell rings you run into class i wanted that experience and you know finally my
My mother was like okay we’re moving to atlanta and we moved to atlanta 96 olympics and it was amazing like atlanta if you know the history of atlanta atlanta yes it was young you know just the olympics was here it was popping like all hot music was coming out of atlanta
Germain dupri crisscross tlc you know everybody was in atlanta and it’s the black mecca and here i was in you know again metro atlanta sandy springs ended up going to high school for my senior year my last year because remember i did not take the a level so i
Needed a couple more classes to graduate and go to college and the high school i went to usher went to school there a bunch of kids from that were nickelodeon shows were there and it was curtis mayfield uh the the singer his kids went to all his kids
Went to school so it was really like the black so you’re really living the dream oh my god i was so was like i so immersed myself into american education and school system like overnight and um it was a true testament of just understanding what my parents are
Bringing and just being thrown into this new world in six months and i fitted right in and i loved every minute of school in america like you know so did you try and practice the accent no so i i actually never did i you know even today until
Today people say well damn you’ve been here for so many years you still kind of have a slight british accent like you don’t and i and i just never felt like needed to change that i just that was me and and that’s how i’ve always been i didn’t
Want to now become americanized even even if i i think my mentality now is that americanized and living but i’m like well i’m a london boy you know i was born in london got in trouble in london i had my fun in london why let me just let myself be and
That was kind of the basis of the uniqueness of tijuana tiwa works himself so i just loved it i loved it you know this podcast is sponsored by malay natural science malays products are inspired by the rich landscapes alluring scents and ancient wisdom of africa their luxurious fragrance and body care
Range balances 100 natural active ingredients and scientifically proven formulas to heal protect and pamper your skin malay ships worldwide and you can buy their products at malee online dot com they also offer a free sample if you’d like to try so is that when t r works was born or
Two our works came later tear works came way way later so high school like i said i experienced everything went to prom i went to about five proms because i just was enjoying myself like i would get invited hey do you want to go to prom oh my my niger so we meet
Nigerian families again and say oh fumi doesn’t have a date can tiwa take her we’ll pay for everything oh tea well i was available let’s go you know and i thoroughly again i enjoyed it because again it’s it’s even when i’m coming from a boarding school background and it
Was an all boys boarding school so to be able to just experience i was just taking an american and atlanta life every bit the moment i could and um i know the one thing that really was interesting because i lived not far from my high school
Um i had to get dropped off by car i couldn’t ride the bus there’s a there’s a proximity limit for the bus is picking people up so i i now thought you know what i need to check this off my list i need to write an american school bus the
Yellow bus i need to write this and a friend of mine in high school jamal durham was like well you can come home with me on a friday and i live on the south side so you can ride the bus to my house and your folks can pick you
Up from my house i said oh of course so we planned it yo i was i enjoyed like i was like you know a dog with the head out the window just enjoying the ride down the highway to his house and then we went to see what’s her name
The brat was had a music uh a cd release we went to see her that day she signed it i took pictures of her so like again i was i you know it’s kind of like the wonder years for me i was kevin arnold i was just taking everything in
And enjoying america you know like i said my coming to america story i was prince akeem i’m here give me ever give me the full experience and so by the time you get to university any society or club you could join you pretty much joined yeah so the story of um college
You know i’m by my senior year my last year in high school i’d made a ton of friends i’m i’m very personable i had so many friends in school and i wanted to actually go to georgia state which was downtown atlanta about 25 minutes when we lived but my
Parents just felt you know you this boy you got friendly and made so many friends so quickly i don’t think you should go to school in the city like you won’t finish your work and you know your eye and girls too so you need to go somewhere that’s just
Far away like kind of like how i was sent to boarding school in bath which is like four hours away from london and nothing was there they recreated that environment i ended up in a city called america’s georgia it’s about three and a half hours from atlanta and on the way
There i remember i would never forget this on the way down there my parents were driving and it was nothing but cotton fields like miles and miles to the horizon just wide open cotton fields and i’m looking like damn this is where they they had the
Slaves back in the day like i could just you know see the scenes of them in the field and my i remember my stepdad was like yes this is it nothing for you to do out here but to do your schoolwork so here you see me see my life
And um from from from mr america to being banished in the context my parents are laughing saying there was one stoplight and it’s one way streets on either direction and literally that’s what it is and the biggest restaurant there was a ruby tuesday and walmart is the mall that’s it
So you can give your team a small country town but the beautiful thing again is me coming with you student life is great it’s all about it’s a college town so student life everything around it revolves around the university so i got there and again i
On you know one thing about i love america is that especially in the south is the southern hospitalities like they they they speak to you i used to wonder like why are you speaking to me i don’t know you but it’s a southern thing like if they say hey you have to start
Yes you know exactly you know we’re kind of like londoners we’re more like new yorkers even nigerians like ah do i know you why are you talking to me but here in the south it’s like hey how you doing and then i you end up striking conversations with strangers and
Sometimes become friends or business partners or whatever the case may be so i took that on as well and you know first year of school made a lot of friends i got involved quickly and um involved in everything and like i said on my resume i was involved in students
In free enterprise i joined saab student african american brotherhood i did everything i just was very involved in kind of started building the foundation of who t works was supposed to be and that was the networking you know these groups social organizations and and the
Perks of being in them you know ended up traveling and it’s so funny being in in school down there joining this organization there were perks i ended up going traveling back to london as a president of one of the clubs went to germany went to france went to all
These places that i never would have done if i probably had went to georgia state or if you just were reading your books i’m telling you exactly we just you face your friends chase your friends and read your books yes but then that takes you into i guess the sorority fraternity world yes
Oh my god and so you join how does it work do you join or did they recruit you or so without divulging because it’s you know i i don’t want to say secret society per se but there’s a lot of onset things that as members you cannot necessarily divulge but you
You do join and are you recruited yes and no i actually expressed my interest to them because one eye again first day of school we have orientation team orientation team are all um current students who welcome you in they show you the dorms they share activities they do team building exercises and
Again it’s a small southern country town and obviously i saw the black students and also saw some of the um the black students were you couldn’t wear any kind of paraphernalia or or whatnot but i did notice that afterwards everybody was in if in an organization with different colors and greek letters
And again being this nigerian british kid i had no idea what that was but i noticed that they would have sort of these shows maybe like mid-semester where they will bring in like five people wearing a mask and they’re all in formation and there’s the whole gym is packed and they take
Yeah they take a mask off and everybody goes crazy and the guy is yelling and saying he’s now this person and i i was intrigued like what is this you know and then i found out like couple of like guys i became really good friends with were in fraternity so the one that
Really stuck out to me was kappa because it just again they i always used to see them wearing their blazers and they would dress up nice and i was used to that lifestyle already coming from boarding school where we always had to wear pinstripe blazers and pinstripe pants and blazers so i gravitated
Towards them and i i remember telling one of my counselors for i was a computer information systems major and uh tremaine and i told him i said hey you know i think i want to be a member i want to join and he looked at me i was like i don’t
Know i said what do you mean you don’t and keep in mind i’ve already joined these other organizations and they never told me i don’t know so this one said i don’t know i remember telling said said was an older frat brother and he laughed at me and i was confused he says
It’s not for you so it’s part of a deterrent thing where they tell you that it’s not for you but they want to see how bad do you really want it and it was a psychological thing early and you know i pledged and um
It was it was four of us on our line and i went through the same process and earned my letters and i had my probit kind of like the same thing we had our own day where we came out on stage in the arts theater massed up took up a
Mask and introduced who we are you know so and something about that is person building right like in in the journey big time it’s so one thing i i always tell people about when you pledge a black fraternity or sorority it’s literally they take you
From who you are as a raw person they break you down to the lowest form and they rebuild you which is why now if you kind of find anybody who’s in a fraternial sorority you would notice that they’re damn near one of the top of the top of a
Cream of the crop and reverend dr martha king was a member is it was a member of alpha phi alpha his wife coretta scott king was um alpha kappa alpha bill clinton is five beta sigma you know you’ve got bill russell who’s cap off um you know shaq is omega sci-fi you’ve got
So many different members congressman john lewis who just passed in atlanta he was five better sigma um so you have this essence of black unity and and um success and just excellence within black fraternities and sororities so i just was so proud to have been able to have uh have gone through that
Journey and become a new person and that there was the seed ground foundation of tewa works right there at that moment joining cap alpha psi kind of my trajectory in life took a very good sharp turn for such a great direction that i lived today and so you take that
But you finish you well you take that and start the atlantic greek yes the atlantic events yes so but right before always a picnic or yes so right before i started the greek picnic after i’d become a member of kappa alpha psi um i had to hold office official office
Within the fraternity to conduct business and part of that obviously is to also raise funds and have different type of initiatives that we as brothers on this campus and our chapter can develop so we had community service projects in place we built a house with um habitat for humanity we raised money for
Charities we donated we mentored kids in the local middle schools and um elementary school and high school and um the the other part obviously was the social part which is one of the fun parts of being in a fraternity or sorority is we we through some of the best parties so i again
Because i i’ve come from this great social background leading up from leaving nigeria to england to school in america by the way i have here in brackets minister of enjoyment i mean you know like i literally into that part of you yeah you make a living being the minister of
Enjoyment minister of enjoyment like you know i i i’ve just been blessed that while in college you know i was able to have my entrepreneur i was already entrepreneur by a date just from family but like for it’s you know when you’re in school in college you’re there to
Just not only i don’t sound cliche by saying find yourself but it’s also a moment for you to really discover who you are and what you want to be in this lifetime and college especially in america is a ground for networking and building and development and if you kind of watch uh
Listen to any story from anybody who has started business and they were in college they will tell you they met their business partner or they came up with an idea in college you know mark zuckerberg quote unquote you know despite the little difference your facebook idea was was born in college and
It’s a breeding ground because it’s the ability to test out new products services networking and for me when i when i joined kappa and i choked i took the position of special events coordinator because i already knew um all the groups i was in i could network
Easily i was on the orientation team which brought new students into my mind i said you know what i already see a pipeline on how we can dominate these events against everybody else trying to host events i have to pipeline i have access to all the new students
Excuse me all the new students every semester coming in i meet them first i’m and i’m typically the only black guy on that team so all the black students will gravitate to me and say hey so where’s the first party what are we doing what what’s going on i’m ready to
Turn up and then it’s well i’ll let you know where the first part is take my number and i started building this database of you may think about a thousand students coming in every semester to school at least half of them know who i am or everybody knows who i am and i
Can kind of let them know this is what we have for the first party back in school and kappa’s throwing it and we were raising and making so much money that i remember one time we donated a check of and this is like you know such a while ago eight
Thousand dollars when we did a step show we’re making money we’re doing parties and coming up with different ideas with the with the white fraternity say hey kappa sigma let’s do a party together and call it kappa fest and it became the biggest party on campus on a thursday night nobody was doing
Things out of the box and that’s what we were i was bringing to the table and uh you know we we unfortunately got suspended we had an internal issue we got suspended and the hiatus gave us an opportunity to okay before we got suspended we traveled to florida which
Is an hour and a half away from our school we were close to the florida border line and again this is one of the benefits of going to school down there we went into an event called the capitol while capital wow was the biggest greek event that i’ve ever heard or seen
And it was on a ranch in tallahassee florida my cousin who again kind of very similar stories to me she’s born in england nigerian she live in america she was living in tallahassee and she joined the sorority the year before me so i called her like
Hey i’m coming down for kappa luau me and my frat brothers and that experience there was again a life-changing moment because again keep in mind where i’m coming from i’ve never seen this many people together in one place i mean it was thousands of people you had football players they were giving away
Budweiser giving away free beer slip and slide trick daddy trina were performing it was insane so i took that visual in my head and um kept it you know and and it’s funny i’m saying this because yesterday i tweeted out um sometimes we birth ideas
So early that we’re not ready for and we just have to put on the shelf so i literally did that i wasn’t ready for what that just seeing that so i went back two years in a row and in between that when we were suspended we started throwing me and my
Line brother dave david farley started throwing parties under the company name for show entertainment and for show entertainment literally we had no because within a fraternity you’ve got boundaries and rules and things you have to abide by but i told dave like hey look bro let’s let’s go full fledge and
Run this as a business and he was like but we don’t have a business license i said but we don’t need any of that we have a relationship with the club let’s restructure our deal 50 50 split expenses and everything down the middle and he he was like no they would never
Agree they agreed to it so this is your first business venture bone first business venture burn born in college sat down with the club owners at the elks lodge i mean they were such great guys still today james hollis jimmy green and sat satan and told them
Like hey we you know all they want to know is results they don’t want to hear anything but results can you bring people of course we can bring people so we did this we formulated it and i remember our first event myself and david after our split we made 800 a night each
For the night which was insane because our allowance was a hundred dollars a month we made 800 each in three hours and then i started djing because we did not go to school again you know yo like keep in mind i mean teachers are teaching me stuff but i’m thinking to
Myself man i’m thinking how can i make 2 400 by the end of this month 3 200 as a college student you know and it was very unheard of because people were not doing that everybody was just in school facing your work and that was it but here i had gotten my first
Taste of success of an entrepreneurial venture that i we dared to do and we just kept pushing the limit so he and i will meet up and it’s great because dave is like you know dave and i had been always tight as frat brothers and we just always every time we meet we’ll
Say hey let’s let’s plan this and i and the biggest thing we were learning was the ability to plan things early to to really um formulate and come up with different strategies early and that was our competitive advantage over everybody else and i remember when you know homecoming again an american thing i’d
Never experienced outside of from high school now in college okay there’s homecoming homecoming you know big game all the alumni come back it’s it’s a festivities every day of the week for a whole week and i told him i said yo homecoming’s coming we need to do something big and
Capture that crowd because the rival club is always doing the same thing i said we have to break that mold so we spoke and said look let’s go to the local media station on media carla morris was our account rep and i asked i said look let’s buy some tv ads
Let’s not do radio everybody does radio and we don’t listen to radio like that but everybody watches bet let’s go find out the ads go to the lady and it we found out the ads were three dollars a spot and dave’s eyes opened so wide he’s like
Three dollars a spot asked us that what’s the minimum purchase she said there’s no minimum because nobody was buying ads for bt in that region so i looked at him with a smirk and said okay we’ll come back we went to the club we told them because we’re doing a split we
Need to spend 600 on tv ads 200 ads flood radio for homecoming a flood tv and they gave us their cut we did it and we recorded this doc because we had been documenting and people thought the whole country was watching them on bet doing 106 in park with aj and free in
Between jay-z commercials and videos and the club was insane i mean we netted after again i’ll split eight thousand dollars a piece of the club generated uh literally almost thirty five thousand dollars that night from one night from one night i mean i i’d never touched that much cash that i
Personally earned ever in my life and i was so motivated i was hyped and just ready to just you know now my major i was i was going to school it was information was i was i was so mind blown and tired of it i’m like like
I was tired of my degree i knew that i definitely knew the cis degree i chose was not for me i knew it at that moment like i don’t want to do this anymore but i’m almost done i’m going into my junior i have about a
Year left a year year and a half and i just said you know what i’m just going to finish because i can’t change i’m so deep in i can’t change but my mind was on business like okay how can we make more money how can we do different things and
It took off to such a great level that again once i graduated the uh the the the the demand was there like we had built a brand and um dave of dave um is from south georgia so he didn’t move back to atlanta i went back to atlanta and
When i came back it’s now is am i going to get a job when i’ve been making more than some of these guys making it in a week in three nights in three hours and i just you know told my parents like look i want to do this party business and
You know nigeria parents particularly you want to do party business these boys they say come on talk to your son he’s doing party and i had to explain to them like let me tell you how much i’ve made like it’s a thing and the one thing i love about my parents is
They may be skeptical but if you are very passionate and you you push that this is what you want to do my stepdad was like let him be leave him if his money has this much passion they will succeed he said he’s willing to lose he will succeed
And that’s what happened there were losses now don’t get me wrong those those were some i had some wins but i also had some losses i’ve lost some money but the idea now i i really now with with the support of family and i said okay how can i really make a
Business out of this party business and and grow and i met a business partner new business partner in atlanta sean black approached me because i’ve been throwing little happy hours when i i graduated and mentioned let’s store this event called uh final fridays it’s once a month for young professionals like
Yourself and everybody so hold on the greek picnic is still not this is all pre-greek picnic so you’re still honing your skills exactly so this is all pre-greek picking so this is like i graduated all three so this is right before the summer those three you were throwing
All these little happy hours in buckhead and you know my greek friends would come and learning you know what works what doesn’t work and slowly building money and losing money here and there it wasn’t crazy like a lot but while your peers uh are now in full-time jobs graduated i
Have my degree it’s collecting dust already and um i just uh i remember a friend of mine vanetta green said hey why don’t you think about doing something for the greeks for us you know like you know a lot of people you know the kappas you know you’re connected make it happen
And i was like you know what she’s right sorry i called up maurice brown president of the college and maurice brown was the only campus in the city of atlanta that had a three acre piece of land with the fraternity plots around and it’s right next to the georgia dome
Great landmark so i called them up like hey wanna throw something and um i got approved the president told me well just work out a security plan and all these other things so i called the police officer from the club i was hosting the final fridays and um the security team to work
And it’s i i love to say this because till today the same police officers were working with me for the last 15 years um on this business but i have a question though what is the motivation for you just balls to the wall i can speak to bt
Police officer please become you know because as africans we’re taught to be afraid right there’s something right you’re right it’s it’s the audacity and just again the confidence that’s been built in me from when i first moved to america of just life here is have the audacity to do to think and
Dream big you know so and also the ability that i’ve done over the years of networking you know again being uprooted twice from school systems i’m being thrown into another place and you have to make friends you have to network you have to assimilate yourself into this
New society so it’s the same thing with business i had just been i just graduated started throwing parties at this restaurant that django’s and you know this is every i’m working with these guys once a month and in a couple of hours we form a friendship and relationship you shake hands even the
Police officer you got to be his friend because he’s responsible for who’s coming in or who’s not coming in so you you end up becoming friends like hey you know and and you built that relationship because you need those type of people in your corner anything anytime anything
Happens you can make that happen so that audacity in me was just um embodied in me i just was able to always step forward i know you know what i’m a big thinker i can make this happen like let’s let’s talk and it’s literally you know we negotiate your rates and
Just factor in okay how much are you going to get paid who i bet i got you no problem we’ll make that happen and it just was and and the great thing about because of the relationship we have they also were invested in whatever idea i came up with
Okay we trust tiwati was being very you know straightforward you know he makes money we make money so we take his business endeavors as ours as well so that’s literally what happened with everything and you know it’s all about relationships the biggest thing i can tell you from day one is the ability
To network and form these great relationships like you know and and it comes from simply when you come into the office you don’t even have to start talking about why you came in there hey how are you oh man so oh you went to school here oh me too and you form a
Nice sort of friendship because it’s the norm it’s not the norm people come in to any opportunity and they just come in for what they want and you know people who are working these jobs it’s monotonous it’s the same thing in and out but when you come with a breath of
Fresh air you fine-tune a new type of relationship with them and they they go out for you on a limb they go all the way out and that’s what the lady at on media calamaris did my security team did everybody was doing because we were forming such great bonds of
Relationships and it was great for business but that’s also a testament to you as a person though one of the quotes that you’re i want to say famous for saying and being or being influenced by is jim rohn yes now at this point have you been introduced to
Jim rohn no i have not so jim rohn is a distant mentor i’ve never did she passed a couple of years ago so i’ve never physically met him but one thing about anyone that isn’t is in any aspect of business is you can adapt anyone to be a mentor without physically knowing them
And i did that because his philosophies on life living and business was so exceptional and i’d been listening to him since i was in london like my parents introduced me to jim rohn and the ability to understand all these little philosophies i applied it to real life okay so you’ve mentioned your
Parents a few times sorry i think for context you come from two successful parents your mum used to be a finance banker who’s now a life coach and she’s a published author and then your father a multi-premier as well correct okay so you’ve seen entrepreneurship in action big time all
The way since i was a child i’ve seen it in full action and so no one is saying to you mr lifestyle guy right it wasn’t called lifestyle then was it or mr party you know i think even still i think was it took a while for my parents to
Are really my mother to really understand the gravity because she wasn’t coming to the events you know she wasn’t like oh i’m going to come out at night to come see what you’re doing no it wasn’t until a couple years into the greek picnic and the greek picnic started off as like the
First event was about 300 people it was so small you could see the grass that’s how and i say that in context of how big the space is now you cannot see the grass that’s how crazy you just see people you run the biggest i guess for context for people who know
Nothing about the us or sororities or fraternities the greek picnic is the biggest event in any university alumni sorority fraternity calendar in the us 15 years running every single summer it’s the number one destination people do you have at the event we we bring in 20 000 people every
Summer that’s like filling up like an arena stadium right yes it’s very hard to visually grasp but it is insane like the whole city is filled with people from hotels to every in fact my dentist who is an uh elderly white lady said to me i saw your people here and i
It didn’t really say was yours because she saw the greek letters and she’s like oh my god t was p he was he was weekend is here you know so it’s it’s it’s such a big thing that the greek picnic is also adding to the gdp of the state and the
City in terms of tax revenue and economic impact i think we’ve we registered that we have a 25 million dollar economic impact that weekend and um it’s such an amazing thing that we we just love it just still feels surreal that we’re 15 years in i digress to jim rohn again yes
Um and one of his quotes is working for yourself will lead you to a fortune or now statistically yeah so jim rohn says you know work harder yourself than you do your job if you work hard on your job you make a living if you work hard on yourself you’ll make a fortune
So understanding that it it comes from the place of personal development networking you know everything that just takes you as an individual to a higher level and i i reference back back to even my fraternity days in college where i was worked on i was redeveloped i was
Re-engineered as a person to become you know have this audacity to dare and to shoot high beyond what others you know and the the model for kappa alpha psi is achievement in every field of human endeavor so we always say that to ourselves like it’s all about achievement that dreamers you know where
We’re we’re achievers and so i lived that i embodied that whole thing throughout i’ve been embodying that since you know i joined that return that’s why i mentioned earlier that the fraternity life had really shaped and pivoted me in such a great direction and was and i always would give credit to my
Organization as making me 10 times 100 times better than who i was prior to and to be able to achieve and grow and to even now to develop an event like the greek picnic and and be in charge of so many you know educated young black men and women from around the country
Under this context you know on a historical background the greek picnic formed by a african nigerian british american which is the backbone for i guess hbcu culture and for a large part black america or black educated america and we’ll get into black lives matter and stuff in in a little bit because
That’s playing a huge role but i want to talk about your other achievements in entrepreneurship so in 2007 you go into real estate yes and then the recession yeah so real estate came about great story with that because uh one thing i do realize is that you
Know multiple streams of income is very necessary greek picnic gave me the opportunity to work literally figuratively one weekend a year and i was free for the rest of the year till we came back again and so i had time on my hands but i was also hosting so final fridays had now
Turned into perfect fridays so it was every friday of the week so you know literally for the whole year we hosted final fridays on perfect friday excuse me so with that i was meeting people every week we’re touching well over 500 to 6 700 people every friday
And with that you meet everybody you know we’ve met from terence j anthony anderson you know we even booked aegis elba brandy has been to our parties and you know working this is again the networking and meeting these people i remember a couple people asking me hey
You know i’m thinking about moving to atlanta i love atlanta atl is popping where um i want to buy a home do you know a real estate agent i said yeah yeah i know this one guy let me let me give you his number you can call him and
That will happen a week later another person i think by the third time i said you know what i need to stop because i’m not getting any money like i’m not getting i mean people are buying a lot of helps here and you get a lot of
Bang for your buck so i said you know what i’ve got time i can knock this out in 30 days and i said i need to get a my company licensed so i did the real estate exam got licensed and we started to started selling real estate to people so we
Leveraged this this event of pulling people in and selling them atlanta you know and who better than tiwa to tell you about this amazing city that i so love and i’m embodied in weekly and big festivals and everything to you for you to come and live here and
Then i kind of i understood the construct of the city so we’ve been licensed since then we actually just had a closing uh two days ago here as well another client a buyer who bought six years ago we just sold this property closed on monday so real estate is just
A huge another aspect and and i just and i say to encourage anyone that’s listening it’s like you know any business you’re in find the multiple verticals that you can you know create under your umbrella and develop because it’s it’s money being left on the table and it’s one of
Those things where you don’t want a to lose to lose out because again after the third referral i just knew that i had to make sure we had this real estate license and it’s been an amazing journey with that as well so how is i guess trading through a recession
Oh it was tough because everything went down but the great thing about it was to stay optimistic and wait for the bounce back because if you kind of study history which i’m an avid study of like with every up there’s a down and with every down there’s an up so you
Know what the recession is going to be you know there’s going to be the upside of it and we literally waited and we we bet right we were able to get a lot of clients that were now looking to you know find opportunities of buying homes or you know things are all pennies
On a dollar the banks is trying to sell off all these for close properties and it was great it was really great and it’s funny because uh i’ve now realized in every session i think we made the most money doing our parties because again people are looking for an escape from reality
You know and and what would they turn to is a party that won’t cost them a lot of money free before 11 or 12 drinks of 10 bucks you know people were flooding i i mean i’ll never forget me and my business partnership black people were flooding our events
I mean at some point we like we were about to bust at the seams of the volume of people in the club and you know being smart generated a lot of revenue saved money bought myself a home and um but this is testament to your marketing abilities right which you touched on a
Little bit which was you’re saying come for free before a certain time you have to entice because again you’re running company you’re running competitively against so many other we’re not the only venue or the only promoters or uh event concept in the city a city of atlanta that was
Pushing over three million people you know and it’s the young black mecca with all the celebrities and food like we had a hot football team we had a hard baseball team we had hot music entertainers everything was there so what are you going to do to draw your
Crowd the one thing we did stand out was we were very professional we we did the upscale you can’t come in our joint with the white t-shirt and shorts on no all you’re paying a hundred dollars so we we raised that standard and you know again again just being very smart
And making sure that we’re enticing our audience to things that appeal to themselves and our professionalism huffington post atlanta voice you’re quoted as modest mogul the smart entrepreneur the modern entrepreneur but by and large you’ve built your business for millennial audiences yes millennial literally almost everyone but you know where when uh
We’re in a millennial era which is that this is their time so that is the majority of our market on all aspects that the ones coming in the the new money per se that the new people looking to enjoy everything that life has to offer so we’re well we touch all
Generations but definitely millennials are our huge target market of support entrepreneurship as a way of life definitely a way of life how does that look for you entrepreneurship is it’s not live eat re-sleep it it’s every aspect of my day my thinking my my planning my future my legacy it’s everything like entrepreneurship
Is just this you know it’s it’s what when you let your open your mind and you’re willing to push it to a limit that you know you use more percentage of on you and you move all the things like self-doubt you move all the things like you’re you’re
Pessimistic oh we may not and when you start to channel then change that in with you can um i will i’m optimistic i can see it i can predict i can work i have faith i have spirituality you take yourself to a level of success that you never know knew existed so
Entrepreneurship does that for anybody anybody who’s in entrepreneurship would tell you faith and belief you know and believe in yourself are the two biggest things that will propel you you know there are things that you know if you think of like a person like thomas edison you know he failed like
999 times on the light bulb and then he finally got it right that’s entrepreneurship for you you know how many times are you willing to take a note how many times you need to get rejected together yes that one yes can change your whole life so that’s entrepreneurship for me in a
Nutshell like there’s there’s nothing beyond like there’s always a way there’s no you may people may see closed doors but i see like okay we can we can cut this open and find an opening through here and make it happen that’s entrepreneurship to me you know we solve problems you come up with
Solutions you you find things that others cannot see you know you’d be able to predict and and find channels and and jumping and diving heavy you know steve harvey says you know if you know if you don’t jump your parachute will never open and that’s the fear of many people no matter
Where they are in life you’re standing on that ledge you all you see is just you’re thinking about what everything wrong that could happen when they but entrepreneurs and everyone that’s in business will tell you everything right that could happen you will build a plane on the way down you
Pop up your parachute and you glide to safety and that’s entrepreneurship amazing covet has happened you run a human to human not safe social distancing business yes no such that social justice near my event they want to on social distance that’s what they want yeah and so we’re now living through a
Global pandemic that requires social distancing how are you at the head of your business ventures whether that’s the greek picnic or any of the other events that you run pivoting that’s that’s the ultimate key word since uh beginning of the year the pivot this year was the first year that we
Did not host a greek picnic since inception in 2004. and it it was um it was bittersweet at a point because really and truly myself and my team since we’ve started we’ve never had a summer off like never every summer every year we work year round to plan for this event
To always stay and i tell my team like you know yes the year before the year we just did has been very successful but every year is a new year we i don’t i go we go through every step like we’ve never done it before
Because we don’t want to assume or be be cocky and and feeling like oh we’ve done this so many times we can do our eyes closed no no we start with a brand new sheet of paper so we make sure every nut is tied every t is crossed every eye is dotted because
You know there’s no room for it for failure and the pandemic came out of nowhere i don’t think anybody could have predicted oh you know what this thing is going to happen and and you know even when i wa not to this magnitude i mean we’ve had things like you know september 11
Happened after the greek picnic in in in 2000 on actually that was way after but it changed the life you know the the the pandemic hit so hard that i had to look at and people were still asking well are you going to host it you know
We want to we want to come we want to participate but i had to be a take this executive make this executive decision to say no not this year because i do not want to be responsible for allowing our event with this thousands of people to now infect more people especially where
We didn’t know at that time where what like people were asymptomatic to the off to the virus one showing signs so we would have been a great an amazing breeding ground for the virus and it was not we were not going to allow that you
Know but then what do you do with your brand partnerships we i had to call everybody i mean from miller course to to the marketing agencies to cocoa i had to call them we had to have that conversation like look i don’t see this and you know the the one thing again
About that and leadership is being able to take that type of responsibility because some people will see just the money people are just looking at them it’s not about the money for for me and for my team for us it’s about the legacy of this event we are one of the
Longest-running black events in this country because many don’t make it this far many don’t make it beyond five years we’re 15 years in so i’m thinking like beyond today i’m thinking 2021 2030 2040 2050 this moment we’re in right now could change that depending on what i
Decide to do so i had the conversations with you know especially miller course one of our great long-term sponsors and partners like look i i just i’m not comfortable and i i don’t want to damage our reputation and yours by forcing this event we don’t know what’s going to
Happen and it’s was such a great decision to uh suspend it because the same week of our event we had the atlanta protest the riots that happened the same week yep i was gonna i was gonna touch on yes you guys had covered and then black lives matter yes like you know and
And the one thing about um if anybody’s kind of understanding black foreign sororities especially when we now talk about a person like the late great reverend dr martin king was very big on civil rights atlanta is the home of civil rights that’s his home and you know when anything happens atlanta
Is always in the forefront of you know media news and uh leaders and i mean the sclc everything is here so what happens now is you have injustice that’s happening consistently and it happened now with george floyd in seattle and um with that it just ignited a bomb around i mean just
Around the country everybody every city every major city had protests and riots because people were tired and fed up they were tired of the killings thousands of injustice tied and it’s the same story you know it’s the same old story the police would get off they won’t get charged they will validate why
He had to kill him and but we will everybody globally watch the police kill this man begging for his life and calling for his mother so atlanta just and and it’s funny because i remember that day so kind of a couple of days before we had been sharing you know
Because again now we’re not doing our great picnic we had switched now into information mode we’re sharing information about protests we’re sending information about you know organizations that are doing this and that and we shared a big protest that was happening in centennial olympic park and it was so
Packed in there it was so crazy but i just had this feeling i remember watching the video that man i have a feeling something is going to ignite today because they were right there across from the cnn center and sure enough about three hours later the riots took place
And it was agitated by police i i mean everybody saw it and i just felt if atlanta picnic had if i had pushed it forward our extra 20 000 people would have been right there at that protest because it’s the fabric of black fraternia sororities civil rights it’s equal justice for all
Every organization was founded around the principles of these things you know and yeah and black lives matter is at the core foundational route for everybody you know i i know people who have lost cousins and you know the the lawyers for george floyd are my fraternity brothers chris stewart and
Justice justin miller i know them personally so that’s how close this is to me as well so like we just you know the community of fraternity sororities black people here globally locally we’ve all literally coming together to like like yo it needs to change and then it’s
The action point it’s not just going down the streets and protesting and putting your fist in the air it’s now the political aspects how are you changing laws how are you invoking change how are you challenging leadership and company especially companies that you need to be involved because
Black people in america and globally are the biggest cons not just consumers but the the financial weight that they we carry as a people we are trendsetters we take your brand from nothing to instagram wouldn’t be what it is from without black people so we have to hold these people to higher
Court of being part of civil change and and justice you know because your family is not being killed or you you know or you’re not being shot with your hands up they don’t do that to to white people they don’t it’s always black people so black lives matter is such an important
Thing and it was just a matter of time when this you know bubble of just frustration anger was going to burst and it did and it gave people it’s really just a glimpse it’s not like that’s not a full-scale thing it was just a glimpse of what can happen again
As a business at the intersection of what is at the forefront of i guess a large part of your audience right with the greek picnics their minds right what role do you see your business now playing moving forward because this now totally changes what the greek picnic becomes right next
Year it doesn’t necessarily change but it gives us a very continuous path because we’ve been about before this protest and george floyd and we’ve we’ve done our own thing we did our own thing i mean we’ve got videos where at the greek picnic at the step shows we will do a
Moment of silence with 5 000 people to honor those who have been killed you know we’ve we’ve done our own protest our chance we we push and you know evoking change of leadership but it it is bigger than us so like our part is is little in a big puzzle but it’s it’s
A continuous thing to let you know the visual the visual aspect of letting people to see especially where you know we are in charge of such so many people coming to this big event is our responsibility to continue to let them be aware like hey there’s this program that’s happening there are these
Organizations so when the partying is done yes and we can multitask we can come and have a great time but at the same time we’re going to talk about this we’re going to do more on forums and discussions we’re going to bring in lawyers to talk about different things
We’re going to bring elected officials and have these discussions on how can people get involved how do you invoke change from a local government upon how do you lobby your your local leaders and for laws and things to pass how do you do these different things so that’s the role
We’re going to be playing heavily more than ever before is to continue to ramp up this thing so we we become a very strong voice i mean we already are but we want to intensify that so you know anything that’s happening to anyone and anybody we can also make sure
We play a very vital role in that and i always and i say this to viewers as well people say well i don’t live in america it doesn’t affect me well if you come to america what is happening will indirectly affect you because i’m very sure the police
Don’t look at you and say oh you’re from gambia oh you’re from niger please go your way we don’t have anything to do with you you know well we all we all benefit from black american culture big time i think 50 cent made a quote recently saying you know we all go on
Safari through the music correct big time um and that struck me and i think for almost every black person who lives outside of i guess some african countries have historical um bias and racism but by and large i think i don’t really know anyone who hasn’t experienced racism
My father’s racism experience um or you know even in my daily working life it presents itself in so many different ways and i think as we continue to build businesses even as africans who are building global brands or who are building cornerstones of culture i guess the question then is
Beyond the purpose of creating value consciously of subconsciously striving for excellence beyond that what else can be done i think it’s literally just it’s the awareness piece as big as we see this and it’s on media it’s on social media and everything a lot of people are still not very
Informed and i think the biggest thing we want to try to make sure people continue to understand is the the impact on how big and detrimental this is to everybody it affects everybody and you know it’s the the layers of which it goes and yes people are looking and say
Oh or africans would say well it’s a black american thing it doesn’t affect me but it affects you in some type of way of immigration the effects you weigh uh policies that made when you do come here it affects you if you do decide to live here you decide to go to school
Your kids are here you you can fall victim and there are instances that it has happened in people that and it’s not a black american issue it’s just it’s a black issue in america and it comes from you know years and years of systemic racism and um policing that has never
Actually been reformed or changed and if anybody is very deep into history you know when people black people were stolen from africa on on enslaved that the the origins of police was for slave patrols to protect well to keep the slave slaves really exactly to keep them
In so you we just have to always be very conscious and and aware that this is a it’s an us problem it’s not a just me because oh you’ve never been pulled over like i’m living here i can tell you how many times i’ve been pulled over racially profiled by police or i’ve
Had a gun pulled on me by police in south georgia i know you know down to florida so and it’s not like oh mr tiwa from london nigeria please go around your way just keep going i no he did not care so to answer your question we need to continue the awareness continued
Discussion continue involvement you know it’s not just one thing to just not get involved or to just well it’s not my problem no it is your problem because the day happens to you you’re going to be seeking some type of i need help you know when they violate your rights
Or when they they profile your when they abuse you for being different not because you did anything wrong is because the skin your color of your skin has placed in a category that they’re not comfortable with and they do what they want because they feel like they
You know so we have to organize we have to come together we have to impact and do all these things to to continuously because it’s not a there’s no like oh it’s going to end by next year once we implement these things it’s it’s like a lifelong thing because it started centuries ago
So it doesn’t end next year after the pandemic is over oh by the way racism is over like we’re going to close that off too no it’s not going to happen like that you briefly touched on becoming now the i guess an information site in response to navigating your business beyond
Covered is that using text social media yeah so it’s it’s a combination of both and also finding it’s almost i i don’t want to call them storytellers but people that have stories to share you know the one thing again that i do stress that network is vast across the
Country so it’s people who can actually tell real life stories of of their experiences and bringing people on our platform to talk about it and how they can get involved and cross channel these networks i have a a friend here a nigerian-american friend who is a superior court judge
Nigerian who you know and i just i was thinking about his um his journey how he got to this and he was running for um office a couple of years about two years ago and how i was just thinking like man this is what we need we need to be able to
Have people like this that are in your in your rolodex a judge you know you have access to a state senator you have access to the governor they have them in your phone and how do you get there how do you start to build because it’s the connection it’s the network we
Have to continue to build these networks that give us accessibility to a lot of uh things we need to get done you know and there’s nothing more prideful joy for that when you’re able to make a phone call to to get things done you know and
One big thing that we’ve been big on with be picnic is really the and i don’t want to use the word necessary politics but it’s also the governance of things so we place out like when um stacy abrams who was the minority house leader for the state of georgia she was running
For governor two years ago we made sure we were hands on our and again the network our pr team was also representing was working with her and um a lot of a lot of her aides were friends of ours so again that network we were able to invite her out to our event
Prevent present her with an award we spoke to her about how we’re we know we’re all in and we are also a resource so that’s what it’s about you know it’s us being able to connect and make sure we have all these accessible points that we’re making these these things happen
Otherwise we’re doing things and shooting aimlessly we don’t have we’re not we’re not shooting to hit the target we’re just shooting and you hear a shot but there’s no there’s no impact so being very organized and with us is again our motive going forward is to make sure we’re engaging and bringing
All these different people and puzzles together and and invoking a big change you know this year is a major election year but corona has changed the landscape drastically because we were planning so much stuff for campaigning and you know hopefully to work with the dnc and getting people
Registered to vote but that changed that’s drastically changed so what does that look like going into into november it’s awareness it’s it’s encouraging people to get out and vote encouraging people to get involved in the local elections and encouraging people to run for office i think the future has been fast-tracked
At least 10 years for almost everyone um and we’re all playing catch-up yes big time thank you so much for joining us on this week’s episode of third culture africans where can everyone find you so the the easiest one you can find me is starting with social media um linkedin tiwa works
Instagram tv works uh twitter is tiwa works one i just had lost my page so i’m starting over and um i’m very accessible so i i respond i check messages everything and again part of the whole story from day one it’s all about networking and building so i definitely appreciate you all
Um having me and having me on your podcast and i look forward to more conversations like this and you know even to dig deeper whenever you want i’m looking forward to it enjoyed it fabulous thank you so much thank you thank you thank you for listening to this episode
Of third culture africans the lifestyle podcast we would love to hear from you so please find us on facebook or instagram thirdcultureafricans and leave us a comment a review goes a long way in getting our show notice so please leave us one if you enjoyed this episode and we’ll see you next time
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