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Breakfast & Launch Podcast
Episode 7: Earning the Right to Be Yourself | Folakemi Oseni
Jul 26, 2026
15
00:00
11:19
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TRANSCRIPT
0:00
[gentle piano music] I uploaded my first episode recently. I think, I don't know if you saw me post about that, and I de- I deleted it after because,
0:13
well, some YouTube guru was like, "Oh no, it has to follow the spec- the pain point of the listener," the pain point in...
0:21
It's like you wanna learn how to use Pinterest, you, you go to YouTube how to use Pinterest, and you see a video on that. And then I'm like, my episodes tend to be just like this, exploratory.
0:32
Like who is searching for... It's like you wanna say something. Come on, talk to me. You have the answer. I have that, I have that same issue. So with my writing, that is always the problem.
0:42
I always feel like my writing has to say something, has to teach something, and I think that that is basically in marketing speak, like you want the user or the audience, you want to fix a problem for the user.
0:56
But you know, I just try to think I'm not a business. I, I'm, I'm a brand. I'll think about myself more like that.
1:03
A business tries to teach you something, tries to sell you something, wants you to, wants to fix a problem for you. But I think that just telling stories is just as important.
1:16
Just being a voice that people can hear and say, "Oh, I relate with that. I, I can understand that," is more than enough because quite frankly, everybody is trying to sell us a solution to something.
1:28
So sometimes we just want to relax. Mm-hmm. I don't want to learn anything. I just want to read something for the sake of reading. I just want to listen to something- Come on now... for the sake of listening.
1:37
And so, you know- Yeah... and there's always a, and there's always a balance. Sometimes you do have something to teach someone. You do have a solution for someone.
1:44
And so it's just being able to balance those two parts of you. Exactly. And it works. Now, there's another, another aspect to what you've said, which is very important.
1:54
Uh, what you described is the battle that I face, and I'll call it the battle, I was thinking about this recently, the difference, the balance of being a- an artist versus being a service provider. I'm very creative.
2:08
I'm very expressive. I have a lot of things that I wanna share with the world. But I don't have a large following on any platform yet.
2:17
But when I look at people like people that you know are not as smart as you are, not as talented as you are, they're so big on platforms. Like what's going on?
2:27
And it's because some of those people, they're so simple, like how to, how to set up a website. That's what the guy, he would just come and all his videos are on topic, how to this, how to that.
2:42
And that's what, how most, a lot of people think. How to... Now, what I'm getting at is if you can define yourself in a specific way, people will understand what you do, and then they will find you, follow you.
2:54
You're in business. But a lot of us creatives, we find it difficult to pin ourselves into one thing because we don't wanna... We are a lot of things, and we also are not people who are, we don't follow trends.
3:08
We have something to say. And people, who's gonna... Let me think about one of your articles. You, you said, "Life is lifeing, but you have to be resilient." Right? Yeah. One of your Substack articles, yeah. Yeah.
3:21
I'm, even I'm surprised that I remember that. [chuckles] Um, nobody's gonna wake up...
3:27
Now, if I'm gonna follow the marketing advice, they will say, "You should think of what are people searching for, what are people searching for. Write about that." But even if you have to write about your own thing,
3:40
find what they are searching for, use the keywords, add it so that they can find it, and that's very good SEO and AEO strategy. But it goes against your artistic soul. You just wanna write. Yeah.
3:55
And so is there no place for a writer that just wants to tell a story? The answer is there is, but you have to earn that place. You have to earn the right to say what you wanna say.
4:09
That is right now, if your content is 100% inspiration, that is what I wanted to say, it has to at least be 80% what I wanna say and 20% what people want to hear.
4:25
And then that 20% will be how they find you and come into your world. If you are too raw, too, "I saw this in a dream and I just wrote it." Hmm. It might work, but after many, many years.
4:40
That's the path of pure poetry, pure art, and it may never work. But if you really want to survive out here, you need to say, "What, what are people searching for? Let me give them that."
4:53
Then they like me, and over time, as you become more successful, you don't need to think about what they want. You give them what you want, and they like it because you've earned that right in their heart. And that's
5:04
the practical balance for this is so like Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick is an artist. An artist expresses his soul. That's what an artist does. A content creator creates what people wanna see.
5:20
And there are artists like, they are artists, they're not really artists. They say, "Ah, okay, everybody's doing 'I'm a Piano.' Okay, let's do an 'I'm a Piano' song," 'cause that's what the people like.
5:27
That's a content creator just doing what people like. An artist creates his own thing.
5:31
But if you look at Kendrick's career, when he started, he had to create what people wanted to hear, 'cause otherwise, why should they listen to you?
5:39
So as a- an early artist, you have to listen to what's on the radio, make those types of songs. But then as Kendrick gets bigger and bigger, he becomes so audacious that he can take five years without releasing anything.
5:51
And when he does release, he'll release something that doesn't make any sense. We don't understand the title, the album art. He just is counterculture.
6:02
But because he has earned hi- his right to- To give us whatever he wants while taking its hope that made some sense to you Actually, it actually made a lot of sense to me. Understand what you mean.
6:15
I think the way I see, I, I write personally. Like professionally, I get all those CEO and trying to make people. The way I write personally, I kind of don't think about those things, to be honest. They are never--
6:34
They are not at the top of my mind when I write, because I feel like it is going to, it's going to alter the way that I write if I have to start thinking about how
6:51
it's going to reach 500 people. And I think it's also because I don't see, I don't see my writing, my personal writing as, as a career path. Like I separate, like if I...
7:09
I'm, I'm doing, if I'm writing professionally, I'm writing professionally. I'm probably working a regular nine to five or doing it for someone else's business. But my own personal writing is 100% self-expression,
7:26
so I don't think about any of those things at all. Like for me, what I, what I gauge is what I, is that I'm able to actually write something and put it out.
7:39
So I never, I'm not really looking at how many people is reading it. I'm not looking about, like if some, if people read it, uh, if someone comments, I actually, I absolutely feel good about that,
7:52
but it's not my end goal.
7:54
And maybe eventually I would think about those things, but I think that when I started writing it on Substack, it was about building a consistent habit of writing and sh- and actually sharing it.
8:07
And so I feel like that's still where I am at right now. Hey, thank you so much for, for making that distinction. I think that I had assumed that you were playing the same game that I was.
8:24
The difference between you and I is I write personally, I write essays. I, I write a lot. It is self-expression, but I want them to feel it. I want it to go.
8:37
It's intended as a career path, everything that I do, so that's why I do it. And so that's why I've had to think that way. And so my bad for assuming that you were also trying to do that.
8:50
Your, your part also makes sense, I think, and I, I think it's really the most beautiful way, art for the art's sake. Would there, is there any area where you do want your self-expression, you see it as a career path?
9:04
Fashion. Fashion and food. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I fig- I figured that. Okay. Okay. Well, fashion and food. Wow. Of course, those are two domains that I, I know nothing about, so I, I can't say for sure.
9:22
I, I think the, the principle might apply of 80/20. You can cook what you want, then cook what they want or- Yeah, yeah... design what you want.
9:33
So if we think about fashion, for instance, my fashion is very simple, very minimalist. But when I think of building a fashion brand, I want it to be based in Nigeria. And there are two, there are two
9:49
ways to approach it. One is that Nigerian brands are not known for simple, minimalist fashion, and I want to believe that there are people in Nigeria who need that.
10:02
So for me, I'm like, "Okay, should I create this brand that is basically basic, simple, minimalist?" But also, at the same time, the core of Nigerian culture is extravagance, maximalism, colors.
10:17
So for me, I think about those two things, and I don't think that any brand can fully succeed in Nigeria being 100% minimalist.
10:26
So I do know that I would have to apply prints, colors in some way, even though that's not who I am personally, but I have to, but I understand that enough. So in fashion, yes, I'm willing to do that. I love it.
10:42
You, what you've said, you've perfectly, um, um, encapsulated the principle I was sharing. I'm a minimalist. That's what I like. But that's not what these people like.
10:54
But I think, you know, so just that compromise, I love it. I'm a Nigerian too. I grew up in Nigeria, but that is my style, and I think your brand definitely will, will benefit from that when it, when it goes live.
11:07
So, uh, rooting for you and cheering you on. Hey, thank you for spending time with us. If today's conversation gave you something to think about, I'd love for you to subscribe and join us again next week.
11:17
Until then, keep building with intention
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