empower women - Women of Rubies

In Interviews&profile June 11, 2016 By Esther Ijewere

#INTERVIEW| LARA KUDAYISI-EMERALDS, RELATIONSHIP EXPERT

“I Had A Child At 19 And 14 Heartbreaks Before I Met My Prince Charming

”Like a phoenix, Lara Kudayisi Emeralds is rising from the ashes of adversity and inspiring others to do so through her story. Her tale will inspire you to rise above your challenges no matter what life throws at you. Her dream is to help singles make the right decision before walking down the aisle. The pretty relationship counselor and matchmaking mistress had a child at 19, her heart was broken 14 times and and has had 15 abortions .Today, Lara is touching lives through her “Matchmaking Mistress” platform. When you meet Lara, you realize she doesn’t look like what she has been through. This is her story.

Meet Lara Kudayisi-Emerald

I am the Matchmaking Mistress. I help singles attract their dream partners and walk down the aisle in the shortest time possible. I do this via The Achieve Your Marriage Goal Plan, Help My Heart Skype Call and The Complete Singles Club among others

The Match Making Mistress Brand

It actually started with my Complete Singles Club. I realized that though the guys and ladies chat daily in a Whatsapp group and meet every month, yet relationships weren’t happening like everyone expected it to. I knew at that point that I needed to go an extra mile to help them.
I started matchmaking a few of them that were interested and things got better, and since then I discovered an industry that is untapped and decided to pioneer it.

Being a relationship expert

Apart from being a Matchmaking Mistress. I am also a Relationship Expert. I started doing that because of my journey to a happily ever after life. I had a child at 19, had 14 heartbreaks and 15 abortions. I was so messed up until I finally got married to my prince charming. I decided to help people find happiness without going through all I went through and that was birthed the relationship articles and coaching programmes.

Pain is what pushes me

I want to help people in the little way that I can. Pain is what pushes me. I want to help eradicate pain. A lot of people have miserable marriages and dysfunctional relationships. I have been through this so many times and it’s not a pleasant place to be in. I feel fulfilled when I see people that I help smile and feel better.

Giving up?

Oh Yes. So many times I feel like giving up especially when I wasn’t making money and I was pouring out my soul to help people especially when it’s the only thing that I do. If you don’t make money from your passion with time, you would get frustrated. I had to learn that lesson the hard way and make it a full time business that pays the bills

Other Projects

Our Complete Singles Academy is coming up soon. It’s an Academy that singles need to go through for Self Discovery and Mastery. A lot of single people don’t even know who they are or why they act the way they do. Some people were raped, molested or mistreated and broken when they were young. It has affected who they are and what they do. This has affected who they are or how they behave. It also affects how they date and who they date. When you are dysfunctional, you would attract dysfunctional people, because you attract who you are. Furthermore, we would run dating programs and Marriage Preparatory Classes. I am so driven to help repair singles before they get married. When people get married, it’s a lot more difficult to help them because another person is involved.

Challenges

People are skeptical to be match made. They have no idea what match making entails. In fact, some people felt it shows they are desperate or it meant they were slackers as a guy. They didn’t know that there’s no big deal in it. It’s just normal introduction of boy, girl like it was way back in history. I remember asking a girl if she preferred to have no one ask her out in ages or have me introduce different people to her until she finds a perfect fit. Of course she preferred the introductions. So the challenge is the ignorance in the society about Matchmaking.

It makes my work more complicated.

Future Project

Telling your story

In Public Speaking, you need to connect with the people you are speaking to and for people of this generation; you need to tell them your story. People don’t want to hear 5 or 7 steps, they want to hear how you handled the challenges you had, and how you were able to surmount it. They want to know that you were in their shoes, you felt their pain and now that you have come out unscathed, then you have the right to talk them. Not because you have read some books or read stuff on the Internet.

Being a woman of Rubies

The ability to want to help alleviate people’s pain. I love to eradicate people’s emotional trauma and lead them to a happily ever experience

In Interviews&profile April 23, 2016 By Esther Ijewere

#INTERVIEW| “LEARNING IS EQUIVALENT TO GROWING”- OLORISUPERGIRL

Olorisupergal remains one of the relevant and trend setting blogs among the multitudes of blogs currently running in Nigeria. Tosin Ajibade the founder of OSG is a dynamic woman whose love and passion for writing has led her to be among the highly respected bloggers in Nigeria. In this interview with Women of Rubies, she sheds light on her passion, her driving force and future goals.

Growing Up
Growing up for me was just like a regular average child. I had a strict dad who never seized to make me forget that the fear of a Nigerian father is the beginning of wisdom. I can categorically say that is why I love writing. My Dad would make us watch news even at out tender ages and write whatever you got from them. Back then, I had few friends because of my Dad, and that answers why I still have few friends. Obedience, sharing, patience, reading, writing was instilled in me.

Why I Went Into Blogging
It was purely passion. It started as a hobby before it grew into something a lot more serious. I really love to write. I started the blog with my personal contents and articles. I just thought to have my articles kept online and not to share them. It was more like my story book; whenever I write about anything, I just have them saved online. Well, as at then, social media was not what it is now.

My Driving Force
My driving force was and still remains the passion to write; then determination and most importantly focus as the experiences have been challenging. I have always told myself how important it is to stay focused despite all distractions.

Making Money from the Blog
Starting out was quite difficult. I have always known no good thing comes easy. At the initial stage, it wasn’t about the profit since I only wanted my articles stored online but as time went on I realized I could earn a living from it. When I finally made up my mind on doing business with my blog, getting advertise on the blog was not easy at all. I literally struggled for a long time but after those few years, things began to take shape.

The Greatest Lesson I’ve Learned in Six Years
For me, learning is equivalent to growing. I can’t say one lesson is greater than the other, for all I have learned, the values are equal. I have learned so many things in the past six years and I am still learning. Life itself is about learning, growing and getting better.

How I Built A Formidable Blog
It takes a lot of courage, focus and consistency to build a formidable blog lest you get knocked out. Managing a blog/website, creating the right content, driving traffic to the blog/website, pushing your brand out there isn’t easy. Since we give to receive, when we post contents out there, we expect comments and reactions. Anyways, it has been tough and with the competitions in the industry, nobody wants to be the dullard so we keep pushing with hard works.

Next Level for the Olori Supergal Brand
For the Olorisupergal brand, we are working on the second edition of the New Media Conference which is coming up very soon. The maiden edition held 27th May, 2015 at Terra Kulture with over 300 participants.

Also, we are working on the OSG Vitiligo campaign which is part of our CSR at Olorisupergal Limited. We realized a lot of campaigns focuses on awareness of all forms of cancers, rape, HIV/AIDS, STDs, etc which are really good but a few if not none talk about Vitiligo which is also an important campaign. We had the maiden edition last year June and created awareness about the skin disease on social media.

Challenges of Running OSG
First, the issue of internet services cannot be over emphasized. The networks sometimes can be very frustrating; you can have three different internet providers turned on with no signal at all. Secondly, you can run out of ideas for creating contents in a twinkle of an eye, and by that I mean creating fresh content and recreating old content. Also, merging trend follow-ups with the website schedules can be killing considering that you have to be on top of the game. Another thing is staffing. Many times people will say they would like to work and leave in few months/years after learning a few things. We are managing the hands we have and looking forward to employing more as the brand grows than what it is presently.

A Dynamic Woman of Rubies
Although I am worth more than rubies, but yes I remain dynamic, reflective, and object-oriented (which are the features of a ruby). I believe in hard work and I think that surpasses everything because in due time, the sweats will bring the smiles.
Final Words

For anybody in any field or line of business/industry, the key thing is to understand and appreciate your field. That someone else is getting it right doesn’t mean you can’t get it better.

From understanding, you can be able to tailor your own niche and discover your potentials and business strengths.
In summary, be yourself, surround yourself with good people, get viable mentors, find the balance between your work life and personal life, I had my own fair share of difficulty but I am proud to say I found a way to balance it.

In Interviews&profile December 24, 2015 By Esther Ijewere

#INTERVIEW| NO MATTER HOW PASSIONATE YOU ARE, IF YOU ARE NOT MAKING MONEY, YOU WILL GET FRUSTRATED – MOFOLUSADE SONAIKE

Popularly referred to as Mumpreneur, Mofolusade Sonaike is a consultant, blogger and entrepreneurship advocate. She had a background in chemical engineering from the University of Lagos with work experience spanning four years in the IT, banking and manufacturing sectors. She left the corporate world in 2010 to pursue her vision when she established Trezorlandia Limited, a gift consulting business. Her experiences in this transition have led her to become a strong voice for entrepreneurs in Nigeria. She is an associate member of the Institute of Entrepreneurs, Nigeria. Mofolushade believes “Mumpreneurs” are superhuman and should be encouraged and supported, she tells her story in this mind blowing and very educative interview.

Raised to be a Leader
I am the first of six children; I was raised to make sacrifices for my younger ones. At an early age, I learnt that true leadership was by example. I think this is why I can relate with so many different kinds of people, both old and young. Also, my father always said to us, “Nothing is impossible”; if he told you to do something, you had to have tried a million and one ways before you reported back to say you couldn’t achieve it. This shaped my spirit of taking on challenges and not backing down without the fight of my life.

Inspiration behind my brand Mumpreneur
Nothing prepares you for raising children. The moment you have children, life as you know it changes. You have to make hard choices. There are no manuals; maybe books and old wives’ tales, but no step-by-step guide to living your newfound life. I resigned from full-time employment mainly because I felt I wasn’t there for my son at the time. I wasn’t regular with homework, I couldn’t attend school plays and events, and I hated that life. I resigned to launch my own business but quickly got to a point where I started to feel lost and confused. You see, I am quite restless and all the free time I suddenly had was driving me up the wall. Business was moving, but not quite like I imagined. In 2013, I decided to start documenting my journey in a blog called the entrepreneurs journey. It made me feel better because it gave me an outlet. Soon I realised that many other people could relate to my stories and were actually inspired as I shared. One day, I was writing my bio on the blog page and I had to define myself in a phrase, I looked online for other blogs about entrepreneurship and I stumbled on the word “Mumpreneur”! That was it. It resonated with me and I adopted it immediately.

Initially, it was just a name to define who I was: a mum and an entrepreneur. As time went on, however, it got clearer and I took on entrepreneurship advocacy and support full-time. I spent time interviewing entrepreneurs and researching existing solutions to their challenges. I only recently decided to focus on the niche of mothers who run businesses, mainly because that’s who I am, but also because you really can’t serve everybody effectively. Mumpreneurs are superhuman and should be encouraged and supported.

Building Networks of Entrepreneurs
I have various projects I am working on, but the most recent ones are my upcoming show and coaching programme for mumpreneurs. Over the years, I have built a network of entrepreneurs, entrepreneur associations and regulators like NASME (National Association of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises), TIC (Technology Incubation Centre), FIIRO (Federal Institute of Industry and Research Oshodi), and EDC (Enterprise Development Centre), among others. As a result, I have a body of knowledge that I know entrepreneurs need in order to get ahead. I already get calls and requests from people looking to start businesses and I tell them, “Ask me anything. If I don’t know, I at least know someone who does.” I am building a structure around that, and it will all be housed on my new website, mumpreneur.ng, so entrepreneurs do not have to grope in the dark anymore.

Empowering Entrepreneurs
Although I have a background in engineering, I have always loved the expression of anything through art. In my third year at the University of Lagos, I got a few friends together and we formed a group called “Kolo Manifest.” Lol! We started presenting plays about the struggles of being engineering students at our year-end dinners and events. It was unprecedented. Engineers were expected to be a certain way, nerdy and serious mostly. I wasn’t. This is my third year as a Global Entrepreneurship Week partner of the Enterprise Development Centre. Last year, I teamed up with the Spirit of Enterprise to do a N50,000 challenge for upcoming entrepreneurs. This year, however, I decided to step away from the norm and do something different. Entrepreneurship is stressful enough; we are out there building capacity and learning every day. Let’s just hang out and learn differently. You are more likely to remember a lesson you got from a movie or play than from some lecture. So, the question is, why not a play?

The challenge being asked: what do you do?
My first major challenge was defining what exactly I was doing. I did everything and anything. I just had the passion to share, to express myself and tell my story. It took a while to really see where this was going. I would go for networking events and when people asked, “What do you do?” I would sigh and not know quite where to start! Lol. How do you deliver an elevator pitch when you don’t even know how to define what you do?Secondly, no matter how passionate you are, if you are not making money, you will get frustrated. So my second challenge was streamlining and monetising my projects and activities. I met an amazing strategist recently and we have built a winning team. Watch out! Hehe….

Balancing it all
Balancing the home front and work is not a one-time achievement. It’s a journey, a process that I improve on every single day. I have built a process that works for me. I also have an amazing support system in my husband, parents and siblings. I must mention my nanny here; she has been with me almost five years. I have a whole blog post dedicated to my search for a nanny and how hectic it was. I used to try to do everything myself. I still do sometimes, but the truth is, it is not sustainable. A typical day for many mumpreneurs I know here is from breakfast, to school run, to business run, to maybe second-leg school run, then lunch, then homework, then dinner, then work when the kids are asleep, sleep, wake up, repeat! No wonder many women look older than their husbands!

Being one of 50 game changers in Nigeria
I recently received an Xceptional Women’s Role Models award for my contribution to enterprise. I didn’t see that coming; it was a great surprise and encouragement that confirmed the value of my work. I also got listed as one of the top 50 game changers in Nigeria by the Keniisplace blog. Another reward that is priceless and cannot be quantified is the joy in an entrepreneur’s face when they find a solution through me for something they have been struggling with for a while. An example is when I introduced someone to the Technology Incubation Centre where she was able to finally sort out her NAFDAC registration.Advice to women
Find out what makes you happy and do it! It’s your life.

Being Exceptional
I think one of the greatest assets I have is my positivity, I don’t take life too seriously. As a result, I am always (well almost always) happy. When you are in a happy place, you are unstoppable.