Utkarsh Narang (00:01.868) a US Marine, a father and a storyteller. Today's guest is going to give you leadership lessons that not just begin at the workplace, but they begin from home. And my hypothesis is that we will speak about authenticity, we will speak about execution, and we'll also speak about the power of connection. And I'm pretty sure you'll be doped D-O-P-E-D, the D is I've added that, but you'll be doped by the end of this conversation. And we'll talk about why execution. beats perfection every single time. Welcome, Olaolu to this conversation. Olaolu Ogunyemi (00:35.662) Hey, Utkarsh thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be in this conversation. Been looking forward to it. So I'm ready to dive in. Utkarsh Narang (00:43.36) Let's do it, let's do it. And when we dive in, we dive in right in the deep end. And the first question, Olaulu, that we start with is, if that eight-year-old Olaulu, wherever you were growing up at eight years old, if that little child were to come and meet you right now, what kind of a conversation do you think will emerge between the two of you? Olaolu Ogunyemi (01:04.73) Well, first of all, it will probably be a very funny conversation because both eight-year-old Olaolu and almost 35-year-old Olaolu are both very silly, very goofy. We love to laugh, we love to smile. In fact, eight-year-old Olaolu wore a cowboy hat and I'm not too far away from that. If you were to see me at our recent Marine Corps ball, you would have seen me doing a robot just like Major Payne. And Olaolu having fun with that online right now as you speak. So that's the first thing that will happen. It'll be a very fun conversation. But eventually I will talk to him about what life is going to look like for the next probably about seven years for him. Because what happened is he started to not. be able to truly embrace who he was. He started to listen to a lot of the people that were making fun of him and things of that nature. So I would just encourage him, hey, be who you are. Don't worry about going through all the other things and trying to fit in and all those kinds of things, because that really just created a little bit more of a hurdle than you needed. So I think eight year old, Olaolu would have to give some advice on, man, just love who you are. Continue to embrace your name, because for me, my name was something that is very powerful, but Eight-year-old Olaolu all the way through probably, I'll say middle school, early high school Olaolu didn't appreciate it. In fact, he thought it made him stand out and made him fit out and so he wanted to do everything to just hide. So that's what the conversation would look like between myself today and eight-year-old Olaolu. Utkarsh Narang (02:32.558) It's such a deep reflection, right? Because every time I ask this question, I get such thought-provoking answers in how we see ourselves as little children. But what you just said, I want to kind of dissect a little bit. You said, be yourself. And I often say this to my kids, I have two boys who are 15 and 11, and I keep telling them that in a world that's trying really hard for you to be someone else, being yourself is the toughest job on the planet. Olaolu Ogunyemi (03:01.646) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (03:03.362) How do you think people manage that? have you seen that play out for yourself? Olaolu Ogunyemi (03:08.612) Well, the first thing is you have to find identity. And that's the hard part. A lot of us were, especially at a young age, we're trying to figure out who we are. And I believe it's healthy. I think there is some, some goodness in that. I think what it becomes a problem is when we start to identify with the wrong areas and the wrong crowd. And that's where we get, it gets a little strange. And then we start to get validated by that same crowd and those things. So I would say, first of all, figure out what you like, figure out what you don't like and explore those worlds. If you want to try sports, if you want to try chess, So whatever it is, explore it, see what it's like. But don't begin to identify with those things. That's the main thing. And that's what I always tell people. I have to learn that myself, that you just have to figure out that, yeah, you may be a basketball player in high school or you may be whatever, but just don't identify just as that. You still are who you are, but you're just exploring the different things to figure out life. Utkarsh Narang (04:06.574) It's such powerful advice, right? Because it's really hard to even do that as a grown up. Like I get to work with so many people who are say in their 30s and 40s and all they can identify themselves with is their job. And it's really hard for them to introduce themselves in any other way. And they'll focus on being the engineering manager, being the CEO, being whatever. So what do you think are some practices? And I know you work a lot with children and children have their beautiful ways to help us dissociate, yet focus, be present and all of that. But what in your thinking are a few things that you'll tell someone who's unable to really rediscover or discover their identities? How should they begin? Olaolu Ogunyemi (04:51.002) Well, I always try to identify the root cause. Like why are you identifying with that thing? And for a lot of us, let's start with adults, a lot of us struggle with it because a lot of times we've worked hard to get to where we are. Right? So if you're that CEO or you're that leader, you've worked really hard to get there. And so when you finally get there, you feel like, I need to be a part of, I mean, you know, I, need to enjoy the perks. I need to make sure that that's, that's who I am. I want to embrace that role. And in fact, we even teach that and it's almost counterproductive in ways. even teach to be the person that you want to be in the future, to look like the person you want to be in the future. And so that's where it starts to get a little strange. And that's why I like to start there to remind people that yes, you want to begin to behave and start to think of the way that you want to be. So if you want to be a CEO, you want to start thinking that way. You want to start training yourself to be that way. An example I have is my dad was talking about me that he told me that same advice when I had a mohawk on my head and I told him I want to be a Marine officer. I want to be a CEO. I want to be all these things and leading and he told me hey you need to make sure that you're setting yourself up for success because you never know who you meet. But with all that said, you can't lose yourself in that role. And so that's sort of practical advice I would give, especially to children, is to first of all, get to know who you are. Like get to know what you like and then go down a list. I mean, if you, for me, I even started off with a list of things there. What do I want to try? And some of the things I marked off immediately, for example, because I went down, I always tell people I like to like break the barrier in your creativity mind. And the way I do that is I just say the most crazy things. So I started off with ballet on the top of my list. and I knew I was gonna be good at it. And so I put that on top of my list and I'll say, man, that's gonna be my focus. I'm going to try ballet. I cross it out because I knew I wasn't gonna be good at it and I said, I just don't see myself doing it. But what it did is it helped me to say, okay, if I can picture myself doing ballet, knowing that I'm not that coordinated and I'm probably not that balanced and I'll give every coach a headache trying to do it, then I could break that barrier in my creative mind. And so start going through your list and going on a list of things that you like and you Utkarsh Narang (06:37.614) Thank Olaolu Ogunyemi (07:03.132) don't like and start checking those things off. And then the second step would be to see what those things have in common. Why do you like these activities? For some it may be that they're physical activities. For some it may be that it's a team sport or maybe it's an individual sport or individual activity. So figure out what it is that you enjoy about each activity. And then you can start to refine who you want to be. Once you figure out what you like, you figure out why you like those things. Now you can start paying attention to your identity and say, Utkarsh Narang (07:10.67) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (07:33.142) okay now this is who I am. I am a person who enjoys this activity because and that's why I think that's where we find our identity when we figure out that because and so that I said all that to say that that is the way I encourage children to get to the root cause it's really understanding the why behind what you're doing. Utkarsh Narang (07:53.177) Yeah, I love the framework because it's a simple, loved how you push the barrier of creative thinking by calling yourself like a ballet dancer upfront. that takes you, that almost like gives you the permission, right? To think more creatively as to what you want to do. Olaolu Ogunyemi (08:10.456) Yeah, it does. And that's why I do it. It's one of those things that, like I said, and we'll talk about the dope framework that you brought up, but the reason that we talk about it, and the reason I say that, is because if you can picture yourself, again, doing something that's just completely out of the world, and you start dreaming about that, and you start putting yourself in that mindset, number one, it makes you chuckle, and that's always a good thing. It breaks you out of that same... Utkarsh Narang (08:17.837) Yes. Olaolu Ogunyemi (08:34.842) Sometimes that creative rut that you can get in. And another thing is it just says that, know what, I truly can be whatever I want to be. So if I wanted to try ballet, it may be hard, but I promise you that I can actually work towards it. I could do a pretty decent job if I wanted to. So that's really what that's doing for you. Utkarsh Narang (08:53.262) Yeah. The other thing that's emerging for me as I'm listening to you, it's almost like sometimes we focus too much on the microscopic. And what I mean by that is like, say, imagine we get to live 100 years and out of that, we have one career, which is maybe 20 years, 30 years. I've not had any careers more than eight years. So who am I to say? But if you spend that much time, it's still just a fraction of who you are. Right. And so what I've thought about it, and I'd love your perspective is that it's almost like we're doing these experiments with life where for eight years I experimented to be a physiotherapist. I loved it, learned something out of it. But then the experiment had to move to something else and I did something else for a few years. Then I became a coach. Then I'm a podcast host. So how do you feel about running these experiments with life which bring you joy but don't really make you feel that you're stuck in one identity? Olaolu Ogunyemi (09:50.319) Yeah, I love that question. And first of all, I love that you even brought into the adult world because Something that we've taught, I remember learning this in college, is when you're building your resume, you don't want all these different things on your resume because it seems like you're not consistent. But I believe that that's actually changing quite a bit, especially with the generation that's coming up. A lot of them are realizing, number one, you want fulfillment. That's the biggest thing in any role. And I talked to somebody recently about this, that instead of trying to throw bonuses and money at people, that's not the way you retain your talent. The way you retain talent is by helping them find fulfillment with your organization and if that is ever misaligned, you don't have a mismatch or you have a mismatch between what's fulfilling for the individual and what's fulfilling for your organization, then you should be happy to let that person go. Not from a bottom line perspective, but definitely from a productivity perspective. And so what I always encourage people to do is yes, go out and figure out those things that bring you fulfillment. And sometimes it may be, start with a side project, start with a passion project. And then if that can grow then go into that. that's how I usually tell people to do it. I've learned this from Dave Ramsey I believe is the first person I heard use this metaphor where you pull the boat closer to the ramp, closer to the dock before you jump off into the ocean or to the water and that's one of the things I always recommend is like okay if you truly are standing there you're like okay I want to go from here to over there maybe it's time to bring the boat a little bit closer before you step off the dock and that's one of the biggest things that I always tell people because you can you can find fulfillment and it's Sometimes, and the last thing I'll say about this, sometimes you can find fulfillment within the organization you are in. And that's what I always challenge people to do. Is that organization truly holding you back or stopping you being fulfilled or that career path? Or have you not tried to find fulfillment where you are? For example, I'm in the Marine Corps, but one of the biggest things, the reasons I love the Marine Corps is because I love people. The Marine Corps is going to put you actually in the worst position as possible. You're gonna be cold, you're gonna be wet, Olaolu Ogunyemi (11:55.181) It's gonna be muddy and there's gonna be times where you're just miserable from a physical perspective. But the cool thing about it, and this is why I enjoy it so much, is that you always are there with somebody to your left or right. And there, in those moments that you're in the worst conditions, you're building a kind of bond that doesn't, that is hard to replicate in other places. And in that, I find my fulfillment. It's because I am now around people, and I'm truly getting to know people on a personal level. And so that's what I always encourage. It's the last thing I encourage people to do. It's find fulfillment where you are, if you can. And if for some reason you cannot, that organization is stopping you from doing it, sure it's time to move. Utkarsh Narang (12:32.81) it, love it and I love I want us to re-emphasize bring the boat closer before you jump off the dock. I love that framing thank you for sharing that. In the initial part you shared something which is still on my mind you shared about your name being powerful but also as a young kid when the name is difficult to pronounce you got to hide from that name just give me like a little bit on that like what does the name signify because I'm intrigued. Olaolu Ogunyemi (13:00.91) Yes, absolutely. So my name actually means wealth of God. That's what a Lawulu means. It's a Nigerian name. And one of the biggest things that I learned later on in life is when I meet people, even if they cannot pronounce my name, they always remember me and associate me with my name because it's unique. Now it's that uniqueness that I didn't appreciate as a young child. And that's what I encourage anybody who's listening. Don't ever forget the things that make you unique are the things that could be super powerful in the future because there's been many people I've met hundreds of people and you'll be surprised when people are coming, they start staring at me and I'm trying to figure out, man, where do I know them from? And I'm trying to place them and they come up to me and immediately tell me where they know me from. And it's like, how did you remember that? Okay, well, mostly, most of the time it's because of my name. Even if they couldn't pronounce it, they said, I remember his face. I associate his face with a name and that name with a place. And now all those things come together for them. And so they remember who you are and that becomes especially important when you get into the workforce. So yes, that my name, Utkarsh Narang (13:38.779) you Olaolu Ogunyemi (14:00.701) Aside from the meeting, which I truly believe is very important for me, it just helps you throughout your life. so learning how to be unique and embrace that person who you are is extremely important. Utkarsh Narang (14:14.602) So beautiful. And I think you're so right, because it's almost like the name carries that heritage, right? The name carries that deeper meaning that you're bringing to every situation, to the world, to every interaction. And so I understand where we can come from as young kids or growing adults, where we feel like this is something that puts me into that spotlight. So need to hide from it rather than you want to kind of lean into it, is what we're speaking about. Olaolu Ogunyemi (14:42.074) That's exactly right. And it was tough for me to lean into it or understand that at a young age, but now I lean into it heavily. In fact, that was one of the things I was asked when I was about to start writing and they were like, well, do you want to use a pen name? I said, absolutely not. I don't want to use a pen name. I want to embrace my name and lean into the person I am. And hopefully that speaks to another young man or young woman out there who's in a very similar circumstance. And now they can come out and embrace who they are as well. Utkarsh Narang (14:49.55) Amazing. Utkarsh Narang (14:56.398) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (15:10.422) Yeah, that's powerful. When did through that journey did this idea of like going into the Marines, when did that emerge for you? Olaolu Ogunyemi (15:21.882) So the Marine Corps was the interesting thing. So I'm one of the guys who was a... It's like the Marine Corps targeted me with their commercials. Everything about the Marine Corps commercials from, know, slaying the Dragon, I think that was in the either early 2000s or 90s, all the way to like the Silent Drill Team when they were out there with their rifles on the beach and things of that nature. Even to the man who obviously was a recon marine, a reconnaissance marine, who said he couldn't swim when he joined the Marine Corps and he had to be taught not to quit. So all those commercials and things like that, it's just the uniforms and the camaraderie, all of that really led up to one moment in my room. I was a sophomore in college and I'm sitting there in my room watching basketball. Another commercial comes on and that's when I realized I was like, man, I could join the Marine Corps if I want to. know, who could, you know, my parents, I think my parents initially were shocked when I brought it up to them because at that point in my career or my life, I had already had, you know, community service. I was planning on potentially even going to study abroad in France on a foreign exchange program. These are all kinds of things that were going in my life, which means I was going to go get the corporate America job, which I said, Utkarsh Narang (16:06.99) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (16:26.716) I was going to do, continue in CIS and I'm just going to be in a corporate career. That's what I was looking forward to and that's what I was starting my collegiate profession on. But then I come with this crazy idea to them, it seemed new, but it shouldn't have been really new to them because I did drill team and things of that nature, although it's army drill team. It came out and I was like, man, this is what I want to do. I truly, I want to join the Marine Corps. It's something that I feel like I've been called to do. I really relate with them. In fact, the last reason that I joined the Marine Corps is because I felt like they were the best. When I looked at the other branches, and it's not a meat-throwing shade at the other branch of the military, we all served together and I've met some phenomenal people in every branch. But when I met my first Marine, I was like, yeah, this guy's definitely better than every last one of them. And so it just spoke to my competitive spirit. And so I will say that came about in college. Probably was something that was already implanted in me for years. Utkarsh Narang (17:03.054) Mm. Utkarsh Narang (17:12.526) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (17:16.684) Yeah. Olaolu Ogunyemi (17:26.636) years and I didn't act on it until sophomore year of college. Utkarsh Narang (17:30.83) That's amazing. even at that age to be looking at the commercial and just saying that this is who I'm going to be, think that's super powerful. What have been the top, and I don't know why the number three is coming to mind, what have been the top three moments or lessons or stories that you come to mind that I think that you'll carry to the rest of your life that you've learned through these experiences? Olaolu Ogunyemi (17:58.189) absolutely, so I would say the first would be what lessons you can learn from failure, especially public failure. And so the first story I'll tell is when I was at the basic school for officers, I tried to do what's called the double obstacle course. So you go through the obstacle course twice and you climb the rope. which is pretty, you know, it's pretty standard things that we worked up to. It's not like it was something that was truly that physically demanding until I got to my second round on the obstacle course. I get about three quarters of the way up the rope and I can't move anymore. Now this is a rope that I've climbed. I mean, we practiced it. probably a hundred times, I don't know. We had practiced that thing so many times, but for some reason, I say for some reason, it's because I was using only upper body and I didn't learn to use my full technique. I struggled and I got on the rope and I couldn't finish it. And it was the most embarrassing moment for me, for a person who's trained and studied and worked hard to get there. And yeah, it was also at Officer Candidate School. Before that, I almost failed out from that school as well. And so here I am in the very early stages of my career. first year of my career having these big failures and I'm like, man, this is embarrassing. People are watching me go before a company board to see if I can even stay at Officer Candidate school. And then at the basic school, they watch me literally hanging on a rope and just shaking, just couldn't even move. And then finally I came down without touching the log. it's hundreds of people who can see that happening. And I'm just like, man, I'm not even representing my family well. I'm failing. And it's something that I learned through that is that life is just like that obstacle course. But in many cases we think of it as like, when we go on the obstacle course, a lot of times in the Marine Corps we're training, we're trying to make ourselves stronger, we're trying to become faster. But then we take that and put it in life and we're like, man, obstacles, man, it's just one thing after another, it's just stopping me. And so that was the real lesson I learned that the obstacle course, just like in life, is there to make us stronger and make us better and it's to make us learn the proper techniques, the things that we need to do and apply. Olaolu Ogunyemi (20:03.286) to become better. In this case I was not using the proper technique. I was not going hand over hand. I was not using my feet to lock in the rope. There's a lot of things that I wasn't doing and I was not prepared for that rope. So that lesson taught me to prepare myself instead of going through and just going out there and going head first. And so that was the first thing. I'll say the second lesson is to be yourself. I said that about eight-year-old Olaolu but obviously grown Olaolu didn't know that either. So when I arrived to the Marine Corps Utkarsh Narang (20:28.493) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (20:33.236) I didn't know many Marines, but the only leadership style I knew was really a very direct leadership style. And especially as an operations officer, I started doing that. And to be honest with you, it was effective because we were doing what we were ordered to do. but it wasn't effective from the perspective of influencing others. And so here I am, I'm fussing at people and they're doing it. And the thing I learned, especially after my mentor talked to me, is that people were doing things because they didn't want to be nagged by me, not because they were inspired to do it. And the problem was that that wasn't going to help them achieve self-discipline. That was just some level of oversight, micromanagement, and I couldn't get consistent results from them when I turned my back because they were just waiting on me to come Utkarsh Narang (21:05.709) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (21:10.627) Yeah. Olaolu Ogunyemi (21:17.99) the next step. And so I had to learn that that's not my style of leadership. Again, as I said, I'm a people person. So me being very direct and telling people to hush in meetings and things of that nature just wasn't my style. It works for some. There's personality. For me, it just didn't work. And so that was the second thing I learned. And then the last thing I learned or the third thing I learned is that everybody's different. So the Marine Corps we joined, it truly is a melting pot. People come from all over the world and join the Marine Corps. Utkarsh Narang (21:20.302) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (21:30.19) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (21:47.853) And I had to learn, although I intuitively knew everybody's different, I had to learn that everybody has a different needs or different leadership style that required from you as a leader to serve them best. And those are the things that I started learning. I'm like, wow, this is, this is truly impactful for me. You know, it's one of those things that, you know, once I see that even at my own home with the children who I've been around since they've been born, it's just like, you know, I now know like they are different. They're three different human beings and I can't lead them the same way. Utkarsh Narang (21:58.915) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (22:17.876) The conversations may be similar, but they're not the same. And even the activities that we do together aren't the same. So everybody's different. And those are the three lessons that I learned from the Marine Corps. Utkarsh Narang (22:29.558) They're so... It's like... It's cliched wisdom, These three lessons. But that's why it's cliched, I think, because it's still so hard to practice. What you said about A, learning from failure. We all have heard it. We all from a J.K. Rowling to a Roger Federer to a LeBron James. Everyone will say you learn from failure to Michael Jordan. Everyone will say be yourself from a Steven Bartlett to a Jay Shetty to whoever we're talking about. And everyone say that everybody's different. Olaolu Ogunyemi (22:39.32) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (22:57.304) but it's sometimes so hard to practice it. What can help someone flip the switch if they are not there yet? What can help someone flip the switch? Olaolu Ogunyemi (23:08.09) Yeah, so the first thing is and I'll talk about one and I love that you call it the cliche because you're right. The thing about a cliche is it just sometimes it become numb to it. So when I say stuff like, life is instead of an obstacle course, it's an opportunity course. It's us finding an opportunity to go from one thing to another and grow and develop. It becomes cliche and we don't care about it. But I will say the first thing that I would say is we have to know that it exists for a reason. People keep saying it for a reason. Utkarsh Narang (23:19.054) Mmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (23:37.997) because failure is inevitable. Failure is inevitable. So I would say the first thing to do is start prepping your mind for it. To know, hey okay, I'm going to fail at something. If I go try, I'm going to fail. That's the first thing I always encourage people to do. So once you say that aloud and you accept that, it takes, it may not make failure be, it won't be painless, but it takes that sting from it. You know, where you truly fail openly and you have to deal with the the gambit of emotions, now you have an idea of what failure's going to be and you're like, okay, well, I already prepared for this mentally and so now I'm walking into this situation knowing that I probably will fail, but here's the lessons I hope to learn from my failure. So those are the things I will say. The first thing is prepare for failure and think about what you want to learn from that failure. You may not get it right every time. You may not even get the failure right, but think about what you want to learn. For being yourself, that's something that we just have to learn. That's you know, that's one of the things that as I was like I said in my early career I knew for a fact I was still just like as a child trying to find my identity as a leader in the Marine Corps So for the first thing is to identify for me I always tell people identify the insecurities you have and that's what came out in my in my leadership style when I realized that there's a lot of when people were like saying stuff and Like maybe talking they could be talking about anything and then they look in my direction. I'm like, oh they're talking about me. Okay, so that means They don't respect me. Look how crazy that sounds right and we may not admit it as adults But a lot of us do those kind of things and we don't know why we're doing it It's because way back when So you're being making fun of made fun of and maybe somebody was chuckling and you thought they were laughing at you And now it's revealing itself again as an adult. So now for that topic I always say, you know check your insecurities understand the things that those deeply rooted things that you may not even think about but those things truly will come out later on when you're trying to identify and learn who who you are. So I think those just a couple of practical things that we could do as we started thinking about those cliches and those things that we've of become numb to over the years. Utkarsh Narang (25:44.569) Yeah. Yeah. And it's so true, like when you put it out there like this, right, that it's cliche because of reason, but then your mind becomes numb to it and you listen to these things, but you ignore them because your mind feels like someone else saying the same thing. But yeah, that's when you that's when you want to do the deep work to make sure you make progress. Love this. There's this moment in your life, right? And I have no idea. So I'm wanting to seek that. So. This idea of parent-child connect, which I really find fascinating and I think as an invested dad and someone who wants to and contribute to the way the home or the family grows, I find it like super important for every human being to experience that parent-child connect and beyond. But was there a moment in your life story or what led to that transition where you thought like this is going to be my life's work? Olaolu Ogunyemi (26:40.238) Yeah, so there's a couple of things. Number one, I was a very young parent. I'm still a young parent, but when I graduated college, I was married with a three-year-old. So just to put that perspective, was 22 with a three-year-old. So very young parent, just trying to figure out up from down. I had no idea anything about parenting. And so this is one of the things that I was like, man, I just, I have to learn. And for me, it started with my connection with my parents, my connection with my mother and my father, and all the things that they had done for me and helped me to grow through all these things. And I'm like, okay, I know for a fact that at minimum, I know I have to be there for my oldest daughter. I had to be there for her. There was no options. And I still take that to this day. I'm like, okay, well, if there's an event going on at the school, I have to be there, if I can. Unless there's something at work preventing me from being there, I have to be there. I can't just be sitting on the couch. And those are things that I started to address in my own life. So that was the biggest thing. Number one, I wanted to have a connection with my children. And then the second thing is, grew up, as I told you, I started to identify with the wrong crowd, but I also built friendships with these individuals. And what I realized is a lot of these individuals are now in the system. They are now in and out of prison, something like one in particular, right off the top of my head, he's in prison right now as we speak. And it really dawned on me as I was sitting back thinking about, what happened? We both were in the same position. We both were in the same doing the same things. How in the world did I join the Marine Corps or go on have a family and so on and so forth? And he's been in the prison system ever since. What was the difference? And there's a couple of things that stood out for me. Number one, he didn't have that same level of support that I did. And it's not me bragging, but this is me just telling what happened. He didn't have that same level of support. His father is nowhere to be found. And his mother, God bless her, Olaolu Ogunyemi (28:32.006) she's working three jobs just trying to keep the lights on. And so when he got in trouble in class, they would just tell him, go to the back. There's no reason for the teacher or the principal even send them home or call the parents. If they just keep sending them home, eventually the school board would have just expelled her for school and then he just, he wouldn't have able to go to school and it would have been rough. they... the teachers in order to help the situation in some ways, they would just keep him in the classroom just to not have to send him home. And I know it sounds weird, but that's what happened. But they'll just send him to the back of the classroom so he won't be a distraction to everybody else. For me, on the other hand, if I push it too far, they would tell me, hey, do you want us to your dad? Because we know you better than that. And then I would say, oh, OK, yeah, I draw the line there. There's nothing I'm keep doing after they said that that would prevent my dad from coming to that school. So I'm just gonna stop where I am. And I realized that little thing at the time I didn't appreciate it. But over time I realized that the fact that my parents were involved and they supported not just me, but they supported the teachers, my education, the coaches and so on and so forth that created this bridge, this community bridge for me that just didn't exist for my friends. And so in this case, I wanted to make sure that as we get, as I got older and got into my adult life, I wanted to make sure that I can try to encourage the community to be that supportive system. The parents may not be able to do it, unfortunately, but if we could support them in some way, whether that's providing job opportunities in some of those lower income areas, or whether that is creating just a community of coaches and mentors or whoever else that says, hey man, I'm not giving up on you. Come back to the front of the classroom. And the last example I give for that is one of my eighth grade English teacher. I'll never forget it. She was the only person out of the years that we went to school together that challenged that young man. Every time he started talking back or something like that, she'll always call us Mr. Okunyemi, and she'll call him too, Mr. and his last name, and make us sit in the front. She would not even threaten to call the parents. She would keep us in the front. She'd keep us engaged. And I remember him getting a C in the class, and it was the proudest I've ever seen of Olaolu Ogunyemi (30:41.604) in his life. Like all the things that we did, he wasn't proud of the stuff, just, just sucked the stuff we did. But he was proud of that C and I couldn't believe it. I'm like, wow, you know, he's He made fun of me for making good grades and here he is like proud that he got a C. What is this all about? But it's because she invested in him and I can only imagine what it would have looked like if there were a community of Miss Authors was her name that were surrounding this young man and now not allowing him to just go back and be a part, be a statistic. So that's really what my life's work is about. That's why I wanted to do what I do. Utkarsh Narang (30:53.997) Hmm. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (31:15.95) That's beautiful. And as you're talking about, like, I don't know, as I'm getting older and I don't know what the definition is of, but as I'm maturing in age, I sometimes do think about those times in school that we had. I think there's such beautiful times. And this is a shout out. I don't know if Ms. Authors will listen to this or not, but thank you for believing in that child. And that's all we need, right? We need someone to. believe in us unconditionally and support us and push us. And yeah, just how powerful it is if you have a parent standing next to you. And my dad, he turned 70 this year and he rarely calls me. He lives in India and I'm in Australia. But when we speak, he would every now and then send me like a video clip on WhatsApp or something like that. And the other day he sent me something where they were speaking about that. A father was punishing a child and because the child had done something wrong and so they had to be kind of reprimanded and all of that. so the father was holding the child from a height and saying that if you don't stop doing this, then I'm going to hit you with a stick or something like that. And the child keeps laughing and the child keeps laughing. And the father then later, like, puts him down and says, was hanging you out from a height and I was telling you that I'll hit you with a stick. Why were you laughing? And he said, because I knew that it's my father holding me, who's never going to hurt me. And it's my belief in you that allowed me to feel safe, even in that position. And it just makes me wonder what deep impact does a parent have on a child's life journey? Olaolu Ogunyemi (32:59.895) that man, that's a beautiful story because it does teach them that we can't do things on our own. That's one of the biggest things that when you have a healthy relationship with your child or healthy relationship with the parent, it teaches you that you can rely on someone else and not be let down. There are people out there who will support you because we go through life so often being let down by people as we go through our adult life. So much so that at times we just lose faith and we just say that, whatever man, nobody's going to care or I'm not going to rely on this person because they're not going to be there for me. But when you have support, a strong supportive system, teaches you not only that you can rely on somebody, but it also teaches you how to be that strong supportive system for somebody else. And so that is a beautiful story because it just reciprocates. As you, your father has now been there for you, you be there for your sons, and now that's just the model that they know. They don't know anything else. As I just alluded to earlier about going to events and being supportive. That's all I know. All I know from my parents is being there and being supportive and being a part of my children's lives. And so it just seems odd. Utkarsh Narang (33:47.95) Mm. Utkarsh Narang (34:01.281) Yeah. Olaolu Ogunyemi (34:06.924) if I weren't going to do that. And vice versa, when I talk about the young man I grew up with, when he's not his children's life and his father wasn't his life and who knows what the generation looked like before that. That's the model that's been created. And unfortunately, it's not some kind of mythical thing. We always, think that sometimes we talk about like generational curses and things of this nature. It's not something mythical. It's literally that we are beings that learn by seeing. We learn by seeing, we learn by doing. So if we're now experiencing this world, Utkarsh Narang (34:30.136) Hmm. Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (34:36.89) of fatherlessness or lack of connection between the parent and child, of course then we're going to replicate what we see. And many times we can break that, but it has to be really intentional and it has to be that you learned it from somewhere else. But if you're not learning in your home, then your default answer is to do what you learned in your home. And so that's really one of the biggest things that, as you were telling that story, it was like enlightening. It was very exciting for me because it reminded me of that connection. It reminded me of why it's important to to build that connection, strong love and support for your children because we are creating a generational thing and teaching them an experience that's not just a curse or a blessing, it's literally we're teaching them what right and wrong looks like. Utkarsh Narang (35:23.266) Love it. Love it. I think and I don't want to do disservice to our listeners. So want to get to the DOPE framework and it's on my mind. But I want us to give one piece of advice to young parents if they are listening to this podcast, this conversation. And I think I want us to co-create it almost. There's something on my mind that I want to share. And then I would invite you to also share. If you could give only one piece of advice to all the parents who are listening who have kids between 0 to 18. What would your advice be to them? How can they be more intentional in their parenting? Olaolu Ogunyemi (36:00.089) Yeah, so the first thing I would say is get into their space. Understand what they're interested in. and do your best to be there. Sometimes it's, and we get so disconnected at times. For example, if they like anime, whatever books they like, figure it out, get in there and learn about it. The blessing is we have AI now, so even if you can't watch the full movie or episode or YouTube video, get a summary of it, so that way you have a common ground. So that's the first thing I would say, is really just get into their space and get to know them on a personal level. Utkarsh Narang (36:33.774) That's so powerful. I love it. Get into this space. I'm going to use that. The other thing that I can add to that is that, you know, when I speak to my children, I make sure that I keep pushing them towards like what else can they achieve? And so I want to push them, but I don't want them to feel that I'm pushing you so that I love you more. And so I say, I am proud of you unconditionally, but I want you to give your best this moment. And I think that to me has become like a practice where every conversation ends up like that. You're doing amazing. I'm already proud of you unconditionally for whatever you achieve. But if you do it even better or no, I should not add the word but and I'll be even happier if you keep going the next level. Is that something that is a right approach or would you want to reframe that somehow? Olaolu Ogunyemi (37:18.65) No, that's beautiful and I hope that parents are capturing that Because one thing our children love especially from the fathers and it was a pin so for my mother my father You always want that approval and sometimes it's best not sometimes all the time It's best to give the approval of the person while you disapprove the action. There's nothing wrong with saying that hey I don't I don't agree that your grades are low, but I love you nonetheless I know I tell my children that all the time things like that all the time It's like I love you and there's nothing you could do about it. I love you all time Utkarsh Narang (37:31.82) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (37:39.917) Love it. Olaolu Ogunyemi (37:52.417) I will forever love you. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to work on improving this. So I love what you said there. It's not, sometimes I think the problem is we truly do have the best intentions at heart and in doing so, we try our best to correct the downsides. Sometimes, and I'm one is guilty of this, we even try to correct ourselves out of the children, right? That we can see ourselves and they're going towards the same mistakes that we made. And we try to like almost like, discipline that out of them. But the biggest thing is to your point is to re-emphasize that I love you unconditionally, but here's the things that we can do to continue to grow and develop. I love that. Utkarsh Narang (38:33.1) Love it. It's such a beautiful co-creation. That's what I love about having these conversations. But now I want to get to DOPE because we set our audience at the onset that we'll talk about DOPE and they might be intrigued. Like what does DOPE really stand for? So before you even go into the acronym for D-O-P-E, what I really want to understand from you is like, where can someone put into action as people are going to listen to these four words? What's some use case? And you could think about someone say who's Olaolu Ogunyemi (38:39.961) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (39:02.966) in their 30s or late 20s, early 40s, whatever comes to your mind. So just set the context up for us and then let's go through the dope model. Olaolu Ogunyemi (39:12.088) Okay, absolutely. So let's think about someone, let's put in the... early because that's perfect. That means you've been out of school, most likely for about 10 years. You've probably had some experience in a career, and now you're starting to think, okay, what do I truly want to do for the rest of my life? What do I want to leave as a legacy? I call this our pre-midlife crisis moment, is where we're in between 30 and 45, and for some reason we go into this like... Utkarsh Narang (39:19.682) Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (39:36.046) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (39:42.501) pre-midlife crisis where we had to be multimillionaires by 40 or we need to make sure we leave this big legacy. I don't know what it is, but that's just, every time I talk to me and my peers, that's the first thing that I think about. like, man, we need to do everything by 40 or else the world's gonna fall apart. So that's who I'm talking to. That's the crowd. And here's the problem. Right now we're faced with this idea, this passion, this new career, whatever we're trying to do, and we have to figure out what it is. But we've tried a couple of things. That's to remember, we're starting to think back, okay, we started our career, we wanted to climb, perhaps we got passed for a promotion, we may have already started pitching and we haven't gotten any rejection, and I believe that's where we set the stage. So that's the person that we are. And so this is where I came up with this framework. It's called Dream Offload Plan Execute, and it's really for identifying ways that we can successfully implement any plan or project, and that's where we are. And so first is Dream. A lot of times I truly believe that we've lost our ability to dream, especially because we've been beat up by life. And at times because we're becoming overwhelmed with the idea that we need to do it now. We need to figure out something. And so we almost like break our ability to dream because we're trying to figure out how can we get to the next thing? How can we be the next, as I say, like millionaire by 40 or millionaire by 50 or whatever the goal is. So the first step is to calm down and dream in high definition. I learned that term from Chris Hogan in that we just start thinking about what are the things that we truly want to do. And this is where I reintroduced the idea that we talked about earlier. Find something, that thing, that breaks that creative barrier and whatever it may be, find it. put it down on paper and then start to dream about whatever your thing is. If you can picture yourself doing this new thing, then you are in a great place. And I mean all the way down to dreaming about like being in the coffee shop, drinking coffee, you can taste the coffee with whomever you want to meet. For me, I always tell people I want to meet Liam Neuslen, especially after the taking movies. And so that's the one thing, dream in so high definition that you can taste the coffee and you can hear the conversation between the two of you. The next thing is to offload. Olaolu Ogunyemi (41:54.029) Now go into your notes, go into your notebook. I mean, you have to brain dump every aspect of that dream. What I do is I use voice recorder, I use voice to text, and I just want to make sure that if I have a dream or an idea... I want to make sure every single context, every single piece of that idea is out on paper and I don't have any of it just left in my head. And so just go ahead and try to get everything out of your mind. The next step is plan. And this is where you start asking all the questions like who needs to be involved? Who do I have in my circle who can help me with this? What things do I need to achieve throughout this whole thing? And you're really trying to... take your resources and where you are now and apply it to your dreams. So this is the first time you actually apply your reality to your dream. So if I as let's go back to the ballet example, just cause I think that's hilarious. If I say I want to be an Olympic ballerina, then I could tell you that there's people in my life who have been Olympic athletes who probably discourage me, but they are still in my life and they can tell me, okay, here's the training that you would have to put in to get to that level. Utkarsh Narang (42:43.534) you Olaolu Ogunyemi (42:58.434) and I would have to figure out, who do I need to connect with in order to be a ballerina? And there's some things that I would have to do to figure that out. So those are the things. So dream, offload, plan, and then the last step is execute. And a lot of times, this step is tricky. because either A, we get stuck in the planning and we just keep on planning and as we know it's called paralysis by analysis. That means we just continue to think over and over and keep trying to make the plan better and better to get to almost like 100 % solution before moving to execute. Or in some cases, we get to, we want to jump past the planning. We get to the dream and then we just start, I gotta do it. And you wake up the next morning, you just start doing work and we don't create a plan. We don't fully write down the plan so we don't even really know what we're doing. Utkarsh Narang (43:20.204) Mm-hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (43:42.827) And we just start executing. the biggest thing is, yes, I love the execution phase. I do believe that's when we get stuck at times, but we have to make sure we do these things in order and we have to make sure that we're not getting stuck. Go on, execute your plan. And if you fail, you will fail first of all. And when you do fail, go back and start again, start dreaming again, start offloading, start planning, start executing. And the one thing I did forget to mention is in the plan phase, try to have four legs, four things that you believe that are really good. that you have to work through and then start planning a plan for each of those legs. For example, I use physical fitness for example. I did this on a deployment. I said Michael B. can't beat me. It was a funny thing that I did when I was trying to just get in better shape and for some reason I targeted Michael B. Jordan. I said I was going to be the next Creed in Creed 4. It is just a funny thing that I did. And so the four legs that I identified after I went through my dream offload session were diet, exercise, rest, and recovery. And so those are the four legs I did and then for each of those four legs I started to make a plan and then I began to execute. And so that's really what the DOPE framework is. It's just finding a way to walk, a systematic way to walk through your steps so that way you can achieve success more efficiently. Utkarsh Narang (45:04.302) I love it. I love it for the A, the simplicity and sometimes, you know, it's really hard to make things simple. So I love the framework. Here's where my challenge is. I'd love to experiment with you on how we can take someone out of this. So we described this person as early 30s, face rejection, pre-midlife crisis. And I turned 40 this year and I'm not a millionaire. So I resonate with that aspect of it. And this person... Forget about dreaming in HD. They've not even thought of HD. They've not even thought of what their life could be like. They've not even like, dream is too big for them because they are in their thirties. They're already sensing, which I think is the is the weirdest thought that can come to people's mind, which they think that, Oh, I'm 33. My life is over. Like what the f... Literally what the f... How can you say that your life's over at 33? Because there are... There are examples walking on this planet who were not even known or close to the definition of success that society calls success. So how do you help them dream, my friend? Because it's going to be really hard for them to dream. Olaolu Ogunyemi (46:20.42) Yeah, so what we do, usually the exercise that I go in with people like that, because I've, just like you, I've met those people and the first exercise we do is we walk through just doing it to the other. I say, hey, tell me about what your five-year-old self, what did you say you were going to be when you grow up? Utkarsh Narang (46:36.128) Mm-hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (46:36.854) And many of us, say something off the wall. Like for me, I say, President of the United States. Now I don't envy that job at all. That is a hard job. But that was what I wanted to be when I was five. And so I said, okay, now let's walk through this exercise for President of United States. And the reason I'm doing that is to make them, to not only just practice the exercise itself, but to really go through the motions of learning how it feels to be able to know that you can do it. Right, because that's one of the biggest things. The reason they don't want to walk through the framework, or the reason is not just because they feel like their life is over, it's because they just don't feel like they can do it. They don't believe that. If I did truly dream something, I can execute and put into action. No matter how many examples are out there, if people, for example, my dad recently in the last couple of years bought a greenhouse because he just wanted to start planting and gardening. It's something that he said he wanted to do his whole life and that he just started doing it. Is he good at it? Now he's not. But is he getting there? Is he not working towards it? Yes. He bought a, I laugh at him, God bless, I love my dad. He bought like a 30 foot greenhouse to start his first garden. Utkarsh Narang (47:20.718) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (47:43.265) And I'm like what in the world I was surprised by the size of I thought it'd be like you know six feet ten feet or something like that But he brought a full one and so what I realized when he did that is that he fully committed to the dream and like your dad He's turning he's actually turning 70 next year And so it's one of those things that we have to realize that there's plenty of cases out there But a lot of times they just can't see themselves achieving it So I believe it starts with just breaking it down with the most simple thing and what did you want to be where you grow up? Walk through the exercise with Utkarsh Narang (47:47.451) Olaolu Ogunyemi (48:13.178) them and then they realize that okay man this is this is something I can do this is executable if I wanted to now go pursue that thing that I want to be when I was five-year-old I could actually do it so now let me go back and look at the thing as a 33 year old and say that yeah I probably can't achieve that Utkarsh Narang (48:30.36) Yeah, that's so powerful. I love it. I love it. And it's, it's, as you were saying, I could take out like almost this like framework out of it, which is like go into storytelling mode. You have to be like really curious, have that curiosity of that five year old and really to reprogram what you're saying, start with visualizing what could that look like? What could that beautiful life look like? And how could you build that dream? And I think once they, they, they see at least like the black and white trailer, like the 1940s and the fifties, maybe it's mute. but then you add color to it and then you add sound to it and then you add, then you take it to the HD or the 4K version for that matter. I love this framework. I'm just still looking at it. Dope. This is amazing. And one more question that arises, you know, there's this, what I'm assuming is that as a Marine cop, you have this precision, right? That you have to be perfect in what you do. So how do you match that precision that you have with the humility of executing even when you don't know that it's perfect? Olaolu Ogunyemi (49:37.317) Yeah, so that's a beautiful way. And first of all, let me acknowledge what you said there too in the dream phase because I've never thought of it that way. That when I jump straight to the high definition phase. But what you said is powerful. It could start off as like an old trailer. It could start off as like the flip books for the cartoons. It could start off with anything like that. Whatever you do, just like get it out of your mind. Like start to think about it again. I love that. But when it comes to precision, one of the things the Marine Corps told us, and they taught us this very early, is that you can't wait for the perfect plan. It's not that you shouldn't try to plan. It's that you just know that there's no such thing as a perfect plan. And I think that's what helped me a lot with the things that I've seen is that I've Utkarsh Narang (49:49.166) Mmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (50:17.884) I've seen people go out with a plan that was just about probably somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of actual plan, but it was executed in such a way that it was extremely successful. They violently executed. They truly believed in it and got everybody on board and operating the same direction. And then somehow they achieve success. And that's one of the things that I've noticed. And I believe that that's that's what we started to realize is that perfection is obviously this is one of the things another cliche for you. I'm sorry. I have to say it. Utkarsh Narang (50:25.87) Hmm. Olaolu Ogunyemi (50:47.804) Perfection is oftentimes the enemy of progress and that's one of the reasons that we can't move beyond where we are. And so that was my last cliche of the night, hopefully, probably not. But it's one of those things that as we continue to pursue perfection. Utkarsh Narang (51:00.513) Yeah. Olaolu Ogunyemi (51:03.118) We don't make it anywhere, we don't go anywhere. We just get stuck in the planning phase. So I believe that the precision that's required is usually something that we work as we, as we work in tandem, we work and try to co-create things as, I love that term, but we're not doing it because we're waiting for the perfect plan. We're doing it because we're just executing whatever plan that we have in the most extreme and committed way. Utkarsh Narang (51:26.872) Yeah, beautiful. I love it. I love it. And I think the more the merrier. That's the thing with cliches, right? The more the merrier. Olaolu Ogunyemi (51:35.779) You Utkarsh Narang (51:39.539) Let's go few decades into the future, Olalulu, as we bring closure to this beautiful conversation we've had. I'm looking at your 80-year-old self, 8-0, about four and a half decades from now. If that 80-year-old Olalulu were to come to you right now and bring one piece of advice from the future on how you should live the rest of your years, what would he say? Olaolu Ogunyemi (52:04.142) believe he'll tell me to embrace where I am and embrace every single moment of life. That's one thing that we have to work towards because as we talked about in our pre-midlife crisis, there's a lot of things that we want to do. We want to reach millions of people in all these things, but at times that causes us to miss the moments that matter. So I believe 80-year-old Olaolu would say, slow down. You're going to touch lives. You're doing a phenomenal job where you are. but embrace the real moments in life that happened and do your best to invest time very wisely. And hopefully he tells me, man, you did a phenomenal job and you took care of me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And I say that after having a knee surgery here recently. So he'll probably tell me that that knee didn't improve that well, but at least try your best to continue to build upon your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Utkarsh Narang (53:00.846) That's so beautiful. What a conversation. And if our listeners, you're still listening and you're 55 minutes into this conversation, listen to the advice of the eight-year-old Olalu because he is really smart and very wise. And so take care of yourself wherever you are, whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 50s, or whatever age you're at, and embrace where you are because this is the moment that we have. Remember, perfection is the enemy of progress. To all your dreams which you want to see in your 4K or 2K versions, remember they start with the black and white version so it's absolutely okay. Steven Bartlett did not start with 13 million followers. Roger Federer did not start with the 20 plus odd Grand Slam championships. LeBron James did not start with the legendary status so you're okay. Remember to dope, dream, offload, plan and execute. Do not get into planning paralysis. Do it. If you're a parent and you're listening to us, then make sure that you're intentional about your parenting. Get into their space. Tell them you're proud of them. You love them unconditionally because that might change the trajectory of their lives. Life is like an obstacle course. It is a beautiful obstacle course. Learn to be yourself, learn to live with failure, learn with failure. And remember, everyone's different. And before you jump from the dock that you're standing on, bring that boat closer. Pull yourself towards yourself and then jump. And always remember who you are, because that's all that matters at the end of the day. Olaolu Ogunyemi (54:36.186) Whew, that's a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much. This is truly fulfilling. Wow. Utkarsh Narang (54:39.906) That is, that is. Thank you. Same here, my friend, same here. To everyone who was on a podcast platform, share it with others because that's the only way we grow. If you share, we grow. And if we grow, then you get more and better conversations always. And if you are on YouTube, put a comment down there. Olalulu and I are looking forward to listening from you, to hearing from you, and to reading that you're here listening to this conversation. Olalulu, thank you for this hour and I truly appreciate your presence here. Olaolu Ogunyemi (55:08.794) Absolutely, thank you so much.