Sometimes we find ourselves in spaces we never thought could become a reality to us. We begin to walk in rooms we least expected and it's easy for imposter syndrome to talk us out of the places that have been destined for us. This week's conversation serves as an amazing reminder to embrace your space and choose to let go of the need to have total control. I'm joined by my guest Ore Ogunbiyi who has shown what it means to walk into rooms with confidence and make the most of them.
Ore is a Nigerian- British Politics and International Relations graduate from Jesus College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge, she pioneered the Benin Bronze Repatriation campaign, the #BlackmenofCambridgeUniversity campaign and was President of the African-Caribbean Society. She has since completed a masters in Journalism at Columbia University, New York and is currently working as a Business Affairs fellow at The Economist.
Our conversation was simply amazing and the perfect boost for anyone who's midway of making a major decision. Just try, you will never know if you don't take that leap of faith.
Rhieme: Hi Ore, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you please tell us about yourself?
Ore: My name is Ore Ogunbiyi, I am a journalist and author. I wrote Taking up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change, with my best friend Chelsea Akwaye. I’m Nigerian, British, I’m 24 and I work at The Economist.
Rhieme: Thank you so much for sharing. The conversations we’ve had over time have been centred around entering into various industries. Can you please share your journey on how you entered into the writing industry?
Ore: Yeah, I think I kind of stumbled into it by accident. I don't think you could have told me even 10 years ago, that I would be a writer or anything that has this much to do with writing. When I was in school I did well in my GCSE’s but English was my worst, it was something I'd really struggled with. Then I went to uni and I wrote an article in my third year that went viral. It was a feature piece called ‘A Letter to my Fresher Self” and it was basically talking about being a black woman at Cambridge and the things I had struggled with being black at Cambridge. Then fast forward to about six months afterwards, my friend Chelsea and I got a book deal and I ended up writing a book about being black in Cambridge a bit more broadly. Just after I had written the article, I decided to apply to journalism school in Columbia, New York to study for my Masters. Whilst I was there, not only was I busy writing the book, but I’d also been actively trying to decide whether or not journalism was something I wanted to pursue. Even after that year, I was still uncertain about going into journalism. It felt as though everyone around me had either been journalists before, or were engaged in student journalism. Whilst everyone else had pre-determined that this was what they wanted to do, my intention coming in was that “I'm here to discover if this was something I want to do '' . So although I found it hard at times, I knew I was enjoying writing the book and that I should be doing things that gravitate more towards being black in university and education as a whole. I think I was still a bit confused, even while I was doing my masters and that was in 2018. After I had finished my Masters, I didn't go into journalism immediately, instead I ended up writing speeches for the Vice President of Nigeria for about a year and a half. Then at the beginning of this year, I left the job to move back to London. I felt as though I wasn't writing very much anymore and there was something in me that still wanted to engage in more creative pursuits. So yeah, I ended up coming back to London and began applying for lots of jobs, but no progress was being made. Eventually I secured a six month fellowship at the Economist which is now becoming a full time contract, thank God. Now, I'm writing about topics related to business and health tech for The Economist and it’s great fun.
Rhieme: Thank you for sharing, I like your journey because it’s not been very straightforward, you didn’t always know from the jump. Sometimes we feel like when we’re stepping into different things, it has to go a certain way. But it’s more of embracing everything, you don't have to piece everything together because that's something I struggle with, I always try and look at what happened last time, then connect the dots. But it’s not always going to be linear.
Ore: Also in terms of the degrees you pick, it's not always going to be that you study politics then you become a politician and or study Law and become a lawyer. I think this generation is showing you can be skilled at many things and actually a lot of the skills you learn from a degree are transferable and you don't have to go down one specific career path. I'm actually quite passionate about making sure people know that when they choose their degrees they shouldn't feel as though they should choose something just to attain a specific career. Normally the big exception to that is Medicine, but I have a friend who did a Biology undergrad and is now doing post grad Medicine because she realised after she finished, she knew she wanted to go into Medicine. There are still ways, you don't have to do this whole superliner, know everything from when you’re 16 years old, you can change a lot. Your dreams constantly get refined as you're going along.
Rhieme: Definitely, because sometimes there's this pressure, I think mainly from parents and older people to have everything sorted and if you don't have a solid answer, you look unserious. But it’s just remembering we’re so young, how can you possibly know every single thing you want to do?
Ore: Exactly and a lot of them switched paths as well.
Rhieme: Exactly, trusting and being patient as well. I don't think it makes sense. Anything can happen, something you might be really passionate about today, may not be the same in a few years time.
Rhieme: What was the birthing process of Taking Up Space?
Ore: Chelsea and I are very blessed in that it was very much one of those things that came to us. Chelsea’s sister had suggested that we write a book, but we thought maybe a small pocketbook. Then we got approached by a publisher asking, would you guys consider writing a book? What we thought was an introductory meeting ended up becoming “Can we get 60,000 words from you guys by January?” And we're like, oh, my goodness and this was all in July 2018 literally the month after we'd both graduated. So I think a lot of it for us was okay yes we can do this, we’ve been given this amazing opportunity, but we really took it head on. Yes, I’m in journalism school but we’re going to make this work. Yes, Chelsea was at Law school, but we're going to make it work.
I didn't think there was that much doubt as well. We just kept on saying we’ve done a whole degree , we can do this and we had each other. So when one was losing motivation, the other person could encourage them. I think that's important. Then we had to do a lot of talking, we did lots of interviews, which I think really helped us warm up to the writing process. We didn’t just wake up one day and start writing, we had an idea, we began to set out a plan and what the chapters would be, to which we eventually drew out a book proposal. Then we started talking and having interviews with many other black women. I think after having these conversations, you get to a stage where you begin to warm up and it just feels like you're gradually becoming more and more ready and in the zone. So even now, I try to take the same approach to working. When I have to write a piece, I don't just wake up and say, “I'm going to start writing”. I try to listen to a podcast about it, read or talk to someone about it to warm me up. I felt like these interviews were warmups. Obviously, we're putting all this information down, but we're having conversations that are really important. Then we just have to start writing. That was it. You just go in there, we don't know what’s right or wrong. But we know if these people think we have authority to be speaking about this kind of thing, then we can do it. We did our research, we set ourselves targets, we told ourselves we’re going to try and write or edit 1000 words a day. Sometimes it’s writing 500 and scrapping 500 from somewhere else but it worked, and we’ll do a chapter a month each and each chapter had to be about 10,000 words. So you can see now, why 1000 words a day wasn't really 1000 words a day, but it was just, you know, to give ourselves something. We had six chapters to do. Introduction, epilogue all that stuff at the end. I just think in many ways, we were just very lucky.
Oftentimes it feels like the least helpful thing I can say to people because they're like, “what if we want to go out to write a book, what do we do?” I can't tell you just wait until something falls on your doorstep, that's actually not what you should do. You should prepare a proposal, find an agent, your agent will go take that proposal to lots of publishers if they believe in it, and then there's a whole conversation. I think that's a favour over labour thing. That is the story of a lot of things that happened in my life, that I feel sometimes it's just the least helpful thing I can say. But a lot of it was the work we had been doing when we were in uni happened to not go unseen. Someone gave us an opportunity and took a chance on us. So yeah, the birthing process, it wasn't hard, I think, because we had each other, we believed in the conversation that there was nothing written like this. We knew what we were talking about, people wanted to listen to what we had to say. We had to keep reminding ourselves of that and warm up with all these interviews and conversations. But in the end all of this allowed for amazing things to precede the writing process.
Rhieme: So good, although someone asked you guys “will you guys like to write this book? You had put in the work before then. Some people might feel like maybe it just fell down from nowhere. But that’s not possible, they definitely saw value in what you did previously and leveraged on that. So it’s really nice you added that in there because most people don't really think about how they're watching you. They're watching you from a distance and assessing the potential you have.
Ore: When we were doing that work of improving black visibility of students in Cambridge we weren’t doing it because we think it's going to get us a book deal. We were actively doing other things and so the book deal was a bonus that occurred because others had been watching and responding to the things we were already doing. We didn’t know there might be people who are paying attention to what we're doing. We were working, we were on our own paths, we were doing what we felt was necessary for the position we were in, then the opportunities followed on from that. Yeah, sometimes people are watching you, people are talking about your name in rooms you're not in, But your work will go ahead of you and speak for you. I think that was one of those things.
Rhieme: Yeah, think that's important to just always question your intentions. Why are you doing what you're doing? As you said, I guess being at your best all the time, but not doing that from a place of pressure but rather setting really good standards for yourself. Because you never know when you will be called upon for something. Thank you for sharing. If there’s anyone that hasn’t read it, go and read it. I think like two weeks ago, I read the first chapter again and it was so good. So thank you both for doing that, because it's helped so many people.
Ore: Wow, so glad.
Rhieme: What advice will you give someone who wants to start writing professionally but is unsure where to start?
Ore: Read and write, that sounds really basic. Reading is good because you don't realise how much your voice is made up of the voices you’re absorbing. So your writing is also built and fortified by the skills you’re inadvertently picking up from reading. Read the kind of things you wish you would like to write, but also read things completely out of your comfort zone, because they will push you and teach you about new techniques. It’s good brain exercise, you will not realise how much it enriches your writing because you're absorbing good writing. Also journaling is so important. I have not journaled in about two weeks, I've been quite terrible, but I keep telling myself I know I need to. Also some people don't really like to sit down and write in a journal by hand but for some people that's a thing. But even just sitting and really reflecting on your thoughts. If you prefer to audio journal, actually take lots of voice notes on a phone or something. It's forcing you to think really intricately about things that are seemingly mundane. You get better at describing vividly and interrogating things that might seem normal or that might go unchallenged because you're thinking about what you're thinking about, you're digging deep into your thoughts. I think that's the whole reflective process that comes with journaling. When Chelsea and I were writing Taking Up Space before we actually started writing, we had the interviews, we interviewed each other, and we had a very deep conversation but it was very cathartic and reflective. It forces you to look back on your experiences and think about them about how they made you feel, what they added to you, what you learn from them and what you took away from them. It felt like doing an audio journaling exercise and so much of the vulnerability I think comes through in the book is because of that exercise, because we had each other to bring out those really vulnerable moments in each other. So I think that's what journaling is good for, it improves your writing, because you get better at describing things and talking about emotions, which is so important, but humanising your stories, and seeing colour in things are seemingly mundane. If you want to start writing professionally, it depends on what kind of writing you want to do. So obviously, if you want to write books, that's one thing you should really start and be writing and thinking about all the time. With fiction, obviously, I have no experience writing fiction, but I would love to dive into it at some point, but it feels so hard to be thinking about doing anything from my imagination but it's done, people are doing it. Again, learning how to describe things, learning how to layer, understanding nuance that comes with emotions is really important. Read and write, that’s it the rest comes from there. It needs to be a skill that you're constantly nurturing. That’s what I felt I missed when I said I was in a job I wasn't writing as much anymore, that muscle wasn't being exercised. Whereas now I'm back in my flow, I feel if I had to write something somewhere, I could just feel like I lost that, so it’s about exercising those muscles.
Rhieme: Thank you for sharing. With journaling, that's my go to, I’ve probably used six journals this year and it just helps you think properly, it’s a whole different level of self-awareness. I guess for people that write, there's a lot of reflection that goes into it. Even as you're writing, you’re keeping yourself accountable and owning your experiences. As you said, reading is important because you get to see how other people phrase sentences and learn about their writing styles.
Rhieme: Where do you draw your inspiration from when writing?
Ore: It really varies, and it depends on what I’m writing, I think that's the beauty of being a journalist. You're deep diving into lots of different things all the time, so recently I worked on femtech, which is health technology that's built around women's wellness. I could be talking to lots of female CEOs who have started things like period trackers and breast pumps and all kinds of amazing technology. There’s something about those conversations that are always going to be really invigorating. So when you're writing, you're constantly driven by I want to be able to convey these people’s passion, in the story, I want all their colour and all character, all the things that drive them. I think that’s a source of inspiration because I don’t write creatively because I'm a journalist. I mean, you try to write colloquially about real things. I need to be inspired by sources and the story itself.
I need to actually want and see the value of this kind of story, I think that tends to be what drives and inspires me really. With Taking Up Space, the inspiration was that there are so many black women after us, we need them to know what they're feeling is completely valid. People have felt it before, it's okay to feel this way. Reading the book and realising that there are other people who have felt what they feel. A lot of the inspiration for us was just that there are black women who would come after us and would benefit from the book. I have to feel driven by the fact that I'm writing about something that is very important. Rhieme: Yeah, definitely. I think it just shows the importance of looking outside of yourself and trying to draw from other people, because it not only makes you more knowledgeable but you also have new passions. With Taking Up Space, both of you are very centred around people who are coming behind you and that was your main source, it was outside of yourselves as people. I think it's so important, because that way, you're keeping up with what’s going on.
Rhieme: What advice would you give your younger self when you were considering pursuing a career in writing?
Ore: My younger self was not considering a career in writing, my younger self was going to do Law and going to become the Senate President of Nigeria or something. My younger self wasn’t on this trajectory at all. It's more of to my younger self, who didn't think that she could write, I'd probably say, back yourself, you actually can write. The curriculum may not be great in giving you room to show that. Think about how many opportunities you get to do creative writing beyond year 8. When you think about it, the way the curriculum goes, you're reading all these things,all these classics and literature, which is important to an extent. But realistically, you don’t actually get to tap into the creative side of writing very much. There's no room for that in the curriculum. I think I would tell my younger self to keep writing, keep journaling,know my stories are valid and I can write.
Rhieme: Yeah, I really like that. It's just never linear. Like, you never really saw yourself doing this, but you're doing it, which means over time, you can evolve as a person and sometimes it's a bit shocking, because you're like what am I doing here? But it’s important to embrace wherever you find yourself and not be too fearful to take a step that doesn’t look like what you ever thought was possible.
Rhieme: Do you have any last words, advice or anything that's been on your mind?
Ore: I think don't be afraid to change paths. I think there's a lot of fear around quitting and change. When I said I left my job and I came back to London, not because I had a job waiting for me, but because I was like I’m going to try and try to see if something clicks. That was risky but it took a degree of self-belief. This took months for me to build up, but one thing I had been telling myself for a while was “Come on Ore you can do this” . And so when I did eventually get over the fear, I was brave enough to take the dive. It's proven so worth it. I was saying, this time a year ago, was probably the first time I began to think, is this actually what you want to be doing? Or is there something else out there you still feel you want to do a bit more? It still took me months to decide to take this leap, when I now look back on the whole process, so much about it was worth it. You can see that initial hurdle or feel like you’re going up a roller coaster. When you get to the other side, it feels freeing so don't be afraid to take that jump. Don't be afraid. Because if your gut instinct is telling you that it's a necessary jump then it will probably feel really free and you should do it.
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