The First 100 Days as CEO with Ndidi Okezie

07/22/21 • 61 min

This week on Beyond Busy podcast we welcome Ndidi Okezie. Ndidi is a rising star in the charity World, the CEO of UK Youth and a board member of three boards, including Centrepoint. In this wide-ranging episode, we chat about having courageous conversations, kindness and much more.

The conversation starts off with Ndidi's current plans and the mission of UK Youth:

'So UK Youth is a leading charity with a vision that all young people are equipped to thrive and empower to contribute to every stage of their lives. We are an open network organization. We have about 7,000 youth organizations and national partners in our network. Based on our new strategy, we are very much focused on unlocking youth work as a catalyst of change that we believe is needed now more than ever.

Fundamentally, we are a bit of a hybrid organization. So, we're an infrastructure body for the youth sector. We are a direct and program delivery organization as well. And, we're a campaign for social change. So collectively our work is to kind of build a movement of like-minded people who are determined to create a society that understands champions and delivers effective youth work for.'

Ndidi also reflects on the problem of youth homelessness:

'Well, if it's not school and it's not home, where do young people go? Because there's a question there about when home isn't a place you can go. What happens there? And when they're there, you know, there are issues with home. When you think about how young people end up homeless, there are so many different things that tend to happen for young people before that can happen.

And having that safe place to go is such an obvious thing. But I think the sad reality is as a society we can't answer if they can go to a youth club. They can go to a youth provision because we know that the majority of young people. Don't have access to that. I think now most people can understand and accept that young people are one of them, if not the hardest hit demographic coming out of COVID, whether it's from the economic perspective, in terms of job prospects, whether it's from academic learning, whether it's from issues around online safety.'

Then she shares what is like being a CEO as a black woman:

'I would love to think about it: well, you're hired to be a CEO and that's what you are. But the reality is that I am a black woman CEO, and actually each of those things comes with its own thing. And then you compound them together. And again, I've experienced the gender dynamic. I've experienced that through my own leadership journey where you are invited to speak on things because you are a woman. You're invited to feed into issues and topics because you're a woman. I've been invited to speak on issues on the race for many, many years.

Right. So it's not, it's never really been something I've been able to decouple. As a teacher, students would come to you because they could identify with you in certain things you've got speak on issues from a place of connection, whether that's a locality based on like London. What it is to work, grow up in particular environments all the way through to, you know, being African, being black, being female. So I think we all draw on all or aspects of who we are. I've never experienced a way where I just get to be the thing I am, as opposed to all of those things together. But yeah, I think again, the CEO level, I wasn't expecting it.

I, again, feel very naive walking into it. When my appointment was announced, I just cannot explain to you the reaction and the responses that I got, the messages, the people kind of reaching out like, oh my God, celebrating the appointment more than celebrating me. If that makes sense. It was like, oh my God, you know, a black woman is leading youth charities, you know, an organization and the third sector.

And this was all before everything that's happened. So I didn't even know all the issues the charity sector had when it came to be. So, you can almost understand that now, but at the time I was really taken aback.'

The full conversation is also available on Beyond Busy YouTube channel. Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

Brought to you by Graham Allcott of Beyond Busy.

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The conversation starts off with Ndidi's current plans and the mission of UK Youth:

Ndidi also reflects on the problem of youth homelessness:

Then she shares what is like being a CEO as a black woman:

The full conversation is also available on Beyond Busy YouTube channel. Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

Brought to you by Graham Allcott of Beyond Busy.

✔ Links:

Subscribe to Graham's Newsletter:

Previous Episode

How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids with Jodie Cook

This week on the Beyond Busy podcast we welcome Jodie Cook. Jodie is an entrepreneur, a powerlifter, and a writer. She writes regularly for Forbes and is also an author of a number of books including ‘How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids'.

We caught her in a quite interesting moment in her life - she just sold her business JC Social Media. In this episode, we talk about this and her experience of leading the team through the pandemic. She also tells us why she's determined not to make plans just yet, how to get mentored by your heroes, and much more.

The conversation starts off with Jodie sharing the big news including releasing two new books.

Then they move the conversation to her first new book - ‘Instagram Rules'. Jodie kindly shares her story of writing this book and finding a publisher:

‘The story of how the book came about is actually quite indicative of how people can use Instagram right now. And that's the 'Instagram rules' that came about from an email in my inbox, from a publisher who I didn't know who said: 'I've got this book in mind. I've seen some of your writing on Instagram. Do you want to write it?

And I was just like: Sure! And so I think that was my first ever published book with an actual publisher. Because all the rest have been self-published. You don't need to ask permission and you don't need to just bang down the doors of publishers or anyone who you want to give you a chance. You can just create your own chances and Instagram itself lets you do that.

Just writing and producing and creating means that you can create your own presence, your own brand, your own audience. And then it means that those people that you thought were really hard to find and really hard to get in front of like publishers, agents, whoever else they come looking for you.'

She also shared her thoughts on online holy-wars:

‘I think being right does not matter. I think what's so much more important and what's so much harder to get right is knowing when to let it go and being able to let it go and being able to just be like and just go fine, someone else who can deal with that. That's not my battle. Cause you could, if you want to pick a fight with someone on the internet, you could do it every single minute of every day.

But what would your energy look like after you'd done that? It would be horrendous. I don't think the solution to anything is boom and bust. I think there are ways of having a healthy relationship with social media and perhaps the reason why I think that is because I ran a social media agency for so long that I had to find that healthy relationship with social media, because otherwise. I wouldn't have had a company.

So there's a way of taking the best bits without the worst bits. I'm sure of it. And one day I will convince you of that and we'll find an amazing balance where you can just be happy online.'

Later on, Jodie shared why it's better to focus on the present moment and experience, and not the plans for the future:

‘I have been the judge for a lot of different awards. And when you read applications, sometimes you have to almost strike through everything that hasn't happened yet. And so you have to be able to see past what we're going to do there. So we have plans to do this, or I have projections to do this. And it's not like you are discrediting anyone else's really exciting plans for their future. It's just that it has not happened yet. And what we want to focus on right now for you winning this award is what has happened.

So I find myself mentally doing it when I'm reading through them. And I think that it's really easy to get lost in some potential. And then, you know, if someone said, oh, you could get this million-pound valuation and you could get this funding and you could win this award and you could do all this stuff, but it's like, what have you actually done? And I think that always bringing yourself back to what can I achieve right now?

Or what can I focus on right now? I think it helps you stay in the present. And it also helps you focus on what you put in rather than what you may or may not get out of it in the future.'

The full conversation is also available on the Beyond Busy YouTube channel. Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

Brought to you by Graham Allcott of Beyond Busy.

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Next Episode

Ready for Anything with Dr Samantha Boardman

This week on the Beyond Busy podcast we welcome Dr Samantha Boardman. Samantha is a clinical psychiatrist and she has a Master's in positive psychology, so her work joins the dots between all those different fields. She combines years of training in medical school and psychiatry with studies in the field of positive psychology. Samantha is also the founder of ‘Positive Prescription', and the author of a new book called ‘Ready for Anything'.

In this episode, we talk about resilience being on you, how to create uplifts in your mood, and many other practical ways to deal with stress and be happier in your thinking. Samantha kindly shares her background, her education, and the way she came to positive psychology.

She also said what was the reason to turn to positive psychology:

"It was about 10 years ago, I was seeing a patient who had this. Maybe she didn't qualify for a full sort of diagnosis of depression, but she wasn't, she wasn't thriving. She wasn't feeling great. She was having issues with her husband. She had three kids. She was exhausted at home. And we were trying to minimize the conflict with our spouse.

We were trying to help her have less issues with her mother-in-law and her kids. And one day she came into my office. I'd been seeing her for about six weeks. You know what, sometimes I just dread coming here. All we do is talk about what's wrong in my life. And even sometimes I'm having a good day and I have to think, what can I complain about?

And it makes me feel worse and you know what I'm done. And it was this weird sort of wake up call to me that I had been. So laser-focused on everything. That is, you know, on her symptoms, on her issues, on her problems, on her chief complaint, in everything sort of radiated out from, from that, that I wasn't focusing at all.

And I actually hadn't been trained to focus on what actually sort of promotes well being even. Could I help her with some of these issues, find strength within her stress and find sort of meaning within the madness of her everyday life. And that got me to go. Back to school and I, and to study applied positive psychology.

That was the opposite of everything. One learns in medical school, in residency, in psychiatry, and it's really the study of, of health and wellbeing. And what are the factors that promote that and, and trying to now, I really, my, I think of myself as a positive psychiatrist and that I really try to.

Ameliorates symptoms, but also how can I sort of promote wellbeing and they're not mutually exclusive and the idea of wellbeing being icing on the cake. Oh, let's just get somebody to feel a little bit better. And then you can talk about that other stuff. And I think you can, they can really go hand in hand."

We also got an interesting insight on vitality:

"I think of vitality is this sense of this feeling of a liveliness and energy that, you know, sort of tells you that you are ready for anything. And it's the opposite of feeling sort of depleted or down. And I think people often think that happiness is the opposite of depression, but it's actually vitality and it's what we need to counter the hassles.

And it's something that then I think gives rise to little, our resilience, the idea of having resilience on a daily basis, not the big, our resilience, the are you know, the response. You know, big sort of bad stuff that can happen, but vitality is what fuels that everyday resilience. And it's, I think it's, it's really maybe undermining even our ability to feel strong.

And, and they're just little things we can do in our daily lives, like connecting and contributing something and challenging ourselves that are really the wellspring of vitality. And it's not in your head again, it's actually in your everyday actions."

The full conversation is available on the Beyond Busy YouTube channel. If you prefer listening, you can find the audio version of the episode on Podtail. Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

Brought to you by Graham Allcott of Beyond Busy.

✔ Links:

Positive Prescription:

https://positiveprescription.com/

Follow Dr Samantha Boardman:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sambmd

6 Weeks to Ninja:

https://www.grahamallcott.com/6weeks

Productivity Masterclass: