Championing Change: Alex Ihama on Diversity, Inclusion, and sharing Greatness

[00:00:00] Elton Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown! 

[00:00:11] Rita Burke: Here on SpeakUP! International, we are fortunate in that we have an opportunity to speak with people from all corners of the world. If you recall last, the last time we interviewed someone, she was in Texas. Well, today, we're right home in Ontario.

As a matter of fact, our guest is in Orangeville. His name is Alex Ihama. Alex is a speaker, he's a consultant, he's a business coach. He's also the Executive Director of the Canadian Congress on Inclusion, Diversity, and Inclusion and workplace equity. Alex has also authored two books, which he will tell us more about as we continue this conversation this evening.
Welcome to SpeakUP! International Mr. Alex Ihama! 

[00:01:05] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on your show.

[00:01:12] Elton Brown: Thank you for taking the time to visit us out of your hectic schedule and that's just to say the least. And speaking of a hectic schedule, you're preparing for yet another summit I want to know. Can you provide insights into the strategies the summit will employ to address persistent issues like racism, discrimination, hate crimes, and mental health concerns?

[00:01:40] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: + Yes, um, once again, thanks for having me. I consider opportunities like this, uh, Opportunity to share to impact and inspire. Um, those topics you just mentioned, um, to me, they are some of the most critical topics of our day. And, uh, I don't think enough is done, uh, on many of the power blocks of our nation to deal with them.

And I'm talking about the government power block and political power block and even in the corporate or community or educational institution. What we are doing now, what we do, this is what we do often, bring together brilliant minds, not just, uh, those with, uh, impressive academic qualification, but even more so lived experience.
I believe you can't teach us people on racism, except you've been through it. And what we're finding today, especially post George Floyd is many organizations are jumping onto the bandwagon under the guise of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and yet have not gone through racism. They have no idea of what it means to be in a restaurant and be bypassed to select a white couple ahead of you.

They have no idea of what it means to be on a business class and suddenly they want to see your ticket again before the plane takes off. They have no idea of what it means to be driving and yet you are within the speed limit and you still step on your brakes. Uh, even though you are within the speed limit because of the color of your skin.
So. We are bringing, uh, speakers and, and experienced people to address it from two folds. Fold number one is, uh, being those going through racism. Often enough, most, uh, uh, topic or most messages are geared towards inspiring and encouraging those who are not, who are not minoritized on how to need to be conscious of microaggression, how to need to be conscious of, uh, biases and prejudices.

But Not enough message to empower those who are victimized every day, those who are racialized, those who are minoritized, hypnotized, marginalized, not enough messages delivered to help them to understand how to deal with racism when it's happening at that very moment. What do you do? When your boss says to you, Oh, you're from Ghana.

I heard Ghanaians make good mates. Oh, you're from Bahamas. Oh, you must be living your dream in Canada. So we teach them skills, like the power of question. Take a deep breath. Don't get angry. Just take a deep breath, bring your emotions under control and ask them and say, that's interesting. You say, I'm living my dream in Canada because I'm from Bahamas.

Do you mind explaining more for what you mean by the Canadian dream? And use the power of question to really. help them to understand their biases. But often enough, many of us leave those situations angry, which often create mental health. So mental health is another component that certainly we introduce in our programs.

[00:04:38] Rita Burke: I particularly like that response and something you said that resonates with me is that frequently we leave those situations angry because we're not prepared for the onslaught of what happens, particularly with micro aggressions, as you said. And so yes, it's critical that people are empowered to respond to those kinds of comments.

I wouldn't even call them questions. I would say comments. How do you know when you've achieved a desired goal with the client? What are your benchmarks for acquiring your goals? 

[00:05:17] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yes. So in all our work, whether it's as a coach, as an executive coach, or as a professional speaker, or as a consultant, or through the Canadian Congress or International School of Business, Um, I often believe that everybody again, not everybody believe that is my opinion.

I believe that we should always aim to exceed expectation. So the first thing to do is to, of course, understand what the expectation of your client is again, be it the coaching clients or consulting clients, or even what's your, when they invite me to speak, I say, what do you want to achieve when we need to sit down?

How, what would tell you that the message did resonate, right? And so, you know, most of our people struggle with confidence and this and that or whatever it is. So once they have established their training requirement, their expectation, then we build on it. We build on it, right? We don't set it for what they say.

We're building it. And my staff know this. We have a policy, a multi organization exceed expectation at all costs. And sometimes. It costs us more money than we are paid just to exceed the expectation. But that's our motto and that's how we have been able to maintain, uh, our status and certainly, uh, the impact we make, uh, for over two, over two decades now.

[00:06:37] Rita Burke: So how long would you say it would take you and your team to have some kind of tangible impact with an organization? 

[00:06:49] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Depending on what the organization wants and how long they want us to do that for. But if they allow us to suggest to them. Uh, how long it will take and what needs to be done. We often perform a needs analysis.
We've just been engaged by a school board, uh, here in Ontario. Massive, they have, you know, uh, thousands of schools, uh, uh, under them. And so we've been engaged by them and we're, the first thing we're doing is gather quantitative and qualitative data so we can establish. Um, the the gaps they have the issues they have.

So people have been surveyed. Workshops have been done. Um, normally I would tell organization allow, uh, 1 to 3 months, depending on the size of your organization to establish what needs to be done and how long it's going to take. So we can't really say this is going to take 9 months. It's going to take 12 months, except we know the depth of the issues they are faced with.

So when we run our analysis. And we create what we call the racism index, inclusion index, diversity index, equity index, communication index, where we do all those KPIs. Then we can say, you know what, it's going to take our work. We take nine months to do, but your work afterwards will take you three years, five years, seven years, and sometimes 10 years.

Because the organization don't have business to run, so they're not going to pack up the business and do this. So, depending on the capacity they have. So, a good example is with Canada Basketball. We're fortunate to be the one they engage to transform their culture. From their Hall of Fame, which was mostly white people on their Basketball Hall of Fame.

Which now, the last two Hall of Fame, they've had more diversity in their Hall of Fame. To their team, their board of directors and all these things. That took nine months to do, uh, but then we suggested that they, uh, hire a diversity director, which they did, and that fine woman is going to run it for the next three to five years.

Uh, so how long does it take? It depends on the, uh, outcome of our initial analysis. And that goes the same when I do coaching. When I do coaching, when the client comes, oh, I like, you know, here's the situation on Facebook. Again, we want to understand their capacity, you know, their capability, want to understand their level of confidence.
Before I can say, you know what, I'm suggesting a coaching program of six months, I'm suggesting a coaching program of three months. Uh, so when I see some organizers say, oh, we'll do this in three months, I'm thinking, I don't know what you're doing three months. What if you go in there and everything is broken?

Can you do it in three months? So, uh, some people do marketing and they suggest data and outcomes and results. Without in depth analysis, it was, uh, uh, Peter Drucker, who once said, if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. And W. D. Denham said, in God we trust, in everything else, give me data. Right? So, you have data to be able to estimate how long, whatever you're planning to do.

We'll take and if you allow me to rush to the scripture, Jesus Christ once said, it says, you know, it is wise that when you want to build a house, you first of all count the cost. 

[00:10:01] Elton Brown: How true, how true that, how true that is! You have done so many summits and workshops. I lost count. Of the of the number. So when you go into these, uh, workshops, and you just make your discoveries.
How do you prioritize these equitable? Uh, policies and the well being of youth and future generations? 

[00:10:27] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yeah, so, um, in, in most cases, people set priorities based on the level of their selfishness. They won't want to agree, but that is how priorities are set. Oh, I want this done. The reason I want that done is because it benefits you the most, right?

So, uh, so what we often do is we look at what they don't consider as priority. And that is from that aspect, we begin to look at why is this not being considered a priority? How can this, uh, be considered a priority perhaps, uh, in alignment with what you consider a priority? But you mentioned youth. Um, I'm very passionate about youth.

Um, I'm somebody who they would have called a troubled youth in my days. I got expelled from a nursery school. I don't know how you get expelled from a nursery school. I get expelled from a primary school. Uh, a secondary school, I got kicked out of the university. I was, what it, uh, rusticated. Uh, that's what it is.

I don't even know what that means. But, um, so, school has never... Um, being my, uh, my phone play, so to speak. Uh, I try to kill myself a couple of times. My brother killed himself, uh, suicide because of school, and, and there were teachers, uh, told him, teachers would call me and Nick put an entity, you don't assist.

You have no future. I don't know why you're here. That's wasting money on you. This were things that teachers were telling me. So, um. So I became what I call a trouble from one, from one police case to the other, from one police car to the other. So I had a lot of issues growing up and as an adult, when I picked up my life and I started to look back, I saw gaps in parenting, gaps in academia, gaps in community.

I saw gaps in the raising of kids and in so many things. things and therefore I became so passionate about helping young people on how to overcome the gap while also helping older folks and parents and stuff on how to minimize the impact on kids, right? Uh, the rate of suicide is high, not just in Canada, for young people, even the 10 year old committed suicide.

I, I, we, I believe that We no matter who you are, no matter what you do, when a child commits suicide, you are guilty and I'm guilty. Every responsible adult is guilty. So when organizations don't prioritize supporting youth engagement, when churches don't focus on youth development, when communities are concerned with everything but the youth Um, it really broke my heart, so I'm involved in a lot of youth program.

My first book I wrote, Welcome to Greatness, it was meant to be for youth, even though now a lot of adults have embraced it. My goal was to have it in the rooms, in the cells, in the detention center, across, around the world. Even today, somebody posted on my Facebook, Today I posted a book and somebody put a comment and said, I read this book when I was in the detention center.

When I was in prison. He said, it's on my Facebook right now. If you go, he say, I read this book when I was in prison. I read it three times. When I came out, I was inspired to write my own book, and today I'm an author and a speaker because of this Alex's book. It's right now on my Facebook. If you go on my uh, facebook.com/coach, Alex hammer my fan page, you will see it right there.

I just read it the evening. Right. Uh, another youth in, in, in Hamilton, uh, same thing, right? It says that was a book that kept him true, uh, when he was in detention center. And today he runs a video and audio company in Hamilton. So, yes, I may have lost my brother to suicide. Yes, I may have survived it myself.

But we are all, and we should all be concerned about the next generation. Otherwise, what are we living for? If you are not living... The impact on a generation of voices is like, I will conclude the question with a quotation from Martin Luther King. He said, until a man, until a person can rise above his or her individualistic concern to the broader concern of humanity, it is not feasible.

I didn't say that, Martin Luther King said it. 

[00:14:39] Rita Burke: So it is obvious that what you do, your work, has an impact.
On people, on children, on youth. And something that sunk into my soul as you spoke was the fact that you yourself was a troubled youth. I want to get back to that later. But tell us of what you consider to be one of your most interesting speaking engagements. 

[00:15:07] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: All my speaking engagement, frankly, I consider interesting.
Um, yeah, I actually consider all of them interesting. I think maybe I can say an interesting encounter. Um, actually, uh, is when people invite me. And haven't done enough research on me. So here's something interesting. I posted that my birthday was just a few weeks ago. Uh, it was the first time I celebrated my birthday at that level.
We had senators from Ottawa, members of parliament, people coming in, flying in from Jamaica, St. Lucia, and taking them across the U. S. Like, it was huge, and everybody. And, uh, the pictures are all posted. The videos are all posted. Uh, but there's an... The last... there's a part I was dancing really crazy. Like I was just dancing crazy and crazy and somebody recorded it.

It wasn't even part of the professional recording and sent it to me. And I looked at it and I was like, okay, people have never seen me any crazy. I didn't mean to do anything by posting it. I just thought it was cool. And I posted it. Now it's become one of my most viewed videos. People want, people want to see you crazy, I guess, right?

So they want to, it's more, it's more popular than when I talk of leadership and business and strategy and diversity. People are loving this video, it's crazy. So now here, let me bring it back to your question. A fine lady sent me a message through LinkedIn. It says, And she's not even connected to me. So it's like a second, third connection on LinkedIn.
It says, I saw this video and I would love to meet you to really get in an event with a planner. So here's me thinking, okay, she knows I'm a speaker and all that. And I met with her and she engaged me to deliver a very powerful presentation and she had no idea. She was, in fact, in the meeting, she was saying, I don't know if you speak, but I, I feel you have the, 

[00:17:02] Rita Burke: She saw you dancing and decided she wanted to engage you to speak?

[00:17:07] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yes. And she was wondering if I speak, she was wondering if I speak if I don't know if you speak, but I love your energy and I love your personality. So, and I thought, you know what, why don't I meet with him to ask him if he can speak in our event. And here's a woman, I have no idea. And she didn't do any research or anything.

She just went off the video. So to me, that's an interesting encounter because I, when I started to talk in the zoom call, just yeah. Like this with our colleague and it was like, yeah, like we're inspired already. Like, you know, come on, I said, but I speak for a living. It's like, Oh, because they don't know.

They were able to say, we don't know if you accept credit card. Like how are we going to pay you? By goodness. I started accepting credit card. The first time credit card came out. I was one of the first points for PayPal. I was like, I've been in this business for almost three decades. They were shocked.

Right. So to me, that's an interesting account of that. I don't recall the first time I was in the front of somebody who didn't know who I was. Like, I, I don't recall, like Google came out maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, so pre Google or maybe, but post Google, people Google you before, I Googled you before I came, I checked your 

[00:18:21] Rita Burke: You did!?

[00:18:22] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Of course, I checked some of your podcasts out.
I wanted to know if this is a serious opportunity, an opportunity to impact. I checked some of your work, your fine work. And so I said, well, let me support it. Right. I get solicited for so many things. 10, 20 solicitations every single day for so many things. Podcasts and this and that and that. So I have to manage my time accordingly. So I did see your work and I wanted to honor your work as well. 

[00:18:48] Rita Burke: Let me admit that I think I saw you dancing as well, but I didn't share that with Elton. But that's a secret between 

[00:18:55] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: you and I. Is that what brought me here, too? No!

[00:19:05] Elton Brown: You know, it's, uh, it's amazing because in your presentations, you're very astute. Very, you know, very staunch in your, in your mannerism. And, you know, it's like, okay, I'm going to roll up my sleeves here. You know, we've got, we've got, we've got a lot of work to do. And we don't have much time to do it in.
Thank you. And then to turn around and see you dancing, I can understand why people, you know, that kind of shot off the scales, so to speak, because people got to see another side of you, not the astute, You know, let's get to work, you know, they got to actually see the human side of you, Alex. 

[00:19:50] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: It says something really interesting, like, one journalist, there were some journalists at my event, and one of the journalists came to me, he whispered in my ear, he says, you know, I've written articles about you.
I said, really? He said, yeah, I'm the one who writes the articles about you in the Caribbean news. I said, oh, wow, I've read it, but never really paid that attention to who. And here's what he said. He said, considering the intensity of your messages and your posting, it says, I never thought there was this side of you.
Do you mind if I take you a picture? Basically, do you mind if I take a picture of this side of you? And I'm like, sure, go ahead. You won't believe it. That picture has more likes. Every other, like, you know, and he, he took this picture with his phone and we paid thousands of dollars to a professional photo photographer.
And this picture, he make it . 

[00:20:42] Elton Brown: Well, it sounds like he, he was able to capture. The real you, you know, I am really touched by you were saying how the educators were cruel to your, to you, your brother, to the point where you lost your, your brother. And so I'm just wondering, what would be the benefits of having educators that look more like us?

[00:21:07] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yeah, I think in the, there's benefits to that, I think. But even more so though, how about just having educators who love children, who love people? How about having educators who are just kind, right? I spoke to them recently, and I have, I have one, two, three, I have six speaking engagements this month, and they are all going to be teachers.

Six! Six weekend engagement and my message is going to be very simple. It's like, do you know in your classroom there's somebody that may have been raped that morning? Somebody going through sexual abuse by their father or brother or cousin or uncle. Do you know there are kids in your class who may not have had breakfast?

Do you know there are kids in your class who may be struggling with societal tendencies? Let's even just pack racism for an instance. That kid could be white, it could be any, it could be any ethnicity. This kid... It's one of the most vulnerable profession on the planet. When you come to class, whether you have kids or not, you are a parent.
You have the power to transform the life of that kid. You could be talking to the future prime minister, the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Like, you, you, you cannot approach teaching even as doctors do or lawyers or accountants and CEOs. No, you approach teaching as a father and as a mother, whether you have kids or not.

I would say that's where we begin. That's where we begin. Once we begin that, racism is not an issue then. It's not an issue. Racism will be phased out of schools automatically when teachers make every effort to connect with the kids. There's nothing wrong with asking the kid how are things with your mom?

I don't think you get in trouble for asking that question. Right. And the kid may lie, but you will see in the eyes, right? If there are things going on. Right. I have coached, I was just telling somebody the other day, I, I have coached thousands of people if I take the women who are talking mostly of the Caribbean, but he applies here and applies around the world.

And I said in a, in what particular country? I don't wanna mention the country. I have coach at least 100. Professional women, CEOs, board of directors, 65 years old, 55, like elderly people, people who are not, who are seasoned in their career, and 80 percent told me they were sexually abused. 

[00:23:22] Rita Burke: We'll have to have you back to talk about that topic at some point, because it's huge.

It's huge, isn't it? And it needs addressing. There's no question about that. Are you selective about the clients that you engage with? Do you have a preference for the type of groups that you work with? 

[00:23:39] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yes, I actually do. Um, when I started this, uh, decades ago, I would take any opportunity because, uh, I needed to be paid as well.
Uh, but at my level, and by the grace of God, I must add, uh, I have the privilege to, uh, look at organizations I want to work with. Uh, if I see this is... tokenism. As I say, organization, I just want to put the checkbox and say, we did have Alex speak with us. I will politely decline. If I look at the seriousness, if you will, the commitment of those who are bringing me, then I will likely decline.

For an example, and as the organization was talking to me recently about coming to empower the black staff. And I said, Thank you. I would like the CEO of the company to be the one that kicks off the event and it's like, but the CEO is not black. I said, but that's the point. That is the very point if the CEO is, you know, they've given us budget.
I say, I'm sorry. I know you are happy to give you budget for this, but if the CEO will not make the time to come and kick off the event talking of how important this program is, I said, I made the client. Okay. I made the client. I said, no, I told you respect to you. Two of you are staff who are volunteering.

It's not your job. You're volunteering because you are black and you created this what they call employee resource group affinity group. We look for findings to call it and then we throw some dollars at you and say, go find some speaker to speak to you all. No, no. I said, no. After speaking to them, they were empowered.

They were empowered. I said, you should tell your CEO that you need a coach. Okay. And that I will coach you, they should pay for you to be coached. Like, we have to get to the place where we can speak up for our rights. We can be in Rosa Park, even in the workplace. We can be in Martin Luther King, even in our churches.

We can be in Nelson Mandela, even in the community. We have to get to that place. I've always spoken up, that's why they keep me out of schools. Like, when you ask a question and they don't know how to answer you, then they say, Shut up! Sit down and shut up! Right? They'll tell me that, right? I knew I'd do this question today.

I remember, I'll give you a quick example. Pluto. Right. Pluto. I remember my doctor coming from school. Daddy, daddy, daddy. They say Pluto is not a planet. When I was in school, they say how many planets. I said eight. And I said Pluto was not a planet. I didn't even know. I just felt it. They, I felt it, but only four years later now, the same culture is not applied, right?

So you see that, you know, even things that, you know, the teacher out there in school changes with time. So yes, I do have a preference. I look at serious, the seriousness, I don't want to say commitment, commitment is too fancy. Seriousness, you have to be serious. So that's for corporate, for clients, for my coaching client, I look at three things, willingness, readiness, and ability.

Is this person willing, right? Better than a willing, Alex, I heard about you, you know, Elton spoke about you, da, da, da, da. Okay, willingness check. Readiness. Now if I say put your hand in your pocket. If I say do a homework, if I say commit one hour a week, if I say is this person ready, right, from what they are saying, you can tell, oh, my mother is from Jamaica, my daughter, my cousin, my auntie, my uncle, my father, my children, okay, are you, can you carve out one hour a day, I ask them, called hour of power.
Right. I, I will meet with you once a week, but you, I will be giving you homework that you need to do for one hour a day. I'm not, okay. Then readiness, I guess, is out the window, right? And then ability, nobody wants anybody to waste your time. Certainly not my time. I live what I call 'Purposeful Second'. I can account for every second of my day.

I'm not gonna say every minute, every second since I woke up this morning, I can tell you exactly what I did. 

[00:27:29] Rita Burke: On SpeakUP! International, we seek to inform, to educate, and to inspire. And there's no question that our guest today, who's Mr. Alex Ihama, is helping us to meet those goals. But I'd like to go back and hone in on something you said.
You talked about you have the privilege to pick and choose and you said you could pick up if it's tokenism, how do you know if it's tokenism? 

[00:28:01] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Okay. I give you an example. So using as an example of, can the CEO come and open the event, right? If the CEO refuses right and does not delegate to COO or CIO.

That's tokenism right there Absolutely. That's the reason right there. If we get together and there's a major organization that I want to mention your name, but I don't want to mention your name. I want to mention your name. I don't want to mention your name, but this is a major organization in Canada that receives 300 million in funding.

Your money and my money goes to this organization to do charity work. The CEO invited me to Vancouver to have lunch with him. I flew down, had lunch with him, and he told me we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do this, and, you know, and they are happy to engage with me. The moment they engaged us, uh, you won't believe it.
Can we have a meeting? Oh, no, no, no. I'm in Bahamas the whole of next week. Okay, can we meet with you? Oh, no, no. You know what? Just, okay, I want to walk you through the presentation. No, just email it. My goodness. It's called presentation. It's not called letter. Presentation means I need to present it. And when we got a little stern by saying, I really need, of course, I have questions.

He said, but that's why we hired you. Yeah, you hired me, but I have questions. You have to. Here's what he told me. You won't believe it. In fact, when we got the report done, we found out that almost 100 percent of the 300 million were given to white led organization, charity organization. None was given to, uh, black.

We found black organization and indigenous organization, Somali organization, that have been applying for funding, they were refused. And you're telling me they didn't fill the form properly. And we are telling you they were not born here. So you, they needed help to fill those forms properly. You could have done more.
Anyway, all this conversation was going back and forth. The C. The CFO, who the CEO passed us through told my staff, my director of operations is a white woman. My executive assistant is a white woman, and told her, I said, is it possible for us to book that presentation with the board when Alex is not in the country?

Because there are just some things we don't want to get into with the board. They didn't want me to expose what was going on. Right. And you know, when I met with finally the CEO, finally I had literal, literally connected him to his executive assistant. He gave me half an hour. Here's what he told me. I'm not paraphrasing.
He say, you know what? We are doing this because of board wants it. I think so far you've done a fantastic job. Please email the report. There's no need for you to be there for the presentation. I think this meeting's over. Yeah. 

[00:30:37] Rita Burke: Amazing. 

[00:30:38] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: A major organization that gets $300 million, including your money and my money.
I'm still contemplating going public with this. I'm just like it every time it burns, it burns on my head. I'm like, You know, um, I'm just like, it's, it's not right on any level, especially because the government funded agency, right? There's another one right now, again, government funded agency, 200 million, right?

And they were given 200 million to all their websites from Vancouver, their Facebook, Vancouver, all over the country. 95 percent of their speakers are white. 95%! The government gives you $200 million to, to, to do events in colleges and university across Canada. And you tell me your speakers are white and their message is to enable black people to get into leadership.

Hey, which is counterproductive. So how do you know your, these people are is, is talking them. It's it. If you look deeper and let me speak to others who are doing this work. Please, I know the money sometimes is appealing, but let's not go there and be used by organization to smother racism, you know, the other day somebody goes, Oh, we have our first black VP.

I just burned my heart and I put a comment I said, you know, I'm, I am actually tired of our first black VP first blackness. I said, it is not a moment of celebration, but a moment of sober reflection.
The reason that you VP in 2023 is an indicative of the depth of racism and discrimination in your organization. Don't go on LinkedIn and sing about your first black VP. We should be crying about it. My goodness, it got more likes than the post he did.
 
[00:32:30] Rita Burke: I will read it! 

[00:32:34] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: So, so, yeah, so, uh, we, we have to be conscious of it.
And I'm very, and also with regards to coaching, right. So I fire clients. I've refunded money back to plan. $5,000, seven, 5,000. I said, you know, you come here, you complain, complain. I said, oh, my husband said this. My father said this. My uncle said is my cousin said like, I am. They are not here. You are the one here.
Are you willing to do the work? Oh, Alex, you don't know. Okay. You know what? I don't know them and I would never know them. Right? So what he did is bad, but are you willing to, so my point is, when I make a mistake in not. Properly assessing a client, either a corporate client or a coaching client. I always go back, um, to correct it by either releasing you and giving you back your money.

[00:33:22] Elton Brown: Wow. You know, we, within our communities, we have so many organizations that are out there doing the, the great work as I, as I call it, but there seem to be working independently. They're not seem to be, uh, working together. It's almost like they're in silos as they're, you know, doing their good, their good work.

So how can we as a, uh, as members of our communities help these organization build bridges so that the work that all of us are doing can be, uh, rapidly accomplished? 

[00:34:01] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Great question, Elton. That has been a generational challenge, which I believe stems from colonialism. They came to Africa and they said, this is Niger.
This is Nigeria. They named our nations. They didn't only name our nation, they named our people. They named the courses we teach in school. And they told us you stay here, you stay here. Remember that they were using blacks to capture slaves. It wasn't, the white man never went into the home of a black man.

He basically influenced the black man to steal his brother and stuff like that. We seem to have taken that and we have run with it for generations. What you said, Elton, that is one of our biggest challenge. Until we can strengthen the unity within our community, we will not have a voice at the table.

Until we can strengthen the unity of black people in every part of the world, even here in Canada, we cannot have a voice on the table. The government will toss a hundred million dollars at black organizations and then they start to fight. over it. Instead of saying, hold on a second, whoever said 100 million is enough.

How much was given to the Jewish community? How much was given to the gay community? How much was, we need to be fair and equitable here. But nobody's asking intelligent questions, but we are fighting over a piece, a slice of bread, right? A bounce check as Martin Luther King would call it. So how do we begin to make that change?
That much needed transformation. I was in an event in Ottawa and I spoke to the African woman who did it. I said, She's Alex. Great message. We need you in our community. I said, I am in the community. You don't need me. I'm part of it. But the challenge is you doing this. The other one is doing this.

Everybody wants to be CEO. Nobody wants to be the CFO. Nobody wants to be the CIO. We all want to be the head. In fact, You know, Honorable Augustine, I must give her some kudos here. She's a very great friend of mine, and the first black woman, member of parliament, the one who made the motion for Black History Month.

She said, she told me directly, she says, Alex, I've been doing this work for 60 years. In 60 years, I've seen many black organizations come and go. Many of them suffer from leadership issues. There's always this fight that seems to emanate within them. And she said, she things she feels that I could, I can, I'll be, I may be able to help to bridge that gap.

So I called a meeting of, to even meet with leaders of black organizations. 80 percent did not make the time for it, unfortunately. Uh, so, um, we couldn't really, uh, proceed with that. But We are still pressing on. What we're doing right now is we are actually trying to unify those who are like minded. Those who are like minded like you right now, Elton.
Those who are like minded. What is the use of going to somebody who thinks he or she has arrived, they get 10 million dollars from the government, when we can come together and get 5 billion dollars? 

Right. So they are getting 10 million here and 2 million here. So let's, so that's what we're doing. We are building a coalition of nonprofit organizations and community organizations that have the same mind.

And what is that mind? That is the mind, generational wealth. What is the mind? That is the mind of renewing your mind. What is the mind? That is the mind of building our people with a high level of confidence, intelligence, and eloquence that we can stand our ground, even when that ground is shaking. There are still people, there was, there was, uh, what do you call it, uh, earthquake in, uh, in Jamaica a few days ago, uh, no data as I understand, but my point is the ground can be shaking and we can stand once we are unified, then, and then only can we have a voice at the table.

The way it is right now, when we make noise, they take one black person, you know, and they put him up there and say, see, see, we have a black speaker. Black speaker, a member of parliament, they interviewed me on TV when the Honorable Greg Fergus was made the first black speaker. They asked me on TV, Angie, on her show CTV, Alex.
So, you know, is this progress? You see, progress. I say, Angie. Yes, we can see his progress. I say, but no, we have to wait to see if he's given the power to do his work, right? What if he, if he opens his mouth and they go, Ooh, he opens his mouth. Ooh, then you tell me that's progress. That's not progress. That's retrogression.

Right. So it's too early to see his progress. The fact we have a first black speaker. No, let's see. Right. I have helped a lot of black people become executives in banks when I used to be in bank. Many of them retired, not retired. They left two years later. One of them told me, he says the meeting, the same meeting is 10 o'clock.
He shows up at 10 minutes to 10. He finds out that they were already there one hour before him, which means they were meeting. before the real meeting. So I saw to just tell him what to do. Oh, thank you for coming to the meeting. Now go wash the dishes, basically, right? They never want to ask you whether the dishes should be washed in the first place.

How should we wash the dishes? Why don't we outsource it? All those questions they discuss behind your back. So, um, there's still a lot to be done. And I use this opportunity to call on black led organization to form allyship with another black led organization. We don't have to be a hundred. Okay. Right.
Jesus transformed the world with 12 disciples. One sold him one, denied him one, said it doesn't exist. At least with the remaining nine, he was able to impact billions of people. So, you know, form an allyship. If you are a leader of Black International, form an allyship, right? In fact, there's an event we're doing, talk of event, we were doing a summit at the end of this month, a virtual summit.

Or black led nonprofit organization, and I'm planning to deliver a message to them and put a call out for them to come to be unified and that we can we can post the quarterly meeting virtual meeting so they can come with their issues comedy opportunities and discuss it among each other. And from there, they can add to the next level.
We are offering that to the community zero dollars. We're asking. 

[00:40:12] Rita Burke: Well, I'm so happy that we've decided to have you and SpeakUP! International because we claim that we speak to community builders and it's obvious that you are building our community and I appreciate that. Let's get a little personal here, Mr. Alex. Tell our listeners who or what is responsible for the man that you are today. 

[00:40:34] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: My mother, period. I can't even stop there without saying any other thing. She was the only one that believed in me. Only one. And people say, oh, my mother, my mother. No, no, no. This is the truth. Ultimate truth. My dad, may he so rest in peace, disowned me many times.

Disowned, public disownment, right? You are not my son. Get out from here, idiot. So my, my mom would say, no sad, no, no. Suck my son. I'm like, what? What's wrong with her? Why is she dancing? Like they just took, kicked me out of school. She said, come sit on my lap. If nobody wants you, I want to. You're my son. She named me Sari, that woman, I don't know any woman that went through her like she, like she did when she died.

What gave me comfort was that she has gone to rest. That's what gave me comfort. She had finished the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith. My mother was the greatest philanthropist. My mother will she was a teacher. She will see a kid in school Unless the kid is not here. She will go and visit the kid at home, which is completely crazy And find out that the case father have died and that's why the mother didn't say anything because there's no money My mother will say do you mind if I take him home?
And I was schooling on holidays. It will come back to you. My mother when she died. There was a A prison warden, like a high level officer in the prison detention center, he came to me and says, your mother raised me. There was a man who was a lawyer in the UK called me and said, I know people are saying your mother raised me.

My mother, of course, mostly with my dad's money, my dad owned most of the money, um, sponsored over a hundred weddings. over 200 scholarship and nothing is registered. So then she doesn't want accolade or credit. None of those. I watched her. She will call me, you know, I know somebody, so I'm so happy. I hope you pray.
I hope you read the Bible. Even until death, she still consider me a little boy, right? So I spoke to her on a Wednesday, uh, February, uh, 5th, uh, February 6th. Uh, last year and then she told me she was going for an operation. I said, what operation? He says, uh, gallstone. I never went ahead of it. So I, when she's speaking, I was Googling gallstone and I'm like, mommy, people would call it procedure.

It's not even an operation. He said, no, the doctor said, if I don't do it, I'm going to die. I said, mommy, die? I said, die is a big word for that. Not knowing the doctor wanted to just make money off her back home in Nigeria. And influenced her to go under the needle and I went straight into a coma. And I believed that when they told me, I didn't have to mount trust, I called my brother and finally my cousin said, no, she went and she's in coma.

I believe I'm a man of faith. I believe that if I had gone to her before she died, I was going to hold her hand and I would say, Stand up!!
That's how Jesus raised Lazarus. But while I was rushing to Nigeria, I had COVID. Bought my ticket, I couldn't fly. I was looking for who, in fact, I don't believe in bribery, and I don't think anybody should bribe or do anything. But if somebody had told me, give me 10, 000, and I'll give you a clean certificate to fly, I would, I would have.
But unfortunately, COVID refused to go. The day they said COVID was gone, that's the day mommy died. So I never got to see her. Who's responsible for the man you see? My mother. There's no other person. If you want to know more about her, her name is Mary Eki Obede. And if you just put, or if you ask me, I created a what I call a forever missed page.

And people have come up from the woodworks and said, that's your mother, that was my teacher in Adesuwa Grammar School. That was my teacher, that was my principal, that was my... Like people are coming out on Facebook. People are never even knew that there was a connection with her. She did so much. The woman built four churches in secret and never even said to people she built it.

Went to villages and built it and donated the churches to other churches that never wanted to take credit for anything. Never. So, I, I, values I have my mother, leadership I have my mother, passion I have my mother. You should hear her speak. My goodness, that woman. I don't believe in all this, uh, some of all this stuff, but if they tell me that my mother spirit is there and is there 5, 000 to go and check it out, I will.

[00:45:06] Rita Burke: You'll see her. Yeah, she sounds like a wonderful, wonderful person. And earlier in our conversation, you talked about. About teachers or people with Children who cares for them. And it's fascinating. Your mom sounds like she was a caring adult. And that's what that's what our Children need in order to actualize into the people they should become. So thanks to sharing that story with us. 

[00:45:32] Elton Brown: How does Canadian leadership summit this summit that's coming up? Uh, uh, near the end of this month. How does it plan to engage diverse participants in fostering discussions on enhancing Canada's national image?

[00:45:49] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Well, it's still in line with the objective of, uh, all the summits. We do. We most summits when people do summit, they just focus on political leaders or church leaders or school leaders. We when we do summit, we invite people from five power blocks, the political power of the government. We invite people from the religious power block, the churches.

We invite people from the academic power block, the professors. We invite people from the corporate power block, the CEOs. We invite people from the community power block, the social justice advocate and community advocate. And one journalist told me once, he says, Whenever I look at the... Flyer for your events.

I'm intrigued in how you are able to bring, you say you never see a flyer with a professor and a pastor. Have you ever seen a flyer with a professor and a pastor? No, you don't. You're a professor, a pastor and a politician on the same flyer. No. They don't have to see it. They may even go to the same church on a Sunday, but on a Monday to Saturday, they are running like chickens with no head.

Like that's what to do. Right? So we bring them together to tell. We believe that there's a connection, a correlation between every power block. It's like saying the head cannot say to the neck, I don't need you. The neck cannot say to the body, I don't need you. The hand cannot say to the fingers, I don't need you.

And the fingers cannot say, damn you hand, I need you, right? So when we learn to bring people across frontiers, when we learn to bring people a different diverse background, racial background, academic background, you know, bringing the bus driver with the CEO, right? So I'll give you a good example. We're training the school right now.

I said we'll be having six engagement this month. And do you know that they, this school board, I don't know about us, but they told us they don't train support staff. Support staff are those who clean the toilets. Support staff are those who clean the lunch room. And yet they are not trained. They've never been trained.

And I said, no, we must train them. Like, really? I say, yes. You say, why? I say, you want us to eliminate racism from your school. These people, they probably see and hear things you don't know about. What if one of them call a student a monkey? The school will be responsible. Or, on the other hand, one of them hears a teacher say something.
Like, so, they need to be trained on how to identify the clues and the clues. So my point is, to your point, we bring in people from every aspect. When we go into an organization, we ask. We went to Canada basketball, not just then, we did Canada games. These are major organizations. We do what we call stakeholder analysis.

And they never consider the volunteers. Oh no, you know, the volunteers change every year. It doesn't matter. Volunteers needs to be trained. If we're drinking tea, they need to drink tea. If we're eating spaghetti, they need to eat spaghetti too. It doesn't say they have volunteers. You give them cookie and then you eat rice and chicken.
Where is equity? So this we our, our mentality and modality, our strategy, our techniques to tools and techniques. All these things are based on what I call a psycho-spiritual philosophy. Love your neighbor as yourself. Period. This is not being about any religious. They've asked me once. Oh, it's everything.

No, I said, don't confuse religiosity with spirituality. Religiosity is institutionalized. Spirituality is personalized. Love your neighbor as yourself, cut across Muslim, Pika, Hindu. Even the devil understands that. So, this is how we operate. Inclusivity must be the core of everything that we do in life.
Certainly, I'll submit as well. 
[00:49:34] Rita Burke: But in order to be inclusive, we need to be intentional. We need to understand what it means. And I think that's what you're telling us. I think that's what you're telling us. Now, you have a coaching framework. Am I correct? 
[00:49:48] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: You are very correct. 

[00:49:50] Rita Burke: Would you expand on that a little bit for our listeners, please?

[00:49:54] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yes, yes. So when I became a coach years ago, I was a member of the International Coaching Federation, the Association of Coaching Federation National. I was ended up in 500 years and at some point I realized that some of this with all due respect to them, some of these associations, they are incomplete, right?

If human being is more complex than psychology. A human being. I always say we are not even human beings. We are spirit beings in human form. There is more to us than is seen. There's more to me than you see. You can keep me here for 10 hours and there's still more to me. I'm still learning about me for cried out loud right?

Still learning about me for cried out loud. So the framework we have, we access, A S S E S S, access, so people don't know it's access because of my accent, is access. We access people from four dimensions. psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and physiology. So the framework with which we have certified a lot of people, we have a program at the schoolofgreatness.ca school of remains that see the program is called ignite and that program really help people to look at yourself while we also help you to look at you from those four dimensions.

And when we do that, we often find areas that need tweaking or some areas need encouragement. Some areas need overall, completely, like you're changing your age. Some areas need inspiration. Some areas need accountability. Some areas need motivation. So we find out those things and that's how we're able to actually break through.

I can say today that only two people in probably 2005 and Over the last, uh, while have been unable to complete that. And that wasn't due to our fault. It was due to the fact that they just did not, their readiness and ability kept dropping. Uh, but the breakthrough we've had, I was just telling somebody today.
I say, even if I start a podcast once a week. Talking about my clients without revealing their name or their identity or anything, but just talking about the cases that I have personally been involved in, it would be intriguing and a lot of people will learn from it. Issues people come up with, I can tell you a couple right now, 80 percent of the issue people bring in my coaching program when I certify coaches, one of the modules talk about don't coach your close family members, don't coach your husband, her wife, don't do that, please, I'm begging you, don't coach your child, don't coach your mother, don't coach.

I had my, my anything I used to bring up, my wife was like, well, you wanna coach me baby? I, I, I wasn't trying to coach you. Like, so even if I'm talking, I have to be careful. I'll say it to, it doesn't look like I'm coaching. Um, they are prejudging me that everything is coaching. So the first thing I tell them, don't even attend.
So today, if my wife, anybody's talking, Oh, you know, I have this, you should say, Oh, wow. Wow. Just show them empathy. Oh, that must hurt. Don't offer advice. Don't, that's not your place. Right? So one of my closest friends just now, she was talking, thinking of transitioning from her job to entrepreneurship. I often say, don't confuse what you do for a living, what you were created to do.

What you do for a living is called profession. What we're created to do is called propose. When you are able to turn your purpose into your profession, like I've done, that is called greatness. So she wants it and I can do it because we are so close. I say, no, I'm going to refer you to somebody else. I'm just following my rule because otherwise that could break our closeness, right?

So that's number one. Number two, you have to understand that 90 percent of the issue people come to me with come to you with, if you Is not the issue. That is the symptom of the issue. It's like going to a doctor. I have a headache. Next day, they find out that you have one ball growing on your spine.
Right? So most coaches that go through all this conventional coaching program, they deal with the issue. At the School of Greatness, we deal with the root of the issue. We, that's how we're able to, so one of the first assignment was to write a three to five page on your deepest pain. I have people who have told me, Alex, I don't, I don't know if I have a deepest pain.

I say, don't worry, take a week to think about it. You would be shocked if I was to tell you 10 deepest pain people have put on the table. One, deep, deep. A full grown man, who is an executive, says I have never talked about this for over 30 years. He said, my mother, my dad was an alcoholic. He used to beat up my mom when she had a baby and came home.
The day she came home, my dad was drunk, beat her up. The baby fell and died and they lied that the baby fell by itself and died. I have carried that in my head for decades. I've carried that in my head. It says when I was a young teenager, I bought a gun and I was looking for my dad to kill him. I couldn't find him.

Somewhere along the line, I now gave my life to Christ and my mentality started to change. And at that point, I found my dad. I had to forgive him. Where are you going to never hear that? They forgot. He forgot this happened. So when somebody sits in front of you crying or expressing a concern and begging everybody to listen, you are not a judge, you are not God, you are not even a philosopher, you could have 10 MBAs and 20 PhDs.

There's a saying in Africa, it says, it is the person who wears the shoe that knows how well it fits. You can look at my shoe. So I have one shoe I like. I love this shoe. It cost me a lot and I love it. But it is so tight, you will never believe it. So I don't wait for event that is more than two hours. So when you give me after two hours, it's a high level of discomfort.

Alex, that shoe look nice in my head. Jesus. You have no idea what I'm going through right now. The moment, the moment I leave the event, the first thing I take off in the car is the shoe.

[00:55:59] Rita Burke: Alex, you need to, you need to add to your bio that you're a comic and a humorist as well.

[00:56:11] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: People laugh when I speak. I don't intend to make a joke. I'm just telling you the honest truth. 

[00:56:16] Elton Brown: You know, sometimes. We find ourselves in situations that are very depressing and we laugh because it's, we have the option of, of either laughing or crying. So we decide that, okay, we're, we're, we're going to laugh.
It doesn't take away any of the seriousness of the situation, but, uh, you know, what do, what do you, what are you going to do? You've given so many workshops and summits and presentations. When you give workshops and after the workshop is over and you're part of the job is done, do you ever do any follow ups with these organizations to see how far they have progressed?

[00:57:01] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: One hundred percent. It is part of our framework. It is part of our processes. In fact, we often offer to facilitate a survey on their behalf. And then we create a report based on that survey and we present it to them. Uh, by the grace of God, over the last two decades, we have never scored less than 91.

Most are 95, 96, uh, 98 percent. Sometimes 97 and some cases actually 100, right? So we do events with 700 people, 2000 people and you get 96, 97%. I think that's good. If that was what I was getting in school, my dad would not have hated me that much, I'm just saying. But maybe the teacher does not have said, you know, I'm a nick on who I'm an entity. I will. My scores in school were really poor, right? 36 percent 12 percent later. But what they didn't know was I was going to tremendous abuse at home. Nobody ever asked me. Right. My mother was beating up every day, her feet dragged across the floor of the room, you know, nose running, weak crying, and then I'm supposed to go to school and tell you 2 plus 2 is 4.
You're kidding me.

[00:58:10] Rita Burke: Now, before we let you go, Mr. Alex, is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we have not given you a chance to speak about? 

[00:58:20] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Let me share with your listeners. Anytime I have the opportunity, my message is simple. Within you lies an insurmountable amount. Insurmountable wealth of knowledge.
Insurmountable wealth of talent. In fact, greatness is your DNA. You can be more. You can do more. You can have more. You can give more. Don't settle for less. Don't believe those lies that were said about you. You are incomplete. You don't exist. You have no future. You have to create a narrative by yourself that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
You have to create a narrative by yourself that I am more than conquerors. You have to create a narrative by yourself. That I'm going to make an impact and leave a legacy that will shatter barriers. That I'm here to fulfill a purpose that is larger than me. No matter what they say, black, green, your accent, you are too fat, you are too short, you are too old, you are too young.

Do not let them look down on you because you are young. Do not let them look down on you because you are old either. You have to, you believe in yourself. is more important than every educational qualification that you can ever have. I'm telling the honest truth. I am here today not because I went to school.

They kicked me out as I told you. I'm here today because my belief in myself can no longer be shattered. For far too long, they suppressed it. Because I allowed it, it is time to take off, pick up your match and walk as Christ would say, but I'm telling you, take that to the bank, bank it, you will find out that even no matter the MBAs you have, your promotion, I got 16 promotions in 15 years in the bank.

They were throwing promotions at me. Promote, my salary grew over 1, 000%. In those 15 years, I never got an academic qualification. I did want to do an MBA, do PhD. They were promoting me because of my confidence, my intelligence, and my eloquence. Because of my passion, my purpose, and my principle. I often say this, and I say this in my book, The Mystique of Leadership.

Leadership is the spirit that can only be ignited by purpose. So generated, sustained by passion and guided by principle, my friend, until you find out the exact reason we're created, you don't even exist. So if you need help, go right now to, schoolofgreatness.ca. There's a free course. It's free. It's called a course on greatness.

Free course is based on my book, Welcome to Greatness. My goal is to educate and inspire 5 million people by 2032, we are getting close. Go take the course, it's free. Costs you nothing. You don't even have to buy the book. But go through the course, discover your purpose, generate your passion, and go make the impact you were created for.
God bless you.

[01:00:53] Elton Brown: Your life journey is interesting, to say the, say the least. You come from, uh, small beginnings, uh, from abuse that was inflicted by your father, your mother, the person who loved you and cared for you. And was able to pull you up from the sadness and the darkness of the days of abuse. And then you became this speaker who began to motivate individuals based on the power that was given to you by your mother.

And because of that, you've been able to help individuals become great. You even have a school using that name and individuals can attend and find out the root cause of their problems, what's really holding them back from greatness. And I think that this has been a wonderful, wonderful conversation with you, sir.

And I'm hoping that in the future, we will be able to do this again!

[01:02:10] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Yes, thank you so much. The honor is all mine. I'm honored to be here. And, uh, it was an interesting conversation and I had the opportunity to share things, frankly, I haven't even talked about for a long time myself. I believe every encounter. Has a higher purpose than we can ever, uh, uh, determine, uh, I tell people all the time.
If you, uh, believe the objective you are meeting somebody is actually the objective you are thinking, then you have a small mind. Why don't you open it up? And let something big happen. I believe this, uh, this is a beginning of something bigger, uh, for you and your organization and certainly for us and the relationship we are forming.
I'm here to serve. I'm here to help. So if there's any other thing I can do at any point in time, Allah. 

[01:02:56] Elton Brown: Thank you so much! 

[01:02:58] Alex (Nosakhare) Ihama: Okay.

[01:02:58] Elton Brown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. If you would like to reach Alex Hama, please visit his website at wwwdotcanadiancongressondiversity.ca, where you can leave your contact information. You can also reach Mr. Ihama by visiting his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/alexihamacanada. 
Would you like to be interviewed and your cause promoted by SpeakUP! International?Please drop us a message containing your name, company, name, the service you provide to your community and email address to info@speakuppodcast.ca. 
You could reach us using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 
To connect to our podcast use Spotify or your favorite podcast platform and search for SpeakUP! International. You can also find our podcast using our web address. www.speakuppodcast.ca. Our logo has the woman with our finger pointing up mouth open. Speaking UP! 

At SpeakUP! International, we aim to inspire. To inform and to educate.