2023 — Year in Review
To the neverending pursuit of clarity 🥂
Since 2020, I have read the yearly reviews of others and failed to write mine even after making a self promise to do so year in, year out. While trying to put pen to paper and write this on New Year’s Day, I read the intro to my friend, Emmanuel’s, year in review where he said:
“Writing this also means I am starting the new year how I want to- to do the things that matter to me, to execute as fast as I think, and fight against procrastination with all my might.”
This perfectly encapsulates why I consider it necessary to write this year in review.
But, I’m scared.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I struggle to do things until I’m the best at them. And since you can’t be the best at writing without starting, you have the situation I’m currently in — scared to write about my own lived experiences. There’s also no set template to follow in writing a post like this as we’re all leading very separate, unique lives. But I’m pushing on, knowing that excellent writing is the product of first consistently putting out mediocre work.
So, let’s get into it, shall we?
Entering into 2023
2023 was a year for the books. I usually have a long list of goals, resolutions and all the works entering into a new year. But I went into 2023 blank. I remember feeling like I was in a fog — knowing that I needed to want things of the year but not knowing what to want. And as someone who identifies as ambitious, this scared me. It just wasn’t that I didn’t know what to want, it was also that I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted my life or career to face.
So, I titled 2023 — My Year of Clarity. My ultimate goal for this year was to get clarity.
A heartbreaking life lesson is that clarity doesn’t come to you by a lightbulb going off in your head or an angel appearing to you in your dreams. You only gain clarity by doing. But how do you go about doing when the conundrum is that you’re not sure what to do?
Oh how I envy those who from cradle knew they wanted to be doctors or contribute to life in one specific way or the other.
Entering into 2023, all I knew for certain was I wanted to leave my job as a Product Owner because I felt useless most of the time. And I also wanted to get on a Tier 2 skilled worker visa.
So, I decided to focus on achieving those in my search for clarity.
Let’s see how each month went.
January
As has been tradition with my partner since I moved to the UK, we entered the new year in a quaint Airbnb in Kent. My first interview of the year was in Jan 6 for a PM role at Financial Times. I was hopeful cause I’d gotten a referral and the role seemed great considering my undergraduate background in English and my experience in writing & prod mgt. However, some weeks later I got the dreaded “unfortunately” email. This was, as you’ll come to read, first in a long series of rejections.
On our return to London early January, we travelled via bus due to the city’s poor public transport system and unfortunately, got into a roadside accident where an elderly lady was injured. An ambulance was called and the police came to question the driver and other passengers. That was my first time witnessing an accident since I got into the UK. And I should have known this was a foreshadowing of the year but hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?
On the visa front, I paid £2000 pounds of my hard-earned money to switch from my student visa to the graduate route and on the 31st, my application was approved.
I also published this cheeky article after consuming particularly tasty Singaporean noodles.
February — March
This period was characterised by even more rejections but of the worse kind. I was applying to several jobs daily but went months without getting called for a single interview.
I’d like to describe the process I took in applying for jobs to make it clear the extents I went and why these rejections had my mental health in shambles.
First, my resume. I patterned this to fit in with the job requirements of each role. Then, I reached out to respected industry peers to review my resume and made edits based on their feedback till my resume was solid. Next, I looked up employees in key arms of a company I was applying to such as recruiting, product and sometimes engineering and sent a unique cold DMs to them via connection request on LinkedIn. Hell, I sent such a DM to the CEO of a major company once. I was doing all these while applying to jobs I was qualified for — some even overqualified, yet no interview and no job.
Here are some examples of connection requests I sent:
I remember a coursemate at the London School of Economics (LSE) was leaving a lowly startup for one of the biggest payment companies. She reviewed my resume extensively and recommended me for the position she was evacuating and I never heard from them. This was another big blow to an an already nonexistent ego. Several of my mates were getting into the best companies and progressing with their career and I couldn’t get a first stage junior PM interview with such a company. Comparison is the thief of joy, I know. But I didn’t even have to compare as it seemed glaring to me.
At this point, I was doubting everything — doubting if I was as good as I thought I was, doubting if I wanted to continue with a career in product management, doubting if I wanted to continue working in the UK. The last one made me turn on LinkedIn job alerts for other parts of the world.
However, even in the darkest times this period, there were flashes of light that kept me from going completely over the edge.
- Moved my mum into a new apartment and fully furnished it.
- Placed my mum on a monthly salary.
- I got to hear my role model, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala (NOI) speak and took pictures with her.
- Had a mini weekend staycation in a cute Airbnb around Stansted . The ending to this was crazy as I had to walk with my big travel box for over an hour to get to the bus station. Apparently, some parts of London haven’t moved into the 21st century and there are no Uber/Bolt operations (can you tell I’m still pissed about the whole thing?)
- In March, my partner and I celebrated his birthday in Tirana, Albania. Went on the popular cable car ride and enjoyed a date on the mountains. The ambience of the area we stayed in gave me Old Lagos vibes. Think Ikeja, Surulere and a bit of Ikoyi. Simply fabulous!
April
I realised that job applications happen in cycles. First you apply and seemingly get no response for months and then you apply and get multiple interviews lined up in a week. Around this time, I started getting interviews but continued receiving rejections for reasons such as the company not offering visa sponsorship or preferring to proceed with an internal candidate, among others.
One rejection stands out in this period. I got to a final stage interview where I did a presentation and received high praises from the interviewer. I thought this was it, finally! Everything lined up. It was a good salary, came with visa sponsorship, and was within the Payments team of one of the biggest sports betting companies. At this point in my search for clarity, I knew I was interested in payments. I followed up with the recruiter a couple of times to no response. After some weeks, I saw that the job ad was back on Otta (amazing platform to search for tech jobs) and soon after that, I received a rejection email. I was devastated.
By now, I had gone on several of what I call my “binge depression episodes” where all I did was cry nonstop for long periods of time, stay in bed all day in a dark room, and eat junk food. Then, I’d pick myself back up and console myself by thinking up a new strategy to use in the job search. And when this strategy didn’t work, going on another episode, restrategising, and doing this again and again and again.
Sometimes I’d focus on the quantity of jobs I applied to e.g apply to 10–20 jobs per day, other times the quality. Another funny strategy I came up with was to apply for senior roles I was overqualified for. I thought since I wasn’t getting jobs I was qualified, then perhaps being overqualified would do the magic.
If you’ve ever been in the job application cycle, you know the weird relationship you develop with your email. My email was my most opened application this year. At some point, I started feeling a tiny bit relieved whenever I opened my email and saw a a rejection. It was better than no response at all I reasoned. Here’s a sad email I sent to myself around the time
I followed this email by saying something along the lines of I might never make it. Yeah, I was sad sad.
May — August
Shortly after sending this email to myself, I caught my first break of the year. My salary was increased by 7% and some weeks after that a new Head of Product joined who promoted me immediately to Product Manager. This also came with its own salary increase and I got to “lead” the Onboarding Squad — a team of people I genuinely enjoyed working with. We had a 2-day company onsite in London where I met team mates I’d been working with for over a year for the first time. Exciting times.
Again, I started to think perhaps this was it. Just maybe the private capital markets industry was for me. Maybe I’m meant to spend the next 2–5 years at this company. My new manager was also amazing and she renewed my excitement about product management.
So, I threw myself into work and reduced applications. My team led some of the biggest projects of the year at the company and we were known to have the fastest execution. With the support of my manager, I was sponsored for a Tier 2 visa which was approved less than 24 hours after I applied. The condition to this though was I’d pay a full refund to the company if I left less than a year after the sponsorship.
This was also a period with a lot of firsts:
- Featured on the Growdiance podcast where I spoke about my continuous pursuit of excellence in my journey so far. It was my first ever time on a podcast and I wrote on LinkedIn about how it happened. Here’s my mum’s reaction to it which warmed my heart.
- Toured Europe and visited new countries. Flew in to Barcelona and spent a night at Barcelona’s Airport Hotel, then travelled to Berlin the next day. From Berlin, I and my partner flew to Finland where I experienced the craziest rides of my life at the amusement park. Went on a ship ride (my first ever) from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia. Then, experienced my first inter-country bus ride from Estonia to Riga, Latvia. We took this same route on our return. But flew from Finland to Munich where we spent a week and then back to Berlin where I spent another week before flying back to London.
Of course, even when I was meant to be having the time of my life travelling with the LOML, I was still breaking down. I continuously questioned if I was doing the right thing with my life and if it was meaningful. I still felt most of the time that I wasn’t maximising my potential and hadn’t discovered my life purpose. Around this time, I considered pursuing finance by taking the CFA exams (didn’t eventually go through with this). But all in all, these were good months until they weren’t.
Towards the end of August, things started to go awry at work. Executives made decisions which detracted from the meaningful work I thought I was doing and which I felt had strong negative consequences. We were all running around like headless chickens and it felt like I was the only one seeing it. Of course, I mentioned it to my manager but there was little she could do because the seeds for these decisions were planted long before she joined the company.
So I went back to active job hunting.
September
I returned strongly back to the ghetto in these months.
9am on the 1st of September, I received a rejection from Monzo that broke me, again.
Sometime in August, I saw a Monzo job ad on Otta. I remember being on a call with my girl, Lammie, and saying there’s no reason I shouldn’t apply and get this job. And so I applied. I played my trump card of reaching out to the founder of Monzo who I had a personal connection with. He responded saying he had no hands in the operations of Monzo anymore. But somehow, I got that first interview invite. I was at my locs hair salon when this came in and I was ecstatic.
With excitement, I prepped diligently for the call. I shouldn’t have bothered as the recruiter sounded like she’d rather be someplace else on the call. You know how recruiters sound when they’ve found the person they want for the job and they’re only calling you to tick a box. It was a phone interview and it lasted about 15 mins, instead of the scheduled 45 mins. All my preparation was for naught. Days later, I got the rejection and cried for hours. At this point, I was convinced my luck had run out and that God had turned his back on me. So, I spent some weeks wallowing.
As has been the theme of the year, I picked myself back up again and continued applying and interviewing. Got a referral to join the Statements Billings team of an energy tech company and went full throttle on that. After the first two stages which were great as mentioned by the recruiter, I was told they had an internal candidate they would prefer to go with. When this happened, I went on another long episode. Weeks flew by like a haze where all I did was cry. Picked myself back up again and continued applying for roles and seeking referrals. The new strategy I came up with at this time was using Twitter to seek connections to employees at companies I was applying to.
In the midst of all these gbasgbos (Nigerian lingua for chaos), some interesting things happened this month:
- I travelled to Berlin for a week and I experienced clubbing with Germans. Crazy!
- I sent a long email letter to my best girls, Wums and Lammie, titled “Why I am Angry at my Best Friends.’ Within it, I detailed wrongdoings of theirs that although seemed trivial, had affected me and I hadn’t mentioned. Honestly, I’m a funny girl cause who sends such an email my God 😂 😂 😂! The way they both approached it made me more open to communicating my feelings and also taught me to view situations from their own POVs. I love those girls!
- That same week, we went on a mini golf date where Wunmi said from my WhatsApp statuses and general online posts, it appears to all that I have my life together. If you know me, then you know how much I project joy. And I’m able to do this because I have a well of joy overflowing within me. In 2023, my well dried up and I wore sadness like an invisible cloak. So, I’m glad that I was still able to outwardly project joy and make others feel good even though within me I was deeply sad.
- Oh, my baby sister also resumed to 200 level in Covenant University. They grow up so fast (sksksks for context the age gap between us is less than 3 years but please dears I’m her aunty)
October
In October, the energy tech company came back and said they’d like to move me to the final stage as they were no longer proceeding with the internal candidate. This reaffirmed what I knew that I’d done great on the interviews and it also gave me hope that I was getting the job.
The final stage involved a presentation. With the usual fashion I approach everything, I went hard on the preparation, sleepless nights, etc. At this point, I knew all there was to energy laws & payment processing systems in the UK and had read all online customer reviews about the company and their major client. On the interview day, I did a mock presentation with the person who referred me for the role and three slides in, he said I’d gone above and beyond and should get the job. To provide context, he used to work on the exact same team I was to join.
My heart was heavy after the interview that afternoon and I just felt in my heart that bad news was coming (PTSD lol) and I started crying again. The rejection eventually came LOL. I remember when the recruiter called to tell me I’d been rejected, I asked him if the role would have offered visa sponsorship and he said Yes. At this point, I was practicing masochism cause why was I adding more salt to the injury with that question?
But the ray of sunshine that month was:
- my baby got approved for the UK Global Talent Visa. We’d spent months prepping for it and I was glad that came through (emphasis on we cause I work no be small!)
- For Black History Month, I was invited by the LSE to speak on a panel focused on women of colour in the workplace. I wrote about it here.
November
Truly, it is darkest before dawn. The week of the energy tech presentation, one of the people I’d reached out to on LinkedIn to refer me for a ‘Product Manager: International Expansion’ role came through and the first recruiter call was scheduled for Friday. This was the day immediately after the presentation when I still expected to receive good news.
I remember being on my bed that afternoon so tempted to postpone the interview because really when has an interview happening by 5pm on a Friday ever gone well?
I was so lackadaisical about the interview that unlike me, I only prepped hours before and didn’t look up the interviewer. But I prepped! I had a template for interviews that answers the common questions and I made sure to tweak it to highlight my experience with internationalisation and taking products to new countries.
Joined the call only to discover that the interviewer was the hiring manager not the recruiter. We had a great amazing interaction and right on the call, she scheduled me for another call the next Monday with a member of the team. This also went well and within the next 7 days, I had two in person interviews — one with the Head of Product & the Head of Engineering, another with the VP of the team. Interestingly, my interview with the VP, which was the last stage, lasted only 50 mins . Then, we spent another hour gisting about movies, reality TV, novels and travel over coffee. I was stoked and prayed fervently to get this role!
Less than two hours after I got home from the interview, I got a call from the recruiter. The conversation went something like this.
Recruiter: They’ve really loved talking to you and hearing about your experience. What do you think of the company and role so far?
Myself: Well, I love it because of XYZ and that’s why I’ll really love to get the role
Recruiter: “Well, you’ve got it!”
The scream I let out???
After the first interview at the office, I knew this was my dream role and company. Here’s the message I sent to my people after this interview. Even though I had more stages to go, I was already saying I’d prefer this role to the energy tech company which I was still expecting an offer from at the time.
God indeed gave me the best everything — “abundantly, exceedingly above all that I asked or thought.’ All of these happened with no stress and it was too obvious that God was at the wheel. For instance, I have zero connection to the person who referred me for the role. Yet, they not only referred me, but was also an incredible support system throughout the process. God raised men to help me in 2023!
The same week I signed the offer letter, I got confirmation that I’ll be travelling to Ghana on an all expense paid trip to speak on a panel at the largest African crypto conference.
This Bible verse comes to mind to describe November, 2023:
Some other noteworthy events that happened this month:
- Mid-November I travelled to Marrekech with my partner and the best guys and a time was had! Shortly after returning to London from Marrakech, I travelled to Berlin for three days. See, I was on top of the world this period.
- Unfortunately, the bad decisions I’d mentioned executives made came home to roost and layoffs happened. The craziest thing is they laid off some of the best guys at the company, some of whom had opposed some of these decisions while the Yes-mens remained. This made me spitting mad and it really dawned on me that in the capitalist world we live in execs can get away with making such decisions, while others bear the brunt of it. Crazy thing is I knew I’d have been part of those laid off if I hadn’t already resigned. Wheeew, I dodged a bullet in more ways than one!
- Oh I also had the refund the visa fees as stipulated and so my salary for November and December was almost nonexistent but I wasn’t bothered. Just happy to be out!
December
Entered December in Accra after a long flight. I was coasting on pure joy throughout this month to be honest. I got to experience the beauty of another African country and also visited Lagos to see family and friends.
Came back to London and then travelled again to Tenerife, Canary Islands for my birthday trip which was fully sponsored by my baby.
This made it the 11th country and 17th city I visited in 2023. On my birthday, when I said I was deliriously happy, I meant it. It’s incredible that a year that contained so much pain and sadness could offer that much joy. Here’s the love letter I wrote to myself on my birthday.
Out with 2023, In with 2024
As long as you are aware, every experience, adventure and moment, whether happy or sad, good or bad, tragic or invigorating, is an opportunity to gain more clarity — Source, Unknown.
At the beginning of this review, I said I sought to gain clarity in 2023. So now, let’s do a retrospective. I’m still not sure I’ve found my life purpose but I do know that I have found something worthwhile to do in my continuous search for clarity. Found a product role I’m really excited about and was also sponsored by the new company to a Tier 2 visa.
Entering 2024, I’m thinking long term. Who are the women I look up to? And what do I need to do this year to be where they are or better in the next 5–10 years?
I saw a tweet from a lady who completed her Phd in Neuroscience from Stanford and passed the California Bar exam. And she’s the visual evidence that the answer is Yes to the popular question asked by African parents of — “does that person have two heads?”
On a serious note, my takeaway from the tweet is that in 2024, I want to operate with the knowledge that the impossible is only a cap limit I have set on my mind.
I also want to write more this year. This way, when I’m writing a year in review at the end of this year, I don’t bore you guys talking about how scared I am of writing.
I plan to try a lot of things, to be okay with mediocrity, doing crappy things and failing forward, or not. But 2024 is the year I Do!
To quote, Oluremi Martins, another lady who inspires me, in 2024, I plan to be:
‘Conquering my fear of being mediocre by launching crappy things in public. If you see me do things that seem below my pedestal, it’s a deliberate strategy to conquer perfectionism.’
Acknowledgements
My loved ones showed up for me in 2023. I felt love deep within my spirit. I’m grateful to my mum, sister, friends and partner who loved me sometimes more than I loved myself throughout this year.
To my girls, Lammie and Wunmi, I don’t know how I’d have done 2023 without you both. I’m a thorn in your flesh for life!
To sister Bisola, who has been praying over my life since 2015 when we met as course mates. Who always knows to message me when I need God the most.
To my girl Fortune, who ends almost every call with prayers and a word over my life. To Dara, whose story inspired me this year and who also stood in prayer for me.
To my friend Alentyler, thank you for being my fitness accountability partner. I formed a routine thanks to her and was consistent at the gym from August to November. Unfortunately for lazy people like me, what they all say is true. Going to the gym really helps the mental health.
To my partner, you are the best human being I know! In the words of your friend, the only person nicer than you is Jesus.
Special shoutout to my Twitter Circle, it allowed me go unhinged with my tweets this year before Mr Musk took that away.
To Enish’s white rice, ofada sauce and plantain, you have my heart.
To all the clubs in London I visited and those I partied with, thank you. You allowed me let loose!
To my baby Sheldon of the Big Bang Theory, you’ll forever be famous.
And to God, thank you for providing me with the ability to show up for my loved ones this year.
And with that, the 2023 season comes to an end!
