Just left the Andrea Iyamah fashion show at Isimi Lagos, and I’m always blown away by the quality of Nigerian fashion. I keep thinking about how much bigger this industry could be if we actually got the infrastructure right. From manufacturing to distribution and getting these products into the hands of people who want them, both here in Nigeria and around the world. The level of creativity and craftsmanship in this country is ridiculous, and I genuinely don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of what Nigerian fashion can become economically. There’s a massive industry here waiting to be unlocked, and I hope we start taking that opportunity a lot more seriously. Congratulations to Andrea Iyamah on 15 years. What an incredible achievement. 🇳🇬

Watching Jay-Z talk about entitlement and how it has affected some of his friendships really got me thinking about my own experiences. He tells this story about Kanye being upset that Jay made a song with Chris Martin of Coldplay, even though Jay was the one who introduced them in the first place. I think entitlement is one of the hardest things to recognize in friendships because you assume people are being reasonable. You assume they’re thinking logically. But resentment has a way of making people believe they’re owed things that were never promised to them. I’ve experienced this myself. Someone gets upset because you didn’t make an introduction or open a particular door for them. It never occurs to them that maybe the introduction wasn’t yours to make, or that you don’t have nearly as much influence over the situation as they’ve convinced themselves you do. Instead, they’ve decided you’re the reason something isn’t happening for them. And the craziest part is that people rarely ask clarifying questions. They build an entire story in their heads about your intentions, get upset about that story, and then hold you responsible for it. I had something similar happen last December. Someone had invited Chika and me to speak at her event, but we couldn’t attend because we weren’t going to be in town. Somehow, she held that against us. She later accused me of going behind her back to book one of her event guests on our podcast. I genuinely had no idea this person was even attending her event or that they had any relationship. But in her mind, we had deliberately skipped her event and then gone behind her back to book her guest. 😂 I remember thinking, what the fuck are you talking about? But I think there’s something even deeper here that Jay-Z touched on, which is the responsibility that comes with constantly having to be the bigger person. When you’re the more emotionally regulated person in a relationship, you end up doing so much of the emotional work. You have to listen to people’s resentment, understand where their entitlement is coming from, recognize that they’re projecting their own disappointments onto you, and somehow still find the emotional intelligence to navigate the situation without making it worse. That shit is exhausting. And the older I get, the more I realize that being emotionally intelligent doesn’t mean you have to keep accommodating people who aren’t. At some point, you have to set harder boundaries. The barrier to being my friend now has to include a certain level of emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. I need to know that when something bothers you, you can have a conversation about it instead of inventing motives, making assumptions, or quietly building resentment. I can no longer carry the emotional dead weight of people who refuse to regulate themselves. Maybe that was something I had the patience for in my 20s. But in my 30s? Bro, if you’re not emotionally regulated, we can’t even get water together, nigga. 😂 And I don’t think that’s arrogance. I think it’s understanding that peace also comes from the quality of people you allow into your life. Because sometimes the most emotionally intelligent thing you can do is recognize that someone else’s emotional maturity is not your responsibility.