Episode 27 - Serving an Underserved Healthcare Ecosystem with Fola Laoye
Fola Laoye joins us on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa podcast to talk about investment opportunities in the healthcare landscape across the continent.
During her time at Harvard Business School, Fola researched the HMO model of health insurance. When she returned to Nigeria, Fola became one of the founding board members of Hygeia, a private healthcare company, which created access to healthcare for over 1 million Nigerians.
She has gone on to launch Health Markets Africa and Iwosan Investments Limited, businesses that are committed to investing in healthcare infrastructure in Nigeria and neighboring countries. Listen in as Fola dives into the opportunities for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs and Investors to use their capital to help cure nations.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Jacktone: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa podcast, where we spotlight the voices of entrepreneurs and innovators shaping the marketplace across the continent. This week we are featuring Fola Laoye. Fola carries with her a wealth of experience leading in the Nigerian healthcare industry. She's the co-founder and CEO of Iwosan Investments Ltd, a health investments holding company. The name comes from a word that means to cure or to heal. And it summarizes the company's mission to provide capital for quality health care services. In addition to her work, at Iwosan, Fola founded Health Markets Africa. An advisory and investment company. She joins the show to talk about embracing her role as a founder and leading as a female in a largely male industry.
Efosa Ojomo: All right, all right, all right. Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast listeners, your cohost Efosa is here again. And I'm here with a good brother of mine. Frank. Frank, how about you just introduce yourself briefly. Very briefly, though.
Frank: Yeah. You saying I'm long winded there Efosa, I'll be very quick, but it's great to be on the podcast again. So glad to be invited on again. And I'm Frank, I'm based in Harare, Zimbabwe, a very beautiful country in Southern Africa, and it's great to be here. I'm part of the community team at Faith Driven, just so excited to see as many entrepreneurs succeed in what God's called them to. So it's great to be on the podcast and yeah, it's great to be with you again Efosa all the way in the USA.
Efosa Ojomo: Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah. I am based in Boston and yeah, I am going to be a co-host copilot here today with my good man Frank. And we have an amazing, amazing, amazing guest today a sister, Fola Laoye, a fellow Nigerian. I mean, there's so many things I can say about her, but let me just start by allowing her to introduce herself just a little bit, and then we'll delve into the impact she has had on health care, the landscape across Africa, and how God is really using her to change lives. So, sister, Fola welcome to the podcast, we're so happy to have you here.
Fola Laoye: Hi there Efosa. Hi there, Frank. Thank you so much for inviting me and thank you for getting this going. Of course, I'm extremely thrilled to be here on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur platform. I'm really following a lot of what's coming out. You know, I'm hoping that, you know, we use this to bless many and many, many, many people across the continent. I am Fola Laoye, I'm first and foremost a Christian, a wife, a mother of two, an accountant by training. And for the last, I would say, 25 years or so have been delving into working in health care in Africa. So that's me, in a nutshell.
Efosa Ojomo: All right. Let's get right to it. I'm not even going to ask how an accountant became a health care expert because of that. But let let's get right into it. Right. Health care across Africa is something that, you know, almost anyone you ask it will say, man, there's a lot of room for improvement, especially as you look at the response to COVID 19, the pandemic. It exposed a lot but you've been working in this industry for over 20, 25 years. So can you just maybe give us a flyover for where it has come from and where it is today?
Fola Laoye: Sure. Well, maybe first of all, I always find that it's good that I mentioned that I'm an accountant so that you can see that I'm coming into this not as a health care service provider myself, although I consider myself a healthcare worker. Very much so. I mean, I came into this industry really coming from a financial services background, coming out of a school not too far away from well or shall I say one of the same schools that Efosa went to. And at that time thinking very much, very hard, long and hard and saying, I wanted to suddenly continue to work in the private sector, but I wanted to work somewhere with a purpose, you know. So for me, it was, you know, really being able to see, you know, a purposeful sort of career, even though obviously there would be, shall I see a profit bent to it? And certainly most especially an entrepreneurial one. And at that time, both my folks, both my parents, they were both doctors. So that's really my link. And they had, you know, a long career in the public sector and had shifted into the private sector and had built their first hospital. So I saw the opportunity there at that time to really, you know, bring my skills into a purposeful environment and really help to sort of increase the impact of the work they were doing. And if I fast forward, we know what was health care like then to now. Certainly at that time, private health care was beginning to take shape in Nigeria and in most parts of Africa, really, because the public systems had become more and more underfunded. And, you know, a lot of people and populations were looking for alternatives. Fast forward to now. Private healthcare in Nigeria is almost 50% of the delivery system. So it has grown significantly. So it's grown significantly on the what I'll call supply side supply of services and infrastructure clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, you know, the whole value chain. But it's also grown in terms of what I'll call the demand side. You know, you'll find that over 70% of our population are paying for health care out of their own pocket and therefore can seek care where they wanted. So that has really changed the face from what was initially a single payer, single provider government system to a much more, shall I say, dynamic, multi-player multi-service type of industry, which has certainly improved the kind of services available. But with its challenges, you know, challenges largely being, you know, a lot of the facilities are still very much subscale in terms of size, just because of the capital required and being subscale and being extremely fragmented, you know, has made it either quite expensive to run or difficult to access. So those are I would say some of the major challenges we face. But again, as I said, I think we've seen a significant step change and growth, you know, over the years.
Efosa Ojomo: Wow. Thank you for giving us that flyover. I mean, it's really interesting. Going from this largely single payer, public, government funded type system to now this dynamic health care innovation environment. One question that popped in my mind as you were describing that is how have the regulations come along on that journey? Because I could imagine some of the regulations, when you are sort of the single payer, publicly funded entity or industry would need to be different when you have the dynamism of entrepreneurs, innovation, private capital, seeking returns. How have the regulations evolved and do you see them evolving in the right direction?
Fola Laoye: Sure. I think it's been a number of things. One is, of course, I am talking very much the Nigerian context now. Nigeria is a federally governed country with the federal government and 36 states plus the federal capital territory. And what happens is that health actually is the responsibility of both the federal government, the state governments and the local government. So, you know, a lot of government players and whilst they still continue to provide care, they also still have the role of regulating care. And they do it in a number of ways, particularly for the private sector. The regulation happens at the state level, so each state has its own regulation board where, you know, private clinics, hospitals have to register. Pharmacies have their own pharmacy board, where they also have to register. And then professionals have their professional boards, the board for medical doctors, the board for nurses. I think it's pretty much similar to what you see in other parts of the world. So I do think what we are running is any different. But perhaps something else that's interesting that is also beginning to play in the regulation space is health insurance. So one of the early things I did when I came into health care was actually to really work with the government at that time to really pull together a health insurance framework that was governed by legislation and to execute with them. That again, 20 odd years later has really evolved and there's no legislation or regulation for health insurance at the state level, you know, as well. So that has brought another layer which is still new and perhaps not yet really being executed, but we can sort of, you know, look forward to the next few years of that additional legislation. I think all of this has been interesting because when COVID broke now, given the fact that COVID was, you know, a pandemic and there was a lot of biosafety and biosecurity concerns, just like everywhere in the world at the very start, it was very much shall I say driven, all the care of it, and even the response was driven very much by the public system, by governments and global institutions like WHO and so on. I think the fact that there was regulation made sure that the governments here in Nigeria could really ensure that the private sector or, you know, folks who didn't really knew what they were doing run away with it, and they could really sort of keep their eye on making sure that the care system for COVID was something that was, you know, really well and tightly regulated. So I think to some extent, it appears that some things are working, let me put it that way in the regulated space.
Frank: And that's fantastic. And it's, you know, when I see you and the amount of work and the amount of things that you've done for Nigeria, I'm I can't but say I'm overwhelmed and inspired by your story. I mean, for those listening Fola is Harvard graduate and just hearing that and just hearing I know Nigerians are very well learned people and just seeing your ability to do incredible stuff in the marketplace from moving as an accountant to a health care worker. As you said, it's it's very astounded. But I want to really pivot on this thing of the knack that you've had as a woman striving through doing your CA exams. Those are crazy. And not to mention your your MBA, Harvard journey, you know, over your career, you've funded a lot of companies and at first it started with with health markets Africa and now you're with Iwosan where you serve as the CEO as well. I hope I said that correctly. But what led you to start all these organizations?
Fola Laoye: I mean. Well, maybe first to address the gender issue. I'll say this. My mother is a professor of medicine. You know, she's 88 years old now. But, you know, she graduated top of her class in medical school. And because of that, you know, she did amazing things herself. You know, she was an amazing scientist, you know, physiology professor. She went around the world literally opening medical schools and then, of course, you know, also pivoted and became an entrepreneur by being the co-founder of, you know, the family hospital business with my father. So I grew up really in that sort of that shadow, if I can put it that way. And so I was never made to think that I was any different from, you know, what I could achieve, you know, from my male counterparts, if anything, of course it was how well could I do whatever I was doing? So that was sort of instilled in me at a very early age. But I think maybe also seeing both my parents and seen them pivot also from being academics, being professors, being researchers, and then going on to being entrepreneurs. And also board members made me realize and to be honest, they became entrepreneurs in their fifties. So it made me realize that, look. You know
Efosa Ojomo: Wow.
Fola Laoye: There's nothing you can't do once God is in your life, once God has ordained it, you know, God's time is the time when you answer, you know, whatever he's called you to do. And so each time, yes, I when I left the family company at that time, which was [....], you know, I had two kids who were sort of middle school aged. So it was a good time for me again from my role as a mother to also spend a bit more time with them, which I did. And then of course, when they got a bit older, I realized that, yes, I could go back into sort of really doing what I felt I knew best, which was working in health care. And so I studied health markets, Africa, which at first was to support other health entrepreneurs and to use the experience I have had, you know, to help them to raise capital, to help them think through their operations, their governance and so on, which was what I did for a few years and then most recently a year ago co-founded Iwosan, which again is a health investment company which has now gone back into brought me back shall I say into the fold again of bringing on acquiring hospitals, building hospitals and building people, building health care workers, really for the next generation, I hope.
Frank: Wow, now that's incredible. And I just really love the name of the company and you rightfully pronounce it. And I did it incorrectly as a start. Iwosan.
Efosa Ojomo: Yes you did
Frank: Is that correct. Iwosan.
Efosa Ojomo: Frank you did.
Fola Laoye: It was correct.
Frank: I did it. Fantastic.
Efosa Ojomo: I was just I was just listening and saying, hey, you see Frank butchering. You did tried. You tried.
Frank: I suppose my mother tongue helps with being able to speak these Bantu languages of ours.
Frank: No, that's fantastic. So obviously this word, as I've gone to understand, means to cure or to heal. And how do you see the work that you're doing with your team? How's it contributing to the nation's healing.
Fola Laoye: Ah, that's a tall order. But yeah, I think let's take it that, you know, we feel that. Yes, let's start from where we are and let's build on what we're doing. And in terms of to cure, to heal for us, we see that, you know, through several lenses. One key lens is providing capital because capital is very, very, you know, still very difficult for most health care businesses or health care entrepreneurs to come back. So we feel that bringing together wherewithal that we have of local investors, you know, and finding patient capital to bring to the table is is one key area that we see as our calling. The other is really investing both in what I'll call the bricks and mortar, the infrastructure, the equipment, but particularly investing in the people and investing in more and more health care workers. And I think the fact that is happening at this time, again, is a, you know, God driven timing, because this is a time in where over the last year and a bit, we have seen a significant exodus of health care workers out of Africa to the west, particularly in Nigeria. And therefore, some of us are reading now, you know, creating platforms, giving support and really giving opportunities to train, to scale and to also be empowered to take their place as health care leaders. So where we really believe that this is something that's extremely important that we do in the country so that way we really have that next generation of healthcare workers and leaders who will be here to save lives, because it's still, you know, a very important purpose and a very important task to undertake.
Frank: Fantastic. And you know, that point that you spoke about of health workers leaving the country, we've seen a massive exodus of just human capital, of people leaving the continent. And and it's a huge thing because of some of the challenges that we have on the continent. And just with that, on this show, we love to talk a lot about how we want to change the narrative of Africa. We want people to view Africa in a different light. And as a leader in in Nigeria and in this health space, how have you been able to draw other people in for opportunities in the space that you're in?
Fola Laoye: No, certainly. As I said, I mean, one thing that we realized was that the fact that we needed to create this platform for what I call the next gen really and for the next gen for themselves to realize that they can step up. You know, we see the next gen in Nigeria and Africa stepping up already in certain areas, particularly technology, fintech and so on. But we feel that is important that we can support and empower them to step up in healthcare because that's how we change the narrative. The more we can do that, the more we can create health care at scale. I mean, this is a country of 200 million people. The ratios of beds, the ratios of nurses, of doctors to the population are just really, really dismal. And to do so, we have to encourage and we have to sort of put, shall I say, the resources and resources not just being treasure, but being time, you know, and capacity building and talent as well behind them to really make sure that they can see that there's a place here. For them to continue to grow. I mean, like you rightly said, we said it at the beginning that the health care system still has a lot of challenges. There's still a huge lack of trust in the system. There's still a lot of services that are not here. I mean, Covid really showed us, you know, how far we are from where we need to be, but we want to. But at the same time, even though COVID showed us how far away we were, it also showed us what was possible. You know, the volunteers, the level of medical volunteers who stepped up, who stepped away from their jobs to say, we want to come and serve this cause. It was unprecedented and it made us realize that, yes, there is still that real, purposeful community spirit that we can leverage.
Efosa Ojomo: Wow, I have to say, I was in Nigeria a few times during COVID, and I've visited other African countries. And I have to echo what you just said. By no means was it perfect, but I saw how people came together and people it really tried to contain the pandemic from testing to, you know, just how seriously folks took it. So thank you. You know, as I've been hearing you talk, I've just been thinking about how incredibly heavy this burden you've taken on is. I mean, you are a graduate of Harvard Business School, and when you graduate from Harvard Business School, you know, life doesn't automatically become easy. But you can almost work wherever you want to in whatever country, in the world like it does open up so many opportunities for you. But you've chosen to not only come back to Nigeria and have an impact on Africa and not even say, like health care, which is difficult on its own. But you've chosen to build a health care infrastructure, a pipeline, what you call next gen, and that's heavy. That's difficult and in many fields, right? At health care as well, at least from an administration side and the financing side, they tend to be male dominated. And so I would really love to hear you talk about some of the challenges you've experienced. Right, working in a space that can often be male dominated, how you've overcome them and what advice you would have for women and men, quite frankly. Right. I think that a lot of times it's like, what advice do you have for women? But I'm like, what advice do you have for men too.
Frank: So exactly. Exactly.
Efosa Ojomo: With that. Yeah. So just help us wrestle with that. You know.
Fola Laoye: I think, you know, it was interesting for me, as I said, I mean, maybe two things. One was, yes, obviously growing up in the shadow of my mom's and seen my mom is a strong professional woman and how well she had chosen to balance her life. I mean, my mom was not just a professor, an academic, but she was also a significant researcher. But, yeah, coming into the workplace, certainly, I mean, these two things, what is health care is a place where a significant number of women work there because, you know, they are nurses and, you know, 60 to 70% of any medical workforce will be the nurses and are largely female driven. However, they tend to be sort of what I would call the, you know, level one or level two in terms of their career and in terms of management. And very rarely do they break through to senior or top management. So I think that was what I saw coming in, the fact that there weren't many women in senior to top management. But I think I was also coming in, to be honest, not being a medical professional myself. So I was also coming in from the outside, if I could put it that way. You know, looking in. And therefore, I realized that I had to make, you know, a breakthrough. And that breakthrough was important, whether I was female or male. You know, I had to make a breakthrough even from pivoting from a financial career into health care operations and investment career. So, yeah, I realized that first of all, I had to learn. I had to know more about the space than, you know, we had to really sort of, you know, born a plan, read or plan and learn and experience and watch, you know, and just be in the trenches as much as I could. You know, sometimes I even went in to the operating theater to watch. But I learned very quickly that there was a particular place I needed to be in, which was in the male changing room of the operating theaters, which was where the surgeons would drink coffee after their procedure. And at the time. The surgeon's. My father was a surgeon, so the surgeons were the ones who ran the hospital. So if I wasn't in the place where they were at making decisions, it was too late. So sometimes I had to find reasons to be in there, either to bring the coffee or whatever, and then join the conversation. So I think, yes, learning, you know, the treat, as it were. Finding ways to connect with people. You know, one of the things I did and I'm a great soccer lover and I've been a soccer lover since I was like ten or 11. So that was an area where I could bond with my male colleagues. And so I did. You know, so I think, yes, just finding things that, you know, would create alignment relationships. So very much on the soft side, you know, not just on the professional side was as important, but really knowing my onions because I couldn't walk into the room and not, you know, know or at least have a good sense of what the discussionq was or what our needs were. And so I think that's something that, you know, men and women, you know, as they move up in their careers, have to know more and more about. But I thought it was also important that there was more female representation in senior and top management. So I did deliberately, you know, get some of our nurses older and a non sort of top professional women. You know, I got them into doing short business school programs, you know, that really helped to convert them into managers and then, you know, step into management roles and so on. And I'm glad to see that that has continued until now.
Efosa Ojomo: Brilliant, the insight, right, about, well, going into the surgical changing in a room, you don't learn that at Harvard Business School.
Fola Laoye: Nope nope, they don't tell you. You have to find your way. I'll tell you what happened. I'll give you a real classic. So back from Harvard. So I came in and I was like, management meetings, you know, I'd written the whole, you know, Porter's Five Forces. Oh, yes, we've got management sessions. And I call the first two management meetings, and I would be in the conference room all by myself. Nobody would turn up. And that's when I realized that they were in the coffee room. So I had to find that coffee room to have that kind of impact.
Efosa Ojomo: Let me just say that it does take a level of humility to say, you know, I've called a management meeting, nobody's here. Let me go to where they are. And I think that leadership and service and humility, which is one of the things embedded in or should be embedded in the DNA of a Christ follower is so important if we are going to make transformational change that the continent requires. Just one more question before I pass it over to my brother, Frank, for the next session, which is Rapid Fire. As you look back at the just the landscape of health care across Nigeria and Africa, what would you say are some of the major bottlenecks that are not helping us hit that maybe exponential growth or is it capital? Is it the talent that's leaving or is it just an understanding even of the opportunities? There are innovations in health care.
Fola Laoye: I mean, maybe first of all, maybe in talking about the opportunity, first, the opportunity is, well, you know, how do I say it? But really, is in the fact that I mean, first of all, it's where a large population and one that is now facing what I'll call the double burden of disease. In fact, if you even bringing pandemics is the triple burden. So the first burden was what I'll call communicable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis. And then, of course, 20 years ago when I first came into the space, HIV AIDS was a huge thing that was looked as if it was going to ravage Africa. So those were, you know, the key areas that we had to turn our attention to. Now, in the last ten years, we are now dealing with the lifestyle diseases, you know, the cardiac diseases, the diseases of sugar in terms of diabetes, diseases, of course, cancers and so on. So we're now facing disease, burden across the spectrum. All within these 200 million people in the Nigerian context. So in many ways, well, that paints a very difficult picture for most people. It is an opportunity from a health care point of view in terms of really being innovative and thinking about solutions that can do two things. One, that can help to prevent. And wellness has become or shall I say. Is becoming a bigger area that we are focusing on, on how to really put wellness, you know, and execute that for a major part of our population. And then, of course, the other thing, of course, is for us to really be enabled enough to look after these diseases. But what are the challenges? The challenges is, first of all, we have a significant urban, rural divide. And most of the population live in the rural areas. So there are real challenges of access to care access, being physical access, either because they just can't, you know, they have no roads or there's just just no real infrastructure for them to get there. Again, access from the point of view of the medical infrastructure itself. You know, we don't have a strong primary health system, so therefore, the care that should be closest to the community oftentimes is fairly weak. And then, of course, there is the issue just of of capital of resources. So resources, as I said, to put those centers together. But resources because the rural population is a very poor population. So again, if you look at the dynamics of the country, there's a lot of inequity when it comes to income levels and what can they afford in terms of services. So it creates that challenge in itself of where do you even with meager resources you have, where do you make the investment, you know, such that you can look after, you know, a larger sort of segment of the population such that they can have better access. But then again, where does it stop? Because, you know, once you get patients who enter into the system and if they end up needing more and more, more care, where do you stop? Because the resources again are not endless? So resource constraints is significant. Now, of course, you've mentioned the other big issue, which is just people. And that in itself is, again, it's disheartening because we have 38, I believe it is, or 39 medical schools across Nigeria. So folks like my parents, that's what they lived for. They came back to the country after having graduated abroad in the very early 1960s, and they set about opening medical schools and creating training, you know, opportunities for thousands of students across the country. And those schools still exist. So, you know, in a way, you would have thought that with the kind of process and volume that we could, you know, train medical personnel. Yes. We would expect that we would have to, you know, export some of that talent, but not, you know, 40 or 50% of it, which is what is happening today. So, yeah, in a way it's an opportunity because again, at least we know we have a pipeline for training, so we keep at it. But of course, it's still a major objective to see how we stem the tide of those going abroad so that they really can be part of the, you know, the service that is needed, you know, in the country.
Frank: And we're getting to what we're calling the lightning round. This is the most exciting round that we have where we fire a few questions to you and you need to answer them in about 30 seconds. 30 seconds long responses. And what's the one thing you wish people understood about Nigerian health care?
Fola Laoye: Oh, Nigerian health care. Well, I guess maybe is what I mentioned, the fact that 50% of the delivery system is in the private sector. A lot of people still don't know that. I still speak to investors who still don't understand that dynamic and therefore, you know, do not realize just how entrepreneurial the sector is. So I think that's something that, you know, I do hope that people get to understand and appreciate in.
Frank: Fantastic. That's great. And in one other interview, once you mentioned that you do a bit of angel investing, what sparks your interest? What are the sort of projects that spark your interest?
Fola Laoye: Well, I mean, number one, health care, you know, health care for me, you know, in all facets. So, of course, health care related start ups and so on. And especially these days with health care and the, shall I say, the cost of health care and technology coming together has been quite exciting. But in addition to that, I also look at bricks and mortar businesses, which I think maybe a bit unusual because most angels, you know, invest in tech. But I don't look at only tech because I realized that maybe because of, you know, the viewpoint I've had from, you know, health care operations on facilities. That without us really building the infrastructure, the tech itself sometimes difficult to either enable or leverage. So I like to do that, too. And then, of course, whenever I see jobs being created.
Efosa Ojomo: I love that. I love I often say your digital infrastructure can only rise to the level of your analog infrastructure. Like you can't digitize the house, you can't digitize food, you can't digitize, taking food from farm to table or, you know, surgeries. You can leverage technology. But I mean, there's something you can't digitize. I love that you do that because we still need a lot of that analog infrastructure. Wow. Amazing.
Frank: Yeah, it's really good to hear that and to see that there's practical, physical things that you can actually do. And I love what Efosa said that you can't digitize everything. And another question for you and is going to be interesting from an MBA graduate from Harvard, in an interview you had with the God, you once mentioned that you're a lifelong learner. What are you learning currently.
Fola Laoye: Let me see.
Efosa Ojomo: Frank those put my sister on the spot.
Fola Laoye: Yeah, I think I mean, of course, I'm big about, as we said, innovation. So I do try to read whatever I can find about innovation. You know, how to innovate, you know how to sort of get, encourage and work with the team, how to bring innovation in and how they need to think about it. So that's something that's big for me. And the other really has been the Bible. You know, I think just after COVID broke out, you know, I did with a few girlfriends, we decided to read the Bible again. Cover to cover, you know. Yeah, we did one. We did the Bible in a year program so that, you know, it took us about nine months to do so. And I think, you know, reading it in the context of just at that time, coming out of what had been a very uncertain period for the whole world, you know, yeah, probably through a lot of it, much more into sharper focus, let me put it that way. So that's got me going and reflecting and reviewing because, you know, there's there's so much in God's teachings that, you know, every time we start, you know, we go back and we reflect based on our experiences.
Frank: Yeah, yeah. Now that's great. And obviously you're a very busy woman. You're constantly managing this business and you're reading the Bible. You are a lifelong learner. What are the things that that bring rest? How do you how do you find rest?
Fola Laoye: Rest means Yes. Switching off, having fun, most of it being with my family, with my kids and my husband and my kids are now at that age where, you know, one is in college, one is going off to college. So, I mean, I think I'm a bit conscious of the fact that very soon I'm going to see, you know, much less of them. So whenever I'm I'm away from work, I do try to spend a decent amount of time just chilling and, you know, being in their own Gen Z world. Yeah.
Frank: Yeah, yeah. alright Z world.
Fola Laoye: But also with a few key girlfriends, one of them who's on this platform, we also get together, kick back, relax, do things that we like to do together, go to the beach, you know, listen to music, that sort of thing.
Frank: That's great. Well, thank you for doing so well on the Lightning Round, even though you were more than 30 seconds.
Efosa Ojomo: Hey hey you asked some though questions. Leave my sister alone
Fola Laoye: I survived.
Efosa Ojomo: In all honesty, this has been and enriching for me and I'm sure for everyone who's to be truly to meet someone who doesn't have to go through many of the travails and the sufferings but is doing it for the greater good. There's reminiscent of what Christ did for us, right? I mean, we are told that he came down from his heavenly thrones because he loved us. And so it's just for me, I hear your story and all the opportunities that are afforded you, even to this day, and you're choosing to build to do the hard work of building. I just want to say thank you. And the rewards are going to be there, here and in the world to come. I want to just go out with one last question. You never know who this is going to impact. But, you know, I think God teaches us different things depending on the season in our in our lives. And so what is one thing the Lord has been teaching you recently or something that struck out in his word or just it might have even been during a worship service or in fellowship with friends. But just what has God recently been saying hey Fola maybe do more of this or do less. what is he teaching you now in your life.
Fola Laoye: I think for me it's been I mean, maybe fact I use a verse that really always strikes out at me its Matthew 6:33 but seek first his kingdom and he's righteousness and all these things will be given to you. So that is it. I find that you go to God first in everything. Start with him. He's the author, you know. He's also the finisher, but he's the author.
Fola Laoye: So if you start with him, if you're really you know, and I think I have really gotten to that stage where I realized that I you know, I go to him first. I you know, I seek him I put my all into him. And after that, then I then ask and to be honest, you know, there have been some some mountains, some miracles, almost, that I have asked for. And God has been gracious enough to give. He doesn't always give it at the time you want it. Sometimes you have to wait. I mean, oftentimes you have to wait. And I think it's in that waiting also that he also helps you develop that faith because, you know, you have to keep strong in the faith in the time that it takes. So I think for me, that's still the strongest thing that I try to teach my kids. I tried to sort of try to even just invite, you know, to my friends and to all those who are around me to see just God first seeking him first.
Efosa Ojomo: Thank you so much, Matthew. 6:33 Everyone seeking first the kingdom and all other things. Shall be added on to you. Thank you so much for today.
