DISCUSSION GROUP

What if being single isn't a waiting room for your next relationship, but one of the most important periods of your life?

Inspired by Karen Uzo's book How to Be Single, this episode explores what the host has learned from several periods of solitude throughout his life. From the heartbreak of his first university relationship in 2017, to the curiosity and self-education that followed a later breakup, and finally to a deeper period of introspection in recent years, each season of solitude brought a different kind of growth.

The episode explores how being alone can push you to develop your skills, discover your capacity to create money independently, become more curious about the world, understand your identity, confront difficult parts of yourself, and ultimately become less dependent on external validation.

It also gets deeply personal, examining childhood experiences, ADHD, the fear of being a "one-hit wonder," patterns in past relationships, and the ways self-knowledge can change the kind of partner you choose.

The central question isn't simply "How do you become comfortable being single?" It's: What happens when you use solitude to actually get to know yourself?

Show Notes

In this episode, I talk about what I've learned during the different periods of solitude I've experienced throughout my life.

The first came after my university relationship ended in 2017. At first, it was painful, but that period eventually pushed me toward football, creativity, drawing, and discovering that I could make money from my own skills.

A later breakup in 2023 led to a completely different kind of solitude. I already had a business, a house, a car, and a relatively stable life, so instead of rebuilding from scratch, I became deeply curious about the world. I consumed lectures, history, ideas, and information from Ivy League universities and other sources, and built a much larger knowledge base.

The current period of solitude has been different again. The focus has shifted inward.

I've spent more time examining my identity, my tendencies, my relationship patterns, my childhood, my insecurities, and the things I didn't previously understand about myself.

One of the biggest realizations has been that knowing yourself deeply changes what you need from other people. Instead of looking for someone to complete you or provide your sense of worth, self-knowledge can move you toward self-sufficiency.

I also discuss my ADHD diagnosis and how it helped me reinterpret parts of my childhood — including the recurring fear that I might initially impress people but eventually disappoint them once they discovered more about me.

Ultimately, solitude can become an opportunity to ask difficult questions:

Who are you when nobody is validating you?

What patterns keep appearing in your relationships?

What parts of yourself have you avoided examining?

And perhaps most importantly:

How well do you actually know yourself?

DISCUSSION GROUP

A gubernatorial candidate in Lagos gets asked a question in Yoruba and can't answer fluently — and overnight it becomes a referendum on who actually "owns" Lagos. Koke and a friend (unplanned, mic-still-warm energy throughout) unpack the Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour language controversy, then pull the thread further: is this really about language, or a convenient distraction engineered to keep people arguing about identity instead of policy? From there the conversation widens into a bigger question — does voting even work, or is democracy fundamentally broken. Asked how leaders were chosen in Africa before democracy existed, Koke's answer is one word: competence — and he makes the case that a system built around producing and installing capable leaders, rather than winning popularity contests, is closer to what real leadership should look like.

Chapter Markers

1. Cold open — catching up on the day, football/coaching talk
2. The GRV Yoruba fluency controversy enters the conversation
3. The argument that the controversy is a manufactured distraction tied to the governorship race
4. Widening out: is democracy actually working?
5. The case against voting as a system
6. Pivot: how were African leaders chosen before the 1700s, before democracy? Koke's answer — competence
7. Closing — acknowledgment this was unplanned/off-the-cuff

Pull Quotes (verbatim)

• "The whole democracy thing is not working here, bro."
• "Democracy is a big sham."
• "Let leaders lead. People that are born to be leaders should lead."
• "Competence. That's what communism is all about. The system that produces these people."

Corrections Note (for the listener)

A quick correction on a couple of things discussed in this episode: the candidate's name is Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour. Also, the system described in this conversation — competent, ideologically trained people leading rather than the general public voting — is more accurately described as a vanguardist strand of socialism (associated with Leninist theory), not communism as classically defined. Communism, properly speaking, refers to collective ownership and an eventual classless, stateless society — it doesn't itself include a mechanism for "the most competent rising to the top." Most other forms of socialism, including the more commonly known democratic socialism, still retain elections.

Corrections Note

A quick correction on a couple of things said in this episode:

The strait referred to as "Al-Hammud" or "Al-Hermon" is actually the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the "Sea West Canal" mentioned alongside it is the Suez Canal — both real waterways along the Red Sea shipping corridor.

Also, the account of the Pentagon memo naming seven countries for regime change was attributed to "a former general who worked in the CIA." That quote actually comes from General Wesley Clark, a retired U.S. Army four-star general and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, from a widely-circulated 2007 interview.

Why did the U.S. actually go to war with Iraq — and does it explain what's happening with Iran right now? Koke traces a chain of events from the assassination of Iran's Ayatollah, through the Strait of Hormuz blockade and the resulting pressure on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and Suez Canal, to a 1996 document called the Clean Break Memo, arguing that decades of U.S. Middle East policy trace back to a long-term plan tied to Israeli interests. He brings in General Wesley Clark's widely-circulated account of a Pentagon memo naming seven countries slated for regime change, connects it to the economics of oil, and closes with a challenge to the listener: do your own research, and figure out where you actually stand.

Corrections applied here: the strait/canal names (Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, Suez Canal) and the Wesley Clark attribution are corrected from the original recording per confirmed research. The transcript's claim tying that route to Hezbollah/Lebanon is left as spoken — that appears to conflate Hezbollah (Lebanon) with the Houthis (Yemen, the group actually positioned near Bab-el-Mandeb), but that's a substantive claim, not a name error, so it's flagged for Koke rather than changed here.

Show Notes

• The "decapitation method" — why killing a country's leader doesn't always work, and how it played out with Iran
• How the Strait of Hormuz blockade created ripple effects across oil-dependent economies in the Middle East
• The U.S. and Israel's workaround through a second shipping route, and how Iran retaliated through regional proxies
• Backing up to 1996: the Clean Break Memo and the shift away from a negotiated Middle East peace
• A general's account of a Pentagon memo naming seven countries slated for regime change, starting with Iraq
• The Zionist belief system behind the push to control the region, according to Koke's explanation
• Why he thinks this could escalate toward a larger global conflict, and where Russia and China fit in
• On oil — why it underpins nearly everything, from medicine to plastics to transportation
• Closing challenge: do your own research and decide where you stand

Chapter Markers

1. Cold open — the assassination and the "decapitation method"
2. The Strait of Hormuz blockade and its economic ripple effects
3. The U.S./Israel workaround through a second shipping route
4. Iran's retaliation through regional proxies (Hezbollah)
5. Backing up: 1996 and the Clean Break Memo
6. The Zionist belief system, as he explains it
7. The Pentagon "seven countries in five years" account
8. Speculation on U.S.-Israel relations
9. Why this could escalate into a larger global conflict
10. On oil and why it underpins nearly everything
11. Closing challenge to the listener