Adrian speaks to Paa Kwesi Folson. A Gen Z Influencer in Accra. He is a Corporate Trainer, keynote speaker, Entrepreneur, Personal Brand strategist & a Personal Development Coach.
Over time, he has become one of the recognised voices on certain subject matters due to demonstrated results, these subject matter encircle; social media , leadership, digital marketing, business, personal branding, soft skills, and personal development.
He is the pioneer and the brain behind the revolutionary summit, New Dawn Conferences. This event seeks to unearth, hone and skyrocket the abilities of individuals to be able to create some form of tangible value for themselves, it is hinged on four main pillars; Personal Branding, Soft Skills , Financial literacy and Personal Development.
He happened to be the President of the largest private business school in Ghana; Central University Business School Association in the 21/22 year, he also pioneered and was the Chief founding member of the Central University Public Speaking Club.
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00:00:00
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Sound of Accra podcast. I go by the name of
00:00:04
Adrian Daniels, and if this is your first time listening, welcome. This is a show
00:00:07
where we speak. Of top Ghanaian founders, entrepreneurs, and creators
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worldwide with the aim of leaving you meaningful takeaways that you can
00:00:15
apply in your life, business, and career. For today's show notes,
00:00:19
please head over to
00:00:20
thesoundofaccra.com/paakwesi. That's
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thesoundofaccra.com forward slash. Paa Kwesi Folson. That's
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P-A-A-K-W-E-S-I. Is that
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correct? Yeah, that's fine. Awesome. So today I'm joined by
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Parkwasi. He's a keynote speaker, digital entrepreneur, personal
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development coach, marketing and management consultant. I mean, he does a lot, as you
00:00:41
can just hear by the summary I've just given you. He's
00:00:45
also a LinkedIn expert and a fantastic public
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speaker as well, and a youth empowerment leader and a Gen Z
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influencer. So this man obviously does so many things wrapped
00:00:57
up into one. Parkway, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Adrian, welcome back
00:01:00
into the show, actually. Because this is my second time. Exactly. This is the second
00:01:04
time back in the show. I know I got you in the show last year,
00:01:07
but I wanted you in season five so that people can actually fill
00:01:10
your aura in the video itself. So this is exactly what
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I wanted, and here you are today, and I'm so happy to have you in
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the flesh, which is what I wanted when we spoke those months ago. How are
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you doing, man? How are you feeling? Great. I think I'm just
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warming up into the new year, thinking about a few things. I haven't really gotten
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to the new year like that. How about you? Yeah, I think I'm warming
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up as well. I'm excited for the new year. I mean, of course,
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it's an interesting year because of everything that's happening in the world, but in the
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midst of everything that's going on, we're just trying to stay positive. That's
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the most important thing. Yeah. So, Parkway,
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for the sake of the audience that doesn't know much about you, can you
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just give them maybe under 62nd pitch about
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yourself? Okay, so that's fine. Normally, when I'm
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supposed to speak about myself, I don't know if I feel I can speak about
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myself for so long. So my name is Paul Christie
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Folsom. I'm a Continental keynote speaker, leadership coach, personal
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development coach. I do marketing, management consulting,
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and basically, I'm just somebody who wants to help people become
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better versions of themselves. So, I mean, that's really about me.
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Anything that is going to help somebody become better than they were
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yesterday, that's me. That's who I am. In a nutshell,
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that's just about me. And I'm a very calm person. I love fashion. That's
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one thing a lot of people don't know about me. See if your bumper jacket,
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bumber jacket in a car, right. Even though it's warm outside,
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definitely fashion. Yeah. So I'm a fashion person. I actually used
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to be a model, so I have that side of me. But then when it
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comes to business, I'm really somebody who's outspoken. I love
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to speak on issues, I love to help people and just use my voice
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as a medium to impact people. And that's who I am.
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I mean, this is why you're back on the show, because I think you're just
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an infectious ball of energy. You bring so much positivity
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and so much presence into the room.
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So I'm so excited to have you back on the show, Parkway. So much. Great.
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So I think the audience knows a little bit about you. Let's talk about some
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of the public speaking conferences that you featured in recent so I think there was
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two. Towards the end of 2022, I think you appeared in maybe a
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few public speaking summits and conferences. Is that correct? Let's talk
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about the Possibilities conference 2022. Could you tell us a little bit about
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what happened there and why what you're speaking about? I think the
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Possibilities conference happened in December. December was actually a
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very pag month for me, especially when it came to public
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speaking engagements. I was four I think I spoke about eight times.
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Whoa. In this one month, these are all invitations? Yeah,
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invitations. It was overwhelming, really.
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But the Possibilities Conference was really I think, for
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me, it was the highlights conference of the year.
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For me, it was the first time I was actually
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among top corporate. A lot of times I'm doing this
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with youth leaders and all of that, but this time I was actually with
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bankers, the top corporate bankers, CEOs,
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and I was just like, the youngest person on the list. And for me, it
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just really spoke to how God's grace has taken me that far.
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And it was great. It was great. Possibilities Conference was a conference for young
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people where we spoke and taught them
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how they should believe. A lot of people do not do things in
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life just because they don't believe. Belief is so, so important. Once you
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take your belief away, you cannot do anything. Absolutely. Yeah. So
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I think that's what Possibilities Conference is about, just helping young people to believe
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practical ways of how they can really take themselves from one
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point to another point. And that's what was about. Briefly
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on that show, I got the opportunity to be on the same stage
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as somebody I'll call a role model. I don't know if you've heard of. Kwame
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AO poku kwame Futurist? Kwame Futurist kami.
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Possibly. Yeah. He's one of his one of Ghana's top public speakers, and he's the
00:05:07
reason why I actually decided to pursue public speaking. So for
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me, it was big, because I didn't expect to be on the same
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stage as him. This alien, for me, was big. It was
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super big. And I can only be grateful to God for that
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opportunity. It was great. So that
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took place in Holiday Inn and how many people turned up?
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Was it a paid conference or was it like a no free event? It was
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a free event, but I think it was over 350 people.
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So you spoke in front of all of those people? Yeah, I spoke in front
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of all of them. Wow. How did you remove the fear factor of speaking?
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I actually don't think I have the fear of public speaking. Okay? Everybody
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has fear. However, I've learned how to
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overshadow fear. The concept of fear is that fear is not entirely
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negative when people talk about fears. Like fear is so bad
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negative, it's bad bad. No, the thing is that fear can also be positive
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because if you are not scared of that snake, you are not going to get
00:06:04
closer to it. Right. So fear can actually save you from a lot of things.
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So for me, I don't have the fear. I think basically the world is able
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to deal with my fear was that I understood the fear of public
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speaking, how to go around it. That's what so many people do not understand
00:06:19
it. That's why they are still stuck in the same spot. In fact,
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the word fear comes from a proto Germanic word known as ferrass.
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Ferrass means danger, right? And basically,
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if you are talking about fear, maybe you are saying public speaking puts you in
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danger. Right. And that's not what it is. The fear of public speaking actually is
00:06:37
known as clausophobia, right? And that's what a lot of people don't know as well
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known as clausophobia. And clausophobia is a phobia and phobias and
00:06:44
anxiety disorders. Sorry, so if a phobia is anxiety
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disorders and anxiety disorders are mental health disorders. So the thing is that
00:06:51
to be able to deal with your fear of public speaking, you have to find
00:06:55
a way to retune your mental framework towards public speaking.
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It's actually a mental health disorder, but then people don't really
00:07:02
try and associate it with a mental health disorder. But in reality, when you're looking
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at things on the ground, it's a mental health disorder. Not seriously, not
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as compared to the other ones, but it is. And you have to do something
00:07:13
called CBT, the cognitive behavioral therapy. So it can
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help you move from there. I think that's why I did I had to be
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able to look within myself, find out what exactly was
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making me act as. Certainly when it came to public speaking, once I found that
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out, it was great for me and I was able to overcome my fear of
00:07:31
public speaking. I'll be able to help other people go through CBT
00:07:35
processes to help them overcome the fear of public speaking. So I
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think for me, fear is not a factor anymore when it comes to public
00:07:42
speaking. That's fantastic, man. I mean, I think that's a fantastic
00:07:46
breakdown of handling fear and what fear is all about and what fear
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really is. So I think just listening to you, it just makes
00:07:53
public speaking a whole lot more easier. I guess it's easier said than
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done, right? Yeah. All right. Okay, so you spoke at the
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Possibilities Conference. 350 people over there.
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Fantastic. And then you also spoke at the Career and Investment
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Summit. Tell us about that and what you spoke about. Wow. So
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the Career and Investment Summit, I had to go back to my
00:08:15
school, my alma mater, Federal University for that. And
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for me that was different because I was going
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back to speak to the same people that I was once
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like them, I was once in their position. I was once sitting where they
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were sitting for seven years and going back there as a
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speaker this time not as a participant, it was different. So
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I was going there with the intention to really help people.
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It was a soul to soul thing, let me say like that. It was a
00:08:44
soul to so hard to heart thing. I really give my all in that particular
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call. I give my own in every conference, however. But it was different that day
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and it was super great. Career Investment Summit I had to
00:08:55
teach them on personal branding for career opportunities
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because I mean, I experienced that firsthand while I was still in school.
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While I was still in school I got about five job opportunities. People
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calling me that, hey, I see that you do this. You've been able to build
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your brand this way. I want you my organization, I want you a company. I
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was still in school, I didn't
00:09:18
written my final exam. Have you finished Central University now you graduated? Yeah.
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When did you graduate from? November
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last year. Congratulations. I think when we spoke you were still in the Central
00:09:29
University, right? No, I was stand by hadn't graduated. You hadn't graduated? Yeah. Now
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you graduated, which is a beautiful thing to see in the Harvard side of that.
00:09:36
So congratulations.
00:09:40
Basically, this was opportunity for you to go back to speak to the same
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people where you used to be amongst as an attendee
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and there was such a powerful moment for you. I told them on personal
00:09:51
branding, how to brand yourself as a student and how to really make
00:09:54
yourself visible to opportunities. So many people are good, they are
00:09:58
good at several things, but then they don't know how to explore the
00:10:02
explore visibility and learn how they can work within its
00:10:06
framework so that it can bring them or magnetic opportunities for
00:10:10
them. And that's what I literally show them how to do. How to really position
00:10:13
yourself in this modern day with all the noise
00:10:17
on social media if you do not know how to position yourself, differentiate
00:10:21
yourself and find your own USB that is your unique selling for
00:10:25
position, you'll be lost. Absolutely. Because there's so many
00:10:28
people on social media that you can just be lost in the mix exactly.
00:10:32
So you sport to stand out. Yeah. So give us some
00:10:36
tips. What are some tips? What are some things that you talked about in terms
00:10:39
of personal branding? In terms of what can we do to stand out
00:10:43
from your perspective in terms of personal branding? What is some personal brand,
00:10:47
one on one things people should know when it. Comes to personal branding. So when
00:10:50
it comes to personal branding, first of all, know that it's about you. When it
00:10:54
comes to personal branding, everybody's now thinking about all the external things.
00:10:58
My logo,
00:11:03
I don't know, whatever. Do not think about the external things. Do not think about
00:11:06
how your flyer is looking. First of all, think about you. Start with you. Personal
00:11:10
branding is about two entities. It's about you and other people. So first of all,
00:11:13
you have to do your own introspection. Find out your strengths, your weaknesses.
00:11:17
Once you're able to do that, then you can learn, okay, so this is
00:11:21
what I'm good at. Okay, so now how do I project that
00:11:26
in a great light that is actually going to position me
00:11:30
as somebody who's different on the market? So, first of all, if you can do
00:11:33
your introspection, then you'll be great to go. You'll be good to go. Actually, I
00:11:37
actually have an acronym for the word brand, and I use it to
00:11:41
attribute it to personal branding. So the B is for belief. First of all, you
00:11:44
have to believe who you are. You have to believe yourself, your strengths, your
00:11:48
weaknesses, your capabilities, everything that is part of
00:11:52
you, right? So that's why you do the B. The R is for relevance.
00:11:55
Now, when it comes to relevance, you have to understand the concept of relevance is
00:11:59
subjective. That's what people don't know. What may be relevant to me
00:12:03
may not necessarily be relevant to you. Adrian, do you agree?
00:12:06
I agree. So that's it. First of all, you have to find out, okay,
00:12:10
so since these are my strengths, these are my weaknesses,
00:12:14
now how can I make them relevant to a
00:12:18
marketplace? So that's the thing about branding. A lot of
00:12:21
people just decide that, okay, so this is who I am. I'm
00:12:25
just going to start giving them to an audience who that doesn't care.
00:12:29
You have to first find out whatever I'm giving, is it
00:12:32
relevant to the audience. If whatever you are serving the audience is not
00:12:36
relevant, then you cannot properly brand yourself because nobody is going to really
00:12:40
pay attention to who you are. So, so many people do things without
00:12:43
considering the other party. That's why I said branding is about two entities. It's about
00:12:47
yourself and others. Please consider the other people. Once you can consider them, then
00:12:51
you can tailor your strength and your capabilities
00:12:55
in a way that is going to be relevant. Then the A is for
00:12:58
appeal. You have to make yourself appealing. Your tone,
00:13:02
your character, your English, your disposition, the way
00:13:06
you carry yourself, everything about you should be appealing to another
00:13:10
person. That's when the logos and all of that can come into play,
00:13:14
right? So you appeal. Everything should be appealing.
00:13:17
Then the end is for narrate. Okay,
00:13:20
so everybody has a brand story. Brand stories
00:13:24
allow you to build brand equity. That's the thing. So
00:13:28
you have to be able to narrate your stories. People love stories. Our DNA
00:13:32
like crave for stories. That's why Hollywood or
00:13:36
Netflix or all those movie production places will spend 200
00:13:39
billion producing a single film telling you a story, using
00:13:43
200 billion to produce a story for you. Because our DNA craves
00:13:47
stories. So you have to be able to narrate your story so that
00:13:51
your story, your brand story will build brand equity for you. Then the D
00:13:55
is different shapes. Okay? So literally, look at everybody else. Look
00:13:59
at the creators within your circle or whoever is doing whatever you do
00:14:02
now, figure out the way, how figure out just look at what they do. And
00:14:06
then try and just sit down, assess everything and then see, okay,
00:14:09
this is what they are not doing. Exactly. I can plant it to this space.
00:14:12
And once you can do that, you'll be fine. And that's the breakdown for an
00:14:16
acronym brand that you can use that to brand yourself properly. So for anybody out
00:14:20
there who's listening, just remember the B, the R, the A, the N, the D.
00:14:24
So B for belief, r for relevance, a for appeal, n for
00:14:27
narratives, d for differentiate. Thank you very much. Wow, that's powerful.
00:14:31
Podcast finish. That is powerful, man. We'll have the
00:14:34
brand's acronym in the show notes, so you can guys can refer back to it.
00:14:38
Yeah. Okay, so continuing on, so it was great for you to go
00:14:41
back and speak to those same people that you used to kind of be
00:14:45
amongst as an attendee. Fantastic. And were there any
00:14:49
other events? I think those are maybe the two key events you
00:14:52
spoken towards the end of the last year as well. Was there any events last
00:14:56
year, towards the end of last year that you spoke at, that you want to
00:14:59
talk about? There was one. We held the
00:15:02
LinkedIn it was a LinkedIn summit. Max Mice and LinkedIn.
00:15:06
Basically. As somebody who has been able
00:15:09
to explore the opportunities on LinkedIn, I was invited
00:15:13
to it was a virtual summit in Uday. But then so many people
00:15:17
attended, over 200 people for a virtual
00:15:20
summit. So
00:15:24
it was great. And for me, I think
00:15:27
over the time, I've had a lot of LinkedIn summits and
00:15:31
it was just great to see people come out with testimonies and all of that
00:15:35
as well. It just reminds me of my very first LinkedIn webinar
00:15:40
in June. Was it June? My very first
00:15:44
LinkedIn based webinar. And the testimonies that came out
00:15:48
of that webinar was crazy. When was this webinar? It was in
00:15:52
June. It was in June actually had two speakers. Yeah,
00:15:55
2022. So I actually had two speakers. One of them was my
00:15:58
uncle. How your uncle
00:16:02
knows about LinkedIn? I think he has about 12
00:16:05
followers. LinkedIn has done
00:16:09
a lot for him. I think through LinkedIn he was able to get an opportunity
00:16:12
to be a permanent resident in Canada, do some job
00:16:16
opportunities and all of that. So LinkedIn does a lot for people.
00:16:20
So that adapt seminar was great. Maximizing LinkedIn, I talked
00:16:23
about how you can literally optimize your profile,
00:16:27
gain a massive audience, all of that. Yeah,
00:16:31
just as we spoke about personal branding, parkway, what some kind of like
00:16:35
LinkedIn one on one tips you'll give to someone who
00:16:39
doesn't really use LinkedIn consistently, doesn't really know how to use and to maximize it.
00:16:43
What are some tips you would give to someone to optimize their profile, build a
00:16:46
network and leverage opportunities on LinkedIn? Okay, that's
00:16:50
actually a broad question.
00:16:54
I guess you can simplify it. Yeah, that's true. For starters, maybe some
00:16:57
starting out tips for people. All right? So first of all, you have to start
00:17:01
by optimizing your profile, as he said in this question. So the thing is
00:17:04
that optimization of your profile gives you the necessary
00:17:08
disability as somebody, as a person who is establishing yourself
00:17:12
on social media presence. So just imagine your Facebook profile,
00:17:16
your Facebook profile without a profile picture, people will think you're
00:17:19
a scarma, right? So all goes out to all of that. You have to show
00:17:23
is that true? You have to show exactly who
00:17:26
you are, what you do, and show it and write everything
00:17:31
in a great light. So for example, what you can do is that you just
00:17:34
get your headline. You learn all these things. So your headline is what people
00:17:38
see about you first in your headline. You can actually use that to sell
00:17:41
yourself, sell whoever you are. So in my headline I have
00:17:45
I help personal brands expand and monetize on LinkedIn.
00:17:48
So those are the first sentence you see when you open my profile.
00:17:52
So that's why I want to show to people. So optimization is basically about you
00:17:56
showing yourself to people, letting people know who you are. You're just
00:17:59
opening the door, say, okay, this is who I am. This is I'm, Adrian. This
00:18:03
is who I am. So basically that's what observation is about. So get a good
00:18:06
profile picture, preferably from your head up, just get
00:18:10
anything. I mean, you don't really need a professional photographer. You can just use your
00:18:14
phone, get a nice wall, plain wall, just take a
00:18:17
picture, get your headline straight, get your about section straight, get a
00:18:21
haircut. Yeah,
00:18:25
and basically that. But then one thing after optimization
00:18:29
of your profile doesn't end there. That's where a lot of people get confused. Absolutely.
00:18:33
They just optimize their profile and sit down there and think, okay, now the
00:18:36
followers are going to raking. It doesn't work like that. It comes with a lot
00:18:40
of work. It comes with strategy, it comes with
00:18:44
so many things. So after optimization of your profile, the next
00:18:47
thing you should be thinking about is building
00:18:51
a network. You need to build a network. You need to build a relevant network.
00:18:55
There's one way you can build a network is especially a relevant network.
00:18:59
What I did, first of all, when I joined LinkedIn was that I look for
00:19:03
at the time. When I joined LinkedIn, I wanted to build as a leader. I
00:19:06
was posting leadership content. I used to run something called 30
00:19:10
Days of Leadership. So that's what really actually plunged me and gave me
00:19:13
the necessary visibility. Because as always say, content gives you
00:19:17
a seat among the table of kings.
00:19:21
Content reduce your substance. That's the thing. So you have to post so that
00:19:25
people can know what exactly you are made up of, right? Absolutely.
00:19:30
From optimization, you have to now think of after you build your
00:19:34
network. Then you have to now start generating content. You need
00:19:38
content so that you can get seen. Without content, nobody's going to see who you
00:19:41
are. You have to be able
00:19:45
to feed your audience once you've built your network. Okay, I
00:19:49
think I was at the hashtag page. That's right, I just forgot. Okay, yeah. So
00:19:53
I used to post leadership content. So what I did was that I
00:19:56
got a hashtag, right? Leadership. And then I
00:20:00
started following people who were under the hashtag. Because what that means
00:20:04
is that once you're using the hashtag leadership, what happens is that
00:20:07
you are interested in leadership. So I was building a tailored
00:20:11
audience. That'S what I was doing. So when I started
00:20:15
posting the leadership content, now I had an audience that was
00:20:19
actually interested in what about doing. So when I was posting, it became
00:20:22
relevant. Remember the hour and the brand, the acronym relevant.
00:20:26
So when I started posting, it was relevant to them and those people.
00:20:30
Because you know, on LinkedIn, when so many people begin to like
00:20:34
your picture or begin to like your post, then it gets more reach and
00:20:37
all of that. And that's how I literally built.
00:20:41
That's. One thing you can do, find a relevant hashtag, try and pick
00:20:45
and choose who are some of the people. Just look through their profiles. I mean,
00:20:48
it may take some time, but look to people's profiles and find whoever you think
00:20:52
is worthy, connect with them, build an audience around that
00:20:56
and then start posting relevant content on that. And literally those
00:20:59
same people who you connected with are literally going to push your message and
00:21:03
you get the necessary visibility 100%. And that's why I can give for anybody who
00:21:07
starts on LinkedIn. So you optimize your profile, build your network,
00:21:11
start posting content, and you'll be good to go. That's it. Wow,
00:21:14
it's fantastic. Thanks for sharing that with your audience. How many followers do you have
00:21:18
on LinkedIn? I think last I checked out on
00:21:22
9200. So you about to hit 10 soon. Yeah,
00:21:26
I'm on almost 6000. So I'm chasing you now.
00:21:30
Right? And I did this it's not been nine months
00:21:33
yet, right? Yeah, it's not been nine months.
00:21:37
So within a year you're going to have like ten plus 10. Yeah, I
00:21:41
mean, a few weeks. Give me two more weeks.
00:21:44
Okay, so why, why is LinkedIn so
00:21:48
important? Like not just for you, but why should definitely people look at
00:21:52
LinkedIn? Some quick reasons. I know why, but I want to hear from you.
00:21:55
Yeah, okay. We are talking about
00:21:59
LinkedIn is the largest professional network networking
00:22:02
application of the world. And for anybody who seeks to
00:22:06
be able, who seeks to advance
00:22:10
yourself in terms of your career, your business, whatever thing that
00:22:13
is formal, if I should put it that way, I
00:22:17
think LinkedIn is the best place for you. I think it's the best bet for
00:22:20
whatever you're doing. If you want to build a personal brand and you want to
00:22:23
advance you want to advance your career, your business, I think LinkedIn
00:22:27
is really the best place for you because you can actually get to connect with
00:22:30
people who are in the same business as you, your potential clients,
00:22:34
different people from wherever, from different parts of the world. And
00:22:38
it's literally going to change things for you. So LinkedIn being the largest
00:22:41
professional networking application, I rather you be there.
00:22:45
I mean, Instagram is good, all those places are good. Be there. Right? But
00:22:49
then when think of LinkedIn as another place that you should want to
00:22:53
build and LinkedIn will literally do a lot for you. So I think it's that
00:22:56
once, because of the way the nature of LinkedIn and its
00:23:00
formal approach per se nowadays,
00:23:04
nowadays LinkedIn gets a bit soft.
00:23:07
However, it's still a great platform for anybody who wants to expand
00:23:11
their business and expand their career and just get to know people, relevant
00:23:15
people and setting industries and all of that. And I think that's
00:23:18
what LinkedIn is to me. I couldn't agree more. So it's become more of a
00:23:21
creators platform. So what's happening is that now you have things like the LinkedIn
00:23:25
Creators Accelerator program, you have LinkedIn
00:23:28
pushing people to use the Follow a Call to action rather than the Connect. That's
00:23:32
a nice subtle, but big change that they've made. And then
00:23:36
they've also got a lot more traitors on there. You've seen a lot more
00:23:40
celebrities on there, even like Ryan Reynolds, even
00:23:44
like Kevin Durant, like people that you wouldn't think that
00:23:48
aren't linked to that now. I saw Edward mendy there.
00:23:51
Really? The goalkeeper? Yeah. I was shocked. I was like,
00:23:55
what? And he was with his suit and I was like,
00:23:58
what? I was shocked. So, yeah, I think at this point
00:24:02
in time, Lingding is really hitting one of their highest.
00:24:06
Really? Absolutely. It really is. It's doing wonders right now, honestly
00:24:09
and for anybody. I think LinkedIn right now. If you want to join LinkedIn, I
00:24:13
think now is the best time. Applications, or a lot
00:24:17
of these social media apps have their peak times. Where they are
00:24:20
reaches high, the organic reach. Very soon you will kill
00:24:24
it. Once it's
00:24:27
dead, it will be much difficult for you to grow on the apps.
00:24:31
But for us, that we are already on,
00:24:34
all the best to us. I know the world is your oyster. The sky
00:24:38
is the limit, or maybe the universe is. I'm
00:24:42
glad we see ITAR on LinkedIn. I mean, LinkedIn is such an underrated platform, and
00:24:45
I preach a lot about it. People don't really see the potential of it. And
00:24:49
how important is to post consistently? You have to post consistently in LinkedIn.
00:24:53
It's very important. All right, so I know
00:24:57
you're big into personal development. I mean, I know there's books that you've
00:25:00
mentioned in our previous conversations, I think Sell or Be Sold. I think that's a
00:25:04
book. I'm not sure if that's the name of the book. Sell like crazy. Sell
00:25:07
like crazy. Yeah. So for you,
00:25:12
why is personal development important for you? And why do the
00:25:16
listeners need to pay attention to it? Okay, so when it comes to personal
00:25:19
development, the reason why I think it's so important is
00:25:23
that, first of all, if you do not take things into
00:25:27
your own hands, right, life will
00:25:30
happen to you. That's why a lot of people don't really
00:25:34
take into consideration. The thing is that in life, you have to
00:25:38
be able to hold the rings. Do not wait for things to happen
00:25:42
to you. You have to be able to take control of things.
00:25:46
For you to be able to give life to any vision, dream, or
00:25:50
goal that you have, it requires labor or requires something audio. So,
00:25:54
for example, when our parents were giving birth to us, or when your mother was
00:25:57
giving birth to you, she has to go through labor and add your something, right?
00:26:00
So for you to be able to give life to any tree, vision or whatever
00:26:05
thing you have, you have to go through a period of labor. Come on. Audio
00:26:09
something. Even if it was a C section for you,
00:26:13
there was still audios. So the thing is that you have to be able to
00:26:16
take things into your own hands. Anything that you want to give life
00:26:20
to, you have to go through that labor period, right?
00:26:24
And don't think anything is going to come on the silver platter, because even
00:26:28
silver had to go through the mud. The stones were extracted from
00:26:31
the ground, had to be melted with fire, so even silver did not come on
00:26:35
a platter. That's the thing. So when it comes to personal
00:26:39
development, you have to be able to take things into
00:26:43
your own hands. And that's what personal development is to me. You have to now
00:26:46
decide that, okay, I want to build my capacity. I want. To build my capacity
00:26:50
for certain things that I want to do. If you want to learn how to
00:26:52
make more money, start reading more business books, start reading all these things.
00:26:56
That's what personal development is about. It's about you
00:26:59
deciding to take matters into your own hands. Then you decide that,
00:27:03
okay, now I want to decide that I'm growing at this. I want to learn
00:27:07
from people who have been able to do it. And I just
00:27:11
model my life according to certain strategies. That they've
00:27:14
been able to churn out, and then
00:27:18
it will be great for me. So, for me, personal development is taking
00:27:22
your life into your own hands. And literally charting the
00:27:26
course of your own destiny. That's what it
00:27:29
is. Thank you, sir. Thank you for sharing that pathway. Those are absolute
00:27:33
nuggets, really. Just
00:27:36
owning your development and your growth. And not just waiting life
00:27:40
to happen to you, but really taking life by the hands. And just
00:27:44
really going for it. Fantastic stuff. And
00:27:48
personal development, I think it's pretty key. When it
00:27:52
comes to when you look at of course, this podcast is centered around
00:27:55
Ghana and you look at the Ghana Education system, you look
00:27:59
at the Ghana Working system. I think if more people
00:28:03
took personal development seriously, I think we would solve a lot of
00:28:07
problems. A lot of property, a lot more jobs would
00:28:10
be created, a lot more entrepreneurship paths would be forged,
00:28:14
and a lot more better relevant education
00:28:18
will take place as well. How do you see the future
00:28:22
of these areas moving forward
00:28:25
when it comes. To the Ghanaian educational system? I just
00:28:29
feel something is wrong fundamentally. Something is
00:28:33
wrong fundamentally. So kids, normally for us,
00:28:37
a lot of us that grew up through the system, if you do
00:28:41
not really take personal development serious, I don't know where exactly
00:28:44
you're going to end up. You have to really take these things seriously. For me,
00:28:48
before I decided to even pop out on LinkedIn or start building my personal
00:28:52
brand, I took seven months. So from September
00:28:55
2021 all the way to April 2021,
00:29:00
I didn't have a personal brand. I wasn't actively building one.
00:29:04
Of course, I wasn't building it together.
00:29:07
During that period, all I was doing was development, personal
00:29:11
development books, literally seven months. People do not know that. So people
00:29:15
just see me pop out just like that. And who is this
00:29:18
guy? Where is he from all of a sudden? And they don't know that.
00:29:22
For seven months, I was just building myself.
00:29:26
I was just reading books, consuming Russell branson to
00:29:30
grant cardone, different people. I was literally learning, building my
00:29:34
capacity. So personal development, for me, is a way,
00:29:37
an escape from societies,
00:29:41
from societies and models that can literally keep you out.
00:29:45
So now, when it comes to the Ghanaian educational system, the other time,
00:29:49
there's this girl who came to me, and she was going for
00:29:53
a vetting, a student vetting, something, and she was like, oh, I don't
00:29:56
have confidence, and she's so scared she's going to flop,
00:30:00
and all of that. And then I was like, okay,
00:30:04
fine. She should come see me, and then we'll talk about this, and then
00:30:08
we figure out a way around this, right? Okay.
00:30:11
So now we are speaking, and all of a sudden, I realized
00:30:15
that we are just having the session. I was training her or setting questions and
00:30:19
how she could ask. I just realized that, no, something is wrong.
00:30:22
Right? It's not that she can't answer the questions, but it's just
00:30:26
because she doesn't have enough belief. Her confidence is
00:30:30
low. Right? So I had to ask her so many questions,
00:30:34
and I realized that the educational system was really a part of
00:30:37
everything. So I don't know. Did you grow up in,
00:30:41
like, did you go to JHS and Ghana?
00:30:45
I did. I lived in Ghana for three years. I went to JSS. I went
00:30:49
to Morningstar. Morningstar? Yes. I was in form one, form two, form
00:30:53
three. Oh, I see. That's good. Okay, so I don't
00:30:56
think at that time now happened to you, but kindergarten for anybody
00:31:00
who's watching, if you're in Ghana, you grew up, you had nursery in Ghana,
00:31:04
kindergarten, Ghana. You know this thing when, for example, a teacher
00:31:07
asks a question, right, and you get the question wrong, let's say you lift your
00:31:11
hand up and say, okay, hello, teacher. I want to answer the question. And you
00:31:14
say, okay, so what's one plus one? And you say three. She's going
00:31:18
to look at you and say, okay. The whole class say, I don't know if
00:31:21
he had this. The ocean shame. Wow, dog.
00:31:24
Whoa, whoa.
00:31:28
Does anybody who's watching will really agree to this? Or we have something similar, at
00:31:32
least something similar. And literally, what you've done to the kid is that
00:31:35
you've dampened the kid's spirit because the kid willingly put his
00:31:39
hand up. And now, because the person doesn't know
00:31:43
the answer, you are shaming. You let him always peers laugh at him. Now, the
00:31:47
next time, if he has the answer to a question that you asked, even if
00:31:50
it's correct, is he going to put his hand up next time? No, he's not
00:31:53
going to do that when you've killed his confidence. So that's where it starts from.
00:31:57
And those are some of the experiences of the Ghanaian educational system that people
00:32:00
go through. So a lot of Ghanaians come out, and they are not so confident,
00:32:04
so they are shy to speak in front of people. They are shy to literally
00:32:07
take things into their own hands and do certain things for themselves. So with this
00:32:11
girl, I realized that this is something that actually affected her.
00:32:15
She had been through very dire experiences with teachers in
00:32:18
Ghana and all of that. I'm not saying that Ghanaian is totally bad. I mean,
00:32:22
I go through it, and I'm sharp, but it's
00:32:26
great. But I mean, there are aspects of it that really do not
00:32:30
necessarily favor us, but if we could change those things, we'll be
00:32:33
super. Super. I think Ghana will be on another level if we can just change
00:32:37
things fundamentally. Just a few things fundamentally. But apart from that, I think
00:32:40
our educational system is great. So I had to now help her
00:32:44
now develop a new
00:32:48
mindset, right? So all of a sudden, her confidence was high.
00:32:52
So when we had done in fact, I spent the whole time just boosting her
00:32:55
confidence, helping her to up her self esteem. And I taught her
00:32:59
so many different things about self esteem. And literally after she went for
00:33:03
that thing, because so many of her friends knew that she's a shy person,
00:33:06
she's so shy. That girl is so shy. So she went for the vetting and
00:33:10
she came out as the highest person among all the other candidates.
00:33:13
Wow. Fantastic. Just boosting her confidence literally changed the
00:33:17
whole thing. So that's the thing. So when it comes to the educational system, I
00:33:21
think personal development, I mean, that was a personal development thing, and I just
00:33:24
helped her boost her confidence up at self esteem. Everything about
00:33:28
her changed just from her mindset. And from that she was able to now
00:33:32
be top of the vetting. And that was literally something
00:33:35
that's an escape from literally the
00:33:39
educational system that we have over here. And that's my viewpoint on
00:33:42
it, that personal development for me is an escape from
00:33:46
whatever system is there that has been put in place
00:33:49
by our society. Wow.
00:33:52
Fantastic. And the changes you made in that
00:33:56
person's life was powerful. I mean, I think a lot
00:34:00
of psychological changes as well, because if there's a mind block that you
00:34:03
can't do something or you're not good enough, et cetera, et
00:34:07
cetera, it's only going to limit you from what you can do. She actually ended
00:34:10
up leaving me a recommendation on LinkedIn. Wonderful. Yeah, that's wonderful. It
00:34:14
literally changed. Like, she she always calls me and just says,
00:34:17
honestly, that time really changed my life. And for
00:34:21
me, that's when I began to see that
00:34:24
personal development is too necessary. It's
00:34:28
essential, man, to compete in this society and to
00:34:32
excel in the society. You need to continue to grow
00:34:35
yourself. So keep listening to podcasts like this.
00:34:39
Continue to bring people like Parkways in the show that can uplift you and encourage
00:34:43
you, inspire you, and give you the tips, tricks, and the blueprints that you need
00:34:46
to succeed in your life and your business or your career. Wow, I'm really
00:34:50
enjoying this conversation. Parkway, just to wrap up, do
00:34:54
you have any 2023 plans? Yeah, I have a few plans.
00:35:01
Normally I don't literally dwell on my plans and
00:35:05
speak them out aloud, but I think in this year, I'll be
00:35:09
starting my first organization, actually. This was going to be called
00:35:13
Revolute. So you guys are actually the first people here in the sound of our
00:35:16
crowd. There we go. Revolution first. Yeah. The
00:35:20
Revolit will be coming up shortly. During the year, it's going to be a personal
00:35:24
development thing, helping people. For now, I
00:35:27
think we'll be nonprofit. Okay. So all we're doing is just help people.
00:35:31
Helping people literally build confidence, discomfort, the purpose,
00:35:35
other things build other soft skills. Public speaking, and I
00:35:39
think not even just those things. We ought to even move into
00:35:43
digital stuff, right? Just helping people
00:35:46
build tech skills or things that can literally make them relevant in the
00:35:50
modern day. That's what revolit is about. Revelators revolutionary
00:35:54
leadership. Oh, that's where revelation comes from. Revolutionary leadership. Got it.
00:35:58
That's clever. You put those two words together, made of one newer.
00:36:01
We put everything out. I don't speak too much about
00:36:05
that. That's no problem at all. But you hear it too. Then
00:36:09
keep a locked in. We'll have the details in the show notes so you
00:36:13
can follow Parkways on LinkedIn and everything so you can
00:36:16
keep up with what he's doing. And of course, when Rev lead,
00:36:20
revolid Revolver lead comes out, then you'll be able to
00:36:23
check it out. In this year, I'll be running a lot of
00:36:27
master classes, especially on how to really build your personal
00:36:31
brand and really monetize from it. I'm doing something called a digital
00:36:35
entrepreneurship master class. It's still in the pipeline, but that thing I
00:36:38
think, will be one of my flagship things I'll
00:36:42
be doing this year. So that's all I can say for now. But then I
00:36:46
think, let's watch and see what God does. Amen. Amen. Because
00:36:50
he's the author and finish of our faith, and he's the one that gives us
00:36:52
the ideas and the capabilities to execute these
00:36:56
wonderful ideas. Parkway has been
00:36:59
fantastic conversation. Where can people find you?
00:37:03
You can find me on LinkedIn, of course.
00:37:07
LinkedIn park. We see. Folson. Folson is not an hour. It's
00:37:10
folding. F-O-L-S-O-N. Literally. For now, you can
00:37:14
find me on LinkedIn. Let's just keep you at LinkedIn. I actually went to someone
00:37:17
I actually went to Morningstar with a guy whose surname was False
00:37:21
and F-O-R-S-O-N when I heard
00:37:25
False. That's interesting. Is that mistake or was that
00:37:29
actually the name? I don't know. I really don't know about that.
00:37:32
But that's how that's how your name that's how I respect that. Yeah. I've just
00:37:36
it's been there for since, I don't know,
00:37:40
so long. I'm sure it's around because you keep meeting new people, then you just
00:37:43
find new names. It's interesting. It's interesting. You think you know the names where you
00:37:47
don't. Yeah, and I think the forces are a lot too. It's great on fools.
00:37:51
I love that. I love that. Yeah, it's different. It's unique as well. Right.
00:37:54
Okay, so, LinkedIn. Yeah. So just LinkedIn. Just LinkedIn. Yes. That's where you
00:37:58
want people to find you? Yes. Cool. And do you have any announcements apart from
00:38:02
the 2020 few plans you've shared. Yeah, so just keep just
00:38:06
follow me on LinkedIn. You'll literally see any updates that I have coming
00:38:09
on, more ebooks to build
00:38:12
people and all of that. Yeah, there you go. So
00:38:16
there you have it, guys. Park, quasi
00:38:20
false, and our public speaker, Gen Z, influencer, LinkedIn
00:38:24
expert, personal development coach, and so on and so forth. We
00:38:27
have all the show notes in terms of the links, the references, the
00:38:31
nuggets, and the tips that we've had on this episode by heading
00:38:35
over to thesoundofaccra.com/paakwesi. That's the
00:38:39
soundofaccra.com/paakwesi. That's
00:38:41
P-A-A-K-W-E-S-I
00:38:45
right. YouTube if you're watching, please hit like
00:38:48
and subscribe on your way out. Share it with someone, tell a friend,
00:38:52
and please give us a five star review on the Spotify and Apple
00:38:56
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00:39:00
On that note, that's another episode. Thank you so much and we'll
00:39:04
see you in the next one. Bye bye. Bye. Cheers.