Amplifying Your Voice with Nneka Onyilofor | EP169

What does it take to claim your voice and secure your thought leadership space? Nneka Onyilofor is the author of The Invisible Black Woman and her YouTube channel has reached millions with stories that challenge, heal, and inspire. 

Nneka reflects on how her memoir title captures her lived experience and leadership journey, why she launched her YouTube channel, and the strategic value of building a digital presence for entrepreneurs and changemakers. She also shares how to balance vulnerability with authority when telling personal stories, and offers practical advice for anyone who feels unseen but wants to step into their thought leadership space with confidence. 

Listeners will walk away with inspiration and actionable strategies to amplify their voice, build presence, and lead with authenticity.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nnekaonyilofor/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nnekaonyilofor/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nnekaonyilofor 

Website: https://www.nnekaonyilofor.com/

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Transcript

Nneka Onyilofor 0:48

They say you can share your scars, but never share open wounds. So I always think about that because I'm like, okay, I don't mind sharing my scars if I've healed from something, even if I'm maybe in the process of healing, but I'm on the latter end. But if something is an open wound and I know it's going to be extremely triggering for me, I'm not going to share it.

Kelly Leonard 1:08

That was Nneka Onyilofor. Nneka is an educator, speaker, YouTube coach, and CEO of Curated Legacy LLC. A former college instructor of Black History, she's the author of a children's book and the memoir, The Invisible Black Woman. Her YouTube channel has reached millions, amplifying the stories that challenge, heal, and inspire. In this episode, Nneka shares resources to secure thought leadership space. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is the BOOST Podcast.

Announcer 1:47

Welcome to the BOOST Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. In each episode, host Kelly Leonard and her guests dive into one aspect of Kelly's Signature BOOST framework, ensuring you get practical, actionable insights, tips, and takeaways to build your brand, optimize relationships, obtain more leads, secure thought leadership space, and tap into new markets. And now, here's Kelly Leonard.

Kelly Leonard 2:18

Hey there, Naka. Welcome to the Boost Podcast.

Nneka Onyilofor 2:22

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here, Coach Kelly.

Kelly Leonard 2:24

Uh, so for folks who are hearing your name for the first time, tell us a bit about yourself.

Nneka Onyilofor 2:28

Yeah, so my name is Nneka Onyilofor, and I am an author, an educator. I am also a YouTube content creator, and I'm excited to talk a little bit more today about my YouTube channel.

Kelly Leonard 2:39

Excellent. And so one of your published works is The Invisible Black Woman. And so tell us a little bit more about that powerful title. Like how does it reflect your lived experience and your leadership journey?

Nneka Onyilofor 2:52

Yeah. So the Invisible Black Woman is a term that I heard many years ago and it resonated with me. And when I aged and got a little bit older, I started delving into the topic, doing research, and I was extremely disappointed when I realized that most of the research and the studies and all the publications about this topic does not touch on what I think is the most important thing, which is the emotional piece. So I, when I wrote my memoir, when I turned 40 years old, I wrote a memoir. And that was the exact thing I wanted to focus on was what I call emotional invisibility. And I so the invisible black woman is actually not what people think when I talk about it. It's not about necessarily being invisible physically, uh, or it's not about, you know, some people think it's about other races not seeing you or men not seeing you. It's really not about that. It is about uh how often as black women we don't see ourselves, we don't value ourselves, we don't love ourselves, and then to a sadder degree, we don't sometimes even know ourselves. So that is my invisible black woman.

Kelly Leonard 4:05

Wow. And so through that process, like what were some of your aha? Like, what are some of the things that really what like was there anything that you were surprised? That's perhaps what I want to ask you, actually. Was there anything that was like, oh my gosh, that's super interesting? I didn't think that that that would come out of this journey.

Nneka Onyilofor 4:24

This is the part I'm really surprised about. That men, black men, seem much more interested in the invisible black woman idea and concept than black women.

Kelly Leonard 4:35

Really? Say more.

Nneka Onyilofor 4:37

Oh, believe me, my YouTube channel is I mean, I I got on YouTube essentially to talk about the invisible black woman. That was that was the whole reason why I'm on YouTube. I published my book, I didn't know how to market my book. I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna make YouTube videos every now and then, and that'd be a way to market my book. And the algorithm started to push my videos out. And mind you, all my topics are to a degree things I touch on in my book. And the algorithm started sending me more and more black men. And and they and they would always ask me, What do you mean by that? Tell me more about that. Like they would ask questions. They wanted to go deeper. Whereas women often would be a little bit more skeptical or kind of push back on it, or they would just say, Well, I'm not invisible, you know. And before even really knowing what I meant by it, I think immediately there's kind of like this defense mechanism when someone's just talking about black women. You're maybe it's kind of a natural thing to say, oh, well, that's not me. Whereas men would say, What you're talking about reminds me of something I've seen with my sister, or yeah, my mom went through that, or yeah, my daughter struggles with that. So it's weird how sometimes men are kind of looking at it in a different way, and they're able to kind of see some of the problems that we have because men experience us differently than we experience ourselves.

Kelly Leonard 5:58

So that was what drove your decision to launch your your YouTube channel. And I would love to understand also, so then how did that platform also shape your voice as a thought leader?

Nneka Onyilofor 6:13

Yeah. So um what it did was so my background is is education. I used to teach African American history, so my YouTube channel really married a lot of the things I was passionate about. I was passionate about black women, talking about the invisible black women. I was passionate about the black community, passionate about history. And so what it did, it allowed me what I call um, I always say I hold space. So on my channel, I like to hold space for certain topics, and these are really topics. I took that invisibility concept, and my my slogan is making the invisible visible about black women, and so people see my channel as a place where they can come to learn things about black women. And I know we're not we're not a monolith, but because I am a black woman, so I have the lived experience, as well as having studied African American and African history and having taught African American and African history, people kind of see me as like a safe person to unpack certain topics and certain uh uh issues going on within the black community, specifically among black women.

Kelly Leonard 7:22

Mm-hmm. So then let's also dig deeper into more of the strategy as well, because we have a lot of like entrepreneurs and change makers, folks who are wanting to really um hold space themselves as well as um share their lived experiences with others. And so, from your perspective, what's the strategic value of building a presence on social media and YouTube in particular?

Nneka Onyilofor 7:50

Oh yeah, it is unbelievably like some there's someone who says if you're not on YouTube, you're just irresponsible. I'm not gonna go that far. But I I you know I almost agree with that, and and I'll tell you why is because YouTube is the second largest social media platform. So Facebook would be the first, but YouTube is the only platform, the only, I would say the the one the largest and maybe the most known platform for long form content. And so why that's so incredibly valuable is because if you're a thought leader or you're someone who has, you know, topics, ideas, concepts, things that you want to put out there, and you can't do it in 30 seconds, as you can see, I'm kind of long-winded. So there's no way I can get get my message out in 30 seconds on Facebook or on TikTok. YouTube is where it's at. And what what the algorithm does, it it actually brings you the people who care about what you're talking about. So I was so surprised to see how it works. And yeah, it's just a place to where you can like if there's things you're passionate about, you don't have to be an expert, you can just have a passion. And that passion usually will translate to to trust uh to your audience. And I publish weekly videos every week. My audience knows that I'm gonna be talking about another topic related to black women, and it's kind of a safe place, I think, for them.

Kelly Leonard 9:12

So, and it's interesting. So, to hear the word safe place and public space sounds almost like contradictory. And so, from your perspective, how are you balancing, you know, having vulnerability and authority when sharing very personal stories or information in a very public setting?

Nneka Onyilofor 9:32

Yeah, I love that question. So, one of the things I learned, and I can't take credit for this, but this is so good. They say uh you can share your scars, but never share open wounds. So I always think about that because I'm like, okay, I don't mind sharing my scars if I've healed from something, even if I'm maybe in the process of healing, but I'm on the latter end. But if something is an open wound and I know it's gonna be extremely triggering for me, I'm not gonna share it. So I kind of live by that. And so it becomes safe because I only share the things that I'm very comfortable. Because of course it's it's social media. I'm gonna get negative comments, I'm gonna get people who disagree with me, who don't like my video. And I'm prepared for that because I'm sharing a scar. So I'm sharing what I've already kind of gone through or what other women have gone through, things that I've kind of already processed. So I make I'm I I welcome the pushback. In fact, it actually makes a better environment when you have folks who then come on your video and say, Well, I disagree. And then what you'll see in the in the comment section is a lot of back and forth and a lot of chatter, which is what I want. You know, I want it to be a conversation. I definitely don't want it to be one-sided. Mm-hmm.

Kelly Leonard 10:39

And so, what about for folks who like the advice that you would give to someone who feels unseen but wants to step into their thought leadership space with with more confidence? Like what guidance would you give to a person like that?

Nneka Onyilofor 10:55

Sure. Yeah, well, that I was that person. So um, I was definitely that person who had all these ideas and all these things. And I just I didn't know how to, and and as someone I identify as an artist, I never even thought I would get paid to for my art. I was like, I don't even know how how do you make money from art? I didn't get it. And YouTube showed me that it's possible because I am monetized and I have a business curated legacy. I help other content creators or aspiring content creators get monetized. So I would say, again, you know, you don't have to be an expert. It's not, I think a lot of people think when you're building a social media presence or a brand, you have to be this expert and you gotta always know. There's a lot of times where I'll say on on camera, I'm not sure about that. I don't know about that, but let's explore that together. And in my next video, I'm gonna, you know, do some research on that and we'll talk about it. So it's just really showing your passion. I think people connect to passion and authenticity. And so when they can see that you really care about what you're talking about, it actually helps the audience to engage more because they're like, well, I didn't know anything about this, but she is so passionate about it. Let me hear what she's talking about, you know.

Kelly Leonard 12:03

Right, right. Awesome advice. Awesome. And so now you've been able to monetize your channel. So I'm sure there's there's folks who are listening in who perhaps are like, ooh, I need some of that in my life. So for folks who are listening in and want to tap into your brilliance, what's the best way for them to find you?

Nneka Onyilofor 12:20

Yeah, well, definitely YouTube. So my YouTube channel is my first and last name. So you can just go on YouTube, type Nneka C Onyilofor. Well, so first name, middle initial, last name. Um, but I'm also on Instagram. And so everything is gonna be first and last name. On Instagram, I'm Nneka Onyilofor. Uh, I have a website, NnekaOnyilofor.com. Uh, and I think those are probably gonna be the three. I mean, I'm also on LinkedIn, so same thing. My first and last name on LinkedIn. Um, and then my my but my actual business is called it's a media business, it's called uh Curated Legacy. So if you type in Curated Legacy, you'll get Nneka Onyilofor. Uh, but it all leads back to the same thing, which is um a media company or media business. I am the CEO. Uh however, my goal is to help my clients get monetized and just really get started on whatever they're passionate about and to ultimately grow. And that means grow as a person, or you know, of course, hopefully grow their YouTube channels.

Kelly Leonard 13:24

Awesome. Well, thank you for that. And I will include all those links in the show notes. And so, Nneka, I am so grateful for your time tonight. Thank you so much.

Announcer 13:36

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