Being Unapologetically Yourself with Yvonne Orji

On this episode of the Get Loved Podcast, Koya talks to Yvonne Orji about pursuing your creative vision, finding people who will support you, and knowing when to maintain your own boundaries.  Yvonne shares her unabashedly honest and raw views on everything from her faith, mental health, and the lessons she learned while working in the creative industry, particularly with working as an actress and as an executive producer.

She also shares her realizations while writing her book Bamboozled By Jesus, where she talks about her faith and road to success while also providing a fresh interpretation of Biblical stories fit for modern times.

GUEST BIO

Yvonne Orji is a Nigerian-American Emmy-nominated actress, comedian and writer who is best known for her performance as Issa Rae’s best friend and fan favorite, “Molly” on the HBO comedy series, Insecure which garnered her an Emmy Nomination for best supporting actress, and her newest show ‘My Mom, Your Dad’ on HBOMax where she spreads her talents as Executive Producer AND Host!

A distinguished standup comedian, Yvonne previously opened for Chris Rock on various stops of his Total Blackout Tour and headlined her first comedy tour, Lagos To Laurel, at the top of 2020. Her 1-hour Stand-Up Special  Momma, I Made It was shot in the two places Yvonne called home while growing up, Washington DC and Nigeria.

Orji’s film credits include Universal’s Night School alongside Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish as well as Hulu’s Vacation Friends alongside Lil Rel and John Cena. Her debut book, Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams, was released in spring of 2020. In addition to Yvonne's work on camera, she is executive producing an autobiographical comedy entitled First Gen which is currently in development at Disney+.

Outside of her creative work, Orji is dedicated to her charitable efforts. In 2018 she spent six months working in post-conflict Liberia with Population Services International (PSI), an NGO that utilizes social marketing in the adoption of healthy behaviors. While in Liberia, she worked with a group of talented youth to help build a mentoring program as well as a weekly talk show that helped educate and prevent teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. Orji has brought her work with the youth community back to the states, where she is currently involved with (RED) campaigns and faith based youth ministries.

Before moving to Los Angeles, Yvonne earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a Masters of Public Health from George Washington University.

Connect with Yvonne and follow her work through the links below: 

• Book: https://amzn.to/3MQMI4V
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/YvonneOrji
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yvonneorji/

HIGHLIGHTS

05:10 Story behind writing Bamboozled by Jesus 

10:21 Having a personal relationship with Jesus will change you

17:28 Talking about your faith will come with challenges 

25:42 Find people that will protect you while you're working on yourself

29:37 Women are intuitive but over rationalize so many things 

32:12 Lessons learned while working in the creative industry

49:14 Limit your circle to people that know how to grow

54:52 You don't need to handle everybody else's problems 

56:38 Life is all about training

QUOTES

18:40 Yvonne: "People will ruin even the good stuff that God has pre-ordained and predestined for them. That doesn't change in church. People will ruin the good stuff that God has pre-ordained and predestined for them. It just sucks because in their ruining that, it ruins it it for a lot of other people who can't get over that." 

21:13  Koya: "When we're able to have compassion for the darkness, and realize in the world there's a lot of darkness in it, there's so much power in that." 

23:18 Yvonne: For everybody that leaves in such a fantastical way, there are those who have come and stayed in an even more beautiful way. And so it as like, you know what, yes, I've had to curate boundaries, and who gets in and go to the inner core because I was very much like, inner core immediately kind of person. And then now, it's just like, game recognize game." 

25:44 Yvonne: "We all have our insecurities. We all have the areas in our lives that we are so vulnerable in and we are working on. We need people around us. Not people who will coddle us, but people that will make us feel safe in the midst of all those things. Because if you're also committed to growing, you're working on that."

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