Hi guys, my name is Irene T.T. YA and welcome to PLT Behind Closed Door Season 6.

I'll be taking over the podcast for a four-part Black History Month special.

The theme for October is Be Strong because you know we're strong beings.

This month I'll be speaking to four guests who will discuss their personal experiences as Black women and learn in how we can be strong in the face of prejudice and adversity.

So you know every episode guys we need to be focused and today I'm going to be joined by Tony Tone, an influencer, best known for her hard-hitting tweets on everything from empowerment to wellness and dating,

who've been shared by the likes of Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Elle Magazine and a couple of the Kardashians. Is it? Wow.

In 2019 she was named the first ever ambassador for the Young Women's Trust and if that wasn't enough she's just launched her collaboration clove in line.

We'll be talking to Tony about what motivates her, her inspirations and digging out some of her most popular posts.

Hi Tony! Hi!

It's great to have you here on PLT behind closed doors. How are you?

I'm good. Thank you so much for inviting me.

I want to ask this kind of rewind a little bit and start at the beginning. So talk to us about your heritage, where you grew up and where your kind of career journey started for you.

Sure. So I'm Nigerian. I was born in Nigeria. I moved to the UK when I was about four or five years old.

My mum had a scholarship to study here so we moved and my dad's mum was actually British. My dad's by racial.

And we thought, okay let's pick up fresh start, move to the UK. And I've been obviously in the UK ever since.

I would say that my career started really about two years ago actually. I took to Twitter to just kind of share my personal thoughts and it went from strength to strength by guess.

And people loved my writing and then eventually quit my job and now that's why I do full time.

Wow. So did you ever consider a more traditional career or was it something that you always kind of knew you wanted to kind of eventually end up doing?

I have worked in lots of very traditional careers. I've worked in gas and electric. I've worked in higher education. I've worked in healthcare.

And although like I enjoyed those jobs to a degree, there was always something missing and I always knew that I was meant to do something else and follow my passion.

I just didn't know what and up until about 28 I wouldn't say I knew what I wanted to do. A lot of people think that you just know I didn't know.

And I guess venturing into my hobbies and my passion led me to discovering actually yeah this is what I'm really good at. This is what I should focus on.

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