Nyamwathi (Nyam) Adodoadji of Snellville on Life, Lessons & Legacy

Nyamwathi (Nyam) Adodoadji shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Nyamwathi (Nyam), it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
With the increased flexibility in my schedule, I’ve fully embraced slow mornings! I cook breakfast, and while I drink my morning cup of coffee I journal and stare out the window. Taking these moments to myself helps me feel grounded as I start the day.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
As a tech consulting professional leading digital product delivery for past clients such as Kia, Visa and LGE, the pandemic forced me to confront a 14 year cycle of crushing workloads and burnout.

Discovering others that used career breaks to redirect their lives, I took my own one year career break in 2022, in which I traveled to Mexico, Portugal, Ghana, Colombia and Spain. Through my sabbatical, I alchemized my burnout into a new life and career.

Now as a contemplative sabbatical coach, I partner with mid-career tech professionals to craft intuitive, creative and joyful career breaks to empower them to create aligned lives and careers.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
As a soft-spoken, creative, sensitive twenty-three old, 18 years ago I stumbled into my career as a product manager in tech. My product management journey shaped me profoundly. It taught me to think critically, execute efficiently and collaborate with warmth, humor and impact. I’m beyond proud of the younger version of me who stumbled into the corporate world unsure, earnest, and tender, and who—despite the knocks and bruises—grew into someone respected for her competence and kindness as a leader.

I couldn’t be where I am now without that twenty-three old, but I’ve released the survival tactics she picked up to make it through environments that were never built for sensitive souls like mine. I’ve released the part of me that equated worth with endurance and contorted myself to meet expectations that depleted me. I’ve released the part of me that learned to hide my gentleness in order to power through tech culture. I’ve let go of those old pieces of armor in order to return to who I really am.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
In 2021, during the pandemic I faced a moment of reckoning about the recurring burnout in my career. Was my life just going to be one debilitating job after another until I died? I felt like all ashes. I couldn’t figure out why work, something that was a necessary part of being an adult, was so painful for me. I felt a deep desire to use my creativity and positively impact others, but, while I excelled in my product management career, I always felt like something was missing. I had to hide the parts of me that were gentle, creative and “too sensitive” in order to force myself into an external version of success.

Through my 2022 sabbatical, I alchemized my ashes into a soulful ambition. Reclaiming all the parts of me I hid earlier in my career, as a contemplative sabbatical coach, I now partner with mid-life tech professionals to craft intuitive, creative & joyful sabbaticals as an avenue for inner change. In a driving industry where slowing down is viewed as a setback, I invite techies to embrace the power of rest and reflection, not for the sake of being more productive, but in order to reconnect to themselves and realign their lives and careers to what resonates within them.

We’re living through times that are dark and chaotic, and with the rapid advancement of AI technologies and mass layoffs, the tech industry is changing. The rules and systems we’ve become accustomed to are fracturing; in a context where the only sure thing is uncertainty, connection to one’s intuition will be a beacon through the turbulence.

I don’t view sabbaticals as an escape route from collective distress, but rather as a chrysalis for contemplation about the direction of one’s life. If one feels engulfed by the world’s sorrow and danger, how can one become even more clear on what is most important and the part that they play in the world’s healing? The myths tech leaders have believed about climbing ladders, the empty tall tales about success, are turning into ashes in a world on fire. While my journey has been messy and uncertain, through my work as a coach, I’ve transmuted my pain into power by inviting my peers to consider life’s most important questions.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
Having come of age in the tech industry, I learned to push and grind. As a tech professional, you’re socialized to believe one of two things about the role of rest: 1) rest is something to be earned (ie when folks are going on vacation you’ll often hear, “you deserve it!” or 2) the purpose of rest is to be more productive, and primarily for your company.

Early in my career, I didn’t have experience, but my God I had stamina! I pushed through constantly like a work horse. I internalized the above ideas deeply, and the end result was chronic burnout, broken well-being and disconnection from myself. I’ve been deprogramming, and I embrace theologian, writer and artist Tricia Hersey’s view of rest:

“Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out…Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us. The more we think of rest as a luxury, the more we buy into the systematic lies of grind culture.”

We’re living through one of the most consequential, chaotic and critical moments in human history. The tech industry taught us to push, power through and grind, but I’ve learned that the grind won’t get us to the next stage of our evolution. In an age where AI technologies seek to drive us to an even faster pace of life, rest alone will give us the profound breakthroughs we seek as leaders. Rest alone will unlock the deepest actualization of our dreams.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
When I’m gone, I hope the story people tell about me is that I lived with unabashed devotion to who I am. I hope people say that I dug into the raw, fertile places within myself and emerged with work that illuminated what was hidden, healed what was tender and challenged what was unquestioned.

I want to be remembered as someone whose art and presence made people pause and remember what’s sacred, especially in the midst of turbulent times. Perhaps it’s simple, but most of all, I want to be known as someone who was brave, kind and present to the wide world and all her people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nyamadodoadji.com
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/nyamado
• Other: Substack: shespeakssoftly.substack.com

Image Credits
Headshot by Karen Santos