From Struggles to Success a conversation with Nadine Niba

In the latest episode of Bring Back the Porch, host Brian welcomes Nadine Niba, who shares her incredible journey from Cameroon to Canada with nothing but a suitcase, a hundred dollars, and a dream. Nadine’s story is a testament to resilience and the true meaning of the American dream, filled with challenges, triumphs, and valuable lessons for anyone pursuing their goals.

Nadine’s journey began with a common belief among many immigrants: that moving to a developed country would guarantee success and wealth. "There was the mentality that if you move to this part of the world, you're going to make it big," she recalls. For Nadine, Canada represented hope and opportunity. However, she soon realized that the reality was far from the dream she had envisioned.

Upon arriving in Calgary as an international student, Nadine was overwhelmed by the high cost of living and education. She initially thought that life would be easy, with a good job waiting for her. Instead, she found herself struggling to make ends meet, with tuition fees of $22,000 a year and living expenses piling up. "A hundred dollars is not gonna do anything," she candidly admits, highlighting the disparity between expectations and reality.

With limited resources, Nadine had to get creative to survive. After her mother managed to send her $6,000 to cover her first semester's tuition, Nadine worked tirelessly to support herself. Balancing three jobs while attending school, she often felt exhausted and defeated. "I was always behind on rent," she shares, revealing the emotional toll of her circumstances. Despite the hardships, Nadine persevered, relying on her determination and hard work to keep moving forward.

Nadine’s breakthrough came when she met a kind stranger on the train who recognized her struggle and directed her to the Women in Need Society in Calgary. This organization provided her with food, clothing, and even furniture for her empty apartment. "It felt like Christmas," Nadine recalls, illustrating the profound impact of community support during her darkest days.

Just when Nadine was ready to give up and return to her home country, she received a job offer that changed everything. "The week I was supposed to go back, I got my first job offer," she says, expressing gratitude for the opportunity that shifted her trajectory. Nadine now works in a corporate role she once aspired to, proving that persistence and hard work can lead to success.

Nadine Niba’s story is a powerful reminder of the challenges faced by many immigrants and the strength it takes to overcome adversity. Her journey highlights the importance of community, resilience, and the belief that dreams can come true with hard work and determination. 

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Transcript

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Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe, and tell your friends about bring Back the Porch. There was the mentality that if you move to this part of the world, you're going to make it big. You're going to make a lot of money, and you'll be able to take care of your family. So for me moving here, I thought I was coming to live the American dream to make a lot of money, make my family rich. Yeah. Yeah. Just that. So that was a dream. I came with a suitcase, $100 and a dream. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And I'm pleased to welcome to the porch today, Nadine Niba, a woman with a very remarkable story. Welcome. Thank you so much. I was reading your biography and I was like, I don't think I would have the courage to even try what you did. Well, yeah. I mean, your story is amazing. Thank you. You say in your biography you came to Canada as an international student. You were full of hope, but all you had was a suitcase and a dream. Yeah. And fill in the blanks between.$100 in my pocket. How much? $100. That's it. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. What made you want to come to Canada? Greener pastures. You know, growing up in Africa, back in the day, I think things are a little bit different now. It was a dream come true to migrate to Canada, the United States, the U.K. There was the mentality that if you move to this part of the world you're going to make it big. You're going to make a lot of money and you'll be able to take care of your family. So for me moving here, I thought I was coming to live the American dream to make a lot of money, make my family rich. Yeah. Yeah. Just that. So that was a dream. I came with a suitcase.$100 and a dream. Now, you wanted the American dream, but you came to Canada. Yeah. What made would tip the scales between maybe going to the U.S. or coming to Canada? Canada chose me. So Canada made it easy for me to come to Canada. So when I say the American dream, it's not like the United States. I'm just using it as a generic term. When when we leave the developing world to the developed world, the mentality is you're coming to the developed world to experience a better life, make more money to help your family that is back home in the developing country. So that covers, United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, the United States, like just leaving it developed and developing country to a developed country. Yeah. Did you have a preconceived notion about what life would be like here? Yeah. The preconceived notion is that it's going to be very easy. You're gonna get a big, fancy job. They're gonna pay you a lot of money. You live in a very big, fancy house. You're going to drive a fancy car. Everything is just going to be so automatic. You get into the washroom, you put your hands like this, water comes out, you just sit in the kitchen, the food comes to you. That was the preconceived notion. And then when you learn and you realize, oh, the reality underground is completely not what I saw in the movies. Yeah, they didn't tell me about this part. You know? Yeah. So then you went to Sait. Is that where you took your your training? Yes. I went to see, I did Bachelor of Applied Business Administration in accounting. International student. Two years, three years, two years. It's normally a four year program because I was coming with a degree already from Cameroon. I got a two year exemption. So I just did the 10th year and the fourth year, and I still didn't make life easy because I'm coming with $100 in my pocket, remember. And the international student tuition at the time was like 22 or $25,000 a year. That is tuition alone. Oh, wow. And then you have living expenses, you know, living on the street, you have to pay rent and then you have to feed, and then you have to wear winter clothes because it's not it's not the same weather. And then you have to buy the bus pass, I don't know. I think I was setting myself up for some form of suicide without knowing, because how does $100 cover all of that? So how did you make $100 stretch? How did you stay alive? Oh, yeah. That is where the real journey begins. I think that that's where the story begins. So then I arrive, and then I see I have this ridiculous tuition to pay. I call my family back home. And then I said, first of all, the reality on the ground is not what I saw in the movie. And that's where right now I do a very good job educating people is the life is great, but come in with the right perspective. The reality on the ground is not really what I thought. I have $20,000 in tuition staring at me. Had to face I need a place to stay.$800 is not going to do anything. So then my mom says, okay, I'm going to run around, talk to a few friends, see work, and borrow some money from, and the most you could come up with was $6,000. So she sends that to me. I pay my tuition for the first semester, but it's just the first semester. Now I need somewhere to stay. I she calls around, like speaking to a couple of friends. You know, a friend who knows. Everyone knows. If there's somebody who could just take my daughter in for, like, a month before she can start looking for somewhere to stay, she eventually found somebody who they took me to their house for, like, a two month period, and then they had to move out on my own. And so I had to pick up three different jobs. Three? Yeah, I was doing three different jobs while going to school. So I'm going to work at a coffee shop and then after I work. So it's three different jobs, two different time. So they split the job in the summer. And then there's a job during the school. During the school period. So I go to class, I go to the call center in school. I work in the call center. So my class ends at four. I work in the call center from 5 to 7. I go back home, I change, probably sleep for like two hours, and then I go to Walmart and stock shelves from seven from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.. Then I go to the washroom at Walmart, I change. I haven't had a chance to show up at this point. I go back to school in the morning. I go to class. I go to the call center. That was it. All repeats around the clock because if I didn't work that hard, I could not make ends meet. I wouldn't have enough money to pay the tuition, to pay the rent to feed and even with working that crazy on minimum wage, I still didn't make ends meet. Everything I meet was just enough. After four months to pay the next semester tuition, I was always behind on rates because I didn't have it to pay month to month. I'll come back home. I was living in the low income housing because I had gone there. Of course I qualified because I didn't have the income, so they approved me for low income housing and so I was living in the low income housing. I think it was $400 a month, but even at the end of every month, I still didn't have enough to make that $400 to pay, because I'm gauging what is just enough to pay the tuition. And sometimes I can remember going to the office at least on three different occasions when there's an eviction with somebody needing your back on your rent and just go plead with them like, please, just give me something. I probably pay on the 15 and I'm running behind. They were under way, very considerate. I think I was very fortunate. And when I moved into that house, they don't give you a house with furniture or anything in it. It was an empty house. I couldn't afford a bed. I couldn't afford care. So I think for the first few weeks, what I did was afford a couple of my clothes and put on the floor. And then I sleep on that, on those as my bed. And there was this day I, I left Walmart. I finished the night shift at 7 a.m. and I'm in the train heading back home and I'm freaking hungry. I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten properly in probably like a week. And I just sat in the kitchen and I burst into tears. I started crying, I was crying profusely, like, what have I done to myself in my parents house? I had a good bed to sleep on. We never lacked food. It didn't matter if I didn't come from the high society of back home. You never lack food. There was always food to eat. I was the one who say, no, I don't want to eat, but this is me going to week and I haven't had anything substantial to eat. I'm losing strength and I still have to work overnight and stock chef. So I said days almost like my in my life flashed before my eyes and I was crying profusely. And then the train has taken me from, I was walking to Walmart in Tuscany and then I lived in, Chinook. So I'm going to sit in the aisle. And this was two ends. I think it was Tuscany. Somerset. Is this Somerset? Oh, I think Somerset. So because I was lost in thought. I'm just crying a sudden. The train, the train took me from one end of the city to the other and back. I'm back, I'm back. And then I'm just sitting there crying like I'm completely lost. And this lady looks at me, I say to you, why are you crying? And I said, I haven't eaten for days. I have to run to be. I'm tired, like you said. I was just telling her my life story. I don't even have a bed to sleep on. I don't even know what I'm doing in this country. Oh my goodness. And then she said, this is this, this go to a woman in need society. I'm grateful to the woman in need society in Calgary that they are gonna help you. At least you wouldn't sleep on the floor anymore. So immediately she told me that I got off the train. In that moment, she wrote the address on a piece of paper and she gave me. I got off the train in that moment and went to that address, and some lady attended to me. I just sat there. I think she looked at me. I looked deplorable when you see somebody was not eating it, it's evident in how you look. You look very cranky. Your lipstick, like I really look deplorable. She looked at me. She gave me food items. I didn't even have a proper winter jacket on. And I'm going through all of this. Give me winter jackets. She gave me winter shoes, and then she gave me vouchers that go to this place, get in bed, go to this place. They're gonna give you furniture. If you have, like Christmas, I left. I'm gonna have a bed. Oh my God. Yeah. So they gave me a voucher. I went to sleep, continued sleep country. They gave me a bed. I went to another of their warehouses. They said, oh, we have this is our furniture warehouse. Just walk around, select any furniture you want to deliver to your house. And so I looked around. I was like, I love this one. I love this one, I love this one. I love this picture. They delivered it at my house. And it was only after then that I began to experience what a normal life looks like. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever just think about going to the airport, getting on a plane and just. Oh yeah I got, I got home, I got to that point. So even after I've had a bed I'm not sleeping on the bed, I have the couch still taking care of my day to day living expenses, including paying my tuition, was such a struggle. So in 2015, I think, sorry, 15 in November of 2015, I called my parents and I said, I don't think I can continue this life anymore. It's yeah, when I compared to the kind of life I live back home, this is not the greener pastures I came for. So please buy me an etiquette. I'm going to be coming back. I know mothers are so emotional. My mom has seen a picture of me. I looked really skinny and she's like, no, yeah, you need to come back. She just burst into tears when she saw that because she's like, then you die in a foreign country. I'd rather have my daughter alive and in my home, in my house. So she said, yeah, we're welcome to look around. We'll get money and we'll purchase you an etiquette to come back. The week I was supposed to go back, I got my first job offer, my first. In the career that you. Were looking in. The career that I was looking for, I got my first eye. So if you look at quarterback. That is the book that you have written? Yes. The book I've written and I wrote in the acknowledgments is. The lady who offered me this job, her name was Amu Zacharias. She was the, it talks manager at Canadian Natural Resources Limited. I said, thank you for being the leader who gave me my very first year in corporate North America. That single word opened doors and shifted my trajectory. She did not know that I was at the point of going back UN. She made the offer to me less than 30 minutes after the interview. God knows if she wished that one day that call. I've been coming and I'll be in Cameroon, you know. And so as I went for the interview, I finished, it normalizes. Here we are talking to other candidates who get back to you as I get out and I stand in front of the train station to pick a train and go home, my phone is ringing and I pick up and they said, hey, is there Nadine, we just interviewed you would like to make you the offer. I just said yes. I did not care how much was coming after a salary. So you don't. When you're hungry, you don't even have the strength to negotiate. And your salaries. I said, I don't care what the salary is. Yes, I'm coming on Monday. You're the kind of employee they were looking for. I'm like, it's whatever you want to offer me. I know it's just going to give me a better life. Do you want. No. No negotiation. You went. Do you want me to start? I'm going to show up. And that was the beginning of my journey into corporate North America that opened so many doors for me. And today when I when I speak at various stages and I'm talking to employers, I always see that that first years for somebody who just migrated is never just a yes. It's a change of story for most people. For almost everyone, it is a change of story. That face, yes, meant that I was not going to be stocking shelves at Walmart at night. And then I'm in the coffee shop in the afternoon and I'm in the call center, and it's like I'm expending myself 23 hours a day on three different jobs, and I still have to be a student and deliver on my assignments. That's why I got no sleep. It meant that I was going to drop all of that and just go to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., come back home, have a good sleep, have a good new study, and pass my exams. So it was not just a job, it was a gateway to my future, a lifeline. Yeah, it was a lifeline. Yeah. Your faith, did that carry you through? My faith. Carried me through my faith. Carried me through. Even though times were very tough. I kept saying to myself that the God that I serve would never have brought me here to lift me halfway. So even when I had called home and I said, get me a, a little part of me kept saying, God, I don't want to go back, open this door, I don't want I didn't come here to fail. Failure is not an option. You need to come through. So I'm not going back home. So I had this very fervent belief that something was going to come true. I just didn't know what. Yeah, I didn't know what God's plan was. I didn't know what God's plan was. But he put that woman on the train. In your path? Yes. And that led to open doors elsewhere. Exactly. So then you graduate? Yeah. And then you decide that you want to help others who were in your position and how did that become, exactly? So when I graduated, I was already working when I graduated, and then I my career trajectory just took an interesting dynamic. I worked for all of this amazing, very large multinational organizations, and I was leading a lot of the black professional networks in all of this organizations. And I, I may be because of what I went through, it refines my character and my personality to be somebody who was very receptive, very empathetic, and the person who always gave an ear to other immigrants who were going through things. So they always came to talk to me. Nothing. I'm going through this. Do you have any advice for me? I'm going to do something. So my calendar was open. I always quit at the time. So even when I go to work, I come back from work. I was just sit at home and I'll be in meetings. Right. Okay. This is how we're going to adjust your resume. This is what you need to do. Just train up the resume. It doesn't work. You have to actually go out and talk to people. You have to find people to refer you because you know as much as you is an experience. It also means that we trust you. Employers want to work with people that they trust, and sometimes a referral bridges that distrust. So I was speaking to so many immigrants, so many immigrants trying because I understood the struggle I've been through. I've been there. And when you've been there, the impact is different, is different. So I as much as I could reach out to, I did. But then the consultant in me because I'm a consultant said, but this is not sustainable. I cannot speak to everybody. It's it's just not going to work. So what is it? More productive way to do this? That is how quarterback came to be. Yes. So I decided to document my experience in quarterback and the experiences of all the other people that were sharing their stories with me, and we're coming up with solutions together from a perspective of, yes, there's going to be all of these challenges. These are the challenges. You are not going through it alone. Just if somebody is going through a dark time in their life, is survivor fierce. The way they approach it is different. If they think that they are just a victim and they're going through it alone, versus when they feel like it's just a phase, or as I've gone through it and there's light at the end of the tunnel. So I wanted the anyone reading the book to know what you're going through right now is just a phase. This life at the end of the tunnel, it changes the journey in their mind psychologically, and they can go through it with more joy in their hearts, knowing full well that is just a phase in my journey. This light at the end of the tunnel. Then I brought in strategies that will help you get through it faster. Because if you are approaching the job search wrong, you're only going to stay in the phase longer. But if you have strategies to get you out of there faster, you get to your breakthrough faster. If you don't know the strategies and how to blend into a work environment, you're only going to face layer after layer after layer of. And what happens is it chips on your self-confidence, and then before you know it, you start thinking you're not worthy or good enough to be an employee. But if you know the strategies to blend in faster, it kicks that out of the picture and your confidence only grows and you get better and better opportunities. So I documented the strategies to succeed. Yes, these are the challenges. You are not going through it alone. So that changes how you view those challenges. And you can go through it with more joy because your mental posture matters. When you're going through tough times, your mental posture matters. If you think you're a victim, you're only going to go through a dark hole. You only gonna go deeper. But if you think this is just a phase, you have this strength within you to fight harder and get out of it. So one change your mental posture. That's what the back is going to do for you, because you see thousands of other émigrés and their stories and they've gone through this, and now they are directors and managers and CEOs, and they run businesses. They run companies. They they have their own. They employ hundreds of thousands. So yes, it's going to be days just in case you get through. And these are the strategies that you can get through it. So we did go to ensure that nobody really goes through what I went through, or even if they do, they're not going to stay there very long. And it's going to empower internationally trained professionals immigrating into corporate America to take ownership of their future. So like a quarterback with a team leader of a football, take ownership of your career because really it's your responsibility and drive. So that's how quarterback came to be. So now when I look back I'm like, God does not take you through a phase for no reason. Because if I didn't go through all that, quarterback was never going to exist. Yeah. Have you heard from people who have read the book or have talked to you the success stories? My goodness, so many people, every day I wake up to a new message. Some people even sent me screenshots. I got promoted within six months. I started receiving Bravo. Like it gives me chills. I. I got to a point where I said to myself that I'm not the one who wrote this book. It could only have been God writing through me. And it's so fulfilling right now. Like Steve Jobs says, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. It's so fulfilling right now to watch, to look back and see. Okay, all along God knew what he was doing with me. He really did. Yeah. And like I said it was an amazing journey. Thank you. It continues. Yeah. Now the book is called quarterback. Yeah. Where can people find it. You can find it on Amazon I thought that I thought that when I was writing quarterback, it was at the end of it. At the end of writing this book, I felt like I had gone through a therapy session because there's something I felt like journaling everything I went through. And so when I was done, I was like, oh, wow. I feel very. Really weight off the. Weight off my shoulder and and I was writing this book very publicly. At the end of writing the book, I put out the post that said I became the first person that my own book liberated. Just through the process of writing the first, I became the first person who benefited from this book just by writing it. And so I thought when I was writing the book, I told them, I've got so much knowledge. My story, the story of the stories of others. I really sat down. It's almost like I did some analytics and I said experiences, actually. Oh, look, I just I drew the dots. I, I was like, I got this perfect picture now. So this is the root cause analysis. This is the consultant mythology. Also this is the root cause and decide the solutions. So I thought I had figured it out when I wrote the book, but no, because when the book was released, it became a bestseller. 24 hours after release. It was released June 21st. I woke up June 22nd. This book was selling at number one. And then I thought I had spoken to so many people before writing the book, but the number of people I spoke to after was even more than the number of people I had spoken to before, and so was writing this book. I think I gained even more knowledge about the struggles that immigrants all over the world, not just America, because I had reached out to me from Australia, from the UK and tell me, I know you said corporate, not America, but no, I'm expressing the same thing. An internationally trained professional is an internationally trained professional. When you go to new places, you express culture shock. Moving countries comes with the same challenge. Whether you went to North America, you went to Australia or you went to the UK, we all struggled the same. So. I am like the book. The process of writing the book transformed me. The post release of the book expose me to even. More. Even more. Yeah yeah, yeah. How can people be more welcoming to immigrants? I think first off, I think that Canadians are so welcoming because it was a Canadian who gave me the address on the train. It was a Canadian, gave me my first. Yes. So I think the Canadians are very welcoming. The culture of Canada is very friendly, is very nice. It is nice to be first because culturally, sometimes when they don't even have to be nice, they're nice and it's not really in the workplace. The niceness is not communicating. Direct feedback in the way it needs to be communicated. So for me, it's not going to be like, how can people be more nice? They are already nice. But I think if you find yourself in a position of leadership or you're an employer of labor, employing people from different cultures, which I think every employer is at that position right now because everyone is moving everywhere. They everywhere is people from different nationalities. Background. Race is mixed. The best thing you can do is equip yourself with the tools, tactics strategy that you need to lead a multicultural workforce. Is that book just for immigrants or can anybody read it? It's not just for immigrants. So to be honest, I titled it An Immigrant Guide to Corporate North America because I'm an immigrant. So I'm like, yeah, I'm an immigrant. I'm going to call you what I am. It started with my story, but the strategies in this book apply to anyone working in corporate North America or corporate anywhere. Copy United States, UK, Australia. Because the book took on a life of its own and it went that far and wide that yeah. Yeah. The book is called quarterback. The author is named The Neighbor. Yes. Thank you for your visit. Thank you. Thank you so much. Take care. Yeah.