BEING MR. PHISHA
My name is Akinlabi Akinbulumo. I’m also known as Mr Phisha. Phisha is a derivative of Phish-A-Man which is a play on what I considered as an instruction of God on my life to go “Fish A Man”. I’m a Visual Storyteller, Teacher and Dream Interpreter with a lot of HEART.
As a young adult, I had always struggled with the fact that God gave me the rare gift of multiple gifts. It was not till 5 years ago that
I realized that all these things pointed to one thing – my ability to see or hear patterns in such a way that it makes me think with my heart and mind at the same time. As a child, my father was an architect who had tremendous influence on my love for arts, even though I grew up studying the sciences. Today, I am a perfect blend of both worlds, able to be creative with Method, System and Process…
For over 15 years, I have had the pleasure of working with amazing clients across the globe – Access Bank, Microsoft Lumia/Nokia, Guinness, Etisalat, Dangote Cement, Unity Bank, Ndani, Sterling Bank, Google, Aiteo, CBN/NIBSS and my former employer, Guaranty Trust Bank amongst others. Using my creative skills, and my ability to connect the dots between thoughts and ideas, I am able to express my learnings of life, and God to deliver on projects in ways that provoke thoughts and emotions that move people to act or react as the case may be. Some of these creative skills include, Photography, Graphic design, Writing, Poetry, Rap, Videography, Oil painting, Technical drawing and Theatre arts. Life is passing by really fast and so many people are also moving too fast to notice the moments that give life meaning. My hope is that my work can help people or companies capture moments and even extend the life of those moments so that they see more of their beauty and meaning.
When trying to define or describe who I am, I look for ways to find a middle ground between the strong opinions I have of myself and what I seem to consistently get as feedback from the people I intersect with. I also ensure that this definition isn’t solely hinged around what I do but who I have been per time so far. I believe that our capacity as human beings is unlimited and as such there is always more that can emerge depending on what needs to be achieved per time. This is what I often describe as proof of God in us. I am constantly building capacity to keep me unlimited, broaden and deepen my impact. I want to achieve as many amazing feats as I can. I want to create. I want to consume. I want to be a part of the creation of a number of the things I truly love to consume. I want to try as many things that I am interested in.
DREAM INTERPRETER
I have discovered that there is something about my personality, my views on life, my relationship with God, how I feel, and how I think that offers a great deal of clarity for others whenever I share. People have called me Extra or even OTT because when you engage me and I commit to journeying with you, I bring all that I am to the forefront believing that something that I share will enable you to move towards your goals.
When people call on me, it is often to teach, inspire, interpret, advice, and capture . I am unbiased , objective and strategic in my approach to things. When I deliver on projects or engage with others, my hope is that they are able to sell what they have and who they are, learn and understand to do more, learn to navigate life more fluidly, know and love God more, know and love self better, love and integrate with others more, contribute more to the world, help others become and see beauty. This for me is the End Game!
I have “found God” and I am understanding, knowing and responding to him through Jesus Christ and the bible. Before I found him, he found me and showed me an endless spring of love and grace. In recent times I have become aware that there is a need to find and understand “the man” I am here on earth with, and daily be a conduit of God and love to him.
STORYTELLER
The single most effective way to shape culture and behaviour is by telling stories. Stories let people see in 3rd person, making it easy for them to be objective about what they see and decide on how to act as a result. A well told story gets its listeners to find themselves within the story so that they can connect with it and own it enough to share or keep developing. You can make a good story great by raising the stakes. To cut through the clutter it must have high empathy and high human interest. I choose storytelling as my means of execution because it is a middle ground between my desire to express how I feel about my learnings of life and my wanting to see people’s lives get better. I don’t want subject matters to just be announced or introduced. I want to see them impact and influence people for the better. I am constantly seeking opportunities to move my audience from knowledge to understanding and storytelling is a great tool to achieve this.
HUMANITARIAN
I strongly believe that the role of government is to provide an enabling environment for people to thrive. With or without it, it is the job of people who within communities have hope, clarity and the opportunity to empower others to not hold back from those who don’t. The job is even more essential for places where the impact from the role of government is weak or slow. Africa as a whole is one of such areas and so more people need to commit to lifting others. Our work at Socially Africa, is about collaboration. It is about teaching and moving people to give regardless of their status. At Socially Africa I am able to not only contribute from my pocket to help others, I also get to use my skill to curate and share amazing stories that spark a chain reaction.
