Being a talk given by Chude Jideonwo (Host, #WithChude syndicated talk show and Founder, Fourthmainland Creator Fund) on Storytelling for Well-Being and Social Change at the World Bank’s ‘Entertaining Change: Next-Generation Media Partnerships for Social Impact and Gender Equality’ summit. November 6, 2025. Lagos, Nigeria.
10 years ago, as some of you in this hall know, I waschief executive officer of the media group RED | For Africa, which also owned what remains one of the top 5 PR companies in the country.
But those 10 years ago, just as we had finally become the talk of the town, in the middle of running communication for three presidential elections – Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal – and after appointments as public relations agency to three of the largest banks in Nigeria, I quit my job.
I quit.
I quit because professionally I was on a high. But personally, my life was falling apart.
I was officially diagnosed with clinical depression – and for good measure, Tourette’s syndrome, which is why I twitch on my right side.
In between the pain, the desperation and the anti-depressants I was taking, one afternoon – thoroughly tired of life and living – I slowed down my car on the popular Eko Bridge in Lagos, on my way home, and considered taking my own life.
I was tired of everything.
I soon decided I was going to leave Nigeria, do my PhD in America and live a quiet academic life.
But in the midst of the deep tiredness, two things happened.
First, I went to see a mentor, Fela Durotoye – to ask for help with the pain. It was in his home that I felt the first ray of hope. He told this was all part of God’s plan – and that God was going to use the depression to transform my life in ways I could not even begin to imagine.
Second, in the midst of all of the upheaval, I was dealing with intense criticism on Twitter for 3 days over a political choice, when I went to YouTube and typed ‘what to do when people hate you’.
And out came an interview that Oprah had with the phenomenal TEDx star, Brene Brown on Super Soul Sunday.
That single interview healed me and then completely transformed the trajectory of my life.
Because, after it had calmed me down, I made a promise to myself; That I would do a show like Oprah’s Super Soul so that one day a young African would go online and search for a solution to a problem in their heart, and my show would pop up and help them, like hers helped me.
I soon forgot that promise as I got a Yale Fellowship that year and moved to America – still determined to leave Nigeria.
But in the midst of my time in New Haven, something happened that made me decide I had to return home to share the good news of what I had learnt that cured the depression – including what I had learnt from global research on human flourishing about the beauty of African community, religiosity and geography that had made it easier for me to heal here.
I remembered the commitment inspired by Oprah. I decided I was going to come home and spread the message – of vulnerability, of connection, of joy.
And so I registered the company called Joy, Inc and returned to Nigeria. A year later, I recorded 13 episodes of what later become #WithChude.
At the time, I called it The Daily Vulnerable.
But then, for two years after I had recorded it, I refused to release it. I was convinced that in a content environment defined by Skitmakers, Afrobeats and Nollywood action films, a show about the mind, the heart, and the spirit – about vulnerability and connection – didn’t have a chance in a country where people wanted a distraction from corruption and poverty.
Thankfully, after two years, my friends and advisers wrestled me down, and I finally released the show – this show that emerged from my own personal experiences with depression, with vulnerability, with a loss of the will to live.
And see what has happened since.
It has become the most syndicated show in the region with millions of views on YouTube. It is currently the only podcast on the continent that people pay for every week – $8 – across 5 continents.
This year, the show turned 5 and to commemorate it , I hosted Africa’s biggest talk concert #WithChude Live! With the least ticket costing N20,000, I had over 5,000 people attend that event where I interviewed Nigerians biggest stars about the darkest moments of their lives – including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Funke Akindele and Pastor Jerry Eze.
And because of the incredible success we’ve had, last year I joined the Co-Creation Hub to incubate almost 100 new creators inspired by the successful model I have built and this year have launched the Fourthmainland Creator Fund with $500,000 of my own personal money to find and invest in young African creators who deeply believe in the power of their stories and are creating transformative content, for Africans in Africa and across the world. Currently, we have individual and institutional investors who are joining us to increase the fund to a $3million fund to empower creators.
You can call it a storytelling empire.
And all of this, every single one of it, happened because 10 years ago, depression changed and then saved my life.
Fortuitously, my new book ‘How Depression Saved My Life’ which my publishers Narrative Landscape – who also published Chimamanda and Otedola this year – bought the rights to last year, was just officially released on Monday and is now in stores nationwide and on Amazon, and this is the first event where I am speaking about it.
It tells – for the very first time in public – the full, shocking detail of the stories I just told you.
Of how depression led me to build a storytelling empire called #WithChude – with content, events and merchandise that is set to tour the world next year.
And now, every day, my show does what I promised myself it would do that day that beautiful morning that Oprah and Brene sowed a seed in my heart.
People know my show as the one show on the continent where, as they say, celebrities always cry openly – and where share their deepest truths for the first time.
When anyone says ‘that’s a #WithChude question’, millions of people across Africa now know exactly what that means.
It is mindblowing. And the message from this mind blowing story I just told you is truly simple: Stories are powerful.
Stories can heal.
Stories can transform.
Stories can change your life.
Stories can change our world.
I truly hope that my own story has touched and inspired you and – perhaps – changed your own
world today.
