University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Speak
Book

Speak

Find Your Voice, Trust Your Gut, and Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

Tunde Oyeneyin
Avid Reader Press, 2022
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Engaging
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

In this inspiring memoir, Tunde Oyeneyin arranges stories and events around the principles of “surrender, power, empathy, authenticity” and “knowledge,” creating the acronym SPEAK. Appropriately titled, the book describes Oyeneyin’s process of finding her voice and learning to speak up. Both motivational and moving, Oyeneyin’s memoir takes the reader on a journey toward mental, spiritual, physical and emotional growth. As she steps up to challenges that arise, Oyeneyin creates a shining path with her stories, encouraging her readers to follow her to new levels of self-acceptance and love.

Summary

Don’t wait to start loving yourself. Love yourself before, during, and after you make changes.

As a child and teenager, Tunde Oyeneyin was overweight. In the 1970s, her father won a lottery for a diversity visa, and the Oyeneyin family emigrated from Nigeria to Texas. Oyeneyin’s mother encouraged her and her three brothers to eat, regarding it as a healthy habit. But when Oyeneyin couldn’t fit into a bridesmaid dress at age 14, she felt ashamed. Children quickly learn they need to fit in, and girls especially begin to hate their bodies if they fail to conform to conventional standards of beauty. In high school, self-conscious about her size, Oyeneyin diminished her personality to make herself small and avoid drawing attention to herself. She was not living as her authentic self.

When her mother realized how upset Oyeneyin was about being different, she encouraged her to make a change. Oyeneyin eventually found fitness and lost 70lbs. She ultimately realized that no external factor – no scale, no mirror nor
other people's opinions – could change how she perceived herself. She shares the importance of learning to love yourself before, during and after you reach...

About the Author

Tunde Oyeneyin is a Peloton instructor, a motivational speaker, host and the founder of S.P.E.A.K., an Instagram Live series.

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