From Trials to Triumphs: Wole Babatunde's Journey

I sit down with Dr. Wole Babatunde, a psychiatrist, researcher, and author whose journey from losing both parents in Nigeria to building a career in U.S. medicine is nothing short of inspiring. We talk resilience, faith, mental health, and his book Adapt and Advance. It’s a powerful reminder that no matter the setback, you can turn trials into triumphs. 

You can find his book on Amazon Here

Website: oluwolebabatunde.com

Transcript

Intro Song

Rob Valincius: And we are live. Um, look, it's been three weeks since I've had my last podcast, and that's mainly because I've had a bunch of cancellations. So the problem with having an interview style podcast, uh, well, it's a blessing and a curse 'cause I get to meet really cool people from across the world and have great conversations.

Uh, but that's only when they show up. So, uh, I don't have backups, uh, just hanging around. So unfortunately, uh, kinda is what it is. So I've, I've been doing this for, uh, over three years now, and I just, I kind of roll with the punches. Uh, but look, this is, yeah, I know, right? This is the Drink O’Clock podcast.

I'm your host Rob Valencia, and I have the pleasure of having with me, um, Wale Babatunde.

Wole Babatunde: Yes. Thank

Rob Valincius: Did I say it right? Let's go. Welcome to the podcast Now. Now, Wally, you're an author and let me go over all of your, your acronyms here, right? Md, MPH, PhD. And you gotta explain this one to me 'cause I've never seen it before.

F-W-A-C-P. What is that?

Wole Babatunde: That money is from Nigeria fellow, west Africa College of Physicians.

Rob Valincius: Okay. All right. That's cool. That's cool, man.

Wole Babatunde: it's kind of the equivalent of being a competing your residency in the us. So that's what you get in Nigeria when you complete your residency.

Rob Valincius: Gotcha. Okay. That's cool, man. That's cool. So yeah, so look, um, you know, your story is, is pretty inspiring. Um, so I like to start all my podcasts with your background, right? And I think that's basically. The whole podcast at this point, because a lot of it right. Is your, is your struggle. So, um, talk to me a little bit about, obviously growing up, you grew up in Nigeria and you know, this could be as long as you want.

So tell us about, um, some of your experiences, um, you know, and, and kind of what got you to where you are today.

Wole Babatunde: Yeah. Thank you so much, uh, for having me. Uh, Rob, I'm so happy to be here today, uh, to join your show and, um, be a part of inspiring your audience. And people will listen and watch what you do, and that's really wonderful. You do a great job, and I'm happy to be a part of it for this short while, short time that we have together.

So for my background, I was born in Nigeria, uh, Africa, and, um, grew up there, um, completed elementary, middle high school, medical school. Uh, worked a little bit before transitioning to the United States, but my background, um. In Nigeria. I think what's very unique about my story and which I talk a little bit about my, in my book, is the fact that, you know, it was rough and tough growing up and uh, life was really difficult mainly because of the loss of my mother when I was seven years old and the death of my father when I was 13 years old.

Um, so that was really a very tough time and is challenging time in my, in my life. Um, so I think that's the most defining thing I tell people in my, in my background. But that notwithstanding, I was able to adapt and advance, which is the summary or the 360 degree view of what I have in my book at DAF in advance is the story of how I was able to go forward despite the challenges that I went through and the way I define adapt.

It's your ability, uh, to accept difficult situations. Um. That comes your way and understand that, uh, those difficulties, they are not there to stop you, but they are there to be a stepping stone to something bigger, to something greater. Uh, which brings us to meaning making the first section in my book. So I was able to adapt to the loss of both parents very quickly, and of course not easy as we expected, but I was able to push on complete high school after the loss of my dad completed, uh, what we call A Levels in Nigeria.

It was like pre-college and was able to get to college, medical school six years, seven years and complete that. And then did residency, uh, for a few years, did some research work, which was actually what brought into the us. Um, and I realized that there was a lot of gaps in my research training that I needed to fill up, which were not.

Possible to fill up where I was in Nigeria. So I felt coming to a place with more opportunities, uh, higher level of, um, expertise, uh, in epidemiology, which was what brought me to the United States computer, my residency, and then moved on computer, my PhD epidemiology, then moved on to my psychiatry residency, completed that.

I'm currently now a psychiatrist, uh, in the us uh, providing psychiatry care for people.

Rob Valincius: That's awesome, man. That's, look, I wanted to be a psychologist. That's, that's what I always wanted to do. Um, I met my, my fiance in, um, psychology.

Wole Babatunde: Wow. Wow,

Rob Valincius: Yeah, we, we met in, um, adolescent, adolescent psychology. Thank you. Um, and, but I took probably every level of psychology that I could, 'cause I was just fascinated by it.

I, I just love there. You gotta respect the way the brain works and how every person is just different,

Wole Babatunde: Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: And, um, you also never know, you know who people really are. And I, I was, I was saying this the other day. I was, I was on a work trip and I, I said to one of my coworkers, I wonder how many of the people that we've run across are, are actual, are actual serial killers?

You know, some, some Dexter like stuff, because you'll never

Wole Babatunde: You just can't tell by looking at people's faces, what's going on in their mind. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. Especially when you have someone that's a psychopath, that's a sociopath. I mean, they have a very good way of hiding their, their true intentions and who they are.

Wole Babatunde: They might be very charismatic, very, you know, nice looking, good looking and you know, very friendly, but you, they just never can tell. Uh, yeah. And you know, the mind of man is very deep. And, um, just like, you know, the Bible says who can know it at times, it's difficult to predict what people are thinking and what people are saying.

And that brings us to psychiatric psychology. And, uh, we deals with the mind. And that makes it a very challenging discipline, uh, in medicine because I tell people, you know, if you have a broken leg, they can check it by x-ray, check it by CT scan, and you know, and know what exactly is going on. They can do an ultrasound of your abdomen if there's something wrong there, but the brain is not like that.

So the mind, there's no x-ray that can see people's mind, see through people's mind. And that's what makes, uh, us unique. And also challenging too, because. We go off of what we see people do, and we also go off of what we hear people say. So most of our diagnosis, and that's why in the DSM five, most of the diagnosis we make in mental health has to do with, you know, putting things together like depression.

You know, you have to, having excessive guilt, feeling down and depressed. And when you have five out of seven, then you know, we think you have this, you know, which is not the same with the other parts of medicine, the other part of medicine. They have objective ways of like, saying exactly what is wrong for us is not very, very objective, is uh, a little bit subjective, but it's what it is to try our best to see what we can do to help people.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. I mean, look, and, and, um, you know, um, I, I think that's like, there's gotta be so much of the mind today that we still don't know about.

Wole Babatunde: There's, there's a lot.

Rob Valincius: I think, I think AI will help us, you know, give it three to five years, I think. Um, there'll be certain things that we'll find out just by running things through ai, but I, I still don't think AI will ever replace a real human being talking to another real human being and having, uh, an authentic conversation.

Um, you know, I think there's some, some, uh, authenticity when, when it's human to human. Um, you know, I'm one of those people. Uh, and you know, I I, I'm, I'm 39, right? I'm not, I'm not old. I call myself old, but I know I'm not old. Um, and I, I wanna talk to somebody on the phone. I don't, I don't wanna deal with the, you know, press one and, and you could go right here and, and I'll help you.

And I'm like, no, I wanna talk to a real being. And I'm yelling on the phone and, and the wife, he's behind the green screen, she's always laughing at me and I'm like, I'm just yelling. Give me a human please. Um, but you know, before we go into anything else, what, what are your, your thoughts on how AI might play into, you know, what you do as a psychiatrist?

You think it'll help you with the diagnosis at some point? Obviously, probably not right now. 'cause it's still, I, I feel like we're still in the infancy stage.

Wole Babatunde: generally, I think ai, AI is a tool just like many other things, is a tool we have in our toolbox. So what the, the question is how do we use this tool? How do we maximize this tool and get the best out of it? For our use as much as possible. So I believe AI is very useful, very important. But like you said, there are some parts that AI cannot replace, whereas there are some parts that AI can help.

So it can enhance what we are doing as humans. For example, you know, um, I want to like titrate some medications for patients. There are apps I could say, okay, uh, tell me, I'm going to titrate between this medication to this medication. Uh, because that app has information, it can gimme the titration of how to give the patient the medication, um, which is faster.

In old, in before you will like, have to go check your textbooks, you know, pick your pen, pick the calculator, and be sure you do this, you do this, but now it's quicker. Even right at the bedside of the patient, you could just press your phone and spit it out to you and you could explain that to your patient.

So it's, it could help to enhance what we do. It can give us some level of speed. Making things, making quick decisions, uh, you could check things up very quickly, but in terms of exactly replacing what we do, I strongly believe, uh, you still need human being to understand the patient. Uh, you still need to talk to the patient and get, uh, and then feedback out then the human being and decide what part of this puzzle can AI, ai help solve quickly.

So AI can enhance what we do, give us speed, but complete replacement. I do not think we are going to get to that point, but it might, the more it can do for us might be able to achieve a lot more quickly. But you still need a human being at some point. To keep enjoying the tool of AI and making use of it.

But a patient cannot just take himself or herself to ai, and AI does everything. You still need the human brain to know when and where to use ai. That's, that's my perspective on it.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, no, I, I a hundred percent agree and I, I think, uh, as we continue to adapt, I think it will be something as it's never gonna take over. I think a lot of people are like doom and gloom with a lot of that. Um, I think there needs to be guardrails, but I don't think that it, it needs to be at a point where it can't assist you, um, in what you're, what you're doing

Wole Babatunde: Yeah, I think, yeah, it should not be all bad and it's not all good either, so, but the question is, we need human beings to be able to know. Uh, our best to use it.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. Now, um, look, you, you dealt with some pretty unimaginable loss at a young age. I, I could never begin to expect how you felt, you know, at that early to lose both parents. Right. Especially in, you know, a different country as well. Right? Because I, I'm not familiar with, you know, the bylaws of Nigeria.

So tell me a little bit about like, you know, from that loss, how did that shape the way you see the world as you grew up? And do you think it, although it was a tragedy, um, do you think that that kind of shaped your outlook, you know, positively or negatively?

Wole Babatunde: Yes. And thank you for that question, Robert. It's a wonderful one. Uh, overall I can look back now and, you know. And there's this story I always like to use to explain what I want to say now. Uh, Joyce Mayer, she's somebody who speaks in the us um, and all over the world, and she went through a lot of abuse.

In fact, sexual abuse by her biological father. Very tough situation, very badly. That almost ruined our future, but now she's like 80 years old. She's still going about the world preaching and she said, I would not, if I have the opportunity, I wouldn't choose a different life. Um, but she is very successful now and she can look back and say, oh, do, it was difficult childhood.

But the story has been a blessing to a lot of people. So the same way I could use that to explain my story, I've been listening to her for almost 10, 15 years now and I enjoyed listening to her one. Looking back now, though, I'm not as successful as stress mayor, but looking back at my own life with. The little success I've had so far, I don't think I would choose anything else because I realized that the tragedy and the losses I went through very heavily, like you said, it's went a long way to shape the way I look at life.

And it's been quite some time now, at least it's been, at least for my mom, it's been at least 30 years now. She died. And for my dad 20 years plus, I could look back comfortably right now, um, and say that there are losses as turned out good for me. Not that I'm where I want to be yet. There's still a whole lot of things I want to achieve with my life that I'm yet to, um, but I'm in a good place to say, to comfortably say it's, it has turned for good.

For me. Um, and also and enough time has passed between then and now for me to compare many things. I have friends, we never had such tragedy in their lives, uh, and I had friends who had it much, much easier when I was having it very, very hard. I had fam the same thing, family members, friends, and you know, I still see them, I still hear about them, we see, hear about each other, and I can comfortably say that overall, you know, those tragedies has not succeeded to negatively define where I am right now when I compare my lives.

Of course, we should not compare ourselves with each other because we all have different journey. And d very, very unique, uh, perspective on DI believe everybody's DNA is different and there's a uniqueness to everybody's. In life where we use that

Rob Valincius: Oh yeah.

Wole Babatunde: we have different journeys. So not comparing myself with others, but enough time has passed such that I could see that those that I thought were having it very easy at some point.

Uh, it, it has, and I felt then very young. I was having it very hard, very difficult. I can look back now and say I'm grateful that despite all the hardness, I'm still who I am today. But the biggest thing is it helped me to face life in a resilient way. It helped me to know there's no difficulty that comes my way, that I cannot overcome.

If you, if you look at life generally, it's not like you have one problem, one face, and you won't, you'll stop having problem. You know, there've been many other challenges I've had, not even related to the loss of my parents at different spaces of life, but I realized that the fact that I was able to look at that mountain in the face when I was very young and decide that I can make it in life despite these setbacks, that same, I, I always reach out to that same energy whenever I have other problems come my way, which I've had plenty of them not even related to the loss of my parents.

So eventually, I would say the loss of my parents very early and the challenges I went through prepared me for many more challenges that I have been through in life. So my outlook to life now is. If you are having it hard, don't see it as a wall to your next level. See it as a stepping stone to your next level, because whatever skill you are able to get by navigating that hard time will be needed many times again and again to navigate the next, uh, challenging times or difficult period that you will have, uh, in the future, which as humans, unfortunately, I think we are all, you know, to some extent, whether we are rich or whether we are poor to some extent, we all go through stuff.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. And I mean, look, um, that's a good outlook because I think most people, especially at that age, you would be, and, and let's be honest, right? Um, in today's world, um, a lot more people would've just kind of crawled up and, you know, let themselves emotionally die instead of picking themselves up. I mean, we're more attuned to that now than when I was growing up, you know, when, when you were growing up.

I think the world we live in now, especially, you know, I'm not so, so sure about Nigeria. I can't talk about Nigeria, but I, I can say in the United States. A lot more pampered here, you know, to a certain degree where you know, hardships for a 7-year-old, like what you went through that that doesn't, you know, if it happens, it's like crushing where they're not going to school, they're not going to be a doctor.

Their life takes typically a totally different turn. So it is inspiring that you turn that as a young kid and. Spanned out. And then, especially now that you're helping people too, it's not like, you know, you're in a profession where you're doing everything you can to protect people from themselves. You know, like you're, at the end of the day, you're protecting someone's, uh, you know, mental aptitude, which is, it's not easy to do.

Um, I respect psychologist, psychiatrists. I respect everything that you guys do, because I think words, especially now in today's climate, can be very, very powerful. And can just, with, with one sentence, you could change somebody's day, change somebody's life and their outlook. Um, I, you know, I'm 39 and I swear to you, sometimes people say something to me and I, I I say to myself, wow, I've never looked at it like that before.

And I think if, if more people did that, especially at a younger age, we would tho those people would be, have a different outlook, you know, is, is the best way to put it. Um. But listen, you moved from Nigeria to the United States in 2014. Obviously that was probably a big leap for you. What do you think was the hardest part of that transition and kind of what carried you through that?

I don't know. Did you have anybody that you knew here or was this, you just took a leap of faith?

Wole Babatunde: You know, again, uh, thank you for asking. Um, I think, uh, just like what I just said, you know, I think the fact that I was able to navigate those head tough challenges, honestly, I can't separate it from the fact that coming to the United States, coming to a new culture, coming to a country that is foreign to me.

Um, part of what made it easy for me to succeed in the US was the fact that I was able to navigate very tough times when I was growing up as a child. So. Again, I was able to reach out. So the strength I have in made, the skills, the knowledge, the things that I, that worked for me when I was in medical school in Nigeria.

I had to reach for it again and again. When I came to the US of course it was tough by the time I came in with, you know, I was married with two kids, so we came in together. So I could imagine what that means. And I was at the peak in Nigeria when I left, so that made it tougher. Like I was already a doctor in Nigeria already computer residency in Nigeria.

I was already head of a department in a big hospital. So I was, everything was like great and good. Uh, so to like leave everything to come to the US is like leaving everything I've achieved to begin again, uh, fresh. Um, but I believe it was worth it because there were some things I wanted to learn and there's some things I wanted to do with my life, which.

I needed this environment here to help me enhance the community's like research. I needed the environment to help me learn PhD, to help me learn some things about research, help me learn some things about analysis and all of that. And, um, during my period of practice in medicine Nigeria, I got more fascinated with psychiatry.

So I already decided when I was living in Nigeria that if I'm going to do any residency in the US it's gonna be psychiatry. But psychiatry to me is what is closest to of all the specialties of medicine, is the one that gives you the opportunity to care most for people. Like most of our patients, they come down with our disorders mainly because they have major life stressors.

Like someone going through a divorce that is struggling with depression, someone who lost parents that is struggling with depression. Someone who, you know, stresses, make people do things if that they don't really want to do originally. Or ideally, a lot of people using drugs might be using it to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and stuff like that.

So I think psychiatry gives you that unique, not that you, you don't have the opportunity in other aspects, but psychiatry is unique because it's very close to people's stressor. So when people come down with depression, they come even schizophrenia. They might have it in their system biologically, but something would tip would be something will happen that will push it out.

Maybe, you know. The loss of a loved one or a difficult divorce or something, you know, failure or loss of whatever, loss of a job, all of something will happen that will push out the depression, that will push out the psychosis, that will push out all of that. And I see myself talking to people again and again, and I wanted to do something like that because of my background, because of the losses I experienced growing up.

I wanted a specialty that will gimme the opportunity to talk heart to heart with people, to hold them in their hands and say it's going to be okay. You know, I've been through things too before and I can tell you that, uh, while not minimizing what you're going through now, that if you have the right attitude, you can overcome it.

I may not give my own personal details most of the time, but I'm saying it from a place in my heart. That is reaching out from, and the patients can often feel the authenticity, uh, when I'm talking to them, that this person has gone through a whole lot, uh, in his life too. And they get, you know, very encouraged when I talk to them.

So moving to the us So I knew I wanted to do PhD, I wanted to do psychiatry residency. So the question is how do I connect all of that together? So it was tough, it was challenging. It was a new culture in Nigeria. We go to school in English from elementary school throughout. I started speaking English, let's say since the age of five years old.

But when I came in,

Rob Valincius: Okay. I, I didn't know that. I didn't know

Wole Babatunde: yeah, so we, we were colonized by Britain, so we go to school in English. So, but when I came to the United States, uh, I.

Rob Valincius: you feel about that? Do, do, do you feel like that's, I don't know. That's that. I, I didn't know that. I like that kind of freaked, that kind of like throws me for a loop, I thought. Um, so, so Nigerian is not like a, that's not something that you guys go through for the, the whole schooling,

Wole Babatunde: You mean English?

Rob Valincius: so, oh, all right. Hold on. Let me bounce this back. So you guys go, you start in English and you said at Basically at kindergarten.

Wole Babatunde: Every school in Nigeria is English.

Rob Valincius: Wow. Okay. All right. That's cool.

Wole Babatunde: you might have your own language. I have my own language, Yoruba. But when you go to school, when you go to school, you have to learn to speak. English

Rob Valincius: Is the national, what is the national language of Nigerias? Is it English?

Wole Babatunde: Yes.

Rob Valincius: So what is the secondary language?

Wole Babatunde: Um. English is still secondary because that's not what people speak in their houses. So you have your,

Rob Valincius: interesting. I thought Nigerian was, was, I thought they had their own language. I just, I dunno. This is my naivety of the world, I

Wole Babatunde: yeah. So there are multiple languages in Nigeria, not just one. So maybe that's part of the chat. So maybe that's why English was adopted. So Nigeria has like, so, so many languages, but there are three big ones. Mine is Yoruba is Ha outside is ig, but there are many, so let's, let's even pick the three big languages.

So that's what people speak in their houses. But when you go to school, when you go to start schooling, every book is in English.

Rob Valincius: Oh wow.

Wole Babatunde: Yeah. In fact, in school we learn our language as a subject.

Rob Valincius: That is wild to me. But I mean, I guess at the end of the day, that kind of helped you because you were able to come over here and you knew English. It wasn't like a secondary language. You, you grew up learning it.

Wole Babatunde: It is helped to some extent, and that's where, what I was trying to say. So it's helped because when I, it's helped in terms of when I read and write, it's easy to understand, but I realize when I speak, the English of United States is not the same as the English of Nigeria.

Rob Valincius: the same thing with Spanish. I call it, uh, Spanglish, right? So like, you know, t when you speak to someone, you know, I'm, I'm half Puerto Rican, so I, I made it a point to learn Spanish growing up. It was, you know, it took six, seven years of it in, in school and including college. And, um, I can, I'm very good at understanding most of what people say.

The problem is, is you have very different dialects, right? You have the, you, you have Cubans, you have people from, um, Venezuelan, you have Venezuelans. So like they all speak different dialects. And some people, some of them use English words in place. So instead of saying poor, they say four. And then like before you know it, I like, and they, sometimes they speak so fast.

I, I can imagine it's kind of the same aspect for you guys where, you know, you have a couple different languages, then you have English, and then you almost substitute some of that

Wole Babatunde: Yes.

Rob Valincius: that, that's pretty cool. I didn't know that.

Wole Babatunde: There's a straightforward English, and there are some people, maybe they didn't complete education. We call it broken English, uh, which is like a, a different form of English, but it's just like, you know, very rudimentary. And, you know, we is not a standard English to speak, but the point where English was a challenge for me in the US is the accent thing.

I realized, although I'm speaking English, people may not know what I'm saying because of my accent. So I never, I, I, it was, it was a problem. I'll believe I underestimated because I never thought that could ever be an issue. I'm like, okay, I went to screen English. I can speak English, I can write good English.

So, you know. Um, there should be no problem with communication, but I come in here, I realize it's not, the English is not English. So even in the US I hear there are different, you know, accents for different part, like the southern part where I am, there's the southern draw, there's the way they speak in New York, you know, so it's not exactly the same.

Uh, so

Rob Valincius: in the Northeast, uh, we speak pretty much, we speak very fast and very loud, and we're very direct and we're, we're way different than, you know, the, you know, Missouri or Kansas or California

Wole Babatunde: South Carolina where we're,

Rob Valincius: and yeah, South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, love my Mississippi people. But it's, it's, you know, a lot of times they're like, you need to slow I don't know what you were saying. And it's, it's hard because when you're up here, that's just, that's how we are, man. We're fast paced with everything.

Wole Babatunde: Yeah, but, but I had to find a way of coping, which eventually I had to devise strategies to talk to people in a way they can understand. I try to speak slowly, I try to escalate a lot so at least we can pick what I'm saying and stuff like that. But, you know, I would say 95, 90 8% of the time, you know, people hear me and I hear them, so, uh, so, but I can

Rob Valincius: you're fine man. You're fine. I mean, you could tell you're not, you weren't born here, but your English is

Wole Babatunde: yeah, uh, I can, but I can imagine someone whose language in the country is French and comes to the United States and ask to learn English. You know, or maybe if I'd gone to school with my mother language, Yoruba, I can imagine how easy or difficult that would've been for me to learn English. So I think knowing English in school in Nigeria was a very big plus.

Um, but eventually we try our best to work with the accents to talk in a way people can hear us and to also listen to people in the way that you can hear them. And yeah. But you know, of course, challenges here and there, the biggest challenge is I came in as, as with my wife and kids. So we had to survive on very low income at the beginning when I was a student.

Uh, can imagine a family of four living on like a thousand dollars, you know, fine. We saved money before coming that would change dollars. And we had some of it, but we had to live on very low income for a little bit. And, you know. But we kept it moving. We kept it going, putting in my best, got a few scholarships here and there and you know, we just kept pushing on and pushing on and pushing on and, you know, eventually I'm a psychiatrist today, so, uh,

Rob Valincius: That's awesome, man. That's, that's cool. Um, now, you know, you turned a lot of trials into triumphs, right? You went through a lot of adversity. What does resilience look like to you? Like, not just to theory, but uh, you know, in practice and how can someone take kind of what you did and kind of throw, even if it's one thing, one idea, throw that into their life, especially if they're dealing with adversity.

Wole Babatunde: Um, now I'm trying to summarize the seven sections in my book because I would, I would take that as a definition of resilience. Um,

Rob Valincius: Give us, you know what, give us one part. 'cause we're, we're gonna touch on your book, but I don't wanna ruin it for people.

Wole Babatunde: Okay. Okay. So if I would say for me, resilience is one, I would just stay with the definition of adapt and advance. So I would add, I would say adapt means you accept the reality of a difficult situation. You tell yourself, this is difficult. You understand this is a hard situation that I'm going through right now. This is not easy and this is difficult.

That's adapt. Then advance is you tell yourself, despite this difficulty, I will continue to make progress. I will not let this grind my life to stop. Because that's what happens to some people when they have some difficult situations, they get grounded, they find it hard to move on. So I would say you have to break it.

You have to break. You have to break that thing that wants to hold you down and decide that no matter how difficult this is, I will not let my story be all about this problem. I will make sure that I am able to take steps forward no matter how lead you every single day. And it all begins with interpreting.

The way we see the problem, like you know, in meaning making is was by attitude towards the problem. Like I just told you about joy, I told you about myself. I will not let this define me in a negative way. I would take little steps every day. I would interpret my pain as preparation, not as punishment.

When we go through pain, we should understand that it is preparing us for something bigger. When we have that mindset, then we could take step. One, to convert that pain into preparation and not let that pain define us in a negative way.

Rob Valincius: I like that. I like that. Now I. a psychiatrist, right? So let's put it this way. You're at the intersection of medicine, psychology, and spirituality. Right? I'm sure that that comes up a lot. How do you balance those worlds in the world you work with, with your patients? Because it's gotta be difficult, you know, whether someone believes in, you know, uh, maybe they're a Christian, maybe they're Muslim, you know, how do you balance all those things along with obviously the textbooks and also the medicine aspect.

'cause you're not a psychologist, you're a psychiatrist, so you can also prescribe people medicines and things

Wole Babatunde: Yes. You know, so I always clarify with my patients, so I tell them they're. Three things that matter the most in psychiatric care. Number one, medications. I always tell them I'm a medication man. I've, I've seen patients who come to me and they're like, I don't want your medications. You know, but I would gently also let them know, unfortunately that's what I have to offer the most because that's what my training is in giving you medications that can help.

Number one. That said, I always also let them know there's what we call therapy, where we come, and that comes to psychology, uh, which is talk without medications. And I also let people know that is also very important. In fact, there's evidence, for example, in depression, there's evidence that a combination of medication plus, uh, therapy provides a higher level of.

Better outcomes compared to only me medication compared with only therapy. So when a patient has depression and you give only therapy or you give only medication, those people will not do as good as when you combine the two together. So I always let my patient know that a combination of both mates and therapy does a better job.

Then there's the third one, which I call lifestyle or accepting personal responsibility. I usually say personal responsibility more because that is something everybody can do something about you can accept. For example, we talk about exercise, um, we talk about, um, exercise. We talk about, um, diets. We talked about all of those things that are little bit of things that can help us to succeed or do very well in life, and they want, directly or indirectly, they all impact our mental health, whether we like it or not.

So it's a combination of those three things. And now I'm talking about religion. In addition to all of that, I, I also let people, it's a proven fact for some mental health issues that believing in a higher power helps some people. Not necessarily only Christian, but even generally, the fact that you believe in something more than you helping you helps people to navigate difficulties.

Personally, I, I, I, my parents were Christians and they introduced me to church very early, and that's why in my book, I thought a little bit about faith because. It was very, very helpful for me when I was growing up, when things are tough, when things are hard, and when I feel I've lost everything and there's no way else.

I have a higher power I can call upon that I believe will come to my head to help me. But also I tell people, show me your faith without your work, and I will show you my faith by my work because faith without work is dead. And that brings us to medications, therapy. And the third one, accepting personal responsibility.

So why you believe in faith? I would never say because you have faith. Don't take meds. I always tell my patients fine. I I I don't take psychiatric meds. I don't have any disorder psychiatrically. I hope I don't, but I take meds. I,

Rob Valincius: you don't know of, right?

Wole Babatunde: but I take medications. I take medications for other stuff. So I let people know that I'm not against medications for myself.

Why will I be against medications for somebody else? Because those medications I take, they help me, uh, to solve some problems in my body. So I always tell people medication is still okay, although you might be praying and trusting God or whatever you believe in. At the same time, part of faith with works is also taking meds, going for your therapy, talking to people about it, and accepting personal responsibility, especially for exercise, for diet, for things like meditation, all those little, little bits of things that we talk about.

There's a lot of science that shows that even moving around alone, like getting up and you know, walking or jogging or doing whatever, improves your mood. Rather than just like sitting down in despair and sadness and just not moving forward. So everything is very important. It's our ability to live with balance that matters the most.

And I always emphasize that to people all the time. Live your life with balance, work hard, play hard, and at the same time, accept responsibilities for those things that will also help you to be the best version of yourself.

Rob Valincius: I mean, and that's a good point, and I, I'll tell you this, um, you know, growing up, uh, my stepdad was bipolar, so, um, and also my stepmom was bipolar. So my, my mom and dad found, uh, equally interesting people when they got divorced. Um, and I'll tell you, it sounds like you're doing it right because, um, you know, uh, I know my stepdad dealt with a lot of psychiatrists that, and I think psychiatrists do get a bad rap, right?

It's all they do is, oh, that medicine didn't work. They give you

Wole Babatunde: Another one. Yes.

Rob Valincius: they send you on your way. Um, and I, I, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you, I, I have that stigma just 'cause I've seen. My, my, you know, bipolar's a it's a shitty disorder, man. It is not, yeah, it's not a fun one. There's a lot of chemical imbalance.

There's a lot of highs, a lot of lows. Um, a lot of just incidents that happen. Um, and then, you know, the medications cause seizures and, you know, there's just, there's a lot of things that happen. So you gotta take anti-seizure meds, right. So you got a lot going on. But, um, you know, I've seen a lot of psychiatrists growing up that their prerogative was, take these meds, go home, and it was a 10 minute visit.

Um, it sounds like you're doing it in a, in a much better, more, um, uh, I was gonna say her ballistic way, but that's probably not adequate. You, you just, you're dealing with it in a couple different avenues. I do, I do agree with medications. Um, especially when you're talking about, you know, uh, hormonal or, you know, imbalances in the brain.

Um. But, uh, I think the other sides are just as important, right? Having, uh, accountability for, you know, things you do and the things that you're doing, because I think that that's important. You know, I'll be the first person to tell you I am wrong all the time, and I'm the first person to say, Hey, my bad, I'm wrong. You know, it's, it's part, I've, I've tried to do that very early on, uh, because I think if you take ownership of the things that you, you fuck up. It does, it helps. It helps me at least go, all right, I messed that up. That's my bad. No one else's fault. It's mine. You know? Um, ownership I do think is important and, um. And, um, growing up, um, you know, I did, I, I'm Christian, I was, I'm Catholic. Uh, I was baptized Catholic and I've gone through that. I went to Sunday school and, you know, I went to church a little bit here and there. Um, I lost my faith for a while. Um, and I still don't know if I have it. Uh, but I do, I do believe that there's something else when we go.

So I'm, I'm, I'm still discovering that I've, I've interviewed a couple different people, um, that have very different, um, previews of, of that. Yeah. And, uh, it's, it's kind of threw me for a loop, right? Uh, so I think I'm still in that discovery phase and I'll get there at some point. I do think there's something up there who I don't know, you know, I don't know what's there, but there's definitely life after death.

I do, I do very much, um, believe in that now, um, you know, for you. You had 60 different research papers, which is very impressive. You had the N-I-A-N-I-H-F 99 grant, which is very significant. Right. Um, how did you, how did that make you feel to be so recognized with that grant?

Wole Babatunde: Uh, it makes me feel good, of course, uh, and it looks good on my cv. And

Rob Valincius: Adds to the acronyms, you know.

Wole Babatunde: also, also it was one of the things I really looked up to, uh, getting, and one of the reasons I felt. Uh, coming to the United States was necessary for me to be able to achieve some aspects of the things I want to do with my life, so I'm really grateful for that.

Some of the papers were, I, I just love research. I love asking questions and getting answers to things I love exploring, uh, knowing why things are happening the way they are. And that's what research is all about. Research is asking questions, and I love creativity. Research. Research is about creativity.

Uh, you could just sit there and say, okay. Um, like most of the more recent papers I've written, uh, during residency in psychiatry had to do with adverse childhood experiences, which means childhood trauma, mainly because of my own childhood trauma. Uh, that's one area I'm looking at more recently now. What are the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and depression?

You know, and I got this big data set by CDC to explore that, uh, during my, uh, residency and even now, I still meet with colleagues that will still run it and got some papers published. There was the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and take, um, cannabis use and other substance uses like that.

And it's interesting, what we did find is there's a very high correlation, uh, between when someone who experienced multiple trauma in childhood, they are more likely to be depressed as an adult. In fact, the odd ratio is like, is it four meaning? Uh, the higher the number of childhood experiences, the CDC data say, I think add up to 15 adverse childhood experiences.

So we added it together. So we compared one adverse childhood experience, zero meaning you don't have any one, two, to three, and then those who have more than four. And we realized that those who had more than four, they were like four times more likely to have depression compared to those who had zero adverse childhood experiences.

And we also found that those who had more than four too were more likely, uh, to use drugs. Although the only substances they had on the dataset we used was smoking cigarettes, alcohol and cannabis use, we didn't have outside of that. So we did realize that substance use was much higher among that, which tells us something important, although it's like the data we use is a big survey, not like.

Small data that will follow people over time, which is something I would like to explain in the future, but that tells me that there's something that trauma does to the brain when you experience it as a child that make people to more likely experience depression as an adult the same way that makes people more likely to use drugs and substances.

You know, at times we just see people doing some things as adults and you'd be wondering what's wrong with them because you just don't know. The kind of trauma that they experienced in their childhood trauma does something to the brain that we cannot see. Um, and personally I'm interested in that because of some of the trauma I experienced in childhood and some of the experiences, I think add up to four adverse childhood experiences too that I was able to use in the day, uh, the questionnaire that was used for that dataset.

But I'm glad I'm, I'm, I'm glad, I'm lucky that at least I escaped so many disorders. Uh, but not everybody will be able to escape it. So for me, it's very, I'm happy that I'm able to explore some of these things. And my intention long term in the future is to be able to like help people who have experienced a lot of childhood trauma and to mitigate.

Some of these things like depression that can happen later, like, uh, substance use that can happen later. And if there's something we can actually even do, hopefully in the future, uh, where we could recognize people much more, he maybe when they are 18. No, the definition of a child is 18 years and below.

Maybe, uh, by the age of 18. If, if there's a way we could recognize those who are more likely to have adverse outcome because of the childhood trauma and there's something we could do, even if it's just therapy or talking to them or letting them realize what they can do a safe responsibility for to prevent the outcome or even if the outcome will eventually still happen, is there something we can do to reduce the intensity?

Those are the kind of things in my head right now that I really want. To be able to have questions I really want to have answers to and hope I will have some funding to be able to implement to help people that have gone through that. But overall, I've enjoyed research, I've enjoyed asking questions, trying to find answers, and hopefully we can get it to the point where we could actually solve real life problems based on the answers we have.

Rob Valincius: Love it. Love it. Now let's talk about your book, adapt and Advance, A Faith-Based Step by Step Guide to Turning Trials into T Triumphs. Uh, now I'm an audio book guy and I just, I just bought your book. I always like to support

Wole Babatunde: Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Rob Valincius: show. Of course, of course. Uh, and, and, uh, I'm an audio book guy.

I got a long

Wole Babatunde: I'm like that. I'm like you. I'm like, you too.

Rob Valincius: I wish I had time to sit down and, and read it. I just, I don't anymore.

Wole Babatunde: I used to, I used in.

Rob Valincius: I love the audio book stuff, but it's, it's, I appreciate what you're doing. Um, you know, we, we talk, we, we kind of glanced on it. We've talked about some of the, the points, but, um, yeah, obviously you, you laid out a step-by-step framework of turning, suffering into growth. Now, we don't wanna spoil your book.

We want everybody to listen, and we want everyone to buy it. What was the turning point for you where you knew you had to put that message into writing? And I love when authors talk about that, that, that click moment, because it's, it's different for everybody.

Wole Babatunde: Yes, it's, yes, it's for me. Uh, I actually attempted writing something at the end of, about the end of medical school. Um. Which I published at that time, long time. It's something much more smaller, very small. It'd be like 50 pages or so at that time. Um, I don't even have any copy any longer with me now. It's a long time ago, but since then I knew, uh, so going through medical school at that time, I was also involved in my local church then, and I had a small group where I was leading, we call it Om Cell back in Nigeria, where I had the opportunity to like teach every Sunday evening to a small group of people.

And I also had the opportunity of having young people, uh, invite me to talk, maybe youth meeting here and there. And I was able to host a meeting every month at that time. So I just knew my story was, uh, extremely inspiring to young people at that time. And I really, really wanted. To put the words out, the more so fast forward, finished medical school, got busy, Nigeria eventually transitioned to the United States, of course got busier.

I always tell, I always tell

Rob Valincius: We're always more busy. We're always more busy here for some reason. I don't know. No work life balance.

Wole Babatunde: tell my wife like, I've never been this busy in my life before when I was, when I was, you know, doing residency, you know, plus, you know, I'm not as young as I was when I went through medical school in Nigeria. So I always say I've never been this busy in my life. Like you've just gone to be on your feet at times.

Like busy. Even now as I've finished residency as an attending, some days can be like grilling, like busy and busy and busy. Uh, so. Fast forward, life got busy, but I decided that as soon as I got the chance, I'm going to put some things down into writing. Plus, I've have, I've had some experience, a lot more new things in my life compared to the one I wrote many years ago.

So in residency, I started that point came in my third year when I started writing bits and pieces. But the biggest one came in May 20, 20, 20, 25, may last year, so May last year I went for a conference association, uh, American Psychiatry Association, and one of my mentors published his book and, you know.

Ab I, I, I told him I've always wanted to put my story in the book, but seeing you write yours, uh, it's like a spark inside of me. And I know it's like turning on the lights. It's time, uh, to get this done. And I promised him that I was make, I'll make sure that I reference him in my book, which I did. You know, it was one of those people that spoke, uh, at the beginning of the book, uh, just like, yeah, Dr.

Clark. Uh, so he, he, that was the point of, so beginning from May last year, I just got into it and I started working slowly, asking questions from people. Talking to people that are so published and you know, asking what would be the best way to go about it? Should I just write, should I self-publish? Should I give it to a big publishing company?

And all of those questions in the process. I stumbled on self-publishing dot com, which eventually though it's a paid service, but they were really great. They like mentor you through every single process, everything you need to know about a book. And I got the book, the title of the book of, uh, of the director of the company is published, which I got the book and was very helpful for me.

And I got into it actively October, November 20, 24 and seven months was intense, like very, very intense. And I worked hard. I had to wake up 3:00 AM every morning. I, at this time I

Rob Valincius: Oh,

Wole Babatunde: wake.

Rob Valincius: that not me. 3M, nah, not me.

Wole Babatunde: Yeah, and I shared some of the story in the book when I was in medical school. There was a time I was struggling in my fourth year and I had to wake up 1:00 AM every day for almost a whole year. Like I had to like do something I've never done. You know, that's why I said some of the things I did much younger, they became helpful for me now, and those, the, some of the strengths I was able to put together, then I could pick them up again and use them.

So I was waking up 3:00 AM every morning when I wake up in the morning, apart from praying very quickly, I sit down, I begin to dictate my book, uh, after dictating it, put it together. I know slowly. So I did a one month challenge, which was one of the things they thought was in self-publishing school. So it's a 30 day challenge that you should finish the first draft in 30 days.

For me, my first draft was November. To December 20, middle of November to middle of December, and I finished the first draft in 30 days. So the, the next 30 days was, uh, my own personal edits because of course they said the first draft is gonna be very rough. Don't correct anything, don't go back to it.

Just put your ideas on paper, spit it out. And after that, then you have one full month again to look at it, uh, to make sure, uh, that the drafts, you know, is well. It's, uh, well, and then after that it goes to professional editing, which now took like three months or so, and then went back forth for like five times.

And boom, it was published in May, 2021,

Rob Valincius: man.

Wole Babatunde: but it was a lot

Rob Valincius: like a, a, how's it feel to be an an author like you got your name on a

Wole Babatunde: yes, I feel so good. It every time I fact. I, I hold a copy with me 24 7 Now. It's a big project. It's like the summary of my life and all the things I've learned in my journey. Uh, so there are so many nuggets on every page that's very, very useful and helpful.

So I really, really encourage people to go get it.

Rob Valincius: I had a buddy of mine, I, I work in the insurance industry. He, uh, he actually just wrote two books and, and, uh, he's been doing it for a little while and he, uh, he sent me, he actually was in our office and he gave me two copies of his book and he signed, you know, had a little personal stuff in it. I'm like, it's gotta, it's gotta be a pretty cool thing, man, to be able to say, Hey, I wrote a book, even if nobody reads or whatever.

You wrote a book, your name's on it, and it's out there. And, um, I, I really appreciate, uh, that, especially because you, you put, you put a lot of your personal life into

Wole Babatunde: Yes, yes.

Rob Valincius: there, there, there takes, there, I, I always say this, and maybe it's not, uh, super appropriate, but I always say it takes a pulse to put your life out there on the line and put it in paper,

Wole Babatunde: I struggled. I struggled with that a lot. There were a lot of times I'm like, should I write this? Should I not write this? How far can I go, you know, with my stories, how much of my story can I put out there? But, you know, I just feel my, my, my motivation is to inspire people. So I just decided not to hold back too much and, no, just, just put it out there.

Open it. Inspire people.

Rob Valincius: I love the inspiration. Um, I appreciate everything you're doing. Um, let's end with this. Tell everybody, tell my audience where can they find all your stuff and you have anything going on in, in the near future that we can look forward to.

Wole Babatunde: So it's on Amazon. Uh, I have all the copies now. Uh, just type in, adapt in advance. I don't think there's any other book that is exactly that name right now. So adapt in advance. And if you're able to put in my name, UND or, yeah, I believe with Adapt in advance, we'll pull it out. Just look for the Jumping

Rob Valincius: We will put, we'll put a copy, we'll put a copy of the link in the, uh, podcast description for you so it'll be easy to click on.

Wole Babatunde: So yeah, that's, that's where you find it. And um, I can assure you it's going to give you some great nuggets. Going to learn a few things about me. And I have not just my stories. Every chapter has a story of a very successful person. I don't consider myself very successful yet, but I'm moving towards it day by day, working on it.

Uh, but at least. My story and then as somebody who is like on a small level of success, then I talked about somebody who is a higher level of success that used that same principle and that worked for them, and kind of like a storybook. I'm sure you enjoyed the stories

Rob Valincius: Awesome man. Well look, I appreciate you taking the time outta your busy day to hang out with me down here on the Drink O Clock podcast.

Wole Babatunde: I appreciate inviting. Thank you so much. Fun.

Rob Valincius: Absolutely good. So you could find my podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts, um, and on socials, it's drink o'clock, pod on basically everything. And we'll have this episode up probably tomorrow.

Wole Babatunde: Oh wow. That's good.

Rob Valincius: a beautiful thing, so

Wole Babatunde: Thank you so much. I'll definitely watch more of your shows too.

Rob Valincius: appreciate you all. You have a great night, man. Thank you.

Wole Babatunde: Thank you. Bye. 

Outro Music