![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Gift-1-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWe know you as the Partnerships\nManager for the Tony Elumelu Foundation. But You are also quite dexterous with\ngift wrapping. Tell us: What else can you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t think I can list everything I can do. I am naturally inquisitive, and there\u2019s nothing that has piqued my interest or excited me that I have not dedicated time to learning. I am a generalist<\/strong> \u2013 so typically that saying – jack of all trade, master of none? That\u2019s me. Except the metaphor is much more than that. It also means you can do many things as opposed to just being good at one thing. I believe that when you stretch your brain you will conceptualize things differently. You become more creative about solving problems you come across. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How did you first discover your\ninterests in gift wrapping?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gift wrapping is one of the things I enjoy doing, but it is not my sole interest. As a crafter, my interests range from paper Mache to paint acrylic and art pouring. There are so many mediums in crafting that you can engage in. Gift wrapping just happens to be one of them. Growing up, I was always the person interested in the packaging \u2013 in the painstaking detail of concealing the surprise. The process allows my brain slow down and focus on the creative task. It is one of the ways I learned to de-stress, because in that space, I don\u2019t think about the pressure of everyday life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How are you able to balance a very\ninvolved career life with such a time-eating hobby?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Crafting requires so much singular\nfocus on one thing, even when the task appears mundane. If you are making a tassel\nfor instance, the only thing required will be to wrap the yarn around the tassel.\nSo while I do lead a very busy life at work, crafting is one thing I make time\nfor to clear my head e.g. during weekends, you might find me making something\nsimple, or maybe bringing out my sewing machine, make a skirt or edit something\nI already own \u2013 that actually makes me create a balance. Right now, it\u2019s a\nhobby, a very welcome hobby, and as much as I would like to do more with it, if\nall I did was focus on craft, the therapeutic value would be lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How have these skills helped you in\nyour personal and professional life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like I said, crafting provides me an\nescape from everyday life. When you have to shut down your brain to concentrate\non one mundane task, it helps you quiet the noise and focus \u2013 sometimes that\nquiet helps you get clarity on other side. The other thing is love languages\nwhich has become a buzzword now but the way I show my own care to my loved ones\ncomes in the form of gifting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I take time to put together a\ngift, when it is wrapped with love and care and presented, and you see the\nperson\u2019s response like wow. In that moment, you realise you\u2019ve shared something\nwith someone, you\u2019ve made them happy, they in turn have made everyone happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this age of industrialisation and\nautomated production, is there still a place for handcrafted expressions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Absolutely! I am however not blind to the implications of the 4th<\/sup> industrial revolution, e.g. at a friend\u2019s wedding where I handcrafted a few items in a very short time, with people working on different things we were able to produce a hundred wrapped gifts. So yes, industrialisation and automation may help if you are looking to produce in large quantities. However, this is just a hobby where I am able to craft or give someone for a specific purpose. In that sense, I am not in competition with automated products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What is the most sentimental thing\nyou\u2019ve made?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Every gift I craft or make has its\nlevel of sentimentality and one is not more than the other. I do think what\nmakes each one different is the recipient. The way the people take it, how\nawe-struck they are. In my case, people who have shown the most depth of\nappreciation are people who did not really see me as multi-dimensional. I mean,\nthere are people who see you and say \u201c oh you don\u2019t know your way to a kitchen,\nso when you are coming and say, oh I made this candle for you, or this bag\ncharm for you, people are usually surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I have some special\nmemories of hand-crafted experiences, like this case: It was my mum\u2019s birthday\nand I was probably like 10 years old. We were living in New York and the tailor\nwho was meant to make her Iro and Buba disappeared. My mum panicked \u2013 and bear\nin mind that this was not the age of YouTube where I could find how to make a\ndress online. Also, like I mentioned, I was 10. So, I took an old Iro and Buba\nthat she had and took it apart, then following the same pattern, I made an Iro\nand Buba for my mum. To me it seemed logical that we needed an Iro and Buba and\nI could make it by hand. The moment I finished and presented it to her, she\nbecame so happy. Till today, she talks about it and that was also the moment\nshe went and got me a sewing machine. The interesting part is, the moment she\ngot that sewing machine, I lost interest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you could pick another skill in\nsix weeks, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hmm, that\u2019s a tough one because my\nbrain does not really function in a linear way. Let\u2019s suspend beliefs and say I\ncould acquire the skill set within the a six-week time frame; I would want to\nlearn how to fly a plane. If I could do it in six weeks, that would be what I\nwould dedicate my time and energy to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What advice do you have for busy\nexecutives who want to learn a skill but don\u2019t have the time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some skills that are more\nattainable and feasible than others. My first advise would be to start small.\nFigure out the one thing your current activities or job will enable you engage\nin. For instance, if you decide you want to learn how to make beaded jewelry in\nsix weeks, you can do that. It depends on your approach. Also, in this age,\nthere is no excuse for not utilising online resources to learn anything you\nwant to learn. You don\u2019t need to go to the market, you can take the courses\nonline. Ultimately, when you are done with that, you will be very happy with\nyourself knowing we were able to squeeze out something from that time frame. \n\nAs a generalist who is a master of many things,\nI would encourage these busy executives to try something else. Figure out how\nmuch free you time have, figure out why you want to learn this thing and map\nyourself accordingly\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Untold Therapeutic Secrets to De-stressing Your mind! Meet the original Jack of all trades, master of all! That’s right – Dewunmi Alugbin, Partnerships Manager at the Tony Elumelu Foundation seems to know, be and do-it-all. From dressmaking to Papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9, gift wrapping to art acrylic! In this interview, we talk to her about working with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-story","category-cover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3895"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4050,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions\/4050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Gift-2-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Dewunmi-4-1024x498.jpg\")