GurlSeeksTribe Podcast

It takes a village to raise us, and a village to build us... a business.  In this installment of GST, host Alja sits down with Ejiro Ajueyitsi, Founder & CEO of Brooklyn Funding Group, to discuss a path that never went straight. How does one go from an NYU pre-med track, custom MySpace pages, a $500 phone call that started his consulting firm, an app idea the pandemic stopped, and a cold call...

What if you decided who you wanted to be at 15, wrote down the legacy you wanted to leave, and worked backward from there? In this episode, Afiya aka Alja sits down with David Mullings, Founder, Chairman & CEO of Blue Mahoe Holdings (which he says is working toward a NASDAQ listing as a Caribbean-focused impact investment firm), for a conversation about vision, patience, and the thought proces...

There's a reason you can't build community in your apartment alone, and why the family group chat just isn't enough. We need more  — and we know what it is: sociologists call it the third space. It's not home, not work, but the place where community actually happens. In this episode, host Afiya, aka Alja, sits down with Jamila Wright, co-founder of Brooklyn Tea, to discuss the importance of this t...

Who even am I? Not in a crisis way — in the everyday, waking-up, still-figuring-it-out way. This episode pulls that question apart into its real layers: what you do, where you're from, and who you are underneath both. Joel Phillip — writer, poet, mental health and neurodivergent education advocate — joins Alja for a conversation that goes further than either of them planned. They talk about why Jo...

Recorded in Chelsea, Vermont — no studio, no script, just two friends and a conversation about living between worlds. In this episode of GurlSeeksTribe, host Afiya aka Alja sits down with a friend of the tribe who enjoys the peace of being unseen, so you get a voice, a place, and a real conversation. That's it. That's the episode. Together they explore what it means to grow up between cultures: th...

Networking can feel like a game you were never taught to play — especially if you've ever felt "othered." But when it's intentional? It becomes community. It becomes opportunity. It becomes how we thrive. In this episode of GurlSeeksTribe, host Alja sits down with Jessica Sinclair, CEO of Sinclair Master of Ceremonies, registered nurse, and founder of the "Network Like You Mean It" workshop, to ta...

We talk a lot about rest like it's something we can take whenever, but this episode is about the other kind — the burnout that doesn't ask politely. The kind that makes you stop, break down, and rebuild yourself from the ground up. GST sits down with Gary Lamont Davis — People and Inclusion Strategist and founder of Equanimity, a wellness community for BIPOC professionals — for an honest conversat...

Life has been LIFE-ing. Before the return episode with Chelsea, GurlSeeksTribe host Afiya aka Alja sat down and recorded a few honest minutes about where she's been these last couple of months. It didn't make the original edit — but it always belonged to the tribe. So here it is. This is the first letter to the tribe — a laid-back, occasional community post in a format that feels more like a voice...

We're continuing our conversation with Honorary Tribe Member Chelsea Marquis in Part 2 of "The Relief of Being Understood." In Part 1, we talked about the difference between being "understood" and being "tolerated" — and the pain of being fooled by someone who you thought got you but really didn't. Now, in Part 2, we go deeper into the RELIEF. What it actually feels like when someone truly sees yo...

GurlSeeksTribe makes its return, with a new conversation with Honorary Tribe Member Chelsea Marquis, who joins GST for yet another conversation about something that feels more real than we can put into words.  Continuing from our last chat on "The Exhaustion of Explaining Yourself," or the burnout of constantly translating who you are for people who just... don't get it, we dig into the RELIEF of...

Chelsea Marquis returns to GurlSeeksTribe to discuss the weight we carry when we're constantly explaining who we are. From family who should know us by now, to friends and peers who still don't quite get it, and to our colleagues and strangers who expect us to translate ourselves into something more digestible. This episode is about that exhaustion. The toll of translation. The burnout of always b...

How do you manage navigating the world when you're too loud, too intense, too much... while also feeling like you're never quite enough? In this episode of GurlSeeksTribe, host Alja sits down with special guest Chelsea Marquis, former Adult-ish co-host, catches up with Chelsea's life since Adult-ish, before digging into the impossible standards we are sometimes held against — either by others or b...

How do you manage navigating the world when you're too loud, too intense, too much... while also feeling like you're never quite enough? In this episode of GurlSeeksTribe, host Alja sits down with special guest Chelsea Marquis, former Adult-ish co-host, catches up with Chelsea's life since Adult-ish, before digging into the impossible standards we are sometimes held against — either by others or b...

Welcome back to GurlSeeksTribe. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SEEK TRIBE? In this episode, we explore what it actually means to "seek tribe" in a world that's more connected than ever but somehow lonelier. Why is finding your people so hard? And what are we really looking for when we search for community? We discuss: - The difference between community and tribe - Why millennials are lonelier than ever desp...

Who told you who you were supposed to be? In Episode 3 of GurlSeeksTribe, we explore the weight of expectations—from family, culture, society—and what happens when the person you were told to be doesn't match the person you actually are. This episode is about unlearning. Unbecoming. And finally, allowing yourself to become who you were always meant to be. In this solo chat, host Alja discusses: -...

Welcome to GurlSeeksTribe - a podcast and community for anyone seeking belonging as they navigate adulthood in the city. In this inaugural episode, I share my otherness origin story, aka my "Vivaldi Moment".  And that moment changed everything  — even the trajectory of my podcast, Adult-ish.  This episode explores what it means to be "the other" - to navigate spaces where you don't see yourself re...