A conversation with Eniola Alese (A transcript from Episode 4 of Breakfast & Launch)
Editor’s note
Some people think best by listening. Others by reading.
Every conversation on Breakfast & Launch begins as spoken language, but I believe good conversations deserve a second life on the page.
What follows is a lightly edited version of my conversation with Eniola — a former AI engineer at Google who walked away from the job she once manifested, in pursuit of a more present and aligned life.
We’ve removed repetition, tightened the language, and reshaped the conversation for readers while preserving the ideas, stories, and personality of the original discussion.
I hope you enjoy reading it.
“That freedom I was looking for — that if I got to Google, everything would be perfect — it still wasn’t it. At the end of the day, what I was looking for was freedom.”
— Eniola
Introduction
Eniola achieved what many people spend their whole careers chasing. She became an AI engineer at Google — a job she manifested before she’d even applied for it.
But getting there didn’t give her what she thought it would. In this conversation, we trace her path from ambition to alignment: how she visualized her way into the role, bombed her first interview, came back and got it the second time, and eventually walked away from it all — trading a prestigious career for something quieter and more her own.
Eniola, welcome.
Currently, at peace
Taiwo: How would you describe the season of life or work you’re in right now?
Eniola: Peaceful. That’s the word that comes to mind.
I used to work as an AI engineer — I did that before becoming a mom. Then I left that career. Right now I’m in the phase of pivoting to work with people, helping them find peace.
Taiwo: I want us to start there. What’s the origin story? How did you get into Google?
The vision board that worked
Eniola: I always knew I wanted to work at Google. I just loved the level of excellence the company represented.
Around that time, I’d gotten interested in spirituality — manifestation, that kind of thing. I grew up Christian, and it felt familiar. When you’re Christian, you’re taught to pray for what you want and believe you’ve already received it. Somewhere in the Bible it says something like that — believe as if you’ve already received it. Manifestation felt like the same idea, just a different vocabulary.
So one day, I made a vision board. I put Google on it, closed my eyes, and just felt what it would be like to work there. I saw myself at a desk, surrounded by people, happy, doing work I loved. Afterward, I felt this happiness — gratitude, honestly — for an opportunity I hadn’t even received yet.
Then I let it go. And somehow, things happened. I went to a conference, met a research director there, and we started talking. He told me I should come interview. I did. I didn’t get the job — I bombed it, badly. Months later, I reached out again. Said I was ready to try. They said sure. I tried again, and that time, I got in.
Bombing the first interview, acing the second
Taiwo: You showed us there’s a practical reality underneath the manifestation — you used it to create the opportunity, but you still bombed the first interview before getting the second. What happened between the two?
Eniola: The first time, there was a lot of fear and doubt — am I good enough, that kind of spiral. I didn’t sleep the night before; I was up practicing questions over and over. Then the morning of, I drank way too much coffee. Physically, I wasn’t in a good place. During the coding interviews, it was a blur. I wasn’t sure of myself. I was shaky.
The second time, I made an actual plan. I wasn’t great at data structures and algorithms — didn’t even like them — but I knew I had to be good enough. So I called a friend and asked her to run mock interviews with me. I practiced every day. Then, a couple of days before the actual interview, I stopped. I let myself rest. I slept well the night before.
I felt more present. Not confident, exactly — just present. I wasn’t desperate. I knew I brought value wherever I went; they weren’t doing me a favor by hiring me. And I think that changed how I connected with the interviewers. I wasn’t trying to impress them — I was just being myself. When I didn’t know something, I’d say so, and just think out loud about how I’d approach it anyway. It felt more like a conversation than a test. I’d done my part. Even if I didn’t get it, that would just mean it wasn’t the right time for me to join.
When Google wasn’t enough
Taiwo: From having the job you’d wanted, to eventually saying “I’m not feeling this anymore” — how did you recognize it was time for a shift?
Eniola: Working at Google was amazing. Wonderful people. But the work didn’t feel aligned with what I knew I was supposed to be doing. There was a lot of stress — office politics, promotion pressure. It didn’t give me the freedom I thought it would.
That’s the thing I was actually looking for — freedom to be myself, freedom to express my humanity. The job didn’t give me that. Around the same time, I got married, and we traveled — Tanzania, South Africa. It was beautiful, and it clarified something for me: the life I wanted was one of experiencing things, traveling, helping people. Nothing wrong with a nine-to-five — but I could see clearly that wasn’t the life I wanted.
I was going to take a break and travel. Then my child came, and life had other plans. Motherhood became part of the journey too.
Leaving without a plan B
Taiwo: What was going through your mind financially, walking away from that kind of security?
Eniola: Honestly, the fear was there — how would I pay my bills, where would the money come from. But I’d learned, over about three years, to trust that money would come. I never felt fully secure in the conventional sense, but my needs — and my child’s — always got met.
There’s a verse that says something like: don’t worry about what you’ll eat or wear, because in the moment you need it, it’ll be provided. I believe life provides for us — maybe not in the way we expect, but it does. I had to still be practical — investing, watching my spending — but in my mind, there was no scarcity. Just trust that God would provide.
Follow the joy
Taiwo: If you could give advice to someone at a career impasse right now — feeling stuck, unhappy — what would you tell them?
Eniola: Sit still. Just sit down and see what actually brings you joy. It’s in everyone, even if it seems small — baking, walking dogs, whatever it is. Follow that.
Taiwo: Say I just want to make money and enjoy my life — what do I do?
Eniola: Do that. Life will always meet you where you are. If someone wants to travel, drink, do drugs, have sex — they should go ahead and do it. Life will still teach them. Eventually they might hit a point of suffering, feel depressed or anxious, and they’ll have to come back and sit still anyway — because at the end of the day, they’re running from themselves. They don’t want to do the work of actually seeing their own mind.
But life will bring you back. And suffering isn’t entirely a bad thing — it’s what eventually pushes you to sit down and find purpose. Not purpose as a task, but purpose as seeing yourself honestly. Just sitting down and recognizing: I am here.
Taiwo: Where did you learn that?
Eniola: By sitting.
Closing
Eniola, thank you for spending this time with us. If today’s conversation gave you something to think about, I’d love for you to subscribe and join us again next week. Until then, keep building with intention.
Prefer watching?
This article is adapted from Episode 4 of Breakfast & Launch. It has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the substance of the original conversation.
If you’d rather experience the conversation as it was originally spoken, you can watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on your preferred streaming platform.
→ Watch/Listen: taiwoash.com/podcast