What is a Good Life? #93
Building Collective Community with Kemo Camara
On the 93rd episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Kemo Camara. Kemo is the visionary behind Omek, a community-centric platform whose mission is to amplify the talent, voices, and energy of biculturals of African descent. A social entrepreneur, community influencer, economist, and captivating speaker, Kemo's journey has spanned continents, with impactful engagements across Africa, the United States, and Europe. He has held extensive leadership roles and responsibilities in community organisations and co-founded multiple businesses and non-profit organisations in the United States and Europe. His passion lies in activating our collective human potential, bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to work towards a common goal.
In this wonderful conversation, Kemo shares his journey of building community and realising purpose in his life. He discusses the insights around community that he gained from his upbringing and family in Guinea, the values of trust, dignity, and respect that were instilled in him, and the energy we drain from ourselves by constantly having our guards up.
This entire conversation is a great example of the importance of reflection, understanding who we are, and paying attention to the feedback life provides in order to utilise all aspects of ourselves to realise greater purpose in our lives.
The weekly clip from the podcast (4 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (61 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
During this interview, Kemo reflects on how his mother naturally trusts people—she doesn’t make you earn it; she simply gives it away. Of course, some discernment is included, and decisions are to be made if someone breaches that trust. However, Kemo notes that she seems incredibly relaxed all the time because of this.
It made me think about the general lack of trust in our culture today, and the immense energy we invest in keeping our guard up. It seems to me that the energy we spend on ensuring we are never caught unawares is rarely considered.
If we catch one person out of a hundred trying to take advantage of us, we proudly declare how clever we were—"nobody fools me"—while remaining completely unaware of the possibilities we may have deprived ourselves of by treating the other 99 people with the same suspicion.
In recent years, I have adopted the perspective of trusting people upfront. This doesn’t mean being wilfully naïve, but I have worked with clients without sending a contract—just an invoice once the work is done. I try to engage with people as transparently as possible, willing to share what arises in the moment. If someone asks me for help, my initial assumption is that they genuinely need it.
When I approach life like this, it feels much more effortless, it feels much more in flow, like this is a more natural state than giving each other a list of terms and conditions as we then attempt to build a friendship or relationship from that point.
Beyond trust in other people, this idea was on my mind yesterday while walking to the supermarket with my 14-month-old daughter in my arms. She wanted to carry a bag with her water and crackers in it. Usually, I would be vigilant, ready to catch it if she dropped it. But reflecting on trust, I decided not to pre-empt anything, letting go of my watchfulness and simply dealing with it if or when it happened. So often, I remain alert and yet the bag still hits the ground anyway.
After some time, she did eventually drop it, and I picked it up—nothing was broken. The only consequence was that I had to bend down and retrieve it. This made me realise how much more I enjoyed being present during the walk, rather than fixating on a possible future outcome that wasn’t even happening.
It struck me how, when it comes to trust—whether in people, a moment, or life itself—when something does go wrong, we usually just get on with it. Yes, in life the stakes may be higher, it may leave us with an altered perception or behaviour, but we are far less fragile than we imagine. Even our egos, for all the imagined threats they conjure, still survive to see another day.
This also leads me to think that a general lack of trust often stems from our desire to control life. The more we acknowledge the unknown and uncertainty of life, the easier I find it is to trust. As mentally trying to control, account for, or to be aware of all those potential threats, it simply takes far too much energy from life, and is literally impossible to do so. Which leads to a place of surrendering control for me.
Unsurprisingly, this makes me reflect on how we behave in dialogue. I genuinely trust other human beings enough to share my inner world with them—my intentions, my thoughts, what’s stirring within me in the moment.
Nowhere else in my life is my trust more rewarded than when I am willing to do this with others. Whether that is sharing something intimate or vulnerable, other human beings have always met the moment in a way that has only enhanced my experience of life. Taken a conversation or a relationship to a place far beyond my imagination.
Without that trust, we often get stuck in a rut of carefully repeating the same old opinions and stories, rarely leaving the centre of the conversation or exploring the edges of what’s possible. It’s what keeps so many of engagements bereft of any vitality or energy.
This is especially sad when we consider what usually happens when we do venture to those edges. It reminds me of something Amy Elizabeth Fox said on this podcast (Episode #68) earlier this year, to the effect of: "When you lead with vulnerability or intimacy, the world and universe has your back."
I feel that our current approach to trust in our culture is detrimental in many ways. It strips out aliveness, connection, and spontaneity from our lives. It assumes we can’t handle undesired outcomes. It also gives undue control to a small number of bad actors, or on a personal level, to a few people who have wronged us, dictating how we engage with life for years to come.
3. Full Episode - Building Collective Community with Kemo Camara - What is a Good Life? #93
Click here for Apple and Amazon
4. This week’s Questions
What would your local community miss or notice if you were no longer living there?
Do you naturally trust people first or must it be earned?
About Me
I am a coach, podcast host, and writer, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 200 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you would like to work with me to explore your own lines of self-inquiry, take part in my weekly free silent conversations, discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your teams, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.