Tik Tok star Fats Timbo's new book is here to help you manifest your biggest dreams

good morning fats how you doing you well I'm good how are you I'm blessed always in a ways can't complain we're here to talk about your new book and how it encourages readers to be their own main character talk about it Flats because I love the sentiments that it seems to be expressing so my new book is in inside my life stories and what I've gone through in my life in terms of my disability and the challenges that come with that so it's called main character energy Ten Commandments to living life fearlessly and the reason why I have that name is because we are all main characters in our own lives and we often forget about that because we're too busy um caring about others and what others think and how others feel but at the same time we we were born alone well I guess not twins but at the end of the day we are all alone and we die alone so and uh fearlessness that's something I have definitely um that been doing my whole life being Fearless every time I step up that that door every time I step into a new building every time I meet new people it's fearlessness and um yeah I just wanted to share that sentiment of people and um when I was trying to be more confident what helped me was reading self-help books so my book is a mixed routine a self-help book and an autobiography so um yeah I can't wait for people to read it and get the feedback and build fill the the love that I'm trying to give to people a chondroplasia right yes so let's talk about let's talk about how your experiences with that shape the way that you approach life's challenges like how did you kind of approach or or just talk about it because there's a lot of people don't want to know what our chondroplasia is um so give me a snapshot of that Journey from your own personal walk so it starts but even before my life began so my mum and dad found out that I would either have Down syndrome or dwarfism because doctors called them into hospital and my mum is six months pregnant and they said that your child is her head is bigger my head is growing bigger than her body and that can only mean she either has autism or down syndrome do you want to terminate your um one second and my mum she already fell in love with me as I was growing in her like I as a pregnancy was going on she was falling in love with me and she said no she said no I I don't wanna I bought this baby um I'm gonna love the child whatever the condition they have so um yeah it starts from there and it kind of shows the love that they've always showed me throughout my life as well starts from there um so obviously I came out with dwarfism and with dwarfism it's the uh lack of cartilage in my joints that affects the way my body grows so my torso is average height but my arms and legs are um yeah are sort of unusual so and about 75 of people with Autism have Acorn diplasia and wolfism as a whole it happens in one in thirty thousand baths so it's very very rare and um yeah so I I grew up with a contra place and when I realized that I was smaller than everyone else I realized that I couldn't run as fast as everyone else I couldn't reach things the same way everyone else could um and that really affected me because I was thinking why why am I not growing the same way as everyone I was so confused that I didn't know I didn't understand it and how old was you at that point maybe about five I think okay four or five when people are way taller than me and I'll still like teeny and um yeah so it just made me realize I'm Different oh my God I'm way smaller than everyone and um what was that gonna say yeah so when when I realized that I started noticing other people looking at me funny and other people ridiculed in my height um that affected me a lot because I didn't know what to say I didn't know how to explain it to people kids started telling me Oh we should have ate your fruit your um vegetables and drank milk when you when you were a baby and after a while I actually started drinking milk every day just so that I could grow and um of course it didn't work um also I was injected every day by my dad so that it could um I think it was to boost my growth or um it was what was that yeah it was basically to try help with my growth and that didn't work I was getting injected every day like about maybe five years and um yeah it was just my own like journey I guess and the doctors hospital doctor hospital visits as well none of my siblings had to go to the hospital as much as I did so I realized I was different from a very very young age when did you turn the the pain of that Journey because you've talked about you know how it's left you feeling into the purpose that you're moving with now because you're a disability Advocate and you're obviously inspired by your own disability to not saying I mean to advocate for people in your position but that's turning the pain into purpose right so when did that light bulb go off um I would say as a teenager I think those were my last kiss uh with 800 pleasure I think um that's when I was very like suicidal I didn't want to be on this Earth anymore I had very low self-esteem I hated going out I hate it like social interaction um I was at a very very low point but I think when I started I get started getting tired of that version of me so I started to read self-help books at manifestation I didn't know what I was going to manifest but I knew I was going to manifest something great you know what I mean so I think what was important for me at the time was to try a game some confidence through something so I saw an ad asking for people with like the people that had dwarfism people that you know had albinism alopecia and for me I thought wow you're calling my name I am the inclusivity I am sitting right here and it almost felt like a dream it was like I I need to do something like this so that I can come out of my comfort zone because as well as not feeling confident at the same time I'd always want to challenge myself in something so yeah I challenged myself in that and then when I did when they accepted me and said oh we want you to be a part of the campaign by the way it's underwear I was like wow okay even more of a challenge my first ever modeling his underwear okay great oh all right um that was a massive challenge because I threw myself in the deep end but afterwards I felt absolutely amazing but really good about myself I felt like I was representing and then when I posted it on Instagram that's when it went boom that's what it went like insane so what year was that just just for context 2017. that was in 2017 and so um it's been about six years now since then and yeah that changed my life because it showed me that I had a purpose online and that I could build a platform so that I was I was thinking for myself let me start posting more let me start showing myself more and I started building a platform online so I built on a platform online and yeah the opportunities came in I got answers to be on the undateables so that was my first TV appearance I did say no at first because I was like listen am I Undateable no I am the very much stateable but at the same time but at the same time I thought of the bigger picture and how I could Inspire others and you know it gives me a leeway or a gateway to be on TV so that's why I did it and yeah when I got management it just snowballed from there where I am today I just never stopped you've mentioned it a couple of times so just so I know there's gonna be people who are going to be watching this interview saying what books what books what self-help books which ones did you read to list a couple uh the secret Rich Dad Poor Dad um Napoleon Hill what was that one you can grow Rich yeah things can grow rich uh what else there was a how to not give her f as well so those were the main ones that I read but I've read I've watched the secret movie and I've read the secret book twice so that's the one that helps me the most because the stories are so diverse but at the same time they give the same message of manifestation and believing in yourself and and having the right thoughts to lead you to the the best path you know so that's what I was doing I had no idea what I was doing I had no idea where I was going but I knew that I I didn't go through all of this for no reason I knew that there was a bigger purpose for me in my life hella followers on Tick Tock right now how many people how many how many I didn't I didn't check before I came on how many about 255k on Instagram and nearly three million on Tick Tock so 2.9 Okay so so how do you balance your comedic sketches with your more serious I'd I'd advocacy work because for those who aren't watching she she kind of funny that's right that's not my best um what I do to be honest with you I am funny and serious so I don't try to strategically do it if that makes sense you know like I am I show my funny side to a lot of people most of the time but when it's time to get serious and talk about key topics that should be addressed I say it so that's why I think on there it's like a balance of the two or it's like how do you juggle it but if you're getting both of them you just continue you just have to take what you're given in a way but I just think it's so important to highlight the serious issues because I don't I know there's so many disabled people that go through so much and everybody speaks up for them but if I can do it in a way where people can receive it well then why not what advice would you give someone who's struggling with adversity having the worth of experience that you have I'm not saying you have all the answers but if you could guide somebody in a similar situation what would you advise my advice would be to understand that the society we live in still has a lot of education to to um learn from and still understand that there are different types of people sometimes as a disabled person you can feel like it's your fault the world doesn't like me um why why am I going through so much adversity but at the same time we we can be here to educate people when there's something like let's say in the workplace when they say oh you know do you need anything you have to say what you need you have to say exactly what you need because if you don't they're gonna um not help the next disabled person because they're not going to feel like they need to help them so always State what you need always speak up for yourself especially when there's there's always something going wrong with disabled people like let's say a building they might have the lift broken you need to complain about that because that's not right I think it even should be illegal for lifts to be broken in stations because how are disabled people supposed to travel it's just saying it's basically like saying oh oh well oh well they can't travel it's like I don't know cutting off a highway and saying to the car like saying to the drivers oh well it's shot so find your own way right it's just it's just not right so um yeah like wherever you can speak up for yourself because the the well this Society doesn't understand the struggle whatsoever so yeah that's my best advice where's your family from frats my family are from Sierra Leone talk about the cultural difference that you've experienced how and how that's impacted well so like going to Sally own and how disabled people yeah and yeah yeah and attitudes towards you it might be that is there's more I don't know what the differences are so I'm I'm asking you I think in in Sierra Leone or Africa in general they're they're obviously a third world country they're way behind way behind even in terms of mental health as well they still believe it's witches and things like that they don't actually accept that people go through mental health and depression and things like that like that's why my dad he's helped um build a psychiatric hospital and Sierra Leone uh which I'm very proud of that he did and yeah in terms of me they look at me like I'm an alien and same as here some people look at me like I'm an alien as well so and and there's no accessibility or consideration of accessibility here at least there is accessibility in some places but there's still a lot of work to be done especially the fact that it's a first world country we can we can build buildings and take into consideration disabled people and how they would access the place so it's all about making sure having working lifts making sure that the mechanism's good having um automatic doors because all these things that help disabled people they helped they help average height people was enable body people I should say as well it makes everyone's life easier that's why that's why there is automatic doors so that disabled people don't need to push in front or pull because it's a lot of work and so that they can be independent um what else is there just more education in schools I think this on if they want us to see a particular type of person or like all type of disability they wouldn't be so shocked you know um I think as well with parents parents need to educate their children when they do see somebody with a disability or facial disfigurement but okay they might look different but they're just like everyone else just saying that simple sentence makes a world of a difference and it's it's come to a point now where I have to educate the kids for the parents and then that's when they wake up oh oh I'm I'm so sorry I didn't realize or oh yes don't don't say that to me like you know so yeah I think in Africa is they're miles miles behind but because I'm in this country I want to do the work here and eventually Africa and Sierra Leone I should say will take the lead you know I understand sorry not take the lead follow the lead yeah I mean it might even take it who knows you know you might be right you might it might have been when they say Freddie and slip there but it might be true man they might take the lead um and we hope so you know why not why can't we think positively into the future what else you get what else can readers expect from you though in the future both in terms of ad because he worked tripping on that word today um and more creative projects and just you know generally in the future what's what's facts Timbo up to so I've done a few things there's one like say NBA um documentaries and yeah no damn agreement you can tell me then right isn't it nope I don't think it works like that all right yeah hopefully you can see me in documentaries in the future okay um just why just putting my face on more household Brands as well so that representation can be there I don't want to be like a token girl if I'm being honest I do want to just pave the way so that the Next Generation or somebody who looks like me can do it as well they can refer to me as oh if she can do it I can do it or she's been on that ad like why can't I be on it so um that's what I want to continue doing and I just want to level up on my content as well like my my boyfriend he actually helps me a lot with content ideas and filming um so I just want you guys to see better content for me as well so in the future which I'm excited excited about listen thanks for your time plus um really appreciate it really appreciate you sharing being candid more power to you on your journey is there anything else you want to share with us and where can people finding um just thank you so much for having me on it's been a pleasure you can find me on Tick Tock and Instagram at fats Timbo f-a-t-s-t-i-m-b-o you can also find me on YouTube as well I'm going to be posting more on there um I do need to be more consistent but okay I'll get there but yeah make sure you read my book and if you do purchase it do tag me so that you know I can thank you I can ask you for your feedback of what you thought about it so