The few years God has blessed me to be in this planet, I have travelled the world and seen it all. But the one thing that seems to fascinate me is that I have found that everything seems to work out if you have your life in the right perspective; which in my world is God first, family second, and placing career or business third. I truly believe that career growth has come about because the first thing I did was to take God as my first partner. I don’t think it were not for God I would be where I am today. I believe God has blessed me because my motives and passionate motivation was right with God in the first place. He knows my heart desires and sees how much I want to see other Women and Youths of this nation become job creators and solution providers and innovators of our times to help create the Africa we want. I want them to become the beautiful creatures he created them to be and to also use their amazing God-given talents that lie deep down within each one of them. From my experience I have found that you must just do your very best, let go and just let God be by placing everything including your life in God’s hand then everything in your life goes right and you find so much peace that surpasses all human understanding regardless of your unique life circumstances. When you try to do everything alone relying on yourself, you indeed begin to make major blunders and make major errors that you might regret later on. Regardless of how genius one might feel always put God first because none of us have the crystal ball to accurately predict the future. When you put God first he most definitely gives you and your business unprecedented favor and sometimes it might seem that you have found success just because God has led us all the way through it all. Of course putting God first does not mean that you mean you become lazy and not have to work hard and plan, heck no…you must do your part then let God do his part. I cannot tell you how many times we have needed something greater than us including wanting God to open certain global business development doors for us to do expand the ease of doing business, only for us to see them miraculously open right in front of our eyes at our doorsteps.
Our experience with the regulator Central Bank of Kenya is one of them. In 2018 we decided that one of our key pillars we would offer was financial literacy education and trainings for our bank clients to help them become more bankable especially the micro and small business entrepreneurs. Few months later the Central Bank Governor issued a mandatory Kenyan Banking Charter requirement for all banks to entrench a responsible, disciplined culture which required banks to invest heavily in financial literacy with an aim to increase prudent lending practices by all commercial banks. Had we not made such a timely decision we could have incurred huge fines and extra costs setting up and facilitating such trainings. Indeed nobody can predict the future or even accurately knows what new regulations will be passed from time to time but God does. This has helped us to avoid a costly compliance challenge as well as allowed us to offer valuable customer education making us the “merchants of hope” to our clients. Even when the Corona Virus pandemic hit earlier this year, it was easy for us to transition from physical trainings to digital learning platforms which was a plus for us. As much as I believe that God has been so instrumental in our business growth, I am very careful to remember that we are a business which represents every faith and denomination and I try not to “cut throat” preach to our people but instead I let my actions attract spiritually strong professions of integrity with solid professional work ethics who agree that God and family should be preeminent in their lives. Though I never impose my personal religious beliefs on anyone, I do let it known to them that God forms a very important part of my life. There comes a time when we must ask ourselves whether or not our lifes have been meaningful on earth or any rewarding. In Jeremiah 29: 11 the bible tells us that “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I am also quite vocal regarding my strong belief in strong family ties. I always stress that no matter how successful you are in your career, if you lose your family in the process of attaining that success, then you will have failed. Of course I don’t advocate for abuse or domestic violence infact where it exists people should simply flee or walk away from it. Money is not worth sacrificing your family –a career or a business is a means not an end in itself. Unfortunately, some of us find ourselves so consumed with our work and businesses that we lose sight of what really matters most and what’s important in life. When our daughter Amani was born I had room for only three things: God, family and career. I had to forfeit going to the movies, reduce my business travels and hanging out with our friends as each of my waking hour was planned out around the children/family’s schedules and as a working mother I still need to make time to be with the baby, I thank God it was not for my high energy levels I would have collapsed by now. Our house managers and the close family members who have always surrounded us with the so much love and unwavering support they have always given their precious time which comes in very hardy in this career – family balancing act.
One of the things we enjoyed as family is travelling together and especially to the hot beachfront locations along beautiful coastal regions especially on weekends and during those school holidays. I am not a great swimmer but our daughter enjoys just soaking in the water and sunbathing any time any day. I would soak in the sun just watching her have a time of her life. She also likes flying and despite her autistic delayed speech very often she will remind us guys that it’s time to revisit the main international airport which is conveniently located about five minutes away from our house. Watching her play and enjoy herself is a choice for me and I do it gracefully without any complains. I use that time to unwind and meditate over my life otherwise my life just rotates around the three priorities for a while. Though I run a very demanding work schedule I am always there for my daughter and my family anytime they needed me. I always avail myself to help with extra curriculum activities as well help with her homework and all doctors’ appointments. I recently witnessed my daughter loose her milk teeth myself and there no better joy than her knowing that we shall always be there for her no matter our busy schedules. This is why I am very vocal and passionate about promoting diversity and inclusion both in the community and at the workplace…which is great as it encourages valuing everyone at the workplace regardless of their diverse circumstances including people living with disabilities (PWDs)
Great employers need to seriously consider and understand that children are any sober parent’s top priorities. You find at times people go to work when they have a super sick child at home which makes them very unproductive the rest of the day as you can imagine there is no loving parent who can keep their minds focused fully at work soberly when at the same time when worried about their sick child at home. In my opinion, the employer would be better off telling them to stay home for the day so as to take care of their child so that the next day they can come to work and contribute productively to their work obligations in the office. For us women it’s worse because your responsibilities extend to caring for other family members such as aging parents and siblings with various needs. I recall when our daughter was only two years old she had a forced ear surgery which I was scared to death about till today. Right after the surgery she had to go for over 6 months’ sensory integration therapies which required my presence at least twice a week as her ear-nose-throat (ENT) was very delicate. My employer was very understanding and they allowed me attend to her as long as my care did not compromise my work performance so I would wake up very early drop the baby off to therapy sessions then drop her off to her kindergarten then rush off to my office and catch up with day’s work load without fail even if it meant working late for those 2 days i had to do it for my child’s sake. I am so grateful to have blessed to work for organizations that allow me to exercise such a bold philosophy. I can attest that when you put God first, your family second and your career/business third, everything seems to work out. Out of that order, nothing much seems to be sustainable. You might get to enjoy your bottom line for a while but it doesn’t matter how much money you make or how big of a house you have built or how many cars you own in your packing lot, we must ask ourselves if our lives have been meaningful and impactful on this earth.
Fearless Leadership 