kindergarten mum and budding entreprenuer

It had never been my intention to be a business owner. Now in my late twenties, a single mother of one, i find myself, having to learn how to juggle being a single mother and how to network and manage my business all at the same time. Life hasn't quite turned out the way I thought it would. Right now, I thought, I'd be practising as a lawyer, didn't matter where, as long as I was making serious cash. Also, by now I should have a family etc. with the dog and cat thing going on. But life just isn't like that. Instead, I'm just trying to take my business off the ground, hasn't been long, but still at start-up. it's difficult.

My driving force, my son Ethan. From adversity, opportunities are created. Adversity can either break you or make you. I have to provide for my son, who is also mildly autistic. Finding out my son was mildly austic was devastating. So, I started recapping on where, and how it could have happened. But after a while, I just came to accept that things are the way they are, and it's not about how it happened, though knowing, would have helped in coming to terms faster. It would also make me feel better if i could then in turn help someone else avoid ending up in the same situation i now find myself.

From this, I find strength to live, to make sure my son has all he needs, especially for his education and his medical needs i.e. speech and occupational therapy, that does not come cheap especially in Africa.

Therefore, I have really not been trying to balance my work and personal life, but instead I work on having harmony in all areas of my life. When you are a business owner, it is hard sometimes to find balance. I was always trying to figure it out and felt like a failure when I could not make it happen, and I still have my moments, I could balance my check book but I could not balance my life. The idea behind harmony is understanding that sometimes life is all about the family, and other times I have to really focus on the business to take it to a new place, and not feel guilty about what I am doing. This usually happens when, I have to be in the office late, or have to network either for work or personal reasons. I have learned to weave my business, my family, my physical and spiritual life together, creating flow between them and accepting that there will never be perfect balance but there can be harmony. When I gave up being guilty, when I gave up being perfect, I found harmony.

So whatever it is I am doing, I want to BE there 100%. When i'm with my family and friends, I'm there 100%. When it's work, I am present with the task at hand 100%. Otherwise, I would say that being a woman I have had to learn some of the techniques of men. Also trying to be mum and dad at the same time to my son. When it comes to business, I've learnt how to ask for the business, how to leverage my time and my network, how to delegate to others and how to toot my own horn. Women actually tend to wait for the business, we hope that our network or friends will help us but we don’t ask or set clear expectations, we believe that we can do it all so we are not good at delegating to others or saying No, and we never ever toot our own horns we have to learn how to do that well. Ask any guy about his accomplishments and he will rattle them off, ask a woman and she will have to think about it.

My 1st passion is the law. My second, fashion. At the moment, I am a non practising Lawyer, and I'm actively persuaing my Image consultancy business, it's not easy but i'm moving on steadily everyday.

I'm still a young woman, and that means I still have time to grow my enterprise, and I know somewhere down the line and soon, i'll be able to make a big impact in the Kenyan economy and the Global economy at large.