 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. Self-employment requires risk, courage, resilience, and faith. Not many know how or where to start. James Kisoy, a young CEO of his own brand, JK brand, is here to share with us. I am Nyongwesaw Grenis, a young CEO. Wow, how did it begin? Thank you so much first. So how it all began is it began from passion. It all began from passion, from things I love doing, from talents, and things I believe was kept on this planet to do. That's how it all began. So what activities are these that your passion led you to? So one of the activities was MCing. Back in high school I remember that's the first time we ever organized an event. We just came up with a list of friends and we were like, well we have a lot of talents here. We can just organize an event from a personal capacity and get to reward people who are good in it. So we organized an event and in that I said I'll run the program. I even never knew it was MCing. I never knew it was a profession per se. Yeah, so that was one of the first events I ever did in high school, became a success. And yeah, the other things came with the first time I ever got a computer. I wanted just to do graphic designs and all, make logos, make what. So yeah, so those were the things that I did personally. And from then I've been doing events, paid or not paid, graphics, paid or not paid, and everything else from the sense of passion, something I really loved and something I wanted to address. And so when did you begin JK Brand? JK Brand, I can say it's been me, James Kisui, my whole life, the things I wanted. But the real time I began it was in 2014 when I came to campus. Yeah, I started a brand. I'd never even started it as a brand. I just came to campus and I was trying to survive. I was trying to pay my fee and make myself survive. Yeah, so I was doing things that could sustain me, businesses, to start with selling eggs, selling small kids doing events and seeing and all that. Yeah, so they played a major part. So I can say from 2014 is when I started actuality. Yeah, I didn't start at JK Brand CEOZ. I just started polypoly different things that will help me to survive in campus. Yeah. I've heard you mention about paying your fees. Would you kindly elaborate on that? Yeah, I can elaborate on that. So I used to do a lot in terms of the kind of businesses I'm doing, I could sell eggs, sell small kids, go to events and then see almost every weekend. I just had that sense of kujitu from my young age. So the little amount I get I used to save and when I save I just wanted to do something prominent with it like paying my fee, paying my rent, helping myself to survive and all that. Yeah, so it all began. It wasn't as big when I was starting, I was really struggling but God enabled me through everything. I had a strong sense of faith, a strong sense of drive, strong sense of passion in everything I did and it paid off eventually. Yeah. I know you could have thought of something else but what was the inspiration of forming JK brand? Thank you. It was passion. Passion is everything. Passion is something that you do without being forced, something that you don't feel tired in doing, something that you do whether they pay you or not. So it was in tricks and passion. Yeah, it wasn't about money. First it was about passion. I really love this and I believe I'm the best person to do this and I can do it better than anybody on this planet. So when you have a feeling in anything it might be washing cars, sweeping, making designs, whatever. Just know that that's where your path is and that's what you should do. So you start with it when it has no fruits but you remember in a fruit tree the last thing you see is fruits. So it starts with the roots, the stem, the leaves so you have to be patient with the process too. So with JK brand what are the leaves, the stem and the fruits in your organization? Could you break it down for us? Yeah, okay. So some of the leaves, the stem, what makes the whole tree is something like branding. So we make a business from scratch. You can't tell us, I want to start in this business. We do a name search for you. We then make a logo for you, make an entity for you, print it in different materials and all that. So that's one of the things. Then we do events. So I am C and we have a team of maybe DJs and all and then we have the sounds, the words, the words. So we can organize an event from scratch. Yeah, we also do mentorship and charity. I have a sub branch called JK Foundation. So we do charities in that go to children's home and just have fun with children and donate and all that. Yeah, so those are some of the leaves, the stems and the whole things that make up the tree. And can one just come up and say I want to start something like yours or there are certain characteristics they need to have? Passion. Passion is very imperative and faith because if you don't have the passion and the faith, you won't have the persistence needed for you to be in there. If it's something you do maybe for money or for reasons that are not very strong, you won't sustain yourself in it. The first question you should ask yourself is the why in it? Why am I doing it? Is it because of money? Is it because of fame? Is it because of... So if the why is strong enough, the how becomes easy. Yeah. Don't you need skills for this? Skills. Okay, Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest fighters said, for you to be great, you need two things. Skill and will. But will must be stronger than the skill. So I believe in everything you do, if the will is so strong, the skill comes afterwards. So skill is important here, but the most important thing is the will. Because if the will is stronger, you will learn, you will spend hours, you will do 30 hours that they're just trying to get that skill. So the will comes through passion. So that's why it's very important to do something that you have a strong will in it and will comes through passion. So when the will is strong, the skill will come automatically. Yeah. And what's were your initial goals when you started this brand? My initial goals was to inspire people, to make them believe they can do it too. To make them believe you can start from scratch and be someone from this country. You don't need a rich uncle, a rich relative, one that you need God, faith, hard work, and persistence. Through time, results will come. Yeah. So that was one of the main goals. Money and survival was another goal too. I also wanted to survive. I also wanted to live a good life and all. Yeah. And also to solve people's problems, the kind, the right kind of businesses start with the aim of trying to solve someone's problem. If you start a business with the aim of solving someone's problem, then the sustainability because we want their problem solved. Yeah. And what are your achievements so far? My achievements, quite many. First of all, I, I got to live me and be me because every single day I do things without a lot of rules. I can have maybe the hairstyle they wear once and do just things they ever wanted to do. That comes as a sense of freedom. So just having that freedom itself, I believe is a strong sense of achievement. And being me, being authentic, just not because I was coming to an interview, I have to cut my hair and what and what and just come as me and be as authentic as I am. So that was one of the biggest and strongest achievement. The other thing is we've done very many successful events, charities, commerce events and different things. We've got to serve very many clients. We have an achievement of having happy clients, referrals and all that and all that. Yeah. So I believe those are some of the achievements just to mention a few. So school came to Mosseano 2014, took media. Yeah. It was very imperative in teaching me how to communicate, to relate with people, social skills and all that. Yeah. And started in 2014, graduated in 2018. Yeah. Want to go back to do my masters quite really soon. Yeah. School doesn't end anyway. Every day you have to learn for you to earn. Yeah. So I'll still continue in school. Yeah. It has impacted me in different ways through life. Yeah. And so where do you get your clients? Where do I get my clients? I get my clients online. I get my clients through physical touch. When I get someone, I want to tell them what I do. I do branding. Maybe this is my business card. This is where you can find me on social media and all. Yeah. That's where I get my clients. Also get my clients from offering the best work. If I give you so much of a good work, you tell a friend, you tell the friend, you tell the friend and the client base continues growing. So we are on social media too. You can find us at J.K. Brand on Instagram, Facebook and all or J.K. Soy. I operate through this too. Okay. Yeah. And there are so many young people looking for employment which is not there. What can you tell them? What I can tell them is it's high time to stop looking for opportunities and start creating our own. It's the high time we start understanding that the government system and education system has prepared us to be employed and not to be deployed. It has prepared us for job and not work. Job is what you go and get hired to do. Work is what your gifts, your passions, your work will lead you to do. From your job, you can get fired from your work. You can get fired. From your job, they can tell you today you're not coming to work because of this, but nobody can fire me from MCM. Nobody can fire me from doing design. Nobody can fire me from doing fashion and the things that I do. So it's high time for them to change the mindset of just not going to start looking for work and start creating opportunities from themselves. Find something that they love so much. Be patient with it. Right now the biggest problem is people stay on social media and social media shows as success stories and no failures. And everybody thinks success is a matter of a day or two. It's a long process that you need to stay there to give your best to work hard and to have faith that this thing will work. Yeah. So it's not always about going and getting employment. You can create your own opportunities from your talents, your gifts and something you believe you can do better than anyone in this planet. And are there any setbacks you've encountered through your journey? So many, so many. Yeah, because first of all there is maybe setting goals that you didn't achieve. Trying to reach somewhere where your financial ability is going to get you. Trying to juggle between so many things. Yeah, having heartbreaks through the process, businesses failing at times, investment going sour, but have come to learn that we need both the good and the bad. For life to have a balance. Yeah, so I have encountered so many setbacks, but I don't look at them as setbacks. I look at them as things that helped me grow. One of my favorite all-time quotes is, I never lose. I either win or I land. So if something didn't succeed, I go and look what are the lessons from it. So I've had pitfalls, but I don't look at them as lessons as failures or pitfalls. I look at them as lessons and something that came to elevate me to the next level. Could you give examples of those pitfalls so that someone can learn from? Yeah, sure. I've started business, like the first business I started wasn't even J.K. Brand. It was a business with the longest name that the profits we could ever make. It was called GKINK Enterprise, quite a long name. And we operated for two years making profits every month, making losses every single month. Yeah, but through that I learned about truncating a business name, how a business should be like, how this and this and that. So that was a great failure. I've also had setbacks in my personal life. I've had heartbreaks, relationship-wise and all that affected me to levels I almost went to depression and all. Yeah, and just other limboes of life, maybe just something that didn't go right and all. And how is the situation right now? How did you come to solve the challenges? I came to learn that every challenge comes with a great deal of lessons. I don't wake up in the morning and pray, tell God, hit me with adversity, but when He hits me I know there's something great that will come out of it. So I learned to embrace the down moments, the valleys and the pitfalls. So it's not something I look at in a negative light no longer. Because even when I was reading the Bible I realized Jesus chose Judas passively. He knew that He was there. You're going to betray Him and all that and all that. So it teaches us that we need these hardships and problems and all. Could you be specific on how you solved the long name? Actually you said it was longer than the profit you were making. So how we solved that is every single day going to the drawing board and asking, where did we go wrong? Because that business had, it was one space and it had a cyber place. So it was a very confused structure but when I was in it I was thinking I'm trying to solve every problem and I realized businesses need specialization. Place here, it's going to look confused you know, but I learned that through the process. So the other problems that I faced through life have gone for therapy and all to just have my mental health on check because there's a time I went through depression and I went for therapy and I came back well, I came back stronger and I stood where things went the way they went. That is so interesting. And where is your area of operation? My area of operation right now I'm in Marseille but very soon we should be moving to different towns. Siaia and Kisumu and Nairobi just to mention a few. Yeah but online, online there is a huge thing going up. Yeah in our WhatsApp number 070401373, you can get there out and get WhatsApp, you're going to see our profile and what you do. Social media will only mention. So those are our main areas of operation right now but we have different goals and different milestones that we have to hit through the way as the economy progresses positively. You seem to have had an experience of let me say a diamond in the rough. What can you say about that? Give us a backstory. Yeah, so for me I had a very rough childhood. I grew up in a place called Kitui. I grew up with my grandparents from birth to class 4 up on the little in Nairobi. At that time my mom was struggling and couldn't find a coach to go. And when I went there everybody hated me for no good reason. Yeah so I was just the punching bag of everybody. You come back, you had a stressful day, they come hit me, abuse me, started cooking before I even go to school, started fetching water, started kuchimba trenches, kulema and all that when I was really young. So they never liked me and I learned survival from that. I stayed for almost two weeks without ever taking a shower when I was coming to Nairobi my teeth were yellow, couldn't even speak in Swahili or Hindi. I really had a very rough childhood but it made me the diamond that I am because pressure can burst pipes but pressure too can create diamonds. So it all depends with what you did and what you're made of. I see your brand has lions in it. Can you tell us something a bit about it? I believe a human lion. I believe I see opportunities. I'll stealth, I'll walk slow, I'll grasp, I'm hungry and all that. I have a lot of qualities that I can relate to in a lion. I also believe the apex of the predator, I'm the best at what I do. I believe in myself so much and that's why I have that lion there and I believe every single day I'm hungry for opportunities and I want to go out there hunting and I don't want to go back home and tell my car today I got nothing. Every day I want to go hunt and go home with something. Yeah, it's a long process, it's a long shot but I believe I need to win every single day and that's why I have that symbol of a lion there just believing I'm a king and I'm apex and whatever I'll do is the best. And is there anything you feel you need to tell us that we have left out or have not asked? What I feel like you've left out or you've not asked is about my mentorship journey. I do mentorship in different avenues. We do commercials, we do events, we do mentorship in different perspectives because I believe the greatest achievement I can have in this world is not the treasures I have in my bank but what I bank in other people's heart every day doing something in path for people's lives. Yeah so I believe that's the greatest thing anybody can do. There is the money and the flashes and the what what what but the greatest thing you can do is create an impact because that's lasting, that's going to live forever, that's going to live way years and years and years after you die and all that. So that's what I believe. I just believe to spread the message of every day creating an impact someone told me if you can do great things do smaller things in a greater way you'll find your way through greatness. So what is your mentorship about and whom are you mentoring? My mentorship is about life skills through life, how to go through difficulties, how to see challenges in positive light, how to be courageous enough, how to understand that you need to have a balance between the bird and the good, the mountains and the valleys of their life and life is not just about highlights and what we see on social media. There is a story behind every glory yeah so that's my mentorship about it's not specified to a certain demographic it's limitless in terms of age in terms of gender it's just general motivation to people to try to try to create the greatest impact that I can create every single day when I'm living. One of the musicians called Robert Nessama Lake Seed. Some people are so poor all they are this money yeah so you need to live a life beyond money which is about impact changing lives solving problems of people and all that and that's what I want to encourage people to be every single day for them not just to be seeds but to be fruit to be trees that have fruits and to live towards their greatest and unlock their potential in every way. Yeah and for the mentorship what are the fruits that you can tell us have been produced through it? So many so many so many I've heard a lot of people telling me they didn't give up because I told them something or they saw the way I did something yeah I've heard people saying my words changed their life to a point they almost committed depression and suicide and all that yeah so it's it's been very very impactful I've been getting a lot of feedback through my social media handles through my personal number in different events that we do maybe it's a charity maybe it's a paid event maybe it's a what yeah so it's been really fruitful. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. As he has said the greatest thing you can do is to create an impact and to find a solution you have a skill you have a talent you have a passion or a motivation to do something ensure that you're creating a solution we are at times where no one wants to help another person be the different one be the unique one with your talent with your passion with your skill you don't have to get unemployment for you to make an impact you can be the employer this has been youth in action I am Nyong'ueso Grenis.