 Welcome back to Why In The Morning. My name is Barry Moserzo. It's Barrymore on social media. This is entrepreneurship Tuesday on Why In The Morning as I said. So our social media handles are always right there below the screen. Why to pay for a channel on Twitter, why to pay for an underscore channel on Instagram, and why to pay for a forum on Facebook. So this is that place that mentorship means beats opportunity. And we have Mr. Vindambo himself from Ambigen Limited, which is a mentorship program here to share his story and other stories with us. Thank you so much. Alright, your camera is number four. Just introduce yourself just in case I left out anything. Okay. My name is Sam Vindambo and I'm the CEO of Ambigen Limited. And I'm also the president of another organization called Global Mentorship Program. We have two mentorship programs in high schools and colleges. And I'm also an upcoming author. An upcoming author. You don't have a published book yet? I have probably some but they're not really big like I would want them to be. I cannot call them books. Can we find them online? Yeah, you can. To get a peak of it. You can. Alright, on Amazon? Pardon? No, not really on Amazon yet. But the one that I'm working on will be out very soon. Alright, you'll share that with us. But yes, Kiribu Sanak when you were in The Morning. And thank you very much for finding time to come and share this with us. I know you have another place to be but we'll make it fast. So mentorship is your home quote. But you didn't start like this. You actually went to campus to study and that thing. Right. Maybe you can share that with us. I was in Delan Kimat University in Nyeri. I did Bachelors of Commerce, like graduates. But after finishing campus I was lucky enough. Just like a few people who finish campus, you know right now we have these causes of unemployment and all that. I got employed somewhere. I was earning some good money. But I was not really fulfilled. I was never happy at work. You know the age to five and all that. I wasn't really happy. So I had to quit my work. These debts back to my background. I am born in a very poor background. Poor family. My dad is a carpenter, mom housewife. You know living below one dollar per day. And all that with my four sisters. So after finishing campus and getting that employment I was not really happy. I wanted to go back to the site to bring back to them. And that's where the mentorship came in. So I thought about helping people. Not to go through what I went through when I was young. Alright. This must have been a huge risk for you. I'm guessing you're coming from a humble background. Your parents have invested everything they had in you to go to school and then you get a job. And then you decide you're going to resign from the job. This was a big risk for you. Did you seek any advice before you resigned from your... Actually, I remember the first time I told my mom that I was going to quit my job. My mom was like, are you mad Sam? Are you mad? But I told them, I explained to them, but they could not understand. But after then they came to understand. After seeing the fruits of mentorship and all that. So I cannot say that I really sought any advice from anybody because it was from me. Even if I got advice from somebody and they told me no. Don't do it. I could still go ahead and do it. I was not really happy. How was it like the first three months after quitting or the first four months? I can't say that they were tough. Even if they were tough, they were not really tough for me because I was happy now. My happiness came. Because for me, I like helping people. I like mentoring people. I like helping people achieve their dreams in life. Because for me right now I'm achieving my dream because I was born to mentor. I was born to lead. I was born to help people achieve their dreams. You were born to impact lives. I was born to impact lives and to be a significant. For me, I don't take success. I stick to significance. Significance. I don't take success. Which is the word of the day right there. Significance is the word of the day. Remember we are on Facebook. I tried to buy four. And Facebook is the place of concern today because we have a question there. And the question is have you ever bought anything online? And what was the result of what you were happy as a consumer? So head straight to our Facebook so we can get your feedback. We'll be sampling them towards the end of the show. So significance is the word. I'd like to know how does Ambigean Limited come around? Now Ambigean Limited is, it was my first organization. It's actually a company right? It was my first organization which I formed really after quitting my job. Because now the Global Mentorship Program is an affiliate of Ambigean Limited. That's where everything happens in the organization. That is where you started? That's where you started. Then the Global Mentorship Network, that's where we do the programs of mentorship and all that in schools. We run mentorship programs in very many schools. High schools and also colleges. So that's basically what we do. Mentorship is everything. Mentorship is everything. It's very important. Alright, so two things exist in this sphere right here. Mentorship and opportunity. Opportunity is lacking. Mentorship is there. So youths will say or critics will say too many mentors not enough opportunities. What would you say about that? I cannot say that we have too many mentors. Mentors in Kenya are very few. Our role model is not a mentor. Our role model is not a mentor. And just because somebody is a public figure doesn't mean that they are your mentors. A mentor will be somebody who grows with you in your genuine success. They should always be there with you. Like maybe I should give you an example of our mentorship programs in high schools. We are always there. We go to these schools every week. We meet these students one on one. That's what mentorship is all about. It should be a process. So that you can monitor their progress. So you cannot say that they are very few mentors, yes. But all models are there. Pro models are there. What about the opportunity part? People will say there are not so many opportunities in this country right now as we speak. But mentors will tell you go for what you want. Go out there and conquer the world. But the opportunities are lacking. And that's a fact. Opportunities are not lacking. That's why before we went online I was telling you that in Kenya many youths start businesses. They don't solve problems. That's why they say that there are no opportunities. Opportunities are there. Very many. Everybody in this world is born to do something. We can't all of us be self-employed. That's true. Not all of us can be self-employed. That's true. Not all of us are leaders. Yeah, that's true. All of us are leaders. No, no, no. That one. All of us are leaders. But all of us cannot be self-employed. Actually the truth is all of us are employed. Even if you're self-employed you're employed. Because the word employment doesn't mean... You're working. You're working. So all of us are employed. Even if you're unemployed, self-employed or anything. So opportunities are there. It's you to go for them. It's you to go for them. That's why I was telling you about solving a problem. Opportunities lies in the problem. So for every problem lies an opportunity. If somebody is outside there and they are broke it means they're not solving any problem. That is given as a result of solving somebody's problem. So if you're broke you're not solving anything in this world. Alright, so what you're trying to tell me, the secret is not getting into business. The secret is finding a problem, solving the problem and that becomes a business. That becomes a business. From the problem, from the solving of the problem you get something from it. You get something from it. Just like us, we do mentorship. We help people achieve their dreams. Problem is them achieving their dreams. So we help them achieve their dreams. Then from that we earn something. So that is how you formed your business. So the secret in business is in solving problems. As an entrepreneur, whenever we see a problem, see an opportunity there. See an opportunity there. When you see garbage all over Nairobi, see an opportunity in that garbage. When you see crime in Nairobi, see an opportunity in the crime. Alright, even in crime there is opportunity. Yeah, there is opportunity. Because it's a problem. It's a problem for us. I feel that. Remember we are on social media, they're always right there below the screen. We are looking for your feedback. We can sample them towards the end of the show. I remember in high school, we used to get mentors coming around. And most of us were not even paying attention, let alone interested in what was going on over there. So how do you manage to get that attention of 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds? First of all, we are not motivational speakers. We are mentors. That is the difference. A motivational speaker comes there and tells you, work hard, never give up. We are used to those things. Why are you telling me to work hard? I know I should work hard. So you come here, speak for one and a half hours, two hours telling me work hard, never give up. Make a timetable. You don't even tell me how to make a timetable. So that's why I get bored. I can't continue listening to you. That's why we were getting bored for sure. Yeah, even I was getting bored those days. But for us, we don't motivate them. Students are from something called a motivational deep. You motivate me. The next two hours, I am out of the motivational example that you told me. It's called a motivational deep. So we don't really go the motivational side. Actually, if you motivate a fool, you get a motivated fool. So we don't do motivational things. We do mentorship one on one. All right. So you need to get this particular person out of their mindset first, if it was a wrong mindset for that matter. And before you get to motivate them. Yeah. You don't want motivated fools in the streets. You don't want to get a motivated fool. All right. So at Ambigen, what are some of the things in your mandate as Ambigen? We do sales trainings. Actually, our organization is all about services. We don't have a product that you can see and all that. We offer human resource services. We also do sales trainings in other companies. So that's basically what we do at Ambigen Limited. And then the mentorship now comes in. But what we do mostly is mentorship. We do a lot of mentorship. Just like I was telling you from here, I'm heading to EMBO, a school called Syacago Girls. So we run this mentorship program in high school. What is the name of the school again? Syacago Girls. Syacago Girls. Syacago Girls. See you Syacago Girls in a few. This gentleman might be joining you. All right. So in your own words, in a few words for that matter, what would you say is the difference between motivation and mentorship? Motivation is a short something. Like I come and speak to you for an hour, 30 minutes. But mentorship is a long term thing. Like our mentorship programs in school run the whole year. We should meet the students every week. We must meet them. We must, not we should, we must. That's what mentorship is all about. We want to be with them in this journey. We want to see their progress. Motivation, you come just and speak to me and then go, I'll never see you again. So you just motivated me for 30 minutes and went. So motivation is a temporary thing. It's a short term thing. Mentorship is a long term thing. And motivation never works. It's a process. Motivation never works. Motivation never works. No, you'll never see somebody telling you, I got an A in KCAC because somebody motivated me. Never. But you get somebody saying, we won that game because we got a very good pep talk from the coach. That's now the difference. Yes. From the coach. You're talking about a game, maybe football. Yes. They were motivated before they went to play. That was like two minutes before they went to play. Now you think they still have that motivation. Yes. But now somebody comes here. This is first term. This is January. You're motivating me to work. This is in December. Will I still be having motivation? All I'm saying is we can say motivation doesn't work. It doesn't. But it works in some cases. We just add a case scenario. If in a game, in a game it works somebody is motivated before they go to work. But what I'm saying is it should be motivational mentorship. You're mentoring me but you're motivating me every time. So it should be long term. It should be long term. But if you just motivate me once, it will never work. All right. So motivation should work hand in hand with mentorship. That's what you're saying. Yes. Wonderful. All right. So as a person in business, as much as you mentor people, ambition limited is a business with a structure. And it's run like any other business. You've come a long way running this business. How big is the business so far as per human resource? We have 12 employees in our organization who are really doing well. For me, I like making leaders because everybody in this world is a leader. I don't like having followers. You work with me. You work with me for more than two years. Because I want you to go out there to also do your own stuff. I don't want you to just be working with me 10 years, 12 years, 15 years. You're still working under me. I want you to go and form your own team. So that's what I do because I like making leaders. All right. So out of these 12 people, Nana's worked with you for more than two years. Most of them finish campus. They come work with us. Two years down the line, three years down the line. They're going to form their own. All right. Employers talk about loyalty so much. And I don't think you can earn that in less than two years. Loyalty, it depends on your relationship with your employees. In fact, for me, I don't call them employees. I call them partners. They're not really working for me. They're working for themselves. They're working for the other people whom we are working with because I tell you, you are doing services. We're helping other people. So you're partnering with them to help other people. So loyalty is always there. So long as you're partnering. If this guy is working under you, nobody likes being told, do this, do that. And that is the area where employees tell employers, I mean, employers tell employees, do this, go there, come before 80, if you come at 801, I fire you and all that. We don't do that. We are partnering with people. Wow. I think you need to tell that to so many employers out there. Mine is good. Mine is good. It gives me, or it gives me an opportunity. Another thing I'd like to know, what are some of the challenges you've had too for running Hamjin? Marketing. Marketing is the biggest challenge. Marketing is the biggest challenge. If I don't know you, I can't do business with you. I should do business with you until I know you. So marketing is key. Selling and marketing. Selling comes under marketing. It comes after marketing. As a result? Yeah. If after you've marketed your product, I can buy it. So that is the biggest challenge, right? Marketing is the biggest challenge. If you're living in the information age, we have so many platforms that you can use to market. You don't need to take an advert to your television. That's true. But still it's a challenge. Again, all those things come with finances and all that. But it's still a big challenge. What I'm saying is you need to be known. As a business person, for me to buy a product, I should know you. So you need to market yourself. Not everybody in Kenya is in Facebook. Not everybody. Why is it that you can call a still market yourself? And they are a big brand. So how do you come still market yourself? It's a big brand. So marketing is key. Marketing is key. And that is the biggest challenge you are facing, right there. Out of your tough employees, I'd like to know what is the structure like? Who does what? Are all of them mentors? Or do you have somebody for the books? Most of them are mentors. We don't. I'm for the books because they did accounting. I'm a CPA. I'm a CPA right now. I did CPA. I'm CPAK. So I'm the one for the books. We have the CEO. We have the assistant of course. And then we have the mentors. So the mentors are the ones who really help us in everything. We train them to be mentors. Then they become the mentors. And of course, just like I told you, after two years, three years, they are doing their own stuff. Success stories. So we mentor them also to go outside and be leaders. All right. Some of your success stories, if you are willing to highlight them for us? There's this student who finished campus around three years ago. And he was really down. He came from the same background which I came from when I was growing up. A humble one. A very humble, humble background. After finishing campus, he got a first-class. Anybody who finishes campus and gets a first-class expects to get employed, earning six figure and all that kind of stuff. But for him, he didn't get anything. So he was like, hi Sam. I'm not only at a first-class, but it's in a job. What should I do? Can't be okay. You can do something. There's something you're born in this world to do. And as much as you go to your first-class, it's not really after employment that you should go for, you can do something. You can solve a problem. So for him, it was like, I want to start a business. I told him, don't start a business. Solve a problem. And his problem was, I had seen a capital. I told him, man, we have four factors of production. We have land. We have labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Most of the youth's lack and entrepreneurial part of the skills. So I told him, hey, I will be within this journey. He came to Nairobi. He found an organization for, you know, solving this issue of garbage collection. It's a very big challenge in Nairobi right now. That was the problem. And for him, I told him, hey, you can look an opportunity in this. Right now he's being well. That's a success story I have. It's a very big organization right now. All right. So you took him through all these three years. And at that point of disillusionment, what would you tell somebody who's watching us right now who's at that face right now? After finishing campus and they think they have lost everything in life. What I always tell young people is we live in an age of social media. We live in an age of information. And right now, we live in a world of networking. If you don't know how to network, you'll never get anything in life. Instead of going over and looking for employment and all that, you can start something. Just network. Be close to like-minded people. People who are thinking like you. People who are doing the same thing that you are doing. And that's where you end up doing something in a lifetime. So networking is key. Networking is key. Information is key. Wonderful. We have a clip of you doing what you do best right there. So maybe you can share with us what's going on in your day to day. This is a mentorship program. I think it was last year. We were doing some mentorship at Nyeri. This was Kim Nyeri. We were talking to some students there about entrepreneurship and all that. All right. Wonderful. We have other clips as well of you doing your thing and we'll be sharing the clip after this interview so you can get a taste of this gentleman doing what he does best. How can they get you guys on social media? So they'll media Sam Vidambo. Personally, they can get me on Sam Vidambo. Just look them straight into their eyes as you give them the handle. I have a Facebook page, Sam Vidambo. That's where everything happens. They just get me Sam Vidambo. Then they'll get all the information about me. If they lead my contacts, they are there. What about the company ones? We have the one for global mentorship program. They can also link them up. But basically, they can really... If they want anything, they can go through me, Sam Vidambo. Everywhere, Instagram, Facebook and all that. Sam Vidambo. All right. As a mentor, as a leader, and you said everybody is a leader. As we wrap this up, some people say the problem with Kenya is corruption. Some people say the problem with Kenya is lack of faith in God. The religious people will say that. Some people will say it's lack of leadership. Some people will say all sorts of things. What do you think is the problem with Kenya first? The problem with Kenya is Kenyans. Yes. These people call them corrupt. What did they come from? They came from us. They are a reflection of whom we are. If they are corrupt, we are also corrupt. It means we are corrupt as well. Because they came from us. These are the guys we elected from us. We are also corrupt. So problem... They didn't come from another country. Problem in Kenya is Kenyans. The problem with Kenya is Kenyans. That's the reality. The solution... The solution is Kenyans also. We should change. The solution is Kenyans. It is us to change. All right. It's not lack of leaders. It's not lack of anything. It's just us. Kenya has very many good leaders. But they come from us, then they go out of there because they want to be like us. They also become corrupt like we are. Thank you very much for the insight. Where can we catch you at your next event? We are organizing an event. So they can just follow me on Facebook. Sam Vidambo. They can like my Facebook page. Then they'll get everything from there. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Sam Vidambo. We appreciate you all the best in your endeavors. And thank you very much for what you're doing. Thank you so much. For the youth. Thank you so much for having me today. This country. All right. We have come to the end of this. So right up next, we have a clip of Sam Vidambo doing his thing out there. But remember, we have a question on Facebook. That is, have you ever bought anything online? And were you satisfied with what you got? Answer it to our Facebook. So because we have a special place in our hearts for everybody who sends their feedback. Our way will be sampling them towards the end of the show. Don't type that down. Don't go nowhere.