Building your career on your own terms with Mukuka Mayuka-Chanda

I love the seasoned conversation we're getting into because then it always shows that you can't make, you're in different phases of your life and you can't make the same decisions anymore.

you made in your twenties, in your thirties, right? Like that's literally, you can't have the same rules of engagement in the different seasons.

And I think one thing we fail to understand is that there are different seasons, like there's a season to sow, there's a season to plant, there's a season to water, there's a season to pluck the fruit like that there are different seasons and I I think what my peers and I are failing to understand is that like I like to tell people that I'm in my 20s and I genuinely want to dedicate that to building a company so that if when I get into my 30s I have flexibility on how I want to spend my time and money right because depending on what season I might be I might be still running this company or I might get married like there's so much possibility or I might decide to relocate to a different country again so much possibility but I'm very sure that the next five years or the rest of my 20s I just want to dedicate it to building a company that will sustain me

yeah and you should honestly i think it's very smart use up your 20s and your 30s um to establish the life that you want so by the time you are at your mid-30s you are crafting the life that you need for the rest of your 30s and 40s and 50s.

I think it's a lesson I learned late.

I mean, or maybe it's a lesson I didn't understand as well as I thought I did.

And I think that's just, it's just smart what you're saying, because again, you have to think about like, okay, what is it that I want to do when I get to 40? Do I want to be uh, running this rat race, um, and then also just, you know, being married.

I mean, it's not everyone who wants to get married, but let me just say that as an example, because that one's a, that one's a tricky one.

And when I say it's a tricky one, not in terms of like your partner, but you, there are responsibilities that come into it.

Um, I had to explain to someone that the roles that I play now as a person who's married and as a person who's a bit older now, I'm a mom, I'm a friend, I'm a sister-in-law, I'm a daughter-in-law.

I have these extra people who I want to turn up for.

That means there's a specific amount of time that I have or don't have for other things.

So, but I've been fortunate enough that my partner and I, we've established a life where I can still turn up for these people and these extra roles that I now have in my life and not feel run down because...

We've established a place and a time where I'm just like, oh, I can work from home, for example.

And I was doing remote work before COVID.

It's just been a consistent thing for me.

Like I've always done remote work, especially around the time my child was born.

I just said, well, I like remote work.

I don't really want to go into the office.

Let me do that and let me build that.

So by the time COVID came around, Even though it was such a weird thing for people, because again, and I'm going to point this to like where you are in your life.

In Zambia, everybody was like, no, but where's your office? I need to come see you in your office.

And I was like, we can meet at a cafe.

We can meet at a co-working space.

And there weren't even that many co-working space.