Edwin's Corner

Let me start from the end. It was raining. Not a fierce storm, just the steady Nairobi rain that makes you slow down and reflect. Tuesday evening, February 24th. The kind of night that feels symbolic even before you understand why. The first Arena Live Founders Battlefield event had just concluded. An initiative by Founders Battlefield targeting African entrepreneurs — bold enough to host meaningful conversations and significant enough to attract coverage from TV47. But this night wasn’t about cameras. It was about conviction. On the podium were seven remarkable individuals: Bobby Gadhia , Renee Ngamau, Teresa Njoroge, Peter Ndiang’ui, and George Ikua as panelists, with Michael Macharia moderating the discussion and Roy Gitahi skillfully curating the session. The stage featured vintage steamer trunks as tables, not your typical LED-lit, overly decorated business forum setup. The trunks symbolized journeys across oceans, creating a timeless feeling. It was like we were ready to...

His name was Meshack Kibaka. Throughout his life, his name felt like a prison sentence. He was born into poverty so obvious it nearly had a smell—a mud hut in the middle of a slum, a mother who had already borne two children she could barely feed. A woman carrying survival on her back like firewood—necessary, heavy, and endless. Her face showed lines long before her age required them. Smiles were rare, and laughter even more scarce. When it appeared, it looked almost painful, as if her muscles had forgotten how to hold joy. His father appeared like a rumor. Sometimes at night. Sometimes unannounced. Sometimes not at all. When he did appear, he spoke big words. On one such night, he named his son with conviction: “You will be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You will accomplish the impossible.” His father prophesied—a rare statement. But names don’t automatically determine destiny. Sometimes, names also carry history. Kibaka was a name passed down from a great-grandfather kno...

  Over years of working with men and women who seem strong, successful, composed, and “sorted,” I’ve learned there’s something underneath. Most people are not difficult; they are wounded. When wounds go unexamined, they don’t heal. They reorganize into habits. And when habits are repeated long enough, they become part of their identity. That is the core truth I want you to remember as you read this: If you don’t face your emotional conditioning, your past will quietly shape your personality. And once it becomes your personality, you will defend it as “just who I am.” Let me tell you about Maya. The Story of Maya — Strong, Independent, and Imprisoned Maya was striking. Not just physically; she was beautiful in that effortless way that makes people stare twice, but also energetically. She entered a space like someone who had wrestled life before breakfast and won. She spoke with confidence. Her opinions weren’t just suggestions; they were declarations. There was a certaint...

There's a sentence that has stayed with me for years: “Edwin, you never listen to me.” If you know me, you’ll find that accusation strange. I love conversation. I can sit across a table and discuss ideas, faith, leadership, business, habits, archetypes, and human nature, and lose track of time. I enjoy good banter. I enjoy depth. I enjoy watching someone’s mind light up when they realize something about themselves mid-sentence. So when I heard that line, I paused. Was I not listening? Or was something deeper happening? Sometimes the person speaking was barely audible. Words were half-formed. Thoughts were whispered. It was almost like they were arguing with themselves before they ever engaged me. I would lean forward and say, “Could you say that again?” and somehow that simple request felt like rejection to them. That bothered me because I started to notice this: many people don’t speak from their chest. They speak from their throat. They speak out of fear, out of uncertaint...

      The Boy Who Lived in His Own World I grew up introverted and withdrawn in a world that felt louder outside than inside. Some of my earliest memories aren't anchored in faces but in textures, movement, and atmosphere; tires scattered across a dusty kindergarten playground, dirt pressed into the creases of my palms, and the soft creak of a swing on a small patch of land that felt like the entire universe. I remember other children being around me, but oddly, they seem faceless in my memory, like extras in a movie where I was both the star and the only viewer. What I do remember vividly is my nanny. Every morning, she walked me to school and held my hand; a warm, reassuring hand that anchored me to reality. We walked about a kilometer from our house, past a row of neatly arranged homes, across what I would generously call a shopping center, although it was more of a village market with urban ambitions. Through a tree-lined street, until we reached my nursery s...

There are childhood homes that feel like buildings, and others that feel like worlds. Mine was the latter. I grew up in Nanyuki, in Thingithu Estate, on a quarter-acre piece of land that my mother had won in a lottery in the early 80s, a rare stroke of grace that shaped much of our family’s story. My father, industrious and endlessly inventive, kept building — extra rooms, a smaller house for the boys, a rental unit attached to the main house with its own entrance and compound — until our quarter-acre felt like a megacomplex. We had a chicken coop, a goat and cow shed, a dog pound, and a garden that wrapped around the house like a green apron—constantly feeding the kitchen and keeping life lively. The cemented compound was large enough for football games, neighborhood adventures, and parking three cars comfortably. It was also where my sisters and I lay side by side on mattresses outside when chicken pox struck — healing together under the open sky. The sitting room felt like a h...

  There is something sacred, almost rebellious, about men gathering without performance, masks, or the pressure to impress. Not to posture. Not to compete. Not to prove masculinity. But to be . That was the spirit of our recent men’s meetup, set against the calm, idyllic backdrop of a dam outside Nairobi. Jet skis, boats, open skies, and a break from the city’s noise. A reminder that men, too, need space, both externally and internally. Ironically, I arrived late. Not because I didn’t care, but because I was learning to let go. For a year, I had carried the vision of these gatherings almost alone. I had pushed, planned, persuaded, hustled, and overperformed. By November, I was exhausted, drained, and quietly resentful. I asked for a hiatus — not because the mission wasn’t worth it, but because my nervous system was collapsing under the weight of trying to prove myself . That realization changed everything. The Hidden Emotional Weight of Leadership Leading a cause often feels ...

  I grew up in a strict Seventh-day Adventist household. Saturday was holy, quiet, serious, and structured. In the early 90s, when I was ten years old, I had one consistent spiritual gift: arriving late. Not because I hated church, but because I loved space. Or more precisely, I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation — those weekly adventures of Jean-Luc Picard and his crew, exploring strange civilizations that somehow taught me more about human nature than any lecture could. In the series, you had alien races like ‘the Borg’— obsessed with assimilation, turning identity into a factory line. You had ‘the Ferengi’— where everything was about profit and bargaining, even breathing felt negotiable. And you had ‘Q’— this omnipotent troublemaker who kept putting humanity on trial. Every “alien” was a mirror. And many evenings after the house settled, I would look at the sky and wonder: What is the next frontier of human imagination? Here’s the cosmic truth: light from many stars ta...