Talk about rejuvenation as a youth, a twist to the tale of a bumpy ride in life to a more stable & flourishing one. This is the life that Brian Mwau lived by large.
Speaking to KTN’s Catherine Mwangi, Brian shared how his late teenage life was pure bliss. Brian Mwau is the current Business Development Coordinator at Trific, a subsidiary of Centum Investment.
His story begins at the JKUAT University, Karen Campus. Mwau has always been a good people person and he was appointed as class representative.
He recalls seeing the flashy life early on, as six of his classmates arrived at school driving. He was also privileged since his father, a military man, would drop him to school.
Later on, during the campus elections, Brian went on to become the school’s IT representative unopposed in his 1st year. This came with huge perks such as earning, sitting with the school administration and a lot of exposure with students.
By the second year, second semester, he was an academic secretary. At this time he had turned 18.
Brian attributes most of his early successes to his upbringing by his parents who embraced discipline and gave him room for growth as a young man.
During his tenure as an academic secretary, Brian had a good friend who was doing law and had some professional papers which secured him a job at the Ministry of Lands.
His friend was driving 2 cars to school then, and Brian, as usual, had the eagerness to align himself with him and learn how he could be able to drive his own car.
“One day fortunately a parent of one of the students was selling land. They approached us because we’re student leaders and the perception that we know many people,” he recalled.
“It was a hard task because that land was going for Sh. 100 million in 2016. We got an interested buyer at Sh. 80 million… that is how we made our first Sh. 20 million at 19 years old.”
The next waking day with this amount in his bank account, Mwau moved from Rongai to Runda. He wanted to experience the premium life.
As a young financially uncoached person, the first thing Mwau went for was a V8, drivers and bodyguards. Mwau also made friends with the wrong company to such an extent that he was a premium member at most clubs in Westlands.
He would take his friends clubbing on credit and transfer the amount the following day. All this at 19.
I got Canada visit visa in Nairobi; it’s now revoked and I’ve been banned for 5yrs
“Within less than 9 months, I was able to go to the extreme that you can think of,” he continued.
He was in very huge debt and resold the cars he had bought. Some of his debtors even had the mercy of empathizing with him and wiping off the debt to a clean slate.
For a young man, used to visiting the village in a convoy of cars with police lights, Mwau had to swallow his own bitter pill and board a matatu, at night, to return to Makueni.
In the village, he was able to sit back and question his starting point for all the actions he made. He realized that he went wrong in his early days at the university.
“I went back to the Bible that my dad had gifted me and studied the book of Mathew…by the time I finished the last chapter, I was certain something had changed in my life,” he said.
Fortunately, Mwau’s friend came to the rescue by giving him a house in Runda and Westlands. The latter was an exclusively furnished modern apartment. He was being paid $200 a week to maintain it.
At this point, Mwau was keen to see his spiritual life being reignited. He joined Winners Chapel International on Likoni road. He went to Bible school and graduated past all levels as the best student in his class.