I have been binge-watching The Ms. Pat Show lately.
If you haven’t seen it, it is a masterclass in dark, unapologetic humor. You sit there watching this woman take the absolute heaviest, most traumatic parts of her life and spin them into comedy that hits you so hard your stomach physically aches from laughing.
I was watching an episode the other night, sitting on my bed, and an epiphany hit me completely out of nowhere.
Ms. Pat uses a microphone and a stage to process her shit. She takes the chaos of her life, throws it into the grinder of her own mind, and serves it up as a punchline because if she doesn’t laugh about it, it will eat her alive.
I do the exact same thing. I just don’t use a stage. I use this keyboard.
I use this journal, this blog, these words. Whenever my life hands me a situation that makes my blood pressure or anxiety spike, whenever the chaos tries to creep back under my door, I sit down in the quiet of my house, open a blank document, and write my way out of it.
And man, life never fails to hand me material.
Lately, I was looking into a potential business collaboration.
On paper, the word “collaboration” sounds beautiful. It sounds like two brilliant minds coming together, sharing the load, splitting the risk, and building an empire. But in reality, in the messy, unglamorous trenches of entrepreneurship, “collaboration” is usually just a polite word for someone wanting a free ride on your back.
We will just call him the Collaborator.
Right out of the gate, the red flags started waving. Not the big, dramatic, cinematic red flags. I’m talking about the subtle, quiet ones that your intuition picks up on before your logical brain even registers what is happening.
First there was the proposal discussion. He suggested we meet up to talk about the details. Standard business practice, right? Except he didn’t suggest a quiet café, or a co-working space, or a restaurant.
He suggested we meet at my house. I work from home as I ran an online gift shop, but still!
I actually had to stare at that message for a full minute.
If you have been reading my recent thoughts, you know exactly how I feel about my home. My home is a fortress. It is a highly curated, deeply protected sanctuary where the noise of the world is not allowed to enter. I do not like strangers in my space. I don’t even like acquaintances in my space.
Suggesting a business meeting at my house told me two things instantly.
One, he has zero respect for professional boundaries.
Two, he isn’t serious.
When a man is serious about business, he acts like it. He books a table. He buys the coffee. He creates a professional environment because he respects the gravity of the work. Wanting to come lounge on my chair to talk about profit margins felt lazy. It felt like he was just scouting, throwing ideas at the wall, seeing how much of my time and space he could consume for free.
Then, there was the research. Any new venture requires a solid foundation of market research, math, and strategy. But almost immediately, I noticed a very distinct shift in the dynamic. He started pushing the heavy lifting onto me.
“You should look into this part and research ideas,” he would say. “You figure out the logistics for that.”
He was out there doing whatever, living his life, while subtly trying to position me as his unpaid administrative assistant.
But because I am a businesswoman, I decided to take my emotions out of it for a second and just look at the raw data. I sat down at my desk and I ran the math.
Numbers don’t lie.
Let’s use the custom mugs as an example.
If we partnered up, based on the numbers on the table – 50/50, he would be getting KES 342.11 as his share per mug. I also have to buy the blank mug from a third party, which costs KES 150.
So right there, before any magic happens, we are at KES 492.11.
Now, let’s look at my side of the “partnership.” Apart from the time I save not doing whatever minor task he claims to be doing, the actual physical production falls entirely on me. I am the one printing the design. I am the one buying the sublimation paper. I am the one buying the ink.
And most importantly, I am the one paying for the electricity.
If you live in Kenya, you know that electricity is not just a utility; it is a luxury, and the billing system is designed to punish heavy users. We operate on the Incline Block Tariff system. It’s a graduated tariff, which means the more units of power you consume, the higher the rate you pay per unit. If the heat press, Silhouette Cameo 5 equipment and my printers bump my average usage into a higher tier, the exact same amount of money I spent last month will suddenly buy me significantly fewer tokens.
My operational costs would spike.
So, I am paying 492.11 for the blank and his cut, plus my paper, my ink, my physical labor, and my heavily taxed electricity.
Now, let’s look at the alternative: outsourcing.
The supplier model is brilliantly simple. If I outsource the entire custom mug process to a dedicated printer, I pay a flat rate. On the highest end, maybe I spend KES 500 total.
For an eight-shilling difference, outsourcing gives me a finished product with absolutely zero operational complexity. No machine maintenance. No ink refills. No sweating over the heat press. No spiking my KPLC token tier. No business risk. And most importantly, no managing the fragile ego of a “partner.”
The ROI of collaborating with him was not just bad; it was practically non-existent.
And then there was the market reality for other alternative products he was suggesting like cake toppers. Who were we even selling to? Most of the target audience buys these items straight from baking supply stores. We had no clear differentiator. We had no unique angle. Which means marketing would be a nightmare. And guess who would likely end up doing all the marketing while he waited for his 75% cut for newly introduced products?
Me. You guessed right.
I looked at the notepad where I had scribbled all these numbers, and I felt this sudden, hot flash of irritation.
I don’t enjoy people’s company for that long. I just don’t. I am a lone wolf by nature and by necessity. I like the quiet. I like making executive decisions without having to consult a committee. I get irritated when I have to slow my pace to match someone who is dragging their feet.
I realized he wasn’t doing shit. He wanted the title of a partner with the workload of an observer.
The moment I realized this, I dropped the idea. I cut the cord. I walked away.
But what fascinated me was my physical reaction to it. I was so deeply, intensely triggered by the whole exchange. My chest felt tight. I was genuinely angry, and for a few hours, I couldn’t figure out why. I had caught the bad deal before it started, so why was my nervous system treating it like a massive betrayal?
I sat with that feeling. I interrogated it, the way I have learned to interrogate all my uncomfortable emotions lately.
And then, the ghost appeared.
I realized my anger had absolutely nothing to do with this new guy. This new guy was just a mirror reflecting a deeply painful chapter from my past.
A few years ago, I did this exact same thing with someone else. A different project, a different time, but the exact same dynamic. I busted my absolute ass. I poured my time, my creative energy, my sleepless nights, and my obsessive research into building an idea from the ground up. I built the entire foundation, he only provided funds.
And the exact second the idea crossed the threshold from “struggling concept” into “profitable reality,” I was pushed out.
They took the fruit from the tree I planted, and they locked the gate.
My body remembered that betrayal. The body always keeps the score. When this new Collaborator started trying to push the heavy lifting onto me, my nervous system recognized the scent of a user. It sounded the alarm.
They say “once bitten, twice shy.” I wish that were true for me. Honestly, I had to be bitten several times before I finally learned how to build a fence. But I am not stupid anymore. The lessons I paid for with my blood, sweat, and tears are permanently engraved in my mind.
And when I finally opened my eyes and looked at this new guy clearly, without the desperation of wanting a partnership to work, the red flags became blinding.
Let’s talk about the boundary issues.
How can someone who texts you at 11:00 PM, well outside of normal working hours, be a good business partner? A text at 11:00 PM is an invasion. It assumes that because you are a small business owner, you are perpetually “on the clock.” It assumes you do not have a private life, a child sleeping in the next room, or a fundamental right to rest.
If he does not respect my time before we sign a contract, he will completely consume my time after we do.
And if we leave the boundary issues completely aside, I had to remember how he treated me before this grand proposal.
Before he wanted to be my partner, he was my customer. And he wasn’t even a good one.
Dealing with him was exhausting. He was the kind of customer who didn’t know what he wanted but expected you to magically read his mind. After the transaction was complete, he came back asking for an exchange, something I explicitly do not prefer in my business model, and a policy I had clearly communicated to him by giving him all the necessary info upfront.
I jumped through hoops to accommodate him. I gave him the premium Garo Gift Shop experience.
And at the end of it all, I asked for a simple Google review. Just a few stars and a sentence to help boost customer trust and sales. It costs zero shillings and takes exactly forty-five seconds.
He couldn’t even manage to do that.
Man, all the hustle, all the accommodation, all the grace I extended to this guy, and he couldn’t leave a simple review. But now he expects me to split profits with him?
The audacity is actually breathtaking when you step back and look at it.
As my awareness sharpened, the heavy, suffocating feeling in my chest completely vanished. I realized that saying no to him wasn’t a missed opportunity. It was dodging a bullet.
My supplier relationship gives me exactly what I need. It gives me a clean transaction. I pay money, I receive a product, and the interaction ends. There is no emotional labor. There is no babysitting a grown man’s lack of initiative. There is no carrying the weight of a “partnership” entirely on my own shoulders.
But as is the tradition when I start reminiscing, one ghost usually invites the others.
I fell into a weird, reflective headspace. I started thinking about all the other times I ignored the red flags just because I wanted something to work out.
I thought about the person who still, to this exact date, owes me money. The one who convinced me to “let’s just execute the idea first, and I’ll pay you later.” I did the work, I delivered the value, and I am still holding an empty bag.
I thought about another guy who took almost a full nine months to settle his dues. Nine months of me sending reminders. Nine months of me swallowing my pride and practically begging for the money I had rightfully earned.
I remembered the exact feeling of typing out those text messages. That hot, humiliating flush of desperation. The sheer defeat of having to ask another adult to honor their word.
I promised myself during my villain era that I would never, ever put myself in that position again.
And here was the universe, testing me.
The universe brought me a guy who didn’t respect my time, who wanted me to do the heavy lifting, who couldn’t respect my store policies, and who wanted to invade my personal sanctuary under the guise of “business.”
The old me, the girl operating out of fear and scarcity, might have overlooked it. She might have thought, Well, maybe if I just carry the weight for a little while, he will eventually step up. Maybe I am just being too harsh.
But the new me? The lone wolf? The woman who built an empire of softness?
She looked at the red flags and she bolted the door.
Could it have been my fear of betrayal getting the best of me? Maybe. Maybe a small part of me is hyper-vigilant now. But honestly, I would rather let my fear protect me than let my optimism bankrupt me. This round, I decided to go with my gut feeling.
Better safe than sorry.
Better alone and profitable than partnered and drained.
It is incredibly peaceful over here in this mindset. When you stop giving people the benefit of the doubt that they haven’t earned, your life becomes astonishingly quiet.
I no longer have to decipher mixed signals. If someone is not making my life easier, more profitable, or more joyful, they do not get access to my energy. I don’t care if it makes me look cold. I don’t care if they think I am difficult to work with.
The people who are aligned with my vision will meet me in professional spaces, they will honor my boundaries, and they will bring actual, tangible value to the table. Everyone else is just noise.
Which brings me all the way back to Ms. Pat.
I am sitting here, looking at the blinking cursor on this screen, realizing that I just took a frustrating, triggering business encounter and turned it into clarity.
I didn’t send a long, emotional paragraph explaining why he was a terrible prospect. I just quietly stepped away, opened my laptop, and processed the shit right here.
It is funny how I get my blog inspiration from the mundane, frustrating realities of my daily life. Somehow, because I am paying attention, I never lack something to write about.
Life is constantly handing us scripts. It is constantly bringing us characters who test our boundaries, situations that test our math, and ghosts that test our healing.
You can either let those characters write your story, or you can take the pen back.
I prefer holding the pen.
And tomorrow, I am going to wake up in my quiet house. I am going to make my tea. I am going to send my designs to my reliable, invisible supplier. I am going to run my business entirely on my own terms.
And if anyone texts me at 11:00 PM looking for a favor?
I am just going to laugh, put my phone on “Do Not Disturb,” and go to sleep.
