Banking lawyer trades legal briefs for TikTok reels

Now 59, Wakonyo decided she will not retire as other retirees do. She is working as a coach, mediator, governance auditor, but the "job" that stands out is content creation.

In a world where TikTok and Instagram are often seen as the playground of the young and tech-savvy, Wakonyo is proving that purpose has no age limit as she swaps legal briefs for reels.

Just like her corporate days, she wakes up at 4 am, but partly because she says sleep becomes evasive in old age.

She starts her day with devotion, gym, writing, reading, and sharing life lessons through social media under the name WakisSpace.

“The older you get, sleep evades you. When I was young, I could sleep for 15 hours straight. These days, at 4 am, my eyes are wide open,” she says.

Wakonyo opted to retire two years earlier because she was tired of the daily corporate grind.

"As I approached 58, it was clear to me that I was tired of work. I was tired of those titles in the corporate space. What did that mean for me? I went back to school,” she says.

Today she is a certified coach, a mediator and a governance auditor. She works from her little office in her Nairobi apartment.

“I choose to spell it as retyres because all I have done is change the wheels of my destiny. I've just shifted how I serve. Some retirees go back [to rural] homes and do farming but I am a terrible farmer. I will even kill a plant here in my house," she tells the BDLife.

Daily routine

Part of her day as a retiree now involves sticking to activities that ground her.

“Spending time with God is not optional. It grounds me. Then I get up, drink a cup of water with a bit of salt and get ready for my exercises. I go to a gym daily away from my house despite having a small home gym. It helps because when you’re no longer going to an 8-5pm job, you can end up being indoors for three days,” the mother of two says.

After the gym, she returns home for her breakfast.

“Every single day, I have something to do. I am always writing. I published two books after I retired because I realised that I love writing. I also read a lot. I feel like my day ends even before it starts. I am always busy. My daughter tells me that I am busier than I was before,” she jokes.

Wakonyo believes parents should be careful about what they speak over their children’s lives. Growing up, her mum always said that she would become either a lawyer or a pastor because she always had something to say. She ended up in law school, practiced at a firm for 10 years, then transitioned to the banking sector for 24 years before retiring to a new life.

What has retirement done for her?

“Retirement has given me a freedom. Yes, I don’t earn a huge salary anymore. But do I need it?” She poses. In retirement, she has had the chance to re-evaluate her lifestyle.

She says there was a time when, because of the titles and positions she held, she couldn't do certain things. Looking back now, she realises how limiting that was. If she were to go back in time, that is one of the aspects of her work life she would change.

“Now I can go for a walk by the side of the road and not worry. I remember the other day I stood by the roadside to wait for the bus. Many people who knew me drove past me. A friend later called me and said that she drove past a bus stop and saw someone who looked like me. I told her that it was me. Then she asked, ‘Should we be worried? Is there something wrong?’ — assuming that I had run into some hard financial situation. I thought to myself, you see how culture and society have given us so much pressure to be a certain way?” says Wakonyo.

Retirement has allowed her to relax, given her a certain liberty which wants to preach to the people in the corporate space “because you could be in a cage and you don’t know it.”

“I have realised that I have to be intentional about showing up for life. I do not wait for the world to tell me, what I can and cannot do. I am doing the things I couldn’t do before,” says Wakonyo who has also published two books, Pieces of Whole: Hope Has a Colour and Hope Has a Story and A Fallen Ring.

She now uses platforms like Instagram and TikTok to share inspiration and address topics like grief, reinvention, and identity.

Picking up new hobbies

So how did she start content creation?

“I have always been on Facebook, but I would only scroll through. I used to constantly host my daughter’s friends in my house when they were studying for their law school exams.

One day, my daughter told me ‘Every time my friends come around, you always have encouraging things to tell them. Why don’t you put them down on social media?’ I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying because I could not imagine myself speaking on a phone. Still, she set up an Instagram account for me,” she says.

The account remained dormant for a whole year then when she went on retirement she decided to take it seriously. She started posting inspirational videos and her followers increased.

“Everything I post has to be able to motivate somebody. Three months ago, I started the ' How I grieve' series I talk about my journey since my son passed away. Most times I post something then cry afterwards because I am still grieving. But the motivating messages from other women who’ve also lost their sons and have felt stuck always encourage me,” she says.

But she has also experienced the worst of social media.

“Someone once told me, ‘I like your content but you need to invest in better equipment and a better camera to hide the wrinkles on your neck,’” she says.

She has not let the hurtful comments put her down nor caved in to pressure to spend an arm and a leg on equipment. She uses her phone, iPad, Macbook and square lights for her content creation. She posts on her social media almost daily.

Lifestyle changes

Has her lifestyle changed much after retirement?

When she was in the corporate scene, her phone was constantly ringing with calls from the Central Bank, the National Treasury and from the who is who in the banking and finance industry.

“Three months after I retired, I checked my phone just to be sure that it was still on because no one was calling? That was a different season of my life,” she says highlighting the drastic changes.

Similarly, Wakonyo had to adjust fast to the loss of her titles and the perks they accorded her. Whereas while she still occupied C-suites people held her with a certain level of esteem, now she is barely recognised.

“Recently, I went to a hotel and said I was there to see somebody and they asked me, ‘You are Wakonyo from where?’ Before I’d have had titles rolling down and I would have gotten the respect. I just replied that I was there on my own accord. Adjusting to not having the titles has been a positive change for me. Now people have to know me for WakisSpace, not all those titles that I had collected for 34 years,” she says.

Back then, when she was in the corporate space, Ms Gighuhi would splurge on perfumes and handbags.

“I felt like those bags were calling me every time I passed by a shop. I would have 15 perfumes a particular day or season. It didn’t matter how many times I swiped that credit card. But today, I tell myself I better be careful how I swipe that card. In that way, I think my life has changed for the better and for this particular season,” she says.

She adds, “Even though there was the luxury spending, one of the things I always used to tell myself is I don’t want to be a liability to my children in my old age. My parents didn’t do that to me. They are still alive and they are not liabilities to any of us. I was always cognisant and conscious of the fact that there was going to come a time when I would not have a huge salary. I had to make sure that I saved and had investments working for me.”

Moving to a smaller space

When she retired, Wakonyo decided to move to a smaller house too.

“When you are on your own, you don’t want a big house. There are some rooms you’ll be closing the door to forever and ever. I want rooms that I am going to use. When I was looking for this house, I had terms of reference. I wanted a bedroom, a little gym, an office, a sitting room and a kitchen, nothing else,” she says.

Loneliness

Does it ever get lonely in retirement? She says she has learned to redefine loneliness.

“Before I would feel lonely. Then I ask myself ‘Is it because I used to interact with people all the time?’ I have learned to look at loneliness differently. Now I can be alone but not necessarily lonely. I am celebrating being okay in my alone space.”

Her advice to the people working, whether young or old is:

“As long as you’re earning a salary, make sure you’re saving something. You don’t want to burden anyone when you are no longer working. Whichever stage you are in your life, begin to be honest about how much you need every month to sustain you. Have an honest conversation with people who understand money. When you retire, either there will be a pension hitting your account or there’ll be an investment working for you. Will it be able to sustain you so that you’re still able to live a comfortable life?” 

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