Jen Kem was sitting on her grandmother’s front porch, staring vacantly into the distance.
She had no money. Her once-thriving lingerie business had crashed and burned during the Great Recession of 2008. She had poured all of her personal savings (and maxed out her credit cards) to get her business off the ground. But when the Recession
hit, customers no longer wanted to spend money on luxurious frilly undies and bras. Sales plummeted.
Jen was forced to close her shop and had nothing to show for it—just boxes of garments she couldn’t sell and mountains of debt.
Destitute and embarrassed, she moved in with her relatives—back to the small rural town where she had grown
up.
Jen had two daughters and they all moved into Grandma Generosa’s home. Since she couldn’t afford a place of her own, this was the best option.
For weeks, she sat in a rocking chair, gazed at nothing in particular, drank tea, and didn’t eat. Her face became hollow. The sparkle disappeared from her eyes. The words in her head were cruel and
vicious. “Stupid.” “Failure.” “Horrible mother.”
Once, she’d been a rising star at Verizon with a $400,000 a year salary, corner office, and a parking spot with her name on it. Then, for a brief time, she’d been a successful entrepreneur. If she wasn’t Jen, the Corporate Rockstar, or Jen, the Successful Businesswoman, who was she? How had everything come to this?
It was her oldest daughter who finally said what needed to be said.
“Mom,” she said, insistently, “You are Jen Kem. And you can do anything.”
These words were like a magic spell, awakening Jen from her stupor.
Determined
to be a role model for her daughters, she knew it was time to stand up and get her life back on track.
Jen contacted her former boss at Verizon and asked if they’d be willing to hire her as a brand strategist—not as an employee, like before, but as a consultant. They happily agreed.
Jen didn’t know it yet. But over the next two decades, she
would become one of the most sought-after brand strategists in the industry, helping clients like Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Zappos launch new offers into the marketplace and build obsessive demand for their products.
Over time, Jen built a team to support her and created an eight-figure business empire.
Today, she owns a vineyard in California where she bottles wine named in honor of Grandma Generosa, a Filipina woman from humble beginnings whose spirit of generosity has rippled through the generations.
Every sip reminds Jen of where she once was, how far she has come, and how one act of generosity can change someone’s life.
