We recently connected with Jas Kirk and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jas, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

Jokingly I would always say heck yes, take me back to the past and I would’ve already been started. Knowing what I know now, honestly it doesn’t matter. I will tell anyone the sooner you can start, get started and don’t feel the need to be perfect or have it all together, take the step in front of you. Being in business now makes me realize that I most certainly wish I had started sooner, but I also don’t regret when and how I got started. I spent a lot of time in the wellness industry treating it as a leisure hobby which was actually setting the foundation for what I call my business today. I can’t go back in time, but I can appreciate all the lessons I have learned along the way. Most importantly developing the resilience to stay in business keeps me grounded to know my timing has and is perfect.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am Jas, the founder of 2 brands: “Hunni Duoe” a growing lifestyle brand and “JKC” where I do health & wellbeing consulting hat has no bounds. I am a creative visionary, innovator, and professional seeing things through a different scope and lens which creates untraditional & unconventional connections. With a phenomenal career in real estate, development, and a background in entrepreneurship, building a core strength in the power of passion, relatability, and authenticity. My goal is to make real lift and impact in a way that has not been done professionally, economically, and socially and I get to do that with Hunni Duoe & JKC.

I created Hunni Duoe — a mental wellness club — to gift the world a piece of myself and my experiences. The HD name is an affirmation meaning: “You are strong. You are gifted. You are talented.” Cultural, social, behavioral, and economic issues continue to impact individual’s mental health and well-being making it a global crisis. HD is beginning to solve this problem by giving people a space to feel comfortable to talk about mental health and well-being. As a business owner my goal is about breaking barriers across health, beauty, and lifestyle verticals and chartering new paths in unknown territories for all to gain access.

I then tie in JKC where our company’s main focus is to make mental wellness a topic people are comfortable to discuss in their everyday lives, specifically with organizations and corporations employees. We don’t just want people to know, but feel empowered to be strong, gifted, and talented. Changing the narrative of mental health and wellness only being a behavioral science topic, physical activity, or something people talk about in private are the barriers we are breaking. With JKC I work with companies to address health, wellness, self-care, and the beauty industry exactly where they are. As markets are changing to adapt to current needs, we see they still are not addressing the question of how to find the balance of it all while helping lower the numbers surrounding anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts.

When it comes to lifestyle, wellness, and inspiration we consider that in every element of the business from nutrition, wellbeing, relaxing, and celebrating to how we feed our happiness and fuel our love for self.

I continue to be most proud of the awareness and growth in our community since we have started along with the amazing client list we continue to build. It is clear to me that people resonate with our message and we continue to connect with brands and organizations asking the tough questions and getting their buy in.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Every day in business it’s about unlearning what’s unnecessary to be adaptable and grow. I think at this time that is the most important message of learning to pivot and not be so tied to the outcome that I would rather stay stuck than to consider maybe there is another way. When I started my business it was the start of a journey with a blank canvas. I knew I had a problem I wanted to solve for people, I have a vision, but I still consider being adaptable and having an ability to evolve both on a personal and business level.

Learning to be adaptable isn’t easy and came with its fair share of challenges, which is why I knew I had to unlearn not being adaptable and avoiding what I thought failure meant. It took for my business not to grow for me to learn this lesson the hard way. Rejection, no’s, not yets, and maybes helped guide me in the right direction and realize I could fear failure and still do it anyway.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Resilience is the name of the game. Staying persistent, disciplined, joyful and remembering to have fun are all things I stay consistent in mindset with. I am a female, minority owned business where statistically the success rate is very low so being resilient means I have to want this on another level. In 2021 the financial year I thought I would have I didn’t. I received rejection after rejection and continued to hear no daily. There were days that I felt defeated and discouraged, but the little spark I had within my stayed lit. On days when I didn’t think I could continue forward there were always signs from the universe that I was on the right track. My foundation and core beliefs kept me going when challenges and obstacles arose.

Contact Info:

• Website: bio.site/hunniduoe
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasskirk
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jas-kirk/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hunniduoeit
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hunniduoe