Weekend with the CEO

Session with life coach fires me up for change

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The Christmas mood has caught on in the office and the place seems empty as some people have already started going on leave. Shiro is scheduled to come home next week and she has been pestering me to make a decision on where to go for the holidays.

My preferred destination is my village, but over the years I have come to realise that Shiro does not like the idea of going there. She prefers that we go to hotels which I find too expensive and unnecessary, but I know it is a fight I am not going to win so I just go with whatever she says. Last year, we did a family trip with her chama and it was not entirely too bad.

Despite my initial misgivings, I finally managed to meet Amisi, my lifecoach, for breakfast last week. I chose a breakfast meeting because I did not want too much time for him to give me negative feedback. To also lessen the chances of a lecture from him, I submitted the response to his assignment on the evening before our meeting. I was also hoping that my late submission would mean less time for him to review my assignment.

Amisi arrived at our meeting place 10 minutes ahead of time, and I was shocked to receive his text saying, “I am here.” This was not the plan for I wanted to be there before him so I could rehearse my responses to him. Amisi did not appear to be in a good mood and he did not even laugh at my jokes about the “walking nation.”

He told me, “ Josphat, let me get straight to the point. You need to take my time more seriously.”

I was taken aback by his sentiments and I said, “ I do not know what you mean.” Amisi said “You submitted your assignment too late despite our agreement and just looking at it I could tell you had not put too much work into it.”

He continued, “life coaching is not a joke, you must take things seriously.” He did have a point, but I was not going to let him win so I said, “you know I have been very busy at work, so things have been tough.”

This did not seem to satisfy him and he went on to lecture me for 15 minutes about the need to make my “life and career a priority.” Amisi had some valid points but my ego was not going to let him win.

We spent the next hour going over what we call our “workplan”. The truth of the matter is that I have not been giving much attention to the workplan and listening to Amisi I realised that I need to change my ways. After listening to his lecture and after taking copious notes, I told him, “let us plan to meet weekly this December so that we have a good start to the year.”

This seemed to satisfy Amisi who then told me about some examples from his life coaching work. He then asked me,“I hope you brought me a cheque.” I quickly gave him an envelope containing my cheque and made a pledge to ensure that I make my money work for me— no more missing out on sessions going forward. As we left the meeting venue, I was feeling somewhat encouraged and determined to do better in the coming year.

I was approaching the office when I got a call from Lucy, my colleague. She said “ rumour has it that you plan to skip the Christmas party.” I told her, “I was thinking of skipping the party – I find such parties a complete waste of time.”

She told me,“let’s just say missing this year’s party might be career suicide. I hear this new CEO does not take kindly to those who miss such parties. It seems that I will have to change my strategies about life and career.