I had taken a break off blogging mainly due to the hustles and bustles of life. Maybe! But truth be told, maybe because it was no longer a requirement towards fulfilling my class assignments. For those who are still trying to connect the dots, in 2019 I took a one year leadership development program, Fearless Boot Camp, run by Mavuno Church. One of the requirements of that class was to blog at least twice a month.
Welcome to 2020! I have been thinking of an area of life I can influence this year through sharing ideas and providing a platform for conversations. In 2018 I authored a book on embracing positivity titled “The Negativity Fast” whereas in 2019 I focused on my Christian walk as I went through a one year program – The Leadership Bootcamp at the Fearless Institute (Mavuno Church). You can get the book on request and the blogs on my Christian walk can be found on the blog post https://genevamusau.home.blog/
This year I will feature some of the most commonly asked Career Growth questions.
Q: Going after one’s passion or pursuing a career – is it a case of having what you love or learning to love what you have?
A: This is an interesting question. It is very much like the proverbial question: Do you fall in love at first sight or does love grow over time? For me, it could be either really, what matters is that there is evidence of love in the relationship and how it came about is an unnecessary detail.
If you don’t enjoy what you do day in and day out for several years, you are really trading your life for money and you could do yourself a lot of harm in the process. I am not advocating that you must totally love your job and if that is not the case for you to call it quits. However, it is difficult to grow your career in a place where you loathe or a job you hate. You are unlikely to put in your very best or have a good attitude at work. The more likely outcome is that you will just tolerate the job or your employer by going through the motions each day while waiting for the pay cheque – practically checked out and disengaged. I recently learnt that in many organizations, there are many employees who resigned a long time ago and forgot to hand in the resignation letter! The organization may lose out in the short term but in the long term you are the real loser.
It is very unhealthy to spend your life doing jobs you don’t like, surrounded by people you can’t stand and working for organizations you have no respect for. It could easily be compared to someone taking small doses of poison and expecting someone else, in this case the organization, to suffer the consequences. When you finally wake up one day and find yourself on a redundancy list, you should not imagine that the organization is being unfair to you – they peeked into your drawer and caught a glance at your yet to be handed in resignation letter.
In case I have not convinced you (yet) as to why you should find ways to love your job, let me share with you why doing a job you don’t enjoy is not good for you.
Learn to enjoy your current job and if that is not possible, find one that you enjoy. The effects of being on a job you don’t like are not worth the pay you get for that job. Choose life!
If you have a career question, leave your question on the comments section and it could form the next blog post.
In 2020, we Soar!
There are certain words that are almost taboo; words that you just don’t want to hear directed at you or even within your earshot. Growing up there were words that would never be heard except from a drunkard or a very angry person who had thrown all caution to the wind. Some of these words are common place today, especially with the younger generation but they still make me cringe. You know that statement that “a man can leave the village but the village may not have left the man”? I am certain irrespective of where you grew up there are still some words that have a similar effect on you.
Surrender is what I am wrestling with right now. I don’t know about you but I love charting my own path. Independence is something that appeals to me because then I can control the input, process and outcome. Doesn’t that sound great? Unfortunately or should I say fortunately I have been on a journey that has taught me that only God can control the input, the process and the outcome. It’s been a sad discovery to realise that I don’t control that much and I have deluded myself for a great part of my life.
What comes to mind when you hear of a boot camp? Boot camps are mainly used in reference to physical workouts. They are popular because they work every muscle group, you can do them anywhere, and you don’t need any specific equipment. A Boot camp uses team games, paired exercises, and group activities. It is not a solo affair and the team keeps each member energised. You can imagine what came to mind then when I heard about the Leadership Boot Camp. My Campus Pastor at HillCity challenged his entire strategy team to join and that is how I got enrolled.
As Reese Witherspoon says “You always gain by giving love”. As I reflect on this quote it rings so true of the Mavuno Church “Spread the Love” initiative. Every year in August, Congregants, family and friends of the Mavuno fraternity take time out to go and love on the communities nearest to them. For a number of years now, the focus has been on public schools. When the Government passed the policy in 2003 that made public Primary education free, the result was a huge capacity challenge in most schools. If you ask me though, that is a good problem to deal with. Rather than worrying about children not attending schools, the concern shifted to ensuring the facilities in those schools were adequate to deal with the influx of children that took up the new opportunity.
I am in the process of completing a book as part of the Leadership Boot-camp class. Interesting how the topic of the book has shifted several times since the assignment was first issued. At first I wanted to take a shortcut and complete a book that has been on draft for over five years. I will still complete that book I promise and I know it will have “matured” by the time it sees the light of day. The second option was a topic that warms my heart. It’s about some ladies in the Bible that are in my opinion the epitome of womanhood, absolute royalty. The likes of Queen Esther, Ruth and Abigael would have featured. These ladies fascinate me and every time I read their story I simply light up.
I work for a corporate organization and often times when the word emotions comes up it’s not in a positive light. You will hear the statement “so and so is too emotional” which more accurately should be stated “so and so shows his/her emotions openly”. I say this because everybody has emotions which means each one of us is emotional. It’s just that some people have learnt to keep their emotions tucked away hidden from sight. My challenge has always been that God created us with the ability to feel and show emotions so when did we get to the point where we demonized emotions?
I read a social media post recently that got me thinking. Kenya is truly the land of deadlines. There is a deadline for everything. Many Kenyans have no intention to meet these deadlines by the way and their prayer is for an extension of the deadline or a shelving of the initial plans so our lives can continue in the trajectory we were on before this disturbing, interruption of an announcement of a deadline coming our way.
A few months ago I attended a multi-denominational fellowship that takes place every quarter. If you want to appreciate how the Church, the Global Catholic Church that is, looks like you need to attend this session at least once to gauge for yourself. It’s led by a dear friend, Father James Burasa. A Catholic priest by the way, which adds to the curiosity for non-Catholics.
Yeah, there are moments in life when it is important to hear the ultimate voice. At this point the conversations are not necessarily civil. This mantra of first seek to understand before being understood is readily thrown out of the window. I want answers and I want them now. This is not going the way it was meant to. I dd not sign up for this. This is costly Daddy and You need to do something about it and do it quickly while at it!
@My Father's Feet 