Being the first child in my family of 8 to dare leave the country into the Diaspora to not only further my education; (which I hold dearly to date) but in pursuit of a better life exposure with greener pastures, I knew that no matter what it took I had to do whatever it was that I had to do to be successful abroad! I mentioned previously that I grew up in some poor village settings but loaded with serenity galore in the slopes of rural Kenya called Gatanga famous for lash green tall indigenous trees green all year with abundance of fresh air. There is a famous joke that is often told in Kenya that Gatanga people are very light skinned, bold and beautiful which I think is somewhat true because of one of our renown politician Peter Kenneth-whom many of us have nicknamed as “PK” (but not the chewing gum); who once a famous Gatanga Member of Parliament hails from here and will be remembered by many for giving farmers free seedlings to plant trees a few years back when I was still abroad. Needless to emphasize our village is so green and we are also privileged to be also very near Ndakaini Dam which supplies a lot of the water we Nairobians drink in the densely populated capital city of Nairobi, Kenya. I have also mentioned previously that sadly my parents did not have the privilege of going to school let alone furthering their education. Infact my dad being the most responsible older son of 4 had to drop off class 1 to start hustling and feed for his younger siblings so he started burning charcoal which supplemented their small scale farming income and later took a reap of faith to venture into his transportation business which he has diligently done to date and which is the business that enabled him educate all of us without any extravagant bank loans. Mind you unlike other parts of Kenya, Gatanga people generally own very little pieces of land for farming but on the contrary the red soil in that region is extremely fertile. Soils emanating from the volcanic activity are generally fertile and important for agriculture. The slopes in the rich volcanic soils on the higher altitudes are particularly suitable for tea growing. as it falls in the North of the Equator producing one of the Highest grades of Coffee that is consumed globally. So basically we produce the best coffee, tea, bananas, daily farming (daily cows) and fresh vegetables which do extremely well. The flip side of that fertile land is that the tiny size of the land is that Gatanga farmers could never maximum farming benefits of economics of scale as most of their local produce would either be sold to brokers and the cash crops such as tea and coffee sold to the Cooperative movements –and even our dairies were mostly zero-grazed due to lack of enough land to graze around?
So obviously when I left Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) I knew right of the bet that I had no choice but to study seriously and work exceptionally harder than everyone else abroad in order to “liberate” my loving parents from the yolks of poverty back home as well be able to support them to at least educate the rest of my siblings whom by the time I left Kenya some were quite young. I will never forget how my lovely extended family escorted me out of JKIA Airport. The picture of my late mother Nduta (who has since passed on) and our last born brother Jay all kissing me goodbye with a sweet sour tears of love in his eyes who at the time was a very young kid in lower primary school never left my mind in all my years abroad. Every time I would be recall that epic JKIA escort scene reminded that I have such a huge God given responsibility to make sure that I was the “hope” for my self-less parents who had sacrificed so much for our large family of 8. Their farewell tears were both sweet because they were happy that finally someone in our humble family was finally going abroad to the so called “land of honey” which was a renewed hope of God indeed opening new doors of opportunity to liberate our family from a poverty-stricken background to abundance but the tears were in the same token sour because like I mentioned nobody else in our family tree (let alone our entire village) had ever left the country previously so there a bit of anxiety in them that they might never see me again –am sure they wondered once I landed in America if I would ever remember them or even ever want to come back home ever again. America in 2001 was super hyped as the land of grand opportunities!
This story can only get better because when we left JKIA, just when we were about to taxi off the runaway (from what I often hilariously call my “coming to America” debut) …the jumbo KLM flight developed some mechanical problem and we had to stay an extra night in Nairobi City…the airline management was gracious enough to book us hotel rooms at the Hilton Hotel, Nairobi. Remember those days having a mobile phone was such a huge luxury that only the rich could afford and we did not have cellular phones like our little teenagers nowadays have …so this flight delay my parents to date don’t about and anyway even if I had a way of calling home at the time I am sure my late mother would have either revoked visa for my travelling abroad –scared to death about my safety in the first place if not even questioning how a flying object would exactly get us to our American destination safely (remember I stated none of my family members had flown before….and even for me the farthest I had flown out prior was to Maasai Mara…so even for me at this I also wondered how safe this KLM plane would get us to the promised land of America where so called “milk and honey” was plenty so to say). Needless to say that we eventually flew and when we landed in Amsterdam where our connection flight to America was to happen. Like JKIA flight mechanical issue was not good enough for a first time overseas traveler, just a few hours after taking off Schiphol International Airport the pilot made a very sudden disturbing announcement that the plane had to reroute back to Amsterdam for an “emergency landing” which he actually intelligently choose not to explain much. To say that at this point the “analytical-freak” in me now had started questioning if this “Coming to America” adventure was exactly the best decision that I ever made? And for those of you readers who are believers like me, such moments are when the devil thrives because he has a special way of bringing suspicion and wishful thinking…where you even start having self-doubtful self-talk such “didn’t I tell you not to travel?”! You should have listened to your mama?” “Why did you bother taking so much risk flying out of Kenya?” “Show me one person in your whole village who dared to fly out before you?” “Gatanga was just fine after all your parents and even your great grand parents have lived there all their life-and they are just fine?” “What makes you think you are different?” “Why do you think you are smarter and better than them-why did you risk all this trouble of leaving Kenya and for what?” As the devil took control of my brain I did not realize how fast time flew, for a few minutes I even lost count of time but I can tell you by God’s mercies we safely landed back in Schiphol International Airport ! What I saw first when we embarked the plane will blow your mind! All the TV monitors in the Airport instead of showing updated flight times, were all showing breaking news of how the Twin towers in New York City had just been blown up by terrorist and for almost a split second it felt like the entire world had almost literally come to a stand still in shock! Put yourself in my shoes for a quick second and imagine it’s September 11th 2001 and you are flying to a foreign land for the very first time, have no cell phone to call home and even worst even if you were to call home you would never be able to reach your humble parents who have no direct phones ….they had no emails, what’s app messages that you could easily email them or send to distance relatives, siblings or near-by rich neighbors who could let your sweet loving mother that you were indeed stranded in a foreign transit airport all alone and the world largest America twin tower where your plane was destined to first land few hours ago has just been bombed! Talk about crisis, confusion, shocking fear and dilemma madness! My heart goes out to all the thousands of innocent lives of thousands people who died in this cowardly act of massacre and their family members left behind whose life’s will never be the same again! Such cruel acts of terrorism should be fearlessly condoned globally! For those of you who never really understand why I passionately talk about fearless leadership and influencing others to make a difference…now you know why!! And indeed when I talk about the fact I am a 100% sure that God has a special purpose for my darling life and indeed he has showed it to me too many times. He literally saved me from this September 11 terror attacks and this is one of the many incidences besides Wallstreet Global credit crisis where God has saved me and I can tell you for a fact without a single shadow of doubt that when God created me he gave me a special assignment to impact lifes and he has been so deliberate about it that such real life events are a constant reminder that he is indeed not done with my life’s purpose on earth and that I had better fulfill God’s will over my life(not my own) before my expiration dates on this beautiful planet earth. God did not have time make a nobody! Not in me and not in any one of us….and that’s why we must make sure that the limited time he has granted us on earth that we maximize on it and impact lifes like today is your last day of our assignment on earth! My own personal September 11th bombing in New York survival story is too long to narrate here so look out for my next book of how us innocent travelers were stranded in a strange foreign Schiphol airport for close to a week? Don’t ask me how we all quickly turned the airport to a “camping-site” (sleeping bags, food donations, water) due to all international flights cancellations globally… but the beautiful ending is that after the “dust settled” all airports finally opened and we travelled again and I finally made it to my final destination, Boston Massachusetts and was ready to live my “Coming to America” dream again.
Fast forward as soon as I landed in America, the first “culture shock” for me was the fact that I quickly realized that my sweet self-less loving parents were not ever gonna afford to be sending me school fees and maintenance fees every month like I had ambitiously imagined in my “wild ambitious dreams” when I was leaving Kenya. Mind you before I left Kenya I had already applied and had successfully been accepted by one of the most prestigious private university in Boston for their 2001 September intake. So as soon as i landed in Logan airport, I needed to start my grad school immediately. Talk about destiny shapers! God made a miraculous way for me to be hosted by fellow Kenyans (whom I still call family till date) for a few months before I could settle in and figure my way around using the small KES savings I had accrued in my precious short working life at Seaforth Shipping Mombasa right after my first degree – Kenyatta University graduation. And to cut the long story short, God made a special way for me to be able to get a part time job and at the same time I was able to convince the University to allow me to switch my full time studies to part time evening classes (a culture which was very popular in America unlike Kenya which was a rare arrangement back in 2001). Talk about being highly favored by the almighty? I saw God’s favor happening right in front of my eyes. When I left Kenya, just like many of us those days assumed (and I think even up to date) that America is indeed the land where “milk and honey flows freely” and everything is literally provided free of charge – many still believe that USA is like the story of manna from heaven in the old testament bible. This is not the case, so allow me demystify this here because I am a true testimony to what working hard in America is all about! The profound truth is that the most powerful place on earth is not American’s Whitehouse or Kenya’s Statehouse but it is in your mind folks! The mindset that I left JKIA with had to quickly change 360 degrees if I was to survive let alone thrive in America. Lucky for me at least I was very open minded and I was hard working; some of the precious gifts that God has graced me with and I must say it’s a great survival skill to have as a leader-being open to new ideas or said differently like I mentioned in my previous articles, change is indeed inevitable, you either adopt to change or risk being extinct! When The Dean of Students at Northeastern graciously accepted my switch my classes to evening school, I quickly started looking for work and as you all know by now Kenyans are everywhere you go in the world, after talking to a few Kenyans living in Boston at the time I got wind that a reputable Japanese School was hiring English teachers and I was over the moon over the thought that I could get finally a golden opportunity in a foreign land to work and earn in (wait for it) American dollars, uuumhhh? Can you see the huge smile on my face the day I showed up at the Japanese school; Boston Higashi School innocently applying for a teaching job (by the way for the records Kenyans are globally known as one of the few Africans who have a fantastic “command of the English language” and a big shout out to my Gatunguru Primary school teachers who put in the extra work of teaching me the Queen’s language …as you already know my parents were my favorite first teachers but unfortunately did not secure much education to teach me in English….so I am forever grateful and everywhere I go I always salute my school teachers for heavily investing in me…may the sweet Lord always bless the work of your hands). Of course many of the native Americans would always ask us wherever we went “where are you guys from?” because I believe they admired our unique Kenyan accent and I know it sounds hilarious for some of you who have set foot to America but it’s different when you actually live in America trust you me, it’s not funny being stopped everywhere you speak and being asked where you come from even before you can introduce yourself but hey- “Black Lives Matter” or won’t you agree with me that we really matter?
I joined Northeastern University and the fact that I was actually personally paying for my own school fees in a foreign currency from my blood and sweat (contrary to my prior high expectations when I left Kenya) I think quickly matured my responsibilities fast and furious! I have never studies so hard in my school life! I am strong believer of what Nelson Mandera often said that “In Education lies the ability to change the whole world” especially because my parents believed that if they sacrificed everything they owed just to educate all of us especially myself- that their life would be liberated for better once I secured the big well-paying jobs of my dreams. Of course when left Kenya I had already graduated with a second- upper class honors at Kenyatta University and had literally made my mama proud, but the minute I started paying my own school fees I “felt the pinch of paying my own fees” which was a life changing moment….and I took my studies triple seriously! Sure enough my hard work paid off because in the first year of my school abroad I successfully made it in the prestigious “Dean’s List”. Working in Boston Higashi school was an equally exciting yet humbling life changing opportunity for me because I had never ever taught before yet these beautiful teenage girls many who hailed from very diverse backgrounds -mainly Japanese, few American Jewish kids from the super wealthy New York city families. Did I also mention that I was forced by circumstances to open a brand new-my first American Bank account because my new employer paid us every forth night which was another “culture shock” for me coming straight from the “so called jungle” because my former employer Seaforth Shipping Kenya paid us obviously only once at the end of every month without fail! Am sure you are beginning to sense my excitement then, this is the part where you loudly say “Welcome to America Maggie the land of honey and milk.” …because like seriously who would have thought that people in certain parts of the world enjoy 2 fat pay cheques twice a month…like who does that? But hey after sometime I obviously got used to it and hey hey it’s not like I was complaining but it was super exciting to say the least in my first year…and life was going great! I was so focused, getting stellar academic grades in school which was my primary reason of coming to America and receiving solid American dollar cheques direct into my newly opened American bank account every fortnight!
They say when you are thriving always be aware that the devil ain’t sleeping… infact the bible so rightly says in the book of XXXXXX “the devil is like a hungry roaring lion, and he comes to steal, kill and destroy! And that’s why I personally believe that when you are thriving always never forget to pray much harder… because when you are excelling in abundance it’s when you attract the devil who comes “fully dressed” to attack you the most! It actually also reminds me of my brilliant Primary class teacher who used to remind us daily that “the higher you go the cooler it becomes.” And in Leadership circles it’s always “very lonely at the top”….and like my fellow award winning motivational speaker Denzel Washington is fond of reminding us to put God first and that more importantly he says “when you to go sleep…remember to deliberately hide your slippers under your bed so that in the morning the first thing you do when you wake up is to kneel down and thank your maker and spend quit time with him thanking him and asking him for guidance to not only lead you but that him alone orders your steps”! And just like that there came my “Lucy Hurt” moment! Since I was one of the newest hires in Boston Higashi School and I was so busy minding my business, I had taken not note of all the supervisors’ names as my key focus was in effectively teaching the awesome teenage girls some who looked up to us teachers as their role models, as their confidants, in some cases some of them who needed behavioral modification programs set and others who came from broken families and were hurting inside considered us as their newly-found family members that they never had before joining the school. I had only met Mr Chris White, the supervisor who had taken us through the staff induction process. Then one day Chris White introduced me to my new supervisor, Mrs Lucy Hurt who then had been promoted recently and had therefore been moved to the section where I was teaching and that’s when my work- life-teaching experience took a different twist altogether! Since I have so much respect for humanity and I will restrain from explaining of how Lucy Hurt physical features looked like, but I will attempt to paint a mental picture to you of how my “Lucy Hurt experience” looked like and once I am done with my description of her I want you to be honest with me and also share with me candidly if you have had a “Lucy Hurt” in your business or career life? Shall we?
Have you ever had a boss who admires your exceptional well-articulated work competence and your “eye for details” perfectionism work ethics from a distance especially how you handle your customers with “world class- unmatched excellence”, how you treat all mankind seriously with so much dignity, your professional work ethics from your unmatched sparkling dress code-arriving 30 minutes before your shift starts (remember I had just came from the jungle not ever thinking I would work in America and get paid forth night so when I got this first humbling job I took the assignment 100 times more seriously and I guess that’s the reason I had never been late for work even despite the fact that I used to come to work straight from my Northeastern University part time classes)? Remember I was one of the new hires but being the “people’s person” and a natural sanguine…every Boston Higashi staff regardless of their nationality would always find it so easy to come over to talk to me as i am naturally love diversity and I was absolutely loved and cherished by not only the rest of school management and the students except by one Mrs Lucy Hurt! The students loved me to bits and I remember it was a bit awkward because they would all behave exceptionally well during my work shift that sometimes the more experienced staff now started come to learn from me…asking how comes even the “behaviorally-challenged” students would behave so differently well and even listen to my simple verbal directions unlike my peers despite the fact that I was newest teacher in the school. Theodore Roosevelt was absolutely correct and goes without saying that “people don’t care how much you know, how big your title is until they know that you really care” and this was exactly what was happening in Boston Higashi School. Sadly, as a result of all my exceptional performance Lucy Hurt would not let me thrive, and I can tell you for a fact she “hated me with a wild passion” and it was so bad that at some point she could not hide it any more “physically and verbally” an inch!
Have you ever had a boss who shamelessly humiliates you in-front of everyone for no reason? Even worse have you ever had a boss who no matter what you do it’s never good enough to her double standards? Even worse do you currently have a boss who practices double standards over the exact same work you do and even when you “burst your bottoms” by going the extra mile it never counts and she/he really pretends not to notice your exceptional unmatched performance? It’s only fantastically exceptional performance when it’s done by her/his lazy big talkers -“favorite staff” who do nothing but “kiss-ass”? Or what about that boss who awards different pay-and rewards the kiss ass big talkers who do no work at your expense and does not “give a hoot” whether you walked to work or crawled home late at night, and such a boss categorically shows no interest in your personal growth? Sadly, there are so many managers who have no passion for the job nor for people they are leading! They are more concerned about big fancy titles, their self-gratifying fame, their big offices they occupy, some are more concerned about the temporary power granted to them in their current positions and are busy using their employees as stepping stones. If that’s your current scenario my dear reader, then welcome to my Lucy Hurt Syndrome? Big mistake! Have you ever quit a job because of poor discriminative treatment or not even much of a thank you after taking initiation for a job well done with a boss whose is so out of touch with the times? Do you have a boss who is full of themselves and all they do is “bark orders like the old days before unions came around and expect the employee to jump and do as told without reason like robots”? Many bosses have this attitude that anyone is replaceable easily like gloves, that they can hire someone even better. So they keep treating employees poorly. They do disservice to their company. A good employee has knowledge of systems, products and processes. They have built relationships with clients and co-workers which takes years to build. When you lose a good employee, you lose part of your company culture. And you may lose your own future. Never push loyal employees to the point where they no longer give a damn! If you don’t have a heart, you should not be in leadership positions in the first place. What if your only real influence is to spend all day working very selfishly and hurriedly in the name of the so called “essentialism-ballony” which leads to limiting all your subordinates’ ability to influence? In my experience, A leader is one who is invisible as an individual and visible in every other individual in the team. This could happen only when his thoughts and breath are in unison for his team and the cause. most people love to step on others as long as they can get to the top. At any cost. Those who dedicate themselves to others, with integrity love and honesty, are considered weak and not activists. God has put us in leadership positions for us to guide, inspire, teach, mentor, coach and help others to become better than yourself -for his honor and glory (not for our own) . This is how you make a lasting impact. One of my favorite quote on leadership by Jack Welch which am sure many of you reader will agree with says “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
This continued for a while and even though I loved my job and the impact I was making on these madly gifted young teenager students, Lucy Hurt Syndrome was really “pushing me to the wall.” Luckily I am firm believer that when two doors shut for you by mere mortal men or women especially if you are an obedient faithful servant in what God has called you to do, the almighty never-failing able God will always open an extra 10 bigger doors for you right in front of the enemies and for God’s honor and glory! Remember I was already shining as the only African Student in Northeastern University’s Dean’s list and our school Administration was already aggressively advocating for young bright hardworking students like myself to privately secure Internships with Boston’s Biggest Multinationals. Lucky for me I was actually selected by the prestigious State Street Bank of Boston (one of the largest global custodian) to work for them and offered a full time entry level job –as a Cusip data entry position in their Wealth Management Division. My life has never been the same again folks! I rose up the American Corporate ladder strictly by merit, my employer even proceeded and paid for my Master’s Degree again in one of Boston’s best schools….by the time I resigned to relocate back to my beautiful jungle in 2010, I had broken all the glass ceilings and succeeded abroad. Later on whenever I would meet Mrs Lucy Hurt in private social gatherings, she would be so ashamed and couldn’t stand face to face with me…but the dare devil in me would walk over to her and shake her hand firmly… (having forgiven her years back)…I would almost be tempted to whisper to “Thanks to your Lucy Hurt Syndrome…you accelerated me to my God destined success.” Talk about God’s faithfulness for a girl who grew up in a small Gatanga village, not only succeeded in America but thrived just the way God had intended it to be. Of course I dare say it was not a walk in the park, many are times I would stop and ask my maker “Excuse me God, I got questions?” but here we are absolutely free from Mrs Hurt Syndrome! May this article be a special reminder and encouragement to someone out there. Who is your “Lucy Hurt” currently? Do you know that they might be your accelerator gear that will actually push you to your God-speed destiny that you would otherwise never have dared to achieve!
It’s not rare to find employees who hate their bosses or who spite their bosses just because they don’t give them the value and respect they deserve and eventually the employees become obstinate towards taking corrections and therefore leading to low productivity of the employee. An organization will operate more efficiently if employees have no barriers to communicating with each other. Communication problems often occur as a result of differences between colleagues or poor relationships between managers and employees. Power struggles, lack of integrity, poor corporate governance and loose moral fabric in corporate board rooms or where executive leadership are constantly infighting for power due to uncertainties in poorly structured succession planning has in the past shut down certain companies that many believed were “too big to fail” Kenyan super markets such as Nakumatt and Tuskys Supermarkets too were brought down their knees. Working together, openly discussing opinions, being willing to accept constructive criticism and respecting all employees’ views are good examples of communication. Investigations from the Huma resources departments with unconscious bias without favoring the top bosses is key. Bringing both your heart and ears to listen to all your employees that can audit their boss according an unbiased party that can fairly assess the underlying issue with an aim of resolving issues amicably especially if a toxic environment quietly or loudly exists there. There is always two sides to any story just like there are in a coin…without which this is how bullying environments are quietly created. No one side should only be heard… All sides of a complaint need to be weighed in on. I just don’t understand this thought process of it being someone else’s responsibility for another individual to grow… As a leader you are to share, train and inspire others. Otherwise picking favorites- deliberating only growing only those whose style resonates with yours and applying tokenism in Diversity and Inclusion is pure baloney because different personality types that will see differently from their leader. Individuals grow tremendously when they follow a leader that have a similar disposition, motivation, reasoning, logic and understanding. Great leaders know how to “Be strong, but not rude; Be kind, but not weak; Be bold, but not bully; Be humble, but not timid; Be confident but not arrogant.”
May this article encourage you to always remember that even in your “Lucy Hurt Syndrome” challenges lies many untapped opportunities!
Fearless Leadership 