The Life Coach

A life coach’s scripted, pro-bono call with a “lost” young man derails into a raw, uncoached conversation where she is the one truly seen.

Pili looked out of the window of her home office, peeping to see if the bins were getting collected. There was a waste management app that could send notifications for the collection days but she preferred to just look out of the window to see if the neighbours had put their bins out. She could see some orange bins lined up on the pavement. The truck came around after 10 in the morning. She had missed the last collection and her bin was stuffed to the brim. But it was too rare a morning to be rushed. The sun was out and the skies were clear and she sat back and took a sip out of her coffee flask.

Her morning had just opened up.

A client had canceled their coaching session just 5 minutes to the hour. She decided to do some administrative work and put together some client testimonials. It had been 15 months since she began her life coaching practice and it was very slow in the beginning, with only two clients and then she got one reference and landed a corporate client. She was now seeing up to 8 clients a month.

She opened her personal website, stared at her cover photo, pleased,

“That photo shoot was worth it” and then she moved on to her mission statement.

“To service Africans both in the diaspora and at home seeking relatable and insightful guidance on personal growth, cultural identity and professional development from a coach who understands their nuanced experiences”.

Pili hovered her cursor over the word “nuanced” in her mission statement. Nuanced experiences. Her first line was more poetic:

“Success isn’t linear; it’s a nuanced dance between heritage and ambition.”

She leaned back in the ergonomic chair and looked out at the quiet street. It was a sun-drenched day, the kind that demanded a walk, but not before she had edited three more testimonials to anchor her new landing page.

Then the phone rang, and she wondered if it was another potential client. It was an unrecognized number, beginning with +254.

“Hello, is this Pili?”

“Hey Pili, Sally here, Sally from Rotary”

Sally was an old professional colleague and they had been board members at the Rotary club in Nairobi and she had not seen her since she moved to Amsterdam.

The small talk followed. The predictable dance of weather and children. Sally said she had been following her progress on social media.

‘I’ve been watching your tips on Tik Tok. Really deep stuff” Sally said. “That’s why I am calling. My nephew…he’s lost direction, I need your advice.”

Pili straightened her posture, the “Coach” persona clicking into place.

“Does he need a consultation? I usually start with an exploratory call.”

“This one I was just asking as a favour. He has defeated his mother. She has left him in God’s hands. Me, the things he says, I don’t understand. They sound like cultist things. At least you, there in Europe, maybe you can understand him better”.

Sally’s voice was now a whisper, “He doesn’t engage with the family. Always locked in his room with a computer. He also smokes bhang. We think he is depressed. Doesn’t want to talk to any of us but you…. he is the one who showed me your clips on Tik Tok. I didn’t even know you became a coach? He thought I was joking when I said I know you. You are a Rotarian. He follows your account. By the way, you have many followers.…Can you just talk to him?”

The plea in the voice was clear and Sally had always been a kind colleague. Pili mulled over it briefly and decided one phone call would be less pain than a flat. She could chalk it up as one pro-bono missionary conversation to keep the coaching instinct sharp.

The nephew’s name was Obam, which Pili originally thought was a mispronunciation of Orban and immediately asked about the connection to Hungary but it was actually Obam. Not Obama. Obam.

Pili had decided to call Obam as soon as she received his number for scheduling before work got in the way.

10:05 Pili allocates thirty minutes from what she has gathered after speaking to Sally. She is hearing resistance to authority figures, stuck, not adulting, probably three sessions. His way of speaking is lazy and there are long lulls between his thoughts. She is mid-assessment when he starts talking about her latest videos.

“Who makes your music beds?”

“I do them myself” Pili said proudly

“I find them depressing”

Pili leans back, her neck tilting backwards on her ergonomic chair. No one has ever called her sombre music depressing. He was quiet again and just as she thinks to speak, he speaks again,

“You know that closing line you use, “Life doesn’t happen to you: it happens for you” - I have been thinking about it and that line would make no sense to a refugee in the Gaza strip right now.”

Pili turns her head to one side, as if she was not hearing right. She has no comeback.

10:36 The conversation has taken a turn. Pili has decided she will not be lured into an argument and switches subjects asking if he has ever been to Amsterdam. His voice changes when he starts talking about the city. The bicycles. The canals. The Red Light district. What’s not to like? Then he asks about the coffee shops.That is what he really wants to experience. The freedom of it all.

“Have you been to one?”

“Nay, nay, nay, I don’t even know where they are”

“You live in Amsterdam and you’ve never been to a coffee shop?”

“That’s nothing! I have never been to a tulip farm and I love tulips”

“Have you at least smoked a joint?”

“Never”

“Never”

“Not even when you were young”

“Clean as a whistle”.

Pili leans back again on her chair and stares at the ceiling.

“You know what I just realised”, she says after a moment, “ How old are you?”

“26”

“I am much older than you, I live in Amsterdam and I have never wanted to experience weed”.

“I guess it’s not your thing,” he replies.

She thinks about it. He is right. Booze. Weed. Mood enhancers. She has never been drawn to it. She had always thought it was fear.

Weed will make you paranoid and I can’t have anyone seeing me lose control.

Thirty minutes has gone quickly and they have not even touched on the reason for the call.

10:58 Pili hears the sound of a truck but she doesn’t want to be distracted listening keenly to what Obam is sharing. He is now asking her about mushrooms, informing her about their legality in the Netherlands. Another reason he wants to visit. No wonder Sally described it as cultist.

“Where do you get magic mushrooms in Kenya?”

“A friend knew a diplomat who came in with a stash and had a private party. That is where I did it. In Spring Valley. It was a very bad trip. Never mix it with alcohol.”

He speaks matter-of-fact, in that same boring drawl.

“The mushroom showed me my demons”

She will need to recommend a psychologist.

Obam is talking about unresolved hallucinations. But it is fascinating that he has no filter. He is just sharing his experiences like he has been dying to have someone listen to what he went through.

This is above her pay grade.

And so she is led by curiosity.

What was it like? What about after? Would you do it again?

11:14 Obam asks her a question, “ Why are you not married?”

Pili answers without thinking.

“It was never my thing”

“Yaah, I get that”. He returns to his quiet.

Pili has fallen into this rhythm of talking and then quiet.

“Are you seeing someone?”

“No?”

“Not your thing?” Pili teases

“Just not my thing”, he responds.

“Has anyone ever told that you have an old soul?”

“No!” says Obam, “They say I have an old liver”

11:33 Pili laughs badly. It is a mama mboga laugh, one part disbelief and the other part unrestrained amusement, arm flailing. Then laughs at how she laughed and that gets Obam laughing.

“Why are you laughing” she asks in between her chuckles

“Because you are laughing”

11:47 Obam asks about the time and Pili runs a finger through her dreadlocks.

“Did the garbage truck come?”

Pili doesn’t answer, she gets up and walks to the window. The truck has come and gone. There are misaligned bins with open flaps on the street. She curses. She shouldn’t have ignored her instincts again. When she returns to the call, she tells him what an inconvenience garbage scheduling is and asked Obam how he knows about the truck.

“It was the first thing you said when we started the call, that you might have to leave when you hear the garbage truck”.

She only said it to break the ice.

12:09 Obam asks Pili “How is it living in a city where everyone cycles?” and she surprises herself when she says she doesn’t own a bicycle. Why? and you live in Amsterdam? Pili has never learnt how to cycle. She is too afraid she will fall on these hard cobblestone cycle paths. Friends have offered to teach her but she has turned them all down.

She remembers the time she fell as a child and all her friends laughed at her. She has never really gone back there. It is not about the bicycle, she thinks, and then does not finish the thought.

“That’s what I realised about the shrooms. I was trying to control the experience, when I should have surrendered. I knew this was what I was supposed to do, but I couldn’t do it. I thought I was going to lose my sanity and panicked properly. It landed me in hospital”

“What did the doctors say”

“This one is just high. Keep him hydrated and let him sleep it off”.

Pili laughs. In Amsterdam they would have done the same and then recommended paracetamol.

12:44 Pili says, “ I must go now”

Obam says, “ Wow, we have talked since 10”

“Yah, it is not what I expected”

“Neither did I”.

You may now purchase my book Strength and Sorrow HERE.

Strength and Sorrow by Oyunga Pala is now available for purchase on Amazon for the Kindle and Paperback HERE.