In 2020, Be in Charge.

Before I started writing this piece, I enjoyed a little to welcome the New Year. I was playing some oldies on my laptop. My laptop is celebrating its 5^th birthday and so we are all celebrating. To be precise, I was playing Daudi Kabaka and their twist song and even danced along.

By the time you are reading this, I would have been long into the New Year. It is January I know. The month that sluggishly moves ahead as a punishment for the festive misbehaviors. We spent what we had on all kinds of niceties and when January knocked, we were caught pants down. Well, I hope you are one of those who prepared for it in advance like I did.

Probably you are stuck in one way or the other. It could be that you are still at home because you spent everything including your fare back to town. You went ahead and borrowed to cover for the mess and ended up feasting on that too and now it is double tragedy.

If you are lucky you got fare back to town, you didn’t plan for the January rent and kids school fees. As a matter of fact, all of us have been there in one way or the other. So console yourself that you have not been alone neither are you now nor will you be the only one in future.

But within that lies the secret of not falling to the same trap again. Simply being in charge changes everything. What I have written up to now pertains to the festive season alone. It does apply to other areas of life as well.

For example, you planned yourself very well for the December holidays and was in charge yet you missed that in your leadership role. I am caught up here as an individual. In most of my leadership roles in 2019 I wasn’t in charge per se. I operated more out of goodwill than instinct.

When towards the end of the year I came across the advice of being in charge from an unlikely mentor, I was grateful I did meet them. This guy, a basketball coach, passed down to me gems of truth passed to him from his mentor also.

Shortly after he had been recruited to manage a second level league team, he had been trying to be a pleaser to everybody. He didn’t put proper structures in place despite being a great manager. Being a greater manager without being in charge out of ignorance kept him outside the main stream league until someone spotted his talent as well as mistakes and decided to try it out with him.

He got indirectly trained for a major management role in the NBA league. Leading one of the great teams gave him an opportunity to get direct mentorship from the boss who had spotted him earlier on. It came to level the guy was given an opportunity now to be the main coach going forward.

As he was ushered into his new executive role, he sought advice from his mentor how he had managed to keep it that well to this level. The mentor lightly told him in a single sentence that ‘Mr. X, to be successful, you have to be in charge. So be in charge. That is all.” This changed his life.

It happened that that is the exact advice I was dished down from him. I simply needed to be in charge and that is all.

So what would being in charge in 2020 look like to you as an individual? It simply begins by you understanding that it is about you and your life. Within the cohort of your life lies your family, friends and family. It still comprises of your job and everything that revolves around you. And each of these need to be controlled by you.

I don’t mean that being in charge means going about micro managing people and staff under you. In fact being in charge means even more freedom. Plan everything as needed. If it is a journey to weight loss, draw a plan and follow it up. If it is about managing family resources, do it with your wife and let her handle that. The only thing remaining for you is to be in the know about where things are at any given point.

Delegate to people a lot but make sure you get your eyes and ears open to see and hear on how everything is progressing on. At any point in life, remind yourself that it is you who is in charge. I didn’t say you go about telling people that you are in charge; nay. Know it yourself.

Being in charge is about you. People only need to see that. Don’t be tossed about to make decisions without taking time to know how they will affect you. Make sure everything is evaluated properly. And remember you can be in charge of all of you. People need to understand who the CEO of your organization is as well as who the CEO of your life is. And that is you.

Be in charge this year. If you love, say it. That is being in charge. Show the direction to your team. Don’t let them guess around about what your plans are. That is called being in charge. This year don’t go drinking like a thoughtless person. Know that you are in charge and you know what works for you. It is called being charge.

Don’t be like the dogs that get driven by the pheromones. They are unidirectional just like the he goats and bulls. Know that you are in charge and know when to spend, why you need to spend and what needs to be spent on. That way, another January will come without a shocker.

As I retaliated in an earlier post, this year be smarter, clever and swifter. Have a prosperous 2020 folks and be completely in charge.

End.