Journeyman Stories

I first met her few years back when she was new to Canada. At that time she was looking for a place to rent and my job at that time involved helping newcomers to Toronto to find accommodation. I do not remember if she got the place thanks to my help, but what I do remember is that we have been friends ever since. We have so many things in common. The books we read, the movies we watched, the music we listened to, the food we liked (not in terms of quantity lol) even Basketball and Tennis. Years went by and we kept in touch. She would share with me her life story, sometimes asking for my advice, and I would do the same. About two and half years ago, she started saying that she was not feeling good. Countless times she went to different doctors but they could not find what was wrong with her. What she knew was that she was in pain. It started with her legs, then it got so bad that she could not move from her house. And then one day, they finally found it. Guess what? She had cancer.... I...

It's now early Monday morning. I am getting ready for my final presentation of a series of workshops I have been doing the last month or so. I feel fresh as ever. Do you know why? Because I did almost nothing over the week-end. Almost nothing is an overstatement. But I did something that I have not done for a long time: Relax. It's been very intense the last few months (for many reasons), and, as my business partner went to England for a whole week, I said to myself that I could also take some time off. Why not? On Saturday we went for a movie. Have you seen Denzel's “Safe House”? Very intense one. My wife got mad at me saying that we should have not watched the movie because Denzel's character died at the end (sorry for those who are planning to watch it. I just ruined the party). I laughed so much because I had nothing to do with it. After the movie, we went for a bite in the nearest Japanese restaurant. For some reason, my wife could not eat any of the food. She did ...

It has been quite sometime that I haven't had such an intense week (at many levels). Have you been in moments when nothing seems to work? You try your best, you pray, you read inspirational books, you do all you can do but in vain. After a while, I started to doubt myself and couldn't understand what was going on. That was until Thursday morning when I got a text from my friend JG asking me if we could meet for lunch. You know me. When someone talks about food, he immediately gets my attention. JG has been a mentor of mine for almost a year now, but it has been a while since we saw each other. He has been traveling all over the world helping people with his coaching business. Before I continue, please remind me to share with you some breaking news (and it won't be on CNN...). Hope you will remind me before I end this blog. I don't want you to miss this one. Anyways, we met for lunch (nice steak by the way) and it was time to catch up. I told him what has been going on i...

If you are here in Toronto, you know what I am talking about. Was it a storm or what? I thought our house was going to be blown away this week-end (but nothing compared to what happened down South in the US). With such wind blowing all over the place, no way I would go out. Good thing I did not have any appointment or meeting booked (a rare thing). What do you think I did? I watched as many TV shows as I could (in between my wife's favourite Nigerian movies). Thanks to Rogers' “On Demand”, I was able, not only to catch up with “The Mentalist”, “The Big Bang Theory” and many others, but I also discovered new shows I did not know about, like “The Finder” (a good one as a matter of fact). Do you think I will get some advertising fees for promoting these shows? I hope so. One of the shows I liked the most this week-end was CBC's “Dragon's Den”. My friend Jim always talks about this show that I was curious to find out what it is about. I was not disappointed at all. The show...