Life coach cosies up to me for a loan after ugly fallout

So I met up with Amisi, my life coach, last week after a long time and we had a very interesting chat. We had a somewhat nasty experience in August last year when we had our last sessions. To be honest, Amisi had some valid feedback about my progress/or lack thereof regarding some of the goals we had discussed. According to him, I was not showing sufficient commitment and putting enough effort towards realising my investment goals.

When I tried to explain to him the various challenges, he said “those are excuses you have come up with, not reasons.” I found his attitude disturbing and I told him as much. “You are sounding more like a policeman than a coach and I do not feel supported.” He then talked about how he works with “so many senior executives who have no problem with my approach.”

I was so enraged by his behaviour, especially in view of the fact that he does not come cheap-every session costs me Sh5,000. Surely! I should not pay that much money to be belittled. So I angrily told him, “clearly, I am not your ideal client so let us just stop these sessions.”

I did not think much of it until early last month when I was looking through the papers and saw an auction notice for some property belonging to a guy who had the same name as my life coach Amisi. What was more disturbing was that this property appeared to be a family home in Rongai.

I thought to myself, “ this cannot be Amisi, it must be his relative.” During the festive season, I received a few messages of goodwill from Amisi which I ignored. So it came as a surprise for him to call me on January 1 and say, “Happy New Year My friend, long time!” I was polite though I could not understand this newfound warmth towards me. I could tell that he wanted to talk some more but I said, “can we talk some other time, now I am with my family since tomorrow I am back in the office.”

The next day I was back in the office when the phone rang. It was Amisi. This time he got straight to the point and tried to sound warm and friendly. He said, “ Josphat, I feel like our last session did not go well and so I feel we need to meet up ASAP this year.” I told him, “no worries this is now in the past.” That is when he insisted that we need to have a “ face-to-face, man-to-man” meeting to talk through things. He sounded super persuasive and so two days later we actually had coffee.

Let’s give it to the guy, I could tell he was trying hard to be nice to me. He was trying to be encouraging and was careful about is feedback. At what I thought was the end of our session he said, “ Josphat, I need to ask you a favour- you are my last home.” He then proceeded to tell me how he knew that I am a member of a certain Sacco. He then said, “ I need an urgent sacco loan to save my house from auctioneers, and you are my only hope.”

I was shocked by how gutsy he was, so I asked him, “please provide details.” So it seems he borrowed some money to “start a small biashara.” He said, “ you have seen the state of the economy- so this affected my business.” At this point I had to ask,” how much are we talking about?” I was surprised at how calmly he said, “Sh10 million.”

So, it finally made sense- he had been hunting me down not to coach me but to use me. So I had no qualms telling him a nice lie. “Sorry, I have already reached my guarantors limit.” What does he take me for? An idiot?