Ama Duncan
Corporate Trainer | Business Coach | Author | Speaker
Welcome to my blog! Here, I share valuable content on BUSINESS & MONEY to help new women in business to plan, execute and achieve their business goals.
5 AFFORDABLE WAYS TO INVEST IN YOURSELF
prioritize my personal development because I thought survival was more important. Whatever money I had would go straight into something I considered ‘more important’ like food for the house, clothes for my kids, etc. Of course, if my employer sent me on a fully sponsored training program, I would gladly go but na ah, not with my own money!
MIND YOUR BUSINESS WITH MARJY MARJ
Hello and welcome to my blog! With me today is a fabulous woman who simply describes herself as ‘a cheerleader for most humans’. Grab a cuppa and enjoy my conversation with Marjy Marj. Ama Duncan (AD): Thank you so much Marjy for making time to have this conversation with me. How are you? Marjorie Boafo
MIND YOUR BUSINESS WITH KUKUWA FITNESS
Hi everyone, get ready to move your boombseys y’all, haha. I’m very much excited about my guest today. My favourite description of Kukuwa is that she is a 60+ young lady who is full of so much positive energy! Enjoy my chat with her. Ama Duncan (AD): Welome Kukuwa and thank you for making time
2021 WOMEN LEADERS RETREAT – ACCRA
The Women Leaders Retreat was all sorts of exciting for us (in a dear friend’s voice). The entire experience reminds me of this quote from the Bible ‘man proposes, but God disposes’. The excitement began in our private WhatsApp group way before the 4-day retreat with all sorts of ‘self-conferred’ posts. It was just so
CAREER SUCCESS: PRESENTATION AT WEBSTER UNIVERSITY
Welcome to my blog! Last month, I spoke at the Webster University (Ghana Campus) Open House event and thought the content I shared will be useful to the fabulous audience I serve. And so I asked permission to share here. Enjoy. Thank you very much Webster University for inviting me again. Dr. Felix Danso and
A CONVERSATION WITH ABA CATO ANDAH
Hello everyone. For today’s episode, I’m excited to interview the wonderful lady by the name Aba Cato Andah again. She is the first person to have been interviewed here twice. If you follow the blog post you may remember her. Today we’re talking about mental health. Enjoy! Ama Duncan (AD): Welcome Lady Aba. It’s wonderful
My Story
Dealing with low self-esteem
I was born in Sekondi to a nurse and a farmer. When I was about 5 years, we moved to Komenda, a small town in the Central Region of Ghana. Even though I was one of the best students in primary school, I always felt ‘little’ when we travelled to cities like Cape Coast, Accra and Takoradi.
I felt everyone there was more beautiful, more intelligent, spoke better English and was generally better than me. I had a similar experience in secondary school, always looking down on myself and feeling I was not good enough. Oh, how I wished I were an ‘Accra girl’ because I thought they were so cool! Yet, when my family finally moved to Accra, I still didn’t feel cool. On top of this, I didn’t even have a boyfriend! If only I could get a boyfriend, then I will be cool like the other girls… I thought.
In University, I met some really wonderful friends, some of whom were from ‘rich’ families and I thought being friends with them will make me feel cool. I didn’t. I had the opportunity to start travelling abroad, and I was certain that when I returned, I most definitely will feel cool and belong in a ‘cool girls click’. Well, I did have cool friends before and after travelling; still, I didn’t feel like I was cool and ‘there’ yet. Oh, by the way, in my third year, I finally had a real boyfriend (now my husband). Not only that, but he also lived abroad, and hence, I occasionally went to visit him, which should have made me feel cool, or? Well, guess what, I still didn’t!
Even as a career woman working in an international four-star hotel as a manager, I looked down on myself. Once my General Manager called me into his office and asked why I never came asking for a pay raise and promotion when other managers always came to him with such requests. My response was ‘I want to earn it, not ask for it’. That was a half-truth. The real reason was that I felt I was not good enough to deserve more. I convinced myself that ‘I was not there yet’. I used to look at my friends who were lawyers, doctors or pursuing something big and wished I could do that too. I also wanted to be ‘somebody’.
To make matters worse, I was just getting pregnant and fat! After having my two kids, I thought getting an MBA will make me finally feel cool and ‘important’, yet I felt no different after completion. Even with a handsome husband and two adorable kids who doted on me, I thought I had very little value. Interestingly, at various stages in my life, I would meet people who were so impressed by and thought highly of me, yet I never saw what they saw. Mostly when people even complimented me, I doubted them and thought they were just trying to be nice.
How I found my ‘cool.’
Read the rest of my story in Yarns of inspiration II