By Elizabeth R. Auma K.

I recently represented my country in a regional meeting of twenty-one member states, deliberating on trade matters and how best we could become a region of excellence. There is always something extraordinary about sitting across the table from seasoned experts and negotiators, men and women armed with history, expertise and strategy.

At the end of the meeting, I joked with a longtime colleague from Egypt that if I ever needed a bulletproof argument, I would recruit him to my team. Every time he raised his flag to defend an interest, you could expect facts stretching back decades. Their thoroughness in trade negotiations is something I deeply salute.

During the meeting, as Head of Delegation, I was fully immersed scrutinizing documents, and pushing for fair terms for country and the good of the region. The work was highly technical and requiring strategic deliberations. I read through layers of pages deep into the night, pushing through fatigue because I was representing over forty five million Ugandans. The intensity of the assignment was a thorough equipping for my career but what I did not expect was that something far more personal would unfold.

Later that night in my hotel room, replaying the day’s deliberations, a question rose in my mind:“Is the way I fight for fair terms for my country the same way I fight for fair terms in my personal life?”

The same principles I fiercely defend for my country are the very principles I can and should apply to my personal life. Trade negotiations demand clarity, not vagueness. They require principles rooted in justice and integrity. They require setting red lines. That question and the outcomes strengthened my appreciation for trade policy which is not just academic or rooted in fifteen years of experience but in my daily life.

So let us pause and ask, learning from the negotiation room:

1. How many women are in relationships that look “promising” from the outside, yet drain them quietly on the inside?
2. How many of us are constantly negotiating our worth just to remain “loved”?
3. How many are compromising our health for a better pay?

I was defending my country better than I was defending my health, my time, my goals, my peace. Those questions taught me that fair terms are a right, not a luxury even in business, career and my heart.

In deep reflection, I later realized that sometimes the hardest negotiations are not the ones in boardrooms, but the ones we must have with ourselves. You can be powerful in public and yet privately unraveling until God uses your career or your business to show you how to reclaim your worth. I hope this post can take you on a journey to reclaim fairness and integrity for your life.

As we close this week, may we negotiate our lives with the same dignity and firmness with which we negotiate fe our lives with the same dignity and firmness with which we negotiate for our nations?