Talk is cheap

What are the changes we seek to make, in order to become the type of person we want to be?

There are a series of choices we have to make, and I think these choices are easier if we have habits. Habits get us results; goals are results! Having a goal that you are going to for example, go to lose weight does not tell me anything. Whereas having the goal to go to the gym every other day for 6 months and you are going to get as fit as a fiddle is a way more specific goal and is totally in your control.

Success is a numbers game

Do you consistently ask yourself the question, “What am I doing that someone else can do just as well?” Don't let others define what “success” is for you. Once you have defined your idea of success, commit yourself to doing all the great things you can do to achieve it.

Here’s a few factors of success:
1. Purpose
2. Vision
3. Goals
4. Choices
5. Reasons
6. Environment
7. Attitude
8. Time
9. Energy
10. Results

The Chocolate War

We live in a society where we spend so much time doing, we fail to take time to celebrate and acknowledge the things that we have done. As you may know, I have spent a great deal of my career in the lifestyle industry, and I think fashion can be a brilliant mirror of the moment.

Last night I attended the world premiere of “The Chocolate Wars” in Copenhagen. The film director, Miki Mistrati is an old friend of mine who currently lives in London and the film highlights the modern-day slave trade issues in the manufacturing of chocolate. The fact of the matter is we live in a society where profit and growth are the key performance indicators, and I have posed this question many times before: Can we have both sustainability (ethical sourcing of materials, paying a fair wage throughout the supply chain, etc.) and economic growth?

When is the price right?

Price has always been one of the deciding factors for making purchasing decisions. Nowadays consumers are more willing to shop around the internet for “cheaper” prices across retailers and marketplaces rather than going directly to the brands website. I think in the world of algorithms, hashtags and followers, it’s important to understand the true importance of human behaviour.

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
— Oscar Wilde

The game of life

Packman c/o Nintendo

Some people see the thing that they want, and some people see the things that prevent them from getting what they want. Let’s play a game and the rules are that you can go after anything you want, but you cannot deny anyone else going after anything they want. You don’t have to play the game the way everyone else has done it, you can play it your own way, you can break the rules, you just can’t get in the way of someone else getting what they want.

“Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy”
— Sir Isaac Newton

Solid foundations

Image c/o Liz Fosslien ©

I think that when you place a milestone in the path to action, it is more likely that people will complete that action. Truly skilled consultants and coaches start by asking themselves:

1) How can I shorten my clients’ path to their desired outcome?

2) How can I accelerate my clients’ speed to getting big results?

Contact me via e-mail for a discovery meeting.

A couple of key takeaways

As a coach, I can help your team to clarify these basic questions:

  • What do you see as your fundamental task and goals?

  • Who are your most important customers, users, and stakeholders?

  • What are their main needs?



 

And then I would continue on the development track with these questions:

  • In which areas do you see the need for you to develop your practice?

  • What areas of competence do you want to develop in yourself?

  • What types of tasks do you have the courage to embark on in the long term?

Design goes hand in hand

The products are extremely good, but Apple doesn’t make the best computers or telephones by any stretch of the imagination, but they sell because people associate an aspirational identity with their products and the desire goes through the roof. There’s no mention of screen resolution, memory or how many gigabytes and that’s because it doesn’t matter. It’s all about what’s inside the box, and you just have to have one as people buy into something that is deeply felt, and that is identity.

“Design is a funny word. Some people think that design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.”
— Steve Jobs

I agree wholeheartedly with Steve Jobs and think it’s not so much the aesthetics as it is about the mechanics. Now when you apply that thinking to Apple, then you can really see how this makes sense.

Feed the stallions and starve the ponies

Many years ago a lecturer explained the “feed the stallions, starve the ponies” life concept to me. He explained what this means: the more we feed and nurture our best attributes, the sooner and greater our chances of achieving our goals will be. I think one of the keys to success in life is to figure out what your strengths are, the formula I have used over the past 25 years is always the same: “Leverage on what is working and just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

Decisions, decisions and more decisions

In a way nature protects us by shielding us from knowledge of the difficulties and obstacles that lie ahead because if we really know all of the problems we would face, the setbacks, the sufferings, the temporary failure, and disappointments - many of us would hesitate about everything, even starting out. Quitting is a habit and if you quit the first time you run into difficulties, you’ll always quit when the going gets rough, and in effect, you’ll establish a pattern for failure rather than a pattern for success.

 

Decision fatigue is a psychological phenomenon surrounding a person’s ability or capacity to make decisions. In other words, the more decisions you have to make, the more fatigue you develop and the more difficult it can become. This fatigue applies to all decisions, not simply the large or more difficult ones as when there are too many options, we tend to feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed or otherwise out of sorts.

The Great Resignation

The Great Resignation is an ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs in droves since the beginning of 2021. Without passion for the work, you are doing and the work of the organisation, your success will be limited. There has been a rise in over-50s with just enough money saved up to rethink their lives in the wake of the pandemic. 

 

The “inactivity rate” is defined as people neither in a job nor trying to find one, and apparently this figure currently stands at 21.3% in the UK. I think companies perceiving talent shortages in their local market must rethink their workforce models and their talent acquisition strategies. As a Londoner, I have always found pleasure in communicating to people from very diverse backgrounds. Perhaps it’s time for local businesses to start hiring people from diverse backgrounds. 

Another one bites the dust

I attended my good friend, Keith Thomas' wake (Nine Night) in London. This morning, I found our New Year’s resolution from 29th Dec. 2015.

My New Years resolution is to remain constant:

  • I will question.

  • I will speak my mind.

  • I will look for answers.

  • I will not be dictated too.

  • I will not tolerate injustice.

  • I will not tolerate ignorance.

  • I will continue to exchange views.

My mind shall remain transient - open to change. However I shall give up meat and restrict my alcohol intake. RIP buddy ❤️

The key to diversity

The ability to be honest about your strengths and weaknesses is essential to leading an organisation. I think passion for the work and mission of one’s organisation is the fuel for a successful organisation as it impacts the other main principles in many direct and indirect ways. Diversity can be a competitive advantage because by having people from different perspectives looking at challenges and problems, you will get fresh solutions that are turning into business success. Everyone is biased, whether it’s an unconscious bias, cognitive bias, or misguided perceptions with regards to consumers.

The pursuit of perfection

In today’s world, technology makes geography and size almost irrelevant, therefore, this gives us this unique opportunity to assert strong strategic leadership. Content marketing is not about choosing a keyword and writing an article to rank for it, it’s about having a deep understanding of your target audience and the information they’re looking for and being a credible and trustworthy source for that information. How do you know that is true?

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is art.”
— Peter Drucker

Mind power

Image © James Brown - Polydor Records

The human mind is magnificent organ of intelligence, unfortunately we are not taught how to fully use it. In fact, because of our limited understanding of the mind and our limited expectations of it, we limit the minds’ ability to function at its full potential. As you know, you cannot heal what you don't feel, so my aim is to help my clients to replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk, for example, I have already managed to replace bigotry, intolerance, and racism with fairness, friendly and tolerance. 

 

I have been working on a rapid transformational program, it will be a monthly subscription-based program with the aim to reprogram your mind. Watch this space…

Your perception is your reality

On a daily basis we evaluate others, we also regularly look into our own hearts and minds. Many aspects of our minds are hidden from us, we think in two different ways: self-judgement and how we judge others. I think the way we judge others is to look at their actions and the way we judge ourselves is by our use of words.

I have recently been made aware that in social psychology they use the term: “naive realism”. This is a human tendency where we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.

Wisdom on Wednesday

I think motivation is the driver of productivity, and empowerment is the fuel of motivation. It’s far more motivating to work in an organisation that is passionate about innovation than one that is sterile and stuck in, “We have always done it that way.”

“Many people take action as a result of their passion, instead of being passionate as a result of their actions. Using passion (an emotional and subjective foundation) as the impetus for action can often bring disappointment when the desired result is not achieved. However, taking decisive action using empirical data, can increase the possibility of success and therefore feed your passion.”
— Safi A. Thomas

Expect the unexpected

Photograph: © MBI/Alamy

As human beings we are always trying to make sense of the world and it’s very easy to be seduced by your own narratives. When things happen to us or to our communities or to our nations, we understand those events through the lens of culture, ideology or through our limited knowledge. Many of us have answers to these questions because we’ve spent years or decades in some cases perfecting our stories. What would happen if we just stopped and admitted that we don’t have a very good handle on the world situation and our theories are just that - theories. 

We are constantly coming up with stories about why the events are the way they are. It’s not like the people who are coming up with the stories are malicious or they are trying to draw the wrong conclusions about the world. Many are deeply well intentioned and want the best things for everyone else. It’s just the act of storytelling itself runs the risk for encapsulating from too little data to sweeping a conclusion. You can read an article from The Guardian about the heavy burden of being Black in a white space.

Startup thinking

When you start a business there is a method and there are things you need to do in order to build it up. In business you have to set certain goals that you want to achieve and then act towards achieving those goals. Once you have defined your goals and begin to pursue them with your team you will find that obstacles continuously arise as you go towards it.

Whenever you create something new, it’s rarely a smooth progression, you will have to overcome obstacles along the way in the form of people or situations that go wrong. When an obstacle arises, immediately face the obstacle which comes in the form of a situation, something not working, something going wrong or perhaps somebody trying to sabotage you. Never react towards the obstacle as if this should not be happening, face it and see what the way beyond it is. How can I either dissolve it, bypass it, or use it? So, I do not enter a state of reactivity when obstacles appear on your paths.

What is your relationship to difficulties and obstacles that arise as you travel towards your goal?