Strong leaders teach the hard stuff and it's really hard to teach the following:
1. A sense of urgency
2. Critical thinking
3. Creativity
4. Customer empathy
5. Team commitment
6. Humility
7. Unselfish giving
8. Judgement
9. Grace and dignity
10. Positivity
11. Optimism
12. Bias towards results
13. Active listening
Trust is built on making and keeping promises. Authenticity is where you know yourself so well and are familiar with all your strengths and weaknesses, and you can use these tools and communicate is a reliable way. A way which makes you relatable in a very strong way to others, not to everyone, just those who you’ll like to build deep connections. At the end of the day, people will connect with you both personally and professionally on a deeper level if you can make them feel safe, like and trust you. These things are so nuanced in the human psyche and I am dedicated to teaching them effectively.
One of the strangest things in the world is that we tend to minimise the things that we can do and the goals we can accomplish. For some equally strange reason we think that other people can accomplish things that we cannot. We are the only creatures who are disoriented in our own environment because we were given the faculties to create our own environment. If only we realised that we have reservoirs of talent and ability deep inside of us.
“If I want to be free, I’ve got to be me.”
⁃ Design is a concept for both the product and the experience.
⁃ Strategy is how a quality product gets into the market and becomes known globally.
I think one of the most important roles of the leader is to immediately intervene and remove the obstacles so that the team can advance towards the corporate goals.
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person was of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
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“You get inspiration not only from within your discipline but also from adjacencies.”
Image c/o University of York
We tend to think about finance as a math-based field with numbers, data, charts, and formulas. It’s much more than that – people make decisions about their money based on their outlook on the economy. And these decisions are all based around their own personality and psychology; therefore, there is so much more to finance and economics than finance and economics. If we think through the lens of history, psychology (e.g., greed and fear), sociology (e.g., keeping up with your neighbours), and politics (e.g., Why are certain regulations put in place?). All these fields of study are based around how people think and behave, and behaviour is such a big incumbent field. I think there is a lot we could learn from economics and finance if we looked through the lens of those other subjects.
How can you make the customer the hero of the story?
The short answer is through customer experience, sales, and brand loyalty initiatives. Many organisations position their marketing around benefits and features of their products and services. The customer is the hero, not the brand and I think the focus should always be on the strategic outcomes that the customer needs. In other words, shift the focus from ‘us marketing’ to ‘customer marketing’. We all have the need for someone to show us the way and consumers don’t always buy the best products and services; they usually buy the ones they can understand the fastest. What the customer has to sense is that we have stepped into their story and we care about their pain.
Stop complaining.
Stop blaming others.
Stop making excuses.
Stop the sense of entitlement.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment to start.
Progress begins when you start doing.
“People stop trying when there’s no benefit for being exceptional and no consequence for being mediocre.”
Culture refers to the basics of how people work together to make decisions and how quality is maintained. I have observed that in several organisations the implicit attitude at work demands that professionalism means the employees ignore their emotions. I think that it’s important to create time and space to talk about what’s on people’s minds and I have found that if the team does this then there’s a large positive payoff - smarter questions and better understanding.
“The biggest communication problem is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply.”
“Most salespeople fail to acquire meetings by failing to follow “the trading value rule,” which suggests that any time you ask a client to make a commitment to a conversation, you are responsible for explaining to them the value they receive in trade.”
How to improve your social skills?
Say 'Thank you’
Say 'Please'
Listen without interrupting
Do not brag
Wait your turn
Choose kind over clever
Demonstrate empathy
Forgive first
Talk less, but say more
Show gratitude
Do not respond to negativity
Be humble
Ikigai (生き甲斐, "ee-kee-guy") is a Japanese concept that describes the things that make your life worthwhile; the things that give you a deep sense of purpose, satisfaction and joy. Ikigai is made up of two Japanese words, iki (生き), which means life, and kai (甲斐), meaning effect, result, value, benefit, or worth. Iki and kai come together to give us ikigai: a reason to live/to exist.
I think quality is the essential pillar for excellence.
1. Everything takes time
2. Never stop working on yourself
3. Change is inevitable
4. Your mistakes don’t define you
5. You are a beautiful powerful being, capable of so much
To improve your writing, read more.
To improve your thinking, write more.
To improve your storytelling, present more.
To improve your understanding, teach more.
To improve your energy, rest more.
To improve your focus, appreciate more.
To improve your network, give more.
Saying one thing and then doing another is the foundation stone of modern politics. I think that if you lose your temper in front of people you do not know, you lose their respect, and it is almost impossible to win back. You must keep control – if you cannot control yourself, then you have no chance of controlling others.
It takes more than self-motivation to really alter your life. I think you have to have a better plan for your life, and the first key to doing better is to find out how things work. Perhaps the real problem is the lack of ideas of how to attract your dream partner, create money and wealth, or maintain your ideal body weight. To change your life, you will need new ideas and to get new ideas you must consistently study. When you find something that works, take notes as it’s important that you don’t use your head as a filing cabinet. One way to learn if from your own experiences and another way to learn is from other people’s experiences. Which path will you follow?
I think that your attitude will be determined by the following:
What you think
What you do
What you see
What you read
What you know
What you want
What you feel
What you hear
What do you think?
“The more you appreciate your work, the better it will be. Practise opens channels of possibility in the brain.”
What makes your sales team run like a well-oiled machine?
In sales we always want to be the trusted advisor, and you only need two things to be a trusted advisor - trust and advice! And if you don’t have the advice part, then you are not the guide. If you’re hard pressed to pinpoint how your sales team is effective, you may need to rethink your strategy. It isn’t enough to give your sales team skills to boost sales, you may also need to equip them with the right tools to increase your revenue. I think every human being has the need for someone to show them the way. Contact me via e-mail to discuss a workshop for your sales team, for example, pipeline management.
