It’s a real shame as the focus is on the slapping incident at the Oscars and not on Will Smith’s excellent performance as “King Richard” or Questlove’s wonderful documentary, “Summer of Soul”.
“Everyone agrees with free speech until they hear something they don’t like.”
What happens when you give everyone a microphone?
There will be a lot of noise out there.
In the past when we had a gatekeeper who chose who had a microphone was both good and bad. It was bad because it silenced voices immediately and it was good because it kept microphones away from people who wanted to tear things down. When I think about what is on offer from the social media networks, it’s really important to decode this and understand that we are not their customers, we are their products. We do not pay to use any social media platforms and these companies (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are selling us and our data to someone else and have created a regime where they make us feel bad all day and the only way to feel less bad is to click something. That’s the cycle they have built and the problem with that cycle and the easily measured metrics of how many followers you have, pushes people to be purist, it pushes people to be angry and it pushes people to tear folks down.
The phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads” basically means that the media loves violence. In other words, if a story involves a brutal death or injury of some kind (or the likelihood of it), it is likely to get higher ratings.
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.”
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”
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.
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.
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.
c/o The New York Times
If you try to control everything, and then worry about the things you can’t control, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of frustration and misery. I think “I don’t know” is the most powerful sentence you can use as knowing that you don’t know makes you a knowledgeable person.
Last night I was asked: What is a Metaverse?
I replied: “I don’t know”.
This morning, I did some research and I think the Metaverse is the following:
Digital currency
Marketplace / e-commerce
NFT’s
Gaming
Digital assets
Natural language processing
Online shopping
Social media
Social entertainment events
Digital humans
There’s no shame in admitting that you don’t know. The only shame is to pretend you know everything. Click the Synthetic Data link, as these guys really know about the Metaverse.
I think that people with high levels of gratitude have low levels of resentment and envy. As when we take time to focus on what we are grateful for, we choose positive emotions over negative, thus we take steps to nurture our mental health and wellbeing. I was recently asked: How can we trigger gratitude in ourselves? And I answered, start with a gratitude practice, it’s like a workout or healthy eating plan for your mind and it’s simple.
Have you ever noticed that when you are looking to buy a new phone or a jacket all of a sudden everyone around you has it? That’s because, consciously or unconsciously, whatever we are focused on is what we see. If we want to trigger gratitude in ourselves, we need to intentionally shift our focus to that which we are grateful for. The simplest way to do this is through questions and prompts and a few daily rituals. Contact me via e-mail when you are ready to shift your focus.
“You can’t feel envious and grateful at the same time. They’re incompatible feelings, because if you’re grateful, you can’t resent someone for owning things you don’t.”
Distractions have no effect on the truly focused individual as winners focus on the goal, not the pain. There four types of distractions or should I call them, interruptions you will face in your work:
1. Meetings, office visitors and loud colleagues
2. E-mail, telephone notifications and meetings
3. Team lunches, calls from loved one, coffee machine conversations
4. Social media, news websites, instant messaging
According to Tim Ferris, we need to “…limit e-mail consumption and production. This is the greatest single interruption in the modern world.” What do you think?
To drive lasting productivity, make assessing your progress and enjoying the fruits of your labour part of your routine. I think life and work will always be messy, therefore, trouble shooting, firefighting and problem solving are how we spend a lot of our time so let’s make sure we enjoy it! Contact me via e-mail for practical, actionable tips, which will guide you to achieving even more throughout each day.
“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
c/o Getty Images
How can we create new habits and stick to them?
We all have habits that we wish we didn't have, but don't feel as if we can change. There are ways to help you change habits and I think the best way is to replace it with a new behaviour as you cannot break a habit; you must replace a habit! It’s really a case of willpower, motivation, and then repetition.
The question I frequently ask to people who are risk-averse is, “What’s the biggest chance you have ever taken?” It’s amazing how many people react with a defensive answer when they realise what “safe” lives they have chosen to lead. Small daily habits are unparalleled predictors of long-term objectives, and this is true for both individuals and organisations.
A paradigm is a program in your subconscious mind, it’s both genetic and environmental that’s controlling your behaviour. Your paradigm is your conditioned behaviour, and you have to change your own paradigm, I’m working on mine every day, what about you?
A paradigm is nothing but a multitude of habits that have been programmed into your subconscious mind to control your behaviour. It’s got nothing to do with how smart you are, it’s got nothing to do with what your formal education is, it has to do with your paradigm. You know what your paradigm is, just study your own behaviour - think of your results. If you want to improve your results, then the only way that you can do that is to change your habitual way of doing things. Your results are an expression of the paradigm not your intellect, so until you change the paradigm then nothing is going to change.
“Knowledge is having the right answers. Intelligence is asking the right questions. Wisdom is knowing when to ask the right questions. ”
The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mysterious glue that enables millions of humans to cooperate effectively. This mysterious glue is made of stories, not genes. We cooperate effectively with strangers because we believe in things like gods, nations, money, and human rights. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, and no human rights – except in the common imagination of human beings. You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him that after he dies, he will get limitless bananas in chimpanzee heaven. Only Sapiens can believe such stories. This is why we rule the world, and chimpanzees are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.
From “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari
My heroes have always had a "growth mindset”, believing they can learn, grow, and change throughout their entire lives. It’s incredibly refreshing to be the designer of what happens next and not being a pawn in the system. First you have to take responsibility, then you need to find an interesting problem, then you take your customer on the journey to solve their problem. Never use fear, shame, and anger to get people to do what you want you want them to do.
We all remember the saying, “failure is not an option!” and if this is the case, then neither is success. Therefore, what we need is a process that you can do over and over again. And the fuel you need for that is possibility, because if we can see it in our heads that it’s possible then it’s easier to own it. This is possible and once it’s possible then you can be responsible, and once you can be responsible, then you can build a process. Don’t seek perfection, seek possibilities.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
I see organisations today trying to reduce expenses by hiring inexperienced people to pound the phones, e-mails to arrange meetings and rush the sales process without looking into how companies buy. I think that it’s a good idea to look at the company culture and determine how much risk they are willing to take. Are they really involved in innovation or it’s more of a lip service?
The following questions will give you a feeling of what their culture really is like:
1. Do their executives lead by example?
2. How much experimentation is allowed?
3. How much resources (time and money) do they put into new ventures
4. What metrics are they measuring?
5. And are those metrics connected to new things, for example, new to the market type of products?
Over the past few years, I have studied corporate cultures and change, and what fascinates me is when we speak about change is that we think in terms of “Good vs. Bad.” I don’t think it’s as simple as that, I think corporate complacency is the worst kind of culture. I think the world has become so complexed that we keep more and more ridiculous processes in place. And this results in employees becoming complacent and no longer think that they can affect change, they just give up and hide behind the mentality of “things are just fine!” Contact me via e-mail when you willing to make incremental change in your organisation.
When asking for help appeal to people’s self-interest as subconsciously, they are asking themselves: What does one stand to gain from this action, activity or situation? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “self-interest” means a concern for one's own advantage, interest, and well-being. I have found that when you discover something that will benefit the other person, usually they will respond more enthusiastically to your request. A key step is to understand the other person’s psychology. Once you make them see how you can in some way meet their needs or advance their cause, their resistance to your requests for help will magically fall away. You must train yourself to think your way inside the other person’s mind, to see their needs and interests and get rid of your own feelings that obscure the truth.
“Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves.”
I would like to think that this cynical truth is not the way I behave or act, but the personal gratification of sharing, helping, or sacrificing can never be truly altruistic as I gain an intrinsic reward. According to my mentor, the validity of this argument depends on whetherintrinsic rewards qualify as "benefits". Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that everyone acts out of self-interest as humans are always motivated by self-interest and selfishness.
When an organisation has a strong and clearly stated set of values and the employees act in accordance with those values and the culture will be strong. However, if the values are ill defined, constantly changing and people are not held accountable or incentivised to uphold those values, then the culture will be weak. I think culture equals values plus behaviour. You can become anything that you want to become! Success is predictable if you commit yourself to becoming excellent.
I have been studying success for years both professionally and personally, and what I have found is that competence and commitment are the prerequisite for success. Excellence is a journey, it’s not a destination! I think complacency and satisfaction are the key enemies of excellence. Becoming excellent in your chosen field is indispensable, if you are not then you haven’t got a chance in our competitive society. You don’t have to be a quantum leap different from anybody else. You just have to be different in the critical areas that make a difference, and you can achieve this simply by setting it as a goal, and subsequently work on it.
All the successful people that I have met in my life all seem to be at peace with themselves. No matter what the trials and tribulations they are faced with or are facing they have a level of acceptance, they are mentally prepared, tough, and ready to take on the challenge. As a result, their inner peace gives them a different perspective on the world. If you master the inside world then the outside world will be kinder and more beautiful.
“One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to master how to remain calm.”
The trick is not to be fooled by illusions of superiority and to learn to accurately reevaluate our competence each day. Think about it? When you are angry or upset you often see the things around you in a negative light, but if you are happy, suddenly, everything around you are bathed in rainbows and sunshine. Dealing with your inner demons is a necessary step towards living a truly fulfilled and successful life.
