Small things matter

You don't have to be in a position of authority to be a good leader and we can show that through our communication. To paraphrase Simon Sinek, “Leadership is irrespective of what level we are at.“ 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. I think that when an obstacle arises, immediately face the obstacle which can come in the form of a situation, for example, something is not working or something is going wrong or perhaps somebody is trying to sabotage you. What is your relationship to difficulties and obstacles that arise as you travel towards your goal?
 Contact me via e-mail as it's very helpful to share our stories with others as doing so will help you process your emotions.

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In the making

c/o @cytonn_photography

Human beings are unique in their ability to experience pleasure from remembering past happiness. You cannot always predict the major events that will shape your life, nor can you change the genetic factors that influence your basic happiness set point. You can't control what other people do or say, all you can control is how you react to it. Remember some skills improve communication, like emotional intelligence (EQ), as it enables people to better understand their own emotions as well as the emotions of those around them. Book recommendation: “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ” by Daniel Goleman

The hedonic treadmill is a metaphor for the human tendency to pursue one pleasure after another. People talk about the hedonic treadmill that we have, where it’s like you are constantly striving for new and exciting things. That's because the surge of happiness that's felt after a positive event is likely to return to a steady personal baseline over time, you actually become less happy because it makes you more aware of all the things that you are missing out on. I think freedom is where you are not on the hedonic treadmill and pleasure which comes from selfless acts will tend to outlast physical pleasures.

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Balancing the act of indecision

As human beings we have learned to associate certain feelings to certain situations. As sales professionals we have to discover the buyer’s beliefs and values, and then associate not buying with missing out on something. I’m not advocating that you become a salesperson who is pushy, one who doesn’t really care and tries to manipulate buyers. I’m trying to clarify that buying equals pleasure and not buying equals’ pain.

Persuasion is the process of getting your customer to clearly associate their desired feelings or stakes to your products and services. In other words, if we want someone to buy our products and services, we have to get them to link their feelings towards what they want most, and we have to make it compelling and very real for them. And we have to associate not buying with pain - “I’m going to miss out on this opportunity!” - leaving them with the feeling that someone else is going to have something that they don’t have.

Think of something that you recently purchased and be honest, was it something you really needed or was it something you wanted, and then you began to justify it as a need? Here’s another scenario: When was the last time you really wanted something, but you didn’t follow through with the purchase? You had an emotional reason to buy, but you could not justify it logically. Would you like to learn how to give buyers enough reasons to buy? I mean their reasons and not yours. Contact me via e-mail for workshops and sales training.

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The secret to living is giving

One of the most important words for leadership and success is the word “How?” Whenever you have a goal, the only question you’ll ask is how can I achieve this goal? Whenever you have a problem, you ask; How can I solve this problem? Whenever you have an obstacle, you ask; How can I overcome this obstacle? Leaders think about what they want and how to get it most of the time and as a result, they are thinking about their goals and the actions required to achieve them. They are thinking about the actions every single minute of every single day to move faster towards achieving that goal.

“Happiness is the progressive step-by-step realisation of a worthy ideal or goal.”

— Earle Nightingale

When you feel yourself moving step-by-step towards achieving something that is important to you, you’ll feel positive and happy most of the time. Unsuccessful people think about what they don’t want, they think about the things that make them angry and sad, usually past events that they can’t change, and they think about who’s to blame for all of their problems. So, whenever you see people talking and complaining about things that they can’t change, things that are their responsibility and blaming others, then you know that you are dealing with a negative unhappy person with a very limited future and with a very unhappy present. I think the way you take control of you mind by grabbing the wheel of a vehicle is to start thinking about what you want and how to get it all day long and you’ll automatically become positive and start to think that you are in control of your life.

I have a coaching client who wanted to change her habitual internal dialogue, so I proposed that she used my five alarms technique for 30 days. The goal is to change towards more productive thoughts or feelings 5 times a day. The five alarms technique is when you set an alarm 5 times a day, and every time the alarm sounds, you should ask herself 3 questions: What am I playing over in my mind? What am I thinking about now? What am I feeling? It works, try it for yourselves and you can thank me in 30 days.

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Learning new things

Happiness is not simply the absence of despair; it’s an affirmative state in which our lives have both meaning and pleasure. Most people know what is good for them and they know what will make them feel better. Most people don’t avoid meaningful life habits because of ignorance of their value, but because they are no longer “motivated” to do them. They are waiting until they feel better and frequently this is an extremely long wait. 

HAPPY PEOPLE:
·      Express gratitude
·      Cultivate optimism
·      Avoid over thinking
·      Practice kindness
·      Nurture relationships
·      Learn to forgive 


Many experiences in life that bring happiness are in your control. The more choices you are able to exercise, and control, the happier you are likely to be. You are responsible for your own life experiences, whether you are seeking a meaningful life or a happy life. I think that virtually all the happiness-producing processes in our lives take time, usually a long time, for example, changing old behaviours, building new relationships, raising children, etc. This is why patience and determination are among life’s primary virtues. Contact me via e-mail when you ready to install acceptance, gratitude and accomplishment into yourself or organisation.

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Barriers to risk

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.

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Habits change behaviours

We are all creatures of our own habits and beliefs, but we can change those habits and beliefs at any time we want. What might we achieve for ourselves if we are not at the mercy of habits, and instead we were the masters of our habits? I think small daily habits are unparalleled predictors of long-term objectives and this is true for both individuals and organisations. 

We go in the direction we face, and we go in the direction we design. Direction determines our destination, we cannot change our destination overnight, but we can change our direction. It’s fascinating what a small change of direction will do. A few decisions in learning, discipline, behaviours, and habits can very quickly make all the difference to our direction.
Here are 8 habits of lucky people:

1. Work hard
2. Complain less
3. Teach others
4. Share credit
5. Be on time
6. Be kind
7. Be teachable
8. Show gratitude


New ways of working demands for new habits. Life is too short to wait for a great day to invest in better life experiences. Contact me via e-mail for a framework guidance meeting. 

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Express your gifts

What happens when you stand in front of a fireplace and say give me some heat? The answer is nothing! Unless you put some wood into the fireplace add some fire starters and then light them, then you will not get any heat from the fireplace. If you replace the fireplace with a salesperson and replace heat with money. If you replace wood with knowledge and fire starters with the ability to reach out to clients. This is an analogy of a salesman who is consistently asked to sell products and services on a commission basis with no income until the client pays. I think this shows a distinct lack of understanding about what it takes to make sales - first you have to put something in before you can get something out.


How to make your brand interesting for potential buyers at home or abroad? Here are a few areas where we could collaborate:

Strategy - Interactive interview with yourselves to dig deeper into the brand’s foundation, values, and purpose.

Brand Analysis - Comparative analysis of brand and industry with a view to where the brand should be positioned.

Concept Development - Development of brand design direction and messages.

Communication Strategy - One strategy to unite all activities and channels to simply the brand communication.

Strategic Planning - Activity planning and brand development.

Implementation - Strategic activation plan for the brand with defined channels, goals, and “go-to-market” activities.

Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. The shortest path will be some kind of line, but its nature depends on the space and how you choose to look at it. Contact me via e-mail and let’s have a meeting.

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Invite input from others

How can teams communicate more effectively?
To maintain the team spirit is probably the most challenging issue for managers and leaders in organisations today, putting the “we” before the “me”. I think that it’s not about individuals, it’s all about the collective and team members should be encouraged to share relevant information and ask clarifying questions. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. This is a skill that improves communication and with practice most people can learn to become better communicators.

How can you create a non-negotiable passion within your team?
I think in order to maximise teamwork, it's important that all teammates share the same goals and are committed to an overall vision. Communication is essential to ensure that a team runs optimally, and ineffective communication can derail an entire project. Bruce Tuckman stated that teams go through four stages of development - forming, storming, norming and performing - this is a useful framework for looking at your own team. In my experience, diverse teams with are more effective than less emotionally savvy teams and EQ skills can help teams navigate conflict, evenly divide work, and develop long-term trust.

What happens when teams interact virtually? 
Individual members of any team can help the team do better whether virtually or in person. Managers and leaders should encourage team members to communicate with one other and ensure that every team member participates in the discussion. In an ideal scenario, every team member would be encouraged to share their ideas and updates on progress - even if the news is bad - and other members would do their best to listen, evaluate without judgment, and offer a thoughtful response. 


Do you have the necessary time, focus, and energy for training and workshops? If so, contact me via e-mail.

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The essential elements

Dover Street Market, London

How we think and feel about people we don’t particularly know is perhaps the best guide to the workings of the average human imagination. I may be naïve, but I think that if you take care of somebody, they’ll open doors that you could never open yourself. They’ll take you by the hand and share you with people that you never thought you could reach. I believe that when you provide good service for your customers they will recommend you and this will lead to multiple sales.

No matter how well we are doing, we can all use another idea! Just a couple of other things that link together with the things we already know could give us a whole new burst of productivity and energy. Sometimes it’s difficult to bring yourself within the framework of activity required to concentrate and focus on doing your best. For an extraordinary lifestyle, we will have to do some tough listening.

My simple 3 step sales formula is:
1.    Talk to lots of people every day and you are bound to get better.
2.    Be really nice, a big part of presentation is attitude and personality.
3.    Be of extraordinary service, do all the things most people don’t do.

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What’s in it for me?

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.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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.

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Mutual benefit

The world is an incredibly complicated place and none of us can ever have the full lock on truth, we only ever see the world from a particular vantage point. This means that our knowledge is going to have a special insight because of our vantage point, but it’s also going to be limited because of our vantage point. And so, this limited knowledge that we have about the world means that we must enter into any conversation with a deep sense of humility. This is because you need to help me to fill in my knowledge gaps, and I need you.



We have the opportunity to gain in our knowledge and to learn from anyone. I think that when we are thinking with humility anyone can be our teacher. The cool thing about conversations is when both of us look at the world from different vantage points, and that means that we each have something to offer the other. And this is true whether one person is the expert or not. A really great conversation is one where we genuinely learn something, or we come to a deeper understanding about why someone holds a particular point of view. It might have been a conversation that challenged you in all the right ways and left you feeling smarter. What are the design principles of a great conversation?


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Words are words

Communication is a craft, it will serve you so well at home and in the marketplace, it will server you so well in your career and making your fortune. Here’s the combination; well-chosen words mixed with measured emotion. Not only do the words have to be well chosen, but the emotions also have to be well measured. I mean do not place too much power on a minor point, for example, nobody would get it, if you have a powerful point and a little bit of emotion. It wouldn’t make sense, therefore. adjust your style to fit the occasion and the emotional content. 


Effective communicators spend a lot of time getting to know the product's target customer. Whether it’s working on a job or advancing your career, whatever it is, craft your communications and become a little more aware. Effective communicators ask themselves:
•. What is the customer's pain?
•   What does the customer find frustrating with current products?
•   What will surprise and delight this customer?


The better you know your customer, the more effective you'll be at crafting messages that resonate with them. This is a craft, and the payoff is so great when your communication makes sense. Just ask yourself the question: Could we possibly get better at affecting people with our words and language? What about with style and emotion content? And if the answers are yes, contact me via e-mail for creating a framework that ensures it consistently works. 

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Knowing the scenario

Illustration Francesco Ciccolella

Dr. Richard Carlson’s book, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” from 1998 advised us to only deal with things that matter and follow simple strategies for living a more fulfilled and peaceful life. As leaders, let’s learn to help people not just with their jobs but also with their lives. I think we have a two-fold responsibility to help people with job skills and I think the greater responsibility is to help people with life skills. Don’t only teach people how to work, let’s teach people how to live and how to assimilate and accumulate far greater treasures than just a salary. 

“It not only about what I earned, it’s also about what I learned.”

— Burrellism

There is treasure in awareness, understanding, setting goals, reaching into the future, and expanding our horizons. I have been in London this week teaching a sales team how to ask great questions, whom to target, how to follow up and how they efficiently fill their pipelines. The workshop revolved around, “How do I attract my ideal customers?” The larger the challenge, the larger the opportunity! Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops about mastering the science of achievement and the art of fulfilment.

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Going against the grain

Advertising has been around for millions of years old and nowadays people use advertising as a heuristic for knowing whom to trust. I think that innovation tends to happen around the edges as if you design for the middle market you’ll end up in an overcrowded field. We don’t get an endorphin rush from mid-market retail. The people who successfully innovate are the people who actually understand that there is a margin and there is an extravagant treat.

By modelling social science on physics, we think that being scientific means that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. In marketing, the rules of the game aren’t constant, and you can re-write them, for example, by changing the context you can change what good means. The first assumption of science is that magic is impossible, which is absolutely true in physics but not true in psychology. Magic is possible in psychology, for example, you can make something worth 10 times as much simply by tweaking with the brain and not the thing itself.  

The way to solve a problem may be trivial and silly, and our attempts in business to make ourselves look serious and important by always talking about higher order may also make us look stupid. Sometimes all you have to do is implement a very small “butterfly effect change” and actually you can. Big inputs can have small effects and small inputs can have big effects, that’s why human behaviour, I mean complex behaviour is not like high-school science.

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Excellence is a journey

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. 

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The ripple effect is bigger

It’s the autumn holidays and I’m still coming to terms with the passing of my mother. As a parent you have a responsibility to guide your children through life and I am grateful to be spending some quality time with my son. The life crises have a way of stripping you of our old certainties and throwing us into chaos and I think the only way to survive is to surrender to the process. When you emerge, blinking into the light, you have to rebuild what you thought you knew about yourself.

We live in an age of positive curation where everyone has a personal brand on social media and fear, anxiety and depression are on the rise. Challenges have a way of humbling us and knocking down our egos. The same thing can happen to two different people and one person may see it as a problem, something to complain about or run and hide from, the other can see it as an opportunity to learn and grow, and they dig in and push through. It’s not easy to shift our mindset to view challenges as opportunities, as it takes practice to change our instinctual reaction. Every day I reveal my vulnerable self and this fragility has enabled me to build up an emotional resilience necessary to tackle the next challenge. 

I think what you learn from things not turning out the way you planned can give you a lot more texture and meaning. I definitely would not have seen the richness in my life if I had not suffered setbacks along the way, because without them I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today, so I am extremely grateful. Success is not about getting things right the first time but stemmed from being able to look at one’s past honestly and then to correct missteps or errors of judgment. 

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You want an agreement

There’s nothing that raises your self-confidence faster than to feel that you have been successful in negotiating a contract and that you have got a good deal as a result. On the flip side, there is nothing that lowers your self-confidence faster than to think that you have been out negotiated into a poor deal that you will have to live with. Therefore, negotiating skills are an important part of your personality development and of your sense of personal effectiveness and self-confidence. When you are a good negotiator, your self-confidence is higher, and you feel more positive towards yourself and other in everything that you do.


Very often negotiations depend on setting conditions; what you can offer depends on what the other side can do. It’s a good idea when negotiating to keep things calm and avoid direct criticisms. The skills you need to be a good negotiator are rarely something you learned as part of a formal education. Some people think they are good negotiators, but in reality are not. Contact me via e-mail for negotiation training and workshops.

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Improve your outcomes

Some people are good at negotiating for their own interest and some people are not. Which one of these two types of people do you want to be? One of your main jobs in life, one that will lead to increased levels of self confidence is to become more effective in influencing others by learning great negotiation skills and choosing good questions to ask. I think the best negotiators all have basically the same characteristics and qualities, they are pleasant people, they are warm, friendly, and humble. You have an automatic tendency to trust someone with great negotiation skills and feel what they are asking for is in the best interests of both parties.


Skilled negotiators are usually quite concerned about finding a solution or an agreement that is satisfactory for both parties. They look for “win-win” situations, where both parties are happy with the results of the negotiation. It’s imperative that you choose good questions to ask and try to understand what both parties are trying to achieve from the negotiation. I think that finding good questions to ask about a customer’s needs is the only way you will be able to find out what exactly is important to them in a negotiation. And it is important to show the customer other benefits they are receiving.


Good negotiators are patient, and they concentrate first on getting agreements on all the parts of the contract that the two parties have in common, before they go on seeking for amicable ways to settle the other issues. Good negotiators also take their time to prepare good questions to ask to get clarity and understand each point as they go along to ensure  that there are no confusions later in the negotiations. Remember, price is not always the most important thing in negotiations. Contact me via e-mail for negotiation training and workshops.

Think like your customers

The key to success is to make your customers happy. And then make them happier than your competitors and then every single day wake up and think, how can I make my customers happier? In my experience the very best companies think like their customers. They are obsessed with their customers, they think and talk about their customers the whole time, they personally responded to their customer complaints, they are just obsessed with their customers. 
- What do customers want?
- What do customers need?


Sales and marketing are different functions! Marketing is to attract people who are interested in the benefits of your products or services. And selling is the conversation, that is to buy from you rather than from your competitors. You can’t sell if you can’t attract interesting prospects. I think 90% will be the quality of your product or service. How can you tell whether you have a great product or service? This is the test that will predict your future above any other test for the rest of your business career. How many people after they have used your product or service turn to another person and say, “wow, that was great product or service?”

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