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.
Remember who you are
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
Tips on Tuesday
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.
Stay calm
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.
Metamorphosis
Search and you will find
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?
Friday facts
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.”
Fine-tune your sales processes
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.
Fuel your creativity
In my day to day, I face a variety of internal and customer-facing situations, both positive and negative, and being able to communicate effectively has served me well throughout it all. What I love about my job is that I get to bring talented people into an engaging environment where they can make a difference. I think that talented people working together for the greater good around the world will determine our future.
Remember just because you were born talented doesn’t mean you are the best, there will be someone working harder than you and that person will succeed. Contact me via e-mail to book a motivational coaching session.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
Planning tools
“Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition. It’s not a matter of being better at what you do - it’s a matter of being different at what you do.”
Strategy is not only what you talk about doing, strategy is also something you do. I think that to develop a bold and executable strategy starts with making sure leaders have addressed these two questions:
· What are we great at?
· What are we able to achieve?
How will you be different than your competition? Contact me via e-mail for a deeper dive of your strategy.
Saying it and doing it
I think that there are three things you must always ask yourself before you say anything:
Does this need to be said?
Does this need to be said by me?
Does this need to be said by me, now?
Confirmation bias
“Never confuse education with intelligence. Intelligence isn’t the ability to remember and repeat, like they teach you in school. Intelligence is the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use our knowledge to adapt to new situations.”
Let your values be your compass
I think the hardest part of leadership is knowing yourself and I truly believe that leadership exists in each of us. To be a great leader one must know who you are, and what's most important to you. We must acknowledge who we are both our successes and our shadows. We must resist the urge to ”cancel” people and celebrate those who persevere; those who remain calm in a storm and embrace their shadows.
Leaders are not born; they are made through values, virtues, principles, and character.The most common way we give away our power is thinking we don't have any. Lead from within in order to empower others to stand in their truth and to speak in their power. All you need is a heart full of grace, and a soul generated by love.
Unfit to lead
Yesterday, John Amaechi OBE said, “The passing of a leader who failed to live up to their promises is nothing more than an opportunity. An opportunity for the successor to prove every day and with every interaction that now - finally - integrity will be an unbreakable principle of their leadership.”
I really hope that the next leader will have better awareness, sensitivity and understanding of leadership skills required. Sometimes we forget that not everyone is cut out to hold a leadership role. So, we must ask the candidates what motivates them to want to lead other people. And if they don't emphasise the importance of helping others grow, succeed, and thrive, we should look at other applicants.
Change into something that elevates you
c/o Getty Images
Why can’t we be seen until we learn to see?
I think to see means that you have empathy, it means to realise that no one cares about you and your opinion, they care about themselves and their own opinion. If you can’t see them for who they are and for where their fears, desires, and dreams, they will ignore you because they only want to hang out with people who can see them. Being seen is an unlimited need that people you serve have and if you can see them and understand them, you can tell them a story that they want to hear and they are more likely to engage with you. Remember that you cannot be empathic to everyone, you cannot see and understand everyone, so pick who you are going to see and understand and do that.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”
We begin with a choice
“To be old and wise, you must have been young and stupid.” I think that as soon as you understand that nobody owes you anything and you don’t have the right to be heard, seen, or appreciated, it makes it so much easier to let go of all of that. This action will free up all of your brain to do the things that you said you wanted to do in the first place.
It’s an epiphany when you realise that no one owes me anything as when I start believing that you owe me something, then I have signed up for that outcome and the toxic cycle of betting on the outcome. I have gratitude for the freedom that this realisation has given me, and I refuse to dance to the beat of someone else’s drum. I am grateful to those people who have given me the opportunity to do my work.
“The years teach much which the days never knew.”
What is stress?
What is stress?
I’m not a medical expert so I cannot give you a medical answer. One of the best descriptions of the word that I have head was from the marketing guru, Seth Godin, who described stress as wanting to do two things at the same time, for example, stay and go, be quiet and be seen, whatever two things they are. When you are stressed at work it’s because you don’t want to be at work and the same time you want to get paid, and that causes stress.
I think that if you are stressed all day long it’s easy to lose all enthusiasm for anything, and what amplifies this is when you are afraid of something; you’re afraid of being insufficient, you’re afraid of doing a bad job and you feel like an imposter. When we add all of this up, modern industrial work is filled with stress and kills passion, so it’s not surprising that there is so much dissatisfaction in the way we do our work. This is why people who can’t find a better path go home and self-medicate with alcohol, pills or Netflix, and the people who can go home and find a hobby or literature that elevates themselves. Contact me via e-mail when you ready to turn your work or hobby into more of a less stressful choice which fills you up with energy and joy.
Third quarter overview
c/o Nasdaq
As we enter the third quarter, it’s time for the annual look at your messaging and product offering. It’s time to break free from the myopic way of thinking to focus on what your customers or potential customers are looking for now and in the next 12 months. Whenever you next bring your team together, examine your organisation as it stands now. Revisit your mission statement, core values, your product assortment and ask yourself: What is the value your customers are seeking from your products? Why would people buy or use it?
It’s important to understand who your customer is in terms of psychographics, behavioural factors and to a lesser extent demographics. The world around us is continuously changing in a whole variety of ways, therefore, you always need to be visionaries and remain forward thinking to stay ahead of your competitors.
Where do you need to make changes?
As a strategic leader it’s important to develop the direction the organisation is going via workshops. In my experience big ideas result from collaboration, study, and research analysis. Once you have the big idea you must develop a clear communication strategy of how you will communicate them efficiently throughout the organisation. Afterwards, oversee the implementation of these big ideas and finally, determine how the big ideas need to be refined and changed on a continuous basis. I think communicating these big ideas takes place daily through everything that you do. Contact me via e-mail for a meeting to discuss your workshop options.
Journey of discovery
How does purpose drive performance?
Your purpose will be the foundational base for driving strategy, so sharpen and tweak it continuously, and this will also help to implement it. Purpose is not a statement, it’s an ideal. Purpose is a sense of what are my goals and ambition, purpose also asks what my duties are and why I exist. Writing the words is the easy part, the hard part is how you translate a set of words into a plan of action. And when you think long-term it forces you to think about the stakeholders you want to serve.