personal

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Once upon a time

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Illustration by Liz Fosslien ©

As a guest lecturer my role was always to help the students to create some kind of value from day one. I was not expecting them to be mini-CEOs, all I expected was open-minded fresh thinkers who are willing to learn and where possible offer value. Technology, products, and services flow effortlessly around students and the way they navigate them is totally different than someone like me.

1.         I ask them to reflect and articulate what they see?
2.         What are the values that are important to them?
3.         How can a brand (product) or service tap into their important values better than now, and in relation for their future audience?

I met 3 types of students:

  • “The hopeful” - Who were excited about the creative industries and the possibilities. My role was to give them a deeper sense of reality

  • “The disrupter” - I can do it better type! Here I would give them another perspective, a greater sense of realism and balance so they could better understand the change mechanism and transformation.

  • “Help me” - The ones where the challenge was not meeting their expectations. 

Sunday exercise

To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” I have been a big fan of Byron Katie for many years, so I would like to give you an opportunity to get familiar with her work. Write down your stressful thoughts, and then ask yourself the following four questions:

1: Is it true?
Ask yourself if the thought you wrote down is true.

2: Can you absolutely know it’s true?
This is another opportunity to open your mind and to go deeper into the unknown, to find the answers that live beneath what we think we know.

3: What happens? How do you react when you believe that thought?
What do you feel? How do you treat the person (or the situation) you’ve written about, how do you treat yourself, when you believe that thought? Make a list, and be specific.

4: Who would you be without the thought?
Imagine yourself in the presence of that person (or in that situation), without believing the thought. How would your life be different if you didn’t have the ability to even think the stressful thought? How would you feel? Which do you prefer—life with or without the thought? Which feels kinder, more peaceful?

“I discovered that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that.”
— Byron Katie

Disciplined and dangerous

I started watching Chelsea regularly in the 70’s when we were languishing in the old 2nd Division and financially broke. Yesterday in Abu Dhabi we beat Brazil's Palmeiras 2-1 to win the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time. We are the World Club Champions! It’s weird to say, but it’s a fact that Chelsea FC are only the fifth team to have won every trophy available, the others are: Ajax, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Manchester United.

The biggest influence in life is habit

Habits shape our attitudes, actions, and decision-making abilities, and they affect every aspect of our lives. Before we can build good habits, we need to understand what habits are and how they’re formed. We also need to know what mistakes we should avoid in the process as it’s easy to say, “to get better results, adopt better habits”.

 

Every single day I blog about a point of view, something I see, an assertion and this has rewired my brain. I’m continuously thinking about what I am going to say tomorrow. This act of public journaling is risk-free, all the rational parts of my brain know that nothing bad can happen. I can’t tell you precisely what narrative will help you undo your own narrative, but you are welcome to contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting.

Magic words

I’m interested in making good things and creating a buzz for organisations. I own my feelings, my emotions, and my results. I’ve learned how to be responsible, to be able to respond to emotions that are unpleasant and to feelings that are undesirable. I have learned that whatever is happening in my world, I have the ability to upgrade my skills so that I can use everything that’s happening in a way that serves me as opposed to a way that hurts me or moves me back.

“I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given. I believed in myself, and I believe in the goodness of others.”
— Muhammad Ali

Focus on yourself

Stop focusing on what other people have and start focusing on what you have. Everyone defines their own success, and when it comes to selling - shift your mindset. It’s not about forcing someone to buy something they don’t want, that’s the wrong mindset. The right mindset says, how can I help you solve a pressing problem to help you build your business, to help you protect your assets, to help you become better. Why? Because if I can help you, I serve you and make money at the same time, so it’s a win-win solution.

Change your perception

I am a father, co-worker, boss, friend, partner, etc. and I’m sure that you also have a whole host of different roles in your lives. We invest in different roles at different times, and we put our focused, authentic selves into most of them. When we do it, it’s a better experience for everyone. It’s important to remember that communication starts inside of you, but it’s not always about you.

“A monk decides to meditate alone. Away from his monastery, he takes a boat and goes to the middle of the lake, closes his eyes and begins to meditate. After a few hours of unperturbed silence, he suddenly feels the blow of another boat hitting his. With his eyes still closed, he feels his anger rising and, when he opens his eyes, he is ready to shout at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, saw that it was an empty boat, not tied up, floating in the middle of the lake. At that moment, the monk achieves self-realisation and understands that anger is within him; it simply needs to hit an external object to provoke it. After that, whenever he meets someone who irritates or provokes his anger, he remembers, ‘the other person is just an empty boat; anger is inside me.’”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

Gone but never forgotten

It’s a little over 6 month since my mother passed onto the other side. Today is her 83rd birthday, so in her memory, I will quote Haruki Murakami. Have a super Sunday.

“Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.”
— Haruki Murakami

No gain without pain

The central figure of Western culture is Jesus Christ. My parents come from Jamaica, so I was born and raised in London with Christian values. Fun fact: According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Jamaica with over 1,600 churches, has the most churches per square mile of any country in the world.What does the dying of Christ and resurrecting as a hero mean psychologically? I think it means that you learn things painfully and when you learn things painfully a part of you must die and that’s the pain. For example, when a dream is shattered, a huge part of you that constituted that dream must be stripped away and burned. Therefore, life is a constant procession of death and rebirth, and to participate in that fully is to allow yourself to be redeemed by it. 

 

In my opinion, the good is the process of death and rebirth voluntarily undertaken – you are not as good as you could be, so let part of you die. And if someone comes along and says, “You know there’s some dead wood here and it needs to be burned but are you aware that if I burn it, it will be painful?” And I am fully aware that the thing that emerges in its place is something better. The secret of human beings, unlike any other species is that we can let our old selves die metaphorically and let our new selves be born, and that is exactly what we should do.

An outstanding achievement

My sister works for a local authority in London and she has been rewarded for her work with a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). My sister has been helping disadvantaged children re-enter the education system. Leading her team on a day-to-day basis and meetings with head teachers, social workers and the police, it’s a tough job.


Marcus Rashford also received his MBE, he has been recognised for his drive to ensure no child in need went hungry during the pandemic. The ceremony took place yesterday at Windsor Castle and I am extremely proud of both my big sister and Marcus Rashford.
Well done and keep up the good work.

“The Duke of Cambridge was pleased to be back doing investitures in person, celebrating people across the UK who have gone above and beyond for their country and community.”
— Prince William

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. 

No one cares!

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The world is changing fast but certain things remain consistent, for example, you have the leverage to make it better. I don’t think your customers buy from you because they care about you, they buy from you because they care about themselves. There’s a huge difference between tell the others and find the others. To tell the others says, “I need your support, please tell everyone else.”


A Gen Z’er recently asked me, “How do I become popular?”
As long as you're over a certain threshold of intelligence, what matters most is determination. And as you gain life experience you will create your own blueprint for how you define popularity. I think we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”
— Theodore Roosevelt

Understand before being understood

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You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. Everyone has different emotional thermostats and perhaps they have been set by how they were raised and developed by the traumas they may or may not have. I’ve learned how to tap dance around all the mental traps that most people who look like me tend to fall for. I have this wonderful ability to get moved by other people, some of whom I have never even met. I guess this is because I just the beauty in things. I have been training for years and years to develop practical empathy as people don’t know what I know and I don’t know what they know. And I am really comfortable with that - it’s all OK.


I don’t think that we change the whole world but if we try understand it, we will at least decode it and figure out a way to make it better for ourselves. If we can ask the below generic questions enough times, then this will help us change our perspectives and help us to evaluate where we stand:

  • What do you know? 

  • What do you need?

  • What happened to you that led you to believe that in this moment you are being reasonable?

We all have the same basic needs

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The six basic human needs provide a practical key for discovering one’s needs, behaviours, values and beliefs. They are the vehicles we use to meet our needs and these needs underlie and inspire every choice we make.

The first four are the needs of the personality and the final two needs are those of the Spirit:

  1. Certainty - Everybody wants avoid pain and have assurance that our basic needs are met.

  2. Uncertainty - We also crave variety, excitement and new stimuli.

  3. Significance - We all need to feel unique, special and important.

  4. Connection - We want to be loved and cared for and want a feeling of closeness with like-minded people.

  5. Growth - We all have a need to grow and expand in our personal and professional lives.

  6. Contribution - We have a desire to serve and support someone or something bigger than ourselves in a meaningful way.