Tick-tock, tick-tock. The sound of the clock is almost deafening when you feel like you’re running out of time. Deadlines looming, goals unmet, and that nagging feeling that you’re falling behind can really mess with your head. But before you surrender to a full-on existential crisis, let’s take a breather — literally.

The sound of the clock

You know that feeling when it seems like everyone around you has this “adulting” thing down except you? You’re not alone. It’s not that everyone else has found the secret stash of ‘extra hours’ that you haven’t. It’s that they’ve found ways to use their time more wisely. So, let’s cut through the noise and demystify this time dilemma.

The Time Paradox

Let’s break it down into five actionable steps: Plan, Focus, Simplify, Eliminate, and Relax. Every time you find yourself freaking out about deadlines or the to-do list that’s longer than a CVS receipt, cycle through these steps. Watch how they act like a mental defibrillator, snapping you back to life.

The Five-Step Dance

If You Feel Like You’re Running Out of Time, Breathe Deeply.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. The sound of the clock is almost deafening when you feel like you’re running out of time. Deadlines looming, goals unmet, and that nagging feeling that you’re falling behind can…

productivity

Productivity

habits

Habits

problemsolving

Problem Solving

timemanagement

Time Management

creativity

Creativity

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that your true self wasn’t acknowledged? You know, that moment when you feel like you are standing on the edge of an identity crisis? You are not sure what you should be acting or feeling like. Yeah, me too…it’s difficult.

Identity crisis?

Most of us were “raised” in the workplace to be “professional”. We were taught that being a professional meant putting our personality and beliefs aside. In fact, many times “faking it” is what it took to get ahead. But is that the best approach? And is it possible to be authentic at work?

What it means to be authentic in the workplace.

It is about being who you really are and allowing the people in your organisation to see that. It is about finding a balance between being yourself and fitting into a business culture — one where the values of your company are aligned with your own values and beliefs.

Bank on being yourself

In a world of platitudes, clichés, and career-crucifying performance reviews, authenticity at work can be a risky, even foolhardy option. You might fail to win over your boss or get that promotion you’ve always wanted and worked so hard for. But if you embrace your true self and hold firm to it when appropriate, you’ll have a better chance of finding success and appreciation in the workplace.

In a world of platitudes, clichés, and career-crucifying

A virus of false flattery, buzzwords, and spin has infested how we work — how we give feedback and make decisions. These phoney interactions, though often meant to reward employees and impress bosses, do little to foster authenticity or strengthen relationships.

A virus of false flattery, buzzwords, and spin has infested how we work

The brief encounters with other people that make up a day at the office — are where authentic presence thrives or dies. Our authenticity represents who we are without guile. It flows from within us. It’s the person we choose to be rather than the person others demand that we be.

Small moments

Authenticity is not a quality you gain once and suddenly embody forever after; it must be nurtured continuously. And when you do so, it produces rewards both large and small — a sense of meaning in your job, a feeling of connection with your colleagues and customers, and the ability to see and seize opportunities as they arise.

Authenticity Nurtured Continuously 

Expressing yourself will help build trust with your employees and show them that you’re a safe person for them to open up to as well. Encourage self-expression among your employees. Don’t just tolerate it but celebrate it! Encourage everyone to bring their full selves to work each day! Take an interest in who people really are outside of work and their interests and hobbies!

Don’t be afraid of showing your true self.

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that your true self wasn’t acknowledged?

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that your true self wasn’t acknowledged? You know, that moment when you feel like you are standing on the edge of an identity crisis? You are not sure…

career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

teamwork

Teamwork

business

Business

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

The Case For Authenticity At Work

A key to unlocking growth in your writing, startups, marketing, business, or career.

Storytelling is a superpower

The best storytellers always define a clear purpose prior to crafting their story.What is the story trying to achieve? What does success look like with this story?Commit to answering these key questions before doing anything else.

Clarity of Purpose

Every great story begins with a well-defined audience.Who is the audience? What do they consciously (or subconsciously) want from the story?Be deliberate with this exercise.Be honest with yourself. The audience may look different than you expect.

Define the Audience

“People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end anymore. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” – Steven SpielbergStories need structure.Clear narrative arcs (like Pixar’s “hero’s journey”) work well.

Establish Structure

Playwright Kenn Adams created a neat framework - “the story spine” - for establishing structure:Once upon a time there was [blank]. Every day, [blank]. One day [blank]. Because of that, [blank]. Until finally [bank].Fill it in and watch your story take shape

The Story Spine

Emotion is what makes great stories stick with you.Think about your favourite stories. How did they make you feel?It’s a safe bet that they elicited a strong emotional response.Learn from this. Weave emotion into the foundational fabric of every story.

Weave in the Emotion

Every great story is infused with novelty.Novelty comes in many different forms:Fresh, new perspectives. Surprising insights. Shock-and-awe moments. Unexpected twists.The goal is to make your audience say: “Oh, wow!”If you’re falling short, dig deeper.

Infuse Novelty

Storytelling expert Nancy Duarte coined the “what is vs. what could be” framework.First, describe the reality (“what is”).Next, describe the potential future (“what could be”).This framework forces you to create contrasts to craft a captivating narrative.

Create Contrasts

Disney is the greatest storytelling empire of all time.Walt Disney was famous for his focus on suspending reality for his audiences - allowing them to experience his new reality while still being in their reality.Take a lesson from the best. Suspend reality.

Suspend Reality

“Make it simple, but significant.” - Don DraperA good story may be complex, but a great story is always simple.Try to elevator pitch the story to an uninformed party. Are they able to understand it? If not, you still have work to do.When in doubt, simplify!

Keep It Simple

Shared community is an insanely powerful force.The best stories (and the best storytellers) foster community - they elicit a sense of shared purpose, shared membership in a group, or shared experience.Stories that build communities last forever.

Foster Community

Stories are meant to be shared.The story “K-factor” - a viral marketing metric for growth - should be high.This requires high shareability.To enhance it: Keep it simple and make it easy to “take down” into shorter, alternative versions.

Shareable 

Most great writers and storytellers agree on one thing: starting is the hardest part.There is nothing more daunting than a blank page.So start fast - get a draft down (and don’t worry about how bad it is).Then slow down - write & rewrite as necessary.

Draft Fast, Edit Slow

Inspiration is from Twitter. Found this Twitter thread on storytelling that I think every writer, storyteller or professional should know about. Happy Reading! Thank me later ☺️

writing

Reading & Writing

communication

Communication

Twitter

Every credit policy tells you what your company will do if a customer doesn't make a payment on time. It also tells you what process you have for doing that. You have to have a credit policy because it affects your cash flow and the risk of loss if customers do not pay.

Savvy credit management

Having credit limits in place will fundamentally help your business in two ways.<ol><li>It establishes clear rules for you and for your customer</li><li>Credit limits work as a protection for you and your business.</li></ol>

Establish credit limits

Please check the credit rating of your customers before you extend them credit. If you don't, you'll be in for some nasty surprises. Your customers will be in the habit of not paying their bills on time and if you don't find this out on time you're going to have wasted a lot of money.

Check the credit rating of your customers

The person's job is to make sure invoices are sent on time and follow through on aligning your credit management strategy with every customer interaction. You need someone responsible for making sure the money is paid to your business.

Have someone dedicated to tracking debtors

Credit terms should be set by the supplier in agreement with the customer, because there are many limitations involved when a buying organization decides to set their own credit policies.

Credit terms should be set by the supplier

This is a credit sales agreement and should include the terms and conditions of credit sales between a creditor and a customer. This document, once signed by both parties, sets out the agreed credit terms in accordance with the law and may also be referred to as a 'credit sales agreement.'

A credit application form/agreement

Getting paid within 30 days of invoice date is the goal as defined in most small business cash flow management systems. Late payments can have a series of negative effects. For example, late payments may increase the risk of bankruptcy or insolvency, which normally lead to a loss of a contract and an interruption in cash flows to the business. Furthermore, late payments will lead to a reduction in working capital which is essential for any business to continue operating smoothly.

Late Payments.

<ul><li>The type of customer,</li><li>The size and financial strength of the buyer,</li><li>The supplier's operating cycle,</li><li>Seasonality,</li><li>Payment history,</li><li>Supplier's profit margin</li></ul>

Factors that affect business credit terms:

Credit management is my biggest lesson for the past 24 months. I personally lost $6, 000 to a client in Malta because of a lack of good business credit management on my part. I don't want you to make the same mistake. 

Credit management, in short, is a process of collecting money for goods or services provided to another person. Learn from my mistakes and do better ☺️

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

Lessons about Business credit management

“Nana korobi, ya oki” and it means “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

The ability to keep going no matter how many times you fall. It’s about not giving up, no matter how hard things get

It is about resilience.

The biggest mistake that leaders make is to believe that people can only learn if they experience success.When life hits you with a new challenge, the hardest thing to do is just to get back up on your feet and fight back

Failure is hard to take


Indomitable people have something within them which makes them believe always that those setbacks are just temporary. They never give up no matter how hard things get for them, and they only become stronger due to all the challenges that come their way. In fact, it is their greatest strength that allows them to work around any setbacks and achieve their ultimate goal.

What is it that makes some people invincible to setbacks?

Resilient people tend to have a positive outlook on life. They don’t dwell on their failures but instead focus on their successes and lessons learned.

Go-getters & resilient people

It’s the power that enables some people to keep going when everyone else might give up. It’s what allows athletes to win gold medals, startups to become unicorns, make people get to the apex of their profession.

Extreme persistence is a special gift


Remember all of those good things that drive you forward still sound in your heart.They are still there when you remind yourself what’s really important.

Don’t give up!

This is a quote that I live by. I've been through my fair share of difficulties, and I've had many successes and failures. But I'm still here, and today is the first day of my tomorrow. Just don't give up, no matter what happens.

This proverb is about resilience, the ability to keep going no matter how many times you fall. It’s about not giving up, no matter how hard things get. And it’s a lesson that we can all learn from…

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

Fall seven times, stand up eight. — Japanese proverb

One of the many reasons we don’t innovate is the fear of failure. What if you could celebrate your failures?Failure is a part of innovation. I know how to fail, but then I get wiser and become a better business person each time I experience failure. Now I call them experiments, not failure.

Embrace failure

Admitting to mistakes and learning from them will translate into deeper insights for your business and markets. Having employees and co-workers talk about failure in previous/current projects can spark innovation in a way that success cannot.Viewing your failures as portals to innovation will allow you to map out strategies to benefit from them.

Drive innovation from failure.

Employees need to feel like they belong. Instil a sense of ownership.They need to see your overall business goals as an extension or at least some sort of connection to their personal life goals. You will be amazed by how much creative energy you can amass by finding parallels.

A culture that encourages sharing ideas.

Challenge what is normal. Market research before getting into business is created, but what if you could create a whole new market because you showed up?Airbnb, Amazon, Uber, The Boring Company are examples of companies that challenged the status quo and dared to be different.

 Dare to be different

The role of innovators and entrepreneurs is to challenge received wisdom.

You focus on the need, not the product. You become immersed in the minds of your customers, looking for ways to expand demand. Your business strategy is driven by the marketplace. Do you know the difference between what you make and what people need?

Consumer Insights

Companies must spend enough time on insight generation, insights activation (sharing and acting on customer/market, the understanding gained from research) in marketing, R&D and innovation platforms so it can constantly respond to market opportunities and unexpected threats.

Insight Generation

Do you have the tactics to turn ideas into reality? Here are some insights or tactics you might find helpful.

One of the many reasons we don’t innovate is the fear of failure. What if you could celebrate your failures? Heard of Fuckup nights? Fuck up nights — Networking events in 90 countries where people…

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Tactics to make innovation happen in your business

Stop complaining about what you don’t have.We only get one life. Who wants it to be mediocre, mundane and lazy? It is always better to work hard and to go after what we want in life, and not stay the way we are. But success in this sense requires a lot of discipline and hard work.

Stop complaining

If you truly want to accomplish anything in life and become the kind of person you admire, then you need to commit yourself to a disciplined program of actions that will help you get where you want to go. You don't just have the power to make vague declarations or have New Year's resolutions. That doesn't change things much.

No Vague New Year's Resolution

To make a real change, you have to start doing things differently than before; developing new habits; and so forth. This means commitment. This means accepting responsibility for your own life, rather than being a passive observer or an inactive participant.

Mind Shift 

Some people think the way to get ahead in life is to concentrate on their weaknesses and simply try to eliminate them. That's very bad advice. It's not the things we're bad at that hold us back, but the things we don't do at all - we fail because we never tried in the first place

Don't focus on your weaknesses

Here’s what you should do instead: pick one thing that you’d like to get good at and focus on that for an entire month. If you practice consistently for 1 month, the chances are good that you’ll see a noticeable improvement in your new skill.

Focus on doing one thing well

A lot of people are not clear about what they want and tend to complain about not getting what they want. If you want to get something in life, the first thing you need is clarity. It is always good to start by writing down your goals so that it will be easier to keep your focus on what you really want. The next thing is ACTION. The ideas here are intended to encourage thinking positively and taking some action steps toward creating the changes we desire in our lives.

Clarity is everything

People in almost every workplace experience a variety of challenges on a daily basis. In most cases, the issues surround aspects of the workplace, colleagues and internal politics. As the old saying goes: "It is better to light a candle than to complain about the darkness."

Be the light in your workplace

The moment we are complaining about life, we are already losing it because our attention is clouded by bad thoughts and this leaches us of opportunities, joy and happiness.

Get a grip

Some people feel like they're drowning in their own problems, dreams, wants and desires. They're deeply aggravated and upset about all the things they can't do because of their living situations and/or financial issues. This is to help you get a grip and start living 

It's easy to want something you don't have. It's harder to be grateful for what you do have and then find a way to get what you need.

strategy

Strategy

Get a Grip 

“We cannot solve our problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Innovation 

Our capacity for learning is becoming the currency we trade on in our careers. Where we once went to work to learn to do a job, learning now is the job. Adaptive and proactive learners are highly prized assets for organizations, and when we invest in our learning, we create long-term dividends for our career development.

Capacity For Learning 

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, shared that when assessing founders of potential investments, he looks for individuals who have an “infinite learning curve”: someone who is constantly learning, and quickly.

Infinite Learning Curve

“The learn-it-all will always do better than the know-it all.”

Since we spend so much of our time, energy, and efforts at our day jobs, they provide the most significant opportunities for learning. The challenge is that we don’t invest intentionally in everyday development — we’re so busy with tasks and getting the job done that there’s no space left for anything else.

Learning At Work 

Deprioritizing our development is a risky career strategy because it reduces our resilience and ability to respond to the changes happening around us. Here are three ways to take ownership of your learning at work.

Deprioritizing our development

The people you spend time with are a significant source of knowledge. Creating a diverse learning community will offer you new perspectives and reduce the risk that you’ll end up in an echo chamber. Set a goal of having one curiosity coffee each month, virtually or in person, with someone you haven’t met before.

Learn From Others 

Experiments help you test, learn, and adapt along the way. There are endless ways you can experiment at work — for example, using different tools to increase the interactivity of your virtual presentations, exploring the impact of camera-on versus camera-off meetings, switching from video to phone calls, or even trying out new negotiation tactics.

Experiment 

In a squiggly career, everyone’s a learner and everyone’s a teacher. As a team, consider how you can create a collective curriculum where you’re learning from and with each other. We’ve seen organizations effectively use skills swaps where individuals share one skill they’re happy to help other people learn.

Create a collective curriculum

Unlearning means letting go of the safe and familiar and replacing it with something new and unknown. Skills and behaviors that helped you get to where you are can actually hold you back from getting to where you want to be. For example, a leader might need to unlearn their default of always being the person who speaks first in meetings. Or a new manager might need to unlearn always saying “yes” as their workload increases.

Unlearning 

We unlearn when we look at a problem or opportunity through a new lens. This is more likely to happen if we’re spending time with people who challenge us and think differently than we do. The purpose of connecting with challengers is not to agree or debate but to listen and consider: What can I learn from this person?

Connect With Challengers 

We all have habits that helped us get to where we are today. However, habits can create blind spots that stop us from seeing different ways of doing things or new approaches to try out. Our brains use habits to create mental shortcuts that might make us miss out on opportunities to reflect on and unlearn our automatic responses.

Identify habits and hold backs

Relearning is recognizing that how we apply our strengths is always changing and that our potential is always a work in progress. We need to regularly reassess our abilities and how they need to be adapted for our current context. For example, collaboration remains as important as ever, but maybe you’re relearning how to do it in a hybrid world of work. Or maybe you’ve made a career change and you’re relearning what it looks like to transfer your talents to a new setting.

Relearning 

Having a Growth Mindset allows you to always want to evolve, to keep learning, to keep transforming. The fun for me is in the process and not what I become, but the process of becoming. This article resonates so well with me. 

Make Learning a Part of Your Daily Routine

We tell people to think outside the box, yet we don’t function like that in our everyday life.Brainstorming is an overused technique that generates confined and limited solutions, but we can’t get enough of it. Organizations hold on to old business best practices that have since ceased to be effective without thinking of ways to recreate them.

Brainstorming overused

<ol><li>Focus on quantity, not quality (Generate as many ideas as possible no matter how wild and out of the world they may seem)</li><li>Prioritise original and uncommon ideas</li><li>Defer Judgement and avoid criticism</li><li>Combine and fine-tune generated ideas</li></ol>

Brainstorming has four major components.

Alex Osborn claimed that brainstorming should enhance creative performance by almost 50% versus individuals working on their own. More than six decades after, research has shown that brainstorming hinders the creative performance of individuals in a group.

How we go about it is wrong

<ul><li>The assumption is that brainstorming is the best way to generate creative ideas as a group and the idea that we are stronger as a group than we are if we are alone.</li><li>Brainstorming is synonymous with the creative idea-generating process.</li><li>A method for organizations to use employees‟ creativity as a way of improving productivity</li></ul>

Why do organizations engage in brainstorming activities?

Think outside the box, don’t limit yourself, go as wild as you can, every idea is welcome. Common chants by managers encourage people to think creatively and come up with creative ideas. But it does not work. Most people cannot function at their peak without some form of structure and tangibility.

Cliché  don't work

Without direction, most people are uncertain if their line of thinking is in alignment with the overall ambiguous goal or do they chart a new course altogether. The ambiguity of the task will make them shut down.

Without direction, most people are uncertain

Organizations need to redesign how they organise and conduct brainstorming sessions to get the desired results.

Have we been brainstorming all wrong?

Re-engineer the Process:<ul><li>Imagine a room of 20 people with a very intimidating leader. His presence in the brainstorming session would limit the free flow of ideas or make people reluctant to share what they might presume to be a silly idea. Or a brainstorming process moderator who just showed up to a brainstorming session with no form of preparation or understanding of the business goals.</li><li>We can adjust the process to increase the chance of success. Define what ideas are acceptable, and structure your questions in that fashion.</li></ul>

Remodel your brainstorming sessions.

Put all the opinionated people (Those who like to control the direction of a meeting) in one group. If you have a brainstorming session with a group of 16 people, and 4 of those people like to dominate conversations, but them in one group, and have three other groups.Provide some incentive for active participation. The goal is to get 100% of the participants to work at 100% of their capacity 100% of the session.

Make sure everyone is involved

Wrote this article more than a year ago, but then repurposed it to Medium yesterday. I am proud of my writing journey. This is a really good article. 🤣😂😂😂. Read and comment 

Brainstorming is an overused technique that generates confined and limited solutions, but we can’t get enough of it. Organizations hold on to old business best practices that have since ceased to be…

If You Feel Like You’re Running Out of Time, Breathe Deeply.

The Case For Authenticity At Work

Twitter

Lessons about Business credit management

Fall seven times, stand up eight. — Japanese proverb

Edison Ade