Taking Stock-Looking back at the year that has been

Our last session of the year on Unleash Hour saw us discuss the critical matter of taking stock of the year that has been. The end of one year is a good moment to evaluate your life in all dimensions so that you can adjust and reset for the new year. This is a time to ask what went went well, what didn't and what role you may have played in the final outcome. This is a moment to look at yourself in the mirror and be real about issues. This video will help you in the quest for self-evaluation which is critical for the next season of your life. Watch, share, comment but most importantly act on the insights therein.  

Profligacy: The Unintended Consequence of A Mindset of Abundance.

 

Whatever you take to the extremes always comes with some disadvantages. A mindset of Abundance is one of the best things you can possess as an individual. It creates endless possibilities for the possessor. However, when it is taken to extremes, it could result in profligacy. Profligacy is just a big word that means wastefulness. It is a word that is used mostly with regard to strikers in football matches. When a striker keeps squandering chance after chance, we say he is profligate.

Profligate strikers cost their teams matches, crucial points and at the end of the day trophies. How would you feel like a coach when the striker you depend on misses chance after chance and shows little to no remorse or effort to get better at taking their chances? Before long, you will be tempted to find a more clinical striker.

I am a strong proponent of people not crying over spilt water but at the same time I want them working on ensuring that I future the water spills less often. Optimal utilization of chances and opportunities happens as you take steps to get better at making the best use of them. If you are responsible for taking freekicks in your football team for example, you want to perfect and vary your technique in such a way that you are getting better at it and also reducing the possibi9lity that your opponents will figure you out. You want to maintain a degree of uncertainty in their minds concerning where and how you will place the ball. As professional footballers will tell you, this doesn’t come by chance. It takes hours upon hours of practice to become good at it. Cristiano Ronaldo who is one of the most prolific goal scorers of the modern era was known to spend a lot of time perfecting his freekick technique at Manchester United. As a result he became very good at scoring them overtime. By the time he was leaving for Real Madrid, he was the undisputed Freekick taker of the team.

No one is 100% efficient

It is true that no one can get it right all the time. You only need to listen to Michael Jordan talking about how many shots he missed. We are talking about The G.O..A.T of basketball. Here is what he had to say. ‘I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’ We clearly see that he missed some pretty big chances in his career. Efficiency doesn’t mean that you won’t miss some. What it means is that every time you do, you check your performance with a view to doing better next time. That Thomas Edison got it wrong more than 10000 times with the light bulb doesn’t mean that he was mindlessly doing the same thing. Each failure took him closer to what he was working towards. Can you say the same about the chances you have squandered in the past?

All is not lost.

What makes a mindset of abundance a recipe for profligacy? I would like to emphasize that this mindset is a beautiful thing to have in spades. You do not want to be those who stare too long at a closed door while there are many other open doors ahead of you. Once you miss a freekick, penalty or big chance in life, a mindset of abundance comes in very handy in reminding you that there will be other opportunities to get it right. Those who get it wrong make one huge error. They do nothing to get better at taking their chances in the intervening period between one chance and the other. They fall for what Albert Einstein calls insanity-doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Profligacy happens when you fail to grow from your failures of yesterday. It happens when you don’t take the time to reflect on what happened the last time you squandered your chance, opportunity or moment. The best thing you can do for yourself to be cushioned against profligacy, is to get used to the idea of looking back over what happened with a view to picking the lessons you need in order to move forward. When you do that, then future opportunities are less likely to go to waste.

How to guard against profligacy

Be mindful of your performance. If you want to improve your performance, it begins with opening your eyes and paying attention to how you have done in the past and in the last time you attempted something. Whether it is a product you are developing or a goal you are pursuing, mindfulness will go a long way. A mindful attitude will help you take note of details that would escape you otherwise. It will give you what to work on in order to improve your technique.

Once you are clear on what is ailing you and your ability to take your chances, it is time to employ what is known as deliberate practice. James Clear defines deliberate practice as a special type of practice that is purposeful, systematic and requires focused attention with the specific goal of improving performance. This is one of the greatest things you can do to get rid of or reduce profligacy. When you are clear on what is missing, you are better placed to work on getting it to work so that you are functioning optimally overtime.

Be open to mistakes but seek to grow from them. It is important to note that you will not move from wasteful to efficiency in one fell swoop. It will take many little adjustments to get there. The best thing you can do is to be comfortable making mistakes and learning from them every single time. You should be ruthless enough with yourself to not allow repetition of mistakes but open to making new mistakes at a higher level.

Leverage on the failures of others. More often than not, what you are doing or trying to do has been done by others in the past. There is nothing much that comes from constantly trying to reinvent the wheel. Just because experience is a good teacher, doesn’t mean that you have to learn from your own experience. The target should be to learn as much as you can from those who have gone ahead of you so that you are starting on higher ground.

Pay attention to feedback. It is said we tend to play better when we are keeping score. Evaluation of performance is critical whether by self or others. A coach will go a long way ion helping you get better if you allow them to. Who do you listen to concerning the area where you are trying to be more efficient? It will help you to improve your performance if you are listening to someone and acting on their feedback even if that someone is yourself.

In Hot Pursuit!!!

Qualitative and quantitative adjustments for goals.

The pursuit of significant goals constantly meets obstacles along the way. The temptation is strong to quit on your goals when this happens. However, those who quit will never get to see what life is like on the other side of their goals. There is need for people to find a way to forge ahead in the face of opposition. In this article we will have a look at some of the adjustments you can make to your pursuit to increase your chances of success.

When it becomes difficult to reach your goals, don’t fall quickly to the temptation to revise them. The more prudent approach is to revise your strategy. The wisdom of Einstein reminds us that insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Since we are clear that you are not insane, what are some of the adjustments you can make to your pursuit of your goals to help you get there faster.

I am making certain assumptions here. They are as follows. You have some goals you are pursuing. You have a strategy you are applying to help you get there.

Categories

I am looking at two broad categories of adjustments you can take and I will try to give examples in each case. Consider the case of James who is a salesperson in the financial services sector. When he started the year, he set himself an income target of Kes. 3 Million by the end of December 2021. So far he has only managed to raise 1 Million. Seeing as this is the second half of the year, he has a lot of work to do to catch up. In his strategy, he needed to see 5 people a day Monday to Friday to stand a chance of getting to his goal. James has been faithful in meeting five people for over ¾ of the time in which he has been pursuing this. His problem clearly is not in the numbers he was supposed to be racking up.

Grant Cardone in his book the 10X Rule proposes a relook at the effort we put into pursuing our goals. He opines that we often underestimate the effort needed to get us to our goals. If James was to follow Cardone’s advice, then his adjustment would need to be quantitative. He would want to try raising the number of daily appointments from 5 to 7. Whether that is practical depends on how long his meetings last and whether he has the numbers to increase the engagement. Looking at his closing ratio, it is possible that this forty percent increase in the number of people he is seeing would result in him getting as close as possible to his target by the end of the year.

Sometimes all you need is a quantitative adjustment. If increasing the quantity of your activity will get you closer to your goals, then by all means jump on board and engage more people, increase the number of hours you are at it or whatever numerical increase is represented by your activity.

James could also be having a qualitative challenge. The calibre of people he is meeting, how closely do they align with his ideal clients? For as long as they don’t qualify on a number of criteria, the battle is going to be tougher for James. His remedy will be to take a fresh look at the list of people he has been meeting to ensure that they meet the strict criteria of his ideal clients. Qualitative increase in his case means he sees more of the people who fit in with his profile and less of those who are off the mark. By applying these strict criteria, he might end up seeing fewer people but this will be the right people. Chances are high that he will close more lucrative business.

Another qualitative adjustment he can make is to improve his closing ratio by improving his closing skills. He should ask himself questions like, what can I do to increase my chances of closing more clients? Such adjustments will take him closer to reaching his goals.

Blended Approach

More often than not, we need both numerical and iterative adjustments to get us to where we need to go. What would happen to your results if you added an extra hour of activity every day? How would adjusting the number of attempts affect your outcome? If you are looking for a job and making applications, ask yourself what you will achieve if you increased the number you are sending every week. That would be a quantitative adjustment. A qualitative adjustment in your case would be refining your resume and cover letters and also filtering through the companies and positions you are applying to so that you focus on those that tally with your skills and cultural disposition. A combination of quantitative and qualitative adjustments well thought through and implemented is likely to get you to the other side of your goals faster.

Let’s experiment with one of your goals for this year. What is the goal? What strategy are you pursuing for its realization? What feedback are you getting from your action? What adjustments can you make to increase your chances of hitting the mark? Be sure to review regularly and lets see where you end up in December.

PS: One of the qualitative adjustments you can make is to get a coach to help you through the process of pursuing your goals. if you are looking for someone to walk with you in the pursuit of your goals feel free to reach out to me. Together we can achieve more. Email: asenasam@gmail.com

Unleash Yourself(Part 3 of 3)

 Here is the last of our three part series on the common things that hold people back from becoming all they can be. you can check out the first two in the posts preceding this one. As you read through, take not of what you identify with so that you can find a way to deal with it and rise to the top. 

Self-Doubt

When God called Moses to go and deliver the Israelites from the captivity of Egypt, the first question Moses poses to God is who am I? Jeremiah is quick to say I am just a youth. Gideon has so much doubt in his ability that God has to prove over and over again that he is the man to get the job done. The interesting thing is that all these men went ahead and accomplished great feats the moment they believed in their ability to get it done.

Self-doubt is a huge limiting factor to the greatness of many people. Many of us don’t feel good enough or pretty enough or deserving of the honor that is being put on us. Like Moses we ask who am I? We have little confidence in our ability to accomplish anything worthwhile. We don’t see ourselves as capable of exploits. We are comfortable getting lost in the crowd.

Until we get rid of this doubt and believe God to be with us like he was with these great generals of the past, we will remain stuck in our predicaments. You need a healthy dose of self-confidence to be able to go out there and do what needs to be done. This should ideally stem from the understanding that God is by your side walking with you every step of the way. Are you a victim of self-doubt? How does it show up in your life? How are you dealing with it?

Lack of vision

When you have no definite chief aim, chances are that you will not go very far in life. Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint. Proverbs 29:18 The possibility of living aimlessly is greatly increased when there is no guiding principle for your life.  If you are keen on living a life of greatness, you must first define what that greatness looks like. There are many competing aspirations in our lives and we must choose where we will expend our energy. Without that, we will be spread thin in many different directions and have nothing concrete to show for our efforts. A failure to decide what we will pursue means we will have very little motivation for life or any of the other things that matter. When you have no vision, your efforts are haphazard at best because whatever results you get are okay with you. It does not matter how many resources you have at your disposal, if they are not channeled towards creating something worthwhile, they will amount to nothing. Resources, favor, luck and all those things we hope for follow vision and not the other way around. A vision keeps the wrong people out of your life. Those who do not align with what you are doing will not find room in your life for as long as it is clear. Part of the reason why we are surrounded by people who offer very little is that we are not yet clear about what we want and as such everyone feels comfortable around us. What is your core business here? That tells you what you should be spending 80% of your time on. You cannot call something a priority when you are struggling to create time and set aside resources for it.

A lack of vision guarantees you a lacklustre life. With scattered efforts, incongruent utilization of resources and no clear outcomes, your activity will not make sense even to you. A lack of vision is one of the greatest leashes used to hold us back from living a life of meaning and significance.

Money

I have put money as low as this because it is not such a limiting factor when you have taken care of a lot of the issues mentioned above. Like I said in my submission above, resources follow vision.

Having said that, a shortage of money can become a huge limiting factor to how much you can accomplish. Many people have great ideas that will never see the light of day because they do not have the money to execute on them. Great ideas require great men and women to carry them out. Great men and women do not come cheap. Money can limit how far you can carry out your ideas. The Super wealthy have the luxury of choosing what to do because their resources give them the liberty. One who is just starting out must make many compromises and sacrifice aspects of what they want to do until an opportune time. This keeps great ideas from being fully implemented. Anytime your ideas are caged, you are put on a leash and cannot move beyond your confinement.

There is a way around it though. You must be quick to embrace the concept of interdependence. Since you do not have all you need, instead of waiting forever to have it, you would be better served by joining forces with others who bring the strengths you don’t have. This is why Venture capitalists and angels exist. If finance is your limitation, look for someone who has it but doesn’t have a clear idea how to put it to work. Such a person will help you bring out your greatness. This brings up another leash that we probably need to talk about as well. Selfishness.

Selfishness.

Believe it or not, trying to make it all on your own is not usually the best strategy. Don’t let the need to call yourself a self-made man keep you from connecting with other people who can be of help to you. The concept of a self-made man is a fallacy. You must find a way to keep your ego in check if you will be able to connect with the missing pieces of your greatness. There were strategic people in the journey of Joseph to premiership in the Bible. Think about all the people a politician needs to surround himself with if he is to ascend to the presidency. From the funders of the campaign, to lobbyists and many other people who work in the shadows to make the campaign a success. You cannot run a one man show and expect to go very far. If you truly want to release your greatness, be willing to accept help from others who have a lot to contribute to your journey to the top. Don’t see yourself as the source of all wisdom and strength. Know what you are good at and what you suck at. That understanding will enable you select people who can come in and complement your strengths. Let’s be clear on the fact that you need a circle around you to reach certain heights and your task remains to choose the right people to be in that circle. Accept the help offered by others who see things in the same light as you. You must also be willing to accommodate divergent views within your circle. If no one questions your proposals or seeks to improve on them, you have the wrong people in the circle. Surrounding yourself with Yes-men is the biggest sign of a selfish individual. You want to have people who bring a different perspective so that the task is accomplished in a manner that encompasses the diversity and dynamism required.

Success/failure

Finally success and failure are both seeds which can either propel you forward or keep you stuck. Failure if it is misinterpreted can define you and determine your action going forward. It is possible for you to get stuck in the place where you are not attempting anything out of your comfort zone simply because you tried something and failed. Failure must be looked at as a lesson. Someone has gone as far as to say in everything I do I either win or I learn. Failure is you finding a way that doesn’t work. Thomas Edison failed 9999 times in his attempts to make the incandescent light bulb. How many times have you failed before you called it a day? You must keep trying and refining your method until you get the desired result. Failure can be a fatal blow if you let it. It can keep you from ever trying again. Failure is a terrible leash because it comes with evidence. Beware of the hold of failure on your ability to move forward.

Success on the other hand can also hold you back. It does so by numbing you. Bill Gates says Success is a lousy teacher. It teaches you to think that you are smarter than everyone else. You must guard against the effects of your success as much as those of your failure. Success makes you take things for granted. As hard as it is to get to the top, it takes a lot more effort to stay there for long. You must maintain the posture of a student if you will remain at the top. Success massages your ego and leaves you feeling invincible. The moment you begin to think you are immune to failing, you have already started your descent. It is wise to manage your success lest it destroys you. The enemy of great is good so they say. You are not kept from greatness by your failings rather it is your prior success that can stand in the way of another attempt at a bigger challenge.

What other leashes can you think of that keep people from reaching their full potential? What are you going to work on as a matter of urgency to ensure that you give yourself the best chance of finishing at the top? Share your thoughts and other contributions in the comments below. I am passionate about helping people break out of their limits and living remarkable lives. If you are keen on that, reach out to me and let's see how I can be of help. 

asenasam@gmail.com, +254725832477

Unleash Yourself(2 of 3)

We continue from where we left off last week. We started a conversation on some of the things that hold us back from going forth and becoming all we can be. We looked at four of them including your environment, the culture in which you grow up, lies you have believed and ignorance. In this week's post we look at four more 

 Beliefs

What we believe greatly influences our action. Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. What we believe finds its way to the surface whether we approve of it or not. You can paint a different picture all you want, but your unguarded moments will reveal what your heart is made of. Our beliefs play a critical role in how we live our lives. Limiting beliefs can be a great leash holding us back from all the world has to offer. Liberating beliefs will take us beyond any obstacles and stumbling blocks along the way. A mindset of scarcity will see a dearth all around, a mindset of abundance will see possibilities all around even in the midst of a crisis.

There is an old analogy about how elephants are tamed. The process is simple. When the elephant is young, it is tied on a tree which it cannot pull free from. After several attempts, it is registered in the mind of the elephant that it can never break free from the tethering. At this point, the size of the tree doesn’t. neither does the size of the rope or the elephant for that matter. Because it has been conditioned to believe it can’t break free, even a small child with a rope can lead it anywhere and it will follow obediently.

Limiting beliefs have a similar effect on us. Today is a good day to examine what you believe in about yourself, the world, God, life and pretty much anything. Are your beliefs liberating or restricting? You will never live above your belief. You are where you are because you believe that is what you deserve. If you believed that you deserve more, you would have demanded more from yourself and your surroundings.

Seek answers about what you believe if you want to change levels. What you believe in will not take you to the next level until you change it. Break free from limiting thoughts and begin to see endless possibilities. They are yours for the taking.

Complacency

A lack of ambition can hurt your chances of finishing at the top significantly. Complacency sets in when you think you already have all you need. Are you in a place where you think your life is just fine as is and there is nothing more to strive towards? You could be suffering from a complacency crisis. There is nothing wrong with posing to enjoy what you have built. The only problem is when the pose becomes the final destination. It takes significant effort just to maintain your position as those who have risen to the top can attest. You will realize that even when you don’t have any drive to go further, if you lower your guard for too long, you won’t be able to maintain even that which you have accomplished. Harder than getting to the top is the discipline to stay at the top. Complacency will keep you from becoming all you can be. It will rob you of the exploits that are ahead of you. It will limit your experience of life. As humans we love novelty. Boredom easily sets in when we are not playing at a level that challenges and stretches our minds beyond the ordinary. Contrary to what we believe, you can only bask in your accomplishments for a while. In a few days, what looked extraordinary takes on an ordinary shine and we are left looking for the next frontier. Complacency will take you away from the zone.

What are some of the signs of complacency that you see in your life at the moment? How can you snap out of it before it is too late?

Laziness

A lazy attitude is a sure cause of a mediocre existence. If you cannot rise up and take care of the things you need to, you will be greatly limited in what you can accomplish. If you rise up and give your best every day, it will just be a matter of time before you are at the top. Laziness is a leash that is self-imposed and one of the easiest to cut off. You have a lot of power when it comes to dealing with it because only you can decide how hard you work or otherwise. Laziness has held people from accomplishing great feats. It comes to us naturally to want to be at ease with the things we are working on. We naturally gravitate towards a life of ease and little effort. This is a big issue because what it ends up doing is to leave us in a situation where our choices are limited. Hard work opens up many possibilities and takes us where we never thought possible. Laziness makes us miss out on opportunities and in some cases fail to take full advantage of the opportunities available to us. Laziness will keep us from honing our skills and competencies. It will limit our exercise of our gifts and talents and as a result we will remain stuck.  

Fear

One of the greatest leashes that keeps us from taking action to move us forward is fear. Fear is paralyzing and limiting. It often arises from a false sense of danger. For sure there are many dangers out there that we need to face and sometimes avoid but a majority of the things we fear turn out to be imagined rather than real. One of the greatest fears we have is fear of the unknown. This kind of fear keeps you in your comfort zone. Whenever you hear that you need to step out of what you are familiar with, you cringe at the thought. You have gotten used to the comfort of the crib and are unwilling to step out as a result. This keeps you  caged until you choose to act differently.

There is an interesting analogy about what Mother Eagle does to the young eaglets when she realizes that they want to overstay their welcome in the crib. At first the crib is comfortable with all the cotton and other fluffy material. As they grow, the cotton is removed and what is left is the grass. When it time for them to get out, even the grass is removed and the thorns do their trick. As a result of the discomfort that arises, they are forced to go out and learn to fly. The education goes on out there because they must also learn how to fly the hard way. This could teach us a thing or two about managing the fear of the unknown. Perhaps creating a little discomfort in our nest would push us to get out. We must engineer things such that we are never too comfortable in one place for too long.

Fear is real but even those who accomplish greater feats suffer from it in the process. Many have opined that courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to move forward in spite of the fear. Your desire to succeed must be greater than the fear you exhibit. For as long as that happens, you won’t get stuck in mediocrity.

Do you identify with any of these leashes in your life? How are you going to act going forward to cut yourself loose from these leashes? Are you keen on getting a handle on any or all of them? Make a point of reaching out to us and find help for dealing with whatever leashes are holding you back. You are meant to fly unhindered, don't let anything you can control stand in your way. Talk to  us today on +254725832477/ asenasam@gmail.com.

Unleash Yourself (Part 1 of 3)

 

What is a leash? A leash is that rope used to tie a dog when you don’t want it to wander off during a walk. A leash limits the movement of the dog to a few feet from the dog walker. To be unleashed is to be set free to wander, explore and see the world. It is a good idea to keep a dog on a leash, it is not a very good idea to keep a man on a leash. We keep dogs leashed because we don’t want them getting lost or causing harm to other people along our path. We are also trying to keep them from acting on their wild imagination.

What are some of the leashes that hold us as mankind?

Ignorance

You can choose to believe that ignorance is bliss or you can choose that ignorance is no defence. Either way you are right. Indeed there are times where what you don’t know cannot hurt you. I hear a lot of people say that it is okay when your spouse or other trusted individual is cheating on you for as long as you don’t know. So much so that Mario Winans sung “I don’t wanna know’ The problem with this though is that eventually the truth outs and the hurt is tenfold. It is better to know early on rather than live with the assumption that everything is okay only to get hit with the devastating news late in the day. I can’t honestly live in the school of ignorance is bliss. I am more of a believer in the school of ignorance is no defence. It is clear even in the law that the fact that you didn’t know it was illegal to act in a particular way does not fully exonerate you from the consequences. It might land you a milder sentence but you won’t go scot free. This is clearly alluded to even in the bible.

Ignorance is responsible for a lot of mediocre lives out here. When you don’t know about the better world that is out there, you will be content with your mundane existence. There is an African saying that puts it aptly. ‘He who has never travelled thinks his mother is the best cook.’ A failure to be exposed to the possibilities of the world around and beyond you can limit your options a great deal. I have always joked with my wife about the fact that a woman in Turkana will hardly crave pizza during her pregnancy. Why? Because pizza is not in her consciousness. It is difficult to aspire for the things you haven’t been exposed to. Ignorance is a big leash, perhaps the biggest ever placed on us. While we cannot change where we were born and what that exposes us to initially, as we grow up our options change significantly. Thank God for Television, books, education and so much more. We know a lot more about what goes on across the world and as such we can also dare to dream the same way people from a more privileged background can. YouTube can take you to places and give you experiences that are out of this world if only you take the time to watch. Don’t allow ignorance to be your undoing, not in this information age. Take advantage of all the resources at your disposal to position yourself for great experiences.

Lies

The narratives you grow up with are very instrumental in how far you can stretch. If you grow up believing you can, your reach will be significant. If you grow up believing you can’t, you will have placed the limits on yourself already. Many people have resigned to a life that is way beneath what they can be simply because they believed certain lies about themselves. The way you interpret the events of your life is key to the lies or truth you end up believing in. Two people can go through the same experience but come out with very different results. There are people who have allowed one failure to define them and because of that they have not been able to move beyond it. Others are on the other extreme. They have allowed themselves to be lulled by their past successes and failed to move beyond them. If there is anything you have done in the past and you are living there, referring back to it in present day conversations, then you have become the victim of a lie. You have allowed yourself to be caged by that experience and find nothing interesting in what is happening today. Other lies are built up over time. When you constantly have negative experiences around a particular issue, you will learn to associate it with those experiences and never see them in any other light. I always like going back to the story of how at some point I stopped eating pork because the first time I did, I suffered tonsilitis the following day. It was very difficult for me to separate the two and for the better part of my childhood, I shunned pork. I had become a victim of that lie. I had a similar experience with tomatoes. As a result of being choked by a piece of tomato cover, I ‘broke up’ with tomatoes for a long time. Much later in my teens when I could see things differently, I started eating pork and having tomatoes in my food again. I can tell you for free that I enjoy pork probably more than any other meat today. That lie would have kept me from pork forever if I had not been willing o interrogate it when I knew better.

Such lies keep you from leaving life to the fullest. They are a tight leash around your neck telling you how far you can go and how far you can’t. Some lies are passed down from one generation to another. That is jhow stereotypes are built and established. Stereotypes are lies which have been told long enough that they take on the semblance of truth. They will keep you from marrying from certain tribes, doing business with certain groups of people and so much more. In shot they place limits on what you can do because they are such a powerful hold on your mind.

What lies have you believed in and how are they keeping you from living life to the fullest?  Pose and answer this question thoroughly in your notebook and share a summary in the comments.

Culture

Culture is a beautiful thing. It is a people’s way of life and a great determining factor of how we live our lives. A lot of what makes up our culture is good and meant to safeguard us from excesses and give meaning and identity to our lives. However, there are certain aspects of our culture which if we buy into wholesale possess the potential to rob us of a full life. While aspects of our culture might have been useful in helping us survive in times past, you would do well to question their rationale in light of where we are today. Culture is conservative in nature and this is important because =certain things need to be preserved for posterity. To condemn anyone’s culture wholesomely is a foolish exercise that amounts to nothing. I also want to add that to embrace one’s culture wholesomely without question is also foolish on the same footing.

When your culture keeps you from exploring the world that is beyond and keeps you caged within the confines of your surroundings then it limits your possibilities. Anytime you ask why some thing is and the only answer you receive is that we have always done it, it is time to question that thinking so you can come to a better conclusion. Don’t be one to blindly accept it because it is the norm. One of my Nigerian friends once said that ‘the longevity of an abnormality does not make it normal.’ Think about our pastoralist friends whose ancestors have lived on cattle rustling and it is ingrained in them from, a young age. If someone with a better understanding and intellectual capacity from these tribes still goes ahead to spend his life in the same village engaging in this practice just because it is his cultural heritage, hasn’t this person failed? Would we be right to say that he has wasted his intellect in the process? Well he could be within his rights as an individual to choose that life but the truth is that he has allowed culture to keep him caged though he knows better.

What aspects of your cultural heritage do you think has been keeping you from becoming all you can be? What do you have to celebrate about your culture in that it has made you a better person? Remember more than 80% of your culture has a lot that is good about it.

Environment

Closely related to culture is the environment in which you grow up or operate in. there are always exceptions but more often than not, you are likely to end up like the people in the environment in which you frequent.  It is said that if you visit some of the informal settlements in Nairobi, they can tell you are an outsider. The dress code and mannerism will sell you out quickly. Every neighborhood has certain quirks that distinguish it from others. If crime is the norm in your neighborhood, chances are that you will become comfortable around crime whether you like it or not. Alliance High School has been known to produce a majority of the crème de la crème of Kenya’s society. There is something that environment teaches you that you won’t find in many other places. This is such a big deal because even if you are average at best, being in that environment pushes you to level up quickly. There is a confidence that comes on you when you know that you are associated with greatness. You can’t help but be great. Living in California exposes you to Hollywood and a lot of what happens on the entertainment scene globally that it becomes natural for anyone who wants to make it big in this particular area to find their way there. We coalesce around people of similar interests because we like familiarity. You must choose your surroundings carefully because they will rub off on you whether you like it or not. This doesn’t mean that if you find yourself somewhere not suited to your ambitions you won’t make it. People have still made it but it was way harder. Designing the kind of environment that allows you to bring out the best in you will go a long way in helping you thrive. It is way easier than trying to work against many odds.

How can you change your environment to position you to bring out the best in you? What is keeping you from doing so right away?

We continue next week so be sure to catch us here. 

in the meantime share your takeaways from this first part of or discussion. 

The Man in the Mirror.

 

If it is to be, it is up to me.

When Adam was confronted by God about why he ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, he chose to make a scapegoat of his wife. When God turned to Eve, she followed suit by blaming the serpent. (Genesis 3.) While it would have been much easier to take responsibility for their disobedience, they chose to find someone to blame for failing to do what was their job. This has been the trend for a majority of us ever since. We shy away from taking responsibility for the state of affairs we find ourselves in. We look for someone to blame and pin all our failings on. That is the way of losers.

Winners think differently. They take responsibility for the direction of their lives. Life has got many variables. Some of these variables are in our control while others are not. The key to taking responsibility is in understanding the variables in our control and giving our utmost best to get things done. No one gets blamed for variables beyond their control. The biggest problem is that we don’t often tell ourselves the truth about what variables are in our control. Like Adam, we want to pin our shortcomings on someone else and we therefore try hard to find that someone when we re cornered.

What I always wonder is why Adam would hide from God if he was certain that he had no part to play in the turn of events? Every time you fail to control your variables, it is no secret even to you. You might work hard to deflect the attention from yourself but deep down you know that there was more you could have done to change the situation.

Winners look for ways to get things done irrespective of the difficulty of it all. Losers look for the easiest crutch to lean on and absolve themselves of responsibility. Everyone who embarks on a significant task must be armed with the knowledge that tough times will come. The pursuit of any worthwhile goal will often meet with sufficient resistance. The challenge you have as an individual is to rise above it and still get the job done. You have to ask yourself this question. Will I magnify my goals or my excuses?  The choice is really simple. The battle is between your goals and your excuses. Your best excuses or reasons will not get the goal accomplished. Setbacks are bound to come and the best thing to do is to prepare for them in advance. One of the things that leads people to lean on excuses is that their plans were not rooted in reality. While you hope for the best and keep an optimistic state of mind, your planning must factor in the worst case scenario. When you have thought through what to do in the worst case scenario, you are all set to go and should anything go better than your worst case scenario, you are still good to go and will find yourself accelerating faster than you thought possible.

The best way to approach any task is to pray as though everything depends on God and plan as though everything depends on you. More often than not, we get frustrated with the turn of events because in our quest to walk by faith we forget that faith without works is dead. Faith is no substitute for action. Faith calls on you to listen for what needs to be done and go out to get it done. 

Whenever you experience failure, before you look for the source of the failure anywhere else, begin with a thorough introspection. Be sure that you carried out your task to the best of your ability. Be sure that you gathered all the info you needed and the resources for the job you had embarked on. Jesus talks about the need to count the cost before you embark on a building project. (Luke 14:28) You have to pay attention to his words in this regard. Before you blame God, the devil or anyone else for that matter, ask yourself what is my role in this matter? Until you have cleared your name, do not shift the issue elsewhere.

Our success or failure in life has a lot more to do with us than we care to admit. Other people might contribute to it but ultimately, the buck stops with us. If we accept substandard performance from ourselves, it teaches others that we are okay with substandard performance and that is exactly how they will relate to us. If we hold ourselves to a high standard, the same thing will happen with others who deal with us. We teach others how to deal with us by the way we deal with ourselves.

I challenge you to look back over one of your past failures and successes. Ask yourself what you did to find yourself there. Ask why you failed or succeeded. Without a hurry reflect on it all and tell the truth to yourself. You can even enlist the help of someone who was close to you through that journey. Clarity and accuracy are critical when it comes to a deep look at yourself. Part of the reason why we fail at the same thing over and over again is that we gloss over our own contribution to the whole situation. We are also not able to win consistently because we are not clear on what we did to attain our past victories. When this happens, the truth is that our victories are a result of chance. While there is an element of luck in every breakthrough, more often than not, the consistently successful make their own luck by controlling the variables in their power. The mantra to live by is do your best and leave the rest to God.

Many of us are quick to leave to God even that which is our own responsibility. The truth is that it feels good to experience miracles and find supernatural solutions to our issues. However God spares miracles for times of desperation where nothing else can save us. This is why the children of Israel ate manna in the wilderness for forty years but the moment they set foot in Canaan, the manna ceased. (Joshua 5:12) It is not a good place to be where you are uncertain of what will happen next. Constantly living with your heart in your hand is not the way we are designed to be. The plan is to position us where we will flourish by employing what has been deposited in us.

I want to challenge everyone who is reading this to take their role in their life, business, family, ministry and wherever else with the seriousness it deserves. You are ultimately responsible for how things turn out. If you don’t like the results your life is producing and you are looking for someone to hold responsible, begin with the man/woman in the mirror. Take an active role in determining the course of your life. Become intentional in pursuing the results you are looking for. Act with integrity when it comes to your goals. Let your actions speak louder than your words. Put your money where your mouth is. Quit talking constantly about what you will do and go out there and start doing it. Let it be clear to everyone around you what result you are looking for. When people know what it is you seek, they will facilitate you to get it. When it is not clear, they won’t be sure how to help you. Believe it or not, there are many people willing to help you but you have to give them room by clarifying what it is you are going after. Don’t make the mistake of leaving to chance the thing which is your responsibility. Every evening when you go to lay down your head, purpose to conclude that there was no more that I could do today in the pursuit of my goal. Until you can say that with sincerity, there is a lot you are leaving undone daily.

Take responsibility for your life son. No one is coming from outer space to get things done for you. You are all you’ve got. From today remind yourself that if it is to be, it is up to me.

In my article next week I will be sharing on the second side of this story. Be sure to check it out.

PS: I am putting together a WhatsApp group where we discuss matters opportunities and Key life Skills you need to thrive in today's world. Drop your Digits to +254725832477 if you want to be a part of this conversation born out of our recently held Crossroads Virtual Summit. 

The Concorde

 

Have you ever embarked on a project that showed so much promise but never really took off in the long run? Are you familiar with the concept of sunk cost bias? The French and British governments went through just such an experience on a monumental scale. The Concorde was meant to be an aeronautical marvel. It had all the signs of a great undertaking. Who wouldn’t want to do a cross-Atlantic trip in half the time a traditional airplane would take? Surely the rich would find this very convenient. While the rest of us worry about the cost, they would be thinking about how much time they would save by choosing the Concorde. For some reason however, the project never picked up as expected. They were never able to breakeven let alone make any profit from this experiment.  For forty years, they continued to pour money and other resources into it hoping it will turn around but it didn’t. They eventually came to the painful conclusion to shut down the operation.

There are so many questions one can ask in this regard. Why did it take them forty years to shut down a leaking concern? What is it they never got right about the whole project? Millions of dollars were lost trying to make the thing work to no avail. It was a very costly experiment. There are many reasons that can be advanced as to why they continued so long in this losing position. We could talk about government bureaucracy, the fact that it was an experiment but the overarching problem was the idea of sunk cost bias.

What is Sunk cost bias? To put it simply, we find it very hard to walk away from anything we have invested a lot of resources in.  Some projects consume us so much with the promise of great returns that we are willing to put in everything. What happens is that because you have already sunk a lot into it, you convince yourself that pumping in a little more will get it going. At the end of the day you keep sinking more into this project and it keeps disappointing you but you can’t find it within you to walk away. Saving the project becomes an exercise in futility but you just can’t let go.

The people outside can see clearly that this is not working but as the person who is in the thick of things and consumed by the quest to make it work, you might not see it with such clarity. A vanity project can end up consuming more than its fair share of resources and in the process deny other projects the funding they need. The longer it takes you to identify your vanity projects the more your critical projects will suffer. If you must indulge in a vanity project, make sure the basics are taken care of first. I guess the French and British governments realized that it is no longer justifiable to keep sinking more into the Concorde and called it in.

My question to you is what is your Concorde? What is your vanity project? What is that pet project to which you have devoted a lot of your energy? Are you/ have you become a victim of sunk cost bias? One of the things about pet projects is that the owner is more often than not blind to the fact that this is happening. You would do well to seek the input of others who can give you an objective view of things. This is where paying attention to your critics can be of help. I guess one of the best ways to protect yourself from this kind of bias is to make sure you are not surrounded by Yes men/women. You need to have around you people who can put you to task in justifying what you are trying to do. You need people who can ask you difficult questions. With that you will be on your way to fighting Sunk-cost bias.

Telltale Signs of a Concorde Kind of Project.

Unjustifiable investment of resources

Long past expected due date of return

A requirement to inject just one more round of funding yet this has been the case multiple times.

An aversion to genuine critique-You do not a=want anyone to question you.

Activity shrouded in mystery-it is not very clear what is going on.

Eating into other project(s) allocation(s)

Uneasiness with higher-ups when it comes to discussing this particular project.

Subordinates who are stressed out wondering what the whole deal is.

Victims of Concorde projects

Individuals with a big ego

Companies

Governments like our example

Churches

Non-Governmental Organizations.

Guard against Concorde projects

One Concorde kind of project is one too many. It could spell the end of dominance for an industry leading company. It could mean a redirection of resources from essential services to fund vanity projects. It could sink your entire nest egg as an individual leaving you with nothing to show for all your years of hard work. It could also lead to misplaced priorities for those in service to humanity like churches and NGO’s.

With all this at stake, what can be done to ensure you don’t become a victim of vanity projects?

To begin with you must become open to criticism from all quarters. While you don’t have to take it to heart, examine every criticism with an eye to pick the truth from the trivialities. Not all who criticize you want your downfall.  Some genuinely want you to do better or articulate your idea better.

Listen to both Higher-ups, contemporaries and reports. The people who know about the particular project are best placed to tell you whether you are onto a winner or not. You do well to pay attention to them and what they have to say. While the first remedy could be criticism from outside sources, this groups offer internal criticism. Before you dismiss your higher-ups as removed from reality, contemporaries as speaking out of jealousy and reports as speaking to matters above their pay-grade, pay attention to the merit of what they bring to you. When you realize that there are questions arising from all the groups, know that this project is a potential Concorde.

Seek justification for all expenditure. Choose to use what accountants call Zero based budgeting as proposed by Greg McKeown in his book on essentialism. This whole article is inspired by what he shares on the story of the Concorde. This type of budgeting forces you to justify every resource allocated to a project. This way your eyes will be opened to the projects which have been consuming your resources without cause and you can then cut them off.

Be ready to acknowledge you are wrong. Ego can be one of our greatest enemies. Nobody wants to be told that what they conceived is a waste of time and resources. This is why we hold on to it tightly even when it is not making any sort of sense. The only way to make amends is to be quick to see your fault and adjust accordingly. Those who are ready to admit their faults will cut their losses early on before it becomes too hard to walk away.

Look for a neutral second opinion. It is good you find people who can offer you honest opinions removed from any emotional attachment. When you are in doubt about your project, don’t hesitate to talk to someone who is as far removed from what you are doing as possible. That person will help you see things for what they really are.

 Don’t be afraid of waste. Many of us keep on walking in the wrong direction since we believe going back is a sign that we have wasted that time. We must get rid of the fear of being looked at as those who took a wrong turn. Everyone takes wrong turns in life. The problem is if you don’t accept early on, it will cost you more when you eventually have to turn around. Think about getting lost in the forest. Do you keep on walking when you are no longer sure which way you are going or do you turn back to retrace your steps? Those who keep walking are likely to end up lost while those who retrace their steps have a chance of finding the right path. No matter how much you have invested in it, when you realize it is not working, be quick to let it go.

A critical question.

How do we differentiate between a Concorde and Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb?

Many people keep flogging dead horses because they are not sure whether they are dead or alive. So how do you tell which one is alive and which one is dead? While Thomas Edison failed many times, there is something about his failure that kept him going. The concept of failing forward becomes important here. A Concorde has no meaningful sign of progress. Edison’s light bulb got better with each iteration. One of the best ways to differentiate the two is tangible progress. A vanity project shows very little to no progress while a potential project sees consistent improvement.

A budget injection moves the needle on a good project. The same injection makes very little change to a vanity project. If an escalation in resource allocation does nothing to the final output, then it is time to bid good bye to your project. If on the other hand you can see where the resources are going, keep at it even though it takes a bit of time.

What else do you think we can use to make the distinction? Let me know in the comments below.

A word of caution

This advice does not apply in all situations. Different projects have different timelines and measures of progress. Before you apply this advice be sure you are clear on the dynamics of your particular project. A good way to do this is to look at others who have embarked on similar projects. Benchmarking can help you tell whether you are on the right track or lost. I also know there are projects which are so novel that there is no existing benchmark. I would leave such projects at the discretion of the implementation team but my advice would be that you ensure you are surrounded by sober, objective people who can tell you when you are going widely off track.

As we end this, are you aware of the Concordes in your life? What are you going to do about them? Do you need help identifying and dealing with the Concordes in your life, business, ministry, family or whatever concern? Get in touch with us at Optimize Institute. Contact +254725832477 Or email me on asenasam@gmail.com 

Whatever you do, don't waste your energies on a Concorde. 

To Your Talent Add.....

 

“Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.”
― Irving Stone.

How many talented people have you come across who are not living the life you expected them to live? What keeps many talented people in the rut of struggle? How many times have you heard the term struggling artiste? There is nothing more common than talent without success.

Talented people are supposed to be living the dream life and some of them do? What then separates the two groups? Why do some people seem to find a way to hack their talents and live the good life while others can’t seem to get it right?

In the words of a book by John Maxwell I begin by saying Talent is never enough. Left on its own, talent doesn’t get you very far. You need to look at it as a first step on the staircase of success and fulfilment. Zig Ziglar said that the elevator to success room is out of order. You have to take the stairs. There are certain things you can do that unleash the potential of your talent just like there are things you do that keep your talent caged and never able to express itself.

According to James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, success with talent is a function of both nature and nurture. In this book he speaks about how Michael Phelps one of the greatest swimmers of all time has a body type that favors the sport he excels in. The point is that the natural makeup component which speaks of raw talent is significant and cannot be ignored. You therefore before anything else must ask yourself whether you have the natural ability to do what you are pursuing. It is far much easier to push yourself in the direction where your natural abilities are more likely to shine through. Someone else said we make a mistake when we judge a fish by its ability to fly. Fish thrive in the water. Take them out and they are at a significant disadvantage. The same thing applies to us. We can only thrive where our natural strengths are.

Having said that, there is the second aspect of nurture which deals with what I want to share with us here. What are you supposed to do to create an environment and conditions, favorable to the exploitation of your potential? I hope by now we are clear that talent is raw material. Raw materials are taken through a process of value addition before they come out as finished products which meet consumer needs and expectations. It is by going through the process that trees turn into paper, Think about the process of extracting gold to the point where it is ready to be used to make beautiful ornaments. When the gold is dug up out of the ground it is full of impurities of all kinds. I checked out science.howstuffworks.com/gold to understand how gold ore is turned into usable gold. I found the elaborate process I describe below in their own words. The first step is to break the ore into smaller pieces using crushers. It is then put through rotating drums where it is ground into to a fine slurry powder. The slurry powder is thickened with water and run through a series of leaching tanks. Leaching dissolves the gold out of the ore using a chemical solvent like cyanide together with oxygen. The chemical reaction causes the gold in the pulp to dissolve. Carbon grains are released into the tank and the gold adheres to them. Filtering the pulp through screens separates the gold bearing carbon. It then moves to a stripping vessel where a hot caustic solution separates the gold from the carbon. The gold bearing solution is electrowinned to recover the gold from the leaching chemicals. Then the smelting process begins. This process involves heating the ore at very high temperatures (1149 Degrees Celsius).  Flux is added to the molten material to separate the gold from the metal used to make the elctrowinning terminals. Flux is poured out and then the gold follows. Molds are used to transform the liquid gold into solid bars (dore bars) These bars are then sent to refineries for further processing. Refining involves removing impurities that remain after the smelting process. Workers add borax and Soda Ash to the molten metal which separates the pure gold from other precious and less precious metals. It is then taken to the lab for tests or assays to measure the content of gold in it. This refined gold is then made into bars ready for use. In some instances, there is need the pure gold to be mixed with other metals to form alloys like white gold for specific purposes. It is important for talented individuals to see themselves as a precious metal in the rough. Left to themselves, they amount to nothing much or they are used for mundane tasks. However refined and polished, they become such a treasure that they are deployed for only the noblest tasks.

There are no shortcuts to the top and only those willing to go through the process will make it. It is also important to note that the most precious metals go through elaborate processes to be ready for use. Be it Diamond or gold or any of the other metals we highly value, the process is long but worthwhile.

Metamorphosis Alert: Every Artist was once an Amateur-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

What kind of metamorphosis do your talents need to go through before they are fit for noble purposes?

I am sure you have come across this phrase but if not here it is. Charisma will take you to the top of the table but only Character will keep you there. Character is the crucible where your talent is prepared for deployment. There are a number of things that can help you build the requisite character to get to the top and stay there.

1)      You need an education. Many talented people do not see the value of educating themselves. While you do not need academic knowledge, there are certain basic levels of education that are necessary for everyone. Education is a powerful tool in shaping us and helping us in our interaction with others. Through education, you learn the people skills necessary for living and working with others. Education will teach you basic communication skills which you need in dealing with other people. Beyond basic education, you need to embrace talent or field specific education. If you look keenly, you will find that every field has certain basic things which you need to be conversant with if you will function effectively therein. This explains why there are football academies, programs that train musicians, comedians, thespians, actors and all kinds of talented people. You therefore cannot run away from education if you will improve your odds of building a fulfilling career out of your talents.

2)      Coaching. The need for a coach for your talent is much like the need for oxygen for your lungs. A coach exists to teach you the specific skills you need to thrive in your area of specialization. Such an individual refines your skills and keeps helping you make improvements as you go along. A good coach will identify the aspects of your talent that need work and develop a program to help you work at them until you become proficient.

3)      Practice. There is no substitute for practice when it comes to refining your talent. Practice makes permanent so goes the maxim. The more you do what you need to do, the better you become at it. It has been suggested that it takes 10000 hours of practice to become a master at a craft. It is not just the passage of time that matters but what you do in the course of that duration. In his book The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier, speaks about deep practice which involves a variety of approaches to practice. These include:

1.       Practicing small chunks of the bigger action. Hungry for excellence.

2.       Repetition, repetition and repetition… and repetition. Do it fast, do it slow, do it differently. But keep repeating the action.

3.       And finally, being mindful and noticing when it goes well. When it does, celebrate success.

4)      Discipline. The greatest aid to talent development is the discipline you assign to it. Discipline will help you say no to the more appealing things you can do when you should be working on your talent. It will help you avoid the things that will impact negatively on your growth. Discipline will keep success from going to your head and messing you up. It will help you put in the work when every part of your body tells you otherwise. Discipline will keep you doing the right thing when no one else is watching or following up with you. It will get you back on track when you slip up. Those who have played with Cristiano Ronaldo keep speaking about his discipline. During his time at Manchester United, his teammates spoke about his obsession with exercise. Carlos Tevez spoke about never being able to beat him at getting out on the training field no matter how early he tried to come. He was always the first one in and the last one out at the training field-No wonder his phenomenal success. Patrice Evra was afraid of visiting CR7 at home because he would challenge him to exercise even in the house. There was an obsession about him. As a disciplined individual, you appear obsessed because very few things will keep you from doing what you know you need to do.

5)      Financial Literacy. A lot of us are good at what we do but we make avoidable blunders in other areas of our lives which are equally important. There is only so much someone else like a financial advisor can do for you. No one will ever care for your money more than you. It has to be your business what happens to your money. I don’t mean this in a day to day kind of way, but you need an understanding of the fundamentals around your money so that you are not ripped off and left high and dry. There have been many cases of high flying athletes who have found themselves on the wrong side of the financial equation. Many of them came into a lot of money when they were barely out of their teens. This meant they were short on understanding of financial matters. While it is ok when you are getting started, the faster you attain financial literacy the wiser you are in keeping things in place. Financial literacy will help you get a grip on where to invest your extra cash, take care of your family, avoid wastage, and many other benefits. There are individuals who have done very well for themselves out of their talents. Jay-Z is one of the best out there at this kind of thing. Though he isn’t the most talented (my opinion) hip-Hop Artiste, he is very good as a businessman who has leveraged his talent to earn a living. He recently became Hip-Hop’s first Dollar Billionaire. Fun Fact-Most of his money has not come from His music though that has remained a big part of his brand. We could talk about Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jordan in the same breath. Understanding endorsement deals and becoming a marketable athlete/talent are huge lessons you learn through financial literacy. Locally we have our MacDonald Mariga who has done very well for himself in taking his brand beyond football. The significance of this cannot be overemphasized.

6)      Hard work. I will begin this with a couple of quotes.

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
― Stephen King

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”
― Émile Zola

“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”
― Kevin Durant

There is no substitute for hard work. If you do not put in the hard work required, you can forget ever becoming anyone to write home about. I know people like substituting hard work for smart work but I am a proponent of both. We should not substitute one for the other. The person who works smart and hard is guaranteed lasting success. I believe in massive action like Grant Cardone puts it. Many of us underestimate the amount of effort required to attain our desired goals. As such we put in very little action and are surprised at our results. The only way to guarantee results is to go the way of massive action.

7)      Selling and negotiation skills. If you are like most talented people, you need to offer your services in exchange for money. There will come a time for endorsement deals if you are not already there. You do not need to be a master negotiator but you must have basic ideas about what your value is and how to communicate. Selling is one of those skills that everybody needs to make use of yet we fail to realize. We sell every day. Convincing your friend to choose one leisure activity over another is a form of selling. Adding these skills to your resume will serve you well as you go about exploiting your talents. You could have a team in place to do this for you but you need to retain the ability to argue your own case if it comes down to that. I am reminded of what happened in Kenya in 2007/08 after the disputed general election. The Grand coalition government was formed only when the two protagonists met face to face. Their teams had negotiated themselves into a deadlock. At this point what worked was how well each of them could argue his case in person. The same goes for you, when your team cannot strike a deal, are you able to step up and get it done? This is why selling skills are a huge asset to have in your corner as you pursue success with your talent.

8)      Integrity. You must become a man or woman of your word. People do not like dealing with snakes. They prefer dealing with other people they can rely on. The idea of presenting yourself one way and acting contrary does not sit well with people and once they learn you are not reliable, you have just shot yourself in the foot. People of integrity do not engage in doublespeak. They do not go back on their commitments however much it hurts. They do not sign a deal and back out of it because there is a better deal unless it was built into their original deal that they have this provision. Integrity begins with a value system. You must remain true to your values wherever you find yourself. Nobody wants to deal with a person who doesn’t stand for anything. They want to know what your expectations are and what you are committed to. Integrity goes a long way in positioning you for long term success and respect from all associated with you.

9)      Positioning. Square pegs fit well in square holes. “According to this law [the law of Dharma], you have a unique talent and a unique way of expressing it. There is something that you can do better than anyone else in the whole world--and for every unique talent and unique expression of that talent, there are also unique needs. When these needs are matched with the creative expression of your talent, that is the spark that creates affluence. Expressing your talents to fulfill needs creates unlimited wealth and abundance.”
― Deepak Chopra.

You need to identify the place where you are a perfect fit and if you can’t find one, create one. After all, you are a creative.  

10)   Hunger. One of the other things that separate average from premier talent, is the hunger they have for getting to the top. Premier talents are ever challenging themselves and holding themselves to a higher standard. They do not settle for just being the best in the group. They look beyond their peers and find new challenges to overcome. “If you ever find that you're the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.”
― Austin Kleon. Do not be among those who are contended with the applause of your peers to the point of forgetting there is much more land left to conquer.

 Do you need to talk to someone about managing your talent so you can get the most out of it? Look no further. Contact us on +254725832477 today and let's talk about that. We also have an interesting Talent Management program that will teach you all you need to know about managing yourself as a talented individual. Consider this Article a Dress Rehearsal. Contact us if you want to dive right in.