Less and more

Spend less time checking social media and more time doing work that matters and worth sharing on social media. Spend less time arguing and more time understanding. Spend less time becoming more perfect and more time becoming more caring. Spend less time talking about doing the work and more time doing the work.

Perfect timing

The man raising money for charity stands near the station steps during the lunchtime rush hour. He waves his clipboard and attempts to catch someone’s eye. He starts his pitch several times, and when busy commuters silence him by raising a hand, he changes the script. ‘Are you a nature lover? Are you worried about…

Writing every day: Consistently

Ordinarily, you would only write when you feel like it, when your creative juices are high. The challenge with approach is that when most writers say: "I'm not feeling it, so I'm not going to write today," they are really running away from some kind of fear. I doubt that creative writers produce masterpieces every…

Listen to me. Don’t listen to me

Today we were recording an entrepreneur on My Biggest Blunders: Failing Forward and one key lesson from his talk kept coming to me saying: listen to your gut, always listen to your gut. Often when something is about to happen, your gut feel always tells you. Your gut always whispers something important. We just have…

Benefits of good decisions compound over time

When Liverpool Football Club appointed Jurgen Klopp as their manager in 2015, I remember telling a good friend I was sad he was not a Manchester United manager. Klopp had spent 7 years with Borussia Dortmund and transformed them into a German powerhouse club. He was exactly the kind of long term thinker we needed.…

Kindness, humility and money

Certain topics you have heard or read about before. However great writers have the ability to take the same topic and reposition it in a way that you appreciate the topic again and even better. For example, in his book, The Psychology of Money, one of the things Morgan Housel says is: _________________________________________ “Be nicer…

We don’t need more stuff, we need more humanity

When you drive around Pretoria and Johannesburg [and I'm sure other parts of the country], you will see storage facilities mushrooming. This basically means that our houses and garages are full to a point where we need extra space to store our things. We have ran out of space in our homes. We need more…

Go deeper, not wider

When we want to get a project off the ground, we are often confused about the best way to achieve our goal. We then use popularity as a measure of success. Coca Cola is a popular brand, but is not good for your health. Ginger is not popular but is good for your health. Reach…

Collect memories

Really appreciate the people around you. If your mind is always stuck on the past, you are never going to be able to enjoy the present or the future. All we have in this life is a collection of memories. Yes, there were great memories in the past with great people. But, there are equally…

Why this?

Always asking ourselves why reminds us of the reason we do what we do or about to do: "Why am I doing?" "Why should I do this?" "Why more?" "Why do it this way?" "Why this?" Answers to these questions will will alert us to whether we are ego driven or driven by what really…

Bullishly optimistic

I was having a conversation with a colleague about optimism. This got me thinking about a couple of things I'm optimistic about. I am bullishly optimistic about a couple of things: - If you work hard, stay focused and dedicated, good things always lie ahead. - The best times ALWAYS lie ahead. I believe that…

If you were truly a bad person

If you were truly a bad person, you would not be so hung up on the morality of your mistakes. The fact that you want to go back and make it right means you are growing from this and you will try to do better next time. Apologise. Make amends. Breathe free.