EMBARRASS YOURSELF FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

Many businesses fail, bringing embarrassment and ruin to their owners. A large proportion collapse on account of the careless handling of money. If only more of us would learn to embarrass ourselves now to avoid more painful embarrassment later! WATCH!

SET FIRE TO YOUR COUCH

Recent upheavals in the global economy have sounded the clear warning that individual and family economies can collapse suddenly. Rather than tremble helplessly at the prospect, we can convert the threat into an opportunity by taking advantage of the many opportunities that we have to acquire new skills that will help us should lean times come our way. WATCH!

LESSONS FROM MY SISTER EDNA PART 2

I thought it might be more interesting to put this in a form you can watch

LESSONS FROM MY SISTER EDNA

When my sister Edna was born, I remember that the entire family was excited. Her most obvious mark of uniqueness was that she was the first and only girl in a family dominated by boys, but as time went on, we all realised that her uniqueness did not stop at gender. For one thing, she was gifted with a mighty pair of lungs, which, as an infant, she employed to great advantage. When she was disappointed in any way, you did everything you could to stop her crying; the way we all got destabilized and frantic, you would think world peace was at stake!I think that Edna decided from that early stage to live her life as an accomplisher and an influencer of people. I intend to do three posts on aspects of my sister’s personality that I have found to be worth emulating, and that I believe represent important traits of an effective person. In this post, I shall focus on Edna’s incredible drive.

I was surprised when, at the age of nineteen, Edna announced that she was joining the Police, and was being assigned an entry-level job at the General Headquarters. Naturally, I was happy that she had found employment at that early age, but I was at the same time a little apprehensive about her prospects in a career then largely dominated by males. Elder brothers tend to be protective, sometimes overly so. I was therefore genuinely attentive whenever she talked about what was happening at work. I wasn’t sure, though, if I was hearing right when she briefed me about the rapid progress she was making as a rookie, but it was hard to miss the enthusiasm with which she described details of her training and other aspects of her life in the Police. Edna’s enthusiasm was simply infectious, and I could tell that she was throwing herself into her chosen career without reserve.While kind people have cited us as a family of achievers, I honestly believe that our sister takes pole position where absolute commitment to a chosen course of action is involved. The manner in which she seeks all kinds of skill and knowledge that relates to the pursuit she is engaged in makes the point I try to make in my book on the necessity of empowering oneself with relevant knowledge much more convincingly than my prose does.

In just a few months, Edna was regraded favourably in her job, and there was talk of her pursuing an accelerated and very promising career path. What impressed me was her determination to wring every opportunity for whatever sap it contained, a procedure that entailed taking every training course that dared present itself in her path. She left the organisation she worked with with no option other than to keep upgrading and promoting her. One of the courses she pursued with fervor was secretarial training, and I remember being briefed in detail from the thirty words-per-minute stage, through eighty to one hundred and twenty. As a result of her commitment to higher attainment, Edna quickly became a force to reckon with, and was assigned to high offices. When she announced her intention to move on, Police General Headquarters, I am sure, felt greatly deprived.

Edna’s next stop was the Headquarters of a large telecommunications concern, where, once again, her enthusiasm and drive quickly propelled her to prominence. Like all successful people, she continued to define herself as a thirsty learner, allowing herself considerable lateral vision, which exposed her to several life opportunities. Because I am her brother, I got to meet many people whose resumés were remarkable, and some of them have remained family friends. It fascinated me that my little sister was being cited as a mentor and opinion leader by so many people, some of whom had titles that ranked higher than her own. What an influencer! People who have drive are constantly seeking opportunities that test and exercise that drive, and in that quest, they touch many lives.

A combination of drive, peripheral vision and lateral thinking created an achievement that I marvel at even today. At a time when the real estate market was severely constricted, Edna spotted an opportunity that I must confess I was at first skeptical about. This opportunity involved a rather complex investment scheme that promised high and rapid returns. People who possess Edna’s kind of drive and determination tend to be good at seeing gains where lesser mortals see only risk. Once she committed herself to the scheme, my sister concentrated a phenomenal focus on making it work. Indeed, as I write, it strikes me that Edna is a true illustration of the admonition I put in the chapter of my book where I discuss management: “when you pay money, you had better pay attention.” The outcome of this concentration and unrelenting drive was a very impressive suburban home.

In the next instalment, I intend to spill more beans about my remarkable sister in the hope that readers will profit from this example of how drive, commitment, persistence and application never fail to produce tangible, even bankable, results.

Do please put your valued comment in the comments box that appears when you click on “comments”, and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog to receive notifications of interesting posts that could help you accomplish your life goals.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE IT REAL?

This morning I finally made time and went to see the project that my brother has been pestering me to go and see. I am still in shock as I write. Here is what he did, in his own words, sort of, as I am paraphrasing a much longer account:

• ·        I acquired a moderately sized piece of land after saving for five years. My goal was to rear and sell livestock.
• ·        I had very little money left over from the land purchase, but I had a plan. The plan was to multiply the money I had left by selling livestock products acquired from other people. My first purchase was milk from a farm, which yielded a decent profit when I sold it fresh to city dwellers. By staying in the zone and varying the nature and scale of my farm purchases and resales, I multiplied my initial seed money quite a bit.
• ·        It took me three months to build up enough reserves to purchase two animals, a male and a female. This is two years later, and as you can see, I am now stretching the capacity of this piece of land. Fortunately, my output is in great demand.

I know it to be true that if you approach your project with premeditated method and persistence, it is hard to fail to accomplish your goal; I even highlited this in my book. I still must confess I was astonished by the dramatic manner in which the application of the principle produced results for my brother, who now gets orders from far and wide.

I thank my brother for reconfirming me in my conviction that one does not have to possess a lot of resources to make a success of their project, whatever it might be. What one needs is (a) a wise choice of project, (b) the targeted deployment of what resources one has at one’s disposal and (c) perseverence in pursuing strategies that lead to the accomplishment of the desired goal.

I hope you can take a minute to reflect on your own goals and to list the concrete steps you are taking toward the accomplishment of those goals. If you do not have such a premeditated list, you may be surprised by the implementation power that starting such a list of positive actions will release. Feel free to leave your thoughts on the subject in the comment box. Nothing would delight me more than your decision to subscribe to my blog and to continue to be an active contributor to this forum for the exchange of  life-changing ideas.

DON'T TAKE "NO" FOR AN ANSWER

I was asked recently to contribute a guest post to a blog that serves as a resource for job seekers. I know that the advice I give in that guest post will be found useful by at least some who follow my blog. Do please have a look at the article here, and leave your comments, which will be most useful as feedback that could very well help shape future posts.

Jonathan

TOO BUSY TO WORK

How come people go to work everyday and come back home exhausted, but having accomplished little, if anything at all? These people may be in public service, in corporate offices, in voluntary organisations, and may even be in business for themselves, but the same disproportionate relationship between effort and result seems to prevail regardless of the career choices people make. In answering this puzzling question, it is useful to ask yet another question: what do these people do in their workplaces that exhausts them so?

Let me suggest a few simple answers from what I have observed as an administrator:
1. People get exhausted from doing too much work that contributes nothing toward the accomplishment of real work goals and objectives. This wasted effort is often the result of not defining Key Result Areas in the first place. There is no point in tackling any task that presents itself unless that task relates directly to stated goals and objectives. Learning to reject tasks that have nothing to do with what you must accomplish is both a success principle and a survival skill.
2. People get exhausted from doing too little work that contributes to the accomplishment of real goals and objectives. Too much time and effort are expended on tasks that delay the accomplishment of what really needs to be accomplished, and too little time and energy are left for the accomplishment of tasks that really matter. Psychologically, this produces stress, frustration, guilt and confusion, and may result in unnecessary hours of overtime during times when mind and body are in their least productive state. New stress, frustration, guilt and confusion are, in turn, generated as obligations to family are neglected, and activities that give balance to life are abandoned.
3. People get exhausted from working too hard, rather than working smart. What goes in and what comes out simply don't match, even if care is taken to ensure that the tasks undertaken are relevant to the desired outcomes. We all need to remember that we are operating in a knowledge economy where even the letters on the keyboards of our computers can be programmed to become "macros", so that a single key stroke accomplishes a full task. If we invest more time in getting to know what the available technology can do at our bidding, we will get more work done with less wear and tear on us. Another cause for working too hard is forgetting who else is with us in the work place. Sharing work among people who have come to work, a practice sometimes called delegating, is a smart way to ensure that meaningful tasks are actually accomplished, and we all go home with some energy and good cheer to share with family and friends.

copyright Jonathan Wutawunashe 2011

The writer is the author of the book FULFILL YOUR THREATS:Simple Principles to Help You Succeed in Life.