| I spent the month of January in South Africa, where 11 official languages are spoken.
Something I have tried to do each time I get into an Uber or pay for an item is ask how you say thank you in the language of the person I am interacting with. The look of sheer delight on the person’s face is always worth the effort, even if I butcher the pronunciation. |
No one changes the world while playing catch up; that is why cultivating the agility to act swiftly and smartly in any given situation is one of the keys to managing the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world. I know from personal experience how hard it is to find a balance between thinking a situation through and acting too quickly. Indeed, overcoming “analysis paralysis” is easier said than done. Nevertheless, developing the agility to transform rapidly increases the likelihood that you can withstand and even thrive in the face of whatever comes your way.
So how would you rate yours? Here are a few questions to consider:
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Steven Covey proposes a quite unusual thought experiment that he terms “beginning with the end in mind.” What he actually suggests is that you write your own obituary! While this may seem to be somewhat macabre, it is actually a brilliant exercise, in that in forces you to think about your legacy and how you would want to be remembered.
Give it a try: as you embark on a new year and new decade,
We hear so much about the importance of having a personal brand, but what does that really mean? Put simply, your brand is your reputation, which is the culmination of almost everything you have ever done and said. As Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
The reality is, you already have a reputation and you are being “branded”
