Lead with compassion

A premature ejaculation drug has sparked a $150million legal battle. Jeff Abraham tried to sell his sexual wellness start-up to Reckitt Benckiser for two years - opening his books to RB during confidential negotiations - only to find RB advertising a new PE treatment just like it after the negotiations fizzled. The case illustrates the challenges faced by a scrappy startup with giant multinational companies using their large presence in the marketplace to bully.

If you have been bullied as a child or adult, you know how demeaning it feels.

The department of Justice defines bullying as "repeated acts that involve an imbalance of power" between dominating individuals and meeker ones. They cite three kinds of bullying: physical, verbal (making threats) and psychological (intimidation, social exclusion). My intuitive read on bullies is that they're power-obsessed, eerily empty and devoid of empathy. Anger darkens their hearts.

Over the years I have learned to address anger, whether justified or not, and learn how to cope. You are like my younger self, if you are one of these:

...when I'm hurt, I want to hurt the other person
...little things make me mad
...I am frequently irritable, bossy and argumentative
...I say things during a conflict that I regret later
...I make judgmental and cutting remarks
...my anger hurt loved ones
...I hold onto resentments
...I lose my temper in traffic jams and queues

Today, as I proactively work on developing compassion and empathy, I am much nearer to a peaceful zone. Sure, you can act spitefully and dump anger on others. Being compassionate doesn't mean you'll never get angry or that you'll be a doormat.

A coworker takes credit for your ideas. Mention this to the coworker, your boss or HR, and don't trust him with ideas in the future. However, try to forgive the coworker for being such a greedy, insecure, mean-spirited person that he has to stoop so low as to steal from you.

In our society, people tend to use words as weapons. I am a sales leader. I make my living using words. I know that words matter. We all have a slip of the tongue or a moment of verbal indiscretion. Maybe more important, I've learned of the degrading effect that inappropriate words can have on all of us.


Muhammad Ali said it best :“ I don’t trust anyone who’s nice to me but rude to the waiter. Because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position,"

After so many books and seminars, why hasn't my life change?

30 lessons I learned before turning 30. Taylor Swift in a piece for Elle said “it’s healthy for your self-esteem to need less internet praise”, “it’s good to mess up and learn from it and take risks”, “All that glitters isn’t gold, and first impressions actually aren’t everything”, “They don’t give out awards for winning the most fights in your relationship. They just give out divorce papers”

Many of us believe that when we graduate from university, our education is finished. But our true schooling has only begun as we shift from word lessons to world lessons

There's no denying that in my younger days, understanding the unique language of money and how the financial system worked has always been my blind spot, and I was too proud to admit it. I would make a dollar and spend a dollar and fifty cents. The more money I make, the more broke I got.

Once I learned that the world didn't come to an end and that I could work my way back to being whole again, I gained enormous confidence and wisdom about how to live; how to have humility, what matters and what doesn't, how to succeed against all odds. It builds up enormous strength inside me. 

Most people find strength in things that are outside them; money, power, titles, wardrobes, cars. But most of the things that make a leader are on the inside: integrity, wisdom, confidence, passion, compassion, intuition. These things come from experiences of life's trials. You can't buy what's not for sale. 

I have learned authenticity counts, and that the best route to an authentic life is through your scars. As you earn them, you learn to drop the B.S. in your life. 

It's a scientific fact: you cannot have a rainbow without a storm. 

The storms of life offer an opportunity to respond in one of three ways to personal tragedy. You can give up...you can use whatever dulls the pain most, be it alcohol, drugs, work or money...you can grow and create something useful out of your painful experience. Giving up and coping are code words for avoidance, and the story of avoidance never ends well. 

Wisdom comes from dealing with your mess. All of it. But few people want to do that because it is just too much: too much work, too much pain. No experience is ever wasted because every experience contains a lesson. The lessons of experience are always positive, even if the experience is not.

Our presence speaks volumes before we say a word

The nude Mona Lisa – a charcoal sketch of a naked woman known as the Monna Vanna - might Have been drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, according to investigators from the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France (C2RMF), following extensive testing.  The drawing’s hands and body bear a striking resemblance to the Mona Lisa, one of Da Vinci’s most famous pieces on display at the Louvre.

In a survey, "grooming and polish" was chosen by more respondents than "physical attractiveness" or "body type" as a key contributor to executive presence. It's a huge relief for me that the success factor relies less on what I was born with; rather, what I do with what I've got.

My Success Coach tells me that attire has a real impact on careers. It's also one of the first aspects we notice about someone. Over the years I've seen, and heard a lot of commentary around executive attire - most of it behind people's back. Nowadays, I carry this adage with me: dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I keep my wardrobe updated and make sure my clothes are properly fitted. Styles change as do waistlines. Even on casual Fridays, I will dress for presence, not for comfort. 

Seeing an ex-colleague of mine recently with revealing clothes at work reminds me of the words of Coco Chanel: "Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman."

Aside from dressing, my Success Coach constantly reminds me that how I act and how I speak are equally important with how I look.

Time and time again I made costly mistakes. Take my centre court joker phase. I may have what it takes to be the office joker but I failed to understand words and actions underline or undermine our executive presence. I now understand that my early struggles to command attention and respect did not centre on my work ethics and knowledge but centred on the way I presented myself. Twenty years later I hit another image problem. It turns out executive presence needed to be nurtured, invested in, curated. I failed to do this and fell flat on my face.

No man or woman attains a top job, lands an extraordinary deal, or develop a significant following without this combination of confidence, poise and authenticity. You may actually hit the numbers, attain the ratings or have a transformative idea. rather it's a matter of image whether you signal to others that you are star material.

If your presence doesn't make an impact, your absence won't make a difference.

Dealing with disrespect

Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” won best original song at this year’s Oscars. Lady Gaga had once said, “I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a grammy, never have a hit & hoped I’d fail. I said to him someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f**king deli without hearing or seeing me.”

You can't force a person to show you respect, but you can refuse to be disrespected! You don't ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life. 

Never make excuses for someone who disrespects you. Who they are or what they do isn't a pass to treat you like trash! It doesn't matter whether someone is a relative, romantic interest, employer, childhood friend or a new acquaintance - you don't have to make room for people who cause you pain or make you feel small. Angry, bitter, resentful, stressed out, physically maxed out, emotionally drained...all signs you are dealing with someone toxic but also where boundaries don't exist or have been overstepped. It's one thing if a person owns up to their behaviour and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries and "continue" to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go. Maintaining a relationship with someone who repeatedly hurts and disrespects you is more painful than letting them go. 

Think about how many people stay in relationships that stopped working long ago. Their reasons range from being afraid of losing the security of having a partner to simply not wanting to be alone - and everything else in between. In any case, fear motivates their decision to stay. 

Fear, a form of stress, is the mother of all negative emotions because we associate it with survival, perceived or real. We become puppets whose strings are pulled by this emotion; we suffer physically and emotionally as a result.  Understandably, we're easily overwhelmed by fear until we learn to disengage from its suction. 

Throughout history, people have consistently tried to gain power, personal or political, by instilling fear in others. Sad to say, it's a ploy that predictably works. The million-dollar question is, what prevents generations of intelligent people from seeing through this emotional manipulation? 

Like everyone, I have my share of fears to confront. It really pisses me off when darkness wins, even for an instant. Therefore, my credo now is: I will not give in to fear.

You too can make this shift. Just because you're afraid of something now doesn't mean you always have to be. Don't let someone get comfortable with disrespecting you. It's bad when they don't treat you right, but it's tragic that you continue to allow it.

Make peace with the past, move on!

Love poems are sweet but for Valentine Day this year, an increasing number of zoos offered people the chance to name creatures after those who'd spurned them in love. An El Paso Zoo allowed people to name a cockroach after their ex and feed it to meerkats. At Sydney Zoo, visitors entered a competition to name a highly venomous brown snake after an ex-lover. Entrants had to explain to the zoo what their ex did to earn a snake being named after them.

Sometimes people dwell on the things that happened years ago. 

Do you wish you could press the rewind button so you could redo portions of your life? Do you struggle with major regrets about your past? Do you spend a lot of time wondering how life would have turned out if you had chosen a slightly different path? Do you replay past memories in your mind like a scene from a movie over and over again?

Although self-reflection is healthy, dwelling can prevent us from enjoying the present. Ruminating on the past won't change it. It can be a vicious cycle that keeps you stuck in the same emotional state.

Just this week, I cleared the clutters in my office drawers. That physical act helped me see that some things in my past need to be discarded; some things need to be kept and cherished. 

I try to make peace with the past. I had endured hard lessons and now I try to focus instead on what I've learned from that experience. When I do think of negative events, which can be very distressing, I walk myself through the facts and details of the memory, instead of dwelling on how I felt.

One word of caution: this is easier said than done. Like any skill, this gets easier the more you do it. I am slowly beginning to get better at letting go of unresolved pain, little by little.

Put problems in perspective

Soon-to-be richest woman in the world 2019: MacKenzie Bezos
Source of income: divorce
Divorce from Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, might soon make her the world's wealthiest woman, if she is entitled to half of Bezos' entire Amazon-based fortune. That means she could get as much as US$66 billion based on the value of the company today.

"The worst thing that happens always turns out to be the best thing," so says Byron Katie.

There comes a time in all of our lives when we're feeling down, defeated. When it seems like nothing is going our way. 

In one way or another, we are all hurting. Everyone is in the same boat. Even the laughing, happy-go-lucky crowd is hurting. They try to hide their hurt by drinking and joking, but it won't go away.

Just because a person smiles all the time, doesn't mean their life is perfect. That smile is a symbol of hope and strength.

There are parents who have been deeply wounded by children. Others suffer illness: cancer, heart disease. Relationships break up and all that is left is a broken, wounded heart. And what about the unemployed, whose dreams have collapsed? It is true! Every person on each carries his/her own burden of pain.

When you are going through the worst times, when the fog surrounds you and you can't see any way out of your dilemma, convince yourself you will survive, you will come out of it. Life does go on. Happiness is not living without pain - not at all. True happiness is learning how to live one day at a time, inspite of all the sorrow and pain.

If you're rolling your eyes and wondering, "How does any of this help me solve my problems?" I'll tell you: it doesn't. Unfortunately knowing this makes no difference whatsoever when you're stuck right bang in the middle of it all. And, of course, all of this only makes things somehow even worse. It doesn't help me overcome what I'm dealing with.

The bottom line is hope. If everyone around you is dealing with their issues - even those that are worse than yours - then you certainly can.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

But I get it. Even as I say all of this, we both know that when disaster strikes, it's challenging to stay levelheaded. There are times when you want to say to life: "Please give me a break,  just give me a chance to catch my breath." But life doesn't listen. 

Start by looking at your entire life. Remember all the problems you faced - and eventually overcame. You probably felt a lot of the same emotions back then, too. You thought you'd never get over your ex, that you'd never find a better job, or that you wouldn't live through the humiliation of  some situation. But you did. Even the more serious problems probably seem a lot different today. After all, you did make it through them, and they ultimately helped shape who you are today. 

The look to the future. The future can have truly great things in store for you. Of course it won't be puppies and rainbows, but you already know that. Disappointments, defeats and fears. But you'll get through it all, the good and the bad, just like you did in the past.  You boat hasn't and won't sink so easily. There may be some waves, you might go through some storms and you'll probably end up seasick from time to time, but your journey across the ocean we call life will continue. You have to steer you life back in the direction you want it to go. So your journey wasn't as smooth as you wanted it to be. Does that mean you're just going to let yourself get blown off course? I didn't think so.

Remember, everything is solvable and if you can't see a solution, it only means you haven't worked it out yet. Of then the reason you can't see the solution is because you're too close to the problem. Our minds naturally play tricks on us, twisting and distorting our thoughts. Ask yourself what's REALLY going on here? Look at your track record; you'll make it work, just like you always have! Keep focused even through the hard times, on our dreams and goals.

To tell someone going through a storm to "pull it together" is like telling a snail to go faster. Here's my stand: no matter how far down you are, there is always hope to recover. Hope when there is no hope. Hope is about waiting for a happier day. It sets the tone for change.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear, If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. It is during our darkest moments, that we must focus to see the light.

Do you listen or hear?

"Why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences, and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.” President Donald Trump made a moral and emotional case to plead for £4.5 billion for his border wall prior to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history – and the possibility of another shutdown looming in three weeks. 

Donald Trump is a novel President - New York Times commented that everything he has done so far suggests that even if he were able to identify the most knowledgeable people in the world, he probably wouldn't listen to them anyway.  

The struggle to be heard is real. It's something we all confront at one time or another. 

Growing up as the eldest of six siblings and cousins, I learned how to eat fast, talk fast and interrupt them. Listening has not always come easily to me, and I'm not alone.

Sometimes, in some people, the brain generates ideas too fast to stop them from coming out of the mouth before they can be carefully considered. Some call it passion or enthusiasm, others call it rude. 

Listening is a fundamental skill of genuine success and it's hard to be great or trusted without it. Still, being a good listener is hard work!

Craig Smith, a leader I respect and admire is an absolute master at this. He makes concentrated effort to narrow his attention to whomever he was dealing with. When he spoke some someone, he wouldn't allow interruptions, not event when his phone rang.  It made no difference if he was speaking to another CEO, the customer or an intern. The demonstrates that he is engaged with what others are saying and that he cares about their points of view. Through his actions, he conveyed how important you were, not how important he was. These are attributes of a magnetic leader. The way I see it, his success has a great deal to do with his ability to focus on listening to the person right in front of him. 

Most people, even professionals who routinely practice public speaking or sales pitches are sometimes poor listeners. What separates the near-great from the great and makes executive presence is the want to exchange ideas, opinions and information - being genuinely focused on what someone is saying, not just pausing to be polite. 

In my experience, salespeople make some of the best listeners - and also some of the worst. Some don't talk their way into a sale. They listened their way into a sale. Conversely, others talked their way out of a sale by refusing to listen. 

This is not something you can fake - at least not consistently. If you merely face the speaker and zone out, your inattentiveness will be revealed the moment it is discovered that you have not absorbed the content. 

Has this ever happened to you? You're reading a book or watching Netflix while your partner is talking to you. Suddenly you hear, "You're not listening to me." You look up and say, "Yes, I am." This is what happens when we listen without showing respect. It's not enough to keep our ears open; we have to demonstrate that we are totally engaged. 

It has become routine to walk into meetings and see half a dozen attendees punching the keys of their laptops or cellphones while someone is speaking. Many of them could be typing notes, but from my perspective, they may well be checking their email. 

Remember, perception is everything when it comes to professional presence.  If you do not appear to be engaged, it may not matter that you are engaged.

If your objective is to make people feel like a million bucks in your presence, don't interrupt nor finish the other person's sentences. Don't let your eyes or attention wander elsewhere while the other person is talking. Eliminate any striving to impress the other person with how smart or funny you are. Your only aim is to let the other person feel that he/she is accomplishing that.

Telling our brains and mouth not to do something is no different than telling them to do it. I am trying to master this, so I can listen effectively with respect.