June 2020

Our Deepest Fear By Marianne Williamson

June 15, 2020 In Poem 1 Min Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

Title: Our Deepest Fear
Author: Marianne Williamson
Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson
Movies Cited: Akeelah and the Bee, Coach Carter
Our Deepest fear quote is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

TOP 30 Quotes on Resilience

June 14, 2020 In Quotes 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

According to Psychology Today, Resilience is the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before. Rather than letting difficulties, traumatic events, or failure overcome them and drain their resolve, highly resilient people find a way to change course, emotionally heal, and continue moving toward their goals.

Resilience is one of those skill sets that we all need to master in order to navigate the vicissitudes of life because you are either in a storm, going through a storm, or entering the next storm. It is not a matter of IF but a matter of when. Been resilient is what would take you through the trying times, remember thought times don’t last but tough people do.

In the Book Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, shares the following: on resilience: We plant the seeds of resilience in the ways we process negative events. After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that three P’s can stunt recovery:

(1) personalization—the belief that we are at fault;

(2) pervasiveness—the belief that an event will affect all areas of our life; and

(3) permanence—the belief that the aftershocks of the event will last forever”

Here are some thoughful quotes on resilience:

Insightful Speech: Anatomy of Trust by Brené Brown

June 13, 2020 In Speech 17 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Trust is choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else
Distrust is what I have shared with you that is important to me is not safe with you.
– Charles Feldman

Oprah Winfrey hosts “Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations,” a live event featuring inspiring thought leaders, modern-day influencers, and social game-changers as they discuss the current climate in our culture. Social Scientist and Author Brené Brown shares an anecdote about her third-grade daughter’s struggle with a betrayal of trust. This Super Soul Conversation was originally delivered at the UCLA’s Royce Hall in 2015.

Brené Brown’s Book, Braving the Wilderness: The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone, expands on the concept of BRAVING, She also mentions BRAVING in her 2015 Book, Rising Stong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZZsYJa3Ds

Anatomy of Trust Transcript

Oh, it just feels like an incredible understatement to say how grateful I am to be here with all of you. I feel like I have a relationship with many of you on social media, and you were like, “T-minus two days.” I’m like, “It’s coming! We’re going to be together.” So I’m so grateful to be here with you.

Lessons Learned from Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass Session on Storytelling

June 12, 2020 In Masterclass 8 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

If you’re going to write… you have to be willing to do the equivalent of walking down a street naked. You have to be able to show too much of yourself. You have to be just a little bit more honest than you’re comfortable with…”

The Dictionary of Literary Biography lists him as one of the top ten living postmodern writers. Born in England, Neil lives in the United States and taught for five years at Bard College, where he is a Professor of the Arts. He is married to artist/musician Amanda Palmer.

Today, as one of the most celebrated writers of our time, his popular and critically-acclaimed works bend genres while reaching audiences of all ages and winning awards of all kinds. The Graveyard Book is the only work ever to win both the Newbery (US) and Carnegie (UK) Medals, awarded by librarians for the most prestigious contribution to children’s literature, and Neil’s bestselling contemporary fantasy novel, American Gods, took the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, and Locus awards, as did his young adult novel Coraline.

The Emmy-nominated adaptation of American Gods renewed for a 3rd season on Starz and most recently, Neil scripted an Amazon/BBC six-part series based on the novel Good Omens, which he co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett.

Here are my favourite take aways from viewing

What you’re doing is lying, but you’re using the truth in order to make your lies convincing and true. You’re using them as seasoning. You’re using the truth as a condiment to make an otherwise unconvincing narrative absolutely credible

The Johari Window

June 11, 2020 In Personal Development 3 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

The Johari window was created by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955 as a way to better understand yourself and the communication between you and others. It is a model for soliciting and giving feedback. It is a communication model that has four quadrants and two dimensions (Myself and Others)

The model is a 2x 2 grid which represents things that a person knows about themselves on one axis and things that others know about them on the other axis. By plotting the levels of self-knowledge and the knowledge held by others the person can develop a greater understanding of their personality and how they are perceived by others.

Learning to say NO.

June 10, 2020 In Life 13 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.—John Carmac

Learning to say NO to our friends, colleagues, and family is one of the hardest decisions we are faced with on an ongoing basis. It is usually extremely hard for a lot of us to say NO because of our upbringing, it is kind of not culturally accepted to say NO, you hear words like you are been selfish. We are trained to be courteous and polite.

Anytime you say: “yes” to one request, you might have to defend it over time with 100 NOs. There is always a trade-off. If you say yes to mindless social media scrolling or picking up your phone to check WhatsApp messages every 15 minutes, you are saying NO invariably to your dream of writing a book or a blog post article. Many of us find it hard to say NO to people’s requests because we do not have clear goals, values, priorities, and boundaries.

The key to saying NO is to say it graciously and with utmost sincerity. You can say something like: Thank you for the offer/invitation but due to my other commitments, I can not do this right now. Honesty is the best policy, mean what you say and say what you mean. No need to promise people what you know you are not going to do, this eventually leads to resentment and loss of trust in the relationship.

Book Summary – Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence.

June 9, 2020 In Book Summaries 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

The bottom line is that we think we work to pay the bills—but we spend more than we make on more than we need, which sends us back to work to get the money to spend to get more stuff to . . .

Title: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence
Author(s): Vicki Robin (Author), Joe Dominguez (Author), Mr. Money Mustache (Foreword)

Print | eBook (Kindle) | Audiobook

I have recently been fascinated by the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement. I am on a quest to read and execute as much of the teachings as I can and in turn become financially independent and retire early. The Book: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, is a very great resource with lots of insights and action steps on becoming more Financial Intelligent.

Here are my Favourite Takeaways from reading, Your money or Your Life:

Top Quotes on Courage

June 8, 2020 In Quotes 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

One of the hallmarks of leadership is the ability to be courageous in times of crisis as Martin Luther once quipped the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Bronnie Ware, former palliative caregiver and author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing, she recorded the top regrets of the dying, On top of the list is:

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Lessons Learned from Jeff Goodby & Rich Silverstein Masterclass session on Advertising and Creativity

June 7, 2020 In Masterclass 8 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein started Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) with Andy Berlin in 1983 and won their first award from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for the Mill Valley Film Festival. Jeff and Rich went on to win Lions across every award and brand category, bridging an unprecedented variety of styles. Their work has included advertising campaigns like “got milk?,” the Budweiser lizards, Hewlett-Packard’s “Invent,” the E*Trade chimpanzee, Polaroid’s “See what develops,” the NBA’s “I love this game,” Nike’s “Skateboarding,” and SEGA’s “SEGA!

Since 2000, GS&P has excelled at creating work that transcends media. In 2019, Jeff and Rich were honored with the Cannes Lion of St. Mark—the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Most recently the agency received Cannes Lions for “Lessons in Herstory” (an AR project that rewrites history to include women), “Dalí Lives” (a deepfake experience that brings Salvador Dalí back to life), “I Am a Witness” (the first emoji for a social cause), the “Dreams of Dalí” VR experience, Chevrolet’s Chevy Sonic launch with the rock band OK Go, and the Cheetos Museum.

Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad. – Howard Gossage

Here are my favorite takeaways from viewing

by Lanre Dahunsi

Top Inspirational Songs to Lift Your Spirit Up

June 6, 2020 In Motivation 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Life can be tough, whatever would go wrong would always go wrong (Murphy’s Law); when things go wrong like they often go wrong, don’t go wrong with it. The key is to know yourself and what works for you during these trying times we all go through. Music can be a very great tool/Anchor to get your spirit in sync with what the universe is trying to teach you.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.– Plato

Music preference is subjective just like the list below, songs resonate with people differently depending on what you going through. A lot of these songs could help you get through these trying times – no matter what you going through, hang in there as this too shall pass.

No matter what you going through, hang in there as this too shall pass.

In no particular order, here are some great inspirational songs to lift your spirit during trying times:

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

June 5, 2020 In Poem 1 Min Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Poem Title: The Road Not Taken
Author: Robert Frost,
Year first Published: 1916
Source: The first poem in Mountain Interval Poetry Collection by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

The Peter Principle

June 4, 2020 In Management 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Challenge the belief that the selection of a candidate for promotion should be based on their performance in their current role, rather than on their ability relevant to the intended role.

The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their “level of incompetence”: an employee is promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.

The Peter principle states that a person who is competent at their job will earn promotion to a more senior position which requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for their new role, then they will be incompetent at their new level, and so they will not be promoted again.

But if they are competent at their new role, then they will be promoted again, and they will continue to be promoted until they eventually reach a level at which they are incompetent. Being incompetent, they do not qualify to be promoted again, and so remain stuck at that final level for the rest of their career (termed “Final Placement” or “Peter’s Plateau”).

In a Hierarchy: Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence

Book Summary -The Leadership Gap by Lolly Daskal.

June 3, 2020 In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Leaders are encouraged to see themselves not as failures who who need to be fixed, but as successful people finding their potential to be even better.

Print | Kindle (eBook) | Audiobook

Lolly Daskal draws on her experience studying human behavior in the context of business, she created a unique methodology based on seven leadership archetypes—the rebel, the explorer, the truth-teller, the hero, the inventor, the navigator, and the knight.

The archetypes provide an accessible construct for deeper awareness and personal growth. Understanding which role you embody—when and why—has tremendous value for a leader who seeks to optimize performance.

Seeing yourself in each of these archetypes will help you leverage what you do brilliantly well and, by contrast, learn where and why you tend to fail. There are real “leadership gaps” that impede the success of even the most talented executives.

Here are my favorite takeaways from reading, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness by Lolly Daskal:

Don’t Rob People of their Problems

June 2, 2020 In Life 4 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Setting boundaries with people can be very hard, but it is one of the keys to having a fulfilled life. We often are apt to help our loved ones, but they need to learn from their experience. I am not advocating not helping each other, but there are some scenarios where we need to let someone learn from their issue/problem. When we allow people to make their problem our problem, we are not helping them, but we are just enabling them.

Once we take their problem for them, all we’re doing is taking away their ability to solve it.

Dr. Bennet Omalu Biography

June 1, 2020 In Bios 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu is a Nigerian physician, forensic pathologist and neuropathologist who was the first to discover and publish findings on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players while working at the Allegheny County coroner’s office in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Omalu had most of his earlier formative education in Nigeria. He became disillusioned with Nigeria after presidential candidate Moshood Abiola failed to win the Nigerian presidency during an inconclusive election in 1993 and began to search for scholarship opportunities in the United States. Omalu first came to Seattle, Washington in 1994 to complete an epidemiology fellowship at the University of Washington.In 1995, he left Seattle for New York City, where he joined Columbia University’s Harlem Hospital Center for a residency training program in anatomic and clinical pathology

The Movie Concussion which starred Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu was nominated for the Golden Globe Awards in the Best Actor Drama category.