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Say No To Drama.

June 29, 2023 In Musings 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

We all have drama in our lives, from family drama to workplace to spousal and relationship drama. Most of the time, we allow this drama by engaging and enabling dramatic people and situations. I have realized that to have peace of mind, you need to reduce drama and dramatics to the bearest minimum. We stay in familiar relationships with no-growth individuals and constantly nag about the negativity, toxicity and drama we have to deal with constantly. Saying No to drama can be tough, especially with family and friends, but you have to make the tough decision of reducing the amount of time you spend with dramatic people.

We stay stuck in a drama triangle and become helpless and miserable due to our interactions with harmful, toxic, dramatic individuals. It is not a great place to be, as setting boundaries for family and friends can be extremely tough. As Robert Frost noted in his 1914 poem “Mending Walls,” – ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’ Boundaries without consequences is nagging. We constantly complain and nag about people’s dramatics, but we do nothing about it. You need to protect your peace of mind as life is too short to be spending it with people that are not elevating you. Say NO to Drama.

Good fences make good neighbours.

Dreams are expensive.

June 18, 2023 In Musings 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Your dreams are valid but it is also expensive to dream. “The price of greatness is responsibility” former British prime minister, Winston Churchill once quipped. The bigger the dream, the bigger the price you would have to pay to achieve your dreams and aspirations. You are going to be violently opposed by your family, friends, and allies but a few might get it but the more you continue to dream; the opposition gets bigger. If you cannot pay the price, you cannot win the prize. The moment you decide to follow your most audacious dreams, people would project their fears and insecurities toward you and your aspirations. The self-doubts begin to crip in especially when the projections come from well-meaning family and friends.

What it Takes.

June 16, 2023 In Musings 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” – John Wooden

Success is never an accident, and failure is usually not a coincidence. As author Jim Rohn put it,

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices.”

To be successful, you don’t have to do extraordinary things, just do ordinary things extraordinarily well. You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. The road to becoming successful in any endeavour takes a lot of grinding, grit, perseverance, persistence and hard work. Overnight success usually takes 10+ years of drills, workouts, pitch, reps, laps, sessions, roadwork, training, practice, preparation, routine and regimen. As the saying goes, “We play the way we train”. You cannot take people farther than you have gone; garbage in – garbage out.

If you work hard, what is hard would work but if your take shortcuts, you would be cut short.

Book Summary – The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest.

June 12, 2023 In Book Summaries 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery, bestselling author Brianna Wiest writes about self-sabotage. Why we do it, when we do it, and how to stop doing it—for good.

Self-sabotage is when you have two conflicting desires. One is conscious, one is unconscious. You know how you want to move your life forward, and yet you are still, for some reason, stuck.

Your time here is limited.

June 6, 2023 In Musings 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In his inspiring 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, the founder and late CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, advised that we live every day like it could be our last as our time here is limited:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Where you are is not who you are.

June 4, 2023 In Musings 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In 2009, Ursula Burns became the first African American woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the Xerox Corporation. In her memoir, Where You Are Is Not Who You Are, Ursula chronicles her story of growing up in poverty, being an outsider most of her life, her career trajectory, and the lessons learned leading a Fortune 500 company as a black woman.

One of Ursula Burns’s mother’s favourite sayings was, “Where you are is not who you are.” she constantly reminded her kids that their present position was not who they were. Nothing last forever, life is a season and it is impermanent.

Biography of Mellody Hobson.

June 4, 2023 In Inspiring People 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Mellody Hobson (born April 3, 1969) is the Co-CEO, President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Ariel Investment Trust, a Chicago-based investment firm that specializes in small and mid-capitalized stocks based in the United States. Mellody currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Starbucks Corporation and a director of JPMorgan Chase.

Early Life and Education

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Mellody is the youngest daughter of a single mother to six children. Her mother, Dorothy Ashley, renovated apartments and condos in old and sometimes abandoned buildings. She grew up in poverty, and that experience drove her as a child to want to understand money.

“We moved often,” says Hobson. “There was always a lot of drama surrounding our living situation. At times, my mother couldn’t pay her bills and our electricity would be cut off, and we would have to heat water for our baths. We also had our phone cut off at times. We were even evicted a few times and had our car repossessed. But it wasn’t as bad as some had it, so I tried not to make too much of it. I had a loving family, and although my mother often came up short financially, she did the best she could.”

She graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago in 1987 and from Princeton University in 1991.

Money wasn’t an economic construct to me. It wasn’t toys and cars and vacations. Money was food. Shelter. Self-esteem. Books. Hot baths. Peace of mind. I wanted all those things. Not having money focused me. I was mortified every time the phone was disconnected, or the electricity shut off, or we got evicted. To this day, I do not take housing or the ability to pay my bills for granted. My childhood circumstances made me desperate to understand money—not to make it but to master it. ¹

Masterclass: Mellody Hobson Teaches Strategic Decision-Making.

June 3, 2023 In Masterclass 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In 1991, Mellody Hobson joined Ariel Investments—America’s first Black-owned mutual fund, the firm founded by John Rogers Jr. in 1983. She is presently Co-CEO, President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Ariel Investment Trust. In 2019, she became the first Black woman president
and co-CEO of an investment fund when she stepped into those roles at Ariel.

In Mellody Hobson’s masterclass, she delves into how to hone your own strategic decision-making skills and access two real-life case studies that exemplifies how she applied these tools in complex business situations.

Book Summary: It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Moawad.

May 5, 2023 In Book Summaries 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In It Takes What It Takes: How to Think Neutrally and Gain Control of Your Life, mental conditioning coach to elite performers Trevor Moawad lays out lessons he’s derived from his greatest career successes as well as personal setbacks, the game-changing wisdom he’s earned as the go-to whisperer for elite performers on fields of play and among men and women headed to the battlefield.

Book Summary – Change Your World by John C. Maxwell.

April 26, 2023 In Book Summaries 4 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In Change Your World: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make a Difference, bestselling authors John C. Maxwell and Rob Hoskins provide a framework to get started being the change you want to see – in your community and beyond.

People Change When They Hurt Enough That They Have To, People Change When They See Enough That They Are Inspired To, People Change When They Learn Enough That They Want To, People Change When They Receive Enough That They Are Able To.

Book Summary – The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John C. Maxwell.

April 20, 2023 In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential, New York Times bestselling author John C. Maxwell shares fifteen principles for maximizing personal growth.

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth are:

The Law of Intentionality: Growth Doesn’t Just Happen
The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself
The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself
The Law of Reflection: Learning to Pause Allows Growth to Catch Up with You
The Law of Consistency: Motivation Gets You Going—Discipline Keeps You Growing
The Law of Environment: Growth Thrives in Conducive Surroundings
The Law of Design: To Maximize Growth, Develop Strategies
The Law of Pain: Good Management of Bad Experiences Leads to Great Growth
The Law of the Ladder: Character Growth Determines the Height of Your Personal Growth
The Law of the Rubber Band: Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension Between Where You Are and Where You Could Be
The Law of Trade-Offs: You Have to Give Up to Grow Up
The Law of Curiosity: Growth Is Stimulated by Asking Why?
The Law of Modeling: It’s Hard to Improve When You Have No One but Yourself to Follow
The Law of Expansion: Growth Always Increases Your Capacity
The Law of Contribution: Growing Yourself Enables You to Grow Others

Book Summary – The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

December 26, 2022 In Book Summaries 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become – Jim Rohn

In The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8 AM), author Hal Elrod argues that having a morning routine dramatically affects the level of success in every area of our lives. Hal provides a framework for developing a morning routine- SAVERS: Silence, Affirmation, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing.

Book Summary – Do Hard Things by Steve Magness.

December 12, 2022 In Book Summaries 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Real toughness is experiencing discomfort or distress, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action. It’s navigating discomfort to make the best decision you can.

The Do Hard Things book is based on Steve Magness’s experience—in working with elite athletes across professional sports, as well as executives and entrepreneurs in the workplace—and partially through the latest science spanning the fields of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and physiology.

Masterclass: Indra Nooyi Teaches Leading With Purpose

September 24, 2022 In Masterclass 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Indra Nooyi is one of my favourite people in the world, I admire her aura and tenacity. I connected deeply with her story as narrated in her 2021 autobiography: My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future. Her autobiography is one of my favourite reads of 2022 as I enjoyed reading it.

In her Masterclass, former CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi and Fortune’s List of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, shares her approach to making purpose-driven corporate change. Learn to make a meaningful impact within your company and find professional fulfillment.

Indra Nooyi is the first woman of color and the first immigrant to lead a Fortune 50 company.

Book Summary: Roles by Nicholeen Peck.

August 8, 2022 In Book Summaries 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In Roles: The Secret to Family, Business, and Social Success, author, and public speaker Nicholeen Peck discuss the importance of roles in the family unit, business, and social settings. She writes about the power of roles, Family Dysfunction, and the difference between roles and responsibilities.

Roles are a power. They prepare us to live securely and happily. They also help us to spread happiness and to support and love each other — as well as promote relationship freedom. Too many people today are in emotional and relationship bondage. Understanding roles is a vital secret to breaking away from that bondage and finding the relationship freedom and personal power that awaits us all.

Success is a choice