The distinguished gentleman from Ada

Whiles it is highly possible to meet someone called Markus and maybe even a person called Markus Kennedy, you are not so likely to meet someone called Markus Kennedy Katey. It’s like trying your luck with a combination lock system. And even if you did, his Markus will not be spelled with a “K”. But if for some impossible reason I was wrong and you did find a Markus spelled with a K, it will mean that person must be German in which case, they are unlikely to have the name Katey. They will still need to come from the Aklie family and bear the name. Ok just maybe…that might be possible because he could be half German and half Ghanaian which will make it possible to have a name like that but that will mean then that he comes from Ada. But that still doesn't make him me because I am not half German. Besides he will have to be born on the 16^th day of the month of May and it will have to be a Thursday by which virtue Yaw will have to be added to his names. Now how likely is it to get all the combinations right out of the billion possibilities?

The combination that became me is much more complex than that. It is what makes me impossible to replicate unless you resort to cloning. But I am not even sure what the result of that will be. Let us go down the rabbit hole and see why I am so impossible to copy. See… even if you had the same name as me (something I doubt very much) you will still need to come from Kasseh and Akplabanya which is where my mum and dad come from respectively. And you will have to have grown up in Accra with all the gutter-to-gutter, piloloo, stay, guava and mango raid experiences. (Lets just leave out the Julor ke police, alokoto (please do note that the word is not alikoto), and bayler chasing for now).

There is more- you will have to have six siblings from your mum and wonderful nieces (of course). You must come from a highly disorganized extended family. You must have been a Mazda RX 7 fanatic turned a BMW freak and you will have to have done countless number of reckless things in order to find yourself. You must have been crazy about the Amiga 16 and adored the early macs. You will also need to win a gold medal for Ghana in a West Africa Karate Championship after experiencing countless number of bruises that will still be with you fifteen years on. 

You are also going to need friends who sell you a pair of jeans only to come back and borrow them never to return them. You must have lived in a community where your TV doesn’t come back after its been picked for repair and be related to somebody who will borrow your very cherished Sony amplifier and never return it; leaving you with a turn table and a set of vintage reggae and hi-life vinyls that will eventually be abused and tortured when you are away for a few years by individuals who have no appreciation for the delicate contact between needle and plastic and the soothing magic that follows. You are also going to need a countless number of siblings from your dad of which you have met only a few; making it possible for you to hit on your own sister at a family funeral. You will also need to have started countless number of businesses failing woefully at some and simply just abandoning many of them because of youthful exuberance and an unstable mind. Oh I forgot to mention the motor bike accidents especially the one at Kingsby junction that will leave you with a few scares that will itch occasionally and remind you about what it means to be riding at 120km/h in the night without safety gear for the sole purpose of showing off (something you can share with your son some 20 years down the line).

You will need Sensei Ben, you will need Big Dread, Marley, Voltaire, Kant, Plato, Rockstone, Twinkle brothers, Yeshuah Ben Yosef a Mashiak, Garvey, Ghandi, Madeba, Adler, Dennis Brown, Frankl, Apostle Paul, Nkrumah, William James, Chesterton… I can’t give you the full list here. You are going have to do a lot of 360 degrees in order to arrive where you should have been a long time ago. You are going to have to lose the love of your life and she will have to come from Winneba and you will need to spend the rest of your life looking for a replacement hoping to do all the things you didn't do and undo all the things you shouldn't have done. And when she marries a doctor, you will need to find a reason to run away from the wedding before the reception starts. And on the way, still carrying the present that was meant for her in your hand, you will have to wonder why you didn't go to medical school. Eventually you will arrive at a “happy yourself” conclusion because you think of yourself as one who has mastered the tools of emotional intelligence.

You will have to have broken a few hearts and have your broken a few times in return. You are going to need to be betrayed by best friends of many years and an engaged wife in order to wake you up to some of the harsh realities of being Ghanaian. You are going to need integrity beyond reason and you ought to have built several things I don’t want to mention here and loose them in a self-sabotage manner. You are going to need to be used, refused and abused. You are going to need a gift that will haunt you… giving you sleepless nights for some thirty years until you finally figure out what to do with it. You are going to need to be a peak performance advocate in a country where nobody gives a toss.

Now when you have done all that, come back and I will give you another set of combinations you need to get right and I have a whole library of them. In the end you are going to need to decide if it is all worth it and since it will take you a whole life time to figure it out, you are going to have to decide what you will do with the “you” that is waiting with its own set of combinations that others will have to spend a whole life time trying to replicate. And I should mention; that I have not stopped creating new combinations yet so there is still a lot of work to be done for the library.  

There is nothing else like you. It is just impossible. The look alike is a look alike, not the real thing. That Charlie Chaplin took part in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and came second is an unpardonable fallacy. To distinguish yourself is therefore a very simple matter. Don’t try to. Just “being” is easy, painless effective, and powerful. The masters say you are at your best when you are you. There are those who set off on a journey to distinguish themselves. In the personal development business this is the mantra of many a motivational speaker. You have to work hard to stand out. You must distinguish yourself by doing this and that.

Those who work hard at distinguishing themselves soon find that they are trying to do something or perhaps trying to be something; moving away from what they really are when they already are something of great value. The more they try the more value they lose. Your real substance is what you already are because it is an incredibly unique product. It is being more and more of what you are that is the key. When you finally go on sale, you will have a target audience and there will be absolutely no competitor whatsoever. That’s because there can be only one you: good bad and ugly. Distinguished beyond distinguish. I am the distinguished Gentleman from Ada. Who are you?

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Powering up with People-Centrism

People-centrism is an aspect of socio-emotional competence. Something expert agree makes success more predictable than just having talent. There is a reason for this; a high level of talent could be rendered useless (possibly even self-destructive) without the navigation system provided by socio-emotional competence. The idea is to think in terms of what you have that makes others happy and allow yourself to be occupied by it in your entire life. There is such a thing as the right job and the right spouse. It might sound a bit strange for those who have come to believe that your life is about you and that you must do only what you want and that what others want does not count.  Working only for yourself is unsustainable; it represents defect. Beyond the religious opinions, we have also seen form the work of scientist like the Richard Dawkins that altruism is the best means of ensuring the continuous existence (not that I like the guy).

Life itself is what you say it is and there are no real right ways of doing anything unless we have a clear and specific objective in mind. That is when the road to point x cannot be the same as the road to point y. All philosophies work except; there is such a things as fruits of your seed. You cannot possibly plant guava and reap mangoes. So what you put in must return its corresponding result- that’s among the most constant of all rules and it does not change for anybody. So rest assured the philosophy you choose to live will bring its attendant results without exception. Perhaps this is what informed ideas like “love thy neighbor as thyself”. In the final analysis, it is in your best interest.

People-centrism is to be sure that you are meeting the needs of others by being more of yourself. The last component; the being more of yourself bit is of extreme importance simply because; it is the only way to give the best of you, which happens to be what people want. In fact its true power is demonstrated by modern business theories. Products and services are created for the creator’s own benefit of course- to make profit. But this is only possible when the customer is happy as you probably already know. An unhappy customer is bad business and bad business collapses business. At the same time to give your best, you have to concentrate on what you do best. So there is a clear balance required between the two in order to generate the two way happiness that awaits you.

But if you think this applies to business alone, think again. In fact business might be several thousands of years behind as the authors of scripture had already figured this out earlier. And if we had been paying attention we might have gone a lot further in our civilization skipping several crude ages. I guess in a way, it explains why the likes of Daniel Goleman think that emotional intelligence (which is an aspect of socio-emotional competence) makes success more predictable. Those whose job directly makes people happy are usually very successful. Take comedians and musicians for example. What about writers and filmmakers. When they are good at what they do then they are guaranteed patronage from almost everyone. Why? Happiness- good feeling.

Your output generates a feeling within people whether you want to accept it or not. You have a choice to decide whether this feeling is a positive one or the opposite. To set out to deliberately create a product that generates a good feeling for people is people-centeredness. It is deciding that people are the reason why you do what you do and hence you are going to make sure that they are happy with what you give them.

This idea makes your life better because it is only when people are happy with you that they tend to want to make you happy in return. They give you what they have; their attention, their money and their most treasured assets.

A father who is happy with the potential son-in-law is happy to bless the marriage. Simply because he is happy. He likes the son-in-law enough to give away his precious daughter with a blessing. He might be happy because he is sure that the son in-law will make his daughter happy. So before straying too far, let’s get a grip on the idea. The happiness that you think you are looking for depends on other people’s happiness. If you can give happiness then you are bound to receive it back in plenty. It is kind of like willing to forego your grain of corn and putting it in the soil. You can only reap thousands in return.

So you are wondering by now, what influence does people-centrism have on your performance. I have already said that being competent in the social environment makes your success more predictable than just having a skill or talent. I have also pointed out that it is how people are feeling about what you do that counts. What they really buy is the happiness or good feeling you create. In a team your work might be the raw material for another person’s work. If it is bad, it makes their work harder and vice versa. People- centrism means that you consider the effect of what you are doing or not doing on others in order to ensure a good feeling. Such behavior represents quality as people are always the end users of what we do.

It cuts through communication as well as what we say have a way of stirring up the emotions of others. Considering the fact that the run of people are largely emotionally unintelligent, it may rest with you to find people-centric ways of delivering a message or making a point. You are probably already aware of the important role communication plays in any environment. When staff is people-centric it is a double win for the organization as they will respond to both internal and external needs the right way. The marketing concept of understanding the needs of the customer and creating the perfect product for a targeted group is therefore a powerful one. But so is the economic idea of firing from a competitive edge. Your goal is to combine bother both for a powerful outcome. Not surprising that marketing is rumored to be a wayward child of Economics.

People are not the same and hence their needs differ. People-centrism is therefore begins when we identify that group that has a need for the advantage we have. The lesson here is that, regardless of what you are; there is a group that needs you as much as there is group that does not. To force yourself on the wrong target is to create friction and discomfort for others and yourself—not a very people-centric approach to things. This can affect performance or output in countless number of ways. People-centrism ensures great management and great staff. It develops great products and guarantees success. As people we are micro-businesses in our own rights and we can consciously apply some of these principles in our lives for better relationships and better performance.

Friction in all its forms negatively affects performance which is supposed to be an effortless venture.  People must be the central focus of what we do and that will help ensure that the maximum output is obtained out of people, systems and equipment. The most valuable assets of any organization or nation are its human resources. People are the key ingredient. What we do is by people and for people and about people—maybe that sounds familiar. The most advanced theories of business and even the survival of mankind are people-centric in nature. This article is just a scratch on the surface of a much bigger idea that is captured in the uptimetricse® system available at the CSD®. Please feel free to share your comments with us. It will be highly appreciated.

Some questions you can play with in your mind.

How people-centric are you on a scale of 0 to 10?

Identify someone you are unhappy with and state clearly, reasons why they generate this feeling within you?

Identify ways in which this situation can be turned around?

Is it possible to treat all your communications and actions with doses of people-centrism or or do you find this difficult?

What is the real reason why you do what you do?

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The First cut is not the deepest |REV-UP®

Clichés have a very strange way of entangling your legs and hindering your movement. The result is that you are unable to reach your destination. The first cut is the deepest is one of such clichés.  The truth is that they are real only if you say they are and since many of us have come to accept them, the subconscious mind just responds to them and we behave accordingly, often to our own underperformance.

You may have heard the saying: Life is what you make it, possibly my favorite of all the clichés. Well that’s because it is a useful one- an asset. We must begin to understand these statements enough to decipher the good from the bad and get rid of the ugly. Let me remind you that we function on information as humans; and therefore it is what we internalize as useful that determines what we become. You might have heard the saying, “you are what you think” or better yet, you are more of what you choose to believe. What we believe is purely a matter choice.

That the first cut is the deepest makes it hard or even impossible to heal simply because you have decided it is the deepest. In real life you might find that the cut gets deeper with the subsequent cuts. But I am not advocating that you even consider any cut whether emotional, mental or physical so deep that it feels it has a right not to heal. Those first cuts are not the deepest until you decide they are. If they are negative cuts therefore, you might want to decide they are not the deepest.

Money belief is full of these harmful clichés that are a drain on performance. Talk to the belief experts and they will tell you that simple things like “money does not grow on trees”, “money is the root of all evil”, “money is hard to come by” have become the financial demons that haunt the lives of many simply because they have been programmed to think this way.

They have not learnt the principles of abundance and how life itself gives wastefully as in how we see a grain of corn evolve into thousands.  If you understand that you are functioning on this information that has become a part of your flesh and hence your body acts accordingly before you think about it, you have found the key to unlocking your performance. You have freed yourself from the entanglement of such clichés that actually disturb your performance.

Money does grow on trees and you always get a second chance to make a good impression. Which would you prefer? Make a good first impression and then be seen for the not so good that you really are at a later time or make a not so good an impression and later be seen to be much better than thought. It seems to me the latter will mean progress and the former, the opposite. Very often this is what motivators will preach to that young graduate who is getting ready for a job interview. Be the best at the interview and get in. Coaches also teach you the tricks with which you can get in. After that you consistently struggle to stay in and every time there is talk about raising standards you are in trouble.

The point is not to make a bad impression and hope it gets better. When you are yourself you are consistent. One must ensure that the self is developed to the right standard so that all impressions whether first or one hundredth are good all the time. That will be the, mark of a true performer. Don’t forget peak performance lies in being more of what we are therefore it cannot be inconsistent. It is the natural course of things.

Find those clichés and kill them now. REV UP at http://revupblog.blogspot.com/

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EI: a treatment for trapportunities

This article explores Trapportunity in more detail than more previous post which did little more than define it. Trapportunity is a phenomenon that may not be new to you at all if you look through your life. It has however not been easy to indentify as it had not been labeled properly until now. Trapportunities are traps that sell themselves as opportunities. The textbook definition is; Traps masquerading as Opportunities. What they do is to frustrate you by taking you off your track by luring you into the trap they really are. The result is that you are unable to reach goals, frustration overwhelms you and you cannot perform at your best. Sometimes they simply slow down your progress towards your real goal. Other times they deceitfully misdirect you towards what might seem like a better goal.

In the previous post I made a point about the fraudster who of necessity must dress like a real business man in order to gain the confidence of his victim. To do the opposite is to undermine his objective. In the same manner it is necessary for a trap like anything negative to present itself as an opportunity- it is the very nature of the negative. It must mimic good or cease to exist. It thrives on it and one must be first very aware of this.

Often Trapportunities plays on the lower needs. Food, clothes, shelter, sex etc. Bodily needs very easily frustrate us when in short supply. When a man is hungry to the worst limit, a piece of bread that belongs to somebody else will begin to look attractive. In most case he might eat it before remembering it did not belong to him. This is bound to invoke undesirable consequences. Responding to the needs of the lower kind is the easiest way to falling into a trap thinking we have seen an opportunity. A struggling business man in possession of a great idea but has no money to feed himself, may encounter what might seem like an opportunity. He may give away a great idea for the immediate gratification. Years down the line he will regret this. We saw a clear example with Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25:29-34.

Trapportunities present themselves in such unexpected ways; they are easy to fall for unless one understands them thoroughly. While they are a major cause of failure, they are easily avoidable when one chooses to do the right thing all the time without exception. It is a question of taking the right road instead of taking the dangerous winding short cut without knowing where it really leads. When Joseph was asked to work in the house of Portipher, (Genesis 39) he encountered what was one of the most serious Trapportunities a man can face. When your masters’ wife offers you her body, it is a first class “ego-sweller”. There are very few men who can survive this especially when she threatens you in addition.  It is easy to see how the history of Israel would have taken a rather dramatic turn if Joseph had fallen.

Another of such Trapportunity presented itself after Jesus’ baptism when Satan came with the bread temptation after a 40 day fast (Matthew 4:1-11). Now seriously when a man didn't eaten anything for 40 days, everything looks edible. All he needed was to accept Satan’s proposal- a device that was designed to establish the destruction of mankind by derailing Jesus from his mission. Hungry as he was, if he had responded to his bodily need of hunger at its extreme, the history of mankind would have taken a different course. It needs to be said that it that it would not have been a helpful one.

Those who have mastered themselves enough to allow their minds to control their bodies are therefore very often high performers as they easily survive Trapportunities that would have either derailed them or slowed them down. This is the realm of discipline of course— delaying one’s gratification till later. It is not uncommon however, to find ourselves in a Trapportunity as some may be so subtle we may not be able to detect them. Sometimes we may think we have ended up in it by accident. The cold fact however is that, we are the most active participants in the creation of our circumstance. When we do find ourselves in a Trapportunity however, the technique we need to apply is a very simple one.  

We must see what we can do in order to drain the opportunity out of the trap. This is done by first of all understanding clearly that you are in a Trapportunity. Secondly it is necessary to clearly identify how you have arrived there—this means identifying the trap and how it has presented itself as an opportunity. Chances are there may be traces of an opportunity dotted around. Your next task then will be to clearly identify what opportunities can be salvaged from the situation and developing an exit strategy bringing the salvaged opportunity with you no matter how small. The following is a classic example:

Once upon a time when a good friend agreed to write for a TV reality show, he failed to recognize the trap that was hidden therein. A 24 hour reality show meant that he had to be at home all the time to watch the show and write his observations. It did him a lot of damage as it stopped him from working on his own projects. It affected his movement as he always needed to be at home. To make matters worse, he was seriously underpaid for the work that lasted two months and in the end it wasn’t worth the trouble.

But that’s just one way of looking at things. On a more advance level however, a good mental exercise initiated by myself allowed him to salvage the opportunities within the trap. Whiles the experience was painful in many ways, his feelings changed when he begun to understand the situation he was in, how he had created it and the reason for which he had done it. It was easier now to manage the situation and experience allowed me to help identify what the positives were. Soon the project was over. He walked away with a few things; a relationship with the media organization who hired him that he can build on in the future as he had upcoming projects of his own, the discipline of producing a number of articles in a day no matter what and a story I can use to demonstrate the idea to you. Not a bad deal in the end but only if you think about it the right way.

We have thus drained more opportunities than he initially saw in the situation and this has only been possible because of a good dose of awareness and emotional intelligence. When we are not emotionally intelligent enough, we allow the frustration of a situation to cloud our judgment and Trapportunity as a negative, feeds on negative emotions in order to grow even bigger compounding the problem. Trapportunities must therefore be avoided at all cost but if we should find ourselves in one (and this will happen), we must not walk away empty handed. There is always something to walk away with that can enhance our performance. Emotional intelligence helps a great deal and this makes it a fair treatment for Trapportunity. 

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Blueprint to Design | REV-UP®

One’s performance is maximized when there is an alignment between what you have willed to be and what you already are. In other words what we already are must serve as the blueprint to what it is we have decided to be and it is when these two mix well that we have found the formula for peak performance. For the best situation to be possible the conditions must be right.

In all the theories put forward by researches and experts in the field, one thing is very clear. People are by default equipped with some capabilities which are what makes them unique from everybody else. No matter how similar we are to others, we are still intricately unique in our own way. We also have certain interests by nature and tend to gravitate towards these interests by default. When we are told to discard these interest as it often happens, an error is created. 

This idea itself is the very upshot of the philosophy of peak performance. Titans of human improvement such as Abraham Maslow puts it in an interesting way when he said in his self actualization theory; we must be more of what we already are in order to self actualize.  This idea itself has been expressed by many others only with varying ways.

But what is the blueprint? One does not need to employ some mystical methodology in order to discover what the blueprint of their life is. It is a simple question of self knowledge, something that is an endless journey that must be pursued by everyone who happens to be interested in being the best that is possible for them. The importance of self knowledge itself cannot be over emphasized but has been unfortunately downplayed by many.

Plato, one of the most illustrious of the Greek philosophical stock was known to have placed great importance on Self Knowledge. He is said to have made it the very first lesson one learnt at his famous academy before the real intellectual journey began. It prepares the student for the real learning and must be taken seriously as it is the very foundation of everything.  

Something similar happens in martial arts when students are told after they have gained a black belt (thinking they have arrived) that their learning has really only just begun and that everything they have learnt in the junior belts was to prepare them for the great learning ahead of them. Ultimately the purpose of their learning will be to know enough in order to contribute something to martial arts so it is better than what it was before one became a part of it. 

Plato’s goal was to create a well informed intellectual who understand themselves first, then the world in which they are goin to function. It is then that  they can decide on the rest. He thought that knowing one’ self was the first step.  It is then that one might be able to understand how they fit in. It is then that one is able to decide what role to play and how to function within this role and what the outcome must be.

In Christian parlance, it is the same as finding the reason and purpose for which God created you and placed you here on earth. It is; understanding what it is you have in your hand and what it can be used for. “What is that in your hand” is the question God asked Moses when he doubted his own capability in relation to the mission to free the Israelites from Egypt- self doubt, something we all experience no matter how sure we are about our mission. The power of the staff in his hands was only revealed when he was asked to put it to work. One only has to read the first five books of the bible to learn about the events that occurred through the staff that Moses didn’t think much of.

Perhaps we can draw some parallels here. A person’s blueprint rest within them and it is hinted by the things they are naturally capable of. It starts from physical characteristics all the way down to natural interest. In fact that the human being is a walking library of information with codes waiting to be deciphered by those who are interested and it is this information that can help them determine what it is they can and must be.

This knowledge of self has a purpose in itself and it tells us how to engage with the world, something that needs to be studied as well. Contrary to what many think the world is not just one thing as we cannot all perceive it the same way. So there is such a thing as your world- a world that revolves around only you and everything in it can only be referred to as “your...”. A world in which you decide who is in it and what role they play. A world in which you decided what is good and what is bad as it is governed by your values.  

In the philosophy of performance, there is a general philosophy for life and a personal philosophy which one must create with which they can engage the world. The alignment of the two is expected to enable peak performance

This is therefore a world that must be designed by us based on the world as it is. Two blueprints show up here. It is the world as we know and understand it and one’s own very nature- his personal blueprint. It is then that a useful design is made possible and in fact rather easy. It is then that we can have a clear meaning for the life we live.

The blueprint must then necessarily influence and align with design and the design must be based on the blue print. The harmony that comes from this alignment is a major influence on the possibility to reach one’s peak as it helps determine what activity to engage in I the first place. One must therefore understand that they have a blueprint built into their very nature and can only have a useful design unless they understand what this blueprint is.

In creating the design however, we have to be careful not to limit ourselves to designing the vehicle and forgetting the destination. This is the great error that comes from a misunderstanding of design. When one is told that they could be anything they want, often it is in reference to what professional they can be. You can be a lawyer if you want. One can be president if they want. One can be 52 billion Dollars rich if they want or be a doctor if they want but that is just a means with no end in sight.

Well, all that is true but a lawyer and the doctor is only a vehicle with which we are to reach a real destination.  It will be a great error to design a life that leads to being a lawyer or even the president of the United States and lacks a mission that president of the United States must accomplish in order to leave this world better that they met it. The design itself must seek to do something with the vehicle as the attainment of the vehicle is only a sub goal of the grand goal.

The vehicle and the destination must all be products of the blueprint as this ensures the alignment that is badly needed to ensure that one does not veer of the road. Having a real destination adds a meaning to life that will be missing if all we have done is create a vehicle. The vehicle only becomes useful when we have a destination in mind and indeed it is the kind of destination that must determine the nature of the vehicle.

Before the architect designs a building, he must first consult with the owner in order to understand what their objectives are. This is because the building itself will be a waste of effort if it does not serve the purpose for which it is to constructed. And so whether it is an office block, a church or a residence, the architect must first learn this from the client, it is then that he can create a design- not just for a building, but a building that does something in particular. It solves a specific problem that the owner intends to solve. This is when the building becomes a only a vehicle and the shelter it provides for its inhabitant and a destination. I should quickly point out here that a building designed as an office might have some challenges serving as a residence. In my work as a performance coach, I see this in the lives of many. 

To be the best we can be or perform at our peak, we must be more of what we already are i.e. have a destination based on the blueprint that rest within us and create the vehicle we need to get there. If at a very advanced stage in our lives we have not done this, it will be a question of realigning all three components and tying the loose ends. Ask me how. REV-UP!

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