Most people are unhappy at work. Unhappy employees outnumber happy ones by two to one worldwide. There are twice as many “actively disengaged” workers in the world as there are “engaged” workers who love their jobs. In short, over 60% of employees are checked out. They sleepwalk through their days, putting little energy into their work.…
The news we consume changes us. Not just the news manufactured by eNews, CNN, Sunday Times but the news manufactured by our boss, our investors, our customers. Our choice, then, is to decide whether we want to engage in the hobby of living through other people’s breaking news instead of focusing on what is actually…
Freakonomics is about unconventional wisdom, using the raw data of economics in imaginative ways to ask clever and diverting questions. Levitt even redefines his definition. If, as he says, economics is essentially about incentives and how people realise them, then economics is a prospecting tool, not a laboratory microscope. It is an intelligent and interesting…
Not your job title, but your job. What do you do when you are doing your work? What is difficult and important about what you do? What change do you make, what do you do that is hard to live without and worth paying for? "I change the people who stop at my desk, from…
People are willing to go to great lengths to get something that no-one has. We want limited supply products, we want to have customised tailor-made clothes. It is weird to wear something and rock up at a party to find someone wearing the exact same thing you are wearing. Customers often want customized, exclusive, limited supply…
If you could choose between a pile of salt and a pile of gold, you would probably choose the gold. After all, you know that you can always buy a container of salt for about five rands at the local supermarket. But what if you could not easily get salt, and without it you could…
What is it that you know that few people know? What is your secret source, your secret recipe? What is your secret weapon? If you don't have it you don't have anything scarce, you don't have a sustainable advantage. Are you someone who when everyone is busy watching TV, you are focused on your refining…
Leading change is difficult. It is difficult to find, hire, and retain people who are eager and able to change the status quo. It is difficult to stick with a project that everyone seems to dislike. It is difficult to motivate a team of people who have been lied to or had their spirits dashed…
If you can offer a scarce and coveted product or service that others cannot, you win. What is it that is both scarce and in demand? Things that are difficult: difficult to conceive, to convey, to make. Sometimes difficult even, at first, to sell, maybe an unpopular idea or a product that is ahead of…
Without a doubt, there is someone taller than you, faster than you, cuter than you, more good looking than you, someone who is better paid, more respected and getting more than his fair share of credit. And on social media: Of course there are people with more followers, more likes, more retweets and more of…
Some books you stumble across and then wonder how you came to read them. This book was a pure luck book I stumbled across and decided to lay my eyes on. Reasons to Stay Alive is basically about depression and how to overcome it. Often we talk about people coming out of the closet and…
I was reading a newspaper article online a few months ago and I came across an op-ed advertisement from Greenpeace. The headline read, "What happens when the jaguars die?" Not being particularly concerned with jaguars, I ignored the advert and continued reading. But after a few minutes, my curiosity would not let go of the question.…
