Family Foundations No One Lays Yet Everyone Needs

 

One of the most stupid things I’ve ever done is to travel 10 whole years into marriage before ever seeking formal post-marital counselling. After the several pre-marital sessions lasting many months in 2006, Anyele and I went in the power of that for a decade until we felt we needed further formal, external help. Why on earth did we do that?

Come to think of it, every 5,000 km or so we were changing the oil in our car and getting it serviced yet not so with our marriage. Doesn’t every marriage need regular marriage maintenance? Why wait till we’re sick before we see a doctor when we can at least do annual check-ups? In fact, I would say we came from a culture where seeing a counsellor connoted there was a pathology; and not so much a maintenance thing.

Friends, I’ve had several conversions since August 12, 2006 that have better aligned and further fortified what I thought were already ‘excellent foundations.’ Sometimes there’ve even been foundational cracks I’ve had to fix (and God knows I’m not done). For time to time I’ve come across new information that has caused me to repent, have a change of mind, and realign our foundations to keep this family building strong and lasting.

 

EXAMPLES OF FAMILY FOUNDATIONS TO REVISIT

Feel free to say “shame on you Yaw” but I had never heard of a family genogram until barely five years ago! How could such an important tool and exercise not have been part of our foundations when we set out a decade-and-a-half ago? And if you’re asking “what the heck is that?”,  then trust me, you don’t even know you need one until you eventually discover it. Afterwards you would wonder how in the world your family had been surviving without one. I say ‘surviving’ because you will then notice that what you thought was ‘thriving’ wasn’t quite so.

Then there are basic tools for connecting with spouse and children on a deep emotional level we only received in the last five years. We learnt the 10/10 from the Pellmans and Temperature Reading from the Scazzeros. “Love your wife,” yes I want to. “Respect your husband,” yes she wants to. But how? The Kraemers also gave us tools for this.

And all this is for a good-looking couple who had a pretty solid family heritage, coming from a few generations of good Christian homes, being smart, leaders of our church youth fellowship who had lived virtuously and gotten married as virgins. We even themed our wedding “a celebration of purpose, passion and purity.” Alas! We who ‘had it all’ have realized there are family foundations everyone needs yet almost no one lays.  The very marriage mentors who have been blessing us with these paradigms, praxes and practical tools are passionate about their ministry of marriage mentorship today precisely because they themselves didn’t have these when they were our age!

Family is a BIG deal. It is the basic unit of society, just like the cell is for all biological life and the atom is for all matter. Yet the thing about family foundations is this: just like finances, very little about how to make it work well is taught in school about it. If one isn’t fortunate to have a spiritual community that provides quality family life information and formation, you’re in a hard place. There are many divorces that are preventable, if the foundations could be reconfigured. There are some we’ve been able to help save by God’s grace; and others… well… too bad, too late.

 

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART

Few will argue against the assertion that the most important part of a building, or anything else that is built for that matter, say a marriage, is its foundation. A ton of things have been said about foundations. Gordon B. Hinckley asserts, “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. You must have a solid foundation if you’re going to have a strong superstructure.” Adding his voice, David Allan Coe says, “It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” The greatest teacher of all time, Jesus Christ, classifies life builders into two categories, wise and foolish, purely based on thee foundations they lay: the foolish build on sand, the wise build on rock.

My beloved mentor Peter Scazzero talks about foundations a lot in the Emotionally Healthy Leadership paradigms he teaches. And no wonder, since like the typical New Yorker he is, Pete is ever so familiar with the skycraping towers of Manhattan. This is how he explains the importance of digging deep foundations if we are to build life’s tall towers of significance:

Manhattan consists almost entirely of bare granite, a very hard and strong type of rock. To carry the weight of a 75 or 100 story skyscraper, foundations known as “piles” are used. These are concrete or steel columns hammered into the ground with a massive crane until they penetrate solid rock.

Some pilings go twenty-five stories under the ground. The heavy weight of the skyscraper is then distributed through each of the deep “piles” in the ground below. Together they are capable of supporting the structure’s enormous weight.

If the pilings are drilled in poorly, cracks eventually appear in the structure. Entire buildings may lean. Then they must be torn down or lifted completely so the piles can be reset – a costly and time-consuming process.

 

FAMILY FOUNDATIONS MASTERMIND

As you might be aware from a previous blog, “a mastermind group (often shortened to just ‘masterminds’) is a peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members learn together, solve problems, birth new ideas and gain clarity with input and advice from the other group members.” For eight weekly sessions, from April 4 to May 30, I shall be walking along with a dozen leaders who want to re-examine their family foundations and receive new paradigms, praxes and practical tools to finally fix faulty family foundations. Inputs will include several book chapters, videos, articles, practical exercises, discussions and debates. Two special features and benefits will be FREE membership of an online chest of over 20,000 resources and a FREE DISC Personality assessment with a 37-age customized report!

You can be sure that “mastermind groups are great in holding each other accountable for the goals and outcomes each member comes up with themselves” (see here). Outcomes and outputs of this particular Family Foundations Mastermind are as follows:

1. Paradigm Shift on the Prime Place of Family
2. Ancient Wisdom Applied
3. Current Family Systems Theories Tested
4. Practical Relationship Tools (for emotional connection, communication, forgiveness)
5. Family Genogram
6. Behavioural Assessment
7. Emotional Needs List & Action Points
8. Family Mission Statement
9. Hierarchy of Priorities Configuration
10. Integrated Life Exploration & Commitment

Register here and let’s go back to basics. Let’s finally fix faulty family foundations that everyone needs to but hardly anyone does.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

 

Over the last week, somehow this notion of needing to work harder on yourself than you do on your job has come up with two or three different coaching clients. For the CEO of a crucial agro business firm in West Africa, the financial services entrepreneur in Canada and the PhD-wielding academic on the east coast of the United States, the three reasons I’m about to share held true. It is true for you too.

For the record, I work hard and believe in hard work. I also work smart and absolutely promote the idea of brain over brawn anyway. Over a decade ago I came up with the phrase, “brain power pays; muscle power pains.” I subscribe to the Pauline exhortation that “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord and not for man.” So by all means, work hard and smart on your job, but work even harder and smarter on yourself.

Here are three reasons why:

 

1. WHO YOU ARE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU DO

No matter how hard or smart you work, the instrument for the doing the do is you. If the input into you doesn’t match or exceed the output, that will soon be your undoing. Let me put it in a way one of my staff in British Columbia said it to me a few years ago: “If your output exceeds your input, then your upkeep will be your downfall.” Classic! Not only will you soon not be effective and efficient when your self input is less than your job output, it is unsustainable and you might end up becoming irrelevant. And sometimes, irrelevant not just in terms of knowledge and skills for a context that has progressed because you’re not healthy or even physically alive anymore–you killed the goose that lays the golden eggs!

Consider these sagacious words of educator Palmer Parker:

“When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless—a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other’s need to be cared for…. One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess—the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.”

Remember, who we are is more important that what you do, because we do whatever we do out of who we are: our identity, character, values.

 

2. ONE MEANS A LIVING, THE OTHER MEANS A FORTUNE

Classic motivational speaker of blessed memory, Jim Rohn, poignantly put this in a way like nobody else has: “Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you can make a living, but if you work hard on yourself you’ll make a fortune.” This statement, I believe, is a variation of timely advice Jim himself received from his mentor J. Earl Schoaf. Jim had heard him give the reason for why the job only pays the bills but the latter ends in billions: work harder on yourself than you do on your job; your income is directly related to your philosophy, not the economy; and for things to change, you must change.

From a one-year college drop out living from pay check to pay check as a stock clerk at Sears, this advice catalyzed a five-year mentorship of Rohn by Shoaff, encouraging him to develop himself and pursue his dream of a better life such that by age thirty one, Rohn was a millionaire! It was a really sad day when this motivator of motivators like Anthony Robbins, Less Brown, Brian Tracy and Denis Waitley, passed away in December 2009.

Friend, work harder on yourself–from your paradigms through your attitudes to your skills. It’s the software that you carry and apply to a variety of endeavours, not only your job, that will unlock abundant wealth and well-being.

 

3. JOBS COME AND GO BUT YOU’LL STILL BE HERE

Sometimes people leave jobs; other times jobs leave people.  In the kind of post-pandemic economies we have now, more jobs leave people than people leave jobs. Certain whole industries have been wiped out, for crying out loud! I’ve marvelled at how many pilots have been literally grounded and have had to find some other kind of livelihood. What if all you did was work hard on your job and never grew your other interests, talents and skills or even never networked beyond the ‘boys club’ in your profession?

When many years ago I decided to take the path of the risk of entrepreneurship rather than the ‘security’ of a regular paid job, some people who thought I was crazy later found out they had been crazy to think ‘owning a job’ was better than owning a business when in spite of their qualifications, loyalties and skills their jobs were cut. Former Microsoft COO, Kevin Turner, said it best: “The only job security we have is our individual commitment to personal development.” Your job today may not be there tomorrow–in fact your entire industry might not be there–but you will. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job forwhen tomorrow comes, your preparation will meet opportunity. That’s what they call success.

 

QUICK PRESCRIPTION

Do the following to ensure you are working hard on yourself for your personal growth and development: set aside a time for YOU, a ME time, everyday. Mine is 5-6am everyday during which I read my personal mission statement, review my goals, read for at least 15 minutes and express my thoughts and feelings in writing.

For all the coachees I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, each was working super hard at their jobs. It is my job to ensure that while they do that, they strive towards working even harder on themselves than they do on their jobs. There’s no great future for anyone without that.

Black History Month | Africa Leads the World

There is no talk of Black History without faith, especially the Christian faith. PBS recently released a fascinating Henry Louis Gates Jr. documentary on the Black Church. What some dubious people tried to oppress and suppress black people with became the very thing that liberated us and is now giving us a global leading edge.

 

Africa is the most Christian continent in the world today. The year 2018 was the first in history where there were more Christians in Africa than on any other continent in the entire world! (Johnson 2018) THIS IS A BIG DEAL!—this is a one-thousand year record held by Europe that has been broken by Africa in our lifetime. That makes me super excited about Black History Month this year because history is being made right now. As you read this, a number of continental Africans and those of African descent in the diaspora have synergized to birth a new network known as Send Africa to promote further faith formation among ‘unreached people groups’ around the world.

At the formal launch of this Send Africa Network online on February 24-25 during this 2021 Black History Month, my Kenyan friend, Sam Ngugi, and I will be launching a ground-breaking book entitled Africa to the Rest to celebrate this huge feat of Africa becoming a leading global force of faith to the rest of the world. This book is to “celebrate this momentous occasion in world history that has been inadequately highlighted by mainstream missions and missions. It traces some of God’s goodness to Africa in the Bible and throughout history until now to make clear that Africa and Africans have been central to God’s missional purposes; not an afterthought.” You may register for the Send Africa Summit here.

 

CAPTURED & DISTORTED HISTORY

Of course Africa features in the Bible from start to finish. There were actually two black guys (among the five) that played hands on the apostle Paul and commissioned him on his missionary journeys (Acts 13). Africa is the cradle of monasteries and ecumenicsm. The term Trinity came from Tertullian the Tunisian. St. Augustine was from Algeria, and not a European as we were made to believe growing up in Africa.

As Sam and I state in our book, “People consider Christianity as the white man’s religion to oppress the African due to the last 500 years of Euro-American missionary activity mixed with colonialism without realizing that the first 500 years A.D., Africa was so synonymous with Christianity that one of the most common terms for Christians in Arabic sources is afariqa–indicating a significant degree to which “Christian” and “African” were synonymous concepts (Merrills 2004, 303).” 

In fact, the subtitle of our book is “from mission field to mission force (again)“ because Africa(ns) as a mission force first impacted Europe with the Gospel! That notion that Africa first evangelized Europe is the essence of Thomas Oden’s book titled How Africa Shaped the European Mind.  “My core hypothesis,” Oden himself says, “is that much intellectual history flowed south to north: from Mumidia to Sicily to France and Italy. It flowed from the Nile to the Euphrates and the Danube. It flowed from Pelusium to Gaza to Cappadocia. …There is ample evidence available that the seeds of African orthodoxy have been lifted by high winds to distant northern climes. Only much later have they returned to Africa in a Western guise.”

Only a century ago, at a world missionary conference in Edinburgh, not only was there no continental African there as a delegate, we were described as “heathen” in need of being saved. Today there are more Anglicans in Kenya than in England. At the time, the continent had 9 million Christians while Europe was home to 406 million. Today, Africa has over 630 million Christians, a clear 30 million more than Latin America in second place with Europe in third place with 571 million Christians. And it’s not a nine-day wonder, for by 2050 (Deo volente), there will likely be more Christians in Africa (1.25 billion) than in the next two continents combined! (Johnson 2018)

 

 

UNDENIABLE PRESENT

It is good to know that Africa leads the world in something. There are churches that began in Africa and are in 198 countries now. The largest congregations in Europe are pastored by Africans, like Sunday Adelaja’s in Kieve, Ukraine. The most multinational congregation in the world—108 nationalities—was founded by and pastored by my good friend and mentor in Vancouver, Canada, Dr. Sam Owusu. I could give you a list of about 10 global mission organizations–including the Navigators, SIM, Langham Partners and SIL–currently led by Africans!

Why is all this important? For many reasons but three will suffice for now. First, black people have been part and parcel, even central, to the purpose and mission of God unlike others have tried to make us think. We are equally made in the image and likeness of God as anyone else. We ought to rejoice and while not bragging about ourselves, ‘make our boast in the LORD.’

Secondly, the Christian faith is authentically African.  As one scholar put it, Christianity is a beggar looking for clothes in whatever culture it goes into. The fact that it was captured by Europeans and Americans and tailored as a tool of oppression of blacks in slavery, colonialism etc. is simply not right (not the authentic Christian faith) and doesn’t make the faith the preserve of the white man either.

Finally, the business world and other sectors in Africa that are trying to make a mark on the world stage could learn a thing or two from the African Church that leads the world in faith today, hands down.

 

THE FUTURE HAS COME

I come from a long and rich family history of black (hi)story tellers. My grandfather was an emeritus professor of ethnomusicology and my mother is a professor of history with a specialization in the slave trade. I feel privileged to take my turn to tell stories of African leadership, and in this particular case, leadership in faith, church and missiology.

The assassinated Congolese nationalist leader, luminary and first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, must be smiling in his grave that the day he prophesied is here: “The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations… Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.”  The day has come!

For those of no faith and saying to themselves “who cares if Africa is the most Christian continent?” because we’re yet to see it tell on our socioeconomic indicators or the millennium development goals, just you wait. Works soon follow faith. Unless it’s not true faith; because faith without works is dead.

 

References

Johnson, Todd M., Gina A. Zurlo, Albert W. Hickman, and Peter F. Crossing. “Christianity 2018: More African Christians and Counting Martyrs.” International Bulletin of Mission Research 42, no. 1 (January 2018): 20. doi:10.1177/2396939317739833.

Merrills, A. (Ed.). (2004). Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa (1st ed.). Routledge, 303. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315235127

Oden, Thomas. 2007. How Africa Shaped the European Mind, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, p.71.

Perbi, Yaw & Sam Ngugi. 2021. Africa to the Rest: from mission field to mission force (again). Forthcoming. Xulon Press.

Life is Like Football | There’s No Winning Without Goals

The content of this blog was first published for patrons of Perbi Cubs Library Services. I feel compelled to largely reproduce it here (with tweaks) because of the alarming rate at which adults (including parents of these cubs) are feeling jaded by goal-setting. Perhaps like the greatest teacher who ever lived put it, our attitude should be like children in order to best learn.

 

“GOOOOOAL!!!” It is not uncommon to hear the whole city or town where you live roar “GOOOOOAL!!!” This is when the favourite local or national football team scores a goal.  Sometimes the whole city is dead silent, like a cemetary, because people are anxiously watching the game at the stadium or on television. Some even combine listening to radio commentary with watching television pictures at home! There are barely cars on the road or people in the street. You would think it is a ghost town if you were a visitor passing through until all over a sudden you are jolted by the loud roar “GOOOOOAL!!!”

There will be no point of the game of football without goals.  And that is why there are goal posts with a net to capture the ball. The way to get ahead in the game is not all the activities of passing the ball, dribbling, somersaulting or even striking the ball hard and strong but getting the ball into the opponent’s goal posts. The goal of football is to win by scoring goals. Otherwise, all the activity does not mean any accomplishment!

And it doesn’t matter if you are not a football fan. The principle is the same, whatever your favourite game or sport is. Is it basketball, tennis, or swimming? What is the point of the game or sport? How do you keep score? Is there any way to determine who won without keeping score?

 

LIFE IS LIKE FOOTBALL

It is hard to imagine a game without goals yet many people play the game of life without any goals.  No matter how important games or sports are, they are not as important as life itself. So if even football has goals to win how much more should we set goals in life to win at the game of life! And using the notion that Covid-19 derailed much of our goal-setting in 2020 so setting goals is of no use anymore is as ridiculous as saying because a certain football match was rained off (or postponed because there was an earthquake) there should be no more football in future. You must’ve heard before that extreme cases make bad laws.

You may also have heard it before that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” There is nobody I know who plans to fail in life but if they fail to plan, they are automatically planning to fail. You may be very busy in life or working very hard but remember, activity does not mean accomplishment. And without goals, you cannot measure accomplishment.

 

WHAT A GOAL IS AND HOW WE FAIL

A goal is an aim; an end. A goal is the result to which your activities or effort is directed because activity is not necessarily synonymous with productivity. In a game like football, the goal is physical and obvious. In life, one has to be more intentional about what goals are. Mentor Maxwell calls a certain principle the Law of the Rubber Band: “growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be.” So we all need stretch goals! For goals to grow you,“a goal should scare you a little, and excite you a lot,” says Joe Vitale. It is quite the art trying to gauge the best tension because either extreme–too easy or too hard a goal–and we loose the tension in our life’s rubber band (so-to-speak). We’re either too lose and useless or too taught and snap–useless too. We hit nothing when we don’t get the tension right. The goal should stretch but not break us. More about this in my next blog.

The other thing I’ve learnt recently is the best chance of meeting a goal is to set it in line with your personality type (take the DISC personality assessment now if you haven’t). While the high I (sanguine) might be motivated by making a game of goal-setting and rewarding themselves to hit their goals if the high D (choleric) finds a goal whose accomplishments puts her “in charge” (they love control) she will breeze through hers!

 

IN WHICH AREAS SHOULD WE SET GOALS?

We should set goals in every area of our lives. If we do then we can have all-round success. The greatest leader who ever lived, Jesus Christ, lived a holistically successful life in part because as a little boy, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). So we too must set goals in:

-“wisdom” (mental goals)

-“stature” (physical goals)

-“favour” with God (spiritual goals)

-“favour” with man (social goals).

Mental (academic) goals: These are learning goals. A good example of a mental goal may be to pursue a Master’s in business this year .

Physical goals: These are health and wealth goals. A good example of a physical goal may be to eat a fruit everyday this year or to exercise 30 minutes a day at least thrice every week.

Spiritual goals: These have to do with your relationship with God. A good example of a spiritual goal may be to read your Bible and pray everyday.

Social goals: These are about relating to people. A good example could be to institute date nights with your spouse or check on your ageing parents each week.

 

GOALS MUST BE S.M.A.R.T.

Can you imagine if the goal posts in a game of football weren’t clear? Can you imagine if they could be anywhere on the park at anytime? Also can you imagine if you had no idea how much time you had in the game to score goals and win? Just when you think you have 30 minutes the whistle goes to your surprise within two minutes?

In the same way, the more detailed and sure the goals you set in life are, the better. For us to be able to hit our goals in life, these goals must be S.M.A.R.T. This means they goals should be:

–SPECIFIC: Don’t just set a physical goal like “I want to be healthy.” Be specific by saying, “I will eat fruits to be healthy.”

–MEASURABLE: How many fruits? A bunch of bananas or a dozen oranges? So to make the goal measurable say, “I will eat a bunch of bananas or two dozen oranges to be healthy.”

–ATTAINABLE: The goal should be something you can accomplish. It must be reasonable and realistic. Eating a whole bunch of bananas or two dozen oranges everyday isn’t reasonable. To make your goal attainable, say, for example, “I will eat one banana or one orange to be healthy.”

–RELEVANT: No one should set goals that do not add value to their lives. So ask yourself if this goal adds real value to your life. Is it relevant to be healthy by eating a banana or orange? Yes indeed! This one is a no brainer.

–TIME-BOUND: You must determine if this goal is daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, in five year’s time etc. So to complete making your physical goal Time-bound, you could say, “This year, I will eat one banana or one orange everyday to be healthy.”

 

LET’S GO LET’S GO!

So! Life is like football. In order to win, you’ve got to have clear goal posts and score goals! Set your goal posts now by setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for the year, quarter, month, week and even today. Score your goals and win in life. That’s the path to success. And yes, you are free to also roar “GOOOOOAL!!!” when you hit your goals too. “GOOOOOAL!!!”  Life is like football.  You’ve got to have goals to win it.

Successful People are Boring

 

In my late teens when I was introduced to the whole area of personal growth and success I started practising a number of things successful people do without necessarily knowing why. One of them was that they always took their receipts upon purchases. That became an adopted habit for about 10 years before I really got to understand why (that will be for a different day and blog).

One other thing that really fascinated me was the notion that successful people are predictable, consistent; or if you like, plain boring.  This was not only in the sense of living a principle-centred life and holding unswervingly to their values but that they had fixed routines. You could literally ‘time them’ and ‘assassinate’ them because it was predictable where they would be, when, and what they would be doing literally every day of the week. That’s precisely what I mean by “successful people are boring.” Same. Same. Same. Same.

So I began to adopt strict routine in many areas of my life including consistently waking up at 4am to spend time in scripture and prayer, thinking, reading and writing. And I have done that consistently for over 25 years now. By the time the rest of the world wakes up and gets going, I would’ve had a 2-3 hour headstart and been über productive.

But now I understand why that consistency breeds success. This is in line with a number of fundamental, universal truths, three of which I would like to share here.

 

1. RIDING THE LAW OF CONSISTENCY

The Law of Consistency, which leads to growth and success states, “Motivation gets you going; discipline keeps you growing.”  Anyone who gets a spark of inspiration or motivation overcomes the law of inertia momentarily but really how long does it last? I heard someone complaining about how transient the umph one gets from motivational talks is.  A seasoned motivational speaker responded, rather tongue-in-cheek, “Of course! So are breakfast, lunch and supper!” Like meals, morsels of motivation also  need to be taken in reasonable doses several times a day (and in a week) to jumpstart us but what really keeps the wheel of success turning always is discipline.  Discipline is doing what we need to do even when we don’t feel like it. And that is the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t. E.M. Gray was spot on: “The successful person has the habit of doing the things that failures don’t like to do. The successful person doesn’t like to do them either, but his dislike is subordinated to the strength of his purpose.”

Disciple is hard; but what makes it more bearable is having a strong WHY, a strong end in mind. The other thing that makes it more doable is discovering your personality (eg. through the DISC behavioural assessment) and linking how you’re wired (what motivates you naturally) with the act you need/want to be consistent with. So for me, being a high D and loving to be in control, I’m greatly motivated to take charge of my morning knowing fully well that no one would be up to disturb me and I can get stuff I want to do done. You’ve got to a find a way, man, for success lies in our daily routine.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” is famously attributed to Aristotle. What he actually (originally) said was, “As it is not one swallow or a fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.” The essence of both statements is the same. John  Maxwell pulls no punches here: “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” What are you like E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y; what do you do  E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y?

 

 

2. RIDING THE LAW OF MOMENTUM

People who are consistent with routine don’t waste precious time and energy figuring out every single day what to do with themselves. If you don’t have a menu, for example (my household does), you know by now how much time and energy can be consumed just by the question: what am I going to eat this afternoon? I have spent an hour on that useless exercise before!

Just like Newton’s first law of motion states, every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force. What is true in Physics–and we tend to appreciate physical laws much more than the unseen laws of life–is the very thing that makes habits so powerful! “Once you pop, you can’t stop” says the Pringles advert. Success can become a habit; so can failure.  In fact, Vince Lombardi once said, “once you learn to quit it becomes a habit.” Let the Law of Momentum

When John Maxwell launched 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth in Atlanta, I was there in person. A privileged few joined him for an intimate lunch session. I couldn’t believe the degree of his consistency when talked about his “daily five.” He said, “Everyday I read, I write, I think, I ask questions, I file.”

“Everyday, John?” we asked?

“EVERYDAY,” he responded.

On your birthday, John?

“EVERYDAY,” was his reply.

“On Christmas Day to0, sir?”

“EVERYDAY.”

 

3. HOW GENIUSES ARE MADE

It was my fellow Canadian, Malcom Gladwell, who first brought to my attention in his book Outliers, that 10,000 hours of practice of any skill makes one a genius.  Most people, he said, would’ve done 10,000 of practice within 10 years. During an ongoing Growth Mastermind I was almost envious of the surgeon  among us who says everyday he operates; e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y.  Imagine his success in 10 years’ time when because of this consistency he has such gained ingenuity! What worthy thing are you doing everyday? Until you’ve done it consistently for 10 years, don’t give up on success just yet.

 

CONCLUSION

Something you are doing EVERYDAY is determining your future. Conversely, something you are not doing EVERYDAY is determining your future also.  More often than not, motivation is overrated.  Motivation gets you going but discipline keeps you going, keeps you growing. What will you say is your single most consistent practice (everyday) that has brought you where you are in life today? Please share.

A Sure Way to Close the Widest Gap in the World

By now you should know for yourself that the widest gap in life or in the world is between knowing and doing. If we all put into practice every right thing we knew, our lives would be remarkably different, incredibly successful. Here’s why we don’t and what to do about it, especially in this season of ‘new year resolutions.’

 

 

What do a Microbiology PhD, Obstetrician, Civil & Environmental Engineer, Hotel HR Manager in Ghana, Marketing Executive at Ogilvy, Dentist in the United States, Consultant at Accenture, CEO of a Savings & Loans scheme in Uganda and a U.S. military personnel stationed in Italy have in common? And on top of all that, situated in three different continents on the surface not much; except these were all in the same room at the start of 2021 with one desire and purpose: to grow.

There’s no gainsaying that the dozen people constituting the first 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth mastermind group with YAW PERBI in 2021 know a lot. The combined expertise in the room is astounding; it is an honour just to be seated at the table with a leader with 18 years experience at Ghana’s Food & Drugs Authority and the rest of the crew.

We had all chosen to invest the time and money to be part of this mastermind because as Maxwell’s first Law of Growth makes plain, what he calls The Law of Intentionality, “Growth Doesn’t Just Happen.” In fact, “growth is [about] the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to get better”; that 2021 will be better than 2020. Although all these amazing professionals had a hint of this fundamental law of the universe, hence signing onto the mastermind group in the first place, by the end of the first 90-minute session this was so abundantly clear and weighing on us that my personal ‘statement of the day’ came from the FDA leader: “Growth is hard work.” Yes it is! And I’m so proud of these folks who are making an intentional, informed, sustained choice to grow themselves into success and significance!

 

SECRET TO CLOSING THE GAP

Perhaps no generation knows more, or at least has access to more knowledge in all sorts of media, than this current one. Yet by now you should know for yourself that the widest gap in life or in the world is between knowing and doing. If we all put into practice every right thing we knew, our lives would be remarkably different, incredibly successful.  Richard Biggs says “the greatest gap in life is the one between knowing and doing,” a statement similar to John Maxwell’s, who puts it this way: “the greatest gap in the world is the gap between knowing and doing.”

While these already very knowledgeable folks will be even adding further to their professional knowledge vital new information about the Laws of Growth, what will catalyze and even guarantee their change and growth isn’t the HEAD stuff per se.  Of course that’s where it begins but the problem is when it ends there, which is more often than note the case.

 

 

Considering the above Wendy Seidman simplification of Bloom’s famous taxonomy, the secret to the mastermind participants moving from abundant knowledge to abundant living by doing what they know they ought to do to grow will be as follows (this is the same for you if you intend to finally do something with all you already know you ought to do):

1. AWARE: This is a HEAD thing. Many of us begin from not even knowing what we don’t know, right? “Oh! So there are Laws?” ”Ei! And there are Growth Laws in particular?” right? How can people plan to do what they don’t even know in the first place?

2. PONDER: All of us are going to have ample time in between meetings to THINK about these laws but especially when we meet, as the facilitator I’ll be applying the major tool of a coach–questions, questions questions–to help clarify and deepen the pondering process.  I say understanding is the product of pondering. Many times we don’t do because we don’t understand. But thus far, this is all still a HEAD thing.

3. VALUE: When folks actually begin to value that thing they’ve become aware of and have pondered, this is when things have travelled from the head down to the heart.  It’s now a HEART thing. “Hmmmm… it must be important.” “Hmmm it may be a good thing oo…” A value is what you value, right?

I tell you, if “the greatest gap in the world is the gap between knowing and doing,” then the longest distance in the world might be between the head and the heart!  Anatomically it’s only a few centimetres apart but metaphorically, that’s another matter. Yet it is necessary to value a thing, and feel it to move us to do anything. Do you see the word ‘motion’ in emotion?

Yet after our new awareness and pondering have dropped into the heart , there’s still a GAP—nothing changes in our action or behaviour, yet.  It’s still not a HAND thing (action or behaviour) until usually with the help of accountable relationships (like coaches and mastermind compatriots) you gain the quantum energy to scale the action/behavioural gap to the land of re-prioritization. This is the longest and deepest gulf in the world, contributing the most to the gap between knowing and doing.

4. RE-PRIORITIZE:   When you re-prioritize, you actually re-organize yourself, move others and things around you to make that new pondered and valued awareness actionable! Until you have re-prioritized, usually evident in the commitment of time, money (and other resources) and energy/effort, nothing changes.

5. OWN: I can give you an example of an area in which this entire process from awareness to ownership happened in my own life.  It took me about six years to finally re-prioritize and start taking a proper weekly sabbath (not just a day off; to really stop all my work, rest, contemplate on God, delight in Him and his gifts). I can assure you that if I had a consistent, formal coach or mastermind group I was accountable to, it wouldn’t have taken me six years to make the quantum leap I needed to.

 

CONCLUSION

After seeing all these long distances and deep gulfs, can you understand why doing what we know is so hard. Come to think of it, who climbs the highest peaks in the world alone? You need a buddy if you’re to make it! That’s why this 15 Laws of Growth mastermind is a blessing! As co-travellers, we’ll all be AWARE of the same laws, PONDER these things (especially through the clarifying questions we’ll all be responding to), we will be expressing what we VALUE to each other’s hearing … and here’s the trick: we are there to encourage each other and hold each other accountable to make the leap to the other side of RE-PRIORITIZING and OWNING our growth and success.

Already, within the first 24 hours of the start of the mastermind, with everyone’s consent we formed a WhatsApp group through which we keep informing and reminding, pondering, valuing, and holding one another accountable to re-prioritize and own our growth journey to success over the next 60 days.

A sure way to close the widest gap in the world is accountable relationships to make the leap from merely valuing new knowing to re-prioritizing things in our lives towards new doing. So now you are aware why we generally don’t do what we know we should or even say we would–and what to do about it–especially in this season of ‘new year resolutions.’  Happy new year!

Festival of Nine Lessons & Corona

“The novel coronavirus is not just something for leaders to ”get through” for a few days or weeks. Instead, we need to treat Covid-19 as an economic and cultural blizzard, winter, and beginning of a “little ice age”—a once-in-a-lifetime change that is likely to affect our lives and organizations for years,” says Andy Crouch et al. I concur.

 

 

Just before Christmas 2020 my lawyer-banker friend and fellow John Maxwell Certified Trainer/Coach, Samuel Anim Esq., asked that I join him do an autopsy of the pandemic year 2020 live on Facebook/Youtube to draw leadership lessons. I was honoured and humbled. Honoured because it is a privilege to offer thought leadership and there is a myriad of leadership experts to choose from. I was humbled because not only do I not know all the lessons from Covid-19, I am still evaluating and learning from what I would perhaps call “the strangest year of my life.”

Nevertheless I managed to throw a few of my reflections together and gave it a funny title. Since around that time of the year there is the traditional Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols I thought of making this a Festival of Nine Lessons & Corona. Certainly there are more than nine leadership lessons from this Coronavirus pandemic year but here are some:

 

1. EMBRACE PARADOX

Perhaps no one and nothing captures the paradox of 2020 like Charles Dickens and his classic phrase, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (from A Tale of Two Cities). This same 2020 year, over 1.67 million have died and 42.6 million have recovered. You may have lost someone to COVID-19 but you are alive. I’ve been stuck at home but I’ve had the longest unbroken quality bonding time with my family ever! We lost our family’s physical library services business but gained online business five times the physical capacity. Whole old industries, like aviation, have been decimated but whole new industries have emerged and are booming like Zoom. 2020 has been catastrophic yet catalytic.

Welcome to leadership. Embrace paradox. Think of the paradox of a servant leader, as a prime example of leadership paradox. True leadership is almost always straddling two seemingly opposing worlds, something Bob Fryling describes as “the leadership ellipse” because an ellipse “is defined by two distinctly different focal points that are of equal importance. One point is not inferior to the other, and both are needed if there is to be an ellipse.” I previously blogged about this in more detail here.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ― Charles Dickens, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ 

If leadership has always been about managing the tension of tasks or people, money or mission, the present or the future, inner spiritual longings and the outward needs of the group we lead, being and doing, community and cause, truth-telling and putting the right spin on things, to live in the world without being of the world, to be faithful or fruitful etc. then all of these have been put on steroids in a para and post-Covid world.

I have said before and I repeat: “the degree to which one is able to be comfortable with and live, love and lead well in the tension of this and that, yin and yang, determines their ultimate leadership success or otherwise. From my little experience and research, the best leaders in the world are those who are not only able to get comfortable with being uncomfortable living in such tensions but mastered the art of dextrously handling both well.” The post-Covid world leaves us no choice. Embrace paradox or die.

 

2. MAINTAIN THE MISSION, MUTATE THE MEANS

 

You and yours don’t want to end up like the Choluteca Bridge in Honduras.  It was initially built in 1930 and reconstructed in 1996 to withstand tough weather conditions, including hurricanes. Well, two years later, in 1998, the bridge did prove its mettle, withstanding the category five storm, Hurricane Mitch, that devastated Honduras. Buildings were destroyed and roads wiped out but the bridge survived in near perfect condition. The only problem was that there were no roads for it to connect to anymore (roads wiped out at both ends) and the strong winds of the hurricane had caused the river to carve out an entirely new path that no longer ran under the bridge!

 

Think about it: a bridge connecting to nowhere and no one; and over nothing! If a bridge is no longer a way or a means to a desired end, then what is it? Similarly, if your pre-Covid means are no longer effective post-Covid as ways to deliver your mission, then of what use are they?

You certainly don’t want to lose sight of your vision or your grip on your mission but when it comes to your strategies, your ways and means to accomplish your mission, you don’t ever want to be dogmatic about that. In matters of mission, be as solid as a rock; but regarding the means flow like a river.

 

THE OTHER SEVEN LESSONS

3. Global community is the real deal context of leadership

4. Capitalize on era of Business without Borders

5. Heed the Harm to our House (Earth)

6. Inequities, Inequalities, Integrity-lessness will be exposed with time 

7. Reflective lifestyle is the must-have rhythm of leadership

8. Become and raise agile “VUCA Prime” Leaders (VUCA is an acronym for Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous)

9. HOPE is the real vaccine. 

 

For further details of each lesson, watch the full video here.

 

CONCLUSION

If there is any one of these nine Covid-19 life and leadership lessons you need to grow in for a more successful 2021 you’re in good company. Join me. Come to the growth table. Join the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth January journey in the form of a mastermind group of just 15 high level executives. Register right now here.  The way COVID-19 has  fundamentally changed our world means we all need to radically change the way we do life and leadership too. And that requires new growth. Will you grow or die?

 

Post Script

Earlier in the last quarter of the year I shared my faith-based Covid-19 reflections vis-a-vis Christian mission with pastors and church leaders here.

 

Get Unstuck! & Grow Like Crazy! | ‘The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth’ Mastermind

“I FEEL STUCK.” This is such a common reason prospective coaching clients get in touch with me. And I know how that feels like; I’ve been stuck many times before in my personal life, marriage, parenting, vocation, finances, faith etc. But there is a way out.

 

I have been a disciple of Dr. John C. Maxwell for the last twenty years. I would emphatically say John Maxwell’s seminal work, The 21 Indisputable Laws of Leadership, sent me on a leadership trajectory that I am yet to recover from. The book came out in 1998, around the same time I was cutting my teeth in the leader formation industry. When John’s non-profit, EQUIP, came to train leaders in Ghana in 2004, I was still in medical school then but you can be sure I was in attendance with a group of my own mentees from The HuD Group. I longed for the day when I would meet him in person and get to work with him more directly.

 

D-DAY

The year after my family relocated to Canada, EQUIP, which had been doing some good work in other parts of Canada and was now trying to penetrate the province of Quebec came to my city, Montreal. Somehow we found each other. I was invited to dinner. I would thereafter travel down to EQUIP’s headquarters in Atlanta for further training and sign a partnership between The HuD Group and EQUIP to develop leaders in Canada, Ghana and around the world, certifying them as trained leaders. Even back then, in 2010, I had innovatively began to train emerging leaders in places like The Gambia, England and Australia from Canada online via Skype! In 2020, that has now become the norm; no longer the brilliant cutting edge exception. I soon would become a trainer for EQUIP Canada too.

All this while I was yet to meet John in person. That day finally came, one 2011 day in Pensacola, Florida, when I met John himself face-to-face. I was thrilled! Then in 2012 I grabbed one of my mentees working in bank in Atlanta, Georgia to join me to grace the occasion of the launching of John’s umpteenth book, “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth.” We followed up with a private lunch during which I got to ask John a couple of things on my heart (that would be for another blog). The next year I was with John again, now three times in a row, this time undergoing the process to become a certified John Maxwell Coach, Speaker and Trainer.

 

THE 15 INVALUABLE LAWS OF GROWTH

 

I share the story of my 20-year walk with John, in literature and literally, first to demonstrate that mentorship works. I would not be where I am in life today, even being touted by a global organization like the Lausanne Movement as a “strategic global leader” but for my walk with Jesus and John. Secondly, while anyone can pick any book of John’s and walk other people through it, it is one thing going through the letter and another thing catching the spirit of John’s works. I’ve got certifiably got both.

For the last couple of months I have felt like some C-level leaders could really benefit from an authentic and deep walk through each of John’s 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth in the form of a Mastermind Group. Whether it’s leaders who feel STUCK or not-yet-stuck (it’s just a matter of time, the day will come!), anyone could use some new impetus for growth following a most crazy year of a COVID-19 pandemic.

 

FROM CATASTROPHIC TO CATALYTIC

I keep thinking of the phenomenal fresh growth that can happen in forests after they have been decimated by fire. Yes, fires can be destructive in rainforests but sometimes they actually help to replenish ecosystems! While this article won’t get into the depths of the ecological science of it, forest fires are a powerful analogy for the rejuvenation that can happen in each of our our lives after the ravaging of the coronavirus. I enjoyed a Deutsche Welle article that reminded be that “as devastating as forest fires are in the rainforest, the destructive power of fire is necessary for the preservation of other ecosystems, where parts of the natural fauna and flora develop only thanks to the fires. …They consume old and diseased trees, create new habitats and ensure an ecological rejuvenation of the tree population.”

In fact, many plants in the southern US, in the Mediterranean region or in Australia actually need fire to survive. For the coniferous Douglas fir, for example, it survives most fires thanks to its thick bark and then (here’s the magic), after a fire, it will sprout new shoots. The North American lodgepole pine also needs the heat of the fire to open its cones and release seeds while the Australian grass tree needs smoke to open its seed pods.

 

GROW LIKE CRAZY

 

So! I’m looking forward to walking with a select group of 15 growth mindset leaders through each of the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth for the first 8 weeks of the 2021 new year, DV. This 60-day journey will not only get you unstuck but put some fire in your bones for phenomenal growth. Let the unprecedented catastrophic 2020 year be your catalyst for unparalleled growth in 2021. Watch out for details. It’s about time you significantly invested in your personal growth and that of others! 

Two Things I Build Differently Now: Leaders and Wealth (Part 1 of 2)

When I was younger I was in a hurry to influence my world in two powerful ways: build leaders and create wealth. I’ve been working on both for the last two decades but now I’m going back to go forward. Here’s why. First, leaders.

 

WHO WE ARE FIRST

The year was 2003. I was still in medical school, in Accra, Ghana. After I cast vision to a group of eight others that would eventually become The HuD Group and go global, we hit the ground running. With all our Youth Power!, we were in such haste to “inspire and empower young people to discover their God-given purpose and reach their full potential” that we jumped some steps. I was barely 25. Of course, helping people find purpose is exciting, especially for emerging leaders, and everyone wants to have a raison d’être.

However, it wasn’t until my late thirties that it came to me in the strongest sense that something vital comes before purpose. Knowing who we are precedes knowing what we’re here for.  Identity comes before purpose. In fact, until during my Master’s in Global Leadership (2016-2019), I wasn’t yet fully convinced that who we are is more important than what we do. But it is! Oh yes, who we are is more important than what we do, not just because we are human beings and not human doings (as is popularly said, tongue-in-cheek, these days) but significantly because who we are really determines what we do and how we do it!

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since those heady days at the dawn of this new millennium and the group has seen many successes, including expanding to two dozen countries on every inhabitable continent in the world!  Yet at the same time, we’ve also experienced once-promising trained leaders (in vision, mission, values, strategy and leadership skills) mess up big time because they weren’t self-aware first: of their life narrative, personality, temperament, history/heritage, genogram, values, core beliefs & worldview,  emotions (moods, passions etc.), shadows (‘false self’), giftedness, strengths & weaknesses, biases & blindspots, leadership & communication styles, preferences, motivations (extrinsic and intrinsic), habits & tendencies, limits/boundaries, their physicality etc. If you think this is a long list, you’re right. There is a lot of self-awareness, self compassion, self acceptance and self self to be done to not just self actualize but to lead others in a meaningful way.

 

A FRIEND TO THE RESCUE

 

My friend Carson Pue and I live on opposite sides of the second largest country on earth (Canada) but one thing often brings us together, in-person or online: leader development. When I came across his ‘Mentorship Matrix’ (diagram above) in his book Mentoring Leaders, I clearly saw pictorially where and how we had tripped. We were in a hurry to get to Step #3 (visioneering/discovering purpose) and hadn’t been spending enough time in Step #1 (self-discovery). And for Pue, as a faith-based leadership trainer, Step #1 consists of double knowledge of both self-discovery and God discovery. There actually is a lot that has been said and written on how we cannot know ourselves without knowing God (the creator in whose image we’ve been made) and vice versa. See here for more.

If we had spent enough time delving into what should be first and core, it would naturally reveal what should happen in Step #2, the emotional and other needs that need to be then satisfied (and how), as well as things one needs to be set free from before attempting to reach forward with discovering purpose and running with it.

I am not alone in this discovery. Increasingly in leadership development world there is this growing area addressing the psychodynamics of leadership, as we are more and more finding the best Ivy-league trained leaders in the top Fortune 500 spaces in the world doing really stupid stuff out of the blue! No one is above Steps #1 & 2. And if we don’t make the time to dig out and cement those foundations well, we are bound to produce shooting stars and not sustainable leadership for the long haul.

 

GOING BACK TO GO FORWARD

Now we’re back on the drawing board and relaying foundations to ensure that we start right and end well, beginning from the core of self-awareness and the dealing with anything that will entangle, choke or derail the leadership course further down the road. In my Twi language from Ghana there is a word and concept known as “Sankofa.” It literally translates as “go back and get it” and is symbolized by either a stylized heart shape or by a bird with its head turned backwards while its feet face forward carrying a precious egg in its mouth. My leadership development legs may have false-started from Step #3 with fleet feet facing forward but now my neck is turned with my head reaching back to Steps #1 and #2 to pick up that which was vital but I left behind. My ancestral language has a saying, that when you go back to pick up something valuable that you inadvertently left behind, it is no wrong, and well within reason and one’s rights. That is one of two things I build differently now.

GET COACHED | How does it work?

“Your journey to leadership is likely to take many unexpected turns. Life is full of challenging situations, including ethical dilemmas, midcourse career changes or burnout, seemingly intractable interpersonal challenges, marriage and family issues, failures, and loneliness. At times, you may feel you are losing your way or have gotten off course from your True North. Getting back on track alone is very difficult, perhaps even impossible” (Bill George). That’s why you need a coach.

 

 

If you’ve followed me on social media over the last few days you should’ve noticed a couple of posts about my excitement to train a group of Medical Superintendents in Ghana on Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Of course everybody needs (EQ) but one reason doctors in particular do is that they tend to think because they are smart and got into med school they would be successful in life and leadership. To our rude shock (and I say ‘our’ because I am a doctor myself), after a certain threshold, intelligence (IQ) doesn’t matter anymore, and what gives the winning edge to succeed is all EQ.

 

NO ONE CAN HELP THEMSELVES WITHOUT BEING HELPED

After an hour of training on what EQ is, five reasons why it’s key and how to acquire it, I left them with Boyatzis’s theory of self-directed learning. I first encountered this during my read of Primal Leadership, a book he co-authored with the chap who most popularized EQ from 1995 till date, Daniel Goleman. Boyatzis’s map (see below) begins with a hopeful “Who do I want to be?”, a picture of your ideal self. This existential question is at the very apex of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (if you remember); it is a question of self-actualization. But the next question, which in my opinion really should be the first, is ‘Who am I?’, your real self.

Integrating those two questions reveals one’s strengths (where your ideal and real self overlap) and your gaps (where your ideal and real self differ). Your learning agenda or growth plan, therefore, basically involves building on your strengths while reducing your gaps. And so you begin: experimenting with new thoughts (head), feelings (heart) and behaviours (hands). Practicing your new behaviours actually results in building new neural pathways to success/mastery.

 

But here is the kicker: Central to all of these points, steps, and pathways is “DEVELOPING TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS that help, support and encourage each step in the process.” Again, that’s where a professional coach comes in. Even in this so-called ‘self-directed’ learning, no man is an island and needs the vital trusted relationships to make their growth and goals happen.

 

COACHING MOMENT

Do you have someone that will tell you the truth and to whom you can tell the truth? Do you have the authentic relationships and customized resources to clarify your beliefs and values and understand vital personal and professional issues and receive honest feedback when you need it most? 

A coach’s responsibility is to provide content, insight, tools, wisdom, framework, ideas, and feedback.  YOUR responsibility is to move from awareness to action and accountability.  Our coaching provides many structures for you to meet your individual and organizational goals.

For John Maxwell certified coaches like myself, whether it’s one-on-one executive coaching or one-on-few, we like to say that the objectives of coaching include, but are not limited to:

• Discovery of personal identity, emotional needs, purpose (vision & mission) and values
• Crafting of personal, professional and corporate Growth Plan
• Adding an objective and supportive third party to your leadership team
• Increasing accountability of your personal and professional goals
• Improving specific skills related to your role.  Such as managerial skills, communication, conflict resolution, time management, productivity, and effectiveness
• Sharing best practices from other organizations that have done similar work
• Reviewing strategic business decisions related to operations, customer service, marketing, financials, and more
• Being a sounding board
• Preventing problems, thereby avoiding expensive, time consuming or embarrassing actions
• Supporting your growth past your limiting beliefs
• Conflict resolution
• Creating a team atmosphere
• Relationship development for success and significance.

 

COACHING OPTIONS (FOR C-LEVEL EXECUTIVES, OWNERS & GENERAL MANAGERS)

Coaching Categories: Depending on your goals and budget, at YAW PERBI we offer Green, Blue and Gold level coaching. Currently only Gold services are available, and they are limited.

Time & Place: All coaching programs require a minimum time investment of 6-12 months.  Coaching is a marathon, rather than a sprint! Depending on whether Green, Blue or Gold level, the coaching package includes 2, 3 or 4 sessions a month lasting approximately 60-90 minutes. Sessions can be at your office, my place of business, or a mutually agreed upon location.  In these days of COVID-19, online coaching is our mainstay via Zoom. Phone coaching is also an option but I prefer to see the individual to observe body language and such.

Special arrangements:  Sometimes included in a gold package is two full days of shadowing, facilitation of a two meetings of your choice (up to 2 hours each), and unlimited phone calls and emails in between sessions.  In addition, you or any of your employees will benefit from a 25% discount for any company training/workshops.

Other coaching services: Group Coaching, Sales Coaching, Couples Coaching, Business Partner Coaching, Youth Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Genogram Coaching and more (they include these but not limited to them).

Payment arrangements: These are to be made before services are provided, and as agreed upon via this website, mobile money, PayPal, cheques or bank transfers.

Miscellaneous: We will always be punctual. If you need to reschedule, 24 hours advance notice is required or one-half of the coaching session is lost.  If for some reason I need to reschedule and do not do so with a 24-hour notice, you will be credited with an additional one-half coaching session, at no additional charge. Our coaching relationship is completely confidential.  We will never share your identity or any information about you with any other person or organization without your expressed consent.   In the unlikely event that there are concerns that need to be referred to another professional, I may be able to make that suggestion to you.

Completing our coaching relationship is a mutual decision.  While my retention percentage is very high, there may come a time when you determine that it is time to complete our coaching relationship.  If and when that time comes, I expect that the coachee will give me at least four weeks’ notice.  That will give us time to summarize your growth/learning and strategize your next steps.

Our services are unconditionally guaranteed.  If at any time you feel that you are not getting the support, honesty, coaching, or training that you expect, then you need to tell me.

 

LET’S GO!

If you are serious about growth, success and significance you need a coach.  The proof of your commitment is your investment of quality time, best effort and substantial money. Even as a coach, I also have a paid coach. Everybody needs somebody to coach them. So! Make arrangements here and now for a 30-minute exploratory call to see if we would be a good match.