Remembering Names and Faces “In a Pinch”

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PS: Yesterday I managed to remember 4 names, using the first point.

It is Personal, It is Business

The strongest business networks are the genuine ones. And you’ll know the signs…

• You’ve not met for months, years, but at that moment, you can talk for hours at ease.
• You rarely sigh at the thought of meeting. In fact, you’d sigh if you couldn’t.
• Your self-awareness mechanism is disengaged. You’re genuinely being yourself.
• You offer service, with money genuinely being extremely secondary

These are some of many indicators. Hold on to these relationships, invest while times are good so that the emotional bank can come into play when times are down. Enjoy the sweetness.

Marketeers are Storytellers

Marketeers have to be good storytellers:

• You have to be able to sell the story to the finance dude.
• You have to be able to communicate the story of the product and its benefits to customers.
• You have to tell the story in your promotions.
• When the going gets tough, you have to tell the right story to replace the wrong one.

And many other instances. Humans in general are storytellers, and we live with the component of the stories we tell ourselves. Tweak alittle of the stories you tell yourself about the world around you and it’ll make the difference between flight or fright.

Practice your ability to perceive the world through different lenses. Hit the right lens with your customers and you may just turn your story into mutual music.

2 Essentials of Personal Success

Today at class a friend of mine was explaining problems he had when it came to registering for Arab classes. After listening, I shared with him 2 essentials of planning which would not just help him to drive his Arabic, but perhaps any other. It then led me to think about something else…

In Islam, the divine method of wealth growth and purification is in the Zakat system. In it, the 2 divinely (Please note, this is set by God Himself) guided criteriums are Nisab (minimum sum) and haul (period).

So now, lo and behold…

The 2 essentials of personal success, towards making a vision into reality: committing to a Budget and Timeline.

This is perhaps the most exciting article I’ve ever written in a long time.

More Than Job Relevance

Once upon a time, I was an anti-blogger. I couldn’t understand the maturity of the medium nor the people who would want to tell the whole world about their thoughts. Then one day, I came to the conclusion that I had to jump into it as well, because as someone trained in marketing, the future is in digimarketing, and I had to familiarize myself with the blogging landscape as well…

To stay relevant.

But how easy it is to “shake leg”. You’ve graduated, landed a nice job and you tell yourself “all is settled”. But wait a minute… what exactly is settled?

In Asia, when a tiger wakes up, it runs. To chase his prey.

In Asia, when a deer wakes up, it runs. To avoid being prey.

Conclusion? No matter what you are… Run.

I’ve lined up an arsenal of courses that I’ve enrolled myself in 2009 to stay relevant, one or two related to marketing, and the many rest on ukhrawi. I encourage you to do the same. It’s a good reminder that’s able to pull you back to earth if you find yourself swimming in an ivory tower of infallibility and perceived expertise. If anything, it’s not just to remain relevant, nor is it to continue to grow and be able to contribute…

But its to remain competitive.

“Inna salaati wa nusuki wa mahyaaya wa mamaati Lillaahi Rabb il-‘Aalameen, laa shareeka lahu wa bidzaalika umirtu wa ana awwal ul-muslimeen“.

“Indeed, my prayer, my sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, no partner has He. With this I have been commanded and I am the first of the Muslims (those who submit to Him).“

Ramadan and Sweetness

I say in Ramadan, you can taste more than in any other period.

When all distractions are (almost) silenced, you savour sweetness in its purest form. And not by the taste of sweet sugar, nor some fancy dish…

But through the routines of working hard and fighting yourself in the daytime, and praying and meditating in solitude and in humble at night towards the higher power.

The sweetness of trying to return to near innocence. You can almost taste it. Have a good Ramadan.

Ramadan and Discipline

Ramadan is often associated with abstaining not just the food and drinks (from dawn to dusk), but also of guarding the tongue against ill words.

This to me is easy. Ultimate discipline is guarding the heart and mind from ill thoughts, especially of others. It is acts which others cannot see, but which you do for the sake of God in silence and solitude, which sometimes tests the strength of your faith.

Ramadan. Almost a third of it has passed on. Let’s make the rest a good one.

Ramadan and Goal Setting

With the discipline that it entails for a duration of about 30 days, Ramadan is an excellent opportunity for the following:

1. Break bad habits
2. Install new good habits
3. Accomplish pending goals

Spend your Ramadan wisely for yourself in this world, and for the life beyond. Have a good one.

Fight Fires, Don’t Drown

That one-of-a-kind migraine you feel when you see something done awfully wrong, and you have the skills to correct it.

You roll up your sleeves, pick the nearest, most powerful hose available, and start distinguishing all the fires you see with joy (and little anger too). You pour out the frameworks, knock some heads, with one united voice guiding your body and head…

“Wake up your idea!”

Sometimes though, the hose is really too strong. You end up sweeping people away, and drowning some. So while you’re trying to put out the fires, you might just end up drowning people…

And yourself.

Don’t get to that point. If you’re sunk, we’d have to wait for another time for another hero to emerge and set things right. Correct problems wisely and with patience. Yes, it erks the living lights out of you how things are done, but correcting problems at the expense of hurting feelings and causing chaos is not the way to go.

Just like threading a needle. You aim for the eye of the needle gently. Once that’s done, you can done pull firmly.

Thread lightly.

Get People Better Than You

For quite some time, I’ve been in the advisory seat. I would have short meetups and advice businesses on their marketing angles.

Today I was the client. It was a short meetup with the creatives agency incharge of designing our ads. Me and my manager fed him with the concept, and showed him 6 prototypes of 6 different angles of approach.

He came with a 7th. We loved it.

If you’re paying someone, it emphasizes the point. Surround yourself with people better than you in the different areas of life. Don’t pay for mediocrity. And if you’re worried of feeling inferior, therin lies the test of your ability to lead people with better skills than you.

Attempt to lead leaders. It’s a fail-safe way to continue growing after school days.

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