“Go for Gold” by John C. Maxwell is such an amazing book. A little pocket sized and companion guide to “Leadership Gold”
I first came across this book in my final year as an undergraduate. It was a pivotal period in my life and the peak of my leadership experience while on campus.
It was such a great read, that you would find me smiling at myself while reading or nodding in agreement to the lessons I was being opened up to. Curiosity got a hold of others around me that they would eventually ask about the book, as I carried it every where I went, even to our farm practice sessions. Lol!
Every chance I got, I read and it really helped me stay focused, organized and aligned as a young leader. The small size of this book makes it so easy to read.
With a weekly schedule of 26 lessons broken into days of the work week and a notes section. Helping you reflect on what you’ve learnt, almost like a devotional.
So it’s so easy to read, even as you learn in small bites great lessons for impact as a leader. I eventually got the main book Leadership Gold and I totally enjoyed that as well.
I highly recommend “Go for Gold” by John C. Maxwell. It’s truly an amazing and empowering book for every leader, team member and business oriented individual.
Such a great book, full of so much actionable knowledge and much wisdom. Gold truly! Highly recommended.
This is a great book, but one that is difficult to read, because some chapters will hit you harder than some.
Especially when those chapters are focused on places you’ve probably experienced some defeat in that past, so your heart remains open and eager to see some real and tangible change.
It’s a book you may need to read slowly, and revisit over and over again. It’s a book that will help you become more specific with how you pray and will empower you with new knowledge and practical ways to do so.
I particularly like the tone of this book, it’s almost like you’re having a very warm and friendly conversation, spiced up with relatable girl talk with the author, Priscilla Shirer.
One that leads to practical steps and intentional focus on core areas of life that really matter.
Think of this book as a strategy tool for war, while on your knees.
It’s a book for everyone and every woman.
I certainly recommend this book by Priscilla Shirer. Definitely a great read.
As a consultant, one of the most common question I get asked often is how I can achieve visibility for a startup or young business. This is an important question that most clients want to know and it’s often a test to know if you as a professional have the knowledge and capacity required to achieve their campaign goals.
I would like to state that Visibility for any business, (including startups and established businesses) is simply about the ‘value’ that can be derived. Value sells and is most sustainable, especially when your target audience come to understand that you are a consistent brand or business.
So here are some highlights of solutions I would often proffer, cutting across the inorganic approach to getting things done, as well as the organic approach.
Visibility for any startup takes time, but with consistency of publicity efforts, you can achieve a lot. An inorganic approach would be to:
1) Drive promotions (paid ads) for content created across the communication assets for the organization or business.
2) Engage with influencer marketing across industries, relevant for your campaigns, where your target audience can be easily reached.
3) Drive Google ad promotions, which helps greatly with search efforts for such a company and its website.
4) Work on press releases regarding your business/ organization, request for magazine profiling / Interviews, as well as place ads in such publications/ Magazine prints, which aids with publicity efforts.
5) Radio jingles is another way to go, but consistent and effective ad placement comes at a very high cost. Depending on the quotes for the chosen radio stations and the number of times such ads will be aired.
To achieve these for quick and high publicity, greatly depends on how much one is willing to spend on ads and campaigns, as well as bids for search phrases and keywords for optimization and visibility of the business.
An organic approach (which is slower, but effective) would be to do some of the following:
1) Drive publicity consistently across the communication assets, taking into consideration digital marketing strategies, branding efforts and excellent content creation.
2) Create Content for company profiling for projects accomplished, projects in the pipeline as well as the company’s service offerings.
3) Content for client projects can be crafted as case studies, as well as consistent development of insightful articles. These two are always a good idea, thus demonstrating mastery of that industry the business belongs to.
4) Driving engaging, consistent and strategic social media publicity efforts, as well as strategic email marketing efforts to contacts (who may be potential clients), your target audience and already converted paying clients helps with visibility. It also helps client or those who have benefited from your services, remember your business when the need arises, as well as recommend your business to others who may need it.
5) Flash sales/ discount sales of complimentary products can become a market penetration strategy, especially at the MVP stage of a business or product by a startup, as well as during festive periods in efforts to stand out of the already saturated market.
6) Lastly, if a website exists, to drive Search Engine Optimization – SEO and Search Engine Marketing – SEM efforts for search relevance and ranking, articles focused on the core areas of services rendered, need to be developed consistently.
This greatly aids search, website ranking and relevance, helping establish the organization as an authority in its field.
The bottom line is being able to project the “Value” that will be derived from the services and products rendered by your business or organization. Value is what sells and when you’ve got quality to offer, as well as great feedback from those already engaged as testimonials, great visibility can be achieved.
Even while pushing for sales at a good price (via the existing communication assets, campaigns, as well as one-on-one engagement with people) can help a startup find its footing and visibility amongst other existing and well established businesses.
At Brave Publicity Ink, we can always get you started with great visibility, we offer excellent services and products that are deeply satisfying and capable of meeting and exceeding your campaign goals.
“Passing It On” is a great book about the core of leadership. Written by the late Dr. Myles Munroe of blessed memory. Someone I consider to be one of the greatest leadership Coach, Teacher and Leader of all time.
This book will have you think deep and experience some mind shifts, if you really desire sustainable and impactful leadership. It’s about the legacy of leadership and about the greatest leader of all time that walked the face of the earth. Find out who this is.
It’s a book that can’t be rushed. One you’ll most likely have to go back to from time to time as you go through your own journey of leadership and service. It applies to all industries for anyone with an open mind, a thirst for growth and truth. It’s a book for everyone who desires to have an impactful life and a great Legacy that transcends time.
It was bittersweet reading this book, knowing it’s author is no more. But his words, his knowledge, his legacy, lives on and that makes me happy, hopeful and thankful for this gift. His gift to us all.
Not done with this book yet. But I certainly recommend this to everyone, every leader, young or old and all those who aspire to lead their lives and organizations well.
Diversity is such an important force in the world. How boring a place, the world would be if we all were the same, had same interests and saw things from the same perspective.
Creativity would be lost, uniqueness and all of those great things that makes life so beautiful and colorful would seize to exist, because diversity makes all of these wonderful things possible.
Humans are the most diverse, dynamic and intelligent set of beings on the Earth you know, and this is one of the forces that makes us so powerful and special.
Every day, we meet new people and we sometimes are quite amazed by how different they are from us. Their unique abilities, experiences, interests, skills, heart and the beauty of who they are and their personalities just simply shines through. So, diversity is quite important and the world is so much better for it.
When it comes to the workplace and team formation, diversity plays a huge role on the strength of a team and so, I’ll be sharing on its importance, impact, and why we should have an open mind by embracing the concept of “Team Diversity” in all spheres and walks of life.
Here are six things worthy of note regarding team diversity and why you should embrace this great culture and belief system.
A Pool of Knowledge and Ideas
Applied knowledge is power and when you have a diverse gathering of people, great ideas and solutions are bound to emerge from such places. Ideas that stem from diverse work experiences, backgrounds, sources, and network of these dynamic individuals.
Diversity of Skills and Uniqueness
When it comes to vision, execution and posterity, structures and people are always the solution. With a diverse team comes diverse skills sets and perspectives for delivery. When you have sameness in a room or gathering, it’s always difficult to think outside your own “Outside The Box” ideas, but with diversity, you would come to experience new mind shifts and experiences that can help you accomplish so much for vision actualization and sustainability of your businesses and goals.
The Strength of Divide and Conquer
The Lion remains king of the Juggle, capable of operating alone, but he also understands when the strength of the Pride is needed. Pride of Lions operate by the strength of divide and conquer, and sometimes may come together to focus on a prey, depending on how challenging it may be or what their target is.
Diversity of teams helps you to be able to collaborate to divide and conquer territories that may be unfamiliar to you, but may be accessible and familiar to others onboard. This is the reason, some businesses are capable of expanding and spreading to other regions of the world.
If your focus remains on sameness and exclusivity of certain people from your circle or group, those you may have placed in a category mentally, then you just may be placing a cap on your ability to know and achieve greater things.
End to Racism and Discrimination by Acceptance of People’s Uniqueness
Racism and discrimination is such a terrible mindset. It destroys and robs people of the chance to come to know the beauty and brilliance that resides in many others that are very different from themselves.
Beyond the global scale of the “Black vs. White” or the “Everybody Else vs. Racists” protest movements know around the world, grassroots and local levels across all Nations also have their own fair share of this big problem, and they come in forms like tribalism and social exclusivity and stereotypical assumptions.
Racism and Discrimination is such a terrible mindset that has been passed on from an older generation with grudges and wrong beliefs, forcing the younger generation to develop hatred for something or people, picking on and continuing battles that sometimes have existed before their birth.
Some with structures that have encouraged the continuity of brutal and systemic racism and discrimination, which have place some minorities in a perpetual state of struggle and poverty.
The moment, we begin to embrace the uniqueness of others and incorporate such diversity in our organizations, businesses and wider communities of influence; with structures that encourages diversity and aids in the success of those who are often excluded: groups, people and tribes, only then will we begin to see positive shifts regarding the end of racism and discrimination.
The great news is we can begin from where we are, with our own organizations and businesses, reorienting those within our sphere of influence about the importance of embracing humanity and diversity. While opening doors of opportunity for others to advance in places where there has been unjust exclusiveness, barriers and hindrances.
End to Inequality Including Gender Inequality
In many businesses and organizations, for years, most industries have been mostly male dominated, and this transcends leadership opportunities as well as strategic roles that are core to the growth and development of many communities as well as nations. However, this norm is beginning to experience a shift with global and glocal efforts towards closing the gender and inequality gaps.
When we have a healthy mind shift and perspective that embraces and encourages team diversity, we begin to think about all aspects of this. Bringing onboard all those that should be on some tables of influence, leadership, service or power.
This is achieved by taking into consideration, first the humanity of all people, secondly the need to foster great team strength for posterity by developing tolerance and respect for the uniqueness and preferences of others, especially when those things do not put anyone else in harm’s way.
Lastly, their value, namely: experience, merit and skills, a very important factor that should qualify anyone to be a part of anything great and worthy of attention, irrespective of who they are.
As it is in the world today, there is a lot of unjust actions to many who by merit should have access to or be on board certain teams or have access to some opportunities, but have been hindered. This will always be wrong. So to see change, there is a need to start with ourselves, and the teams within our sphere of influence.
This simple action is capable of widening our team’s scope of experience that comes from collaborating with different people. Only then will we come to appreciate the beauty of diversity, and this can cause a ripple effect that can ignite the positive change we need to see regarding bridging the inequality gap.
The Humanity Factor and Love
When you see people, it is my hope that you first see humanity, before a person’s race, origin, background or the color of their skin. I hope you see someone living and breathing the same air just like you, with the same red blood flowing through your veins. Someone with a heart and heart-beat just like yours, showing up every day, in efforts to make their own lives, families and communities better. Someone with great dreams, desires and aspirations, just like you, someone with a brilliant mind and a good heart.
I hope you see humanity first.
I hope you give them a chance when opportunities of life for great things and collaborations come your way, especially when those opportunities accessible to you or are within your power for decision making. I hope you see the beautiful human before you and you can respond in love to them, just as you would love yourself and in the same vein, respond to others you love.
This is the ultimate factor that can foster the possibility and humanity of team diversity, LOVE. This is for every human. This is for you. And me.
Thank you for reading.
Article by Opeolu Adeyemi. Corporate Communications and Public Relations Consultant Founder, Brave Publicity Ink!
Brave Publicity Ink! 