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Career success - celebrating our legacy of greatness
published: Wednesday | February 6, 2008
Beverley East, Contributor
Cold ground was my bed last night and rock stone was my pillow - I am talking blues, talking Blues ...
- Bob Marley
Can you imagine a young boy from Trench Town Jamaica became a legend worldwide? His music is played in every nook and cranny across the world. Had he lived today he would have celebrated his 67th birthday.
We can all use our circumstances of poverty as a reason to not succeed in our careers, or we can use the circumstance of our being to propel us into a better position. We can rise above any situation and become a powerful, productive member of the career elite.
Very few of us were born with a gold spoon in our mouth, but we can use our individual circumstances to shape our characters and make us stronger from within. We can take lessons from our great legacy, we can learn from people like Nanny of the Maroons, Sam Sharpe, Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, the list is endless. These great legends fought and died and we can use their spirit of resilience to help us create a better life. They have given us a short-cut to our personal journey to success. We must continue to honour them in the way we live our lives.
Key to success
All of us are one or two generations away from a personal key to success. My grandmother, for instance, is one of my biggest roles models. Leticia Johnson could not read or write. As a child she had me read the newspapers to her every day. She would question me if I stumbled over a word and if I sounded unsure, she would ask me if I knew the word and if not, I should look in the dictionary and tell her what the word meant. I was just seven years old.
It was after her death that I learnt that she could not read or write when I saw her will signed with an X. Yet, she owned a bar and shop and acquired 32 acres of land. My mother was her seventh and last child. She was widowed, with no bank account, no formal education, no security company to protect her property and her family. However, she had insight and determination.
Madam C.J. Walker is another one of my heroes. A 'washer lady', who became a self-made millionaire, the first woman of any race to become a millionaire in fact. She did not create the iron comb as assumed by many, but created a hair product that she sold through the now pyramid system that we are familiar with.
Harriett Tubman is another brave woman we can learn lessons from. She escaped slavery and followed the North Star until she found freedom. She walked at nights and slept in the day. Once she found her freedom, she went back and freed over 500 slaves creating the underground railroad.
We all can make so many excuses for not having what we want - a better job, our own business, financial wealth and freedom. But we will never achieve these goals if we make excuses. Make a plan to make things happen! In the coming week, this column will give more guidelines on how to do so. So watch this space.
I welcome your email at writefully_yours@ hotmail.com
Thinking from inside the box
Imagine attending a meeting at which you and your colleagues have to invent an idea for a new business. The only instruction you're given is to 'think outside the box'. The task is so vague that you'd promptly give up.
Structured brainstorming There could be a better approach - structured brainstorming. Through this process, you pose concrete questions that focus people's thinking in ways that spark fresh ideas. For example: "What businesses could we invent if we reproduced something children love in an extreme form for adults?" This notion has catalysed creation of 25+ new product categories including gourmet jelly beans, Spider-Man movies, and paintball.
published: Wednesday | February 6, 2008
Beverley East, Contributor
Cold ground was my bed last night and rock stone was my pillow - I am talking blues, talking Blues ...
- Bob Marley
Can you imagine a young boy from Trench Town Jamaica became a legend worldwide? His music is played in every nook and cranny across the world. Had he lived today he would have celebrated his 67th birthday.
We can all use our circumstances of poverty as a reason to not succeed in our careers, or we can use the circumstance of our being to propel us into a better position. We can rise above any situation and become a powerful, productive member of the career elite.
Very few of us were born with a gold spoon in our mouth, but we can use our individual circumstances to shape our characters and make us stronger from within. We can take lessons from our great legacy, we can learn from people like Nanny of the Maroons, Sam Sharpe, Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, the list is endless. These great legends fought and died and we can use their spirit of resilience to help us create a better life. They have given us a short-cut to our personal journey to success. We must continue to honour them in the way we live our lives.
Key to success
All of us are one or two generations away from a personal key to success. My grandmother, for instance, is one of my biggest roles models. Leticia Johnson could not read or write. As a child she had me read the newspapers to her every day. She would question me if I stumbled over a word and if I sounded unsure, she would ask me if I knew the word and if not, I should look in the dictionary and tell her what the word meant. I was just seven years old.
It was after her death that I learnt that she could not read or write when I saw her will signed with an X. Yet, she owned a bar and shop and acquired 32 acres of land. My mother was her seventh and last child. She was widowed, with no bank account, no formal education, no security company to protect her property and her family. However, she had insight and determination.
Madam C.J. Walker is another one of my heroes. A 'washer lady', who became a self-made millionaire, the first woman of any race to become a millionaire in fact. She did not create the iron comb as assumed by many, but created a hair product that she sold through the now pyramid system that we are familiar with.
Harriett Tubman is another brave woman we can learn lessons from. She escaped slavery and followed the North Star until she found freedom. She walked at nights and slept in the day. Once she found her freedom, she went back and freed over 500 slaves creating the underground railroad.
We all can make so many excuses for not having what we want - a better job, our own business, financial wealth and freedom. But we will never achieve these goals if we make excuses. Make a plan to make things happen! In the coming week, this column will give more guidelines on how to do so. So watch this space.
I welcome your email at writefully_yours@ hotmail.com
Thinking from inside the box
Imagine attending a meeting at which you and your colleagues have to invent an idea for a new business. The only instruction you're given is to 'think outside the box'. The task is so vague that you'd promptly give up.
Structured brainstorming There could be a better approach - structured brainstorming. Through this process, you pose concrete questions that focus people's thinking in ways that spark fresh ideas. For example: "What businesses could we invent if we reproduced something children love in an extreme form for adults?" This notion has catalysed creation of 25+ new product categories including gourmet jelly beans, Spider-Man movies, and paintball.