Author: David Alade (Page 3 of 15)

I am a student of the world. I learn, build and share.

7 Rules of Power: Advice on How To Advance Your Career – My Takeaways

June 25, 2022 / David Alade

At any point in time, I have more books in my library than I can possibly read. Often this makes me commit the practice of book adultery. In my local language, it means I am “ari iyawo ko iyale”. Last Saturday, as I wrote in this post, I bought 7 Rules of Power and a week later I am writing a summary/takeaways of the same. An attestation to my “ari iyawo ko iyale” practice.

But why have I committed that practice for this one book? I am a few years into my career where the next level for me is a role that brings me closer to being expectedly responsible for people, and a team and getting such a role isn’t like the previous promotions I have heard. In my first year with PwC, I was the most nonchalant about going the extra mile beyond the commitment to do my technical jobs well. Why? Because I knew with absolute certainty that it’s all that’s required for me to get the promotion. So why should I do more? Well, that was my thinking then and I was right. I got all the promotions simply because I did my job.

I have now entered a new era. An era where the ability to influence, evidence of value add and willingness to play a different game is part of the determinant of my promotion. So unsurprisingly when I saw the book, I knew immediately that I had to read it ASAP. Potentially, it could offer me some help on how to navigate this new era masterfully as I have always sought to navigate all aspects of my life. And indeed, the book offered some insight.

Getting comfortable with Power

The book started by laying some ground around how we naturally tend to eschew power. The very thought of reading a book about it is so repugnant that we will not even dare to have the book let alone read it or even be seen to be reading it.

The reason according to the book is not far-fetched. Most of our experiences with power especially when we are not born with one are that of inept use or corruption. Subconsciously, we eschew power from these dynamics. Other reasons were also given.

But power unfortunately is needed for nearly all things that have to do with the coming together of people. Inevitably, someone must command power. It is part of group or crowd dynamics. As the book noted, the best way to have more examples of good use of power is to get more good people to have power. Unfortunately, good people eschew power.

Interestingly, the book was moderate both in its advice and the examples used to convey the message. Starting with the example of an African American woman, Rukaiyah whom I had to immediately connect on LinkedIn. Let me tell you a bit about her.

Rukaiyah who is now the Chief Investment Officer of a $750 million Fund, recognised at a point in her that “Clearly these organisations are not going to impart power and opportunity on me, so I have to make it myself.” Apply the rules of power she summarised her experience as below:

What once was a position of an outsider, being black and female, became an information conduit. People told me things they wanted raised, but they were too fearful to raise themselves because they were so deeply invested in their need to support their families, and most of them had spouses who didn’t work. I was young and single and as far as they were concerned, a total outsider already. They felt that they could tell me things and raise issues. Then the executive team began to pivot to me when they needed information…. I was in a position of power. That turned into a promotion to the COO seat, and once I was in that seat, the investors turned to me to tell them the truth during really different times.

The most important thing about Rukaiyah’s story was that she understood the first rule of power: to get out of her own way–to not expect a just or fair world, and certainly not to play by rules that would leave her disadvantaged, but instead to make her own rules and play her

own game.

I think you should also get comfortable with the topic of power. I know far too often, we have been exposed to examples of vile use of power. And we now tend to associate power with bad things and in the case where power might have helped achieve good things, we do as much as possible to eschew the use of the word Power in describing such good. No more I guess. Learn the rules of power and use them (Rule 6)

The 7 Rules

The 7 rules described in the book were also counterintuitive I didn’t see much of a surprise in the book. Largely, they are things I am aware of already and practice. Interestingly, I have written about some of the principles (here, here, here…) before without using the word power.

Rule 1. Get out of your own way

The first rule of power is about acknowledging and accepting who you are but not letting that identity define who you will be forever.

“Talented people, with objectively amazing accomplishments, hold self-descriptions that disempower themselves and that, if and when internalised, inappropriately limit their career prospects… Such behaviour is unhelpful.”

“Change your behaviour, and your attitudes about yourself and your place in the world quite likely will follow.”

“I look at the most confident people in my year and I realise that the greatest gift that has been bestowed on them is that of shamelessness.”

“Don’t let the notion that doing something new or different – particularly if that new behaviour is going to be helpful in your path to power- is inauthentic become an excuse for thinking in ways that hold you back.”

One of my best quotes from the book:

“I do not choose to be relegated to a lower status role, although many, many in power have tried. I have no problem challenging people or making them rethink their assumptions. I don’t feel like I have to “stay in my lane” and I will not let people push me or keep me there. The dean who hired me said, “Laura, do you not see the boundaries between disciplines?” And I replied, “No, why should I?”

They have found that, across multiple cultures, the two fundamental aspects by which people judge others are warmth and competence back: “I can see how wanting to achieve something meaningful that is so deeply personal, I can see how people get forceful. When you have a vision and you can see something other people can’t see, I can see how you sort of have to push them into it.” Adams said two other things that I think are important to her

success, both related to her surrendering the need for acceptance. She commented that she did not worry too much about “what will our board think, or will I get invited to that fancy Christmas party, or this might get me disinvited from the privileged cookout.” She noted that achieving success required a combination of humility to get others on your side, and also hubris. “For women, that hubris part of it is really hard. I have to coach myself up to hubris.”

Rule 2. Break the rules

“Because of how people are socialised and the desire to be accepted by others – which we believe comes from adhering to rules for behaviour – most people, most of the time, follow conventional wisdom and willingly follow rules that others – and this is the important point, often others with more power and interests quite different from their own – have promulgated. The lesson of this chapter is that, notwithstanding these numerous forces pushing rule following and conformity, many paths to power entail parting with expectations, disregarding conventional wisdom, and breaking rules- except the rule of this chapter, which is to break the rules.”

3 rules you can break immediately to impact your career

Ask for things – help seeking is uncomfortable but people want to offer help.
Forgiveness over Permission
Break rules by finding ways to stand out.

For those who seek power, particularly those seeking it from positions of disadvantage, breaking the rules is the only possible, sensible option. Simply put, if you are going to win given the rules in place, by all means follow and advocate for those rules. For everyone else less guaranteed of inevitable success, rule breaking, the second rule of power, provides an empirically validated – and virtually the only feasible – path to success.

Rule 3. Appear powerful

If you want to attain and maintain power, the third rule of power is to appear powerful, because others will treat you and make decisions about you depending on how you show up, and those decisions will often act in ways to make the initial impressions become true.

Anger is a tool. From a moral perspective, I will use it rarely.
Appearing confident is another potent one. Confidence in all ramifications, use of words, posture, dressing etc and have the work to show for it of course.

The premise of Rule 3 is that appearance–how someone shows up with both body language and spoken language- matters a great deal for how others perceive them.

^{Some suggested nonverbal way to appear powerful}

Rule 4. Build a powerful brand

Rated my best rule.

“One way to build a powerful brand is to associate with other people and organisations that are themselves prestigious.”

“Do as many things as possible to be known – blog, podcast, books, events hosting, volunteering social media”

Recounting her experience helping someone to get comfortable with brand building, Deborah Lui said “I was doing a talk at this event and we were talking about self-evaluation, and this woman said, “I’m just really not good at self-promotion.” And I said, “Do you see what you just did there? If you treat your self-evaluation as self-promotion, you are not going to talk about the work that you’re doing. You’re not going to do it justice. If you call it helping your manager understand the impact that you have, if you call it helping your team get the recognition it deserves, would you see it differently?” And she said, “You’re right. I’ve been thinking about this all wrong.”

Rule 5. Network relentlessly

Rule 6. Use your power

Rule 7. Success excuse (almost) everything

Read the book to get more insight into other rules.

Some final thoughts

Merely looking at the rules should make anyone comfortable reading the book. It is not some 48 Laws of Power that you might have been often directed not to read (I read it by the way). Rather, it is a book for those who seek to advance their career notwithstanding any disadvantage that may surround them. Just look at what Rukaiyah did with her condition.

As I noted in my note before reading it, the book is meant for people like me. People who find themselves in an environment where they are different, they were not born with power, and have a phobia for self-proclamation.

One of the most important points to note about the subject of Power though is that anyone’s antipathy to it does not magically mean others won’t embrace it. And those who embrace it will get things that you might think you deserve and maybe you do indeed. But since you are not willing to play the cards that you’ve been dealt, unfortunately, you might be left out. When this point is mentioned, the tendency is to be quick to find disconfirming evidence. But what empirical research has shown is that those pieces of evidence are edge cases and not the norm. Selah!

Lastly, it is worth noting that we all celebrate people of power. We see our potential in them. And that’s the thing about power, when attained, we celebrate it in others. But you see doing the work that’s required to attain it is what we often have issues with. One must note though that all tools of power don’t have to be used. Only those that you are comfortable with. Getting things done and advancing your career is the goal not necessarily about the tools you employ.

The Miracle Morning – My Takeaways

June 23, 2022 / David Alade

I received the book during a gift exchange time in my office. I must confess that I discounted the book as one that would have nothing new to teach me beyond what’s common knowledge. And maybe I was right to have assumed what will be entailed in the book will be common knowledge. What I was certainly wrong about is to have discounted it because common knowledge doesn’t mean common application. And even though the benefit of and magic of the morning is common knowledge, I was guilty of not rising from the bed until it was about time to start working.

Before picking up the book to read, I had decided to wake up 2 hours earlier than I needed to start working. I committed 10 minutes to exercise, 1 hour to reading and 45 minutes to writing. It was working so well that one day I looked at my library in search of what to read and I saw this book again to which I then decided to give it a shot.

My impression of picking it up was simple. If I am experiencing this sound awesomeness in just a few days of changing my waking up routine, what more wisdom could be contained in a book written by someone who evidently has been keeping up to the practice for years and has also helped to build such a habit. To my amazement, I read one-third of the book the first time I picked it up and completed the book in under 5 days. The following then is what you might consider as the summary of the book or my takeaways.

My first highlight from the book

I made my first highlight from the introduction. But before I quote here what that highlight was, let me tell you the story leading up to the highlight.

Hal Elrod recounted in the book how first, he came close to death from a fatal accident. No, he actually died for 6 minutes or so before he was brought back to life. His medical condition wasn’t perfect when he woke up as a result of injuries sustained from the accident. But in the months and years after, he rose above the challenge, resumed work and became a top sales executive breaking long-established records within his organisation.

Then a few years later, in 2008 to be precise, he went from this well-to-do guy who was about to get married to a broke guy who is drowning in debt and depression. His financial situation worsens and his mental health suffers a great deal. Unblamable, he considered suicide but didn’t consider going through with it because of the pain and anguish it would cause his mother and father.

Like clockwork again, he overcame this life situation just as he did his near-total death experience. How? He believes that everything happens for a reason but it is our responsibility to choose the most empowering reasons for the challenges, events and circumstances of our life.

That sounds so right and demanding of emphasis that I will repeat it just as I had to highlight it in the book itself.

Everything happens for a reason but it is our responsibility to choose the most empowering reasons for the challenges, events and circumstances of our life.

My younger sister and I have this frequent conversation where our mum will give a reason for some circumstances, and she will come to me to check some of those reasons. I often used to tell her nearly the same thing, that our mum is not wrong to have resorted to that explanation. However, it is her responsibility to choose which explanation ensures that she is in control of the circumstances and that the circumstances are in no way out of hand. So it felt so great naturally to see my ideology put in dinner words in this book.

But life can so quickly get overwhelming that we feel out of control, out of touch and permanently stuck. And this is where the Miracle Morning philosophy comes to the rescue.

Comprehensive list of my highlights and a representative summary

1. Blame determines who is at fault for something, responsibility determines who is committed to improving things.

2. Who you are becoming is the single most important determining factor in your quality of life, now and for your future.

3. To make profound changes in your life, you need either inspiration or desperation.

4. I told Jon, ‘I hate running’. Without hesitation, he responded, What do you hate worse, running … or your current life situation? I was desperate. I had nothing to lose. I decided to go for a run.

5. ‘If you want your life to be different, you have to be willing to do something different first!’

6. We mistakenly believe that who we were is who we are, thus limiting our true potential in the present, based on the limitations of our past.

7. Always remember that where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be, from this moment on.

8. Isolating incidents: One of the most prevalent, yet not-so-obvious causes of mediocrity is isolating incidents. We do this when we mistakenly assume that each choice we make, and each individual action we take, is only affecting that particular moment, or circumstance. For example, you may think it’s no big deal to miss a workout, procrastinate on a project, or eat fast food because you’ll get a ‘do-over’ tomorrow. You make the mistake of thinking that skipping that workout only affects that incident, and you’ll make a better choice next time. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We must realize that the real impact and consequence of each of our choices and actions – and even our thoughts – iS monumental because every single thought, choice, and action is determining who we are becoming, which will ultimately determine the quality of our lives.

9. Our levels of success will rarely exceed our level of personal development because success is something we attract by who we become.

10. Remember this truth: now matters more than any other time in your life, because it’s what you are doing today that is determining who you’re becoming, and who you’re becoming will always determine the quality and direction of your life.

11. The reality is that if we don’t change now, our life won’t change. If we don’t get better, our life won’t get better. And if we don’t consistently invest time into our self-improvement, our life will not improve. Yet, most of us wake up every day and stay the same.

12. What I found was that whether I got nine, eight, seven, six, five, or even just four hours of sleep, as long as I consciously decided, before bed, that I was getting the perfect amount of sleep – that the hours were going to energize my body to feel wonderful in the morning – I consistently woke feeling better than I ever had before. However, don’t take my word for it. I encourage you to experiment with this yourself.

13. “Start every morning off with a personal success ritual. That is the most important key to success.”

14. Whatever it is that you write, putting words on the page is a form of therapy that doesn’t cost a dime.

15. Gap Focus: Is it hurting or helping you?

In the opening pages of this chapter, we talked about using the Life S.A.VE.R.S. to close your ‘potential gap’. Human beings are conditioned to have what I call gap focus. We tend to focus on the gaps between where we are in life and where we want to be, between what we’ve accomplished and what we could have or want to accomplish, and the gap between who we are and our idealistic vision of the person we believe we should be.
The problem with this is that constant ‘gap focus’ can be detrimental to our confidence and self-image, causing us to feel like we don’t have enough, haven’t accomplished enough, and that we’re simply not good enough, or at least, not as good as we should be.
High achievers are typically the worst at this, constantly overlooking or minimizing their accomplishments, beating themselves up over every mistake and imperfection, and never feeling like anything they do is quite good enough.
The irony is that ‘gap focus’ is a big part of the reason that high achievers are high achievers. Their insatiable desire to close the gap is what fuels their pursuit of excellence and constantly drives them to achieve. ‘Gap focus’ can be healthy and productive if it comes from a positive, proactive, I’m committed to and excited about fulfilling my potential perspective without any lettings of lack. Unfortunately, it rarely does. The average person, even the average high achiever, tends to focus negatively on their gaps.

16. Everything is difficult before it’s easy. Every new experience is uncomfortable before it’s comfortable.

17. The purpose of The Miracle Morning is more about waking up with a purpose – combining the benefits of early rising and personal development – and isn’t so much concerned with which activities you do, as long as the activities you choose are proactive and help you improve your inner world (yourself) and your outer world (your life).

18. Remember, your life situation will improve after – but only after – you develop yourself into the person you need to be to improve it.

The less than 500 words summary

With all the highlights you have about the book, now is the time to share the main premise of the book and how the author suggests we accomplish the main premise.

When you wake up and the first set of activities that you do when you wake determines a lot about the quality of your day, and then months and then years. Hence, if you can be more purposeful about your morning, by deliberately doing things that will improve your physical, mental and spiritual health, inevitably, the quality of your life will change from one day at a time until you look back and realise your life has indeed totally changed for the better. How can you be more purposeful about your mornings?

Wake up earlier than you would normally do. And when you do, apply the S.A.V.E.R.S. strategy to transform your life.

Silence. Start every morning with a period of purposeful Silence of at least 5 minutes. Activities to choose from and practice during the period of Silence:

Meditation
Prayer
Reflection
Deep Breathing
Gratitude

Don’t stay in bed for this, and preferably leave your bedroom altogether.

Affirmations. Use affirmations to start programming yourself to be confident and successful in everything you do. With enough repetition, your subconscious mind will begin to believe what you tell it, act upon it, and eventually manifest it in your reality.

Visualisation. Visualisation is the process of imagining exactly what you want to achieve or attain, and then mentally rehearsing what you’ll need to do to achieve or attain it. Directly after reading your affirmations—where you took the time to articulate and focus on your goals and who you need to be to take your life to the next level—is the prime time to visualise yourself living in alignment with your affirmations. Start with just five minutes of visualisation.

Exercise. Morning exercise should be a staple in your daily rituals. When you exercise for even a few minutes every morning it significantly boosts your energy, enhances your health, improves self-confidence and emotional well-being, and enables you to think better and concentrate longer.

Reading. Reading is one of the most immediate methods for acquiring the knowledge, ideas, and strategies you need to achieve Level 10 success in any area of your life. The key is to learn from the experts—those who have already done what you want to do. The fastest way to achieve everything you want is to model successful people who have already achieved it. Commit to read a minimum of 10 pages per day.

Scribing. Scribing=Writing. Writing enables you to document your insights, ideas, breakthroughs, realisations, successes, and lessons learned, as well as any areas of opportunity, personal growth, or improvement.

If you commit to doing all this including adopting a personal development plan that gets executed in the early morning, your life is guaranteed to take a new turn. Cheers to realising your maximum potential.

The End Is Greater Than The Beginning

June 19, 2022 / David Alade

The end of a thing is greater than the beginning.

It doesn’t matter the measure of energy you put at the beginning if the end is not pleasant.

It doesn’t matter the amount of enthusiasm you show at the beginning if you did not see it through.

A slow steady effort that ensures you finish is worthier than the hurricane enthusiasm that didn’t get you through to the end.

The end matters most.

Why you should have more books in your library than you can potentially read

June 18, 2022 / David Alade

2 years ago, I looked at my library and new books were nearly non-existent. It has been a while since I bought new books. So I decided I was going to take a large chunk of money to fill my library. I budgeted N100,000. I was on a trip and made a stop in OAU Ile-Ife, my alma mater, where I was sure my budget will get well utilised.

As I picked one book after the other, I ended up spending only 70% of my budget. But that meant a lot of books to carry back to Lagos. I was happy about the books and my library looked full once I arranged all the books in it. But is the essence of a library just to look full? I am sure you will agree with me that the answer to that is no.

*_{The books I bought from my N100K budget}*

Before I left Nigeria, I am not sure if I read up to 25% of the books. I am in the UK now and once again, I have started collecting books. Stacking up my libraries again with books on different topics and genres. Will I read them all? I don’t know.

*_{Growing picture of books in my UK collection}*

But something usually happens when you have more books in your library than you can possibly read. One, you are never in lack of what to read. You can only be in lack of motivation or time to read them. And that removes an important impediment to reading for anyone who practices this.

A few years ago I used to go all out to encourage people to read. One of the frequent questions I get is what should they read? Well, if you have more books than you can possibly read, then that is no longer a question.

Another benefit of having more books than you can read is that you are able to pick any topic that meets your immediate need. Recently, I wanted to learn more about how to harness the power of the mind. I have about 5 books answering the question in a different manner. I picked one of them that happened to be highly recommended. Unfortunately, as I typed I am still on it, not yet finished. Fortunately, I have more than one. So I picked another that was gifted to me. I finished that one within 3 days and it addressed my needs exactly as it fits me. 100%. I was so grateful.

Now here’s the most important reason in my opinion. Occasionally, you can stumble on a book (existing within your library) that will alter the cause of your life for good. Out of interest to find the next good read, you could potentially pick one from your library. And what you read from it (and it doesn’t matter whether you read all or not) can be the reason why your life changed for good. I say this because I have experienced this kind of thing in my life in a far too significant way to discount it.

Having more books in your library than you can possibly read is like having more food in your storehouse than you can possibly eat. There’s wisdom in that. It means you don’t have to go shopping whenever you need to eat, it means you can have any mixture of food anytime you need it and it means you could eat whatever gives you maximum health per time.

That’s why I encourage everyone to have more books available to them to read than they can possibly read at any moment.

Don’t store things in your brain

June 18, 2022 / David Alade

Nearly everyone has an interesting idea in their head. And we willl all like it better if we can generate more ideas, develop more solutions and become more creative.

The path to that however, usually involves freeing up the brain’s capacity to operate at an optimum level. But not everyone is ready to do the simple task of freeing up the brain.

The brain is a great tool for creativity and creation. But a very bad tool for storing. Unfortunately, we all tend to want to use it for both. And since storing tends to take more capacity, it prioritizes storing over creation. Hence, we generate lesser ideas, solutions and create lesser things.

The ONLY way to free up the brain’s capacity is to write things down compulsively. And as my friend, Ephraim said metaphorically, a simple jotting down your to-do list can free up to terabytes of capacity from the brain. Now imagine what capacity you can have if you don’t have to use your brain for storage at all.

I wonder if this also explains why the invention of writing was at the forefront of human creations and advancement.

Write down more things.

Exploring Self Belief

June 2, 2022 / David Alade

The first step to all significant progress is a firm belief in yourself that you can do it. I always like it when that belief is trending toward being delusional about what you are capable of.

The more faith you have in your ability to triumph no matter what, the more progress you will make in life. It’s more like a natural law.

You do yourself a lot of disservices and deprive the world of the wonders that lie in you when you don’t believe in yourself and what you are capable of.

Often, the only thing standing between you and your full potential is the discipline to fixate on a spot until you have developed. But alas, the mirage of distraction that locks around is so compelling that you will rather entertain them than disciplining yourself to do what’s most important.

I found a quote in a book I’m currently reading that’s got me thinking ever since.

“…I know this pathway [the pathway of truth] looks barren at its commencement (truth always does, it is only error and delusion which are at first inviting and fascinating,) but if you undertake to walk it; if you perseveringly discipline your mind, eradicating your weaknesses, and allowing your soul-forces and spiritual powers to unfold themselves, you will be astonished at the magical changes which will be brought about in your outward life.”

The pathway of truth always looks barren at the beginning. It always feels like I am doing the reading but I can’t feel I am getting better, or I am learning the skill but I have still not gotten to where I wanted to be, or I am applying the pressure but it seems as if I have remained in the same spot since I started. Hence, the illusion of barrenness. Yes, it’s an illusion because in the real sense when you follow the path of truth (discipline, focus and virtue), you are like a planted seed. And like all seeds, you must die first before you can rise again. Again, it’s a natural law.

Before you can see the result of your self-belief in your outward life, time will pass, sacrifices will be made and you might even be ridiculed. But as with all natural phenomena, you will rise far above your greatest imagination if you stay on the path. And when nothing else seems to be working for you, it is also your self-belief alone that can come to the rescue.

Self-belief is so important that without it, you can do nothing.

When I gained admission into the university I was hardly the reading type. That habit was good enough to get me through secondary school but obviously wouldn’t get me anywhere in the University. So I failed my first semester in year one. However, I was surrounded by those who had between 4.6 and 5 out of 5. Immediately, I told myself that if they can do it, there is nothing to stop me from doing it as well. All it will take is that I read more and more. And that was what I did. I believed in myself enough to think I am as good as the best in the class. And that was all I needed; a belief.

Was I as good as them academically? In retrospect, I don’t think so. But what does it matter? That belief propelled me to give it more effort, and more discipline and I came out triumphant.

Until you have it in you, it cannot come out of you. What you have within is what you can manifest without.

Always note that.

I like to say that what you believe doesn’t have to be true. Yes, it doesn’t. Just like my belief about being as good as the best wasn’t empirically true.

What you believe only needs to be useful and sufficient as a propellant to catapult you to the manifestation of the best version of yourself.

In the past couple of days, I have been doing something. In my journal, I write again and again about how proud I am of myself. Yes, I am proud of myself.

Because I have said that a lot of times, I have so much now believe in myself that I wake up every morning with the mentality that I can not disappoint myself in this pursuit. So I am fired up to crush it. And crushing, I do it daily. It all starts from within.

I know you might have been wounded a lot, failed so much and attempted far too many times that you have lost all your self-belief and all that’s left within you is nothing but self-doubt and self-condemnation at the worst. Life can be cruel. I am sorry.

Yet, the only way to get yourself out and give yourself yet another fighting chance is to believe once again in the hero in you. Awaken the dreamer boy/girl in you and ascend. How can you do that? Let me take a stab at offering some options.

How can you increase self-belief?

What I have found from extensive observation and much studying is that lack of success is the biggest killer of self-belief.

You tried something but failed to have a good result. You gave your best to prepare for something but you still didn’t meet the cut-off. You look back at your journey and you can’t point to a few things that have worked for you. All you can see is a failure and more failures and even more failures. Then something starts to whisper within you…

It says things like maybe you are not that good enough. Oh no, maybe you are not good at all. Oh no, maybe the universe has even conspired against you and your effort can’t ever change that. You try to fight that thought but every data point that you can look back to seems to agree with the whispers. And so you can only fight for so long and now, you have agreed with those whispers. You have agreed that you can not do it, that it’s not meant for you, and that your effort doesn’t count any more than your beliefs matter.

Last week and this week have been one of the best I’ve had in a long time. It’s one of those weeks I would rate 5/5. Perfecto!!!

But what was different about the week and how is it relevant to the rejuvenation of your self-belief?

I started doing something different. I set up each day in a way that I will start with success with at least one thing. You see if lack of success is the killer of self beliefs, one can as well engineer success in their day to boost self-belief. And that’s what I did.

I have set up a schedule that means when I wake up in the morning I accomplish a thing or a few things. Once I accomplish those few things, I allow myself to think very well about what a great success I’ve just heard. I tell myself then that I can’t let go of this feeling so I must complete every other thing I’ve set to do today as well. And I go on to do them. Every one of them with great strength and a delusional belief that no matter what I have set on my to-do list, I will do them. The result is that you have a David Alade who is ever more confident in his abilities.

Don’t think those early morning things are a big deal. Well, I have programmed my mind to think of them as a big deal but they may not necessarily be. Here they are…

(1.) I pray when I wake up. I don’t usually do this every day but I want to and I know it is easy to do.

(2.) I do some 5 minutes of exercise.

(3.) I study for one hour and

(4) I will write for another one hour.

Those are things that matter to me and are easy to do early in the morning for me to be able to record initial successes. You need to find what matters to you and is easy to accomplish as well. Do them first early in the morning. Start your day with a story of success, think about what success you just had and you will see how effective that can be at rejuvenating your self-belief.

This will work, believe me. But also remember that the nature of truth is that it is barren at commencement. Eventually though, like the seed planted by a riverside, it will flourish and living water will flow out of it.

That’s how I do mine. It’s not the only way though. But whatever way you employ to rejuvenate your self-belief, I know for certain that it has to include ensuring that you have deliberate successes built into your day. If what kills self-belief is a lack of success, then an abundance of success should awaken it. I wish you a constant awakening!

Give Yourself A Honest Feedback

May 30, 2022 / David Alade

Often, we ask others for their honest assessment of us. That’s noble and good as well. However, we are often the best judge of ourselves if we do enough retrospection.

We are the only one that knows the truth about what we are doing, what we are thinking and who we are (including when no one is looking).

However, because it is difficult for you to understand a system of which you are part, we tend to use others as a proxy for understanding ourselves (the system).

While others are a good proxy, they aren’t the only or necessarily the best proxy. Our introspection is.

Introspection is how we exit the system and observe it as objectively as we want. And it is only through introspection that we can examine our true selves.

Wining 40% > Winning 100%

May 23, 2022 / David Alade

Let me share something I learned from Gary Vaynerchuk (Vee) that I can’t seem to get off my head with you.

Never go about life aiming to win 10 of 10 attempts.
Rather, go about life to win 40 of 100 attempts. The secret here is more attempts, more shots, more iteration.

The former person is someone that sees failure in life’s journey as a bug. The latter embrace failure as part of the journey.

Over-optimization against failure is a futile attempt that keeps your back to the ground and perpetuates you in your comfort zone of zero growth.

Failure isn’t fun nor is it something to start looking around for. However, if you look for success well enough, failure is equally guaranteed to find you. Embrace such failure that you find on your way to success. They are good.

The most important lessons I will be taking away from my 20s

May 19, 2022 / David Alade

One of the most important lessons I will be taking away from my 20s will be “just keep showing up”

As the common saying goes, “if you stay long enough at a barbershop, you will soon get your haircut.”

Nearly all the good things that we desire in life require us to just keep showing up.

Considering A Career Switch? Here’s The First Thing To Know

April 27, 2022 / David Alade

In 2018 when I was seeking my first job post-NYSC, I ended up having job offers for 3 different roles. One was an Investment Banking position, another was a Cybersecurity position which I later changed to Data and Analytics and the last was for a Project Finance position.

For the initiated, you will know that each of those 3 roles requires a completely different set of skills to thrive in them. Does that mean I have all the skills? Or how come I have offers in the three areas? The answer to this question lies at the heart of this article.

I later changed my Cybersecurity offer to data and analytics where I worked with ambitious organisations to transform their data assets and worked with them to realise their data ambitions. Because of my experience, people often reach out to me to ask for advice on how to also switch to Data and Analytics. Granted, I am in a good place to share insights. However, their premise for coming to me is often always wrong and that’s what I tend to always set right first before an even more extensive conversation.

Today even though I work within the data space, there are still some data jobs that I wouldn’t apply for. And if I did, I won’t be surprised if I don’t get feedback from the recruiters. Why is that? How come the same person that got offered three jobs in completely different industries and functional areas cannot even get a job with his similar competence today?

It’s simple, today, I exist on a different benchmark than I was 4 years ago.

How your benchmark affects the opportunities you attract and its place when you are transitioning career

4 years ago when I was applying for those jobs, all that was required of me was my university degree, evidence of some level of interest in those areas and the ability to tell my story on an interview panel. Plus, the interview at that stage had a different goal. It wasn’t to assess my technical capability, rather it was to see if the hiring manager is comfortable hiring me notwithstanding my probably zero knowledge of the technicalities of the job. Simply put, it was an entry-level job and zero knowledge is assumed for nearly all entry-level jobs.

For such jobs, you are then expected to go through some onboarding training and continue learning on the job. In fact, in your first year, you likely will not be held responsible for any material contribution. When I joined PwC, we were told that we can make all our mistakes in year one and all sorts. Essentially, the expectations then are different. It was the bare minimum.

That’s what I meant by my benchmark. On a scale of expectation, there was zero on me then. It explains why I would get Investment Banking, Cybersecurity and Project Finance positions in the same period.

As someone transitioning to a new career or say switching careers, your reality will be different from mine. You are switching most likely at the end of your entry-level, middle or late stage. All jobs at that level would require that you bring some experience if not near perfect experience to the table. An experience that as a switcher, you are likely not to have. Then it becomes tough to navigate. Some people grow frustrated at this point.

You need to think about it this way though. If you needed someone in your team as well as a senior or manager or director, would you prefer someone with the perfect experience for the role or another with zero experience for the role? I have used perfect and zero as the extreme example here deliberately. And I can imagine that 9.5 out of 10 times, you will prefer someone with the perfect experience. “I’ve done it before” is easier to sell than “I am passionate about this and can do it.” You are the latter in this scenario.

The task for you is to bridge the gap between zero experience to some experience since it would be impossible to have the perfect experience until you actually have the job.

Can we call what I had a career switch?

People consider it a career switch because I studied Accounting and now I am doing Data and Analytics.

Yes, we can call it a switch and it is indeed a switch. But in the hierarchy of switching difficulties, I switched when it was easiest. I did so when expectations from me were near zero.

Understand the stage of career that you are

Here, I’ve given my idea about different stages and the ease of switching based on what would be expected of you.

Entry-level:– easiest to switch because of assumed zero knowledge for nearly all jobs and only a few expectations. Please be aware that zero-knowledge doesn’t mean you should not attempt. Towards the end of my Investment banking interview, the MD said “we are looking for who to train but you seem to know it all.” That’s to tell you the kind of preparation I did and the impression I left.

Senior Level:- here, the least that’s expected of you is the core technical knowledge of your functional area and industry. My advice is to try as much as possible not to make a functional switch here. The reason is that you need to deepen your technical skills well and you are likely not to have done that yet. However, if you feel confident there is nothing more to learn or altogether it’s not even a part for you, then, by all means, move. And it’s fine to move industries. You can still leverage your technical skills. Data Science in Google for instance is very likely to be different from Data Science in Dangote Cement. About the difficulty, this is probably the toughest in my opinion.

Manager level:- you own technical skills already and that’s out of the question. People skills, business development skills, sales and so on are the additions here. I will say it’s easier to switch at this stage compared to the two stages above. All the soft skills here can be immediately utilised in another functional area where your technical skills may not be relevant.

Top management level:- Director, C-Suites etc: where network, vision and people management is the most important things. Few people get to this stage and want to switch careers. But for those who wish to, I’d like to believe it is somewhat easier for them as well. They have a lot to bring to the table and no one would require them to be hands-on. More leadership.

There’s more to know about navigating career switch

The inspiration to write this article came after someone asked me the question of switching careers again. I get the question a lot. While working on this article, the research that I did produced close to 10,000 words. This article is just about 1,000 words. Imagine what you will get from 10,000 words. The content is a rich one filled with some intuitive and counterintuitive nuggets, guides and principles and strategies and blueprints. I am compiling it into an e-book already. I expect it to be ready in a matter of weeks. More details later.