A Little Something About Relationships & Love

I do not claim to be an expert in relationships; I most certainly am not. As a young man in my twenties, I am only beginning to explore and learn about the numerous intricacies of a healthy, loving relationship.

Nonetheless, the topic interests me a great deal, not least because I am in a relationship myself. One of the questions that truly stirs me up is: how do you know when someone is right for you?

I choose my words very careful. I chose to use the word 'right' instead of 'perfect', since neither any person nor any relationship can ever be perfect.

Back to the point. Someone might be right for you because she has similar interests, passions and ambitions. Others might be right for you if they are willing to sacrifice part, if not most, of their interests, to support and assist you in the difficult task of life.

However, I would encourage every one in a relationship to open their eyes and consider the prospect of loving a person for who they are.

That is, loving a person in her entirety, both her positive and negative aspects

We will never find our 'other half', if we look exclusively for positive features. So the best we can do is to accept these delicacies in others, about which we worry, and ask whether they are more important than the overall magic of the relationship.

Often times the negative aspects are overruled by actions that are far, far more important.

Examples include the act of actively supporting and loving, the act of making your partner feel like a billion dollars when he feels like a discarded penny, and the act of surrendering yourself to the mutual interest of a relationship.

Moreover, the imperfections in a parter can be seen as the "good stuff"

(To quote Robin Williams)

I consider myself to be intelligent, well spoken, and nice and personable. But my sneezes are loud and horrendous, I tend to fart on occasion, and I stretch my long arms in public without much regard for obstacles, often other people, in the nearby surroundings.

Funnily enough, the imperfections about me are what I love the most. And the imperfections I see in my girlfriend are also what I love the most about her!

So perhaps we should appreciate imperfections in ourselves and in others, stop focusing on the perfections that are mostly irritating, and feel free to get caught up in our romanticism and pursue a relationship just because it is interesting and human to do so. 

Get loving, bitches.

Creating the Conditions for Excellence

Successful outcomes depend crucially on underlying conditions. A secure building relies on firm foundations grounded in such a way to provide safety during turbulent weather. Effective writing depends on a thorough understanding of language and grammar. Winning teams in sport rely on the conditions of solid preparation and planning.

Similarly, achieving excellence in a given field, consistently, day by day, depends on a set of important underlying conditions.

These conditions may include the following: adopting a positive attitude; working very hard; overcoming obstacles and setbacks; and leveraging one's abilities with those of others.

In this post, however, my focus is on a condition that may surprise those of us who have been high achievers for most of our lives: the courage to be bad.

Let me repeat that again. The courage to be bad. On first sight, this conditions seems inconsistent with achieving excellence. Being bad and achieving excellence are polar opposites, are they not?

Yes and no, is the answer to that question. The paradox can be solved by thinking in the following way:

If I am trying to be good at everything, I will be excellent at nothing. 

In other words, if I am truly to be excellent at one thing, I must gather the courage to be very bad at another thing, or as is more likely, MANY other things.

A second condition that complements the courage to be bad is that of collaboration. This condition is similar to the first, in that it recognises one's own innate limitations and seeks to overcome them through active cooperation and teamwork with others

Collaboration is the act of, first, recognising your own weaknesses, and second, valuing the strengths of others, which, when combined with those of your own, produces a superior outcome than that which results from the sum of the independent parts.

A human trait that enables collaboration to thrive more effectively is humility, which I define below:

Humility is not holding oneself in low esteem, but holding others in high esteem.

In exercising humility, and thereby holding others in high esteem, we provide others with 'breathing space' or 'psychological air', a space that would typically be filled with hostility and hatred in the absence of humility. 

In summarising this post, it is worth considering that the courage to be bad complements the act of being humble, which, as aforementioned, supports collaboration. 

The courage to be bad shows that you appreciate the expertise of people in fields other than your own, and therefore, holds those people in high esteem. 

In essence, then, the courage to be bad can be viewed as the starting condition for achieving excellence. Perhaps the price we must pay for being successful and achieving excellence is to suck at other things. I would describe that as a fair bargain. 

Distinguishing between the Urgent and the Important

We live in a world of urgency. Tight deadlines must be met, schedules must be followed closley, and time should 'optimised' as much as possible so that our performance is efficient.

Facing urgent situations is, then, a defining feature of life for most of us. And because these situations are a matter of urgency, we sometimes mistakely confuse such cases as also being important. Yet there is a critical difference between activities that are urgent and those that are important. I will begin this post by explaining this difference, and then discuss its significance.

Answering the phone is a urgent activity. If one does not pick up the phone in time, it cannot be answered at that given moment, and so we must 'rush' to answer. But is answering the phone an important activity? It depends. If the caller is seeking help for an emergency, then yes, but that, and similar cases, are rarely so.

Exercising and maintaining a healthy diet are important activities, though not urgent ones. If I do not go to the gym once a week, nothing terrible will happen to me. Moreover, there is nothing placing immediate pressure on me, such as a time constraint, to visit the gym; the gym will always remain open. However, if I choose to invest in my health and exercise reguarly, I will reap rewards (gainz).

So a key difference can be seen here. Urgent activites place pressure on us to act. The ringing phone is a signal that we must pick it up at once. Important activites, however, do not always pressure us to act upon them, though we ought to do so.

What is the significance of all this?

The significance is that we should pay closer attention to ascertaining whether the activities we do on a regular basis are urgent, important, or both. Focusing mostly on important activities should, in most cases, make us happier, more at ease, and more successful. This is my view.

For instance, preparing for an exam or an interview well in advance is an important activity, which also becomes more urgent as time goes on and the event approaches. But prior preparation and planning, though not urgent, is important for maximising the probability of success.

Another example is investing in relationships. Spending time with our parents and siblings is not urgent, while other activities, such as submitting a snapchat story, or responding to a text, or watching the new episode of MIC, are arguably more urgent.


As a young adult, I am aware that there is much time in my life to do many things, but it would be foolish of me to think this time should be wasted incessantly on urgent, albeit unimportant, activities.

Life is short and sweet, and each moment is memorable precisely because it is not endless.

I strongly urge you, as the reader, not to give up all of your urgent activities, but rather to give more careful consideration to those activities that, while not urgent, are important and could perhaps add more meaning and happiness to your life.

Happiness, it lies in the present

Happiness is an emotional state that we all desire. Yet very few of us find ourselves in a state of genuine happiness, and even fewer are happy for extended periods of time.

Throughout life, most of us come across the notion of pursuing happiness, implying that it's not permanent. This means that, when one is happy, one is embracing the inevitable prospect of becoming sad, which diminishes the pleasure of being happy at that very moment.

The pursuit of happiness is futile in other respects, too. Consumerism and advertising would have us believe that happiness arises from acquiring new items. The desire to acquire might give us a heightened sense of pleasure, as one experience while under the influence of ecstasy, but this path is nothing more than a happiness treadmill, leading to the undesirable destination of never being completely satisfied with what we have.

Others contend that, once we become successful, we become happy, and that the pursuit of happiness essentially translates into the pursuit of success. Those who pursue this line of reasoning completely overlook the fact that being happy is a conducive condition for achieving success, as we are more determined, productive, and approachable in a happy state than a sad or miserable one. The relationship, it appears, runs the other way.

Psychologists have long researched the causes of happiness. Their findings point to acts of kindness. Sharing food and clothes, giving out hugs, and listening to the concerns of our friends are acts that generate the warm, fuzzy feeling of happiness inside us.

In performing such kind acts, we do not have in mind 'the pursuit of happiness', but rather an eagerness to support and care for those people whom we love. We do not worry about being happy, because we know that happiness will naturally follow suit.

So far, it seems that, in pursuing happiness, it becomes more of destination, than a condition. A destination towards which we approach, but never actually arrive. Even so, the journey is that much better in the company of those we love, and with generosity, kindness, and enthusiasm.

Think about the following:

If we think not about pursuing anything, yet alone happiness, and merely consider this given moment, in which there is no harm, no danger, and no serious concern, and where we can live and breathe and be free in all of our strength, then this is the moment when we are happy.

Put aside your worries about the future. Happiness lies in living and being free in the present.

Emotional Intelligence, the defining characteristic of great leaders

Consider any great leader: Winston Churchill; Martin Luther King; John F Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; Mahatma Gandhi; and Benazir Bhutto. All of the mentioned leaders were incredibly intelligent, but it was not their intelligence that defined them as great leaders; it was their emotional intelligence.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman coined the phrase 'emotional intelligence', writing a book with the same title. He argues that truly successful leaders almost always display emotional intelligence, manifested in self-awareness, self-control, motivation, drive, empathy, and social skill.

These soft skills have more recently been emphasised as key characteristics of those who run the world's most successful and powerful organisations. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs highlights the need to become 'a complete person', capable of interacting with a wide range of people, while his rival, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, stresses the necessity of keeping one's emotions in control during tough and turbulent times.

That is not to deny the value of intelligence for sound leadership. Instead, it is my aim to argue, in this post, that intelligence is a necessary albeit insufficient condition for developing oneself into a successful leader. We all know of one person who is incredibly bright and smart, but who did not succeed to a great extent as a leader.

Why not?

To provide a satisfactory answer, let us consider, in some detail, three key components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, motivation, and empathy.

Developing self-awareness is to explore and understand one's values, desires, and areas for improvement. People with self-awareness know what makes them 'tick' and where they are going in life and how they will get there.

For instance, a self-aware person, who suffers from the pressure surrounding tight deadlines, will plan ahead and complete the required work well in advance. Self-aware people also admit to their mistakes, and as a result, are more likely to learn from their mistakes and perform better in the future.

Self-aware candidates demonstrate a thirst for constructive criticism, because they realise the potential to growth through listening to others. 

Second, if there is one trait that all great leaders possess, it is motivation. We are all motivated by external factors in the world, be it money, status, or power. Truly great leaders, however, are motivated by a deeply embedded desire to achieve for sake of achieving and becoming great.

These people love what they do and display unconditional enthusiasm and energy almost all of the time. These are the people who do not accept the status quo as given; they are the game changers in business, law, medicine, and other professional realms.

Highly motivated leaders remain optimistic even when the odds are against them. 

Finally, empathy is a crucial skill that great leaders have developed over time. Empathy does not equate with pity. Rather, it refers to the ability of a leader to recognise and understand the feelings of her team and base intelligent decisions on how her team is performing.

Given the need to attract and retain talented employees and team members, it is needless to say that leaders must be able to communicate and engage with their team in a meaningful and connected manner, such that the whole team feels a part of something special and capable of doing good for the team and the wider community.


To summarise, great leaders with emotional intelligence are:

1. able to understand their internal drivers and values

2. motivated to purse what they love unconditionally and relentlessly

3. capable of connecting with a wide range of people

4. able to empathise and listen to people and make intelligent decisions on that basis

and most importantly...

5. are not scared by what they are capable of achieving


Be a great leader by developing your own emotional intelligence.

Love at first sight?

Think back to a time when you were starstruck, literally, after seeing a man or woman whom you believed to be, without a doubt, your true love. Whether you both shared a certain twinkle in your eyes, or let off a small smirk after glancing at each for a few seconds, there is most certainly something special at play in these moments.

The most intense forms of love tend to occur in the early stages of a relationship, suggesting that our attraction to someone at the first instance of seeing them is usually an occurrence that remains in our minds and hearts.

Further evidence that love at first sight exists arises from the fact that human beings have the ability to judge, within a few seconds, whether they believe another person is attractive in their eyes. The first step in almost every relationship is based on attraction based on physical appearance.

A similar line of reasoning maintains that first impressions have a powerful influence on us. Here the two possibilities are at either extremes. In the first, positive instance, we are completely blown away by a guy or gal that we want to wrap our arms around them until the end of eternity, though we never actually deliver on this. 

On the other extreme, we are somewhat disgusted by another's pride, arrogance, or lack of empathy, that we choose to repel ourselves away from him or her, even though our judgement here is in fact very superficial and immature. 

My purpose in this post, however, is to present a case that undermines the view that love at first sight exists. Here's why.

First, there is no compelling reason for accepting that love has to be a noun. Love is also verb. To love someone is to be there for her unconditionally, in bad times and good, an action. To love someone is to make sacrifices for her, another action. See the pattern?

Second, to develop a feeling for someone that is as powerful and intense as the feeling of love requires us to grasp a deeper understanding of another's soft side. Traits such as intellect, compassion, kindness, and a good sense of humour cannot be revealed at first insight. On this basis, it is difficult to develop love, in a truly meaningful way, at first sight. 

Let me be clear and admit that there is definitely a case to be made for feeling substantial arousals when first seeing someone whom we believe to be somewhat extraordinary and special to us. I personally have experienced this many times in life.

Yet to claim that we 'are in love' after an initial encounter is perhaps stretching too far, given that love is something we develop over a long period of time. 

REMEMBER

Love is not only a noun, but also a verb.

Do what makes you come alive

'It felt like breathing; it felt right.'

She came alive, at the age of 20, when she held her first talk show event. She is Oprah Winfrey and she is a woman regarded by many around the world as a source of inspiration, love, and meaning.

Coming alive is to pursue a passion relentlessly and without care about what others might think. Coming alive is to live every day with enthusiasm and drive, always striving to fulfil your greatest potential.

This is mentally draining, which is why Oprah strongly emphasises that we each find what makes us tick and wake up in the morning, so that we can persevere when things get tough, because we love what we do.

Let's now consider how doing the thing that 'makes us come alive' fits in with success. For the purposes of clarity, we will look at Oprah as an example.

Serving as the lead on one of the most popular talk shows in world clearly has its financial benefits. We should never neglect the importance of money and attaining a position of financial stability.

Money helps us cater for our needs and for those whom we are responsible, such as our family and friends. Money also enables us to seize opportunities, to which we would not be exposed if we did not have a sufficient amount of money.

Money does not, however, add meaning to one's life. Meaning comes from listening to your feelings and making decisions based on your gut, says Oprah. Your gut is your GPS for life, guiding you through obstacles, challenges, and uncertainty.

Here's the difficult part. Only YOU can understand your gut feeling. So, making a decision based on your gut could seem entirely absurd from the perspective of other people, but to you it IS natural. IT IS RIGHT. There is a good case, then, for developing the resilience, over time, to care less about the views others hold about your decisions and instead devote more attention to understanding how we feel as unique individuals.

What about failure? What if doing the thing that makes me come alive is challenging and hard? As you already know, nobody said that anything worthwhile is easy. Let me, however, share some advice that I received quite recently.

Michael Nartey, co-head of Global Distribution at Barclays (formerly managing director at Goldman Sachs), is a man who rose to the top of one of the world's greatest financial institutions having been born and lived in Ghana for a large part of his life.

He said the following:

'If you are able to go home, reflect on the possible lessons that you should learn from your mistake or failure today, and come into work the next day with a fresh mindset that involves not thinking about the day before, then you will become successful.'

Michael's point could alternatively be explained in the following way: learn from your mistakes, but live in the present.

I cannot over emphasise the importance of living in the present. Opportunities, in the form of occasions to seize career-related opportunities, to develop and enhance your relationships, or to simply laugh and hug the people you love, occur in the present.

We cannot seize these wonderful opportunities that add meaning and happiness in our lives if we are too consumed with the past or too worried about what the future may bring.

Both are outside our control: we cannot change the past and we have virtually no influence over the future. Developing the humility and resilience to concede to this fact is the first step in letting go of a burden that keeps us back and arriving at a more peaceful state of mind.

Find what you love, what makes you come alive, and devote yourself to that day in, day out, with integrity, passion, and endless drive.

Do what makes you come alive and show it to the rest of the world