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My Video Entries
Category Archives: Best Advice
Focus is the new cool
It must be indisputable by now that the world of work we accepted as normal just a few years ago, has gone forever. The talk when the world’s economies began to dissolve in 2008 into the thin air of which they were largely made was that we’d ride out the bad times to a recovery. [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Building a Happy Sandpit, Business Advice, Observations, The Laws of Colinism
Tagged as: 2008, change, economy, employee, entrepreneur, Focus, innovation, work, workday
Why networks have the power to kill hierarchies
This is a world where networks defeat hierarchies. There are any number of people who depend on their position in a hierarchy for status. It’s a natural thing; even wild animals are ordered by their place on the food chain. And for many people, especially in some of the more traditional cultures, social and professional [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Business Advice, Observations, The Laws of Colinism
Tagged as: America, Arab Spring, food chain, France, hierarchies, hierarchy, network, networks, revolution
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It’s just a matter of people until I make it
In the past month, as I have reconciled myself with a revised game plan which demands that I leave London and return to make Johannesburg my permanent base, I’ve been struck by a recurring observation. We often say that things are just ‘a matter of time’ as if time has anything to do with real [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Business Advice, Observations, The Laws of Colinism
Tagged as: 2013, Bloomsbury, Harry Potter, people, Philosopher's Stone, projects, support, time
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Why we need more small towns
I’ve always been a capitalist. And I’ve often fancied myself as something of a big city sophisticate, though that was probably only ever in my head. As a result, I’ve occasionally rued the fact that I never found a way to live in New York City in my twenties. Certainly with my mindset at the [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Business Advice, Observations, The Laws of Colinism
Tagged as: Banks, contemptuous, crooked, small town, sociopath, sociopathic, UK
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Release yourself from entitlement
Mark Twain said it first: Release yourself from entitlement. Mark Twain said a lot of very clever stuff actually. Not only was he a great writer, he’s a really, really underrated thinker. Ned Hardy, the self-anointed curator of the Internet lists a bunch of Twain’s brilliant ideas on his blog and I recommend you go and [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Observations
Tagged as: brutality, business, comfort zone, Death Dance, economic times, economy, gloom, libertarian, Mark Twain, mousetrap, thick skin
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It’s okay if they hate you sometimes
Consultative, involved leadership has its benefits. Including people in the grand adventure you lead them on, gets buy-in and can bring out the best in people as they assume a mindset of responsibility and accountability. There’s a reason that it’s becoming popular. But there are times when you have to simply make decisions that not [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Observations, The Laws of Colinism
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Wish for wisdom and courage, not for things
Few things matter more than having the balls to take a stand and the contextual knowledge to back it up. One without the other is pretty useless; balls without knowledge is mere cockiness and knowledge without balls condemns you to slavery to anyone cockier than you. And yet I’m reminded of a story I read [...]
The easiest way of all to stand out
One key to success that keeps coming up time and time again, the more I read up on, and study the subject, is that of being proactive. Getting out and doing something before you’ve even got a business case for it, because you really want to get it done. There are several reasons for this: [...]
Why I believe in honesty
Honesty is the only approach. The older and more experienced I get, not only am I more certain of this, I am generally more fearless in practicing it. We’d all be a lot better off if we put greater emphasis on making more extraordinary true stories and less emphasis on trying to embellish the ones [...]
Posted in Best Advice, Observations, The Laws of Colinism
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Steven R. Covey is not a quack. It turns out he’s a clever man. You may now all read his book.
If my life had a subtext, it would probably be the sincere hope that the term ‘better late than never’ is actually true. Often I have come across ideas in complete earnestness, but been so unable to get to grips with them that I have discarded them as total nonsense, only to rediscover them years [...]
