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Reflections to become The Best Version of Yourself

August 23, 2018

Dannydaniels Uncategorized Leave a comment



This is a collection of phrases that keep me focussed on what is important.

There are seven categories:

Dealing with People
Take Disciplined Action
Accept Reality as it is
Make Progress towards Results
Stay Healthy
Living with Purpose and
Personal Growth.

 

Dealing with People


You will not change them. Let it go.
Who will cry at your funeral?
Never miss a moment to encourage someone.
You will become who you spend most time with.
Communication is measured by what is understood, not how well it is articulated.
It takes two to fight.
Confrontation may be necessary.
Other people can handle more than you think. Be careful with white lies.
Real listening is hard. It requires 100% attention.
There is no such thing as a “self-made man”. Be grateful.
Ask more questions.
The one asking the questions is in control. Are you asking the questions?
Remain curious. The 4th “why?” often gets the real reason.
Learn to attract and use mentors and advisors.
Build networks before you need them.
Get really, really good at concisely presenting your ideas.
Learn to sell.
Aggression begets aggression.
Surround yourself with people strong enough to change your mind.
If you don’t “do politics” others will “do you”.
Learn to differentiate sceptics (good for you) from cynics (bad for you).
In the end people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.
Build lifelong friendships.
Be kind to your mum.
Spend time with people who want you to succeed. Some “friends” don’t want you to grow or change.
Nobody will ever tell you that you made them laugh too much.
What is your label?

 

Take Disciplined Action


Change is painful. Growth requires change. No pain, no gain.


Everyday changes less. Change that.
Incremental change always wins.


Perfect is the enemy of good. Good is the enemy of great.


The best indicator of mastery of big things is mastery of small things. Master the small things.


Do not wish it were easier. Wish you were better.
Get a coach.


Learn to ask for advice and help.


In the Olympics, nobody wins both marathon and 100m sprints. Focus.


Routine sets you free.


Get good at motivating yourself.


Knowing what to do and not doing it is the same as not knowing what to do.


The most dangerous place is in your safety zone.

“I will try” is never enough. Remove “try”.

If you want to be a writer: write; A singer: sing; A teacher: teach.


Kindness and hard work will take you further than intelligence.


If you never act, you will never know for sure.


Delayed gratification is necessary.


We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret

 

Accept Reality as it is


If a problem has no solution, it is not a problem. It is a fact.


Bad things do sometimes happen to good people.
Perfectionism messes you up.


Make allowances for incompetence.


Pain is guaranteed. Suffering is optional.


Very, very little is truly under your control.


The past is gone except in your head. Learn to forget.


Ignore the little things.


No one cares about it as you do.


Stop any negative comments about people not in the room. You are not helping them and are likely positioning yourself in the victim role.


If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.


If it rains, it rains. There is nothing you can do except put up an umbrella.

Making Progress towards Results


There is no “they”.


Love is discipline. Love is work.


Laziness is the life killer. Laziness is the original sin.


When in doubt, just take the next small step.

Commitment before success. Always.

Stop justifying. Break the “yes, but…” habit.

The most reliable predictor of what you will be doing 5 minutes from now is what you are doing now.

Break inertia. Every hour ask “Is this giving me long term benefit or short term happiness?” If No, No then Stop.

If you desire a specific effect in your life you must put in motion the cause of that effect.

Success is a process, not a product. Work on your process and the product will come.

Every time you blame someone, you give away your power to change things.

Leadership doesn’t happen when things are easy.

It is the final 1% that makes you world class.

Don’t see the wall.

A problem is only a problem if you choose to view it as a problem. It is an opportunity.

A dream will remain a dream until it is converted into disciplined, daily action.

If you see yourself as a victim, you will always be one.

Stop being a victim. (Stop enjoying other’s pity).
The circle of pity: The more you feel sorry for yourself, the worse your life will get.

Excuses are a way of not facing up to reality, for pulling out when things get a bit difficult.

One small step completed is a million times better than one big plan thought about.

Act instead of talking about it.

Next time you are about to complain, stop; explain what you are going to do about it.

The world does not owe you a living.
You have to pass the thorns to get to the roses.

The grass is not greener on the other side.

Refuse to use your past as an excuse.

Stop saying “yes, but…”

You don’t need permission. (For what it’s worth, you have mine.)

The problem contains the solution.
It takes 10 years to become an overnight success.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Justification is much, much easier than the hard reality of accepting responsibility.
Do it now.

If you rest too long, the weeds take the garden.

 

Activity finishes the miracle.

Stay Healthy


You can’t be great if you don’t feel great.
Keep fit.
Eat well.
Brush your teeth.
Dream. Play like a Child.
Don’t smoke.
Daily exercise is an insurance policy against future illness. Best leaders are fittest leaders.

Living with Purpose


Life is a gift.
Does today’s schedule reflect your deepest values?
Good students deliver what the teacher wants. Great students deliver what they know to be right.
The best is yet to come.
Imagination is the supreme uniqueness of humans. Use it.
Do not ask: “why me?”; Ask: “What can I learn? What can I do? Who can I help?”
Carpe diem. Memento mori. (Seize the day. Remember you shall die).
Integrity is much more than intention to be honest. It is having a system in place to deliver on your promises.
Say “No” more.
Chains of gold are no less chains than chains of iron.
Reason is the rudder. Passion is the sails. You need both.
You are not your little voice.
Success always starts with ambitious goals. Life gives what you ask of it.
We are educated for busy-ness, not for listening to our own minds at work.
Poverty is about much more than money.
Being everything to everyone is really being nobody to no one.
Success can only be measured from within.
Smell the roses.
Have fun. Every day.
Fun makes life worth living.
Everybody dies. Not everybody truly lives.
The world is not out to get you.
Life is not easy. Life is not fair. This is how it is.
There are always good reasons to be angry, disappointed, let down. Ignore them.
Listen to your angst. It is telling you something important. Don’t turn on the TV to avoid it. It will only get worse.
It is a marathon, not a sprint. It doesn’t matter if you are ahead at the mid-point, it matters that you reach the finish.
The opposite of play is not work, it is depression.
The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy. It is believing that merely existing is actually living.
Remember where you are climbing to and don’t just stick to the ladder.
The unexamined life is not worth living, but the over-examined life isn’t worth living either.
Don’t compare your life to others; you have no idea what their journey is all about.
No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
The reward for conformity is that everybody likes you except yourself.
Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.
Be true to yourself. Lying feels good. Until you are found out.
Take a walk with a turtle. Pause and see the journey.
Know the difference between price and value. A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Personal Growth


The strongest steel is forged in the hottest furnaces.
Some answers can only come from inside.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in the presence of fear.
Your unconscious is wise. Its messages are often difficult. You need to listen carefully.
We are blind. Only other people can help us see clearly.
Make your emotions work for you, not you for them.
When you fall, focus on where you slipped, not where you fell.
We are most blind when we know the most. Assumptions so deep we cannot see them anymore.
Ask: “what did we learn today?” everyday.
Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
Best way to learn to do it right is to first do it wrong.
The more you go to your limits, the more your limits will expand.
Mastering a few things is much better than mediocrity in many; and it is the route to mastery of big things.
Read daily.
Excellence in one area is the beginning of excellence in every area.
Incremental improvement always wins.
Outlearn your competition.
Every single person in the world could be a genius at something, if they practiced it daily for at least 10 years or 10,000 hours.
The only source of good knowledge is bad experience.
Make the best of the worst. It is easy to make the best of the easy times. It is hard to make the best of the hard times.
Life is a contact sport.

RULES OF AN ENTREPRENEUR

August 23, 2018

Dannydaniels Advice, Counsel Leave a comment

1) Make the commitment. You need to decide to be an entrepreneur and leave the traditional path behind. A good friend of mine, who has built a Ksh400M company, once told me that choosing to be an entrepreneur, deciding to give up the seemingly safe employer-employee world, is like disengaging from the matrix. Once you have experienced reality, you never want to go back.

2) Find a problem, then solve it. There are two types of businesses –“pain” and “pleasure.” “Pain” businesses have a higher success rate because they address more urgent problems. Venture out to address a problem that is personal, that you care about, that you would love to solve.

3) Think big. You can never build what you cannot imagine, so to build a business that has big impact, you have to believe you can do it from the start. You come at the problem with a calm confidence. There is no reason to scream “We can do it!” because you just know it; it’s inevitable. Whatever is stopping you for really believing you can do what your business plan says you can do, dissect it, extract it, and throw it away.

4) You can’t do it alone. There are two types of people: big-idea people and get-it-done people. Very few of us can do both. Be honest with yourself, decide which type you are, then find (hire or partner with) someone who complements you.

5) You must do it alone. Entrepreneurial journeys are lonely. When I launched my consulting business I spent every day for three weeks alone at my computer, working an Excel database I had built of 300 prospective clients, sending 100 emails a day, trying to get my first project. Even after you’ve gotten your business going and have built a team, you will find yourself alone. Leadership, after all, is having no one else to ask.

 

6) Manage risk. Most ventures fail because they run out of money. So never forget “DROOM”–Don’t Run Out of Money. Live by that motto. Calculate what you will need in the worst-case scenario and make sure you have enough. I do this every week now for my business, and I have not hit a cash crunch since.

7) Learn to lead. You will reach a point at which you must shift from managing to leading. This means setting a vision and communicating it. It means making promises (“We will get there”) and keeping them.

8) Learn to sell. This is my favorite. All innovators are sales people. They are selling every day–to investors, to employees, to suppliers, to customers. By convincing everyone that the iPod will change the world, Steve Jobs makes it so. Yet no business school I know of teaches sales! Study the sales process by reading books like SPIN Selling. Get practice by, for example, volunteering to raise funds for your favorite cause. But most importantly, find your passion. If you really believe your product and company and you share it passionately, you will become a magnet.

9) Persist. If you are willing to persist through the tough times, you have a much better chance of succeeding. Develop stubbornness.

10) Play the game for life. Don’t just do this for the money; do it to realize who you are, to create the life you are here to live. One of my favorite quotes from the book reads “Entrepreneurship…isn’t just about solving a problem, building a venture, managing risk, or making money. It’s about having a positive impact on the world, making the most of the gifts you’ve been given, and realizing your full potential as a human being.”

TAXATION

August 23, 2018

Dannydaniels Advice, business, Life, politics, Uncategorized , Leave a comment

I am not a politician and neither am I fighting for any one. But due to the situation in this country let me vent a bit.

Look at our country, we have some of the lowest wage workers in the world, yet companies like Cadbury, Unilever and others closed shop, because they can’t afford the taxes. Companies like Nike and Adidas would rather go to China than Kenya because it’s cheaper there. Not wages, but operating cost.

But Danny it’s the Chinese debt. Actually it’s not. Chinese are loaning African countries money with little or no interest plus no conditions. After all most Chinese are now middle income earners so China needs a China and funding infrastructure in Africa opens a door for cheap labor and a business hub for Chinese people. But IMF and WB have conditions, so do Americans and other countries that are supporting us. Condition number one, high tax rates. So that you can prove you can pay the debt. China on the other hand, if Kenya has good roads it gives China access to Congo, Ethiopia and other countries that don’t have good ports to ship goods.

But Boss, government so creating jobs..
The answer is no, at least not as many people think.

For most Africans, government should be responsible for creating jobs. that`s a white lie. Governments are NOT responsible for job creation (though our constitution wrongly says they should).

Government don`t know how to and cannot create jobs.

The only thing government can do (and should do) is to create conducive environment and facilities that will help you and I to create jobs.

Yes, job creation is the duty of yourself and myself, for ourselves and other Africans. Unless working in the Military or being a teacher counts. You see the government is not a profit making entity. And out of 50 million Kenyans it can only employ 10% o give or take, so even if it employs 2,000,000 Kenyans we are still in trouble.

So instead of the West insisting on high taxes why don’t they push for tax cuts. These taxes have killed any possibility of economic development. Why are you killing any hope of us ever helping our selves? Because overtaxation means, no investors, no jobs and hence we are at the mercy of charity and loans. And for a guy who struggled paying Mshwari, KCB, branch and Tala among other mobile app loans i can assure you it’s a pit you don’t want on us unless you hate us.

The issue is not the East, the issue is the conditions of the West. I know you are a middle class earner and paying an extra 30 shillings on your fuel which is already above 100 shillings it’s not a biggie. But think of the family that the father is paid 200 shillings a day. How I’ll it affect them?

Taxes can’t raise any money if they kill the economy, if we want to save this country. Let’s be reasonable stop over taxation. Because the economic depression coming our way will be worse than Greece. We will never be able to grow our economy.

That’s all folks. What’s do you think? Am i wrong?