Here is your Five-Bullet Monday
A quote I am pondering:
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humour, but without folly.” — Jim Rohn
This quote nicely outlines the balance required for strong but caring leadership. It is easy to slip into some of the traps highlighted in the quote when you are leading. So regular self-assessments and feedback loops are a must to remain balanced in our leadership styles.
A question I am asking myself:
What might be holding me back from my A Game?
Bringing our A-game is essential to all the facets of our life. Just as importantly, we need to bring our A-game consistently. I don’t know about you, but I often slip off my best performance. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been learning to analyse better what’s making my performance drop. It could be the food I ate, the amount of sleep, a lack of focus, poor thinking or distractions? As I learn to isolate these little saboteurs more quickly, I can get back up to full speed much quicker. Hopefully, it will also work for you?
A book I am reading:
Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen – Dan Heath
I got a lot out of this book, which challenges us, not just to solve the problems we encounter but to go to the source of those problems and try and resolve them from there. Instead of fishing pollution out of the river downstream, go upstream, way upstream, and find the source of pollution and eliminate it there. It is usually easier to solve the problems downstream, and often we like being acclaimed the fix-it guy or girl. However, the better way is to head upstream and solve it there, once and for all.
My favourite podcast this week:
The Journal – The Vaccine that took 40 years to make
Growing up in Africa, malaria has been an ever-present threat. This podcast talks about the Malaria vaccine that took 40 years to make. Its release is terrific news for people in countries most affected by malaria, where the disease takes half a million lives a year. It also explains why the Malaria vaccine took 40 years to develop and the COVID-19 vaccine, only a year.
Hugh-Tips
Spend some time understanding what investments you are buying
Many people think about their stock investments as simply pieces of paper (physical or digital) and don’t go much deeper than that. On the contrary, good investors act like owners of real live businesses, with employees, customers, suppliers, market conditions, and competitors. They carefully select their companies to invest in with an owner mindset and then hold their positions for as long as possible.
If you buy individual businesses instead of ETFs or Mutual Funds, spend a little time getting to know the company you are buying. It will be well worth your time and investment. What you should aim to do is buy great companies, don’t overpay and do nothing. It has been proven that individual investors that are less active in the market do better than their more active peers. The trick is spending the time to find great companies, not overpaying and then sticking with them as long as you can. You then get to ride on the coattails of success of these companies
My highlight this last week
Heading up to NEBC to visit our team there – for the first time in a year
With COVID and my travels, it has been more than a year since I ventured up North. I did so this last week and had an enriching time reconnecting with many team members in person and getting out to one of our mines. I shared several meals with different people, and these were special times as we encouraged and challenged one another.
As busy as our lives get, we should always make sure we carve out some time each day to educate ourselves. That can be through books, articles, podcasts, YouTube or other channels. Whatever the format, the important thing is that we do it – whether that be 15 minutes or an hour or more, we need to make it happen each day. Keeping the habit up is very important. If we let it slip for a day or two, that could become a week or two, and then we have lost ground on self-improvement.
Have an exciting week
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