Now this is one of those topics that can be controversial. There is no right or wrong answer, but certainly everyone has an opinion.  To succeed you must work hard and do whatever it takes, is one school of thought. While the other school of thought encourages us to always maintain a work life balance, to focus on the quality of personal life and to do only what we need to do to get by at work.

How many hours per week do you work? If you run a business or climbing the career ladder, there is a good chance you are putting in more than 40 hours. My guess is you are working 50 hours per week — maybe even more.

Working overtime is inevitable, especially when you are approaching an important deadline/have a deal to close, when your colleagues are on holiday, and you are responsible for covering their roles, or if it’s just a busy season and you need to offer a helping hand for your team to meet targets.

But, when it becomes something of a norm, you need to...

Emotions play a significant role in our day to day working environment.  It’s where we spend most of our time and it’s what consumes much of our thoughts. Our thoughts trigger our feelings and feelings trigger the emotions.

In the modern workplace we all experience information overload, constant change, and scarce resources— so it should not come as a surprise that this environment is an emotionally charged and complex one. What we also forget, in the middle of our hectic days, is that the way we react to emotions at work will add to that complexity. Emotional intelligence in the workplace, particularly in our Leaders, is precisely what all organisations need.

We all know that at a management level, emotional intelligence and self-awareness skills are more valuable than technical skills. A typical manager spends as much as 40% of his or her time dealing with conflict between team members (Washington Business Journal, May 2005). This statistic is...

People in recent times have not been taking vacations. 40% of people worldwide don’t plan on using all of their paid time off this year. And you may be one of those people. Are you hoarding up your precious vacation days and do you keep saying you’ll use them, but something always seems to get in the way? Maybe it’s your workload, or, maybe you’re worried about your job security.

The most common reason why people are not taking vacation is because they suffer from what researchers call a “martyr” complex, in which they believe that no one else can do their job as well as they can. Another 20% of people who don’t take vacations say they skip out because they are afraid and feel they are easily replaceable.

If you too have relegated vacations down your list of priorities, it is time to recognize that it is as important as good food and exercise. 

And more importantly: Taking a vacation could make you even better at your job....

We often hear about some incredible stories and success of people starting their own businesses and the things they achieve. Why is it we always think that other people can do things better than ourselves or can do more than ourselves? I find this to be a very interesting idiosyncrasy in the way we think.

In its simplicity, if someone else can do it, then so can you. What you should be asking yourself every day is, “Why not me?”

And here’s the truth in its purest form. If you really, really want it, and you can see it in your mind, you can have it in reality. You just have to really want it, make a committed decision and progress towards your object of desire. It does not matter what type of business it is.

Here are 6 very simple yet really powerful steps to help you in your endeavours:

1. Step In

And jump in full force. Don’t look back. Be ready to unleash the real you. Dream big.

2. Step Up

There’s always a blue...

The 100% Foolproof 6 Step Formula to help you make a shift to achieve what you really want.

People often ask me, “How do you do it? How do you stay so disciplined and how do you always seem to have a solution to everything?” They ask me, “Does anything seem too much for you? Do you ever feel stuck? How do you deal with being stuck?” The truth is, I don’t always know everything and in fact, there is so much that I don’t know.

But this I do know 100%, I will never let a goal go because I do not know how to do it, or the results don’t seem to be coming to me.  If I look at my results and I am not happy with them, then I know it’s something to do with how I am looking at it, how I am feeling and how I am reacting to my own internal feelings.

And…I have a foolproof formula that works every time that I’d love to share with you.  So, let’s keep it all very simple.  Ask yourself this, “Am I getting...

“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” – Seth Godin

Over the years, I’ve always been blessed with the most incredible mentors. I have grown from strength to strength because they saw something in me, that at the time, I did not see in myself. Now, all I want to do is pay this forward, as I hope others will, because we all need great mentors in life who are willing to take people under their wings and help them to soar.

I want to share my top 20 lessons that I have learnt from my mentors over the years, in the hope that it will help you to reach your goals.

1. If you’re not scared with the goals that you have set then you’re not growing very much! Discomfort is a reflection of growth so, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
2. Be very clear with what you want and then make a committed decision to follow it.
3. Always focus on what you want and not what you don’t want.
4. Be focused, stay focused and...

Reem has always expressed that she had the most beautiful childhood and has the best memories, despite growing up in a culture of religious and ethnic segregation. Politics played very heavily around her and it was a case of have and ‘have nots’, oppressor and oppressed. All disguised and masked, nothing ever appeared as it really was. She recalls how everyone around her had an opinion, everyone believed their view was right and it was always fiercely black and white.

Reem’s mother worked with people from all communities, of all religions and from many varied ethnic backgrounds, so she grew to love many amazing people who had overcome so many hardships in life. From people who had been imprisoned for political reasons, to young kids who had lost limbs and eyesight in mine fields, to people who survived some horrendous conditions during World War II and had rebuilt their lives to become successful and influential public figures. She knew that everyone had a...