“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 be determined. Always have a “whatever it t
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The choice is always yours about what you think.

In 2005, the National Science Foundation published some results of a study it conducted on the average number of thoughts we have per day.

Their research suggested that each person has an average of 60,000 thoughts a day. Now if you look at other studies, this figure can be anywhere between 50,000 to 85,000. So, as an approximation let’s take 60,000 as being the figure.

That’s one thought per second in every waking hour. What was also found was that of this 60,000 thoughts per day,  95% are the same thoughts repeated every day. So every day we churn through the exact same thoughts over and over, and over again. To take it one step further, on average this same study found that 80% of those habitual thoughts are negative. Now that last figure is really, really scary!  80% of our repeated daily thoughts are geared towards the negative. Given that we know that we become what we think about all day long, that would suggest that more peopl...

How heavy is the weight of worry on your shoulders?

People worry. We all worry. A small amount of worry or concern is actually healthy. It can really motivate us to get into action and it can protect us from harm. It all goes back to our primitive times where worry kept us alert and helped us survive. We had to be alert and our minds were designed to protect us from predators and danger. It helped us with our flight or fight instinct. But what happens when we allow our mind to constantly worry? Day in and day out we allow our mind to only react to situations, be consumed by fear and worry about the dreaded “what ifs”.

According to the Daily Mail in the UK in 2008, a survey of 2,000 people suggested that we spend a total of 6.5 years worrying, on average. That is a staggering amount of time! I’m just going to put it out there – worry is one of the most disruptive and destructive emotions we possess and if we are not careful it can become an incredibly bad habit to have, taking us down...

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 story to tell and that each ...