“Agree with God not your emotions”

The other day, I got a one line email from my former Pastor which said: “Agree with God not your emotions!” For some reason I opened it and after reading the one liner I believed the universe was speaking to me, and I thought I got the message. But I found out today that there was more to the message than what I thought I understood.

I have always believed that the universe speak to us out of context. This means that when you get clues, signs, symbols, messages not matter what they are, they do not always come in the right order or the at the right time or place to make sense, but if you file these tid-bits pieces of information, eventually the whole bigger message is eventually revealed…our challenge is having the ability of instant recall to put these pieces of information together and finally get the bigger message as a whole.

Well I had a disturbing dream which made me work up at 4:23am Saturday morning! Thereafter I could not go back to sleep and I lay in my bed mulling in over my disturbing dream. I call my girlfriend at about 5:45am to brainstorm my dream and to get some grounding because my emotions were swirling within me at 200miles/minute. After a brief conversation I got back to my dream and started running it through again, but 30 more minutes of going in circles in my head, I finally decided to get up and get ready for my all day Saturday seminar. Had the music going on but for some reason it was not working for me to rearrange my frazzled nerves. So I decided to have some ginger lemon tea and turn the TV on.

TV was the last thing I needed but I went ahead and turned it on to CNN anyway…not what I needed. Then I started surfing the channels and saw Morning Inspiration on BET…did not feel like being preached to, I thought, but I clicked and tuned in anyway, still sipping my strong ginger tea. Pastor Dr. Michael Murdock was on. I have seen him but never listened to him at all…something about his presentation style, but for some strange reason, his presentation style seem to resonate with me this morning, though I did not follow or pay attention to the first five minutes of his sermon. Then he started talking about the Law of the Mind…and he was mention something about Lance Armstrong’s book “it’s not about the Body” and my buzz word – having FAITH! Then I tuned in. He narrated how Armstrong talked about his recovery being from the ability to control his mind and having faith….Now I am a strong believer in having FAITH and having Faith in God’s divine power and intervention in my life. So once I tuned in, I realized that this was the GOD message that had been prefaced by the one line email message I got from my former pastor “agree with God not your emotions”!!! It was the prayer that I needed. Here are some of the actual words that served as my message got from his sermon:

LAW OF THE MIND: Faith is the only way to conquer fear! (He referenced Psalms 119/91/37)

LAW OF RECOGNITION: What is it that you are not seeing? Everything you ever wanted is there around you, but you cannot see it; maybe because you are not expecting it

LAW OF TWO: There are differences in the seasons of your life; the differences are not time – it’s a person, i.e. a person can create a new season in your life and you are actually always one person away from your season! For example, if you are poor and seeking wealth, the difference between poverty and prosperity is a person;

What the Pastor was inferring here was it only takes one person to change your life forever. I have always believed in another sermon another Pastor preaches on the 24hr miracles. So as I was sitting there and I started thinking, I already know this, how come it not informing my consciousness to deal with my dream and the circumstances I was currently in….What is it I am not seeing…” Like a light bulb I realize that I was listening to my emotion and all rationality and objectivity had gone out of my reasoning! Agee with God, I chanted, Agree with God…

THE LAW OF PLACE: Everything contained contents an invisible instruction/an assignment! Your place is a sign, a seed to allow u to multiply. Your place of assignment is always to a person or to a group of people. There is a place - where the blessing of God is there for you! When you are where you belong you have no RIVAL! When you are where you belong you u THRIVE! Where ever you are supposed to be, your prosperity in there… (Another light bulb went on…and I am thinking how could I have been so distracted?) Then he referenced a book by Joel Osteen called “The place called There” to emphasis his point.

LAW OF HONOR: If you fail in life, it’s because of the person you choose to dishonor; If you succeed in life it’s because of the person you chose to honor. All blessing come through a chain of authority (hence respect your mother and father). God rules the world through conversation – if I change your knowledge, I change what you do. In the information you get from your conversations, LISTERN TO THE SOUND OF HONOR!

Wow…my mind is still reeling with translations. I almost missed the message because I was too quick to conclude that the initial message was THE message. The message was bigger than I originally thought! In my distraction, I had forgotten the phenomenal, dynamic, dimensions of God’s divine universe. I am still digesting these messages as I write this note facilitating my seminar! AGREE WITH GOD, NOT YOUR EMOTIONS!

Copyright @ Sunday July, 18 2010 on FB, (Reposted on BlogSpot February 27, 2011) by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: A REVOLUTION SWALLOWS ITS LEADERS IN 2011 (PART 2)...

Conscientious Objector: A REVOLUTION SWALLOWS ITS LEADERS IN 2011 (PART 2)...: "My father was one of the revolutionaries of the Zimbabwean struggle and he used to say to me all the time “A revolution swallows its leaders..."

A REVOLUTION SWALLOWS ITS LEADERS IN 2011 (PART 2)

My father was one of the revolutionaries of the Zimbabwean struggle and he used to say to me all the time “A revolution swallows its leaders” when we get into political debates. I remember asking him once what he meant by this statement and he simply said, “If a leader does not know or choose when to step down graciously, then the law of nature (in the form of  a revolution) is bound to take them down!”  I nodded as if I understood his explanation, but I really did not grasp it. I was only 10, maybe 12 years old. My father was my inspiration for loving politics. He had a lot of charisma about his tolerance of it.

 But before this statement, I also remember once asking him why, despite all his past sacrifices for the struggle for Zimbabwe and present political engagements, he never hungered for political power? For political positioning and why he stood by and watched his compatriot curve out political power and got positioned into lucrative political positions at the independence of Zimbabwe? It angered me that he got nothing out of his struggle for the liberation of Zimbabwe! That he never got acknowledgement for it, in some way or other after the sacrifices that he made….which included us having our house bombed with Molotov cocktails (home-made petrol bombs) during the Zhanda days of the Zimbabwean revolution. (My mom, sister and I almost died in that bombing incident).

Zhanda - For years I had a dream that haunted me of an all consuming fire flames lapping at me and a cloudy white mushroom overcoming me such that I could not breath! Then suddenly I would wake-up in a cold sweat.  I had that dream for many, many years and could never understand why it always recurred or repeated itself so identically? It was not until I was an adult living in America I realized that the dream was my babyhood trauma of remembering that Molotov cocktail bombing incident of our house! I was only a baby when the incident occurred!  The dreams also stopped when I left my homeland. I also remember my father always in hiding from the Rhodesian government, so the family story goes. Growing up, for years, I was used to my father disappearing and then reappearing with no logical explanation! The disappearing acts coincidentally stopped when he went to the Lancaster House Conference in the UK to participate in the “negotiated” the peace treaty for Zimbabwean independence!

Anyway, moving forward in 1996, the first time he mentioned  “a revolution swallows its leaders” statement, I was home on vacation from America and my father stopped by the house one afternoon and we found ourselves talking about his political passions. Just him and I. It was the time he was passionate about the promise of the new opposition political party –the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM). I was concerned. I had asked him, why he was now aligning himself with ZUM, which seemed infested by disgruntled political pariahs, and I also felt that they were “using” him as their sounding board because he was non-threatening to the ruling regime, so if anything, there did not seem much for him to gain by supporting the opposition, except putting himself and us in danger! For years, I had felt that he had sacrificed so much and yet he had never benefited from his sacrifices! I also felt that he was always inventing excuses of why he did not get his own! I had secretly thought he was always pulling his punches when it came to his politics, thus he was a political coward! How wrong I was!

That afternoon, I realized he made political scarifies for the common good, not for his personal gain!  I remember telling him that politics was not for idealists! Then I also remember that after I said that, he looked at me with the pride of amusement at my passion yet at the same time the wise look in his eyes told me I had a lot to learn. His eyes also told me (now I realized) I reminded him of his younger, passionate political self!  But in response to my belligerent, enthusiastic comments and reasoning, he remained engaged in our conversation and that’s when he said to me – “A revolution swallows it leaders!” It sounded like a profound statement, but I did not understand the insightful depth and wisdom of it! Not then anyway. My father was a great orator so I was used to profound statements whether I understood them or not. In this case, it was a statement out of context and ahead of its time for me to grasp or appreciate its meaning!  Yes he tried to explain, but the, magnitude of his meaning – the epiphany - was to come later!

What did I know? In 1996, I was a newly graduated MA political student from an American University. I was a newly “educated” self-confident radical twenty something, I looked at things differently and had my head full of new perspectives and ideologies (not that I necessarily agreed with them but I understood the logic or rational for them). So I had experienced (theoretically) different political world views and had drunk a diversity of political views in my education! You did not negotiate with betrayers, with sell-outs and there were other ways of doing politics…and government!

Well now in 2011, with all the events unfolding in North Africa and the Middle East, a revolution swallows its leaders makes sense! Overwhelming sense! When a people are willing to die for liberation, a leader, no matter how powerful needs to realize that the beginning of his end has come!

In Part 1 of “A revolution swallows its leaders” published February 2010, I wrote that:

“A revolution swallows its leaders. This is the natural progression of socio-political dynamics. It’s not their choice to be swallowed, but it’s a factor of time, trends and change. But they have options. These options are: Reinvention; Innovation and Diversification. Unless they are willing to reinvent themselves; innovate and diversify their ideas, their political platforms, their agenda, their worldviews, their values, beliefs, culture, geography and paradigms then being swallowed is inevitable. It’s a natural progression of human evolution.” @2/2010 –DocNdoro/SLIPPA

Today, I must add a fourth option: Gracefully stepping down!!! So, I am not surprised at what’s happening in Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya..etc…even Milwaukee, WI, USA.  It happened in Eastern Europe with the fall of the Soviet Union. What I do not understand in this dynamic revolutionary process though is how these leaders are so out of touch with the fact that the wheels of change are turning and its beyond their humanly control to hold on to power? I guess power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely….even the common sense of the mind!!!

 I once wrote a college paper about Democracy and my argument was democracy is not about the regime, the government in power…it’s about the people, therefore “elections’ are not a definition of democracy but an process of how power changes hands. On the other hand, democracy is about how the people exercise their power whether it’s by the ballot or by protest! It was a paradigm shift from how I defined as well as regarded democracy!

Copyright @ February 23, 2011, Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten the Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC

Conscientious Objector: Taming the Monster Ball...When it feels wrong, it’s wrong….

Conscientious Objector: Taming the Monster Ball...When it feels wrong, it’s wrong….

Taming the Monster Ball...When it feels wrong, it’s wrong….

Originally published on FB July 2010...

I just can’t believe what I spent my treasured morning doing...deflating a stupid so called “Bumper Ball”. I am frustrated, annoyed and irritated all at once to think that I should have known better not to buy the stupid toy. But in the store it seems like such a great idea! On the box it said – “Sizzlin’ Cool, Bumper Ball....Bounce! Tumble! RoIl & Spin!” ....well I had imagined my son rolling down my slanted back yard in it and having a blast of a time...of course my reward would be....buying myself some well deserved R&R moments.

Well, I brought it home Tuesday evening. Wednesday all day the ball was on my mind. At the back of my mind a little voice kept saying, this might now be such a practical toy, but another little voice kept saying just try it, it may work out and imagine all the fun Za would have. So when I got home that evening I decided to inflate it and see. By then my son was also curious to find out what this ball was all about...the pictures of the box show a lot of kids on some prairie having a blast with it (not to mention that my reading garden is no prairie, nor does it resemble anything like it!!!) Anyway I was determined to make it work.

All folded up in the box it looked small. Za takes it out of the box and as he starts unfolding it in my living room. I say out loud more to myself than my baby sitter who was getting ready to leave...”It seems big”. As I insert the electric inflation pump I realize that there are 20 little inflation clear socket holes feeding into separate air pockets I have to go through to get the ball fully inflated. There is a sinking feeling in my heart, but I quickly smoother it with my persevering determination. At this point I am more focused on the joy I am imagining for my son having and of course the peaceful moments I am earning myself!

I start filling it with air. After inflating about 4 of the big air pocked I realized the sucker is getting bigger, taking over my living room. No problem, I think, and decide to take it downstairs to my basement living room which has more space. Despite the challenge of trying to fit it through the door then down the flight of stairs and thinking “how will I get it out the door when it’s fully inflated, I continued to inflate anyway when I got downstairs!

It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger with each air pocket I fill in! I think it was at about the 8th socket hole of the 10 big air pockets when my Son looked at the ball, then at me, then at the ball again and said matter of factly “Its big!” and he walked away to continue playing on my elliptical glider . That did me in. All the determination I had been feeling, despite my doubts just ebbed out of me and I instantly crushed. In its place frustration laced with some anger took root! How could I have put myself in this situation! A second later as I am starring at my handy work, I instantly realized that was not the worst of it...Before I can return it to the store, I now had to deflate it to fit it back into the now tiny box by comparison!!!. It had not been cheap - $53 bucks! New determination fueled by hate of the monster ball was emerging.... It was going back! Za said again “It’s so big” and I calmly turned to him and just said “time for bed”. I tossed the now huge partially inflated red MONSTER ball over the couch were my treadmill was and gave it one meaner look before leaving the room!
Thursday morning, I opened my basement door and it was still there...I don’t know where I expected it to go, but I had hoped by some miracle it would have deflated by itself overnight so I wouldn’t have to deal with it manually – wrong – it was still as huge as the night before.

Friday morning, that’s today, I get my son off to school, then I go for my walk, come back get my coffee and laptop and head for the basement psyching myself to tack the ball. As I sit sipping my coffee I pretend it’s not there but its presence was ominous behind my sofa. This morning, with the quiet house to myself, I should have been reading my book club novel - The Passage. But NO, I now have to deflate the stupid Bumper Ball! As Regis and Kelly come on, I watch them for a little and decide to tackle the monster ball, thinking, I will be killing 2 birds with one stone and making me feel competent again.

As I begin, to my horror, I realize I have to squeeze the hard little inflation air sockets in order to get the air out! After doing bumper bulge I know it will take me forever so I had the brilliant idea of getting my vacuum cleaner to suck the air out...but the tight little socket holes don’t open up when I put the vacuum mouth over them. Back to doing it manually again...I do 2 more and it’s too slow so I just decided to lay on top of the monster ball pockets with my whole body and squeeze 2 sockets at a time. BINGO that seemed to work wonders ...for a while as the air was swished out much faster! Then as I am lying there with my face almost on my carpet l it dawns on me...I am like I am lying on top of two huge breast squeezing the nipples of each to let the air out!!! ...I was comical and ridiculous at the same time so I started laughing hysterically, so hysterically that tears are running out of my eyes. I am alone. I don’t care. And the relief is the monster ball is getting defeated! I also realized that I laughed so I would not cry.

The frustration I had felt for not taking heed to my intuition, judgment and my bad decision-making was still simmering and smoldering within me. I have been here before - with the “dysfunctional” huge sand box in the backyard I bought the beginning of summer and which still does not have sand in because it came with a small impractical square plastic for a base for the sand!! It never keeps the sand in the sand box because every time it rains the sand washes away from the bottom. I think some of the morons who make some of these children’s toys must not have children! My boyfriend called just as I was recovering from my hysteria and I tell him my morning saga. He fell out laughing with me for a while. He knew exactly where I was...he assembled the sand box!

As I sit here finishing this article at 1pm Friday afternoon, with the fantasy of my serene morning now gone, I am still not sure who needed the taming - ME or the MONSTER BUMPER BALL!

Originally published on FB on Friday, July 30, 2010 at 1:51pm

Copyright @ July 30, 2010 (Edited and republished February, 2011) by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA & Brighten the Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: A Framework of Possibilities for Small Business Gr...

Conscientious Objector: A Framework of Possibilities for Small Business Gr...: "A while back I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to 50 small businesses who are participating in a new initiative called the En..."

A Framework of Possibilities for Small Business Growth in the Globalization Era.

A while back I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to 50 small businesses who are participating in a new initiative called the Entrepreneur Pioneer Initiative (EPI) launched at Rutgers University – Newark . As the designer and developer of EPI’s nine month training program my presentation was to share the philosophy that informed the training program design, structure and course content components of this initiative. Here is that presentation:

“Let me first start by saying, I really hate the word “training” although I have been a trainer for many years! The idea of training people - implies to me wanting to make people conform to a certain mold of thinking, or doing, or getting them to fall in line with a certain ideological standard!

I have worked for many years with small businesses to know that entrepreneurs are rebels with a cause, although some of you are rebels WITHOUT a cause who think you have a cause! The fact that all of you are pioneer entrepreneurs coming from families where you were the fist to start a business, you definitely are rebels!

So we are not here to ‘train’ you! I can say that while we are going to call it training - for lack of a better word – think of the program as putting out business information so that you can access the “Framework of Possibilities” that are out there to help you realize your growth plan.

It’s a great time to be a small business, especially in this era of economic globalization. This is the time for small businesses. They can do more with less – thanks to the technology and super information highways, business innovation is at the grasp of all small businesses - not just the big corporations. The implication is if you can do more with less you have just increased your profit margin. The other thing is we are operating in a global economy that means your customer demographic just expanded. You can now find the very same potential customer demographic in every county in the world! That’s a good thing.

“But are YOU prepared and ready to tap into these opportunities?”

Last night I was listening to Andy Stern, President of SEIU (Service Employees International Union) being interviewed on the Charlie Rose Show. Rose asked him if he believes capitalism dead or whether we moving towards ‘socialism’? He answered: “National capitalism as we know it is gone, it’s been replaced by Global capitalism!

Well people, global capitalism is a different kind of business animal we all need to get used to. Globalization is here to stay. You can hate it, ignore even pretend that it does not exist, but whether you like it or not you are being forced into it. Your competition is no longer the business next door, in your neighborhood or just your country. Your competitors are all over the world and they are coming right to your door step to take your customers~!

Lets see ~ “How many of you are doing business globally? (4 hands went up); How many of you are doing business in the United States? (All hands went up)

Well whether you know it or not, you are doing business globally, you just choose to focus on the United State? However, DON’T assume that your competitors are making the same choices! They will come and take your customers right on your doorway! That’s the take away lesson right there. And we have anticipated that by having an International trade component in this training program. Joel Reynoso from the US Export Assistance Center is going to talk on that. The US Department of Commerce has so many resources to help you do business abroad. Your competitive advantage as a small business in the United States is that you have immense resources. But if you are not taping into them you are going to be surpassed by those small businesses in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. That’s inevitable.

“How many of you have a website”? (2/3rd of the hand went up) That means you are advertising globally and you don’t even know it!
“How many of you are selling products” (1/2 of the hands went up)?
“How many of you are selling services” (1/2 of the hands went up)?
“How many of you are selling both products and services” (6 hands went up!)

Well you all should be selling both products and services! Sometimes people just buy your product because they like your customer service so rethink what services compliment your products. On the other hand, if you are just thinking I am selling services, this is not a sustainable business model, you are going to have to come up with products or partner with someone with products that compliments your services! Look for those usual suspects that you can partner with to diversify your business model and client portfolio that why we have included a strategic alliance seminar in this program, as well as a Brand Building & Brand development in this program that LaTanya Junior, CEO of www.TCB360.com will be presenting. She will tell you brand building is not your logo! Also forget ‘marketing’ ~ it’s a meaningless label if you don’t know your brand personality or characteristics.

Now let talk about the philosophy that informed the design and development of this training program: We were thinking business growth, business innovation, what does this all mean – these labels – Think about.

“What is business growth?” Well, a business growth is not like a baby you see growing physically. No, growth is a mental state of mind. You start using the information to strategically inform your business decisions making – then you will find that growth is inevitable. When your business model is set up for growth you will grow! But you have to be conscious about how you want to grow. So our job in this initiative is to take you out of working in your business, into g-r-o-w-i-n-g your business! Networking, translating information and acting strategically are going to be major skills in your business growth process. What does this mean?

It means - We want you to become strategic thinkers who are able to take the information that you will get in this program and translate it into information that informs your business decision making through strategic behavior. If you get out of this program with an “Ahha” moment or having experienced an epiphany that jolts you into rethinking or reexamining how you have been doing business, then we have achieved something.

In order to do this, you have to have the mindset to tap into what being offered. Like I said we are not here to train you, but to expose you to a framework of possibilities that your business can tap into. As such we have great expectations of you, we are not here to teach you your craft, but we need you to come with some fundamental understanding of what your business model is about – i.e. What are you selling? What are your strengths? What are your Weaknesses? Or threats – and small businesses know their immediate threats, but there are always blind sports? And maybe what you think are your Opportunities? Giving you a framework of possibilities is an attempt above all else to flesh out those opportunities with you – but then again there are other skills that should be in place – Do you have the capacity? Do you have the capability? Do you have the intellectual capital?

The training program is in structured in 4 parts:

Enterprise Resource Management module– This is an old phrase in business. We specifically take an inventory of all the business asserts and resource capital internally that you need in order to have the capacity and capability to grow your business; People capital, intellectual capital, relationship capital, technology capital, fixed and fluid business capital, etc.

Business Growth module – What business growth state of mind? What is your brand, and what is your brand DNA? What’s your business’s worth? We take it since you have been managing your businesses for a while – you have an idea who your consumer customers are? Because if you don’t, you fell into the wrong program! So you have some major home work to do between now and June 19

Procurement/Contracting module– Are you fit to do business with the public and private sector, ~ GLOBALLY? How do you do business domestically and globally? As the public and private sector continues to outsource their business functions to that growing community called the “Third Sector” also commonly known as the “nonprofit sector”! Its huge and growing, its diverse and its buying goods and services just like everyone else.

.Global Business & Innovation Conference: Finally the program cumulates into a c1 day conference where we will have several panel themes: What is a GREEN Business? What are some of the small Business Innovations out there? What are the small business strategies? What does the future of small business look like globally? Etc, etc, etc…

So be ready, be prepared – and have a strategy of how you are going to maximize your participation in this unique program we have had the opportunity to bring to you.

Thank you.”

Written & Presented by Dr. T.D. Ndoro at the Rutgers EPI launch.

Copyright @2009 SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs) ______________________

Copyright @ May 2009, Dr. TD Ndoro (DocNdoro) Co-Founder - SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Sector) and CEO - EDCTrainers, LLC

Conscientious Objector: TELLING YOUR BUSINESS STORY: A strategy for buildi...

Conscientious Objector: TELLING YOUR BUSINESS STORY: A strategy for buildi...: "Today, in my capacity as the Regional Director of a small business development center, I was invited as the guest speaker at the New Jersey ..."

TELLING YOUR BUSINESS STORY: A strategy for building sustainable business relationships

Today, in my capacity as the Regional Director of a small business development center, I was invited as the guest speaker at the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners-Essex County Chapter Dinner & Board Officers Installation Ceremony. When the President asked me to be their guest speaker I confidently agree, because this is an organization that is a great collaborative partner for the Center. There were 47 women business owners present for the event. When I got there the Chapter President kept on telling me and everyone she introduced me to during the networking session what a great speaker I was and such a draw for them as they have never had such a turn out. It was flattering, but it was also working my nerves into nervousness. I could tell the expectations were high. The fact that she told me they had just cut my talking time did not help. I was supposed to speak on “Managing Your Business” but somehow my intuition had been telling me that this was not an appropriate topic. Therefore I prepared a speech on “Strategies for The Small Business Soul” which also did not seem like the right presentation once I was in the room. I decided it was time to be pragmatic. I therefore decided to share testimonials of my business stories and how they save as a strategic way of building your business. This is what I share with the women.

Tell Me A Great Story:
I am here to talk about Managing A Business, but I am not going to talk about that because it is my belief that anyone who has a uterus knows how to manage! Women we are managing everything – our communities, our relationships, our families, our children, even our bodies – so we know how to manage a business! What I want to talks about are strategies to help you position your business. To rethink what you are doing right now in your business so that you can seize the opportunities in the environment and take it to the next revenue levels. But people are so distracted these days and unless you are telling your business story, to your customers, your employees, your strategic partners, you could be missing an opportunity to redefine yourself in the market place.

Most of us recall how we were raised on stories. Whether from the oral tradition of our grandparents and elders or when your parents or guardians read you bed time stories. We have already been trained since childhood to listen to and appreciate a good story. Most people I know love a good story. Therefore telling your business story is a great strategy for repositioning, marketing, creating and maintaining your strategic relationships and ultimately building your business. The effect a good story has is that when you tell someone a great story, they are likely to remember you, when they remember you, then you have made a positive lasting impression. You have achieved one of the fundamental principles in marketing strategy – that is, help them remembered who you are the next time you meet them again. It also takes away the awkwardness of trying to remember who you are.

A good story engenders positive feelings toward you and your business, but a great story makes people like you and in business, people want to do business with people that they like. So tell your great story! Make it good, positive, funny short, sweet and relevant. You have achieved your sales proposition without them even realizing that you are telling them about who you are, how you do business, and why they should do business with you. Therefore, its not always about having a sales proposition as the end, its about cultivating a long term relationship, that may turn prospects into clients or help contacts refer clients/customers to you. (So I told them my own business story):

“I used to own a retail business where I designed, manufactured and sold contemporary African clothing. It was an opportunity I stumbled on out of necessity. When I started graduate school, I could not cope the work load of school and working fulltime so I had to leave my job. But my graduate fellowship was not enough to live on so I started designing cloths and doing fashion shows. I had never trained to be a fashion designer but as a young kid I always had to design my cloth and my mom made them for me. I knew how to saw because I had taken a high-school “domestic science” sawing class. I hated sawing. But because I needed to generate additional income, I had to saw. Well from designing, making and selling man’s dashiki shirts, I got more and more sophisticated that I was being invited to do fashion shows of my designs. Before I knew it I had opened a retail store and selling “INDATE DESIGNS” designer, custom fitted clothing for women. Who knew that the little domestic science sawing class would help me pay for graduate school? They liked this rags to riches story.”

My point in sharing this story with you is to illustrate that as women business owners we have skills that we can transport from one context to another, you just have to think and act strategically to know which skills can be applied when – if you plan your household budget you know how to do a business budget if you put your mind to it; if you know how to multi-task your children’s sports activities you know how to time manage, coordinate, delegate and conduct performance measurements in your business. Different contexts, same skills.

Turning threats into opportunities:
Most small businesses conduct strategy in their businesses, but they are just not consciously organized and deliberate in planning what class of strategic actions they end up engaged in – is your strategic focus on Managerial leadership? Knowledge capital? Resources? Operational fit? Or your business Environment? In most small businesses strategic decisions and actions are usually the process of crisis management. If you understand that strategy is the ability to for the business to manage opportunities and threats in the environment. But sometimes the wisdom is in the ability to turn your threats into opportunities. To illustrate how a threat can turn into an opportunity, I will share with you a story that happened to me recently with Mushaindoro, a bed and breakfast facility I own here in Essex County.

“Recently I had to let one of my housekeeping employees in the Bed & Breakfast go. But she made it easy for me. I had been unhappy with her performance for a while but I did not have the heart to fire her – given that this is a time of the recession. So the last Saturday in May as she was leaving, I told her I had to travel the following weekend and would like her to arrange to stay overnight while I was out of town. Thats when she told me she would not be able to come to work that Monday the 1st of June – she needed some time off to do something. I had just given her a week off the beginning of the month so I did not understand where she was coming from. I asked her if she was quitting her job and she said not she was just taking some time off, she would be back in July. At that point I wanted to tell her she was fired, but I just told her to leave and take her time off.

At first I thought this is a threat to my business, my guests, my household and all my meeting plans for the month. But as the days went by I realized I was coping without her help; I realized I did not need her! Strategically, I realized that what may have seemed as a threat in the beginning was actually turning into an opportunity to restructure my HR needs, I could also reallocate her salary for the month to other projects pending for Mushaindoro. Then I decided to fire her.”

In a nutshell, give yourself time to reevaluate what’s going on inside and outside of your business environment. As women we have the gift of intuition and trust it. Threats sometimes makes room for opportunities to manifest. As small businesses we are agile, quick to adapt and respond to threats at less cost and seized opportunities in the environment.

Elements of Strategic Success:
In closing I share with you that for your strategy to succeed there are other elements that need to be in place and they play a significant role in whether your strategy results are great or average.

1. Leadership – be present in your business
2. Know your company’s DNA
3. Know your business environments
4. Know your customers
5. Have a strategic consciousness
6. Act deliberately and boldly.

Use your business story as a strategy to build your business relationships. A great story makes people like you and people do business with people they like.

Originally published on Musha Indoro on Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 9:59am. Republished on February 12, 2011. Copyright @ June 2009 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Road Rage with a 6 year old!

I was driving with my son the other day, and someone cut me off….I yelled “Idiot Moron B**tch!” and from the back seat of the car I heard “Moron Beach”. That was my son. For a split second, I wasn’t sure what he said because my son has his own language speech because he combines word together so it sounded like he said “morebeach”. We had just been to the beach the day before so I figured he was trying to indicate that he wanted to go back to the beach because we were on the road (Garden State Parkway) that takes you to the Long Branch Beach in Central Jersey. So I let it slide and engaging him saying we were not going to the beach but running errands.

Then another day again some stupid driver was driving so selfishly hogging the lane and as I tried to pass him he started accelerating. As I finally sped past him I yelled more to myself than the driver “Moron Idiot!” Again from the back seat I heard “F*** U moron idiot” Of course it sounded like “Fakumoreidiot!” I definitely heard the word “idiot” clearly. This driver happened to be a man! By mere extrapolation, I was now convinced of what I heard because I could not come up with any “synonym” for the words I thought my son had uttered…though I still was not sure. I looked at him, he had a serious straight face intently focusing on the road and other motorist as we drove on and sitting nicely in his seatbelt. I inquired “What did you say Za?” But he would not repeat it but instead looked at me like “What are you talking about Mommy?”
Then I started pondering. This was not the first time my son had interjected whenever I yell at someone on the road. I used to be polite, making nice comments like “Commoooon, didn’t u see me!” or “Plizzzzze, just because your SUV is bigger than mine u do not have to be rude on the road” or “ We are all trying to get somewhere”. But lately my comments have gotten somewhat “hot & spicy”.

I first took notice of my road rage when I was coming from JFK airport with my daughter, who was visiting on holiday from boarding school in June. I released one of my exploitative and she gave me one of her sideway glances and smiled….(her polite way of saying “Mummy don’t be rude!”). Well she is attending one of those “British” boarding schools in Africa where etiquette and manners is equally important as academics , if not more important than academics. Of course she couldn’t voice her opinion aloud because it would have been improper, but also because my son was in the Car. The second time it happened, that is me cursing at another motorist, it was just me and her in the car coz my son was in School. Then she said “Ahh Mummy!” That was enough to let me know she did not approve of my tasty language! I had not even realized I am doing it. Let alone doing it so frequently. So I became conscious from that day on.

Well, I thought, when I am alone it’s was fine. But this is how habits take root and this one seems to have taken root already because now my son was saying “Moron Bitch” in concert with me! This is an epiphany for me. I have always wondered about people who end up shooting fellow motorist and wonder how can just a small driving infraction lead someone to such a drastic action? Well you get there gradually and totally unconscious of it. I have even been fantasizing about being a traffic cop and putting my siren on whenever one of those inconsiderate “idiots” cut me off and give them a hefty ticket! Just the thought and satisfaction of it makes me feel warm! So when my 6 year old starts repeating after me, it’s bad, really bad. I don’t feel rage-full like I know normal rage, but I confess, I have road rage! OMG I am becoming one of those people!

When I told my boyfriend this incident the other day he said he had noticed I have gotten a “little foul mouthed”, which absolutely hurt my feelings. I argued that I have not (not in front of him anyway). He said I have used the “BS” word when I am ticked off and I defended that BS is NOT - a curse word and it does not warrant me being labeled “foul mouthed”? He disagrees. My other friend said I should seek help with a professional therapist! But I don’t believe in spending a dime in them people, God that’s my free therapist. So I am in one of my spiritual cleansing session!

As for my son, I am still trying to figure out a way to get him to confess to exactly what he said without making it even more “interesting” by repeating the censored vocabulary or undermining my authority. I think if I say it then I am reinforcing it and then tell him how wrong it is, then what it says about his mommy…. She uses bad words? It’s a delicate situation. Anyway I will consult with my higher power therapist on that one.

Originally published on FB Monday, August 2, 2010 at 3:06pm.

Copyright @ August 2, 2010 (Edited and republished February11, 2011) by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA &Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: Am I Creating A Mama's Boy?

Conscientious Objector: Am I Creating A Mama's Boy?: "This article writing was originally published on my Facebook as “Mother & Mummy’s Boy” June 12, 2010. I had an epiphany today - A..."

Am I Creating A Mama's Boy?

This article writing was originally published on my Facebook as “Mother  & Mummy’s Boy” June 12, 2010.

I had an epiphany today - Am I creating a Mama's Boy? I hated dating Mama's boys. But am I involuntarily creating one myself...The feminist that I am? I asked my son today, "Do you want chicken with Sadza (our Zimbabwean staple food), brown rice, or Couscous for lunch?" all of which are leftovers in my fridge....but he said "Chicken & pasta"...so I find myself getting up and cooking a pot of Pasta!  As I was cooking the pasta I asked myself..."Why am I doing this?" While simultaneously thinking and feeling sorry for his future wife...my future daughter-in-law who will have to share her governance over him with me! Then I asked myself "why not?"

Earlier, I was cleaning my second apartment and I had asked him to take a garbage bag to the garbage bin in the garage...three floor flights down to the basement level, and my 6 year old boy complied! No rolling eyes, no facial expressions of protest and no smart tongue lashing back at me. Then he got back and I asked him to take some cereal boxes to the kitchen on the 1st floor...Done! Then he got back and I asked him to take some dirty linens to the laundry room, again in the ground floor basement - another 3 floors down - Done! No protest or any indication of it! Then got back and being the rambunctious 6 year old that he is, was running around in my second floor and accidentally broke my beautiful African vase in the hall way and I banished him to the 1st floor, when I got back he had been crying with remorse -tears, mucus, puppy eyes and all, and was profusely apologetic and would not stop till I accepted his apology...I was still mad at him and that took almost 45 minutes of persuading me to accept his apology. Well he was finally forgiven.

On the other hand, earlier I had asked my daughter to help with the 2nd floor cleaning. Despite the fact that we were doing it together, all I got was 14 year-old teenage attitude..eye rolling, TV interlude watching in between pillowcase stuffing and vacuum cleaning chores, smart mouth, etc, etc…and never mind that she is getting PAID too!...We got it done, but I felt like I had to be the Gestapo to get her to accomplish it! She is a sweet girl, but I have to put boxing gloves and combat boots once in a while...but with my son...it’s all silent , peaceful compliance, no protests and no demands to be paid!!!

So this brings me back to my epiphany...Am I creating a Mama's boy? Well if he likes to have a fresh cooking of pasta instead of settling for the leftovers...what’s the big deal? Forget my daughter in law! I can't be running 3 floors down every 2 minutes so that she can have a husband who pays more attention to her that me in the future!  My paradox at the moment really ends up questioning my feminism or womanism (depending which camp you come from)...I want my son to adore and do for me more that he will do for his future wife. Sorry Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem, Bella A. (my mentor) & all of your generation! I have got to define my own feminism in the parenthesis of my motherhood!

Copyright @ June 12, 2010 (Edited and republished February 6, 2011) by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: Getting old is a rude awakening:

Conscientious Objector: Getting old is a rude awakening:: "Copyright @ 6/4/2009, Dr. Tendai Ndoro (DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLCIts 2:19am and I can..."

Conscientious Objector: THE QUEST FOR UBUNTU – Income Equality makes socie...

Conscientious Objector: THE QUEST FOR UBUNTU – Income Equality makes socie...: "The other day I had the pleasure of making welcoming remarks at a lecture inspired by the book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes..."

THE QUEST FOR UBUNTU – Income Equality makes societies stronger!

The other day I had the pleasure of making welcoming remarks at a lecture inspired by the book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Stronger Societies Stronger. My introduction went as follows:

Friday, January 21, 2011

GOODMORNING Ladies & Gentleman, my name is Dr. Tendai Ndoro,

On behalf of Community Access Unlimited Board of Trustees, Executive Management & Staff and Community Access Unlimited Collaborative partners, I would like to welcome you all to the Center for Science, Technology and Mathematics Education at Kean University Campus. More importantly I welcome you to this very important  lecture program inspired by the publication: THE SPIRIT LEVEL: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.” written by Drs. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

This is such a timely topic of conversation given the economic recession that has overtaken the world like a tsunami forcing us all to question our prevailing socio-economic paradigms and values. In Southern Africa there is expression that embraces the value of equality called: ‘UBUNTU”, which means I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE! The essence of which speaks to the perils of inequality that one cannot be really WHOLE when others are LESS! The Spirit Level truly attests to the essence of Ubuntu by advocating that greater equalities make societies stronger!

To our distinguished guest, Dr. Richard Wilkinson, Welcome and we truly appreciate your presence here with us today. Thank you.

The irony of this whole day was that America is a Society that at its core values believes in individualism! However more and more I have been hearing both people in academia and public society calling for cooperation, collaboration, cooperativeness, community, common ground and any of those communal adjectives that favor the social capital of togetherness! But this is not framed in Putnam’s Social Capital theoretical framework. The independent variables vary depending on which discipline the author or speaker comes from -  Dr. Richard Wilkinson is a epidemiologist and therefore comes from the health industry.  

But my question is: Is globalization forcing us to evolve to social communalism? The Spirit level is a study that looks at the developed world (including such countries as – Japan, Sweden, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, etc) and measured how certain social indicators such as: homicide, imprisonment; teenage pregnancies; infant mortality, mental illness, drug abuse; social mobility; obesity; high school dropouts; etc  perform based on the margins of income equality. The greater the income equality and lower the social maladies, conversely, the gross income inequalities leads to the higher the social maladies. In a nutshell the authors point out that “gross inequalities tear at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrusts and an array of mental and physical ailments”. Thus reducing the gap in income inequalities leads to stronger and better societies. Unfortunately, this data based study indicated that the US had the greatest income inequalities and as such was at the bottom of the ladder in terms of greater social maladies. “Therefore if you want to live the American dream, you may have to relocate to Sweden or Japan” Wilkinson remarked.

At the end of the lecture, one of my Republican colleagues in the room came to me and expressed his horror at the thought of equal incomes, as ‘income equality’ translates into “income redistribution”! I laughed and reassured him that he need not worry as it will never happen in his lifetime! He exhaled!

This social study narrative is not new. That is, the variables are new but the idea or explanations of why some people suffer and others prosper is a narrative that has emerged in many other various forms in the past. To name a few – Mills’ power elites theory (the idea that interwoven interests of people in and/or with power will do anything including setting up institutionalized systems to protect those interests); Putnam’s social capital (the idea that homogeneity fosters greater community wealth for members of that group, thus feminism and racial integration undermined social capital in the USA), Galtung’s structural violence ideas (widely defined as the systematic ways in which a regime prevents individuals from achieving their full potential. Institutionalized racism and sexism are examples of this - @ Wikipedia); and Schneider & Ingram’s policy design as a socially constructed narrative for target populations, usually choosing who gets benefits or burdens, with burdens skewed unfavorably to the disadvantaged populations (@ Policy Design and Democracy); and now Wilkinson &  Pickett’s narrative of how income inequalities (disparities) undermining stronger societies, and thus lead to chronic social maladies.

Well, I always live in a ‘relative universe’ (i.e. the reality of my perceptions are defined by my circumstances at that moment in my universe), and thus always tries to draw parallels to show that we are all the same, it’s just our geography that’s different. Therefore in participating in this lecture presentation, it reinforces my beliefs in those parallel existences as well as the lines of symmetry that bind us together as humans. I came to one conclusion which is the quest for Ubuntu - which had once been called primitive during the reign of colonialism - is still relevant after all! I must add, Ubuntu is a universally African philosophy which means that I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE, but the term itself is specifically a Southern African term – Ubuntu or as the Shona people would say Uhunhu or Unhu – the essence of being [human].

Copyright @ February 1, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlightinend_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO- EDCTrainers, LLC.

UBUNTU ROOTS: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy) :

Ubuntu (Zulu/Xhosa pronunciation: [ùɓúntʼú]; English: /ʊˈbʊntuː/ oo-BOON-too) is an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a classical African concept.^[1]

Ubuntu: "I am what I am because of who we all are."

Bantu means the men or people. The word occurs in all Bantu languages, for example, it appears as wa-tu in Swahili, ba-to in Lingala, and aba-ntu in Zulu in shona as Van-hu