Hey hello there and a good morning. So today i bring you some lovely news and an opportunity for you to directly support me and the work we do.
So, on February 28th I’m launching my third book, *THE MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS ANTHOLOGY* co- authored with an absolutely incredible team of poets. Here is an interesting quote from the mental health matters anthology
” *_…so before my time is out,let’s show others love,lets share what we have…_*”
Isn’t it amazing how simple acts of love and compassion could mean everything to somebody else? well that’s how we here will feel when you pre-order a copy. When you buy 10 copies you support one school tour but when you just buy even 1 you support the conversations we are having with young people on mental health*
Soft copy goes for ksh499 or 5 usd hard copy goes for 899 or 9 usd
Thiel, a founder of PayPal and the data analytics firm Palantir, might be best known for his idiosyncrasies, which helped inspire the character of Peter Gregory in the HBO series Silicon Valley.We reviewed his book Zero to one with Stephen Onyango on our monthly book review series on facebook. Here is a link to the full video and here is what we had to say.
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
The book has an interesting opening question author usually asks on interviews. For the average person it is difficult to come up with something in mind, since we rarely think of typical questions ourselves. Even if we have some ideas, it is rare we would stand on the point to debate with people around. However, this kind of attitude is crucial. Often, businesses follow the path that is well-trodden and copy the products that work well outside. This defines the horizontal progress. On the opposite side, the vertical progress, the progress from 0 to 1 is another mode, doing something nobody else has ever done.
Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.
Reaching the state of monopoly is the highest goal for every company. However, it is very challenging if you are just starting, especially, startups that are entering competitive markets. If there already exist the supply of products that satisfy market and there is nothing much to offer, there is mere chance to become monopoly (author gives characteristics of monopoly). Therefore, horizontal progress is not a solution. The only way for startup towards monopoly is to make 0 to 1, and make the product 10x better than closest competitors, developing so-called proprietary technology. Otherwise, there are many factors/reasons customers may reject your product and prefer the other one.
We don’t live in a normal world; we live under a power law.
Compound interest is an example from finance. However, there is a wider concept of the power law that people and the system better care of. For example, author mentions, from middle and throughout high school, educational system encourages extracurricular activities and well-roundedness. There is also a famous saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. However, when the student grows and picks up major or career, focusing on the only craft becomes unintuitive. The wise people, and smart investors, decide to chase only one thing and invest hard on as few products as possible it following the sense of power law. They are extremely successful in perspective at their thing.
“What valuable company is nobody building?”
Every great company was once unknown. Nobody suspected them to grow. Secrets are the underlying weapon behind. Author determines two types of secrets: the secrets about nature, and about people. Though secrets about nature is explainable, there is a different characteristics on secret about people. Sometimes people simply don’t know the secrets about themselves, and sometimes they hide it, so that others don’t know. So, when starting out a company or building another product, navigate yourself with questions such as: “What secrets is nature not telling you? What secrets are people not telling you?”. The best place to find a secret is to look where nobody is looking.
Beginnings are special.
The opportunity to set the foundations right are given only once. Well, there are numerous decisions to be made when starting out, however still the founders better make concrete and accurate decisions at the initial stage. The most meaningful one is whom to take on board and which roles. Author argues that it is critical cofounding team know each other well and have some prehistory before they determine to build something together. Startups have many fluctuations in the early period, and in order to survive, everyone in the founding team has to undergo challenges with full trust towards each other. Everyone in the founding team has to be full-time, with absolute devotion, so like it is either “on the bus or off the bus”. The people who work in the beginning have to be clearly distinguished in terms of their roles, and feel they are given the opportunity to do the irreplaceable job.
Towards the end of 2020 I had a privilege to meet the ambassador of Columbia to kenya at her residence with an incredible group of young people from the one young world. during our visit the ambassador had an exhibition going on and upon meeting and interacting with an ambassador with such an impressive portfolio, I must admit I was shocked at how she attended to us and impressed even more when I got to talk to her and her staff at the embassy.
Quick facts about the ambassador of Colombia to Kenya Ms Monica De Greiff,
Former President of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá
Mónica de Greiff is a lawyer from Rosario University and has worked in important management positions in both, the public and private sectors. Currently, she is ambassador of Colombia to Kenya and the former Executive President of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, leading the strategic direction of the Entity, contributing to the construction of Bogota as a more prosperous and sustainable Region. Prior to this position, she was the CEO of Bogota´s Energy Group for four years, term under her management, in which it was registered an internationalization process of the Gas sector in Peru and Guatemala, as well as, a sustained growth of the group. She was Minister of Justice and Secretary of Economic Development of Bogota. She has also been an independent member of the Board of Directors of Pacific Exploration & Production Corporation, as well as, member of the Board of Directors of the United Nations Global Compact.
Lessons that I learnt from meeting the ambassador.
Good attitude will take you to the top
When at the top humility is one of the most important traits
It’s the simple acts and gestures that demonstrate leadership.
Hey hello, this is a slightly long letter from me to you and I know you will really appreciate taking 5 minutes of your time to read through it… So can you spare me 5 minutes?? You will not regret it!
So here we are, at the end of 2020 a year which most of us started with high expectations but as it went we got disrupted by the obvious events of the year, the covid 19. For many of us covid 19 meant many things, some caught it, some got fired, some lost jobs, some sunk into worry and anxiety, some missed life-changing flights and opportunities and all in all covid 19 affected us all in various ways. Soon after covid 19 we slowly got used to it and for some of us, we quickly adopted and made the best use of a worse situation, for others it was too overwhelming and we couldn’t do much, for others we survived through the challenges and for others we discovered new hobbies, hidden gems, and new opportunities.
So, whatever way you came out of 2020, I just wanted to remind you that if you got this far, even if the only thing you did was survive you are a conqurer, you beat this, you got through it and it’s OK! If anything 2020 was the year where we wanted to compare our progress and coping mechanism with everybody else and most of the time it looked like we are behind, we almost lost perspective of our inner progress and instead compared ourselves with others, I wanted to remind you again that every tree grows at its own pace, so, so long as you were getting better than you were the previous day, that was your win. Having established that all of us were in our own ways victors and winners in 2020, may I suggest a way forward for 2021. in 2021 it would be my biggest wish that you came back stronger, reflect back on 2020 and see what the year taught you and in 2021 apply. If in 2020 you lost your job, or your primary income couldn’t sustain you, perhaps in 2021 you can begin thinking and learning on new ways to make income (. *my upcoming book Practical Skills For Entrepreneurial Success is an excellent starting point*), if you couldn’t control or notice your emotions, meditation could be a starting point, if you noticed a skill set you needed to have, perhaps you could start learning.
In 2021 this could be the year you apply all the lessons, you could decide to make this year, your year of breakthrough (like I have), but you have to take the decision and create action. May 2021 be the year you came back stronger, better and wiser. May it be the year you BREAKTHROUGH!
Hello, my name is Ogweno Stephen and I am a lot of things. But before I go on to talk about me, I wanted to talk about you for a minute. I wanted to thank you for visiting my personal website, I wanted to remind you of the greatness that you have within you and I wanted to appreciate you for visiting my site again. As you go through this site you will find opportunities to support the work that I am doing with the various organizations and institutions I represent. You could support my works by buying our merchandise, buy my books, hiring me for my services and most importantly SPREADING THE WORD ON WHAT I DO. Those referrals are critical to my development and advancement.
So back to me, I am a lot of things right now but I wasn’t always this way. I am a medic, an entrepreneur, a coach, an author, a personal development trainer, a photographer, a professional bass singer and a visual artist. Funny thing is that in my early days I was just one thing, a student , let me rephrase it, a curious student always reading anything and everything I could find varying from books to billboards to newspapers you name it. My natural leanings tend to be towards the introvert side of the scale, I am mostly quiet, I listen and in those early days I never really interacted with a lot of people. The irony was that for some reason, in all of my schools I always came out as a popular individual in the long term. Back to those early days, with my curiosity I always wanted to read everything and back then I did not know just how far my curiosity would go to form an integral part of who I am.
So, while in primary school two statements really opened me up to the possibilities that I would latter discover. The first statement I heard when I joined the music class, my teacher said, YOU CAN SING ANY VOICE IF YOU JUST PRACTICED IT LONG ENOUGH. This statement really hit me differently, you mean I can sing all voices? I kept asking myself and slowly I began training myself and when I joined high school, I surely sang tenor 1 and 2 and bass 1 and 2 and I especially excelled in the bases. The second statement that really did it for me is something I read from a dirty piece of newspaper; the statement was THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT YOUR FUTURE IS TO CREATE IT. This statement really did it for me, that if I wanted to have the future I wanted ,I simply had to create it. This really made me believe that I could do anything and so that’s how my curiosity in arts stated and I became an amazing pencil artist , latter on a high fashion model, I went ahead to explore other areas as well including the music, the drama and acting, sports(rugby) and on and on. Well I thought I should also share something my father told me when I was just about 6 years, I always asked questions on why the world worked the way it worked and my father made sure to drive one statement into me, he said THE WORLD IS NOT FAIR AND YOU WILL NEVER GET WHAT YOU WANT UNTIL YOU DESERVE IT. This statement holds a lot of lessons which I hope to share with you as time goes, however, for today the main lesson is, in life, you never get what you want, you get what you deserve and that is a law of the universe. Therefore, if you want what you want, you have to deserve it to get it!
Finally , a few friends of mine whom I’ve been able to work with had this to say about me:
Hey, we are going to do a lot of great things together, and always remember, the movement is on!
STEPHEN OGWENO 