The Choices We Make For Our Kids

Being a parent involves a bunch of activities that you would never get to do otherwise. There are those tasks at the beginning that include poop, power and pee but they get better as time goes along. Or do they?

Making decisions on behalf of your child has to be one of the toughest. The pre-school we select will determine the first friends your child makes as well as the first educational foundation. Get this wrong and you will have an under-achiever in education for the rest of your life. Then it is the primary school followed by which high school to select. But it is not the way it was when I was young when you just went o the nearest school and that was that. Today there is a selection process, interviews, written portfolios and money up front before selection.

One of the schools we looked at only take applications for Grade 1 after the second trimester of pregnancy and with an R10k non-refundable deposit: Flip, how insane is this?

Each decision for schooling has an effect and either limit or opens the choices they have later in the education and career funnel. Get this wrong at pre-school and sorry-for-you you reap the choices of the bad decision for years to come.

I am at the stage with my son now after many choices, of having to select what to do after Matric. He finishes up with school this time next year and in 2020 he will enter his next phase of education.

So where do we begin to ensure that any progress made thus far is capitalised on to ensure some form of success in his future? We have the gap year, College, University, Tech, Learnerships, or a number of private colleges. Each one offers what they describe as an education for the future, but I am sure all they are thinking about is filling their quota and paying their bills way before they are thinking of their student’s futures.

The correct choice comes from pounding the pavements and going to open days, unpacking the often complex handbooks and websites and doing a full comparative analysis on what is best for a future that no one knows and that will contain jobs that have not yet been invented using education geared for jobs that will no longer exist.

But what about being an Entrepreneur? This is my first choice today, but it took me 5 career changes to find my niche and today I have a job that did not exist when I was in school. After all this, my conclusion is that education does not or may not be an indicator of the job you spend most of your life doing. But it does give you an advantage of being selected for the job you will want. And a good education will only teach you to learn and then embark on a lifelong journey of continuous learning that will lead you to the perfect job and income protection.

Watch this space and we embark on making the future a reality.

 

By |2018-10-10T16:13:30+02:00October 10th, 2018|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Narrative Business Strategies – telling your story

Over the last 2 months, we have dissected and digested the methodology of storytelling in a business. Through this process, we have created a deck of story cards that are used in our workshops and can be used together with our workbooks and business strategy worksheets to develop a fully functional and sustainable business plan.

We also unpacked the joy of telling marketing stories and making what is traditionally boring stories come to life and invoke emotion and intrigue leading to better referrals and a wider online footprint for your business.

Please review the last of these webinars (just 28 minutes) in the video below and follow the links to the other webinars on our community page in the series if you missed them:

Narrative business strategy workshops are run at our venue in Woodstock, Cape Town or online via Skype or Expertise. We deal with helping business owners develop a narrative approach to their business development and planning as well as create well defined functional sales funnel and marketing strategy. Through this process, we work through our business development roadmap and identify gaps, assumptions and develop a risk mitigation strategy as we go.

If you are interested in starting or growing a business then please give us a call or complete the form HERE and we will be in contact with you.

By |2017-08-24T12:33:55+02:00August 24th, 2017|Bruce on Business, Business Resources, Innovation, Marketing|0 Comments

Bruce scoops Expertise prize

Bruce Wade was officially announced as the winner of the Expertise.tv global challenge last week after a gruelling competition that saw over 50 Coaches and Entrepreneurs battle it out over the 5 stages of competition.

This event attracted new users to the Expertise.tv platform from countries across the globe. Each day after a brief education video, participants were set challenges and tasks to gain confidence on the platform and to build their respective accounts in line with best practices and learnt lessons. The leader board was first posted on Wednesday showing to score for each participant and as the tasks were delivered and deadlines reached the top spots were diminishing until just 10 were left sharing the 1st place.

The final goal was set and with just 3 days to achieve high results, Bruce was able to secure his position as the overall leader and claim the prize.

For his efforts, Bruce and his business Entrepreneur and Management Solutions will be awarded a fully funded FaceBook campaign sponsored and run by Expertise.tv as well as additional features to add to his account.

Entrepreneur and Management Solutions already run a weekly webinar on Wednesday’s dealing with innovative business and marketing strategy. Join this group of Learning Legends by registering here and receive regular updates and invites to webinars and programmes to enhance both yourself and your business.

By |2017-05-22T14:48:21+02:00May 22nd, 2017|Bruce on Business, Entrepreneurship, Social Media|1 Comment

Year End Planning – Final

At the end of each season, we need to take some time to rest. Rest the body, rest the mind and rest our souls.

But too often we are so used to working in the fast lane that when it comes time for a bit or R&R, we feel guilty and put ourselves down. We need to give ourselves permission to put sown the tools of our trade and do something different. Read a book, go to movies, spend quality time with friends and family. Take a walk in nature, up a mountain, along a beach.

We were never designed to work and work and work. Even God took time to rest after creation. This models a way in which we need to live our lives. Please find time, even in this busy time of year to chill out and rejuvenate ready for the year that lies ahead.

From the team at EM-solutions to you, your staff and your family members. Congratulations for getting this far. Have a very blessed Christmas and we will pick up things in the new year as we talk about dashboards, development canvases and Wildly Important Goals.

By |2016-12-22T09:11:10+02:00December 22nd, 2016|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Year End Planning 4 – setting goals

This is session 4 of 5 in the year-end planning process. If you have not yet read the lessons or watched the videos from the previous sessions, please do before you continue.
You should now have a list of things to do for next year. This list will have all sorts of goals, activities and hopes on it. All these items need to be sorted and prioritised in order of importance. This will help you identify what needs to be done and what is a ‘nice to have’. But be firm, it is easy to downplay some of the important issues just because it is harder to do. Like joining a gym and getting your finances sorted. Yes, it can wait, but the longer you wait the more urgent it will become ending up as a critical issue later in the year.
Once you know what needs to be done, now sort them by month. It is always great to have a 12-month plan with each month having at least one WIG – Wildly Important Goal set to be focused on and achieved during that month.
Add additional and supporting goals to each month. Now you have a year full of plans.
Now it comes time for communication of these goals to all relevant people. All people who are involved or affected by your goals need to be told. This will enable them to do two things: be aware of any task they should be doing and to hold you accountable for doing your part.

By |2016-12-20T10:39:24+02:00December 20th, 2016|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Year End Planning part 3

So, now that you have that list of things left over from this year, what do we do with it?
Add to it. Add the new items for the next 12 months. Look at the areas required to get you and your business to the place you most desire. What do you need to be to get there – add this to the list? What does your staff need to be? What new tools, equipment and knowledge need to be within your business? Keep adding until you are satisfied that you have enough to equip and empower yourself for what lies ahead.
New we will have to deal with this list….. in the next part of this series.

By |2016-12-19T10:46:18+02:00December 19th, 2016|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Year End Planning Part 2

Take some paper and make a list of all the things you have not achieved or got around to doing this year. This is not a guilt trip or a way to highlight your failures, but a way to acknowledge all the things just not yet done.
List the big stuff and the small items that you planned or just hoped to do, then go over the list and scratch out the ones that now seem irrelevant or unobtainable. Often we plan to do things, but circumstances change, yet we fail to change our goals. Cross these off and forget them.
The left over items can be used to determine a new list of new carry-over goals for the next year and the next exercise in this process.

By |2016-12-14T15:33:26+02:00December 14th, 2016|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Year End Reflection Time

And into December we go. And as predicted there are always a bunch of memes, blogs and articles telling us to pause, reflect and plan. Some of them good and some not so.

But here is an exercise that could literally change your business and your future. It is so important that we have put together a short video course on the process that we will post over the next few weeks and we ask that you follow along and do the short exercise for each lesson.

Doing is different from just listening and thinking about doing. I want to encourage you to get that paper and pen out and do the work. Just 10 minutes per day over 5 days will see significant changes in your future. Guaranteed.

By |2016-12-12T12:33:52+02:00December 12th, 2016|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Could your Business Compete in the Olympics?

We have seen some awesome sportsmanship at the Olympics this year. The athletes have worked hard and winning is the game but the support we have seen from all the other athletes towards the winners and the losers has been remarkable.
How different this is to business, where we see so much win-at-all-cost attitude and kill or be killed type of negotiation. What happened to the Win-win or no –deal situation we learnt at business school?

What could you do this week to improve the collaborative competition we have witnessed in Rio

By |2016-11-01T10:20:06+02:00August 15th, 2016|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Women are just much better

Women are different to men, trying to be equal is just not possible. Women have a different way of thinking, networking and collecting data. In many ways women are able to utilize their natural abilities to out-perform men at business.

We take a short journey in this video as we unpack some of the advantages Women have as entrepreneurs and business owners.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:06+02:00August 8th, 2016|Bruce on Business, Entrepreneurship|0 Comments
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