Habits of Collaborative Leaders

This The Incredible Desert Elephants expedition was the first in a series of five Beyond Expeditions with Jacques Marais and Peter van Kets. The idea was to mountain bike the edge of the incredible Namib Desert from Serra Cafema on the Angolan border to Swakopmund along the coast of Namibia. In this episode, we take […]

The Dos and Don’ts of Handling Courageous Conversations at work or in your personal life that needs to happen that you keep putting off? We all face difficult conversations that need to be handled, but we all dread them. We can call these ‘Courageous Conversations’ because they oftentimes require so much courage to handle. In […]

10 Traits of a Great Teammate when I decided to start my business more than 10 years ago, I wasn’t entirely sure where it would take me. But I knew who I wanted to join me on the journey. Lynn Mandinec was my first friend at my first job out of college. We started our […]

An observation on kitchen size and what is the best. The house we live in is on the market and people are coming to view it. The kitchen is quite small and some potential buyers have commented on the size, with a sigh. When I thought about this I remembered how in our previous home, […]

It’s that time of the year for New Years resolutions again, where most of us put together a comprehensive list of resolutions and goals to be a better version of ourselves by thinking what we would ideally look like in the future: lose weight, get fitter, be a better spouse, etc and Why New Years’ […]

Generosity is an interesting beast so WHY SO STINGY. As a charity CEO, I have seen it expressed in many different ways. The best kind of generosity comes with warmth and good old NSA – no strings attached. This kind of generosity is glorious to witness and is the backbone of charity work all over […]

Vincent Berends is the Top 35-under-35 and founder of the Optima business group – a group of companies that bring the disciplines of accounting, administration, finance, financial planning, insurance and legal practices together, as opposed to clients having to use various professional service providers. Name: Vincent Berends (33) Region: Northern Region Job Title: Managing Partner / […]

The most common question I am asked when I identify myself as a mountaineer is “Why take on a challenge?” From my education as a life coach, I’ve learnt that the neurology (the brain) doesn’t like the question “Why” very much – in fact the neurological reaction is to defend, justify or shut down. This […]