Know yourself…and know your business partner

Choose your business partners and closest associates wisely. Failure to do so can hurt in more ways than one. Reading the biographies of notable individuals you encounter stories of serendipitous professional relationships and successful partnerships. You read far less about the many failed joint ventures, of which there are many. History is written by the winners.

People can write with happy hindsight about how partnerships came to be ‘naturally’, but in reality it is a decision that requires much consideration. It’s not simply a case of separating the sheep from the goats or the winners from the losers; it’s about creating a partnership with a fellow winner who you can work effectively with.

A common word of warning is not to pick your ‘twin’, but looking for your polar opposite is not guaranteed road to success either. In fact, similarities are important. Whilst different skills can be complementary and two people from very different professional backgrounds can complement each other practically, anyone you are tying yourself to this closely needs to be on the same page.

When you’re pitching a sale you tell yourself that people buy the person before they buy the idea, so why should finding a business partner be any different? There are plenty of stories warning against going into business with friends or family, as your personal connection may cloud your judgement as to their ability or suitability. However, the situation can happen in reverse.

It is of little use allying yourself with an individual who has the perfect skill set and commercial experience for your project when you simply cannot stand that individual. Personal differences may not be apparent if you’ve only met one another in work scenarios when you’re both ‘in character’. To be business partners means working closely to such an extent that your real selves will become apparent and it is vital to get to know one another properly before making any decision.

You also need to be on the same page financially. If you see this potential partnership as part of the expansion of your successful, growing business, it would be dangerous to enter into a partnership with someone who sees this collaboration as an effort to try and save their struggling enterprise. Again, you aren’t necessarily looking for an exact twin, but the very word partner implies a sense of parity.

Obviously trust is important between the pair of you but, if you attach the same critical importance to ethics that I do, then you both need to be on the same page with regards to operating with honesty and integrity in a wider sense. If you’ve spent significant time and effort developing a positive reputation, allying yourself to someone with a less ethical outlook can undermine all your hard work and can take your business in directions you are distinctly unhappy about.

If you are seeking to create and nurture a business for the long term whereas your partner is looking to get rich quick and get out, you are clearly not on the same page. To recognise when you are, consider the fact that the individual you are considering may well be called upon to represent you. If you are confident that, if called to a meeting in your stead, they will not only make the correct decisions, ask the right questions and achieve the right results but will do so in a manner that you are comfortable with in terms of honesty, integrity and trustworthiness, then you may be sharing that page. You’re not looking for your twin, who appears like you, you’re looking for someone you trust to act as you.

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My word is my bond

Just because you don’t happen to believe in something doesn’t mean that it’s not important. The Native Americans didn’t believe in the concept of land ownership, but the importance of this concept to the Europeans encroaching on their territories proved catastrophic for their civilisation. If you see casual promises as figures of speech you can’t assume that others won’t see them as binding.

Talk can be cheap and people often make casual promises without the genuine intent one might assume. ‘I will call you tomorrow’ can often be translated as ‘I will make an effort to call you tomorrow’, ‘I will call tomorrow if I’m free’ or ‘I will call very soon’. Promises are often ideal-world goals, not necessarily realistic expectations. They are not made with the same gravitas as they are only made verbally.

Though a verbal promise or handshake may not carry the same weight with everyone as it did in the Middle Ages, it does not necessarily follow that all individuals you encounter will have a relaxed and forgiving attitude to ‘promises’ made to them. Though you may mean a promise to call tomorrow as an intention to make contact soon, other people will hold you to it and people will hold you responsible if you break it.

In the eyes of others you have made an obligation and therefore put your reputation on the line. Something you may view as trivial and commonplace may be viewed by others as lying and outright bad practice. We pay a lot of attention to actions but words are incredibly powerful and if you fail to keep your word it can be seen as unethical behaviour. Given the importance of a client or customers perception of you, this is not a tag you want attached to yourself.

Perhaps I’m being pedantic, but for all you know your next client could be equally pedantic and it is in everyone’s interest to be very careful with words and to manage expectations. Often these casual promises are entirely unnecessary.

Imagine you have ordered something online. You may not need the postal delivery to arrive until the end of the week. However, if you’ve received an email promising its arrival by a certain time on the Monday, you then start to worry if that target is missed. You wonder what might have become of your delivery even though it is not urgent and there are four more days left for it to arrive. A promise that was never important has now damaged a company’s reputation.

Managing expectations is key. Firstly, it is important not to glibly make promises unless they are genuine promises not ideal scenarios. Secondly, if you are going to make a promise, think very carefully about the task you set yourself. It is commendable to have high expectations of yourself and set positive goals, but the damage caused to your reputation by missing an overly-optimistic deadline can be far greater than any caused by setting yourself a less impressive but more realistic goal.

If you find you’ve broken a promise (even one you didn’t realise was taken as a promise at the time), honesty is your only way out. Excuses don’t wash and you need to be able to hold your hands up. But honesty should prevent you from getting into this situation. Clear honest communication should prevent misunderstandings and crossed wires. Ambitious yet realistic and achievable goal setting should inform your promises and promises, if made, should be written down, posted somewhere

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The Panama Papers: What Banks Need to Do

The recently leaked 11 million documents from the database of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca shows the immense size of the problem the world is still facing in relation to money laundering and tax avoidance. Despite national and international efforts to prevent money laundering, the released information leaked from Mossack Fonseca shows that international companies and global leaders are involved in, or at least linked to, money laundering and tax avoidance.

Content of the Leaked Information

The 11 million leaked documents show that 72 former heads of state used the Panamanian law firm to assist in tax avoidance by setting up off-shore companies and schemes for the purpose of tax avoidance and even money laundering. According to reports, Mossack Fonseca also assisted its client in dodging international sanctions.

Whilst the leaked documents will leave many leaders red-faced, it more importantly shows that international financial institutions are still involved in the practice of setting up off-shore companies for their wealthy clients despite many banks having recently been fined for Anti-Money Laundering deficiencies. In fact, 500 banks, along with their subsidiaries and affiliates, created 15,600 shell companies with the help of Mossack Fonseca – 2,300 alone were created on behalf of HSBC and its clients.

What Mossack Fonseca Did

Whilst the setting up of an off-shore bank account and shell company is not necessarily illegal (so long as the rational for the account is above-board and its use is for legitimate purposes) it can be complicated for an individual to set up alone and so law firms are often commissioned to assist in the process.

Mossack Fonseca set up companies for its clients in countries with low or non-existent tax on financial transactions. These countries also have tight banking secrecy laws. Countries such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Bahamas and Cayman Islands, as well as Panama itself, have weak financial regulations and therefore, together with their attractive tax and banking secrecy legislation, these countries are often open to abuse from criminal activity.

  • Shell Companies

Mossack Fonseca setup shell companies for its clients. A shell company serves as a vehicle for business transactions without itself having any active business operations or significant assets. Shell companies can be used to hide assets and for money laundering and tax evasion purposes. Shell companies are set up as a normal company and have the initial appearance of being legitimate but are often nothing more than a registered post box.

Shell companies typically do not document or disclose the true activity or ownership of the company and are often controlled by law firms such as Mossack Fonseca who do little more than sign legal documents and approve financial transactions on behalf of the true beneficial owner.

Whilst most banks have a policy not to deal with shell banks, it is far more difficult to identify a shell company.

  • Recorded Benefical Ownership

Mossack Fonseca allegedly arranged for people, with no link to the underlying client, to be used and recorded as the beneficial owner of the company that was being setup. Whilst this is a breach of money laundering regulations it is not difficult to do with reports of cleaners working for law firms being recorded as owners of shell companies.

This process would enable the true Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) of the company to remain anonymous. Even if the true UBO were a sanctioned person the company would probably still be accepted as a client by financial institutions as the registered UBO would not be well known and would not appear on any international sanctions lists. This would result in the true purpose and owner of the company slipping under the radar of even the most rigorous (Know Your Customer) KYC & Customer Due Diligence (CDD) checks.

The Panama Paper: How Banks Should React

The leak from Mossack Fonseca shows that huge numbers of illegitimate off-shore companies are being set up by financial institutions resulting in potentially criminal companies finding their way onto the client list of even the more discrete and compliant financial institutions.

Whilst the controls and process financial institutions need to adopt in order to protect themselves from money laundering and other criminal activity are well known, the Panama Leak highlights the way illegally acquired or laundered money is still finding its way into the global financial system.

There are a number of red flags that financial institutions should consider in order to protect from the illegal or at least “questionable” activity that firms such as Mossack Fonseca and their customers are involved in.

  • Shell Companies

Financial institutions need to ensure processes and controls are in place to identify shell companies. Whilst there is no easy way do to this, the location, address and any complex ownership structure of a company should be a “red flag” which would raise possible concerns. Financial institutions should also make a greater effort to identify law firms and other agents who establish shell companies for their clients and make sure their KYC staff are aware of the locations and addresses of such firms.

  • Off-Shore Financial Centres

Dealing with companies domiciled in off-shore financial locations is not in itself illegal, however, the fact that an entity is domiciled in an off-shore jurisdiction should raise the need to ask further questions and invoke the requirement to perform further due diligence on the company in question to ensure that the purpose and activity of the company, as well as the rational for an account to be opened, is legitimate and legal.

  • False Ownership

Financial institutions need to carry out enhanced due diligence on companies domiciled in off-shore financial centres to ensure the true beneficial owner has been identified. Like the identification of shell companies, identification of the true beneficial owner of a company is not a straight forward or prescriptive process.

A suitably trained and experience AML professional should have the knowledge to identify red flags relating to fraudulent ownership. Legitimate law firms could also be engaged to verify the information that has been provided with regards to the ownership of a company.

  • Bearer Shares

The identification of bearer shares within a corporate structure should raise alarm bells in regards to the legitimacy of the ownership of the company. Bearer shares provide total anonymity of ownership and transfer of assets without the need for any record of transfer.

Many financial institutions have a policy to not deal with companies that have a share structure that includes bearer shares, but the existence of bearer shares in a corporate structure is often difficult to identify.

  • Complex & Unusal Transactions

Mossack Fonseca allegedly assisted its clients to break international sanctions by structuring complex webs of transactions and deals in order to get assets from a sanctioned country, entity or person into the legitimate financial system.

Financial institutions should have a robust and effective transactions monitoring process which would identify any suspicious, complex and unusual transactions. Any such transactions could be part of a wider method to launder illegal money through the banking system and should be identified and escalated with further due diligence carried out when required.

The Panama Papers: What Next?

The impact of the Panama Papers will no doubt be long term. Transparency International has already called for an international register of UBOs for all companies. However, the likelihood of this happening in the foreseeable future is slim as too many governments are opposed or dragging their feet.

In the UK the public register of beneficial interest comes into force on the 6th of April, resulting in all UK registered companies having to confirm ownership on all annual returns complete from the 30th of June 2016. Whilst this is a step forward, and applied internationally could protect the activities carried out by firms such as Mossack Fonseca, the UK government will not verify the information contained in the return leaving the register open to abuse. In addition the implementation in several UK off-shore centres is delayed or being disputed by the off-shore government.

Equally, as the information being recorded on the UK public register of beneficial interest is not being verified, financial institutions are should not place sole reliance on this information and should additionally carry out their own due diligence.

Conclusion

Off-shore tax havens and shell companies have been used for years to launder money. The content of the documents leaked from Mossack Fonseca shows not only the scale of the problem, but how international leaders use these methods to transfer and manage their assets. That said, analysis of the 11m leaked documents has already led to a number of firms and transaction routes being identified that will help law enforcement agencies and the financial system to more effectively investigate suspicions over firms with a Panama link. Financial institutions should ensure that they gain maximum leverage from this information.

Protecting the global financial system from abuse is not going to happen overnight but investing in robust and efficient processes and controls to identify suspicious activity should be at the forefront of the industry’s war on money laundering.

FATF Recommendation 40 states “Financial institutions should refuse to enter into, or continue, a correspondent banking relationship with shell banks”.

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How human are you?

Social media can be a self-centred pursuit. We post about us, what we’re doing, what we’re thinking, where we are and who we’re with. Also, whichever platform you choose to use, we often apply our own self-censorship and filters to what we choose to share. We want to present ourselves in a positive light and this medium allows us to do just that. This is perfectly sensible, but it does have consequences.

On a wider social scale there is concern about how those struggling with life react to newsfeeds full of seemingly happy, positive people with incredibly successful lives. For anyone starting to feel depressed about how their life doesn’t quite seem to match up to those you see online, remember that everyone is applying the same positive filters to what they share. The difference is that you know the real story about your own life and not what’s really going on in theirs.

The same applies to business. You can feel intimidated by the success stories you read from your competitors or others in a similar situation to yourself but, like you, there are probably many other things going on behind the scenes in these businesses that they choose not to share. The only negative events that usually find their way onto social media are occasions when the individual is not themselves at fault and they are angry at someone else, or times when something has gone so badly wrong that it has become comical and even they see the funny side.

The fact that you may (consciously or subconsciously) filter your social media output to present yourself positively is not only normal but completely understandable. The problem really lies with the self-centredness. Imagine if you took your online persona and transported it into the real world. If you were at a networking event where your tweets were conversation and your LinkedIn updates your anecdotes, how do you think you’d come across?

In real life, continually spouting lists of your achievements to those you are trying to communicate with makes you something of a bore. We do want to highlight our positive qualities but people who are incapable of listening or talking about anything other than themselves are usually given a wide berth in reality. “Be interested not interesting” a watchword for networking, and I believe it applies to social media as well.

If you use social media purely to broadcast information you are missing the point and haven’t noticed the word ‘social’. To use this medium to its full potential you need to stop treating it as a sales pitch and recognise that it is about discovering people, making connections and building relationships. Growing an online community around your business is not just a numbers game, using followers and likes to keep score against others. Like an offline networking community it can provide links, leads and serve as a jumping off point for new and exciting projects.

There are many tools available to assist with social media and they provide a good service for the broadcasting aspect. However, to do more than just post information the process needs to be human. To engage with people in a manner beyond simply responding to questions or thanking new followers you need to be conversational, genuine and interested in others. Building a genuine community this way not only raises your level of authority and status as a subject matter expert, it brings together people who genuinely value you and the product or service your business provides. This community, if you’re interested and not just interesting, will provide you with new opportunities.

Posted in: Personal Brand

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How did that happen?

The Law of Unintended Consequences is a general theory encompassing the many ways in which an implemented change can have unforeseen effects. These can be positive, negative or, as in the most famously cited examples, specifically negative in that they exacerbate the exact problem the change was intended to solve. It’s a law that can only really be understood in hindsight but one which serves as a great warning for anyone thinking of implementing change (however small) to stop and think of potential outcomes.

The Cobra Effect describes the third subset of unintended consequences and derives its name from a most likely fictional episode in Colonial India. According to the anecdote, British authorities, alarmed by the prevalence of venomous cobras in Delhi, paid reward money in exchange for dead snakes. Enterprising locals then started farming cobras to get rich from the reward money. Once the government was alerted to this practice the rewards were stopped, and consequently large numbers of now worthless snakes were released from their farms, increasing the local cobra population dramatically.

A real life example of this effect was the local government’s attempt to reduce traffic pollution in Mexico City by allocating different number plates to different days. As you could only drive on a certain day with a corresponding number plate, locals bought up cheap old cars in order to own a vehicle for each day with the correct plates. The same numbers were driving and, now that they were driving older cars the pollution levels became worse.

These interventions made the situation worse and there are other occasions when implementing a change has led to a completely new problem, such as the introduction of cane toads to Australia to combat a pest problem who themselves became a different type of pest. However, as these issues are only obvious with hindsight, is there anything to be learnt from them? Obviously you can’t foresee the unforeseen, but the moral of these tales has to be to give serious, serious thought to any change you have in mind.

You can’t anticipate every outcome, but thorough research can never hurt. Some of the most common negative unforeseen consequences these days occur from ill thought out social media strategies. Social media is a valuable and essential platform for any business and it is a platform which gives a potential audience of billions the opportunity to connect with you. A potential audience of billions; not all of whom are necessarily ‘on your side’.

Waitrose, Macdonald’s, the NYPD and many other businesses and organisations have had Twitter campaigns backfire when users ‘hijacked’ their hashtags to ridicule and complain. Social media is a public forum and, like a canny politician who knows the prevailing opinion before he calls for the vote, you need to have a good idea of how you are publicly perceived before asking open questions about your product or service.

We can all suffer from confirmation bias, hearing only the responses we want to when sounding out an idea for change. However, this is no excuse not to seek out external opinions from trusted advisors. If you happen to be a trusted advisor then it is vitally important that you provide honest feedback, as you may well have spotted the potential pitfalls that your client has not. You can’t escape unforeseen consequences but you can try to foresee as many as possible.

Posted in: Managing Change

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Know Yourself and Be Yourself

Always be authentic. Simply put, people aren’t stupid. You can put an awful lot of time and effort into creating a brand from yourself but if, when people meet you, that image does not match up with the carbon-based life form sat in front of them, they will smell a rat. Once again, it’s an issue of trust. If you haven’t presented yourself authentically, people won’t trust you and customers don’t buy from people they don’t trust.

Once it was only necessary to present yourself authentically at work, at work functions and on the golf course. Now your brand is on display at all times. One of the noticeable features of social media is that it allows the user to create an online persona in a virtual world, potentially very different from the real individual.

For a private individual this opportunity may be alluring or disturbing, but for a business or organisation it simply isn’t an option. You need to present a coherent and consistent brand and, given that you can’t drastically alter your own personality to fit an artificially constructed image, it is best to make sure that your online self represents the real you.

Many people are aware of this and do not actively try to build a false representation of themselves, but fall down by being so scared of alienating anyone that they unwittingly create bland, plastic versions of themselves instead. Setting your brand up to try and please everyone can be as damaging as spinning a deliberate fiction. We know that politicians try to pander to all comers and as a result they lose a lot of trust.

To build trust you need to be real. Whether you’re using social media to demonstrate your professional attributes or to convey an aspect of your personality, remember that businesses have target customers and people have personal preferences. There’s no call for deliberately setting out to offend or alienate but professionals are expected to possess opinions and know their own mind, not be mindless yes-men.

Social media makes it easy to create ‘perfect’ business brands and personas, but it doesn’t make it right or sensible. The potential effect on your reputation and trustworthiness if clients discover your brand to be a sham can be more damaging than not having had an online brand in the first place.

If your online business brand is authentic and honest then clients will feel like they already know you before you meet in person, instead of being confronted with a complete stranger. This goes a long way towards establishing that all-important trust. Yes, you need an online strategy and a plan for your brand, but a plan based around you. Social media gives you access to a huge audience, most of whom are looking for authenticity and to engage with authentic people.

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Selling Your Business – Does the value walk out with you?

A new Indiana Jones film is set to be released in 2019. Harrison Ford, who is confirmed to be reprising his iconic role, will be 77 by then. It was recently announced that many in the UK will have to work until age 77 to get the same standard of state pension as their parents, but they probably won’t have to fight Nazis, traverse canyons or escape snake pits in their job roles. Is 77 pushing it for an action hero?

Perhaps the more pertinent question for us is can a successful film franchise (or business for that matter) continue without its charismatic lead character? Star Wars, the other huge franchise associated with Ford, has been able to do this. December’s The Force Awakens introduced a raft of new, younger characters for the baton (or lightsabre?) to be passed on to. The original cast can take a back seat or depart entirely, leaving a new generation to fill cinemas and make money for Disney.

Which franchise does your business resemble? An Indiana Jones film requires Indiana Jones. It needs Harrison Ford, regardless of age. Your name isn’t necessarily in the title (though it may well be) but is your business a lifestyle business entirely dependent on you? Or, have you built a value business like Star Wars – a setting where new stories can be told once you’ve decided to call it a day?

Either option is fine. The problem comes when people don’t realise what they have built. Specifically, people who believe they have created a value business they can sell on, but have actually created a lifestyle business whose value is entirely or significantly tied to them – they have accidently become Indiana Jones. A business’ over-reliance on its owner is one of the first things a potential buyer will look at.

Humility and modesty are good qualities but to ensure you aren’t setting yourself up for a fall when you come to sell, you need to be brutally honest about your strengths. How much value do you add? How many clients do you win thanks to your experience and reputation? How much of your business’ value walks out the door with you? Being valuable is normally no bad thing, it’s only a problem if you want to sell and (like all problems) once you are aware it exists you can take steps to rectify it.

Succession planning has two levels. There is a practical need to ensure that your business can continue to function when you choose to sell. This means growing your business, taking on staff and expanding. But just finding capable and trustworthy people isn’t enough – you need to imbue them with your value. You need to give them valuable work and in order to do that, you need to let go.

The new characters destined to keep the Star Wars franchise alive needed decent parts written for them if the endeavour was to succeed. If your staff are all supporting actors, of course value will drop when the lead leaves. Let them take the lead. Take a lesson from long-running TV shows such as Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. Unlike shows of old, they expect cast turnover. He value can’t ride on core characters who may depart, ‘lesser’ characters may be required to carry the show forward and thus the storylines and writing for every character needs to be engaging.

Are you writing good parts for your people? If you don’t include them in a valuable story your business’s value will continue to be tied to you and you alone. Delegate responsibility, listen to ideas and bring others to the fore. Establish systems, methods and expectations that add intrinsic value to the business. Letting go isn’t always easy, but a trusted mentor can help you with the transition. The more value you build into your business and your people, the less you will lose when you finally decide to hang up your fedora.

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Surprise your clients with a “thank you”

When it comes to client loyalty, saying thank you can make a real difference. Courtesy and manners all play their part in establishing a trusting relationship and, as we have seen, genuine relationships are vital in a world where customer loyalty is increasingly rare.

We are told that manners cost nothing, but thanking clients properly does take time out of your day and we all know what a precious resource time is. However, if we think of time as currency, then remember how much time was invested in securing clients in the first place. Spending a little time to show your appreciation for a client costs you less than spending a much larger portion of your time winning over a replacement.

Spending your time is really what gives a thank you meaning in the first place, anyway. Your clients know exactly how precious time is and therefore appreciate you sacrificing some of yours in order to recognise their custom. If time had no value, a thank you would just be an empty gesture.

A simple email is an easy way to say thank you and let a client know that you appreciate their business. Given that the time invested is what gives thanks its value, it’s always worth considering going beyond the simple and easy.

Admittedly, if you want to go beyond the simple, you need to know your client. Not everyone would appreciate a hand written letter, but many would. You would have to know the likely response from clients if you were planning to invite them to a thank you function or event. Whatever method you might use to demonstrate your appreciation, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that it is a thank you.

There’s nothing wrong with thanking clients at Christmas time or when you have reached a milestone in your work together. However, much like the way in which ‘flowers for no reason’ are often the most appreciated, a stand-alone thank you, not tied to anything else can have a significant effect.

Most importantly, a thank you should be what it says on the tin. Though it may seem a good idea for a thank you email, letter, gift or event to be combined with or a prelude to a new pitch or proposal, it is unlikely to impress. The meaning is lost and people are likely to feel tricked or trapped. There’s nothing wrong with simply saying thanks.

Courtesy makes your business or organisation stand out from the crowd and goes a long way towards forging strong professional relationships which will continue to present opportunities. The potential benefits of showing a little gratitude vastly outweigh the costs to you. Thank you for reading.

Posted in: Relationship Management

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Riding The Waves

Bad news travels in packs. On the bright side, so does good news. It certainly feels that way. In many cases we have no control over external events and have to learn to surf the waves. However, there are situations where we make our own news and, to an extent, understanding why bad news seems to pile up helps us with our surfing.

Certain varieties of bad news, such as Illness and injury, really are beyond our control. However, if other bad news seems to arrive in groups it can be because you are subconsciously encouraging it. There are cycles of perception and an individual weighed down by bad news can act as a magnet for more.

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman references an experiment carried out on individuals using a New York phone booth (back in the days when people still used phone booths). For half of the unwitting subjects, money for a call had been deliberately left in the phone by the organisers. When the subjects had finished their call and exited the booth, a passer-by ‘accidently’ dropped a sheaf of papers on the ground. Of those who had just benefitted from a free call, 88% stopped to help with the ‘accident’ they witnessed. Of those who had paid for their own call, only 4% stopped to pick up papers.

A stroke of seeming good luck makes most of us more positive and more likely to act in a positive way. Translate this to the commercial world where one good turn really does earn another and what goes around does tend to come around, and you can see how a positive cycle can develop. A piece of good news can cause you to act in a way that is likely to earn you more good news.

You can also imagine the reverse. A dose of bad news can put you off your stride, take you out of the right frame of mind and lead you to make poor choices. Imagine attending a meeting with a prospective client. If you’ve recently secured lucrative work with another client, your mood will be significantly different than if you’ve recently received some bad news about a working partnership gone sour. Which version of you would be more likely to seal this deal?

You might think that you are above such influences, but the phone box experiment demonstrates that good or bad news affects our disposition without us necessarily realising, even though it’s something others may well pick up on. You only have to look at the economy. Beneath all the formulas and predictive equations, the stock market is ultimately built on confidence and is subject to cycles of boom and bust that are more to do with psychology than facts and figures.

You can’t avoid hearing bad news from time to time, but you can try to ride the waves. Working on your emotional intelligence and self-awareness can help you compartmentalise bad news, accept it and try to minimise its perceptible effects. We’re not robots and we can’t control our subconscious but we can take steps to minimise the effect bad news has on us in the future and at the very least, realise that these cycles do end. Good news does come, and when you get that free New York phone call it is important to take full advantage of the psychological benefits good news can bring.

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Be passionate – but be more than just passionate

How passionate are you about your idea, and can you make it contagious without going over the top?

Floating about in the vacuum of space, Tim Peake is probably very aware of the importance of oxygen. We need oxygen to live. It also improves life – extra oxygen is administered to treat chronic conditions, as emergency first aid and as a health therapy. However, pure oxygen can be just as lethal as none.

Anything positive can become negative in excess. Passion is no exception. Not being at all passionate about your idea is an unusual situation. I suppose you could be completely dispassionate about a statistically overwhelming money making venture, but when you’re setting up your own business it’s often tied to your emotions.

Most people have a degree of passion about their idea. Which is good – you need passion. Passion for an idea can lift it from being mediocre to viable. Passion can raise a good entrepreneur to levels of greatness.  If your idea doesn’t excite you at all, you might want to rethink your idea because it really should.

Feeling passionate about your idea motivates you to take risks, to burn the midnight oil and go the extra mile.  Real passion is contagious too. Put yourself in the shoes of a potential client or investor.  If you’re faced with two companies offering a similar service for similar cost but one of them is genuinely excited about the project, they stand out.

As with oxygen, you need passion to survive, it can improve your life but a pure dosage can be deadly. Emotional investment can slip over into emotional over-investment, delusion, and egotism. Nor is passion a substitute for aptitude, competence or a good idea. To ensure that an overabundance of passion isn’t blinding you to reality – make sure you keep in constant touch with reality!

Don’t operate in a vacuum. Seek counsel often. Speak to trusted advisors, friends, a mentor, or all of the above. Encourage people to challenge your thinking. Constant reality checks ensure that your passion remains healthy – lighting the path forward, not clouding out inconvenient truths.

Passion is not a decoration, a luxury, or an optional extra. It’s a key element. You need to be passionate about what you do, to motivate yourself and to inspire others. It’s also just one element. Whether you’re baking a cake or building a space station, you won’t get far with just one ingredient or component. Be passionate; but make sure you’re more than just passionate.

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