5 Steps to Create Your Personal Brand

February 26, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Naike Moshi

My personal branding journey started 6 months ago; I did not understand what it meant to have a personal brand. I have been busy promoting my business brands for the last 8 years and have been behind the scenes for a while. People are aware of my brands - CVPeople Tanzania and WIMA (Women in Management Africa) but did not know the person running behind the brands. I was under the radar and have remained hidden for a while. After the Covid-19 outbreak, I was disrupted and had to change tactics, focusing on improving my personal brand. Another major wake up call came when I was nominated for the best female CEO, but guess what, I was the one with lowest votes meaning my personal brand was not working well. For the past 6 months, I have made my mission to work on my personal brand and the journey has been amazing. I will share my personal experience and knowledge so that you can improve your own brand.

Being Human at Work – How to Deal With Emotions in the Workplace

February 26, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Anja van Beek

Conscious Living, Leadership, Wellbeing

Emotions and the workplace don’t always mix well, but they can if you learn how to deal with them. “It is not the fittest that survive but the ones that can best adapt to their environment,” writes Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. Over the last few months, we have heard many insights and tips on being more agile and adaptive at work. But what about emotion in the workplace? How do we navigate emotions when we feel overwhelmed by the changes and expectations in the hybrid world of work? Think about emotional agility, consider how emotional agile you are and consider ways to increase this.

Don’t Mix Business and Pleasure

February 26, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Sylvia Walker

Whether you’re starting a new business, or on your way to success, managing the money aspect can be tough. In the early stages, you are the business and lines are easily blurred between your personal and business finances. You may find yourself paying for business expenses from your personal bank account, or maybe buy some groceries or other personal items, and charging it to the business.

How Much of Your Surroundings Do You Absorb?

February 26, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Edna Reis

The emotions you feel - are they truly yours, or do they come from the environment that surrounds you? We tend to become so absorbed by our day to day lives that we don’t realize how much our surroundings influence our emotions.

Beginning of a New Cycle

February 19, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Catia Mondlane

A new year indicates the beginning of a new cycle and certainly the renewal of hopes and positive expectations. On the one hand, it’s an opportunity to take advantage of the natural inclination most of us feel, to start the new year with new goals and aspirations both professionally and personally. On the other hand, one can consider how the business is doing so that one can implement some changes in terms of purpose and steps to take.

Keep Pushing

February 19, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Claudia Folgore-McLellan

It quite aptly feels like January and February are one long, drawn out month and I’m sure most of us are suffering latent fatigue from having had to push that much harder in the past year. As solopreneurs and freelancers, the demands on us are just that much greater, it’s literally a permanent no work, no pay situation. The ‘holidays’ also often feel like an extension of the year that casually morphs into a new one with the only change being the date. With Covid fatigue we’ve all felt the exhaustion from being hyper virus vigilant. The easy option is to simply give up (even just a bit to have a rest) – the better option, though, is to KEEP PUSHING!

Why Do We Buy So Much?

February 19, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Marjon Meyer

The psychology of spending money…Do you sometimes fill a virtual or a real trolley of goods to deal with a hole in your soul? Making purchasing decisions can help reinforce a sense of personal control over our environment. It can also ease feelings of sadness. A study from the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that retail therapy not only makes people happier immediately, but it can also fight lingering sadness. The problem is, we spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need …(often to impress people we don’t like).

The Graceful Fall!

February 19, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Nontobeko Mbuyane

I have been told on several occasions, “you always land gracefully on your feet,” even from people that are close to me. If gracefully landing is defined by falling forward, becoming flexible in the face of turmoil in my life, being pushed backward and then standing in the uncomfortable truth of the reality of it all before landing one toe at a time, then that’s fine, you can in fact say, I land “gracefully”. Have I cared what people thought at times? Well, absolutely not at all - I am continuously working on how not to give energy to thoughts that do not add value to my life. If it’s thoughts that are not positive or meant to push me further in life, sadly I do not give even the slightest energy to those? My constant interactions with the great women and men of this world through their books are my drive. You are a product of your thoughts and what literature you read. So, if you are continuously going to be infiltrating your mind with negative thoughts, I honestly implore you to start positively affirming your life today. Begin each day with great prospects of how it will turn out, align yourself with positivity, surely the universe shall hear and your life shall be minus the constant negatives you always think of, or rather express.

The Customer Experience Game

February 12, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Mandisa Makubalo

“The greater the adoption the wider the experience divide.”

Today’s temperature is a scorching hot 35 degrees, the kind of weather that is unbearable for most households, especially those in the townships due to the quality of the housing structures. Most people are sitting outside their houses, children are playing in the streets, throwing water at each other, and some residents have made their way to the beautiful beaches of Cape Town in an attempt to escape this rather unbearable heat.

Kicking Pebbles Around

February 12, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Eldari Visser

This time of the year is when writers like to look back and reminisce on the year just gone and to get new ideas. Let’s get it clear - this past year was like flat green cold tea! Yuck. We can all do with something new.

5 Reasons why your business should get better at Email Marketing

February 12, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho

One of my mantras is “go where your customers are”…. and inboxes are one of those places you will find them! Studies have shown that people working in corporate environments easily spend between 4–6 hours every day doing their emails. Whether you are focused on a B2C segment within a specific income bracket or offer B2B services, do you really think that you are doing your bottom-line any favours by not prioritising Email Marketing if your target audience is spending this much time on their emails?

4 Tips to Much Better Emails

February 12, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Laura Camacho

You are surely familiar with email drama. Perhaps you got involved in one yourself, where the misinterpretation of a message, or one that got sent to the wrong person, spun off into a totally unproductive soap opera segment.

The 101 of dying when you're a Homeowner

February 6, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Sinal Govender and Claire Keet, cofounders of life.file in collaboration with property specialists, Araujo Attorneys

Buying a property usually involves a bit of creative thinking. You walk into a show house and start to imagine it as a home - your home. Your mind’s eye paints feature walls, open plans the kitchen and pictures your life - and all its big, happy moments - unfolding in the space. The last thing you’re likely to be thinking is: “what happens if I buy this home and then... die?”. People don’t like to think about and plan for the worst bits of life, like dying. (Who can blame us?!). But death and property ownership is a pretty big deal that we just don’t talk about enough. If you own property, or plan on entering the market, here are some of the most important things to know about kicking the bucket when you’re a homeowner...

Tricky Situations – 10 Tips to Handle Them Eloquently

February 6, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Anja van Beek

As an entrepreneur and a Chief People Officer (CPO) you may have faced/experienced various challenging scenarios. One of my coaching clients shared this specific dilemma with me: She has recently been appointed as the HR Director, and within the first few weeks at the company, one of their clients contacted her. The client attended a social event hosted by their company and the client made a complaint against the CEO and stated the CEO consumed too much alcohol and was inappropriate and out of line. How’s that for a tricky situation? Where do you start this discussion with your CEO? How do you address this in a respectful yet candid way?

The strain of making clothes

February 6, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Brigette Mashile

A lot of people always say to us ‘just a simple dress, nothing difficult’ and we just stare at them. The words in my mind as I stare at a client saying this, ‘then maybe you should make it’; because if it is that simple…..I mean!? My favourite lecturer said to us, the simpler looking clothes are difficult to make versus the difficult looking ones. This statement will only make sense once you start making clothes, it sounds impossible but it is true.

A Life Worth Living

February 6, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Elizandra dos Santos

Living is the biggest challenge that human beings face, and most of them exist and are driven by the feeling of fear. Fear is not bad if it is used as a feeling that moves us to take action, which is not the case I am referring to in this article. I speak of fear as a paralyzing feeling, a feeling that makes us uneasy, no matter if it is in our imagination or real facts.

The Great Return…Back to the Office

January 30, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Alice da Silva

I share my thoughts on how to prepare for the return to the office, with the aim of minimal disruption - emotionally or to productivity. The preferred objective is for the change to be as seamless as possible, so that one’s energy can rather be spent on being positive to embrace the new challenge, instead of ruminating on the negatives, and focusing on resistance to leaving the home office.

The 101 of dying when you're a landlord

January 30, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Sinal Govender and Claire Keet, cofounders of life.file in collaboration with property specialists, Araujo Attorneys

“Buy an investment property,” they said. “It’ll be a fantastic long term investment,” they said. Before making this enormous life decision, it’s important to think about all the aspects of being a landlord. There’s a lot to consider - like calculating when you’ll start turning a profit, finding (and keeping!) a reliable tenant, handling a lease agreement, becoming a member of a body corporate, hiring a managing agent, dealing with burst geysers, furnishing (or not furnishing) your property. A lesser discussed item on the list is what will happen to your properties and tenants when you kick the bucket one day...

How Strong are your Boundaries?

January 30, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Kathy Mann

One of the things that contributed to my recent health collapse is poor emotional boundaries. I didn’t have strong boundaries established and that meant that anyone could impose almost anything on me. I wasn’t firm enough, even with my children, in articulating what is for me and what is for them.

Are you a People Pleaser?

January 30, 2022 Melanie Hawken

by Paula Quinsee

Do you find it difficult to say no to others? Do you find yourself agreeing to things that you don’t want to do or functions you don’t want to attend? Are you constantly worried about what others might think of you and that you don’t want to disappoint or let others down? You might very well be a people pleaser. The important thing here is to know the underlying causes of what has contributed to this type of behaviour.

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