About two weeks ago, Nathan Apodaca was on his way to the warehouse where he works when his 2005 Dodge Durango gave out on him. Not wanting to be late for work, Apodaca grabbed his longboard and left his car behind. As he skated down the highway, he spontaneously decided to film a quick video. Sipping on a big bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Apodaca lip-synced to an old Fleetwood Mac song, "Dreams." Ocean Spray Cranberries soon responded, and it's a great example of how companies can use emotional intelligence to connect with customers. (Read more in today's column.) #TikTok #OceanSpray #emotionalintelligence #FleetwoodMac #empathy #customerservice #advertising #publicrelations #leadership #management #eqapplied #MakeEmotionsWorkForYouNotAgainstYou …see more

Last week, a Southwest Airlines got delayed. Passengers sat at the gate for an hour. Two hours. Frustration set in. My friend and fellow columnist Jeff Haden explains what happened next: But then a gate agent stepped in and started playing games with the waiting passengers. One game? A contest for the worst driver's license picture. Other games included a paper airplane contest. The winners received Southwest gear and $25 vouchers. But the prizes weren't the point. "I was really irritated that the flight kept getting delayed because I was going for a quick weekend trip to D.C. to visit friends," Dundas said. "Once he started playing games, I was laughing and having a great time and didn't even mind that the flight was delayed." Another example of emotional intelligence in the real world. #leadership #management #BestAdvice #BusinessIntelligence #careers #Southwest #EmotionalIntelligence #EQApplied #MakeEmotionsWorkForYouNotAgainstYou …see more

Enlist your heart into your professional life. I promise, it will change the way you work – the way you impact the world.

All-time favorite book left on the counter in the women’s restroom at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. What is your favorite book?

Friends, nature, and food! Quality time and fulfilling way to spend a long weekend holiday. Jessie Salas Wending Lu Chris Billovits Scott Lee

It's a data land-grab ! Data is good right. So we want as much of it as possible. Get all you can. But why not first ask why? What decisions do you need to make. How can you best get the right data to do this? Maybe you don't need that much.

Forget so you can Focus. Forget: About Yourself Focus: On Others Forget: Hard-Selling Focus: Branding & Driving Value Forget: Your Product or Service Focus: Your Audience Forget: What You are Losing Focus: Owning the Moment Forget: Wait & See Focus: Taking Action …see more

Remembering my own bright, shining African Union moment: Working with Meredith Braden to handle Media Outreach for the March 2012 New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Congress and Colloquium. #Africa #NEPAD #30thAUSummit …see more

As growth slowdown intensifies, in his toughest policy, Shaktikanta Das, who completes his first year at RBI this month, must reassure the market that the fiscal slippage is priced in

Will miss you Alyque, my first friend in Bombay... will miss watching plays at NCPA, our discussions on everything from advertising to how you hated talking to men only about cricket and finance, your critiques of my videos. Sorry haven’t quite made it as a modern day Lalita-ji yet... Bombay won’t be Bombay without you #AlyquePadamsee …see more

Do you measure work experience in number of years? Do you think it's the right way to do it? While intuitively I knew I shouldn't just count the number of years since I started working as experience, I read a book recently that provided a better alternative. It's experience only if one targets, measures, reviews and reflects. Ask 'what could I have done better?' after every project. The book also talked about 'learning cycles' where one participates from the start of the project to the end. The fact that I am still thinking about what I learnt from the book means it was time well spent, especially since I don't read career management books. Link to author's article on the book below. How do you measure work experience? How will this change in future?  Look forward to your thoughts. #workexperience #askingbetterquestions #futureofwork …see more

Here's a simple truth: If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others. In order to take care of yourself, you must first outline your values. And how do we know if we're living out our values? We turn them into time. In order to live with personal integrity and on our own terms, we must schedule our time in alignment with our values. If health is important to you, set aside time to go for a walk. If education is one of your values, make time to read. If you want to maintain a close relationship with your friends during the pandemic, put that Zoom call on the calendar. If we don't schedule time for our values, there's no way to know whether or not we're living by them. I'd like to hear one way you're turning your values into time this weekend 👇 #Indistractable #Health #Fulfillment #Development …see more

Not all products have to be habit-forming. For instance, if you’re selling car insurance, there’s no need to form a habit. The problem is, when you don’t build a habit, you need some other competitive advantage. This could be intellectual property, economies of scale, a brand, or something else that sets you apart in the market. If you don’t build a competitive moat around your business, you’re going to be fighting the competition on price and features all day long. You drop your price, the competition drops theirs. You add an offering, the competition adds the same feature. All of these things cut into the bottom line. This is why habit formation is so valuable: it’s a sustainable competitive advantage. Take search engines for example. How often do you sit down and think about which company makes the best search engine? Never! When you need to know something, you just Google it! The reason Google owns the majority of the search engine market share isn’t necessarily because they’ve built a superior product, it’s because they’ve built a habit. #HabitFormation #Design #Offerings #Competition …see more

I am glad to be a part of this celebration. My two decades of involvement with heartfulness meditation makes me more enthused about exploring the opportunity to know yourself further.

Today Function of Beauty announced a $150M Series B led by top consumer fund L Catterton (associated with LVMH). This is the second Series B in our portfolio this week! In Jan 2017, SoGal Ventures barely existed yet and Function of Beauty was our very first investment. When we decided to invest, we didn’t even have the funds in our bank account yet. The small round was opened up a few weeks after we cold emailed the contact info on the website and expressed interest in investing, and it was quickly snapped up by Bessemer, a long established, huge VC fund in Silicon Valley. We made it into the round, and wired almost all of the first check we received to Function of Beauty. Function of Beauty is now a clear world leader in personalized beauty, with custom product lines from hair care, body care, to skincare. We’re very proud of Zahir Dossa, Ph.D. , Joshua Maciejewski , Hien Kaplan , and the diverse team who built a world-class digital brand. Thanks Beauty Independent for the coverage and ranking SoGal Ventures runner up as Best Investor earlier this year ;) To my business partner Elizabeth Galbut : we’ve really come a long way!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 #venturecapital #dtcbrands #beauty #investment …see more

There is NO pride in having a big team just for the sake of it. Every person should have a CLEAR part to play. Don't just make hires because it makes you feel more "successful." #justQ 🖖🏽🖤 #entrepreneurship #startups

The key to your career success lies in leveraging two elements that are simple, yet not always easy: #clarity and #alignment . Clarity is all about focus. Without clarity, you’ll forever spin your professional wheels, unable to articulate your goals. When you’re clear, everything becomes easier. People understand you, what you offer, your value, what differentiates you, how you can help them, and how they can assist you. Clarity helps others know, like, and trust you. The best way to gain clarity is to slow down and reflect on what you want most. Be specific; there is no room for a wishy-washy answer. You can’t make progress if you “kind of” want something. The more focused you can be about what matters most to you, the better. Being clear on what you want isn’t enough; you also need to align your goals with a plan to achieve them—and stay away from the things that can derail you. Alignment is about intentionally supporting your goals through your actions, thoughts, and environment. Be aware of how you’re spending your time and where and with whom you’re investing your attention and then ask yourself if this choice helps you move closer to your goals or prevents you from achieving them. Remember, if you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it. #career #leadership …see more

People rarely build brands by telling just any story. They build brands by telling the stories that people need, resonate with, and are actively looking for. I can’t stand brands that just shove content online expecting people to like it. List to what your customers need, then give it. #branding #marketing #buildingbrands …see more

It’s messy and complicated, but it’s better to know. Have you ever thought about what happens with the ever-growing pile of information (that is your digital health data) after you die? Who owns this data and who can get access to it? Why could this even be interesting and for whom? Dig deep with me and learn about health record storage through the example of different countries, the legal right to access a deceased person’s health data and how these practices will probably evolve in the future. #medicaldata #themedicalfuturist #digitalhealth #future #healthcare #medicine #technology …see more

Rwandans in remote villages are using an artificial intelligence-based algorithm on their mobile phones to get a diagnosis for their health problems, doctors in Kigali consult their colleagues in the Western Province about radiology cases through telemedicine, blood is delivered by Zipline’s medical drones, and a central electronic health records system ensures data is collected about health activities. Rwanda is a pioneer in digital health in Africa – a real Afrofuturistic embodiment of Black Panther‘s Wakanda. Let’s see how and why that happened. #design #technology #health …see more