Intro
Hello my dear readers,
I hope you are doing well, safe and finally getting ready to enjoy your summer vacation. As we speak I am already enjoying Saturday brunch with my boyfriend Franklin in Dresden. After a week of road-tripping in Germany and Poland, I will be working remotely in Lithuania for four weeks + one week of traditional vacation in my beloved Curonian Spit (Nida). I am very much excited about this as it allows me to spend some quality time with my family and friends over there. If you are interested to follow my adventures and sights during my trips, follow me on Instagram.
As usual I prepared a newsletter with my latest writings and activities. The next edition will be published at the end of August. July in Lithuania sounds like a good idea to slow down a bit.
My Monthly Fail Story
Multitasking doesn't work
In 2021 I decided to commit sharing more failure stories on social media and less of “Look, my dear network how well I am doing!”
So here is my sixth story related to multitasking.
Three weeks, ago while preparing a ‘Bracelets with a story’ order to be shipped to its client, I thought it’s such a simple task that I could combine it with other useful things. This will save me that precious resource - time.
While noting down the address of a client, I was listening to a webinar and in between taking notes on my Trello board. After I finished I was proud of myself, until last week when I received the ‘Bracelets with a story’ order back. Apparently, I missed to write ✍️ down the postcode.
Two key lessons learnt here:
- Multitasking doesn’t work. Focus on one task each time.
- Activities related to your customer should never be compromised.
I would love to hear your failure stories too! Please share it by replying to this email.
Find Your Purpose
In search of the unknown
In 2019 when I decided to leave my corporate job and pursue volunteering in rural Uganda, I often felt not understood and 'lonely'.
However, that feeling changed when I heard that my great friend and former colleague Svenja Paul followed almost a similar path at exactly the same time! It took me a while to convince Svenja to share her personal story, but when she did, I was WOW! What a touching, open and deeply thought through story with wonderful insights.
Personally I went through lots of very similar motions and emotions, but Svenja nailed it so much better in describing it in her blog post.
Thank you again Svenja for sharing your story and vulnerabilities, which I still need to learn a lot!
Women in Tech global conference 2021
Thank you! It was such a pleasure to share my personal story during women in tech global conference uniting over 100k women from tech around the world. During my speech "How a watermelon overcame a millennial crisis", I shared these three key learnings:
- Don't be afraid to take a break.
- Forget the 'standard' happiness KPIs.
- Work for a cause, not applause.
Again thanks to everyone who supported me in this journey and even more to the listeners who purchased a 'Bracelet with a story' as a way to support women entrepreneurship in Uganda.
Personal Growth
Feedback is a gift! Do you know the etiquette on how to wrap it?
Feedback for your personal growth is like water for growing a plant. There is no way you can avoid using this ingredient in your personal development journey.
Oftentimes people associate feedback with mostly improvement points while this shouldn’t be the case. Apparently negative feedback sticks with humans more, but improvement is higher when we receive praise. What a paradox!
In my blog post I decided to discuss the feedback topic in more details and most importantly lay down a couple of etiquette rules on how to receive and provide feedback.
Business
How to create a robust business story
More and more I learn how important it is to tell good stories. Yes! Facts and figures are great to feed rational minds, but nothing can replace a good story which stays in your mind. But this is not easy!
Recently I got to know Lina who has an atypical background. She studied theatre directing and then moved to work in sales for luxury brands in Paris.
I learnt a lot from Lina about story telling and her experience was tremendous in positioning my fair trade brand ‘Bracelets with a story.’
Today I am very happy and thankful to Lina who agreed to share her experience and tips with you.
How about going from forecasting to nowcasting?
We all here have probably heard of forecasting. It started in the early days with weather forecasting and then jumped to the business world - sales, demand, capital or financial forecasting.
We forecast many things, but in the end it's still a tricky business which is often inaccurate and misleading to business operations which rely their planning on the forecasts.
Recently I was thinking about this forecasting 'flaw' and wondering if there are some alternative ways. Luckily, I didn't have to search far, because at Schuberg Philis we already do this for our clients.
This is when I learnt about a new term to me - NOWCASTING. Instead of forecasting the future, which is often tricky, you rather focus on understanding what is happening right now based on real time data in operations.
Books
Political Savvy by Joel R. DeLuca
Pfff! Politics again! Why can't I just work normally and avoid those politics in my company? They distract me and the whole organization from achieving the right thing.
Many of us might have such discussions inside ourselves or with our colleagues. I thought it is such an interesting topic to learn more about. Especially as almost everyone working in an organization faces it.
The "Political Savvy" book author Joel R. DeLuca suggests that instead of looking to politics negatively, accept it and better spend your energy in learning how to play it well.
The book offers a great framework and case study which really helps you to firstly change your negative attitude towards politics and then get some knowledge on how to deal in specific situations.
Make An Impact
My 'millennial crisis' experience for Rotary Amsterdam International club
Last month I had the pleasure to give a presentation to Rotary Amsterdam International club about my 'millennial crisis' experience.
I really enjoyed spreading my experience on volunteering in rural Uganda and the impact it had on my life.
The key messages I shared:
- In order to create impact and empower those in need, I believe you need to have three ingredients: awareness, funds and knowledge.
- Moving from a ONE piece 'purpose puzzle' into the multiple pieces containing the most important themes made me a more balanced and happy person.
The presentation ended with me telling about my latest social project "Bracelets with a story" which supports female entrepreneurship in rural Uganda. Interested? Check it out!