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Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Associates was founded by Adam Radly and Bob Bates and is part of S7 Group. We offer a full suite of business development and marketing services.
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Intro to Damages engagements
https://member.alacommunity.org/site_event_detail.cfm?pk_association_event=19584
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Upcoming webinar: Accountant/Lawyer Alliance-Intro to Damages engagements. Bob Bates, CPA, CVA, CFE, CFO #webinar #cpa #lawyer https://member.alacommunity.org/site_event_detail.cfm?pk_association_event=19584
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FBI’s Nigerian email scam ring bust shows how the billion-dollar global fraud has evolved
A series of arrests by the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the US has nabbed one of the “most prolific” rings of Nigerian fraudsters operating in the country.
While 14 arrests have been made, a 252-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed on Thursday (Aug. 23) named 80 defendants charged with defrauding victims of up to $10 million in one of the “largest cases of its kind in US history.”
The fraudsters used a variety of cyber fraud methods to attempt to steal $40 million in total from victims in 10 countries as well as the US.
Caught.
The unsealed indictment shows the evolving tactics of online fraudsters which has seen them continue to dupe unwitting victims despite numerous awareness campaigns about the online scams. In the past, internet scams associated with Nigerians (known locally as “Yahoo Boys”) were dominated by romance scams through dating sites as well as phony email business propositions from infamous “Nigerian princes,” but their current tactics appear to have changed.
Business email compromise
Through business email compromise scams (BEC), fraudsters use hacked email accounts to convince businesses or individuals to make payments that are either bogus or similar to actual payments owed to legitimate companies.
As part of the scam, fraudsters learn about key personnel in companies who are responsible for the payments as well as the protocols necessary to perform wire transfers in various companies and then target businesses that regularly perform wire transfer payments, Paul Delacourt, FBI assistant director in charge of the case said in a press briefing.
The scams have become so rampant that in the first seven months of 2019 alone, the FBI received nearly 14,000 complaints reporting BEC scams with a total loss of around $1.1 billion—a figure that nearly matches losses reported for all of 2018.
In another recent high profile case, following a 13-month long investigation, the FBI arrested Nigerian Obinwanne Okeke in an $11 million BEC fraud case. Before his arrest, Okeke had posed a successful entrepreneur and was featured on a Forbes 30-under-30 list as well a BBC Focus on Africa program.
Africa Facts Zone@AfricaFactsZone
Obinwanne Okeke aka 'Invictus Obi', the Nigerian Businessman, that was arrested by the FBI for a $11 million fraud, was a Forbes Contributor & a Young African Business Leader nominee. He was on BBC News Africa, CNBC Africa, London School of Economics Africa Summit and TEDxYABA.
5531:56 AM - Aug 17, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy334 people are talking about this
With long-running romance scam tactics through dating websites already well-known, fraudsters have gone as far as impersonating US soldiers and then seeking lovers on social media, particularly Facebook. Invariably, victims who fall for impostors are asked to make “repeated and ever escalating payments,” US officials say.
In some cases, rather than being asked to send money, victims of romance scams are deployed as money mules whose banks accounts are used to move illicit funds or are talked into opening accounts on behalf of criminals. US law enforcement have recently received complaints of such scams in all 50 states in the US, authorities also say.
Bad rep
The high profile arrests have also triggered extreme reactions among Nigerians at home and abroad, many of whom daily experience the cost of national stereotyping that comes with the well-covered activity of online fraudsters, particularly with the wide spread of email scam attempts.
These costs range from increased scrutiny for visa processes, a lack of trust when attempting to do business internationally and being restricted from using international payment platforms. The fraud stereotype is also often pushed back as an unfair generalization, with successes within Nigeria’s startup and tech ecosystem cited as contrary evidence. A few have even claimed the international criminal behavior is no more than a “hustle”.
But the bigger challenge is with the country’s law enforcement and justice systems which are seen as either being unable to tackle the problem or unwilling to do so.
US officials say the busted ring was led by US-based operatives who facilitated the scams by opening US bank accounts where victims were directed to deposit money. Operatives then laundered the stolen funds through these accounts, ultimately funneling them to Nigeria and pocketing the proceeds. The lead operatives received and laundered at least $6 million in stolen funds, US officials say.
Beyond the arrests that have already been made, the US is working with foreign counterparts to arrest 57 more indicted subjects. And citing previous success with extraditing Nigerian citizens to the US in the past, US district attorny Nicola Hanna says the US will seek to extradite indicted defendants believed to be in Nigeria. The defendants face charges ranging from money laundering to identity theft and will likely face “decades in federal prisons” if convicted.
But that’s likely all the justice victims will ever get. “A large majority of victims do not get their money back ever,” Delacourt noted during the briefing. Alongside the FBI’s investigations to deal with the scams, Delacourt emphasized the need to educate potential targets about contemporary fraud tactics to prevent the scams at source. In his words: “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”
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September 17, 2019Quartz Africa
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Adam Radly Bob Bates : How to Achieve Your Goals and Avoid Burnout
https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/337747?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
"Start where you can. Use what you have. Do what you can." Entrepreneur Network partner Kate Volman loves this quote from professional tennis player Arthur Ashe, which celebrates the need to take small steps and rise above the tendency to feel overwhelmed.
Lofty goals are part of nearly everyone's outlook on life, and we visualize the end result as an essential part of our lives. But too often, we let things out of our control affect our pursuit of goals. Volman stresses that you should instead look at the small tweaks that you can change.
Click the video to hear more.
Related: How to Increase Employee Engagement and Productivity
Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. We provide expertise and opportunities to accelerate brand growth and effectively monetize video and audio content distributed across all digital platforms for the business genre.
EN is partnered with hundreds of top YouTube channels in the business vertical. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Amazon Fire, Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android devices.
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Adam Radly Bob Bates: 4 Mindfulness Tips to Start Reducing Stress In Your Life Today
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/336554?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
Adam Radly Bob Bates: Interesting article
Whether it's fleeting, in-the-moment stress or elevated, long-term stress, it’s important to find healthy techniques that allow your mind and body to unwind, relax and regroup. Having spent a decade in wealth management and now running my own business as an entrepreneur, I am no stranger to the fast-paced nature of the work world. Long hours, mounting demands and deadlines, high-pressure -- you name it, I’ve felt it. And it wasn't just taking a toll on me, it was impacting the physical and mental fitness of my colleagues as well.
I had a moment of clarity and realized that I needed to take a step back from my work and focus on what was really important: me!
Avoiding stress, or a feeling of being overwhelmed is nearly impossible; this is a natural part of life and overcoming challenges is what allows us to grow and become even stronger, more powerful versions of ourselves. What is possible is shifting the way you view your stress and learning to better understand and partner with it in healthy ways. If stress isn’t acknowledged and properly managed, it can lead to weight fluctuation, digestive problems, brain fog and even depression. After acknowledging my own levels of stress and its effects on my health, I started implementing four simple concepts into my daily life that helped reduce stress while improving my focus, productivity and creativity.
Related: 7 Proven Ways to Redirect Stress Into a Powerful Success Motivator
1. Reduce stress by putting yourself first.
You are the only CEO of your brain and body and the biggest factor in your success, so try to invest in your peace of mind with relaxation activities a little bit each day. Meditation is one of the best techniques, but it can be challenging at first. If you want to become successful at meditation, you must first be able to do two things: relax and concentrate. These are two abilities that our stimulating modern culture of technology, social media, overworking and multitasking have made very difficult. Start with gentle breathing techniques, restorative yoga and finding small ways to be good to yourself and have more fun. You could try walks, time spent in nature, writing or journaling, artistic activities and playing or listening to calm music without lyrics (lyrics can trigger memories.) If you can practice one of these things every day for just ten minutes per day for the next three weeks, you should see a lot of results.
2. Don’t forget to breathe.
Proper breathing will help you release physical tension, calm the nervous system, bring new energy into the brain and hit the reset button when you run into challenges and feel overwhelmed. The breath is the best method to shift away from whatever thoughts may be causing you to feel stressed or anxious, and back into the present moment, where you can take effective action from a more peaceful state of mind. Try this quick one-minute exercise: close your eyes and count ten long, slow breaths in and out. Breathe deeply all the way into your belly. Most of my clients prefer to repeat to themselves “inhale one, exhale one, inhale two, exhale two…” and so on, to keep a natural rhythm and pace. Stay fully absorbed in counting, practicing letting go of thoughts and distractions as you breathe out.
Related: 9 Ways High-Performing Entrepreneurs Handle Stress
3. Take it one task at a time.
Once you have grasped meditation and self-care practices, become mindful of your work and streamline your workflow. Mindfulness is simply the art of living more fully in the present moment, experiencing life as it is happening. When you work from this state of mindful intention, you reduce distractions and improve productive focus. To bring mindfulness into your daily workflow, try time-blocking your activities and focusing on one task exclusively until it’s complete before moving on. Instead of multitasking, focus first on the areas that add the most value, working through your to-do list one item at a time. When working on tasks you don’t particularly like, rather than treat them as a chore, allow yourself to get creative and discover new experiences within a familiar routine by noticing every aspect of your actions as if for the first time. Become aware of every step and fully immerse yourself in the progress until that item is complete.
4. Give yourself a break and celebrate.
Remember to be proud of all that you accomplish in a day or during the week. No matter how big or small it might seem, take pride in what you do and who you are. Take the top three things you’re grateful for or the accomplishments you want to celebrate and write them down on a piece of paper or Post-It. Then stick it on your bathroom mirror, the keyboard of your laptop, a cupboard door or somewhere else you would see it often as a consistent reminder of what you’ve achieved and what you’re working so hard for. It's a great motivator to stay on track with goals/passions and what brings you joy. Switch them up daily or at least weekly, but never forget the older ones either.
Related: 18 Ways to Calm Down When You're Stressed
Turn stress into an asset.
By working towards implementing each of these four ideas into your daily life, you will start to find yourself managing stressful situations with more ease of being and increased mental clarity. You will begin to move towards your goals and ambitions with renewed energy, purpose and motivation. These techniques didn’t come to me overnight. They take time and patience to become second nature and part of a daily routine. It’s worth every minute. Together these four practices helped me find balance in my life and connect with my intended purpose and career path. These techniques allow you to not only improve your physical and mental strength but to allow you to truly thrive at your fullest as you harmonize mind, body and purpose.
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
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https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
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Adam Radly Bob Bates: Are Women CFOs Less Prone to Financial Misreporting?
July 2, 2019
Are Women CFOs Less Prone to Financial Misreporting?
In a study of thousands of U.S. companies over 11 years, those with female CFOs were much less likely to file financial reports containing misstatements.D
One suggested that the stock market reacts more favorably to acquisition announcements and secondary equity offerings by companies with female finance chiefs. Another documented that women-run hedge funds earn higher returns.
A third research effort found that companies with a higher representation of women in senior management roles outperform other companies.
Now comes robust new academic research showing that companies with women serving as chief financial officers are significantly less likely to misreport financial results. And it’s not just a correlation; the study results strongly support causation, according to its authors.Sponsored
The Future of Finance Has Arrived
The pace with which finance functions are employing automation and advanced technologies is quickening. Rapidly. A new survey of senior finance executives by Grant Thornton and CFO Research revealed that, for just about every key finance discipline, the use of advanced technologies has increased dramatically in the past 12 months.
Read More
To be published in the August issue of the Academy of Management Journal, the paper builds upon prior studies by other researchers indicating that:
An estimated 15% of public companies engage in accounting fraud annually, but fewer than 1% are caught doing so.Women are, on average, more risk-averse than men, among other social-psychological attributes that differ by gender.A 138-year-old mathematical principle called Benford’s Law reliably flags the likelihood of financial misreporting (which has been known since the mid-1990s) and correlates well with several accounting measures traditionally used to identify misstatements.
Under Benford’s Law, in naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading digit (the first digit in any number) is “1” more often — approximately 30.1% of the time — than are the other digits. Each successive number has a lower probability of being a leading digit (17.6% for 2, 12.5% for 3, and so on, down to 4.6% for 9).
The principle applies to groups of numbers as diverse as those found in a newspaper (excepting page numbers), population data, and even the lengths of rivers (on any measurement scale) and street addresses. It does not apply when the set of numbers is artificially constrained, such as by setting a ceiling or defining the set as being all numbers between, say, 300 and 700.
When applied to line items in financial statements, Benson’s Law yields a “financial statement deviation” (FSD) score that indicates the degree to which the distribution of leading digits diverges from the expected distribution. The lower the FSD score, the lower the likelihood of financial misreporting.
The study authors used FSD scores so that they could study the entire population of public companies, rather than just the few that were caught fraudulently reporting their financials.
According to the research, companies with female CFOs had, on average, a 2.6% lower FSD score than those where men helm finance. Regression analyses tested the result against myriad variables to ensure a finding of causation.
“Given the increasing pressure on firms to have more female representation in top management positions, understanding how executive gender impacts corporate financial reporting can inform researchers, policy-makers, regulators, and the general public,” the study says.
The research covered 18,659 firm-year observations from 2006 to 2016 for 2,186 unique U.S.-based companies. The data set included 1,550 firm-year female CFO observations at 339 companies.
Is 2.6% a big difference?
“We did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the overall cost of ‘cooking the books’ based on other research,” says University of Alabama associate professor Vishal Gupta, a co-author of the study.
“It didn’t make it into the final version of the paper,” he continues, “because there were a number of approximations in the calculation and, as you can imagine, peer reviewers and journal editors today are very mindful of what’s in studies like this. But reducing fraud by even half a percent would provide a significant net benefit to corporate America.”
Of course, not all financial misreporting is the result of fraud; there are legitimate errors as well.
However, in cases where the SEC catches companies reporting fraudulent financials, their subsequent FSD scores plummet by an average of 6%.
Calculating FSD scores theoretically could provide regulators with an enforcement tool by identifying companies that are more likely to be engaging in fraud. “Our understanding is that the SEC is aware of it and has looked into it but has not gone public with whether they’re using it,” says Gupta.
The study also sought to measure whether high levels of external monitoring of companies, as represented by the levels of institutional ownership and analyst coverage, influence the relation between CFO gender and the likelihood of financial misreporting.
And that indeed was the case. Where institutional ownership was low (that is, companies in the lowest quintile of such ownership), companies with female CFOs had 6% lower FSD scores, on average. Where institutional ownership was high (the highest quintile), the difference shrunk to 1.6%.
The same trend was seen for analyst coverage — a 5.5% gap between men and women with low coverage narrowed to 1.6% with high coverage.
In addition to Gupta, the study’s authors are his spouse, Sandra Mortal of the University of Alabama; Xiaohu Guo, a Ph.D. candidate at the school; Bidisha Chakrabarty of St. Louis University; and Daniel Turban of the University of Missouri.Academy of Management, Benson's Law, female CFOs, financial misreporting, Financial Statements, University of Alabama, Vishal Gupta
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
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8 Simple Ways to Make Social Media Work for Your Business
The following excerpt is from Scott Duffy’s book Breakthrough. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | IndieBound In social media, you must not only engage but also engage consistently. The key to building meaningful relationships is to join the conversation. By reaching out to people in your community and responding to their comments, you can set the agenda. Pick one platform to start with, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or another from the growing list of choices. Learn a little about the channels before you decide. They do have different characteristics and are therefore somewhat different in how you can best present yourself. For example, LinkedIn is more popular in the business world and has a very large international following. Meanwhile, Instagram is more visually oriented. Twitter is very newsworthy, with quick comments and responses, and Facebook has many businesses, but the approach is more social. Each also has slightly different user demographics. Most important, find out which social media platform is the one your customers spend their time on -- because that’s where you need to be. Go find them and engage. Related: 5 Ways to Inspire Creativity and Innovation in Your Employees These tips will help: Be authentic. Be yourself. Share and tweet and post the things that interest you. Don’t try to be what you think others want you to be. And don’t work too hard to make everything perfect; if you do, you’ll either never put anything up, or worse, break trust with your customers. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest, what matters are your thoughts. Post things that genuinely interest you and your community. Engage, engage, engage! The primary goal on social media is to build relationships and add value. This is where most people fall down. They work so hard to create content and push it out, but then they fail to step in and engage with their audience. That means don’t talk at people but post what you think is cool. Talk with people and really engage. Respond to comments. Jump into communities. Share your perspective and point of view. Document -- don’t produce. Overproduced content tends to turn people off on social media. Plus, you need so much content (video, audio, blog posts, quote boards, pictures, etc.) that most people don’t have the time and resources to put it into production and make it look fancy. People don’t care. And they don’t care about what you created last week. They want to get to know you, experience your day with you and relate to you. As a result, it’s much more powerful to document your life in real time than it is to take a bunch of time honing and polishing one piece of content to a high sheen. Don’t oversell. You know that guy at a party who always wants to sell you insurance? Don’t be that guy. Get to know people, engage honestly, and join in the conversation … don’t dominate it. Giving advice and offering suggestions will make you seem helpful, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. Get people to ask you about yourself, rather than telling them about yourself, and they’ll be more receptive. Related: 7 Ways to Make Outsourcing a Success Time After Time Commit yourself to a daily “hour of power.” Getting started with these technologies is quick and easy. Opening an account costs nothing, and posting is free. In a few minutes, you can be up and running. Within an hour, you can reach out and connect with friends, co-workers, and customers. Spend one hour per day during your launch engaging with the community. That’s it. In one hour a day, at zero cost, you can build an army. The cost in time and money is negligible, but the potential payback in exposure and attention is incalculable. Monitor and protect your brand. Make sure to regularly frequent the sites, feeds, and pages that discuss your industry, product, or service. Look for posts that mention your company. Respond to comments and complaints, using them as opportunities to engage, build trust, grow your brand, and collect market research. If you pay attention, you can get ahead of potential problems. Invest in sound. If you’re posting video or audio content, keep a couple of things in mind. Even though your color, background, and production values may not be perfect, good sound is very important. Buy a lavalier microphone for quality sound and, whatever the source of your video, be sure there’s enough light for people to see you clearly. You don’t need to spend a lot of money, but this is one detail you should invest in. Related: The 13 Factors That Make a Strong Partnership Tell them how to reach you. Make sure your fans know how to get hold of you
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8 Tricks for reading body language
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/299722?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
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Don't Let Your Ego Get in the Way of Success
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/329912
No matter whether I’m speaking to a new or an established founder, the most common question I hear, across all industries, is this: what differentiates the entrepreneurs who make it from the ones who don’t? Are there specific characteristics or behaviors that an entrepreneur needs to exhibit in order to be successful?
I recently read Mastering Leadership, Shift the Drift and Change the World by Michael Strasner, which focuses on the 12 distinctions that define master leaders. Strasner has more than 30 years of experience as a professional coach and trainer, and is also a founder in his own right. He started his company Direct Impact, Inc. in 1996 and has coached executive teams for both boutique firms and Fortune 500 companies including Merrill Lynch and Time Inc.
When asked what set the winners apart, Strasner offered these four pieces of advice.
Related: Want to Build a Million-Dollar Business? Focus on Your People, Not the Money.
Commit yourself to your vision, no excuses
What separates successful entrepreneurs from the wannabes is that a real entrepreneur is so committed to making his or her idea a reality that there is no Plan B. They are locked in. When you are locked in, you figure it out. You leave no stone unturned. You don’t give up. And you find the people that have as much passion for your idea as you do to help you make it into something with staying power.
But Strasner cautions jumping in until you can be sure you are able to fully commit. “If you half-ass it, this will show up in your attitude, presentation, and an incomplete business plan, then others will see your lack of commitment and you will fail.” What separates excellence from the ordinary or mediocrity is diligence and an attention to detail.
Don’t let your work define your self-worth
Investing in your idea, your industry, your audience and getting those details right are all key to achieving success. But you also need to remember that whatever the outcome, those results do not define who you are.
“As soon as I sense desperation, I’m out. I have to know that the person I’m working with can live and be okay without it,” Strasner explained.
Entrepreneurs who are successful are not afraid to fail. When Richard Branson launched his test for Virgin Galactic in 2014, there was an accident and his first test flight failed. But Branson persisted, with this project and several others, and he re-launched successfully in December, 2018.
“It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone has breakdowns and makes mistakes,” Strasner noted of the Branson project. “When you learn that you are not defined by one success or failure, you are able to truly commit and succeed.”
Share the stage
Many investors will tell you that, if you are going to be successful, you must create an A team, assembling leaders around you who not only aligned with your vision and take it as their own, but add extraordinary value to it as well. A solid entrepreneur is able to utilize his or her talents and strengths, while working around any liabilities or deficiencies. But this is not always the case.
“My experience of many founders is that they often want to be the center of attention, the superstar, and then surround themselves with a supporting cast and extras,” said Strasner.
What matters more? Research & development or the CEO? Human resources or finance? Remember that in the long run, everything matters, so give each arm of your business the time and attention it needs. Your goal is to create an upwardly mobile organization, and one that can continue to thrive, even if you are not there to lead it.
“In my experience, many early stage entrepreneurs are controlling and narcissistic, which means the company will never be as big as you - and when you take your foot off the gas, the vehicle stops,” said Strasner. “The highest possibility for entrepreneurs are to be star makers versus stars themselves.”
Know when it’s time to move on
Perhaps the most important characteristic for Strasner is the ability to know when it is time to let go and level up.
“I see far too many founders who reach a certain level and then want to maintain and control to that standard,” he said. “Part of being unattached is celebrating the first level and then be willing to give it all up in order to grow again.”
Successful leaders never lose the passion to redesign and reinvent. It is important to let go of your attachment to what you created in the past. And be willing to operate from a new context and create something that goes beyond what you viewed as possible yesterday.
Read the full article
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Don't Let Your Ego Get in the Way of Success
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/329912
No matter whether I’m speaking to a new or an established founder, the most common question I hear, across all industries, is this: what differentiates the entrepreneurs who make it from the ones who don’t? Are there specific characteristics or behaviors that an entrepreneur needs to exhibit in order to be successful?
I recently read Mastering Leadership, Shift the Drift and Change the World by Michael Strasner, which focuses on the 12 distinctions that define master leaders. Strasner has more than 30 years of experience as a professional coach and trainer, and is also a founder in his own right. He started his company Direct Impact, Inc. in 1996 and has coached executive teams for both boutique firms and Fortune 500 companies including Merrill Lynch and Time Inc.
When asked what set the winners apart, Strasner offered these four pieces of advice.
Related: Want to Build a Million-Dollar Business? Focus on Your People, Not the Money.
Commit yourself to your vision, no excuses
What separates successful entrepreneurs from the wannabes is that a real entrepreneur is so committed to making his or her idea a reality that there is no Plan B. They are locked in. When you are locked in, you figure it out. You leave no stone unturned. You don’t give up. And you find the people that have as much passion for your idea as you do to help you make it into something with staying power.
But Strasner cautions jumping in until you can be sure you are able to fully commit. “If you half-ass it, this will show up in your attitude, presentation, and an incomplete business plan, then others will see your lack of commitment and you will fail.” What separates excellence from the ordinary or mediocrity is diligence and an attention to detail.
Don’t let your work define your self-worth
Investing in your idea, your industry, your audience and getting those details right are all key to achieving success. But you also need to remember that whatever the outcome, those results do not define who you are.
“As soon as I sense desperation, I’m out. I have to know that the person I’m working with can live and be okay without it,” Strasner explained.
Entrepreneurs who are successful are not afraid to fail. When Richard Branson launched his test for Virgin Galactic in 2014, there was an accident and his first test flight failed. But Branson persisted, with this project and several others, and he re-launched successfully in December, 2018.
“It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone has breakdowns and makes mistakes,” Strasner noted of the Branson project. “When you learn that you are not defined by one success or failure, you are able to truly commit and succeed.”
Share the stage
Many investors will tell you that, if you are going to be successful, you must create an A team, assembling leaders around you who not only aligned with your vision and take it as their own, but add extraordinary value to it as well. A solid entrepreneur is able to utilize his or her talents and strengths, while working around any liabilities or deficiencies. But this is not always the case.
“My experience of many founders is that they often want to be the center of attention, the superstar, and then surround themselves with a supporting cast and extras,” said Strasner.
What matters more? Research & development or the CEO? Human resources or finance? Remember that in the long run, everything matters, so give each arm of your business the time and attention it needs. Your goal is to create an upwardly mobile organization, and one that can continue to thrive, even if you are not there to lead it.
“In my experience, many early stage entrepreneurs are controlling and narcissistic, which means the company will never be as big as you - and when you take your foot off the gas, the vehicle stops,” said Strasner. “The highest possibility for entrepreneurs are to be star makers versus stars themselves.”
Know when it’s time to move on
Perhaps the most important characteristic for Strasner is the ability to know when it is time to let go and level up.
“I see far too many founders who reach a certain level and then want to maintain and control to that standard,” he said. “Part of being unattached is celebrating the first level and then be willing to give it all up in order to grow again.”
Successful leaders never lose the passion to redesign and reinvent. It is important to let go of your attachment to what you created in the past. And be willing to operate from a new context and create something that goes beyond what you viewed as possible yesterday.
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Adam Radly Bob Bates: The 7 'Senses' of Self-Development
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/331147?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
The most fulfilling path to success and personal fulfillment comes through the pursuit of your own self-development. The radically successful and happy immerse themselves in self-development and a deep interest in life and relationships. Through self-exploration they remain openly curious and passionate about their self-education and improvement. They hold the belief that they can only learn if they are willing to risk themselves personally and professionally.
Through life’s experiences, good and bad, you become able and ready to be proactive in all your efforts, challenges and successes. You choose to no longer wait for success or happiness or success, you go out and make it happen. Making a commitment to your own development is the first step on the path to living your personal legend.
1. Sense of self.
Self-improvement begins with a keen awareness of who you are, your values, beliefs and the larger purpose you wish to pursue. True satisfaction can only manifest from chasing your own dreams. Life, people and business can be hard and insensitive, so remind yourself that you are more than the sum total of other people’s opinions and continue pursuing what is meaningful to you.
The experiences you have in life can only have true meaning when you seek to understand them. To become a pristine student of life is to always remain teachable-ready. Examine how each experience life brings can be used for greater self-knowledge and better decisions going forward. As you gain a more solid sense of who you are you become ready to start planning, designing and pursuing your own identified goals and objectives.
Related: 12 Ways to Stop Undermining Your Self Esteem
2. Sense of curiosity.
To live successfully, be endlessly curious about all the possibilities your future holds. It is important to have an unquenchable thirst for your advancement and for adventure. Curiosity inspires you to push through the unusually painful trials and errors in your lif5e and business, leading. This type of resiliency is an acquired self-discipline which teaches you to cast your fears aside bringing you to the fullest experience of the adventures success can bring.
Curiosity creates a longing to know more and do more. It inspires that energy which makes it possible to see all situations as opportunities for your advancement. When you approach life and business with a sense of adventure, there is no situation, however limiting, physically or economically, which cannot be filled to the brim with the interest and curiosity of how it will all work out.
Without a sense of curiosity it is impossible to grow.
3. Sense of direction.
The more you develop yourself the more pristine you become in achieving what you want. This clarity makes decision-making easier because having a direction improves your ability to prioritize. You know which objectives are important in the short term and which are necessary for your long term. With a sense of direction you become focused and effective.
There is nothing more organizing to an effort than being focused. Direction provides commitment. It is difficult to commit to something that has no foreseeable future or path. If you are filled with doubt and a lack of clarity there is no way to launch your ideas. Self-development gives you direction, and thereby, the commitment to achieve your ends.
Related: 4 Ways to Spot More Business Opportunities
4. Sense of follow through.
Knowing what you want to achieve makes it easier for you to see the benefits of taking action. Even when the tasks at hand are not enjoyable, seeing the benefit of following through on them, will make it easier to motivate yourself into taking the necessary actions to achieve your set goals. There is much truth in the saying, when there is a will there is a way.
When you are committed to personal development, you always find a way to develop the necessary will. Your idea of success and the vision of what that will look like is where you grab your incentive to always follow through.
5. Sense of urgency.
A sense of urgency drives inspiration. Urgency creates the mindset to work as if your life depends upon it, especially if you have fewer resources than others. When you are the underdog you will dig deep inside yourself for the advances you need in order to thrive.
Urgency causes you activate quickly when making decisions. You get out of your routine and do something different. It motivates you to get results quickly and efficiently, but it does not eliminate assessment. If want to produce getting results faster you must assess what is and what is not working, then eliminate the efforts which have been identified as wasteful. Keep in mind it is easier to steer a moving object, so if you realize you have made a poor decision, a sense of urgency allows you to adjust. If you wait too long you miss opportunities and chances.
Related: Don't Lose That All-Important Sense of Urgency. Do It -- Now!
6. Sense of resiliency.
There will be tough times in life and business. When tough times occur, you need the skills and attributes to deal effectively with them. Personal development cannot prevent all bad things from occurring but it helps you deal with obstacles as they surface.
Resiliency teaches you never to view any challenge as the end of the world. Resilience allows you the patience, awareness and fortitude to continue moving forward, even if that means completely changing course.
Self-development deepens your maturity to trust that everything happens for reasons which can only be in line with your best interest. With this type of mindset, there is no obstacle that will hold you back. You will have greater confidence, pliability, and the personal and interpersonal skills to cope with any obstacle you face in climb up the ladder of success.
7. Sense of connectedness.
Relationships can be double-edged swords. They either lift you up or drag you down. They either bring you closer to your goals or push you further away. When you improve your personal development, you are better able to see which relationships and partnerships are worth investing in and which you need to cut loose. This type of self-awareness gives you the skills to make the best of the relationships which have a positive impact on your life, your business and your overall success.
If you aren’t learning then you aren’t living. Make the commitment to invest in your greatest resource – You. Many people are put off by personal development because it viewed as a weakness or something which shows you do not already possess the skills necessary for success. If you assume you already it all, you will not be happy or successful. The greatest achievers in life and business know the key to success is their ability to manage themselves in a variety of situations. That ability comes through personal development.
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
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Adam Radly Bob Bates: The 7 'Senses' of Self-Development
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/331147?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
The most fulfilling path to success and personal fulfillment comes through the pursuit of your own self-development. The radically successful and happy immerse themselves in self-development and a deep interest in life and relationships. Through self-exploration they remain openly curious and passionate about their self-education and improvement. They hold the belief that they can only learn if they are willing to risk themselves personally and professionally.
Through life’s experiences, good and bad, you become able and ready to be proactive in all your efforts, challenges and successes. You choose to no longer wait for success or happiness or success, you go out and make it happen. Making a commitment to your own development is the first step on the path to living your personal legend.
1. Sense of self.
Self-improvement begins with a keen awareness of who you are, your values, beliefs and the larger purpose you wish to pursue. True satisfaction can only manifest from chasing your own dreams. Life, people and business can be hard and insensitive, so remind yourself that you are more than the sum total of other people’s opinions and continue pursuing what is meaningful to you.
The experiences you have in life can only have true meaning when you seek to understand them. To become a pristine student of life is to always remain teachable-ready. Examine how each experience life brings can be used for greater self-knowledge and better decisions going forward. As you gain a more solid sense of who you are you become ready to start planning, designing and pursuing your own identified goals and objectives.
Related: 12 Ways to Stop Undermining Your Self Esteem
2. Sense of curiosity.
To live successfully, be endlessly curious about all the possibilities your future holds. It is important to have an unquenchable thirst for your advancement and for adventure. Curiosity inspires you to push through the unusually painful trials and errors in your lif5e and business, leading. This type of resiliency is an acquired self-discipline which teaches you to cast your fears aside bringing you to the fullest experience of the adventures success can bring.
Curiosity creates a longing to know more and do more. It inspires that energy which makes it possible to see all situations as opportunities for your advancement. When you approach life and business with a sense of adventure, there is no situation, however limiting, physically or economically, which cannot be filled to the brim with the interest and curiosity of how it will all work out.
Without a sense of curiosity it is impossible to grow.
3. Sense of direction.
The more you develop yourself the more pristine you become in achieving what you want. This clarity makes decision-making easier because having a direction improves your ability to prioritize. You know which objectives are important in the short term and which are necessary for your long term. With a sense of direction you become focused and effective.
There is nothing more organizing to an effort than being focused. Direction provides commitment. It is difficult to commit to something that has no foreseeable future or path. If you are filled with doubt and a lack of clarity there is no way to launch your ideas. Self-development gives you direction, and thereby, the commitment to achieve your ends.
Related: 4 Ways to Spot More Business Opportunities
4. Sense of follow through.
Knowing what you want to achieve makes it easier for you to see the benefits of taking action. Even when the tasks at hand are not enjoyable, seeing the benefit of following through on them, will make it easier to motivate yourself into taking the necessary actions to achieve your set goals. There is much truth in the saying, when there is a will there is a way.
When you are committed to personal development, you always find a way to develop the necessary will. Your idea of success and the vision of what that will look like is where you grab your incentive to always follow through.
5. Sense of urgency.
A sense of urgency drives inspiration. Urgency creates the mindset to work as if your life depends upon it, especially if you have fewer resources than others. When you are the underdog you will dig deep inside yourself for the advances you need in order to thrive.
Urgency causes you activate quickly when making decisions. You get out of your routine and do something different. It motivates you to get results quickly and efficiently, but it does not eliminate assessment. If want to produce getting results faster you must assess what is and what is not working, then eliminate the efforts which have been identified as wasteful. Keep in mind it is easier to steer a moving object, so if you realize you have made a poor decision, a sense of urgency allows you to adjust. If you wait too long you miss opportunities and chances.
Related: Don't Lose That All-Important Sense of Urgency. Do It -- Now!
6. Sense of resiliency.
There will be tough times in life and business. When tough times occur, you need the skills and attributes to deal effectively with them. Personal development cannot prevent all bad things from occurring but it helps you deal with obstacles as they surface.
Resiliency teaches you never to view any challenge as the end of the world. Resilience allows you the patience, awareness and fortitude to continue moving forward, even if that means completely changing course.
Self-development deepens your maturity to trust that everything happens for reasons which can only be in line with your best interest. With this type of mindset, there is no obstacle that will hold you back. You will have greater confidence, pliability, and the personal and interpersonal skills to cope with any obstacle you face in climb up the ladder of success.
7. Sense of connectedness.
Relationships can be double-edged swords. They either lift you up or drag you down. They either bring you closer to your goals or push you further away. When you improve your personal development, you are better able to see which relationships and partnerships are worth investing in and which you need to cut loose. This type of self-awareness gives you the skills to make the best of the relationships which have a positive impact on your life, your business and your overall success.
If you aren’t learning then you aren’t living. Make the commitment to invest in your greatest resource – You. Many people are put off by personal development because it viewed as a weakness or something which shows you do not already possess the skills necessary for success. If you assume you already it all, you will not be happy or successful. The greatest achievers in life and business know the key to success is their ability to manage themselves in a variety of situations. That ability comes through personal development.
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you
https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events.
Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.
Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best.
According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50.
One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.”
By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill).
Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.
This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just.
However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there.
This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit.
Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate.
Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you
https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events.
Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.
Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best.
According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50.
One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.”
By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill).
Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.
This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just.
However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there.
This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit.
Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate.
Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
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Text
Adam Radly Bob Bates: 6 Facts You Need to Know About Starting Your Own Consulting Business
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/299691?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
Thousands of professionals have dreamed about starting their own consulting business. It seems like a great career path: Hang a shingle, bring in clients, be your own boss, do awesome stuff and make bank.
Yet consulting, as it turns out, isn't sexy, glamorous or easy. It's downright hard -- harder than you might think. I encourage anyone with the moxie to start a consulting business. But I also offer cautions -- a few "yield" signs that could save you a lot of grief and get you closer to achieving your dreams.
Here's what you need to know:
Start Slideshow
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Adam Radly Bob Bates: 6 Facts You Need to Know About Starting Your Own Consulting Business
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/299691?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
Thousands of professionals have dreamed about starting their own consulting business. It seems like a great career path: Hang a shingle, bring in clients, be your own boss, do awesome stuff and make bank.
Yet consulting, as it turns out, isn't sexy, glamorous or easy. It's downright hard -- harder than you might think. I encourage anyone with the moxie to start a consulting business. But I also offer cautions -- a few "yield" signs that could save you a lot of grief and get you closer to achieving your dreams.
Here's what you need to know:
Start Slideshow
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Adam Radly Bob Bates: 6 Facts You Need to Know About Starting Your Own Consulting Business
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/299691?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
Thousands of professionals have dreamed about starting their own consulting business. It seems like a great career path: Hang a shingle, bring in clients, be your own boss, do awesome stuff and make bank.
Yet consulting, as it turns out, isn't sexy, glamorous or easy. It's downright hard -- harder than you might think. I encourage anyone with the moxie to start a consulting business. But I also offer cautions -- a few "yield" signs that could save you a lot of grief and get you closer to achieving your dreams.
Here's what you need to know:
Start Slideshow
Radly Bates affiliates:
S7 Group
Radly Bates Index
Radly Bates Consulting
Radly Bates Capital
Radly Bates Associates
Radly Bates Digital
Radly Bates Valuations
Follow us on social:
https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting
https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital
https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates.
https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations
https://issuu.com/s7loans
Read the full article
0 notes