rspazzoli, Author at Rowan Spazzoli

You can’t help everyone

“You can’t help everyone Rowan”

I was chatting to my flatmate this evening when he said this to me. I’d been telling him about how I client was making a really poor decision. One that would cost them. But they weren’t going to change their minds and I found it immensely frustrating.

Objectively, I know it’s true. I can’t help everyone. But I still have a tendency to worry about things that I can’t change.

I try and help people as much as I can. And get annoyed when I’m not able to. And this annoyance can even manifest itself as guilt.

Out of control

I know that this is because I think that I have much more power than I have in reality. I believe that I am responsible for so much more than just myself

But there is so much that is out of my control.

And as much as it’s good to help people, we can’t help everyone. Try your best, but don’t let it impact you when you’re unable to help

Image is of the magnificent storm we had in Cape Town today.

Song of the day: Embody - Lost and Found

Blog 137/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 28, 2018 | Permalink

Having a mentor

When we’re in school, there are a multitude of people that can guide us through the ups and downs. Our parents have been through school, older siblings are just ahead of us, teachers know the playing field. But as we grow older there are less people that have followed our same journey. Neither of my parents have lectured before. My siblings are entirely different fields to me. And so it becomes important to find a mentor.

I had a conversation about this with a friend today. We chatted about how a mentor can be a person that helps guide you through your development. And that you can have more than one mentor. One at the same age as you, one a little older and one towards the end of their career.

Asking someone to be your mentor may seem a little weird. But they’re likely to be more than willing to take you on. They’ll be able to give advice, share lessons and link you up with people. In doing this, they may also benefit from being in contact with someone with a different generational perspective.

So if you’re a young professional, see if you can get someone to be your mentor. And if you’re in a more senior professional, maybe offer to mentor someone if you feel they’d benefit from it 🙂

P.S here's a nice little article on mentoring

Image is of the hotel where we had a meeting this morning.

Song of the day: Shine on me - Watershed

Blog 136/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 27, 2018 | Permalink

Standing Out

Every now and then I’ll enter a competition online. And it usually only happens when I really want the prize on offer. I’ll enter competitions where there is a standardised form. But I prefer those where I can differentiate myself and stand out.

For example, when a Facebook or Instagram page’s competition asks you to tag a friend. Most people will just tag their friends or tag them and leave a comment saying “omg hope we win.”

But I use the opportunity to write something that catches the eye. Which usually ends up being a rhyme or something particularly witty

And I’ve won 4 competitions this way, totalling almost R3000 in stuff.

It’s a sneaky metaphor for living life. If you do exactly what everyone else is doing you have the same chance of them of succeeding. But if you differentiate yourself, you up that chance exponentially 🙂

Another image from the prom, taken today 🙂

Song of the day: LMC vs U2 - Take Me To The Clouds Above

Blog 135/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 26, 2018 | Permalink

Spotting different errors

It’s 1.34am and I’m busy editing the final draft of one of my consulting reports. (I should probably have done this earlier in the weekend but I was taking time off). I have feedback from two stakeholders which I am incorporating into the final draft. And whats interesting is the difference in the errors that are picked up.

This draft has been looked at a number of times. My boss checked through it completely. I did the same and then checked it again before sending it. It then went to the stakeholders and they’ve picked up further corrections. But the errors they picked up on are different and they rarely seem to pick up the same error.

In fairness it is a 52 page, 18000 word report. But it’s also interesting to see how much we miss. By the time my boss looks at it tomorrow it will have been proof read 7 or 8 times. And there are still likely to be errors.

Many eyes see

I brought up the concept of bias in my lecture last week. And although it doesn’t relate to this exactly, biases are also blind spots.

We have many blindspots we are unaware of. They may be blindspots of knowledge or judgement. They may be blindspots to certain errors.

But by looking at it from different angles and taking everyone’s perspective into account we are able to iron out the errors. To shine a light on the gaps and patch them up.

And the final result is a more complete, more polished product. Whatever that might be.

Image is of the Australian prime minister criticising the Aussie team for cheating. Shame.

Song of the day: I Dare You - The XX

Blog 134/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 25, 2018 | Permalink

Lao Tzu on Leadership

This week I taught a module on leadership for the BUS4050W class. One of the concepts I emphasised was from Jim Collins “Level 5” leadership. Collins says that a level 5 leader has a paradoxical blend of humility and fierce resolve.

I closed off the session with a quote from Lao Tzu. I heard it for the first time when I was in Switzerland last year. It was used at the end of a presentation by a social entrepreneur and it reads as follows:

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start
with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best
leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will
say ‘We have done this ourselves.” – Lao Tzu

This is definitely my favourite quote on leadership, and it’s something that I hope to emulate in my work 🙂

Image was taken during my hike last week 🙂

Song of the day: Mitis - Forests

Blog 133/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 24, 2018 | Permalink

The Friday Shoutout: Emagqabini

Today a good friend of mine, Cindy Mkaza, gave a guest lecture to the Strategic Thinking class. Cindy founded an organisation called Emagqabini which aims to help high school learners in Khayelitsha to succeed. They describe themselves as follows:

Cindy’s concern about her sister’s academic performance was driving force behind the establishment of the academy. When her mother told her that her sister had done badly in yet another term; Cindy remembered that as a child growing up in Khayelitsha no-one in her family could assist her with her school work as well – because of their own illiteracy. Cindy also realized that the academic struggle was not unique to her sister but a reality to many young South Africans, especially from under-resourced communities. As a result, the drop-out rate of high school learners in South Africa was 46% in 2016. This means that many young people did not reach matric and this, leaves them vulnerable to various social-ills.

Thus, to try and assist her sister and to make sure that the generation of her younger brother and the other kids in the neighbourhood benefit, with her husband, Cindy started Emagqabini as a homework support programme.

The homework support programme used to take place in people’s living rooms in Khayelitsha. Each home hosted a tutor in a particular subject and the learners would rotate. Once the learner number grew we then moved to the nearby library. This year (2018) our learner number has tripled, we are currently supporting 100 learners in grade 8 – 12.

Thank you to Cindy for coming through, we loved hearing from you!

Image was taken during the lecture today

Song of the day: Davido - Fall

Blog 132/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 24, 2018 | Permalink

Leaving lessons

I’ve spent a good amount of time today thinking about my last lecture tomorrow. The topic of the lecture is leadership, which is something I’ve lectured on before. However, I’m really struggling to put the lecture together.

I think this is because I really want to leave the students with some lasting lessons. I want my final lecture to have impact, to leave them inspired.

At this point, I still have no idea what these lessons are going to be. But I’m hoping that I’ll have some sort of epiphany in the morning that’ll lead to some really great lessons for the students.

Will report back on whether this actually happens :’)

Image is of an albino squirrel, taken in the company gardens

Song of the day: Tom Rosenthal - Was it you who I saw?

Blog 131/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 22, 2018 | Permalink

Reflecting on Choices

This evening I met up with my great uncle for dinner (he’s my mum’s uncle or my gran’s brother. He’s also actually pretty great. He’s also know as our muncle, as he’s a monk and our uncle). We had an in depth discussion around having an impact on the world and the decisions that lead us to this. And a theme that emerged from this discussion was around choices.

Obviously we make hundreds of choices every day. These might include what to eat, what route to take to work or what things to check off our to do list. And many of these choices are insignificant. They have no sustained impact on your life.

But many of these little choices ultimately direct the big picture of your life. They may be a fundamental component to the habits you build, shape your career path or negatively/positively impact your health. Some choices are harmless, but some have real world consequences.

Reflecting on these choices

I told my uncle about my blog and how I write every single night. His observation linked back to this idea of choices. Every night I am able to reflect on the choices I made that day. I’m able to unpack the influence that these might have had on my life.

In doing this, I am able to have a greater awareness of my choices. And therefore, I’m able to direct them better.

So by reflecting every day, I’m able to improve the choices I make in the future and understand those made in my immediate past. And ultimately, have greater control over the direction of my life.

Image was taken at dinner with my great uncle

Song of the day: Feeling Groovy - Simon and Garfunkel

Blog 130/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on March 21, 2018 | Permalink