Shabaan Ahmad

When I discuss emotional connection with executives, I’m not suggesting excessive displays of emotion, oversharing of personal information, or getting into therapy sessions with colleagues. Rather, it’s about   connecting   with our teams, our peers, and our bosses as humans with emotions, not task-focused automatons. It’s the emotions that you as a leader evoke within others that enable you to bring out the best in them. Thousands of years ago,  Aristotle identified  p athos  as a critical element in communication and persuasion.  Pathos , in philosophy and rhetoric, is a purposeful appeal to emotion to evoke specific feelings in one’s audience. Aristotle understood way back then that the human connection makes a huge difference in provoking action. As the maxim suggests, logic makes us think, but emotions make us act. Here are three ways I’ve coached executives to harness the power of emotion to motivate the people they work with and drive better results: 1.  Cultivate the energy tha

 

 

Early rising is a present you offer to yourself. The practise of waking early is one of the few disciplines that has the capacity to completely change your life. The first few hours of the morning are very special. The air is filled with a profound sense of tranquilly as time seems to slow down. By becoming a member of the "Five o' Clock Club," you may start managing your day rather than having it manage you. By waking early, you may win the "Battle of the Bed" and put your "mind above mattress," giving you at least one peaceful hour to yourself during the most important portion of your day: the beginning. The remainder of your day will go well if you use your time correctly. In the book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, I urged readers to "get up with the sun" and provided many suggestions to support them in developing this new lifestyle discipline. I can confidently declare that this is true based on the numerous letters, emails, and faxes I h

 

 

One day, according to an old story, a man with a serious illness was wheeled into a hospital room where another patient was resting on a bed next to the window. As the two became friends, the one next to the window would look out of it and then spend the next few hours delighting his bedridden companion with vivid descriptions of the world outside. Some days he would describe the beauty of the trees in the park across from the hospital and how the leaves danced in the wind. On other days, he would entertain his friend with step - by – step replays of the things people were doing as they walked by the hospital. However, as time went on, the bedridden man grew frustrated at his inability to observe the wonders his friend described. Eventually he grew to dislike him and then to hate him intensely.  One night, during a particularly bad coughing fit, the patient next to the window stopped breathing. Rather than pressing the button for help, the other man chose do nothing. The next morning t

When I was growing up, my father said something to me I will never forget, “Son, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries while you rejoice.” We live in an age when we have forgotten what life is all about. We can easily put a person on the Moon, but we have trouble walking across the street to meet a new neighbor. We can fire a missile across the world with pinpoint accuracy, but we have trouble keeping a date with our children to go to the library. We have e-mail, fax machines and digital phones so that we can stay connected and yet we live in a time where human beings have never been less connected. We have lost touch with our humanity. We have lost touch with our purpose. We have lost sight of the things that matter the most. And so, as you start this book, I respectfully ask you, Who will cry when you die? How many lives will you touch while you have the privilege to walk this planet? What impa

Life isn't about finding yourself.  Life is about creating yourself.