HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT SHOES

Your shoes make a distinct statement about your personal style. A beautiful ensemble can be made or marred by the contemplating pair of shoes! There are no fast laws on what shoes to wear on what occasion, however there are usually dress codes to guide your choice of shoes. You cant, for instance wear slipper or plimsolls to work if your dress code is strictly formal; just as you wouldn't be expected to go to the beach in heels. Whatever the case, the guiding principle is to choose comfortable shoes that "work" for you and rock them with confidence. 

Here is a simple guide to help you choose what works for you! 

Kitten Heel Shoes: if you are looking for elegance, style and sophistication, the Kitten Heels are your best bet. These dainty shoes work well with most female outfits.

Source: Lyst.com

Stiletto Shoes: This works just fine if you want to look chic or turn up your sex appeal. It makes your legs look longer.

Source: Charlotte Luxury

Wedge Shoes: Called ‘Wedges’ because of their sole shape, these shoes can serve as a great way to gain height without sacrificing comfort and ease of movement.

Source: Steve Madden

Flat Shoes: From smart shoes to casual shoes, ballet pumps to lace-up brogues; ‘flats’ are the easiest to shoes to walk in when you go casual or semi-formal.

Source: Fanpop

Sandals and Slippers: These are very essential items in every woman’s shoe collection and can vary from the very casual shoe to dressy, formal sandals with heels and other adornments.

 Image Source: Hemes                                                                                            Image Source: Ebay

IT'S NOT JUST WHAT YOU EAT, IT'S HOW YOU EAT!

By Johnkennedy Nnanna

Healthy eating is more than the food on your plate—it is also about how you think about food. It is important to slow down and think about food as nourishment rather than just something to gulp down in between meetings or on the way to pick up the kids or dash down to the office.

Eat breakfast, and eat smaller meals throughout the day. A healthy breakfast can jumpstart your metabolism, and eating small, healthy meals throughout the day (rather than the standard three large meals) keeps your energy up and your metabolism going.

Eat with others whenever possible. Eating with other people has numerous social and emotional benefits and allows you to model healthy eating habits. Eating in front of the TV or computer often leads to mindless overeating.

Water. Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated, causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It is common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.

Avoid eating at night. Try to eat dinner earlier in the day. No meal after 8pm. Eat only when you are most active and giving your digestive system a long break each day, may help regulate your weight.

Exercise. Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and REGULAR EXERCISE may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.

You should feel satisfied at the end of a meal, but not stuffed. The key foundation for any healthy diet is MODERATION.

DOES ATTITUDE REALLY DETERMINE ALTITUDE?

Keith Harrell’s book screams, Attitude is Everything: 10 Life-Changing Steps to Turning Attitude into Action.  Jeff Keller not to be outdone goes a step further and shouts, Attitude is Everything: Change your Attitude, Change your Life. Two of the fathers of modern motivational literature, Napoleon Hill, and W. Clement Stone, had in 1960 written what many consider the definitive treatise on attitude when Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude was published. Though it did not have the word attitude in its title, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People was on positive attitude and was first published in 1937.

The Self Help industry according to The Guardian, is a $11bn strong in the US alone, with books in this space such as Chicken Soup for the Soul series selling over a billion copies. The book The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, published in 2006, and the follow up film starring Bob Proctor, made waves the whole world and was translated into 46 languages. The book has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide. The book is based on one of the several tendencies in the self help industry called the law of attraction. According to this law, what you think about, you attract. If you think positive thoughts, you attract positive things. The reverse, according to the author, is also true. Viola, change your thinking, change your life.   John C. Maxwell, Wayne Dyer, Daniel G. Amen, Brian Tracy, and Marilee Adams are some of the more well known authors that have books on how thinking positive help change our lives.

So back to our question: does attitude really determine altitude? For the non cognoscenti, altitude refers to the level of your monetary success, the height of your achievement glory, the stupendousness of your wealth. A deep look at some of the most successful people on the planet, whether in politics, sports, academia, business, and entertainment, to mention a few, however, shows no causal relationship between attitude and success, however defined. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jordan, Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, Williams Shakespeare, Bill Gates, Ben Carson, and Oprah Winfrey, Tony Elumelu, Aliko Dangote, and Richard Branson, to mention a few, are some of the most successful individuals on record. How did each and every one of these individuals achieve stupendous success?  One word: through grit.   

By success, I don’t just mean financial wealth, because Nelson Mandela, one of the most successful leaders that ever lived was not a multi millionaire. So the one and only ingredient that separates successful people from others is grit, by which I mean hard work, burning the mid night oil, iron determination, standing for something, sacrifice. Malcolm Gladwell tells us to succeed in any endeavour,   you need 10,000 man hours of continued practice, that is, about 10 years in the trenches. Ten years of learning, ten years of focus, ten years of faith, ten years of passion, ten years of sacrifice are what you need to reach the proverbial tipping point. 

Attitude is a state of mind, of always expecting the best no matter what the world throws on your path. But attitude (the software) without hard work (the hard ware) will not put bread on your table, even if you are a comedian. As a comedian, you have to continually come up with fresh rib crackers otherwise you will become stale, and that calls for extreme hard work.  John H. Johnson of the Ebony Magazine empire fame said “there is no defense against excellence”, and the boxing maverick, Don King, once said, “If you set yourself on fire, the world will come and watch you burn.”  Don King was talking about passion, zeal, determination, to go out and make something out of yourself, not waiting for a dole out, social security or manna from heaven. Are you ready for success? Then wake up, put on your running shoes, fold your shirt sleeves, put your hand to the plough and never look back and the gods of success will show up. Only hard work will see you to the Promised Land because the maker of all the universe Himself decreed that he who does not work does not eat. Attitude alone my friend is not enough. You need a ton of grit to stand on.

By Paul Uduk is the Author of “The Celebrity Speaker: Speak Like The Orators of Old, Impact the World and Grow Rich”, and “Bridges to the Customer’s Heart”

HOW TO ASK

Asking is an art, so if you want to get the right answers, you must learn to ask the right questions and in the right way.  Here are four ways to ensure that your asking gets the right results.

1. ASK CLEARLY

Be precise and think clearly. You can use a notepad to design words that have the greatest impact. Words are powerful so choose them carefully. Being incoherent won’t serve you well.

2. ASK WITH CONFIDENCE

 After you figure out what you want to ask for, do it with certainty, boldness and confidence. This does not mean brash, arrogant or conceited. Confidence can be strength, but to the people you are asking, it’s visible. The only negative thing that can happen is that your request may be denied. Does this put you in a worse position then before? Of course not. It just means that this particular route to getting results is closed. So look for another one.

3. ASK CONSISTENTLY

Some people fold up the tent after making one timid request. They quit too soon. If you want to unearth the true riches in life, you’ll need to do a lot of asking. Treat it like a game; keep asking until you find the answers. In sales there are usually four or five ‘’NO’s before you get a ‘’YES.’’

4. ASK SINCERELY

When you really need help, people will respond. Sincerity requires being real. It means dropping the image façade and showing a willingness to be vulnerable. Tell it the way it is, lumps and all. Don’t worry if your presentation isn’t perfect; ask from your heart. Keep it simple and people will open up to you. Your request will be favoured if you can clearly show that you have put in a lot of effort. People are more likely to give you a helping hand when you ask for support.

There are many ways to ask, learn all of them.

By Gabriel Odang

DID YOU KNOW- AFRICA

1.   African continent is the world’s oldest populated area

2.   Over 25% all languages are spoken only in Africa with over 2,000 recognised languages spoken on the continent.

3.   Africa is the second most populous continent with about 1.1 billion people or 16% of the world’s population. Over 50% of Africans are under the age of 25.

4.   Africa is the world’s second largest continent covering about over 30 million square kilometers

5.   Africa has approximately 30% of the earth’s remaining mineral resources

6.   The continent has the largest reserves of precious metals with over 40% of the gold reserves, over 60% of the cobalt, and 90% of the platinum reserves.

7.   Animals like the giraffe, zebra, gorilla, hippopotamus, chimpanzee and wildebeest are unique to Africa and can only be found here.

8.   The Serengeti (Tanzania) hosts the world’s largest wildlife migration on Earth with over 750,000 zebra marching ahead of 1.2 million wildebeest as they cross this amazing landscape.

9.   Africa has over 25% of the world’s bird species.

10.               Africa is home to the world’s largest living land mammal, the Elephant and the world tallest, the Giraffe

Source

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/31/getting-to-know-africa-50-facts/

http://www.factslides.com/s-Africa

BUILDING THE "EXCELLENT" YOU

Customer service has become a central focus of management strategy as companies strive to achieve excellence in the increasingly competitive market place. It is indeed the new standard by which customers judge organisations and by which organisations evaluate themselves. Organisations have come to understand that the opportunities for growth in the marketplace will not come from new products or markets, but from the ability to deliver high quality and excellent customer service.

Organisations today are defining and implementing roadmaps for customer service transformation. They are improving the ambience of their service outlets, redesigning processes for improved efficiency, investing heavily in technology to support business operations, releasing new products to meet perceived customers’ needs, improving systems and processes for customer complaints handling, paying more attention to the ‘voice of the customer’ and building a strong customer service culture.

The quest for excellence at UBA is no different. Having set inspirational goals on service, UBA is fully focused on the customer and customer satisfaction. Various service transformation initiatives are being implemented including upgrade of its electronic channels, heavy investment in technology to support seamless business processes, branch infrastructure upgrade, continuous business process improvement, the 24/7 Customer Fulfilment Centre for complaints handling, product innovation and various change management programmes to bolster the high service standards culture in UBA.

Organisational Excellence and Service Excellence

While most organisations strive to improve their service standards through various programmes, ultimately, the task of providing excellent customer service falls on employees. The success of the service transformation drive of most organisations today is therefore largely dependent on individual staff members because it is impossible for an organisation to excel in customer service without a crop of ‘service excellence driven’ personnel.

Excellence in an individual connotes the individual’s stamp of superiority, distinction, uniqueness and brilliance.  It sets the individual apart from the crowd because it signifies extraordinary quality and exceptionality. This trait is evident in all very successful individuals and indeed, majority of staff of successful organisations.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE AN ‘EXCELLENT’ INDIVIDUAL IN THE WORKPLACE 

Deep passion for service:  The ‘excellent’ individual understands that the customer is ‘King’ and the reason for the company’s corporate existence, so s/he appreciates, respects and values all customers and serves customers with passion, zeal and enthusiasm. The individual also has a good customer service orientation.

Efficiency: The ‘excellent’ individual attends to and processes customers’ transactions on time, with a sense of urgency because s/he respects the customers’ time

Reliability: The ‘excellent’ individual is a person of truth and integrity. Her/his word is her/his bond; promises made to customers are kept.

Effective Communication Skills: The ‘excellent’ individual relates to customers in such a way that there is always mutual understanding and no ambiguities.

Prompt Resolution of Issues: Resolves customer’s issues with a sense of urgency based on a genuine concern for the customer and customer satisfaction.

Hitch-Free Business Operations: Such an individual ensures systems and processes function optimally. S/he supports smooth business processes, has a good system maintenance culture and is prompt to resolve issues that can halt business processes.

Strong Customer relationships: The individual builds strong customer relationships. S/he knows key customers personally and always goes the extra mile to serve and delight them.

Knowledgeableness and Competency: The ‘excellent’ individual is technically sound, competent and is very good on-the-job. The individual is also well read and has a good knowledge of the industry s/he works in. The individual is passionate about self development and does not wait for officially scheduled training to deepen knowledge and skills.

Innovativeness: With a strong desire for service excellence, the individual always consistently reviews business operations with a view to improving efficiency of business processes.

Perfectionism:  The ‘excellent’ individual is careful and produces top quality, error free output by paying attention to the standard of every detail of the working environment, observing the highest standards.

Commitment: The ‘excellent’ individual is truly and sincerely committed to the goals, objectives and the very essence of the organisation, spreads only ‘positive’ energy within the organisation, is hardworking and never gives up.

HOW TO BUILD EXCELLENCE IN YOU

Imbibing and consistently demonstrating the tenets discussed above will build excellence in you and make you a role model for other staff in the organisation.

By Titilayo Iwenjora

REPERCUSSIONS: CAUSE AND EFFECT

Creator: Heinrich Böll Foundation.. This image is licensed under Creative Commons License.

Sometimes, the weather gets erratic and the chills descend. Harmattan winds pierce through the skin. Temperature nosedive below zero. The polar freezes up and the frostbites harshly descend on the populace of Moscow. Icebergs rapidly multiply in the Pacific and the thin ice sheets on the Euphrates won’t melt until summer.

Sometimes, the weather gets annoyingly erratic and the heat is escalated. The crops burn out to browns in the fields. The water dries up in the lakes in Kenya. The crocs recede into the deeps of the drying Nile. Buffalos on the plains of the Serengeti collapse under the toll of drought and sadly, no one in sight on the coasts of Mogadishu.

Sometimes, men commit heinous crime against Nature. Men catalyze climate changes. Bushfires in America, dredging of the Straits of Gibraltar, wildlife poached to endangerment in Africa and to extinction in Asia. Oil spills on the Adriatic have had its toll on aquatic life and the Cedars of Lebanon are now only read about in the Holy Book.

Sometimes Nature gets angry and our world comes crashing down. Like avalanches in Alaska, she's deadly. Like tsunamis in Japan, she's costly. Like Forest fires in Alabama, she's expansive, and like earthquakes in Venezuela, she massively upturns the Richter scale.

Sometimes these are the consequences of our choices. This action has a cause. This cause has an effect. To every effect, there is a reaction, pleasant or unpleasant. According to Newton, action and reaction are equal and opposite. The power to change the world and restore aberration to normalcy lies in the hands of men. Be the change you want to see.

By Moshood Azeez

The Rise of the FinTech and its Effect on Traditional Banks

By: Yinka Adedeji, Head of Consumer & Digital Banking at UBA Plc. 

Banking is traditionally thought of as an mediator between those that have excess money and those that need money. Banks are still stuck with the traditional mind-set by continuously re-inventing around liability, credits, treasury and correspondence products.

Managing these products requires a lot of manpower. Manpower required to assess small value requests is the same as what is required to assess large value requests. For example, the effort to process a mortgage of Euro 25,000 is the same effort to process a 250,000 Euro mortgage. At the same interest rate, the larger ticket transaction will yield higher interest income. Therefore, traditional banks usually focus on those large ticket opportunities. 

Technology entrepreneurs have identified these opportunities in low value ticket but high velocity transactions and have come up with fantastic solutions. These financial technology entrepreneurs are now emerging so fast with very simple and easy to use solutions for customers that need financial services that traditional banks do not place a lot of value on.

The threat posed by UBER to the transportation industry is child's play in comparison to what FinTechs can do to traditional banks.

The advantages of FinTechs over traditional banks are agility, idea generation at the back of envelops, decision making in coffee shops instead of fancy boardrooms and lengthy unproductive meetings, flexibility to continuous change, openness to use shared services like clouds, very low cost and low pricing, no legacy systems to box their thinking, no fear of failure and, freedom from claws of regulators.

Fintechs are dominated by students, new graduates and experienced workers who are frustrated with the products and processes of traditional banks. However, some giant social media agencies such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, WhatsApp, etc. are now playing in the payment space of traditional banks. They are not only driving banking service penetration but also bridging the gap between  banks and Fintechs to provide financial services. Tech giants are gaining the trust of people, and, in fact, have more information about the customers and their friends and family than what the banks have.  Thus, the banks no longer monopolize peoples’ trust.

However, traditional banks also have a unique advantage in the sense that people trust that their money is safe.

The advantages listed for FinTechs are the disadvantages of traditional banks and the advantages of traditional banks are the disadvantages of the FinTechs.

Central switches have improved significantly as FinTechs can now readily connect to banks. The switches that rely on account numbers will definitely require the banks to authenticate all transactions and will require collaboration of the banks. However, those switches that accept cards have opened the capability of Fintechs to approval debit/payment transactions from accounts that are in banks.

FinTechs are introducing new and cool products such as account deposits, payments and transfers, recurring payment services, bill payments, local and international remittances, nano- and micro- loans, discounts, loyalty services, etc.

Traditional banks are trying to respond to the threat posed by these FinTechs barbarians at the gate. However, traditional banks cannot respond with better solutions fast enough.

The banks have come to recognize that they have to collaborate with Fintechs in a Win Win style.

Traditional banks will enable and provide access to already banked customers current and historical data and Fintechs can access bank data at a cost.

When the dust settles, traditional banks will enable, acquire or invest in some Fintechs. Traditional banks will need to improve to act like Fintechs or die.