The world of work can be very fun and very fulfilling but it will not always be very fair. There may be times when we will be responded to roughly, treated unfairly and dealt a hand that we didn't deserve. Or at least that’s what it can feel like. We can perceive experiences like these as a form of punishment and allow them to be hugely hindering.

In this week’s episode we discussed what was perceived as the worst punishment of the author’s life and how in dealing with this punishment, he was able to learn a new purpose of ‘punishment’.

"There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up" - John Holmes

Both in our personal and professional lives, we are blessed with opportunities to help others. The help we render may look different in each situation but the action is the same. When we assist another, we remove a load from this person and place it on ourselves. Whether that load be physical, mental or emotional it carries with it a weight. This weight may be negligible by itself but when compounded by others, it can begin to overburden the person who offered to help. As someone who has felt this overwhelm before and has been hurt by the help I offered, I've learnt that it is important to help others but it is essential safeguard yourself. So essential, that not doing this could actually lead to you getting fired ! Well that's what happened to me at least. In this episode I'll be sharing two experiences where I felt the hard consequences of overloading myself in an attempt to help and yes, one of them is the story of the first time I ever got fired from a job.

"I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out," - Maya Angelou

Regardless of what path we are walking in our world of work, there are obstacles, challenges and changes that face us on our way. These opponents can lead to the development of internal thoughts, perspectives and feelings that based on their nature can derail us from our destination course. Each of these, on their own, have the ability to stop any young professional from pushing forward but when they all occur together, they become a paralyzing phenomenon. The specific, pervasive phenomenon that this episode speaks on is Imposter Syndrome - a universal experience of feeling like a fraud despite undeniable accomplishments. In this episode, the author shares two experiences that he had with Imposter Syndrome and the remedies that were given to him by some unexpected ‘doctors’. In so doing, he hopes that the medication prescribed to him will help the person who is dealing with and healing from Imposter Syndrome.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”― Winston S. Churchill When we look at our world of work and begin to assess our path through it, we can see that our journey is simply a sequential set of steps. These steps stack onto each other and scale into a staircase that takes us higher into new levels of life and deeper into knowledge of ourselves, our world and our work. Once we continue stepping (take action forward), it is inevitable that we will one day reach the level we aspire to; however the very action of taking these steps can be very difficult. This difficulty may be due to gatekeepers as shared in Episode 2 or may be due to darkness as discussed in Episode 3. Another deterring element to our progression is the lack of courage to take the necessary next steps. Courage is crucial for many of our choices in our professional and personal lives but as much as we need it, we are not always able to see it. We know courage and why we need it but do we know where it is? Inspired by the issue of 'Finding the courage to share deeper parts of yourself', this episode will take you on journey through two of the author's experiences; when he had to find the courage to share deeper parts of himself, where he found that courage and how he continues to find the courage because of what he learnt in the experiences.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure, self-determined, self-motivated, often risky, forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world.” — Mark Jenkins We as young professionals are all encountering the world of work firsthand. In our navigating of this world, whether it be crafting a career, building a business, honing a hustle or investing in a vocation, we find ourselves on a path of progression that extends as our experiences increase. Every adventure consists of hills, valleys, twists, turns, sprints and slows but in the simplest sense, every adventure consists of steps. When the path is clear and light is present, taking steps forward is easy but when we are faced with obstacles and darkness is around, knowing and further, taking these steps can be difficult. When we can't see the way forward or are overwhelmed by the steps we see before us, we can become stuck, frustrated and discouraged. The question then, in moments like this, becomes, 'how do I figure out my next steps?'. In this episode we address this issue. Through the sharing of a simple, silly but significant story, the author shares how he was able to navigate one of these dark moments in his journey, figure out his next steps and how he uses this experience to continue stepping forward.

We will all inevitably face persons who stand before us and assess our potential based on our qualifications. In the absence of these, it is easy for a young professional to become discouraged if & when rejected by employers/colleagues/investors. The world says if you don’t have a qualification you aren’t qualified to work but in this episode, I submit that the quality of your experiences can qualify you to work in ways that traditional qualifications can not.