14/12/2023
FIVE THINGS TO CONSIDER DURING THIS FESTIVE SEASON:
To be honest, every season is a giving season, but it is during the Christmas season that giving and generosity are heightened.
Here are five (5) things to consider during this elevated giving season:
1. Give something to someone and put a smile on their face. If you cannot gift to family and friends, then gift to a Children's home, a church, a school or to any needy person or organization.
2. I come in peace. Be that as it may, I would like you to seriously consider this second point.
When we gift to those closer to home, let us gift them at the level of their appreciation. There is no point in gifting a single malt drinker, a bottle of Red label Johnnie Walker. They will certainly judge you for judging them, that they are worthy of Red label. I am not a connoisseur of whisky, but I am aware that seasoned whisky drinkers, judge whiskies that they are gifted by others. This advice is based on a true story. My late hub never forgave someone whom they were visiting at their home for the first time, who gifted them a red label. He wondered for the rest of his life about it. If he had given the same dude a red label, what would he have thought of him, he wondered. Later, that same person asked the hub to refer him to some connections, for a transaction he wanted to do. The hub, gave this dude the benefit of the doubt and set up everything. But when the hub was trying to reach this dude, the dude never picked up his phone confirming to the hub that this dude was not serious about building a relationship with him. The hub often referred to these kinds of people as time-wasters. Until his death, everyone who approached the hub about this dude, the hub indicated that this dude was not a serious person. The hub knew this dude was serious to others - those he thought impacted his life or business and judged those he thought would not, hence the red label.
So we decided to nickname this dude, red label! The hub never drank that red label. I still have it at home, hidden where the hub stored his whiskies. I have kept it as an exhibit to never judge people and gift them at levels they do not appreciate!!!
The moral of the story is, when you do not know people well enough, please ask them what they appreciate. Do not gift them from your own head, for that gifting can have far reaching implications. That gifting can course ernomous harm and also can lead to feelings of being maliciously misrepresented by the receiver of the gift. Later on, when you behave in a manner that is consistent with the unappreciated gift, their perception of you is cast in stone. Today you might want to access certain contacts and you will have difficulty, because unbeknowst to you, these people know, from their late buddy that you had previously underrated, that, you are that type of person who judges people, based on your first, distorted impessions of them.
3. Stay in your gifting lane. You have no business gifting people you have no relationship with or people who are not stakeholders in your business. For those not in the know, there is a difference between shareholder and stakeholder. Here, I am talking about stakeholders. Stakeholders includes shareholders but not all stakeholders are shareholders. Google it if you want more deal on the differences.
When you gift people who are not stakeholders in your life or business, you run the risk of being accused of misconduct and duplicity.
4. It is wrong on many levels to always be the one thanking the generous givers. Thank you, thank you everyday, to other people should be a shameful thing to do! Gift those who are always gifting you. Surprise and give them a beautiful gift they least expected from you. Always understand that in life, it is great etiquette to return the good that others do for you. You might not do it at the rate they do it unto you, but do it anyway.
I have a friend the same age as the youngest brother, so I consider her a little sister. She has saved me tonnes of money in pet food that she delivers using a truck that she pays for. I can never match her giving capabilities, but recently, the giving spirit consummed me and she was the first person I gifted this Christmas season, with an item I designed and made with some of the most expensive wrought iron flat bar steel, I have ever bought. For your own information folks, that kind of flat bar is hard to come by. It is one of those special products you do not replicate. It is one of its kind and it deserved to be in her fine home. In fact, as I am writing, I have since realized that ALL the stuff from Totem Shumba Lifestyle my wrought iron manufacturing company has ever made for her, are all bespoke, unique and never replicated again. But then again, we tend to do that with our HNWI clientelle.
5. Do not take yourself too seriously this festive season. There are many, in the corridors of FB who are going to be travelling far and wide. If you are like me and are spending Christmas at home, at my mum's place, do not be envious of those travelling. Wish them well. Be happy for them. It is their time. Your time will come. But if it does not, just count your many other blessings, the most important of which is, life. We must never take for granted, the gift of life. You are alive and in good health and this is something worthy of celebration.
On that final note, I would like to wish all those travelling to near and far away destinations, journey mercies. May you have a blast and thoroughly enjoy your holidays.
