Recent Content
I feel like my whiteboard has been redactedA lot can happen in 6 months.You can go from joy to misery.You can go from misery to joy.You can go from rich to poor.You can go from poor to rich.And …
I feel like my white…
I feel like my whiteboard has been redactedA lot can happen in 6 months.You can go from joy to misery.You can go from misery to joy.You can go from rich to poor.You can go from poor to rich.And so on…However, whilst most of these changes don’t just happen by chance; the positive ones at least need a bit of vision, planning and proactivity to make them happen.So last weekend I took half a day to throw myself into some visioning, strategising and planning for both me and my business.It’s July, why do it now?There are 3 main reasons that this seemed the right time:We’re half way…
Faris Aranki
July 23, 2024 
Now that's what I call a birthday card!Here’s a question for you:Would you sign a card for someone you don’t know (or only minimally know)?This is a quandary I was faced with 20 years ago.It wa…
Now that's what I ca…
Now that's what I call a birthday card!Here’s a question for you:Would you sign a card for someone you don’t know (or only minimally know)?This is a quandary I was faced with 20 years ago.It was my first day in a new company and I was sat at my desk trying to work out my new laptop when someone came up to me and said:“Do you want to sign the card?”“What card?” I replied.“The leaving card for Stephen, ” they said“Sure, give it here,” I said instinctively and placed my name and a short message alongside those of many others even though I had no idea who Stephen was …
Faris Aranki
July 9, 2024 
This is not my wardrobeThis is a reprint of a classic blog I wrote in December 2019 when I first started Shiageto ConsultingEver found yourself spending way longer than you should deliberating what y…
This is not my ward…
This is not my wardrobeThis is a reprint of a classic blog I wrote in December 2019 when I first started Shiageto ConsultingEver found yourself spending way longer than you should deliberating what you should wear to work? Something that should take a matter of moments ends up filling 10 mins or more and suddenly you’re in danger of being late. Not only is this stressful and leaves you still debating with yourself at lunchtime, but it turns out it could or could not make a difference.[Sometimes I envy my old university professor who explained to us that he had bought 7 of the same outfits t…
Faris Aranki
July 2, 2024 
If you want to make a lasting impression it’s all about being memorable ; here’s some tips on how to do thatCurtains ready at the ballet - all is not quite as it seemsThis week I’ve referenc…
If you want to make …
If you want to make a lasting impression it’s all about being memorable ; here’s some tips on how to do thatCurtains ready at the ballet - all is not quite as it seemsThis week I’ve referenced the great Maya Angelou a lot, in particular her fabulous quote:“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”It was a key reference for the personal impact training I ran for clients — both in terms of a mindset for the participants to think about when they interact with people and also as a consideration for…
Faris Aranki
June 23, 2024 
Effectiveness: It’s a lot to do with change; so does change make you 😊 or 😔?This isn't a blog about coinsThis is a reprint of a classic blog I wrote in December 2019 when I first started Sh…
Effectiveness: It’…
Effectiveness: It’s a lot to do with change; so does change make you 😊 or 😔?This isn't a blog about coinsThis is a reprint of a classic blog I wrote in December 2019 when I first started Shiageto ConsultingIn my previous blogs I began to explore a bit more about personal, team and business effectiveness. Moving the conversation on a little, I’d like to talk about change: one of the key drivers of effectiveness is an individual’s ability to deal with change.It doesn't matter what drives that change; it could be good news, bad news, a new job, a new team, a new technology, a new …
Faris Aranki
June 16, 2024 
Look at that face*This is a reprint of a classic blog I wrote in November 2019, not long after I’d started my first start-upA/ One bite at a time of course…I love this ridiculous joke (not just…
Look at that face*T…
Look at that face*This is a reprint of a classic blog I wrote in November 2019, not long after I’d started my first start-upA/ One bite at a time of course…I love this ridiculous joke (not just because it entertains my nephews) but because underneath it lies the simplest of truths; sometimes if we only focus on the mountain ahead of us, it can seem so daunting that we never even take the first step. Whereas if we just break it down into smaller, more manageable parts, it seems so much easier.For me this is none more so evident than when I do exercise. It doesn’t matter if it’s a ru…
Faris Aranki
June 8, 2024 
Not everything goes according to plan when you run a small businessWho doesn’t love a bank holiday?When you are an employee, it’s basically like a free day-off but, when you run your own start-u…
Not everything goes …
Not everything goes according to plan when you run a small businessWho doesn’t love a bank holiday?When you are an employee, it’s basically like a free day-off but, when you run your own start-up, bank holidays are quite a weird sensation.As a start-up founder, you feel a bit guilty taking a day-off but, even if you wanted to do any external work, your clients are likely to be off so you end up having a semi day-off working on internal activities and admin.The latest bank holiday in the UK was a beautiful day weatherwise so I was up early and bounded to my desk ready to plough through a…
Faris Aranki
May 27, 2024 
That genie looks awfully familiarAbout 20 years ago I remember reading about the Stockdale Paradox in the book Good To Great.Based around the mantra; “This too shall pass” and the ability to con…
That genie looks awf…
That genie looks awfully familiarAbout 20 years ago I remember reading about the Stockdale Paradox in the book Good To Great.Based around the mantra; “This too shall pass” and the ability to confront brutal facts, it was highlighted as a great technique for dealing with uncertainty and challenging times.Initially I thought this was a great technique but it felt a bit too passive and melancholy relying on great stoicism.I’ve always been a proponent of another technique that I unashamedly developed 10 years before reading that book.It came from watching the hit Disney film Aladdin and i…
Faris Aranki
May 19, 2024 
Anyone for a kiss?How much on an average day do you spend thinking about your tongue?10 seconds? 1 minute maybe? 5 mins max?I suspect I go whole days never even thinking about it.Well this week, i…
Anyone for a kiss?H…
Anyone for a kiss?How much on an average day do you spend thinking about your tongue?10 seconds? 1 minute maybe? 5 mins max?I suspect I go whole days never even thinking about it.Well this week, it was occupying my thoughts 99% of the time.Why?Last weekend I fell ill and caught a virus that caused (amongst other things) my tongue to swell, crack and sores to break out on every quadrant of my mouth (including all over the tongue — at one point I counted over 50 separate sores).I couldn’t sleep on Sunday night as I was in a lot of pain (it felt like I’d scrapped my tongue against…
Faris Aranki
May 18, 2024 
Your relationship to food and exercise is an often-forgotten part of running a small business and this has massive implications for your weightThe scales never lieI’ve never been a skinny person.…
Your relationship to…
Your relationship to food and exercise is an often-forgotten part of running a small business and this has massive implications for your weightThe scales never lieI’ve never been a skinny person.As a kid, I was what would politely be called “cuddly”.At my peak I must have weighed close to 120kg and had a 46 inch waist — largely because I always had an unhealthy relationship with chocolate and sweets — if you don’t believe me, check this out.This changed when I headed for a year living in a village in Nepal at the age of 17 (it’s amazing what living at 3000m altitude, …
Faris Aranki
April 28, 2024 
How to get teams to gel quickly — harsh lessons from holidays with loose connections that holds the answerIf only there was more love in teams and that everyone was more nice“There are 8 of …
How to get teams to …
How to get teams to gel quickly — harsh lessons from holidays with loose connections that holds the answerIf only there was more love in teams and that everyone was more nice“There are 8 of us all nominally at the same level and we’re all senior but it is a total car crash. Nobody trusts each other and it’s led to so much sucking up to the boss, backstabbing, re-work and absolutely no decisions being made.”This is what a friend told me when I caught up with her for a long overdue lunch recently about her newish role in a prolific UK company.“As an expert in people dynamics,…
Faris Aranki
April 19, 2024 
This is all of us chasing the moon[This is a version of an article originally written for The Portfolio Collective about portfolio careers]It’s arguably harder than ever to stand out in the modern …
This is all of us ch…
This is all of us chasing the moon[This is a version of an article originally written for The Portfolio Collective about portfolio careers]It’s arguably harder than ever to stand out in the modern world; not only does the average person consume about 74GB of information per day (the equivalent of 16 movies) but a lot of it is very similar and they forget most of it by the next day.This proves particularly challenging when it comes to the business world, where effectively many people are trying to ‘sell’ to the same people, bombarding them with info about their products and services; th…
Faris Aranki
March 22, 2024 
What would the movie credits of your life look like?“But do you actually know all those people”, a friend asked me as we were discussing our differing approaches to how we use LinkedIn.She’d re…
What would the movie…
What would the movie credits of your life look like?“But do you actually know all those people”, a friend asked me as we were discussing our differing approaches to how we use LinkedIn.She’d read my recent blog all about how I treated LinkedIn as a journal and was grilling me about it — I’ve previously explained in detail my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.“If it’s a journal, why would you be willing to let others read it and, why do you care how many people read it” — she was commenting on the number of followers I had.I know it doesn’t necessarily make sense…
Faris Aranki
March 11, 2024 
Me looking wistful just after I receive a response about an outstanding proposalI love running a start-up; it ticks so many boxes for me such as: the massive improvements to my quality of life, the le…
Me looking wistful j…
Me looking wistful just after I receive a response about an outstanding proposalI love running a start-up; it ticks so many boxes for me such as: the massive improvements to my quality of life, the levels of variety it affords me, the uplift in my independence, the healthy challenge to build something from nothing, the impact my company has on others and more.However, it has lots of downsides: loneliness in the early days, the amount I am stretched day-to-day, the constant challenge of cashflow and never being certain where the money will come from, the decision overload that goes with having…
Faris Aranki
March 3, 2024 
Data never lies - my 10 years of dating apps“44, single and not going to have kids”There’s nothing like reading your life summarised in one sentence to really hammer home your situation.This w…
Data never lies - my…
Data never lies - my 10 years of dating apps“44, single and not going to have kids”There’s nothing like reading your life summarised in one sentence to really hammer home your situation.This was the killer sentence from a financial report an investment company sent me recently.They had pulled together a summary of my financial needs and were making recommendations on how I should invest my money.Forget the stellar advice contained in the report; this was the sentence that really stuck with me.Sure, to them, these were simply assumptions for their report but to me, whether I l…
Faris Aranki
February 25, 2024 
The anatomy of a social media like — why do people hit like on a post?Me when I look at LinkedInRecently I downloaded my data from LinkedIn to see what my biggest posts of all time were.As an…
The anatomy of a soc…
The anatomy of a social media like — why do people hit like on a post?Me when I look at LinkedInRecently I downloaded my data from LinkedIn to see what my biggest posts of all time were.As an analytical person, I was curious to see if there was a pattern, something I could learn from in terms of improving my posts.Regular readers will know that I like a bit of LinkedIn but, as I wrote last week, LinkedIn is more of a journal than a marketing tool for me as I love being able to document my life, sharpen my own thinking and it allows me to look back at all I have experienced (who knows…
Faris Aranki
February 18, 2024 
This is not my desk nor hands“You need to post less” said the LinkedIn expert I spoke to this week.“The algorithm doesn’t like it when you post so much.”He was referring to the fact that …
This is not my desk …
This is not my desk nor hands“You need to post less” said the LinkedIn expert I spoke to this week.“The algorithm doesn’t like it when you post so much.”He was referring to the fact that the previous week I had been posting on average 3 times a day.Consideration of the algorithm may be important for some but it’s only really relevant if the only thing that is important to you is views, likes and other such aspects.I long ago came to realise that there is more to life on LinkedIn than just trying to be the most popular person out there.How my LinkedIn usage has evolved over t…
Faris Aranki
February 11, 2024 
“Feed the beast and the beast will feed you” — 3 LinkedIn examples from my week that emphasise why doing this effectively increases my surface area of luckJohn Amaechi is such a lovely man …
“Feed the beast an…
“Feed the beast and the beast will feed you” — 3 LinkedIn examples from my week that emphasise why doing this effectively increases my surface area of luckJohn Amaechi is such a lovely man but how did I end up meeting him? Read on...Last year I took part in a interview with a class of British school kids in what was billed as “An Inspiring Talk From An Entrepreneur”.Each student got to ask me one question and I was prepared for a range of hard hitting questions.The students did not disappoint, and one in particular has come to mind a lot recently, especially when I talk to smal…
Faris Aranki
February 4, 2024 
