Naja Faysal | Blog

Praise has always been part of effective leadership. You can’t be an effective manager without recognizing the efforts of the good performers on your team, but praise can be also a two-edge sword if you abuse it. Check out below the five basic rules for praising your team:

1. Praise EVERY good job and ignore negative ones.
2. Praise immediately.
3. Praise specifically.
4. Praise in public.
5. Praise continuously to develop a habit and then praise selectively for the habit to continue.   

People might think negotiation is all about winning and crashing the opponent. This is very wrong. Negotiation should aim for one thing: win-win. I am not gonna spend long time on this topic, cos there are better people to learn from on this matter like Gerard Nierenberg for example. But what I can do is pass to you the negotiation essentials described below:

1. Prepare
2. Argue
3. Signal
4. Propose
5. Package
6. Bargain
7. Close
8. Agree

It is also important to know that each negotiation session should have a leader, summarizer and observer. The leader is the chief speaker and head of the negotiation. The summarizer recap what the leader says and gives a gab for the leader to take a breath and gather his/her thoughts. The observer takes notes and register any signal or piece of information he/she finds important. 


Negotiation is an instinct in human beings. Children are expert in negotiation. They tend to get what they want on their means. Mature negotiation on the other side is a science that is worth extensive knowledge and practice. 

As I wake up everyday early in the morning, I usually have time to reflect on life and its meaning, trying to dig a path of understanding of the universe. Putting religion aside, I was lucky to discover and realize my life purpose early-on. Knowing the impact of both “Education” & “Technology” on my life and millions of others, I found out that its worth dedicating my life to it: “I exist to elevate, inspire and empower people by means of education and technology”. This might sound profound to some, generic to others, but it doesn’t really matter as long as the purpose isn’t evil or doesn’t harm the planet on the broader perspective. But the question is: is it better to the world to be better? or how can you measure being better? and on what criteria?

So, if I want to educate as many people as possible so that maybe they get enlightened, inspired and empowered to change the world to a better place, will I be doing something good or bad? I mean does the world really need to be better. What about that maybe suffering must be part of the existence of human beings!
Ummm, anyways, well lets not complicate matters Naja common, it is trendy to stand up and talk about a world with less human suffering. People will regard you as a hero. Your social status becomes higher and higher… don’t you think?
Yeah alright… Thats true, people are admired if they were able to reduce pain and increase pleasure within other people. If you give me food when I am hungry, I would bow to you, thank you and cherish you. Why? Because human nature seeks pleasing it self. Our bodies (including our brain and spirit) need pleasure. But are we sure that our bodies only need pleasure? Imagine a life with no pain. Well, this is not possible because, you are definite to break your arm, your heart and feel sad about someone deer who died. So what we are talking about here? Are we talking about the massive suffering of large groups for longer periods of time  because of war, diseases, and poverty? Or are we talking about nuclear infected places or maybe places affected by rising sea levels and climate change? Or the sick religious affinities and the brains that are washed early on to cause terrorism and spread fear across the planet?

So what would a mission do or a purpose of a man can achieve? another question has to be asked: does the evolution in human beings in the recalled history truly indicates a change for the good or for the bad? let us think of good as reducing pain and increasing pleasure and the bad the opposite, what about the other beings? do we have to take care of their pleasure and pain also? what if the earth and the other planets have pleasure and pain?

These all leads to a question of why did we exist and what happened that we are here with a perfect sync with nature? But do we really have to solve these questions first or we can start from the easier questions that affects directly each one of us? Why? because the beings, were they be animals or humans, are able to communicate their states whether is it distress and joy, pain or pleasure in a very clear manner.Although nature and planets can also communicate their distress at one point, it is still in a very different nature to the human and animal expression. So this is a quite good starting point. Of course we wish that one day, we discover answers for the hard questions and we should keep on trying, its part of solving the puzzle and enter another evolutionary phase…
As usual, existentialism thinking wouldn’t reach much of conclusions, but we should never loose the creed to know and discover what is beyond our imagination. I decided to put my efforts in education of people, at least to give them a solid base to ride on their own personal achievement. Moreover, the timing of this mission is critical. We are living today in a flat world, in an abundance of knowledge and the ability to access it in extremely cheap ways. This convergence of technology is giving us unlimited power and creative abilities more than ever before.
Enjoy.