I love meeting successful professionals, especially those who are real. They are honest and comfortable being who they are. They do not judge themselves or others, nor do they find fault within themselves or others. It is from these people that true wisdom can be gained, because they come free and as real as they can be.

For quite some time I have been following an Instagram account with a similar voice of what I mentioned earlier on. I find it comforting that I am not alone in my way of thinking and relieved that there are other women out there like me. This movement is called #bossbabe and the official account is @bossbabe.inc

The content are targeted at young successful women who are well versed in social media, tech, business and also in feminism, fashion while looking good. So here are 10 of my all time favourite #bossbabe quotes.

Focus on your own path

In this day and age, it is easier to compare our worst to the best of other people. Thanks to social media, we create an image that does not really represent reality. In a way we are all greedy and who doesn’t want every perks in life?

When we see our peers’ success in social media, we crave their success. The thing is we can never win at this game. It is like comparing our worst insecurities with the best successes of 1599 friends that we have.

However, when we have a goal in life we stop comparing because in our mind, we are focused on our own path. We stopped thinking of the greener grass on the other side. We don’t have to win that golf competition, have a husband that propose with an expensive diamond ring, go to that exotic vacation our colleague just went and get that bonus our friend just earned.

In life, if we want success we gotta work for it. Hard. Ain’t got no time envying others.

Your fear of looking stupid is taking too much time.

I get tired when people carelessly comment about how lucky, talented or famous I am. I am neither of those. I know a few people who are lucky, talented AND famous. Amazingly they all have the same kind of attitude. Real, willing to take risks and willing to learn.
Funnily, the bunch of people who comment also have something in common. Unwilling to take risks, learn or do the hard work. They want the result but they do not want to work for it. So they label it talent, blessed, luck, opportunity and being special.

Bitch please, if you stop worrying about losing, failing, being rejected or looking stupid all the time you might actually get some shit done. #realadvice

In reverse, if you are successful and you attempt at humility by commenting that you were blessed or lucky then you probably just step on your own effort with your dirty feet. #berealnotfake

You can create any life you want, wherever you want

Yeap. You just have to start today. Ever wonder why there are so many motivation talks and quotes but less on how to actually run a business well?

There are leadership skills to think about, learning the basics of business finance in order to make sense of your own accounts and managing a team of staff that are at each other’s neck once left alone. So many soft skills to learn and yet everyone is going on and on about motivation.

When it comes to motivation, it can really get us to move on our own. I remember a time when I was depressed because I just closed down my office. I couldn’t do a thing so I lied in bed and played games. I was plain demotivated. One day, something happened that jolted me out of it and I found my motivation again. Since then, I woke up early, ate well and I am productive every day. I learn, try, fail and succeed as often as I can.

What changed? I was motivated. Waking up is no longer a chore. I have goals. I have a vision of who I want to be in 5 years and I need to start. NOW. Everything is easier because I’m motivated.

When someone is motivated, learning ANY skill is easier because she will find the means to the end. Don’t know how to do something? Google, enroll in a class or ask someone.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity

I am a quick tempered person, especially when it comes to working with inefficient and unprepared professionals. The point is, you have to be ready for any opportunity yesterday. Yes. Yesterday. That’s when you should be ready.

At anytime and for anything, you should be ready yesterday.

I have countless numbers in my phone of people that I’ve never talk or seen before. Those were Precious contacts that were given to me during mopportunities’. I never called, because I wasn’t ready. Now if I was ready back then, it would have been very different today. Well, not too late to start again!

Whilst you are making excuses, I was making moves

I believe that successful people are not selfish people. I am not saying that they are giving away cash. I am just saying that they are very willing to part with knowledge(as long as it doesn’t incriminate them to do so). They are also not pushy, because they understand very well that help will not be received if the person doesn’t want it.

So when I casually mention how I achieve certain results, it disappoint me when I hear excuses. There’s always something stopping them, either their dog or their infinite date nights, refusal to attempt to learn or understand the game. That’s exactly when my indifference kick in and I instantly stop persuading. Waste of both my time and theirs.

I have better things to do.

But seriously, most of us understand the game that is being played. Politics, sucking up, being nice to terrible clients, 8 hours of photography to get audience engagement in social media etc etc. we know the game but we refuse to play it. Either because we feel it is beneath us, we shouldn’t sell our soul, it takes too much time yada yada. Well, everyone start from being a nobody and who are you?

If you are too broke to invest in yourself, get used to staying that way 

Money can be spent in many ways. Commonly, we can spend on others, ourselves, keep it in a bank or use it to generate income. I am specifically refering to the money spent on ourselves.

Not everything is an investment. Most are just expenditure. It may be confusing to separate the two but it is crucial. A young CEO told me before that if you spend more than you invest in yourself, you will ultimately be overtaken by competitors. Game over.

Expenditure are irrelevant expenses that do not serve any purpose to our current goal. Investment are expenses that aid our current goal. A few basic examples of expenditure vs investment are as follows:

A body builder’s investment in himself would be training equipment, outfits, nutrition and possibly his coach. Expenditure would be irrelevant items such as gaming consoles, cars or lifestyle gadgets.

A chef’s investment in himself would be cooking equipment, purchasing of all sorts of ingredients to explore, travel to try different cuisines and leadership skills to better manage the kitchen staff. Expenditure would be fashion items, gym equipment etc.

A businessman’s investment would be in self education for all soft skills, industry related knowledge, public speaking skills, car and tech items to facilitate his working style. Expenditure are gaming consoles, excessive entertainment, high fashion etc.

You get the idea. The most important thing is to invest in yourself more than you spend.

Mindset > skillset

There are 2 types of skills. Technical skills and soft skills.

Technical skills are skills to do or make something. For example, making a door, fixing a computer, typing a document, drawing a plan. Technical skills can be taught to anyone and in time, one can be efficient at it.

Soft skills are skills that require communication, planning and intellect. For example, managing a team, producing an event, organizing a festival, coordinating big projects etc. Soft skills can be taught by example or philosophy but it is not suited for everyone. However, one can still learn to be good at it.

The main thing governing the 2 skills are your mindset. Do you live by your own principles or by judgment from other people? What is your first thought when someone criticizes your work? What do you do when you can’t achieve your goals due to your social inability? Do you even know who you are as a person?

The more conscious your mind is, the quicker you can grasp soft skills. The more flexible and open it is, the faster you learn technical skills.

Mindset can’t be taught but we can learn. This is a contradiction. Mindset can’t be taught because it is in our reflex to reject thoughts that are foreign and are not us. But we can learn if we choose to open our mind to new ideas.

The easiest way to change our mindset is through empathy. If you are very certain what someone saying is wrong, consider the idea first. Do not judge the accuracy of the idea but ask yourself, how and why did the person believe so much in this idea? Attempt to flex your mind and accept the idea by putting yourself in that person’s shoes. You must find the reason being the person’s belief. Ask if you cannot figure it out. Once an understanding is achieved, we naturally become more neutral in our stance.

In order to change our mindset to a more sophisticated one, practice the step above. Instead of just anyone’s idea, talk to people more successful to you and attempt to understand the workings of his mind.

Practice what you post

In this article, I wrote a lot about being real. What’s being real?

It’s simple. It just means you are not fake. What you preach is who you are. Your imperfections do not bother you, instead they are in your to-do list. You portray an image and you ARE the image. You have no need to be a different person in front of certain groups of people in order to please them or conform. You do not fake gratitude, empathy or humility just because it is expected of you.

You are comfortable being you, neither over confident or insecure.

I remember a time when I was trying to hard to please certain people. My mind would collect bad things said about me from different people and I would attempt to eradicate them from my Self. Then I realized, who gave them the right to decide who I should be? I changed so much and I m still being judged of being not worthy enough.

After that I promptly created my own principles. You know how in the Bible there are 10 commandments? I created my own commandments and lived by them. For example, I mustn’t take advantage of the unfortunate, I should treat everyone fairly, must say no when I don’t feel like doing something etc etc. Anything that’s not in the commandments are not important enough for me to worry about.

People’s judgements no longer bother me because what they comment are either untrue, not within scope of my own commandments or just malicious. It’s easier to live by 10 personal rules compared to living according to 1403 judgements from others. I definitely felt a lot happier about being me after that.

Progress matters more than perfection

This was a tough one for me because I am naturally creative. I need everything to look perfect. So much so that if it isn’t I will not accept it’s existence.

I mean I know this philosophy. It just took me a long time to accept and practice it for real.

I learnt to launch unfinished products and prioritize deadline over perfection. Life is about constant improvements and upgrades. Milestones should be that way as well.

Always progress at minimal cost and maximum profit. This is the natural law that makes it impossible for us to get everything perfect all the time, simply because it requires too much resources to do so.

If you are having trouble with this then consider the following :

Set  and launch milestones, not goals.

Successful people always have a backstage where everything is low cost, tasteless and bare bones.   

Focus on more than one stream of income. The average millionaire has seven.

Many of us are brought up in an environment where single career is a norm. Maybe you have parents who have a stable career PLUS they are investors as well. In this kind of environment, we can grow up thinking that if we have multiple jobs, it is a representation of how poorly we are paid for each job. The saying goes,”multiple jobs to make ends meet”.

This is the perfect time to realize otherwise. In this day and age, it is so easy to create income streams at minimal costs. There are plenty of tutorials out there, legit ones and shady ones.

It is also the perfect time to research and start figuring out what are your income streams going to be. Investing, real estate, new businesses all comes to mind.

First thing first, learn about business model canvases in order to evaluate your business ideas. Don’t try to overthink or doubt them too much or you will never get started. Besides, you need to have more than one. Do you really have the time to nitpick and brainstorm new ideas over and over again? You just gotta make sure to lower financial risks as much as possible. Anything else can be discussed or changed when the time comes.

All you have to do is start now.