By Mona Sharif

What’s your strategy?

Throwback to two weeks ago —week 9, day 5— we had the pleasure to meet Mr Shekhar Deshpande for our first session about strategy.

Shekhar first introduced himself, his work and got us really admirative about all the cities he lived in. He then asked us to introduce ourselves by asking us two very simple questions: ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘Say one thing about yourself’. At this time of the journey we, penguins, started to really know each other so we shouldn’t be surprised by any answer. WRONG Funny how powerful it is to ask someone about just one thing about them, I must admit I had no idea about most of the answers.

We then learnt that strategy is simply how you plan to get from point A to point B. Either brands or people can have strategies.

We then had 5 minutes to write our strategy of life on a piece of paper. After sharing those papers with each others, we realised people are set in their ways, and there is no good or bad strategy. Your strategy must understand you (or your brand), your values, your goals.

So here is my strategy of life based on 5 main points. 

No.1 Be happy.

No.2 Love my family: for me, nothing will ever be more important than my family, no matter how far away they are from me.

No.3 Be true: don’t lie and be loyal.

No.4 Try everything: ‘Don’t dream, do!’ I want to experiment and stay curious, not be afraid to fail because we learn by executing and making mistakes.

No.5 Give myself 100% on everything I do.

Thanks again for this masterclass Shekhar, looking forward, as all my fat (Penguin) friends to see you very soon for our next session!