Four steps for living a life of excellence
How to strive for a life of excellence, was the topic of Sepo Haihambo’s address to a breakfast meeting of the Economist Businesswoman Club on Friday morning, 09 June 2017 in the Moringa Room of Avani Hotel Windhoek. She is the Head of Coverage at RMB Namibia.
Sepo talked about her own personal life and career experience. She shared how she experienced the school of life and not necessarily what she studied at university.
Being a financial person, she told her audience when it comes to personal fulfilment, facts and figures are not as important as persuing a meaningful career where there is opportunity to grow as an individual but also to apply an ethical disposition in one’s own life, including one’s career. And, in addition to the hours spent at work, she urged woman to bring structure and planning to the aspirations they harbour in their private lives.
Breaking it down to four fundamental steps, she said the first is to know yourself and your truth. From this follows the yearning to live an authentic life. “Do not do things because others tell you so, do things that you are convinced are right.”
Secondly, she asked her audience to imagine the possibility of anything being possible.
“Anything is possible” she said telling her audience that nothing happens by itself. “You have to plan with intention and then do it.” Using her own experience, she said she has always dreamed of running a marathon since, at school, she was in the debate team and did not do any sport. But to be able to reach her marathon dream, she had to start jogging. “Everything starts with the first step. I would not have been able to run my first marathon if I did not take that first step on my first jog.”
Today she runs marathons across the world, often combing these events with special visits to friends and acquaintances in many parts of the world.
This confirms her own experience, which taught her the third and fourth steps, – prioritise and begin.
As far as accomplishment goes, she advised the women not to spread themselves too thinly. “This is where planning and prioritising comes into your personal life. Choose those things you want to do, and prioritise your goals. She advised women to work with two life lists, the first is the to-do list, the stuff that must be done, and the second is the wish list, or the so-called bucket list, i.e. those things you would love to do but never get round to actually doing.
“This is where most of us neglect ourselves. Since we do not plan for these goals, we never get round to do them. We are all good at work making sure we do the to-do list every day but we are lax when it comes to our own desires, those things that give meaning to our existence. This is I got into maration running. I always wanted to do it, but it never happened until I planned for it and took that first step.”
Rounding off her talk, Sepo reminded her colleagues, “A life lived in excellence is a life lived with intention.”
In the picture, from the left, Hilrey Ockhuizen and Lynette Naftalie, both from Telecom, Sepo Haihambo, RMB, Dylan Saunders, the Sales Manager at Jaguar Windhoek and Desèré Lundon-Muller, the Chairperson of the Economist Project and the Economist’s Marketing Manager.
The Economist Businesswoman Breakfasts are sponsored by Telecom Namibia. For this breakfast, Jaguar Windhoek, a standing sponsor for the Namibian Businesswoman of the Year awards, also contributed.
The Jaguar brand holds excellence as one of its core values, a guiding principle that has made it one of the most beautiful and sought after premium brands worldwide. In keeping with this attribute, the Jaguar F-PACE, the first performance SUV in the Jaguar line-up, has recently been awarded the World Car of the Year and World Car Design of the Year, a standard of excellence that has only been achieved for the second time in the 13 year history of the World Car Awards.
The full text of Sepo’s presentation is available under the Speak Your Mind button on www.economist.com.na
