I’m Not Him

I’m Not Him

Omer Abdullah
Communications, Life, Personal Codes, Sales, Teams, Marketing

A small portion of the folks who follow me on Twitter think I’m Omar Abdullah, the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. I know this because every so often they’ll Direct Message me with news about developments in Kashmir (usually holding me accountable for it), or they’ll post an article about some Kashmir related issue and tag me along with the Prime Minister of India and other senior South Asian politicians.

It doesn’t happen a lot but it’s happened enough that I posted a PSA in Twitter that I wasn’t him and if you were following me for my views on Kashmir, you’d be sorely disappointed.

Friends

Friends

Omer Abdullah
Life, Personal Codes

It feels like I’m at that age where the loss of family and friends I’ve grown up with is becoming less and less of a rarity. People who have been instrumental, in ways large and small, to how I’ve grown up, what I’ve learnt, what I believe. 

This past weekend, we lost one of our closest family friends, a man my family affectionately referred to as Malik Uncle. He was someone my father befriended early on, when we moved to Hong Kong (when I was still very young). His wife was an important influence in our lives, and his three sons became close friends with my brothers and I. We all grew up together, never living more than a few blocks apart until our late teens. 

You're Not Perfect. That's OK.

You're Not Perfect. That's OK.

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Teams

“We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us.” (Brene Brown)

There’s an illusion in the business world that we cannot expose our flaws to anyone around us - not our colleagues, our clients and certainly not our bosses. The fear is, of course, that we will be judged, perceived as someone who is fundamentally flawed and, accordingly, cast off to career obscurity.

It’s an illusion that becomes all the more exacerbated at the management level. I can’t afford to show any weakness. I have to always impress that I know everything. I can never say ‘I don’t know’.

When You Need A Burning Platform

When You Need A Burning Platform

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Marketing, Sales, Strategy, Teams

Change doesn’t tend to come easily to most of us.

For the most part, we don’t typically choose to change. More often, change - or at the very least, the need for it - is thrust upon us due to some exterior event, shift or development. When profits are severely impacted, when a competitor introduces a revolutionary new product or when an external environmental shift occurs, shifting the steady state we’ve become so comfortable with.

Lessons From Springsteen On Broadway

Lessons From Springsteen On Broadway

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Strategy

By the time Bruce Springsteen released his first album, Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ, in 1973, he’d already had almost a decade of playing experience under his belt. He’d started playing back in 1964 with a band called The Rogues, then another, then another, ultimately morphing into the now famous E Street Band.

That first album met with critical acclaim but little commercial success. The one after (The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle) fared pretty much the same, and he didn’t really achieve commercial success until Born To Run was released in 1975.

It Matters More When No One's Looking

It Matters More When No One's Looking

Omer Abdullah
Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Sales

It’s easy to be nice (or virtuous or kind or thoughtful) when the eyes of the world - or even a single person, for that matter - are on you. It’s much harder, and frankly, far more telling and meaningful when they’re not.

This is true in all walks of life, but especially so in the business world, where we allow ourselves to use the “capitalist filter” to make decisions that, if we were to step back and assess them in a broader social or moral sense, we likely would have acted otherwise. (Putting aside why people are so completely comfortable divorcing moral or fairness considerations from economic ones. That’s a conversation for another time.)

The Lemon Loaf Incident

The Lemon Loaf Incident

Omer Abdullah
Personal Codes, Teams, Life, Communications

Alright, let me start by saying that I’m wary of saying that how someone partakes of a lemon loaf directly reflects what kind of a person they are.

I do, however, think that how one partakes of a lemon loaf - and specifically an iced lemon loaf - suggests something about them (in conjunction with other data points as well, of course).

What Is Your Ambition Based In?

What Is Your Ambition Based In?

Omer Abdullah
Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Life, Aspirations, Strategy, Careers, Personal Codes

I think most of us accept that ambition is a necessary ingredient for success.

Whether we’re growing a business, launching a new initiative or pushing forward on a creative project, ambition is needed to not only get the project going, but more importantly to take it to fruition. It’s a foundational requirement for creating lasting, meaningful change.

So the important question to ask is not whether or not we have the ambition needed to succeed. That’s a hygiene factor. If we don’t, there’s no point even getting started.

Don't Believe The Hype

Don't Believe The Hype

Omer Abdullah
Teams, Leadership, Life, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Communications, Personal Codes

To be human is to be complex. It means we aren’t one thing. We’re multi-faceted.

For example, that sports star that won that coveted trophy actually isn’t perfect. She’s made (and will continue to make) plenty of mistakes along the way.

And that team that finished in second place, the one whose faults are being picked apart by all critics? Well, they still played better than all the other teams in the league - except for one.

When AOL Tanked (Or Paying Attention To The Right Metrics)

When AOL Tanked (Or Paying Attention To The Right Metrics)

Omer Abdullah
Communications, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Marketing, Private Equity, Strategy, Sales

Sometime between late Spring and early Fall, 1996, AOL’s stock fell from a high of $70 all the way down to $24.

These were the early days of the internet. The space was booming: startups were popping up everywhere, investors’ ears were perking up, and the big, established players were taking notice and/or beginning to get involved.

When Bono Went Walkabout...

When Bono Went Walkabout...

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes

“It was a great day, but I thought I had fucked it up.”

“We felt like we’d blown an opportunity to be great.”

“I really thought we were crap.”

On July 13th, 1985, U2 took to the stage at Wembley stadium for their designated slot at Live Aid, the global concert for African famine relief. This was pre-Joshua Tree, so while they were popular, they were nowhere near the household name that they are now.

Creativity Is About Being Fearless

Creativity Is About Being Fearless

Omer Abdullah
Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Careers, Personal Codes, Life

As someone who grew up on Queen’s music, I remember how good they were in their prime. I especially remember their performance at Live Aid back in 1985, as I watched it on TV in my living room in Hong Kong. When Mercury and Queen came on, they electrified the crowd - both those sitting in the audience at Wembley, as well as the millions who watched from their living rooms around the world. In fact, there were two acts that really stole the show that day and Queen was one of them.

Fight - Even When You Want Flight

Fight - Even When You Want Flight

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal Codes, Strategy

Sunday morning, I woke up to watch the Arsenal-Spurs game, famously known as the North London Derby. It’s a game where form goes out the window and these two arch-rivals go all out for bragging rights as to who is the best team in North London.

It’s a game that hasn’t gone our way in recent years and as I anticipated the stress and emotional rollercoaster I would go through over the next couple of hours, I briefly debated staying in bed and waking up when it was all over. To just not have to deal with it all.

Just Focus On What's Next

Just Focus On What's Next

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Marketing, Personal Codes, Strategy, Teams

Sometimes, the goals we set for ourselves are overwhelming. The bigger the goal or the more challenging the objective, the harder it can be to fathom how we will get there.

We get caught up in the sheer scale of our idea, or we start setting all sorts of impossible timelines and expectations that we think we need to achieve on our path there.

Living On Your Own Terms

Living On Your Own Terms

Omer Abdullah
Aspirations, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Management Consulting, Personal Codes

When I got into consulting in the mid-nineties, I did so with the expectation that I was going into a field that was focused on driving change. That we were there to make a difference, and to improve the lot of our clients. And that doing so required people who were committed to that process, both within the firm I worked for and at the client. Generally speaking, that expectation proved to be the reality.

"It’s Like A Pizza..."

"It’s Like A Pizza..."

Omer Abdullah
Careers, Communications, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Management Consulting, Personal Codes, Strategy, Teams

Many years ago, I worked with a senior consulting partner who liked to talk in puzzles. Instead of giving us specific marching orders, he’d talk around the issues and then ask us to put together a deck for his review.

For example, as we’d talk through a proposal we were working on, he’d talk about the client situation, the range of issues they were facing as well…

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