The Dancehall CEO Untapped Conversations
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i welcome you all
to tedx aston university 2021
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let me see a show of hands for anybody
who has enjoyed the talk so far round of
applause
all right fantastic
so here we go i’m here to close the show
so let’s go
bob marley in his song exodus
sings open your eyes and look within
are you satisfied with the life you’re
living but let’s remix that a little
i’m going to ask you to close your eyes
like actually close your eyes
and look within
ask yourself
are you feeling fulfilled
with the life you’re living
my name is zachary harding i’m the
founder and executive chairman of delta
capital partners a private equity firm
based in kingston jamaica
today i’m here however as your dancehall
ceo
to share with you a decision-making
model that i’ve come up with
based on dancehall culture
dancehall is jamaican’s
urban music culture and this is what the
dancehall looks like
you’ve probably enjoyed the music before
and maybe didn’t even realize it
have you ever heard of sean paul
i was sean paul’s first manager before
my brother german hiring
and they won a grammy and a bunch of
awards what about shaggy
spice stef london
born tequila or biedemann
right will we produce being a man
simsimo on a two hard records label
in other cultures
dancehall has been called
raga or reggaeton
and is often incorporated into pop or
afrobeats
so songs like justin bieber’s sorry
and drake’s controller are both set to
dance albeit
dancehall has become a mainstream way of
life for jamaicans
the music reflects the experience
the expressions of contemporary jamaican
life
in fact in jamaica’s last general
elections members of parliament even had
an informal versa style battle
for whose campaign had the best dancer
remix or dub plates as we call them
i can’t make this a true story
i started my career as a dancer dj
otherwise known as a selector and for me
dancehall artists are really
contemporary philosophers
explaining highly complex
real life scenarios
dancehall provides a unique lens
to help us think and act differently
for me dancehall has been my corporate
master class
and being a selector dj has greatly
influenced the way i think and act in
the business arena
i started out my career in marketing
i had a lot of success
in turning companies around and even
making some brands into household names
in jamaica
and at that time i had a very young
family tori and zaro
and i never really stopped to think much
about how i was doing it and how i was
making it all happen
and one day somebody asked me
what do you think is your secret to
success
and to my own surprise i answered
it’s from being a dj
so let me explain
as a dj
i’m continuously reading the crowd
or target market
to deliver the right product
such as song
to get the right bind
like response
to
the song to say that they like it any
jamaicans in a host
you know that song that we make right we
call it a forward
so wanting a crowd reaction is normal
for all djs across genres
but for dancehall
songs are often played in a musical
battle format called a zone clash
where the crowd has veto power
so if you’re lame the crowd will
actually boo you off the stage
so a dj
is ending up a winner or a loser if
they’re not just good or bad and it’s
the same with being a ceo
you have to make good decisions and if
you don’t you won’t last very long on
the corporate stage
so in my corporate life i have to make
the right decisions in real time to make
all my stakeholders satisfied
so
in both cases the pressure is always on
to win
so the question is how do i do it
today i’m here to share my answer to
that question
how do we consistently make
good decisions
but good decisions has to be good for
you
right it’s subjective
what might be right for me might not be
right for you
smaller decisions aren’t so scary
because we learn how to make them at a
young age and then we practice them
building a ton of experience
but for more complex decisions ones that
will change our lives trajectory we go
overboard we panic we poll our friends
we open 27 tabs on google
and when we have to make really big
decisions we often even feel lost
we don’t know where to start we either
freeze up
or employ the more famous hit or miss
strategy
which sometimes works and sometimes
doesn’t
well what if there was a formula that
could help you make better decisions in
your life consistently
i’ve developed such a formula based on
my dj experience and i’m about to share
with you here tonight for the first time
this is a world premiere
and i hope it will make you make better
decisions as much as it has helped me to
make decisions in my life
i call it the
careful decision making formula
that is decisions made with c
a r e care that leave you feeling full
fulfilled
c
is for crossroads
a is for authenticity r is for risk
and e is for emotion so let’s break it
down
starts by recognizing when you’re at a
crossroads you have to look past the
distractions
and become aware of when it’s time to
make a decision
and then commit to that decision in
order to get the desired result
the greatest tool
for personal power is deliberate
decision making so when people say take
control of your life what they really
mean is be deliberate about how and when
you make decisions
by acknowledging the decision point we
accept that the source of our power is
in the decisions that we make
so always tell my daughters life is just
a series of decisions and choices so
make sure you make good ones
i learned to time these decision points
from being a dj
it all has to do with when to drop the
beat and when to mix it out
but luckily we all have that intuitive
sense of when it’s time for a change
we’re all knowing something just doesn’t
feel right i can’t prove it
let’s say i listen to a playlist and
a certain song comes on and you
loved it a month ago he even had it on
repeat but no it offends your entire
soul
your very sensibilities you know you
don’t want to hear that song you want to
hear a different song
that is a decision point instinct
needing to change our song
is not so different we need to change
something in your life
what do you really want in life
versus what are you just tolerating
you have to listen to your own needs and
wants
when you feel stuck and you keep
thinking
i need a change or i feel something was
different
then you’re at a crossroads it’s
decision time so just accept it
we make 90
of our decisions subconsciously where to
sit what to eat i guarantee you right
now somebody’s thinking
when is a good time to sneak off to the
loo
but you have to be able to follow
through because without committing a
decision is just a random thought
and without that commitment that random
thought is a set up for just future
regret
if somebody needs to go to the loo now
and doesn’t follow through i think we
might all regret it
after the crossroads the next formula
in it is a authenticity
people throw this word around a lot
authenticity according to dr brene brown
is
the daily practice of letting go who we
think we’re supposed to be
and embracing who we are
in the dancehall
one of my favorite singers chronix
explains that authenticity is critical
he says in a dancehall style honor
everybody will go like we but we’re well
irie
meaning in the dancehall not everyone is
going to like us but we’re still fine
iri because we don’t love likes
he goes on may not do it for the love we
do it for the likes meaning i do it for
the love of it but not just for the
social media likes or clicks
then he sings success doesn’t come
overnight
let them know it’s success over hype
we do it for the love not do it for the
likes
so again authenticity is subjective
right
where i come from
it can look like this
almost comical without the authenticity
but with dancehall’s authenticity this
is self-expression
when you make authentic decisions ask
yourself how will you feel after
make sure you can live with it because
as chronic said others may not like the
decisions you make in the sports arena
naomi osaka made a careful
see what that did there
decision to skip press conferences after
tournaments due to anxiety
now
many people would have thought that that
was a wrong decision to make and many
people would have you know discredited
her for that but whether we like it or
not
she didn’t do it for the love
or the likes she did it for her mental
health her peace and her stability
if you find yourself making lots of
lesser of two evil decisions this might
mean your authenticity
is out of alignment
so with covert c
a now it’s time for our risk
george bernard shaw said the reasonable
man
adapts himself to the world the
unreasonable one adapts the world to
himself
therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man
so i think he’s right because the
unreasonable man
or woman
usually takes the biggest risks
risk is usually why we avoid making
tough decisions
that lead to a change when most people
hear risk they think of what could go
wrong
right
but today let’s
remix the risk jamaican style
because we don’t really culturally
identify with risk imagine we’re a
tropical island with no snow
yet we formed a bobsled team
and entered the winter olympics which
inspired the entire world and even led
to a disney movie
so what at first opened us up to
criticism eventually opened us up to
admiration
remixing risk is about gauging the
reward no one expects us
to continually
beat our global counterparts but we
often do
we start with less but we focus on what
we have to gain
young jamaican footballer
leon bailey
recently signed with aston villa
recently signed and cracked our goal in
a three-long
i guarantee that he wasn’t thinking
about what could go wrong
and he baked that shot
right he was just focusing on the win
and that’s how
people with our winning mindset operate
so
when you’re making decisions ask
yourself what could go right
what could it be worth to me
jamaica’s just a little over double the
size of birmingham but we punch way
above our weight class
and has everything to do with an
attitude we call being
bossy
bose is a type of bravado powered by the
ability to execute and back it up
jamaicans expect that once you’ve chosen
to go for the reward you must follow
through with confidence
aside from leon bailey perhaps the best
example of jamaican boastiness is
usain bolt
in his first olympics in 2004
bolt was only 18 years old
and touted as the next legend of the
track
but
he was eliminated in the first round
and at home we gave him a really hard
time for it
if bolton looked at risk as everything
that could go wrong then he would have
just given up he would have just quit
accepted his failure and walked away
but when bolt hears risk he gets
bossy
when the question how he was doing it he
got
bossy
and when
he said when they said it was a fluke
and he went on to win every world title
and even reset his own olympic and world
records he got
bowser
so
always assess the risk
but be sure to consider the upside of
the win
you’ve come to the crossroads with your
most authentic self
and remix the risk
now for the final piece
you must fuel the decision with e the
right emotion
how are you preparing your emotions to
match your decisions
you must be emotionally aligned with
your decisions
in order to sustain the desired outcomes
if you want to be powerful you have to
conquer fear
if you want to be a leader
you have to control your anger
and if you want to be influential you
may need to practice great appreciation
like sir willowd he had to overcome
challenges to become a winner
so ask yourself are my emotions
compatible with my decisions
are the emotions behind my decision
mostly positive
or negative
and what emotional support do i need to
sustain the outcome
no matter how logical we think we are
we’re all emotional beings
success depends on navigating our own
emotions
as well as those of others
this is known as emotional intelligence
empathy someone said earlier
understanding this is absolutely
critical because you cannot control
other people’s behavior
but you can control how you react to
their behavior
your ability to control your own
emotions in any decision-making
situation
is actually your hidden superpower
practicing emotional intelligence will
not only turn you into a decision-making
machine
it will also make you an unstoppable
magnetic force
capable of attracting all your desires
and manifesting your wireless dreams
dancehall university
teaches us that we are in control of our
destiny
in sizzla calandre’s song rise to the
occasion he says it’s for you
to make the best in life know that
you’ve got the chance
get up and step towards your goal it’s
all right
fulfill your needs
and wants
in the dancehall
the dj is accountable for the vibe
and in business
the ceo
is accountable for the company’s
performance
in your life
the only person responsible for that
decision is you
as my dad used to say to me son it takes
many to deliberate
but one to decide
remember
you get to choose your own theme song in
life
and you get to decide when to drop that
beat
thank you very much
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you