On today’s episode, I have a conversation about salary negotiation with Mohammed, who is based in the United Kingdom. He owns MK Career Solutions, a business that provides consulting services on CV Writing, salary negotiation and works as a career coach. As a Career Coach and CV Writer, he helps clients enhance their professional value proposition by enabling them to secure the jobs they want with the salary they deserve. Mohammed focuses on providing a personal and bespoke service, acting as a personal adviser, and providing all the support his clients need to get the results they want.

Career coaching is very close to Mohammed’s heart because he finds fulfillment in helping people negotiate their salary according to the value they bring to the organisations they work in. He advises that you keep the salary conversation close to your chest for as long as you are still going through the recruitment process. The best time to bring up the salary conversation according to Mohammed is when you have been offered the job. This gives you leverage, as you stand a better chance to negotiate. Mohammed says that you need to understand, the best way to gain leverage in negotiating for your salary is value, and money has to mean something for you spiritually, socially, and emotionally.

Connect with Mohammed:

LinkedIn @Mahommed kasujee

Connect with me:

IG & Facebook: @Conversations with Mpume

Website: www.changeconversations.co.za

In today’s episode, I have a chat with Ann Visser and we are talking, Effective communication for leaders. Ann has been equipping individuals and organisations to communicate in a way that is aligned with their values. She trains, coaches, speaks, and teaches in areas of communication, mindset, and personal growth. She teaches couples about conflict resolution, students on value-based principles as well as addicts in recovery to help them change from the inside out in order to support their sobriety. Her journey into effective communication came about after going through her own personal challenge. A heartfelt and honest confrontation led her to seeking help in order to find ways to better communicate as couples and eventually led to helping other couples. Ann defines communication as sending a message, whether it’s by word or not. Effective communication is pivotal communication that brings about some kind of shift, where one is aware of the message they are sending. Ann says communication is not about communicating to respond, but to hear and understand what the message is about. Her advice, “See problems you are facing as the problem not the person.”

Connect with Ann Visser:

Facebook: @4better4ever

www.4better4ever.com-challenge

Connect with me:

IG & Facebook: @Conversations with Mpume

Website: www.changeconversations.co.za

In our episode today, I have Tracy from Indiana, United States who will unpack what Toxic relationships look like. Katie is former trauma and recovery specialist, she is a love and relationship coach, author, and speaker and empowers women who feel broken, and desperate to feel loved, inspired, and confident. She also helps women to break through self-limiting beliefs; to go from barely surviving to thriving, to designing the businesses they dream of. Tracy co-authored one of the best-selling books called Entangled No More: Women who broke free from Toxic relationships.

Tracy defines a toxic relationship as something that encompasses all the negative factors that make a relationship unpleasant. She says a toxic relationship is not necessarily just physical abuse as most people would like to think, but it can include, financial, psychological, or emotional abuse. To identify if you are in a toxic relationship, you find that you tippytoe around conversations and are cautious not to trigger your partner’s anger. As a victim, you always defend your abusive partner or make excuses about his behaviour. Tune in for more on this insightful change conversation with Tracy.

Connect with Tracy:

Website: www.fiercelyempowered.com

IG: @Break Free from Toxic Love

YouTube: Fiercely Empowered

Connect with Me:

IG & FB @Conversations with Mpume

YouTube: Conversations with Mpume

Website: changeconversations.co.za

In today’s episode, I have an informative and very insightful conversation with Kelly Featheringham about leadership. Kelly is an executive leadership coach and is based just outside Washington DC in the United States. Kelly works with teams and individuals to help them with their team dynamics. Leadership, according to Kelly is that leaders are people that support others and recognize that failure is common but help each other to resolve problems as a collective. She does not really think that leadership is an innate quality, it’s something that one learns, and some people are more inclined to it than others. In this conversation, we also discuss remote teams and the different dynamics that come with managing remote teams. Her journey as a leader began when she worked for the government where she led different teams located in different parts of the world.  According to Kelly, great leaders are great because they want to be great, she advises that if you want to be great as a leader keep learning, and keep trying. As a leader, you should be mindful of how you communicate your assumptions, boundaries, and communications because they show up every day. Lastly, she advises that you must value the power of a team, don’t stand alone, and be a productive and supportive member of a team.

Connect with Kelly

IG & Facebook @Kelly Featheringham

LinkedIn: Kelly Featheringham

Connect with Me

IG & Facebook: Conversations with Mpume

Website: changeconversations.co.za

In today’s episode on Change Conversations, I have an informative and insightful chat about Procrastination and how she deals with it as someone who is also living with ADHD condition. Vanessa considers herself a Nomad or a travel bunny as she prefers to call it. She has been and has lived in Asia, and Europe to mention just a couple of places. At the time of this conversation, she was in Mauritius. In our conversations today, we chat about how procrastination shows up and how to deal with it especially if you are living with ADHD condition. Vanessa says that this condition is more visible, especially in people who are artistic. Procrastination differs from person to person depending on different factors at play.  She also defined and explained what ADHD is - there are different types of ADHD – inactive, hyper, and a mixed bag. People with this kind of disorder are huge procrastinators. Some of the symptoms of ADHD include but are not limited to; hyperactivity and impulsivity and these symptoms might look different at older ages. As far as dealing with procrastination goes, Vanessa advises that you first need to figure out why you procrastinate and once you have identified the cause of your procrastination, it helps with how you deal with it. One of the ways you can deal with procrastination is to just do it, don’t be afraid, you will perfect things as you go along but just start.

Connect with Vanessa Gowora:

IG @Vanessagowora

Website: https://vanessagowora.com/

Connect with Me:

IG & Facebook @Conversations with Mpume 

Website: www.changeconversations.co.za

In today’s episode, we have a conversation about Mental Detachment from your workplace. I had a chat with Laura Pycraft. Laura is a professional coach, DEI specialist, and talent management, expert. For many people, work stress extends well beyond the confines of the office or the job site. The process of detachment from work-related thoughts and engaging in activities that support the body's return to pre-stress levels is what most refer to as mental detachment. A healthy sense of detachment enables one to have room for objectivity, which improves productivity overall, and it supports people in discovering their own needs through self-reflection. We also touch on the benefits of psychological detachment; psychological separation from work during non-working hours is advantageous for a number of areas of employee well-being and job performance. Sometimes employees can get caught up in fighting for things in the workplace, and detaching helps you realize what your personal goals are and work to achieve that and not get caught up in the rut race where people could be fighting for things that do not personally benefit you. Mental detachment gives you a decision space where you can figure out those things that bring you peace or fulfillment.

Connect with Laura:

IG: @ careers_with_laura

LinkedIn @Luara-pycraft

Connect with Me:

IG & Facebook @ Conversations with Mpume

Website: www.https://changeconversations.co.za

In our episode today, I chat with a friend of mine, Kevin. Kevin and I are both Enneagram Practitioners and we are here to share our knowledge and hope everyone finds value in our conversations. Our conversation today seeks to delve deep into explaining and understanding what an enneagram is. We speak about the different Enneagram types and how a person can adjust according to their type.

In essence, the Enneagram outlines nine personality types giving you a better knowledge of who you are and highlighting areas where you shine and the areas you may need to improve. Each of the nine personality types is influenced by specific underlying beliefs about how the world operates. One can extend their viewpoint and approach situations more efficiently by understanding their Enneagram type and how it affects their views. Understanding one's own behaviour and why it happens is one of the advantages of the Enneagram. Each Enneagram type has a set of underlying principles that serve as a constant source of inspiration for them and serve as a roadmap for their decisions. Understanding your enneagram type will help how you become a holistic human being who understands how to live with others, in other words, learning the skill of knowing yourself enhances your life. Tune in for more on this conversation.

Connect with me

IG & Facebook: Conversations with Mpume

Website: www.changeconversations.co.za

In this episode today, I have a chat with Nosipho Ncube, who happens to be my daughter and runs her own businesses. Nosipho owns Soul Designs and Accessories, a business that specializes in handmade products. Her products include travel bag sets, backpacks, wallets, crossbody bags, and handbags. Nosipho studied Investment Management and went on to do her honours in Financial Management.

She admits she had no interest in sewing, although she grew up with her grandmother who used to sew. She feels she stumbled on the sewing business by accident.

After Varsity she got an internship at Nestle, while there she felt that she didn’t have direction in the job. This drove her to take stock of her life and see what was working. She left Nestle and turned her focus to making ponchos, while applying for new job opportunities. When she didn’t get any joy in terms of a job, she fully focused her energy into her business. Her sewing skills are self-taught, she says YouTube and Google, are great platforms to learn from.

Her challenge is the admin of running the business, managing her cash flow, making content for social media, and going through seasons where sales are low. On the positive side, she says what excites her and motivates her to wake up every morning, is the learning process of product making and seeing something come alive as a complete product.  Tune in to hear more of this exciting change conversation.

Connect with Nosipho

IG: @Souldesigns and Accessories

Connect with Me

IG & Facebook: @Conversations with Mpume

Website: www.changeconversations.co.za

In this final installment of our youth month series, I speak to Mpho a young bubbly lady full of life, who hails from Limpopo. Growing up she thought she would be a medical doctor, so everything she did was inspired by that desire until the dream was shattered by her not doing so well in her first year of BSC.  Upon failing she managed to pass life sciences and was allowed to register for the 2nd-year zoology module where she did exceptionally well one of her professors took notice and gave her an opportunity to work with postgrad students in the lab. Zoology then grew. Mpho specializes in bird physiology.  She says Zoology is quite broad, within each class of animals, there are different elements, for example, ecology, physiology, and biochemistry you just need to know what resonates with you.  At the moment works as a curator of birds overseeing the collection of birds in a museum, that are preserved by National Biodiversity. For more on this interesting topic, tune in.

Connect with me:

IG & Youtube: Conversations with Mpume

Website: www.conversationswithmpume.co.za

In today’s episode, I had a chat with Lali in commemoration of Youth Month in June. I enjoyed having these conversations with the younger generation because there was so much to learn from them.

Noxolo, aka Lali Nkunzi is a young lady from Soweto who is taking a gap year. She took a gap year after being rejected by the universities she applied to, only to be accepted by the University of Pretoria for 2023. She then decided to find something she could do in the meantime, to avoid idling at home. She thinks her being away from home will aid in her personal growth, as she believes that there is no development when you are in your comfort zone. Being away from home teaches you certain disciplines about life such as independence, self-reliance, and ways to survive.

Lali runs a Crochet Business, where she makes beanies, scarves, and crop tops, and hopes to introduce jerseys in the future. She started her business in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. She used the money she made from braiding people’s hair to start her crocheting business. She taught herself how to crochet by watching videos on YouTube. Quite an unusual trade for a young person in 2022… But Lali says, she felt not enough young people are making handmade stuff, it’s a foreign concept as most young people think it’s boring and it’s something that one would associate with old people. Her advice, she says take risks, and trust your instincts. She says you must be explorative, there are so many options out there. Tune in for more on this insightful and inspiring conversation with a young mind.

Connect with me

IG & Facebook: Conversations with Mpume

Website: www. changeconversations.co.za