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Take a second to be nice to yourselfInstagram: @ramialameTwitter: @rami_alameh

It’s a cliché to say that founders flounder, but unfortunately, that’s usually the case. Wild exceptions like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell aside, executives who start a business or project fizzle more often than not once they’ve gotten their venture on its feet.Entrepreneurs actually show their inability to switch to executive mode much earlier in the business development process than most people realize, as my stories will reveal. But the reasons executives fail to “scale”—that is, adapt their leadership capabilities to their growing businesses’ needs—remain fuzzy. It’s simply assumed that there’s an entrepreneurial personality and an executive personality—and never the twain shall meet. I don’t think that’s true. I believe most executives can learn to scale if they’re willing to take a step back and admit to themselves that their old ways no longer work.Over the past four years, I’ve worked closely with more than 100 entrepreneurs and seen them struggle to adapt as their companies grow beyond a handful of employees and launch a new product or service. In the process, I’ve observed that the habits and skills that make entrepreneurs successful can undermine their ability to lead larger organizations. The problem, in other words, is not so much one of leadership personality as of approach.I’ve identified three tendencies that work for leaders of business units or small companies but become Achilles’ heels for those same individuals when they try to manage larger organizations with diverse needs, departments, priorities, and constituencies.The first tendency is loyalty to comrades—the small band of colleagues there at the start of the enterprise. In entrepreneurial mode, you need to lead like you’re in charge of a combat unit on the wrong side of enemy lines, where it’s all for one and one for all. But blind loyalty can become a liability in managing a large, complex organization. The second tendency, task orientation—or focusing on the job at hand—is critical in driving toward, say, a big product launch, but excessive attention to detail can cause a large organization to lose its way. The third tendency, single-mindedness, is an important attribute in a visionary who wants to unleash a revolutionary product or service on the world. Yet this quality can harden into tunnel vision if the leader can’t become more expansive as the company grows. And the fourth tendency, working in isolation, is fine for the brilliant scientist focused on an ingenious idea. But it’s disastrous for a leader whose burgeoning organization must rely on the kindness of customers, investors, analysts, reporters, and other strangers.Startup Kudos is available on Amazon andwww.startupkudos.comIG: @ramialameBe Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured

Be True to yourself. Be real. Basic Instincts involve 2 main things as well1. Being true to yourself and being very transparent and honest with yourself2. Being true to others and making sure to be complementary with others. Ego can last for a short while and then dissipate into an oblivious scenario that has no ending or rather a bad ending. Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be StructuredIG: @ramialamewww.startupkudos.com

The sexual instinct aims to fuse chemically with another, this fusion transforming both parties. In a sense, this need for fusion on both parties can be objectifying. It is not a caring social fusion, but rather a chemical essential to infect and be infected, to have the other person grow inside you and alter you, thus each person transforming into something else. Achieving this fusion via seduction and display manifests in two ways: This is part of the Concept of Adversarial Excitement that gets you the fast win. The Partnership Excitement wins you the War. Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured. www.ramialame.com IG: @ramialame www.startupkudos.com

It is often said that “humans are social animals” without really thinking what that implies. Many creatures are social in the sense that they live in groups. Still, there are wide differences in what ‘social’ means – from the simple semi-chaos of herding for cattle or deer to the elaborate, regimented, division-of-labor society of the termite or the honey bee. Human social scientists (sociologists and anthropologists especially) have traditionally spent most of their time searching for differences between human societies and often assuming that the wide variety that exists is somehow infinite and has no, or few, underlying patterns, laws, or theories explain its myriad diversity. One is tempted to think that a non-human social scientist might take a rather different view, seeing clear patterns at both the macro and micro levels of human social organization, just as we find it easy to recognize patterns in other social species. Social Instincts It is not true to say that social scientists have had no idea of the nature of human sociality: – there have, in fact, been two competing visions of individuals' inherited social instincts. Neither view would probably admit that they were, by implication, theories of inherited human characteristics, i.e., theories of human nature. The first and most obvious is the neo-classical economics notion of the “rational utility-maximizing” human individual. Rather obviously, the idea that everyone, regardless of context or culture, is a "rational utility maximizer’ can only be due to human nature. Most neo-classical economists would be very uncomfortable with discussing their micro-economic ‘simplifying axioms’ actually relating to real-world human nature, but it seems difficult to avoid. The second is called the “standard social science model” of the infinitely malleable “blank slate” individual. Social scientists who hold this view would even more vehemently reject the idea this was a view of human nature, but of course, it is. For everyone, everywhere, to be ‘blank slates’ means we all must be born that way, which is, of course, a view of human nature. Having no ‘hard-wired’ social instincts is just as much an assumption about human nature as ‘rational utility maximization. These two basic approaches have been associated largely with the two principle wings in the democratic political thought of the past century and a half – free-market capitalism and liberalism (rational utility maximization) and socialism or social democracy (‘blank slate’ adaptability). I want to argue that both these models are partly right and also wrong because they are incomplete. There is an alternative, which is still a relatively simple picture of human social instincts but accounts for contradictory human behavior. Let me first set out some definitions. What do I mean by “instincts”? I use the term in the same way it is used in Steven Pinker’s “The Language Instinct” – that is to say, an ‘instinct’ combines an innate desire to acquire something (language) with an innate ability to assimilate it. Pinker argues that humans are normally born with an innate desire to acquire language and an innate ability to do so. This is not at all culture or experience-dependent but is ‘hard-wired.’ Which language people acquire is determined by the socio-cultural context in which they grow up. Take a child of American English-speaking parents at birth and have it adopted by Mandarin-Chinese speaking parents, and it will grow up speaking Mandarin like a native, and vice-versa. Thus, human facility with language includes elements of inherited, fixed, motives and abilities and an acquired cultural component. By social, in the context of social instincts, I refer to how humans seek to interact with other humans in ‘their’ and other groups (not just their immediate family). Most evidence suggests humans evolved in groups of about 150 (the famous “Dunb

Sex is one of the biggest drivers in life; it is a cornerstone Of our decision-making, life path, and whatever we do. I want you to think of one time, one moment when in your life where you fully dissociated yourself from this; I doubt you will find. Not saying, though, that it is the ultimate goal; it does shapes the way we do things. I remember I was around 12, and we went on a summer trip to Cyprus with my parents, and we had friends there we would always hang out with. We visited a woman called Yanoulla, an old lady friends with my grandmother who worked at the fish market. This family was just so welcoming, warm-hearted, and caring. Her husband Harris was a huge fan of Liverpool FC, and we would tease each other, me being an avid Manchester United FC Fan at heart. So we arrived at her home, a ground-floor apartment, and the balcony was the street overlooking Limassol’s sandy beach. I started running around and playing with small things like all kids until Soulla [Her daughter] arrived with her children Chris and Harris Jr [Girl]. Chris was, to my brother and me, the coolest person ever; he started talking about how he went clubbing and met so many girls and was all fit and stuff. I remember my brother and I were in Awe to his stories, and this is where my interaction with puberty began. We started talking about girls, and one night we went into Chris’ father’s room; he showed us actually Cassettes; Not CDs, Not MP3s, Video Cassettes. It was porn. While reading, I am sure your brain will take you through these small experiences that shaped your puberty; you will remember the small interactions, the small secrets, the rooms, skin interactions, warmth, and passion. You will remember these people you interacted with, discovering and exploring when the unknown was just an increased heartbeat. As we grow, we always want to continue being sexually relevant and play the seduction and attraction game. I discuss this in my concept of relationship 2.0. I analyze our physical needs and urge to remain relevant and how it impacts Monogamy turning it into a “Monogamish” concept. For business, it is the same; understanding attraction and seduction makes you understand ideation, product creation, customer support, and scaling your business. www.startupkudos.com IG: @ramialame

The self-preservation, survival instinct is the instinct of physical self-protection. As a living species, our bodies are the catalyst for our lives. It's the most basic, ubiquitous survival instinct. If our bodies fail, we cannot live. This instinct is concerned primarily with one's own physical body and its health, stability, protection, and ultimately that it continues to live.  1. Physical Well-Being The self-preservation instinct is focused on the body itself and its well-being. It includes health, strength, diet, fitness, and endurance. This facet of self-preservation is like a management system for your body. It seeks to find a root cause for problems in the body, and it can seek to test the body's endurance to harm or stress.  Possible examples of thoughts:  Is this food healthy? Why do I feel so tired today? When can I get back to the gym so I can feel more energetic? Could I climb to the top of this mountain? Could I survive in the forest for one month? Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured www.startupkudos.com IG: @ramialame

Humans all have three primary survival instincts: Self- Preservation, Sexual, and Social. Our Enneagram type is a strategy used to meet the needs of these three instinctual drives. Our personality tends to have an imbalance with the three rather than use them equally. Which one do you think you most identify with? Before understanding how our particular type interacts with our particular instinct, it's crucial to understand what each instinct is in its natural state.   Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured IG: @ramialame www.startupkudos.com

Three Reasons why I decided to write this book 1. I felt I needed to close a chapter and open a new one. I felt that I reached a time in my life where I realized that compromising is just a big "NO". 2. I wanted to help Startups and Entrepreneurs launch their business and grow, and I believe it is the best time to do so. 3. I know that Post Covid is going to be a new era and I think that it is the best time to reflect on what would come next. Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured. IG: @ramialame www.startupkudos.com

Kudos is praising and Compliments. For a very long time, I was praising startups and entrepreneurship without knowing. Later, I was privileged to join the startup world through different ecosystems and I was proud to launch Lexyom [www.lexyom.com ] a legal tech startup that aims to disrupt the way people deal with legal and with a vision of making "Legal the most spoken language worldwide". This podcast is based on my book " The Startup kudos " which relates the steps towards building your startup. Chapter 11 is about "relationship 2.0" and chapter 12 is about politics, a topic I love to discuss. In this episode, I talk about the importance of verifying what you have learned and checking the things you have done to deliver a better result. Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured. www.startupkudos.com IG: @ramialame

Almost nothing great has ever been achieved without passion. Think of Winston Churchill in the darkest days of WWII, Lincoln in the Civil War. Great writers and artists have passion. Performers, too, Edith Piaf being an outstanding example. Our most innovative business leaders, people like Steve Jobs, have it. But what is it? I looked up the word passion in several dictionaries and nearly all of them focused on romance. Then I came across The Urban Dictionary and there it was: “Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required to do it. It is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, passion is an ambition that is materialized into action to put as much heart, mind, body, and soul into something as is possible.” Business people with passions can be like magnets, attracting supporters, helpers, enthusiasts, devotees. Of course, success requires a lot more than a passion: intelligence, hard work, common sense, leadership, honesty, and courage help immensely. Sadly, a lot of passion can be misguided, especially when people think passion is enough. It is if you want to be a voice crying in the wilderness, otherwise, it isn’t. So come on pick up your energy, trust yourself, and Move forward. Be organized, Be passionate, Be Structured www.startupkudos.com IG: @Ramialame

Stages of Negotiation In order to achieve a desirable outcome, it may be useful to follow a structured approach to negotiation. For example, in a work situation, a meeting may need to be arranged in which all parties involved can come together. The process of negotiation includes the following stages: Preparation Discussion Clarification of goals Negotiate towards a Win-Win outcome Agreement Implementation of a course of action 1. Preparation Before any negotiation takes place, a decision needs to be taken as to when and where a meeting will take place to discuss the problem and who will attend. Setting a limited time scale can also be helpful to prevent the disagreement from continuing. This stage involves ensuring all the pertinent facts of the situation are known in order to clarify your own position. In the working example above, this would include knowing the ‘rules of your organization, to whom help is given when help is not felt appropriate, and the grounds for such refusals. Undertaking preparation before discussing the disagreement will help to avoid further conflict and unnecessarily wasting time during the meeting. 2. Discussion During this stage, individuals or members of each side put forward the case as they see it, i.e. their understanding of the situation. Key skills during this stage include questioning, listening, and clarifying. Sometimes it is helpful to take notes during the discussion stage to record all points put forward in case there is a need for further clarification. It is extremely important to listen, as when disagreement takes place it is easy to make the mistake of saying too much and listening too little. Each side should have an equal opportunity to present their case. 3. Clarifying Goals From the discussion, the goals, interests, and viewpoints of both sides of the disagreement need to be clarified. It is helpful to list these factors in order of priority. Through this clarification, it is often possible to identify or establish some common ground. Clarification is an essential part of the negotiation process, without it, misunderstandings are likely to occur which may cause problems and barriers to reaching a beneficial outcome. 4. Negotiate Towards a Win-Win Outcome This stage focuses on what is termed a 'win-win' outcome where both sides feel they have gained something positive through the process of negotiation and both sides feel their point of view has been taken into consideration. A win-win outcome is usually the best result. Although this may not always be possible, through negotiation, it should be the ultimate goal. Suggestions of alternative strategies and compromises need to be considered at this point. Compromises are often positive alternatives that can often achieve greater benefit for all concerned compared to holding to the original positions. 5. Agreement The agreement can be achieved once an understanding of both sides’ viewpoints and interests have been considered. It is essential for everybody involved to keep an open mind in order to achieve an acceptable solution. Any agreement needs to be made perfectly clear so that both sides know what has been decided. 6. Implementing a Course of Action From the agreement, a course of action has to be implemented to carry through the decision. www.startupkudos.com IG: @ramialame