How to find your way here?

Dust Consulting  is an Executive & Life Coaching practice headed by Nico Liebenberg, a Research Psychologist who practices as an Executive- & Life Coach.

On your right click under ‘Other Dust pages’ on the page you are interested in. There is a page with all the professional services we offer. Alternatively click under the headings below on the link you want to visit.

Coaching

To understand what coaching is or what it can do for you, click here.

To understand what executive coaching is, click here.

To determine if coaching is something you should engage in, click here.

To be trained as an executive or life coach or to engage in a meaningful process of personal mastery, click here.

Strategic planning

To learn more about the strategic planning we facilitate in organisations, click here.

Team building

For building strong teams that operate on synergy, click here. We pride ourselves on building strong working and especially middle- and senior management teams.

EQ training for sales teams

For developing your sales teams, click here. We have adapted our 5 day EQ training programme for the sales environment.

Leadership development

For developing your middle and junior managers, click here. We present a very powerful Accelerated Leadership Development programme for middle and junior managers.

Our clients

If you want to see who are the clients that benefit from what we do, click here.

Contact us

Want to contact us, please click here?

SETA

Dust Consulting is accredited with Services SETA. The decision number is 2399.

BBBEE

Dust Consulting is a level 4 (100%) BBBEE contributor.

We were having lunch on father’s day, the whole family. It was actually a very joyous celebration because my father and mother returned from an overseas trip the previous week. We were sharing and laughing and the food was good, very good. My sister talked about the change in her father in law when she was pregnant with his grandchild. He used to think about her as a child until she got pregnant. ‘He then changed’, she said. He started to trust and respect her and thanked her for what she did for his son. She was clearly moved by this experience.

She then related a story about him and his seeking to find closure on certain things in his life now that he is much older. He once took his car and drove back to the land of his origin, Namibia, where he grew up. He was on a mission. He was looking for one of his faithful laborers that use to work for him a long time ago. Not knowing where his foreman would be he moved from village to village inquiring from the people where this man could be? Some people knew this man and directed him until he was eventually led by the children to this foreman.

He found his foreman, an old man sitting around an open fire staring into apparent nothingness. When the father in law saw the man he said his name. The old man looked up with weak eyes and wondered who this man was that said his name. He then said ‘Suiderkruis’ (Southern cross) – the name of the farm where the old man use to work for him and immediately the old man recognised his ‘boss’. They both started to cry as they met – once again. The reunion was beyond words. As the tears subsided they fondly recalled experiences of a lifetime that has passed way too quickly.

As I heard this story I was moved. I was thinking about closing the circle, bringing things to a closure. I was challenged in myself by thinking I should never, ever wait till I am old before I really ‘meet’ people and appreciate who they are. I have the chance to live – now. I have a chance to make a difference – now. I thought to myself, ‘I could not, I should not, ever grow old before I start to appreciate other people or anyone I have the privilege to meet, no matter how briefly. I should make a difference and I should make it in the moment it is granted. I should not wait until life has run its course before I realise that I have ‘now, right now’ to make a difference.

As someone that has a passion to develop people to the optimum of their potential, I have recently run into some kind of tough challenge. Now, for me there is not really such a thing as a problem. There might be challenges and difficult ones at that, but problems, no, not really. You see, it all depends on how you choose to define what happens around you.

Your definition of anything, yourself, your relationships, what life throws at you, your roles as a leader, mother or father, other people’s attitude and behaviour toward you, etc. depend on you – your definition. A business man’s choice of defining himself as a business man determines basically everything he will allow. So it goes for the teacher, the preacher and the prostitute. Depending on your definition of yourself you will experience your world. You allow and experience most things in your life based on your definition of YOU…

I met a man that sees himself as a father and you know what? When his around his kids he acts like a father. Now, he doesn’t act like a father only because he has kids. He acts like a father primarily because he defines himself as a father. I know of another man who also has kids, but he wants to define himself (primarily and only) as a business man and you know what? He finds it difficult to act like a father when he is around his kids. You see, kids or no kids make no difference.

What makes the difference is the definition in your head.

Now if it is true what I say, it then must be true that life is lived and experienced (more) according to what goes on in your mind than what comes at you from the ‘outside’. This statement, this thought needs our contemplative attention. I actually wanted to say, ‘stop and think! Think what I am saying here. It needs to be understood!’

I once heard someone say that if you think you can, you are right and if you think you can’t you are also right. Irrespective of what you think, it would happen according to what you think. Now, don’t go there where you think I am talking about mind over matter or you just have to think the ‘right stuff’ and it will happen for you.

I am referring to much more than just ‘predicting the future’ based on how you want it to turn out. I am referring to how your thinking determines what you will experience. You can only experience things according to what you think about it.

Let me tell you a story I have told many people. Most probably you have heard the story already, but here goes. Two shoe manufacturing companies from America send their top marketers to Africa. The mission was clear: “Explore the market for shoes in Africa.” Both of them came to Africa. Both of them interviewed the same amount of people. Both of them visited the same cities, towns and villages. Both of them are top people in their positions. There was not much difference between the two marketers or the scenarios they were exposed to.

The one reported back to America, saying, “don’t bother to make shoes for the people in Africa because not many of them wear shoes.” The other one reported back, saying, “You won’t believe what I have found. I have found the goldmine of shoe markets. I have found the most unexplored shoe market in the world. I have found the place where everyone is still in need of shoes!”

You see for these two shoe marketers it wasn’t what they saw; it was how they interpreted what they saw. The one saw nothing, the other saw in exactly the same situation – OPPORTUNITY! That choice, ‘nothing’ or ‘opportunity’ wasn’t in the environment, the situation, the people ‘out there’. It was in the head of the person thinking about the scenario and situation.

Didn’t someone say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?” What about you? Do you see defeat where you could see victory? Do you see nothing where you could see opportunity? I am not referring to you looking at the ideal environment or situation. Irrespective of the environment or situation, whether it is ideal or not, do you have a mind that can think great thoughts about the things you observe?

Is the one shoe marketer only a ‘realist’ and the other a ‘positive thinker’? I don’t know how you would like to define either one of the two. What I know is one marketer sees nothing where the other sees great opportunity.

What about you? What do you see?

Many of us are addicted to something. We all have our drug of choice. For some it is pornography, for others it is alcohol or nicotine or shopping or spending or TV or sport… The point is there is most probably something in your life you just can’t get rid of, although you would love to.

I always ask myself how those with an addiction to food can join a group of people who also want to break free from that addiction and then suddenly things start to happen. They loose weight, they start to feel good about themselves, they eat healthy, etc. etc. – all benefits of deciding to join a group of people with the same desire.

Is it the desire that causes it all? Most probably not, but to change you first need the desire before it can happen. I used to be a Psychologist in private counselling practice and there I saw people changed. Those that changed had one thing in common – they wanted to, they were desperate, they couldn’t stand their current state of existence any longer. Surely there is a lot of credit that can go to ‘desire’ when we talk about change in behaviour. The stronger the desire to change the higher the probability that you would change…

But for now, where I want to go is the long forgotten idea of accountability. Accountability is that ‘thing’ you can create around you when you are not strong enough on the inside to do what you know is best for you. “No man is an island!” a clever man exclaimed one day. I want to echo that. Because of the fact that no man is an island we can’t just do what we want to. We have to consider others. We live in community, all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not.

We all need accountability some times in our lives, especially those of us prone to addictions.

In psychology we talk about internal and external locus of control. When the internal locus of control is absent you need an external locus of control. In simple terms when your child doesn’t brush her teeth you should tell her to. The internal locus of control is absent and therefore you as a parent provide an external locus of control.

Now to get back to those with an addiction to food, especially the overcomers. They have joined a huge external locus of control that will check them, monitor them, weight them and ‘rebuke’ them if needs be. Now my theory says they have integrated the necessary accountability into their lives and therefore they will be able to shake of the addiction and the extra weight.

You want to change your behaviour because you are fed up of things you do that you don’t want to do? Make yourself accountable. Join a group, confide in a friend. Reveal your addiction and ask others that love and understand you to assist you. I have a couple of those kind of people in my live. They save lives!!

Let me tell you a story that might encourage you to understand that your paradigm determines what you see, irrespective of what you look at.

Two (separate) American shoe manufacturing companies send their top marketing specialists to investigate the market for shoes in Africa. After two weeks both of them reported back to their respective head offices.

The one’s reply read: “Don’t bother to exploit this market, no one in Africa wears shoes.” The other one’s reply read: “You won’t believe what I have found. The most unexplored market in the world. No one here wears shoes yet.

A wise man once said, “Your context gives you the picture to look at. Your paradigm determines what you see.”

No one lives in a vacuum, unaffected by a (certain) context. We all are bound by a certain context where we live, work and play. No two peoples’ contexts are alike, even if they are alike, their paradigms will differ and that will cause them to see their ’similar’ contexts in a different way.

The principles of the free-market have worked quite well for most of the Western world. Trading on stock exchanges, allowing people to do business, buying and selling, becoming wealthy, acquiring comforts and security – these are all benefits of the free trade most westerners are accustomed to.

Getting use to something and then losing appreciation for it is also a reality amongst most people. People will travel overseas to visit the museum in your city you have never visited, others will appreciate the beautiful sunsets from the hill of your village where you seldom take the time to go. Yes, it’s true, we get use to things, many things and then we don’t utilise and appreciate its wonders, opportunities and beauty anymore.

I think I am quite accurate in saying that most people are not utilising the free-market system they live in daily. In Africa we have primarily two different mind-sets. The one tend to be more “seasonal-natural”, the other more “colonial”.

Combining entrepreneurial thinking with these mind-sets (paradigms) can be very discouraging. The seasonal-natural mind-set comes to entrepreneurial thinking with a complacency, a hakuna matata, a mind-set of abdicating responsibility and a fundamental philosophy that “we don’t have worries”. This mind-set incapacitates us economically to believe that “even if we fall behind schedule, we can do it tomorrow” and in any case – what we don’t get done today doesn’t matter because “tomorrow is another day”.

The colonial mind-set on the other hand places itself above the natural-seasonal and grabs back to a higher power like “the motherland” – always believing their “background” or “where they came from” will come and assist when nothing else is successful. This mind-set can be equally discouraging in the face of a passionate desire to create a generation of entrepreneurs.

Both these mind-sets are not conducive to developing entrepreneurs that can utilise the availability of the free trade they experience daily. The natural-seasonal mind-set doesn’t think about the day of tomorrow therefore they seldom plan ahead. And like you know, some wise man said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Talk to the visionaries and they will tell you, “Without vision people perish”.

The colonials grow up in a different complacency – someone or something else will look after me, I don’t have to “go out and create the future I would like to see happen”. “As long as I protect what I have I am safe and cared for”.

According to this description of mind-sets found on the continent of Africa, it is quite accurate to say that here in Africa we need a paradigm shift, a fundamentally different way of looking at the world. We need to re-assess the way we look at money and business opportunities and adapt that which does not fit the paradigm of entrepreneurial thought.

That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? NO, its not! Because we need a paradigm shift, a change of mind-set on a fundamental level, we have big challenges.

Before it becomes too overwhelming, let me assure you that nothing is impossible for the one who believes. As an African, born in Africa with a heritage of white colonial forefathers who was confronted with the seasonal-natural mind-set of Africa I can assure you that here in Africa it is possible to make such a paradigm shift.

Allow me to let you in on one of the secrets of changing a paradigm.

Whenever you want to facilitate change, whether it be a small change like drinking no sugar in your coffee or a big change like joining a cult you need knowledge. Ever heard the saying, “knowledge is power”? Well in this case it is true as ever. You need the knowledge of the new paradigm in order to be able to embrace the new paradigm. You cannot embrace anything unless you know about it. The more you understand something the better you can function in it.

Teaching people about being an entrepreneur is the first step in moving people, whether they live in the natural-seasonal mind-set indigenous to Africa or the colonial mind-set of Europe, from being on-lookers to being participants in the free trade. Yes, you heard me right. The first secret to fundamentally shift people’s way of thinking and eventual behaviour is to teach them, to train them, to give them information in such a way that they grasp it, accept it and eventually embrace it.

Holcim (the cement manufacturing giant) in association with us are in the process of embarking on a journey to bring about such a paradigm shift amongst the people of Southern Africa. Holcim believes that whether you have a natural-seasonal or a colonial mind-set you can be empowered to become an active player in your country’s economy.

As part of Holcim’s investment in the future of Southern African countries they have decided to start this entrepreneurial development in Windhoek, Namibia. They are implementing an Entrepreneurial Development Programme that was developed by a team of entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs have academic backgrounds and experience in Entrepreneurial Studies and Human Behaviour.

This training starts the middle of 2007 and will last as long as people are empowered and enabled to actively participate in the respective economies of their countries. Yes, the whole idea is to get people, especially young and unemployed people to develop an economical mind-set that liberates them. Liberates them to participate in their countries’ economies.

As I said, the first step to bring about this change is training, education and empowering people with information, knowledge, a new mind-set that is as old as the western culture itself.