Naëtt Atkinson

I’m a hair girl. That’s my quickest, best, most satisfying, pick-me-up. A visit to the hairdresser can induce a trance-like calm and make me feel invincible.

I need that feeling quite often in my line of work and a person can’t just sit there and flick through magazines, you have to look around and be engaged. That’s how my eyes fell on the liquid roller write up from evo. (The copy-writers of evo rock!)

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These images are an excerpt from my presentation on the value and importance of pre-mediation in the startup ecosystem.

                           Image: Inner conflict - G. Wagner Granizio 

1. Be selective when entering a business relationship.

This has the same characteristics as a marriage. It is important to look into what you’re expecting from this business marriage and whether your values match.

Conflicts about interests can be resolved but conflicts about values can’t. For example, if one business par...

Image: Tau Zero 

The team in front of me had one person missing, one person talking, one person interrupting and one person actively engaged with... her phone. All in the same meeting, discussing their experience in the  highly sought after accelerator programme.

I’m trained to ask penetrative questions, actively listen to what is being said and how, finely attuned to what is not being said. Observe body language, facial expressions, get a feel for...

Image: Jerry's Burger Bar - Cape Town

My current business card is at the bottom of the post. Yes, I know it says nothing about what I do, but it has the important information about me right? You know my name, you know my number and you know where to mail me.  You can call me, write to me, or cyber stalk me!

Chances are that if you have one of these, we’ve met somewhere, I explained what I do, and you asked for my card.

And yet, the responses I’ve had to such a...

Image: The Wise Fool - Sargam Griffen

Some time ago I received a short and to the point email asking me to submit a proposal for some training. It is a big project and would have been a fantastic way to start 2019.

I was so ready and excited that …. I forgot my own negotiation skills!

Once I realised that I was most probably the ‘Fool’ and not the ‘Favourite’ I had spent way too much time and energy on this project.

Which important 5 things did I forget?

1. I fo...

Recently I took a  long road trip on my own so I had hours and hours to myself and the sheer luxury of mind-space and musings.  I have a stream of consciousness setting that is especially prominent under those circumstances.   I wonder about many things, but  mostly about conflict (because I'm on a mission to find freer ways of dealing with this) , power imbalances and random stuff that crop up in life....

I love sewing!  It is in my secret  talent box next to gardening, flowers, embroidery and being really good with babies! However, I also love the possibility of transforming conflict and often look for the overlap of processes between my private passions and professional persona.

While I was cutting fabric recently, I was thinking about the care with which I construct garment to fit perfectly and the path of conflict transformation.

Most i...

Remember the last time you got really, really angry at someone or something ... and you lost all semblance of dignity, self-control, clear headed thinking, socially acceptable demeanor and started shouting like a banshee or stormed off in a huff and a puff? I’m talking about the time you were so angry you wanted to break stuff and strangle people. Or, horror of horrors, you burst into tears in the middle of the argument.

That’s the one I’m talking about. Com...

I’m lying in bed reading the latest Jo Nesbo thriller, Macbeth, and I’m enjoying every minute of this decadence! Not because it is a rainy day in Cape Town and I have the luxury to stay in bed, but because I chose to say “No”.

Choosing me, is better for my sense- of- self and self-worth, than working for the rate the company offered to pay me.  Had I taken the job, I would have felt resentful, taken for...