I left an abusive relationship in the middle of a pandemic, with two young kids, and no stable income.

I was broken, mentally exhausted, sick and numb as a result of years of verbal and emotional abuse.

Today I am healing, finding joy and becoming whole again. And so can you.

There comes a point when the pain of staying becomes stronger than the fear of leaving. That’s how you know it’s time.

To choose yourself.
To regain control over your life.
To leave.

But it also takes a strong support system. People who won’t ask you to stay and suck it up.

Remember you never know what people are going through behind closed doors.

Don’t ask people to stay in abusive relationships when you have no idea what they are experiencing on a daily basis. Don’t ask them to stay for the children either.

Instead, listen to them.

A lot of women are experiencing abuse without even knowing it. The constant criticism, gaslighting, anger, control, manipulation... it can be so subtle that it becomes « natural ». You don’t question it anymore yet deep inside your self esteem is deteriorating day after day.

If you really want to help, stop asking women « Why don’t you just leave? ». It’s more complex than you’d think. Here are 5 reasons (among others) why people stay in abusive relationships:

1. Fear
2. Financial reasons
3. Loss of self
4. The desire to fix things
5. Children 👇🏽

A LONG & IMPORTANT THREAD

These three tiny faces should make you extremely sad and angry.
They are the latest victims of Australia's shocking epidemic of violence.
Their names are Matthew Perinovic, Claire Perinovic and Anna Perinovic.

Matthew is just three years old, Claire is seven and Anna is five.
It breaks my heart to say it, but these children are the first murdered in Australia this year.
Their deaths mean we have now lost a total of 12 lives to violence since January 1, 2021.

Seven men and two women are also dead. Five of the victims - both the women and the three children - were allegedly killed by family members (*see end note for details on the data).Police a short time ago confirmed that Matthew, Claire and Anna were murdered by their mother.

She then killed herself at their Tullamarine home.
Across many social media feeds - even by some seasoned anti-domestic violence campaigners and organisations - there was a huge collective leap to judgment. The children's father was painted as the killer of the family.

This was a grotesquely unfair rush to accusation and I really hope that every person and organisation that maligned an innocent man in this way hangs their heads in shame. It is so damn important that we all allow the police to do their job before jumping to conclusions.

Have you met your Inner Child?

You might see them as yourself in your early years.
You might seem them as a patchwork of childhood.
You may even just see dreams of youthful play.

An awareness of your Inner Child can you bring balance to your life.

#innerchildwork #csa #healing

First, not everyone associates childhood with playfulness and fun. If you, like me, have experience the wounds of emotional, physical, mental, sexual, or any other type of abuse - childhood can rouse feelings of suspicion, fear, and vulnerability. You may carry pain buried deep..

inside that aims to protect you from both your present self and the child you once were.

For years, I buried this pain afraid to release it for fear I might disappear in the weight of it. I feared connecting with my inner children as much as they feared being seen.

A major feature associated with 'manhood' is EGO & nothing shatters that ego more than a seeming inability to sexually satisfy a woman. Premature ejaculation(PE) is a common issue in men, with 1 in 3 men experiencing it at some point in their lives.

Lets talk PE shall we?

PE is when you have an orgasm before intercourse/less than A MINUTE after you start.The question that follows this is;HOW LONG SHOULD SEX LAST FOR BEFORE A MAN RELEASES?Averagely,5-7mins.
There are reasons (good/bad) that will make a man spend less/more time before ejaculation.

If a 'quick release' happens once in a while, there's nothing to worry about but if it happens frequently,then you might need to seek help.

The exact CAUSE of PE isn't known, it is believed to be majorly PSYCHOLOGICAL but there are also biological factors involved.

Psychological factors

-STRESS
-Early sexual experience
-Sexual abuse
-Poor body image
-Depression
-Anxiety about sexual performance
-Guilty feelings that makes you rush through sexual encounters
-Relationship problems
-Negative feelings about the idea of sex(sexual repression)

Biological factors
-Erectile Dysfunction
-Men who have low levels of the chemical, SEROTONIN in their brains tend to take a shorter time to ejaculate.
-Abnormal hormone levels
-Inflammation & infection of the prostate/urethra
-Inherited traits

The main symptom of PE is inability

10 big ideas for the next 10 years. Here are 10 ideas I think will make fundamental shifts in innovation, politics, money as we head towards 2030. Feel free to add yours

1. Tech focused youth involvement in governance. Over the next decade, there'll be greater involvement in the political process by the young digitally savvy demographic. Technology will play a massive role in helping young people build movements & in demanding for accountability

2. Build for export: With the Naira's continued depreciation, and decreasing purchasing power of Nigerians, more entrepreneurs will be forced to look outwards in search of fortunes. Nigeria will essentially become the incubation centre for businesses with global ambitions

3. Remote working neighbourhoods/cities. As entrepreneurs look outwards, the talent with exportable digital skills will also look outwards for employment opportunities. Investment in real estate that caters to remote workers will become an opportunity

4. Engineering offices. As Nigerias tech ecosystem matures & the current mid-level programmers, designers, PMs, transition into senior roles, foreign mid-sized tech companies'll start opening eng offices in Nigeria to get early access to the talent pipeline before coys like FB do

Sweetest Revenge
I woke up this morning troubled about stuff and had vivid dreams about it too & then decided to write my views regarding the term "Forgiveness" or you can say that the sweetest Revenge ever.

It clicked my mind when my best friends said

"Forgive and forget from heart is difficult though" and they elaborated further that there are many times in life you come across people, they are rude cause you harm, they are going to do things that messed up your life and for a while u just think about forgiveness

But a person does the same thing over and over & every time you forgive them & keep doing this same thing over and over then what you can do, because you have to realize that things will never change & categorically stated that " you can't change someone's nature" & furthermore

"Once a snake always a snake".
On the other side I wanted to rebut that vague terms but don't know why I always failed to convey my opinion regarding that. I am on a view that we all sin, we all make mistakes but Allah always opened the door of forgiveness.

They cannot understand that "forgiveness is for you not for them". It benefits you not only after life but in this life as well. Let it go gives us satisfaction. Every religion emphasised about forgiveness and to forget. One of my best friend always quote the saying that

We just got off the call between @polina_marinova and @jackbutcher during @visualizevalue office hours.

These are 9 incredibly useful mental frameworks discussed during the conversation.

// A Thread 👇 //

Framework for your work:

You never know who's reading, you never know who's watching.

Do quality work, all the time.

Framework for working on first principles:

Ask "Why?" until you get a valid answer.

"It has always been done this way" is not a valid one.

Framework for writing:

Have empathy for your reader.

Always write for the benefit of them, not your ego.

Framework for editing:

Ask yourself three questions:

1. Does this makes a point?
2. Does need this to be here?
3. Does this benefit the reader?

Time for my first thread of 2021: Today, How I Measure Myself: a 2020 Report!

With some related thoughts on evaluating management and picking investment managers.

Important note: underlying everything that follows is integrity and trust. Without that, nothing matters.

1) Day to Day: Business Basics

Did I “keep the trains running on time” in 2020? Yes

Do I know how I measure my performance? Yes

How was my performance? Satisfactory

Overall grade: A- (I wasn’t aggressive enough in the markets at the bottom)

Management Thought: Passion not Emotion

Emotional investment decisions tend to be bad investment decisions, but passion keeps somebody in the game - especially when things get difficult

Equally true for investment managers and company management.

Don’t want:

Management Thought 2: Do managers clearly communicate how they are measured and how they evaluate others?

For example, any CEO’s (or investors) job is to allocate capital. Do they measure their effectiveness at allocating capital? How?

Don’t want: “Just need more money”

2) Management Skill: Strategy and Tactics

Few are excellent at both. For example, asset allocation vs trading. Or looking at different asset classes.

Am I humble enough to admit where my circle of competence ends? Do I partner/hire - especially outside that?

2020 grade: A

Early in my career, I was given the feedback "just be careful there aren't too many women at your meetup- we don't want it to be too homogeneous", and I think about the absurdity of that statement every fucking day.

Soon after, they had the audacity to ask me for a "positive referral" for their next position.

Being a woman in tech is exhausting.

Best part? The data said otherwise.

There were way more men than women attending these events- there were just more women than usual... ya know, the whole thing companies have been trying to solve for YEARS, I had accomplished on my own, and was scolded for. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was then told "but they're all junior + bootcampers".

Also wrong. I went through hundreds of names, 1 by 1 for hours (shout-out to @Meetup for making this difficult at the time), and most of the women were senior engineers who attended university and the men? Most self taught.

So yeah, it's fucking exhausting to be a woman in tech.

Not only do you have to do your job, but you also have to PROVE that you're doing your job.

Check your biases- they have consequences on others.

My problem with the enemy (and I refuse to give them a more nuanced name than that) is nothing ideological.

It's that they're crazy, evil, and a solidly double digits percentage of them are possessed by demons.

And thus, they're categorically unfit for power.

There's nothing I can discuss that'll make them stop being crazy, evil or demon possessed. No amazing argument that'll turn them around.

They just need to be resisted (and preferably actively suppressed) by whatever means are available, as a moral imperative.

They feel the same way about me and anyone I sympathise with and any who claim otherwise are absolutely, 100% take it to the bank because it's as good as gold, lying.

You can't live with these people or negotiate with them. Pretty much the only time I recall them being even remotely tolerable was near the start of Brack Obama's presidential term.

That was an interesting time. "Oh hooray! Bush is finally gone! We can finally have fun again instead of being 24/7 butthurt about him in every available form of media. Hey, do you mind if we do away with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it's a bit silly, don't you think?"

There is a mental model known as the map is not the territory.

Here’s how it works and why it’s one of the most useful concepts to understand for everyday life.

👇👇👇

Your 20s are the most important years in your financial freedom journey

Avoid these mistakes

// THREAD //

1/15
This is a long post. Triggered. Our son is 24 years old. He has autism (diagnosed at the age of 19 months, and NOT by Google). Among others, his ability to speak is limited. When he's happy, he jumps up & down & claps his hands, laughing out loudly & like a ball of energy..

2/15
..imagine a supersized energizer bunny. Because he's inarticulate, he uses alternative communication. However, it happens that he just runs out of what he could form out as words in his mouth or utilize a way to communicate his intent. He can grow frustrated at not being

3/15
able to get his meaning across. So, he yells and yells. At times, it isn't easy to stop it even though we have established key words that ought to help him simmer down. If not, I just let him blow that steam off until he cries. He cries like someone has died...howling even

4/15
He cries out of that frustration until he gets tired and stops. It is upsetting and breaks my heart each time.

5/15
I admit that when he was younger, we didn't bring him out as much because we didn't want him to make others uncomfortable. But now, I take the view that this is just wrong. This behavior does not define who he is. He is obedient (the most out of my three kids),

Get ready for a thread.

One of the privileges of therapeutic work is being welcomed into the inner life and sacred story of another human being. Yet, when you engage the story-work with someone who is diagnosably narcissistic, (in much the same way as it works with an addict) 1

you enter through armored walls of certainty protecting cherished securities built on unstable truths. Folks like this don't simply "change their minds." There is a need for a radical, inner re-orientation, a re-Storying process that is destabilizing, that provokes resistance, 2

that requires a long and painful wilderness of deconstruction and re-imagination. It took Saul three years in a desert to become Paul, to be re-Storied from fundamentalism to the Jesus-way.

This same dynamic characterizes collective narcissism. 3

When groups of people orient themselves around a particular person/ideology that meets deep needs for security, it's not surprising that they'll embrace factually in-credible things. Terrorist groups are groups of *believers.* 4

From the inside, it's unimaginable to believe anything else. And when threatened, the inner alarms sound with fury, the walls are re-armored, and the inner sense of threat is translated into a fight-response.

Groups like this will always be with us. But... 5

Another day, another Wirecard story!

Seems German prosecutors chose not to get warrants to arrest the executives when news broke that more than $2B in cash was missing from the company. #ButNothingsHappening
https://t.co/ifPU4HatIU

I am a wife.

You know why?

Because I’m a married woman.

So the controversy over the “gendered” language in the new House Rules is as follows.

1. The House Rules contain an anti-nepotism (you can’t hire your own relatives) provision.

2. To make that make sense, there’s a definition of who is included in the meaning of a relative.

/1

3. That definition is found in Rule XXIII, clause 8(c)(3). This👇🏻is what the definition said in the Rules for the last Congress (the 116th). It uses words like mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son, etc. Words that convey gender. /2

4. The proposal for the new Congress (the 117th) was to change that definition to “non-gendered” language. Each new Congress adopts its own Rules at the beginning of its session, shortly after being sworn in. The *changes* to the old Rules are proposed in a House Resolution. /3

5. This year that was House Resolution 8. It proposed to change that definition of “relative” in section XXIII.8(c)(3) - & only in that section - to “non-gendered” language. 👇🏻

/4

Following a full review of the FHRIC report, I sat down and started cataloguing a list of leading questions I plan to use in our Rogue Leader Academy over the next three weeks, where I plan to focus a big majority of my time on these topics. Intent is to drive dialogue...

...take inventory of ourselves, & convey my intent for areas we will improve on, and how we will do so, on our team, going forward. I share these conversation drivers below thinking others might be willing to expound, &/or that others might find them useful within your own teams.

And yes, I will take every available opportunity to share the article we wrote called "Athena Thriving" that addresses a lot of these questions and could help prime these discussions.

Questions:

What are the linkages between gender discrimination/sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault?

How does sexism set conditions for SH/SA?

How do we create a culture/climate within our unit that eliminates gender discrimination/sexism?

Do you understand what micro aggressions are and their role in promoting gender discrimination? How do we correct micro aggressions?

How do we create a climate that values women and other minority populations and makes clear that discrimination will not be tolerated?