The Clap Trap: Why Inner Validation Trumps External Applause
![](https://athifibrahim.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-Clap-Trap-by-Athif-Ibrahim-2-1024x576.png)
Why we chase external approval, how it leaves us largely empty, and how we can break free from the validation game.
The Transformative Power of Mentorship
![Athif Ibrahim Delivering a Speech at the Learning and Development Conference 2023 by MAHRP](https://athifibrahim.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Athif-Ibrahim-Delivering-a-Speech-at-the-Learning-and-Development-Conference-2023-by-MAHRP-1024x682.jpeg)
How one man saved me from a dead-end job and career suicide, and how the guided wisdom of a handful of mentors helped me step out of my comfort zone, embrace my fears by facing them head-on, and propelled me to a national platform
There’s no shortage of what we don’t know as we stumble from one experience to another in our lives. Every experience is replete with different degrees of difficulty and uncertainty as they are with opportunities for us to grow. This is the same for everyone. But what separates the winners from the losers in this game called life is what we do when we don’t know what to do. The answer we live and act out when faced with the question: “Am I going to retreat into the safety of my comfort zone, or am I going to risk it and do a bad first job so I can earn myself the right and the confidence to do a second, slightly less bad job?”
There Is No Straight Line to Success
![There is no straight line to success.](https://athifibrahim.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ew11Wx3WgAA1r91-1024x576.png)
The road to success is a convoluted, uncertain, and ever-evolving process
Change Starts with You
![A child wearing a red dress sitting on a swing.](https://athifibrahim.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/raychan-2D6f-818xfw-unsplash-1024x575.jpg)
Be the spark that ignites change.
To Know What Emotional Intelligence Is, Know What It Is Not
![A picture of eggs with different emotions drawn on them.](https://athifibrahim.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/tengyart-auEPahZjT40-unsplash-1024x683.jpg)
We talk about emotional intelligence all the time. But do we understand what it is all about?