Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

Tuesday Edition: December 24, 2024

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published every Tuesday & Friday, we discover something crucial to help us on the way to winning at work and in life.

Your Christmas Work

Tomorrow will be Christmas.

This means I have less than 24 hours to bring you into a unique work that can create a new world of change for you.

One of the things over the last decade that my multi-country work career has afforded me is learning from unexpected experiences.

During my first year in Spain, a Kenyan who was doing her PhD in Barcelona told me that the previous year’s Christmas was the loneliest she had had in her life. (Her story is one of the many stories that are included in my book - Winning Beyond Borders: Achieving Success at Work in a New Country https://www.workplacemultipliers.com/WBB ).

According to her, no one invited her over for Christmas. Well, Christmas is like the American Thanksgiving to most Catalans (the region where Barcelona is in). They celebrate it with mostly family.

During the first Christmas, my family lived in Spain, another Nigerian family invited us over. After that experience, our family made it one of our Christmas Works bringing people into our homes.

You must choose your own Christmas work. But it must add value to the people you engage with.

One of those years we lived in Spain, there was a gentleman who my wife and I used to run into on our way to school drop off.

He was a Nigerian doing his master's program. Occasional chats and a couple of hellos later, we decided to invite him over for one of our Christmas lunches.

You could have seen how happy he was to be with us and our friends. We even packed meals for him to take back to the other friends he had - they didn’t know they could come along. They all knew they were not forgotten.

Once upon a time when we lived in Senegal, our family visited the museum on December 24th.

We had taken my sister-in-law and her family who were visiting us for the holidays for the visit. During the visit, a gentleman overheard my wife and her sister speak in Yoruba. He approached them and asked if they were Nigerians.

As it turned out, they lived in Gambia. He and his family were visiting Senegal for Christmas.

A few conversations later with our families, I exchanged cards with him, and we went our separate ways in the museum.

Later in the evening, I told my wife I thought we should invite them for Christmas lunch. To which she replied, “I was thinking the same thing too.”

I asked and they accepted. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that they didn’t leave until past 10 pm.

Fast forward, a few months later, we were planning a road trip to Gambia. I reached out to them for ideas on the best Airbnb locations.

They gave me that. And also an invitation to stay at their place instead of staying at an Airbnb.

We accepted. They enjoyed our company enough to invite us to be at the graduation of their daughter a few months away. We travelled back for it, had a great time and the rest is current events.

This is what can happen if you embrace your Christmas work to add value to people in a fresh way during this period even if it comes with some level of risk. The rewards are worth the risk.

As you create your family traditions at Christmas, don't stop adding value to people.

Thank you for going on this ride with me.

I wish you and your family a very merry Christmas.

Keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

I am a Workplace Multiplier.

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