Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

April 1, 2025

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm by leveraging The Triple Win Method.

Workplace Warning: Don’t create battlefield stress where none exists.

Howdy ,

Let’s rally the troops.

We need to set up a war room.

Please, confirm the boots on the ground.

This task is mission-critical.

You hear this lingo in the workplace, but it is all borrowed from the military. By borrowing these phrases, we have also tried to borrow a bit of the military thinking at work.

Take out competition, leave nothing on the table, yield no quarter and the likes have entered workplace thinking.

The only problem is that the workplace is very different from the theatre of battle that the military lives in.

Workplace vs. Battlefield: A Reality Check

No matter how important you think your work is - it’s not a matter of life and death.

OK, I will concede, if you are working in the medical or pharmaceutical field - it might be a matter of life and death.

Not your life.

But in the military, your life is on the line.

I should know.

Why?

Because I spent most of a year with a battalion of battle-tested Nigerian soldiers.

My Year With ECOMOG Veterans

During my National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) program, I lived in the barracks with a battalion that had served as part of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) peacekeeping force involved in conflicts in both Liberia and Sierra Leone.

I lived with them, visited with them in their homes and listened to their war stories. It’s given me a better appreciation for the tranquillity of the workplace…no matter how intense it gets.

Stories From The Frontlines

How can what I go through at work compare with when one of my army friends was talking about a time when he and his best friend were trying to escape a band of rebels pursuing them in the jungle?

In their haste, they didn’t notice sinking mud on their path. He had avoided it but his friend fell into it. He struggled to pull him out with no success. His best friend did not want to be captured by the rebels - he would be tortured and killed.

His best friend died before the rebels could get to him. When he told me the story, he said “I cried, picked up my best friend’s personal effects and had to continue running immediately so the rebels would not catch me too.”

But it was not all sad stories.

One of my friends was in the Amphibious Division. He told me a story about when they were on a boat with a couple of civilians trying to get across a lake. Unfortunately, the boat went down. His training kicked in. He rescued everyone safely and was able to also save most of the items that a few traders had brought onto the boat.

The Man of Action

And there was this one guy, almost everyone said he would raise their spirits and morale with his energy and enthusiasm during battle.

He was also a man of action. During the heat of one of those battles, he grabbed a rocket launcher, went head-on and dropped a hay-maker on the enemy.

He got a commendation after that battle. He proudly showed me pictures when I visited with him as they pinned it on him. He also had some exciting man-of-action moves.

One time, a huge snake crawled into their midst and then into a hole. Guess what he did, he put his hand in the hole, grabbed the snake and spun it around like David swinging his sling. The soldier telling me this story said, “I would have just put my gun in the hole and killed the snake.”

Finding Peace After War

I and the man-of-action soldier talked about his soon-to-be retirement. He said he was looking forward to just living the simple farm life in a home he was building in his hometown in Plateau State.

I asked him, “Are you building a one-storey home?”. His quick response was, “Who died? I’m OK with a simple bungalow with my wife.”

One thing I couldn’t miss out from my time with these soldiers.

They had seen the worst of life from living through wars. But now they seemed to love the opportunity of living and enjoy sharing life with other people.

The Lessons I Carry Into Work

I took this into the workplace with me. No matter how hard the workplace gets, it can’t match the theatre of battle.

I remind myself of this even with the way I set up my workspace.

Yes, I bring toys to grace my desk.

This is just work - not a battle.

You will find a bit of sweets and mint on my desk - you can pick as many as you want when you are in my office.

This is not life and death.

This is just plain life.

Let’s live it like so.

Keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor

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Want to get in on some of the lessons I have picked up in my career? Get my eBook "21 Lessons I Learned in My Career - A Primer to Help You Become Better at Work". Get it here

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