Learning and earning, a subject many students ponder on its possibilities. Most of them are advised against by parents who of course mean well but fail to see its possibilities. Why deny someone the opportunity to gain an experience? This is said considering the risk of a decline in academic performance. With proper advice, all things can be achieved. Self-discovery is the most important factor to successfully learn and earn. Most people read up to eight hours to understand a work others use just two hours to. This shows that abilities differ given certain circumstances. As such, it is proper to know where you fall in.
There are people who work to take care of themselves while in school. For this to be realized, proper time management has to be developed. To run a small scale business while in school, you need to know when to be at particular places, when to read, and when to do other things. It is advised you play a managerial role instead of a functional party in the business, i.e. you need to hire a skilled person to manage it for you. In my opinion, as soon as one leaves secondary school, his/her life begins. You are now responsible for various actions of your life. Skills acquisition is essential in this time we live in.
Moreover, the experience that will be amassed while learning and earning will be invaluable. As a young person, you need something you can fall back to if your educational training doesn’t work well. Millions of people graduate every year, some with better qualifications than you. What you can offer(skills) separates you from them. In conclusion, it is very possible to learn and earn. I recommend every student to have a little means of income but never at the expense of your academics. Remember, you are responsible for your failure or success in life.
Fear – A strong, uncontrollable,
unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat. “Fear is the
master spirit that satan uses to do his dirty work.”- Joyce Meyer.
Watch out for fear and face it with
boldness and confidence in God. Don’t let fear make you ineffective. We all
have a deep desire to be needed, useful, productive and to have a good effect
on the lives of other people and the world we live in. often times, we don’t
share our faith with others due to fear and we don’t participate in something
due to fear of being rejected or failing. Fear holds back but faith urges us
forward.
Fear is indeed a formidable enemy and
one that we must learn to confront.
God designed and created us
perfectly, to be accepted and not rejected. Being accepted is something
everybody craves for because it is an in inherent need in us. No matter who
rejects us, God accepts us and that is enough to enable us to be successful in
life. Jesus was rejected and despised but He didn’t let the rejection derail
Him from the purpose for which He was sent. He focused on God’s love for Him.
We should focus on God’s acceptance
rather than people’s rejection because we are made acceptable to God through
Christ (Eph. 2:6). God doesn’t love us because we deserve it rather, because He
is kind, gracious and wants to love us. The craving we feel for acceptance can
be truly met only in Jesus. He doesn’t give only when we are good and withdraw
when we are not, NO!!
God accepts us because we believe in
His son Jesus Christ, not because of what we do or don’t do. (John 3:18)
Acceptance breeds confidence, a lack
of confidence equals a lack of revelation concerning who you are in Christ. Our
confidence must be deeply rooted in Christ, in His love and commitment to us.
As we learn to feel good about ourselves and safe in our relationship with God,
we are able to step out and do amazing things in life, even if we have to
initially do them afraid. This is possible because we know it is permissible if
we strike out occasionally as long as we keep getting up to bat. Fear of
rejection is a deep rooted fear that affects many. When a person lives afraid,
he/she might disapprove of or reject them, this fear seeps into the very pores
of who they are. They hesitate to trust others or engage in relationship
because they doubt they will be accepted. The bible gives great hope to the
person who has been rejected and unwanted. Jesus understands that pain because
He experienced it Himself, He understands the feelings that come when people
push you away and make you feel devalued. You need not fear the rejection of
man because you have a friend in Jesus, He accepts you, delights in you and He
is with you always. Knowing that you have complete acceptance from Jesus will
give you confidence to anything you need or want to do in life. You can live a
free, full and exciting life in you will refuse to settle for anything less.
NEVER LET
FEAR ROB YOU OF THE LIFE JESUS CAME TO GIVE!!
I was with my mentor (David Daniel Abiye) on
Thursday 19th may 2016 in his house at Port Harcourt, and then two visitors who
had called earlier that they wanted to see him walked into the house. One is
Mr. Paul Arkwright, the British high commissioner to Nigeria and the other is
Mr. Strive Masiyiwa, a London-based Zimbabwean business man, entrepreneur and
philanthropist.
He is the founder and executive chairman of diversified
International Telecommunications group, Econet Wireless. What they came to
discuss is History and not much of concern to you but this is what I noted and
learnt. "To my surprise, the British High commissioner Mr. Paul brought
with him catalogs and brochures of businesses in his country. He urged my
mentor to consider Investing and buying services and products from his country.
I must confess I was totally amazed. Also while they were at the discussion
because I was at the dinning close to the palor listening, Mr Strive Masiyiwa shared
3 IMPORTANT SKILLS IN BUSINESS. According to Mr. Strive are first; THE ABILITY
TO READ, THE ABILITY TO COUNT (WORK IN NUMBERS) and thirdly, is THE ABILITY TO
SELL.
After this secret encounter, while I was
back home pondering on the 3 skills, my instincts made me choose the one I
think is the most Important. That's the reason I wrote this article and titled
it THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL IN BUSINESS. Which is THE SELLING SKILL( The
Ability to sell).
* NEVER STOP SELLING.
Every businessman must be a good salesperson.
You must never stop selling, even if you're the richest man in the world.
"I remember listening to Bill Gates sometime talking passionately about
one of the products from Microsoft. I thought to myself, wow, he is the richest
man in the world but still interested in selling his products." This
business strategy is not just employed by just Bill Gates; every great entrepreneur
has this skill.
Bill Gates said this in his award winning
and most inspiring New York best #10 and international bestseller book titled
the Road Ahead, "When I was about eight years old, my mother gave me a
packet of sweets to take to school. I sold the sweets one by one over launch
break. After that, I bought another sweet and sold them to my friends using my
profits. Before long I had a little business but it almost became a disaster
when I took to the streets and got lost whilst trying to sell my sweets. The
cops got up with me and returned me home to my mother who reported me missing.
She stopped me from selling sweets and channelled my Energy into more creative
things, but she did not kill my entrepreneurial zeal".
There are a lot of people who dream of
getting into business but think it's beneath them to be seen trying to sell
something. Never look down on a street vendor because from their ranks will
come great entrepreneurs than from most business schools.
Whatever it is you're trying to do, whether
it's a product or a service, you must know how to sell. There are millions of
people who work for organizations even in very senior management positions who
could not even sell an alcoholic beverage to an alcoholic.
(Am not a fan to Alcohol, Alcoholics are
liable to die young) but if a salesperson or whoever cannot convince an
addicted alcoholics, then you need to learn the art of selling.
Lack of selling skills is bad. There is an
old adage amongst military planners which says "a battle plan is only as
good as the first contact with the enemy". In business, it is interpreted
to "a business plan is only as good as your ability to sell to a
customer." The ability to sell is the skill we all need and it goes beyond
selling something to a customer. It includes " making a proper pitch"
to an investor and bankers. It also includes “Selling your Vision" to potential
and current employers, employees and partners. It's all about the ability to
sell.
You should become conscious about what it
really takes to sell something. Once you become conscious of selling at its
most basic level, you can move onto things like marketing.
One of the greatest sales person, I have
ever known is an American. I have such admiration for his practice of sales and
marketing in the United States. Imagine for a moment the guy who invented
Coca-Cola, Dr John Pemberton was looking for a quick cure for his headache when
he concocted the Coca-Cola formula in May 1886. Now Imagine, how on earth did
he persuade people to overcome their thirst by drinking a black liquid? How
could he? I imagine people would have had a second thought at the idea of
drinking something that looked dirty. You need to think consciously about how a
product or service can be sold or is being sold. However, you must remember
that it does not matter how good you are in sales, if the product or service is
bad, you will not last.
*AFTER THOUGHT
I learnt that every year members of the
BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY travel around the world promoting british companies and
products. They are not ashamed to go out and sell products and services
developed by companies from their country. They do not consider it as something
beneath them but something of high honour. They know that when British
Companies are successful, it creates wealth and jobs in their countries. We
should all be passionate about promoting and defending products and services
produced by companies from our various countries and so should our leaders.
Everyone in a leadership position, who does not take time to sell products and
services from his country does not appreciate the Modern Wealth Creation Model
as stated by the Commerce Secretary of The United States during a meeting of
the World Economic Summit in Nigeria some time ago, which states that " I am the chief marketing officer of all
industries in the United States". Wow, we must be on the lookout for
opportunities to promote products and services from our countries and continent
at large. This is where wealth, taxes and jobs come from, it is not Rocket
Science.
Why the Rich Dad way of budgeting always beats the standard way
It's no secret that the average American isn't good with money. As "The Motley Fool" reports, almost 70 percent of Americans don't have even $1,000 in the bank. And "almost half of Americans claim that to cover a $400 emergency, they'd need to borrow the money or sell something quickly to round up the cash."
"The Motley Fool" goes on to share a U.S. Bank study that states only 41 percent of Americans budget their money. This, writer Maurie Backman thinks, is a big reason why money problems are so big in the US.
I agree that having a budget is an important first step to gaining ground in your personal finances. But having a budget alone won't fix the underlying problems that most Americans have when it comes to money.
First and foremost, there is a great need for financial intelligence. The problem with most budgets is that they cater to the old rules of money that simply don't work anymore, like save money, get out of debt, and live below your means.
Ultimately, budgeting, as it's usually taught, is a vehicle for cutting expenses, not making money. I wrote a while back on how budgeting like a business can turn a budget into a vehicle for growing your assets, not saving your expenses.
Ultimately, your budget is a plan. As such, it can be a good plan or a bad plan. A bad plan is one that requires you to cut expenses and save money. You don't enjoy the things you're used to enjoying and you make little to no money on the money you save. Ultimately, it won't get you where you need to be financially.
A good plan, however, is one that spurs action for the better. And a good budget is one that will inspire you to make more money so you can do what you love and grow your money exponentially.
With that in mind, here are three tips on how your budget is a helpful a tool to grow your cash flow the right way, through investments.
1. A budget shows you your monthly outflow
A common exercise we do when working with people who want to be financially free is to have them write down all their monthly expenses in one column on a piece of paper and then write down their salary on the other. Then, we have them cover the salary column with their hand.
"What," we ask, "would you do if you didn't have your salary?" The result is often a momentary flutter of panic.
This is helpful because it is a quick splash of reality-that is, most people have a lot of expenses and are reliant on a salary to pay for them.
But how great would it be if you had passive income coming in every month that covered your living expenses? What would you do then? Would you retire? That's what Kim and I did when we reached that point in the 1990s.
But to get to that point, we had to know how much we were spending each month. Why? So we knew how much we'd need to make in cash flow to be financially free.
2. A budget helps you understand what kind of cash flow you need
Once we understood our monthly expenses, we then were able to make a plan to acquire the assets we needed in order to cover those expenses. And here's where things got really interesting. Instead of cutting expenses, we created a new one-an investing expense. We called this paying ourselves first, the financial golden rule.
3. A budget inspires action to get your cash flow
By making it an expense to invest each month, we made it a priority to grow our assets. We worked our butts off to make the extra cash we needed. We started teaching classes on the weekends. We got creative in how we paid our creditors. We dreamed up and launched new products. We found amazing real estate deals. All of this was made possible by shifting our mindset when it came to budgeting away from saving money to making money. Our budget gave us the roadmap to financial freedom, and we were inspired to make it happen.
So, if you're ready to begin your journey towards a better financial future, then yes it's time to start with budgeting. But don't do it the old school way; do it the rich dad way. Only then will you be really successful.
Learning and earning, a subject many students ponder on its possibilities. Most of them are advised against by parents who of course mean well but fail to see its possibilities. Why deny someone the opportunity to gain an experience? This is said considering the risk of a decline in academic performance. With proper advice, all things can be achieved. Self-discovery is the most important factor to successfully learn and earn. Most people read up to eight hours to understand a work others use just two hours to. This shows that abilities differ given certain circumstances. As such, it is proper to know where you fall in.
