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GROWING MONEY, TIME AND FREEDOM

    GROWING YOURSELF TO MONEY, TIME AND FREEDOM

     

    by IAN ORTEGA

     

     

     

    Introduction

     Do you find yourself unable to take risks? Are you at that moment where your fears have stopped you from running towards your dreams and taking control? Growing yourself to Freedom, money and time is all you need. Perhaps like me, you may need to overcome that lack of self-esteem. You may need to improve your finances and take those quantum leaps to greatness.

     

    I don‘t promise all the answers but I promise a sure way that will spark off a system that will help you get all the answers you will ever need in your life. We all seek the meaning of life, we all seek fulfillment, and we all want to come to that level where we feel everything is in balance. But too often, our finances suffer, our relationships suffer and our over-all state of happiness is affected.  You can be sure that this book will help you overcome all those variations in your mental and health state. The book sets you on a course that will make you come to a realization of how marvelous it means to live and really live.

     

     You will learn how to manage your time better; you will learn how to achieve your goals faster. You will also learn those secrets that the rich and millionaires of this world keep hidden. Get ready to learn how to turn what you love doing in life into something that brings you super profits. If you are ready to stay at the same point in your life, then don‘t risk reading this book. I can guarantee than just a mere chapter from this book will give you a complete new perspective to life.  Discover the way in which, my own Dad, the late Kevin Aliro was able to co-found two major Newspapers in Uganda both of which still exist in Uganda. Discover how he did all this at just 28 years old. Perhaps, you will also discover those amazing tricks which I used to begin a website that went on to be ranked among the top ten in Uganda at just 19 years of age. 

     

    I wrote this book because I wanted to give people value for their time. I wrote this book so that I

    could feed the hunger people have for success and happiness in life. I don‘t promise short-cuts but I promise permanent secrets that will ensure you never get to live an average life in your life for more than a second again.  

     

    To get the most out of this book, I advise that you don‘t rush through it. I advise that you read a section and go ahead and act on it. The book does not aim at building some static creatures that are pregnant with knowledge; it aims at seeing actual results in your life. It is a do it now, do it now again, do it now forever book.  By applying the bits you learn from this book and gaining a whole new outlook to life, I hope that your life will never be the same.

     

    In 2011, I was a simple Ugandan University student pursuing his degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing engineering. I was set on the course for the rat race; I did not have such a big goal in life. Like many before and after me, I dreamed of completing university, getting a good job, building a good house and having a good family. 

     

    But deep within me was that fire that kept on burning in me. I felt, I did not need to join the millions of people who live the same average life. I desired to leave a mark on my generation in the shortest time possible. I wanted to conquer my fears; I wanted to do more than my peers. I wanted to prove some people wrong and above all, I wanted to come to the end of my life and appreciate the fact that life was a worthy ride.

     

    I was 19 at the time; I had always had this passion of writing. It comes to a point in life when your dreams can‘t allow you to rest; I guess my time had come.  In just a month, I became a mainstream features writer at Daily Monitor at just 19 years old. How could a 19 year old with no background in writing ever achieve such a feat? My only connection to journalism was having a father who was ranked as one of the most meticulous journalists ever to grace the country but apart from that, I had no connection. In the same month, I went ahead to become coowner and Managing Editor of BigEye.ug, the most visited entertainment website in Uganda.   But all this did not just fall on me, there was a driving force, there was a secret I had discovered. I have used the same secrets to go ahead and begin other businesses, to improve my academics rankings at the university, to think better and to take those quantum leaps. To many people, I make success seem so easy. Perhaps it is, if we could only give our personal growth and development much focus.  The problem with many people is that we invest so much in everything but we forget to invest in ourselves, in our brains, in our thinking patterns, in our skills, in our intelligence and in our health. 

     

    This books aims at helping you to grow yourself to freedom, time and money. One writer once noted that: ―A creative person needs three things to be happy; Freedom to do what you want, when you want and how you want it. Not just in holidays and spare time but also doing meaningful work in your own way. A creative person also needs Money-to maintain your independence and fund your creative projects. Of course you want a nice place to live, but you‘re not so worried about a bigger car than the guy next door. You‘d rather spend money on experiences than status symbols. Finally a creative person needs Time-to spend as you please, exploring the world and allowing your mind to wander in such of new ideas.‖  This is the core centre of this book, to help you achieve time, freedom and money in abundance. I am not trying to give you the cheapest, fastest or easiest way to do it, but the most amazing and exciting way.  If you are ready for the experience, I wish you the best of your reading, get ready to grow and grow consciously to success and master the game of life and play it like a professional. 

     

    I once read a quote that said: ―Wealth is not assets. Wealth is not investments. Wealth is not a lot of money. Wealth is having more than enough: Time, health, relationships and money. And there are specific ways to make each of them grow.‖  

     

     

    About This Book

     

    This book is written to empower all aspects of your life. To bring that feeling of what it really means to live and come to the end of your life exclaiming: ―What a Ride It Was.‖ It is not written in a ‗novelish‘ way, it is a collection of various personal growth and development articles in different aspects of life that seek that real empowerment. Whatever your goal in life, be it better time management, financial freedom, academic enrichment, this book is for you. It has no age restriction, simply open up your mind and let it imbibe the richness of this book. 

     

    The book aims at growing your life, your goals, your finances, your wealth and your health. By writing this book, the author hopes that you will grow, keep growing just as he grows on this journey. Life is a daily journey of setting those goals that scare you, facing them, achieving them and smiling at the rewards. 

     

    This book breaks the procedure that normal books follow. It is not limited to a single aspect of life. It aims at enriching a person in and out. It is a book for ages.  Whether in the past, in the present or in the future, the principles in this book will still apply. I hope that by reading this book, you will grow your mind, body and soul, I hope that you will take that quantum leap for those dreams you never thought possible. This book will tickle your mind and make you think in expanded ways. 

     

     

    How The Book Is Organized

    The book is organized into sections; each individual section is a family of personal growth and development articles.  The sections include one that talks about Consciousness and awareness. There is a consciousness and awareness section that aims at bringing an awakening in your life, so that you can take that quantum leap to different dimensions of life using different paradigms. It has a section on time management, setting goals and finances. It is not a must that you follow through from the beginning; the only condition is you must act on whatever you read. 

     

    In Summary, the sections include one on Consciousness and Awareness, a Section on Growing your finances, a section on writing, a Section on relationships, a section on Goals and Goal setting though you may find that some issues over-lap between sections. 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    CONSCIOUSNESS AND AWARENESS

    To be conscious is simply to be alert, not to be off-guard. The essence of this section is to help awaken you to understand what life is all about. Why we are on this planet? What it means to live a fulfilled life? Until a person awakens, success will always be out of reach for such a person. So if you aim is getting a better understanding of life, then this section is for you. 

    Are You Really Living

    Honestly how many people are really living? Look at this robotic syndrome in the world. Babies are born, at 3 years, they go to school, and they progress all the way to S.6. Their parents tell them to read hard, earn a good degree and suck up to a boss for their whole life time. You wake up; go to a job, pay bills, sleep. Wake up tomorrow until when you grow so old that the company says we no longer need you or until someone else offers you a bigger salary and you run off.

     

     All around me, I see just a few people who are awakened. I see dead people. I see people who could make good toilet cleaners but they are convinced, they should be lawyers or doctors. They are not awakened to their life purpose.

     

     The greatest insult anyone can give to their creator is to live a life which they were not purposed to live. To me, “Living a life without a purpose is living a counterfeit life; it is being dead in the alive.” 

     

     If you‘re working in a job you hate just to pay the bills, you‘re robbing this wonderful planet of the real contribution you could be making. I‘m sure you have plenty of reasons why you must play it safe, but deep down you know they‘re just fear-based excuses. Would your excuses still seem rational if you felt no fear? 

     

     As for now, I can’t say I am this or that. I can’t say I am a writer, I can’t say I am an engineer, I can’t say I am a motivational speaker, I can’t say I am an entrepreneur. I am all these. All my life, I have come to know myself as a Poly-achiever of sorts. In being poly, it means I can do many things at the same time so well that one wonders how I do it. 

     

     But I hate to see that all around me, I see people who could do well as presidents, pretending to be prime ministers. I see people who could begin their own bakeries struggling to continue working for peanuts in the bakery. But I also see some who are meant to be employees, being supervised all year round struggling to begin businesses. Truth be told, for some people, business will never be their thing. 

     

     Ask yourself this question: Are you currently making the best contribution you‘re capable of making? If the answer is clearly no, then there‘s no point in continuing on your current path, is there? Common sense suggests that if you know you‘re on the wrong path, you should stop walking. The longer you stay on the wrong path, the worse things are for all of us. Maybe it will take a few days to find the right path. Maybe it will take several years. But it‘s still better to be lost for several years than to be lost for a lifetime.

     

     Once you do discover your purpose, the next step is to summon the courage to act on it. For some people this is an easy transition, but for others it‘s the most difficult step of all. Don‘t let the challenge discourage you. If you have a big purpose, then your task is to grow into it. If it takes years, it takes years. We aren‘t leaving without you. 

    The UNTOLD POWER OF THE 5TH DIMENSION (From 3D to 4D to 5D)

    We are living in one of the most exciting moments of the generation. More than ever before, more people are slipping into the fifth dimension. As you are well aware, human beings have the abilities to experience three dimensions on earth.

     

    You are born into the 3D, that’s the world of every Tom, Dick and Harry. A world that does not question things, it’s more about rigidity, it’s about good or bad, black or white, do this get that.

     

    Then there is the exciting part of 4D, I am happy to announce that many people in this generation have been able to get to this dimension. What happens in this dimension is that you awake and become more aware of the great power that lies within you. There is an understanding that you are the creator of your reality, thoughts become things,  that energy, frequency and vibration matter. Here is where the LAW OF ATTRACTION comes in place. If you over think about a thing, you create it. Think about a certain red car, you begin seeing red cars everywhere. Your thoughts attract your reality. One person said: “Your past begins to become your history; simply information rather then something you are chained to and carry with you every day, recreating. The future is viewed as something you choose with your beliefs, thoughts, actions, vibrational frequency. You begin to be more present, in the now and create from that perspective rather then create from what happened to you in the past. The energy is lighter and less dense.

     

    Finally there is the 5D. Goodness, the few times I have got to this dimension, I have been awed. Now you won’t get into this dimension until you get to the fourth. In a 5D world you are conscious of being aware. Fear, need of safety, lack of trust don‘t exist. Instant manifestation is a way of life. For instance you think to yourself, ‖ I would love to eat an orange,‖ and an orange instantly appears. That instant manifestation is why it is important to clear away now the negative and limiting thoughts from your being. It is a dimension of instant manifestation. The times I get to slip into the 5D, I feel like I am missing my mum so much, something just directs me to go to a certain restaurant and sure enough I will find my mum there. I feel like I have taken long without hearing my girlfriend’s voice, and just instantly she gets to call. In 5D you can tell what each person you will meet in the course of the day will look like, what clothes they will be wearing. It is just so supernatural, super scary the first moment it occurs. It is a dimension of constant deja-vus. Here, you don’t even rely on a watch or clock, you just know the right time, for example, you want to wake up at 5am in the morning, you don’t set an alarm but you find yourself awake at 5am.

     

    The more advanced part of the 5D involves things like Telekinesis (moving things with your mind), for example, you make a pen roll by simply looking at it, there is TELEPATHY, here you begin to teleport from one area to another. I have at least witnessed someone at this advanced level. In this same area, there is lucid dreaming, you are dreaming but you are aware you are dreaming, two lucid dreamers can actually make a phone call via their dreams and even agree to meet on a given day. Now this seems like super quantum physics but it’s reality. It only takes time to find out what your brain can really do if you challenge it.

     

    There are many ways to take a leap from 3D to 4D and finally to 5D. As humans, we tend to live through three basic levels, the normal level, the excellence level and the sublime level. In 2013, my mentor taught me a secret that all successful men have applied world over. It was a sure method to reaching one‘s level of excellence faster and at a sure rate. 

     

    This method is called the sphere of silence. The sphere of silence is partitioned into three. The first part, a person is required to do what‘s called the path of duty. Here a person reviews his/her past life, plans for the present then plans for the future. All this is documented in a sphere of silence book. You note down how exactly you want your life to turn out, 2 weeks from now, a year from now and a decade from now. Every aspect of one‘s life, from the academic to the financial is covered, nothing is left out. The path of duty goes on for 30 minutes without any interruption. 

     

    After the path of duty, one then gets into the path of knowledge. Here a person reads a book of their choice for 10 minutes then tries to re-write down whatever they read. The first few days, it will be difficult to even remember a word of what one just read. The purpose of this sector is to help grow a person‘s memory and widen their banks of knowledge. The path of knowledge takes 20 minutes.

     

    Finally, you get to the path of devotion which takes 10 minutes. In this sector, a person takes out time to speak to their creator and listen to that still-small voice. In this rush-world, we rarely get time to slow down life, know that a supernatural is in control and have that moment to ourselves.

     

    I can guarantee that the sphere of silence gives one the benefits of meditation, health, and financial prosperity but above all, it enables you to awaken and empower your instincts and intuition. To really gain the best out of this exercise, it should be done consecutively for 820 days. You will discover that your mind will be empowered to make the right decisions all the time; you will begin to visualize things before they happen and you will be doing everything excellently. To get a better foundation to the sphere of silence, I would advise that one reads Vijay Eswaran‘s book-In The Sphere of Silence

    Focusing, Meditation and The Power Within 

    How many people have the ability to slow down their lives in the face of adversity? The human race was programmed to have its adrenaline shoot up, to roam from side to side when trouble strikes. Yet for everyone who does this, the side-effects are always undesirable.

     

    In life, we need to focus, and meditate on situations and our inner being. The ability to focus and concentrate on what you should be and need to be doing versus allowing lower level activities and distractions occupy your time is critical to achieve success. One of the best thinks you can develop the habit of doing is this. Take the first 15 minutes of your day and plan the rest of your day with the most important, highest impact activities. Then, for the next 90 minutes, shut off all distractions and only focus on getting one or two things on your list done. Repeat this daily and your results will soar.

     

    One of the best things you can do every day is to take a moment of silence when everyone is rushing. There is a power in silence that frees you up. It is a secret that all great men have kept for ages.  Silence and focus are the fertilizers of a successful mind.

     

    We all complain that our creator does not speak to us, but are we silent enough to listen to that still small voice. The more you keep silent, the more you enhance your listening capabilities and your intuition. 

     

    Because I have done many done many silence activities, I have been able to develop my intuition to a level where I just know what‘s right and what‘s wrong. My intuition has been empowered to the extent that I know which businesses to invest in and which ones not to invest in. I rely more on my instincts than on evidences, figures and other statistics. I will invest in a company even when the signs show there is no future yet my intuition says there is a future. 

     

    Finally when it comes to focus, in a world of chasing this and that, we forget one simple rule. We can never do everything; we can never eat everything on the plate of life.  We need to prioritize and pick out what to focus on. Even in a relationship, if you try to focus on changing a person, you will fail. The best thing would be to focus on the wonderful aspects of your partner. 

     

    One of the ways of practicing focus is to make a small dot on the wall and try to keep your eyes on it for more than 10 minutes. For the first few days it will be hard, so hard to even spend a minute. But after doing this for 30 days, 10 minutes per day, you will understand the effects judging from the results you will be experiencing in your life. You will begin to focus on a particular project and completing it to perfection. You will begin to listen with greater clarity to your boss‘ conversation, your wife or your husband. If you are a student, you will begin to hear words from the lecturer that you previously missed out on. There are no limitations from the power of silence, focus and meditation.

    Intention and Manifestation

    Intention refers to the goal that you want to manifest in your life. Everything we do has an underlying intention, whether we are conscious of it or not, and we use it to determine what we really want to focus on: money, financial success, power, peace, romance, etc. 

     

    So the first step in achieving personal and financial success is to clarify what your intention is, in writing. Writing helps to organize the language centers in your frontal lobe (the CEO of your brain). Take a sheet of paper and write down three potential goals that you would like to achieve tomorrow. Make them simple, and make them achievable, but write it down!

     

    One of the secrets I always tell people is to always write down their intentions in a book every day without fail for more than a year or until that intention is manifested. By writing down what you want to achieve, by noting down your goal, you signal your brain and awaken your eyes to ways on how to achieve your goal.

     

    For example, if you keep writing down a goal of purchasing a new house, your brain will begin to show you how you can go about purchasing your new house. It will show you the person you need to speak to, how you can raise the money and all the important steps to undertake.

     

    The other way to manifest the kind of life you desire is to employ a vision board. Simply get a paper or wooden board and look out in magazines for photos showing the kind of life you aspire to live and pin them on that vision board. One of the greatest evidences to the power of a Vision Board is John Assaraf. He notes that he once stuck a photo of the mansion he dreamed of on a vision board and years later he was surprised to find that he was living in that exact house.

     

    Your mind is a magnet; it is attracting the kind of life you desire. It is manifesting whatever you intend. Why do you think that the people, who keep talking of being sick, are always sickly most of the time? Why do you think that those who give excuses of being broke are always financially constrained? It‘s not a coincidence. The law of attraction is at work in our lives. We are attracting things that are on the same frequency as our thoughts.

     

    If you think about good things, you will attract good things into your life. The universe is simply waiting to answer to the call of your mind-set. Once you can awaken to this simple reality, you will sweep through life with money, time and freedom. 

    But as you apply the Law of Attraction, also remember about the Law of GOYA which John Assaraf coined. It states that the law of attraction will only work if you Get Off Your Ass (GOYA). So if you are trying to manifest new job, you should be out there sending in application letters, if you intend to manifest a new relationship, you should keep socializing with people. 

     

    The Law of attraction is not some wishful thinking of sorts, it is action-oriented. It only works while you are in motion. You can manifest the life of your dreams.

     

    This also brings me to healing using the Law Of Attraction. It has been said that 90% of every patient in hospital is bed-ridden simply because of their thoughts. A case in point is the eyeallergy I suffered from. I used to think about the eye allergy day and night and in the end it turned out to be perennial. It was all about my thoughts. 

     

    Your thoughts can create disease or they can create health. I have seen cancers disappear just by people sending out intentions of healing. I have seen sicknesses get healed. When you think wrong thoughts, your mind will signal the body to empower the disease causing cells and kill the white blood cells. 

     

    There is no external disease, all diseases we suffer from, are from within. It‘s all internal. If you can understand this fact, you will never suffer from any ailment for a second. The healing is in your mind. Just look deep within you and bring out the healing. 

     

    Why do you think most HIV positive persons can live for years without any ailment? It‘s because their mind has not yet began creating the sickness. But once they go to test and find they are positive, suddenly, the Tuberculosis attacks, they lose their weight, it‘s because their thoughts have now been directed to create the symptoms and the ailments. 

     

    If you want to conquer anything in life, all you will need to do is to conquer its mind. If you can conquer the mind of a person, they will voluntarily become your slave.  Similarly, if you have control over your mind, you will have control over your life. You will intend and manifest whatever intention you send out. 

     

    What Does IT REALLY MEAN TO BE HAPPY???

    I remember as a young man in Form 5, I could not wait to finish my High School. So for two years, all I dreamed of was finishing high school and having life to enjoy. Finally I did my exams and I was into my vacation. You know when Vacation begins, the boredom follows; I could not imagine that for two years, I had waited for such a boring thing. It’s funny how events in life will make you question what you are headed for and value most. 

     

    I then realized that there is some other meaning, which my soul was really hungry for.  Our souls are hungry for something greater than wealth, fame, comfort or power. 

     

    Deep within, as many have realized, happiness is already within us. I began to awake. I realized there was something wrong in this puzzle of life. Why were some people who seemed to be doing well-off less happy than those who were doing badly off? 

     

    I began to read about the Chinese Monks in the Tibetan mountains. How they achieved happiness, how they slowed down life? I was on my journey of sorts in such of meaning.

     

    Around the same time, I read the famous book by ROBIN SHARMA “The Monk Who sold His Ferari.” I realized we go through life trying to chase this and that, waiting for everything to get perfect before we can get happy. I realized happiness is already available. We only need to look within us and we shall see the happiness.

     

    Consequently, I went on a 10 day fast from the world. I switched off my phones, I switched off my laptop and I went on a voyage of self-actualization. 

     

    It was about slowing down life and beginning to really live. On the tenth day of my silence exercise, various meditation techniques and mind cleansing, I found the secret. I awakened in the 5th dimension of life. 

    In the 5th dimension, you learn how to control life. You get in charge of your thoughts and not the other way round. I had found true happiness. I had realized the secret: “There is no way to happiness, Happiness is the way.”

     

    Stop waiting until you finish that degree, until you get married, until you get healed, until you have that perfect body shape, until everyone begins to like you, until you get that job. Stop waiting to achieve your dreams before you can be happy. The happiness you wait for is always temporary, but the happiness that comes from within is permanent and is the true happiness.

     

    There is only one place to find real peace, real harmony. That Place is within. We can be masters of our businesses, of our families but if we are not masters of our own minds and souls then we are really slaves.

     

    Until a man can take control of his mind and thoughts, he shall never know what it means to be free. We live in a moment where a phone call rings and we all jump up to pick it up. Where you hear the president has said this, and you will all react. 

     

    But if you can find that inner peace, look within you. You will realize that happiness goes beyond money. Nothing gives me more happiness than seeing the rabbit at our home roll up and down in the grass, chew some of the grass and flaps its ears. Another time, I was with my mum, and we spent an hour observing insects carry food leftovers to their territory. Mind you, in reality she may seem the busiest, but she knows how to slow down life and enjoy every moment in the NOW. 

     

    Look around you, look at that little baby in the taxi smiling, look at that phone, look at how the cars are moving. When you slow down life, you get real harmony and once you have inner peace, outer peace becomes easier to gain.

     

    During the interview we did at Mukwano, I did nothing other than smile and smile. Everyone was on tension but I was simply enjoying the moment. Guess what, exactly a week later the first phone call I got was one confirming my internship placement. Even if I had not got confirmed, I would still smile. I have inner peace and that’s the secret. 

     

    Scared of Dying With Unrealized Dreams

    I feel like a philosopher of sorts. Like every other human being, I get shivers when I ponder about my last days. I can‘t help but reflect on David Lutalo‘s Engumba Zange song. But hey, it is not death that I am scared of, there should be an afterlife. All I am scared of is coming to the end of my life and it downs on me that I actually never lived. Looking at all those unachieved dreams, unwritten books, stories I kept postponing for another day, phone calls I refused to pick up, friends I never visited, businesses I never started, inspirations that I never gave and hey it will be the worst of times.

     

    Scarier is the experience of coming to the end of my life and realizing the real Ortega Ian never lived. Perhaps noticing that I lived as a photocopy, as a duplicate and as a replicate, God forbid it never happens.  Like it is often said, if you don‘t work on your goals, someone hooks you up and orders you to help you work on their own goals. 

     

    If there is one thing I don‘t want to lose as I grow older, it is the child-like faith. I want to keep the imaginations bigger. I want to keep dreaming, I want to keep expanding my mental horizons.

    And all in all, I want to do all I love. I also hope I won‘t get caught up in the rat race, trying to win it and only realizing that by winning it, I become the big rat. 

     

    Whatever supernatural power is above me, here I am Lord, I ask you to Make Me Me!  Sometimes I lose myself; my direction and inspiration, my steam and esteem…but please Lord, make Me Me, so that I can go to my grave empty, my potential fully tapped, my purpose accomplished!  Let me not go to my grave with unwritten books, undeveloped businesses, unbuilt houses and unrealized dreams. 

     

    I want to come to end of my life and realize that I radiated my true self; I did the things that pleased me not appeased to my friends, family and admirers. If it is a job, I want to do it for the passion and never for the money. 

     

    I want to rich heaven fully empty, having given out all my knowledge, all my creativity, inventions and innovations.  Life is amazing, I don‘t want to see a distinction between work and fun. Work should be fun and fun should be found in working. 

     

    It is time to stay in the game, whether hurt or not, it is time to take charge of every moment. Express my mind, smile out my heart and laugh out my lungs. Even at forty and beyond, I want to leave this world with a smile on my lips, laughter on my face and a joke in my pocket. If I am to be this or that then I should take the step today.

     

    I believe in delayed gratification but not delayed realization of goals.  It is about living a life free of regrets, seeing disappointments in a new perspective and winning in the now regardless of what happens.  It is not death that haunts us; it is untaken steps that haunt us on our death beds and in our old age. Thinking about that business you always wanted to start, thinking about that relationship you always wanted to legalize, that opportunity you always wanted to grab, that amazing dish you always wanted to eat or prepare, that beautiful lady or handsome man to whom you wanted to let known your feelings.

     

    All in all, I want to die with only one statement in my vocabulary, ―I am glad I lived, I am glad I ran the good race, I am glad I showed the world who Ian Ortega Is.‖

     

    10 Reasons Why You Need to Be MYSTERIOUS!!!

     

    If I could recommend any success tip to anyone, it would not be prayer, it would not be hardwork, it would be mystery. Look at all the rich men around; they all have that thing about them which keeps people guessing. They have that secret they reserve; they don’t let it all out. 

     

    1. You Need Mystery In Your Relationships

    I have been in a couple of relationships and I am certain about one thing, the moment you lose the mystery, the relationship becomes boring. If you wife/husband can predict what you will do for them on Valentine‘s day, then on their birthday, that relationship is set for boredom if not separation. Keep her guessing, keep surprising her. Wake up on a Monday and choose not to go for work, out of nowhere surprise her with a vacation to Miami. All relationships that stand the test of time run on the fuel of mystery. If it runs out, the relationship will become exhausted and break-down.

     

    1. Mystery In Business

    If your business competitor can guess your marketing strategies, if they know how you manage your staff, if they know how much you spend on what or what, you won’t survive in the business. Crane Bank has managed to keep getting big because of the mystery surrounding it. Sudhir himself confessed to me. Never be predictable, to your customers and to your competitors. 

     

    1. Mystery In Academics

    If everyone knows which lecture you attend, what books you read, how you read, where you read from. You will go down the rut of the Academics globe. Always have that strategy that keeps people wondering how you draw the balance. But this should not mean that you become mean with information, simply don’t spit it all out for people who don’t care.

     

    1. Mystery About Where You Hang-out From

    Never let people know where you will be, at what time and when. Go to a beach on Monday morning, that’s mystery, get to office on a Saturday and work whole day, that’s mystery.

     

    1. Mystery About Who You are Dating

    Never, never let people know all about your love-life. If you are a player, make them think you are a priest of sorts. And at the end of it all, surprise all of them at the wedding day, just like Prince Wasajja did, just like when Gilo was introduced by Hope.

     

    1. Mystery About Your Life

    Be mysterious as far as what time you sleep, when you go to work, about your family. The reason you should keep your family out of the limelight is because someone somewhere may want to hurt it. Even if your father is one of the richest, keep that secret, don’t go talking about that. Protect your identity and keep your brand. If you get a new girlfriend, don’t immediately show her to your friends or family until you have really tested her and found her fit for that stage. 

     

    1. Mystery About How Much You Earn /Your Finances

    I know of people who dress shabbily during the moments when they are super-loaded. Adopt the same. When you are broke, dress to your very best and eat in the best restaurants, when the money comes, go to some downtown restaurant and hang-out there. Don’t go talking about how much you have in your account unless if you intend to give an under-estimate. If you earn $200 tell them, you earn $100.  

     

    1. Mystery About Your Political Ideology

    Again, never publicly show your political side. If it’s Museveni you like, trash him, day in, day out. Then praise Besigye when your real heart is in DP. Just don’t let people predict your ideologies. 

     

    9.Mystery About Your Dreams

    Those days, whenever I told people about what I was about to do, I would just fail to do it. So I changed strategy, If I said I was writing a book, in reality, I would have already written that book. Don’t go talking about how you plan to lose or gain weight, let people just get surprised at the results. Don’t go telling people about how you are taking on this or that unless if it’s for purposes of getting advice from trusted people. Truth be told, not everyone wants to see you make it or succeed, so guard your dreams, guard your plans, nobody ever plans a murder out loud.

     

    1. Just Keep Being Mysterious

    Keep being mysterious at your work-place, come to work at awkward hours. Keep being mysterious on Facebook, reply messages at your convenience. Keep mysterious in your conversations. When talking to a girl, don’t go saying everything about yourself, make sure you get much about her yet she knows little about you. To-date, some people have told me things and could not imagine they told me such things. In a way, they give their power to me because I know much about them, they know just a fraction. Be mysterious as far as your real friends are concerned. Just keep being mysterious, leave that element that leaves people in guess work, in suspense. If it’s a party, leave before everyone else. If speaking to a girl everyone seems to give attention, show her that she’s just ordinary and excuse yourself before she does. Always be the one that excuses yourself while meeting people. Be the first to leave. Be mysterious about your time, the foods you eat and about everything. 

     

    I can assure you, success will chase you PANTS down, financially, academically, emotionally, socially, religiously. Mystery is the key, forget about everything else.

     

    Living A Counterfeit Life

    People watch you wake up day in and day out. They watch you living a lie-hoping that may be along the way you will make a difference. But how could you ever live a lie with your life. How could you ever settle for a lie of a lesser quality than you aspire to live? That’s living a lie. That’s gambling with your life. For goodness sake, you only have one life and you will never live it again on mother earth. So why work at a job that you hate? You confidently wake up at 5am, and rush to a job that you hate? Seriously? You even sit in those meetings and you even eat the food at that workplace that you can’t stand. That’s betting with your life.

     

    If at any one moment, you find yourself asking many questions, frustrated about your current state then know you can be better. Don’t even take a day longer doing something that is below your potential. You can’t live a lie of a relationship, a lie of a job. If that’s not what you love, then opt out as fast as possible. Even if it means going bankrupt, even if it means hurting some people, you can’t compromise on your happiness. The world will appreciate you more for the bold steps that you took to improve your life.

     

    Stop living a counterfeit life. A life that does not match your dreams. Decide now that if it’s gonna be then it’s now and not tomorrow. If you hate that place, move to a new one. If you hate that relationship, opt out even if you already have children together. It is your life. There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. You deserve better and a life that’s below your dreams is definitely a counterfeit life. 

     

    When I chose to begin an entertainment website at 19 years, it was because of the passion, the desire to live my life the way I had always wished to. I knew I was better than being at employee level. I deserved better. I took the bold step and invested in an online business.

     

    How To Love Yourself

     One of my daily meditation exercises is to look so deep in the mirror at the image in the mirror. After 5 minutes of staring at me, it’s like I leap into another dimension. But that’s not all to that meditation exercise; it teaches me how to continuously fall more in love with myself.

     

     But how many people can bear to look at themselves for that long? (Okay the ladies do it 24-7 at a rate of 2 times per second-amazing…)

     

     But do you really love yourself? Are you in love with that you? Do you love your accent, your nose, your eyes, and your face? Do you love your legs, your arms? Do you love your talents? Do you even know yourself?

     

     I love some song by Isaac Uzoka. It goes: “Do you really know how beautiful you are? Spirit of the Lord lives on inside of you….all over the world no one looks like you… You can put a smile on your face…”

     

     Every time I am down, I just listen to that song and look at that handsome intelligent me in the mirror…. Goodness I love myself, I love my voice, I love my toes, I love my skin…. I just love everything about me…. If we had to do this again, I would still want to be made this way…. with my wonderful nose, with my super-genius brain, with my walking style….. (feel like kissing myself-no gay)

     

     The point I am trying to stress is that if you don’t love yourself, no one can love you. You won’t have the confidence. And you can’t love others before you love yourself… it begins with you loving you then it radiates out.

     

     So today, take a moment and look at yourself in the mirror. Just take about 15 minutes and do nothing but look at yourself in the mirror. If you have never been in the fourth dimension, this exercise helps you get there…. I have so far been to 6 dimensions….. But this exercise gets you to the fourth…… so just stare at yourself, stare at that great you and just appreciate the beauty and the uniqueness…..

     

    Dream Like A Child, Achieve Like a God

     As children, when asked ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?‘ we proudly declared our aspirations. In that moment, we had no doubt that we would be successful. As adults, fear negatively influences our dreams. If there is something you’d like to achieve, make sure that fear isn’t holding you back. Older doesn’t always mean wiser.

     

     Think about when asked what you wanted to be when you grew up and you proudly spoke of being a doctor, a policeman, a president, an engineer… what happened? Who stole your dreams? Today we look through doctors, we can’t see your name, we look through engineers, your name is nowhere? Where did you dreams run to?

     

     Fear stole them, some negative voice discouraged you out of your dreams. 

     

     So true! Fear is negative faith. Fear paralyzes desire – it scares the ―life‖ out of it. It‘s fear of disappointment that often keeps us from trying something new. But if you let that stop you, you won‘t be able take advantage of a window of opportunity when it opens. 

     

     Ask yourself ―what if I follow my desire and something wonderful happens instead of what I‘m afraid of?‖ Stay with this thought. Use our creative imagination to visualize positive outcomes. Ignore all “inner voices” trying to pull you down. The fact is if you have the desire then you have the power to succeed. The most important thing is your attitude. Keep your mind focused on what you want, not on what you don‘t want. Remember ―whatever you can conceive and believe you can achieve!‖

     

    There is No Way to Happiness 

     I find it all stupid; I find it nonsensical, the concept of people working hard all their loves like the desert donkeys waiting to live the life of a prince/princess at the end of their life.

     

     I think work should be fun, you should enjoy your money as you make it. You don’t have to work hard and then wait to enjoy when your body can no longer support that. But of course I am not advocating for the “Buy not what you need’ syndrome. If you really love something, it you want it and love it, then buy it. It’s your money, enjoy it.

     

     There is no way to happiness. The stupidest thing is making all the money and finding that you have no happiness. THERE IS NO WAY TO HAPPINESS, HAPPINESS IS THE WAY. If you wake up every day happy about everything, happy about doing what you do, excited about your job and business, happy about your loved ones, then that is happiness. Money is secondary.

     

     Like I have always said: I only need one bed, one lunch a day, one supper a day and something to get me from one point to another. Money makes Money. I don’t make money, it makes itself. I simply give out value to people. It’s what I enjoy doing. It’s the principle of compersion-taking joy in seeing other people discover the meaning of life.

     

     Because of the excitement that captures me when I help people grow, whether by making them discover something, whether by putting a smile on their faces or by making them react intelligently, I chose to have one mission in life :TO GROW AND TO HELP PEOPLE GROW as we all live consciously each day.

     

    How To Live A Perfect Life Of Joy, And Total Happiness

     How do you know when you‘re living your purpose? When your present moments begin to feel perfect.. When you live on purpose, your relationship with time changes dramatically. You‘ll no longer be looking for happiness somewhere in the future. You‘ll stop saying to yourself, ―Once X happens then I‘ll be where I want to be. Then I‘ll be happy.‖ Instead you will look to your present and say, ―This is exactly where I want to be right now… and nowhere else. Nothing could be more perfect than this precise moment.‖

     

     Imagine this, imagine I came up to you and said that tomorrow by this time you will be dead. What would you do? Would you be happy that you spent so much of your life at school then another of your life slaved up in an office then another of your life procrastinating? I know deep within many of us, there is that guilt, we feel we should spend more time with our loved ones. If I told you that tomorrow was your last day, you would not even think about how much you owned, how many degrees you accumulate or that sort of thing. You will think about the lives you’ve impacted.

     

     In 2009, I got so sick to the point of death. Truth be told, I rejected medication, I rejected anything to do with ways that seem to heal but instead poison people more. But in that moment when I nearly died, I awoke. I awoke to my purpose in life. I was this nerd of sorts, an A-student. I would look at a number and solve it in seconds; I would give you a solution to any question without any pause. But when I awoke, I quickly cut down on my prep time, I stopped being a robot in school. I stopped obeying commands from teachers like they were coming from God. I stopped being ruled around. In that moment, the degrees mattered less, the knowledge and its applicability mattered more, the friends mattered less but the people I had impacted mattered more.

     

     The same feeling came back when I went to my grandmother’s grave. In that moment I thought that If I could make one wish, it was to see her come back to earthly life. However, as I thought about all this, I felt 2 voices reprimand me. I think it was my dad’s voice and it said; “You had a chance to make any wish and all you could wish for is one of us to come back to life?” You could have wished to end world poverty, you could have wished to find a cure for cancer, you could have wished to end world wars. I began to see death in a new perspective.

     

     And to me, living each day as if it were my last, knowing that I am completely naked, has made me live a life of perfection. Perfection in the sense that no matter what happens, I am happy 24-

    1. In fact, every day I wake up with this excitement, ready to live life to the fullest. Y.O.L.O, stop living life for others, they probably are trying to impress you, you are trying to impress them and all we have is a world of dummies trying to impress each other, all living in misery.

     

     That’s why I say, Doreen Kabareebe, the girl whose nude photos appeared in the newspapers,  is my hero. Yes, the world dictates that people should be dressed up all day round, but we only live one, partying hard, walking nude like Eve in the garden of Eden should ever be a crime. 

     

     Today, begin feeling happy with where you are right now. Because even when you buy that car you are waiting for to become happy, you will be happy for a short-time. I want you to achieve joy that never disappears. So write down 10 things you would like to be said about you after you die and then write down 10 things you would like to be doing if this was your last day, 10 people you would like to be meeting if this was your last day, jobs you would like to be doing if this was your last day, which place you would rather be if this was your last day. Work on those 10 things and have a life of joy and perfection just like I have done for the last 2 years.

     

     FACT: On average 170,000 people die every day. That makes an average of about 3 people per second. You could be anyone of those. So why not live life to the fullest like we do at Fused Creatives

    TEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER!!!

    Today, it’s 8 years ever since my father went to be with the Lord. If there is one thing my father taught me, is that Real Fathers don’t just sire children, they raise them up, they are interested in their success and they help them grow from boys to men. So here are the ten things I learned from my father.

     

    1.Having The Courage, Being Fearless

    I have never know any person that knew no fear like my dad. in 1994, he went down to Rwanda to report about the Rwandan genocide. I was a simple toddler at the time but my father chose to use journalism about self to break the story to the world like that of the baby he found breastfeeding on the corpse of its mum. Till today, that portion in the story makes me cry. He then went and reported about the DRC kisangani war and he’s the one who broke the news of Uganda and Rwanda fighting over there. He was at the war front and later on went into Sudan to report about another war. My father knew no fear whatsoever. He taught me courage, he never feared death, he realized that rather than waste time fearing death, we could use that time to really live.

    Reporting political and investigative stories in Uganda is always some challenging job but my father always took on the bull by its horns. He taught me that if life, you would rather lose your life than your integrity, he taught me that courage is not in simply saying I can do this or that, it’s in actually going ahead to do those things.

     

    2.Do Your Best, Don’t Care About Who Takes the Credit

    My father always did his best, he never cared whether at the end of the day he was the one who took the credit. At Daily Monitor where he spent over a decade, he gave it his best. My father taught me that if you give everything your best, you can sit down and watch success chase you pants down.

     

    3.Raise Up other People

    In a world where people sabotage others, my father showed me that we should instead help other people become better. He was always reaching out to young writers in the newsroom and pouring out his knowledge and wisdom, to some he was so rough in doing it, but when they became great writers, they realized that his words were after all comparable to the honey that comes from the stinging bees. Over the years, I have learned that for God to raise me up, I must become interested in other people’s success, helping them to be better, showing them the opportunities and changing the world with love.

     

    4.The Magic Of Sorry

    Through-out his life-time my father never got to cane me. But he taught me the magic of sorry. One time he annoyed me so hard that I cried, in just a few minutes he was knocking on my bedroom door apologizing for any wrong-doing. He taught me, that a real man always says sorry to anyone even when they are sure they are correct. Writers in the newsroom have confessed to me, that after getting his reprimanding over a poorly done story, “Kevin would come by and offer to buy you a drink, he was always the one asking for better packages for writers, he would drop some off home.” And when he exchanged words with John Nagenda whom he referred to as a bloated spring chicken, he was quick to apologize for having gone a little above the limit. Now I know, that sorry does not make a man less of a man, it simply rubber-stamps him as one. I will use sorry again and again even when I am right.

     

    1. When You Write, Do It for the Love, Not for the Money

    I see many writers trying to do it for the money but I think it’s the wrong way of doing it. If I had done it for the money, I would have quit in my first month. My father taught me that writing is a labour of love, it’s like a leap into space where you are unaware of what you are putting on paper, you simply write out your heart and the praises and the money will chase you pants down. So today, I don’t write because I want to be paid, I write to share the sweetness of words combined together, I write to reach out to people, I write to highlight issues. Above all, my father taught me, that when you do what you love, money will always fall in love with you.

     

    1. The Power of Family

    The way my father made sure all his family were doing better showed me that he took a keen interest in family. At the end of the day, when no one can take you in, it’s your family that will give you a pillow to sleep on. My father taught me that in everything I should do, my family should be a top-priority. He made sure his sisters were doing better, he made sure his mum was doing better, he made sure his cousins were doing better. My father taught me that one should never under-estimate the power of family. As a University student, he was paying school fees for one of his sisters.

     

    7.Real Men Move On

    My father taught me the art of moving on, the art of saying it may have failed to work out, but I have an option of moving on to something better. From Weekly Topic to The Monitor and to The Observer, my father was a real evidence to moving on. He taught me the art of picking up the broken pieces and recreating a new life, he taught me, that a man’s greatness is judged in times of his greatest adversities. And even his death, was evidence that you can move on to a better life, a better vacation, resting on the laps of Jesus.

     

    8.Follow Your Dreams

    My father taught me the art of following one’s dreams. He graduated as a teacher but he ended his life as a journalist and as an entrepreneur. When I was joining Kitovu, he told me: “You can go to a bad school and fail or pass, you can go to a good school and fail or pass.” My father taught me, that it did not matter which route you took, as long as you were following your dreams, success and happiness were guaranteed. On his death-bed, he had his laptop by the side, following events of Dr.Kizza Besigye’s return and next year’s elections. He was doing what he loved. He taught me, that when you do what you love, you care less about what’s happening next.

     

    1. It’s Not The Number of Years You Live, it’s The Life In Your Years

    At 40 years when he passed away, he had been one of the co-founders of Daily Monitor and later on led another team to found The Observer. Daily Monitor was founded when he was a mere 27 years, probably one of the youngest of the 7 founders. I realized that at 40 years, my father had managed to live the life man in their 70s, 80s will never live. So today, I am not worried about how long I live, I am more concerned about the life in the years of my life. My father taught me how to really live with no fear about what happens. Life is what happens when we are so busy trying to worry about for how long we shall live.

     

    1. Being Me, Running My Own Race

    My father was always himself. He never fooled people into believing he was someone else. What you saw was always the unedited him. He taught me, that in life, we would enjoy more if we just gave people our true selves without the make-up of character, without the faking of appearances. He was a fan of the bottle like many men, he was a fan of soccer like many men and he just ran his own race. In life we fail to finish our own races because we are so busy trying to run our own races. My father taught me, that when you run your own race, you always finish it, when you struggle to be better than yourself and not than others, life becomes easier.

     

    And to that father, his name was John Ogen Kevin Aliro. I share one of his quotes in which he said: ―Whatever we have done so far can always be done better if only we try a little bit harder.‖ My father taught me, that you don’t have to tell people about how to live, simply live and let them learn from your life. To me, he will always be a practical example of how to really live life to the fullest. He may be dead, but the lessons he taught me are what has made me without realizing.

    Is a UNIVERSITY DEGREE necessary to Start and Run a Successful Business???

    I always tell my mum that if I had to do it over again, I would have dropped out in Senior 4. Everything I know to-date was accumulated in that time period. I always feel I am going to be that ‘bad’ example to children making them believe that I got where I am by doing a degree in Engineering or something of that sort.

     

    Truth be told, it takes more than a University degree to start and grow a successful business. I have nothing against education. But at times, education gives people false confidence. It makes people relax, trusting in the power of their certificates rather than in working hard.

     

    My problem with education is that it instills in people a fear of failure. We are all taught that to make a mistake is a sin. Yet the true sense of life is that you can never become a successful entrepreneur until you’ve made enough mistakes. School teaches that mistakes are allowed, yet in business, it is out of mistakes that business empires are grown.

     

    School also teaches that individualism aspect. You are taught that to be better, you must beat someone. In business, it’s always about teamwork, when I am running the entertainment website, I consult with fellow website owners. Yet in school, we are taught that copying is wrong, but in business, copying a competitor’s good sides is actually rewarding.

     

    And to make it worse, most of the lecturers teaching entrepreneurshi-p in schools have no businesses to show for their knowledge. If school was so necessary, such individuals would be the most successful in business.

     

    School also teaches that you can’t do something until you learn it or it’s taught to you. But that’s wrong, for example, I don’t need to know much about how a book is published before writing one. In real life, you learn by doing, it is only the individuals in motion that actually learn. So school creates conservatives in the end, people who can define the word risk.

     

    In business, you learn by trial and error. Do this, do that, see what works and take it on, drop what does not work. In school, there is a dictatorial tendency, the lecturer’s method is ever right and is final.

     

    And again, I have nothing against a University degree, if you attain it with the right perspective, you can use it to enhance your business. But if you think it’s all that it takes, you are bound for super averagism of getting a job, earning a salary, buying a car and living to pay bills.

     

    ―I have been within the four walls of school and I have been on the street. I can confidently tell you that the street is tougher, challenging, daring, exciting and more rewarding. In school; you play alone. But on the street, you play with the big boys.‖ – Ajaero Tony Martins

    Why You Need a BOARD OF MENTORS

    It’s just a few hours after I stepped out of Asylum Gym, in a gym, there is a trainer to take you through all the drills and to encourage you and show you the best of way of doing it better and faster. In life, we need such trainers, these trainers are called mentors.

     

    My dad was personally mentored by groups of these, there was Wafula Oguttu who mentored him as far as journalism was concerned, there was Sudhir Ruparelia who mentored him when it came to entrepreneurship and there was his good friend, the late Kazini who mentored him about the other part of life. Those are just a very small fraction of the many mentors he had. By the time he passed away at 40, he had been co-founder of Daily Monitor (At 28 years) and Cofounder of The Weekly Observer (at 39 years) now The Observer. Now if you look well at those ages, that record is yet to be beaten in Uganda, considering that newspapers have the highest failure rate in business. But these two newspapers still co-exist, and one man, not more than 40 years was that co-founder.

     

    Over time, I have realized that if it would take you 10 years to reach your target, with a mentor, it can take you a mere one year or even less. when I joined Daily Monitor as a 19 year old, it was Daniel Kalinaki (former managing Editor) that became my first mentor and he still is. Thereafter, I brought Andrew Mwenda on board, today he is the chairman of my board of mentors (such a rare privilege) , then there is Sudhir Ruparelia, Tonny Rutakirwa, Bake Robert Tumuhaise Nyamishana just to mention but a few. So here are the reasons why you really need that board of mentors.

     

    1.A Mentor will Hold you Accountable

    If it was not for Daniel Kalinaki, I would have been so lazy at righting but because I had to show results, I ended up being serious at the game of writing and before long, I was writing main feature stories as a 19 year old who had never been to journalism school except for his S.4 English. You need someone to hold you accountable, someone to ask you what’s wrong, why are you not producing results. You need someone to put you on pressure to achieve.

     

    2.You Will Never repeat the mistakes of your mentor

    For example, there are things that Sudhir would not do today if he were to begin all-over again. He has mastered the game, he knows some of the steps you can skip and some which you must not skip. By having such a mentor on hand to show me his mistakes and how to avoid making the same mistakes, I can reach my goal faster than if I had no mentor.

     

    1. A Mentor Will Give you Connections

    I mentor will help introduce you to their network. With Andrew Mwenda’s expansive network, I am so certain that if I wanted a meeting with Patrick Bitature, I would have it, if I wanted to meet Paul Kagame, it is something that would be possible. By moving around with Andrew Mwenda, my network circles increase and I get to leverage the power of networking. So if you have a mentor, you automatically get to know all the people in their circle.

     

    4.A Mentor May sometime be a back-up

    When the bricks come crushing on you, it may be to your mentor that you may have to run. I can’t forget those times when I have these questions with no answers and just a simple phone-call to Tonny Rutakirwa gives me the exact answer I needed. And on the other hand, sometimes a mentor can help to bail you out financially.

     

    5.A Mentor helps you set goals and gives you better strategies

    The reason I can now write a book is because one of my mentors happened to be Bake Tumuhaise (am sure he does not know this.) but I follow everything he does, how he goes about his work. By being close to Bake, I got to know that writing a book is something so easy yet so intimidating. There are those strategies your mentor will only share with you. There are things Andrew, Sudhir or Tonny will tell me that I have never had them speak or write about anywhere. These strategies help one to grab their basket of success quickly.

     

    So how do you get a mentor? Basically, it depends on what you want and how honest you are about it. I always face the people I want to mentor me and make the request. I faced Daniel Kalinaki in his office and asked him to be my mentor, for Andrew Mwenda, I sent a simple email, for Sudhir, I did not even tell him, I just began asking him questions via sms and getting instant answers. It all depends on your strategy, sometimes one strategy may not work for a certain potential mentor, other times, it may work out.

     

    However, the proper way should be, that a mentor is supposed to choose you. After identifying potential in you, your mentor will come and knock on your door and ask to mentor you. But in case they don’t knock, find a way of getting time to connect with them and making a request. And remember, a mentor is not your bank of money, he is your bank for the mindset on how to make money, how to be successful. If your intention is to get money from your mentor, I can guarantee they won’t accept, even when they do, they will lose interest in you.

     

    I have never asked any of my mentors for a financial bail-out, all I want from them is how they did it, model their lives, what do they do differently, ask them to help trouble-shoot my life and supply the best solutions.

     

    But one thing is clear: “You will take thrice the years to achieve any goal without a mentor than you would with a mentor.” So get a mentor in the health field, a mentor for your time management, a mentor for your writing skills, a mentor for your entrepreneurship. Just have a large circle of mentors whom you can fire and hire anytime basing on how well they are doing the job of mentoring you.

     

    FINALLY: If you fail to get a direct mentor, go the indirect way. By this, let’s say you want PATRICK BITATURE to mentor you. Begin to follow up every thing he writes, follow up his lifestyle, get videos of Patrick Bitature speaking, how does he manage his time, where does he hang-out from. I am of the view that if you can accurately know what a person does, you can achieve 99% of the results they have achieved by doing the things they do. I modeled my Dad when it came to writing feature stories, though I am not yet there, The Bwaise article I wrote competes favorably with some of his articles. So you can be mentored by Bill Gates, simply check out the things he does, how he spends his money, get videos of him speaking from Youtube, check out his love-life, check out how he runs business. The indirect way is actually the easiest way to have someone mentor you without struggling. Simply model their life and work on that same model, clone them into your self.

     

    Taking RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE

     I see many people go through life looking for someone to blame. They have someone to blame for their poverty. They have someone to blame for their sadness, their misery. They have someone to blame for their unhappiness. But that’s not conscious living. You can’t blame someone for doing that course you hate or working at a job that you don’t love.

     

     One of the best decisions I made when I turned 18 was choosing to take full responsibility for my life. I realized that if I was to be happy, then it was going to be purely up to me. I go through life happy every single day, smiling. I am living consciously. Mine is not a happiness based on first getting this or that before I get happy. 

     

     Yes I love money, but it’s not money that makes me happy. Happiness comes from your innerself and making the choice to be happy regardless of the circumstances.

     

     We’ve often had it that if you have food daily, a phone, and are able to read this then you are among the 20% rich people in the world. Take responsibility for your life. Don’t let your happiness be dependent on someone else.

     

     Till this day, I chose never to begin a business by getting capital from my mum. Every start-up I ever got involved in was purely out of my own capital. So take responsibility for your life. Don’t tie your happiness to your boyfriend or girlfriend. If they leave you, so what? We only live once, at least you had some good moments together. Never ever look for someone to blame. 

     

     If you are going to be rich, it’s entirely up to you. Stop blaming the system that only gives jobs to those with sharp noses. Stop blaming the school you went to for your low self-esteem. Stop blaming your looks or body for your poor relationships.

     

     Become entirely responsible for your life. Wake up today, and make a decision that you are moving the crap on, you are choosing to chase and grab your dreams. 

     

     One of the other ways of taking responsibility for your life is choosing to follow your gut more. Listen to your instinct, your inner-voice. Sometimes your decisions may lead you to hitting rockbottom but in making your own decisions, you learn to think and you mature consciously. Be Blessed

    The BEST PLACE TO INVEST YOUR MONEY

    I have been faced with a number of emails and Facebook inboxes asking for my advice about where one can invest. I don’t claim to be a guru of sorts, I don’t claim to be an investment expert but those questions have tickled my mind. However, now I am certain of the answer.

     

    The best place to invest your money is not in real estate, it’s not in a business, it’s IN YOURSELF. When you invest in yourself, be assured of 100% returns.

     

    Here’s how to invest in yourself:

     

    1.Investing In Your Health

    I personally have a gym membership with Asylum which entitles me to a massage, access to the VIP lounge and to the sauna bath. By investing a certain percentage every month to cater to my health and fitness, I am helping my business grow. I can think better, I can ran to any place where there is a business opportunity. So pamper your health, at the end of it all, you won’t make it in business if your health is poor, Sudhir Ruparelia hits the gym every morning, the chairman of my board of mentors, Andrew Mwenda is another gym fanatic. They are making a daily investment in their health, I rarely see these people eating junk, they are going vegetarian. Every billionaire will agree that without health, there is no money. So invest in yourself, invest in your health and you will have super returns.

     

    2.Investing In Your Knowledge

    I am a great fan of Bake Robert Tumuhaise Nyamishana ‘s author’s forum every month. By investing just 20K every month to attend this event, I have been able to grow my income and mindset to greater ways than before. I have met all the people I had always longed to meet, this is a worthy investment.

     

    So every month, just dedicate a special portion of your income to this cause. Invest in your knowledge bank. List down 10 books you must read about a given field every month and buy those books. If you want to become the best banker, read not less than 10 books on banking every month, suddenly, you will become a consultant, your income will triple. I don’t claim to know so much about personal development but I have read over 100 books for this half of the year and I am not yet contented, I read on a daily basis for 20 minutes, it’s the best investment. Who knows, you may read a book that will give you that billion-dollar idea? Who knows, the answer to your questions are in that seminar you are paying for?

     

    Brian Tracy advises that every month, channel 3% of your income to investing in yourself. Steve Pavlina goes on to write and say:

    “You can use this budget to invest in improving yourself any way you like. So that includes not just knowledge, but also equipment and services — anything that helps you grow and improve.

    For example, I used this budget to put together a home gym with a weight station, an exercise bike, and lots of free weights. If you‘re feeling stressed, you could use the money to get a professional massage (in my area those are usually $40-100 for an hour). My wife likes spending

    half a day at the Luxor Spa now and then. If you feel it would be a growth experience for you, go for it. Take sky-diving lessons. Tour a museum. Join a club or association. Buy software to learn to type faster. Take flute lessons. Take tennis lessons. Get a PDA.”

     

    Next month, I am investing a minimum of 300K so that I can go bungee-jumping in Jinja. I am doing this as a way of relaxing my mind but also to help me conquer the only fear I am remaining with-the fear of heights. Once I conquer this fear, I will have finished the list of fears I planned to conquer this year.

     

    So invest in that better phone if it can help you run your business better, invest in a wonderful laptop, buy an unlimited internet package so that you can access information faster. Just invest in yourself….. and yourself will make you an expert in all the other investments. A real estate dealer who does not read about real estates will be out of business in just a few years, if he manages to stay, his income will never increase. Websites come and go, websites whose owners do not keep investing in themselves to learn about new tactics will wind up in less than a month, I have seen it happen to Ugandan websites…. their owners forgot to invest in themselves.

     

    So that to me, is the best place to invest your money. Real Estate can them follow, then business, shares and equity.

     

    ACTING AND DOING IT NOW

    Beginning Your Own Business

     I have had many questions in the past months about beginning one’s own business. The very first business I ran was when I was 5 years old. My father had bought me two bicycles but I did not know what to do with them. So I decided to ride one then rent out the other. 

     

    Business is a great leveler. The free enterprise system gives anyone the opportunity to succeed and to make something of their life. You don‘t necessarily need an education; you don‘t need a lot of money. Almost everything is irrelevant. Your background, nationality, religion, race, culture, sex or location is of little consequence.

     

     In fact, when I was setting up a new website/blog Fused Creatives I did not invest anything. I knew a web designer, I was out selling DVD tutorials when I also happened to land on a lady who offered to write content for free. So to begin your own business, you need to have networks. Networking is the modern day definition of barter-trade, I use it a lot. I can’t bring in an electrician at home when my brother, Brian is an electrical engineer, he can do the service for free.

     

     But as you begin a business, remember to build systems. You don’t have to be involved in everything. If that’s what you are doing, then that’s not a business, you bought a job. 

     

     Most people select the wrong opportunity for them. In fact what most people end up doing, is buying a job. They borrow a couple of hundred thousand, mortgage their house and end up working 80-100 hours a week. After all their expenses their hourly rate ends up no better than a factory worker. This is not what I mean by ―a business‖.

     Let‘s get the definition right.

     A business is an enterprise that makes a profit (preferably a large one)and runs WITHOUT me!

     After you‘ve established and systemized it, you should be able to step back and enjoy. If you can‘t, you haven‘t got a business, you‘ve bought a job. Build systems, In fact, I hold the title of managing editor at BigEye.ug but I have built the systems that sometimes, it’s the writers who edit my work.

     

     That’s what I have done in all the other businesses I am involved in. I start-up something, build systems then pull back and watch money work for me. Just like Mulwana is dead but Jesa still produces the best milk, nice clear pens are still the best or to say, my dad is dead but The Observer still moves on. Don’t buy a job, start a business and build strong systems. 

     All that is needed is…

     Desire, enthusiasm, drive, ambition, persistence and a dream.

    All these are available to everyone and are free. The rest you‘ll learn as you go along.

     

    Becoming a Do It Now Person

     In 2012, I began writing for Daily Monitor, a leading private Newspaper in Uganda, I took on a CISCO certified course, I got myself in a programming class, I began a website and two other businesses and I was doing part-time consulting. And yet I still did the hardest engineering course-Mechanical and Manufacturing engineering.

     

    Funny bit is that I still partied, I still went out on the beach to relax, not much of my life changed. My social life actually increased the more. So the question has always been, how did I balance all these things without ever getting stressed at any one point?

     

     The answer is clear, I became a DO-IT now person. I stopped postponing tasks. For example, I never revise after class, this had been me since Nursery, I grasp it from the board, if I fail, I make sure I don’t sleep before grasping it. If that fails, I give up on it. Perhaps, because of this method, I came out with a humbling 21 points in my UACE -never mind, I spent 4 days out of 7 at home every week, relaxing my mind. So basically, I became the first person to score 21 points while studying for only 3 days a week for only 6 hours per day.

     

     The secret in doing it now is that you don’t procrastinate. I quickly make decisions. If I see a girl

    I like, I will walk up to her and let her know. I don’t waste time thinking about what ‗shoulda‘, ‗coulda‘, ‗woulda‘. 

     

     The other secret was in waking up at 5am every day. I began tackling my difficult tasks in the middle of the night before most people wake up. I then learned new memorization technique and learned everything about time management. In fact, later this month when my time management had declined, together with my friend Francisco, we began fining each other, if I turned up late, I would foot all his days expenses and vice versa. It worked because we would all rush to get to a place on time and make the other person foot the bill. 

     

    The other secret was in batching up things. When you batch up, you get similar things done in the same time. For example, I would do all engineering maths assignments in the same time. I would call everyone I had to call in the same hour. 

     

     I also had what I called leveraging time. If I was in a queue at a bank, I would get out my book or phone and read something. I did multi-tasking for mini-things. Above my bathroom sink, I pinned inspirational bits plus my mission and vision, so while brushing, I would be reading all these and reflecting on them.

     

     It was all about doing it now. If I got the idea to call someone important, I would call them up there and then. If I wanted to get something from a friend for free, I would boldly tell them. I am open; I don’t hide what I feel. 

     

     So begin doing it now. If an idea comes, write it down and think about it, begin tackling it. Make sure you grasp everything the first time it’s taught. I feel so bad going to a lecture and leaving the same way I went in. I make sure I grasp something I will never have to revise again. If a lecturer bores me, I listen to inspirational podcasts and do assignments for other course-units.

     

    Do Ordinary-Get Ordinary, Do Extraordinary-Get Extraordinary

    “I am setting up a modern market,” said my mum. I could not stomach what she had just said. I mean, here she was having a plot along the Naalya road, everyone was building a high-rise setup and here she was talking of a market. 

     

    So I asked her, “but why?” She responded calmly: “From Namugongo all the way to the Ntinda stage, there is no modern market along the way. Naalya’s current need is not housing, it is a modern market to buy things from.” I was stunned at her intelligence. 

     

     

    Out of all this, I learned not to follow the herd. Don‘t follow the herd! Don‘t do what‘s fashionable, trendy or popular. What‘s popular is what‘s common. Do what‘s common and you will get common results. You are looking for uncommon outcomes, extra-ordinary achievements and to do this you will have to do what Jim Rohn talked to us about—walk away from the 97%.

    Don‘t use their vocabulary, don‘t use their excuses, don‘t use their method of drift and neglect… and join the 3%. Take charge of your own life!

     

    In Entrepreneurship, the 97% is never right, it is always wrong, do what the other 3% is doing and you will get extraordinary results. And to mum, thanks for the mentor-ship. 

     

    I just remembered, when we bought land in Naalya, it was a village. Today the same land has gone on to quadruple. Another uncommon step for uncommon achievements.

     

     

     

    Solving Problems By Seeing Them In The Future Time Perspective

    What was your biggest worry five years ago, do you still feel the same about it at this minute? Imagine that many of the things that may have troubled you years back no longer make sense. One of my biggest fears while in Primary school was the lashes from the teachers from not handing in my homework on time, not completing it. 

     

    But 5 years down the road, I get to wonder why I ever worried about these problems. Why did I have to even waste hours of my life thinking about these problems? If I had looked at them 5 years from then, I would have probably realized how minute they were.

     

    Some things that make us worry are actually non-existent in the future dimension. When I failed to secure government sponsorship to University, I thought it was a big deal. But I looked at myself going on private sponsorship and saw myself out of campus-graduating with a degree. I realized this worry did not make sense after graduation, in fact I could not explain why I had to even be worried. 

     

    So for any problems, try to look at them in this way.

     

    If you have any worry over your finances, your health, your relationships or your education, this paradigm will help solve many of them.  Look at that problem a week, a month, a year or two from now. Would it still exist? If not, then it‘s not something that should make you lose your head over it. It is not worth losing your sleep over it. If it can disappear in the time dimension, then it‘s virtual, it‘s nonexistent.  It‘s only those problems which can‘t be erased by the time perspective that should make you get worried. 

     

    You can apply this paradigm even when you make mistakes in your workplace, anywhere anytime. It works for anyone and rich men use it a lot while taking risks. 

     

    The Right Time Is NOW

     Have you heard of those people who say, I will begin this business when I get enough capital? Or those who say, I will apply for this job if I get this degree…. Friend if you are one of those people who just keep waiting for the right time, I am here to declare: “The Timing will never be just right…” There is nothing like the right time. In fact if there is such a thing, then the time is

    NOW.

     

     The time is Now to quit an abusive relationship, a boring job, a silly habit. Name it all. The time is now to work on your dreams, don’t wait for your death bed. Last Monday, the car I was in lost its brakes, we were literally about to crush, there was a speeding trailer coming by and we were running at a high speed. After that narrow escape, I got home, and decided that I was not going to sacrifice my dreams for anything. I don’t care where I will hurt some people in the long run, I am choosing to live that life I have always desired. 

     

     ―For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn‘t conspire against you, but it doesn‘t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‗Someday‘ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it‘s important to you and you want to do it ―eventually,‖ just do it and correct course along the way.

     

     For long, I had always put off beginning a blog, I thought that perhaps I needed to first wait for this or that, but two weeks back, I woke up and realized the timing will never be that perfect thing, I bought a domain name and started Fused Creatives and the same has happened even in my relationships. If I love someone, I don’t hide it, I don’t wait for the right moment to speak out, I rather get rejected that suffer with feelings deep within me.

    Develop a HABIT OF HAPPINESS

    Just this week, I woke up, one of the rental houses belonging to my mum had caught fire, as I rushed there to assess the situation, a guy in a truck intentionally decided to wheeze a pooltrad of dust towards me. It all felt like a bad day. And I still had an exam on that day. But I realized, the devil was trying to get the worst out of me, I knew I was not about to lose my happiness over some truck driver who was displeased over his job, I was not ready to get worried over the house that had caught fire. I am simply too addicted to happiness.

     

    Friends, happiness is a decision you make at the start of each day. It does not depend on your circumstances, it depends on your perception, your will and the choice you make. One of my sweet friends Laura has leukemia, just last week, we went out on a date, she was high in spirits, she told me, “Ian how I wish you were a doctor so I could have chemotherapy at your place.” Yet I have seen people in better situations than hers that go through life cursing, feeling bad. To me, Laura is the one inspiration I will never have to pay for. 

     

    Each day is full of surprises and inconveniences, so you must accept the fact that not everything is going to always go your way. Your plans are not always going to work out. You must make a decision, that no matter what happens, you will never get upset.

     

    One time, I was supposed to meet Andrew Mwenda my mentor at his office at mid-day, I called and his phone was off, I went to office and he was not there. I was annoyed, frustrated, I felt like telling him; “Andrew you are a nut…” At 5pm, he called me and apologized, he told me to come over to the restaurant at Protea Hotel, guess what, on the same table, I had the opportunity to sit with Patrick Bitature (one of Uganda’s richest billionaires), the lessons I learned about money that day can never be forgotten, just a minute after, I came across Kale Kayihura, he gave me his personal number. Goodness, I realized that sometimes, what seems like a disappointment is just God’s plan to get your nearer to your greatness.

     

    So when you wake up in the morning, your attitude should be: “I am going to enjoy today even if my plans don’t work out, even if it rains, even if the taxi conductor intentionally annoys me, even if some people at work speak bad about me, even if my exam paper is harder than I thought, even if that boyfriend/girlfriend leaves me, even if I fail that job interview.”

     

    If your husband is fifteen minutes late before coming to pick you up for shopping, don’t shout at him. Don’t start complaining, revisiting old mistakes he did. Instead go shopping and pick up everything you ever desired and make him stand and wait for you over there.

     

    Ten years from now, many of those things you are allowing to stress you out won’t even matter.

    On your death bed, it won’t even matter that someone blocked you on Facebook, that someone dumped you, that someone called you by some name. Life is too short to live it stressed out. Develop the habit of happiness. Keep smiling and when you keep doing this, God will open up the gates of abundance, abundance of faith, abundance of greatness, abundance of financial success, of health, and you will say: “God I had never dreamed of this ever being possible.”

     

    Go out this Sunday and choose to be positive about life. If you lose your wallet, hey, someone else will at least get food for the day. If your business fails, at least you know one of the ways how it can’t work out. Be Blessed, go out and Conquer the world, you are a victor and not a victim. It may seem like there is no way out of that situation but if you will keep that smile, God will restore all the happiness and joy.

     

    Just Start Small… Don’t worry about the big steps

     I always attach special adoration to “Ndiisa Buuti” song. More so the line-“Ndiisa Buuti sipapa…”  which literally means ―I am using chopsticks to eat, there is no need to rush.‖ Sometimes in life, all you need to do is take things at your pace and run your own race. Just because you have built houses does not mean you should rush, get a bank loan and also try to build a house. Just take your pace. You are not in a rush. Get the difference between rushing, hurrying and moving on time. 

     

     About taking small steps, we always assume that you must wake take this big steps at the first instant. Most of the times, if you take big steps, you end up crushing. When I was learning how to drive a manual car, I got to know that when bringing the clutch to the biting point (vibration), you simply step softly on the accelerator to give the car a push. You don’t depress the accelerator all the way.

     

     In fact, even as a baby, you took those tinny little steps, until you had finally mastered the art of walking. My father is my greatest inspiration of taking small steps. After university, he began off as a freelance writer with Weekly topic. These were the times when to get published in a newspaper was harder than meeting the pope. However he took it at his own pace and after sometime, he had risen to the position of sub-editor until he rose up all the way.

     

     At 27 years, together with other friends, he co-founded the Daily Monitor in 1992. I was to break his record 18 years later when I began my own company at 18 years (hope my son will begin his own at 8 years) but all the way to the top till when he left Monitor to found The Observer, my father was an advocate of stress-free productivity and running one’s own race. Never at any one time did I see him in a rush to take gigantic steps.

     

     Before beginning BigEye.ug, I read a book that said: “Small is Beautiful”. From then on, I have lived my life in a simple way acknowledging the small is beautiful fact. Even when I read an inspiration book, I summarize it and compress it to that which works for me…no big deal just simplifying and making it smaller and beautiful.

     

     So today, take some small steps. Some small steps to make your life better, to improve your relationships, your communication skills, your writing skills, academics and finances. I always tell my friends that if we only took just one step every day in the right direction, by the end of the year, we would be 365 steps away from where we began. That’s what I have been doing all my life, beating my previous record, being better than I was a day, an hour, a minute ago. I am not perfect but I keep growing towards perfection-slowly but surely. Please take a small step today and make your life better. 

     

     

     

    Top 30 Things You Must Do Before Your Turn 30

    Have you heard of those people who reach their 30s and regret about the steps they never took.

    Perhaps it was because of fear. Because of fear, they forgot to really live. Now they don‘t have memories. My harsh realization came to me during my vacation, I realized that I had never been suspended or expelled from any school. I found it so boring a story. But at least, I don‘t regret, I broke one of the rules that could lead to expulsion, I escaped during my final exams and went clubbing.

     

    So here are those top things everyone should do probably in their 20s before they make it to the 30s. Don‘t be like those 40 year olds trying to do the things they should have done in their 20s.  You won‘t really grow up if you don‘t do at least 10 of these things.  I am sure, you will have boring stories for your children.

    1. Travel Around The World and whenever an opportunity arises

    You probably don‘t know what it feels travelling with a family of your own and a reputation to keep. It‘s so tiresome. The time is now. If possible, take a road trip with fellow youth and have fun to the fullest on the road trip. Sing out songs in the bus while on the road trip and get really silly. At 30 years, when you look back, it will be a youth to remember. 

    Seeing the world will broaden your horizons and make you a more interesting person. Plus interesting and funny things happen when you travel — and remember, your 20s are your time to live the stories that you’ll be telling for the rest of your life.

     

    1. Break the Dating Rules

    Try to date someone older than you or date someone from a race you never expected you would. One of my goals before I get out of my 20s is to date an Indian. The females are reserved so it would be good to break the rules and date an Indian.

     

    1. Drive a Super Sleek Car Even If you have to rent it

    My brother would always take chance when my Dad or Mum was away on a foreign trip and steal up the cars from home. He would move and turn heads while in this car.  Ride to a place where your peers have no cars. Don‘t get scared about damaging the car, in fact it would be better if it got stuck in some muddy terrain. That would be a memory worth recounting. 

     

    1. Live In A Cool Place Even if for a week

    Look up for those areas that in your country which when mentioned make people look on with envy. Rent in such a place, even for just a month.  I have lived in Naalya for my 20s but I also did the reverse, I went and lived in Bwaise for a week and those memories have stuck. How about renting near a beach side or near a night club? 

    1. Do something Scary and Adventurous

    On my 20th birthday, I went bungee-jumping. It scared the hell out of me but it helped me conquer my fears. Strain your body, go mountain climbing or go hiking. Try some kayaking. Sleep in the wild by the campfire. 

     

    1. Take risks with your job and Business

    Your 20s are the moment you can take around to play around jobs and businesses. Set up a business and watch it go bankrupt. Apply for a job for which you purely have no qualifications.  Aim for the career you’ve dreamed of doing. If you have a chance to be a model or a dancer, go for it. Get the job in the big city. Volunteer to work on the big project that could make or break the company. Start up a smoothie business with your college buddy. If you have got to change careers, change them now. If you always dreamed of acting, attend movie auditions, go for a singing audition and sing with your frog voice. Just screw up but do it. 

    1. Have a Threesome

    You did not see this coming, but this is the time to try out any nonsensical sexual style and position. Tell your girlfriend to invite her best friend, put in an adult movie and act silly in a threesome. Remember to use protection just in case. Try oral sex. Just do those wacky wild stuff in your 20s because we won‘t expect you to do these while you are 30.

     

    1. Break a Heart and Have Your Heart Broken

    Learn to enjoy relationships to the fullest. So get into the experience of learning what it means to dump and get dumped. After doing this for so long, you will be ready to settle down. I did all this in my teens so by the time I found someone I really loved in my 20s, I was ready to settle down. 

     

    1. Release a song

    How many times do you hear some crappy songs on your radio stations and watch the videos on TV? Before you leave your 20s, release a song. It may become a hit song. One of my friends released a song in his vacation. Record a video, send it to all TV stations, upload it on Youtube and attend events to perform this song of yours. 

    1. Break The Rules

    When a police officer flags you down, refuse to stop,  hand in your assignments at college after deadline. Join the strikes at campus. If a taxi conductor insists that you should pay 1K, get into that taxi and insist on paying half of that. Go to a girl‘s hall after the curfew time. 

     

    1. Wear some weird outfits

    If you are a guy, wear male leggings. Wear something that everyone would be scared of wearing and walk around feeling the classy you. Intentionally wear a shirt inside out.  If you are a lady, go to club pantyless. 

     

    1. Get a wacky hairstyle

    Bring back the French cut, try the Mohawk, go bold completely (kawalata). Become a shaolin monk. Just keep that hairstyle for a month. Decide never to comb your hair. Just plait a section of your hair and leave the other side normal.

     

    1. Take Your Parents to Dinner
    2. Go on a date with someone
    3. Vibe up a stranger and pour out your heart
    4. Do some voluntary work
    5. Cook some meal and try out a difficult cuisine
    6. Organize and attend a house party
    7. Drink and drink yourself silly
    8. Do the things that scare you, pick up a caterpillar.
    9. Watch all the funny cartoons and movies you can land on.
    10. Fall in love with someone with whom there is no hope of marriage
    11. Get involved in a fight or an exchange of words. Diss someone that annoys you one day.
    12. Do difficult things like going in for a medical doctor‘s lecture, sneak into a programming lecture.
    13. Read a very complex book and brag to people about it
    14. Go swimming while completely naked
    15. Spend a day completely naked
    16. Contest for any leadership position, compete in a contest
    17. Fast for a day, become a vegetarian for a week
    18. Fart out loud in public and deny it
    19. ADD MORE…………………………

     

    What If You Had No Fear Whatsoever

     

    Back then, when I was still dealing with approach anxiety, I would see a very hot lady and then get scared of approaching her. I knew it was some fear that was making me miss out on many good things. So one day, I set myself a challenge for the month; I was supposed to pick up 5 hot girls every day for 30 days. I decided that I would not get home on any day until I picked up those 5 girls and failure to do so meant that I would count from one again. 

     

    After doing this exercise for 30 days, the outcomes were so wonderful; in fact I realized all the things that fear had made me miss out for some good time.

     

    This made me reflect on other parts of my life. And I guess, this applies to all of us, perhaps some of us would have already been billionaires if it was not for the fear. So the question I ask myself every day in the morning: “What If I had no fear, what goals would I pursue today, what steps would I take?” The answers to this question determine much of what I focus on for the day.

     

    If some employees had no fear, they would quit their jobs and go ahead to begin their own businesses. This week, I have almost depleted my account and invested in over 2 business ventures, hopefully, next week, I will ask for an over-draft and invest in another deal I just can’t miss out on. Of course, months back, I had this fear of withdrawing money from my account and investing it in something. But that fear is gone, it was making me miss out on bigger opportunities.

     

    So think about your life. What would you do if you had no fear? Would you go ahead and stay in that love relationship that sucks? Would you continue living that lifestyle? Would you not take some risks that could actually pay off? My Dad took the risk and co-founded not one Newspaper but two Newspapers. Today the Daily Monitor still lasts and so does The Observer. He had no fear whatsoever, he left a mark. If he had fear, perhaps, no newspaper in Uganda would ever have reported about the Rwandan Genocide or the Kisangani war in DRC.

     

    Remember you only live once. Whenever you have fear for something, know that you must conquer it. Fear is a compass pointing towards the direction which you should take. Every day, strive to do something that scares you. When you keep doing at least one such a thing for 365 days, I can guarantee that your life will take a quantum leap to a new level you may not have dreamed of. Conquer the fear and success will be within your reach.

     

     

    GOALS AND GOAL SETTING

    From Resolutions to Results

    When a year is about to end or at the beginning of a new year, people set all these resolutions. But just after 2 weeks into the new year, they have completely given up on the resolutions and by the time the year comes to an end, 90% of all those who set resolutions, would not have achieved any of them.

     

    Are you resolved or Wishing

    I think instead of setting resolutions, many people do wishful thinking. To set a resolution is to resolve that you will actually do something. It is not something you simply write on paper. You write it on your heart, in your mind and in your spirit. You wake up every day with this burning desire to achieve it. You are sexually attracted to whatever you wrote for it to really become a resolution.

     

    But many people simple make wishes and term them as New Year resolutions. For example many set a resolution to cut weight but they don‘t have that burning desire to actually cut weight. For some moment, they may begin off by going to the gym but after sometime, they will drop out.

    How TO BEAT THE COMPETITION, stop flying with chicken and fly with EAGLES

    One of the many questions I get on a daily basis rotates around how one can really stand out from the crowd. I remember my new Headteacher at Uganda Martyrs Namugongo, Father Kasasa saying: “If you go to a place and you find people sitting, remain standing, if they also stand, become outstanding, if they also become outstanding, set a standard.”

     

    Now let me ask you, do you think Dr.David Ssali is the only Naturotherapist- in Uganda? Do you think Mukwano is the only company that manufactures cooking oil? Do you think Serena is the only 5-star hotel in Uganda? Obviously no, why do you think people will keep on referring to every petrol station as SHELL even when we have Total, Gapco, Fuelex just to mention but a few.

     

    Beating the competition is something I see in one major way—-GOING AFTER HARD PROBLEMS. If you want to beat the competition, you have to do the things that the majority avoids. Sanyu Fm was the first private radio station in Uganda, do you think many had not desired to start a radio, but it seemed hard to them? There is a lady who introduced sliced bread in Uganda, previously you had to slice bread manually at home. So let me give you a few examples.

     

    WRITING EXAMPLE

    I still don’t think my Dad was extraordinary. I think he simply did things in an extraordinary way. Like the saying goes: “If you do ordinary things, you will get ordinary results, if you do extraordinary things, you will get extraordinary results.”

     

    One of the things that set my dad apart from many journalists was having the courage to pursue the hard stories that every other journalist could have avoided. Before going to report about the Rwanda Genocide in 1994, he was like any other ordinary journalist but by the time he left Rwanda, he had set a mark, when he went to Kisangani and broke the congo-Rwanda/-uganda war story, he added a foundation to the mark he had set. It was all about going for the hard stories, the ones that everyone shivered at. He always narrated a story where they had to drive the car in reverse for some good miles lest their tires come in contact with landmines and their life ends. My own one week in Bwaise was another intimidating story assignment, but it set me apart, at least it helped me grow as a writer . For one week, I witnessed the forgotten of Kampala and it was doing the hard things.

     

    It’s the same secret that saw BigEye.ug get to that level as the top Ugandan Entertainment website. So here are my simple sure steps that will see you beat the competition.

     

    1. DO The Things Others DON’T, WON’T, and CAN’T

    This is not just in business, but in other areas of your life. You can set out to achieve the perfect body size by going to the gym, this is something that a few do because it requires discipline. If you are a husband, try to listen to your wife even if she has nothing important to say, a few men do this but you will have earned her affection. You are simply beating the competition . Like I always say, if everyone selling a product is using the same marketing strategy, use the same strategy but also adopt another strategy they have no idea about. If people are going East, go west-it’s less crowded that side.

     

    1. HAVE SOME AURA OF MYSTERY

    Now by having an aura of mystery I don’t mean, you should do something illegal. No it’s simply listening more and observing that shouting on top of your voice to show others that you know better. There are times I will go silent in a group conversation just to be able to take in knowledge and not miss it. Take people by surprise, Riham Cola did that to Coca Cola Uganda. Even in your life, don’t be predictable to your girlfriend, if every other Tom and Harry takes their girlfriend out on Friday, simply organize a candle-lit dinner with her at home, then on Monday surprise her with a trip to Mweya Safari Lodge, don’t wait for Valentines day to give her a gift, keep bringing them even when she does not expect them. Mystery in life, mystery in the business. BigEye.ug has grown mainly on mystery, it’s so mysterious to the extent that I have never met some of the people on the team.

     

    1. Focus on Giving People Value, the rest will chase you pants down

    The reason every business I touch with my hands prospers is because I have learned the secret. The secret in business is to give people the value in a better way every time then sit back and see them flock to reward you with money and praises. The reason many entertainment websites in Uganda can’t grow to their greatest limits is because they make a mistake of thinking about profits before they even give out value. Honestly you expect people to visit your website with such a boring layout? You expect people to eat at your restaurant with those nagging waiters. Give people value, people are not fools, you can’t trick them into parting with their money without giving them value. You can be able to do so in the short-run but it will never go on in the long-term. Before you expect your sweetheart to do something for you, give her the value. Call her, pamper her, then you will see her reciprocate the love. That’s the same trick in business and everywhere in life. People won’t care about you until they know that you care. Sudhir told me that the only reason he had replied my phone sms is because I was more interested in helping him grow more in his business fast before I proposed my needs.

     

    How will a person give you a business contract if the first statement you utter out is how much you want? We once sold a video tutorial to a lady at more than the expected price without even noticing. She was so impressed with the value we had given her, the personal touch, the smiles.

     

    So if you want to stop playing with the chicken, stop doing the things that the chicken do, get on your wings of creativity and begin flying with the eagles. You can do it, Barack Obama did, Richard Branson did, how about you?

     

    How To Get Results From resolutions

    After setting resolutions, it is best that one comes up with habits they will need to install to achieve these resolutions. For example when I was writing my first official book, I installed a new habit of waking up early each day and writing a page for that book every single day. And it paid off, within no time I was completing my book.

     

    If you want to cut weight, then resolve to hanging out with people who are actually already cutting weight. People who will inspire you, it is often said that we are the result of the four-six people we associate with on a daily basis. For example, if you want to be a billionaire, then you have to hang out with billionaires or people with a billionaire mindset. 

     

    The other solution is that instead of setting resolutions, why not set results. Resolutions require words, results require action. It is more like using the Law of Attraction of this. You see it; visualize it before you actually get it. Set a result that by the December 16th for example, you will be self-employed doing what you love and earning a sufficient amount.  This is setting a result. A resolution on the other hand would be something like: To be self-employed this year. 

     

    Resolutions are never specific. They are not time bound in the sense that there is no specific expiry date. This is a date by which they should have been achieved. Results on the other hand require action, they are specific and they drive you to install habits to make you achieve them. For example running a successful blog by March 24th will actually mean that you will go ahead and learn about how to write, how to market and all these are habits you will install. It will mean that you will learn about time management.

    How To Solve Problems Faster and Easily

    Years back, I dreaded the sight of problems, I just hated problems until one day when my mentor sat me down and said: “If you don’t fall in love with problems, forget about success.” Those words hit me so hard that for two years, I did nothing but think about that statement. But today, I just wanted to offer you a better paradigm to solving some of the problems you may be going through. I break down the solutions into three parts. If you want to solve any problem, here are 3 questions to ask yourself: 1) what could I do? 2) what could I read? 3) who could I ask?

     

    1.What Could I Do?

    Ask yourself this question anytime you are faced with a problem. One time when I was temporarily detained at UMI for illegally pinning posters for one of my businesses, I asked myself this question. I then remembered I had an official at UMI I could call upon in-case things got worse, alternatively, I could play it cool, ask for forgiveness and jump out of the case.Those are some of the things I could do. So if you are broke? Ask yourself what you can do? Perhaps you can become a thief (in case it seems normal to you), you can go to the village and fall in love with agriculture or you can apply for a job or ask for a loan. List down all things that you could do then single out the best solution that makes your heart feel at rest. This is one of the ways of solving a problem.

     

    2.What Could I read?

    I am of the view that there is no new problem in this world. Whatever problem you are facing or are about to face, somebody already faced it and wrote about it. Let’s say you have cancer, go to google, check out every book that has been written about healing from cancer, check out every solution and read the testimonies of those who got healed. And let’s say you want to become an entrepreneur, go and google about the top 10 books every entrepreneur should read and read them. So if you are facing a problem, ask yourself what you can read? Which books should you look for? Which internet sites should you focus on? Which libraries should you visit? I can assure you that this is the fastest way out of any problem. All problems we are facing, their solutions have been written in a book somewhere, we only have to find that book. Did you know that there is even a written formula to earning a million-dollars in a year, a formula you can apply and you will be certain of those dollars? I also read somewhere that if you read a book a week in a specific field for a year, you would become a world-leading consultant in that field. If you read a computer book every week for a year, you would become one of the leading computer wizards in the whole world. You can read your way out of problems.

     

    3.Who Could I ask?

    Now, you must have people you can run to for answers to your questions. If it’s something about money and entrepreneurship, I will definitely rush and sms Sudhir Ruparelia seeking an answer. If it’s about books and publication, I will seek the great advice of Bake Robert Tumuhaise Nyamishana So if you are going through a problem, ask yourself which person you can consult. If it’s a health problem, who would be the best doctor? If it’s body fitness, which gym trainer should you run to? Any time you find yourself in a problem, write down all the names of people that may be having a solution to your problem then zero down to the best ones to consult. It has worked for me a number of times and it works for everyone, or should I say, every time, I am at Kabira, Protea or Serena Hotel, I see billionaires consulting each other.

     

    Those are the 3 ways out of any problem. However, after last night’s meditation, I reflected about a better way out of any problem. How about if you could solve a problem faster, in a more exciting way. So I came up with a paradigm which I choose to call the “mind-set shift.” What happens here, is that you picture yourself without that problem. Let’s say, I have cancer. If I picture myself without cancer, there are things I would do, there are certain people I would speak to after the cancer is gone. So what happens in this case, is that you imagine a life when the problem is gone, and all the side-effects you would face without that problem in your life. If I am broke at the moment, and I imagine myself with money, one of the side-effects I would experience is being more comfortable holding large sums of money in my wallet. I used this method unknowingly, slowly I began not having less than 20K in my wallet, after 2 weeks, I went to 50K, probably before August 24th, I would have become comfortable with a million in my wallet. That’s one of the side-effects I introduced that saw me become financially independent.

     

    So if you have sinuses, and you hate waking up when it’s so cold in the morning, imagine yourself without the sinuses waking up so early and doing things like normal people. Introduce the side-effect of waking up early and stick to it for 30 days, after 30 days, I can guarantee, the sinuses will be gone. That’s the faster way.

     

    Finally, if you want to solve any problem in a cooler way, don’t look for the easiest way or the fastest way, simply ask yourself: “What would be the most amazing, exciting solution to this problem?” When you get the answer, embark on this solution, the excitement in this solution will make you overcome the pain that comes with solving problems.

    How To Achieve Your Goals Faster

    There comes that point in life where you are tired of going slower at goal achievement, taking that harder route and spending a lot of time trying to hit those targets. So what would entail the process that would involve faster achievement of goals? Is it even possible to speed up that achievement process? Looking at the normal goal achievement system, it states that if you want to get from point A to B then you ought to list down all the steps required to make that linear transition and taking on those steps. But that is a sluggish paradigm; many times it makes the goal achievement process slower, involves a lot of hard work and is devoid of fun.  However, I feel there are three ways that can be used to achieve goals faster. I have tried them out and I can guarantee, those who have can agree. 

     

    1. Becoming Sexually Attracted to Your Goals

    Have you ever been in that moment where you got the urge to have sex? Have your ever felt so horny?  Imagine re-directing all that sexual energy to your goals? Imagine becoming sexually attracted to your goals? You would pursue the goal with your mind and body fully committed to achieving the goal. Sexual energy has been described as this mystical powerful desire that takes over a person right from the brain, to the heart, it burns up the blood, makes the heart beat faster and the blood flow faster. Imagine having those same feelings for your goals?  If your goal is to begin a new business centered on your hobby, you will wake up earlier every day so inspired at chasing that dream. You would work into the middle of the night without realizing? In fact, if you want to know a goal that resonates with your true purpose in life, it should create such a feeling when it comes to your mind. The moment I got the idea of writing this book, I just got that sexual urge for publishing the book. I could not sleep, I spend hours just thinking about the goal. I could not imagine a life without publishing the book. I was sexually attracted to this goal and it was easier to achieve. It was one of those goals I have achieved in the shortest time possible.

     

    1. Doing an Identity Shift

    Doing an identity shift involves introducing the side effects that you would experience after achieving your goal. Let‘s say you want to become a millionaire? What are some of those sideeffects you would experience once you are a millionaire? Some of the side-effects would involve planning for your days in months advance. You would have side-effects as far as the people you hang-out with, the books you read, the places you hang-out in, the music you listen to, the way you manage your time and so on. So the real trick is in introducing those side-effects to your life. If you want to be a millionaire, you would begin acting like one.  You begin doing things the millionaires do even before you are one in reality. You begin cutting down on distractions, you will find TV a senseless distraction, you will get used to having a budget, to managing your time better and eliminating activities that steal your valuable time. 

     

    An identity shift is comparable to getting the mind of some other person and instilling it into your body. If someone aimed at reducing their weight by 15kg, then you would get the mind-set of a person who‘s already at that perfect weight and install it into their body. With that new mind-set, the over-weight person would not tolerate their body-weight, they will rush to the gym every day, they would work on their diet, and they would see the abnormality with being overweight. 

     

    1. Manifestation, Visualization and The Law Of Attraction

    I first learned about the law of attraction from the famous movie: ―The Secret.‖ It said that whatever you have in your life, you attracted it. Nothing came by mistake. You attracted that bad relationship, that financial predicament and many other things. 

     

    To achieve a goal faster, you have to really feel it deep within you. If you want to become rich, imagine that you are already rich, take out some moments to play that movie of that new rich you. Think about it again and again; look for things that keep reminding you of that. Before you sleep, visualize that image until it comes to that moment where you really know the goal is yours.

     

    There is an exercise I do every day for an hour called: ―The sphere of silence‖, for 30 minutes, you spend them visualizing your perfect life. Every day, you write down your goals and only cross them off after you have achieved them. After doing this exercise for 21 days, you begin to realize yourself resonating with the dreams you have set. You begin to notice that you have already achieved the goals. It‘s like the goal achievement process has been automated. 

     

    The law of attraction states that you have to brain-wash your mind into seeing itself in possession of whatever you hope to achieve. If it‘s a 4 roomed house, draw the plans and hang them somewhere, at a place where you can look at it when you wake up, before you sleep and at any possible moment. Every day, re-write the goals that you hope to achieve. Make your mind become one with that goal because until you do, goal achievement will remain a strenuous exercise. 

     

    Keep talking yourself about that dream. If it‘s healing, keep seeing your body healed. I have seen cancers get healed through this way. Whatever you think about most of the time, you will eventually attract it. Think about sickness and you will become sick. So think about that goal, see yourself achieving it, read everything about that goal, hang-out with those people that have already achieved it, search about that goal, get everything that will remind you of that goal on a daily basis. You will manifest your goals faster and easily.

     

    With those three steps, goal achievement should be something you do for the fun of it, with all the excitement. You won‘t realize the magic until you try it out. It‘s not enough to just read, commit to trying out these steps for at least 30 days.

     

    I talk of 30 days because 30 days is the time it takes to find out whether something works or not. In fact, scientists state that it takes 21 days to adopt a new habit, eliminate a habit and change your life. Take it life software. Software manufacturers give you 30 days of free trial to actually use the program and see whether you can go ahead and purchase. If after 30 days of trying out at least one of those three methods, you can choose to trash them. After 30 days, you can increase the trial period to 60 days. But make sure, it is 30 consecutive days, if you miss any single day; you go back and count from day one. 

     

    So begin today to manifest a new job, a new relationship partner, attract them into your life, with the exact qualities you want in them. It gets better as you get going. 

     

    Finding Your Purpose In Life Makes It Easy To Achieve Your Life Goals

    One day, it was raining so hard at Campus; I was walking through this rain back home. It was a hurting moment; however, it is in this moment that I found my purpose. I asked myself a wonderful question.  So, why am I here? Why am I here on Earth? The moment I found my answer, I resigned from every job I had to pursue my dream. 

     

    This is what I found: I was created for one purpose: to give and receive wealth. Wealth of money, education, love, happiness and success; to help myself and others achieve the things we want more than anything else in life, whether it‘s making more money, losing weight, being happier or building a business. I am here to make dreams come true, for myself and for those around me. That is my life‘s statement; that is why I am; that is the reason God decided to place me on this planet. My mission in life is ―To Grow and To Help Other People Grow more consciously in life.‖ 

     

    So, why are you here? You must find out. In you is a seed. Dr. Myles Munroe said, ―in the seed lies a forest.‖ Man I find this intriguing. How about you? In the seed lies a guava fruit. But you know what many people do, they EAT the seed instead of the 100s or even 1000s of fruit the one seed is capable of producing. In you is untapped, unused, not realized, dormant, POTENTIAL. 

     

    Good question here: How do I bring out those potentials? I don’t know, I love to call it as mystery of the mind. All I know is that you have to educate yourself. Maybe you wanted to hear something more than this. Ok, then, grab a self-help book TODAY. Watch a Success or leadership video TODAY. Plan your future TODAY. Associate with people of substance TODAY. I said TODAY. Not tomorrow. 

     

    If you read a book on weight loss and in the middle of the book, you are told to put the book aside and get down for 5 pushups, what do you DO? What if the author tells you in the next page that if you didn’t do the 5 push-ups, please DON’T READ ON? Do you read on and get back and do the 5 pushup ups?

     

    What you decide at that moment becomes your philosophy that determines your direction in life.

     

    Prepare the soil (mind), don’t worry about the sessions. You have no control over the session. Dr. Stephan R. Covey in his 90/10 principle said it well. He said we don’t have control of the 10% of what happens to us but we do have control of the 90% of how we react to the situations.

     

    So here‘s my way of finding your purpose. This is the method I always recommend, I got it from Steve Pavlina, I have tested and proved it to be the best.  Get a book, open up a blank page and begin asking yourself these questions.

     

    1. Why am I here? What is my purpose on earth?

    Write down every answer that comes to your mind. You may have to write down over 100 answers until you can converge to an answer that really makes you cry or stand up and get ready to act. For some people, it takes days to find their life purpose, others, just minutes. It took me just 30 minutes to discover my life purpose. For the first point, you may even have to first write that you have no purpose at all, then may be, the second point would be to eat, just keep writing until you converge to a purpose that really makes you should ‗eureka‘-yes I found it. 

     

    1. What is your Passion in Life?

    What excites you in life? What would you love to be doing for the rest of your life? What are those things that drive you, that give you fulfillment and real happiness? Many times, when you discover you passion, you will find that your purpose is also directed to your passion. In fact, once you find your passion, you can easily find your purpose. My passion is writing, inspiring people, creating new things, putting smiles on people so my purpose converge to ―Growing and Helping other people grow consciously.‖ 

     

    Now that you know your purpose, the next bit will be on fusing your passions and purpose and working to fulfill them. There are many ways in which you can fulfill your purpose, mainly through one of your passions. I can help people grow through writing a book, or beginning a personal development business. There are no limits. All you have to do is to know your purpose and your passion in life. The rest will just fall in line. 

     

     

     

    How To Achieve Goals Faster.

    I also learned that faster achievement of goals actually comes with an adoption of habits that will automatically lead you to these goals. For example, I always wanted to write so I adopted the habit of reading newspapers every day, writing something every day and following writers around.  These were habits I installed and within a short period of time, I was already writing.  Get habits you will need to manage your time better. Perhaps you may need to wake up earlier every day and have the advantage of extra active hours every day.

     

    The other principle lies in taking a step every day of the year. If you take a step for each of the

    365 days of the year that will mean that you will have jumped 365 levels to a better outcome. How about a step in each and every field in which you want to progress by the end of the year? This means taking a step in time management, a step in public speech every day, a step in dieting everyday…just taking a step in every sector of your life that you want to achieve.

     

    Finally, there is the rule of the 3 divisions of the 24 hours each day accords you. 8 hours are dedicated to sleep. The next 8 hours are dedicated to working on things that come up, perhaps it is your job, meeting people, doing some chores and all that stuff that does not necessarily make you feel like you are doing what you love. The final 8 hours of the day are then spent on doing what you love, working on your dreams specifically and no matter what comes in between, and it gets postponed to its right timing of the day. This leads to a faster achievement of goals. 

     

    So come up with results and list habits you will actually need to adopt to achieve these results then work at having those habits as part of you. Goals will be way easier to achieve and you will overcome that depressing syndrome of setting resolutions that you never achieve. 

    Having a SPIRIT OF EXCELLENCE

    During my time as a student at Uganda Martyrs SSS Namugongo, my headteacher at the time, Dr.John Chrysostom Muyingo said to me, that there are three magical words that if one used them everyday, they would end up at the top. Those words are ‘Thank You’, ‘Please’, and ‘Sorry’. Friends I want to tell you more about the excellence spirit. In life, until you are doing everything excellently, you will continue to stagger around, in your business, in your academics, in your relationships and in your finances. The world rewards excellent people-not average ones. When i talk about excellence, I don’t mean some super high standard, I mean excellence in the little things we ignore.

     

    1.Having a Spirit of Excellence At Your Workplace

    Friends excellence dictates that if your job requires you to be at work by 8AM, don’t come in at 8:30, come in at 7:30am, if it requires that you only leave after 5PM, give it one more hour, leave at 6PM. The people who get promoted at workplaces are those who give it their best. If your boss has many things to work on, offer to help with some, if she has kids to pick up from school, offer to pick them up. Excellence dictates that as everyone is busy blackmailing the boss, you are busy helping him/her to be better. As everyone reports to work and opens their email, friends, use this time to set goals for your day at work. If lunch is meant for one hour, use 30 minutes and the next 30 minutes to work on some urgent things at the job. Having the spirit of excellence will take you above and beyond. You will be promoted, your boss will recommend you for a salaryraise, or even for a bigger job somewhere else.

     

    2.Having a Spirit of Excellence In Your Business

    If you have a business, you should know the adage: “The customer is ever right.” I want to add on, even when the customer is not right, make them believe they are right. I see many Ugandan businesses where a customer is pleading with someone to attend to them, I see many businesses where customers are judged based on their looks, what they wearing and the cars they are driving. Friends excellence dictates that in your business, every customer is important, every coin is important and Indian Businessmen know this very well, you complain of not having enough sells in your business but you keep shouting at your customers, you complain of your restaurant making losses, but your tables are full of dust, your waiters and waitresses are all dressed shabbily, they don’t put on a smile. They are harsh. God is looking out for those businesses where the spirit of excellence is alive. Until your business is doing things excellently, it’s doomed for failure.

     

    3.Excellence in Your Relationships

    Men, excellence dictates that you keep surprising your wife. Excellence dictates that you surprise her with a day-trip to someplace she had never thought possible, with a shopping spree. Excellence dictates that when you are having sex with your wife, you don’t just last one minute and begin sweating, no, you last 20 minutes, or even 30, or even 50 and that’s for the first round. And ladies, excellence dictates that during sex, you don’t just lie down like a log, you are active, you are a tigress in bed. It is scriptural and God will look at this excellence to make your relationship blossom. Men, excellence dictates that once in a while you change the babies diapers, you mow the lawns, you do the dishes, you wake up in the middle of the night to make the baby stop crying. Ladies, excellence dictates that you dress to your best, you wake up and bring your man coffee in the morning, that when he returns from work, you give him that super hug and follow it with a cold glass of juice. So ladies, today go out, deep your hands deep into his wallet and get yourself a new dress, abandon that dress with flowers that your grandma wore, passed it one to your mom and now your are continuing the generational wear. Even at home ladies, your husband should not find you smelling of smoke, it should be some sweet perfume. And men, remember to wash your boxers, to keep your socks in one place and to shave more often.

     

    Friends when you nurture the spirit of excellence, God is going to raise you up. Excellence is what you do with what God has given you. If God has given you a one bed-roomed house, don’t just whine, complain,wake-up every day and clean it up, organize it. God will lift you into a mansion. And ladies, if God has given you a bad boy, don’t dump him, show him the love, that love will change him into Mr.Right, into Prince Charming. And when your break up with someone from a relationship, don’t go around bad-mouthing them, saying this or that about them, spilling every secret they shared with you, no excellence dictates that you keep every thing confidential. Let your Exs be proud to have you as an Ex. Excellence dictates that if she told you this and that about her family, you don’t date a new girl and tell her about what she told you.

     

    Excellence dictates that while calling your husband for lunch, you add on the words ‘Please.” and men, however much she’s a poor cook, remember to complement her food. “If she cooked rice and it turned out like posho,” excellence says that you should appreciate the fact that she got her hands dirty cooking, so tell her, “Wow, honey, thanks you that food, you are really a good catering student.” Friends God is looking at how you are doing things, how you are respecting people, how you talk back to everyone. If your mum calls you, please tone down your voice, humble yourself. If a taxi conductor denies you your change, don’t exchange words, simply walk-on. When you go wrong, remember to say Sorry. Ladies if he cheats on you, don’t go on a revenging rampage of sex, no, sit him down and try to work it out and Men, excellence says, “You should never cheat while in a relationship.”

     

    Nurture the spirit of excellence. Begin to do things excellently. Wake-up, and lay your bed, don’t wait for visitors before you can dust your house. Don’t put plates under the bed, put them in the cupboard. In your academics, when you get a retake, and you honestly find that you go it, don’t try to bribe your way out, go ahead and do that retake so that when you graduate with that degree, you will walk with the swag knowing it was your hard-earned degree. God is looking at all these things, how excellently you are preparing for the exam, how excellently you are listening to your lecturers.

     

    Without excellence, forget about permanent success. Without excellence, every success you achieve will be temporary. Be excellent in your talking, be excellent in how you dress up. Don’t put on an Arsenal jersey on a Monday, you are representing the Almighty God, save the jersey for a Friday evening, or for a Saturday. People are looking at you wherever you go, they may not tell you but they are noticing. You are the only Bible some people will ever read. When you say you are born-again, represent God well, let’s not see you wearing a worn-out shoe, let’s not see you ever annoyed. You should make people yearn to experience the life of being a born-again.

     

    So go out today, be excellent in all you do and I can guarantee that success is yours for the taking. You will see that job promotion, you will see that sweet-happily ever after marriage, men will look at you as wife-material (even when your facial looks are not all that stunning). You will see your business grow, you will see that disease healed, you will arise and shine and behold you will declare what the lord has done for you. God is taking you to places you had never dreamed of or thought possible if only you will begin to become excellent. Be blessed.

    The Power of Influence, The Power of Association, The Power Running Your Life

    It‘s often said, that a person is the average of the five to six people he/she associates with on a daily basis. When I look down to my own life, I can see that the times I associated with lazy people, the more I slipped into the lazy mode.  My own father became a gambling expert after associating with gambling experts. And when he woke up to the realization, he was able to work hard and begin another Newspaper company. 

     

    We under-estimate the power that our friends have over us, perhaps we think that we can win them over with our own good habits or that our self-control is at its best.  But it is all clear, if you look around; you earn an amount equal to the average that your friends earn. So if you friends earn an average of $100 dollars a month, I can predict with a high degree of accuracy that you earn more or less the same. 

     

    When I wanted to become a writer, I began associating more with writers, to become an entrepreneur, I began befriending entrepreneurs. Being near people of the like-mind will influence you to reach your goal faster. If I was to do it over again, I would never hang out in places that billionaires don‘t. Even in my pursuit to becoming a billionaire, I know I must enforce this.

     

    I may not have Richard Branson as a friend face to face but I can have him as a friend through what he writes. If I dedicate an hour to reading what he does, his lifestyle, how he spends money, how he invests, he will have a real big influence on me over-time. In fact if this one hour is uninterrupted, they I can as well say, he‘s one of my close friends. Do you think it‘s a coincidence that rich men hang out at exclusive clubs? Do you think it‘s just natural that there are clubs with restricted membership? Why would the richest meet again and again, because they keep influencing each other to earn more.

     

    If you want to lose weight, you can‘t hang around obese people, gluttons and think you will hit the target. You will have to befriend those people that are achieving the exact results you hope to achieve. If you plan on becoming a doctor, they what makes you stay around musicians? You will become a musician instead.  The law of association is like the law of gravity, it does not matter whether you are a good man or not, if you jump from a high building, you will still fall. 

     

    Who Are You Around? Don‘t spend major time with minor people. Very often, our decisions, major or minor, are shaped by those whom we associate with. One of the crucial elements of exceptional living is taking time to carefully assess the type of people we are around and how they directly or indirectly influence our lives.

     

    Key          phrase:          Never          underestimate          the          power          of                influence.

     

    1. If you are around those people that spend all they make, chances are excellent you will eventually get to spend all you make.
    2. If you around those who party every weekend and attend every sport events on Sundays, chances are excellent you will adopt their habits.
    3. If you are around those that do nothing but complain, moan and groan about bad economy, bad governance, high taxes, bad employer, then chances are high that you will follow suit.
    4. If you are around people that don‘t read many books, never attend business seminar, nor watch a motivational video, chances are excellent, you will.
    5. If you are around people that don‘t spend time with people of substance, chances are excellent you will, eventually.

     

    People around us can keep nudging us off course until 5 years from now, you will ask, ―how the hell did I get here?

    Three questions to ponder

    1. Who am I around?
    2. What are they doing to me?
    3. Is That OK?

     

     

    Don‘t spend major time with minor people. Minor people, will reduce your value until they reduce you to nothing but like them 5 years from now.

     

    Who are you around? Who do you listen to when it comes to relationship advice? Do you listen to that person who has been through five divorces for advice as far as how to make a relationship work or to that man who has kept his marriage rocking sweet for years?  Honestly, what is the financial attitude of those around you? This is serious, even your family members may somehow influence you to failure. Some of my family members are great pessimists; I had to cut them out of my sphere of influence. Not that they are bad people, but we are not on the same frequency.  Yes we talk as family members but when it comes to taking advice, I keep my ears close to them.

     

    What are the people around you doing to you? Which places do they advise you to hang out at? What drinks do they prefer? Are they turning you into a vegetarian or into some other ‗meatarian‘ of sorts? How are they influencing your spending culture? How about your reading culture? 

     

    And finally, is that okay with you? Is it okay that all they do with money is spending it? Is it okay with you when you keep dumping lover after lover? Is it okay that they don‘t sacrifice some time and spend it with their families? Is all that okay with you? If it is, five years from now, you won‘t be any different from their walk of life. You may be that guy who will whine about how he got to that level of sinking finances, sinking brains or you may be that guy who will say, ―had it not been for those friends of mine, I would have ended up poor.‖ It‘s all up to you. Your friends are either making you or breaking you. There is nothing intermediate. If they are breaking you, trim them, if they are making you, stick closer. 

     

     

    You Gain More by Setting Big Goals That Scare You

    The greatest value in life is not what you get. The greatest value in life is what you become. The major question asked before you take up a job should not be “What am I getting here? The major question asked in a job should be “What am I becoming here?” Too often we are so taken up by reaching that destination that we forget to admire the beauty in the journey to that destination.

     

     

    It is not what you get that matters. What matters is what you become in whilst in pursuit of what you want. Now when I look back at my life, I can say, the greatest joy was not in completing school, but the experience of going through that challenge. Even when beginning a business, we should focus on the experience, it will give you a better perspective to the whole struggle.

     

     

    My mentor said to me one time, ―Ian, you are, multi-talented, intelligent young man. So amongst all your goals, why don‘t you set a goal to be a Billionaire?  ―A billionaire!‖ This man must be crazy, I thought. Seeing doubt in my face, my mentor said; ―Youngman, it is not what you get that matters. It is what you become in pursuit of what you dream.‖  That wisdom, gave me added boost, energy and vitality to blast off that very day. And today, I can look back and say, woh! What a blessing to come across such words of wisdom.

     

    I have come to realize that when we set big goals, they should help enhance our present dimension. Big goals that actually scare us help us in growing. When I set a goal for myself, to be a billionaire at 22 years, it was all daunting,  and even greater fear encompassed me when I set another goal of writing two books in just a month as a 20 year old. 

     

    But I can say, if I could go back into my life and begin it all afresh, I would set more intimidating goals. I would set those goals that actually make people laugh at me. And above all,

    I would look forward to that experience and growth sequence as I strive to achieve those goals. 

    My goal of being a billionaire is hogwash for many, yet to me, it makes me look forward to each new day. Whether I hit that target or not, the hours of experience, the bank of my entrepreneurial experience will ever be the same again. I may hit the goal, I may not hit the goal, but I am certain, only a few if not any of my age mates in the whole world will be able to equal me in this field. 

     

    The challenge is how to know whether a goal is big or not. Too often we set those goals that make us feel comfortable, too often we set those goals where we are certain they are achievable. But for a person living consciously, these goals are stagnating, they will make you stunted. For example, if I set a goal to get a job, it would seem so good on paper, in fact I would go ahead to achieve it as fast as possible. But would it be worth it? Knowing that I set that average goal that any other ordinary chap would set? How will I grow by setting such a simplistic goal? 

     

    Until a goal can intimidate you, until a goal feels like a mere wish, then it‘s not big enough. If you tell it to your friends and none of them laughs at you, forget that goal, it‘s all so ordinary, it‘s not even a goal. It‘s another of those to-do-lists anyone can pursue.

     

    But when you set a goal, don‘t question your abilities? Too often we put ourselves down. We all look at ourselves with all honesty, look at the bank account and just say, ―I think I just have no abilities of reaching this destination.‖  But I have seen people set goals of losing weight and doing it so fast, I have seen paupers become millionaires, I have seen illiterates go back to school and come back with degrees. Are they any different from you? Do they have something that you don‘t have? No, but they know and do something that you don‘t. That‘s the only secret. Like it‘s been said before: ―You will stay at the same level in life except for the books you read and the people you meet.‖ But I wish to add, that except for how consciously you grow every day.  When I arise every day, I have one goal in mind, to use every hour to work on bettering my life. I don‘t squander my life delving into distractions, senseless arguments, picking up battles, surfing away my life on the internet. Every hour is valuable in the course of achievement of your goal. 

     

    If for just one hour every day, you chose to work towards one big goal in your life, you would achieve it in a space of just a year. So every day, I work on becoming a billionaire by 22 years and I am certain I must hit this target, but if I don‘t, I look forward to the person I will have become in the pursuit of this goal. At least I will have a billionaire mindset, I will know what works and what does not, I will have found out very many ways of how not to become a billionaire, I will have interacted with many people. The possibilities are endless; there is so much richness in this journey of running after your goal. That is the richness you should savour , it‘s the true definition of living. 

    MODELLING—-The Quicker Way To Success!!!

    I am in my creative state of flow at the moment. In this moment, I can write over 10 articles in 15 minutes. I am not bragging, but it’s reality. So there is a method I discovered from observation.

     

    I call it, “The Con-man’s way to success.” Not that it’s illegal, it’s simply because every one can use it to change their life and achieve whatever they desire.

     

    So I want to teach you about MODELLING. In modelling, you simply find out a person who is achieving the results you want in life, someone who’s earning the amount of money you want to earn, someone who’s dating the kind of girls you want to date, someone who’s the you that you wish to become. When you find this person, you find out the things they do then try to do the same things with accuracy or even better, I can guarantee that there is a 99% chance you will achieve the same results.

     

    I have seen people read what I write go on to earn more than me. I don’t feel bad about it, It gives me the happiness. So, here’s the trick, here are the steps:

     

    1.What Kind of life do you want to have? What house do you want to live in, what kind of car do you want to drive, how much do you want to earn?

     

    2.If you look around you, is there someone achieving the exact results you would like to achieve? Who’s this person?

     

    3.What things does this person do? When does he wake up? How much time does he spend on Facebook? Where does he hang-out? How are his relationships? How much does he save and spend? What things does he spend on?

     

    4.Become a clone of that person, do the same things he does, copy and paste his habits.

     

    5.There is a 99.9% chance you will achieve the same results.

     

    Now, there is also reverse modelling. Here, you simply find a person who’s achieving the results you don’t want to achieve. You find that person who’s living the kind of life you hate. Find out the things he does and make sure you never do the same things. If someone is ever stressed, bored at his job, find out what he does and eliminate all that he does from your life. You will be able to avoid falling in the same trap as this person.

     

    Modelling is a great thing. I have used modelling to have any kind of personality desire. I can decide to be super shy or super boring, I can decide to become a super comedian. I am at this point in life where I am using modelling for the fun of it. It’s an enjoyable process. it’s one of the quickest ways to success, in business, in academics and in all areas of life. If I want to begin a restaurant, I will simply choose a restaurant achieving the results I would like to achieve, model it and employ the same model in my restaurant. If they prepare burgers in a certain way, I will prepare them in the same way.

     

    That’s the copy and paste way to success. It’s one of the quickest ways to success. So let the games begin. Choose any person you want to model. And test the method.

    THE LAZY WAY TO SUCCESS (Doing Little Things And Gaining More)

    I have been in Asylum Gym for my weight-lifting program. One thing I have learned is that you don’t begin with the 10Kg weights, you go on slowly, you build progressively. This reminds me of my Senior One academic experience, I went from being the 100th out of 250 students to the 80th, to the 20th and finally to the 1st in my stream and 10th overall.

     

    So I want to give you a super fast approach to success that won’t stress you. I call it the lazy way to success, lazy because you don’t even realize that you are doing the changes not until you see the final results.

     

    The best way to success is through doing those little progressive continuous improvements every day. I did not begin writing all of a sudden, I went from writing just 3 word sentences then to 10 sentences then to a paragraph, now I am writing a book.

     

    If you decide to wake up 5 minutes earlier every day for 30 days, by the end of the month, if you previously used to wake-up at 10am, you will now be waking up at 7:30am.

     

    If you simply decide to save $1000 more every day, you will have saved more than 50K at the end of the month. It’s the LAW OF COMPOUNDING. I state this law by saying that if you build a foundation and add on just a few bricks every day, you will have a house in no time.

     

    So how about just praising your girlfriend/boyfriend with one more sweet word every day. On Monday, you say: “You are beautiful”, one Tuesday you say, “My honey, you are beautiful..” Go on adding to the sentence and you will have a fairy-tale relationship.

     

    With this lazy way to success, nothing is difficult. If you want to build a mansion, this is the time to start, open up a special account and decide to put some extra 10000Shs every day to that mansion fund.

     

    If you improve your health only 1% each day for the next 30 days, you will see a 30% increase in that dimension of your life in only 1 month. Same for every other area of your life, from your relationships to your career.

    Doesn’t seem so scary now does it?

    Can you make those little improvements in the areas most in need of

    improvement?

    Absolutely.

     

    Just make those little improvements. If you were rude to people, begin to smile to at least one person every day, next day, smile to two people, then compound to three people, then 4 people, at the end of the month, you will be smiling at over 30 people. And every one will think you’re an overnight success.

     

    That’s the lazy way to success. It’s the model I use. So easy isn’t it?

     

     

     

    How To Make Every New Year Better And Super Perfect

    As the year draws to an end, people are always sulking because they did not achieve the goals they had set out for that year. Many of the resolutions they came up with all went to waste.

    Surprisingly at the time of writing this, this has been my ‗bestest‘ year ever and 2013 is going to be much better a million times. 

     

    The mistake many people make is to set New Year resolutions that are out of frequency with their thought patterns and habits. For example, you don‘t simply set a goal that you will have such and such an amount on your bank account and continue doing nothing about it. 

     

    Personally, I don‘t set New Year goals, what I simply have is a life mission, a life vision and life targets. Every new day that begins, I strive out to be better than I was the day before. I guess, I am the only person who can swallow their ego and call up someone an hour after I use the Fword on them and say ―I am sorry‖. 

     

    Heard of people who talk of having bad days, I never have bad days. All my days are super perfect. I only have a few bad minutes. Like when some supermarket attendant annoys me then it is a bad minute not a bad day, how on earth can someone screw up 24 hours of mine. 

     

    ―If you challenge yourself, you will grow. Your life will change. Your outlook will be positive. It‘s not always easy to reach your goal but that‘s no reason to stop. Never say die. Say to

    yourself       ‗I       can       do        it.       I‘ll       keep        on       trying       until        I                  win.‘‖ 

     

    ―For me, there are two types of challenges. One is to do the bests I can at work. The other is to seek adventure. I try to do the both. I try to stretch myself to the limit. I am driven.‖ 

     

    Every day when I wake up, I realize I only have that day to make a mark on the world, I realize, I may pass on in my sleep with all these un-achieved dreams, with all these friendships that have been screwed. So basically, I grasp the day and make it my slave. 

     

    In a new year, you will need to have strong supports called friends. I am glad I have had friends who‘ve challenged me, who‘ve been there for me, who‘ve always propelled me to greater heights and I must doubly return the favour in the next year as I promised earlier. Those friends who sometimes have had to do my university assignments when I got so caught up at work or even called me to remind me of some course-work. You are the bestest I could ever ask for from God.  ―I believe in goals. It’s never a bad thing to have a dream, but I’m practical about it. I don‘t sit daydreaming about things that are impossible. I set goals and then work out how to achieve them. Anything I want to do in life I want to do well and not half-heartedly.‖ 

     

    ―If something is what you really want to do, just do it. Whatever your goal is you will never

    succeed          unless          you          let          go          of          your          fears          and                         fly.‖ 

     

    But don‘t waste a lot of time setting goals, instead waste a lot of time working on the goals. I work on one principle of screw it, but I must do it. I take that first step always. 

     

    “A journey of a thousand miles starts with that first step. If you look ahead to the end, and all the weary miles between, with all the dangers you might face, you might never take that first step. And whatever it is you want to achieve in life, if you don’t make the effort. You won‘t reach your goal. So take the first step. There will be many challenges. You might get knocked back – but in the end, you will make it.‖ 

     

    In a new year, you should also carry a notepad and a pen with you wherever you go. Many times, an idea will simply hit you unexpectedly. If you don‘t note it down, it will escape. Talk of the name BigEye.ug, I was watching this movie where Segun Arinze was acting then guess what I suddenly noticed his Big Eyes and my sister quickly said ―what big eyes he‘s got!‖ So I quickly knew that the website deserved such a name. 

     

    ―I have always written everything down in school notebooks. It started when I found reading and writing hard at school and, to make up for that, built up a very good long-term memory. Now I jot down key words in my notebooks and later, if I need to, I find a note and I can recall entire conversations. This has stood me in very good stead more than once when I have needed to prove something. But it‘s not just conversations – I also jot down my own thoughts. Anything I see and hear can spark an idea in me. I note it down at once and often look back through old notebooks to gain fresh ideas or to see what I might have missed. I would advise young people starting out in life to keep a notebook with them. It‘s a good habit to get into.‖  And finally always be open to new things, new opportunities, new challenges and new friends. I believe there is always a way around everything. Even if it‘s getting to work at State House, you can get there as a simple cleaner. And within no time, you will be a principal private secretary. 

     

    Always live your life like a virgin, keep your brain refreshed, and open to new styles of doing things. My mum is one of those people who inspire me. She has now adopted the use of an I-pad while making presentations, she joined Facebook, twitter and is now a maestro in social media. She is not rigid, she‘s dynamic. The new world belongs to dynamic people, people who change themselves and change their world.

     

     

     

    How About If Someone Is an EARLY WORM 

    ―The Early Bird Eats The Worm‖ so has the saying always been. But, what would happen if someone was the early worm and they mistook themselves for a bird? What do they eat? Don‘t they get eaten by the birds? 

     

    Some people are naturally nocturnal, others are day-lighters.  Nocturnals get more productive and successful by waking up so early and working during those times when most people are asleep. Such people can be said to be nocturnals or early birds. They are supposed to wake up early to eat the work. Birds need to wake up early, it pays off.

     

    However, for day-lighters or worms, the saying of being that early person does not apply. Some people are naturally worms, so in case they do wake up early, there is a possibility that they may get eaten by the early bird. 

     

    So in case one is an early worm? Of what use is it to wake up early to a stressful job or an unfulfilling career? Of what use is it to go back early to a stressing home, energy draining relationship or family? How about if you wake up early only to be knocked down by the rushing truck? Mornings are usually the rush of the moment; does it even pay to rush with the flow? Just because it works for most people does not make it a sure deal for your case. There is the exception of early worms? What do they get to eat other than getting eaten?  It may pay off for them to delay more. Perhaps their power lies in delaying. To them, delays may be a saviour from an early death, an early mistake, an early marriage that won‘t work out. 

     

    How to Know Where One Falls The question of course is: ―Am I an early bird or a worm?‖ How does one know where they fall? Under which category are they? It all comes back to the personality of a person. There is also a possibility of someone thinking they are a worm but when in the real sense, they are birds or the vice versa.

     

    For example, during my final year of junior high school, I knew of friends who were worms but they forced themselves to become birds towards exams. They would wake up earlier than usual and get down to reading. In the end, many of them failed, they were worms who got eaten up because of following what the majority were doing. However I also know of those who thought they were worms instead of birds yet they were wrong.

     

    Worms are so dependent on easier conditions. Their bodies are naturally made in such a way that they will thrive if they stress themselves less. The success of worms is supposed to come naturally I should say. They are supposed to go through life at the pace which their body dictates. No matter how early they wake up, they can never get the results the birds get. In fact, in most cases they end up declaring that waking up so early never works for them. If they do wake-up early, they will spend the rest of the day feeling dozy.

     

    Steve Pavlina, a personal development blogger has an interesting fact her referred to as 30 day trials. 30 day trials are good at finding out the exact category in which one falls. In a 30 day trial, you try out something consistently for 30 days and check out whether it works for you or not. It is like computer software where you are given a 30 day trial period before you make a decision of purchasing and adopting such software.

     

    Using 30 day trials

    So for the next 30 days, try waking up earlier than usual and get to work in those moments, maintain this for 30 days. If after 30 days, you don‘t notice any real changes in your life tending towards success then you are obviously a worm. After 30 days, one has adopted a new habit and so if after 30 days, this habit has failed to positively impact on your life then it is not for you. 

     

    You can actually choose to do 30 day trials of waking up early then noting down the results. One can then do 30 day trials of waking up when your body dictates and note these results too. Compare the results of the two experiments and see which of the two made you go a step higher in your life. If waking up early impacted on you then you are an EARLY BIRD thus you need to wake up early every day of the week. If waking up late worked better then you are an early worm.

     

    And again, being an early worm is no excuse for laziness. It simply dictates the pace by which you handle life.  You simply can‘t rush through life if that‘s not your nature. 

     

    The Close-Up

    Does it pay to get up so early and get eaten by the early bird? Think about this, you wake up so early only to be knocked down by a speeding car; you rush so early only to catch your lover redhanded cheating on you.

     

    I think one needs to check out their true personality. Some people are worms, others are birds. I think I am a bird because, I can’t even stand waking up after 5am, I automatically lose my sleep by 4:30am, It’s not that anyone forces me, but it just happens because that’s me, that’s my nature. And I have seen others who even struggle to wake up at 7am or 8am. 

     

     If you are an early worm, then what you may need is some rest. After-all, even God took rest.

    You may need some rest from that stressing job, that stressing relationship, that stressing career. Just take some hibernation far away from the madding crowd.

     

     But then again, if you are a bird and you wake up late, then what do you eat? You are screwed. Whatever works, the bottom line is in finding out where you personality falls; whether you are a bird or a worm.

     

    And the message is sound and clear. The early bird eats the worm and the early worm gets eaten by the bird. It may be interesting to know what happens for the hybrids. Those that fall between worms and birds, perhaps they are what we term as normal or average people.  An average person needs 7-8 hours of sleep so they say. But in most cases, people are always at the extreme, you either need lots of sleep or less sleep. 

     

    How to Make Your Passion Your Profession

     The secret to enjoying life is to turn those things that excite you, those things you are deeply passionate about into your profession. Forget about whether this profession will pay the bills or not, simply begin doing it, give value and people will pay for this value. One of those people who turned their passion into their profession is Dr.Ssali-the naturotherapist. His passion of eating healthy natural foods and using them to treat almost every ailment saw him take it to a more serious level. Today, Dr.Ssali earns much more than what 90% of Ugandans earn.

     

     Porn-Stars are the only bunch of people who actually convert their dearest passion into their profession!!! I am using porn-stars because it’s one industry that tops in the whole world. The Porn-industry in America earns twice as much as what the other movie industry in Hollywood earns in 3 months. It is about people who turned their sexual addictions into a profession and are earning off it. Not that I am advocating for pornography, but I think that paints the picture well. In fact Our own Ugandan Porn Industry if what I am hearing is right, is doing so much better than the music industry.

     

     So what is it that you are passionate about in life? Are you passionate about helping people? Then begin something that helps people. Are you passionate about giving out ideas, begin something where people simply go in there and part with some money to get access to ideas.

     

     My passion in life has always been in helping people grow and mature consciously. I want to see people awakening to the real meaning of life, to live life to the fullest. So I turned this into a profession, I became a professional blogger at Fused Creatives

     

     My other passion was in coming up with something new, designing something never seen before. Only engineering could accommodate this and mechanical and manufacturing engineering to be precise. 

     

     So follow your heart, you won’t crash. Even if it means quitting what you are doing right now, go ahead quit it and begin working on your passion. Don’t get scared about running broke, In fact, I would rather you ran bankrupt over 2 times then pick yourself up. I tried many businesses that got me screwed up. But whether it screws you or not, as long as it’s your passion, you’ve got to do it. One of my Biology teachers in Form 4 was passionate about treating people, he taught for some time but still had to go back to medical school to pursue his passion, a year from now, he will be graduating as a doctor. So find what you love, find that which excites you.

     

    Take The Risk, Why Play It safe? 

     Look at the statistics, 150,000 people die every day-2 people per second. That is in the world. We can’t stop death, even though we may prolong it, we still have to face it. So why play our life so safe as if, if we do, we shall pass through death unhurt.

     

     

     Realize that you came on this earth naked and naked you shall live. Take the risks, have all the fun, try out different things. The reason bungee-jumping is on my schedule this year is because it’s one of my greatest fears (I have lived through life conquering my fears). So stop being timid.

     

     If you hate that job, send in the resignation letter and go do something you love. If you are annoyed about the President, do something about it (if you get poisoned or killed? so what). Begin that business, drop out of that university course if it does not interest you. I have dropped out of a couple of computer courses weeks before the certificates would be handed over. I felt my presence was no longer needed. One of those was a Havard computer online course. 

     

     Take those bold steps. Why stay in a relationship if you have no joy in it? Why live in a place you don’t enjoy? Life is not some sort of game you are trying to play safe so you come out alive. No matter how well you play it, you will still face the grave-our destiny is the same-we all end up dead.

     

     So wake up and work on your dreams and live a life of no regrets, whatever you want, go for it. Go for that money, go for that love, go for that education. If it’s what you really love, pursue it. I have shuffled from religion to religion, I was born anglican, baptized catholic, raised Born-again. But I have tried out being an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist for a week and a hindu. If it does not excite you, if it does not make you happy then it’s the wrong path for you. I told a friend doing a course he will never want, he’s studying education, I told him boldly, if you hate it, don’t waste even a day, drop out. The world will appreciate you for following you heart and not following its expectations. Don’t be afraid about what people will think when you do this or thatenjoy your life to the maximum

     

     ―Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and wellpreserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming … WOW, what a ride.‖

     

     I want to come to the end of my life and shout out loud-WOW, what a super ride it was! On my funeral, I want happiness to be all-over the air over a life fully lived. (I want rock and techno music to be played)-hope you get the feeling. If God chooses to take me tomorrow, I am ready because everyday it’s a life lived to the maximum—what a ride, what an adventure-so breathtaking. Life is a movie and I am the film star and the director.   The Bottom Line is: Don’t let fear stop you from partaking the awesome adventure that life is meant to be…

     

    The Power Of Focus And Grabbing The Opportunity 

     Imagine you‘re outside on a beautiful sunny day, and you have in one hand a magnifying glass and in the other a dried oak leaf. Hold the magnifying glass at a certain angle that focuses the sun‘s rays onto the leaf, and what happens? The leaf catches fire. That‘s the power of focus. Guess what happens when you learn to focus your ideas and intention? That‘s when your life lights up.

     

     Yesterday while at National Theatre, Patrick Bitature who was not well sent in a representative. It was a guy who to me actually made my day. He was some Jewish guy who learned how to code at only 8 years, he has worked on all these big projects, made companies that earn million dollars but he still lives a simple life.

     

     After hearing him speak about being a computer wizard, an entrepreneur and a microbiologist, I was already excited. I knew I need to have this guy on the team at Fused Creatives so I kept focusing on how to pitch myself in the shortest time possible.

     

     When he finished, he headed out. On his way out, all these numbers of people were coming his way saying “Thank you Joel” but that was not my focus, I said; “Excuse me Joel, Just a minute..”

     

     He was amazed, he stopped and we talked like we had known each other for years. I told him about my two websites, and other plans and asked if he could buy shares in the blog plus contribute to the blog as a writer, it was all a YES. I had managed to pitch myself, get his personal contacts and get him to remember my name.

     

     So how many people saw Joel? Tens and Tens, how many wanted to speak to him? Many of them, How many of them took a step? None 

     

     The bottom line is in learning to grab the opportunity as it comes. In fact when I got my first appointment with Bitature, it was an event. He was seated at the back alone and so I approached him and pitched myself. In just 2 minutes, we had connected.

     

    Turning Laziness Into A Success Driving Force

    Bill Gates once said, ―I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job…because he will find an easy way to do it.‖  For centuries we have heard of hard-work and employing workhorses in jobs for a great productivity.

     

    But deep within each of us, there is that lazy person. That lazy you that sometimes dreads doing their laundry, dreads doing something. It is like there is a resistance in you. A laziness syndrome of sorts seems to exist in each one of us.

    Why Lazy Bones Are Needed On a team

    But here is a solution, if you don‘t have a lazy person on your team, then that team will definitely fail in terms of creativity and innovation. It will always do things the hard way and waste a lot of time.

     

    I am here to declare that laziness pays off. It can be turned into a strengths factor. A lazy person will always find an easy way to do something and in the shortest time possible. They aim at using the least amount of effort to come up with a great product that sustainably competes with products that too a lot of hard-work.

     

    One of my best blogs and most visited fashion blog is www.rookiemag.com To many, rookie comes off as an epitome of laziness. But out of the laziness came something creative, something attractive. The moment you open Rookie, you get addicted.

     

    A tip for every boss out there is to always have someone lazy on the team. Lazy people have these extraordinary way they view things. They view things from a perspective of getting done with it easily.  A lazy person knows someone who can do what they can‘t do. They are good at networking. They have this amazing ability of spotting talent that they need to make their life easy. Lazy people are wonderful, they are creative and every team needs at least one lazy person on board.

     

    Even in education, lazy people always find easy ways of doing things. I remember during my high school, one of my friends, Alinda always had these better and easier approaches to questions. He would calculate a number in fewer steps and in an easier way. I learned a tip from him that lazy people are always into the habit of discovering ways to make things easier.  Lazy people know how to manage time surprisingly. The person who invented the alarm clock was one lazy chap who could not tune himself to the habit of dragging himself out of bed manually. The person who came up with the Speech recognition software on a computer saved time by making writing way easier by simply dictating words as a computer writes.

     

    All the innovations that are to follow in the next years shall be as a result of someone‘s laziness. Even billionaires are a result of laziness. They had that wish of not working hard at a job and get paid peanuts everyday so they came up with easier strategies to make them earn more than enough. Lazy people are simply exceptional.

     

    And for parents, once you discover that you have a lazy child, begin asking them to help you solve problems. Their level of quickness will leave you in awe.  I have that lazy drive in me that sees me want to achieve more with the least amount of effort. And, I am always coming up with systems of passive income, I have been branded that Virgin of online business, I am always opening new websites and new blogs because this brings me income with less effort. I also try to write timeless articles, articles that can be read even after I am gone, articles that could be read even before I was born. They are not dependent on time. It is because of this lazy syndrome in me that I pursue such a path.

     

    So how do you discover that lazy instinct in you and how do you turn it into strength to improve your life for the better? Begin off by listing things that naturally come off as hard for you? Perhaps it is programming or writing. Then begin searching for easy ways of solving such problems. My best sites are always those that give tips for dummies or for idiots.  They always give off the best tips to do things laziness but get them done with perfection. 

     

    That laziness in you may be the answer that you have always needed to push you to the next level of greatness. If you can only put that laziness in you to work, then development will come easily and faster lazy bones. 

     

    FACING YOUR FEARS, DOING WHAT YOU LOVE

    When You Do What You Love, Hard Work Becomes Effortless

     Does it take effort to have fun in life? Again, perhaps it does. But when you’re having fun and loving your life, will you even care about the effort? Will you even notice it? Or will you be too absorbed in the fun to fuss over how much action you had to take?

     

     Many people tend to think that Hard-work is something that’s meant to stress you and make you sweat. I disagree with this school of thought. I believe hard-work becomes strenuous only if you hate what you are doing.

     

     My own father was the true definition of a Workaholic. At Daily Monitor and The Observer, he was always the first in office and the last out of office. But never at any one time did I hear him whine and grumble. He gave it his all, he was passionate about journalism, journalism excited him to the core.

     

     I don’t differ from him either. Never at any one point in my engineering course have I cried out that I am stressed. Hard-work comes naturally, it’s effortless because I always wanted to be a Mechanical and Manufacturing engineer, my heart is fused with everything I do everyday. 

     When you are passionate about something, life becomes effortless. It’s like you are doing so little but gaining so much. You put in minimum effort but get out maximum output. There is simply no resistance. It can be said, that you are soaring through life, you are flowing effortlessly to greatness like the waters of a river.

     

     How do you come to this point? That point where you wake up so excited-that you can’t stay any minute longer in bed once your alarm goes off. 

     

     It’s all about discovering your purpose in life. The real reason as to why you exist. The day a person discovers why they are born is the day they rise to greatness. Mark twain once said that the two most important days in a person’s life is the day they are born and the day they discover why. I want to differ a little bit. “The Two most important days in your life is the DAY you discover why you were born and the DAY you begin to effect that purpose.”

     

    You Don’t Choose A Passion

     One of the mistakes I see many people make is to go in for something and hope that they will enjoy it or love it along the way. I find this paradigm stupid in a way. I mean, how often do you hear people say : LOVE WHAT YOU DO. How can I love what I do when I never did it because I love it? The real thing should be DO ONLY WHAT YOU LOVE.

     

     That is why we have a syndicate of doctors that hate what they do, they went in for it without a passion. 

     

     One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don‘t choose your passions; your passions choose you. You can’t force an interest. I tried to force an interest in hockey while at Kitovu. I was a good hockey player but it was not my interest. I was not passionate about it. The same happened when I tried to force a passion of music. I wrote 2 books of lyrics that I will never release, I even freestyled at rap events with the Bavubuka allstarz. 

     

    But one day, I woke up and the passion of engineering chose me, the passion of writing chose me, the passion of doing personal development and growth chose me. These are things that came naturally for me. That’s why I can spend a semester without stepping in a lecture room and still maintain my grades.

     

     The bottom line is: You don’t choose your passions, your passions choose you. And that’s with the team at BigEye.ug They are doing what they love, they are excited about it every single day. I can spend a year off BigEye.ug and it will still run because the people breathe it, they smile, it, they eat it.

     

     So ask yourself one question: Before you start that business, is it your passion or you are starting it simply because it is the profitable thing at the moment? Before you do that course at campus, find out whether it’s your passion? And if you are still in your 20s, keep trying out different things until you land on your passion. Experiment, do trials and errors. For example, after trying out as an employee, I know, my passion is never to be employed, my passion is to build systems and watch money work for me 24-7.

     

    What Would Happen IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD NOT FAIL?

     I had a personal development interaction with my sister in which I asked her 99 questions about her. But the best of questions was when I asked her, “What would happen if you knew you would not fail?” She told me of how she would go back to the camp she had during her vacation and walk over a piece of wood which is over 3 meters from the ground. She missed this because she thought she would fail.

     

     Many of us never started businesses because we thought we would fail. My father kept saying that the reason few people start newspapers in Uganda is because they always know they would fail. 

     

     But today, I want to request you to do something. I want you to assume that there is no failure whatsoever, that no one will reject you. Do it for only today and see the results.

     

    For example, I know many guys end up dying with their feelings when they see a beautiful girl because they know they will fail and get rejected. How about if I told them, that the specific girl was head over heels for them, many of them would approach without failure in mind? 

     

     What would you do if you knew you would not fail? My sister went on to tell me that she would do PEM at A-Level. If I knew I would not fail, I would still do the same things I am doing. May be, If I knew I would not fail, I would wake up today, go to State House, and leave a message for the president that says, “Please step down, we want Muhoozi as president….”

     

     If you knew you would not fail, what would your career be like? If you knew you would not fail, wouldn’t you ask your boss for a pay rise? If you knew you would not fail, would you still be stuck at that job? If you knew you would not fail, would you still be hitched up, cohabiting with a man who will never marry you? If you knew you would not fail, what businesses would you begin? What cars would you drive, which people would you call up? Which women would you approach, which foods would you eat?

     

    What Really Excites You

     Have you ever felt this burning urge to have sex? That awkward moment when you are just ready to do it? Now I want to ask another question, have you ever got to a point where you have things to which you are sexually attracted. For example, do you have some goals or dreams in life that you really feel sexually attracted to? What really excites you? 

     

     Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your ―passion‖ or your ―bliss,‖ I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement. This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn‘t, ―What do I want?‖ or ―What are my goals?‖ but ―What would excite me?

     

     For example, I am excited every moment I see people who were dreaming small getting to dream and think big. I am excited when I see people getting energized to follow their heart and achieve their dreams. I am excited at growing and helping people grow. I enjoy it when I get messages in my inboxes from people who get inspired by my life story. 

     

    I am excited when I make people’s lives simpler and more fulfilling. In fact, I enjoy writing to make a difference. It’s this excitement that makes me wake up at 5am to run Fused Creatives or BigEye.ug or type an article for Daily Monitor. 

     

     I am excited by my dreams. If a dream does not excite me, I do not pursue it. If an idea does not excite me, I do not implement it. I am excited waking up at 5am and writing a page for my bookThe Virgin of Online Business –(Loving what you do to live the life you love) 

     

     So what really excites you? Are you excited by your job? Are you excited when you wake up to go for those lectures? Are you excited by your boy/girlfriend? Do you give off that —wooooow– when you wake up. It is excitement that drives me every day, in fact, I hate it when my sleep time comes, I just can’t always wait for a new day even when it’s a Monday.

     

     Find something that excites you, chase it and when you catch it, you will catch true success and happiness.

     

     

    What Is Happiness

    I am sure many of you have read those regrets that people make while dying. Things like; “I wish I had spent more time with my friends.” I wish I had spent more time with my family and less time at my job or business. 

     

    You see, the rat race is so blinding. The study-hard get a good job work-hard, begin a family, pay bills syndrome has made people to forget to ever ask themselves what is the meaning of happiness.

     

    There is the temporary external happiness that people get from making achievements. But happiness needs a personal definition. For example, Bebe Cool may not be rich as Chameleone but he is happy and that is true success. Happiness is not dependent on how many cars or houses you own. Happiness is much more than this.

     

    So what is happiness? I think happiness is that smile you have when you are told that you are only left with a week to live on earth. Happiness is what you have when you are all alone, no friends, no cars, houses or laptops or even food but only you alone.

     

    Happiness is what you feel in those silent moments when you lose track of time and space. I discovered that happiness comes from the inside of you. You don’t acquire it, you bring it out from the deeper part of you. In November last year, I emptied my bank account, gave out the money to various people and made sure  told no one about it. But in that moment without a single coin in my wallet, I found happiness. I found that happiness could be achieved even before you get that job or meet that person.

     

    Happiness is when the world pushes you to the wall, adds another wall of you then sprinkles cold water on you and you still have that smile on your face. Happiness is when you are in your bed all alone and you are still glad and laughing. 

     

    When my father went to be with the Lord, as I was reposing by his grave, I felt him ask me to make a wish. To me, my wish would be that he resurrects there and then. But all of a sudden, it’s like I had a voice tell me.

     

    “Ian you had the chance to make a wish and all that you wished for is for me to come back to life. You could have wished to end world poverty, you could have wished to find a cure for cancer, you could have wished to stop wars in the world.” That voice reprimanded me and changed me and I realized that even after a person is dead, there is that happiness. With tears running down my cheeks, I realized that happiness is also seeing death is a sweeter perspective. 

     

    My dad’s life also taught me that happiness is what you do for others, the smile you put on another person’s face with the little you have and the portion of your life you give to others. My father always aimed that people be free, that people be liberated, he mentored other journalists freely; our Naalya home was like a welcome place for people from all walks of life. And that was happiness. 

     

    And even for all businesses I have started; my sole aim has never been to make profit. My sole aim is to put a smile of people’s faces, to impact them, to make a difference. Happiness in life is when you know that with whatever you are doing, you are making a difference in the world. 

     

    Even when I write annoying status updates, to me that’s happiness. When I make people react, that’s happiness. I am helping them grow; I am helping them to think. 

     

    You can define success in your own way but to me, happiness is simply the smile you get with that portion of your life that you give to the world and make a difference.

    How to Save Time To PURSUE YOUR DREAMS

    The puzzle in life is that we always know what we want to do, but we are either scared of venturing out, we don’t have the money or worse still, we don’t have the time. We all want to pursue our dreams but we don’t know how to start off. So Here are my few suggestions.

     

    1. Begin working on your dreams on a Part-Time Basis

    In case you want to run a Fashion website but you are employed somewhere, get someone to design for you the website then use the weekends to update this site. Go on working on the site only on those days when you are free. Don’t quit your job until you are certain it’s what you want to do for the next few years. So if you are earning a salary, you can choose to cut off 10% every month and dedicate it towards your dream funds, open a special account and deposit this money there to help fund your dreams-whether it’s to start a new business or go on vacation.

     

    2.Begin to Free-Up Your time bu eliminating Non-Value Addition activities

    How many people here still do their laundry? How many people here still cook their own meals? How many people here don’t buy things in bulk? So in order to free up your time, you will have to use the elimination method. I have stated a new law which I term as the law of Elimination, it says: “In order to have time for your dreams, you may have to eliminate whatever is stealing the time for your dreams.” Personally, I gave up on doing my own laundry, I realized that wasting one hour every weekend was not worth it, that one hour could be put to better use. I gave up on doing my own shopping for clothes and other attires. I delegated this to my mum, I trust her on this, at least ever since she took up the job, I have got complements on my fashion style. I tried to eliminate every activity that was not adding to my wallet or to my brain, I began turning down some offers. Over time, I have turned down some business deals because I felt they were diverting me from my goals. So look into your life and remove the unimportant.

     

    1. Practice moments of silence

    A day has 24 hours but we all need at least an hour of me-time. I have 2 hours of me-time every day. By this I mean, no matter how much I love you, I can never pick your phone during this time. During this time, I look deep into my self and ask myself the questions: “What is it that really makes me happy?” If today was my last day, what’s that one thing I would be happy doing?” I then take out time to think about my dreams, short-term goals, long-term goals and how to achieve them faster. So make sure, you take out at least 15 minutes of every day to meditate in silence about your life. It will enable you to be clear about your goals.

     

    4.Don’t mistake being busy for being productive

    It takes me jut 10 minutes to write a 2000 word article. I am trying to perfect a system where I don’t edit my articles and try to have them come out near to perfection. But there is a sweet principle known as the PARETO PRINCIPLE. The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. 80% of the marks you get in an exam come from just 20% of the hand-outs you revised. 80% of the money in your life comes from just 20% of your sources. So the secret is to find out the 20% of the things you are doing that are giving you 80% of your results. Among all your friends, who are those 20% that are impacting 80% on your life, these are the friends to focus on, you can forget about the rest. In order to get efficient and have time for your dreams, find out 20% ways that will enable you achieve 80% of your dreams and focus on these ways.

     

    1. Build A Team of Smart People

    I once heard Patrick Bitature say that he never employs people who are not smarter than him. I also agree that if you are smarter than your friends then, consider them a liability. So build a team of people that can help you to work on your dreams. I have a big team of such people, people who will work on my dreams as I go out on a vacation or spend some time with my family. Begin to associate with people who are brighter than you in certain aspects. If your dream is to be an entrepreneur, begin to associate with successful businessmen and steal their strategies and modify them to suit you. Bring bright people to your team and make them your clones. Impart your dreams into them and pay them to fulfill your dreams.

     

    6.Face Your Fears Hands On

    Sometimes we all have the time to pursue our dreams but we have this burning fear. We have that fear that will stop you from asking someone for a loan, we have that fear that stops us from taking action. Now I would like to implore you to face your fears so that you can have time to pursue your dreams. Right now, I have no fear whatsoever, I feared death, but that I fear nomore, I feared failure until I learned that it was one of the course-units of success. To conquer your fears, you have to face them hands-on, it’s the surest way of conquering your fears. If you fear to speak in public, sign up for a debating contest, join some leadership race and vie for some position. If you fear talking to girls, challenge yourself to talk to at least one new girl every day for 30 consecutive days. During my training as a pick-up artiste, I set myself a challenge of not going back home every day until I had spoken to 2 new girls every day. The first 2 weeks were really so hard but in the last 2 weeks, it became a habit. The law of habits states that, it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. so if your dream is to be a writer, why not begin contacting various newspaper editors, I am sure among the many, at least one or two will reply and give you the chance.

     

    Otherwise, we should all pursue our dreams no matter how hard it may seem. The time we spend not working on our dreams, someone will confuse us and make us work on their dreams. You are either pursuing your dreams or someone is making you help them to pursue theirs. There’s nothing intermediate. Your dreams are the important things in life, every other thing lies in the urgent part of life. Paying your house-maid is urgent but it’s not important. Planning for your children’s university education is not urgent but it’s important.

     

    If you could do just one thing everyday, at least pursue one of your dreams-even if it means quitting your job, dumping your girl/boyfriend or running away from home, if that’s the price to pay for pursuing your dreams.

    How to Find Your Passion, Purpose and MAKE MONEY Out of It

    When I was a child, I wanted to be a policeman. It was my greatest passion. I was inspired by Inspector Derrick on UTV (Uganda Television).

     

    In Primary Six, I felt I could make a journalist. And when I joined Primary 7, I thought, “Oh yeah, I should be an engineer.” In Form Two, my passions evolved once again. I felt the singing spirit in me. Suddenly, I felt I could make a good artiste-at least my voice gets amazing when in the bathroom. (If only I had a music studio in that place, I would have many albums.)

     

    But one thing is clear, I have tried out many things. I have done much of experimenting before saying this is what I want to be now, do now and earn now.

     

    Ten years from now, I can’t say I will be this or that. All I know is that I must be somewhere in the books of records, perhaps as the first billionaire to do this or that.

     

    Right now, it’s entrepreneurshi–p that resonates with me. It’s not even writing, it’s not even the engineering course I am pursuing now. My eyes are now more on the entrepreneurshi–p side of life. Even with my engineering course, all I see are manufacturing businesses, perhaps after my internship at Mukwano Industries, I should be able to begin my own industry. Who knows?

     

    So the question is, how does one find what they love doing and make money out of it. Let me give you a couple of steps.

     

    1. Try Out Different Things

    If you are still in your twenties, you still have all the time to experiment. If I had not become a rapper for a month, how could I have know that being an artiste is not my passion. The solution is in trying out different things and jumping on different projects. Read different books, read about sex, read about money, read about music, read about religion? You may find yourself getting obsessed with becoming a Porn-star or perhaps a religious monk? Meet different people. By doing all these things, and experimenting, you may be able to stumble on what you love doing by trial and error.

     

    And you will know it. If you find what you really love doing, you will feel a sexual attraction for it. When you are sexually attracted to a goal or purpose of life, you will have a compulsion to wake up every day to pursue it. It’s the same feeling I get when I get done to write for Daily Monitor or BigEye.ug, read about Mechanical Engineering or inspire people. I am sexually attracted to these activities. I just can imagine a life with all this fun. It feels like Heaven. Until a goal or an activity makes you feel horny, then it’s not what you are meant to do, jump onto another thing.

     

    1. Go Deeper into a Field

    When I felt the urge to become a writer, I decided to begin writing for Daily Monitor and before

    I knew it, I was hooked. May be, by the time this book gets published I may not be at Daily Monitor but I will still be a writer, even if it means doing it at the floor in my room. So if you read a book about physics and get obsessed, try pursuing a physics class. It is easy to attend a lecture for free. At Kyambogo University , I sometimes drop into Economics lectures just for the fun of seeing those Price Elasticity curves and learning how to analyse financial statements.

     

    1. Cut Out distractions

    In January last year, I went on a one year TV fast, I am glad I completed it. TV was one of those distractions. You may have to reduce your time online before you can really know what you love doing. Perhaps go off Facebook for 30 days. During my time as a Buddhist student, I learned that a man can only find what he really loves doing when there is nothing to distract him and sway him from his true heart’s desires.

     

    1. Make a Passion That Creates Value

    Assuming that you’ve found what you love doing, aim at giving people value with your passion. Don’t focus on the money. Focus on creating value. If your passion is to be a doctor, focus on offering the best medical services, focus on being the best of your time. That’s value. Once you have given out the value, you can then find ways of monetizing this value. BigEye.ug gave out value and monetized this value through various ways.

     

    Lastly, one thing is clear, you purpose and passion always move hand in hand. When you find what you love doing, your purpose will always rotate about that. My purpose in life is simple: “To Grow and To Help People Grow To Greatness.” That’s my simple purpose, I love seeing other people get to that point in life where their life tends towards perfection, that point in life where they are unstoppable and nothing is impossible. So find your passion and your purpose will write itself.

    Creating Your Own Business From Scratch with Little or No Money at All

    In my vacation, I looked for that perfect solution, that one article that could tell me how I could do it. Truth be told, I had tried to look for a job in many places and I was turned down, so I was now focused on business. But school had not prepared me for this life, at least my school should have organized a one-week seminar after my exams and taught me how to begin a business. I was frustrated. I could resonate with the graduates who after years of paying tuition get to find out that their degree is not that of importance to the Human Resource departments in many companies. I could feel like an unemployed graduate who writes application after application and never gets called for at least the interview. I was annoyed, I could not understand why the system was designed in such a way, to study so hard, look for a job so hard, then work so hard. I don’t claim to be your Father Theresa of sorts, but I can claim to tickle your mind a bit to find out a way to begin your own business with little or no money at all.

     

    My first business ever was in P.1, then as a 6 year old kid, I had two bicycles, I rented out one while I used the other to supervise my clients and chase them around as I counted the minutes they had rode my bicycle. It was fulfilling to know that I could get that 100 shilling note at the end of the day. 

     

    But my test in the business world began in 2011 when I began selling video tutorials. I began off with no money at all, I realized there was free internet access at campus, I used this internet to download video tutorials and sell them to people. Thank God I had my great hacker friend, Francisco who gave himself membership to tutorial sites and together we made money. 

     

    I came to realize that to begin a business, you don’t necessarily need money, you need just a few things which I list below.

     

    1. Find Out What You can Do Better Than Other People then turn it into Value

    How much do you think Ethan Musolini charges for his time? 10, 20, 50 dollars? No way, he charges more than 100 dollars per hour. And you are required to book in advance for his inspirational talks. Now Ethan found out that he can speak better than most people, he can inspire, he can motivate. Once you can find that differentiating strength about you, you can turn it into value. If you can write better than most people, you can begin a blog and google will be paying you for having its adverts on your site. If you can speak and inspire children, why not begin to convince schools to allow you to inspire their children for a fee. The problem is that most youths think about the money before giving out value. That’s my biggest problem with them. There is a time we made losses selling video tutorials but we were building a brand, today, none of our tutorials goes for less than 50K, if we are to deduct the 5K internet cost plus the transport cost, we shall still have 30K profits. We have built a brand in the upper circles. So if you can dance better than other people, you can become a dance instructor, there is a salsa school where you pay 200K for lessons every semester and it’s in Uganda. If you can vibe girls better than other men, you can become a pick-up artiste, that’s a paid business, where you teach men how to become successful with the girls.

     

    1. Where to get the capital is so easy

    I have never began a business with any capital at hand, it has always been, using other people’s money or borrowing their services and paying when the business makes profit. So simple. If you are beginning a consultancy business, ask your lawyer friend to partner with you, your lawyer friend will help register this business for free, draft the basics of the business and deal with every documentation. If you want to begin a website, get a website developer and convince them to partner with you on the business, they will design the website for free and you will be ready to go. 

     

    The other ways you can get capital is to use other people’s money. Now if you have a parent or guardian, you can ask for a loan from them and pay them back with interest. They will give you this money without need for collateral security. You can convince them that in case of failure to pay up, they can seize the business. If your home is by the roadside, why not turn the fence into a shop of sorts, you can build an extension on it and begin a simple business. The problem with today’s youths is that we want to be seen dressed up going to that office, but the money is not in the office, it is out-there. Look at bankers, they dress up so well only to part with a miserable 500K per month. Look at Ssebalamu, you find him with lugabire(tyre sandles) on his legs yet he earns millions everyday. 

     

    If that fails, you can go to the bank. But I would not advise the bank for starters unless you have the guts. On the other hand, if you are into property and real-estate, you can convince a bank to give you money to buy and build apartments and in case you fail to pay up, they can take the apartments you bought. In this way, it’s a win/win. You won’t lose any of your current property, in case you lose, it will be the apartments you bought, which is not bad considering that you would have gained the experience.

     

    1. Where to get the Market

    Now if you are in business, you must know how to sell. Sell yourself, sell your products, sell your services and sell to people. Now market is so simple to generate. Begin with your family members. My sister has a Gorillos business, she sells them to every family member at 800 shillings, each gorillos is a mere 500. From family members, sell to the friends of the family members. If you can make cakes, ask family members to recommend you to their friends, the friends will recommend to friends of friends. You sell to your friends, they recommend you to their relatives, goodness this market is just so big, you can’t even fill up the demand-gap.

     

    So you can see that beginning a business and growing it, is just simple, so simple, you only need to get started and learning about the game. Once you can master the art, the rest becomes so easy. Remember not to focus on the money, chase giving people value and the rest shall follow.

     

    And lastly, once your business is up, you will need to build systems. I see this problem with many employed people who quit their jobs to begin a business. They forget to build systems and before long, their business turns into a job, suddenly they are working longer hours, having less time and are more worried. Once you build the systems, it’s the CEO to worry about all this. You as the business owner must sit back and relax and see how the CEO fires and hires. The true definition of a business is anything that can generate money for you without your presence or your active participation. So it brings in money as you sleep, as you have sex, as you are on vacation with your kids, as you go partying. That’s a true business. Hope this can help tickle your mind and open you up to the possibilities of beginning a business from a scratch.

     

     

    What is Freedom, How Do you define it?

    Have you ever taken out sometime and thought of what freedom means to you? Are you really free? Forget all that you have been taught, all the different definitions you‘ve had. When you take out sometime, do you have freedom?

     

    Can you go to work dressed in the attire that your mind dictates? How about the freedom to date any kind of person you desire?  Being free is more than just saying it, it‘s a feeling. Your brain, your mind, your spirit and body have to resonate with your words that you are indeed free

     

    The day you realize that you are free. Free to pursue your goals, free to eat whatever you desire is the day you indeed begin to live. Freedom is when you achieve the life you want, have always desired and not the one that the world dictates to you.

     

    ―Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it’s time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself,‖ said a certain speaker. 

     

    Freedom is having that pen in your hand and having the ability to write your story. It is not true freedom if you would like to retire from your job but you have no way out. It is not freedom if you want to spend more time with your family but your job dictates otherwise.

     

    Even beginning a new business which keeps you locked to it is not freedom in the true sense.

    Doing something because that‘s what the world expects is not freedom? At 19, the world would not have expected me to write for Daily Monitor. I had no degree or qualification whatsoever in writing or journalism. All I had were my writing samples on my blog and my Facebook notes.

    But I was free; I could not let anything stop me. I was writing my own story, so when I got to the newsroom; there was nothing to hold me back. I was free in all dimensions and aspects. 

     

    Even financially, there is financial security, financial independence and financial freedom. Not many people have achieved financial freedom yet. Financial freedom is when you get to that point where you are paid as you sleep, as you walk, as you talk and as you relax at the beach with your loved ones. Financial freedom is only achieved through creating various passive income sources like running a website, publishing timeless articles that get read from year to year and their impact is still felt.

    Facing Your Fears 

    Have you ever desired to approach a very beautiful girl but that approach anxiety stops you? World-over, approach anxiety stops men from getting those super girls that they do desire. And it does not stop with just dating; we have approach anxiety for our dreams and goals.

     

    We have this fear that stops us from getting ahead in life. We have Salesmen getting scared of approaching a potential client. If we could only list down the things that fear has stopped us from achieving, we would be determined to face this fear right now.

     

    One of the approaches I use is to picture two scenarios-when I do face my fears and when I don‘t. I try to look at the outcome. Let‘s say I see a beautiful girl I would like to know better walking along the street. If I go ahead and approach her, she may reject me, but the next time we meet, we shall be the best of friends. In fact, she may not reject me, she may turn out to be that sweet loving wife of mine.  On the other hand, if I don‘t approach her, I will live my life with regrets. I will regret that I did not go reach out to her; I will keep in the wishing but no action state.  By trying to visualize the two outcomes, I am always more determined to face my fears this way, because the negative consequences of not facing my fears most of the time outweigh those of facing my fears.

     

    ―At one time I lived in fear; of going to hell, of being alone, of dying, of financial ruin, of being out of work. The list of what I was afraid of was so long it seemed insurmountable. Fear was definitely smothering the life out of me.

     

    One day I got so tired of having panic attacks, of always looking over my shoulder, of waiting for the other shoe to drop, that I just gave up and stopped running away from my fears. I bravely turned and faced them, carefully dissecting each one, looking for tangible facts, for justifiable reasons why I should hold onto them. 

     

    In the end I found very few valid reasons for my fear. Yes, I will die one day. The only power I have is to take good care of my body, to keep myself safe the best I can, and to enjoy each day to the fullest. I prevent financial ruin by being fiscally responsible. And, so forth down the line.

     

    Turing to face my fears was the action that released me from their grasp. I became the powerful creator of the best life possible when I stopped allowing fear to dictate my actions.

     

    Facing your fear gets easier by setting yourself challenges and punishments for not facing your fear. For example, when I was dealing with approach anxiety, I set a challenge of speaking to a new girl every day for 30 days without fail. Failure to speak to a girl on any particular day meant that I would pay one of my friends 2 dollars. The thought of losing this money made me go right ahead and face this fear. And if I failed on any particular day, it meant that I had to count the days afresh. 

     

    A certain pick-up artiste set himself a challenge of not getting back home in the evening until he had spoken to a beautiful girl. So the earlier he spoke to a girl, the faster he got home.

     

    Set yourself such challenges and let them have serious consequences for not implementing them. By doing this, your brain will learn to associate not facing your fear with negative outcomes and it will always be determined to face the fears. The more you do this, the more you become an expert at facing your fears.

     

    Lastly, the other method I could give out is choosing to do at least one thing that scares you every day. If you are in a conference and your fear has always been in raising your arm and posing a question, get focused on posing a question for that particular day, In Sunday, take up the front seats at church. One of my fears has always been the fear of heights, one day, I simply went bungee-jumping and I have never had to deal with that fear for one more second in my life. 

     

     

    What’s stopping you from being free? 

    There is no big barrier that stops people from attaining freedom apart from fear. It is fear that keeps people from living the lives they desire. We are scared of living to our true potential, we are scared of living. 

     

    But if you could learn to conquer fear, you would achieve freedom.  Fear enslaves, it encloses you, and it puts you in a bin. It is fear that keeps you from meeting the people you want, saying the things you want and doing the things you want.

     

    Get a way of conquering whatever fear you have and you will set yourself free. Fear is that campus that holds the key to your destiny. It is like a campus pointing in the direction where you should go. Let go of your fear and let come of your freedom. 

     

     

    WORKING ON YOUR FINANCES The Majority Is Never Right, To Be Successful, Do the Exact Opposite

    Have you read the statistics? 5% own 90% of Kampala. If we spread it wider, 10% own 90% of Uganda. If there is one thing I have never forgotten since my childhood is that the majority is never right.

     

    There is always something wrong in the picture when the majority is doing the same thing. We all remember in 2000-2004 when everyone decided to grow Vanilla and abandoned Coffee, most left as broke people. 

     

    When you see everyone struggling to get a job, you should ask yourself: “WHY?” It is in rare cases where the majority has turned out to be right.

     

    The majority will always tell you that you can’t run a business without an office. I have run more than 3 businesses without an office and have made a wonderful profit off them. Everyone says that you should wake up earlier every day, that early birds get the early worm? So what if you are the early worm? Don’t you get eaten?

     

    In fact, I am changing my sleep-schedule all-together. I decided to sleep from 5pm to midnight (those are 8 hours), wake up and work through that night silence. 

     

    If you are to study the life of the rich men, you will find out that they don’t do the same things 90% of the population does. In Neuro-linguisitic programming or ‘modelling’ we are told that if you find out what person A does, you can do the same things and achieve 99% of the results they have achieved. Now, today I am asking you to stop studying the majority, study the minority.

     

    Study those things that they do , those things that make them get to the top of the ladder as the majority keeps complaining and struggling. 

     

    You will find out a few things. Rich men rarely pick up phone calls. When they are working, they put these phones in total silence. They prefer SMS, in fact, if you called Sudhir, he won’t pick-up but if you send him a message, he will reply in just seconds.

     

    Secondly, rich men pick their associates well. Whom do you hang-out with? Where do you hangout from? Do you hang-out in places where you are bound to bump into more CEOs or in places where you will bump into some wannabe teenager flaunting off their pocket-money?

     

    How well do you manage your time? Do you spend it doing the urgent like the majority or you spend it doing the important like the minority? You should define your urgent tasks and the important tasks. If you have urgent tasks, I request you to outsource them. They don’t add value to your life. Doing your laundry is urgent but not that important, hire someone to do your laundry and use that time to do important tasks. Instead of spending 2 hours preparing a meal, why not eat out and save your time?

     

    Rich men don’t save money, they save their time and invest their money. Begin reclaiming your time. While on Facebook, stop rushing to reply everyone. You should only reply Facebook inboxes at your own convenience. Above all, ignore messages that only have a simple “Hi” they just steal your time. I am also afraid to say, that if you don’t use Facebook for your business, you have to cut down on the time you spend on Facebook. Personally, my business dictates that I keep an eye on Facebook since it’s one of the portals we use for it. 

     

    If everyone is rushing for KYEYO, stay in Uganda and take advantage of the opportunities. Stop being like sheep, simply following other sheep. You will fall in the ditch.

    Just In Case YOU FAIL TO GET THAT JOB After UNIVERSITY!!!

    Right now as I speak, only 20% of the people who graduated last year were able to get jobs, of these, half of them are in disguised employment, barely living by. So I thought about the 80% who keep finding themselves seated at home with that hard-earned degree, no job, no hope, written application after application and got rejected every time. For those who get somehow lucky, the best they get to is attending interviews but no hope whatsoever.

     

    Usually when people fail to get a job after university, they think of upgrading their education CV, so they go for a Master’s degree, when they come back to apply a job, they have all the qualifications but no experience. If not, they are told “You are over-qualified for the job.”

     

    Today I want to give out a secret I have learned over the past few years after my re-birth in all aspects-academically, financially, socially and in my thought-process. I learned of the LAW OF OPPOSITES. It states that if you find yourself in a problem, find out what the majority would do, and do the exact polar opposite of this. So if the majority would keep applying for jobs or go back to school to upgrade, do the reverse, and it’s the reverse that I want to tell you about.

     

    1. Join a Graduate Training Program

    Mukwano Industries, and Eskom Uganda Ltd are some of the companies running such programs that span up to almost a full year aimed at giving graduates the practical experience while paying them a salary with the chance of absorbing them into their work-force. So if you have no job at the moment, apply to join these graduate training programs. You will get the experience rather than sit at home and whine or better still get a chance to have a job and a launching pad to your career advancement.

     

    1. Volunteer at a Job

    I would advise jobless graduates to volunteer at companies at least for the sake of getting the experience because that’s what all employers look out for. You can connect with Human Resource managers of companies on Linkedin and Facebook. I will teach you how to speak professionally to someone on social media and make them get an interest in you. Stop using slang, it just gives the wrong impression. When contacting a CEO, please write formal English, let your Facebook info reflect professionalism, employers are now looking at your status updates, the words you use. So make complete english statements, don’t say ‘coz’ say because. Don’t use any form of slang, be professional, impression matters. So volunteer to work without money as long as they agree to give you transport and food. Who knows how you may grow up the ranks in no time. My Dad as a young education graduate wrote stories for no pay at the Weekly Topic, slowly he rose up the ranks at this newspaper that made its mark back then, for those who are old enough. From a mere free-lance, he rose to the Chief-Sub-Editor until he left to co-found Daily Monitor and later on Co-founding The Observer. It all started with having a vision to grow even though it meant starting off with no-pay.

     

    3.Venture Into The Business World

    If you have a talent, if you have a special skill, if you can do something in a better way, if you can provide value, then you can begin a business. If the worst comes to the worst, I would recommend that you become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is a title we use to describe unemployed people.

     

    Go to your relatives and solicit for start-up capital, begin something simple. Back in the 1992, there was a guy who used to bring us milk to our Makindye home from Mbarara, he was a student and he did this as a part-time business. He is evidence to the fact that one should never despise small beginnings. From selling us a simple jerrycan of milk, he got capital to begin a small retail shop, from a retail shop, he went on to begin a wholesale shop. For all those who stay in Zaana, there is a guy called MULOKOLE, that;s the guy I am talking about, with his high-rise apartments, branches of wholesale shops and a conglomerate of business, surely this guy never suffered to look for a job after university.

     

    Or should I talk about Balaam Barugahare, the super promoter, who last year broke into the ranks as one of Uganda’s youngest billionaires. While at university, Balaam was one of the people who supplied alcohol to some bar we had in Ntinda called Velvet (where Tuskys Ntinda now stands) , he went on growing slowly but surely, he got the capital from his uncle whom he had worked for during his vacation. On his graduation, he organized his party in the village and sponsored everything. He has never gone to look for a job.

     

    So after university, with no job, back to your parents. Choose to look up for a need in society, a problem people have around and try to get a solution and provide it to the people. If shops are so far away from people, begin a small shop, a kiosk and have a vision to grow it into a big business. Don’t despise small beginnings. Simply have a big goal in mind. Without a job, forget about the swag, rather than work for peanuts in someone’s office, why not start off small from your place. I see business opportunities everywhere, capital is also everywhere. Take out a loan from your parents, partner with 2-3 friends of yours, fellow unemployed graduates and begin a business. One of the other multimillionaires I know is one simple guy in Ntinda who did a certificate in welding. After searching in vail for a job, he began off with a few metals and ventured into window and door fabrication, today, he is a real-estate property mogul. He earns more than an average CEO in a big company. So just forget about that stupid swag, the party life is over, forget about trying to impress people, trying to fake a life, living beyond your means and use that money you spend to begin up something. It may be a business in Kikubo, you can choose to join a trader in Kikubo and learn from them the art of the game then go independent. Open your eyes, you don’t have to stress your parents to look after you after university. Time is not on your side, the earlier you begin the better. I don’t care what business you may start, all I care about is your long-term vision and what you get from that place. Bobi Wine’s Akalimu song says it better… “Totunuliira gyenkoleera wabula tunuliira kyenfunaayo.”

     

    Otherwise in case you don’t get that job, in case you’ve looked so hard and failed, it’s time to think business. Of course the struggles will be there along the way, some temporary failures but in the end after all the pain, when you persist, you will finally hit that super life you always desired for. Among you, is the next Sudhir Ruparelia , Patrick Bitature We have Ethan Musolini who began a job as a professional motivational speaker, we have Bake Robert Tumuhaise Nyamishana doing his best at World Of Inspiration. The opportunities are everywhere if only you will open up the entrepreneurial eyes and capital is the easiest thing to get!!!

     

    Martin Luther King Jnr said: “There are three steps to success, First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they try to fight you and finally you win.”

     

    We are going where no one has gone before, I can predict that in the next five years, Uganda will have a trippled number of self-made young billionaires than it has ever had in its entire lifetime. You can be one of them because surely I see my name there myself.

     

    Money Is Just An Idea

    Donald Trump went bankrupt four times, every time jumping back from the verge of personal economic collapse to center stage of USA’s wealth creation drama. Being wealthy or successful is not about how much money or material goods one has. It has more to do with ideas.

     

    If we took away all the billion dollars from George Soros, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump, they will still have the billion dollar ideas in their heads to make new billion dollars AGAIN. Again means repeated action, right! Of course, they have the ability to duplicate their success ideas.

     

    Giants Killer of Ideas

     

    “Excuses”. 

     

    If excuses are not number one physical killers, then they are number killers of dreams. And we can use the phrase ‘excuse yourself to death’

     

    Let me share with you common excuses I encounter everyday;

     

    I can‘t afford it

    I can‘t do it

    I am not smart

    I already know that

    That‘s too complicated

    I‘m right, you are wrong

    I tried it once and it didn‘t work

    I don‘t have enough money

    I don‘t have time

    Only man can do that

     

    Please allow me to politely say ‘Shut up!”. That is devil trying to steal your dream, your life. Lord promised us a life of prosperity, right…So why should you work for a paycheck for the rest of your life. That is not what Lord intended for us. If so, where is that excuse coming from? 

     

    Tell you what, cynics and fools are twins on opposite sides of reality and possibility. Fools accept anything, everything and cynics criticize anything, everything outside their reality. 

     

    Fools mind lacks ability to keep foolish ideas out and cynics mind lack ability to accept new life changing ideas in.

     

    On which side are you?

    It‘s an idea that starts money and not the other way round. We all think that we need money to work on our ideas, the reverse is true-we simply need an idea to create money. As long as you can water that idea day and night, meditate on it, the ways will be revealed to you, on how to make it reality.

     

    The Law Of Opposites

    The Law of opposites states that in order to be better than 99% of the world, you have to do the opposite of what they do with their life. If there is one thing I have learned in life, it is that the majority is never right. If the majority was always right, then we would never have economic recessions, poverty would be at its lowest, unemployment would be another of those stories we read about in comical books and our health would be at its best. 

     

    If people are heading North, then it would serve you better if you headed south. First and foremost, when you undertake to do what the minority do, you open up opportunities where there is less competition. But in the spheres of the majority, it‘s so crowded over there. Let‘s take a look at some examples to further illustrate the Law of Opposites.

    Look at what the majority does with their money. They spend and never save, and if they save, they never invest, and if they invest, they don‘t take trouble to learn the art of investing. Whenever I find myself in a financial predicament, I try to reflect on what the majority would do, then set out to do the exact opposite. If the majority would run off to get a job, I would do the exact opposite and run off to start a business. 

     

    In the health sector, the majority does not work out, they don‘t take note of what they are eating, as a result, their bodies become obese, and they develop diabetes and cancers. If you did the opposite, you would wake up and hit the gym, you would tend towards the vegetarian lifestyle and you would try to limit intake of junk foods. 

     

    When it comes to time management, the majority tries to chase many things, it lacks focus, it never gets things done and does the urgent instead of the important. If you were to apply the law of opposites, you would focus on one thing at a time, do the important and ignore the urgent. 

     

    This brings me to the four types of things in life. We have things that are Urgent but not important, we have those that are important but not urgent, we have those that are Urgent and important, and finally we have those that are neither important nor urgent. 

     

    If you were serious about getting the best out of life, you would focus on doing things that are both urgent and important. Secondly, you would do things that are important but not urgent, thirdly you would take on those things that are urgent but not important and finally you would send those things that are neither urgent nor important to the trash can. 

     

    By applying the law of opposites, you can never go wrong in any aspect of life. Simply find out what everyone is doing and do the exact opposite. 

     

     

    Using Social Media To Trigger Your Greatness

    In 2009, I opened up my first Facebook account; I spent more than a year trying to figure it out. I had actually opened it because Facebook was the trend, but like many people who open up a Facebook or twitter Page, I did not know how this whole concept works. Previously I had been on MySpace but the complexities of that were not easier either.

     

    What happens when all you see are posts, walls, status updates, poke etc? My mum is a clear example; some of her friends keep posting on her wall what they would have clearly put in her inbox. Social media is not a field where you gamble, you need to take out some time to learn it. Yes you know how to type on a computer, but forget all that, it‘s useless, the point is to understand the specific social media network you are joining.

     

    So after a year of doing nothing on Facebook but just having an account resting on the servers like many other people do, I chose to venture out into this world and conquer it. I call myself the virgin of social media because; I had no one to teach me these things. I was on my own. My cousins are not into computers and my brother is not into social media on the other hand.

     

    During my vacation year, I had a year to waste, waking up to Facebook, create groups and burn some calories. Little by little I became the expert of everything. To many people I was this addict. But it was to me the addict that they ran to for help. For example, people did not know how to create a Facebook page or Group. Some ended up blocking their friends unintentionally. Others thought that POKING was a game.

     

    Though I don‘t pride myself in beginning some groups that promoted open relationships, I pride myself in coming up with the concept of getting groups that were specific to a cause in Uganda. I will forever remember another popular virgin in this internet world who went by the name of General Sweetman. To date, I only know his Jerry name and no other. Sweetman commanded a big following, his likes on his personal account were always in 80 people and over 200 comments. Together we partnered to change the world of Facebooking.

     

    We began a group called Relationship Talk which has went through many stages that to date I don‘t know the owners. We had this power of making a group go viral and become the talk of the town. In fact, it is during these adventures of ours that we began looking for easier ways to do things. I can comfortably say, that if you want to get things done quickly, get a lazy person to do them. They will always look for the way that requires less effort.  We discovered that with some scripts, you could invite all your Facebook friends to a group or to an event and it was working wonders. My only regret is that our eyes were closed to the money opportunities that existed in that time.

     

    But my biggest breakthrough came in when we joined a Technology group that shared all the tricks and tips. It may have been illegal but it taught us a number of things.  We were so active in this group contributing tricks some of which we copied and pasted and Ugandanized that we began to have a following. After sometime we began to question the technology abilities of our Admins and created a revolution, this led to our being permanently banned from these groups. Out of our frustration, we chose to get back with a big group that would get people talking.

     

    So we began Technology Wizards which by the time of writing is the biggest Technology group on Facebook. We began a group which was aimed at giving people freedom but also making people get a wide variety of knowledge from all aspects. I only regret that we taught people how to access free internet but hey, internet is a human right and in Uganda it is so expensive.

     

    During my travails with Technology wizards, people began trusting my abilities; they would add me to their groups with the joyful hope that I would push them to the same level.  Dude, did I have the passion? No way, I was focused on becoming the hacker that I made Technology wizards believe I was. I tried to hack facebook accounts not until I taught a trick about hacking Facebook accounts and got a taste of my own medicine. After a post in which I bragged that I had the most secure account on Facebook, three members connived and hacked my account but hopefully I recovered it. And I learned a lesson, if you are in the internet business, you should be aware of the internet security. 

     

    After some time, we began identifying spies in our group. We had singled out one character from previous groups-King Brian. King Brian was presumed to be a spy for MTN stealing all our tricks and telling MTN the loopholes. So we began what we called a clean-up.  After some time, King Brian approached me saying he was about to hack Sweetman‘s account. Little did I know that this would mark the beginning of our friendship? Of course King Brian was simply a scarecrow; he is one guy who carries ethics in his basket of work.

     

    But when King Brian decided to make friendship with us and came up with a business idea of us collaborating to do some business online, my eyes were opened. Of course my sole motive had not been money, in fact I already knew that Technology wizards was outgrowing itself as a group. I had thought of a website, a technology wizards school, our own social network and a number of other projects.  

     

    My only regret is that King Brian diverted me from my initial goal of becoming the Father Theresa of internet.  So Brian called me to his office and off we began the talk of the online website dealing in the entertainment sector. 

     

    Leaving the Brian story aside, I got to realize that Social media could be used to enhance or act as a launch pad for one‘s greatness. 

     

    For example, it is on social media that I created all this huge following and respect. On social media, people respect you not for your age but for what you say. Bebe Cool has continuously faced the wrath of the fans of other artistes when he makes attacking posts.  Some of the many people I befriended included Nina Mbabazi-the prime ministers daughter. I began befriending writers because I had already written many notes and now I wanted to write for the print media.

     

    In Uganda, you first make the name in print media before you get back to the online media. It is difficult to breakthrough online writing. At least the skills from the print media are so crucial.  So one of those people I befriended was Herbert Benon Oluka—CNN multichoice journalist. At that time he was about to go for further studies in South Africa but I told him I wanted to write so he promised to put in word for me at Daily Monitor where he worked. Little did I know that he was getting me into the hands of Daniel Kalinaki—managing editor of daily monitor and a great friend of my dad.

     

    And by getting to know Kalinaki, my writing destiny was getting clearer.  To cut the long story short, I met Kalinaki, and he asked me for samples of what I had written before. For the first time in history, I became the first journalist who gave in the URL address of his blogsite to act as writing samples instead of papers with written work.  Blogging is what I ventured into after my aunt, Joeriah Katongole aka Joe Kats told me to go for it. Now when I look back, I realize that I would have had no fall-back If it was not for the blog.  Kalinaki was a time conscious man, all he wanted was my samples. So I sent around 10 of them to his email and I sent my blogsite to him. I am yet to know what came out of the blogsite but if it was not good news, I would not be a Daily Monitor journalist.

     

    The bottom line is, with Facebook you can meet anyone you desire. You will meet that CEO, inbox them, talk to them and ask them genuinely whatever you are interested in. I once spent a day with Prof. Waswa Balunywa  as a result of a simple Facebook message and whatever I learned about business that day, no other business school can teach it.

     

    Meet the people who have made it and send them an inbox. I would also advise that if you are planning to use social media in a new dimension, then you should use your real name. If you want to remain anonymous, forget the success. No one enjoys speaking to a person with a name like, Angry Birds etc It is annoying, it sends out wrong signals. And how about if people want to search for you, how about if old friends want to connect with you?

     

    Facebook and other social media sites have presented a whole range of opportunities. It is so bad that the people employed by companies or those that speak about social media have not experienced firsthand what it means to be in social media. In the next section, I will venture into how to make money out of social media, the future of social media and why companies need to jump onto the wagon. 

     

     

     

    How To ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS FASTER (At Rocket speed)

    In January 2012, I asked myself a question: “Was there a way in which someone could achieve their goals and dreams faster, way too faster that they take everyone by surprise?”

     

    The normal paradigm in life is that to go from A to F, you have to go through step B, step C, step D until when you land on Step F. But after a long period of searching within me, I felt that there should be a way of going from A to F without going through B,C and D. For example, beginning your business tomorrow and earning profits a week later before expanding it into an empire. It is a phenomenon that I call a quantum leap. For example, a Boda Boda rider suddenly becomes an owner of over 100 Bodabodas all operating at maximum capacity. You go from earning a few thousand shillings to earning millions. Is it possible to actually shift to your goal faster? Is is possible that you can get that job even before you graduate or perhaps begin your own business, build your own mansion and never get to rent a house?

     

    How do you actually take such a quantum leap? How do you achieve your goals faster, at rocket speed. Here’s my take and proven steps.

     

    1. Believe it Before You See It

    You must actually see yourself at your goal even before you achieve it. Before I began writing for the Daily Monitor, I saw myself working at the Daily Monitor, having a column of my own, working on story assignments. It was an identity shift. Let’s say you want to go from being broke to having enough money on you. Then you should see yourself as already financially stable. Early last year, I did an identity shift, I realized that if I was to become financially stable, I had to get comfortable with holding large sums of money in my wallet. So I went from 20K, to 50K, to 100K, perhaps before this year ends, I should be comfortable with holding 500K in cash. And the more money I held in my wallet, the more financially stable I became. So the secret is in introducing the side effects you would experience once you have achieved your goal. If you want to be a ladies man, you will get more comfortable speaking to many girls. So the identity shift in this case would be to speak to more than 3 new girls per day. As you become comfortable with doing this, you will take a quantum leap for your goal. So visualize yourself happy, living the life of your dream, think about it when you wake up, re-write that goal over and over again every day, stick it on your fridge, on your walls and keep seeing that goal. Once you shift your mind, your goal will run towards you faster than you had ever imagined.

     

    1. Come to A Point of No-Return

    While in my Form 5 Physics class, I learned about a concept called “Escape Velocity” and it was defined as the velocity at which a satellite is launched from the earth for it never to return. There comes a point in your life when there is no return to being a mediocre. I mean you just know it, that you will never live an average life. So if you want to improve your time management. Read every book you can come towards concerning time management. One book won’t do the magic, ready every stuff and try it out. To build a successful online business, I keep reading about the new things concerning internet entrepreneurshi-p. I read books, watch movies, go to conferences etc.

     

    1. Change the People You Associate with

    The Law of Association states that you are the average of the 5-10 people you spend the most time with. For example, if you want to become a doctor, it would make no sense having musicians as your friends, you will end up as a musician. Take caution when picking friends, they can either make you or break you. So begin hanging out with people who are already achieving the results that you want to achieve. If you want to build that perfect body, hang out more with body-builders, if you want to be an entrepreneur, hang out with CEOs and also mind where you hang out from. A person becomes just like the people who hang out from where he hangs out at. Become comfortable hanging out at Five-star hotels, Serena and Protea should be so normal to you. For example, it is clear that if you want to bump into Patrick Bitature , then you ought to hang out more at Protea Hotel.

     

    1. Get a Mentor

    To reach your goals faster, you ought to have a mentor, actually a team of mentors, both direct and indirect. My team of mentors has people like Andrew Mwenda, Tonny Rutakirwa, Patrick Bitature, Richard Branson and Sudhir Ruparelia just to mention but a few. I interact with Andrew and Tonny more, so they may be what I call principle mentors. So to reach your goals faster, get a mentor. If it takes 400 hours to reach your goal, by getting a mentor, you can reach your goal at just a mere 200 hours. That’s half the time if would have taken you—simply because the mentor can guide you, tell you which steps you should avoid, where you should take a jump and shine the path of your greatness with his/her candle.

     

    So to reach your goals faster, you should invest in the process of taking a quantum leap. If you want to be like Charles Mbiire, do the things that he does, read the books he reads, watch how he manages his time, how he treats people. A quantum leap is one easy thing to get if you can brainwash your mind to the possibility of a faster goal achievement. So wanna grow rich, see yourself signing cheques, see yourself already at that point and your mind will automatically look for faster ways to get you there. Success has never been this easy, never before, but now it is.

    Here are some of the Quantum Leaps I have Achieved In My Own Life:-

     

    1. From a guy with a hot temper, to one of the guy who spends months without losing his smile

     

    1. From a simple University student to a writer and columnist at Daily Monitor, youngest managing editor in Uganda

     

    1. Rated among 100 Ugandans to watch out for in the next decade, from a simple son of a late journalist, to a guy who relates to the rich guys like Sudhir Ruparelia as peers on a Daily Basis. He is East Africa’s richest yet his advice is always a simple phone message away from me. It just does not happen.

     

    1. From a Super shy primary boy to a Personal Development speaker, coach and Pick-up artiste.

    Dreaming Big and Kissing The Frogs

    If you tell people your dream and they don‘t laugh at it, then that dream is so SMALL. BIG dreams make people think that you‘re running mad. When my father began a newspaper at 28 years, it seemed like a dream, when he repeated the same thing and founded another newspaper at 39 years, again, to many it was a dream. 

    Jihm Rohn says: ―Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.‖ 

     

    I would rather set a BIG dream and fail to achieve it that set an ordinary small dream and achieve it. To me life is dreaming beyond reality. To really live, you‘ve got to seem a bit silly in your dreams. I can imagine when Sudhir told friends that he would be East Africa‘s richest back then in 1992 when he was arrested with counterfeit notes at Entebbe. I am sure, many laughed at laughed at what seemed a joke. Today people may laugh at your dreams, but their laughter should inspire you. I always set goals that make people call me ‗childish‘ then go out achieve those goals and prove them wrong. It brings me super-happiness. 

     

    ―Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat,‖ says Theodore Roosevelt

     

    “Most people avoid kissing frogs so they marry the frog instead of the handsome prince”. Many people fear taking risks in business and investment. That reminds me of the fairytale about a princess who had to kiss many frogs to find her handsome prince. Today I am amazed at how a young graduate gets at job at age 22 and remains there for life. That makes me wonder if the princess will ever find the prince. Success in life is about finding your own handsome prince. You see, most people avoid kissing frogs so they end up marrying the frog. Dr. Myles Munroe said “Life is not all about paying bills. Life has more to offer” Keep kissing the frogs until you find your princess. Keep looking for what brings the utmost joy to your life, keep looking out for your purpose in life, and don‘t settle until you find it. Don‘t get satisfied with a job just because it offers you financial security, one day, one time, you will be sent out of that job without a notice. 

    YOU          can’t         become         SUCCESSFUL         WITHOUT       CONNECTIONS!!!

    You see, my biggest problem with school is the concept of individualism. Right from day one in school, we are made to believe that life is a race-which we are actually competing against each other instead of complementing each other. 

     

    But truth be told, to succeed in life, you must know people, you must connect and you must be willing to help others to succeed. 

     

    If my father did not know Sudhir, perhaps he would not have had the money for his Master’s degree, if he did not know the late Kazini; perhaps he would not have broken some sensitive investigative stories about the government. If he did not connect with people, he would not have convinced them to work with him for a year without a salary. 

     

    Life is about connections. To succeed in life, you need to NETWORK. If you are currently broke in life, may be you need to increase your sphere of association. 

     

    And when you network, you are not supposed to be a parasite. You should be honest about it; you should care about helping other people. Andrew Mwenda would not have become my mentor if all I did was to be a parasite. 

     

    People do business with people they know and like. The same applies for many jobs, you will never know about some job opportunities if you have a constrained circle of friends. Make more useful     friends. 

     

    To begin a successful business, you should know people. Business is about reaching out to people. People buy from people they know. I will find it easier to go to a bar owned by a friend than to a bar I know nothing about. 

     

    And again, drop the mentality that you are competing with people. Success in life is about working with people, not working with them. Some of the gossip news I get on Bigeye.ug are given to me by people who run entertainment websites like we do. We are working together, for each other not against each other. 

     

    I was in a Mukwano Industries interview and some guy thought he was so intelligent, he copied his answers thinking I was copying from him. Perhaps he thought that if we all passed, it would reduce his chances of internship. But guess what, 90% of his answers were wrong, may be if he had opened up and I could have corrected him, perhaps he would now have the internship placement. 

     

    I have over 5 internship placements. Some have come as a result of knowing many CEOs in various places. Keep networking and keep connecting with people. It is the key of life, even a toilet cleaner may come in crucial one moment. Never lose anyone’s contact, even an enemy’s phone         number. 

     

    So before you think about hard-work, focus on doing lots of NETWORKING and giving value to your networks. The people in your network will recommend you to other people in their network. Bigeye.ug grew because of having many friends online. One friend told 10 others who told 10 others and off we became great.

    The New Success Formula of The Century

    The formula of the past was so simple. ―Go to school, read hard, make good grades, get a good job that will take care of you and give you a good life.‖ But that has all changed. We have seen a

    reversal of roles, we have seen people graduate with PHDs and die like mere slaves, slaving our every hour of their life. The question is what went wrong, how it happened that we could no longer achieve our dreams and live that life we so much desired. Who stole the actual blueprint? 

     

    Truth is the former formula worked. It worked because; companies still relied on manual labour. It worked because technology had not yet grown to a level where it could be used to replace humans. It is no longer about how hard you work; it is about how smart you work. It used to be about working hard. Not anymore. 

     

    For the lucky few, who have understood the formula for the new century, life has been a sugarcandy mountain of sorts. Talk of Mark Zuckerberg, beginning a social media empire that took the whole world by storm.  Today, many are making millions and millions, being paid to do what they love. For those masters of the new formula, there is no difference between work and fun-it‘s all fun.

     

    When I personally began BigEye.ug, it was never about the money, I did not even think about the money. I was an ordinary teenager seeking fun in life. But like Richard Branson says, ―I also realized that the more fun you have doing what you love, the more money chases you pants down.‖

     

    The actual formula of the century is to simply find what you love doing, and find out a way of transferring value to people by simply doing what you love. It is about turning your passion into profit. Those with a passion of writing have turned into bloggers and have earned a lot out of it. They work from home; they have the freedom, the time and the money.  The trick is in discovering ways to transfer this value to people. If you love reading books, why not come up with a business that conducts mobile libraries. For example, you can rent out books to people who are travelling in buses. Alternatively, you can begin a reading centre. To make a difference, you can decide to focus on just inspirational books. If there are many people having a library, why not become that person who stocks every sort of inspirational book. Do it in a whole new way, in a unique format.

     

    The formula of the new century is about inventing, innovating and creating. If you can‘t create something, then you should improve something, you should make it better, you should make it easily accessible. If you chase money in this century, you are less likely to catch up with it. The new century is about moving with the trends and adapting to the change. In the next decade, we shall see many wealthy people losing their wealth simply because they continued applying old tricks in a new game. We no longer play by the same rules, every day and night, someone is coming up with a new rule. For now it is social media, who knows it may be something else by the time you finish reading this book? 

     

    The world will pay you if you can bring out what lies deep within you and share it with them. It has paid Bill Gates for that, it has paid Amancio Ortega for that. Our very own like Patrick Bitature, Sudhir Ruparelia and Tonny Rutakirwa have been paid for doing what they love and turning it into profit. Surprisingly, only a few have been rewarded for getting PHDs, in fact, we shall continue to see professors dying miserably, in abject poverty. 

     

    So today, find out what is it that you really love doing. Then focus on turning it into value for the citizenry. It may take you two years or even more, it may even be less, but if you persist with it, the rewards of money, time and freedom shall chase you endlessly. You will be paid for doing what you love. You only need to know how to do it. To many people, writing a book may seem like a gigantic process, but for once, I wrote this while still 19 years, I was simply doing what I love. It comes off as effortless. 

     

    Stop spending sleepless nights working on a job deadline hoping that you will be paid with a promotion, there are many other people doing the same. If your passion is to be employed, you should do it in a way that makes you come off as indispensable. Look at all the people, who get promotions in the job environment, they are not the wisest. They are not even the most hardworking, they are simply indispensable. They can be replaced but it takes millions and millions to find someone like them.  It takes time and effort to get a replica. 

     

    Whatever you do, what at being the best, work at giving the most value and everyone will part with their money in reward for your excellence. The success formula for this century; is about giving out more value and giving it in a unique and a more humanly way.   Facebook did that, Microsoft did that, the Virgin group of Companies did that and many other successful people have continued to apply the same trick world over. 

    Again, it is all about value. Give out value and Money, time and freedom will come to you in return.  Keep re-inventing yourself and your ways to provide this value in a better way. Once you do all this, come sue me if money, time and freedom do not come to you. 

    The Secret To Money, Time And Freedom

    I heard of a tree in Asia, it’s called the Chinese Bamboo. Its seed stays underground for 5 years without germinating. But after those 5 years, It grows 50 feet per week. What is important is not how LONG it delays but how FAST it grows.

     

    Now, I want to tell you today that like the Chinese Bamboo, don’t give up on your dream no matter how long it stays underground. It’s just laying a strong foundation to shoot. It’s not dead, continue watering it. Remember: “Delay is not Denial.”

     

    People may laugh at you, but don’t mind them, continue laying the foundations. They may throw words at you, “How come he has nothing to show off?” That should not bother you, you are not here to prove to anyone that you are doing well. If you get your first job and begin making a salary, don’t go ahead and buy luxuries just to prove to your classmates that you are now doing better, no, invest that money. Save it, invest it.

     

    Water that dream, the time people spend in showing off, in ‗Swagging‘ away, use that time to water your dream. 5 years from now, that swag won‘t pay the bills, it won‘t put food on the table, so avoid the swag, delay the gratification. A time is going to come when you begin to earn like a Chinese Bamboo, 5 million a week, 10 million the next week.

     

    Please make sure that you build strong foundations. It may seem like that business you started is not breaking even but don’t give up, a time is going to come when it will begin bringing in super profits.

     

    One of my friends, Patrick once started a small restaurant, people laughed at him, no matter what he tried, the restaurant was just not making profits. But he did not give up on his dream. He continued watering it with faith, with financial education, with keeping the positive attitude. 2 years down the road, Patrick has a 5 year contract to manage the food affairs in Rubaga hospital, St.Catherine Hospital and Total oil company. Do you know how much that brings him per week? On top of these, he now turned into an investor, weeks back as he boarded that plane to Dubai to seal an exportation deal of Matooke to Dubai, he shared one simple secret, “Water that dream even when all signs say NO to it.”

     

    And if you are to water that dream, you must keep the right crowd around you. If your relatives discourage you, you may have to spend less time with them, you may have to break up with some friends, if that’s the price to pay for actualizing your dream.

     

    Become rare, value your time. When speaking to people, be the first one to leave. You don’t have to reply every Facebook inbox, if you do, only reply at your convenience. Have power over the phone and social media. Don’t become their slave.

     

    Watering your dream will take FAITH, keeping the RIGHT COMPANY, reading the RIGHT BOOKS, and listening to the RIGHT PEOPLE. Value your TIME and DO THINGS YOU LOVE.

     

    Stop doing things just because everyone is doing them. Always plan ahead, don’t let people drop on you with their plans, if someone calls you today asking for a meeting or giving you plot,say NO or resolve to meet them not today, not tomorrow but 3 days later, or even a week. Don’t let people disorganize your timetable.

     

    If you can WATER your dream with the RIGHT WATER., it will surely shoot out to greatness like the CHINESE BAMBOO. 

     

    Refinement of your philosophies in life

     

    Refine your personal philosophies, business philosophies, relationship philosophies. The big ideas are what matters. Money is just an idea translated to cash. Take all the billion dollars Bill Gates and he will still make another billion dollar again.

     

    Refinement of you philosophies opens the door to abundance of creative ideas and greater business deals. Oh heck! Why bother! Well!…

     

    Remember; work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on yourself, you create a fortune. If you work had on your job, you create a pay check and the brutal reality is that someone uses your hard earn degree (knowledge) as leverage to get richer and richer whilst you remain broke, just getting by from pay check to paycheck. Merry go round in the rat race.

     

    How do you refine your philosophies? Read a good book instead of weekend partying. Watch a motivation video. Associate with people of substance. That is the only way to refine your philosophies and get out of rat race. If there is one wonderful secret about the richest men on earth, they have all read their way to success. Even those who did not read before becoming billionaires have had to read books in order to maintain this status. If you don‘t read, you will remain the same you.

     

    My mentor said to me one time “Ian if you really wish to be free from financial burdens, then you must study finance”. It‘s not the finance we study in college. Financial intelligence is more than what we learn in college. It‘s Law, Its Accounting, Its reading Market Trends. Sounds a lot, but it‘s doable. Mental sunshine is waiting for you when you get out of this darkness.

     

    We all have ideas-Ideas about what to eat, where to sleep, how to grow rich, how to remain poor, and how to be happy just to mention but a few. Ideas are like a map that gives us direction, purpose and momentum to travel, sometimes in clear road or sometimes in a jungle where one has to cut path. 

     

    We all have ideas. The only difference between the successful and unsuccessful people is that the successful ones use their ideas and the unsuccessful ones either don‘t use their ideas or let others use their ideas.

     

     

    Financial Test 

    Many people want to be rich but how many of them are ready to learn new things, many people are looking for jobs but they are not productive, most of your problems are within yourself, just check you self today using a sheet of paper on a scale of 1-5. This is a simple test I came up with, it has worked for many to know the areas where they need to improve and financial freedom has come to them. 

     

    1. saving ( 4-5 stars at least)

    How well do you save on a scale of 5? If you did not have to work again in life, how long will you live with the money in your bank account? Do you spend before you save or you save then you spend? Accountants teach that you save what‘s left after spending, but that‘s a misleading paradigm. You should never spend until you have saved. This is the secret to money, time and freedom. The real wealthy people only spend after their savings account is filled to the brim. 

     

    1. Investing ( 4- 5 Stars Compulsory)

    As a must, if you are not investing, your finances are not growing. It‘s the secret; you will never become rich by stocking up money without investing it. That‘s why relying on a salary does not make you rich, that‘s why a person can earn so much yet never have enough. What are you investing in? How are you investing? Who are the people you invest with? When do you invest? You should have clear answers to these questions. You may be investing but in the wrong areas. You may be investing in the right areas but with the wrong business partners. 

     

    1. Financial Education (4 or higher is recommended)

    How well are you versed concerning the subject of finances? How many financial books do you read per week? Do you attend financial seminars? Who are your friends and do what do they teach you about money? If you want to grow your finances, you must keep growing your financial mentality. 

     

    1. Skills ( at least 3 )

    What are those skills you have? Such skills can include the complex and the basic. However as a person interested in growing your finances, you must have the skill of SELLING. You can never run a successful business unless you know how to sell. How to sell yourself, sell your products and sell your services. Among the other skills you can try to obtain are, communication skill, negotiation skill and other essential life skills like driving.

     

     

    1. Number of Businesses – 1 is ok but plan to get more

    How many businesses do you run? Did you know that the entire world‘s richest attained their wealth by beginning their own business? And did you know that none of the top billionaires has just a single business? It is the secret called spreading the risk, expanding the brand and increasing the money attainment probability. It helps to keep playing the game of entrepreneurship so well when you have a number of businesses to shuffle around with capital. 

     

    1. Your cash flow ( Are you getting more money or are you living from hand to mouth) at least 2

    How is your cash flow? How is the management of your cash flow? Do you know how to read your financial statements? When do you plan to break even? How would you handle a scenario of running bankrupt?

     

    1. Dependence on Government and relations (this has to be a 0 or 1 at max)

    Many of the citizenry are banking on the government to give them a solution to their financial predicament. That should be avoided. You must be entirely responsible for your life. And to those that have relatives to run to, that should also be avoided. Never depend on anyone because they can never care 100%. Why risk a fraction of your life? Avoid this to the maximum. 

     

    After University, What Next?

    Like any other University Student, I always thought life was about getting that good degree, getting that good job and getting that good salary then driving that good car and building that good house. Goodness I was wrong. They always say that a wise man learns from his own mistake but a genius learns from the mistakes of others. 

     

    When I looked at those who had graduated before me, the lives they were living and the salaries they were earning, I was determined not to make the same mistakes. Honestly, a graduate earning a mere 200K a month after 3 years of hard-work. That’s stupid. There was no way I was going to build a castle at the beach, the hilltop and another in the countryside by focusing on the job. The question that kept coming up to me, day in and day out was: AFTER UNIVERSITY

    WHAT NEXT???

    The earlier you answer that question in the course of your study, the better. So when I realized that the jobs were scarce, that as I speak, many graduates are still roaming the streets in search of jobs, I knew I had to jump out of this cycle and leave the rat race to the rats and begin playing with the cats.

     

    The problem with graduates, after searching for a job and failing to find it, they think the solution is in upgrading their education, so they run off for a masters course and what happens, many employers tell them that, they’re over-qualified. 

     

    So the solution is to take out a week and seriously think about these things.

     

    1. As a graduate, how MARKETABLE are you???

    I have seen people who would like to seek jobs as Personal Assistants but their communication skills are so poor. I have seen people studying business but till now, they can’t read and analyze financial statements. I learned to read financial statements at 12 years by disturbing by Dad as he did read his own. So try to improve your various skills. Improve your confidence. If you can’t look people in the eyes and talk to them, how will you convince them to give you that job and pay you that salary. Above all, learn how to SELL, any graduate who does not know how to sell is bound to live an average life.

     

    1. What can I do Now to Make Things Better In Future

    Ask yourself about those things which you can do at the moment that will ensure you live that life of your dreams down the road. Personally, I decided to invest in long-term ventures, I am investing in Real Estates and in the stock market. After university, whether I will have a job or not, I won’t have to go back to my parents and plead with them to help me with upkeep money. So begin improving. You should realize that you have been digging a hole, so stop digging and plan how to get out. Before you dream of that big salary, find out how much the most paid in that company earns. So work at bettering yourself and at establishing those networks. Connect to the big guys, and as I always say, you must know some people. You must know someone to tell you about those job opportunities that will never leak to the public. Network, network, network again and again

     

    1. Do you love the course you are doing

    I see many students doing university courses for the sake. Because their friend did it, their mum said it’s the best, someone said it brings in the most income. Forget all that trash, when you sit down to pursue that course, do you really love it? I personally love my parents for giving me all the freedom to dictate my life. I chose my O-Level subjects, chose my schools, chose my A-level combinations, chose my university and chose my university course. Yes, they did guide me here and there but I had the final say. It was all about me and what I loved. So if you don’t love that course, you won’t enjoy it and you will find it harder earning money out of it. Again, anything that you sincerely love, you will easily make money out of it. 

     

    1. What can you do that others can’t

    Forget all that trash that let’s all specialize let’s say in web-designing, find some hard stuff that everyone avoids and go in for that one. Personally, I chose not to do some engineering practicals at University because they are not aligned with my goals as an engineer. So find that one field in your course which you can do faster and easily than others and specialize in that one. 

     

    1. A Job will never Give You The Freedom

    If you want to enjoy life out of University, with freedom, money and time, avoid getting a job. If you do get the job, make sure you can’t be replaced. If you can be replaced easily at any job then you can be commanded easily like a slave. If you can be replaced and substituted then your salary will always be miserable. Strive to reach that level where you are one of the kind, where many companies are yearning for you. To me, those are the few secrets.

     

    For any university student reading this, ask yourself WHAT NEXT AFTER UNIVERSITY? What kind of house do you want to live in? What kind of car do you want to drive? How much do you want to earn.

     

    Answer all those questions then write down all the steps needed to get you to that level. If it means working in the Prime Minister’s office, let it be one of those steps. You need to be honest to your heart’s desires. If you want to earn over 10m a month, stop pretending that you want just a simple life.

     

    How To Know If You Are Poor  

    One of the mistakes we make in life is being ignorant. Until you know exactly where you stand, with whom you stand and how you are stand, then you can never know how to make a transition to the life you desire. So, allow me, to do a symptom check and diagnose whether you are poor or not. Here is how to know if you are poor:

     

    1. Anytime Money Enters Your Hands, You Are only Thinking of what To Buy

    I began to realize this with my own life when I was still broke. Whenever money would come to me, my thoughts would run to the debts I had to pay off, the new pair of shoes I wanted to buy and other things to spend money on. It was a concept where you just find money slipping through your hands in the shortest time possible. So if you find yourself in such a scenario. You are most likely, a poor person at the moment. 

    1. You borrow and Spend In Anticipation of Some Future Money which most times does not come. Have you ever convinced someone to lend you money simply because you expected a salary at the end of the month or simply because you envisaged money from some deal some months from now? Most of the people, who borrow money from me, fall in this section and I am just afraid to tell them point-blank that they are poor at the moment. If they could realize this secret, they could find the medicine for it.

     

    1. You Have A Savings Account Yet It Functions Like a Current Account

    Again, here is another poverty symptom. You created an account to act as a Savings Account but as we speak, it turned out to be a current account. You keep withdrawing more than you deposit on it. And honestly, you withdraw to spend not to invest. If this is one of your habits, then you are likely to be poor.

     

    Now the criteria for this test, it that for one to be poor, they must be fulfilling two of the conditions above, if it‘s just one condition, then they are about to get infected with poverty depending on the direction in which they are moving. If they satisfy the three conditions, they are completely poor and must check a financial doctor before things get worse. 

     

    So if you find out that you are poor, there are a couple of things you can do to come out of such a predicament. Like many, you may decide to get a job or if you are already employed, you may decide to look for a better paying job. It looks sensible in the short-run but it makes you poorer in the long-run. So remember the law of opposites, do the opposite of what the majority would do in any given situation. If the majority would run to a job, then run and get the mentality of a billionaire, invest in financial education and sharpen your money making mind. 

     

    A professor of Mathematics might conquer calculus and yet be unable to balance his cheque book. Thus an academic genius can be a financial zombie. Your first class honours degree does not guarantee success in the world of money.

     

    So many of our graduates think that the solution to their unemployment problem is more certificates. That’s why more than 95% of master‘s degree seekers in our universities are those who couldn’t get jobs in the labour market. Instead of going for more degrees every graduate, no matter his/her discipline should learn a skill.-a catering skills, a plumbing skill, a computer skill. 

     

    I could go on and on about skills but one thing I can tell you is that money tends towards the people with the most skills. So make it a point to learn as many skills as possible not forgetting the communication skills, people skills and many essential life skills. 

     

    People leave school not knowing how to balance a cheque book much less how to prepare a Financial statement. They never learned how to control their finances. Just because people have high paying jobs, big houses, and nice cars does not necessarily mean they are in control of their finances. 

     

    What They Don’t Tell You About Network Marketing At The Start

    Like many people, I have tried network marketing and failed. I tried out with GNLD and it did not go well. I had hoped to try my luck at Q-NET but it all failed. However, when I spoke to a man, just two years my senior, he said: ―You can‘t earn money out of network marketing in the short-term but you will definitely learn how to SELL.‖ These words drove the point home to me. I began wishing that someone had told me these words with all due honesty right from the start. And one thing I have learned, if you want quick money, network marketing is not for you, but if you want to learn lifetime skills in Sales and Marketing, sign up for one such opportunity. 

     

    I decided to reproduce a blog article from a Nigerian Blogger and a business associate of mine. He is Tonny Ajaero Martins. He explains those reasons that brought about his failure in the network marketing business. He is so honest about it and I believe these reasons will resonate with everyone who had tried out such a business. On the other hand, for those who wish to join network marketing, there is no better orientation than these words of wisdom. So let‘s read what Martins says about network marketing: 

     

    Humans by nature are inspired by success stories but I love failure stories more because that‘s where the true lesson and business opportunity is. I believe you learn more and build your experience from failures. Success stories sometimes attract fools and lazy bums but failure stories attract serious minded people that have the ability to learn from the mistakes of the failure.

    I have been in the network marketing industry; a multibillion dollar industry with lots of potential. The company I signed up with as an independent distributor was great; the products were excellent, the compensation plan was superb and the management behind the company was good. The network marketing company has a track record of success and successful entrepreneurs (distributors) to show for it. Despite all the potentials of the industry and the business opportunity; I failed to breakthrough.

     

    ―There are no bad business or investment opportunities. What we have are bad entrepreneurs and investors.‖ – Robert Kiyosaki

     

    In 2006, I was approached by a relation of mine (Maurice) with a network marketing business opportunity. The network marketing company was Golden Neo Life Diamite International (GNLD). After hearing his pitch and reading the company‘s brochure; I felt it was worth giving a try. I attended a business presentation organized by the company and I was thrilled by the open possibilities. I checked their records and saw that there were actually people who earn millions of dollars from the system; people who started with nothing and rose to the pinnacle of success. I felt that if these people could make it; I too can. But yet I failed.

     

    The reason I am sharing this story is to make you realize that even in a land flowing with milk and honey, many will still die of hunger. In a land of tremendous opportunities, many will still die poor. I want you to know that for every ten success stories you hear, there are ninety untold failure stories. When it comes to the network marketing industry, I am among the failures. The fault wasn‘t from the company because even after I failed; a lot of other people came from behind me and still found success. Do you want to know why I failed? Then read on.

     

    The reason I am sharing my failure in the network marketing industry with you is because I believe you have a lot to learn from my experience. I am writing this for those who are sweating it out in the multi-level marketing industry; I am writing this for those who are on the verge of quitting. I want you to know that you are not alone; I have been through the same ordeal and I want you to learn from my mistakes.

    Why I Failed to Build a Network Marketing Business

    1. I wasn‘t prepared

    The first reason why I failed to succeed in the network marketing industry was lack of preparation. I wasn‘t prepared for the hassles of the business. One requisite of building a successful network marketing business is your investment of time equity.

     

    Network marketing is a business that requires your time more than your money and I hadn‘t such time. Maybe it was due to the initial low startup capital invested. I felt I had other businesses with huge capital already invested so I didn‘t give my network marketing business the time it deserves and that was where my failure began.

    1. I had the wrong perception

     

    Most people are already failures from the first day they set out to build a network marketing business because they started with the wrong perception. I was sold on the information that it was a stress free business; no selling and no risk, all you have to do is recruit more distributors.

     

    I think this perception is one of the major reasons why most network marketers fail to breakthrough. So if you want to succeed as a network marketer, you must bear in mind that network marketing is a business. It has an accounting, sales and management process; you can‘t ignore any of these.

    1. I lacked sales skills

     

    When I signed up as a distributor for the multi-level marketing business; it didn‘t occur to me that I would have to do a lot of selling on a one on one level. As at that time, I was more inclined to marketing and I hated selling. The difference between marketing and sales is that marketing is done through a system while sales are done on a personal level.

     

    I failed to succeed in the network marketing business because I couldn‘t sell. I found it boring knocking on doors; trying to convince them to join my network or buy products from me. Selling was one of my weaknesses and I didn‘t realize that until I joined the network marketing industry. My experience in the MLM industry revealed my weakness and made me see the need to strengthen it. Today, selling is one of my strengths.

    1. I was afraid of rejection

    Another reason I failed was because I feared being rejected. In fact, this is one of the major reasons for the high failure rate in the network marketing industry. Before signing up for a networking business, I was already an entrepreneur. I could pitch people and raise the capital I needed in no time but I couldn‘t imagine myself begging people to buy nutritional pills. I would rather be turned down on a million dollar project than be turned down on a $25 health product; and this perception led to my failure.

     

    Years later, I came to understand that little things actually make great differences. Selling that $25 nutritional product back then would have added millions of dollars to my income portfolio but I allowed my fear and ego stop me. Don‘t make this same mistake. Fight your fears to a standstill. Rejection is not going to kill you; in fact, you are going to be rejected anyway but it‘s up to you to learn how to make a success out of that rejection.

    1. I lacked leadership skills

     

    Lack of leadership skills is the reason why many people fail in business; it also caused my failure in the network marketing industry. Network marketing is a type of business where you recruit average people and turn them into great leaders and entrepreneurs. It‘s a business where you maintain a personal relationship with your down line distributors. It‘s a business that involves teaching and helping others replicate your success strategies. All this boils down to leadership and unfortunately, I had no time for such then. This was another reason why I failed. 6. I gave up too soon

     

    After spending almost a year in the networking marketing business; I re-evaluated myself and realized that I wasn‘t making headway. Instead of sharpening my skills and investing more time, instead of seeking counsel from successful multi-level marketers; I took the easy route. I quitted. Today, I feel a sting in my heart whenever I remembered that moment. I know deep down in me that I opted out of a multi-million dollar business. I had no reason to; no excuse whatsoever.

     

    I have seen people who started out just like me but they later went on to become multimillionaire network marketers because they did not quit. I have made and I still make millions in income but it irks me that I failed to add a multi-million dollar passive income stream to my portfolio.

    In conclusion, these are the six reasons why I failed to build a network marketing business. To be honest with you; these reasons are worthless. In fact, I deserve to be whipped for opting out of network marketing business opportunity. But all the same, I learned from my mistakes and I also picked up some vital business tips while in the network marketing industry. 

     

    With those words that strike the point deep down in your inner chambers, I guess you are better determined to make a choice on whether to join Network Marketing. No one has ever been this honest about his experience. I believe Martins has said it without fear or favour. We all need to have some prior knowledge before going in for something. Even soldiers get some knowledge about the bush before entering it. Master those things that made him fail and you will become a millionaire off the Network Marketing business. 

     

    The More People You Know, The More Money You Get

     

    Heard about the law of networks? I state it in a whole new way and say: “The more people you know, the more money you make, the more opportunities you find and the faster you reach your goals.”

     

    If you are currently broke, may be you need to become more social and network with more people. I always tell people that you don’t need money to start a business. All you need is to know 5 people that will do everything for free and you start-off. 

     

    I remember the story of Daily Monitor when it started off, they did not invest any capital, one of the founders knew a lawyer, another was a friend of William Pike so he offered to print the first copies for free, and another knew a friend who always travelled upcountry so he offered to transport the newspapers. Today as we speak, Daily Monitor is the most read private Newspaper in Uganda. 

     

    So ask yourself? How many CEOs do you know? How many engineers do you know? If I were to begin construction of a house, I have a friend who would draw up a plan for me at no cost; I have someone who would supervise the process at no cost. The secret in life is to know someone in every field.

     

    Even if I got stranded in Mbarara, with no money at all, there would be someone to feed me and offer me a place. My networks are spread all-over Uganda. Keep networking and feed your networks.

    The problem many people is that they are always the parasites in the network. For example, if you network with an engineer, you should have something to offer them in exchange, something that makes them proud of having you in their network. To me, that’s been my secret of making friends and keeping them. I have a friend I have kept from my very first day in Form One; I have a friend I have kept from my nursery school. So network and remember everyone no matter how insignificant their contribution is to your network, it’s always needed.

     

    Let’s quote the law of Networks once again: “The more people you know the more money you make, the more opportunities you find and the faster you reach your goals.” So today, get a book and list down everyone you know and what you can get from them. For example, list down their contact details, their areas of expertise and categorize them. 

     

     

    To illustrate it better, let‘s review Metcalfe’s Law of Networks.

     

    You can own business but if you don‘t have networking skills, your business will refuse to grow.

    Networking is a vital skill every successful business person has. Henry Ford used it, John D Rockefeller used it. Ray Crock, owner of MacDonald uses it. Richard Branson and even the best leader ever in human history, Jesus used it. If you are a Christian, you are a result of an extensive network. Christianity is but a fight which is a product well sold over globe.  Metcalfe’s law explains why a tortoise can beat a hare if he continues to acquire assets rather than work for money.

     

    Leverages or economic ratio illustrated

     

    You and yourself

    1:1 to the power of 2

    Economic ratio is 1

     

    You and 3 others

    1:3 to the power of 2

    Economic power is 9

    Why MOST GRADUATES TOTALLY FAIL IN BUSINESS/-ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    I write this article in this period of my manufacturing internship at some Industry whose details remain hidden as confidentiality- of all that happens there is what I swore to. I have noticed that most graduates tend to find the transition to business very hard, in fact, of all businesses that failed in the first 6 months when they were created, 90% were created by graduates.

     

    My problem is one, educated people over-analyze, they over deal with theories, they over plan and they take less action. The other problem with graduates, they remember to go into business when it’s pretty too late for them to have time to make mistakes.

     

    The secret in business, is that the faster you fail, the faster you make mistakes, the faster you grow to super mastery as an entrepreneur. Graduates come out of school where mistakes are punished with retakes, they are taught that mistakes are not part of life. So they are so scared of taking any risk, they would rather study all conditions hoping they will get perfect at one point, but conditions never get perfect, it’s the entrepreneur who decides to make them perfect.

     

    It’s part of the scary factor my dad faced until Sudhir held his hand as he went into business. If it was not for Sudhir, I doubt my Dad’s business eyes would have been opened. Today Sudhir continues to give me advice via sms, but hey he holds nothing called a Degree. He has never stepped in any university lecture room yet Forbes ranked him as the richest man in East Africa.

     

    So here are the problems of graduates, things that make business hard for graduates:

    1. Graduates fear to take risks

    Graduates have this amazing fear, they would rather sit for an Engineering maths paper that take the risk of investing in a new business.

     

    2.Graduates Want to Show Off once they begin earning

    I have no problem with people getting jobs, but most people, when they get a job, they up their lifestyle, they move into an apartment where you pay a high rent, they take out a car loan forgetting that a car is another liability. Graduates want to show their classmates that they are no doing better so in a way they begin to fake success, you can’t fake success, you can’t fake money, the more you do, the more you rubberstamp your way to lifetime poverty. The most successful graduates delay their gratification, rather than buying a car, why not buy a plot of land, construct some rental houses such that even if you are fired from your job, you have something to bring in money every month. That’s a business.

     

    3.Graduates over-analyze

    Graduates have all the facts about why a business may not work out, the uneducated just need one reason why a business will work-out and they will go for that business. One of my P.7 classmates dropped out in S.4, today he is one of the most respected entrepreneurs in Kikubo, he is practical, not theoretical like most graduates. Graduates will analyze the inflation rates, the GDP, that’s all crap, do you think Geofrey Kirumira sits down to analyze that??? Forget the theories, begin the action.

     

    1. Graduates begin a part-time business and give it little attention

    One of the reasons I have put most of my investments on hold is because I currently have no time for them. One thing you should know that a business requires your full-time attention, you can’t trust your relative or friend to run it on your behalf. You will be cheated. What most graduates do, is to get some money, give it to their brother to begin a shop which they own, and before they know it all, that business fails to work out. Business requires your undivided attention. Entrepreneurshi-p is a lifestyle not a part-time hobby.

     

    1. Graduates begin a job instead of a business

    Probably, the reason people get into business is so that they can have all the freedom, wake up when they want, have all the money but the problem is that most graduates forget to build systems in a business. Any business without systems is a job in the long-run. A business in the long-term should be able to run without you. Build systems, make your employees to feel a part of the business, let them know that they are the business.

     

    6.Graduates always make the excuse of capital

    I am sick and tired of getting the same question in my inbox everyday, “Ian I don’t have capital, how can I begin this business.” Your brain is your most important capital, perhaps you need to learn about using other people’s money to run your own business, perhaps you need to learn about networking and modern day barter-trade. I can write an article for someone in exchange for their services, I don’t need money to pay them.

     

    7.Graduates always eat their business capital

    Graduates always mistake cash-flow for profits. It’s the reason, most local entrepreneurs are being wiped out. It’s the same reason why Sudhir ended up taking over Ssebagala and sons and other millionaires’ businesses down-town. When you begin a business and see the money coming in, don’t mistake it for profits. There is capital to be ploughed back, on top of this, this capital has to be increased/-grown every month, so that’s like 10% more capital every month, then deduct the expenses, deduct the various taxes, until you make these deductions, don’t eat your business money thinking those are all profits. That’s stupidity.

     

    1. Graduates are rigid, conservative and think they know-it-all

    I have talked to graduates who think things must be as they are. They think 1+1 will always be equal to 2, but we know it can be 11, it can be 3, it can be a million. Graduates rarely innovate in business, they only know that stupid definition of an asset, they are the know-it-all, they are not open to new ideas.

     

    Those are some of the major barriers to most graduates in business. They are the leading causes of business failure for many graduates. From my statistics, among the top 100 Ugandan billionaires, only one has a degree.

     

     

    The Number One Success Secret In LIFE and BUSINESS

     

    I wish could talk about hard work or prayer or this and that. But I can’t, there is only one great success secret and that secret is SELLING.

     

    For any success in any field of life, you should know how to sell. The problem with many people, they think selling is all about going out and shouting to people, buy this and that. No, selling goes beyond that.

     

    1. Learn How To Sell Yourself

    If you are a graduate looking for employment, how are you selling yourself, on your Curriculum vitae? Is your CV that catching, does it, make people get interested in having you on their team? If you can sell yourself, you can beat better qualified people to any job. I have seen people with mere diplomas getting jobs while first class degree holders rot on the market stalls. Learn how to sell yourself in your relationship. Make your girlfriend/boyfriend never wish to leave you, sell yourself and what she will miss if she chooses to opt out. When you go out every day, are you dressed for success? Do your clothes project success? Brother, stop wearing clothes for the sake, sell you. Even prostitutes know how to sell themselves, and those who don’t quit the business in just days.

     

    1. Learn how to sell To People and In business

    Begin with your friends. Learn how to sell your ideas to them. Learn how to sell to your family members. Learn how to sell to your neighbor in a taxi. The reason I became a pick-up artiste for a month was because I wanted to learn the art of selling. For starters, pick-up artistes pick up girls anywhere and make them fall in love with them. You know you have learned the art of selling, if you can sell a bottle of mineral water to a drowning man. If you can convince a rat to sleep while the cat is watching over it, then that’s super marketing.

     

    Now there is a difference between selling and marketing. Marketing is more about putting the product out there and doing the super branding, but when it comes to selling, it is direct, you do it face to face. 

     

    When you learn selling, marketing becomes a walk-over. And you can’t sell by just sitting in a business class at University, you have to get dirty, go out there and try it out hands-on. Get a job that requires you to bring in a given number of clients in a given time. 

     

    The best way to learn about selling is by joining a Network Marketing company like GNLD, QNET, FOREVER LIVING, and SWISSGARD. Your aim in these companies should not be profits but learning how to sell and mastering the art.

     

    Those are the secrets. Selling is the most important Skill in Business. I‘m asked many times, ―what‘s the most important skill in business?‖ I wish I have all the answers. But answers differ from person to person.  My personal answer, based from my exhaustive study on successful business men and women around the world boils down to a single skill. 

    “SELL”

     

    Many tell me that want to start a business. Ok. Go ahead I say. But they feel ashamed to sell. Then my best advice to them is, be a teacher or a doctor. But don‘t be a businessman. If u can‘t sell, you are not in business. Selling is the core activity of every business- be it product or idea they sell. There is no short-cut to becoming a successful entrepreneur without learning to sell, you are bound for failure. 

     

     

    The Secrets The Rich Never Tell You About

    There are many things the rich never let anyone know about. Some are so simple, yet they keep talking of hard-work, hard-work, hard-work. I mean, we all know of the cart-pushers in downtown or those migugu carriers, they work harder, but the more they work has nothing to do with a real increase in their earnings. So here are some of those small and big secrets the rich keep hiding.

     

    1.Journaling-Have a Pen and Paper wherever You are

    The rich keep a piece of paper or notebook where they can note down everything as it comes to them. Truth be told, the founder of Walmart said that the idea hit him while he was in a toilet. Richard Branson, one of the richest in the world keeps a notebook, he notes down the new business strategies, new business ideas, new tips, where to improve. As you go on doing this, you will find your life improving for the better. I personally did this for my Aunt’s bar. It was almost collapsing, she gave me a month to manage it and I can assure you, within a month, it was on top of Naalya.

     

    1. Networks are better than money

    You realize that the rich know a lawyer, they know a journalist, they know some politician, they know a doctor. That’s life, have someone who has something you need for a friend. I have friends who are good at real-estate, anytime I need an apartment, I just call them and it’s done. Build your network and keep expanding it and feeding it.

     

    3.Mind every coin that goes out of your wallet

    The rich never tell you this, but the fact is, the rich only spend when it’s worth it. I always tell people that Sudhir had no house-maid 10 years back. His wife used to do the laundry at home. No one will ever tell you this. No one will ever tell you that Charles Mbiire once footed from Mukono to Entebbe for a week. The rich are careful about where their money is going. Look at the car that Bill Gates drives, look at Ssebalamu on a normal day–you will find him in a tattered shirt with Lugabiire managing his businesses. Frugality is the key. The rich don’t buy luxuries until it comes to a point when the luxuries can afford themselves.

     

    1. Super-risk taking

    You will never be rich if you are scared of taking risks. Patrick Bitature is one of those super risk-takers, he once lost millions in a business venture. If you want money, learn to associate will areas of high risk. Learn to invest and invest, learn to have control over money and not be scared of losing it.

     

    1. Mystery

    This should have been number one. The rich are mysterious. You can never know when they wake-up. They are unpredictable. Money loves mystery. If your business competitor can predict your next move, you are finished. For example, one of the successes of BigEye.ug has been mystery, you can never know what next we have in stock. We just keep surprising people.

     

    6.The Law of Attraction And Positive Confession

    Every rich person I have seen is always positive. I remember when Sudhir began Speke Resort Munyonyo. It took years to pick up but he was super sure it was going to work out. The rich are always visualizing success, they know everything has already worked out for the best. They confess positivity, the rich never associate with negative minded people. 

     

    1. The rich always keep the last secret to themselves

    Goodness, I have talked to Kirumira, talked to Bitature, talked to Mbiire but there is that one secret they never spill. Whether it’s super time management, super political connections, some juju. The rich will keep the last secret to themselves, it’s what keeps them at the top. Well, I have also decided to keep that last SECRET.

     

    HEALTH AND HEALING

    How To Cure Eye Allergies and Other Allergies

    For over 4 years, I suffered from an eye allergy diagnosed to be perennial allergic conjunctivitis. I tried different ophthalmologists for a better solution but they all settled for eye drops and antihistamine tablets.   

     

    I kept on thinking I was allergic to dust perhaps though I did not see a connection considering that I was getting the allergy attack even when I was completely avoiding the dust.  But I was born lucky so in 2013, March, I met an angel of sorts or a messiah of a kind.

     

    It was Joel Bellenson, the man who was behind the Human Genom Project (read about it on Google). Bellenson suffered from over 200 allergies as child and he still suffers from an eye allergy occasionally. He told me, he used to get immunotherapy shots every week. 

     

    So I asked him to tell me about his eye allergy. He broke it down to the fact that all allergies stem from the fact that our liver needs to be detoxified from time to time. He prescribed that the fastest way to have liver detoxification and the most natural way is to maintain daily water intake at 3 litres per day.  This will help the body flush out all the toxins and allergies will automatically get cured as long as this water intake is maintained. 

     

    Our bodies detox continuously as a natural function. It’s only when our detox mechanisms become overloaded that the process becomes less efficient & symptoms may occur. Toxic overload can contribute to more serious conditions such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory/rheumatoid arthritis & neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s & Alzheimer’s. The goal of any detox program should be to gently & slowly cleanse your body of toxins that add an extra burden so serious diseases like these can be avoided. You want to turn your liver into a healthy cleansing machine.  To detox, here is the solution: 

     

    1. Antioxidants to protect the cells from toxins.

     

    1. Plant derived protein powder to aid in liver detoxification.

     

    1. Soluble & insoluble fibers to aid regularity & remove toxins out of the GI tract.

     

    1. Combination of fruits, vegetables & berries to help alkalinize the body.

     

    1. Full spectrum proteolytic enzymes to assist in digesting proteins.

     

    1. Omega-3 (EPA, DHA, GLA) to address brain function, hormonal balance, constipation, dry skin, unhealthy cholesterol levels, inflammation & stiffness and heart health.

     

    1. Quercetin, hesperidin, rutin are natural bioflavonoids found in citrus fruits, red wine & tea.

     

    But the most important of all, for eye allergies, make sure you increase your daily water intake.  Then increase the zinc levels, and Vitamin C and D consumption. So you may have to seek more of the morning sunlight. After increasing my water intake levels, the eye allergy cleared in just hours. I am quite sure, I was able to detox to a great level on my first day.  The only side-effect was the continuous rush to the lavatories to urinate. But the urine was clear. And the best indication of whether your liver is okay is the colour of your urine. If it‘s continuously yellowish then you need to increase the water intake. 

     

    Dark greens should also be part of the meals. Dark greens are full of Chlorophyll which;

     Helps with Cell repair and regeneration, Blood oxygenation and clotting, Provides quick and lasting energy, Increases stamina, Liver detoxification, Assists in general body detoxification, Eliminates body odor and bad breath, Aids in prevention of liver cancer, Can be beneficial in cancer therapy, Helps with anemia, Eliminates mold from the body, Assists in cases of candida (parasitic fungus), Assists in beneficial flora in the stomach. Try to have at least two servings a day one early and the other late to help keep your body clean! 

     

    With all these, I can assure you, you are in for an allergy free period. My own liver toxification stemmed from the fact that, years back, my salt intake was a bit too much which overloaded my liver. So take log of what you eat, the weather and other factors. 

    RELATIONSHIPS

      

    Customize Your Relationship 

    Michael Baisden once wrote: ―I was married once, and I would have to say it was successful, fun, and exciting for the first few years, But I was much younger then and I didn’t have the maturity of communication skills that it takes to have a successful marriage. But the bigger issue was that my wife and I didn‘t know how to customize our marriage to work for us! 

     

     

    My advice to couples is to create a marriage that works best for you. Apply the lessons from observing healthy relationships of friends and family, but set your own standards and boundaries… and then tell everyone to mind their own damned business!‖

     

    I can fully agree with Baisden, the problem with relationships of today is that we play them on the tunes of what Television, Social Media and Movies show us. We think just because Mike and Sarah do this and that in their relationship, we should do the same. In the end we pile pressure on ourselves and on our partners. We keep finding them falling short of our expectations, we expect them to be someone else. But that‘s not how a real relationship should be. A relationship should be customized. My dad and mum for example agreed that they would each get home at different times of the day, and my Dad also made it clear that the nature of his work would see him come back past mid-night on some days.

    It was a customized relationship. They did not try to run a relationship by reading another couple‘s set of rules and regulations, they formed their own guidelines. And once couples can understand this, divorce will become a thing of the past.

     

    Finally, when it comes to dating a person, many times we marry for image; we marry those people we can show off it public. In fact, we reduce our partners to mere objects to go around with so as to enhance our public image. I have found out over time that the greatest mistake one can ever make is to marry someone that‘s not your friend. It‘s better to marry your friend, your friend will know you in and out, and they will read you and know when something is wrong. When you marry a friend, you marry someone you can speak to when everyone else has gone silent on you.  A friend is always ready to welcome the unedited, real you. They know your highs and your lows, you don‘t need to pretend when you are before them. 

     

    The reason many marriages collapse is because people walk down the aisle without first building that friendship and knowing each other in and out, handling each other‘s worst sides. So they all pretend, get into marriage and the real person gets revealed. Guess what; it‘s all a shock when you think you married an Angel only to wake up with a demon in bed.

     

    Is the person you’re dating or married to a resource? Do they support you or sabotage your dreams? Couples who build strong businesses and relationships will tell you that success is a team sport.  Your partner should be your best feet forward not the weakest link! Your marriage or relationship should be one of the secrets behind your success; it should be that super backup in your bank. 

     

    Why You Should Love Yourself

    The reason many relationships fail is because people have failed to learn the art of loving themselves. We go through life seeking for someone to bestow that love on us. Realize that you can‘t love or be loved enough until you have loved yourself to the extreme. 

     

    ―While you may feel all alone at times that is simply not true. You always have you. 

     

    Don‘t look to someone else to fix your problems. Don‘t wait for someone else to make the first move. Be your own best friend, soul mate, and biggest fan by refusing to abandon yourself when times get tough. It is when you feel all alone that is the exact moment you must dig deep and find the strength that only you can give to yourself

     

    “The most important relationship we will ever have is with our self. Loving ourselves most, taking care of our needs, remaining true to ourselves, being our own best friend, and standing up for ourselves, is not selfish. It is responsible. Only when we do these for ourselves can we love, nurture, be a good friend to, and stand up for others.

    In a Loving or Leaving Relationship 

    Each day I receive emails and messages from people who tell me they are in love with someone who is abusing them or having an affair with someone else or who has left them for another. They are desperate, lonely, feeling lost and betrayed. While my heart longs to reach out and wrap my arms around each and every one of these people I also want to sit them down in the corner and have a serious and honest chat. 

     

    Behavior, not words, is the true indicator of who someone really is. Abuse is not love. Dishonesty is not love. Betrayal, control, lies are not love. We feel miserable when these things happen to us. Not so much because the other person does them but because WE BETRAYED ourselves by continuing to allow it to happen when we have known that something is not right. We do not just wake up one day to another person‘s negative behavior. We have been aware of it, and have betrayed ourselves by either choosing to ignore it because they say they love us, or because we love them, or we think they will change, or by expecting them to take care of us emotionally, physically or financially, or for whatever excuse we accept in the moment.

     

    Our healing starts when we honestly admit to ourselves that love does not abuse, or use, or disrespect, or cheat, or lie, or say one thing and do another. Once we are honest with ourselves we begin finding the self-love, self-respect, and self-reliance necessary to change ourselves. We find the courage to stop clinging to a fantasy of what we think should be and wrap our arms around the reality of what is. Truly accepting what is allows us to bravely act on in best behalf.

     

    You have to come to a point where you realize than sometimes the best way is to opt out. If you have given it your all, tried all your best methods, shared with a third party that your partner respects and you still lack the fulfillment in that relationship, then the earlier you leave the better.

    We have all been told that we must put up for the sake of the children. But is that the best image we want to give to our children? Is being in an abusive relationship the lesson we want to teach to our children about love? Our children should have images where love is reciprocated between mum and Dad. By choosing to stay, we make them think that marriage is all about fights, abuses and disrespect; as a result, we are creating generations that will have a strong fear for marriage. 

     

    I am not trying to advocate for divorce, but children deserve to grow up in a peaceful home, one without constant quarrels between their mother and father. Realize that if he/she can‘t bring out their best in the relationship after you‘ve brought out your best, you have a right to leave. 

     

     

    “For many years I was in a dead-end relationship. I wanted to leave but did not want to be alone. One day it hit me. I was already alone. That ‘aha’ was the confidence I needed to actually leave. By leaving I freed myself from thinking it was better to have anyone than no one. By leaving I realized I am worth more alone and happy than I was with someone in misery.”

     

    ―Several times over the course of my life I have been left in a relationship. Some of those people never gave me a reason. For a long time I thought if I screamed loud enough, or begged long enough, or negotiated they would return or at least explain themselves. None of that worked and only made me feel horrible because it was codependent and needy behavior. 

     

    I was angry because I felt that their leaving said I was not good enough. One day I realized that a relationship is made up of two people. Since I can only control or change me I became determined to become the best partner possible. Part of my self-growth was learning to accept that if someone did not want to be in relationship with me then for my happiness and peace it was best to let them go and move on

     

     

    When Other People Surpass You

    At one time in life I was jealous of other people‘s good fortune, physical appearance, career, home, car, mate, etc. It seemed I was always finding something to envy in other people. But jealously made me feel horrible and did nothing to create my happy and fulfilled life. So, one day I intentionally sat down to bravely look my jealousy in the eye. 

     

    By taking time to ask why I was envious I realized I was not honestly upset that someone had more money, a better job, a bigger house, or a better car. I was disappointed in myself for not responsibly spending the money I made. Likewise, I was not envious that other people were more physically attractive. I was upset because I did not value myself enough to appreciate and take the best care of my body. Also, I was not really jealous of another person‘s partner. I was upset because I did not know myself well enough to attract another person with the positive values I wanted in a lasting relationship.

     

    Today I am grateful I had the courage to honestly look at the motivations behind my envy. I learned jealousy is the perfect mirror in which to find a reflection of what I need to look at within myself.

     

    I have learned that the best way to get faster ahead in life is by helping other people surpass them. If one can honestly help a friend, a relative to do better than them in life, then they will have people willing to pull them up on that ladder. 

     

    And jealousy comes simply because we look at other people doing the things we‘ve always wanted to do but lacked the guts. We look at someone walking up to someone they love and declaring their feelings and the guilt feeling of not having the same courage beats us up into jealousy.  Whenever that feeling arises, then it‘s a sure way of knowing that there is a part of our life that we neglected. If we get jealousy because a hard-working employee got promoted, it‘s because we ourselves wish for the quality of being hard-working. It is as simple as that, whatever makes you jealous is what you need to work on. 

     

    How To Get A Girl’s Number So Easily In The Shortest Time Possible

     I am sure, many men have had those frustrating moments, you approach her, open up but when it comes to time of getting the number you get that rejection of a NO. I will try to illustrate the different ways with different scenarios.

     

    If you’re in a night club and you spot a girl whose number you would like, then go to her, open with a simple hey, and continue by saying something like: “Hey, can see you re having fun, my friends are leaving but put your number here, will get to you later…” Again, you‘ve done it in just a second…. you don’t give her a chance of saying no, by the time she can say no, your phone is already in her hands.

     

     Another time, I was walking along Diamond Street, I spotted a nice girl and I felt I should get to know her more. She was rushing so when she almost brushed by me, I was like: “Heeeeeyyyy how have you been?” (Notice I used the past tense, it makes her think I know her from somewhere, saying how are u makes u look like a stranger…) So I continued and am Like: You’re rushing to work? And she said no and told me where she was rushing off to… I closed up by saying, am rushing here, but give me your number, will give you a call when am done…

     

     Then there is the supermarket scenario. If you spot a beautiful girl in a supermarket, go besides her and make it seem like you’re having a trouble making a selection. For example, I once saw a lady near the deodorants section, so I went to her, pointed at her eyes then shifted my pointing hands to the deodorants. So am like, “Help choose for me, am trying to get a nice perfume for my sister but I don’t know what’s better… ” So I sprayed some on her and smelled on her arm…. She made a choice for me (didn’t want the deodorant of course) and I was like, give me your number, may need to give you a call to say thanks if she really likes it.

     

     If you are seated in a Taxi with her, then simply say something is confusing you on Facebook and ask for her user-name. Another time, you can simply say…”Girl, I am giving you my number but don’t over call me…‖ You say this as you are handing your phone to her; it is an indirect way of getting her number but also letting her know that you are aware it’s not good to over-call her…

     

     And after getting her number, don’t simply rush off. It will make it seem like you were only interested in her number and not her. Alternatively, as you converse with a girl, try to know where she happens from.

     

     One time, I was speaking to a lady who told me she enjoyed poetry, so I told her, “There is this new poet in town, she recites her poems on Friday evening, would you mind checking her out…‖ and she replied “Yes” and I was like-“Put here your number, will remind you on Friday…”  So it’s that easy, same like getting a girl’s number through Facebook Inbox….. 

     

    How To Approach a GIRL and make her fall for you….

     I have seen many men make these great approaches, drop the wonderful pick-up lines or openers but end up failing miserably thereafter. Of course, I try out most of these things on a daily basis so I can comfortably tell what’s stupid, what’s lame and what works.

     

     It’s not about the opener, it’s about how you use it. But the best opener will always be a simple “Hey” … Now the mistake many men make after approaching a girl is turning the conversation into an interview.

     

     Never and never interview a girl. Women are sick of boring conversations with men and besides asking her questions mounts pressure on her and within no time, she will excuse herself. Asking her a series of questions acts as a turn-off. And you know most guys after asking a question will repeat with “ooh sure…. really, is that so…” It gets boring.

     

     So if you are interested in soliciting information from her, do it indirectly. Try making assumptions and guesses about what she does, where she works, the food she does, guess her phone number, guess her place of residence.

     

     For example, if I meet a girl, I won’t ask: “Where do you stay…” I will simply say…. “Ohhh, it seems you stay in Naalya…” of course she will try to refute it and tell me her place in a friendly argument. Alternatively, I can say, “Let me guess your number, it is 0788552442” I will go ahead and try and try, more like playing a game then after sometime exclaim… “Goodness, I give up, just put your number in my phone…” and she will freely put it because I will have already made her feel comfortable with me. She will have already trusted me. Asking questions on the other hand kills the trust, you come off as a spy instead.

     

     Many times, I connect with girls who will tell me things they’ve never even told their boyfriends. I can get to know about this within 5 minutes of talking to her. So when you approach her, do it naturally, maintain the eye contact and lead the conversation, please and please don’t become a journalist, asking her questions and questions……

     

    CREATIVE WRITING

    How To Discover Your Writing Style and Voice

    Every new writer struggles with the issue of trying to find their unique, natural writing style and voice. In a world where some writers have set the baseline of what‘s good and what‘s not, new writers are bound to disappear through the thin air of discovering their style and voice.  Have you ever read a piece of writing and you can tell accurately the person who wrote it? For example, you can identify a group of people basing on what has been written.

     

    In Uganda, one could tell a Kevin Aliro, a Richard Tebere, a John Nagenda, a Francis Gureme and a Charles Onyango Obbo. They all had their unique writing styles.  Every writer should aim at having that style that sets him apart from others and it should come naturally. It should simply be discovered not forced to arise. It is some state of flow where words at your disposal flow neatly and nicely onto paper. Even though you may not be aware of the magic of your style and voice, the readers always let you know. Readers who can identify with such a style with always get hooked and want to read more and more of you.

     

    In the book ―Elements of Style‖ by William Strunk and E.B White, a few great tips were given that I find worth a shot for a new writer. 

     

    One of these is that a writer should place themselves in the background.  One should write in a way that draws the reader‘s attention to the sense and substance of the writing, rather than to the mood and temper of the author. If the writing is solid and good, the mood and the temper will be revealed, and not at the expense of the work.  Basically, the trick is letting go and writing whatever comes to your mind and not forcing anything.  A careful and honest writer does not need to worry about style. As you become proficient in the use of language, your style will emerge, because you yourself will emerge and when this happens you will find it increasingly easy to break through the barriers that separate you from other minds, other hearts—which is, of course, the purpose of writing as well as its principal reward.  Fortunately, the act of composition, or creation, disciplines the mind; writing is one way to go about thinking and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.

     

    A writer should writer in a way that comes naturally.  There is that traditional way of writing which tends to kill style. One is basically told to outline everything they are supposed to talk about as they write then explain these in details. Though it‘s good for churning out good academic essays, research reports and other business writing essays, it kills style.  A writing done this way comes off as over-engineered. It is simply boring. It does not flow. There is a lack of unison between paragraphs; you can tell a writer is struggling to force it.  So the solution is to write in a way that comes easily and naturally to you, using words and phrases that come readily to hand. But do not assume that because you have acted naturally your product is without flaw.  The use of language begins with imitation; the infant imitates the sounds made by its parents; the child imitates first the spoken language, then the stuff of books. The imitative life continues long after the writer is secure in the language, for it‘s almost impossible to avoid imitating what one admires. Never imitate consciously, but do not worry about being an imitator; take pains instead to admire what is good. Then when you write in a way that comes naturally, you will echo the halloos that bear repeating. By trying to imitating a certain proficient writer, it is clear proof that you style is on the same frequency as theirs. So by imitating, you are taking out time to know what you are supposed to become along the way. And as you write naturally, your style will be appended to the similarities that drew you to that writer. 

     

    The bottom line is, if an idea hits you, simply begin to write, write words as they come to your mind. Many times, I have written articles in so much short a space of time that I could not believe it was the work of my hands. I don‘t know in advance what I am going to write and how good it will read, it is only after I have written out my heart that I begin to realize the magic that has been displayed on paper or on computer. Whenever I am writing, it‘s like I am taking a leap into space, then magically waving my writing band and spinning around the threads of words that bring me praise and recognition from the readers.  

     

    E.B White in his book says that one should work from a suitable design. Before one begins to compose something, they should gauge the nature and extent of the enterprise and work from a suitable design. Design informs even the simplest structure, whether of brick and steel or of prose. By design, I don‘t mean you should have a blueprint of what you are supposed to write, simply have it in mind of the route you are going to traverse, the stop-overs and the destination. You need not outline this but you need to consciously have it in mind, feed the blueprint to the mind and the mind will organize it for you on paper in a way that flows naturally and coherently.  And in times when impulse and emotion are more compelling that design, dare not try to organize these emotions. The prose will have a better chance if the emotions are left in disarray—which you‘ll probably have to do anyway, since feelings do not usually lend themselves to rearrangement. It is a writing that is essentially adventurous, but even with this, there is a secret plan. Columbus didn‘t just sail, he sailed west, and the New World took shape from this simple and, we now think, sensible design. Simply pick a direction you‘ve chosen to go as you write any piece then adventurous follow it, let your mind take your there magically, don‘t struggle about it. 

     

    Keep writing again and again, whether short or small and after a good time of doing this, your style and voice will naturally emerge. You won‘t suffer with trying to force a brand; it will be you that people see when they read your stuff. You are good to go, leap into space and change the world.  

     

    How to Write a Music Video Review

    In 2012, the editor of Sqoop, an entertainment magazine in Daily Monitor which happens to be

    Uganda‘s leading private Newspaper asked me to do music video reviews. Although I had been doing reviews of the other arts, I had never taken video reviews so serious.

     

    I searched all over the internet for an article on how to make a music video review, how to review a music video and how to write a music video review but without any success. It‘s after I got to the 20 page of the Google results that I gave up on ever landing on such an article. 

     

    I hope that this article can help clear up what seems so difficult and hard to do. I hope it can help you do the music video reviews in a very professional way. It pays to do a critic of a music video that makes you come out as someone who knows what they are doing.  It‘s not all about mentioning the good parts of the video, the funny parts and giving those negative comments. That is not all, a music video review is much more than that.

     

    Steps to Reviewing a music Video

    1. Mute the audio. Very often, when listening to a good song, one may be bribed into thinking the video is automatically good. When reviewing a music video for a popular song, it‘s best to watch it one mute and then later on, you can unmute it and watch it with the audio.

     

    1. Observe the speed by which the video plays. This says a lot about the camera movement. In some cases, a shaky movement shows an amateurish video, it shows poor editing and it shows a video shot on a low budget. So the description in your writing in such a case can be; ―The video was shot on low budget, it strains the eyes with its shaky movements and the editing was lacking.‖ However, in case the shaking and speedy movements are meant to enhance some video emotions and qualities, then you should be keen on this. Don‘t gamble, take your time to write this section, never rush it.

     

    1. Write about the meat of the music video. In technical terms, the meat of the music video refers to the aspect of the close-shot-ups of the singer‘s face. In fact, it is the most important aspect of a music video. Any video that fails on this aspect cannot be described as best or impressive. So in case, there are close shots, then the video can be described as rich in visual accentuation.

     

    1. One also has to observe how the images run with the beats of the song. Are the dancers static when the beats reflect a dancing emotion? If such a scenario happens then the video can be said to be out of sync with the audio. In other words, the images of such a video are not cut to the beat or key rhythm. The images should change just as the song structure changes.

     

    1. As one gets to write a music video, it is important to write about the Lighting and Colour. Many times, video critics write about it but just for the sake. They simply use terms as great lighting or poor lighting. But that is not reviewing, that is simply reporting. Show and don‘t simply tell. Lighting is sometimes used to provoke certain emotions, observe this and write about this. Sometimes, it is intention to make the video blurred to show evoke some horror emotions. Black and white is sometimes employed to show a change in timescale and take viewers back in time. Blue color on the other hand is a life-enhancing color. Red on the other hand can show love or danger. Talk about the colour and lighting in detail. Never miss it out as you write your music video review.

     

    1. I am used to being so complicated in my music video reviews. For example, I enjoy using mise-en-scene instead of location. Despite of all this, the location should be mentioned. If you are familiar with the place where the video was shot them talk about it. It would also not make sense to say the video got it on its location if it‘s a song that speaks of suffering but all that one sees are happy faces at a restaurant. This is a stupid choice of location and your video review should point out such aspects. The location will determine whether the video can be described as one with portrayals of realness, grit and effort. The location also determines whether the artiste gets that ‗star image.‘

     

    1. It is also important to observe the montage and fast-cutting editing of a music video. These determine whether a music video creates that visually decentered experience. As you write the music video review, observe whether the images move so fast that they can‘t be understood. Observe the patch-ups of the images and whether they move on the same line without the viewer losing the choreography. Write about all this and make your remarks. It all depends on what you see and what actually happens in the music video.

     

    1. There are also post-production digital effects to write about. For example, a video that is edited with complexity always has split-screen images and colorizing. Most dance music videos should have these qualities and when reviewing videos of such genres, make the ratings based on this too. A video with such qualities can be described as trippy and psychedelic.

     

    1. The audience matters. If writing a music video review that is to be read by experienced and professional people, then you may have to take some time and make the review a bit complex and more educative. However, if writing for an audience that is not music aware or knows not some music aspects, then keep it simple. By keeping it simple, I mean, stick at simply mentioning those aspects that make it a great video to watch, then point out what bores you in the video. From that, write about what the video lacks, what should have been in the video, whether the video met your expectations, how it fares etc.

     

    1. The story Line: This rotates around choreography, Some videos of late have no story lines but it does not mean they are bad music videos. Other music videos have story lines that are not well executed whereas others have story-lines that are so predictable and leave not the viewer addicted to watching the video. You need to write about all these plus the dance strokes choreography in the music video. Talk of whether the story-line is eye-catching, creative and all that.

     

    1. Write about the funny bits in the video, the sad bits, and those bits that made you scream. Let your eyes communicate to you. A music video review after some time becomes one of those things you can write up in a few minutes. When I am in my moods, I usually write around four music video reviews in just 15 minutes.

     

    It is all about feeling relieved as you write the music video review. Feel natural about the whole experience after-all, it is your own opinion and you are entitled to it. Sometimes, people may think otherwise when you do a music video, sometimes a music video has nothing good to be said about it or the reverse can also hold. Simply keep doing the music reviews and you will get to that point where your opinion is believed and it holds. Keep it professional and you will command the respect. Waiting to read some of those music video reviews you just wrote. 

     

    Overcoming Writer’s Block To Contacting Writer’s Diarrhoea

    The greatest fear of many writers is coming to that point in time when they ran out of ideas or even words in the middle of writing an article. I have never been to journalism school or any institute that teaches writing, but I know that the modes by which journalism schools teach writers have a number of shortcomings that contribute to writer‘s block. 

    What is Writer’s block?

    Writer‘s block is simply that inability to write. You begin a paragraph you never complete, a story that never flows and ideas that never connect. Writers, who learned the traditional way, were taught that you think of an idea, outline the main points and then elaborate on those points.

     

    This traditional method is disabling in a way that it makes writers fail to discover their style. A creative writer can never be made with such a method. Articles written in this way come off as over-engineered and academic. They give a reader a turn-off, they are sleep-inducers, they are boring, and they lack the connection with the reader‘s soul, heart and mind. Writers, who write in this traditional way, are not infused in what they write, they are absent and such articles never last the test of time. It is not one thing you will read and get impressed.

    Beating Writer’s block

    For all the years I have written, I came to find out that the best way to beat writer‘s block is to avoid the traditional method. The best advice any writer can take on is to write whatever comes in their mind and the hands will arrange it on paper or on a computer. Simply begin writing, waste no time thinking about what to write. The reason I never suffer from writer‘s block is because I am always so busy writing to even take pauses. When I am writing, I get in this natural state of flow where I lose count of time and space. In that moment, I am in the writer‘s dimension. It is like I am one with the article. I feel myself in it, I breathe it. I never know beforehand what I am going to put on paper, it just comes naturally and it is after I am done writing that I realize and take time to read what I put on paper.

     

    To beat writer‘s block, write anything in anyway it comes to your mind. Don‘t stop writing until you‘ve reached over 4 paragraphs. By the time it gets to four paragraphs, you will have beaten writer‘s block hands down that you would not even wish to stop for a moment.

    Booming with Ideas as a Writer

    Writers always complain of shortage of ideas. I find this abnormal. I mean, Ideas are all around us, when I awake, I see ideas, when I turn my head to one direction, I see another idea. And with social media, ideas are all over, for example in what people say, in what people do, in how people react, in press releases, in research findings and so on and so forth.

     

    The best tip for any writer is to always have a pen and paper with them everywhere they go even in bed. Great ideas always come in times when they are least expected. It is only writers that are so stuck in newsrooms that do suffer from ideas constipation. There is nothing in the newsroom; real journalism is out in the field.

    Tips for Stylish Writing

    And with the advent of technology, even a phone can work as a notebook for ideas that come to you. Just keep observing, just keep looking and do all this naturally. When you begin noticing ideas, I can assure you that they will keep flowing for the rest of your life.

     

    And for my own writing style, every time I write, the article I write gives birth to 3 more ideas. So, it‘s like I never ran out of ideas. I get ideas from children; I get ideas from animals, from inscriptions on shirts or buildings. Everywhere I turn, I see all these great ideas. 

     

    So with all these tips, you can fly from being a writer who suffers from writer‘s block to a writer who is suffering from writer‘s diarrhoea.  When you let writing come naturally, when you become one with what you write, when you let it spring from your inner self, then I can guarantee you will be that stylish writer that everyone envies. 

     

     

    Parting Words

    I am hoping that you gained the best out of this book. I am hoping that your mind was tickled to realize the possibilities of growing yourself to money, time and freedom. By reading this book, you have reduced the time required to achieve your greatness by a half, you have increased your efficiency by a great value. This book serves as a mental steroid of sorts. Now you know what your parents, teachers and school did not teach you about money, time and freedom. My only humble request from you, is that you will undertake to act on at least one of the principles outlined in this book because if you don‘t, someone else will stumble and act on them before you do. That means, you will simply survive as that person thrives. This book is that personal development and growth Bible you should keep revisiting from time to time. Be sure to keep it in your hand-bag, read it as you go to sleep, as you awaken in the morning, at the bus stop and wherever you go. Welcome to the awakened dimension of a life full of money, time and freedom. 

     

     

    LogicalNomad
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