COMMON SENSE IS IN THE MIDDLE. NOT LEFT, NOT RIGHT

PART 1

Your common sense is your natural ability to make good judgments and to behave in a practical and sensible way. As many people will say now, common sense is no longer common. Common sense has become a super power that only few people possess. I believe that every human being has the capacity to make good judgments but what we lack is selflessness. How we deal with issues is also now heavily dependent on political leaning. We never see the common good but how our position supports our political bias of left or right. 

Every warehouse has bay doors and man doors. Man door is for people to walk in and out while bay doors is for docking of trailers. Simple. Right? A driver delivered a trailer to my work place and brought in the papers for signing. He passed through the man door. The bay door beside this man door was open and no trailer docked. I sign his papers and send him on his way. That's when he did an interesting thing. He ignores the man door he used to enter the building and decided to jump down through the bay door. He had a bit of a struggle doing this. He didn't know whether to sit down on the dock and jump down or stand on the dock and jump down. He got on his knees but couldn't get down. Eventually he jumps down, lands awkwardly and gingers off woth a slight limp. The man door was right there. He used it once. It worked. Use it again. Avoid possible injury. Before you laugh, I did, let me tell you that if you start paying attention today you will see that many people solve problems that way. That includes you and me. 

When humans are faced with issues we seem to always find a way to ignore the simple common sense solution to the issue but start applying the hard things that only attack the symptoms but not the root cause. 

A good example is climate change and the greenhouse effect. I have to state unequivocally that I am not an expert on anything. I am just stating my opinion. Now that I have that out of the way, let's keep going. Fossil fuel has become the fall guy in all this and for good reason. We want to replace combustible engines with electric vehicles, EV. This is brilliant and will reduce the greenhouse effect. Never mind that lithium, the material needed for batteries, has to be mined from the earth and causes damage to the environment. Also, bear in mind that commerce and trade cannot happen with lithium batteries. Fruits, vegetables, and meat for example, have to be transported from areas that have competitive advantage to areas that don't. Trains are greener than planes. If people stop flying and use trains more then more trains will go on rails. Does this increase the carbon footprint of trains or not. You tell me. With the population of the world projected to be nearly 10bn by 2050 I don't know what the numbers will look like when crunched. This means more food, more production, more driving, more everything. We all know that our growing number is the root cause of greenhouse but no one dares say that.

Let's move on to speeding and road safety. Remember, I am not an expert. I am just left wondering why we make engines that are powerful enough (more power means more gas usage) to reach 200km/hr in 5 minutes but our roads have speed limits of 100km/hr or even less. Why do we waste money on research and production of these cars but we have roads that won't allow those speeds? There's photo radar to check for speed but the vehicles have to be clearly marked so I can slow down when I see them and speed up when I'm past them? The reason given for why they are clearly marked is excellent. If you are obeying the speed limit why do you need the photo radar to be visible? The xirt of Edmonton spent $100,000 to make 28 photo radar trucks visible. It made about $40m from photo radar speed enforcement in 2019. Don't address the root cause. Treat the symptoms. 

These are just thoughts that I have and wonder why the common sense things aren't done. Why do we spend money on things that don't seem to matter or things that matter because of political correctness/considerations? This is the first part. Meet me in the second part and be ready to have your bias challenged. 

FAILURE IS GOOD

I am Nigerian. When a politician fails to win an election in Nigeria he is deserted immediately. All his friends move away from him so fast you would think the politician had the Spanish flu and coronavirus together. When sports people like footballers, golfers, basketballers and so on don't win they lose endorsements. Companies move their dollars from those who lost to those who win. Why? The cameras and media make the same move. The loser gets very little or no airtime at all while the winner gets all the attention and companies want their brands to be seen. 

When you file for bankruptcy your debts will leave you alone but so will your credit rating and access to capital. Your inability to manage your money for whatever reason will hit you hard for the next 5 years. Can you see why people avoid filing for bankruptcy even when it's not an entirely bad idea? 

The point here is that our society is wired to see failure as bad and something that must be avoided at all cost. From a young age humans are bred to run far away from failure. Do you remember going home with a report card that suggested you didn't do well at school? I don't know if kids still get graded at school now but in my time I was graded. My mom made sure there were consequences attached to bringing home a bad result while my dad made sure there were rewards for bringing home a good result. I was raised in a balanced home. My mom did the whipping while my dad did the explaining, after the whipping. Even though kids don't get grades today they know when they have not done well. This article seeks to highlight the importance of failure and the lessons one can learn from it. 

There is nothing wrong with failure. Failure is a good thing depending on where you sit. From where I sit, I am not afraid of failure. In one of my jobs, the operation is set up in such a way that what I do is checked multiple times by 3 different people. My role is so sensitive that if I mix things up a domino of errors will be set off and the company will lose money. I had to complain. I was told it was necessary to avoid mistakes. It didn't sit well with me. I argued that trying to prevent me from making mistakes will make me redundant and stop me from succeeding in the role. I made it clear that I preferred setting up measures to deal with mistakes when I make them and not have someone over my shoulder checking on me every step of the way to make sure I didn't make a mistake. No one has come to tell me I made any mistakes. I catch my mistakes because of that I continue to deploy measures to make my process better. 

Failure is good. The bad thing about failure is being consistent at it. If you consistently fail at doing the same thing then that's a problem. The word FAIL is said to stand for First Attempt In Learning. There is no amount of preparation that guarantees success. There is no execution that goes 100% as planned. There will always be curve balls. If you have 100% execution it's an exception. The norm is that mistakes will happen. You will fail. The issue is what you learn from failure so as not to be consistent at it. 

My mentor, late Sir Gozie Anyachebelu, told me that his greatest skill is his ability to ask questions. He taught me that very well. He said asking questions reduces the chance of failure not prevent failure. When you try something and fail it is not the end of the world. You need to study the failure so you avoid it in your next attempt. There is something called 5 wives and 1 husband. That's the easiest way to remember who, what, why, where, when and how. These are questions you need to ask your failure. They are very specific questions that usually bring very short answers if you are sincere about a solution. Who failed/who did I fail with? Why did my plan fail? Where did things go wrong? When did things go wrong? How do I fix this?

Can you see how easy it is to analyse failure if you can get past the mental state of seeing failure as something that should be dreaded? Be proud that you failed. Why? You are better than many who didn't try at all. Don't be afraid to fail. Be afraid when you can't say why you failed. That's the issue. Failure is good. 

BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL FINANCE

I came to Canada in 2016 and put $900 in my bank account. That was all I had. In March 2017 I went back home to Nigeria and by January 2018 I bought a house. By August 2018 I took over a restaurant I had bought. I did this working part time at Shoppers Drug Mart and part time at UPS. A lot of people have repeatedly asked me how I was able to pull this off. Here's how I did it. 

How many of us know how much you spent yesterday? Do you have a personal excel spreadsheet where you track your income and expenses? People have asked me how I managed to do the things I did. Let me share how. I did it by simply tracking my income and especially my expenses. It will amaze you how much you will eliminate from your expenses if you go back and look at them. Doing this will immediately throw up certain things you don't really need that you spend money on. I have continued to live by this. I spent $0 from my personal account yesterday. I will spend $0 today. I will spend $0 on Wednesday. On Thursday I will probably buy gas because I drove around the south side of Edmonton on Saturday delivering pizza. It's an expense my business will pay not me. On Thursday I'm still gonna spend $0 from my personal account. See? I know how much I have spent. Do you? 

I only spend on Fridays and Saturdays. I have a list where I write down things I need. Whatever it is I want now I write on the list. If by Friday I still want the thing then I must really want it. I buy it. Many times by Friday lots of things on my list are found to be unnecessary. I delete them. There's a reason I only use Samsung note phones. I like the pen it comes with and I can make notes with it. Makes it fun for me. Do you have such a list? I never go grocery shopping without a list. It's a taboo. I just can't. Without a list I can't buy anything. 

I worked at Shoppers Drug Mart for nearly two years as a merchandiser. I was trained on how to induce impulse buying in customers. From that day I said such tricks will not work on me. Superstore rearranged their aisles in the last couple of months. They removed the aisle that spilt the store in half. Now to get around the store you have to walk up and down the aisles. Doing this makes sure you see all the items on the shelf. They are trying to induce impulse buying. But if you have a list you buy only what you need and go home. You can try it. It works for me. I hope it works for you. 

Our bank accounts are like transit stations. Money comes in on the train called income, buys a ticket at your expense and leaves on a train called bills or another one called expenses. You have to be intentional to prevent this from happening. You won't always win but trying can save you some money. It is what you save that becomes capital for investment. 

I know where every penny of my money goes. I want you to do the same. You must start holding yourself accountable and not just demanding it from politicians. Start from your personal finance. You owe yourself that duty. Get on excel. Start a spreadsheet now. Please. That's how you start being intentional with your personal finance. If you start today in 6 months it will amaze you how much you would have cut off from your expenses and how much you will save. Every unnecessary expense you cut off or don't do is a saving you have made. Be intentional. 

I use excel. There are apps you can use to track your finances. Mint, Spendee, Money Manager, Money Manager Expense & Budget are some of them. There's plenty more. Find the one that suits you and use it. To answer the question of how I did it, I saved. That's all I did. I sat down and understood the difference between needs and wants. I stopped spending money on the things I wanted and spent only on my basic needs. Once in a while I bought little things I wanted but I never took my eyes off the ball. That is how I did it. You can try. There are other things I did but this one is the most important. I will write on those things later.

USE WHAT YOU HAVE

At some point in my life I felt I was bulletproof and didn't make mistakes. I was always right no matter what. I was very hot headed and had immense strength so violence was a tool I used to settle issues. Many people stayed away from me because of my explosive temper. I was living like this until I heard the song Man In The Mirror by Micheal Jackson. I played the song over and over for many days. It changed my life. While I was a brute I noticed not many things went my way. I would get into situations with solid arguments then I get angry and everything is destroyed. I was losing things from winning positions. I knew something had to change but I felt it was what was external that needed to change. I was perfect. Remember? 

I found the lyrics to that song and wrote it down. I read it everyday. It struck me that if I wanted to make any change about my fortunes I didn't need to look at others. I needed to look in the mirror and address what I saw. It was what I had in me that was driving away good things I should get. 

A lot of people are in this boat. They are looking for solutions to issues outside of themselves without, first, exhausting the solution within. There is no human being on earth that is born without talent or some crude skills that can be honed. The problem is identifying this skill. The educational curriculum is designed to find these unique skills in all of us and hone them but the quest for paper qualification is numbing this drive. People now finish school and are not better than they were when they began. University education is wonderful, if you can afford it, but if by the time you finish high school you have not found one thing you are just inexplicably good at you have a small problem. 

Anyways, my point here is that to get what you desire out of life you have to start by using what you have. There is a resource you have that you can use to create value that people can pay you for. It is somewhere around you but you can't see it because you aren't looking. These things are usually freely available. Perhaps that's why we ignore them. What we don't pay for we find hard to value. This resource could be your smartphone, a piece of land, a jalopy car, a person, a book and so on. It could just be anything. Find it. Let me give you examples with myself. 

I have been on whatsapp since I can't remember. I have read over 500,000 messages on whatsapp. I have sent probably that same amount or more. This is a conservative estimate. If I put together all the messages I have read on whatsapp I may have read 200 books easily. I have never considered whatsapp a money making tool until last week. I started offering a pizza delivery service on whatsapp last week and to my surprise people responded. On a Saturday when my restaurant was closed I made about $300. I already have 6 orders booked for next Saturday and today is Monday. Do you know how mind-blowing that is to me? I talked about building value is one of my articles which you can read here. In it I explained that people will come to you once you have value to offer. 

I have just finished writing a book and I needed an editor to go through it and make sure things are in the right places. I don't know any book editor so I went in search of one. I searched on Facebook and found a group of book editors. Long story short, I have engaged a lady who lives in Nigeria to do the job. She charged a fee. Get this. I live in Canada. She lives in Nigeria. Distance has not stopped up from connecting and interacting. It's the same Facebook that people post all kinds of things on and seek validation from strangers. This lady is on the same platform earning money. Of course, she will get credit in the book as the editor. If she does a good job, which I believe she will, she will get more jobs from Canada. Please reflect on this and review what you are doing on Facebook. 

Two days ago a friend called to pick my brain (I don't know why people think I have one) on a business idea. He wanted to start selling on Amazon. Brilliant idea. He has a source of men's jeans at very good prices. He checked the same brand on Amazon and found he could sell at a lower cost and make almost 100% profit. Selling on Amazon means you will pay them some commission to use their platform. Then there's shipping which he doesn't understand. I don't understand too. We agreed that he should open a Facebook account and start posting pictures and videos of his product. He has done that and is getting engagements from people. It's not many, but it's a start. He hopes to ship his first order next week. What are you doing on Facebook? 

We are always quick to tell people to use what they have to get what they want. What do you have? Or don't you want something? Are you using what you have to get ahead? Business is about cost reduction so you can maximise profit. I don't have funds for adverts. I have started using Facebook and whatsapp for that. They are free platforms and there's many groups of people there who I can reach directly with simple messages. 

Use what you have to get to the top. Start now. If you don't know where to start, buy a good full size mirror. See you at the top. 

UNDERSTAND MONEY

According to a study by Wolf Street, nearly one-third of U.S. lottery winners declare bankruptcy, often within just a few years of their big win. Let's look at some examples cited by the study. 

Alex and Rhoda Toth, $13 million. The couple accepted payments of $666,666 over a 20-year span in 1990, but filed for bankruptcy in 2006 after living lavish lifestyles in Vegas and enduring a sleuth of legal expenses resulting from family drama. The couple was later charged with tax evasion. Rhoda was sentenced to two years in prison and was fined $1.1 million.

Janite Lee, $18 million. An entrepreneur in St. Louis, Lee donated wads of money to the Democratic National Committee, as well individual political candidates. She also donated to Washington University and its law school, according to Bankrate. In 2001, after extensive spending, Lee filed for bankruptcy with only $700 left to her name. She had reportedly lost roughly $350,000 gambling.

It breaks my heart when I read these stories and many more like it of how people are lucky enough to win millions of dollars in lottery but lose it after a few years because of financial recklessness. That will never be me. Why won't such money come to me? For some reason free money finds it hard to go to people like me who have a fairly good idea of what to do with it. To know what to do with money you need to understand money. You can only control what you understand. What you don't understand will control you. 

I have found that there are 3 stages to money. At every point in time you should know what stage you are in. I will explain these stages in very simple terms so you can figure out where you are. The 3 stages of money are the Transactional stage, the Precautionary stage and the Speculative stage. Stay with me. 

Before I explain I want to state that understanding money requires you have a source of income or plan to get one. Without a source of income there will be nothing to apply the explanation I will give you on. I am a practical person but it's also good to learn and be ready for when you get a source of income. 

The transactional stage of money is the stage where our basic needs are met. The basic human needs are food, shelter, clothing, utilities, bus pass, repairs etc. When you have money you can exchange for these basic needs then you are in the transactional stage of money. At this stage you have very little or no money left after you have met the basic needs. At this stage your priority is to increase your income. You can't really save if you have nothing left after meeting basic needs. You can't really do without food, clothing and shelter. But I have seen people who eat just one major meal a day so they can save. It is up to you to do what you need to do. If you do not increase your income while you are at this stage you cannot create wealth. 

If you are able to increase your income and keep your needs basic you move to the Precautionary stage of money. At the stage you can start saving. At this stage saving is a priority since your basic needs are met. The problem with most people at this stage is that because they see extra money after meeting their basic needs they feel the urge to start spending on things they want. Please know the difference between wants and needs. You can live without the things you want like a bigger phone, a tablet, faster internet, new sneakers, alloy wheels and other things. You know what I mean. You can avoid spending money on these things then save. As your savings increase you can start thinking about things like life insurance. You should keep trying to increase your income. That's always a constant. 

As you continue to increase your income and keep your needs basic, your savings will grow. This is when you move to the Speculative stage of money. This is where you create wealth. At this stage you can meet your basic needs and have extra to invest. At this stage you can buy a slightly bigger phone. Nothing extravagant. Just small improvements on the quality of your life. Then stay the course. Given time your investments will start yielding returns and you are set. 

You should have a personal balance sheet of your financial life. I have seen people who are excellent managers and build businesses from scratch but their personal finance is not so good. Start treating your life like it's a business that has income, expenses and products. You will be better off in the end. Excel is a good product you can use as a balance sheet. At the end of the week or month you can do some calculations and see if you made profit or not. This means it's time to record every penny you spend. Wealth creation starts from accounting for pennies. If you can account for pennies you can handle your lottery win. The people who lost their lottery wins didn't know what you know now. Don't be like them. See you at the top. 

STAY THE COURSE

Success is a principle and it has rules. In the last 15 years I have read about and studied some successful people. While they may have different approaches to being successful I noticed that the core principles are the same for all of them. These people know exactly what they want from the get-go. They do not stop at simply knowing what they want, a place where many of us stop, but actually move to the stage of laying out plans that create a roadmap of how to get what they desire. That's where all of them start. They always have well laid out plans. Do you have that? If I wake you up and ask what your plan for success is can you answer that without stuttering? It is a lack of plan that makes many lottery winners go broke soon after winning. No plan, no success

Successful people have all endured multiple failures. I have not met one successful person who did not have a litany of failures. In fact many of them accept that trying something new for the first time will fail. They know this and plan for it in terms of resources available. They first give what is needed for a project but without telling anyone they have backup plans if this first attempt fails. Having a backup plan is not necessarily having more money. No. It's about having, for instance, 5 or more possible ways something can be done in the hope that if one fails another possibility is ready to be deployed. They do not waste time brooding over failures. All of them have shown a similar disdain toward time wasting. They don't just fail repeatedly. They study their failures to learn from them. This is why you never find them failing the same task multiple times. Do you study why you failed or do you hate failure so much you run far away from them? Start doing that. Failing at something you don't quite know is not bad. It is part of learning. Never miss the opportunity failing presents.

I don't know the best way to success but I have my personal view on success principles. What I write should be part of many plans you have and not the only plan you have. Because circumstances differ, the principles I use may not work for you or you need to rearrange them in the order that suits your situation to see any positive results. It's up to you to figure that out. It is up to you to find your unique path. Everyone has a unique path. Find yours. Whatever the case may be, do not stop trying. Only when that happens have you failed. As long as the fight in you never dies, one day you will reach the top of that mountain you are trying to climb. Do you have a fight song? I have a fight movie. It's called 300. Whenever courage fails me I watch it and by the time I'm done I am screaming, "This is Sparta!" at my challenge. I chase my challenges and I love seeing them run. Sometimes all you need to do is fight. Fight! Impossible is nothing.

Sometimes not having money is not the biggest problem. Apart from money it is a lack of ideas that hinder you the most. Ideas are a dime a dozen. They are cheap. You just have to engage your thoughts and see what they throw up. As I was writing this an idea came to me about how to open a new restaurant on the south side of Edmonton. On July 18 2020 I put the process in motion and executed the first trial run. It was successful. Unfortunately, I can't share what this idea is as I am still fleshing it out but if all goes well and by God's grace my business will have a new location within the next year. That statement is bold. As I make it I do not have money to execute it. I am just experimenting with guerilla marketing ideas. I am currently reading a book titled Guerilla Marketing which says that you must not spend money to market your products. If you want to spend you can but this book says it's ideas that sell products the most not how much was spent. 

I do not have money to throw into advertising so I am adopting several methods that are almost free and they are yielding results. I have discovered the immense power Facebook and Whatsapp have when leveraged for marketing. This weekend alone I spent $0 on Whatsapp marketing but I made some $ on a day my restaurant was closed. All I invested was time and passion while creating value. Never fail to create value. You can do the same too. Believe me, it works. If your dreams don't scare you you are not having big dreams. You should ask me what I'd do if I won the lottery. I don't even play but I know what to do with $70m. The first thing I will do is wake the next morning and go to work.

I want to assure you that life will throw curveballs at you. If there is anything I can give you a guarantee on it is the fact that the moment you set out on the success journey there are problems waiting for you. It doesn't matter how perfect your plan is or how efficient you are. You will definitely have certain challenges. Do you know why? Let me explain. When you start to work towards being successful at anything you are demanding that certain unseen things shift and align the way you want them. Now understand that you aren't the only one wanting things to align in certain ways. Because of this, these unseen things will throw up resistance against your desire but will fall in place for the person who pushes the most, the hardest and the longest. It is this resistance that manifests as challenges, trials, obstacles. If you don't have these you may be doing the wrong thing or travelling on the wrong road. 

Never turn around. Keep going. The night is darkest just before dawn. Do not be like the man who went digging for diamond and after many days of toiling at a mine he quit at the moment one last strike would have caused the diamond to be seen. Keep digging. Your breakthrough is right around the corner. You will win. Everything you need to unlock your potential is in you. There is an indefatigable spirit lying somewhere deep in you. Find it and you'll succeed. See you at the top of the mountain.

A SATISFIED CUSTOMER IS BETTER THAN PROFIT

I sell Pizza. I own a restaurant that makes pizza and when I can I do deliveries myself. Even while I lived in Nigeria I have always been a people's person. In all the jobs I did in Nigeria I was always the one junior workers came to when they had issues that needed to be resolved. 

I did quality assurance. The job comes with lots of training, compliance, retraining and sometimes punishment for non adherence to quality standards. My policy was to record 3 infractions against someone before thinking about punishment. I had people around me who felt this approach was wrong. They felt it was good to exercise the authority they have. There's nothing wrong with exercise of authority but that's not my style. I know when to use my authority, what to use it on and when not to use it. When I notice a default or an infraction is reported to me I do what my dad used to do to me when I was a kid. My dad and mom were a good combination. My dad didn't speak much and whipped me only once in my life. My mom didn't tolerate nonsense. Do as you are told and have peace or don't do as you are told and get what's coming for you. After mom had done her whipping, dad would sit you down and explain to you why you were whipped. He would extract a commitment from you to not do what you did to deserve whipping. That commitment he extracts from you is what will stand up to you the next time you had a sit down with him. They were uncomfortable moments. Together they raised me to who I am today. 

I bring defaulters into my office and ask them to feel comfortable. Then I bring out the training form they signed. Then I point out the infraction and they agree they erred. I simply ask why they refused to abide by rules. Many times they admit they erred, apologise and promise to be better. In that moment, a new advocate for quality compliance is born. They not only start complying but also encourage others to comply. Sometimes I punished people when it was absolutely necessary. Keep the above in mind. 

A customer ordered pizza from me and posted a review that said it was one of the best pizzas he's ever had. I replied and said, "I am happy to read this. A satisfied customer is better than profit". It's a very controversial statement when taken at face value. What business doesn't want profit? The sole aim of business is no longer to make profit but to maximise it. Right? I believe so. I have a different approach. I worked for Shoppers Drug Mart for about 2 years. I saw first hand how powerful customer service can be if used properly. Under Dave, the Manager, I learnt how to 'weaponize' customer service. It became a tool for driving sales in the sense that you don't look at how much money a customer is going to spend but how satisfied the shopping experience is. He made us treat customers like Kings and Queens. Make eye contact, ask what they are looking for and walk them to the item, make sure they are ok before you walk away, make eye contact all the time. If they want to talk then that becomes your job. Everything we did was centred around customer satisfaction. I did my best in these to the point customers started asking for me by name. 

A satisfied customer will tell people about your service with so much joy that people are usually convinced. There's no marketing technique that is stronger or better than a satisfied customer selling your product to others. Profit is wonderful but it does not talk to anybody. It sits in your bank account and will gladly convert itself to bills at the slightest opportunity. If you focus on customer satisfaction you will get referrals and profit will come. If you focus on profits customers will irritate you because all you will see is how much time you are wasting on a customer. Time is money. I have had a customer spend over 30 mins to decide on an order. I waited. I have got two referrals from her. "He is so nice and has wonderful pizza". I don't open on Saturdays but because of one satisfied customer I have 6 people to service this Saturday. 

Thank you Dave. You taught me so much while I worked for you. I truly appreciate the lessons. A satisfied customer is better than profit. 

BUILD VALUE

Uncles have a reputation to ask you to get your CV or resume for a job and most times they do nothing with it. If you stay with me I will tell you why. The world does not run on pity. The world runs on value. There is no amount of pity I can show a hungry man that will put food in his belly but if this man has a skill and can offer me value that I can pay for he will earn money to buy food with. You don't get anything from your uncle because you expect them to help you with a job out of pity without really making them see value in you. These are people who knew when you were born. They know what misdemeanors you did as a kid and teenager. They do not know you as an adult because you haven't told them. You haven't presented to them the value you possess as an adult who has graduated from a university. Do you now see why it's hard for them to help you? Follow me

When I started my business I had great hope that people who knew me would buy from me. I was disappointed and that's a good thing. It was a blessing. If they had bought from me I wouldn't have seen the need to cultivate and harvest my own clients. It was a good lesson. 

The lesson I learnt is that it is very important, while starting a business, you find clients who do not have any prejudice against you; people who see you for who you are and what you are selling; people who will listen to you and hope to be convinced to buy. You do not need people who know you by name and know your antecedents. That's the image they have of you and that's good. It was inconsiderate of me to take advantage of my relationship with my friends to sell pizza. It meant I didn't wanna put in the work and expected to reap where I had not sown. This doesn't in any way invalidate the immense support I have received from my friends. I set lofty expectations but reality cut them to size. Hahahahaha. 

Jesus was not 'liked' by his own people. They didn't 'buy' the salvation he was 'selling'. He moved around in Galilee but avoided Judea, because "the Jews/Judeans" were looking for a chance to kill him. In John 7:12-13 some said "he is a good man" whereas others said he deceives the people, but these were all "whispers", no one would speak publicly for "fear of the Jews/Judeans". The Jewish rejection of Jesus is also recorded in John 7:45-52, 8:39-59, 10:22-42 and 12:36-43. 

Knowing the above, who was I to make assumptions about people and my business. I was wrong. Today the Jews, whether they accept Jesus or not, know he created value. That's the point. If your business has not created value, has not found a need that has to be filled why should anyone patronize you and buy? 

Having set up 3 businesses in the course of my life I can tell you for free that marketing and sales should be taken as courses by anyone who goes to a university. No matter the discipline you take up you need to have marketing or sales skills. Why? You have to first of all know how to sell your time. It takes time to write, do research and so on. If you don't know how to sell time you would not know how to sell actual products. Even with all the things people think I know about marketing I am still reading to learn more. Someday I will share what has worked for me and what has not. 

If you expect business sales from friends and family you are not marketing. Marketing begins when you start pitching to strangers. My mentor reiterated this to me in my conversation with him this week. He is passionate about public speaking and told me how he went to a restaurant filled with strangers, called their attention and spoke for 5 minutes. That's real work. That's value creation at its finest. 

The last time I was actively engaged in running my own business was 2010. Perhaps I forgot what I did and how I farmed my clients. I got clients by doing direct marketing to people. It will interest you to know that even in this age of social media word of mouth is still a powerful tool for marketing. All you need is convince one person a day and make sure to demand that they tell others about you. If your service is as good as said you will have people referred to you. It's the simplest way to get clients but it's not as easy as I have said. You must be ready to take NO and not let it stop you. 

When you have built value or demonstrated that your business is one that fills any type of need, friends and family will seek you out. You know you are making a mark when your own people start calling you and saying they see your business. That's when you can pat your back and know that your strategy is effective. Then you can ask them for honest feedback. They will give it. Don't start business hoping for family and friends to buy. They have their role. Don't abuse them by having lofty expectations of them. Go out there and carve a niche for yourself. When you have done so they will come to you. Try it. 

THE KING CALLED DOCUMENTATION

I have always liked doing business. I have devoted years of my life to studying business management on my own and I can say I understand it a little bit. I opened a bar (Dazzles Pub) while in school and after graduation I set up a small plant that produced methylated spirit or rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Both were successful. The pub closed when I left for national service while the mini plant closed because it was not registered with the government. From the day I set foot in Canada in 2016 I yearned to have my own business. In August 2018 this dream became a reality when I bought a restaurant that makes pizza and donairs. This background is important because of the topic we are doing today. 

I bought this restaurant on a rent to own basis, if I may call it that. I made a down payment and had a debt of $50,000 to the seller which I would pay as I made sales. When I took over the business I noticed that the claims made were not as accurate as I was made to believe. Being my first experience in buying a business I trusted the agent to do due diligence. He said he did. Events showed he did not. Lesson learned. Anyway, the amount I made the first month was nothing near what was told which was the basis for the sale. Oh, yes! I started asking the seller questions. Of course he came asking for the payment for that month. I stood my ground and insisted he showed documentation to prove the claims he made were true. This was around December 2018. It's July 2020 and I haven't seen him. I have not paid him a dime and he hasn't called to ask. Does this mean he has forgone $50,000? Probably. Why? If he pushes me and I sue the court will force him to provide those documents. If he fails he might go to jail. Chances are he doesn't have any and he overvalued the business. 

I have not taken this lesson for granted. It underscores the importance of keeping documents in whatever you do. One day you will be asked to go back in time and show evidence. If you don't have documents you could lose a lot. 

The importance of documentation cannot be overemphasized. It is the marriage between a plan, it's initial execution and continuous operation of the plan. Every goal, plan, process or procedure or method must first be written down to be considered to exist. When this has been done an execution method follows. This is necessary to be sure the plan has been executed accordingly and the execution can be monitored for compliance or non compliance as the case may be. As a Quality Management consultant I do not toy with documentation. In fact whatever is not written down is considered to not have happened. If you don't have vehicle particulars it's possible the car doesn't belong to you. If you don't have a marriage certificate it will be hard to prove you are married. If you don't have land documents you will be hard pressed to prove the land is yours and so on. 

We keep track of all the above but where it concerns our career we have no record of what we did yesterday at work. In my consulting days, because I wasn't on ground everyday, I made the workers I supervised keep log books of their daily activities. The format was simple. I wanted to see their plan for the day, how they executed it, what they accomplished, what they couldn't accomplish and why. Initially they disliked me for it but when they started seeing the benefits (they became more efficient at their jobs) we became friends. 

As I run my restaurant today, I have a record of every purchase that has been made, every sale that has been made in store and online, every bill that has been paid and so on. I sent all these to my accountant alongside other documents listing assets and he has valued the business way above $50,000. I don't know how else to show you the benefit of documentation. I hope you start today. 

ENDURANCE CRUSHES CHALLENGES

Research published in the Journal of Sports Sciences has found successful Olympians have a high degree of self-confidence, are able to block out distractions, manage their arousal level, are goal-oriented and demonstrate a healthy form of perfectionism. To put up the sporting shows that we enjoy on TV, these athletes literally put their bodies through hell in order to be in top shape for the competition. Winning an Olympic gold medal is a mean feat achieved only by truly exceptional people. You are already an exceptional person by the virtue of the fact that you are the sperm that won the race to the egg out of millions of sperm cells. Do not take this for granted. Only special people win and before you were born you already proved you were special. So what's happening to you today? Why aren't you winning? 

A guy walks into the restaurant and while waiting for his order he tells a story that inspired this article. He was a chef for 18 years. One day while leaning over a counter he pushed a tray that pushed a sharp pointed knife. The knife landed on his foot and stuck there. It was rush hour he said. In the restaurant industry you don't mess with your rush hour. It is a period you can't say no to any order or run out of anything let alone the chef. According to him, he looked at this and even though it was bleeding he pulled out the knife, taped the wound with gauze underneath, put his plastic shoe back on and went back to work for 6 hours. He showed me the scar. That's an incredible story. While I do not advocate that I want to draw lessons from the mental strength this man exhibited to ignore his bleeding foot and went on to get his job done. That's the mindset of a champion. He won! 

A reporter once asked the legendary boxer Mohammed Ali how many sit ups he did a day to stay in shape. Ali said, “I don’t know because I don’t start counting until it hurts”. Mohammed Ali is considered the greatest boxer of all time because of his boxing skills and accomplishments. Ali was not known to be a hard pincher like Mike Tyson and unlike Tyson who ended most of his fights very early, Ali took most of his fights to the very end. He was 'blessed' with speed, agility, footwork and incredible athleticism. I say 'blessed' because he worked exceptionally hard in training to hone those skills and deployed them effectively in his fights. He was an endurance machine. That's the word I have been looking for: ENDURANCE

Endurance is primarily defined as the ability to withstand adversity or hardship. Has anyone told you that life is hard? Like seriously. Has anyone sat you down and told you that life is very rough and hard? While raising kids we try our best to make life beautiful for them. They call social services when they are whipped and things like that. However, when they grow up and become adults the same system that helped wrap a bubble around them will send police after them and jail them if they commit a crime worthy of jail. For me, it was better to be whipped by my mum as a kid than go to jail as an adult because I lack discipline. I digress. 

Endurance does not come by accident. No one is born with it. It is a skill that is learned. Many of us go to the gym and do some work out but compared to professional athletes (they are the best examples of endurance) all we do in the gym is exercise. These guys train. By training I mean they focus on every part of their body and make sure it is worked out. This way they can perform optimally. These guys put in an incredible amount of work for the few minutes we watch them on TV. For instance, a footballer plays at most 2 games a week. That's about 200 mins. To be able to do this they have to train at least 5 to 6 hours everyday for 5 days. This may or may not include football practice and gym work outs. They put in at least 20 hours of strenuous work so they can perform for a game that lasts less than 2 hours. Do you see why they have endurance? 

People who know me well know how much I like skill mobility. I have been able to find ingenious ways of making things that worked, say in the lab, and apply the same to marketing. An example is going round the city of Edmonton to buy pizza from various places and pulling them apart like I was doing scientific analysis so I can find their weakness and strengths. It has led me to have one of the best pizzas in the city. Now imagine cultivating an athletes mentality and applying same to your life. You will win! 

Athletes do not just train to participate in events. They train to win. They train to be better than their peers who are already excellent at running or jumping or footballing or swimming or boxing and so on. To do this they need to have endurance or stamina. Winners don't stop when they are tired but when the race is done. Winners never quit because they have endurance. They start counting their sit ups when it starts hurting. That's what you need to start doing. Stop whinning. Whinners are never winners! Go get it done and win! 

COST AND BENEFITS

Paying tax is an action whose consequence is good roads, pipe borne water, schools, hospitals among others. In other words, paying taxes is a cost we bear so we can enjoy the benefits of social amenities. When you break the law you pay fines or go to jail depending on the law you broke. Breaking the law is a cost or action which brings the benefit or consequence of fines or jail. 

As a kid growing up in Nigeria in the 80s, I didn't have the liberty and privilege kids of today have. My mum made sure that there were consequences for my misdeeds and I thank her immensely for that. I wouldn't be the man I am today without that foundation. When she told me to do something there were two options: I either did it or I did it. On the upside, she also made sure I enjoyed benefits when I did the right things like do well at school, do my homework etc. She was very intentional in raising me. If I did wrong or good I got what I deserved. There was always an outcome of what I did. 

In 2016 I was working at Shoppers Drug Mart as a merchandiser whose job was to fill shelves with goods and whatever else there was for me to do. It was Halloween and I had just finished setting up shelves and filling them nicely with chocolate. My boss told me I did a good job. I was finishing up when this woman and her kid came to the shelf to buy chocolate. She offered the kid a couple but in a fit he threw it down. This wasn't enough to show he didn't want what was offered. He went ahead to pull down all the items on the shelf. The mum was begging him to stop his tantrum and bent down to pick up the items. In a very firm tone I told her to stop and told the kid that if he didn't pick up the items I would whoop his a**. He looked at his mum and she told him I was serious. The tantrum ended and he quietly started picking up the items. I was not gonna let a kid make a mess of my work like that. Not on my watch. 

An important lesson taught in business management school is cost-benefit analysis. A cost benefit analysis (also known as a benefit cost analysis) is a process by which organizations can analyze decisions, systems or projects, or determine a value for intangibles. The model is built by identifying the benefits of an action as well as the associated costs, and subtracting the costs from benefits. That's the definition for smart people. For people like me who aren't smart, I define it as weighing the consequences of any action before execution. Simple. Right? I like simple things. I define it that way so it becomes applicable to my personal life and finance and not just business management. 

From the day you are born every decision taken on your behalf by your parents comes at cost and it will have benefits (value) or consequences. I have decided to use 'benefit' because many people hear 'consequence' and think of a negative outcome. As long as you are under 18 years of age your parents will bear all consequences while you enjoy the benefits. Parents who understand life will make sure you partake in some of the consequences of your actions so you learn from an early age that actions (costs) have benefits or consequences. That's how I was raised. When I became an adult I didn't always do the right things but I knew that whatever I did had repercussions and that I was gonna face them alone. It doesn't matter how you are raised. What really matters is that the criminal justice system exists and will catch, try and send you to jail if you break the law. As an adult, society will hold you accountable to your actions. It's up to you to choose what cost you can afford. 

HOW TO BUILD A GREAT CAREER

I began my career in Quality Management in 2004 as a Microbiologist in a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Nigeria. 16 years later, here I am sitting in my own restaurant in Edmonton, Canada writing this article on a blog. In all these years I have moved from Microbiologist to Administrative Officer to Operations Manager to Quality Control Officer to Quality Assurance Manager to Quality Management consultant and then I moved to Canada in 2016. My aim of writing this is to let you in on the things I did and learnt on my journey. To have a great career is very possible but it requires a lot of work. When I say work I don't just mean work in the sense of the word. I mean work that is intentional. If you work hard like every one else you will end up like every one else but if you are intentional about the work you do you will end up great. 

The first man I worked for, Chigozie Anyachebelu, who passed away last week (may his soul RIP) took me through the school of hard knocks. I did not appreciate the words he said and the things he made me do at the time. Now I do. I will share some of the lessons he taught me. I learnt so many but I have narrowed them down to the 5 most important ones.

1. THINK BIG

This is arguably the most important one. You cannot have what you don't dream of or think about. If you dream small you have small things but if you think big you will have big things. The West Edmonton Mall (WEM) in Canada was built in 4 phases (1981, 1983, 1985 and 1999). It opened its doors on 15 September 1981 and at that time it was the biggest indoor shopping mall in the world as recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. It lost this status in 2004. This is a perfect example of thinking big. The WEM has an area of 5.3m sq.ft, 2 hotels, 100 dining venues, 20,000 capacity parking lot and before the coronavirus pandemic hit it employed over 20,000 people. All this was planned in 1981. Today the WEM is number 24 in Worlds' biggest malls. Its still big. That is how you need to start thinking about your career. Think big. See yourself beyond what you are looking at today. It costs nothing to expand your horizon because thinking is free. Thinking big means you have to stop thinking only about now but also about yesterday and tomorrow. Thinking big can do many things for you. It can generate revenue (this is what consultants do), solve problems (what good managers do), create opportunities (what investors and inventors do). While you exist today you should think of the biggest you you can be and keep that in mind at all times. You cannot be bigger than the size of your thoughts but you can be smaller. This means that the bigger your thoughts the bigger your potential can be because if you aim for the sky you fall on the tree top but if you aim for the tree top you know where you will fall. Have a projection of where you wanna be in 5 years time. If your projection does not scare you its not big enough. 

2. BE PASSIONATE

Diego Armando Maradona is an Argentinian soccer legend who won the world cup in 1986 and is regarded as one of the best soccer players of all times. He could easily have been named the best soccer player of all time if his passion for soccer was not tainted. His playing career was plagued by indiscipline and while he played for Napoli in Italy he had drug related problems that affected his career. He never recovered from that. His passion switched from soccer to indiscipline. Cristiano Ronaldo is another soccer player whose passion for the game has been unbridled. He knew his talent alone could not make him a great soccer player. Passion is boundless enthusiasm, a strong excitement about or active interest in something. As far as this interest is concerned you can never be tired or say no to it. It is like an addiction but a good one. According to Norman Vincent Pearle, "There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment (excellence)". It is passion or enthusiasm that spurs excellence, growth and development. The more you do something you are passionate about the more you learn about it and the better you get at it. As you progress in your career you will encounter challenges but being passionate is what gets you through these challenges. A passionate person never sleeps until a challenge is surmounted. Following this cycle repeatedly is what makes you a guru in your field of endeavor. It is passion that keeps your appetite for continuous learning and development alive. Passion is the difference between failure and success. 

3. HAVE GOALS

 A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the human eye. This is achieved by viewing the object through an array of lenses that bring the object into focus so it can be magnified. Without this focus there will be no magnification and the object cannot be seen. The blood hound is a dog breed that is famous for it ability to discern human scent over great distances, even days later. This keen sense of smell and a strong tracking instinct makes this dog ideal for use by the Police to track escaped prisoners, missing people or animals. Once this dog is given a scent as a goal it will not stop until the scent owner is found. I had a boss who always said that every day he woke up he knew what he wanted from that day and what he needed to do to accomplish it. He charged us to have that same attitude because any day that nothing is accomplished is a wasted day. A passion without direction will run out of steam soon enough and frustration will set in. Every company has a vision and a mission. That is their goal. You should have yours as well. Make sure you have goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and has a time line for their accomplishment. Your career will not be great if you do not set goals and try to accomplish them.

4. DOCUMENT THINGS

The inspiration to write this came from something I wrote in my diary in March 2016. I was going through this diary and found the notes I made. This article would not exist if I did not make the notes I made in 2016. Documentation is very important because it serves as a reminder of where we have been and what we have done. It is said that the faintest ink is better than the longest memory. This is because what is written down will not be forgotten but a good memory can be lost. In my days in company management I took notes on everything I did. I had a diary where I wrote down the things I wanted to do for the day and at the end of the day I went back to check off the ones I did and state why the ones I did not do were left undone. At the end of the week I reviewed my activities to know how productive I was. Many of us that are immigrants in Canada do not joke with our immigration documents. We guard them jealously and that is excellent. You need to start treating your career that way. It is great to have goals but if you do not write them down you may not accomplish them and even when you do you will find such goals impossible to replicate because you do not have a template to emulate. This is why documentation is critical to a successful career. No one is smart enough to remember everything. There are hard drives for that. 

5. BUILD OTHERS

The best way to put this is to say that while standing in a crowd you will not be seen by anyone but if a crowd starts to lift you up everyone will see you. To get the benefit of having a crowd lift you up you have to bear the cost of helping people in a crowd. Think about it this way. To get to where you are in life today people helped you in one way or another. You speak well of these people and have recommended them to others. Remember that word of mouth is the best kind of advertisement, if you are willing to put your reputation on the recommendation of someone, then they are likely worth the recommendation. In order to get to where you need to be you have to help others. It is not mandatory but your career cannot be said to be successful if no one knows who you are. If you become an island then no one can consult you because no one knows how capable you are. It is the people you help along the way that become megaphones that speak to others about you. If you stand on one corner of the world and yell how good you are not many people will hear you but if 20 people are standing on different corners of the world and yell for you lots more people will hear them and ask who you are. The easiest way to develop is to develop others. That is how a great career is built.