In this short article, the kind of sowing I want to talk about is investment. I have discovered that if you don’t invest, you won’t harvest. Before you invest, you must have vision. Vision is the driver of human life, propelled by determination; so any human who has no vision has no destination in life and so does not deserve to live.
Take action: Most people have vision but do not take action; if you have vision and don’t take action, your vision dies. Start working on your vision before it is too late. Taking action results in either success or failure; if it gives you failure, don’t stop. Stand again with courage and forge ahead with determination because success is not the absence of failure but the conquest of failure through persistent efforts in the direction of your dream.
Before a child stands and walks, the child must have fallen many times, but his ability to stand whenever he falls makes him walk successfully one day. In fact, I have discovered that failure is inevitable, check out the successful people around you: you will discover that they have failed many times, but because they refused to be held down by failure, they can count successes among their experiences. Wise people learn from failure. Every failure prepares them for a higher level of success and gives them a new experience of life.
Abraham Lincoln failed eleven times in his life, but finally became the president of America, and the greatest among all:
- In 1831, he failed in business
- 1832, defeated for legislature
- 1833, second failure in business
- 1836, suffered nervous breakdown
- 1838, defeated for speaker
- 1840, defeated for elector
- 1843, defeated for congress
- 1848, defeated for congress
- 1855, defeated for senate
- 1856, defeated for vice president
- 1858, defeated for senate
- 1860, elected president of the United State of America.
- Whatever happens, do not tamper with your capital.
- Do not borrow huge amounts of money you cannot pay back when due, because a debtor is a slave in the hands of his creditor.
- Develop and maintain strong and good business relationships .
- Develop international business ideas.
- Do not eat all your profits, put some back into your business.
- Do not be late to your business; take it seriously because anything you don’t take seriously will not give good results.
- Maintain peace among your colleagues and partners.
- Do not be ignorant of fraudsters, think very careful and ask questions before entering into any business you have not done before.
- Do not be afraid of risks because life is all about risks, and risk-takers are great achievers.
- Do not try to make money the fast way because if you do, it will go fast and may ruin your life.
He persisted in his action and America and the world still stand up for him.
A rich person is not one who has a lot of money, but one who has vision, potential, ideas and needs the least. This means that a rich person is that man who needs only a little to start with and multiplies it as fast as possible. He does not spend more than he earns. Do not spend more than you earn, work on your expenses; avoid anything that will make you spend more than your income; learn how to say no to some things in other to avoid unnecessary spending.
Save: He that loves pleasure cannot save money, and he that loves wine shall be poor. Budget your expenses and be careful so that you don’t make unbudgeted expenses. Do not spend extravagantly. Do not be luxurious in attitude. If you must move money out, let it be for an investment, because investment makes people rich but expenses makes people poor. A person is not known by how much he or she spends but by how much he has invested, his or her worth in assets. If you are a salary earner, and do not have any other means of income, start saving at least 20 or 30% of your monthly income, and after a few months, you can start investing.
Invest: You can invest in stock (buying of shares) either from the primary offer or the secondary market, with a little capital. It is also wise to invest on land, and you can partner with professional businessmen and women and share the profit with them after sales. There are so many other ways to invest, but whichever way you choose, make sure you do invest.
The reason why you should invest is that you cannot maintain financial sustainability with a salary alone. With investment, you can become as rich as you want to become. Any salary earner will agree with me that, irrespective of how much you earn, you will still need to have another means of income to sustain yourself and the people around you. If you are a trader or want to become a trader, know this: the day that you start spending your capital, you will start to wind your business down. If you want to succeed in your business:
And may I say this, unbudgeted expenses lead to borrowing, borrowing leads to indebtedness and indebtedness leads to business failure. That is why you must be careful about how you spend your money.
Add a concept: Develop your own personal concepts, add flavor to your business. You can still do business as other people do, but your personal concepts make your pattern different from others. I will give just one example. There is a woman in the Delta state of Nigeria who makes a living by roasting yams in the front of her house. In her street are eight other women who roast yams for a living. One day, this woman had a quarrel with one of these neighbors. Her neighbor called her a poor woman, told her that she would die in that poor business. As for her, she was going into a better business. She responded and told her neighbor that, with that poor, yam-roasting business, she would pay for her children’s university education, buy land and build a house. A few weeks after the quarrel, customers started coming: people would drive up, park their cars and book servings of yam before they were done. We wondered about that. Little did we know that she had added a concept. What was her concept? After buying yam, she would buy two bags of salt and soak them together in a big drum, adding a small quantity of water. After seven days, she would dry the yam in the sun for five days and then get it ready for roasting.
Avoid pride: Please friends, do not cut your coat according to your size, but according to the size of the material. Run away from pride; pride is an overestimation of oneself. It will make you place yourself in a level beyond your own, thereby making you the most miserable of all men, especially when you are expected to do something and can‘t. You will squeeze yourself and even borrow to do it and then go home to cry and die of hunger and indebtedness. Give respect to the elderly ones and to children; greetings matter a lot. Be truthful and honest in whatever you do. By doing this you will gain credibility for yourself. Do not feel too big to learn from children who have what you need. Don’t feel shy to say, “Please teach me,” because someone must teach you what you don’t know, regardless of their age and gender. If it means humiliation and insults, absorb them, get what you want and then walk away. Have a good mentor.
Think positive: Think positive; don’t think negative. Do not have an underdeveloped mind; have a rich and developed mind. Be versatile because versatility will make you have more than one means of income. But do not be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Don’t just wish for something; start doing it now. Do not wait for your uncles’ and aunties’ promises or cast blame on them for not helping you. You can succeed without their help. Blame yourself where you fail and learn from your mistakes. Believe in yourself and say to yourself, “I can make it, come what may.” Do not wait until you graduate from a higher institution; do not wait until you get hundreds of thousands or millions before you start investing. Start with the little you have because time does not wait for any person.
Cut off any relationship or friendship that will not contribute to your success in life. May I also say this: you don’t need academic qualifications to succeed in life, and these are not the criteria for success. You only need education to upgrade your knowledge. You are not inferior. You are special in your own way; so reject the inferiority complex and do not be intimidated by people of high class or anything. Any time you get intimidated, you are defeated.
Finally, change your thought pattern, always package yourself very well and dress well. The way you dress speaks volumes, and people read meaning into it. Always look and smell good. Make friends with people you will learn from and not just people who learn from you. Don’t wait any longer. The best time to start is now. You are destined to excel. Always pray to God, give to God’s work and have faith.
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