I’ve really got nothing to say you bluggard!

Yes, thats right. I really have nothing to say. Well rather, i’m just too lazy to say anything.

Those who have been keenly following me on BlogSpirit will have noticed I haven’t posted anything in a while. This morning, the Rogue King asked me in simple words “dude, do you still blog?” Now that coming from someone who knows me better than most and sits right next to me really bitch-slapped me out of my lazy bloggers stupor-hmmm, this calls for a new word. I think,   “bluggard” is the word. A sluggardly blogger.

So i confess, I’ve been a bluggard lately and i’m not proud of it(though i am proud of the new word i just forged-i should put my compilation on wikipedia It really is the same thing that happens in life, you just get lazy about a certain area of your life for just a day or ten and the next thing you know, a whole lifetime has passed you by and rust and overgrown weeds have over run you.

It shall not be so with the Apprentice. I will be giving you all some good content more regularly to enhance your living pleasure. Maybe I should tell you all about the case of the runaway maids? I’ve had two maids just up and stealthily flee from my house in the last 3months. Am i doing something right? A question for debate.

Till then I leave you with these infamous words from Mr. Lionel Luthor in Smallville…

“I have returned.”

Some more Lionel Luthor quotes

“You know, I never knew who was more insane. Don Quixote, jousting with imaginary enemies, or his partner Pancho, indulging his wildest fantasies despite the danger to everybody else”

“Coincidence. That’s an explanation used by fools and liars.“

“Knowledge comes from finding the answers, yes, but understanding what the answers mean is what brings wisdom. Men who didn’t understand the difference have been the ruin of some of the world’s greatest civilizations.”

“Never underestimate the value of lunatics and eccentrics, Lex, every Arthur needs his Merlin.”

“Well, for a woman with no heart…she certainly had a lot of blood.”

“When you’re rich, you’re not crazy. You’re eccentric”

The Apprentice prepares a bucket

It has come to my attention through a lot of my reading lately, that it’s impossible to live a rich life without having a set of goals and dreams to work towards and achieve. Letting life just happen to you and push you around isn’t my idea of fun. That has been the description of my last 30 years.How many times have you asked yourself that proverbial question “I wonder where I’ll be/ who I’ll be in 10years?” Well I now understand that unless you decide where or who you want to be in the future, you’re very likely to be disappointed where you end up. So in that light, I’ve been working on my goals and dreams lately and I thought I’d share what is popularly known as “the bucket list”; a list of things I want to do or experience before I die but in my case, I want to do this before I’m 40.

An Apprentice’s Bucket List before I’m 40

1. To ride a camel and climb the steps of the great pyramids of Giza in Egypt. I also need a cool picture with the sphinx with a broken nose.
2. Go snorkeling on a coral reef especially the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
3. Take a Safari game drive with my family in the Masai Mara or Serengeti. I’d love for a lion or leopard to jump on the roof of the landrover!
4. To climb a mountain, Rwenzori will do.
5. Learn how to ski/ snowboard and then do so on the Swiss Alps.
6. Take a professional defensive driving or racing course
7. Drive a Porsche, Lamborghini or any other super car
8. Serenade my wife as we ride a Gondola in Venice.
9. Give away 100,000,000 UGX or more to church, charity and aid of humanity.
10. Take a 3week Caribbean cruise.
11. Gain 15 kilos of abs, biceps and Pecs!
12. See the entire solar system via giant telescope.
13. Listen to a philharmonic symphony orchestra live.
14. Go to a Broadway show.
15. Go for T.D Jakes Manpower conference.
16. Take my wife and daughter for horse riding on a real horse ranch!
17. Go to the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Vegas!  Yes, i’m a geek!
18. Go Sky diving
19. Visit an walk through Aquarium with my daughter
20. Tour Asia via the Orient Express.
21. Visit the Himeji white castle in Japan
22. Go sand dune riding in Dubai
23. Visit the Eiffel tower and sip coffee and croissants at a traditional street café in Paris
24. Set up a ministry to mentor, encourage and equip men to be Men!
25. Learn how to Fly a helicopter!

This is just a short list as I continue exercising my faith to open up new possibilities. I’d love to hear some of your own bucket lists. I might be dreaming too small. Let get each other pumped up and encourage one another.

Shalom

JOHN DEWEY: Without some goals and some efforts to reach it, no man can live.

ROBERT H. SCHULLER: Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive.

Truths about borrowing money that I’ve learned from loan sharks

It seems like in this world we live in today, it’s impossible to actually live without borrowing money. Everywhere you turn either yourself or someone you know is indebted.

Well over the last several weeks, a series of events all related to loan sharks and borrowed money have opened my eyes to certain truths that I’d like to share with you today. It’s my hope that you and I will see the fallacy of this dangerous lifestyle of borrowing that we are unconsciously comfortable with.

Lesson 1: Luzira express. Failure to pay debts is a criminal offence punishable with jail time.

Ok, this one I honestly didn’t know but it’s a scary fact. Even if you owe someone 10,000UGX and they take you to court over failure to pay, well you can be sentenced to jail time. I came to learn this lesson by the unwarranted instruction of a two loan sharks to whom my brothers were indebted. Suffice to say, they both have been arrested and only released upon lots of lobbying. I never used to get it but the basic principle is that getting you arrested is a strong arm technique by the sharks to force your friends and family to cough up the money in order to save you a one way trip to luzira. Now that used to piss me off but later I learnt that it’s actually a criminal offence to fail to pay your debts. A lot of us take it for granted that if we don’t pay our debts, what’s the worst that can happen? Well a couple of months in Luzira could happen. Take an example of those oh so popular salary loans we yuppies like to take out. A guy I know who works at a certain standard bank actually encouraged me to defraud my bank by taking a huge loan and not paying by simply saying I don’t have a job anymore so I can’t pay. Sounds really sweet eh? All that cash with no downside. Well a week ago I discovered that banks can actually take you to court and prosecute you all the way to cell block D if you fail to pay. So lesson, failure to pay your debts is tantamount to theft and you are a criminal if you don’t.

Lesson 2: The Borrower is the slave to the Lender

This one I first saw in the bible. Proverbs 22:7 says the Rich rules over the poor and the Borrower is a servant to the lender. This is a simple lesson I’ve seen in my own life and the life of many of my loved ones. When you borrow money, you are indebted to the person or system that lent you the money. Which means, in order to get your freedom back, you need to do everything in your power to pay them back. It is in the process of paying back that you become a slave. You go to work to day in day out to earn money to pay off your creditors. Trust me I’ve been there. Giving away half my salary every month to pay off some debts. Missing out on all the wonderful things I could have been doing with that money and at the same time shrinking my life to fit in the paltry salary that remained. Not even being able to buy a pair of shoes or a shirt. I began to loathe my job and my very existence because it seemed like I was working for my creditors. Others become insomniacs, get high blood pressure etc. Point is, you lose your freedom and become a slave till you clear that debt.

Lesson 3: Never stand surety for anyone. Period!

I don’t need to say too much about this one. It’s also biblical. Proverbs 6:1 says “My child, suppose you agree to pay the debt of someone, who cannot repay a loan. Then you are trapped by your own words,” and Proverbs 17:18 “It’s stupid to guarantee someone else’s loan.” Subtle!

I needn’t say any more about the folly of standing surety. What is surety you ask? Surety is simply guaranteeing a loan on someone else’s behalf. Failure of that person to pay means that you pay the outstanding amount. Now the problem with this is, a lot of people have no problem defaulting on their loans leaving you to face the music. Besides, by the time someone asks you to stand surety for them, they believe you are a Mugaga. Worse still though, if the person fails to pay, and you can’t pay either, well, it’s off to luzira for both of you! Back to the example of my brothers. One of them stood surety for a cousin who failed to pay. Guess who was picked up at his office by the police? Yep, my brother. Only some frantic running around spared him a one way trip to Luza’s. The prisons bus spent the whole afternoon eagerly waiting just for my bro. So key lesson, any failure to pay by the person is your failure as the one who stood surety. You are just as liable. So, as for standing surety, as the old adage goes, JUST SAY NO!

Lesson 4: Borrowing can ruin your reputation, your relationships and your life

Ok now this one I have seen way up close. A very close cousin of mine is like 5000 feet deep in debts to banks, loan sharks, friends and family. He hasn’t had a job for the last 6months. Several people in my family have had brushes with harassment and arrest because of standing surety for his loans. To put it mildly, they don’t ever want to see him ever again. His name isn’t even supposed to be mentioned. It’s like in Harry Potter, the reference to the villain is generally ““He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”. There, relationships destroyed. Nobody in their even wildly, intoxicated frame of mind would touch him with a ten foot pole. He has been marked by the new Credit Reference Bureau as a “Delinquent borrower” so he can never borrow from any bank in Uganda for a minimum period of 7years or is it 10? Whatever, the point is reputation destroyed. If he gets arrested by any one of multiple creditors, he’ll have a criminal record to deal with all the rest of his days. Plus there are ripple effects. When I looked at my other brother facing arrest for some loans, I couldn’t help think, so what happens to his wife and kids if he’s incarcerated? Who looks after them when the creditors take all their property to clear their dues? Their lives would also be destroyed. So no reputation, relationships or life.

Lesson 5: Borrowing is a sign of selfishness, impatience and indiscipline

Now don’t get me wrong. Not all borrowing is bad. But habitual borrowing underlines a much bigger problem. Why do you borrow? Simply because you want something but you don’t have the patience to wait to get it. It’s about instant gratification. I must have it now. We live in a generation where we expect everything to be instant and to get it with the least possible work. Borrowing is the path of least resistance. You want a car? Get a bank loan to buy it now even though in reality, you can’t afford it. You want to impress that girl? Borrow from your work buddies to take her to rock night and buy her black label. Spent all your salary paying for that really expensive apartment? Just borrow some money to see you through the remaining 3weeks of the month. Get the picture? Borrowing arises from selfish, impatient desire to have things that we can’t afford in the moment (and probably shouldn’t anyway) and we don’t have the discipline to live within our means and save towards getting that thing debt free. I’m definitely not perfect. I wanted a car so badly and I couldn’t wait so I borrowed money at an exorbitant interest rate and spent 2years paying for a car that in the end, I don’t even like that much! What’s more, the car isn’t even worth half what I borrowed now. Sigh. Even worse, we borrow to pay debts! Don’t even get me started about that crazy cycle. So lesson, if you are habitually in debt, it’s time to have a long, hard and brutally honest examination of yourself and your lifestyle. You might be shocked at what you discover about yourself.

So these are a few critical lessons I’ve learnt about borrowing. I’m sure i’ going to learn more as these situations in the family are being cleared up. My wife and I generally live by a strict agreement to never borrow unless it’s a matter of life and death or if it’s for investment. Otherwise, we’d rather starve than borrow and believe me, there have been times when we did. I must say though, after all the drama I’ve seen courtesy of loan sharks these past 6weeks, I’m so thankful we took this stand. I’d rather starve in my own house than have to worry about being made someone’s b@*$h! Now this advice is difficult for most but if you want peace in your life, and you want to avoid Luza’s, just stay away from borrowing. I’d love to hear some of your own loan shark stories and lessons so hit me.

Shalom

“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8

“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Phil 4:19

Who goeth a borrowing, Goeth a sorrowing.
~Thomas Tusser

Debt, n.  An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911

Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them.
Ogden Nash

Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want.
Thomas Jefferson

Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave. Therefore I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety. If your friend is in distress, aid him if you have the means to spare. If he fails to be able to return it, it is only so much lost.
Andrew Jackson

The Apprentice returns…with a new apprentice and address

Shalom my good blogren.

it has been many moons since my last post and I’m pleased to say it’s not because of the blogcks. The Master has gone and blessed my wife and I with  the most beautiful little baby girl. I have been on a 3 week paternity leave and just returned. I thought, there’s no better way to launch my new blog premises than with a few pics of my new heart.

Ladies and Gents, I give you, Kemigisha Alanna Birungi — “Wonderful Beautiful Blessed One”

She’s alot taller than she looks

It will be interesting to journal my many adventures as a teacher and not a student. Parenting is the highest calling in human society. We are in great proportion as direct result of the parenting we received.

I didn’t have a very good father growing up and I’ve always wanted nothing more than to be a great father to my own children. Now I have the chance. I pray the Master will guide me in this amazing calling. I’m really kinda terrified to be sure. Holding her little body in my arms as she gazes upto me, totally dependent on me and her mother for everything. Phew! So to any parents in the blogsphere, petesmama, any help will be muchos appreciated.

Here’s to an exciting future. And welcome to the new Apprentice blog

Shalom

Swine flu or just a rampant case of the sniffles?

I’m sitting at my desk with my nose dripping like a salivating doberman that hasn’t eaten in days. Three whole days i’ve had a serious case of the sniffles and yet to my greater recollection it’s been over 2weeks since I tasted the glorious flesh of swine. Perhaps I’m paranoid but it seems to me that everywhere I turn, people are sneezing, wheezing and coughing, don’t you think? I bet your unconciously reaching for your drenched hankie right now to wipe your sore nose, aren’t you? 

Now I’m not an expert in the field of medicine but isn’t this smacks dangerously fishyly smelly considering there is a worldwide Swine Flu Alert in place. Level 5 for that matter. That means like, nowhere in this solar system are you safe. Good grief. Well, despite all they say, I’m absolutely positive that swine flu just can’t be a problem in UG. I mean, the swine is held in culinary deity around these parts. Even the ruling government make no shame in using it as a metaphor when they say “Twa kuuba embundo” which loosely translates, we killed our pig and so now we’re enjoying it. Sorry opposition. But until you can come up with such cool metaphors, I suggest you find your own animal. As Sevo says, “when you get tired of digging, don’t tell the land to go away.” 

I digress. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, flu. My Archilles heel. The one thing that my body refuses to develop any form of immuninty to. Like superman, it’s great to have kyrptonite to remind you that you aren’t totally invicible. Three days of bed rest and Smallville Season 8 reminded me very clearly. But does it have to be so damned inconvenient for a disease that isn’t actually life threatening? The runny nose, the chinese eyes, the Darth Vader breathing, splitting migraines and a vampiristic aversion to light? I mean do you actually know of anyone who died of Senyiga..? I didn’t think so. 

But this post goes out to all the brave heros out there diligently sloggin onwards despite this incredibly annoying and mysteriously incurable irritation of a disease. Stand strong, keep eating that pork and no, you can’t tell the land to go away. Cause no employer in this town gives sick leave for senyiga. Hell, i should know, i’m my own damn employer and I can’t give myself the day off.  

Shalom

And finally, Millionaire Habit 9: Respect Money

So we have finally come to the end of our series on the 9 Habits of Millionaires as i understood them from Adam Khoo’s e-book. Lets dive right into what is probably the most important of all the habits as it directly relates to money and how we see it.

Habit 9: Respect Money

Do you really respect money? If i was to ask you what you thought of money, I’d get several varying answers many of which would show an unhealthy view towards money. The most common beliefs about money are:

• Money is the root of all evil
• Money is elusive and fleeting
• Having money will cause me more problems
• Rich people are greedy, selfish and unscrupulous
• Poverty is a virtue
• Money will change you(into a bad person)
• You have to work extremely hard to make money
• If i become wealthy
• etc

Most of us want and desire to have lots more money but subconsciously, we walk around with these negative associations towards money and this causes a conflict. Essentially what happens is that we sabotage ourselves from getting money. For example most of us have been brought up to believe that money is the root of all evil. As such we feel guilty about money. So we unconsciously do things to get rid of the money in our lives. If you have 5million shillings on your account, you find ways to spend, lend, waste, give it away to abate the guilt you have in actually having that much money. Please note that as long as you have this disrespect for money, you will never be able to truly prosper. 

Millionaires on the other hand have a high respect for money. They see money as a tool, an ally and even as a friend. Millionaires know that money can do a lot for them. Millionaires realize that money offers them opportunity to do the things they really want, go where they want and buy what they want. Money to them therefore is highly respected. They don’t waste it. They don’t throw it away. They don’t feel ashamed of having it either. In the same breath, millionaires are not slaves to money. They don’t work for money. Money is a result of them offering tremendous value in the marketplace. They know that their true worth doesn’t come from money but with the value and ideas they have to offer. Money to millionaires is merely a way of keeping score.

So we must work on changing our beliefs and attitudes towards money into more healthy and empowering ones. I personally have chosen to adopt some of the following beliefs about money:

• Money is abundant and comes easily and frequently to me.
• Money helps me live the lifestyle I desire
• Money enables me to richly bless those around me
• Money is an effective tool that I use in my life
• Money is a reflection of the value I offer in this world
• Having money is generally better than not having it.  
• Money gives me tremendous influence for good
• etc

I’d definitely like to hear your new found respect and beliefs of money. I could use a few more myself. Recognize that most of your beliefs about money are myths that were unwittingly passed onto you by you parents and society. You want to be rich. You can be rich. Give yourself permission to do so. I know i have. And everyday I’m striving to develop all these 9 habits.

And thats it folks. Phew! Thank you for following this series, I do hope you were blessed by it. I will be anxiously waiting to hear your various feedbacks about how easy, difficult or practical it’s been for you to live out these habits. For your reading convenience here are all the Habits listed once again.  

• Habit 1: Give more than Expected
• Habit 2: Be Proactive
• Habit 3: Take 100% Responsibility
• Habit 4: Delayed Gratification
• Habit 5: Do what you love
• Habit 6: Act with Integrity
• Habit 7: Be 100% Committed
• Habit 8: The Ability to turn Failure into Success
• Habit 9: Respect Money

Shalom

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL:
Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty. 

WOODY ALLEN:
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

Millionaire Habit 8: Turn Failure into Success

 Shalom blogren. Its time again to continue on our quest to learn the 9 habits of Millionaires. We are close to the end of our series. Today we look at something particularly difficult for most of us. And that is:

Habit 8: The Ability to turn failure into success

To most of us, failure Is a bad word. Infact, it’s an f-word. We don’t like to fail, so much so that most of us never try to do anything just so we won’t leave any opportunity for that f-word to appear. But this is the greater distinction between us and Millionaires. Most people think that millionaires generally never fail, I mean how else could they be millionaires, right? We’re not millionaires because logically, we’ve failed.

Here’s a truth for you. Millionaires fail a lot more than even you and I. Most millionaires have failed so many times it’s ridiculous. You all heard of Thomas Edison who failed 10,000 times in trying to make a working light bulb. Good grief, I’d have gotten the hint after the 10th time! But millionaires fail more than most of us because they inherently do a lot more, risk a lot more than most of us. The key difference is that millionaires don’t fear failure because they have learned to use it as an ally. Failure to them is simply feedback. It shows them what’s not working and this allows them to change strategy continuously till they eventually succeed.

I don’t know about you, but I’m the kind of person who fails and takes it personally and quits. 3years ago I failed in my first business and guess what I did? Yep, I quit. I didn’t see my failure as feedback that something needed to be changed. Right now, I’m back in the saddle and looking at my past failures trying to understand what I did wrong, correct them this time round and get a better result. Thomas Edison in an interview later responded to a question of how he dealt with such colossal failure, said “I never failed. I simply discovered 10,000 ways not to do it!”

A Chinese proverb says “Madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome” That’s how a lot of people deal with failure. They keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that they will achieve a different result. You can’t keep spending all your money by the 2nd week of each month and hope that after one year of this, you will be debt free?!

In becoming the millionaire or successful person you dream of being, be prepared to fail many times before you achieve success. The important thing is to remember that failure is an event, it’s not who you are. Learn from it, change tactics and commit 100% to doing whatever it takes to achieve success and you will be victorious. I know it’s hard. One of the greatest human fears is the fear of failure.

I personally battle fear in many of its different persona’s so this habit is a challenge for me. As an entrepreneur, I can’t help but find myself fearing that I’m going to fail like I did the last time. That I don’t know enough. I’m not stong enough. I remember the ripple effects my failure had and it sometimes stops me in my tracks sometimes. But the grace of the Master helps me to face my fears each day and know that I’ve learned a lot since I was a naïve young man and I should trust that knowledge will see me through. The Rogue king wrote something about failure.

So my millionaire blogren, lets learn how to turn our failures into success. Our next habit is the last and not least of them which is Habit 9: Respect Money

Later

BARACK OBAMA:

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. it’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

HAVELOCK ELLIS:

 It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success

JOHN DEWEY:Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

LLOYD JONES:

Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed.

MICHAEL JORDAN:

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

SAMUEL SMILES :

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

 

Millionaire Habit 7: Being 100% Committed.

Alright, as we continue our series on the 9 habits of Millionaires, I’d like to ask you a question. Do you really want to be rich? I’m sure your answer is a resounding YES! I mean who wouldn’t? But then, if I ask you, are you committed to being rich? The answer might not be so simple, and in most cases, it’s actually a sheepish “Well No, not really”. This leads us straight into our next habit.

Habit 7: Being 100% Committed.

Millionaires or successful people of any kind are 100% totally committed to achieving their dreams. I personally realized long ago that I merely wished to be financially free. You see, when you think about what it takes to actually become a millionaire, exercising all the previous habits we’ve seen so far, I’m actually not too happy about the hard work and sacrifice that goes with it. If it fell in my lap, that would be great but otherwise, it’s just a nice fantasy to cling onto.

To become a millionaire is simple but certainly not an easy process. I mean, most of these habits we’ve looked at aren’t really rocket science. But living them out on a daily basis isn’t so easy. Once you decide to become a millionaire, you will face heavy opposition and obstacles. Life isn’t going to just hand you everything on a silver platter. You have to fight for your goals. When everything is going to hell in a hand basket around you, you must be committed enough to your goal that you stick it thru.

Being 100% committed means when that when you fail 10, 50, 100 times, you don’t give up. You simply modify your approach and change what’s not working and press on. Most of us quit when we fail the first time because achieving that goal isn’t really a MUST. Whenever something in our lives is an absolute must, then we will do whatever it takes. Notice that for most people, being rich isn’t a Must hence there are so few rich people. On the other hand surviving is an absolute must for all of us so the majority of us are merely…that’s right, surviving. We easily give up and find all sorts of excuses why we can’t why it won’t work.

For example, when you have your landlord threatening to throw you out of your house because the rent is due, do you ever notice how you somehow manage to find the money even when you’re broke? See, you must come to a point where it’s absolutely a must to achieve success and that nothing else will do.

I remember a couple of years ago when the Rogue King and I started our first business together, I can’t even begin to count the number of friends and strangers alike who kept praising us for stepping out and starting a business. They went on and on about how being employed is no way to get rich and how they also wanted to start their own thing and succeed. 6years later I can’t pinpoint even one who has gone onto do so. Why? Because it’s not really a must for them to do so. They merely wish of doing it someday.

 To be a millionaire you must really, really want to be one and make certain that you have pressure to achieve your goal. This kind of positive pressure is gained by staking all you have on your dream. Stake everything on achieving your goal. The easiest way to get this sort of pressure on yourself, is to make a public declaration. Write down your goals. Tell a friend. If you want to quit that job and start a business, write out your resignation letter and give it to a friend to hand it in for you after a specific period if you haven’t gotten out by then. Declare to the bloggers that if you don’t hit a target of 500,000/= a month in profit from your business, then you will buy the entire rounds for the next 3 Bloggers Happy Hour.

The point is, you must, absolutely must be committed to being a millionaire or else life’s challenges and obstacles will knock you out of the race before you’ve even taken 5steps.  I leave you with this interesting analogy. In a meal of bacon and Eggs, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. So the question I ask once again, are you really committed to being a millionaire?

Till next time for habit 8: Turn failure into Success,

Shalom

Millionaire habit 3: Take 100% Responsibility

Ok, moving on to the next critical habit in the series 9 habits of Millionaires. So far we’ve looked at habit 1: Always exceed expectations and habit 2: Be proactive. Today lets look at one of my personal favorites. This doesn’t apply only to Millionaires but to all of us. In order to live well and live truly, we must practice the following;

Habit 3: Take 100% Responsbility

If there is one habit that we all absolutely need to get in life, it is certainly this one. Taking 100% Responsibility for our lives is absolutely key for being successful. It basically says, whatever I am in life, wherever I am In life, whatever I do in life, is simply because I’e chosen so. To put it more bluntly, the results in your life are absolutely your fault. You choose to be average or excellent, you choose to be married or single, you choose to ignorant or educated. You even choose to be poor or rich. 

Millionaires know this very well. It ties back to our last habit of being Proactive. Sadly the majority of us prefer to blame everyone and everything else for their current position in life. No money, no time, poor background, no education or whatever. You may say I didn’t choose to be born in a poor family. True, but you can choose if your going to remain poor. You say, I didn’t choose to be married to a spouse who later became abusive. True, but you can choose to stay in that relationship and be abused. 

Everything in our lives is a result of a concious or unconcious decision on our part. If you choose to disregard this, then you have made a choice and your life will always be dependent on your unconcious choices and other peoples choices. You cannot go around blaming everyone and everything else for your circumstances and expect to be a millionaire.  Take 100% responsibility. 

Millionaires realise that if they don’t take responsibility, then they are at the mercy of othersor circumstance and therefore are powerless to do anything about. Millionaires believe that they alone are responsible for their wealth and results in life and that they have complete power to change their lives by changing their strategies and actions. When you do the same,take 100% responsibility and get rid of all the excuses and accept that your life is a result of the choices you’ve made so far, then you will be free to become the wealthy person you dream of being.

This applies in all areas of your life, not just your career or finances. Everything, your relationships, your faith, your health. You are responsible in one way or another. So step up and do what must be done.

Till next time when we look at Habit 4: Delayed Gratification (another one that most people will hate:) God bless

Shalom

There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. Denis Waitley

The Apprentice comes of Age

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy birthday dear Apprentice.….

Ok ok enough singing for myself but i couldn’t help it cause today is a vary special day for me; not just because its my birthday but it’s my 30th birthday! This is  of great significance because in the Bible, the 30th year was considered the coming of age year when a boy becomes a man and begins to fulfill his ministry or purpose in this life.

Let’s look at Joseph. He had a calling on his life but it only came to be when he became 30. King David, annointed King of Israel but only actually became so at 30. And most importantly, our Lord Jesus. His official ministry began when He too became 30.

So, I’m pondering and asking the Master, what is my ministry/ purpose that I’m to embark on now that I’ve hit the big three-oh? Perhaps its simply the ministry of Fatherhood as my daughter is due in a month and half? Perhaps it’s as an entreprenuer with my business? 

For most men, this age brings an onset of the midlife crisis which is basically a man desperate for some meaning, direction and hope for his life. Wondering what happened to his dreams, how he got to being who and where he is currently, and more importantly is this mundane, unsatisfying life going to go till he dies? These questions really cause us problems and for the longest time, I asked myself such. I even started feelin this hopeless when I hit 25!!!

Anyways, whatever it is, I choose to walk boldly into this new era of my life and trusting that God is true to His word that His plans for me are many, they are wonderful and beyond anything I can dare think, ask or even dream. So let it be unto me according to His Will.

Happy Birthday Kiddo. You a man now.

Aging is not ‘lost youth’ but a new stage of opportunity and strength.
 Betty Friedan