Dear All,
I know threads like this should go to the Business Section, but I am pleading with Moderators to leave the thread here.

First, the thread is given birth to by the rising fuel prices which is so much discussed on this politics section.
My post about why there is not fuel scarcity in the South East, brought up some thoughts I will like to share with the "politicians" of the Nairaland.

To some extent, politics and the economy are interwoven.

Thanks to mods in advance.

Before I start this discussion, I will like to state as follows:

1. I am not an expert in money matters, but when hunger wanted to kill me with 2.1 in B.Eng (Elect/Elect), I was forced to ask some questions about money.

2. This work is purely mine, any body who want to make use of it should please be courteous enough to obtain my permission.

Thanks to all.

Is that all??

Oya ride on na

I have a total of about 10 Lessons I leant about money.
I will release one per week.
It will be every Monday morning, beginning from tomorrow.

I will be willing to answer serious minded questions and discuss with people who are open minded.

Thats all for now.

Please, keep a date with this thread tomorrow morning.

Topic One:

Poverty, Prosperity and Definition of Money!

Dee noblezone biko dowerem oche ihu nihi nam naabia
ngwanu naekwu ka anyi na aña nti

Dear All,
After thinking it over, I decided to do an intro, before the main points.


Introduction
I was desperate. I needed money. Not that I was greedy, I only needed just a little money to keep body and soul together. You know, they promised us to study hard, get good grades, get a plum job after graduation and leave happily ever after. So, after graduation, I was waiting on the “whole world” to come and serve me with my dream job. After all, with a 2.1 in B.Eng Electrical/Electronic, I deserved nothing less.
It was a shocking reality after Youth Service, when government “allowy” stopped. Friends and Family members had washed off their hands, immediately after my project defence. The Federal Govt, had released me to my fate. And the world does not even know I existed. It was more horrifying, when I saw those better qualified than myself, also jobless and helpless as I was.

I lost my father when I was in primary school. I went to school with determination as my “soul” backbone. If it was availability of money, I would have dropped out of school as soon daddy died. As a typical “okoro” man, I have family responsibilities even though I was not yet married. If not for any other, I had my younger ones and my mama, who I had to take care of. So, in looking for a job, it had to be a good one.

I began to submit CVs to people I know and reply to newspaper adds. Days were running to weeks and weeks were running into months. And before you knew it, I was a liability, eating free food in my uncles house. Some of us did not go to school on time. So about this time, I was close to 30. Some of my mates were already married and having children. The most annoying thing was, almost all the adverts where asking for experience. 5 years, 10 years, 15 years. Na wa ooo.
Where would I have gotten the experience from, when I just came out school? The few that advertised for fresh graduates, would say between the ages of 20 and 25. Honestly if I am among those who believe “winch” catch them, I would have said maybe witches from my villa were after me. Check it with me, the jobs that need my age are asking for experience, the ones that need fresh grads said I was over age. I belonged to nowhere! Damn! However, once in a while I see some jobs to apply for and I did. None was fruitful.

My Last Job Application:
The NLNG advertised for fresh graduates with the usual age restriction. I was so happy to see the advert only for me to read a clause that brought grief to my hungry soul. It read,
“Applicants are advised to indicate their state of origin at the top left corner of the application envelop”.
I knew I was already schemed out! As an Anambra “pickin”, when quota and catchment area would be applied, I would be left in the cold. Of course, I never heard from the NLNG, let alone going for an interview. Maybe they had a trash can, where envelopes like mine, were trashed.

Speaking To The Man In The Mirror:
After submitting the application, I decided I had to do something about my destiny. I wont wait for any jobs any more. Whether govt or private, let them keep their jobs.
So, when one of my bros came around, i told him I wanted to take a plunge into the unknown. I didn’t need job anymore. I told him I needed accommodation, my own and personal. I asked him for assistance. He assisted, and I took one horrible looking accommodation like that, where I would never invite anybody to visit me. I had this funny theory that the free food I was eating in my uncles house was doing me more harm than good.
I wanted to experience hunger, so my head could think. After I moved, one day I stood in front a mirror and spoke to the man I saw there.
“Grow up, my friend. You have no option, than to grow up”

Taking The Plunge
The bros also allowed me to come out to his business centre. He agreed to give me N6000 every month provided I could be helping out. I was going out there, until one day I discovered I was already addicted to the N6,000. My life was now dependent on it and it was such an insult to my needs. I got to work one day, and told the manager not to pay me anymore. That day, armed with determination, I plunged full into the world of the uncertainty and adventure. The N6,000.00 was tying me down, I had to shake it off. I reasoned that if I was to fill my empty tummy, I needed to tap from my brain. I needed to learn how to make money. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced I didn’t know much about money. Just like many graduates in Africa, I was financially an illiterate. A first Class graduate in Banking and Finance can still be an illiterate when it comes to art of making money. That is the ugly reality of our educational system. We cram definitions just to pass, but the world of our learning is totally different from the world of our living.

I could remember the day I knelt down and begged God to help me. I told Him, I needed to understand things about money. He surely did help me. It is my hope that this little articles will be beneficial to someone.
This gave birth to the first lesson about money.

From here, I won’t bore you with details anymore, I will go straight to the points.
However, let me emphasis this: I am discussing genuine money here. not some loot from cheating, lying or open robbery.

LESSON ONE: Poverty, Prosperity And The Definition Of Money.

What is poverty?

Did you say “lack of money” or something similar?

Well, above is the average answer we have got so far, each time we ask this question at our Wealth Creation Seminars (WCS).
This particular answer usually compels us to ask this next question,
“What is money?”.

I could remembered clearly, the day I asked my kids (the oldest was 7 years old as at then) this same question, and they innocently informed me that “money is what we use to buy things!”.

Unfortunately, so many adults also have this very wrong notion about money. Hear me and hear me well, money is not used to “buy” things, rather money is a medium of exchange for “things” (things here could mean goods and/or services).

Having money does not mean that one is rich! If I have $100, and you have $1,000,000, and both of us have need of yam to eat, but there is no single tuber of yam in the market, then our monies are of no value. We cannot chew the dollar notes. As far as yam is not available for us to buy, your $1,000,000 dollars is as valueless as my $100.

On the other hand, if both of us have no cash at the moment, but I have 100 cows, while you have just 1 goat, I am far richer than you. Far back in the days of trade by Barter, there were rich men as well as poor men, rich nations as well as poor nations.

It‘s all in the definition of money. The poor see money as what they will use to buy goods/services, so they pursue money, the rich see money as a tool for exchange of goods/services, so they don’t “bother” about money. The rich rather seek to always have services to render to humanity and in doing so, money always pursue them.
The million dollar question about money is this: what do you have that you can exchange with people around you? Whenever you have something to exchange, people will pay for it.
I have been paid for delivering motivational lectures!
I have been paid for bridging the gap between a producer of certain goods and some consumers of such goods.
I can remember that I was paid for making our kind of local baskets as a teenager in the days I was growing up.
Monies are exchanging hands daily. They leave the hands of those who need one service/product or the other and enter into the hands of those who provide such services/products.

Money was introduced to ease business transactions. It solved the problems posed by trade by barter. It is purely a medium of EXCHANGE!
Money only appears if there something to exchange. If there is nothing to exchange, then money will hide.
It is a big error to focus attention to money. Rather, focus attention on goods and services, and money has no option than to come.
Goods are services are money traps. Once you lay them down, money will be trapped.

The is the first lesson. Your value has nothing to with money, but rather with the goods and services you can offer to humanity.

Cheers to all.

you may skin to the part where you sell your eBook...

noblezone:
Speaking To The Man In The Mirror:
After submitting the application, I decided I had to do something about my destiny. I wont wait for any jobs any more. Whether govt or private, let them keep their jobs.
So, when one of my bros came around, i told him I wanted to take a plunge into the unknown. I didn’t need job anymore. I told him I needed accommodation, my own and personal. I asked him for assistance. He assisted, and I took one horrible looking accommodation like that, where I would never invite anybody to visit me. I had this funny theory that the free food I was eating in my uncles house was doing me more harm than good.
I wanted to experience hunger, so my head could think. After I moved, one day I stood in front a mirror and spoke to the man I saw there.
“Grow up, my friend. You have no option, than to grow up”

Taking The Plunge
The bros also allowed me to come out to his business centre. He agreed to give me N6000 every month provided I could be helping out. I was going out there, until one day I discovered I was already addicted to the N6,000. My life was now dependent on it and it was such an insult to my needs. I got to work one day, and told the manager not to pay me anymore. That day, armed with determination, I plunged full into the world of the uncertainty and adventure. The N6,000.00 was tying me down, I had to shake it off. I reasoned that if I was to fill my empty tummy, I needed to tap from my brain. I needed to learn how to make money. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced I didn’t know much about money. Just like many graduates in Africa, I was financially an illiterate. A first Class graduate in Banking and Finance can still be an illiterate when it comes to art of making money. That is the ugly reality of our educational system. We cram definitions just to pass, but the world of our learning is totally different from the world of our living.

I could remember the day I knelt down and begged God to help me. I told Him, I needed to understand things about money. He surely did help me. It is my hope that this little articles will be beneficial to someone.
This gave birth to the first lesson about money.

From here, I won’t bore you with details anymore, I will go straight to the points.
However, let me emphasis this: I am discussing genuine money here. not some loot from cheating, lying or open robbery.

Thanks for sharing. I'm following, and I'm enjoying every bit of the story. Thank you!

noblezone:
LESSON ONE: Poverty, Prosperity And The Definition Of Money.

What is poverty?

Did you say “lack of money” or something similar?

Well, above is the average answer we have got so far, each time we ask this question at our Wealth Creation Seminars (WCS).
This particular answer usually compels us to ask this next question,
“What is money?”.

I could remembered clearly, the day I asked my kids (the oldest was 7 years old as at then) this same question, and they innocently informed me that “money is what we use to buy things!”.

Unfortunately, so many adults also have this very wrong notion about money. Hear me and hear me well, money is not used to “buy” things, rather money is a medium of exchange for “things” (things here could mean goods and/or services).

Having money does not mean that one is rich! If I have $100, and you have $1,000,000, and both of us have need of yam to eat, but there is no single tuber of yam in the market, then our monies are of no value. We cannot chew the dollar notes. As far as yam is not available for us to buy, your $1,000,000 dollars is as valueless as my $100.

On the other hand, if both of us have no cash at the moment, but I have 100 cows, while you have just 1 goat, I am far richer than you. Far back in the days of trade by Barter, there were rich men as well as poor men, rich nations as well as poor nations.

It‘s all in the definition of money. The poor see money as what they will use to buy goods/services, so they pursue money, the rich see money as a tool for exchange of goods/services, so they don’t “bother” about money. The rich rather seek to always have services to render to humanity and in doing so, money always pursue them.
The million dollar question about money is this: what do you have that you can exchange with people around you? Whenever you have something to exchange, people will pay for it.
I have been paid for delivering motivational lectures!
I have been paid for bridging the gap between a producer of certain goods and some consumers of such goods.
I can remember that I was paid for making our kind of local baskets as a teenager in the days I was growing up.
Monies are exchanging hands daily. They leave the hands of those who need one service/product or the other and enter into the hands of those who provide such services/products.

Money was introduced to ease business transactions. It solved the problems posed by trade by barter. It is purely a medium of EXCHANGE!
Money only appears if there something to exchange. If there is nothing to exchange, then money will hide.
It is a big error to focus attention to money. Rather, focus attention on goods and services, and money has no option than to come.
Goods are services are money traps. Once you lay them down, money will be trapped.

The is the first lesson. Your value has nothing to with money, but rather with the goods and services you can offer to humanity.

Cheers to all.

Thank you for this first and very vital lesson on money. It's rather ironical that while most of us really need money, we have not really taken the time to think and deeply ponder how it works; I'm included.

No wonder I was recently paid heavily for delivering some HSE lectures for just a few hours.

Lesson summary: Provide a service, and you shall be paid money aplenty!

As expected, this thread will most likely attract a pathetic amount of comments and views, thereby confirming the reason most of us will remain poor.

dearpreye:
Lesson summary: Provide a service, and you shall be paid money aplenty!

Thanks a million times.

In our generation, there are many people who have nothing to offer.
Yet, they want money.

They waste energy thinking "about" money instead of thinking about about services they can render.
Such people will say "there is no job".

What is job?
I will give my personal definition.

Job is when you render one service or the other.

noblezone:


Thanks a million times.

In our generation, there are many people who have nothing to offer.
Yet, they want money.

They waste energy thinking "about" money instead of thinking about about services they can render.
Such people will say "there is no job".

What is job?
I will give my personal definition.

Job is when you render one service or the other.

Your definition is very correct. My company pays me because I provide some services. But I've never seen it from this angle.

I'm following this from beginning to end!


Kudos bro!!

dearpreye:


Your definition is very correct. My company pays me because I provide some services. But I've never seen it from this angle.

That is the right angle.
Remove the service you render, and the money is gone.

Now onwards, pay more attention to what you render.
Do it with all your heart.
Work like you own the place.
The day you will want to leave, they will beg you and ask you how much you want.

noblezone:

That is the right angle.
Remove the service you render, and the money is gone.

Now onwards, pay more attention to what you render.
Do it with all your heart.
Work like you own the place.
The day you will want to leave, they will beg you and ask you how much you want.

Thank you! Instruction heeded very well......

noblezone:

That is the right angle.
Remove the service you render, and the money is gone.

Now onwards, pay more attention to what you render.
Do it with all your heart.
Work like you own the place.
The day you will want to leave, they will beg you and ask you how much you want.

Wow thanks for sharing this master piece. May the almighty Lord bless you.

noblezone:
LESSON ONE: Poverty, Prosperity And The Definition Of Money.

What is poverty?

Did you say “lack of money” or something similar?

Well, above is the average answer we have got so far, each time we ask this question at our Wealth Creation Seminars (WCS).
This particular answer usually compels us to ask this next question,
“What is money?”.

I could remembered clearly, the day I asked my kids (the oldest was 7 years old as at then) this same question, and they innocently informed me that “money is what we use to buy things!”.

Unfortunately, so many adults also have this very wrong notion about money. Hear me and hear me well, money is not used to “buy” things, rather money is a medium of exchange for “things” (things here could mean goods and/or services).

Having money does not mean that one is rich! If I have $100, and you have $1,000,000, and both of us have need of yam to eat, but there is no single tuber of yam in the market, then our monies are of no value. We cannot chew the dollar notes. As far as yam is not available for us to buy, your $1,000,000 dollars is as valueless as my $100.

On the other hand, if both of us have no cash at the moment, but I have 100 cows, while you have just 1 goat, I am far richer than you. Far back in the days of trade by Barter, there were rich men as well as poor men, rich nations as well as poor nations.

It‘s all in the definition of money. The poor see money as what they will use to buy goods/services, so they pursue money, the rich see money as a tool for exchange of goods/services, so they don’t “bother” about money. The rich rather seek to always have services to render to humanity and in doing so, money always pursue them.
The million dollar question about money is this: what do you have that you can exchange with people around you? Whenever you have something to exchange, people will pay for it.
I have been paid for delivering motivational lectures!
I have been paid for bridging the gap between a producer of certain goods and some consumers of such goods.
I can remember that I was paid for making our kind of local baskets as a teenager in the days I was growing up.
Monies are exchanging hands daily. They leave the hands of those who need one service/product or the other and enter into the hands of those who provide such services/products.

Money was introduced to ease business transactions. It solved the problems posed by trade by barter. It is purely a medium of EXCHANGE!
Money only appears if there something to exchange. If there is nothing to exchange, then money will hide.
It is a big error to focus attention to money. Rather, focus attention on goods and services, and money has no option than to come.
Goods are services are money traps. Once you lay them down, money will be trapped.

The is the first lesson. Your value has nothing to with money, but rather with the goods and services you can offer to humanity.

Cheers to all.

On point. 2million likes for you.

Good morning folks.
This is a great day.
A brand new day in a brand new week in a brand new month.

Here is lesson Two.

Lesson two: Poverty or Prosperity Is A mindset Not A Pocket-Set.

When do we recongnise a champion?

Of course we all recognize a champion after the competition, when he has won.
However, the champion recognizes himself even before the championship.
It is the champion spirit in him that propels him to the start training.
He sees the gold medal in his mind, then the vision fires him to rise up to train. While so many are busy seeping and enjoying the morning the rest, he is up by 5am to go for training. .

Being a champion flows from within to the outside, not from the outside to the inside.
Let me make it clear! It is NOT the gold medal that makes the champion. It is the champion that makes the gold medal. The champion can hang the gold on the neck of his brother, that wont make the brother a champion.

The rich is rich within him first and the poor likewise is poor within him from the word go. Wealth flows from the inside to the outside. It is error to think it flows from the outside to inside. The poor sees himself like, “I am from a poor family”, “I am a poor man”. That is the poverty mentality.
The rich on the other hand sees himself like, “I am going to make money”. As soon as he says that, he has set in motion creative and productive forces that will aid him to make money. The poor on the other hand, has short himself in. “I am poor” has imprisoned him in his own mind.
Being rich or being poor is a MINDSET, not a Pocket-set. By pocket-set, I mean it is not about the money in your pocket.
The money in your pocket does not make you. Rather you make the money in your pocket. You are not rich because you have made money. You make money because you are rich.

Whosoever is waiting to make money before they become rich, will wait forever.
Many are brought up with the poverty mentality. Probably because their parents/guardians were poor also.
That was my case. I was brought up to believe I was poor. That mentality followed me till after graduation.
Mine was pathetic, I was even scared of money. There was this fear that all who make money, put their hands in evil. All I wanted was a job, where would be paid monthly salaries.
Today, I thank God so much, I never got such. Everything began to change, the very night I began to change my mentality.
Changing my mentality, affected my attitude towards people and life in general.

Finally, look back and see. Everything you have ever achieved was first of all conceived.
If you can conceive it, then you can achieve it. If you conceive riches, then you are rich. If you conceive poverty, then you are poor. If you are poor and someone gives you plenty of money, sooner than you think, the money will desert you. If you are rich and someone cheats you off your money, sooner or later, you will attract the money back. The richness mentality attracts money. The poverty mentality repels money.
Just one more word. Dust yourself up. Stop hanging out with people with poverty mentality. They blame government, their uncles, the spouse, the devil or even God for their conditions, but they never blame themselves. They discuss how things are tough and all they see is doom. I don’t mean you should treat them with disdain, I mean you should beware of the people you listen to.
Faith comes by hearing and faith is strong determinant of fate.

So, what do you think is your FATE?

SLIDEwaxie:
you may skin to the part where you sell your eBook...

You shouldn't have "skipped" the part where you had to use your brain

hahn:


You shouldn't have "skipped" the part where you had to use your brain

well, u shld av skipped the part where you display your stupidity.

I used the word 'skin'..

hahn:


You shouldn't have "skipped" the part where you had to use your brain

well, u shld av skipped the part where you display your stupidity.

I used the word 'skin'.
as in skinning, or peeling the outer layer

SLIDEwaxie:
well, u shld av skipped the part where you display your stupidity.

I used the word 'skin'.
as in skinning, or peeling the outer layer

And it didn't occur to you that the word "skin" wouldn't have been appropriate in MY comment?