Of course, yours truly has the credentials to meet the likes of King Charles and converse, if time allowed, all day. We could talk about anything under the sun. Life in Africa during precolonial times, colonial times and post-colonial times. We could talk about Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth. We could talk about the Church of England and the empty pews common today. Yes, we could talk about Ntungo Noble Projects and so many other things under the sun. But this author chooses not to. Instead his cogitations and passion are about the Zambian and African folk.
Why is it that the Zambian and African folk do not have firm control of their economies? How is it that many a Zambian and African youth go unemployed in a world with endless opportunities? Just looking at what Zambia alone has will give you a glimpse of what Africa as a whole has. The overview includes lush forests, arable land, rivers, water falls, minerals, mountains and valleys, varied rainfall patterns and beautiful people and culture. This author strongly contends that to achieve economic development all that Zambia and Africa need is ingenuity of the people. This means wisdom, inventiveness, cleverness, resourcefulness, imagination, originality, creativity, skill and initiative. You can read that again!
To this end, I wish to introduce one concept I call the Money-Making Routine (MMR).
Bear with me. My thinking begins with what God says to man. Speaking to Adam with much love, God said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Genesis 3:19.
What you become in life depends on the attitude you have when you read this verse. If you read this verse and think of it as a curse, you live to hate work and perceive work as a punishment. But if you read this verse and embrace it as a blessing you will live to love work and embrace hard work.
The reality is everyone needs money. Therefore, knowing how to make money is critical in everyone’s life. Stories abound of people who learnt how to make money around the age of twelve and ended up millionaires in adulthood. How do you start making money at the age of twelve?
In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada for example, a twelve-year-old, with the help of their parents, enlists with the media house to distribute papers to homes on a given street. Every morning the media truck drops a parcel of papers at the kid’s home. Around 4 am the kid wakes up and picks up the papers and walks the street dropping off the paper at every subscribed address. This is done daily. And every two weeks the kid receives a cheque for the work done distributing papers. For the kid, this is a money-making routine. Wake up early in the morning, distribute the paper and return home. Every two weeks you get a cheque. And the routine continues.
In Mbala, Northern Province, Zambia, for another example, a twelve-year-old would join the mother team. The mother makes fritters and the kid eagerly offers to take them to the market or road side or construction site for sale. After a couple of ours the kid returns home with money in the purse.
At twelve, it’s not the work of selling that has value. Rather it is the money-making principle. The kid learns that principle early in life and will apply it in a big way as they become adults.
There are so many activities any individual person, in Canada, in Zambia, in Africa and anywhere else in the world can do in order to form a money-making routine. By the way, which is better? To beg for money or to make money yourself. Definitely it is better to make money for yourself. The secret is loving the principle of making money by working hard and finding an activity to do as a money-making routine.
The challenge with many a Zambian and African youth is they don’t think their ideas are good enough to work on. Moreover, they are not interested in ideas that bring money in trickles. Instead they are looking for ideas that bring a flood of money at the blink of an eye. So instead of acting on their ideas they look to other persons for employment. I truly believe that if people have confidence in themselves they should be able to find a money-making routine and employ themselves in that money-making routine.
The likes of Chinese anywhere in the world are not interested in working for any person. Wherever they go, their first task is to know the cultural environment, after that they develop a money-making routine for themselves. And they start with the basic routines. Growing vegetables and selling, raising chickens and selling, selling on the market, owning a grocery shop, owning a sewing shop, etc. Simple and easy to start money-making routines that in the long-run grow to the envy of the local people. In their money-making routines, they don’t dress up to show off. They are modestly dressed and focused on the money-making routine. True to the words: “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”
In the meantime, the local youths and people are full of excuses why they cannot engage in any money-making routine.
Elsewhere a fraudulent industry is emerging that scoffs at 7am to 5pm money-making routines. They scorn at people who work between 7am to 5pm and say they have no life. They want people to leave these opportunities and make investments in strange opportunities that promise millions without doing anything. When I hear them, I ask myself what kind of work is that? I want to see a money-making routine that I understand and have control over. I want to work and sweat for my money for therein lies the blessing.
When I speak to the Creator, he reminds me that he has given me one philosophy, the No Idling Philosophy (NIP). An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Therefore, even when I appear idle, I am thinking of another money-making routine. Thinking strategically, you can have several money-making routines. Just put your mind into gear, stay focused, believe in yourself and be confident that the unique ideas God has given you are a blessing by which you, and no body else, should get out of the unending want of money. Therefore, focus on things that matter. Swallow your pride and get to work. Work and make your own money.
Spending some time in Zambia, Africa I have grown to admire marketeers and council workers. Marketeers are humble hardworking souls that start their days at dawn seeking produce to take to the market where they sell it and by so doing make their money. It calls for humility for a person to decide that I would rather sell something in the market than beg for money from someone. Their money-making routine is simply wake up early in the morning, fetch produce from the farm, spend the day at the market selling the produce, count the money at the end of the day and go home, rest and wait for another day.
Council workers are another group of humble and hardworking souls that determine to sweep streets or dig graves to make their money rather than stay idle and beg for money. Their work is very critical and their dedication admirable. What would city of Lusaka look like without council workers and how would city families burry their dead without grave diggers?
Two lessons this author learns from this class of workers is humility and the spirit of hard work. Of course, the reality is we cannot all be marketeers or council workers. But for sure it is possible we can think better and do even better than them. Using our ingenuity, we can find better money-making routines than them.
Finally, I cannot help it, but ask you in closing, what is your money-making routine? Please determine for yourself a money-making routine and keep yourself busy in your money-making routine. And do not allow anyone to detract you from your money-making routine. TwCN.
