How taxi drivers in South Africa make me realise my perspective is not the only one that matters

To understand why taxi drivers do what they do, we’d have to ask one and not blindly assume their view of the world is wrong. If we block someone’s point of view because we ‘know’ we are right, we are selfish and ignorant. Before the hair on the back of South African’s necks raise as they read this, let me clear something up. I do not condone the behaviour of mini-bus taxi drivers on our roads in SA. Many of them are extremely reckless and are a danger to other drivers and their own passengers. Much of what they do on the road is even illegal. That said, let’s take a look at what they are doing from another perspective. Continue reading → Perspective Shift

Annual budgets? What are those?

This is not a motivational post. This is a wakeup call. It will be quick and to the point. But it will have no impact if you don’t do this exercise.

Your budget can be like a scary movie, but it seems when we are able to avoid the reality it generally plays out like a soap opera. Doing it month by month (if you even do it) can be like Days of Our Lives. You can go months without doing it and when you go back, not much changed. Maybe you saved two hundred bucks last month, maybe you’re short three hundred this month, maybe you break even for a few months in a row. What does it matter? Let’s do this exercise over a one-year period. Warning! This might feel like a horror movie if it is your first time…

First step is to draw eight (8) rows on a piece of paper with these headings: Continue reading → A Scary Exercise: Your Annual Net Worth

What value have you brought to the table lately?

Disclaimer: This may come off as a rant, and if it does, it might well be. It stems from frustration and after thinking about it, I feel okay with it coming off that way because it might just change someone’s thinking that needed it. Also, things only change after people get fed up with the way things are and say or do something about it. I hope that this piece has that effect. Read on to see my theory about employee-employer value exchange and how this is important whether you are an employee or want to run your own business. Continue reading → Entitled to your salary just because you pitched up?

Stop believing that money is the answer to your business’s problems

I ran a campaign recently on my Facebook page where I put out an invitation for entrepreneurs. It was aimed at those that had started out already or those who were still aspiring to be an entrepreneur. The instruction was simple – share with us 2 of your biggest challenges or 2 of your biggest fears for not starting out yet. The goal of the promotion was to find 5 entrepreneurs that we would work with to overcome those fears or challenges in their small business. ‘We’ being myself, my business partner Thabiso, and Ray O’Friel who is a close friend and colleague. We have all started our own successful businesses and have all run side hustles. All three of us have failed at some point or made a bad investment decision. The plan was to analyse the responses and then choose 5 entrepreneurs whom we will work with in a mentorship program. When I speak of entrepreneurs, I am including those who want to, but have not started yet, because they too may have the potential to be successful and need to hear this. What came out of the campaign was quite surprising; about half of all the responses included money as their biggest challenge.

So, we found about half of our entrepreneurs either used money as an excuse for not succeeding or for not starting out because they ‘don’t have funding’ or ‘lack capital’. Here are my thoughts on this – Continue reading → Money Will NOT Solve Your Business Problems

Why do some individuals outperform others with such ease?

Over the past few weeks we have been looking for new developers to bring on board and spent some time defining what we are looking for, then putting together the job description and advertising the position to candidates. This week was spent going through the interview process. Here is what I learned as I noticed one individual that unexpectedly stood out way more than anyone. I least expected his skill and capability to stand out, yet it did. Continue reading → High-Performance Individuals

Learn why (and how) taking on less work can make you more money

Why are precious metals worth more than other metals? They are scarce, obviously. But, they are also precious – in other words, they hold value. And this combination makes them expensive. What does this have to do with you or your business? Have you ever wondered when that day will come that you can charge the rates you want to? Do you wish you could dictate what your product or service sells for? Read on to see how.

Very few businesses owners start out with that level of confidence where they can say I charge X, nothing less, and only take on certain clients/projects/jobs. Majority of business owners are happy to take on any work they can when they start out, giving discounts and free stuff as they go in an attempt to gain acceptance in the market. Continue reading → Creating Scarcity

To get where you want to, you need the right tools

This weekend I had a dinner I thought might never happen again. Ray, Thabiso and myself can get into quite deep discussions on topics concerning our success, wealth, business and general solutions to the world’s problems. Ray moved to Norway about a year ago and is now moving to London. Thabiso and I are business partners, so I get to see him all the time. But if Ray is gone for good, those in-person discussions between the three of us may be coming to an end. However, Ray was here visiting family this week, and so the three of us got together for dinner and the deep discussion ensued. There is always something that each of us can take away because these discussions allow us to learn from one another.

Here is my take-away from that discussion and I hope you find it as valuable as I do. Continue reading → The Right Tools for the Job