This article is intentionally provocative in the hope that it will draw
attention to the urgent need for employees to create personal wealth and prod them
to make proper use of employment opportunity.
The five reasons why employees in
Africa will never progress are simple enough. In fact they are not based on any
complex economic formula. Rather, they are as a result of what employees erroneously
believe about employment. On the main, employees have;
- A convoluted impression of the purpose of income.
- No idea what money is or what money is for.
- No knowledge of how to create wealth.
- Misunderstood the concept of a career development.
- A deep seated hatred for work.
While these reasons may appear
straightforward, it is amazing how ignorance of these basic truths maintains
millions of employees in poverty throughout and even after their employment
careers. Some people would like to use these five reasons as a check off list
to evaluate their personal progress, but these five reasons are integrated (not
separate), interwoven and feed off each other. A person with a convoluted sense
of income will not make progress for ALL the other four reasons as well. To make progress is to have a progressive perspective
in ALL five elements. Unfortunately, this lack of understanding ensures that
one generation of employees hands over substantial poverty to the next
generation of employees.
INCOME
While people the world over make
it top priority to secure themselves a job and are under the impression the
purpose of employment is to earn a living. In other words, the purpose of
employment is to get an income to supply the necessities of living. On the
surface this seems reasonable, but it does not stretch the imagination of the
employee to become self-reliant which is the basis of ALL progress! Employees
only seek an income in order to eat, thus instead of becoming independent,
employees become dependent on their income. Neither does it help that employees
define income as money and thus are unable to access and make use of all the
other lifetime benefits that employment provides. Employees, of their own
accord, scale down their own sum total income from employment.
Employees have no understanding
of employment, income or enterprise, to employees, employment is an occupation
– no more, no less. Nevertheless, an occupation is no more meaningful than a
pastime, a hobby, social obligation or an engagement that enables a person to
while away any time they may have on their hands. Employment therefore has no
significant purpose! Since employees have nothing to do, they seek employment
to assist them use their time meaningfully and live life purposefully. While
this is not a bad thing, it does mean that without employment, employees are
prone to doing no-thing! Income is all
that comes to you and is made available to you by virtue of your employment - that
income is so vast it is unquantifiable!
Employees mistakenly think that a
job is a source of wealth. However, a job does not guarantee income. At best it
is an opportunity to work and create in. Employees can only appreciate income
if they understand the purpose of employment. The purpose of employment is to
1) teach you how to work, 2) show you how to create wealth and 3) give you the
keys to enterprise. Of the three, enterprise is the most powerful yet most
despised and ignored of all three. It is also the main reason why former
employees are unproductive and unable to take care of themselves after employment!
If there is one thing I would pray that employees learn during employment it is
enterprise. However, employees remain so blinkered on salary payments that they
never see the value of the total income they have access to.
MONEY
Employees have no clue what to do
with their money, leave alone understand what it is. Employees treat money as a
prize they have won for persevering through a period of contracted labor and
therefore feel justified to consume it all on their upkeep in anticipation of
the next prize. It hardly occurs to them that it is capital they have earned
for their personal development! While money itself does not discriminate into
whose hands it falls, an entrepreneurial mind will see it as capital to create
wealth, the ignorant employee mind will find ways to dispense of it as quickly
as possible. One mind thinks of multiplying it, the other thinks of throwing it
away. One mind will invest; the other will relieve the mind of stress by
dispensing with it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Employees have no
idea why it is necessary to save invest and build up personal capital. There is
a characteristic difference between the way entrepreneurs and employees use
money. However, there is no difference in the texture of the money handles by
the two groups.
Unfortunately, employees view the
purpose of money as the permission to enjoy life rather than plan their lives.
When it dawns on a person that the absolute value of money is ZERO (nothing)
and that money is purely a convenient means of exchange, then progressive
employee will use that money to create wealth. The quality of ones’ life is
related to the quality of the use of resources at hand, including money. It is
not the amount of money you spend that creates wealth, but what you spend your
money on. Eating (expensive) cakes every day will not yield the same results as
eating (low cost) vegetables. Wealth does not come with how much money you
earn, but with what you do with what you earn.
Unknown to employees, employment
gives them unconditional access to development capital. When an enterprise needs
to grow the business, banks provide capital (cash) at high interest rates and stringent
repayment conditions. Yet employees have unfettered access to capital with every
pay check. However, rather than grow themselves, employees who lack business sense
freely consume it all in the stupid assurance that they will get a pay check
next month.
WEALTH
Evidence that each generation
retiring to poverty (and handing over poverty to the next generation) after
many years of employment confirms that generation had no thought of creating
wealth. It confirms that the previous generation handed over no clue as to what
the next generation should do in order to create wealth. Work is the ability to create wealth. The
ability to work is the capacity (read capital) to create wealth! This truth is
lost on too many employees who have no clue that they are creating wealth for
others, but worse, still refuse to create wealth for themselves. Leave alone
the fact the employees will only work if they are paid and therefore diminish
and dismiss their own capacity to create wealth!
The fact that professors are
looking for jobs is testimony to the fact that they would rather earn an income
than exercise skills to create wealth. Employees in Africa are employed for
their qualifications and have no clue that their skills are what create wealth.
Unfortunately, employees live their entire careers without understanding the
difference between qualifications and skills! Wealth is not how much you earn
it is the substance that you accumulate and sustainably generate from your
income. Wealth is the substance (property, assets, resources) you gather and
the industry you control to grow and sustain that substance.
CAREER
Employees believe that a career
is a series of promotions in status or income. However, this great folly only
comes to light when an employee is fired, retired or loses a job for one reason
or the other. Only then do employees reflect on the opportunity lost! In this
hopeless condition, employees admit that if they were given their jobs again
they would save more, learn more and develop themselves more for the day they
will leave employment!
There is a myth that many employees
play hide and seek with in employment it goes by the name career. Employees
pursue it all their lives and never actually live it. It is a constant daily
hunt for fulfillment that they believe is in the control of their employer and
employment. Employees work as if they are rehearsing for a play. Life has no
rehearsals what you do is what life is. In other words employees fail to
realize that they are in control of their own destiny, satisfaction and fulfillment.
A career is the way you choose to live your life. If you choose to hate your
work you have just made a career out of it. Your career is how you choose to
spend your life! Make a career more to create wealth.
A person with a progressive,
wealth creating mindset with take control of their destiny by sitting down and analyzing
what resources they have in their hands, what opportunities they have and work
out their own success in full cognizance of the circumstances they are in and
perhaps want to work themselves out of! A career is the path one chooses and uses
to make progress in life. Not all employees start at the same place or same
level in life. However, every employee is personally responsible for their own
progress in life. Unfortunately, I often hear it said, “I earn to little to
save”, those people who say that are not aware that there are those who earn so
much that they see no need to save – both those people end up with nothing to
show for all the effort spent in a career. A career is not an acquisition of certificates;
however, a career is an accumulation and utilization of skills and competencies
in one’s personal life (first) and professional work (next).
WORK
There is no doubt that employees
work hard, are hard workers and work long hours. However, this does not translate
into wealth, despite the fact that the ability to work is the capacity to
create wealth. Employees are endowed with an invaluable gift of capital that
they somehow manage to despise. Employees hate work and therefore remain blind
to its transformational power. My Physics teacher taught me that Work=Effort X
Distance. Nonetheless, the painful reality is that employees put in a great
deal of effort yet take no steps to create wealth in their lives.
Instead of working towards
creating wealth, employees occupy themselves with activities such as looking
for a better paying job in that hope that such a job will make them rich. He
who is faithful with little is faithful with much, but he who cannot manage
little cannot manage much. A better paying job is not a source of wealth. A
better paying job is only an opportunity to work for a little more money. If
you did not benefit from working in a little job, your work habits will NOT
change in the “big” job. The result will be exactly the same – both result in the
inability to create wealth!
Employees hate their jobs, employment
and their employers so much that they cannot benefit from this love hate
relationship- Hate the work, Love the Money. Employees put more energy into
looking for the next gold mine rather than making use of the Gold that has been
provided them.
CONCLUSION
For employees in Africa to make
progress, create wealth and eliminate poverty, it will take a change in employee
belief systems. There must be a change of attitude and commitment to personal development.
There must be an ownership of one generation to pass on the knowledge of wealth
creation to the next generation. There needs to be a transformational mind
shift in the collective wisdom of employees.
Many years ago, on my first job I
met an elderly man named Akhwale. After watching me spend all my salary on
useless things for a few months, Akhwale brought me forms to fill to join the
cooperative society and stood by as I filled them. I was amused by his
initiative, but I did not wish to disappoint him so I duly filled the forms.
When I left the company 18 months later, the money I had saved in the
cooperative was ALL and the ONLY money I left the company with. I had nothing
else to show that I had worked in the company for more than a year! What do you
have to show for all your years in employment!
All this does not have to be! What
is required is not resources and technology, All that is required to make a
progressive employee is a mind shift a change in attitude and a personal
commitment to gratefully make use of the opportunity provided by employment to
change ones fortune! However, this wisdom is not a function of status. Highly
paid senior staff enjoy life in total ignorance of these truths and suffer the
same fate a not so well paid employees who lack the principles of employment wisdom.
The Bible records that a wise man
leaves an inheritance for his grandchildren. It seems that there is a derth of wise
men in Africa. However, a negative, nonchalant, non-progressive or unwholesome
attitude towards wealth creation will ensure that every successive generation
of employees in Africa will not create wealth and thus end up with less wealth
than they started with. Poverty is not a state of being, it is a condition of
losing the wealth you have and wasting the opportunity you had to create it.
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