Monday, December 4, 2017
A PROFESSION
A profession is what you do for a living like - religion, career or other service to humanity.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Sharing the wisdom of change
We live from truth to truth, fact to fact. From discovery to
invention; information to knowhow until we come to the wisdom of understanding that
all things change.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Thoughts on Retirement
Twenty years ago I mused that people
were facing retirement. I was a young consultant and was making my way up in
the world. Part of my job then was to train people and get them ready for
imminent retirement. I mean a few months or less before they were bumped off
the employment ship. I did not think much of it then. But then what did you
expect. I had things to do and placed to go. Retirement was on someone else’s
radar. But I did make a mental note to
be careful about how I lived. Today two decades later what was a mere aphorism
has struck reality. As the Americans would say “pay dirt”. To those who don’t understand
what I am saying retirement has come calling.
Well then what do I make of it. I
have some advice for one group of people and some thoughts for another. To one
group I say 20 years is not as long as you might think. To the other “retirement”
is not a new in the English vocabulary. It may have changed meaning over time,
but it does suggest moving away, de-linking or becoming de-listed from something
like demobilized from the army. Interestingly, at various points in our lives
we retire from school, home, college and variously from any number of jobs and employment
engagements at one time or other. Given this truth we should all be familiar
with the term retirement - getting ready for the nest assignment in life. That’s
it! Getting ready for the next phase of life!
Nonetheless, retirement attracts
an ominous echo when it is attached to a relatively senior age. It sounds like the
“last chance”. Having observed those who have gone before and around me I
realize that retirement presents three challenges. The first, associated with
employment, is to secure a means of living. Notice I did not say “means of
income”. Enough to live on. The second concern which is related to being delinked
from employment is to have something to live for. Employment gives people something
to do (not necessarily something to live for). When facing retirement one has
to set their own agenda and keep to it. Being your own boss is not as easy as
many people make it sound especially if you have not done it all your life. The
third joy is to engage in creating a legacy to pass on to your great
grandchildren. I love this one. While the first may be provided for, the second
depend on your personal discipline. However, the third I find liberating –
working on something to gift the world gives one energy to face the world not
just another day but every day! These three things are what I consider retirement
or whatever you want to call it to be all about. There are those who would say
that these three are the same thing. But then they are not facing retirement.
Allan Bukusi
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
TEN Questions for Every Employee
1. Is it important to have a plan
for a job before you get employed? Explain your answer
Planning to benefit from a job or work assignment ensures that a person is
not just motivated by the offer of a job and anticipated income, but that they stay
motivated to pursue higher goals and implement fulfilling growth plans in their
own circumstances in life.
2. Why do people lose work focus
and become demotivated after earning a
salary for a few months?
People can become demotivated
after their basic needs are (briefly) satisfied such as is facilitated by a
consistent salary. Or, become complacent once they have mastered the job, but
make no effort to perfect or excel in their work. This makes employees miss out
on opportunities for their own personal development that employees may offer.
3. How long should you take on a
job before you look for “greener pastures”?
People looking for greener pastures they are often looking for more
money and less work. But advancement is not always about a simple promotion. It
could mean an opportunity to complete a personal project by virtue of the
location of your current job or accumulate capital to change your economic
status. My advice is before you make a move to another job make sure you have planted
some grass of your own.
4. Is it possible to work for 20
years without accumulating any assets? Yes or No? Explain your view?
Yes it is possible to work for many years without making any savings or
accumulating wealth for yourself and family to live on after you leave the job.
While having a retirement plan is important, having a wealth creation plan
based on your monthly income that can sustain you should you lose your job is
very wise!
5. The purpose of a job is to
“earn a living” ; true or false – explain your response
False; Employment provides many more and greater benefits to employees
than earning a living. The core of a job is work. If you are able to work you
can live off your work. Nonetheless, formal employment provides you the
privilege of at least four things financial income, experience, exposure to
enterprise and the opportunity to develop yourself. There is more to work than
living. In the long run it is what you are giving that is important.
6. The job belongs to the
employer; true or false: explain what this mean to the employee?
True; employers create jobs for
people to access employment and help them to create wealth. This means that the
only stake the employee has in an enterprise is to do his assigned work and
receive the agreed remuneration. If an employee wishes to remain employed he or
she must do the job. Nonetheless, both parties are free to agree or disagree
over terms and go their separate ways!
7. Write down three objectives for
employment; How does each apply to you as an employee?
a) To create wealth for your
employer, b) to learn enterprise and c) to provide you with an opportunity to develop
yourself. The first thing I should do as an employee is focus on creating value
for my employer to justify my employment. Then I should profit from the
exposure to the process of enterprise and exercise and develop skills
(capacity) to create more wealth over time.
8. “My salary is for paying my
rent and meeting my expenses. When I need capital I should go to the bank”.
True or false. Explain your answer?
False; there is no difference between the money the bank loans you and
what you earn as a salary. The first thing the bank will ask you for is your
payslip as evidence of your ability to create wealth to repay the loan.
However, the bank will benefit from your work being the wealth you use to pay
back the loan. Your salary is just as good money as the “capital” you get from
the bank. It just depends on how you chose to use it.
9. It is not possible to create
wealth with a small salary. You need to earn a lot of money in order to become
rich? Discuss.
Many employees despise the power
a predictable and consistent income gives them to create wealth and spend most
their career trying to earn higher salaries in order to get rich. Nonetheless, those
with patience and a plan end up owning more wealth than those with no patience
and high incomes.
10. Does having a job make you a
responsible person? Explain your answer with an example.
Having a job may make
you self-reliant, but does not guarantee that you will become responsible.
Responsibility is a choice of character. Carrying out the requirements of a job
allows you to earn an income. You can choose to spend all your money on alcohol
or feed your family. The choice is
yours.
Allan Bukusi is the author of How to Prosper in Employment: A book claims that most employees throw away a lifetime opportunity to create wealth for themselves and family because of a lack on knowledge and understanding of the purpose and power of employment to create wealth. Poverty in Africa can be revered if employees stopped making excuses for living from "hand to mouth" and started applying the simple principles of wealth creation today!
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
My Seven Fathers...
As siblings called him dad, pops
or buda depending on the dictates of
the situation. His office colleagues called him Sir James. Sir Jim was a strong
choleric with a towering intellect. He taught us that nothing comes to you
except by hard work. You could get passed him with very few things, but the one
that could never pass was laziness. I am glad he folded in me the principles of
hard work, diligence and self-reliance early in life. They have taken me to the
top of my career.
Mr. Akhwale was not my ideal
father figure. He was not a personable man, but what he said made a lot of
sense to others in the office. I thought it was because he was among the oldest
employees in the firm and knew a thing or two about football. But he did have a
heart for a young man who had just landed in the accounts section on his first
job like a lost puppy in cell with Vikings. After observing, my meek existence in
the hostile environment where everyone spent everything they earned, he came up
to my desk one day and pushed a set of forms in front of my face and said “fill
these”. I had no care of what the forms were about. I just wanted him away from
my space. I left the company two years later with $150. The money saved for me
by the cooperative. If Mr. Akhwale had not given me those forms I would have
left with absolutely nothing! My financial father taught me that it is a good thing
to have a job, but it more important to prosper from your work. Since then I religiously
reinvest 20% of my earnings and create wealth for myself and family.
My grandfather Enoch, was born of
the soil. We didn’t talk much because we did not speak the same language and
lived in different times. We hardly met even though we were related. But after
I dug his grave, graduated from college and took up my first teaching post, I
began my own journey into the world. Later I came to realize the meaning of his
last words to me – wherever you go and
whatever you do never forget God. A spiritual father is really a misnomer,
but in the crisis of life and if you will remain sane, I would rather you had
one. Every time I come to the end of reason I go one step higher.
Then there was Sande. In him a
mighty man you will not see. At least not a celebrity. But to him all that
mattered was that I be sincere even if I was sincerely wrong. As a youth I
needed someone to believe in me for me. That was important to me then. He
taught me to hold on to my dreams, admit my failings but rise up with integrity
to be all that I could be. He taught me
never to lose faith. For without faith no man can be. Everyone needs a mentor.
Mwangura was as unique as they come.
When I met him 20 years after I departed from his classroom he not only
recognized me but called me by name and asked after my brother. A classroom is
nowhere to meet a father, but he abruptly settled me into the math class and
forever framed my paradigm of success. He never rewarded us for being the best
in class. The only competition you will face in life is to better yourself. To
earn his respect, you had to do better in the next test.
My sixth father was a white man.
Hawkins did not know me except for what I presented on a paper CV. But after he
interviewed me in the parking lot he made me the manager of his business and
promptly left for Europe. To this day I don’t understand why anyone would do
such a thing, but that meeting established my lifelong career. I am still feeding
off the challenge he placed before me. He said to me- you are stepping out of a Jumbo jet and boarding a biplane; there will
be turbulents. Life has taught me that both planes fly. Do it anyway!
My seventh father MacMillan is a
man who would gain nothing from standing with me or speaking for me. He
believes I have something to offer the world has yet to see. I am still
looking. No, this is not a happy father’s day message. It is about my fathers
whose impact on me is still working on me 50 years on. To be a father is a
special thing. To be a father is; to give a name, to bear the blame, to seek out,
to draw out, to challenge, to mentor, to teach, to be strong and stand with the
weak. It is to take a risk, to believe and be a bridge to another man’s future
and make an eternal difference by touching a life where it matters. Munroe
never knew my name, but he had a heart for the third world. By him I expanded
my mission to Africa. Another father
passed on this year. Dodman did not do anything special. But always did what
needed to be done when it needed to be done. He was reliable. I want to be that
when I am done. Be a father to someone.
Allan Bukusi
Thursday, October 5, 2017
SAVE THE ECONOMIC SLAVES OF AFRICA
Spare a moment to consider the
plight of luckless slaves pursued by their benefactors for taxes and treats
across the continent. But just who are these slaves? They are ostensibly called
the middle-class; the 5% of the population that carries the economic burden of
state. While government targets employees in formal employment to pay for legislation
that maintains the state; the rest of the population prey on wage earners for the
essentials of food, shelter and school fees.
This privileged 5% of the
population has an enviable profile. Each will have an education far above the
rest of the population. Most live in urban areas where access to the pleasures
of life are easiest. Nonetheless in this position they are subject to multiple
legislative burdens unheard of in the village. They will be punished for
enjoying the privileges of urban existence by paying for everything they
consume, use or make an attempt to own. 98% (of the 5%) live in houses they do
not own and work on jobs that belong to the upper class, the government and
foreign investors. They may drive a car on loan but owning a house is well
beyond their reach. The broad majority of the lower middle-class, will be
scaling public transport before 8am and after 5pm. While they appear fashionably
dressed, a cost they must pay for whatever economic empowerment they earn, their
income is frequently raided by inflation and vandalized by any number of pretentious
rent seekers.
Nonetheless, while employees have
a source of regular income they do not have access to capital! Bank interest
rates are so high they do not support individual enterprise. It is better to
remain employed than try to break into the murky waters of entrepreneurship. Incidentally
the same two benefactors are ready and waiting to punish anyone who thinks of
abandoning the employment lines. A host of legal agencies are instructed to
punish any initiative to depart from the workforce with licenses, levies and
all manner of innovative tolls and tariffs.
Because employees have a number,
their records are sped post haste to government advisers who ensure that
employment income is directly taxed to the tune of 35% or more of gross
earnings to pay for the privilege of being employed and the support of those
who escape formal jobs. While employees fund 60-80% of national coffers, their
vote (less than 5%) does not influence the economic destiny of the nation. The
ballot box remains a balkanized conspiracy of the wealthy, ethnicity and
religious bias. No one really cares where the money comes from so long as it is
a democracy. Yet the middle class in wealthy nations directly influence the
vote.
“The creative class, which comprises a third to more than forty percent
of the workforce in the advanced nations, includes scientists and technologists;
artists, cultural creatives, and media workers, as well knowledge-based
professionals in business, education, and health-care. While the varied members
of the working class had physical skills as a shared trait, the diverse groups
of workers that make up the creative class all draw on their underlying human
creativity. The even larger service class is made up of lower-skill,
lower-wage, routine service occupations in fields like health care support,
food preparation and service, low-end retail, and office and administrative
positions.” GLOBAL CREATIVTY INDEX 2015.
The global creativity index lists
talent, technology and tolerance as the keys to economic advancement and credits the creative class as the drivers.
Luxemburg has a creative class of 54%, Singapore 47%, United Kingdom 44% and
USA 33%. Ghana stands at 8.61%, Rwanda 3.76 % but the majority of countries in
Africa are unlisted. It is not hard to see that while the working class in the
west creates wealth, the working class in Africa is drained of the wealth it
creates. Around the world the middle class is known for its professionalism,
creativity, productivity and enterprise. Unfortunately the percentage of the middle
class in Africa is shrinking. Economic slaves are dying younger by the
generation. They hardly remain employed more than a few years. They are coming
under such pressure as to abandon the state and migrate to other nations where
they can enjoy a measure of the wealth they earn and send a little back home by
western union, Mpesa and a number of other transfer vehicles.
The reason I plead for employees is
that there can be no meaningful development and national growth without the
empowerment of the people of a land. While skewed per capita incomes and GDPs can
be manufactured by inviting a few foreign investors to put up factories, real empowerment
only comes from the creativity of the people. Unless this 5% is nurtured,
encouraged expanded and empowered countries will continue to fleece the life
out of its wealth creating citizenry. But to whom do I plead? My plea is to
policy makers at all levels and every sphere of society to ensure that policy
is not punitive to wealth creators and discouraging to innovators to the extent
that it kills the will to take initiative to produce value.
While I have a great concern for
the plight of employees across Africa, I am desperately worried about the
majority of employees who do not comprehend that they create wealth and consign
themselves to be slaves! After producing wealth for their employers, economic
slaves retire distraught, disillusioned and penniless. Distraught; when they
look back at how much they have earned and yet do not own. Disillusioned;
because they were promised that education and employment would elevate them
from poverty. And penniless; because they have no clue as to the purpose or
principles of money!
Allan Bukusi is the author of
Friday, September 1, 2017
Why I want you to be creative!
CREATIVE PEOPLE AND THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
Why do I want you to be creative?
Because creative people rule the world! Creative people are rich – in many ways.
They solve problems we could not be bothered to imagine. Creative people think
and do. Most of us do because we are told to; creative people think and make and
do for us what we could not be bothered to do it for ourselves. Creative people
explore the life the rest of us find a chore. While creative people achieve,
the rest merely receive. Creative people make the future the rest of us live it. We pay creative people to entertain us, to
serve us and to show us the way. Most of us aspire for no more than a challenge
creative people make the challenge, recreate the challenge and live beyond it.
Creatives set goals when most of us are satisfied with roles. Creatives see
things, sense things and question things. They ponder and mull things and do
things differently. Creative people never lack things to do, they do what is
available, what they need to do and then do some more. The rest of us make do
with what comes our way and if it does not come, we do not go out of our way to
look for it. While most of us are prepared to go the extra mile, creative
people go all the way! To be creative is the reason you were created. To create
is to find meaning in life, create value for the world and leave a legacy.
Creativity will lead you to a career and if there is none your creativity will
make a career for you. Find what you were made to create and get to it. Nothing
more can be more fulfilling. Nothing more can be more of a calling. Nothing
more can be so gripping. Nothing more can be more of a reason to be. Get to it
and get to be.
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