Training for an Illegality

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WA; Capital of the upper west of Ghana 

Ghana has interesting rules when it comes to the usage of motorbikes. In the northern part of the county where i lived last year and the early part of this year, most people own and use motorbikes. This is presumably due to the poor nature of the roads and the relatively lower cost of owning and maintaining a motorbike than purchasing a car. In fact one of the things i really enjoyed whiles living in the northern part of Ghana is getting to ride (as a passenger) on a motor bike everyday. On any given day i would ride either a motorbike or a bicycle for errands. I think my obsession with riding on bikes stems from the fact that  motorbikes are not predominant in the south where i came from. I always looked forward to travelling to the city (Wa) from the village during weekends. The 'getting there' part of the trip was always the most exciting for me. The sound of the strong winds on your face, the energy, the noise and the excitement as the bike traveled a 100km/hr. Whiles we left a thick cloud of dusty air behind us as we sped forward. I never got tired of looking at the beautiful northern Savanna landscapes as well as the lovely views of dam 15. I was always surprised at how kids as young as 10 and 12 could ride motorbikes whiles an adult like me couldn't. I vowed to learn how to ride so that i could purchase one when i move to Accra. But sadly all that had to come to an end after a year, i didn't learn how to ride a motorbike and I've hence moved back south.

On days that i reminisce about good times in the north, my bike rides always comes up as part as some of my favourite moments. Therefore i was surprised to find commercial motorbike services who were willing to take passengers from one part of the city to another. But the sad bit about this service it that they are illegal says the Ghana police. It is not a recognised form of commercial transport in Ghana unlike Nigeria. These motorbikes popularly know as 'Okada' though its illegal looks like its highly patronized because although the police have tried to shut them out for so many times. They find a way of weaving their way back into Ghana's transportation system. Supply usually goes with demand therefore the fact that these illegal commercial motor bike operators keep coming back into the transport system means that customers clearly keep demanding and articles such as this and this further buttresses that point. So here is where i come clean, as a transport user and a commuter i have patronised the services of the bike riders a few times. They are cheaper than a taxi cab, can weave in and out of traffic and therefore i get to where i'm going faster and is a quick easy transport fix. On most of my illegal rides on these motor bikes the riders usually ask me whether i have a motorbike of my own? After replying 'no' i usually ask them why i keep being asked that question and most riders tell me i don't seem jittery and nervous when i sit on the bike. I have the perfect balance and don't hold on to them too tight out of fear. It looked like all the riding i have been doing back in the north has payed off. Considering i was nervous and probably held on to the rider too hard back then when i started riding.  These comments on the riders part make me  happy but then i realise am encouraging something which is illegal, i don't get happy as much. 

The Only Way You Can Travel Around the World

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I am travel obsessed. In my spare time i surf the net to check out tourist centres and places of interest all over the world. I have gone on countless holidays in my dreams from nice safari tours in Kenya, South Africa and Zambia to the beautiful streets of Marrakech. I spend donkey hours on kayak.com just checking out how much it will cost travelling from my country (Ghana) to places of interest i see online. After checking out the rates i spend extra hours trying to figure out how much i would have to save to go on these holiday. Interestingly, sometimes i see blog post and articles usually in the form of list, on how you can travel the world 'doing a job you love'. Indeed these 'listicles' most of the time encourage jobs such as working as a flight attendant, English teacher, Fisherman and what have you as jobs that will allow you travel the world whiles getting a paycheck.
Granted, these jobs will allow you to travel but in this case the travel part is highly integrated with the work part, therefore chances that you would focus on the work and not really pay attention to the travel is high. For example, the job of a flight attendant is supposed to be in the air therefore real wages will be calculated based on the number of hours she/he is flying and attending to passengers needs. This also applies to all the jobs that comes along with excessive travel. The pressure to work hard and make more money as well as move up the career ladder will reduce the appetite for tourist/travel experiences although technically the worker has traveled to most tourist hot spots. It is therefore little surprise when i see that airlines give free tickets to flight attendants as part of the compensation package and some of the airline workers will choose to visit countries they have visited a countless number of times for work and work related duties.

Now, for someone who is travel and entrepreneurship biased, i see being an entrepreneur and running your own schedule is the sure way to travel around the world like you want to. I advocate entrepreneurship to the person who wants to have so much free time in his or her life to do whatever  they are interested in doing. Be it travel or dedicating yourself to a cause or a special challenge. Travel is ostensibly about money and lots of free time. Successful entrepreneurs usually make more money than their paycheck counterparts in a majority of fields. Though one may not see the opportunity for travel in starting out as an entrepreneur or founding your own startup, the travel opportunities comes to bare once the business takes shape and its profitable. For example a successful entrepreneur may be invited to several conferences a year, may be called upon as a speaker (some paid others unpaid), will set up offices and factories in other parts of the world, will source certain key ingredients from other parts of the world and would therefore have to travel frequently.  Yet the thrill associated with the entrepreneurs travel is that she’s in charge of her own schedule and therefore can spare good time combining business with pleasure.
That is why it is observed that extremely successful billionaire (entrepreneurs) own their private jet which takes them wherever they want to go on any day they please. Every startup will not make its founder a billionaire but the entrepreneur who perseveres and succeeds is on his way to a good life. And one of the things associated with the ‘good life’ is travel and going to every place on your bucket list. If you have a good idea for a startup begin working on it today, if you’re afraid to go in alone look for people to invest in your idea There is power in collaboration and partnering with the right people. Don’t let your ideas go to waste, it might be the only way you can travel around the world

A New Look at New Years Resolution

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The new year is coming through very soon and the pressure to write resolutions is mounting gradually as the day goes by. I have written resolutions in the past and tried to follow and make it happen but instead i slacked and fell on the way side. What i have come to realise is that the reason why my resolutions do not fall through most of time is that i keep writing about what i wish i would become instead on writing on improving on what i actually am now. 

Take a standard new years resolution and you would see that what the person has written is a completely different aspiration than the life they live now. This trying to be 'a new person' seems far fetched from my point of view. Yes we all get into the holiday hullabaloo and are excited that a different year is approaching and we get to live our lives differently. but when you take a critical look at it the difference between 31st December 2014 and 1st January 2015 is a day. Unless something really extraordinary happens you will still be eating the same foods you normally eat, you'll have the same set of friends and family and will probably be wearing the same clothes and shoes you had from 2014. A new year is exactly what it is 'a new year'  and not 'new me' as a person therefore my wishes or desires for my life shouldn't really be about entering a new year, it should be about my innate desires and a good reason why certain things in my life has to change. That is why purpose is important in setting goals and targets. For example, if you need to lose weight because excessive weight is making you suffer all sorts of obesity related diseases, i guess you won't wait till the end of the year waiting for a new year till you start exercising and eating healthily. Therefore why must we wait till the latter part a year or the beginning to write things we should be doing now. Setting a target for 2015 seems like a good long term plan but on hindsight it is very vague because a year has 12 months therefore we keep pushing things on our list to the following month till it never gets done.
If something is important and has to be done today, start working on it now, if you find yourself waiting on it another week to set it as a 'new year resolution' begin to question your motives.

Luxury Hacks to Transform Normal Goods

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Luxury goods command higher prices than their competitor goods. As soon as a good or a brand  decides to portray itself as a luxury brand, there must be certain basic features and applications  that will make a luxury brand stand out. Usually, these basic features cut across a lot of luxury products and services for sale on the market. Here are simple hacks and i use the word 'hack' advisedly not as in trying to sell an obviously sub-standard or a shitty product for a higher price. No! But a good that is well made and maybe has lots of competitors and wants to differentiate itself as a luxury product. Since i discovered life and productivity hacks some time back, i have become a big fan of how you can use certain skills and methods to boost up productivity and efficiency. As a fun of luxury goods, i have observed certain minor ingenious ways entrepreneurs can depict their products and services as a luxury product.

1. Tell a story: We all love stories consciously or sub-consciously, therefore it would be good to integrate the story of a brand in its marketing and branding efforts. There are various sources the 'story' of your product can be picked from. For example, where raw materials for the product is purchased from can be used to tell the story of how its providing employment for locals. The production process can also be used to tell the story of the quality of certain key ingredients which is used in making the product or service. Consider this scenario where 2 competing massage parlors use the same massaging technique. Massage parlor A tell you to come in for a 'good never-to-forget massage experience' whiles massage parlor B tell you they will give you a 'brilliant-never-to-forget massage using on an eastern Asia massage technique which combines the four forces of the atmosphere that has been practiced over 400 years blah blah'. When asked which of the two massage parlor is a luxury massage parlor i can bet my last coin that a lot of people will choose Massage Parlor B over A as a luxury massage parlor though technically, they both use the same massaging technique. The average luxury consumer comes off as better educated and well to do therefore there must be a convincing story of how your product or service stand out. Telling stories and a combination of heritage has been used by luxury brands for many years to boost up sales and marketing. Perhaps your products and services didn't start selling in 1837 like Hermes but you can craft a great story around your product to compete with Hermes.
2. Simplicity, Consistency and Minimal Product Offering; "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"- Antoine de Saint-Exupery This is one of my favourite quotes of all time and i advice should be the basis for many luxury product and service making decisions. I equate a brands simplicity to how their mission, vision and products aspire to a clear goal. A car brand that prides itself in speed and the number of kilometres it can cover per hour should leverage that selling propositions in all various channels of communication  to its audience. Such a car brand will confuse its target audience if they also include affordability and 'good for the family-ish' type of selling proposition to its brand message, Because a product advertised to 'people on the move' and those on the 'fast lane' might not work for the family. Simplicity should also be used in other ways of communicating the brands message such as the store and website design of an outlets brand. When consumers praise a product or service, one thing that keep repeating is that their products 'never disappoints'. Consistency is a key differentiator in separating one good as a luxury good between two similar products. When consumers know exactly the kind of service, the quality of food and the general ambiance they will experience when they go to a particular restaurant. Then probability that they will keep coming to that particular place is high. Instead of the restaurant that promises you one thing and delivers another. You remember the Jack of all trades and master of none? People who are trying to portray their good as a luxury brand must try not to be all things to all men. You're better off specializing in a few products with a wealthier targeted repeat customers than trying to appeal to the least common denominator 
3. Display, Light and Visibility; My third lux hack is light and when i say light, i mean light in its literal sense especially in store design and layout. Instead of going the normal florescent tubes that one can find in most stores and outlets, Independent producers who have their own outlets can invest in decorative light covers and find away to blend natural light rays and store lights for the product to have a sense of luxury appeal. A store that has a nice chandelier hanging in the centre will be pereceived as having luxury goods in stock as opposed to another store that has 'normal lighting'.  No matter how well made your product is when they are not properly displayed, it might not get the attention that it deserves. 

Entrepreneurship or Saving for Retirement (Which Way To Go)

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A few days ago, I was doing my usual search on the internet trying to find some information like any other day. I came across a banner ad on one of the popular websites i visit and thought that the ad was very interesting. It was an ad for a mutual fund or an investment account I couldn’t really tell which financial services the ad was trying to sell. But the ad simply stated that if you saved an amount of money say (X) over a period of time, you were going to make enough for your retirement and a substantial amount at that. This really got me wondering. For some time now I’ve been battling with the concept of ‘personal finance’ in my head. What does that term really mean? For me, anytime I hear the word personal finance my mind automatically goes to savings. Saving a portion of your salary/profits so that you can have a better future. I see retirement as something that is really far away because I think am not too old.  I see personal finance and savings as something which is mostly pondered upon by people ageing close to retirement. Because technically they are the ones going out of job soon so maybe they should be thinking about retirement/personal finance and savings. Not me a young blooded 20 something year old.  Though I trick myself into thinking that savings is for people who are ageing and for individual with family and children to look after, the pangs of personal finance comes to bite me one in a while. Because i go on a little guilt trip when i see how little my savings is so i tell myself i will start saving in my 30s. What i’m gradually realizing is that savings is a habit and if its not cultivated now i might never save.

But my obsession with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have made it clear to me how entrepreneurs find it difficult savings. An entrepreneurs quest to make a difference with their idea will go all lengths to make their ideas come to life. Sometimes this means investing most or all your savings into the idea in the hopes of making a return one day. That is why entrepreneurship is about risk its about being a bull or a bear. And i want to be the bull rather than the bear. I’m at a point in my life where my ideas matter more to me than the money i want to save. Because the supposed savings invested in my ideas as an entrepreneur may earn me a million fold return on my investments. I’ve read about entrepreneurs and successful people who risked it all financially to build something great and that is the type of risk i want to take at this stage in my life. For now, ‘saving towards retirement’ seems like a concept that’s almost laughable because i see it as something that is further away. The beauty of taking risk is that most of the time, it might not work but if works you get to build something successful and truly great. Entrepreneurship and startups is such a steep learning curve therefore failure can also be a great learningprocess.

Being a risk taker at heart and not having finances figured out whiles taking risk doesn’t seem like a good idea. But my ideas has to take centre stage before savings come to mind.