What a Job Is
In industrialized countries, people belong to one institution or another at least until their twenties. After all those years you get used to the idea of belonging to a group of people who all get up in the morning, go to some set of buildings, and do things that they do not, ordinarily, enjoy doing. Belonging to such a group becomes part of your identity: name, age, role, institution. If you have to introduce yourself, or someone else describes you, it will be as something like, John Smith, age 10, a student at such and such elementary school, or John Smith, age 20, a student at such and such college.
When John Smith finishes school he is expected to get a job. And what getting a job seems to mean is joining another institution. Superficially it's a lot like college. You pick the companies you want to work for and apply to join them. If one likes you, you become a member of this new group. You get up in the morning and go to a new set of buildings, and do things that you do not, ordinarily, enjoy doing. There are a few differences: life is not as much fun, and you get paid, instead of paying, as you did in college. But the similarities feel greater than the differences. John Smith is now John Smith, 22, a software developer at such and such corporation.
In fact John Smith's life has changed more than he realizes. Socially, a company looks much like college, but the deeper you go into the underlying reality, the more different it gets.
What a company does, and has to do if it wants to continue to exist, is earn money. And the way most companies make money is by creating wealth. Companies can be so specialized that this similarity is concealed, but it is not only manufacturing companies that create wealth. A big component of wealth is location. Remember that magic machine that could make you cars and cook you dinner and so on? It would not be so useful if it delivered your dinner to a random location in central Asia. If wealth means what people want, companies that move things also create wealth. Ditto for many other kinds of companies that don't make anything physical. Nearly all companies exist to do something people want.
And that's what you do, as well, when you go to work for a company. But here there is another layer that tends to obscure the underlying reality. In a company, the work you do is averaged together with a lot of other people's. You may not even be aware you're doing something people want. Your contribution may be indirect. But the company as a whole must be giving people something they want, or they won't make any money. And if they are paying you x dollars a year, then on average you must be contributing at least x dollars a year worth of work, or the company will be spending more than it makes, and will go out of business.
Someone graduating from college thinks, and is told, that he needs to get a job, as if the important thing were becoming a member of an institution. A more direct way to put it would be: you need to start doing something people want. You don't need to join a company to do that. All a company is is a group of people working together to do something people want. It's doing something people want that matters, not joining the group.
For most people the best plan probably is to go to work for some existing company. But it is a good idea to understand what's happening when you do this. A job means doing something people want, averaged together with everyone else in that company.
Working Harder
That averaging gets to be a problem. I think the single biggest problem afflicting large companies is the difficulty of assigning a value to each person's work. For the most part they punt. In a big company you get paid a fairly predictable salary for working fairly hard. You're expected not to be obviously incompetent or lazy, but you're not expected to devote your whole life to your work.
It turns out, though, that there are economies of scale in how much of your life you devote to your work. In the right kind of business, someone who really devoted himself to work could generate ten or even a hundred times as much wealth as an average employee. A programmer, for example, instead of chugging along maintaining and updating an existing piece of software, could write a whole new piece of software, and with it create a new source of revenue.
Companies are not set up to reward people who want to do this. You can't go to your boss and say, I'd like to start working ten times as hard, so will you please pay me ten times as much? For one thing, the official fiction is that you are already working as hard as you can. But a more serious problem is that the company has no way of measuring the value of your work.
Salesmen are an exception. It's easy to measure how much revenue they generate, and they're usually paid a percentage of it. If a salesman wants to work harder, he can just start doing it, and he will automatically get paid proportionally more.
There is one other job besides sales where big companies can hire first-rate people: in the top management jobs. And for the same reason: their performance can be measured. The top managers are held responsible for the performance of the entire company. Because an ordinary employee's performance can't usually be measured, he is not expected to do more than put in a solid effort. Whereas top management, like salespeople, have to actually come up with the numbers. The CEO of a company that tanks cannot plead that he put in a solid effort. If the company does badly, he's done badly.
A company that could pay all its employees so straightforwardly would be enormously successful. Many employees would work harder if they could get paid for it. More importantly, such a company would attract people who wanted to work especially hard. It would crush its competitors.
Unfortunately, companies can't pay everyone like salesmen. Salesmen work alone. Most employees' work is tangled together. Suppose a company makes some kind of consumer gadget. The engineers build a reliable gadget with all kinds of new features; the industrial designers design a beautiful case for it; and then the marketing people convince everyone that it's something they've got to have. How do you know how much of the gadget's sales are due to each group's efforts? Or, for that matter, how much is due to the creators of past gadgets that gave the company a reputation for quality? There's no way to untangle all their contributions. Even if you could read the minds of the consumers, you'd find these factors were all blurred together.
If you want to go faster, it's a problem to have your work tangled together with a large number of other people's. In a large group, your performance is not separately measurable-- and the rest of the group slows you down.
Measurement and Leverage
To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect.
Measurement alone is not enough. An example of a job with measurement but not leverage is doing piecework in a sweatshop. Your performance is measured and you get paid accordingly, but you have no scope for decisions. The only decision you get to make is how fast you work, and that can probably only increase your earnings by a factor of two or three.
An example of a job with both measurement and leverage would be lead actor in a movie. Your performance can be measured in the gross of the movie. And you have leverage in the sense that your performance can make or break it.
CEOs also have both measurement and leverage. They're measured, in that the performance of the company is their performance. And they have leverage in that their decisions set the whole company moving in one direction or another.
I think everyone who gets rich by their own efforts will be found to be in a situation with measurement and leverage. Everyone I can think of does: CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers, professional athletes. A good hint to the presence of leverage is the possibility of failure. Upside must be balanced by downside, so if there is big potential for gain there must also be a terrifying possibility of loss. CEOs, stars, fund managers, and athletes all live with the sword hanging over their heads; the moment they start to suck, they're out. If you're in a job that feels safe, you are not going to get rich, because if there is no danger there is almost certainly no leverage.
But you don't have to become a CEO or a movie star to be in a situation with measurement and leverage. All you need to do is be part of a small group working on a hard problem.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
MONEY is not Wealth
Money Is Not Wealth
If you want to create wealth, it will help to understand what it is. Wealth is not the same thing as money. Wealth is as old as human history. Far older, in fact; ants have wealth. Money is a comparatively recent invention.
Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.
Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.
Money is a side effect of specialization. In a specialized society, most of the things you need, you can't make for yourself. If you want a potato or a pencil or a place to live, you have to get it from someone else.
How do you get the person who grows the potatoes to give you some? By giving him something he wants in return. But you can't get very far by trading things directly with the people who need them. If you make violins, and none of the local farmers wants one, how will you eat?
The solution societies find, as they get more specialized, is to make the trade into a two-step process. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, silver, which you can then trade again for anything else you need. The intermediate stuff-- the medium of exchange-- can be anything that's rare and portable. Historically metals have been the most common, but recently we've been using a medium of exchange, called the dollar, that doesn't physically exist. It works as a medium of exchange, however, because its rarity is guaranteed by the U.S. Government.
The advantage of a medium of exchange is that it makes trade work. The disadvantage is that it tends to obscure what trade really means. People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage-- just a shorthand-- for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want. [4]
The Pie Fallacy
A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that's not the same thing.
When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. "You can't make the pie larger," say politicians. When you're talking about the amount of money in one family's bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year's tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.
I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you're planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.
What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.
Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.
In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was.
Kids know, without knowing they know, that they can create wealth. If you need to give someone a present and don't have any money, you make one. But kids are so bad at making things that they consider home-made presents to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing to store-bought ones-- a mere expression of the proverbial thought that counts. And indeed, the lumpy ashtrays we made for our parents did not have much of a resale market.
If you want to create wealth, it will help to understand what it is. Wealth is not the same thing as money. Wealth is as old as human history. Far older, in fact; ants have wealth. Money is a comparatively recent invention.
Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.
Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.
Money is a side effect of specialization. In a specialized society, most of the things you need, you can't make for yourself. If you want a potato or a pencil or a place to live, you have to get it from someone else.
How do you get the person who grows the potatoes to give you some? By giving him something he wants in return. But you can't get very far by trading things directly with the people who need them. If you make violins, and none of the local farmers wants one, how will you eat?
The solution societies find, as they get more specialized, is to make the trade into a two-step process. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, silver, which you can then trade again for anything else you need. The intermediate stuff-- the medium of exchange-- can be anything that's rare and portable. Historically metals have been the most common, but recently we've been using a medium of exchange, called the dollar, that doesn't physically exist. It works as a medium of exchange, however, because its rarity is guaranteed by the U.S. Government.
The advantage of a medium of exchange is that it makes trade work. The disadvantage is that it tends to obscure what trade really means. People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage-- just a shorthand-- for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want. [4]
The Pie Fallacy
A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that's not the same thing.
When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. "You can't make the pie larger," say politicians. When you're talking about the amount of money in one family's bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year's tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.
I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you're planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.
What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.
Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.
In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was.
Kids know, without knowing they know, that they can create wealth. If you need to give someone a present and don't have any money, you make one. But kids are so bad at making things that they consider home-made presents to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing to store-bought ones-- a mere expression of the proverbial thought that counts. And indeed, the lumpy ashtrays we made for our parents did not have much of a resale market.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Poverty is not Mine
Agree or refuse to remain poor. Been born from poor background is not enough for you to live in abject poverty. Your background must not keep you permanently on the ground of poverty. Know that no one is born poor, every one in life is born the same; from the king on the throne, the president in the president villa to the beggar on the street. Every one was conceived of woman for nine months and delivered the usual way. No one’s blood has poverty gene. What is different however is our circumstances of birth; the environment and the parentage.
The good news therefore is; you can work to change your circumstances and situation in life, no condition is permanent. I have seen those born into affluence, which mismanage the wealth and became poor and I have seen those born into little or nothing but with sheer determination, hard work and divine assistance change the course of their history. Poverty is not genetic, it is in the mind.
To change your course history, you must hate the status quo. Until you hate the present status the ‘new you’ will not emerge. If you love the way you are, the things you do, how you do them and the result you get you have automatically shut the door against improvement. To hate the status quo is to say “I am more than this”. Know that the enemy of best is good, if you keep thinking and saying this is good enough, then your best will not emerge. While you should be happy whit what you have, you must not be satisfied the way you are. Do something about your situation.
The good news therefore is; you can work to change your circumstances and situation in life, no condition is permanent. I have seen those born into affluence, which mismanage the wealth and became poor and I have seen those born into little or nothing but with sheer determination, hard work and divine assistance change the course of their history. Poverty is not genetic, it is in the mind.
To change your course history, you must hate the status quo. Until you hate the present status the ‘new you’ will not emerge. If you love the way you are, the things you do, how you do them and the result you get you have automatically shut the door against improvement. To hate the status quo is to say “I am more than this”. Know that the enemy of best is good, if you keep thinking and saying this is good enough, then your best will not emerge. While you should be happy whit what you have, you must not be satisfied the way you are. Do something about your situation.
INNER STRENGHT
Failing does not make you a failure, it is quitting that does. Every champion you see on the field was not born that way. He/she has gone through a process to arrive at the pinnacle of success. Failure is an event, it is not permanent, it comes and goes. It will be a great mistake to thinks that once failed that is the end.
You cannot stop things from happening but whatever happens which is different from your expectation should be rejected because no one has the right to force anything on you, not even the devil. Whatever you resist in life goes, it is the thing you do accommodate that stays.
Losing does not make you a loser and failing does not make you a failure either. Delay does not make you a destitute and setback does not keep you permanent at the back. Challenges in life only come to test our faith in God. They come to shake us so as to discover our strength level that is why the word God says if you fail in the day of adversity, your strength is small. This because adversities are not out to make you fail but to test you faith. Your faith will regularly come under fire so that it can become stronger as you grow older.
In the face of losses stand firm, do not allow yourself to be destabilized unnecessarily. Standing firm require inner strength so fortify yourself internally. Be a word addict; do not wait until problem come before you start reading God’s words. Apart from gods words try to read other books especially the biography of great heroes. There is nothing you will ever pass through which great men and women have not passed through. Never quit you are not a failure until you fail to try again, neither are you loser until you quit.
You cannot stop things from happening but whatever happens which is different from your expectation should be rejected because no one has the right to force anything on you, not even the devil. Whatever you resist in life goes, it is the thing you do accommodate that stays.
Losing does not make you a loser and failing does not make you a failure either. Delay does not make you a destitute and setback does not keep you permanent at the back. Challenges in life only come to test our faith in God. They come to shake us so as to discover our strength level that is why the word God says if you fail in the day of adversity, your strength is small. This because adversities are not out to make you fail but to test you faith. Your faith will regularly come under fire so that it can become stronger as you grow older.
In the face of losses stand firm, do not allow yourself to be destabilized unnecessarily. Standing firm require inner strength so fortify yourself internally. Be a word addict; do not wait until problem come before you start reading God’s words. Apart from gods words try to read other books especially the biography of great heroes. There is nothing you will ever pass through which great men and women have not passed through. Never quit you are not a failure until you fail to try again, neither are you loser until you quit.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How To Receive Your Affiliate Cheques/Checks In Nigeria
I get asked a lot from Nigerians who are just starting out affiliate marketing. How do I receive my affiliate cheques here in Nigeria? We all know Nigeria has a bad reputation when it comes to online business, and so many of these companies try to avoid us as much as possible.
While there are many ways to receive your affiliate cheques here in Nigeria, there’s one method (Graphcard) which I’ve had success with, and have proven to be very easy and cheap for beginning affiliates in Nigeria.
Besides helping you to receive and clear your cheques, they also give you a personalized US address with which you can use for your registrations with the various affiliate networks you work with.
Graphcard offers you a personalized virtual US address not just for affiliate marketers, but also for individuals who want to buy and ship items from the US.
Here’s How To Get A US Address And Start Receiving Your Affiliate Cheques With Graphcard:
1. Sign Up For A Free Personal Account With Graphcard.
graphcard signupFirst you need to sign up with them, choose your country and the account type (Personal-Buy online), complete the rest of the form by following the instructions carefully.
2. Getting Your US Address.
This is not free, Graphcard charges $4.99 for any month you make use of your personalized US address to receive your affiliate cheques.
To set this up, you’ll need $5 for the setup, and another $4.99 for your first month.
3. Funding Your Graphcard Account With VTN.
vtnBefore you can request for a virtual US address, you need to have some funds in your account for the processing, and the simplest way you can fund your Graphcard account is by making use of their sister site at VTN. Open another account with them using the same details (not compulsory) you used when opening your Graphcard account.
Adding funds to your VTN account is simple, log on to your account, at the left navigation menu, click on the “List of Banks to Add Funds” link to get their Nigerian bank account details.
After payment has been made, log on back to their website, at the left navigation menu again, locate and click “Confirm Bank Deposit”, fill the form with the transaction details which you can find on the deposit slip you paid with, and your account should be funded within 24hrs, if not less.
4. Fund Your Graphcard Account.
As soon as your VTN is funded, log on back to your graphcard account, click on the “Add Funds” link at the top of the menu, this will take you to a page, click on the VTN link that shows up, follow the instructions and your Graphcard account will be funded immediately in dollars.
5. Get Your US Address.
Log on to your account if you’ve not already, then click on the “Get a us address” link boldly displayed on top of your account, choose the lowest plan which is either silver or bronze. Follow the rest of the instructions, and your US address will be registered and emailed to you within 24hrs. Even if you don’t get an email from them (which is highly unlikely), log on to your account, and you’ll see your address boldly displayed for you on the top of the page.
You can use this address to register with the various affiliate network you work with. Once your payment is ready, your cheque will be mailed to Graphcard (LFR Communications, Inc.) who will then help you clear it and credit your account accordingly.
6. How To Withdraw Your Money From Graphcard.
They offer different options for these, you can either request for a bank wire if you have a domiciliary account with GTBank, or request for a western union money transfer to be collected at any designated bank, or request fund to be paid back into your VTN account which you can easily cash in your local bank account.
To do any of these, log on to your account, and click on the “Withdraw Funds” link on top of the page, choose the option that best suits your need, follow the rest of the instructions to get your money.
Please Note: I don’t own, and neither am I an affiliate of either Graphcard or VTN. Infact the owners of Graphcard & VTN do not even know who David osajie is, at least as of this writing. They are lucky to be getting this promotional (well, in a way) article.
If you enjoyed this post, drop a comment to let me know how far it goes, but most importantly subscribe to my RSS Feeds (if you haven’t already), to get notified immediately I publish other top notch posts on this blog.
While there are many ways to receive your affiliate cheques here in Nigeria, there’s one method (Graphcard) which I’ve had success with, and have proven to be very easy and cheap for beginning affiliates in Nigeria.
Besides helping you to receive and clear your cheques, they also give you a personalized US address with which you can use for your registrations with the various affiliate networks you work with.
Graphcard offers you a personalized virtual US address not just for affiliate marketers, but also for individuals who want to buy and ship items from the US.
Here’s How To Get A US Address And Start Receiving Your Affiliate Cheques With Graphcard:
1. Sign Up For A Free Personal Account With Graphcard.
graphcard signupFirst you need to sign up with them, choose your country and the account type (Personal-Buy online), complete the rest of the form by following the instructions carefully.
2. Getting Your US Address.
This is not free, Graphcard charges $4.99 for any month you make use of your personalized US address to receive your affiliate cheques.
To set this up, you’ll need $5 for the setup, and another $4.99 for your first month.
3. Funding Your Graphcard Account With VTN.
vtnBefore you can request for a virtual US address, you need to have some funds in your account for the processing, and the simplest way you can fund your Graphcard account is by making use of their sister site at VTN. Open another account with them using the same details (not compulsory) you used when opening your Graphcard account.
Adding funds to your VTN account is simple, log on to your account, at the left navigation menu, click on the “List of Banks to Add Funds” link to get their Nigerian bank account details.
After payment has been made, log on back to their website, at the left navigation menu again, locate and click “Confirm Bank Deposit”, fill the form with the transaction details which you can find on the deposit slip you paid with, and your account should be funded within 24hrs, if not less.
4. Fund Your Graphcard Account.
As soon as your VTN is funded, log on back to your graphcard account, click on the “Add Funds” link at the top of the menu, this will take you to a page, click on the VTN link that shows up, follow the instructions and your Graphcard account will be funded immediately in dollars.
5. Get Your US Address.
Log on to your account if you’ve not already, then click on the “Get a us address” link boldly displayed on top of your account, choose the lowest plan which is either silver or bronze. Follow the rest of the instructions, and your US address will be registered and emailed to you within 24hrs. Even if you don’t get an email from them (which is highly unlikely), log on to your account, and you’ll see your address boldly displayed for you on the top of the page.
You can use this address to register with the various affiliate network you work with. Once your payment is ready, your cheque will be mailed to Graphcard (LFR Communications, Inc.) who will then help you clear it and credit your account accordingly.
6. How To Withdraw Your Money From Graphcard.
They offer different options for these, you can either request for a bank wire if you have a domiciliary account with GTBank, or request for a western union money transfer to be collected at any designated bank, or request fund to be paid back into your VTN account which you can easily cash in your local bank account.
To do any of these, log on to your account, and click on the “Withdraw Funds” link on top of the page, choose the option that best suits your need, follow the rest of the instructions to get your money.
Please Note: I don’t own, and neither am I an affiliate of either Graphcard or VTN. Infact the owners of Graphcard & VTN do not even know who David osajie is, at least as of this writing. They are lucky to be getting this promotional (well, in a way) article.
If you enjoyed this post, drop a comment to let me know how far it goes, but most importantly subscribe to my RSS Feeds (if you haven’t already), to get notified immediately I publish other top notch posts on this blog.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Disability is not Inability.
Do you know that to be disable is not inability. Some people believe that their disability cause them to be useless in the society,
why cant you wake up to your challenge an let start making Nigeria Great. for more on wealth creation click here www.davidosajie.com
why cant you wake up to your challenge an let start making Nigeria Great. for more on wealth creation click here www.davidosajie.com
Disability is not Inability.
Do you know that to be disable is not inability. Some people believe that their disability cause them to be useless in the society,
why cant you wake up to your challenge an let start making Nigeria Great. for more on wealth creation click here www.davidosajie.com
why cant you wake up to your challenge an let start making Nigeria Great. for more on wealth creation click here www.davidosajie.com
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