Nothing will change in your life unless you deliberately change it. Note down your problems. Critically look at your problems and rank them according to the order of priority. Assuming your most pressing issue is high expenditure due to little salary, the question is; what possibilities do you have to overcome this problem? Possibilities could be
(a) win rotary,
(b) work hard and get salary increment,
(c) invest in self-help and start saving 10% of your salary at whatever conditions or
(d) marry to a rich family and leverage from that for start-up capital.
Most of the things we do should be deliberate. If you marry a rich family only for drinks and eats, you are not going to optimize from that. But also the chances of getting married to a rich family are small, you could borrow Ugx5m to invest in stocks or start up a business downtown.
Once you have identified the possibilities, you have choices. Choices are at two extremes: you are either at low cost or differentiated. If you begin planning for your career at an early stage, you could be spot on. Your career choice could be differentiated, offer the best services at high prices because they are few people with the same qualities and talent like yours. But if you are around 30 years with no degree, your career choice would be low cost, be the cheapest employee for your kind of ranks so that you can easily be employed.
If you have chosen to be differentiated and come up with possibilities, the question is; for that condition to succeed, what would have to be true? If you want to attain financial independence, what would have to be true? Saving 25% would be true. This means you will have to survive on 75% given your current financial commitment. Career choices will also influence your investment options.
If you have Ugx60m, what is the best investment option? Is buying the land the best? What is opportunity cost? In Uganda, land has shown that it is profitable because you can buy at Ugx5m and resale it for Ugx8m after one year. But is that the best? At the end of the day, you are not exercising your brains. Much as you have to invest in land if it is business, you must deal in real estate. You buy plots of land, develop them and later sell them selling out.
Technical vs. process skills
There one thing that differentiates success and failure. This is called process skills. Technical skills give capabilities but you can’t grow rich by capabilities. You must have process skills. By far, most people who have made it in life have 70% process skills and 30% technical skills.
Technical skills are like saying ‘I am a medical doctor’. You baptize yourself as a medical doctor. Process skills are crosscutting. Process skills are self-taught with mentors.
We always want to feel that we have the capability. This is why they say technical people complain about the lack of enough resources, business people find solutions around the problem. If you are technical person and you do not have a laptop, you say ‘I cannot work’. I do not have the cables so I cannot connect. However, a business person will find a solution. These different skills will give you a lot of perspectives.
