If you want financial freedom, here is what you need to do.
First: think about your financial future. Second, branch out or die.
Key Pointers
Engage in trading in commodities of different kinds as a way of making additional income. Branch out or die. Learn not to put all your eggs in one basket. Providence alone will not take care of the future. Put something on the ground towards a more assured future. Having only one income source is similar to putting all your eggs in one basket. It is ‘the’ time to think and explore other options of making money. Don’t procrastinate, take a step.
Most people who live from hand to mouth, readily throw around the phrase ‘When I receive my salary, I will pay you back’. No matter how much an individual earns, it will never be enough to consistently meet even the most basic of needs. For a lot of people, the comfort of a salary, and the deceitfulness that it will continue ad infiitum makes them relax. It feels comfortable to go to work, do the job, and be guaranteed of a pay cheque at the end of the month.
Get other stable sources of income
Unfortunately, one of the facts that people are quite comfortable with ignoring, is that having ‘the job’ as an only source of income, is a terrible idea. Having only one income source is similar to putting all eggs in one basket. What happens if the basket accidentally falls? It’s simple; the individual will most likely lose all the eggs in the twinkle of an eye. Although many people are familiar with this age-old adage, many still do not understand the risks involved, in having their means of livelihood, come from just one unstable income source
like a salary. There are certain employees of organisations who have tried to develop other
means of income to augment their primary income source. This enables them to make plans for the future. There is the case of a teacher in a secondary school, who in addition to teaching, also makes coconut chips. She uses the money she makes from this side ‘hustle’ to settle the trivial needs of her family. She has successfully navigated the murky waters of salary delays and arrears – and has handed herself a lifeline from the money she makes from the coconut chips sales.
Men, take a cue…from women
There are several other women who engage in trading in commodities of different kinds as a way of making additional income. Most strikingly, in all this, it is apparent that only the women are thinking about the financial future of their families. Men usually just hope that providence will take care of the future and do not really bother about putting anything on the ground towards a more assured future. Most men are often content with ‘living large’ and spending all their life and time on a job that can hardly guarantee a secured financial future. Take the case point of a banker who recently fell critically ill and was unable to do work for a few months. His bank understood and paid his salary for the period, until he was able to return to work. The pertinent question is: “What would have happened if he was unable to return to work.” Simple: the organisation would pay him off and wish him the best in his future endeavours. It is at times like this, that the cruelty of reality sets and news of a banker who committed suicide fills the airwaves and gist blogs. All these financial hardships can be easily avoided if only the age-old adage of ‘not putting all of your eggs in one basket,’ is taken to heart.
Be relevant, diversify
All over the world, business owners and entrepreneurs are diversifying and going into new product lines in order to sustain their businesses and remain relevant. From the home front, the Dangote Group is one of the most diversified businesses in the world. The Group is involved in cement, sugar, salt, flour and semolina, pasta, noodles, poly products, logistics, real estate, port operations and telecommunications, oil and gas, steel, etc. It is clear that the founder and chairman of the Group, Aliko Dangote understood early in his business life that diversifying and extending his business interests would be critical in determining his influence and sustaining his profitability. Today, he is the world’s richest black man and 24th richest man in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of about $24.6bn as at May 2014. Since leaving United Bank of Africa (UBA) as group managing director in 2010, Tony Elumelu, chairman of Heirs Holdings, has diversified and gone into key sectors of Nigeria’s economy. He is involved in healthcare, agriculture, real estate, hospitality, oil and gas and financial services. Today, Elumelu has grown astronomically because he understands that remaining only in financial services would make him just a banker. And he surely wanted to be more than that. He has made a huge success of his endeavours because – just like Dangote – he diversified and extended his business interests. Bill Gates, according to Forbes, remains the world’s richest man with a net worth of about $79.2bn. Microsoft has about 12 other products apart from Microsoft Windows namely:
Office, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL server, Windows Server, Visual studio, Xbox, Bing, Dynamics, System centre, Skype, Windows Azure. Microsoft clearly understood that it could not sustain its position as a world leader, if it didn’t branch out, and diversify.
Think of options
The key message today is to branch out or die. We can borrow a leaf from these men who learnt not to put all their eggs in one basket. Think about it, if billionaire bosses are looking for alternative sources of income, their employees must absolutely be delusional to imagine that they can survive only on the salaries they are paid. This is the time to think and explore other options of making money. The time of procrastination is over.
