TrevorNelDailyOnline

Now, how long do you think it would take you to double your R20? One day? Two days? Three? Four? Five?

What if I gave you a week, do you think you could do it?

Most people, I think, should be able to find a way to double R20 in a day, or at least two days!

Well, let’s do some theoretical thinking. Let’s divide Month 1 into four working weeks:

Week 1:

a) R20

b) R20

c) R20

d) R20

R 80 X 2 = R160

In this first week each adult (a,b,c,d) takes their R20 and finds a way to double it by trading or offering a service (e.g. buying soap, a cloth, and a bucket, and washing 8 cars at R5 a car).

At the end of the week all four get together and discuss how they doubled their money. Analyse each idea for a potential new business idea.

The leader of the group (Charles) then re-issues the full kitty to each member again (i.e. R40 each) to see if they can double this amount by doubling their effort of the previous week.

Week 2:

a) R40

b) R40

c) R40

d) R40

R160 X 2 = R320

At the end of Week 2, all get together again and re-analyse and re-issue the kitty to re-double your previous weeks effort.

Week 3:

a) R80

b) R80

c) R80

d) R80

R320 X 2 = R640

Again, re-analyse, re-issue the kitty, and re-double your previous weeks efforts.

Week 4:

a) R160

b) R160

c) R160

d) R160

R640 X 2 = R1280

This is the fun week. For this meeting the leader can take R80 and buy snacks and drinks to have a little celebration party.

R400 can be put into a special business development bank account, and R800 (R200 each) can be used to kick-start the trading activity for Month 2.

The strategy for this second month is more conservative. This time we are going to give each adult two weeks to double their funds.

Month 2; Weeks 1 & 2:

a) R200

b) R200

c) R200

d) R200

R800 X 2 = R1600

Another get-together, re-analyse, re-issue the kitty to redouble your previous periods activity.

Month 2; Weeks 3 & 4:

a) R400

b) R400

c) R400

d) R400

R1600 X 2 = R3200

And now, it’s party time!

This time take R200 and treat yourself to a celebratory bottle of champagne or two, with your snacks and drinks.

Take R1000 and add it to the R400 in your business development fund account.

And, re-issue the remaining R2000 to begin the next months trading. Now you’re beginning to develop a serious strategy.

Month 3; Weeks 1 & 2:

a) R500

b) R500

c) R500

d) R500

R2000 X 2 = R4000

Re-analyse, re-issue, and redouble your previous periods activity.

Month 3; Weeks 3 & 4:

a) R1000

b) R1000

c) R1000

d) R1000

R4000 X 2 = R8000

It’s serious party time!

Take R500 and have a ball. You deserve it.

Take R1500 and add it to the R1400 in your business development account (Total: R2900).

Re-issue R6000 (R1500 each) to begin trading again.

Also, let’s become more conservative and give everyone four weeks to double their money.

Do you realise that after the end of this third month three previously unemployed adults are trading with more money than Charles originally had to feed them with at the end of each month!

Month 4; Weeks 1, 2, 3, & 4:

a) R1500

b) R1500

c) R1500

d) R1500

R 6000 X 2 = R12000

Let’s party again: R500.

Let’s pay each adult R1000 each (R4000).

Bank R1500 (New total R4800).

And, re-issue R6000 (R1500 each).

Now, if we continue the Month 4 strategy for the next eight months, our struggling family will have built up a business development bank account at the bank totalling R12800.

They would have earned R9000 each (Total: R36000) to spend on themselves and help with the support of the family unit.

They would have had some great parties, and Charles would have his own earnings of R1400 all to himself and the love of his life.

Life is so simple if you just set yourself simple plans and action them.

But, perhaps there are some readers of this article who are in a more fortunate position than Charles and who are looking to generate more income.

Well, it’s simple, just add a 0 to the original R20 discussed (ie. to start with R200) or 00 (ie. to start with R2000) to each of the numbers and follow the same strategy.

And, perhaps you can add more effort in turning over your money twice each month in the remaining eight months.

Remember, the trick is to buy wholesale and sell retail!

Interestingly, one of our past members - Udi Yair - has developed and tested precisely this concept in the townships.

He personally loaded up his bakkie with goods bought at wholesale prices and sold them at retail prices in squatter camps - perhaps the most difficult of markets.

He now supplies his goods to micro-entrepreneurs on a piece-meal basis. He has the proven experience to show micro-entrepreneurs how to turn R50 into R2000 and enjoy an income of nearly R3000 while doing it. He has identified one simple secret to success as a micro-entrepreneur - “Do Not Eat Up Your Profit”.

Udi teaches his distributors how to avoid the temptation of spending or eating their short-term profits, and to re-invest it into more product to generate a healthy turnover “in a business that will maintain a healthy balance between family and business needs”.


Points to Ponder

1) How would you go about doubling R20 in one week?

2) How would you go about doubling R2000 in one month?

Write in and share your answer with our members.

Your idea may just help to change someone’s life and support their entire family!


Ends.

More tomorrow:

posted by Trevor Nel: Developer - INNER Circle Business Forum

I was really struck by Charles’ personal story of trying to make good off a monthly income of about R1400 after tax.

From what I can recall, Charles supports eight family members out of this income. Three of whom are school-going kids with on-going expenses for books and school-fees.

Three others are unemployed, but employable, adults whom he helps to feed. One adult is too old to work, and the eighth is a young kiddie.

Plus, Charles is pretty serious about the girl of his dreams and would like to provide her with the things that all girls love.

So you can understand what went through my mind when Charles asked me what he could do to earn extra income and turn his life around. What a challenge?

But if you think about it, this is the challenge faced by most of our people in South Africa, and some have it even harder.

Even worse, Charles wasn’t going to give me time to think about my answer. With expectant eyes awaiting the solution from the “expert”, I had to do some quick thinking of what I would do in the same situation.

And, this is how my thinking went.

I immediately thought of my first teaching I share with all entrepreneurs - “We have to think small to grow big”. And that served as the foundation of my thinking: Think Small.

Let’s see, my challenge is that ‘I’ have R1400 after tax that does not meet my personal and family requirements. We just manage to eke out an existence on this. I feed three adults that could be income-earners, but they can’t get a job.

With these resources, let’s try and create a plan of action. What I know about life is that if you want to grow big you have got to start small.

So let’s begin with calling an indaba meeting with the four potential income earners - myself and the three others.

On the table I will place just four R20 notes and ask each individual if they can think of a way to double their R20. It must be a legal way, and nothing to do with gambling, games of chance, or push-push.

How would you go about doubling R20...?

The answer to this question could kick-start our economy!

Let’s see, perhaps I’ll buy some Kool-Aid... add water and ice... and sell it to sweating passers-by on a hot day.

Perhaps, I’ll buy two loaves of piping hot bread, butter and eggs, and make some egg sandwiches for sale at lunch-time.

What about ingredients for a fresh chocolate cake with twelve slices sold at R3.50 a slice. That’s R42!

The trick is to buy wholesale and sell retail.

More tomorrow:

posted by Trevor Nel: Developer - INNER Circle Business Forum

How To Turn The Struggle Into Success

The answer to this question will kick-start our economy

Review update by Trevor Nel – October 2002

A few years back, at a Sunday lunchtime presentation for one of our dynamic leadership groups, I was humbled by a discussion with one of our members - Charles.

He shared with me his real excitement for the It’s So Simple! concept ...and then told of how his past was making it extremely difficult for people to trust him with this business.

Charles was a victim of the struggle for political liberation... when people were siding with political groupings who were looking to establish ascendancy in the townships.

These were the bad old days when rival gangs of youth, and others, were firing shots at random at each other in a show of bravado and daring.

Certainly nothing to be proud of... but all of them thought that they were fighting for a cause that would offer them a better future.

Yes, Charles was one of the unfortunate victims... and perpetrators... of all this action in the name of “the struggle”.

And now, Charles is recognised by many in his community as one of those trouble-stirrers of the past. Now, no one wants to deal with him. Why would they believe that Charles is changing his life and his attitude towards others through It’s So Simple!?

What Charles is rapidly learning is that as much as he wants to forget the past and turn his life around, the reality is that others have extreme difficulty in forgetting the past as it affected them.

Charles faces the most difficult challenge he will face in life, and that is to become a living role model of his changed life without reverting back to the expectations that other people have of him.

This is not going to happen overnight. It may even take as long as ten years to lay a new foundation for his life.

My heart bleeds as I understand his dilemma in his own community. Perhaps, even this comment offers a clue to a potential solution for Charles.

It is likely that he needs to spend time enrolling and training five leaders in communities far away from his own. Where people don’t know his history.

More tomorrow:

posted by Trevor Nel: Developer - INNER Circle Business Forum

Article Review by Trevor Nel – February 2004

I woke up in pain this morning, with my thigh muscles as stiff as a post, a fairly hectic weekend of moving heavy furniture and tons of books around from room to room. All in the quest for conserving space… as my years of collecting information threaten to see me drown under tons of books, magazines and papers.

Not what you would call ‘earth-shattering news’ but it did cause me to forgo my early morning visit to the gym and think of taking a walk around our village in the evening. As I limped through the day I began to question whether my body is just protesting about undergoing hard labour in its 50th year. To add insult to injury, my wife has nothing wrong with her muscles despite being on the other end of all the cupboards we carried around our home..!

Maybe I am being forewarned to take WALKING seriously… so I did a bit of research which proved enlightening. Here’s what I learnt:

According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, one in every three Americans, ages 35 through 45, was obese, as of 1991. This figure is 36 percent higher than it was in 1962.

"This obesity seems to be related to physical inactivity," said Mark Fenton, editor of Boston-based Walking Magazine. http://www.tfhrc.gov/safety/pedbike/articles/inactive.htm

According to Fenton, it is not just American children and adolescents who are inactive. Fenton says that adults in the United States are more sedentary than ever as well.

"Americans are less active than they ever have been," he said.

"Twenty-five percent of our population is essentially sedentary 55 percent are only sporadically active and only about 10 percent of the population exercises regularly."

This lack of exercise is killing us, say researchers at the CDC and the American College of Sports Medicine. According to a joint statement they issued this year, approximately 250,000 deaths a year in the United States can be attributed to physical inactivity.

The good news from these organizations is that 30 minutes daily of moderate exercise can promote long-term health.

"Walking is a good way to get that exercise," Fenton said.

"There are dozens of ways that a 30-minute walk can be fit into your day. It doesn't have to be putting on Lycra tights and going out and doing power walking."

"We encourage people to make a walk part of their daily life -- to intentionally keep a post office box and walk down there to get the mail, or walk to the video store or to the place where you get your milk or newspaper," he said.

And kids? How do we get them to walk more?

"Role modelling is a very important thing," Fenton said. "If you're the kind of parent who actually suggests to their kid that you need not drive the car everywhere and that maybe they could walk back from band rehearsal with a couple of friends instead of you going to get them, that can help set the tone a lot."

Fenton adds that the psychological benefits of regular physical activity for older adults are immense.

"We see again and again that regular exercise gives an improved sense of self-worth and an improved sense of purpose," he said. "It's also clear that regular activity may reduce the likelihood of clinical depression -- a problem among the elderly who may begin to feel they are a burden to their family. With regular exercise, they can continue to be contributing members of society and if they want, they can get involved in volunteer work or part-time work."

Other health benefits from regular physical activity such as walking include:

- Reduced risk of dying prematurely

- Decreased risk of dying from heart disease

- Decreased risk of developing colon cancer

- Reduced risk of developing high blood pressure

- Help in reducing blood pressure in people who already have high blood pressure

- Decreased risk of developing diabetes

- Lower risk of developing hypertension

- Increased muscle strength, flexibility and sense of balance, all of which reduce the risk of falls

- Help in controlling weight

"What's really notable is just how much benefit there is for older adults to be physically active."

"We used to think that once you got to a certain age, it really didn't make any difference anymore, but what we're finding out is that even men and women into their nineties can see major increases in cardiovascular fitness and strength with regular physical activity."

Research sourced with permission: Partnership for a Walkable America by Emily Smith of the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center

Ends.

Pilzer believes the First Law of Business is no longer... ‘Find a need and fill it’, but rather “IMAGINE A NEED AND CREATE IT.” True to form, his own company in Dallas is busy applying C.D.ROM technology to what he believes will be the biggest industry of the next century: Education and Retraining.

Right now, in the field of Retailing, he see’s the system of Multi-Level Marketing as offering ‘The Greatest Opportunity In The 1990’s’. “It’s not the pyramid and the little lines. It’s that they’re educating people about new products and services that will improve their lives, and getting the product or service to the people.”

Today, the traditional maxim of a successful business - ‘Location, Location, and Location’ - has given way to three far more important criteria - ‘INFORMATION, INFORMATION, INFORMATION!’ The key to achieving wealth lies in distribution... of information, goods, and services... rather than in the accumulation of goods and resources.

“Technology today is what makes one individual’s earnings power a thousand times that of another; it is what makes companies that work with information far more valuable than those that work with physical resources; and it is what gives a country like Japan, with few physical resources, one of the world’s highest per capita GNP’s.”

“Today the determinant of success for both the individual and the organisation is the speed with which they can accept, learn and work with technological change. Prosperity belongs to the people who learn things the fastest.”

“Wealth is the product of our attitude and our creativity; In the alchemic world, where we have the power to create unlimited wealth, what we can accomplish is limited only by our dreams!”

Bibliography:

Pilzer, Paul Zane. “Unlimited Wealth - The Theory and Practice of Ecoomic Alchemy”. Crown Publishers, 1990 .

Pilzer, P. “Should You Quit Before You’re Fired?”

Ends.

Given the current concern over oil supplies, I went back to this review of a 1990 book:-

Show me an economist who is prepared to debunk the entire basis of economics as it is taught at college, and he’ll get my precious reading time.

Show me one who says “...the entire field of economics - based on the concept of scarcity - contradicted my entire belief in a true and just God, for such a God would not have created a world of limited resources in which one person’s gain would have to be another person’s loss”... and I’ll research his every word.

Paul Zane Pilzer, 39, author of Unlimited Wealth: The Theory Of Economic Alchemy, is fast gaining fame on the U.S. circuit as a visionary entrepreneur-economist-professor teaching others how to create potentially unlimited wealth out of worthless matter, by using their minds.

But whatever happened to the old economic maxim - “...one man’s gain is another man’s loss?" Well, that’s no longer true, says Pilzer, pointing out that the $150 Billion computer industry evolved from the freest and basest matter there is - SAND - which we now convert into micro-chips, the basis of our current technology revolution.

And... what about that nasty smelling crude-oil stuff that once polluted our drinking water? It was absolutely worthless until someone figured out how to refine it into a useful fuel!

The lesson he gives us is that wealth doesn’t come from gold... or oil... or land... but rather it comes from the technology developed by people who find a use for these things. Therefore wealth is unlimited because it comes from our minds.

“Technology not only determines the value of physical resources or stores of value, technology itself is perhaps the only store of value. The value of an individual, a company, and even a country, is its level of technology. The best way for an individual to store wealth is to improve his or her basic skills; the way for a society to store wealth today is to improve the basic skills levels of it’s citizens.”

Which explains why “...the nations of the Third world are falling off the economic edge.” They just do not have the infrastructure necessary to use the First world’s abundance of technological innovations. And... with technological breakthroughs happening every day, the developed nations are needing less and less of the Third world’s raw materials. “The value of these raw materials fell nearly 75 percent during the first half of the last decade.”

“We have more reserves of oil than we did 20 years ago, because we’ve gotten better at finding and extracting it. We’re also using it more efficiently: Computerised fuel injectors have cut gas consumption by cars in half. Copper and timber are being replaced by fibre-optic glass and various plastics. We really create our supply of raw materials by our ingenuity.”

“Ironically, the only hope for the Third world is for more of exactly what caused their current predicament: Technology.”

More tomorrow:

by Nancy Simms

Winners take chances.

Like everyone else, they fear failing, but they refuse to let fear control them.

Winners don't give up.

When life gets rough, they hang in until the going gets better.

Winners are flexible.

They realize there is more than one way and are willing to try others.

Winners know they are not perfect.

They respect their weaknesses while making the most of their strengths.

Winners fall, but they don't stay down.

They stubbornly refuse to let a fall keep them from climbing...

Winners don't blame fate for their failures nor luck for their successes.

Winners accept responsibility for their lives.

Winners are positive thinkers who see good in all things.

From the ordinary, they make the extraordinary.

Winners believe in the path they have chosen even when it's hard, even when others can't see where they are going,

Winners are patient.

They know a goal is only as worthy as the effort that's required to achieve it.

Winners are people like you.

They make this world a better place to be.

Ends.