image: sciculture.ac.uk

"Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an extremely competent officer. Were he gifted with imagination he might rise to great heights in his profession." - Sherlock Holmes in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

It is not just enough to be smart and hardworking, they will only make you indisposable at work and a great friend to call when in need. You will let others set the course and you'll be the implementation guy. The guy who will drive their plans home. And worse, you'll be performing way below your potential.

"Imagination is everything." - Albert Einstein
God took a spinning void, imagined a beautifully complex universe, and worked hard to create it. And he's not yet done with the creation process. Imagination always come before the hardwork and it's not always good to leave that part to someone else or an established system.

"You cannot rise above the mental picture you have in your head." - Sam Adeyemi.
What pulled you through the gruesome 4 or 5 or 6 years you spent in the university? I tell you, it was the picture of you graduating that you held in your head right from year 1 that made it bearable. Why do people take non-paying or low-paying internship jobs? It's because they see it as a bridge to where/what they really want.

"The creative adult is the child who has survived." - Ursula K. Le Guin
Unfortunately, as we grow older we begin to be less imaginative. We begin to look for a structure to lock ourselves in. We would rather be a pawn in someone else's army than create our own army. We want a non-creativity dependent path to success. We are constantly looking for blueprints, a system to replicate and a giant structure to become an insignificant part of.

"If you can dream it, you can do it." Walt Disney
Yet so many of us don't dream, we copy other people's dreams. We want to do what someone else has done. Ever heard of two people having the same dream before? I mean a real dream; the one that happens in your subconscious when you are asleep. Nope! Not possible. So whenever you are adopting what someone else is doing or has done as your dream, it's not a dream, just a limited ambition. A true dream is always unique. Very different from any other body's. You don't dream to become the CEO of GTBank. That's an ambition, to head a system already created by someone else. All it will take you is to be smart and hardworking, and maybe luck too. But you can dream to build an online bank, or something else not yet existing. That is going to require excellent imagination, not just smart and hardwork.

Register for the upcoming special In-depth Microsoft Excel and Business Data Analysis Training class for sales managers, data analysts, finance professionals and business analysts. 

Just 10 slots available!

 

Microsoft Excel is the world's most used business intelligence tool. Its knowledge is even compulsory for an MBA degree and the investment world depends greatly on it. 

This training is aimed at making you extremely good in Microsoft Excel, dashboard making and business data analysis, teaching you with live business scenarios. It's intended for Sales Managers, Financial Analysts, Business Analysts, Data Analysts, MIS Analysts, HR Executives and power Excel users.

The next training is coming up on Friday 12th February 2016 to Saturday 13th February 2016 for Lagos and Friday 18th March 2016 to Saturday 19th March 2016 for Abuja. There are just 10 slots open. You will get lunch, a branded DVD with over 20 training videos and practice files, training notepad with pen, a comprehensive training reference material, a training certificate from us (a registered Microsoft Partner) and free refresher classes.

The training will be facilitated by a Microsoft recognized Excel Expert and the only Microsoft Excel MVP in Africa (there are just about 125 in the world). We have had participants of our trainings from Guinness Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries, First Bank, Citi Bank, Dalberg, SaveTheChildren, Mobil, Total, Vodacom, Nestle, Nigerian Breweries, Delta Afrik, LATC Marine, Broll, Habanera (JTI), SABMiller, IBM, Airtel, Diamond Bank, ECOWAS, Ministry of Finance, Nokia Siemens Networks and DDB.

Reach Michael on 08089382423, 08063125227 and mike@urbizedge.com or Hannah on 08021180874 and hannah@urbizedge.com to register.

Lagos Venue: Kristina Jade Learning Center, 70b Olorunlogbon street, Off Alade Lawal street, Anthony Village, Lagos.

Abuja Venue: NULAI, Suite 9A, 2nd Floor, Right Wing City Plaza, Plot 596 Ahmadu Bello Way, Garki II, Abuja.

The training outline is:

1) Data Manipulation in Excel
a. How Excel handles different data types
b. Data consistency, starting with the end in view
c. Building Datasheets that can easily scale
d. Sorting
i. Cascaded sorting
ii. Sorting across rows (left to right sorting, not the usual up to down sorting)
iii. Sorting and Conditional Formatting to identify trends
e. Filtering
f. Data cleaning
i. Removing duplicates
ii. Text-to-column
iii. Grouping
iv. Data Validation
v. Conditional Formatting
g. Data formatting
i. Using Tables (and when to convert to tables)
ii. Formatting for printing
iii. Formatting for email
iv. Data Review and formatting for 3rd party use
h. Named Ranges

2) Charts
a. Chart types
i. Line chart and when to use it
ii. Column chart and when to use it
iii. Bar chart and when to use it
iv. Pie chart and it’s dangers
b. Combining charts; when and how.
c. Dynamic Charts, using filter.
d. Best practices when making charts
e. Sparklines
f. Power Map and Power View (Excel 2013)

3) Pivot Table, Pivot Chart and PowerPivot
a. Pivot Table
i. Default Pivot Table
ii. Tabular Pivot Table
iii. Pivot Table Filtering
iv. Making a very dynamic regular table from Pivot Table
v. Calculations and Formula use with Pivot Table
vi. Advanced Pivot Table tricks
b. Pivot Chart
i. Pivot Chart and its limitations
ii. Dynamic Pivot Charts
c. PowerPivot (for Excel 2010 and 2013) only

4) Business Data Analysis 
a. Linking sheets
b. Duplicating sheets (better than copy and paste)
c. Inserting sheets, labeling and coloring the professional way
d. Freezing Panes and splitting windows
e. Conditional formatting
i. To identify patterns
ii. Using formulae
iii. To make extremely intelligent reports
f. Lookup functions
i. Vlookup
ii. Hlookup
iii. Looking up the last data or pattern in a particular row or column
iv. Overcoming the limitations of Vlookup and Hlookup using index and match functions
g. Power Functions
i. IF, IFERROR, AND, OR, ISBLANK, and others in the same family
ii. TEXT manipulative functions to make a completely automated Dashboard
iii. COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS and others, to make dynamic summary tables
iv. MATCH and INDEX to do the impossible
h. Other Functions
i. Math Functions
ii. Text Functions
iii. Logical
iv. Others
i. Formula Auditing
j. Goal Seek, Scenario Manager and Solver
k. Excel Web Query
l. Most useful Excel keyboard shortcuts

5) Executive Dashboards and Reporting 
a. Best Practices
b. Executive Dashboards
i. Executive Dasboards
ii. Dynamic Reports
iii. Determining the KPIs and tracking them
iv. Strategic Insights & Analysis
c. Data Visualization
d. Having the audience/recipient in mind
e. E-mails and Excel reports

6) Excel to PowerPoint and Word 
a. Linking PowerPoint/Word Charts to Excel
b. Embedding Excel sheets in PowerPoint/Word
c. Making a Powerful PowerPoint Presentation

7) Excel VBA 
a. Recording Excel macros

Reach Michael on 08089382423, 08063125227 and mike@urbizedge.com or Hannah on 08021180874 and hannah@urbizedge.com to register.

image: telegraph.co.uk

One of the best advice I have received is: Focus on your career, that is where most of your income will come from.

Yes, your career is your biggest source of income. You can win a N5 million jackpot (for those into NairaBet, SureBet and MTN trivia game). But that will not be anything compared to what you'll get from your day job (or business) over a period of time.

Recently, I have been distracted by a lot of speculative investment vehicles: Binary Options and Forex. I have a significant monthly income from my video training course and Amazon book sales which I have been thinking of a way to invest immediately they come in. I have been meeting a lot of people into Forex who say they are doing good. My case with Forex is a sorry one. So I decided to give Binary Options a trial. And now, I can say it's not really better than Forex and my experience with it isn't a good one. Now I am settling for a more conventional investment account, planning to invest in a US index fund, most likely a S&P 500 Index fund.

In the period I have been trying out the binary options and seeing how to up my Forex trading, I have been less productive at my work/business. Delaying clients' jobs and being less motivated to think creatively on growing my business. Yet, I was making more passive income from Amazon book sales and Udemy video course while losing money and time to binary options and forex.

I know that there are people making money from forex and binary options, but all the ones I know are doing it at either a full-time level or as a serious part-time engagement. They follow foreign news, do technical analysis and use up many hours a week to get whatever gain they get from them. I believe that is what is giving them the edge. It is a career for them. And I already have my own career, something more than a full-time job. I am not ready to add forex or binary options to it.

I did some calculations and found out that if I invest the same amount of time they do, into my Udemy course and ebook writing and expanding my training offering I will be making just as much money as the best forex trader or binary options person without any risk of losing them all one day. I knew this already and wanted an auto trader solution. So I tried the BinaryOptionRobot, Binary-Option-Robot (another one) and Mike's Auto Trader. None performed as advertised/expected. I wanted something to set and forget,and just redirect my online earnings to for growth and preservation.

Now, I have to keep searching for what will meet that need. I am hoping the index investment I am trying will be that. But I won't be sacrificing my career for any new stuff. Over 70% of one's lifetime earning will come from one's career, and it's where one should focus his time and energy. Whatever extra income source that one can't automate should not be allowed to interfere with one's career.

In an ever increasingly challenging business world companies look to data to provide the edge required for operational superiority. Data Analytics not only provides a comprehensive view of the past but also a strong indication of what is in store for the future. Extracting these insights from data and formulating a robust business case to aid management make informed decisions is now the primary challenge for most organizations.

This course focuses on developing an Analytical thinking process and equips participants with the necessary skills required to perform Data Analytics using a platform (R) that is open source and is supported by other Advanced Analytics and Business Intelligence platforms.

Facilitator: Mr Evans Otalor (BSc, MSc, ACSI)

Evans is currently the Analytics Manager at Ingress Solutions. He is an experienced analytics professional with demonstrated track record successfully structuring and managing analytics projects for Banks, TELCOs, and FMCGs both locally and internationally.

Evans holds a BSc. in Mathematics and Statistics and an MSc. In Financial Mathematics and Actuarial Science. He is highly skilled in the application of Mathematical and Statistical methods to collect, organize, interpret, and summarize data for quantitative modelling projects that include both Data Analysis and Predictive Modelling to aid insight extraction, Risk Disclosure, Reporting, Measuring, Monitoring, and Predicting. 

Highly experienced user of multiple platforms that include: R, Microsoft Applications (Including MS Excel, Data Mining Add-in, PowerBI, and PowerPivot), SPSS Modeler, Alteryx, Knime, Spotfire, Tableau, and various Data Analytics and Visualization tools.

Duration: 3 Days

Course Fee: N100,000 (50% discount already applied from standard price of N150,000) Payment should be made to FCMB 2888666014 URBIZEDGE LIMITED.

Date & Time: 18 Thursday to 20 Saturday, February 2016 (9:00am to 5:00pm daily)

Venue: Kristina Jade Learning Centre, 70b Olorunlogbon street, after Banex Hotel, Anthony Village, Lagos state.

Registration: To register please call Evans on 08135487554 or Mike on 08089382423 or email info@urbizedge.com

Requirement:

The only requirement is to come with your Laptop. We will teach you and help you install R during the training.

Course Delivery

 This course is delivered through actual hands-on practice of data analytics in R. Each participant will conduct their own analysis using sets of data provided for the training. The end goal of the training is to give participants a practitioner’s view of Data Analytics by blending Analytical thinking, Statistics, and R skills with emphasis on understanding Analytics, Learning R and understanding how analytics could influence management decisions

Target Participants

Data Analysts, Hands-on Managers, Data Enthusiasts, BI Analysts and Research Analysts

Day 1

Introduction to Data

• What is Data
• Data structure
• Data Gathering
• Data Storage

Introduction to Business Analytics

• Analytical Thinking
• Understanding Data
• Analytical Processes

Introduction to R

• About R
• Installing and Running R
• R GUIs and Auditors
• Getting Help

Data Manipulation in R

• R Operators
• Basic Calculations
• Data Structures
  • o   Vectors
  • o   Lists
  • o   Matrix
  • o   Data Frames
  • Introduction to Functions in R
  • Creating Functions in R
  • Reading and Writing Files in R

Day 2

Data Analytics in R

• Defining Statistical Models
• Formulae Construction
• Generic Functions
• Descriptive Modelling
• Predictive Modelling
• Graphical Procedures
• Graphical Functions
• Basic Plotting
• Graphics Manipulation

Day 3

R Programming / Scripting

• Designing an Analytical Process for R
• Creating Analytical Solutions in R
• Deploying Analytical Solutions with R

Registration: To register please call Evans on 08135487554 or Mike on 08089382423 or email info@urbizedge.com

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

image: notonthehighstreet.com

Most of us are loss averse. We don't mind trying over and over again, practicing till we are perfect and following the no pain no gain mantra, as long as the loss isn't a financial one. We don't readily throw our money at speculative ventures and it's the main reason most of our companies don't have R&D departments. We would rather leave that financially expensive and uncertain part to foreign companies, then copy whatever successful invention they generate.

It's for a solid reason that investment managers recommend that you have a healthy mix of low risk investment, medium risk investment and a little speculative investment. You shouldn't put all your money in one investment vehicle or class. Not only to avoid being wiped out when something catastrophic happens to that class of investment but also so you are positioned to discover the next 10 bagger (the investment that will get you 10 fold returns).

I am currently building a Balanced Scorecard Dashboard for a big IT firm. In my pitching proposal, I had to prove my knowledge and explain the value of having a Balanced Scorecard. A big established business will generally have three categories of business units: the ones generating most of the company's revenue but it's in a mature or dying lifecycle stage; the ones with huge potential for growth but it's in introductory or early growth stage; and the ones that are based on R&D ideas with possibility of becoming a big win or a no-winner. Every company's continued success depends on managing well all these three types of business units. If you place too much attention on the cash cow, the business units generating most of your revenue though they are at the end of their product lifecycle, you will be setting yourself up for future irrelevance. If you don't nurture the business units with huge potential for growth or put a manager who is not willing to approve expenses for projects with no immediate payback, you will kill your future cash cow. And if you don't give the R&D ideas based business units a chance at all, you won't be innovative and outbrain your competition.

And it's like that with our lives too. You can't keep restricting yourself to what you are used to.

image: pushsquare.com

Becoming super rich is one topic everyone has varying opinions. There are endless books on how to work your way into riches, and unfortunately most are just the author's unproven concepts. The academic world skilled in research and uncovering the genuine principles have little interest in the topic. Luckily, some people with the experience, academically sound mind and generous enough to show others the way have provided us the surest way to become super rich.

It is not by changing your attitude, so you can forget about that book on attitude is everything. It is not by improving your people skills or winning friends. Those are like copying the furnishing of a mansion. It is not the furniture that makes the mansion. Without the furniture the mansion would still be a mansion. There are many extremely rich people with terrible attitudes, many with no enviable people skills and some with few friends.

I believe one should always tell himself the truth. If you want to make a chair, you are not going to start and focus on sand papering the wood. You will only end up with a good smooth wood. To make a chair you have to do the core activities first: cut the wood into the different parts that will be nailed together to form a chair. Then you can sand paper. But lots of people take the sand papering approach to getting wealthy. They look at wealthy people and focus on their lifestyle, their habits and all those things they do now that they are wealthy. They don't bother to look at the path they followed from going from poor to rich. They focus more on the made man than the making process.

Today, I intend to share with you surest making process they followed. If you want to be rich, start a business in a field that will explode in 5, 10 years from now. I know it doesn't sound motivating or like the usual stuff we come across. But it's the plain proven truth. I didn't propound it. Look at the biggest auto dealers in Nigeria, they started when buying a car wasn't a rave thing. Microsoft started when market estimate of its industry was very low, no one even thought they would amount to anything and, on top of that, the two founders were just beside the teenage lines (19 years old and 21 years old). Now one of them is the richest in the world. Apple started when no one knew what personal computers were. No one saw a need for their products. Now everyone wants an iPhone and a Mac. Dangote didn't start when the sky was clearest and the opportunities were overwhelming.

The only tough part is to pick a potential winner. Just like Linda Ikeji did, she started when others were sleeping. Now others are running with all their might and still can't catch her. She became the incumbent, market leader and the MTN. You only need to have an eye for the future, the courage to drag through the dark beginning and the ambition to position yourself at the forefront of the field you are playing. And with God smiling at you, you'll become very rich.

Last year I bought this book published by Harvard Business Review. It has a lot of positive reviews and well recommended by many people for business (would be) owners.

The idea the book is based on is that to beat your competition you have to make them irrelevant, you have to expand your product offerings to uncontested markets. This, they called blue ocean.

You can create a blue ocean strategy by unlocking a new market segment that your competition isn't playing in. An example they gave of a real business that did this is Cirque du Soleil, a circus/entertainment firm based in Canada but took over the world by targeting the non-usual customers the industry caters for. They unlocked a new market space.

Another way to create a blue ocean strategy is to innovate, make products that have no competition or far better than the competitions'. A clear example of a company doing this is Google. Some of us don't even know that there used to be AltaVista search, Yahoo search, MSN search and AOL search. Most of them are still around but everyone is now uses Google search. As the street will say, Google changed it for all of them.

When you don't create a blue ocean strategy, you are forced to compete in a crowded space and at the mercy of sharks. They called that market space a red ocean. You will be basically doing what everyone else is doing, maybe trying to do it slightly better or slightly cheaper. Your main strategy will be to slowly grow your share and when the market is hyper-saturated, it becomes a strategy to keep your market share.

I found the book full of very valuable and actionable ideas about business strategy. The authors are professors and did lots of research to uncover the concepts they shared in the book.

If you currently manage a business or are looking to own a business someday, this is one of the books you should have on your must-read list.

image: proflyboard.com

Oftentimes, a winning idea is not a new idea; it is the combination of several old ideas in a new way. And that is the way I view things. I am always trying out new things even when I don't see what the likely end will be; my mindset is one of expanding my mind and detecting winning combinations of ordinary ideas.

That is why if you read my blog posts, you can't predict what I'll write about. My interest is close to boundless and I follow it.

This week I have been doing a lot of research on improving my forex trading strategy and learning binary options trading. Binary options trading is a newer alternative to forex trading. It took me a while wrap my head around it. I once opened a binary trading account last year but abandoned it as I didn't fully understand how it works. But yesterday, I gave it some serious reading.

Surprisingly, it is easier and simpler than forex trading. And I have decided to test the waters there with real money. I have opened an account with about 6 different brokers, will pick the best (specifically, the most Nigeria friendly as I don't want to hear stories/restrictions when I want to withdraw my money). 

And as usual, I will use a robot. Already signed up for two auto-trading robots. Will use the best (for me and my situation). I don't have time to do anything outside my core business -- business data analysis. It's because the auto-trading robot worked well for my forex trading that I am opening the binary options account with the intention of handing it over completely to a robot.

And for people who are confused about the difference between forex and binary options, I have copied here the best detailed explanation I could find online while doing my own research. I will be sure to share how it all turns out in maybe a year.



From: http://www.forexcrunch.com/binary-options-vs-forex/ 

DEFINITION

Forex definition: When trading Forex you are speculating that the value of one currency will increase or decrease compared to another, in an attempt to make a profit. For example: The current price of EUR/USD is 1.30850 and you think the price will increase in the future. You buy 1 lot of EUR/USD and wait for the price to increase to the point where you want to close the trade and realize the profit you want.

Binary Options definition: When trading Binary Options you only have to predict if the price of an asset (for example currency pair or stock) will increase or decrease from its current price over a certain period of time. For example: The current price of EUR/USD is 1.30850 and you think the price will be higher in the next hour. So you place a “Call” option on EUR/USD and wait to see its price 1 hour from now. If your prediction is right you can make a profit of 80% of your investment.


MARGIN

Forex: You can use margin to trade Forex. The maximum margin is determined by each broker, and sometimes can be up to 1:200 or 1:500. Margin allows you to increase your investment capital so you can make a larger trade and make a larger profit if your trade is a winning one.

Binary Options: Margin is not used when trading Binary Options. You can still make a large return on your investment (up to 80% or sometimes 400%), so Binary Options are still very attractive for traders. The good news is that you can never get a margin call.



PAYOUT & LOSSES

Forex: With Forex you never know what is the maximum profit you can make on a trade. You can set a limit or stop order so that you can be guaranteed a certain percentage profit if the limit or stop is executed. The losses in Forex can be managed with limit/stop orders, the same way profits are managed. The maximum loss with Forex may be all of the money in your trading account.

Binary Options: Before you make your trade you will know exactly what is the payout and loss return percentage that you will get for the particular option, when it expires. Some brokers offer payouts up to 80% or sometimes 400% depending on the option traded. This means that if you invest $500 on an option and the payout is 80%, you will make $400 profit if the option is a winning one. Some brokers don’t offer “loss back”, which means that if your option trade is a losing one, you will lose the amount you invested in the trade, but not more.


CLOSING A POSITION

Forex: You choose when to close the position. You can close your position anytime the market is open and the broker has to accept and execute the order.

Binary Options: Before you make your trade you have to select when you want the option to expire (example: 1 hour or 1 week from now) – at the “expiry time” your trade will close automatically. The broker offers you different types of options with predetermined expiry times. Some brokers allow you to close your trade early, but you will exit your option at a percentage of the expected return. The “early closure” option is not offered by all brokers, and might not be available during the whole time the trade is active. Another important point to mention is that some brokers allow traders to delay the expiry time, to the next expiry time. This is called “Rollover” and the traders will need to increase their investment by a certain percentage, sometimes 30% in order to be able to do this.


ORDER TYPES

Forex: There are a variety of order types in Forex. The most important ones are the market (Buy/Sell) orders. Also there are more advanced orders such as: Limit, Stop, OCO (One Cancels the Other), Trailing Stop, Hedge orders, and others.

Binary Options: There are about five Binary Options types which you can trade. They include: High/Low (also referred to as: Call/Put or Up/Down), 60 Seconds Options, Touch/No Touch Options, Boundary Options, and Option Builder.


TRADE SIZE

Forex: Some brokers allow you to trade micro lots, which is 1,000 units of the base currency in a Forex trade. The maximum trading amount is determined by each broker, and can be up as high as 100 standard lots or $10,000,000.

Binary Options: Each Binary Options broker determines what is the minimum and maximum trading size for its clients. Sometimes the minimum trading amount can be as low as $5 per trade, and the maximum can be up to $1,000 or $5,000 or more.


TRADING COSTS

Forex: When trading Forex you have to consider what are the spreads and rollover/swap, and if there are any commissions.

Binary Options: There are no spreads, rollover/swap or commissions when trading Binary Options.



From: http://www.forexcrunch.com/binary-options-vs-forex/ 

image: themanufacturer.com

On TV, on radio and on newspapers, I keep hearing people say the increased dollar rate and oil price slump will help us develop our manufacturing industry and export more. This is not true on a national basis.

If you have a Cocoa plantation, it will be true for you. If you already manufacture something exportable and already have the resources and experience, then you'll benefit from the high dollar rate. So in the end, it's mostly the businesses already exporting their products before the Naira fell who will benefit from the current situation. People like me and you can't suddenly plug in to benefit, and we constitute the majority.

A significantly big business needs three things to exist profitably:

• scale via expensive equipment/plant
• huge initial capital investment
• production/industry experience (there's always a learning curve)

Even if you find a way to overcome the first two hurdles in time to capture the potential gain available in our current situation, the third one can't be acquired in a rush. We can't suddenly start producing all the products we import because it takes more than just a market opportunity and financial resources (which isn't in abundance anymore) to competitively produce for the international market. You need, at least, years to be a competent enough producer. That is why Omatek and Zinox aren't making any wave globally.

We have the resources to manufacture most of what we import, the problem is that we don't have people willing to go through the learning curve and sink in a huge capital to do things on a big scale level. So we keep importing matches (matchsticks), maths sets, cloth materials, sticky notes, toys, and cars. 

The only business you can start almost immediately and plug in to gain the potential opened by our current situation is the commodity export market. Especially the agricultural commodities. Then again, to achieve significant increased agricultural exports we will need a lot of new mechanized large scale farms. And that in itself is a big roadblock. You would need to import the tractors and large scale farming equipment, and their prices would have gone up crazily due to the dollar rate. Then to export the types of products that attract high international attention, you will need years to go from planting to harvest. Cocoa, coffee beans, oil palms and those export worthy products aren't a 6 months from seeds to maturity products. Some take close to a decade. Why would you go that route when it's obvious that the opportunity is now and you aren't sure of years from now?

And as for the appliances we import, they will take us years of learning and setting up to manufacture technically okay and cost effective ones that can compete on the global market. We can't just start buying made in Nigeria smartphones, cars, TVs, ACs, fridges, DVDs, and ceiling fans. There are no made in Nigeria ones. And it will take years, even if we put in the deliberate effort and financial resource to create industries that will produce those products. 

So we are mistaken if we think the high dollar rate is an economic blessing. It is not. The things we need to do are still same as 10, 20 years ago. Real development is deliberate, strategic and involve capital investment. It is not by talking or senate discussions or CBN policies or legislative laws that real development happens. They are catalysts and all useless if there is no physical medium to act on.

The only way to be a better economy is to do more of the right things. We can't keep doing the same things and expect different results. Talking is never action. We can change our talk, the EFCC's talk and the legislator's talk as much as we want but if we don't do the tangible things that need be done, if we don't bend down to tilt our ground and plant the seeds, that harvest we are all talking about and wishing for will remain a wish.

If we want to increase export then we have to produce more of what the world will buy. If we want to diversify our economy then we have to update our education system to equip people with relevant and creative skills, while creating research labs and the companies that will build the new industries we want to diversify to. Whatever we want we have to create it through serious work.

The change in dollar rate is simply a reflection of how well the US economy is doing compared to ours. And as long as we stand still or slide backwards while they are speeding forward, no CBN policy or Buhari magic will reverse the trend.

When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you. 

It is not that we don't do enough good things, it is the bad things that draw us back. And we do more bad things than we readily accept. I suspect it's because we think in absolute bad and absolute good. We consider our actions in isolation, detached from circumstances around them. 

A simple example is if I give you a million Naira. The common perception will be that I have done a good thing. What if it was profit from a business deal we both made happen and I withheld 99 million Naira? Now the common perception will be reversed: I must be very terrible and have done a bad thing. Then what if the original agreement was that I give N500,000? Now the perception with be turned 180 degrees again. 

The simple truth is good and bad are relative. Few actions in themselves are good or bad, they are always relative to the circumstances within which they happened. So when I say it's the bad things we do that stand in the way of our progress and often drag us back, I mean things that could, would, have been good under other circumstances and by common perception. 

It's like a boy quitting school to help his dad in the farm. Under common perception he has a noble heart and is doing a good thing. But the truth is he would be better able to help his dad if he finished school and get enough earning and brain power to completely lift both his dad's life and the farm. And it's those sort of bad things that hinder us in life. The misplaced sacrifices we make and think good. The bad things we do because common perception deems them good. The economic losses we incur while pursuing financial gain. The opportunity cost that is thrice the nominal cost and well hidden. 

Whenever we pursue the wrong things, whenever we fill our lives with too many irrelevant activities, unknowingly we are denying the right things a chance of coming our way.

Life is not a lottery machine where the more you try the closer you are to winning. Life is more like a chess game and benefits more from sound strategy than brute force. The man who is everywhere and taking a lottery like approach to life will definitely make some winnings and probably be better than someone else not making any effort. But it is the guy with a sound strategy who will own that lottery machine.

I don't mean we should put God aside. I like how one of my lecturers in FUTA used to say it: "On the last day some people will expect God to be sympathetic with them for having gone through life being bashed here and there and thrown against all sorts of waves. God will only judge us based on his already plain principles but won't sympathize with us on matters that he had equipped us well enough to handle. He will tell them to feel the weighty ball-like structure on their neck and ask if he had put it there for decoration or for judicious use." 

Just as no parent will pet a child who comes back from school hungry despite having been well kitted with filled lunchbox and cash enough to get a good meal + snacks, but chose to let the food in the lunchbox spoil and leave the money untouched. In fact, a good parent will chide the child. We shouldn't expect God to give us a brain and enough examples of how creatively he desires us to use it, and then we expect his sympathy when we chose to not use it. 

I mean never bring God so low in your thoughts that you consider your brain his competition. Rather use your brain for all He would want you to. Not like someone who doesn't have one but like someone equipped with a very good one. Be deliberate in what you pursue. Be focused and strategic. Don't build your dream on luck or by scattering yourself everywhere. 

When you stop pursuing the wrong things, you give the right things chance to catch you. 

image: forexsignalprovider.com

Yesterday, I met a forex guru who owns his own forex trading company. He came for a digital and social media marketing class I am facilitating, with the hope of growing his company's reach using the skills he'll get at the training.

And being a smart guy, I made sure I got some advice from him on how to make more from my forex account. I showed him my forex trade strategy and trade history. He taught me how to export the trade history, take them to Excel and do whatever analytical magic I want to do. 

We found out that I did about 200 trades last year and turned a decent profit. Then he said if I had enabled a trade rebate, I would have gotten a lot more profit going by my trade records. He advised me to call my broker and request they enable trade rebate for my account.

I didn't waste anytime; it was time to wish my account manager happy new year. I called him and talked a lot of by-the-way stuffs before getting to the very reason for my call. He asked me to send him my InstaForex account number and that he would activate it immediately for me.

Then I also went into my forex account settings and enabled extra potential profit generating features. I joined the InstaForex PAMM-trader platform, so InstaForex can publicize my trade account performance and allow people to give me money to invest for them with profit share. I also joined the ForexCopy platform that allows me to copy other traders winning strategy and let them copy mine (with some profit share coming back to me).

I am still testing the waters with funds I am okay to lose. And as the guru guy was impressed by the performance of my Forex Robot, I don't do trades myself. Everything is on autopilot. Once I am confident of the settings and strategy I configured for the robot, and it's making significant profit, I will put in more money and expect it to grow while I am busy with the other stuffs in my life.

image: dotcomdecoded.com

Everyday I make money online. It is not so much, ranging from $120 to $800 monthly. And that is not factoring in the offline opportunities I get from my online activities.

So what are the creative ways you can open yourself up for extra income online?

1. Sell your service online. Whatever service you can render, have it listed on Jiji.ng, olx.com and ady.ng. And if it involves selling a product, then get a seller page on Konga.com and Kaymu.com. Every week I get calls from people wanting to buy iTunes card. All I did was to list it online: on a few websites comment section, Nairaland.com and Konga.com The gain is not so much but it's easy and quick. 
2. Sell your expertise online. This is my main source of offline business income. Most of our clients found us online and it's because I sold my expertise online. I made it easy for people to find me when they search for services I render and training we conduct. You don't even need to have a website or do paid adverts, just post about your service/expertise on Nairaland.com and other popular forums and you'll soon start getting a few enquiries. Then if you really want to take things big, set up a website and social media accounts. Do paid adverts to targeted audience and you'll be getting calls almost daily.
3. Have a blog. Posting articles online, on your own blog/platform, gives you two things: publicity and opportunities. And if you give out valuable information, people will reach out to you for business and you can earn from adverts on your blog. The truth in my case is that I wouldn't have started my own business if not for the opportunities my blog brought me. In form of valuable friends, clients and exposure to digital marketing. These are assets that I am now monetizing. 
4. Social media promotion. If you are great with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, then you can make money from your time there. In my case, I created non-personal accounts and grew them to thousands of followers. Currently, my non-personal twitter account has over 55,800 followers. I use them to promote services, products and adverts for other companies. It's a nice way to get something back for all the time and internet subscription money used up in your social media activities.
5. Publish an ebook. I make money monthly from the sales of my ebook on Excel. Imagine if it had been on something more popular or interesting. It encouraged me to hasten work on my novel because now I have tasted the reality of publishing and selling a book online.
6. Create an online training course. This is definitely not easy and may not be enticing to most people but if you are up to it then you should do it. I have made over $300 from my online training course despite giving out a lot of free coupons, setting the price ridiculously low, and having to do 50 - 50 revenue share with Udemy. And it's money that comes while you are busy with other things or even sleeping.

And those are the creative ways I have been making money online and you can consider using too.

image: flickr.com

There are things that can't be planned from start to finish, taking care of all the intricate details. Life, itself, is one of those things.

Everyday I tell myself that everything changes when I take a step. And it is not a fancy new talk but something I have been experiencing for a long time now but didn't know how to explain it until my programming jobs/projects recently opened my eyes to its explanation.

I have been thinking strategically about my business and how to build a global company, one that can impressively take on the world like the US companies are doing. I figured out that since a company like Whatsapp that has almost all its assets as a program/code is worth way more than Turkish Airlines with its fleet of aircraft and physical assets, and it's same with companies like Google and Facebook valued at way more than the companies we typically consider when we think of the biggest companies. Companies like ExxonMobil that builds a city for its workers and people give testimony in church when they get a job there. So why are they valued more even though most of all they have are computer codes? I don't know but one thing is very clear: computer codes are worth more than aircrafts, oil platforms and even skyscrapers.

And as I am just starting and free to pick where to play. I am choosing to play in the computer code world. So I am gradually letting go of training services and consulting services to focus on building web applications. Something more useful than Whatsapp. So I have been dedicating more time to improving my coding skill and focusing more on programming jobs.

One thing about programming is that you can only set what the final product should be like and work like but you can't plan how long it will take you to get it done or the very exact steps you will take to get there. I have tried a couple of times to plan out the milestones and steps I will take in getting a client job done but time and time again I find out that for every significant line of code I write everything changes. New problems/behaviours crop up and the problems I was expecting (and spent huge planning time on how to fix) don't even show up.

Once I take a step forward, everything changes. I no longer do even a wireframe of my program. I just dive in and start working. And I now understand why Henry Mintzberg, a renowned professor of management and expert on corporate strategy, said that in our professional lives we are all like a potter (a craftsman). Our best works are not the planned ones but the ones we are sensitive enough to notice that everything changes after each spin of the clay, and make the most of each new reality.

So everyday I tell myself to be more observant and notice how everything changes when I take a step.

image: fontsinuse.com

I've got an interesting theory. No, it's not about Dasuki and the $2 billion. No, it's not about Buhari and PDP. No, it's not about CBN and the dollar rate. In fact, it's not about anything you would you expect. 

My interesting theory has its roots in heartbreaks. It is the cause of most heartbreaks. It is why we love and are not loved back. It is why we are shown the most care by the people we avoid and are avoided by the people we most crave attention of. 

The crudest form of this theory dates back to a few centuries before Christ. Documented by Plato. Propounded by Socrates that it is what we are denied we most long for. He argued that a particular Greek god that demanded the most beautiful lady in the land be given to him as a priestess must be ugly. That the only reason he would be very particular about having the most beautiful is because it is the one thing he greatly longs for and thus something he lacks. It seemed he annoyed the priests and elders with this and his other theories. They sentenced him to death by poisoning. But his theories have been updated numerous times and patched for this modern times. 

You will hear people talk about short men mostly marrying tall women. Fat women marrying thin men. Charcoal black men marrying yellow women. Easy and weak willed men marrying difficult and strong willed women. That people don't look for what they already have in others.

Today, I have come with another modified version. And it is that people don't die for the people who would die for them. Politicians will never die for the people who die for them. Only soldiers die for a fellow soldier and can be sure the reverse was possible, but it's done majorly out of a sense of duty and not love. Even in a small nuclear family, love is never given back in the same amount. The most loved is often the most irresponsible and non-responsive to that love. For some baffling reason we show care more towards the very people who don't hide how little they care about us. 

It's the main cause of heartbreaks. One person loves another too much, and as is the usual case, the other is not aware or chooses not to care. Then if the one person is bold and transparent about his non-mutual love, one of two things happen: out of pity the other conditions herself to love back or out of frustration she acquires a hatred as intense as his love. 

Remember, this is an interesting theory. One against love. That people won't love you if they can help it, and if they can it is because they want to be very kind to you. The choice of who you fall in love with is outside your control and the moment it falls within your control it's because you are trying to help the object of your love. 

There are exceptions. The very lucky ones. 

People win lottery of huge amount of money. People inherit wealth. People hit jackpots and get wealthy in an instant. But I have never heard of anyone suddenly acquire knowledge in an instant. No one has suddenly become a doctor in a lottery fashion. No one has become a successful business manager in an instant by inheritance.

When you think about it, money is way much easier to acquire than useful knowledge. That's why people sometimes become robbers because they know they can acquire wealth in an instant. But as for education (useful knowledge) you must commit years of studying and practice/hardwork to acquire it. You can't win it in a lottery. You can't inherit it. You can't suddenly come about it.

Then there is the more interesting part to it. If you are very deliberate about your education and sensible, you won't have to struggle too hard to get all the money you want. You leverage your knowledge to generate money. And knowledge make you live a more interesting life, have a more respected opinion, and feel more at ease among the high class (be it the super-rich or the highly educated).

When people go from rags to riches, it is usually on the wings of the valuable knowledge they acquired. And when people go from grace to grass, the ones who originally rose by having valuable knowledge always bounce back.

In all ways, it is always better to prioritize useful knowledge over money.

image: appliedalliance.wordpress.com

I see too many people who don't have enough belief in themselves. They are constantly letting others push them around. They work hard but not for themselves.

When you have ideals that have been pushed on you. When you do things that the only reason you have for doing is because that is what is expected of you. When you don't value the results of examining your life, the path you are on, the principles you uphold, the values you have and the very thoughts that occupy your mind; then you are not having enough belief in yourself. Be deliberate in your actions, especially as it regards the course of your life.

Don't confuse it with being ungodly or being self-centered. On the contrary, it helps you become more true to your belief in God. You no longer blindly follow the masses or popular opinion. The best Christians aren't ones with an autopilot life. They are the ones deliberate in their service to God and their fellow humans. They are the ones who have genuinely chosen the godly path because they truly believe in it and not because it is what everyone around them is doing. 

When you value your life beyond just ticking the boxes on someone else's list or living up to some vague societal ideal, then you will begin to have genuine values and well thought-out principles. You will be more careful about the path you follow. You will be more happy with your life and have a sound relationship with God (hopefully, if that's what you choose). God forbid that you choose to live an ungodly life, but at least you won't be a hypocrite. You won't say one thing and act another just to please the society.

If we all have enough belief in ourselves the world will become more bearable for us all; we will all know all the good people and the bad people. We will know more accurately how close to the end of the world we are. We won't need to have complex and always changing methods of finding out the truth about people. And most economically beneficial of all, people will be less wasteful in their actions and speech. They will do only the things they are genuinely convinced of.