Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
I recently heard a chat with two young people in their early and mid-20’s and in our conversation somehow we ended up talking about money. While talking about Patience in regards to investing, I used the analogy of African time within the context of Traffic Jam.
One of our biggest causes of traffic jams is indiscipline.
Many road users (Matatu (taxi), other car owners, and the motorcycles commonly known as Boda Boda) are all part of the
traffic jam menace. Such indiscipline isn’t very far, it is something we grow
up with, in high school, when we used to stand on the line to pick food, we had
bullies who would cut the lines and jump to the front just because they wanted
to be ahead of others yet they were very late. Being late normally causes
people to try and use short cuts and that is the norm many of us have grown up
in. Back to traffic jam, we normally say Matatu (taxi) drivers and many road
users use the same tactic of driving ahead, overtaking on the shoulders just
because they want to be ahead, that mentality might seem a savior but in the
long run, it can cost you a life, money and other resources.
I liken late investors to
the kind of road users who wake up late and want to overtake, they are the type
who will go for the get rich quick schemes or investments that seem to be too
good to be true. When things go high wire, we end up hearing stories of how
they crushed ahead, how they knocked another car or how their investments were
a quack and someone run away with their hard-earned or money got on a loan.
On the other hand, I
liken early investors to the type of people who wake up early and want to beat
the jam, such people are always thinking invest early, wake up early to beat
the jam so that you can maximize the early morning time to do other productive
things that bring in more money instead of using shortcuts. It is written that Jacob served(worked) seven years to get Racheal, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her (Genesis 29:20) - When you are focused on your goal and you are patience, getting what you have set to achieve will only seem like a few days, but you have to be PATIENT.
If you are the type who
is already late, it is important to exercise patience, to avoid using
shortcuts, to avoid overtaking cars, because two things can happen, you either
knock others or you get knocked, it is not that you will always be lucky – if you
are late, stick to the line and re-strategize, it is inconveniencing and slow
but you will eventually reach your destination When late, you need to rethink
your decisions for the next day or next investment, doing the right thing at
the right time enables you to seize many opportunities. One of the reasons the
Chinese are very good savers is because they are taught this early, from
childhood, they are taught to envision hard times ahead and to put money aside
for a rainy day. The Chinese have this culture because many of them grew up
facing uncertain times, and their only weapon was early preparation – such values
were passed on to their children.
Warren Buffet once said, "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient" - I also read somewhere on the internet that patience is not just about how long we wait but how we behave while waiting - remember the anecdote of people who overtake while in a traffic jam, they aren't any different from those who look for getting rich quick schemes, you find you have sold land and invested in a quack deal.
We can beat the jam by rising up early, we can beat this money game by starting to invest early, we can avoid getting Get rich quick schemes by investing in the right knowledge and building our financial intelligence. Financial intelligence is built overtime, it is not something you learn overnight – it’s a continuous learning curve
#Transform #Impact #Empower
