Through my little experience in life, I have observed poor people and discovered that all of them have certain things in common. These are the things which I share with you in this piece. I hope that as you read through, you can make a very drastic move away from poverty.
1. YOU ARE BLIND
One major difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich people move with their eyes open while the poor people, with their eyes closed. A big tragedy in life is not that a person does not have eyes but that a person has eyes but cannot see.
Have you ever realized that all the wonderful things you see and make use of were invented by people who looked around and saw a need and thought of how to meet it? If you spend your life just consuming what others produce, you can hardly be rich.
You need to look around and see problems. When you see those problems, see in them an opportunity to meet a need by solving them, and go ahead to meet the need. The richest people in the world today are people who identified a problem, saw an opportunity in it, grabbed it and made riches.
As you walk the streets, don’t just walk pass people and offer them a smile; don’t just see problems and think that the government is failing to meet the needs of her people; don’t just complain that things are not working; look deeper, identify problems that need to be solved, ask yourself what you can do to solve them, put your brain to work and come up with a something. As you solve problems, no matter how small, you must get richer.
2. YOU BLAME THE GOVERNMENT
Another serious problem that poor people have is that they blame the government for everything. This is very common with Africans. I agree that the government has the responsibility to provide the basic needs of her people. I also agree that most governments especially those in Africa, have failed to meet up with their responsibility to provide for their citizens.
Education is expensive, taxes are high, prices of basic commodities are increasing, economies are melting down, there is always inflation, power supply is limited, and roads are nothing to talk about, and so on. These are some very genuine reasons to blame the government and remain poor. But, do you know that in the midst of all these, there are people making it big time?
There are those who have refused to continue expecting anything good from the governments and have determined in their hearts that they will take their futures in their hands and will work hard to make it. These are those who are succeeding today.
Wake up from dreaming. Stop expecting from the government. All they will keep doing is play politics with what belongs to the people. Stand up to your feet and get determined to make it at all cost. Be focused on your dreams and pursue them no matter what it will take.
Think about the achieved footballers of our time. Hardly did anyone know them when they were struggling. Yet they pursued their dreams and today are being celebrated for their achievements. Be determined in your heart that the world will someday celebrate you and work hard at it. I bet you that with or without the government, you will get there.
3. YOU MAKE EXCUSES
Have you ever met people who have excuses and reasons to defend their failures? Such people never amount to anything. It is either their parents didn’t send them to school, or their school fees was not paid, or they lost their sponsor, or their money was stolen, or they don’t have someone to help them, or they can’t speak English well, or they don’t have a god-father, or nobody cares for them, or God hates them, and so on. In fact, such people even prepare their excuses before the failure comes. And so they never take responsibility for their failures.
One big step towards success in life is to begin blaming yourself for everything negative that happens to you. But a bigger step is to forget about laying blames and making excuses but think of how to work on your errors.
You can’t amount to anything when you waste all your energy dwelling on your errors. Use it to face your future and see what happens. Stop making excuses for why you are not where you ought to be. Challenge yourself and rise up. The moment I conquered this habit of making excuses, I saw the difference.
4. YOU ARE LAZY
Do you know that the natural human tendency is to be lazy? Our body naturally wants to be comfortable and pampered. It does not love to be strained. Unfortunately, if we decide to treat our body the way it desires to be treated, we will become poor. No doubt the Bible talks a lot about poverty in the book of Proverbs and when it talks about it, it attributes it to sleep, sluggishness and laziness.
You are lazy if you sleep too much. You are lazy if you spend long hours doing nothing very useful. You are lazy if it doesn’t disturb you when you have to rely on others always for your needs to be met. You are lazy if you go for months without engaging yourself to doing something profitable.
You are lazy when you postpone things you could do today, for another day. You are lazy when you go about looking for easy ways to make wealth. It is easy to scam lazy people because they want to hear that they can make so much money without doing anything serious.
Laziness is a thief. It steals the most precious resources we have. It steals time, money and our future. It steals our life. People make it in the USA, UK, Japan, Germany and other countries not because there is money on the streets to pick. They work hard and are always busy. Some of them do up to three jobs just to meet up.
Don’t smile with the tendency of laziness. Fight it out of you at all cost. Give it no room to get hold of you. If you conquer laziness, you can never be poor. But remember that it is by far more rewarding to engage your brain to work than your hands.
5. YOU ARE IGNORANT
Have you ever heard the saying that information is power? Or knowledge is power? These are true sayings. Someone says that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance and see which is more expensive. When you don’t know, you don’t have. Information brings knowledge and knowledge brings light into a person’s life.
Whenever I talk to people about information and knowledge, I tell them that the poorest people I know in the world are ignorant people. That is why the biggest way to bring development to any place is to bring education. When people are educated, they are informed and when they use the information properly, they can never be poor.
The world of today is in the Information Technology (I.T.) age and there is no way anyone can be uninformed and not feel outdated. You go to some places and when people are talking, you feel ashamed because you don’t understand anything they are saying.
When you go around ignorantly, you by-pass opportunities without knowing and so remain poor. Wake up and get informed. Read books, listen to CDs, attend seminars, interact with important people, etc. and you will be informed. Work on your information streams.
6. YOU MISMANAGE RESOURCES
Everybody that lives on the surface of the earth is blessed with resources. One great resource that we are equally blessed with is time. Nobody has more time than another. We all have 24 hours each day to use.
Another resource that we all have is talents. There is no body that is not gifted or talented in one thing or the other. Some of us can speak so well, others can write, others can sing, others are wonderful with figures, others are great at making people laugh, and others are very good at convincing people, and so on.
Another resource we have is opportunities. Everyone has opportunities. Some of us by-pass them without noticing while others meet them unprepared. Those who meet them, recognize them and grab them, are made.
Think about the footballers, comedians, actors/actresses, motivational speakers, business men/ women, models, writers, etc. They are rich and today you admire them and want to be like them. Many of them are from poor backgrounds. Yet they realized that if they would become anything, they will need to discover the resources they have and manage them well.
When you think about resources, don’t think of money. Think of all the time, talents and opportunities you have and how you can manage them to bring you the wealth you desire. If you manage them well, you will make money and this will be an added resource to you. When you start making money, you will need to manage it well and together with all the other resources you have, you will grow into much wealth.
If you understand these six issues very well and work on them in your life, you will never be poor.
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by Kadzem Claude
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