In last week’s article we talked about manufacturing and writing as paths to financial freedom. In this week’s article I’ll finalise with vlogging and creating.

Vlogging

Vlogging is video logging, basically creating videos and uploading them to the internet. You can inspire people more powerfully through vlogs than through blogs (text-based web logs).

Most of us lack confidence in front of the camera. We are a shy, timid bunch and the prospect of going in front of the camera invariably makes us think of the public shame!

Everyone feels embarrassed about doing videos the first time. I was too although I am lucky in that I don't care about getting embarrassed. I am secure in the knowledge that if someone laughs at me it doesn’t matter or I will get the last laugh, sooner or later!

I posted my first ever video to YouTube on 3 January 2011. The video was entitled Chichewa 101.01. I expected no one to ever watch the video and was happy with that because I just wanted to teach my husband the language. Uploading to the internet was simply the best way to remain accountable to our planned schedule.

What turned out to be “just for fun” ended up being a sensation resulting in a book that has been very well reviewed on Amazon and is regularly purchased.

The initial Chichewa 101.01 video has been watched over 12,000 times to-date and continues to make me money through YouTube ads. Oh yes, did I forget to mention that Google (the owner of YouTube) pays you when your videos gets lots of views?

If I wanted to, I could create an online video library and charge subscribers a monthly subscription to watch the videos. I just might do that but I'm too busy working on other projects right now. Perhaps that will be a 2015 project.

What sort of videos could you create? My experience with Chichewa 101 showed me that you can monetize anything that you know. If you don't know something then you can learn it and create videos as you learn, that's how my natural hair brand Neno Natural was born. It is now a global brand with a majority US following.

I don't own a warehouse; I use third party services to fulfill my orders. I don't own a factory, I used third-party manufacturers to get my products made. My business is set up such that I can be anywhere in the world provided that place has a reliable internet connection.

The whole basis of my business is content production. I write, (I write a lot) and despite all my misgivings I produce videos. Sometimes I can't rewatch my videos without cringing but I continue to produce them nonetheless. Then I syndicate all my content – writing, videos, podcasts – through the social networks to the world.

Content Production

The world is everyone's oyster. The only thing that stands between you and financial freedom is content production. Produce more than you consume and the treasures of the world will reveal themselves to you.

If you are an artist or someone that creates beautiful things with your hands, showcase them through blogs and vlogs. You have no idea who will discover you and want to hire you. That is how the world works now: people use the internet to find things that they like and if you are not there you aren’t giving the world the opportunity to discover your talent and essentially fund your path to financial freedom.

It has been a great pleasure writing for you, and I thank the Editor for the opportunity. I will always treasure the 18-month experience and I look forward to producing one-off articles for the FeMail team as I continue mapping my way to financial freedom.

“A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.” – Suze Orman

For inspirational quotes follow @Getting2Wealthy on twitter.

Dear reader, this is my penultimate weekly article writing for you. Unfortunately success with my business means that I have more demands on my time and have to give up some activities even those that I thoroughly enjoy such as this column.

Based on a poll on my Facebook page a regular reader suggested I write an article summarizing all the ways in which one can attain financial freedom. This as you know is not a small topic and as such requires two articles.

First, let's define financial freedom so we are all on the same page. If you can stop working today and have enough income coming through from all your investments to sustain your lifestyle – you have financial freedom. I would add that if you can attain that with a mere half-day of work per week then you are pretty financially free also!

Most people will never attain this. They will struggle daily until the day they die. It is sad but unfortunately true. The difference between enjoying financial freedom and remaining a life-long member of the rat race is strategy coupled with action.

I know some are thinking this is completely unrealistic for the poorest of the poor but I personally do not believe that to be true. Poverty makes it a lot more challenging, yes, but people who have worked their way out of poverty show it is more than possible. What makes it less possible is that many people limit their thinking to their current circumstances. They can’t conceive a life different to what they have and it’s a fact of life that if you can’t conceive it in your mind, you almost certainly will not achieve it in reality.

We now live in a world where you can make money from a wide variety of activities.

A lot of Malawians remain stuck thinking that just because they live in Malawi they can only make a living or grow a business based on the local market. When we have ideas they are usually agricultural based because that is the resource that we see as being readily available. This is natural, however, in this article I will dare to allow you to think that the world market is your oyster. I dare you to think that a girl or guy in Turkey, Russia, Indonesia or Australia is out there waiting to buy your product.

So what businesses or avenues can you use as a platform toward financial freedom?

Manufacturing

Make something. Something for us to eat, wear, be entertained by or look at. It's a lot cheaper than you think to conceive an idea and make it a reality. If it's a machine that you need then China and India are waiting to make the machine for you.

In addition to the internet hosting the likes of Facebook and Twitter you will also find e-commerce sites for people that want to source products, for example alibaba.com.

How many times in the last year have you paid alibaba.com a visit and toyed around with either buying a machine or getting a ready-made product manufactured and sent to you?

Something for you to do tonight: go to alibaba.com and start surfing the site. Look at all the different machinery and products you can procure; contact a few manufacturers for pricing. It costs you nothing and it will help you to start thinking about your possibilities.

Writing

Writing on its own does not make you rich. The authority that you gain from writing prolifically is what leads to wealth. Even if you are covering a topic that has been covered a multitude of times by other writers, they weren't you. You can put your own spin on anything.

However, what sort of writing gets a large following? Common interest topics: beauty, hair, makeup, fashion, sex, life stories.

I know many of us may not consider these genres as “professional”. Perhaps mummy or daddy always wanted you to do law, medicine, economics or some other such thing.

Well, if it’s your parents or society at large you would like to impress then you should go for a more esoteric topic. There will definitely be an audience for your writing but a much smaller one.

The smart thing to do would be to put a common interest spin on a “professional” topic. For instance, write about how people get screwed over in divorce proceedings to develop a following that buys your services as a lawyer. If you can digest the legalese of a divorce case into a sensational, easy-to-read story, you are on to a winner. Write about hospital horrors you know about to attract patients or buyers for a medical product that you sell.

The writing creates authority and people like to purchase from authority figures.

To get a serious following quickly write at least six times a week. And continue writing that much for at least 12 months. Syndicate your writing via the social networks.

I will discuss two more avenues to financial freedom in next week’s edition, my final article.

“The interesting thing is: if you do it for love, the money comes anyway” – Richard St. John

For inspirational quotes follow @Getting2Wealthy on twitter.

Why is that some people can achieve so much success and get so much done in so little time? Two psychology experiments give us some insight,

“The Marshmallow experiment” by Clinical Psychologist, Walter Mischel.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Walter Mischel carried out experiments on pre-schoolers in which they were awarded:

·      Either one treat now

·      Or two treats when the tester returned after a 15 minute delay

The treats were left right in front of the kids during the tester’s absence. Some were barely able to wait a couple of minutes before they gobbled up the treat whilst others were able to wait considerably longer.

The kids involved in the experiment were tracked into adolescence and adulthood and their life outcomes were startling. Those that managed to wait longer were more successful in many areas of their lives including:

·      Exam scores

·      Educational attainment

·      Weight as measured by Body Mass Index

They were less likely to have been involved in drug use and overall had more successful lives.

What does this mean for your business and your life?

There are going to be distractions, many of them, and your ability to tune them out and focus on your priorities will impact your results.

Commit to specific SMART goals and work towards them. The more self-control you exercise, the more consistent your work and the sooner you will see results.

Importantly, are you teaching your children self-control and how to exercise their willpower. You may think you’re showing them love by pandering to their every whim but you’re really only hampering their long-term success.

“The Memorizing Experiment” by Marketing Professor, Baba Shiv.

In a 1999 experiment Baba Shiv carried out a simple experiment on 165 graduate students.

Half the students were given a 2-digit number to memorize and half a 7-digit number.

The students were then asked to walk to another room where they would recite the number. En route they were offered a treat as a thank you, either a fruit salad or a chocolate cake.

The results were startling: students who were holding a 7-digit number in their head were 50% more likely to accept the chocolate cake.

Their thinking power was being used up by trying to remember the number so they were less likely to choose the healthier snack.

If you think about your brain as having two decision-making areas - a rational thinking brain and an emotional brain - then it makes sense that if your rational centre is busy your emotional centre will take over.

Understanding Willpower

Whilst willpower is an extremely powerful tool everyone has only a limited supply. It will run out at some point. This point was explained best by a consumer psychologist called Kathleen Vohs who said:

“Willpower is like gas in your car. When you resist something tempting, you use some up. The more you resist, the emptier your tank gets, until you run out of gas.”

What does this mean for your business and your life?

Your willpower can be drained by unrelated exercises. Let’s say you’re trying to build a business whilst you’re still in a regular job and you’re dieting at the same time. If you have been resisting food all day by the time you get home your willpower to work on your business may be low. Instead of the three hours of work you have committed to, you might find yourself completely unable to do more than a good 45 minutes.

In summary, the secrets to success are a lot simpler than you might think. Refining your character traits such as willpower, self-control and the formation of good habits plays a much more important role than you realize in your financial and life success.

“The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” Bobby Knight

For inspirational quotes follow @Getting2Wealthy on twitter.

This is a topic of many gossip sessions but it’s time to bring it out in the open.

Women in Malawi have been doing increasingly well in the education system. We have taken education very seriously so much so that now it is not at all uncommon to find a woman making at least as much as her husband. In some cases the wife or girlfriend’s income outstrips her partner’s.

There is nothing innately wrong with this except that many men still feel extremely insecure about the changing dynamics of household finances. Income used to be most men’s only contribution therefore it is no wonder that they feel that their impact is diminished.

Supported Men

In some cases women are fully supporting a man who does not do very much at all. You and I both know of at least one or two cases in which the woman pays all the bills and goes to work whilst her boyfriend drives her car around town at his pleasure. Unfortunately, some of these men are less than faithful but their wives still hold on to them.

Marriage is so valued, and I would say over-valued, in our culture that women stay with a man that isn’t even making them happy anymore. My question is, is it worth the hassle? Is it so much better to be in such a one-sided relationship than to be alone? I personally don’t think so. It’s time we started asking our men to contribute more in different ways.

The Alternative

In the developed world “house husbands” are becoming more and more common but they have a pre-defined role. A house husband does all the traditional jobs of a house wife – cooking, cleaning, shopping for groceries, caring for the kids and managing the day-to-day budget and finances of the home.

There is completely no shame in the role of house husband, although, I will be the first to admit that when I first encountered the situation I thought I could never deal with it. Over time, I have come to value the fact that sometimes it’s the better option and I respect men that are “man enough” to take on the role.

Some house husbands perform the role even where there are no children. A case in point is the millionaire Deborah Meaden of the UK TV show Dragon’s Den. She goes out to make the money and her husband does everything house and home related. They are very happy together and she says she wouldn’t be happy with any other living situation.

In most households though, there are children to be taken care of. I would certainly agree that after children have left the womb there is no real reason why a man cannot look after them as well as a woman. Childcare tasks are not inherently better done by women they have just been traditionally done by them. Breast milk can be expressed and bottled too so that the husband can take care of feeding. I remain quite surprised by the number of my friends that I considered “new-age” but that nonetheless just slipped into the traditional role of wife and mother without asking questions.

I recognise how radical the idea of a house husband will be to many. Indeed, I do not expect any of the current generation to change their practices but I am planting the seed. Perhaps the house husband is too alien for Malawi right now but for your children or your children’s children it could be entirely normal. I personally hope so.

“Housekeeping ain't no joke.” —Louisa May Alcott

For inspirational quotes follow @Getting2Wealthy on twitter.