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The Capacity Manifesto
Capacity – The ability to do!
By
George Nachamba

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The Capacity Manifesto. Copyright 2015 by George Nachamba. This book is distributed free as a gift
for readers and should not be offered for sale unless by the express permission of the author. For
information, contact
George Nachamba
20 Rossal Road
Greendale
Harare
Zimbabwe
Email - info@georgenachamba.com
Website - www.georgenachamba.com
Contact Number - +263(0)782 300686
ISBN – 978-0-7974-6605-0

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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my family and other close associates for enduring my speeches and thoughts
regarding the subject matter of this book over the past year. Thanks to my wife for the editing.
I would also like to acknowledge Robert Kiyosaki’s book the Cashflow Quadrant which guided the
structure of part of this book.

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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................................5
Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................................................7
IT’S A HARD KNOCK LIFE....................................................................................................................................7
Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................................................11
INTERNALISATION ...........................................................................................................................................11
Chapter 3 .............................................................................................................................................................14
CONTEXTUALISATION......................................................................................................................................14
Chapter 4 .............................................................................................................................................................15
CAPACITY .........................................................................................................................................................15
Chapter 5 .............................................................................................................................................................17
EMPLOYED .......................................................................................................................................................17
Chapter 7 .............................................................................................................................................................23
BUSINESS PERSON ...........................................................................................................................................23
Chapter 8 .............................................................................................................................................................26
ENTREPRENEUR ...............................................................................................................................................26
Chapter 9 .............................................................................................................................................................28
INVESTOR.........................................................................................................................................................28
Chapter 10 ..........................................................................................................................................................30
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................................30

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INTRODUCTION
Historical context
I lived in England for about a year and a half. During that time, I realised that their system was geared
in such a way that favoured the locals first, other Europeans second and Africans were in the last and
bottom group. If you are African, despite your level of education or experience, the system generally
does not ‘trust’ African professionals experience and we tend to be placed at the bottom. For example,
the menial, low paying jobs are where Africans can find easier employment. The higher up you try to
go, you are told you don’t have enough British experience; even with international or British
qualifications and you have worked for a multinational. Even if you do get into a job that is
commensurate with your qualifications, you will be placed below British and Europeans citizens with
less experience and sometime less or the same level of qualifications as you.
It might seem I have an issue with the British, but to the opposite is true. I am actually quite grateful
for the experience. My eyes were opened. I got to understand the true fundamentals of self-
preservation. If I was in their shoes, I would do the same. Its human nature. First I take care of myself
and my own, then those closest to me and so forth. As Africans, we must understand and accept the
fact that non-Africans generally do things for Africans as long as there is some benefit to them. There
is no such thing as a free lunch.
In Shona there is a saying that goes, “Anemari ndiye mukuru”. The translation is, “He who has the
money is the boss”. As Africans, we must wake up to the fact that if we want to be treated with respect
by other peoples, we need to make our own impressive achievements, generate comparable if not
more wealth which is inclusive of all our peoples and raise the standard of life that others from other
parts of the world can admire. For example, the West has issues with China as regards their human
rights record. Despite all this nothing significant has ever been done by the Western countries. With
lesser countries, punitive measures would have been put in place by the West, but in this instance,
they just made noise but basically did nothing. Why? The simple reason was that doing so would have
backfired on their own (West) pockets for reasons below;
1. China is the biggest lender to the USA. China could have called in their loans and a crisis would
have ended up in America’s back yard.
2. China is a very important market for Western companies and making such a move would hurt
them financially as doing so would jeopardise their interests in that country.
3. Most manufacturing is now being done in China and antagonising the Chinese could halt lines
of supply and again hurt their own business.
Yes we can cry double standards and all that. But we need to keep perspective. The West made these
decisions looking out for number one, themselves. The reality is that Africa needs to do the same as
China did. Economically empower itself to improve the standard of life for all its people, not just a
handful. Then;
1. Africans won’t push to go to other people’s countries in the west to find a good standard of
living.
2. All other peoples will approach Africans with respect (or call it fear like with China), as we can
bargain and negotiate on an equal footing. If you have nothing to offer, then others will
approach you without respect! And respect is earned, we should never fool ourselves that
others will respect us just because we say we deserve respect.

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The game changer
Looking at the wealthiest countries in the world, they are not necessarily the most mineral rich. A
major part of their wealth is generated through industries that their citizens started at some point in
time. Companies like Apple in the USA, Unilever in the UK, Samsung in South Korea and Huawei in
China are not resource based companies, but they are major contributors to the wealth of their
countries. Wealth is created first and foremost by a country’s human resource base. Even for resource
rich countries, to extract value from those resources still needs expert and able human resource input.
Real wealth is based on the ability of human capital. As Africans, we need to seriously embrace this
fact and start investing heavily in our human resource capacity.
Why The Capacity Manifesto?
Inventions that have improved the standards of life are created by people. Government institutions,
private companies and other kinds of organisations that govern or provide livelihoods for humankind
are run by people. The more capable the people, the better the organisations are run. Therefore to
develop humankind, develop man. If people are adequately capacitated they can achieve great things,
which then results in development and advancement of human kind.
In Africa there has been a drive to develop businesses, the focus mostly on SMEs (Small to Medium
sized Enterprises). In trying to play my part in this endeavour, I wrote a business advisory book called
The Eight Platforms of Business Success. After some years running a financial management
consultancy, I started wondering why some businesses were failing, whilst others did some things well
and other things badly and a third set of businesses did pretty much most things well and flourished?
All in the same environment. I came to the conclusion that it was due to two things;
1. The presence of certain systems and the good management of these will ensure that a
business or organisation has a firm base to ensure survival. These conditions are set out in my
book entitled ‘The Eight Platforms for Business Success’.i
2. The capacity of the people who run the business to manage it to success.
So I wrote a book on the eight platforms targeted at the people who wanted to start a business, or
who were already running a business or who were managers in a business. It is a book to be used as a
practical guide book, not read once and put on a shelf. If you are one of the people mentioned above,
or just interested, you can download a copy from my website www.georgenachamba.com.
After I had published the book, I realised that many people are not sure if they should try their hand
at business or not? If not, then what should they be doing? I realised that not everyone needed my
book on business. But even then most people are unsure about what earning pathway is best suited
for them. Virtually everyone has dreams and goals. Many though are unsure about the best way to
achieve their ambitions.
The Capacity Manifesto is a guide to clarifying in your own mind where you need to go and what it
takes to get there. This book is about helping people gain clarity about how they want to earn a living
and decide what level of earning they can reasonably achieve (or not) to make them happy and
fulfilled. For someone to achieve something, they must have the capability to actually start and go
through to the end to achieve their goal. This is not given to you by someone else. It has to be within
the person who sets out to do this thing. How much you can achieve depends on your capacity to do
things to a successful conclusion. Hence, The Capacity Manifesto. I try to clear up for you what you
first need to consider before you embark on your earnings quest. Then I articulate the kind of
attributes which can limit or on the other side are needed for someone to make it in a particular
earnings category. Happy reading!

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Chapter 1
IT’S A HARD KNOCK LIFE
In the beginning, there was naivety
Academic colours, sports colours and head of my school. And I had been accepted at two universities.
With a degree, you were guaranteed success in life. Success beckoned for me. I did finally get a degree.
But not at full time college. I had dropped out. A story for another day. I got my degree through
correspondence whilst I served my articles of clerkship.
I served my articles with Ernst and Young. I was on my way to becoming a Chartered Accountant (CA).
Surely success was right before me. Most Managing Directors (MD)/CEOs at that time in Zimbabwe
were CAs. With the route I took, I was on the pathway to becoming a top executive in one of the
country’s big companies. First I would get my accounts degree, then complete my articles, get my CA
and then off into commerce and industry. There I would go in as a Financial or Chief Accountant, on
to become the Financial Manager, then Finance Director and finally, CEO. Looked pretty straight
forward to me. Except that it wasn’t!
By my second year of articles I was frustrated. Auditing was not my cup of tea, and I had no passion
for the work. But quitting was not an option. It wasn’t an option because, 1. My father would kill me
if I did (I had opted out of university to work and study as an articled clerk; that was the only reason
he allowed me to pull out of university) and 2. What else was I going to do? I had no idea what I really
wanted to do.
So I persevered with my articles. I finished my degree; but trying to get the CA Zimbabwe was a leap
too far for me. I remember going on study leave for the CA prequalification exams. I was going crazy
trying to study material that I had no interest in. Don’t get me wrong, it was really good quality
material, I was just not passionate about it. So when a friend came to me with an offer to drive with
him 2,400km to a place called East London on the east coast of South Africa, I could have said no; I
should have said no; except I didn’t. And so whilst my peers were writing exams back home, I was
braiing and going to the beach in East London. It wasn’t that I was reckless or irresponsible, I just had
such an aversion for auditing that I always managed to convince myself that I would get around to
studying later.
I left articles without getting that CA Zimbabwe and got a good job in industry as an accountant. I was
young, well paid, new car and had my own office. Surely this was success. I stopped studying, due to
as I told myself, ‘being busy’. The truth is I was enjoying myself having given myself a year off. I’d get
around to this studying thing later.
Then the economy in Zimbabwe turned for the worse and kept going downhill. By this time I was
married with one child. The Zimbabwe dollars I was earning kept buying less and less and now I had a
family to feed. I was also building a house. And so like many of my countrymen I thought maybe
England was a better bet. So I migrated by myself with the thought of getting myself set up and then
bringing my family. But I was in for some hard lessons. England wasn’t the easy salvation as I had
hoped. Jobs were hard to come by and the easiest thing you could get were menial jobs. In spite of
this I did manage to study and qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant. I then moved to
Manchester and that’s where I caught a break and started to get some low level temporary accounting
work. I worked for a while and by the end I had a pretty decent accounting job; but I was homesick,
always tired, always counting the pennies and so I decided to return home.

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Back home, unfortunately the Zimbabwe dollar and economy was still sliding downward at an
alarming rate. I lasted a year employed, then I got out and started a business. It did well for some time
then the harsh economic environment started squeezing our customers who in turn could not order
from or pay us on time. By the time they paid the money was worthless. During this time, I lost my
investment which had come from my house that I had sold in order to invest in the first business. I
know, stupid, but it seemed like a good idea at the time and well, in my defence I’m not the first to
make such a bold but unfortunate decision. I then started another business in manufacturing and this
one was messed up by price controls and restriction on moving agricultural based goods, and so that
business also went out the window. Life got so tough, I used to have 3 cars and I ended up with, none.
Then I had to move out of the place where I was staying because I could not afford the rent and I was
forced to go live at the parents’ house with my family; now made up of three kids.
After a few months I got a job and so I managed to move us into a garden flat. I endured the job for
some months but one day I couldn’t take it anymore and left. This had been one of the hardest places
I had ever had to work at in my life. I then suffered another few months broke and scrounging for rent
until I got the idea to start financial management consulting. By this time I was 38 years old. I went
into a panic phase. I was nearly forty and I had nothing to show for it. What had happened to that
promising bright young man? I could not afford another wasted year; I had to start thinking about how
I would put my kids through school and whilst also starting to think about retirement. By this time,
the thought of work did not appeal at all to me. I hated working, and I hated even more bosses who
were erratic and made your life a nightmare. So I sat down and decided to think about my life and
what had gone wrong. That’s when I became aware of ‘The Life Bungee Rope’.
‘The life bungee rope’
Depending on your upbringing, you encounter the bungee either at a young age, or most likely when
you are a young adult, sometimes when you are fresh out of university. It works like this; in every
person’s life, there is a time you discover that life is an uphill climb and there is a bungee rope attached
to you and the other end to the bottom of the hill. This rope depending on its length is always trying
to pull you back. That’s when you get the realisation that life is tough. You become aware of the hard
knock life when your rope starts stretching and you are yanked into that reality.
The length of this ‘bungee rope’ is based primarily on your life circumstance when you are born. But
the times and circumstances of the ‘bungee yank’ can be different for different people.
Born poor or an orphan
If you are an orphan or come from a very poor family, this rope is very short and starts pulling at you
early in life. Certain things like good schools, the level of education you get and the opportunities that
can enhance you are very little. At this level, this group learn early in life that to make it, you have to
fight. That means that one has to always be pulling hard and stretching that rope to get to the top,
the top of success. Three things can happen to this grouping,
1. There is a group who cannot escape the pull of the rope and settle where the rope starts to
stretch. In other words, they cannot escape the grasp of their environment and background
and remain poor. For example, some people are born into a poor neighbourhood with a high
crime rate and they get caught up in this life and sometimes end up in jail or die young.
2. As you know, the more you stretch an elastic cord, the tougher it gets to extend it just a bit
more. And so some people from a deprived background can only pull so far and they stop
somewhere in the middle of the hill, i.e. they manage to get to that level of being middle class
and that is as far as they can stretch the bungee rope.

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3. Then there are those whose determination and fight is strong. This lot stretch the cord all the
way to the top. They learn to fight to go up that hill from young and they continue to fight
throughout their life. In fact this group tends not to ever let up. They don’t know how. Fighting
and pulling against that bungee rope of life is all they have ever known and it is the only way
they know how to live their life. We’ve all met them. Self-made millionaires who pulled
themselves out of poverty through sheer determination and hard work.
Born Middle Class
This group has a bungee rope when they are born which is a bit longer. It stretches to the middle of
the hill before the strain comes in. That level is where the parents are able to pay for university level
and hence one starts off in life with a university degree. The first hardships in life might come to them
when they discover that there are not enough jobs to go around for all the graduates who are being
produced by the universities. The middle class parents would have worked hard just to pay for
university, and now the son or daughter is on their own.
With this group, some stay where they are. Some try to go up and get yanked back hard and they don’t
like the experience and so do not even try to go any further. Some are so shocked at how tough life
is, they recede back and even start to become part of the first group. Some quickly accept that life can
be tough and they adjust accordingly and start pulling uphill even though the rope would be getting
stretched and harder to pull. They are the ones who then make it to the top where they join the ones
from the first group who have also made it there.
Born rich and privileged
This group is born with the longest bungee rope attached. For some the rope is so long, they start off
at the top of the hill. For some, like those who might inherit mega riches, they never actually feel the
pull of the rope.
However, for some their ropes might suddenly get shorter, especially for those who relied on a rich
parent for their upkeep even when they became adults. If some misfortune was to befall that parent
and there is no longer access to the riches, the rope can suddenly or gradually shorten and they are
dragged down to the bottom of the hill. Some then stay at the bottom, others might push up to the
middle, and some might have the drive enough to get back up to the top of the hill on their own merit.
Life lesson
The reason for the whole bungee rope illustration is that no one is owed a life. Once you are an adult,
you will have to fend for yourself. When you have to earn for yourself and those dependant on you,
then you will discover that if you are not putting some forward pressure, that life bungee rope will
pull you back. Unless you are born in a rich family where there are trusts which are constantly supplied
with funds from viable investments, you will be dragged down. And the higher you want to earn, the
more the rope strain will pull on you and so you have to be strong and fight. You have to be strong in
being patient, strong in self-belief, strong in determination, strong in drive and strong in working hard.
And no one is spared the occasional yank back in life. Each of us at some time will find ourselves being
dragged back downhill. If it has never happened before to you, when it does, that is the point at which
you realise that life is hard. If it has not happened to you yet, then thank God, you are blessed. So
don’t panic, you are not the first and you won’t be the last. Learn to accept that you will have battles,
but those battles harden and focus you and in the end your objective is to win the war and achieve
your success.

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Becoming successful overnight
One major lesson I have learnt from my life experiences is that when successful people tell their story,
they summarise many years into a few minutes. Unfortunately, people focus on those who have
succeeded, but forget about the other 100 who ‘failed’ trying to do the same thing. Success is never
an overnight thing. I love the quote made by one author who was ‘discovered’ after he had written
his fourth book through self-publishing. He said, “it took me eight years to become a successful author
overnight.” This is a basic fundamental rule of life, it takes time to become successful. Along the way
you will get the odd yank back by the old bungee rope. I guarantee it. But that does not mean you
cannot be a success in the future; whatever your age, gender, intelligence or education. If other people
can do it, so can you!

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CHAPTER 2
INTERNALISATION
Earning a living has changed
Go to school, get good grades, get a good degree, get a job and you are set for a good life. All around
the world for many decades this was the simple formula to find your way to earning a good living.
Right now we still have many parents raising their children on such advice. Except, there’s a problem.
Young graduates all around the world are hitting the brick wall called “no jobs”. Life is not what they
were told it would be. The bungee rope is kicking in.
A Brief and recent History of earning
In the early 1900s, a man called Henry Ford started the revolution called mass production and the big
corporate with many jobs was born. Over the century many more industries were created and skilled
employees were needed in their millions. To supply these skilled employees, schools, colleges and
university programs were aligned accordingly. For those who were good at grasping the program and
becoming good employees, the rise to the top was fairly predictable. For others, even if they did not
rise to the top, they were guaranteed a job which guaranteed a predictable earning pathway.
But around the world the wheels started coming off this model by the end of the 1900s and early
2000s. Layoffs started happening, the global economy started to struggle. Countries were creating
more and more universities. More and more graduates were being churned out but the growth of the
companies to employ them stopped and started to recede. In fact, by 2008, the world went into
recession with many big companies going under, or merging and millions of jobs were lost. Up to this
day despite government efforts, this trend is still continuing. Unfortunately young people are still
being told to get a degree so that they can get a good job and achieve earnings success. Except that
more of them are graduating whilst there are not enough jobs to take them all. Something has to
change.
There is good news though. The good news is that the answer to the status of your future lies with
you.
Internalisation
I wrote 9 subjects for my GCSEs. In the mix of subjects were Mathematics, History, Literature and
Science. I passed all of them. Did that mean I was meant to be an Actuary, a Statistician (mathematics),
or a historian, a writer or a scientist? Not really; there is only so much time in your life and most of us
can only pursue one or two professions effectively.
There are many ways to earn a living in this world. In each such way, there are some who have made
a great success of it, and there are those who barely scrounge a living. In fact, some might have left
that profession broke and despondent. If asked what they think of that field, they would probably
advise that everyone avoids it. Yet someone else thinks that’s the only way to earn a good living.
Would you say that this one is wrong and the other is right? The truth of the matter is that their
opinion is true for their situation. One found it impossible to make a living from it, the other found it
the way to great riches. What is the cause for the difference?
The differentiating factor was the person operating in that profession. It is not that a particular
profession is good or bad; it is just that the one person is not suitable for it and the other has mastered
it. The question that you need to ask yourself is, ‘what is right for me?’ In this, the world cannot tell

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you. No one can predict the future and tell you that with this you will definitely have great success.
Even the definition of success is up to you.
Before you start trying to deal with the flood of information that comes at you on what you should do
with your life, you need to first know you. As much as this might sound so simple, a lot of us don’t
know who we are. We have become accustomed to the old prescription for success as described in
the introduction. Get a good education, get a good job, you earn a good living. People are different.
More precisely, people are unique. Even with over a billion and a half Chinese, each and every one of
them is different. People are born in different countries, to different cultures, different climates,
different communities, different beliefs, different dreams, different experiences and so on. There
might be a lot of similarities amongst some peoples, but the better you get to know each one
individually, the more you will start picking up the differences. That’s how you are unique. There is no
other you in the world.
What you are meant to do!
Everyone should in their lifetime take the time to understand what they are good at and what they
are not. In this exercise you must look for two things; talent and passion. Most people will be
exceptional at most at two things in their life. One more than the other. Some things you can be
talented at, but not passionate about; there are people who can pass all subjects in school with
straight As. But they cannot be passionate about all the subjects. Some things you are passionate
about, but have no talent in them. There are millions of people who have a passion about the game
of soccer but possess no athletic ability whatsoever. You need a combination of the two. This ‘time
out’ to understand yourself, I call internalisation. It took me some 6 months ‘time out’ to internalise
myself. I cut down on my work and outside distractions and just thought about me. The things that
got me going, the things I could do over and over for a long time and at the end of it all not be bored
or tired and raring for the same experience again.
Internalisation
Whether you are young, middle aged or of advanced age, it is still a good thing to take the time out to
internalise, if you have not done so already. I believe that God gave everyone something special and
in that you have a competitive advantage. Unfortunately with too much information in the world and
no assistance (or bad assistance) about the way to go, too many of us end up just confused. We select
careers which are not for us; and our best result in that career is mediocre.
You need to strive for the 100%, not accept 60%. Most of us will likely at some point in our lives come
across a situation where we feel we were amazing. There are things that you do that those closest to
you can unanimously agree that you are good at. I love developing people; or in other words,
capacitating people. I love capacitating people so that they fulfil their potential; in all walks of life but
especially in business. This is my passion and talent. But my training and qualifications are in
accounting. As I internalised, I came to the realisation that a qualification does not define me. What I
know, what I do with skill and passion is what defines me. If you are asked who you are, can you say?
Or do you tell people your qualifications? When I do my capacitating thing, I know I am operating at
over 80% of my focus and passion. Have you ever done something in your life where you know you
are just doing enough to get by? Is that the way to fight against the bungee rope that comes naturally
with life? You don’t stand a chance if you do it this way. Life will swallow you, chew you up and spit
you out. You need to compete in an arena where you have all the tools, the skills, the energy and drive
to give you a better than even chance at winning. When you know where this is naturally in your life,
you have internalised!

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He is design!
The first time I set up a business some 10 years ago, a friend got an advertising agent to design some
8 logos for me and my partners. We agonised over 2 weeks the one to choose and whittled down
the choices to 3. In the end we chose one and that business still uses that logo up to this day. For my
second business, I got another advertising agency to do it for me. They did 3 for me. I did not really
like any of them but I chose one anyway and used that one. The third time I needed a new logo, I
got someone who used to work in the graphics department at one of the biggest advertising
companies in Zimbabwe and he gave me 3 options. I did not like any of them and this time I asked
for more options. He did another 3 and these I did not like either. After that I tried other designers
and I must have gone through some 15 to 20 logos and still I wasn’t happy.
One day I bumped into an old friend who owned an advertising agency and I told her of my plight.
Without hesitation she gave me a name and told me that this particular designer would sort me out.
So I called the designer and set up a meeting. When we met, I told him what I was looking for and
that I wanted at least 5 options so I could make a choice. I was taken aback when he told me he
understood exactly what I was looking for and he would only do one option. If I rejected his logo
design, he would then give me my five options and I would not have to pay him for the job. He called
me back after a week and showed me his design. I loved it! Since then I have used this designer for
other work and he only gives me one option and I have never been disappointed.
Some months ago I passed by his studios and there was a lot of activity. Usually it’s just him and his
wife in the studio, but this time there were some 5 to 6 other people. I did my business with him and
left. I went back to his offices after a month and it was back to just him and his wife. I asked him
what happened to all the other people. Turned out he had done a design for a client and the client
loved it so much, he asked him to put together an advertising campaign, hence the need for other
people. As soon as he had finished that project, he let everyone else go. He told me that even though
the advertising campaigns were big value jobs, he was forced to stop designing and start managing
people, cashflows, etc. In other words, he got taken out of his excellence zone. He confessed that
more often than not when he took these advertising campaigns he lost rather than made money.
This guy is a designer through and through. He has the passion for it and serious talent to go with
it. One day he was passing through the kitchen and his wife had made a cake. He got interested in
the cake and decided to design a dinosaur head. I saw the photos of this thing. It was so good the
head looked real. The motto for his company is, ‘We own design’. And he really does!
What about you? What do you own? If you can’t say, it’s time to take a time-out and internalise.
In Conclusion
Many people are frustrated today because they don’t know who they are, and what they are best at
which also makes them happy. They look at others whom they see as financially successful and try to
be exactly like them but it’s mostly a fruitless exercise. Internalise; nail down what makes you tick. Set
aside the time to internalise and don’t let yourself become distracted. Focus, research and read up on
certain things until you get it clear in your mind. Your future earnings will depend on it.

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CHAPTER 3
CONTEXTUALISATION
Putting earning ability into perspective
Nelson Mandela was a talented lawyer. But not only was he talented, he was so passionate about his
cause that it took 27 years of his freedom. He had internalised. Sometimes where your talents and
passions lie does not necessarily translate to great financial rewards or a high standard of living. On
the other hand, for some people their talent and passion combination results in billions. This is the
case with a person like Bill Gates.
When you internalise, you look inward and ignore the externals. However, after you have isolated
your internal core of talent and passion, you now need to look outward. You look outward in relation
to what you have discovered internally. We do not live in a vacuum and there are areas that fit what
you are wired to do. However, the external world has factors which impact on you which you need to
take into consideration. These outward constraints can be due to your personal environment, i.e. you
have a family or the macro-environment, such as the country you live in etc.
Therefore to put the internalised you in context you might need to:
1. Move
Many sports people have taken the decision to move to another country where they can become a
professional sports person earning a living. What you do might not be a career builder in your country
or locality, and to earn your living through that, you might have to relocate.
Therefore ask yourself and answer with real honesty what level of earning you can achieve with that
which you are good at. Teaching in a primary school is not going to make you rich. But it can earn you
a living, and if you can live with that level of earning, then be happy. There are many people without
money who are happy and many rich people who are miserable. Sometimes where your success lies
does not generate mega riches. As an individual you have to recognise this and decide on what you
can and cannot live with.
2. Choose earning over passion
Many people cannot seem to figure out what exactly they are really passionate about, and good at.
Some people know the answer to that question but feel that the risk is too great to go after it and risk
possible failure. Some people through life circumstance (bungee rope experiences) decide to forego
their passion and talents and take up secure careers to get the life they want or they are not willing
to give up. These are the kind of situations when people take the earnings route.
We cannot say this is wrong. It is a personal choice. Millions of people live their lives with such choices.
This is context, the different realities and choices we have to make for ourselves as determined by our
fears, wishes or environment.
Point to Note– Being ambitious does not necessarily involve making a lot of money. One can achieve
a lot of great things without necessarily generating a lot of money. However in saying that, in this
modern world we all need money to survive. Be clear in your mind what level of earnings your level
of life will generate.

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CHAPTER 4
CAPACITY
How much can you handle?
A tea cup, a bucket, a reservoir, a dam, a sea and an ocean are all liquid containers. However, there
are vast differences between the volumes they can hold. Their capacities are different. People are the
same. Some people can handle the strain of establishing, and/or growing and/or running a big
organisation, whereas some people can only do one simple thing at a time. Between some people is
the difference between a tea cup and an ocean in their capacity to handle situations.
As little children we handle little children challenges. As we grow, our capacity to handle big challenges
grows. However, there are three variables that determine how big one’s capacity can become. They
are:
1.) Formal learning,
2.) Experience,
and
3.) Natural Capacity.
Learning
Going to school, attending courses, going to university and such formal education grows your
knowledge capacity. The unfortunate development that has happened in our society is that many
people attend formal education with the ultimate aim to get a certificate as opposed to gaining
knowledge. What this results in are people who take certain courses not out of interest, but out of a
view that their prospects in life will be much better if they have a particular qualification.
Unfortunately, as they are taught in class, they do not absorb the information, but rather cram it in
order to regurgitate it later at exam time.
When I have needed to hire a young graduate, I always prepare a practical test which aims to isolate
one thing, whether one paid attention in class or not. Those who do well usually are the people who
were really passionate about the subject matter and absorbed it. The other lot can’t remember
because they crammed in order to reproduce answers for examiners or they are not talented in that
area. People tend to retain information in areas they are interested in. That is how you can have a
young person fail at subjects such as math in a classroom, but can retain a vast amount of a certain
sport’s statistics. This is where passion plays a big role and is important to identify as you internalise.
Experience
As we grow, we learn a great deal from our experiences. When you learn to ride a bicycle, you will fall
a few times. But the more you try, the more your body learns how to keep the bicycle upright and that
comes from experience. In fact, as we grow in life we learn most by experiencing, which in turn gives
us our capacity to do things as we become adults. Therefore the biggest teacher is experience and
one’s ability to manage different situations at any given time can be largely be dependent on their
experiences in the past. If follows that to grow capacity, every person must be on a continuous
experience path. I run a business. Most of what I have learnt to do and write on is from experiences
of having done a few things right and many wrong. To gain capacity in what you identify as your talent
and passion area, experiment. Try things. If what you try does not work, you are not a failure, you just

16
know one more way of how not to do it. Talent combined with experience creates the illusion of
people who can make something difficult to do look easy. The world is a classroom. There are always
new lessons to learn. Always keep learning.
Natural Capacity
When you have new software that runs databases with a lot of transactions, to find out whether it can
handle the job at hand, it is subjected to what is called a Stress test. What this basically entails is that
numerous transactions of the like which the system will be handling are replicated substantially and
loaded up. How the software handles this load shows the capacity it can carry and still function. Some
software cannot take the amount of stress the manufacturers claimed it could take and it crashes. It
is the same with people. Many like to tell themselves that they can take pressure, but they can’t stand
up when the pressure is applied. It is important to realise how much “load” your system can handle.
This is part of your temperament and it can determine where you need to place yourself for maximum
effect for earning.
Capacity is not just about stress, but about environment. Some people like organised environments
where their day is clearly articulated by someone else. This kind of person is better off in a working
environment. On the other side there are people who thrive in changing, dynamic environments.
These people could be more suited to running a business. Whatever the case may be, everyone has
characteristics and talents where their capacity is more suited to a particular earnings category.
It’s in your temperament
How you earn has much to do with your capacity. There are different earning categories in this world.
For the purposes of this book, I have narrowed them to 5 categories.
1. Employed
2. Self employed
3. Business
4. Entrepreneur
5. Investor
Which category you are currently in depends on what you do. Which category you are best suited to
earn your living depends on your temperament. This is a combination of your talents, passion and
capacity. For example, there are trillions of dollars in this world. Many more people could be
billionaires. The world wealth is around US$ 250 trillion. But by 2014, there were only 1,645
billionaires. Everyone has as much chance as everyone else to become a billionaire. But there are only
so many of them because only so many people have the capacity to become one.
Two people can have talent and passion in the same thing. But the level to which they can take that
talent is a fundamental of capacity. Some people can go to high levels, bigger things because they
have the inbuilt capacity to learn more, try more and do more than the other person. Wherever you
are temperamentally suited to be, how much you can get to earn is dependent on you. In the next five
chapters we will look at each earning category. Hopefully this can help you define and appreciate
which earning category you are most suited to.

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CHAPTER 5
Employed
What’s wrong with being employed?
For many years, every time I ask someone where they hope to be in their careers in 10 years’ time the
answer is:
“I hope to be running my own business.”
Whether they are young graduates fresh out of university, or working adults in their forties or fifties,
the answer has generally been the same.
And yet the majority of us crave for security. We don’t like risk taking, the stepping out into a future
unknown which has no guarantees; which is what you get if you go into business. Many people as
above might say they want to be in business, but in reality it is a romantic notion which they really
have no desire to actually experience. In fact, as soon as most employed people find out they are going
to be made redundant, even with a big payoff, they panic. Immediately they start looking for another
job. The truth is that the majority of people are suited for a life of employment. What those people
should appreciate though is that it does not mean they have no ambition or business ability
whatsoever. It just depends on your character make up and what you can and cannot live without.
Most of us got to where we are by being employed. Like any other way of earning, it has its pros and
cons.
Changes in the face of employment
For a long time, if you had a reasonable education and/or a reasonable skills set, you could get a job
and stay under the same employer for life. The world economy was expanding and more consumers
were coming onto the market and so companies were growing bigger, more profitable and employing
more and more people. Then in the 2000s disaster struck and all manner of companies closed; even
100 year old companies! Thousands of people lost their jobs; and though this crisis started in Western
economies, the effects had repercussions all over the world. Aid agencies which employed a lot of
people all over the world shut down or scaled back. Those multinationals that survived scaled down
operations and closed some country offices. For local companies not in the west, export orders were
lost and lines of credit were cut. In Africa, the effect of all these events was that the employment
market shrunk when there was need for more jobs to be created. Government institutions were not
been spared and have also scaled down.
What this has done is to make organisations more frugal, more careful with costs, especially salaries
and wages. Though there are still millions of jobs out there, only the best get them and retain them.
Entrepreneurial employees
Over the last two decades, a certain buzz word became prominent; ‘sustainability’. Where companies
and organisations are concerned, that just means first remaining in existence and where they can,
creating employment. The focus has now shifted from employees being just bit part players in the
organisational juggernaut, but interested stakeholders in the welfare of the organisation.

18
If an employer today said to an employee who loves their job that since the employee loved their job,
the employer was no longer going to pay the employee for their service. What do you think the
employee would do? Quit of course. As much as we might love what we do, we do it primarily to earn
a living. Of course the best scenario is where one can earn good money whilst doing something they
love. So for an employee to lose their job means they lose their livelihood.
It’s your life
As humans, we are inherently selfish. We default to doing things that benefit us. Our fundamental
reason for working is to earn a living. CEOs in big corporations can earn millions of dollars in a year.
The organisation is willing to pay this because of the value they get from having this individual. Why
do they not hire the guy selling newspapers at the corner and pay him a minute fraction of what they
pay the highly paid CEO? Because he cannot generate the value that this CEO can.
The standard of life you get depends then on how much you earn. How much you earn is dependent
on much value your employer believes you bring to the organisation. Those that rise to the top are
known for delivery and value addition. They earn for the company multiple times the money they cost
the organisation in salaries and benefits. If you aspire to a high standard of living as an employee, then
you need to rise to the top and earn the big salary. That is not given to you. You earn it by delivering
real value.
It’s your business
If the organisation you work for shuts down, then you are out of a job and will have no earnings. With
regular bills like rent, utilities, children’s school fees and such like due on a regular basis (monthly or
quarterly), life can become very difficult in a very short space of time. You will have nothing coming in
against the regular payment demands. It is in your own interest to make sure that the organisation
you work for does not shut down. Many people have stood by and not gotten involved in the welfare
of their organisation when they saw that it was in trouble. People tend to put their head in the sand
and expect that someone else will take care of it. Some people take glee in seeing a fellow employee
struggling to fix their sector. The problem with that is, their problem is also your problem and will
leave you jobless tomorrow.
You need the mind of the entrepreneurial employee. Just because you don’t own shares in an
organisation does not mean you do not have a stake. Your personal business depends on it. What is
this personal business?
When you apply for a job, you market (CV) and sell (interview) your services to the organisation. In
exchange for your services, the organisation agrees to pay you a monthly fee (salaries and benefits).
This deal is sealed in a contract (employment contract). This contract contains expected deliverables
from you and grounds to cancel the contract apart from other terms and conditions. But people forget
this contract when they are in the job and start to act as if it’s their right that they should be paid,
never mind whether they are doing their job as expected or not. I have encountered situations of
employees with such a feeling of entitlement of their salary, breathing fire about taking industrial
action but not even lifting a finger to help the situation. When the business does close down and you
get your demands, what then? Jobs are scarce. Instead, ask what you can do to help save the business.
After all, it is your business at stake.
Should you be employed?
Many people do not like the stress of not knowing when they are going to get some income. They
want the security of the regular pay cheque, or at least regular income. Some people do not like to
take risks and uncertainties which might or might not work out as in starting or running a business.
Some people cannot handle the emotional upheaval of being knocked down and losing all their life

19
savings in a failed business, then getting up and starting something else again. Some people like being
given a defined mandate by someone else and they can perform at their best within those confines
without having to think of other variables. Some people to have a career they want, can only get it
through some large or specific organisation. Some like to have a clear picture of how they can progress
in an organisation and they can clearly define what they consider success by attaining a certain level
in the corporate world. Whatever the case may be, some people are meant to be employed.
If the above describes you, then be employed. If the above is not you, then consider another category
of earning means.

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CHAPTER 6
SELF EMPLOYED
Getting unplugged from the matrix
In 1999, a movie was released which revolutionised how science fiction movies were done. Come to
think of it, it shook up movie making in general. This movie was epic, visually amazing and full of cool
action. For me however, my imagination was captured by something else. I was intrigued by the
concept that formed the basis of the film; the concept of the Matrix, which coincidentally was the
name of the movie! To understand the concept of the movie, let me describe it as best I can;
At some point in the distant future, man and machines have gone to war against each other. Man
was losing the war, and in desperation, man came up with the theory that without energy from the
sun, the machines would die. So man scorched the sun; and so no more sunlight. However, the
machines figured out that there was another source of energy that was abundantly available;
human beings. Human beings generate heat energy and the machines calculated that enough live
human beings put into an energy harvesting network would power them for survival. So they started
capturing human beings and putting them into energy ‘farms’. But the humans died in mass. The
problem was that the human body is managed by the brain and so the humans needed to be in a
content/happy state of mind to be healthy and stay alive. Therefore to induce this state, machines
designed a virtual world called The Matrix into which humans brains were plugged in to live a life
which they did not know was not real. The machines modelled the Matrix based on the state of the
world when man seemed to be the most happy and content, 1999. With that done, the energy farms
stabilised and the machines ran the world. Billions of people lived their lives from birth plugged into
the matrix. As their physical bodies grew, their virtual reality was altered so that they had parents,
went to school, college, got a job, got old and died. A full life without ever actually living a life.
I left formal employment when I was 32 to start a business with partners. Before this, I had risen to
become a finance manager and I was one of the executives who ran the business where I worked.
When I started my own business, it took me 4 months and becoming broke to realise that what I had
done at work as an employee did not necessarily translate to my being able to run a business. I realised
that what I thought was good business practise as a manager did not necessarily translate to good
business practice as the business owner.
Seth Godin in one interview said “all creatures, especially humans will do anything to avoid fear. And
so the magic of the industrial revolution was that the Henry Fords of the world showed up and said you
don’t have to be afraid. You merely have to do what I say and I will take responsibility(for your life) and
then I will make you rich. That was a really cool deal and generations gave up their spark in exchange
for riches(security)”.
He goes on to say now there is a new deal which goes, “you have to be scared out of your mind, you
have to feel like you are risking everything and then some of you will get rich. But all of you will have
a better life, because you are going to be human, and not cogs in a machine.”
What does that mean for you?
The parallel of the Matrix in this life was the big corporation and government institutions that ran a
system. This was what the industrial revolution created. Corporates and governments wanted people
who went to school, got a qualification, then got a job, did what the organisation needed them to do
in exchange for a monthly pay cheque, mortgage payments, store credit and generally living a life that
revolved around the monthly pay check. By my getting to run my own business, I got out of the matrix.

21
The laws of survival and success were not clearly defined as when I was working. Now I could get to
the end of the month and there was no money. I could get bills and I would have no idea where the
money to pay them would come from. This is how it feels to be out of the system(matrix). It is scary
and it’s lonely.
Nowadays people with good qualifications and years of experience are getting spit out of the job
Matrix at an ever increasing rate. People want back in but everyone is downsizing or even shutting
down. Over the last decade and a half we hear more and more about SMEs being the future. Before
that it was corporates and big government institutions being the future. The further along we go, we
are going to the individual being the future of commerce.
Going back to the beginning
Before the industrial matrix, people earned their living from personal skills. Some people were
hunters, others farmers, others blacksmiths and yet others stone masons. People sought out an
individual to engage them to do something for them in exchange for money because they needed an
expert.
The accounting definition of an asset is “something from which will be derived future income”. I have
always held the premise that you, a person are an asset. Even if you have a job, you retain or get
promoted in the job based on your ability to do a good job. In other words, future income depends on
you; so you are the asset.
With many trying to get back in the matrix and failing( there are too few jobs for too many people),
people are being forced to reconsider where their future income will come from. But many look
externally when the answer is already at hand. The answer is them. Interestingly though, most people
do not consider what they are good at when they are looking for something to earn them income,
but are always looking to others to provide the answer. For those finding it difficult to get that job but
are not cut out for the business arena, they need to go back to the beginning. The beginning when
people were trade experts with others coming to seek their services; and to pay them for it. Because
things are tough for everyone, customers will seek out those with the reputation for being good.
Therefore if you have internalised, seen where your abilities lie and your capacity is in becoming a
subject matter expert, then become self-employed. However, unlike in the old ages, the sophistication
of this world means you can be any of a whole host of things. Now you can be a computer expert, a
professional sports person, a lawyer etc. You just need to know where your capacity lies to be the best
and you can deliver consistently at the highest standard.
By Choice
Some people are very good at something that people need. Some people don’t want to be employed,
but then they don’t want to be responsible for employees either. So what do they do? These people
can become self-employed. Doctors and dentists who run their own practice are some of the
professionals who are self-employed. Basically, when you are self-employed, your earnings capacity
is based on you.
Tooling for increased capacity
When Moses in the bible said to God “but I have nothing”, God said to him, “What is that in your
hand?” Many of us complain that we have nothing. But we went to college for 4 to 5 years learning
how to do something. As I said before, you are the asset. In most courses and degrees from colleges,
people learn how to. But because of the Matrix mentality, people focus on that education as an end
in itself. This has crippled a lot of people who have either not managed to get into the work Matrix

22
(i.e. university graduates who can’t find a job) or those who have been ejected out of the Matrix ( laid
off or company closed) and lost their job. These people can spend years looking for a job instead of
increasing their asset value; in other words increase their capacity to offer personal expert services in
order to earn a decent living.
Pros and Cons of being self employed
Like all things in life, there are upsides and downsides of how you choose to earn your living.
Pros
 If you are very good at what you do, you will always have business as people will always seek
you out.
 You can work as and when you want to.
 You are not answerable to anyone else.
 You are not responsible for employees.
 You can dedicate your time to doing something you love and are passionate about.
 Any money you earn goes straight into your pocket.
Cons
 Depending on the craft, sometimes you have to continually improve your expertise and
maintain membership of a professional body and that can be costly.
 If you don’t personally work, then you don’t earn.
 If something were to disrupt your work for a prolonged period(like illness), you can become
bankrupt.
 Because your earnings depend on the time you put into a job, your earning capacity is limited
to the time you can personally put into a job.
 Most times you can only get paid when you have completed the job. If the job is one of those
that takes a long time, you might run into financial difficulties along the way since you get paid
after finishing the job and you can only work on one job at any one time.

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CHAPTER 7
BUSINESS PERSON
Business, part art and part passion
Starting a business or running one is a work of art, and a work of passion. If the business is new, then
it starts from just an idea. The ultimate aim is to have the different elements together that make a
functioning profitable business. It’s like starting with a blank canvass. The picture to be drawn on the
canvass is only in the artists head. No one else can draw this picture except the artist. Like the art
piece, the person who can make the business come out as expected is the founder.
Even if you are leading an already operational business, you the leader running it decides where you
want the business to go and how you want it to function. To get the business to operate in that way
means you lead it with a picture in mind. If or when it gets there, it is like a portrait that you wanted
to paint; when others admire, it is just the finished evidence of what you painted over time.
Embracing the risk
If there is one thing that is certain in business, it’s uncertainty. The truth is no matter how good your
idea is, how well made your plans, you can never be sure that what you are embarking on in business
will work out. That is why there is always talk of risk in business. If you cannot handle uncertainty,
don’t go into business. In fact, one of the major characteristics you have to either develop or have in
business is to trust yourself and go on despite the uncertainty. Learn to handle the risk and live with
the risk. You have to learn to live with the fact that your business might fail or go through bad patches.
As I said in one of the earlier chapters, you then have to develop patience, and also perseverance to
make it in business. After my years in business, I have come to the conclusion that you need to have
a healthy dose of luck in business. As Guy Kawasaki, a former marketer at Apple and venture capitalist
said, “after many years in business, I have decided that it is better to be lucky than smart in business”.
Thinking inside the box
As much as you can never eliminate risk in business completely, you can reduce it. Success in business
is a long term game. Anyone who says otherwise is not being honest, or they are just naïve. In fact, it
is a major feat just to survive in business. For every one of those successful businesses, there are
thousands more just struggling to break even or barely making a profit. Thousands more shut down
quietly and are forgotten. Every one hears think outside the box every other time. But you cannot be
thinking outside the box each and every day. Your business will be changing all the time and you can
never get consistent traction as no one will ever know who you are and what you stand for. Successful
long term business is about ‘Thinking Inside the Box’.
Ideas are endless. It’s very rare that anyone actually ever comes up with a completely original idea in
this world. Try it. Think up something you think is unique, then go onto Google and type out the idea.
Over 90% of the time you will find something on your idea. It might not be exactly the same, but you
will probably find something similar. And yet despite this, new businesses are being started every day
and many do make it. The tag line in my book The Eight Platforms of Business Success is “It is not
about the idea, it is about the people who run the business!” That book of mine is mainly about thinking
inside the box. The truth of the matter is that business is a daily grind of repetitive tasks. That is why
every business is encouraged to have systems. Systems build efficiencies into repetitive tasks. You
make your luck by employing the right business culture over the long term. This is how you reduce the

24
risk in business. This is ‘thinking inside the box’. This enables you to survive in business, so that you
are still in the game when that great opportunity comes across your path.
I know of a businessman who took eight years courting a potential customer without success. This
customer finally decided to introduce a whole new line of products. They tried with their regular
supplier of similar products and did not like what they offered. So they gave that businessman a
chance to offer this new line. They tested his offeringsand loved them. So he wassigned to a contract
and to date, some six years later, that company is his main customer. It moved him from being a
small business to becoming a sizeable business. With this stroke of ‘luck’, another major company
heard about his business and decided to try him as a supplier of inputs for a new line they were
trying. This moved his company again to an even higher plane. This all happened over a period of
eleven years. Note that this was not his first business. He had run some other businesses before over
the previous seven which had ‘failed’. So it took him fifteen years in business to get major lucky,
then another three years to get more big ‘luck’.
It’s not to say this businessman did not get some good breaks before, he did. But they were not of the
size of these new customers. They did not move his business to the size that it is today. He had to stay
in the business game, doing the right things day in and day out before he got the big break. As one
author said about his success on his fourth book, “it took me eight years to get discovered overnight.”
You cannot operate with a short term mentality in business.
Business capacity is in your temperament
There is a saying I heard recently which goes, ‘ ‘A’ students end up working for ‘C’ students and ‘B’
students work for government.’ It might have been said as a joke, but it generally holds true that most
successful business people in this world were not the A students. But why is that? Many people have
the ability in respect of intelligence to run a business. But the truth is that most of them cannot run a
business. This is because the characteristics needed to succeed in business are not necessarily a
function of intellect, but of temperament. Listen to any successful business person and you will hear
the words, focus, drive, patience, perseverance, disciplined, tenacious, determined, confident,
passionate, shrewd, etc. The word highly intelligent is not commonly on the list. Like I said before,
business is the discipline to day in and day out practice the basic good business practices, and the self-
belief that even if business is not doing well at the present moment, it will get better some time(think
inside the box). It has a lot to do with emotional toughness. Some people have it, some don’t. Some
can develop it and others can never get around to developing it.
The point I am making here is that if you want to earn your living as a business person, it’s a different
set of skills that you need to employ, not only your brains. That is why you find that the guys who were
brilliant in school are not necessarily the ones who will set up and run successful businesses. It is also
the reason why many people who were successfully employed in the corporate world fail in running
their own business. Please be clear that I am not saying that highly intelligent people cannot set up
and run successful businesses. It’s just that in business they need to employ mainly some other
capacities other than their intellectual ones.
Passion – I would like to take a moment to talk about passion. It’s very difficult to operate and be
successful in business without it. The reason being that the demands on you and the uncertainty related
with running a business can be very stressful. This ‘stress’ does not go away never mind how much
success you have had in the past or how well your business is doing at the moment. The only way to
manage it effectively is to have a passion for what you are doing. Where others see a problem which
they have to struggle with, you see a challenge which you look forward to tackling. If your mentality
does not see a glass half full as opposed to a glass half empty when challenges occur in business, then
you will not survive in that business.

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Responsibilities and obligations
It is said that to alleviate poverty, create employment. Who creates employment; business owners.
Being a business person means that you employ others. You set the course of the business. You give
the business its vision. The way you go about running the business determines it culture. You are
responsible for the employees under your employ and they look to make a living through that
business. As much as you might own the shares of the business, there are other people whose
livelihoods depend on your business. You as the one with the gifts to run the business then have an
obligation to take care of those people under your employ. So it is not just about making lots of money.
The headache of the monthly overheads, capitalisation issues and general strategic direction the
business will take are yours. That comes with the territory. One thing that cannot be escaped whatever
the size of business is that you as the business leader have an obligation to sustain that business for
the long term as it is not only about you.
Key points to note.
 Business is risky.
 Sometimes high returns are realised in business, but not so frequently, especially early on in
the life of the business.
 As a business owner you are the boss and call the shots.
 In the same vein all the investment and risk is yours.
 Some people have the natural temperament for it, many don’t.
 It is a pressured environment and the business leader is called upon to make decisions every
day; you need to be passionate about it.
 As the business owner you have a responsibility to keep providing employment for your
employees.
 Survival and success in business are more about your temperament than about intellect.

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CHAPTER 8
ENTREPRENEUR
What defines?
You might be wondering why I separated Business Person with Entrepreneur. People use the
descriptions interchangeably, but I like to separate them. I separate them through the characteristics
of the individuals running or trying to run a business. I feel there should be a demarcation. I feel that
anyone can be a business person. It’s a learned art. But not everyone can be an entrepreneur. That
has to be in your DNA. I’ll explain why.
Some years ago I was asked if I wanted to put a name forward to compete for an award someone was
launching. The idea behind the award was very noble and I supported the reason. The founder of the
awards idea was that in Africa, there are not enough stories of exceptional Africans doing amazing
things in life. By tracking several people and at the end awarding one of them a prize of Person of the
Year, this would start highlighting great people to inspire the young. How it worked; a person would
nominate someone whom they knew and thought was exceptional. If the nominee accepted, their
name was entered at the beginning of the year as a competitor. Then throughout the year a panel of
judges would track that person and score them on several criteria. I can’t remember all the criteria
but it included the following;
1. Career
2. Social
3. Family
4. Spiritual
5. Charity.
The individual who scored the most points would be crowned the winner. You get the gist. When I
heard the criteria, I had one problem with it. Over the years, I have researched and come across people
who have made it on an exceptional scale in different arenas. I am talking about sportspeople,
entrepreneurs, singers, actors, presidents etc. I came to the conclusion that nobody is exceptional to
that degree by being normal or well balanced, as you would have needed to be to win this award.
Let’s take my favourite study; Steve Jobs the founder and late CEO of Apple. He was notorious for
working all hours of the day. In one interview, a former employee said Jobs would work over a 100
hours a week. He slept only 4 or 5 hours. He drove his employee’s hard and fired people all the time.
He was generally disliked by most people who worked with him at some point. He took to wearing the
same kind of clothes all the time so that he did not have to waste time having to think about what to
wear. He would not compromise on the direction he wanted to go to the effect that he got fired at
some point from the company he founded. Generally, he did not have a ‘balanced’ life. But with this
‘imbalance’, by the end of 2014, the company he co-founded made sales of US$74,6 billion and a net
profit of US$18 billion in just 3 months (October-December 2014). Remember, this is not a resource
based company but an ideas company.
Entrepreneur = eccentric
There are individuals in our midst who are just different. They go their own way. Many people don’t
understand them. Many times they don’t understand themselves. But they cannot help being who
they are. I am talking about people who see things that are not there yet in existence, and yet they
believe that it will happen. Most people think them crazy. But how many people we now call great

27
were deemed crazy at some time. That’s why it is said there is a thin line between crazy and genius.
These people cannot help themselves; they are eccentric!
Entrepreneurs are eccentric! And I don’t mean only the rich ones either that we all know. I am also
talking about the ones who are broke but continue to pursue a dream that only they can see to the
detriment of their financial well-being. But they don’t stop; they can’t stop!
How does anyone conceptualise making a billion dollars? I’ll tell you how. They don’t! From my
research, all the self-made billionaires did not set out to make a billion dollars. They just zoned in on
something they loved and pursued that because they wanted to, not because they were trying to
make a billion dollars. These people get focused to the exclusion of all else. And they have a defining
characteristics that make them eccentric. Steve Jobs was a stickler for making products that
consumers would fall in love with. So it had to be the best looking and the best functionally. Anything
less would not do, no compromise whatsoever. Whereas others thought a product was very good, he
would throw a tantrum and throw the product out because ‘it was not good enough’. That eccentricity
is what made Apple the company it is today.
Entrepreneurs for Africa
For Africans to create jobs and offer a better life for Africans, we need entrepreneurs and business
people. We need the entrepreneur who can create an organisation that can employ tens of thousands
of people across different countries in the world.
Different countries across Africa have understood this. In every country you get governments funding
programs for entrepreneurship training and funding. These are genuinely worthwhile efforts. Maybe
I am wrong but I have yet to hear of someone in Africa on the path to becoming a big deal like Steve
Jobs from these programs. That’s because their focus is wrong. Entrepreneurs are born, not made.
They just need capacitating to fulfil their destiny. What these programs can do and do very well is
produce a lot of business people. I must confess, I have a big heart for entrepreneurs. They are the
characters who have pushed humanity to new levels. They are the pioneers, those who go where none
have gone before. But most people given a chance are hard-working, smart, solid people. These are
the ones who make the base of SMEs which can employ millions of people as there will be hopefully
hundreds of thousands of them across the continent.
Are you?
Do you dance to the beat of your own drum? Do you see what everyone else doesn’t? Do others refer
to you as crazy or they just don’t understand you. Don’t despair, you might be the next big thing; ok,
you might actually be crazy but then, you can only know when the results come out. You might be an
entrepreneur!
Not everyone has these strong defining characteristics. You can’t force being an entrepreneur. You
can’t copy being one either. It’s a natural capacity. You are either one or you are not. To become a
business person, you can model someone else and be successful. Entrepreneur march to the sound of
their own beat that they can only hear. Will you be successful if you do this? If you go your own way?
There is no guarantee, but if you are the genuine article, you will be miserable if you don’t.

28
CHAPTER 9
INVESTOR
What is an investor?
Definition: An investor is a person who allocates capital with the expectation of a financial return.
The capital can be tangible (money) or intangible (sweat). Whatever the case may be, the investor
expects some return at the end of it all.
Types of investor
Wikipedia have 2 types of investors, namely Retail investors and Institutional investors.
a.) Retail investors
 Individuals investing on the stock market and real estate
 Collectors of art, antiques, and other things of value
 Angel investors (individuals and groups)
 Sweat equity investor
b.) Institutional investors
 Venture capital funds, which serve as investment collectives on behalf of individuals, companies,
pension plans, insurance reserves, or other funds.
 Businesses that make investments, either directly or via a captive fund
 Investment trusts, including real estate investment trusts
 Mutual funds, hedge funds, and other funds, ownership of which may or may not be publicly
traded (these funds typically pool money raised from their owner-subscribers to invest in securities)
 Sovereign wealth funds
The common thing about the above is that there must be some excess funds that can be invested. So
for each earning level that has been mentioned in the preceding chapters, one can make a living
through that and also be an investor.
1. What investment line is for you?
Most people invest with their savings or funds they have accumulated from other means of earning.
If the investment is outside of your skilled knowledge area, you will need to get the help of an expert
in that area. However, a word of caution, make sure you do your homework on the expert (i.e. how
good is that person or institution in their area of expertise) and also research by yourself about that
area. It is not prudent to give your life savings to someone else and trust completely that person or
institution will definitely get you good returns.
2. Other things of value
In the second chapter of this book, I spoke about internalisation. With internalisation, you get to
evaluate and figure out what you are good at. Though there are many main stream common
investments, my advice is always to invest in an area in which you are interested and have a lot of
knowledge on. In my book The 8 Platforms of Business Success, I have a chapter on Financial
Management. In there I have a section on investments. I wrote about an individual I know who puts

29
their excess cash into cattle. These cattle breed and the herd grows and his investment grows each
year. But he is passionate and knowledgeable about cattle and so he has the requisite expertise to
continuously grow his investment.
Consider for yourself which area you have a great deal of interest in and have a deep knowledge of. It
must also be an area in which you do not tire in getting more knowledge (continuous research) so that
you are better equipped to make decisions. It does not matter which area it is, as long as you can be
confident to put your hard earned funds into it and are confident you know how to get a return from
it, then it is the place for you to invest.
Investment advice
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”-Bill Gates
No one is good at everything. The problem is when some people have struck it rich in a certain area,
wealth goes to their heads and they think everything they touch will turn to gold. Usually someone
would have taken many years and gained a lot of knowledge and expertise in the area they made their
money. However, now they think they can replicate the process elsewhere in another sector by
throwing money at it and using the exact same techniques they used in the other area. It usually does
not translate the same and people lose out very badly. That person whom we all admired as having
succeeded in life loses their wealth so fast and we wonder how they became inept overnight. They
are not inept. They just ventured into an area where they are amateurs and they have no capacity to
extract value from that sector.
My advice is stick to what you know. When you want to invest into another sector, invest in people.
Choose the people who know the area, who are good at what they do and invest through them.
They know how to extract value in that area.

30
CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSION
My hope for you
My passion and hope is to see Africans do great things and succeed. Africa is a continent with
a great deal of diversity and wealth in people and natural resources, but this has not translated
to the improved standards of life for its people. Only we can make our lives better.
The next big thing
Many investors from outside Africa are starting to look at Africa to get the best returns. A lot
of projects are happening all over the continent giving a lot of countries on the continent some
of the highest economic growth rates in the world. But there is a problem; the benefits of this
growth are not inclusive of everyone and it is benefitting mainly those foreign investors and a
few African elite. It needs to be inclusive so that the standard of life improves for all Africans.
Learn how to fish
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for life.”
The Capacity Manifesto was written so that people start figuring out where they should fish
and how to do it. Despite the obstacles we face, the basic reality is that we as Africans can be
the only drivers of real positive change on the continent. Even if we think others have an
obligation to help, history has shown that they won’t necessarily do it. We cannot sit around
and wait for others to be our salvation.
I hope this book starts invoking in you a reality of what path you should take. I pray for self-
belief, determination to do great things and a drive to succeed, whatever your situation. Help
me to touch other Africans with this book by referring them to my website
www.georgenachamba.com where they can download this book. That is why it is free!
Together let us go after other Africans, no matter their age so that they can also get
capacitated to make a difference. Pass on the message, teach and encourage others to
increase their capacity and do great things.
To help you in finding your most suitable earnings category, I have provided a “capacity” test
that you can take on the website under “Tools”. Take the test and get focused on the path
you have to take.
Continue the journey
Let’s continue the journey to capacitate more Africans together. This book is food for the
mind. If you are interested in business and organisational management, practical tools for
managing and running a business whether you are employed, self-employed, in business or
an entrepreneur can be found in my books The Eight Platforms of Business Success and The
Eight Platforms of Business Success Handbook which you can download for a reasonable
price on my site www.georgenachamba.com. Also like my facebook page George Nachamba
and refer others.
Capacitate yourself, believe in yourself, be determined in pursuing your path and have the
drive to succeed!

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