Money grows on trees

So I managed to convince you (or did I) a few articles ago that; clichés-- well some of them, are not very useful for your performance as they tend to have limiting effects.  The temporary solution was to discard them or better still; avoid cliché thinking no matter how deep seated they are. But that is easier said than done and I totally agree so I have been working on a better solution based on the Uptimetrics® platform. There is always a better way of doing something; you just have to find it and find it is what we did at the CSD Africa. So here is what you do:

Turn the cliché upside down  

Extract the useful information that is hidden within

Reason the useless information into something more useful

Three easy to practice to deal with clichés.  By doing this you actually correct (repair) the program (and that is what is- a program) instead of trying to remove (uninstall)it. The advantage is comparable to demolishing a house and building another one in its place as opposed to modifying a house into what you want. So let’s see it in action:

Your parents have been telling you all your life that money doesn't grow on trees and somehow you have allowed it to sink deep into your subconscious and even all the way down to your cells. And now you are acting it out before you get the chance to think about it. Experts agree that such information gives you a limiting perspective of money and negatively affect your relationship with it. (Look up money beliefs on the net. You will be amazed at what will come up)

This Cliché which in fact becomes a program in your mind (Mindapp®) is invoked every time you have asked for money to spend on some trivia (bearing in mind that your parent’s idea of trivia has never been the same as your own and that in fact they have been wrong many of the times. Let’s face it, sometimes they abuse their privilege to use such Clichés and the result is that you develop negative emotions in relation to money.)

Turning “money doesn’t grow on trees” upside down will give us

Money does grows on trees (and this is not only true, it is a super useful too)

Now reason your way to a positive end by answering the How (This is done with a tool called PSR—Positive Speculative Reason). Well we do have such things as cocoa trees that in fact produce cocoa that is sold for money. Actually cocoa along with other plants are referred to as cash crops and those who plant it do it as means of earning money- yep they literally grow money on trees. The more cocoa trees you have, the more money you have as the value of a cocoa farm is measured in money. But here is the beauty of this idea: cocoa is not the only money making crop that grows on trees. You will find (when you start thinking this way) that there are a limitless number of trees that can produce money. By doing this you have transformed a negative and limiting Mindapp® shrouded in cliché gear into a more a productive one.  

The first thing to do is to find out what information you are running on. They range from what parents and teachers have said repeatedly (sometimes whiles you are being punished) to something you picked up from a book or from conversation with friends or even people you admire. The sources are limitless and you might not remember all of them at once but they are there. Fixing such limiting Mindapps® improves your performance significantly as you are more forward and open to more options. The more blind spots you remove by using this method, the more options you open up for yourself and the more opportunities you make available to yourself. Perhaps your blind spot with regards to how trees produce money is gone. Feel free to look at trees differently from now on- they do produce money depending on how you choose to think about them.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mindapps® are small applications that run in your mind much like the apps on your Ipad or Iphone. Many of them like the malicious worms that crawl your computer have been installed there without your awareness yet are determining what you believe and shaping the way you behave subconsciously. If you have a belief or Mindapps® that’s you recognize as limiting, send us an email at spidup@csdafrica.com We might be able to help you.

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From US education to Average |SPiD-UP®

I spent most of yesterday interacting with a group of students preparing for the SAT. They want to study in American universities so they can have a "better future". The story is always the same. Their parents want to ensure that they can get “good jobs”. These days when you have foreign education, you are ahead of your peers. I am personally aware of a multinational company that recruits young graduates from UK universities even before they are graduates. So these young people and their parents have a point. It is good security if you want “the job”. Unfortunately they don’t appear to have any idea what “the job” is.

Young Fred caught my attention because he asked a lot of questions. The conversation appeared very new to him. His goal is to become a civil engineer so I probed further. The whys, the Who, the What and Where- you know the drill. It turned out that an uncle he loves a great deal is an engineer except he didn't realize he is not a civil engineer but rather a mechanical engineer. Fred doesn't appear to understand the difference but claims he has passion for civil engineering.

He had said that he likes to spend time with his uncle (who I should mention lives in the USA). “He used to fix cars before he left for the greener pastures of the US. Now he works or airplanes” Fred added. From my own experience, uncles and Aunties who live abroad are the coolest people in the family until you are old enough to understand what is going on around you. Taking a path that is influenced by them could be a very dangerous venture.

As far as his parents go, they just want him to get a good education and get a good job. For this they are ready to spend the almost 50,000 USD. I did not get the impression that they were interested in any talents or interest he may have at all.  In fact I do not believe there has been any real discussion about his future beyond the fact that he is going to need a job. When I asked about his natural gifts he said he could rap quite well when he was in primary school but he stopped because his parents complained and asked him to focus on his books. So he did.

When I asked him if his parent knew a millionaire called JZ he just giggled. He wasn’t evens sure if they knew a guy called Reggie Rockstone. When I threw the famous what will you do if I gave you a million dollars now at him; the usual house and car and provide for my family came almost instantly. This is the reason he wants a good job and why he needs an American education. There has been no real discussion with his parents or teachers as to what he wants to do with his future and how he can be the best he can be. There is no definition of what it will mean to reach his best. As a Christians you would think the idea of serving the purpose for which God created Fred will be an automatic. Not the case. If he had any talents at all, his parents don’t know about it and if they did, they don’t consider it valuable.

He wants to live what he called a good life although he is not sure what that is. He believes money will make him happy because everything revolves around money. The concept that money is only a medium of exchange and that what he seeks could actually be something else sounded like the strangest thing in the world. He is familiar with the word passion and why it is needed so he uses the word to justify his unclear choices but doesn't appear to have any passion beyond fidgeting with his mobile phone. He is about to add to our already overloaded average bracket even with his expensive US education. Nothing unusual there; It is the norm. The rest of the groups were pretty much the same.

After Fred I did a short session with some Swiss and Congolese friends who understood what I do more than my own people. We were soon discussing how Ghana can be better so I brought up Fred’s story. Then I was asked the one question we always ask ourselves as Ghanaian.  A question I have attempted to answer so many times I have even developed several theories to explain it. Why do we have so many Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Stanford, LSE etc graduates running things in this nation and yet we never make any progress? As I broke into another lecture of theories and hypothesis’ (hey that’s what I do…lol) I couldn't help wondering what good all this really is? My Swiss friends were nodding their heads… obviously interested with my blabbing- at least I was making some sense of the situation theoretically.

I had probably left young Fred more confused than he was when he sat in that chair to talk to me. If I could press a button to fix his problem, I would. But it takes a lot more than that. I learnt a lot from Fred yesterday. You will be amazed where your lessons will come from. I think I may have learnt more than I taught yesterday. Our high schools are not doing enough by way of career counseling. The kids are really confused like I was when I was their age. Not surprising we have wrong people in the wrong places. I myself have been a square peg in a round hole for a long time. I had to learn the hard way.

The issues are simple; if we continue to churn out more averagers, who just want a position that provides them with the opportunity to rob the rest of us, we will remain on the underdevelopment treadmill for a long time. We will be continuing the average cycle which may not in itself be such a bad thing unless you know that our average is below average per world standards. Using the wrong tools for the job never brought the best results anywhere and leakages have the habit of wasting power. Yet I am no pessimist. |SPiD-UP®

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