This is post 14 on my My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click if you wish to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.
Hey folks,
Today we talk about how I created my cash flow muse. I give you some suggestions on outsourcing the creation of the muse and give you lessons from my triumphs and my upsets. Enjoy and any questions, do the web 2.0 thing and leave me a comment or contact me with your thoughts.
Enjoy.
The Video
The Slide Presentation
Further Information and Resources
1) John Jonas’ website ReplaceMyself.com
2) Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind program
Tags: 4 hour work week, Blog Mastermind, cash flow muse, lifestyle design, Tim Ferriss, Timothy Ferriss, Yaro Starak
Slow to Hire! Quick to Fire! Thanks for sharing your Planning to Implementation budget and experience with outsourcing!
@Brandon: You’re very welcome. Btw I just added you to my RSS, so don’t be surprised if you see me on your comments section very very soon.
Hi, In your video, (this one I believe), you mention the ALEXA score. I used to check mine on a very regular basis and even corporate advertisers would readily refer to it.
How important do you think it is these days and do you think the Alexa toolbar is diverse enough and installed on enough computers that would potentially be visiting a site?
By the way, your Alexa is extremely impressive!
@Brandon: Thx 4 da kind words. Alexa ranking as with the Google toolbar from the research I have done falls under the category of, “it’s as good as it gets, but that isn’t saying much.”
A simple example is the fact that my Alexa Ranking is higher than Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneur’s Journey.
Now, even on my best day I know I don’t have nearly as many readers.
However, I think though the Alexa Ranking is far from accurate its definitely a huge credibility booster.
Hope that answers your question.
Yes, that is what I found. I guess that the good thing is that the Alexa Ranking is a good mix between Reach, Rank & Traffic. Perhaps you have very high Reach and Rank because of your niche, even if you don’t have the Traffic of Yaro.
Keep up the great work,
B
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Vipii Mwangi,
You do not know me but for some time now I have been checking your interesting blog out due mainly to the fact it is hilarious in many ways. You just know how to tell a story in a funny manner.
Lakini, this posting of mine has to do with something else. Basically business, maisha and women. I see you have started on that 4 Hour Week journey to seek financial freedom. Thats good, it shows that you are chasing your dreams in one form or another. Lakini I would like to tell you, as a veteran of these sorts of things, that it most likely won’t work out. Many of these programs are simply scams and you will notice that they never tell you how to make money. They simply speak vaguely and never fill in the details which they expect you to do. How one does that, nobody knows and thats why you rarely ever meet people who have actually succeeded with these programs. So, it is not that they are outright scams. They have some truth to them. Basic truths lakini no details. Thats where they kill you.
On another note, people fail to realize that there are many ‘business’ formats out there. Very many. I will give some examples.
1. Industry: This consists of what is usually known as large scale manufacturing. Good examples are agriculture, mining, food processing, Tourism, large scale industries like manufacturing machinery, aeroplanes etc. You find that these industries are heavily subsidized and supported by the government. They also have some political motivations and when people speak of business being a cut throat arena, it is this area they are talking off. People have to compete for contracts and there is alot of political machinery involved. In America, this area is known as ‘Big Business’.
2. Trades: The trades consist of medium scale businesses usually. They are business that are involved in problem solving that sometimes involves repairing and fixing stuff. There are many types e.g. Retail trade, plumbing, electricians, locksmiths, security & protection, hotels, financial services (Different from Finance) such as accounting etc. These businesses tend to be communal based endeavours meaning that you find a few groups of people who dominate them and have been doing so for many years and even generations. Another area that is prominent as a trade is entertainment e.g. magicians, jugglers etc. There are many forms of entertainment and you could make alot of money in this area as a hobby. Your blog is highly entertaining. These endeavours are also known as entrepreneurial.
3. Professions: These businesses tend to be small scale in size. They are businesses that are involved in the art and crafts industries. For instance, being a musician, manufacturing stylistic shoes, making wine and other drinks, being a chef/owning a restaurant, making carpets, sofas etc. Anything that involves the arts and crafts. In these areas, you can make lots of money, but you have to work hard to perfect your products. Once you do, the money comes in. This is somewhat related to the 4 hour week above. For instance, discover the next recipe that allows you to make a drink that competes with Coca Cola and you and your family and the generations to come will be rich for ever. With this area, you do not even have to come up with a new product, simply come up with a much cooler and better product. So if it is a shoe, figure out how to make better shoes than the italians etc.
Business: The word business is actually used to identify certain enterprises that are involved in problem solving based on what can be called a system failure. Many businesses tend to be consultancies. When people have a business that has collapsed, they get someone to get things up and running again. One can say that Obama is an excellent consultant. America as it is today is a country that has totally collapsed. However, business also involves other areas such as large scale trading (kind involving owning ships na kadhalika), running an Auction (like those tea auctions in Kenya), Banking, Finance (large scale financial services) etc. In short, they are enterprises that bring many people together to resolve a problem that is good for many people who are experiencing it e.g. if China is experiencing a shortage in cotton, someone has to look for the cotton and then find a way to get it to China. This is not really a one man endeavour and the person involved has to know how to talk to many different people.
Entreprises: This is the domain of the people who are known as entrepreneurs and not to be confused with those that are regarded as being entrepreneurial. The heart of being an entrepreneur is being a genius at organizational theory. There are many problems out there that can be solved by how people organize themselves. So you find that some businesses are successful because of how the people have organized themselves. A good way to think of this is based on looking at countries. Some countries have a federal system, others have a monarchy and others what is known as the British system. The way you organize yourself will determine largely if you succeed or not. Countries that use the British system as a means of organizations are destined to collapse, watake ama wasitake. People who are good at organizational theory are knows as being street smart. Generally these people take advantage of opportunities that arise due to chaos in society and then make a killing from it. They therefore do not engage in any one particular business. They will enter any business in the world where they see chaos and the ability to create order. They are known as jack of all trades. Do realize that one can be Machiavellian and create your own chaos and then offer solutions for it. Thats how the British imperialists operate. These people are known as being crafty. I am talking of real street smart people like Jay-Z and not them crazy imperialists who just bomb countries and then appear ati to rebuild them. Or even as they used to do in the old days, go into a country, join powers with the political elite and take over the businesses in a country. The British did that with the kalenjin in Kenya. In the old days, they used to create companies with names British East India Company ama British East Africa Company. Basically, these were companies formed to take over trade businesses that existed in Africa before them crazy british people came over. Countries in East africa used to trade with the middle east and India in the so called Indian Ocean Trade and what the Britsih did was go to Kenya,India etc. and take over those medium scale businesses owned by the natives by force. Took over them and the very natives who owned them where then forced to work in their own companies as simple workers.
Knowledge based business: This is an area that is often misinterpreted by many due to the media using the terms too much to associate them with the software industry. An industry where one can never make money really. Unless of course you view making software as a trade. People come to you and you write them a program. There is a market for that but it is mostly in Africa and not the West. Knowledge based businesses are those that produce knowledge, information, data and facts. Basically, ni hile industry ya kuandika vitabu. You write books that help people solve their problems, learn about themselves and the world they live in or basically take their lives to the next level. This industry has historically being the domain of scholars, philosophers, psychologists and religious leaders. Today however, it is has been infiltrated by every Tom Dick and Harry out there out to make some money bamboozling others. It has given rise to the so called ‘self-help’ industry that does everything but help people.
Creative enterprises: This is the last domain. It involves creating new stuff in just about every arena. It involves creating a new style of music, new styles of clothes, writing literature, manufacturing a UFO na kadhalika. This is an area for the few known as geniuses. They make up like 0.000001% of the world population and many are messengers of the Gods. They are not like the rest of us.
Having said that, the question then becomes which is the best area for you. I can see that you are a guy trying to become independent and especially financially. Yet you are attempting to find a niche that is best for you. One reason that you are confused is because the media has given you an image of what a successful person i.e. dresses in ‘high-powered suits’, whatever that means, a good watch, a very good car and of course a very good executive job; hopefully in the finance industry. If you do not have that, you are seen as a loser. Do realize that most people who work in these media promoted jobs are lowly paid and highly stressed. Its why the media promotes these industries ama what normal minded person would work them. A situation where you are told if you do not belong to the ‘jet-set’, I believe its the folks who apparently own jets (ama they lease them?) you are a failure in life. In reality, you can make lots of money in many other industries with much less stress. Take for instance plumbing. Very lucrative industry, make lots of money and work little. A true 4 hour week business in many ways. Lakini, most people will never get a job as a plumber because of the ‘social humiliation’. You therefore find that the jobs people get are related to their social lives and especially in this crazy world, their social life with women. People get jobs to impress women. How mankind has fallen.
Lakini this is all about you. I have known people like you before. One thing I know is that the so called lifestyle that is being promoted by the people with the 4 hour week program does not fit you. Theirs is a lifestyle of having lots of free time doing nothing. Ama its alot of free time doing alot of shopping. Also, its the kind of lifestyle by people who can best be described as being snobby and heng out with women who are nothing more than golddiggers. In short, that lifestyle has nothing to do with you. Just based on knowing people who were similar to you, i can say the following; You are the kind of guy who hates having a lot of free time. You like to keep busy. You prefer doing something that is partly mental and partly physical. You are also not the kind of person who enjoys shopping to buy taka taka as is programmed into the masses and hence the huge credit card debt most “rich” people are carrying on their backs. You look like the kind of guy who prefers to saves his money. You also do not look snobby at all. You look very down to earth and treat people with respect. Finally, you do not look like the kind of guy who takes bullshit from women. The western form of relationships between men and women i.e. the lovey dovey bullshit is not for you. You are the kind of guy who simply wants a woman to cook your food, have your children and most importantly akae kimya.
But most importantly, you are a mans man. You like to interact with your buddies, have drinks with them and tell storos. It is why I would say that you should dump the above program since it won’t make you money. In fact, I can see that it is based on making money on the internet. There are very few ways to make money on the internet. One is to sell information that is very original. For instance, this site is very entertaining and if you consider that the vast majority of people come to the internet to seek entertainment, you see the potential. Despite the belief that the internet is used to access important information, knowledge etc. most of the time it is used for gambling, downloading porno or talking crap in forums. The internet is an entertainment portal. Try figuring how to create entertaining content and then sell it. Believe me, people will buy it.
Lakini back to you. I was talking about what kind of guy you are. The best industry for you would be the trades. You are ‘entrepreneurial’ in nature. The thing about the trades is this, they are not businesses you go alone into, they are businesses that you enter with friends. They say in the west that you should not mix friendship with business but as you have learnt already, the west is full of alot of bullshit. If I was you, i would look for some buddies that i like, know and can trust. People i would consider my brothers and then go into business with them. Thats because you are the kind of guy who does not differentaite between business and social life. You view them as the same. By that I mean you are the kind of guy who goes drinking with your business mates. As a synopsis, I can see a life which is as follows. One where you have your buddies who are like your brothers and you all run one or several trade businesses. After kazi, you guys go get some nyam chom and drink beers and simply tell storos. You also talk about how to expand the business or businesses. When you are tired with that, you look for mamas to start vibing. Realize I have not talked of the wifey. As i said above, for you, a wifey is simply one who cooks, cleans, raises the kids etc. Hakuna lovey dovey. Same with your buddies. So, chase those mamas while you have a wifey at home doing the necessities. Your buddies are with you for life and when you die, your kiddos take over and thats why many Trade businesses are generational.
Of course, none of the above would ever work in the west since,
1. You could find yourself in divorce court and then spend the rest of your life paying child support if you tell your wifey to shut up.
2. In the west, the biggest enemy of the black man is black women. No other group of people hate to see black men succeed than black women. This is important because you have to understand that when you try to get your band of brothers, like Ali Baba and his forty thieves ( stealing is apparently a trade according to the Arabian Nights), it will be some woman, most likely a black woman, who will try to break you guys up. Its something you notice in western society. The concept of divide and conquer. The reason why the elites rule so freely is because the men have been turned into slaves by the women. Wamekaliwa vibaya sana. Its also why many people think that the west is a lonely place. It really isn’t. Whats going on is that these women have been given all the power by society. Lakini si you know how many of them are chicken brained. Spend all their time gossipping and fighting with each other. The result is that women hate each other and do not even interact withe ach other. They are isolated. And since they rule over the men, the men also become naturally isolated too.
If you attempt to succeed,realize that women will be your worst enemies. All women but especially black women. Stay away from them, the road to success becomes easy. If you want mdinyo, look for a young chick who is still dumb in many ways and when she erevukas to how the system favours her, quickly move on to another. Best seek out foreign chicks.
Lakini I appear to have lost the plot. If you ever decide to take my advice, you may wish to return to Africa. I am talking of Kenya or TZ. This is because these countries are close to the middle east and the future of business in both these countries is the middle east. When it comes to the trades, you may wish to look to Oman and UAE for business opportunities. You also appear to be the kind of guy who would fit in well in swahili culture and also omani and emirati culture. Kwanza if i was you i would look for a wife from those places i.e. Swahili, Omani or Emirati.
Realize that the chance of succeeding in the west, minus America today, for a black man is limited. After the Obama victory in America, do not believe for one second that the west will open its doors for black men. In fact the fear of the black man has just increased. All doors will be shut. Minus America of course but having lived in the states, that is not a country for you. It is not socially suited to you. The west is the most overrated place in the world. By the west, i am specifically referring to the English speaking white world. I therefore do not include other places like Europe really although Europe has its own issues that are off a different nature. The media has made people believe the west is filled with succesful people who are sophisticated and urbane. Kumbe the vast majority are just nyangaus masquerading as civilized folk.
You are now living in Australia. Realize that the collapse in the American financial industry is going to hit that country hard and I can also honestly tell you that it won’t recover from it. Its a country where poverty is going to increase and life for minorities is going to get harder. This is especially true for you as a black person. Realize though that Australia is not what people call a racist country, it is a country that practises bigotry. Racism is systematic and has to do with institutions. Meaning even if you are qualified, they won’t let you get to the top. Bigotry is judging another person based on his appearance only. In short, in Australia, if you are good looking you will get to the top easily. If you look at Australia, you will find that the people at the top in politics, business, social life etc. are the good looking ones. Not even the most intelligent or the ones with the best personality. Its all about looks. Thats what bigotry is, judging a persons intelligence, personality etc. based on his looks and saying that good looking people are more intelligent and have better personalities than ugly folk. By no means am I calling you ugly but i simply want you to be aware that good looking in Australia means having white skin, caucosoid features, blue eyes, being a blonde or dirty blonde and having a well built body. You on the other hand do not fall into any of the above categories and therefore your chance of success is slim in Australia. You will find every endeavour difficult. It is why you said in one of your postings that many Africans do not feel like they belong in Australia. It is because they do not LOOK like what an Australian is supposed to look like i.e. white anglo saxon protestant. Do realize though that if you are a minority and are good looking according to them, you kind of get a free pass to succeed in their country. Keep that in mind as you attempt to succeed there. Yet again, as I said, success to you based on guys I have known who were similar to you also means social success. Not even with women but mostly with other men. However, if you continue living in Australia, a society that keeps men isolated from each other by having them enslaved to women and working 24/7 just to survive, you will never be happy. Realize that as a black man, your biggest enemy is not even white men. it is white women. It is they who pretend to like black men but in short hate them. Wanawake hawana akili nzuri. A woman can hate you but still marry you. If you attempt to succeed in Australia, your biggest ally will be a white man who hates women and the system. I am being serious here. Australia practises bigotry. The Uk practises racism. Canada practises bias. America is actually a very free country despite what people believe. The problem with America is that it is filled with psychos and many mentally disturbed people. Therefore, the problem is not succeeding. That is easy in America. The problem is what happens after you succeed. All kinds of psychos come after you ready to destroy you, rob you, sue you etc. Its why its a country with a terrific high crime rate. As P Diddy and Biggie said, ‘Mo Money, Mo problems’. Its why Biggie is dead. Money.
Big things are happening in Africa and especially with regards to some middle eastern countries like UAE and Oman. Do not miss the opportunities. After all, as we all know, the vast majority of people who live in the west eventually go back home. So, why stay there in a society that will never let you succeed because ati ya mapua is bigger than it should be ama your hair is not as straight and is not the right colour. Add to that, you will be going back home.
I am not saying ati you start parking, all I am saying is that survival in that country will become harder and as it does, here is another option that you can look into.
And finally, stop watching TV. Remember, it is that same TV back in Kenya that danganyad you about how life in the west is. In the west, that same TV continues to danganya you about your future prospects and also about whats going on in Africa.
@Allan: Wa wa wa wa wa! Your comment was so long that all I will say is, indeed you know folks care when you have readers leavingg comments like that, so cheers.
There were some aspects that were wrong – i.e. I have no interest in the wall street lifestyle, I chose not to go into share trading because I saw more meaning in blogging and I don’t want to spend time doing nothing and the book actually isn’t about that at all, I am surprised that’s the first thing so many folks do – but there was also a lot right.
Stay tuned, I will post results as they come. For me the method isn’t as important as the result so I’ll post once success comes.
Thanks for the comments my friend.
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Hi Mwangi
I hope everything is well. Happy New Year by the way.
It is with interest that I followed your 4 hour workweek journey. Well, not in real time but all of it now in 2 ‘sessions’. It seems as if you made some great steps towards your goal to live the way of live which Tim Ferriss advocates. Nevertheless, the last blog from you about this subject dates back to November in 2008. What’s going on? Are you still following this road and how’s your life changed? Was the above blog the last one on this? No blog about further results etc??
Thanks in advance for your answer!
All the best,
David
@David: Aah the tale has been long since. The muse I established, mypodcastingtutor.com fell on its face and therefore I moved on and tried something else. I am now running a bricks and mortar business which is moving me closer to the goal. Once I get to a significant milestone – i.e. I am now nearing the 6 figure club and should be there by sometime this year – I hope I will be able to get back to the blog and write about all I have learned so far.
Thanks for the update, Mwangi. Sorry to hear that your muse didn’t work out. But hey, I am sure you learned valuable lessons for your new business now. In the end it doesn’t matter what you have as your muse, I’d say, as long as it helps you to establish sooner or later (well, better sooner) your ‘dreamlined’ life. It still sounds good when you say you’re nearing the ‘6 figure club’, depending on how big your profit is in the end, of course 😉
Well, sounds like a big change, from podcasting to brick and mortar, though. I’d be really interested – as many others of the people who followed your blog, I am sure – to hear how all this developed, i.e. from your podcast muse to what you do know, what your thoughts are now about the 4HWW, what you think was the reason that the podcasting thing didn’t work out etc etc.
Thanks in advance for sharing, Mwangi!
For the moment, all the best and best regards from Europe!
David
@David: Hmmm, I am hoping to write a huge recap once the income goal has been achieved, because right now some things I am doing right, and some things I haven’t.
Maybe a podcast or a q&a? What do you think would be the best way to do this?
Hi Mwangi
I am sure whatever you come up with in the end will be interesting 🙂
Best regards,
David