In the midst of my assisting a brand new immigrant to settle in, I happened upon two cool resources that can help anyone who is settling into Australia.

1) Skills Info:

This webpage in short gives you more information on the skills and occupations that are in demand in Australia:

Skills in Demand

2) Things to do first:

Consider this like the official version of How to Immigrate to Australia Within a Week.

If you are immigrating to Australia to settle, it gives you the first 7 (best number) things you should do:

Things to do first

Final Matter on the Agenda

If any of you lovely readers know anyone or know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who is an immigration consultant or lawyer or is simply an expert on immigration law or the immigration process for Africans in the diaspora, I would love to talk to them.

My agenda is that at some point we create a section of this website dedicated to not just understanding immigration law, but leveraging it for our benefit so please, I am unable to be proactive on this one for the next couple of weeks, if you know anyone please send me an email at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com

They don’t even need to be a writer, all I need are their time, ideas, knowledge and expertise. I’ll figure out the rest.

Thank you everybody.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

Send Some More Love

To him whom much is given, much shall be required. The folks at Hot Kenyan Goods, who can be found at Youtube.com/hotkenyangoods did me the great honour of promoting the interview that I did with Stella Mwangi aka STL.

I just thought I would take this time out to thank them and encourage everyone to check out their videos and let them know what you think of them.

Questions and Actions:Pareto’s and Parkinson’s Laws

As I continue to go through all the question and actions section of the book (and ignore the comfort sections), my hope is that by now you have your own copy of the book so that you can follow along.

You don’t neccesarily have to buy the book, but please make sure you are reading at least a free copy of it because it gives you a lot of the psychology, research and ideas that underly a lot of these exercises, which may seem ridiculous out of context.

Should you have any questions about just what on Earth is going on, please leave a comment or send me an email at masmilele (at) thedisplacedafrican (dot) com - I love that format of writing out email addresses .

The questions are:

1) If I had a heart attack and had to work only two hours a day what would I do?

• Spend one day writing many articles and spend the other days editing those articles, putting pictures and posting them up.
• Sending press releases and gauging the response.
• The 4 hour work week journey.
• Read maybe 1 or 2 blogs of people who I have great relationships with: Doesn’t help productivity though.
• Market the blog.
• Check on jobs being done by VAs to ensure they are being done effectively.
• Implementing and testing blog monetization techniques

2) If I had to work 2 hours per week what would I do?

• Make sure I have outsourced writing of the blog to good writers.
• Focus solely on promotion and getting the word out there.
• Podcast interviews if I enjoy them or ensuring I have outsourced to the right person.
• Establishing and tweaking systems for testing blog monetization.

3) If I had a gun to my head and had to quit 4/5 of the time consuming activities what would I cut out?

• Reading blogs
• Watching and downloading so many videos.
• Looking for personal development materials online.
• Run less.
• Watch TV and movies during the night less.
• Not checking email so much.
• Not chating when it’s time to work
• Not multi tasking
• Not putting too many things in my to do list.
• Not trying to get work done when others around.
• Deleting all Facebook funwall notifications received.
• Consolidating my Facebook profiles to avoid going back and forth between them.

4) Top 3 activities I use to fill my time and feel as though I have been important or productive

• Chating on Google talk
• Watching personal development videos
• Answering email
• Rearranging and thinking about and reflecting on the blog instead of taking action

5) Put two high impact items on your to do list daily: This one has a couple of steps:

Plan the next day the evening before.

On your to do list, put at most two high impact (80% result) activities. If you have a hard time deciding from the minutae, simply ask the question:

If I finished one thing today that would make the most difference and bring me the most joy, what would that be?

Answer that and lock it in the list. To check out how I implement this, check out this video:

6) Put a constant reminder on Outlook or your computer asking either:

Am I being busy or productive?

or

Am I inventing things to avoid doing the important?

7) DO NOT MULTITASK: Single task to produce the most efficiency and impact out of every high impact activity ( think of the compound effect of focusing all your power and energy on a single, high impact task within time constraints).

Use Parkinson’s Law: Create false time constraints so as to increase your output. Parkinson’s law basically proposes that the complexity of an activity will increase to fill in whatever time we alot it.

Create a time constraint that results in you dedicating the minimum time neccesary to produce the maximum result.

Any questions or comments and that’s what the comments thread below is for.

To ensure you don’t miss a single moment of my 4 hour work week journey, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

Nigerian Entrepreneur

I asked him to write a tutorial on how people with lousy Internet connection can use Windows Live Writer to become more efficient bloggers and he complied. I haven’t read the article yet, but if it’s anything like his other work, it’ll be useful.

Windows Live Writer Tutorial

If you are reading this in a country or region where the net is slow check that link out.

Pam from SARFM Radio

If you check out the Displaced African’s media and press appearance’s page, you will realize that this week I added one new media appearance to the flock. It was a fun interview I conducted with Pam from SARFM Radio. Much more straight up fun than it was serious and insightful, feel free to check it out.

Anyway, Pam sent me this email after the interview requesting that I put the word out:

If you are an East African writer or artist or doing anything good and you need some free publicity, Pam from SARFM radio would love to hear from you. Either find them by checking out the SARFM radio website or by leaving a comment below or getting in contact with me.

On to the Main Business

The ideas behind this post are still quite fresh and have not fully marinated in my head: if you find the post, too abstract, leave a comment below and let me know.

I am not going to say anything particularly revolutionary or brand new in this post, because this post was caused by my being forced to remember something quite fundamental about frienships that even I sometimes forget:

There is a reason that someone is your friend. Take away that reason and unless there is/are another reason(s) that you are friends, they will cease to be your friend.

A Problem

A problem I often hear expressed when people make a life long change like converting religions or changing their lifestyle or changing anything dramatic or at the core of being a person is that they “realize that”:

People who they thought were their friends turned out to be “fake friends”.

Because this person ceases to be a friend the way they once were, it is taken as a betrayal of a friendship that one thought was eternal and immutable.

The Flaw in this Type of Thinking

I think the deepest flaw in this type of thinking is that its a very narcissistic way of viewing the world where you don’t take the moment to consider that perhaps other people may be just like you.

Isn’t there a reason that everyone who is your friend is your friend?

The Different Types of Friends We Have

Don’t you have friends for at least one of the following reasons:

1) Friends of circumstance: People who you see so often whether at school, work, church or anywhere you frequent regularly. You just have to figure out how to get along whether you like the other person initially or not.

2) Friends of events: Friends who you do certain things with: this is especially true for people who have friends for worshiping and others for partying. And then there are others for all sorts of hobbies or miscellaneous activities.

3) Friends who are like you: Immigrants get pulled to their own countrymen because they share a nation. Immigrants are pulled to each other because they are all foreign nationals. People think like you do, like what you like and have similar interests and since you like the same things, by extension you like each other.

4) Friends who make you feel good: This one is a huge category that encompasses so many things such as friends who make you feel good because they make you feel superior, friends who excite you with their humour and outlook on life and all sorts of things about them just make you happy.

I am sure I have missed a couple, so please leave a comment and add to the list.

This Element is What Pulls you Together

There are 6 billion people in the world. We are not all friends with each other. We tend to be pulled into relationship and community with people for one of the preceeding four reasons (and any others you may add below).

That element is what binds you together. It’s not that he’s human and your human and so you’ll just naturally get along.

Take away that string that holds the two of you together, and unless you have other things that connect you, your friendship will end.

Why I Wrote this Post

I wrote this post for a couple of reasons:

One Like the Sun

Firstly, to speak to those people who have the problem above. Take a moment and reflect. When you changed, did that affect the very thing that connects you to each other? If that is the case, then does it surprise you that your friendship ended?

Let’s turn the tables: If you had never changed and your friend had changed the way you had, don’t you think YOU would have found it a bit difficult to remain friends with that person?

Two Like a Shoe

Secondly, I wrote this to encourage you to reflect on the bonds that lock you and your current friends together. What are they? Are they strong? Are they weak? Are they multiple? This simple act of reflection can go a long way towards helping you strengthen whatever friendships you may have by working on strengthening the connections that bring you together day after day. It may also help you figure out why you drift apart should you do so.

Three Like a Tree

Finally, I wrote it to encourage you to go out there and form more bonds with the friends you currently have. To illustrate this point I will use an absolutely terrible example from my teenage years (hopefully you’ll do better )

The Story: the Last Time I Ever Shoplifted

I had this very good friend in high school. One day he and I decided that we wanted to drink alcohol and that we were also too poor to pay for it. And so we went to a supermarket in the city to restock on some poisonous brew.

We walked around the store pretending to browse around for close to an hour meanwhile taking sachets of brandy and rum and shoving them into whatever compartment and hole we could find.

As we were about to make the “victory march” out of the store, we were pounced on by two plain clothed store policemen who bumrushed us not out of the store but all the way to the back where we were locked in a tiny manager’s office.

What proceeded was an extended period of me and my buddy lying, being discovered as heartless, and very very cheap liars, getting beaten up by a store manager because:

” I go to work everyday to pay school fees for my children so that SCHUPID children like yourself can come here to steal our stuff”

Me and my buddy left the store and immediately jumped into one of the severely overcrowded buses which was the inspiration behind tales such as this one.

As we rolled home, and onto way more debauchery and self-destructive behaviour, we looked at each other and realized we had just become greater friends. We had stolen together, gotten caught together, lied for each other, had the sense knocked into us together and we were still here……..together.

No longer would we just have good conversation, a classroom and silliness to bind us. Now we had a whole lot more.

Back to the Final Point

I use this example half tongue-in-cheek but I hope you see the point. Friendship is one of those important areas that I do not think we should leave to chance: stop reading this post now, leave me a nice comment and go out there and create another bond with your friend.

Your future self won’t regret it.

Have a friendly day,

Mwangi

PS: Feels like I haven’t written a post like this in a while and so it felt good to do this. Leave a comment and subscribe to the blog via RSS or email (apparently this tutorial is quite useful, so if you have no clue what RSS is, check out this little video tutorial page)

The part that you and I have been waiting for. Over the past 6 days we have set up the foundation. Today we put a dollar sign on the destination and get into the most compelling part of my 4 hour work week journey.

Before I get started to be fully honest by this point, emotionally I am so over going through this journey. But I thought, even though my emotional reserves might be running on empty, better to put out something and keep going than stay put and so I hope you guys appreciate that as you read this.

Questions and Actions: What Do You Want to Be, Do or Have? How Much Will IT Cost Per Month/ Per Day?

1) What would I do if there was no way I could fail? If I were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?

I have already covered this in the following posts:

What if You Had One Year Left to Live? The Bucket List

8 Things I Would Like to Do Before I Do Before I Die & Meek Meek Meme

How to Take Africa from Zero to Hero: Entertainment!

My Story as an African Immigrant:Part five

The Rules of the Timelines

Tim proposes we create 2 timelines of 6 months and 12 months and in these two timelines put:

a) 5 things we dream of doing having and being over these two time periods

I am unclear as to whether Tim meant 5 things in total we want to be, do or have or 5 things we want to do, another five we want to be and another 5 things we dream of having. Therefore I opted for the latter.

In addition to that, I don’t intend on doing all these things concurrently and some I may not even end up pursuing because of time constraints.

I have limited attention and focus as a person and intend on doing all this stuff, one at a time. That having been said it will probably take me years to go through this list.

6 Month Timeline

Here are snapshots of my timelines

Within 6 months I would like to be:

Bodybuilder: I admire the discipline of Arnold and other elite athletes, including my friend in the army. Well chiseled individuals worth emulating would be folks like Tyson Beckford and Shemar Moore.

Emotional master: This one is probably one of the ones that few folks will relate to. As I said in 8 Things I Would Like to Do Before I Do Before I Die & Meek Meek Meme , I would love to have complete emotional mastery and be in control of the ebb and flow of my emotions.

From this place of control I would love to experiment and see if I can go seven days in a peak state without experiencing negative emotion.

Not negative events or circumstances but where I am such control of my emotions that I am able to redirect the energy from these events into positive energy without going through negative emotions.

What I like about this goal is that I have never seen it done and don’t even know if its possible. Let me strongly suggest that if you have the stomach for it, you at least set one “unrealistic goal” like this.

Successful Internet entrepreneur: This one has a few parts:

a) I want to be the preeminent blogger in some corner of the African blogosphere and be the “go to guy” for advice on some aspect of African life and am still wading through to discover which area/ areas I should focus on.

b) I want to become a marketing and systemization consultant. I want to travel the world helping Africans make money or systemize their businesses or create cashflow sources so that they can live better and we can up our expectations and the amount of spare time we have so we can have significant, tangibe impact on Mama Africa.

Therefore I want to study the work of Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber and W.E. Demming to become the preeminent go to consultant on high leverage tactics for cash flow creation a.k.a. Mr. “Give You More Money and Or Time”

Networker: There is a networking group where one needs to pay about $120,000 annually to get in. Apparently this gives you access to some of the upper crust of Western society. I want to understand how the world truly works so I can have the greatest impact I can: I want in.

Within 6 months I would like to have:

A Tesla Roadster: Google it and drool! It runs on electricity people! Electricity?! If not, I’d go the way of BMW with their hydrogen models that are currently marinating or go for anything that doesn’t aggravate humanity’s impact on the environment (if I have enough time to run and bike anywhere I need to go, that’s not necessarily a bad thing).

Bodybuilder’s Build: I want to get the aesthetics out of the way early so I can focus on the true substance of experimenting and testing out to find the best diet for me. I want to experiment with raw veganism, acid-alkaline diets, green diets and as many “natural” (no supplements or additives or anything that’s not coming straight out of the ground) eating systems as I can. I understand that when someone is eating well, their natural state is to wake up buzzing and excited. I want to see if that is true.

Custom made clothes: I want to build my own textile manufacturing project somewhere in Africa, where WTO has completely shafted the local textile industries, and begin creating my own custom made clothes, not just for myself but perhaps for sale. I would love to have “the Displaced African” as a clothing label someday.

Membership site: I want to have my own online tutorial site where I teach Africans something. If this 4 hour work week journey succeeds, this might be what I teach….watch this space.

Within 6 months I would like to:

Dance championships: Train hard enough that I qualify, maybe even win some global hip hop championships. I like to move, but yet I suck at it. What better way for me to challenge and extend myself than this?

Take a trip round the world: Depending on how successful this blog will be at the time and the community built around it, I would love to travel the world with a tiny camera stopping by reader’s homes and chatting. How cool would that be? A lot of beautiful women, cool cultures and lessons all over the world too.

Radio theatre: When I started this blog, I knew that someday I wanted to experiment with radio theatre and creating my own online radio show. Again, how cool would this be? Watch this space! In the meantime check out the BBC African radio theatre shows from a few years back: they are what inspired me to do this.

Interview untouchables: The two untouchables who come to mind, whose brains I would love to pick to find out how they can sway a crowd, control a crowd and hook them when they speak would be Anthony Robbins and Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

Learn African languages: I want to learn all African languages I will have time to learn starting with my own native tongue, Kikuyu that I hardly know, branching out to Kiswahili (good Kiswahili not sheng which by this point is really its own language), then move on to learn all Kenyan languages including Luo, Taita, Kamba etc. Then Southern African languages and so on and so on and so on……I have just realized I have never seen West Africans speak in anything other than fluent and Pidgin English…hmmm, why is that?….

12 Month Timeline

Within 12 months I would like to have:

My own clothing label that redefines fashion and hair throughout the continent of Africa and pumps money back into the local economy

My own apartment in the city: Right next to the beach and somewhere where I can work, find piece and have fun with my friends on weekends.

My own African media empire that completely revolutionizes the way Africans think about themselves. Refer to:How to Take Africa from Zero to Hero: Entertainment!

Within 12 months I would like to do:

Meeting with the president of Botswana: I would love to interview him and the ruling elite of Singapore to figure out what these folks are doing right and perhaps replicate that in other parts of Africa.

Starting my own small theatre company that caters to an upmarket crowd: I love acting and performance and all aspects of moving people. I would love to just take a long period of my life and just dedicate it to acting and putting together good pieces of artistic work.

Creating my own music album which is a collaboration with artists from all over Africa and being featured as a world class dancer in music videos throughout Africa: A Pan-African album where I work with everyone including Afro-latinos, African Americans, heck Maoris, Aboriginals and just put out a good album. Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it. Has it been done before?

Recording the history of Africa and exploiting it for today: I think I have already spoken about how strongly I feel we as Africans need to not only record our history and heritage as different tribes but also begin to incorporate the wisdom of year’s past into everyday life.

I always use this as the example: the Luo and the Ashanti’s approach to death appears to be way healthier than the Western approach to death (If you don’t know what those approaches are, then I want to record all that and make sure you know).

Within 12 months I would like to be:

One of the greatest forces for political good in Africa

World class classical and modern day singer and dancer

World class speaker and motivator: Like Anthony Robbins, the Rock and Barrack Obama all rolled into one.

Relationship expert: Way too important to leave to chance is what I always say. Pretty fun area to learn more about too.

The Best of Both Dreamlines

What four dreams or goals would change it all? Within each of the timelines, highlight the 4 dreams from each column that would be the most exciting to pursue

That statement is quite vague to me and so what I ended up doing is taking 4 things from each of the timelines drawing them from the being, doing and having categories. Among the things I selected from the stuff listed above are:

6 months

Emotional master

World class performer

Join the exclusive mastermind group

Bodybuilding

12 months

My own clothing label

Studying the histories of Botswana, Singapore and other countries that have done quite well economically to figure out what they did right

Become a world class blogger, Jay Abraham, W. E. Demming, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber business expert and help African businesses create cash flow.

The Cost: The Target Monthly Income / Target Daily Income

Let’s talk numbers:

My target daily income is $3000 a day.

For more information on how I arrived at this number I created a lengthy private video that walks you through some of the steps I took. Please note that I use the terms Target Monthly income and Target Daily income interchangeably but I have no clue what my target monthly income is, all I know is my target daily income:

Now that we have quantified the end of this journey: let’s hit the ground running.

To ensure you don’t miss a single moment of my 4 hour work week journey, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.

Here’s to our collective success,
Mwangi

The Podcast

Things Covered

1) Some of the work that Derrick is doing in Accra

2) How did Soulfege get started?

3) Information about the evolution of the Soulfege band

4) Talks about their new album coming out July 15th 2008: Take Back the Mic

5) How the music industry has reacted to Soulfege in the age of gangsta rap?

6) Where you can get their new record?

7) How can you support Soulfege

Discussion about the famous Obama video

9) Why does Derrick Ashong support Barrack Obama?

10) Words of advice for someone who is about to immigrate to the States

Websites mentioned

1) www.facebook.com/soulfege

2) Pick up their record at the Itunes store: http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/

3) The Obama video:

The Interview

Things Covered

1) Brief snapshot of the earlier years in Derrick Ashong’s life

2) The relationship between Africans and African Americans

3) Derrick’s relationship with African Americans and Caucasians in his final years of high school.

4) How Derrick ended up in Harvard

5) Derrick’s experience as a major in African American studies

6) Most important insight that Derrick learned about Africans and African Americans after years of study

7) How did he end up becoming a professional public speaker

Who does he speak to as a professional speaker? What does he speak about?

9) What intrinsic values does Africa have?

10) Great take on the tribal disparities in Africa

11) Why don’t more African youth participate in the development of Africa and its diaspora in a meaningful way?

12) Are we African immigrants doing enough?

Important Websites

1) Soulfege website: www.soulfege.com

2) Soulfege Facebook page: www.facebook.com/soulfege

3) Derrick Ashong’s famous Obama video:

The images that I found for this post, and that I left out are simply breathtaking….wow!

First of all, what a mouthful that is. To explain just what all this means I will refer you to Yahoo Answers:

An agnostic Christian is a part of the agnostic theists. This means that this person is an agnostic (believes that the existence of god cannot be known by humans) but chooses to follow the Christian religion in spite of their agnosticism.
Theism is the belief that gods or deities exist, while Agnosticism is the belief that the existence of gods are unknown or inherently unknowable. Belief is defined as a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification. Agnosticism does not violate this, and this definition of theism does not violate agnosticism, implying that it is possible to be both theist and agnostic.

My Faith Journey

And so, this Sunday morning, I thought I would give you a glimpse into my faith journey. Where me and religion have come from and where we’re going. Maybe you’ll see a little bit of yourself in my story. At the very least, you’ll know where I am coming from whenever I write on matters of the spirit. It is a convoluted tale that hops and skotches to and fro: it’s a story so I’ll allow it to meander.

Childhood Debauchery

The first person who introduced religion and faith to me clearly did not study marketing in this consumer-driven world. Had I first been introduced to Christianity in Australia, the Displaced African would probably have been the Displaced Prophet or Salt of the Earth: Aussie Version or something similar.

I have no idea who it was, but I remember when I was very young getting it into my head that Christianity was about denial of sensual pleasures in order to please God who would burn me in hell if I didn’t follow his commands.

Now this is True, But…….

You don’t get people to come through the doors of the church like that. Honestly, no one is as good at bringing people through the door (and losing them over time) as the Western church. From missionaries who have managed to convert almost the entire global South, to even the way churches in a country like Australia run, they understand how to speak to people’s self interests and how to place God as the solution to YOUR personal problem.

I Digressed There…….

So, in short, me being the rebel that I was, never really wanted to say that I got saved out of fear. In addition to that, I kind of saw religion as a woman’s religion one time and other times as something practiced by a peer group that I did not want to impress -though a lot of them were so nice and I loved, still love, being around them.

Now, I am far from alone in having a childhood like this. My native homeland is (I put this in heavy quotes) “80% Christian” last I heard. Meaning whether or not we are born again Christians, most of us have grown up around the church or church goers and have some type of Christian understanding of God. And yet, a lot of us are not born again.

I Finally Got Born Again

When I was a teen, the sermon, the music, the people and the message were just aligning like they never had and I made a decision:

I was going to take up my cross and follow Him

I’ll never forget our so-awesome-I-can’t-help-grinning-when-I-type-this sunday school teachers pulling us (about 3 or 4 of us) aside and giving us a talk. They showed us a book that was made of many different colours but no words. Each colour represented a different part of one’s spiritual journey with black being darkness and gold being heaven if I remember correctly. And so feeling super-great that I made a great decision that day I stepped out of sunday school a saved boy.

It Lasted for ……

…maybe 3 hours. Again the problem was not only in the way folks marketed the faith to me but how I viewed the faith now that I was born again: denial of pleasure. I still didn’t see the higher positive purpose in pursuing anything spiritual.
I remember getting home and sitting in front of the TV staring at my Playstation.
I was now born again and I knew that playing violent wrestling games was bad: Would I deny myself that pleasure? I didn’t. And so the descent began……..

I Have Been Baptized By the Way

I was baptized about a week later on Valentine’s Day 2000. By this point I had slid so far back into the secular I had formed my own secular state. The only reason I got baptized was because I wanted to have a house party and invite all the girls.

Things went full circle and now I was how I was in the begining: a kid who didn’t want to convert because he thought he would be missing out on too much.

To be continued……..

The Interview

Things covered in the interview:

1) Her first few years in Norway

2) How did she learn Kikuyu and Kiswahili though she went to Norway when she was 4 years old

3) Who IS Stella Mwangi (STL) ?

4) What were her high school years like?

5) How she got started with music at the age of 8 years old.

6) Her relationship with boys and girls in her high school years

7) How she got her stage name?

How she did at school?

9) Did she go to Uni straight after school? What did her parents think?

10) How did people relate to her post high school?

11) How she moved on to music fulltime?

12) First time she was ever on stage

13) Did she have any bad experiences as a singer?

14) How she got to open for international rap stars such as Paul Wall and Busta Rhymes.

15) How she became a star in her native country of Kenya?

16) How she created “Take it back” and met Michelle?

17) How did Kenyans react to her and her music?

18) How she got accepted by Kenyan radio stations?

19) How she won “Most Promising Artist” in the Kisima Awards?

20) The one live show she did in Kenya

21) How her full time music career works?

22) How do people treat her now?

23) Words of advice to anyone immigrating to Norway now

Websites mentioned

1) STL’s Myspace Page

2) Opinions on Melbourne from Children

As far as psychology is concerned, one of the most powerful tools you will get out of the 4 hour work week, should you choose to use it is: fear setting.

NB: This post is rather long, but I really want to get to the meaty part of the journey, ASAP.

What is Fear Setting?

In a nutshell, fear setting is:

When you are being held back from doing something by fear:

1) Write down the absolute worst case scenario that can take place: This, in and of itself, makes you much more aware of what exactly you fear and more often than not you realize that what you fear isn’t all that bad.

2) Write down things you will do to recover the situation or take advantage of these worst case scenarios should they take place: This changes your focus from Armageddon to thinking about how you can either avoid Armageddon or use it to create a brand new better world.

Therefore, for the second edition of Question and Actions, you watch me perform some fear setting

Question and Actions: Fear Setting Edition

1) Describe the absolute worst, nightmare scenario that would take place if you did what you are considering:

1. I would end up completely destitute and clear out my savings and waste all the money I intended on spending on the blog on keyword research and testing products during my 4 hour work week journey.
2. My product would make me a laughing stock and ostracize me from my readers and community.
3. My self confidence would drop to such a low level that I would spiral in a self-destructive manner and wallow in self pity for many unsuccessful, unfulfilling years long after this 4 hour work week journey fails.
4. I lose faith in all marketing and all gurus and can no longer believe anyone or anything: my faith in humanity and society is shattered and self-destruction continues.
5. I never get married or have a family and lose all my friends and readers because I am self-destructive.
6. I begin to drink again and waste all my money for the next 60 years on alcohol and prostitutes, because my self-destruction and repugnance to members of all sexes completely cuts me off from any human contact or any sense of morality or community or caring.
7. I shut down this blog absolutely distraught and ashamed and still have to pay for hosting and domains and services for the next 7 years.

2) What steps would I take to repair damage or put things back on the upswing (my own addition: or exploit any negative situations?)

1) I would work on one of the many minimum wage jobs that I recommended on the blog and ask all the members of my family to help me get back on my feet. I would sell my car that recently died. I would stop writing heavily for a while to focus on doing some freelance work and getting back on my feet. I would have sausage sizzles where I sell sausage sandwiches for a dollar each until I get back on my feet. I would look for a job on radio or a paper or any form of mass media using my blog as a credibility tool.

2) Make the product something that benefits the African community and other communities (because Africans are pretty tight with the pocket and Internet commerce is quite new to us). Create something that consistently brings three bottom lines: money, environmental improvement and social improvement.

3) I would immediately get to work on creating a membership site using Yaro’s teaching. I would learn from my mistakes how the Internet marketing world works before trying again. I would talk to Yaro and other members of Blog Mastermind about what I did wrong and keep that in mind as I move forward. I would read Jay Abraham’s material and other Internet marketing materials regarding the area I went wrong. Include it in my story once I finally succeed online to increase the drama.

4) Go to the church and stay there for a long time around beautiful people who are the light of the Earth. Completely cut myself off from any cynical sections of Western society and disconnect myself from the capitalist money making machine for a while to focus on re-building my trust in humanity. I will always have Yaro Starak who really had a great product that so far has done exactly as it promised: taught me how to write, how to bring in readers, how to make money and how much to expect: I even have an email list too.

5) I focus on successful relationships (intimate and non-intimate) and make it a focus of the blog for a long time while surrounding myself with wonderful church going people.

6) Refer to 4 and 5.

7) Refer to Number 1

3) What are the outcomes or benefits of more probable scenarios?

1. I would be able to live out my ideal lifestyle (more on this next post).
2. All the reading, thinking and preparing I have done over the past 5 years would be affirmed.
3. I would have something that I can teach my fellow African immigrants that would give some better control of time and mobility and a much greater ability to contribute to Africa.
4. My self-confidence would go higher as I live embody more aspects of my 4 hour work week journey.
5. I would get more readers on account of the journey.
6. I would learn how Internet marketing works.

4) If you were fired today, what would you do to restore financial stability?

Refer to either Question 2s answer or read this article.

5) What are you putting off out of fear?

Nothing, I am already up for it: I am merely fear setting as an example.

6) What is it costing you - financially, emotionally, physically - to not act?

I am eating an excess of junk and my body isn’t where it should be because I can’t afford organic food or personal training as I pursue my body building goal.

I still psychologically feel like a lot of people are ahead of me who shouldn’t be (mean to say, but I feel it).

I am not living my ideal lifestyle.

I have to juggle many things so as to fund the blogging lifestyle.

I am not able to get VAs to do some of the more, unenjoyable tasks.

I am not studying marketing from Jay Abraham, peak state from T. Robbins or exploring the world of PUAS or recording the history of Africa or becoming a public speaker or…..too many things to mention.

7) What are you waiting for?

You sold me already Tim, I am with you on the journey.

Moral of the Story

I think fear setting is an absolutely fantastic tool to use, not only when you are going on a 4 hour work week journey but also when fear is holding you back from doing something that can be of massive positive benefit to you.

So, next time you feel fear creeping in: try fear setting. Takes the fear right out.

To ensure you don’t miss a single moment of my 4 hour work week journey, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.

Have a fear-free day,

Mwangi

1) To encourage media outlets to get in contact with the Displaced African

In a nutshell, if your media outlet is doing good work and you want to interview me or get in touch with me, I am predominantly available 24/7 as long as I receive prior notification of 24 hours or more.

So send me an email now at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com or check out my contact page and let’s get talking.

2) To post up all the press that the Displaced African receives and all its media appearances:

I don’t want to have to stop churning out content in the intended order or interrupt the regularly scheduled programming of the blog every time I appear in the media.

And so I have created this page which I will update every time I make a media appearance that I can publicly share. Check on this place regularly as I intend on media and media appearances becoming a big part of the Displaced African blog.

Media and Press Appearances

Interviewed by Capital FM on July 9th 2008

A great 30 minute interview with Linda that was featured on Urban Nites on Capital FM. I recorded this myself by recording the live stream of Capital FM and then cutting it up in an amateur fashion: the content is still 100% intact and hearable:

My first ever appearance on Capital FM

Linda and the Urban Nites team talk about and send some love to the Displaced African. I talked about it in the article below:

Listen Now to the Displaced African’s Appearance on Capital FM in Kenya

My First Appearance as a Guest Columnist on Afrik, the English version.

Find the first article I submitted here:

Barrack Obama: A role model or simply an empty symbol

This article was adapted and based on my earlier article:

The Empty Symbol That is Barrack Obama

My Guest Post to One of the Largest Websites in Nigeria according to Alexa.com, Naija Ecash:

3 Blogging Secrets Learned from My First 5 Months of Blogging

My Appearance on the Website, Kenyan Jewels:

They featured the press release I sent them:

Kenyan Jewel: Tony Njanja (Australia)

My Press Release Featured on African Loft:

Displaced African Press Release

My media and podcast page on African Loft:

Masmilele Page on Africanloft

My appearance on the Nairobi Star Newspaper:

It all started with the interview below:

Nairobi Star’s Grace Kerogo Interviews Mwangi

And ended with this article (please ensure that you have Adobe Reader to read the article), where unfortunately the name of my site was mispelled. First media appearance for me and so I was thankful and didn’t really care.

Nairobi Star Article featuring the Displaced African

The Weird Way In Which I Ended Up Mentioned on the East African Standard

Follow the trail beginning here:

M Does Not Stand for Mwangi: Mwangi Stands for Mwangi » The Displaced African

My First Guest Post on Kenya Imagine

It all started when I got contacted by Kenya Imagine:

A Cause for Celebration: Have a Great Day!

And Julia from Kenya Imagine asked me to bring my debate to Kenyan Imagine:

Why Stereotypes Can Be Good and What we are Taught about Formalized Education Sucks?

My Interview with SARFM Radio in New York

As a result of my press release being featured on African Loft, I got a call from the lovely Pamela Stitch all the way in New York and we managed to record this fun interview where we cover aspects of my immigrant life, interracial relationships, Heidi Klum and Seal.

Professional Images of the blog’s head writer,Mwangi

To stay a part of the Displaced African (tDA) community as it continues to grow, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.