Hey folks,

First of all welcome to all the new readers. I have been tickled pink by the fact that even though my writing frequency has reduced a little bit, the blog’s readership and subscribers have kept on increasing and so thanks to all of you and welcome to the new readers.

Following on from my last post about confusion and my podcast with Julia Sanna where I tried to put an african immigrant relationship manifesto together, today I thought I would go one step further and, with your help, try to carve out an African Immigrant Manifesto.

“Why What Is That My Good Man?” I hear you say

In a nutshell, its the answer to the question,

What are the characteristics of an ideal African immigrant?

After all, a man who aims for nothing is sure to get there. So what should we be aiming for? What should the end result be when you take all that Africa has created and leave it in the middle of the concrete jungles of the West?

And below I’ll list 9 characteristics (with a bonus) that I personally think are quintessential:

They Are……..

1) Goes beyond the limitations of his African community.

2) Expands the borders (whether psychologically, socially, financially etc etc) of that very same African community.

3) Takes advantage of the vast knowledge this land has to offer.

4) Materially secure and/or abundant (this one doesn’t tend to be too big of a problem for us)

5) Hard working (this one either)

6) Punctual when it counts (this one we do have a problem with)

7) Responsible parents (bringing children into secure, safe environments where they can grow up)
Able to adapt

9) Takes care of the body regardless of the plethora of temptation to do otherwise out here in the West.

What Should I Add to the List?

I have gone beyond my site and gone on the forum site, Mashada and asked the same question and you can find that thread here:

http://www.mashada.com/forums/opinions-advice/91763-what-would-perfect-african-immigrant-look-like.html

So either head on over to Mashada or leave a comment below, it can even be a one word response, and let me know (leave your first comment, you know you want to) what should an ideal African immigrant look like:

PS: As soon as I read the headline, I got a feeling that some of you want to leave the answer, “Obama”. I guess that’s alright, but if you do, state why………

When Steve not only sent me a review copy of his book, but also allowed me to interview him (please refer to the previous podcast) I knew I had to do something special to say thanks. So I came up with a:

My-goodness-isn’t-that-the-most-original-thing-since-cubic-zirconia-idea

I called it:

The Two Days of Steve

Yeah, I know, my creativity took time off to make room for the blatantly obvious .

Yesterday was all about getting to know the man. Today is all about the man’s book.

I got Coach Caroline on the phone with me and we had a freewheeling discussion about the impact the book had on both of us.

The discussion was very loosely scripted and we had a discussion more like a radio show than a podcast, which is what I was after.

Lest You Forget:

The book is Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth. You can find out more about the book using the link below:

I hope this is of value and service to you.

The Podcast

Things Discussed

1) What we both loved about the book?

2) The practical nature of the book

3) Things I would have improved about the book

4) The things that surprised us about the books.

5) The ideas that deeply resonated with both of us

6) We had a feel good session (I think she made me blush as much as my complexion would allow )

7) We had a lot of debate

8 ) A lot lot more

Any feedback, tips, hints and you are free to leave a comment below and/or hit the “Contact” button at the very top of the page and get in touch with me.

One Quick Final Thing

For those who want to support the release of my first ever information product, or just want heaps of videos and interviews with experts that teach them all they need to know about podcasting, please check out the site: www.MyPodcastingTutor.com.

Have one of those days that is so awesome you rename it “Perfection-Crammed-into-One-Day”,

Mwangi

Update on 28th October 2008: Steve Pavlina linked to this review of his book, among many many others. Check it out on this article entitled: More Book Reviews (there were that many)

How This All Got Started?

I have been a reader of Steve Pavlina’s blog for quite a while now and subscribe to it via my Google RSS reader.

A while back, Steve wrote a post entitled, How Bloggers Can Get My Book for Free

(By the way, the offer might still be on the table for all of you bloggers who are interested, so head on over to his site and check it out).

The Idea Behind the Post

Steve wanted to use the power of the blogosphere to launch his new book: Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth

So, if you’re blog had a significant audience and had been around for a while, you were free to ask for a free review copy of the book AND even a podcast interview.

I Wasn’t Sure I Wanted to Make the Request At First

After all, this is an African personal development blog. I seek out people of African descent doing great things, with full knowledge, that there are volumes upon volumes upon volumes of Western personal development blogs, podcasts, autobiographies etc etc

But Then I Thought About It

This is the Steve Pavlina who inspired me to become vegeterian.
This is the Steve Pavlina who I have linked to repeatedly throughout this blog’s life.
This is the Steve Pavlina who has 2 million readers every single month.
This is the Steve Pavlina who has written the best personal development articles I have ever read online.
This is the Steve Pavlina who inspired me to go on trials, such as My 4 hour work week journey, and record the results for others’ benefit.

All those things, plus many others, culminated in my thinking:

I would have to be blinking mad not to leverage the little success theDisplacedAfrican.com has had to try and get a useful interview with Steve Pavlina out there.

I Asked for Both

And he agreed to be interviewed and sent me a review copy of his book .

Tomorrow, I release my review of Steve’s book, which I worked on, together with Coach Caroline. However, today, why not focus on the main man himself.

Ennnnjjjjooooyyyyy!

PS: If you love this podcast, don’t forget to share it with your friends on Facebook.

The Podcast

What was Discussed

1) Brief intro: Just who is Steve Pavlina ?

2) Some of the defining moments in Steve’s life.

3) How did Steve get the idea to write his brand new book?

4) What was the process he used to write his book?

5) How did Steve get to a place where he experiences flow on a regular basis? (What is flow?)

6) Tips for people who want to become published authors

7) Steve talks about how he got more than 2 million people visiting his site every month.

8 ) How did he arrive at a place where he broke down all personal development into 3 primary principles (truth, love and power) and 4 secondary ones (oneness, authority, courage and intelligence)

9) The link between Anthony Robbin’s work and Steve’s book.

10) How on Earth did Steve finish 4 years of University in 3 semesters? Some tips if you want to do the same.

11) Tips for transitioning to a raw vegan diet – How to overcome some of the common obstacles.

12) The idea from Steve’s book that had the most impact on me: definitely not what you’d expect.

13) Me thinks that it is noble ideal to live a life where one eats solely for nourishment and not for the pleasure. Steve’s thoughts on that idea.

14) What should you put on your not to do list if you want to intelligently pursue conscious, personal development?

15) Much much more

PS: Make sure you pick his book on Amazon.com and return here and tell me what you thought of it:

Websites and Resources

1) StevePavlina.com

2) StevePavlina.com Blog

3) Steve Pavlina’s new book – Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth

4) What is Flow? The definitive resource on flow – Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (P.S.)

5) Hay House Publishers

6) Steve’s Article on Graduating College in 3 Semesters

7) Steve talks about the Raw Vegan Diet
10 Tips for College Students

Update on 24th October 2008: Steve Pavlina linked to this article from his Twitter and the Steve Pavlina blog.

The Podcast

Things Discussed

1) How did Benin and Joshua get people to write for African Path (Amazing!)

2) What was the vision behind AfricanPath.com

3) Did the initial writers get paid?

4) How to get advertisers to committ to you and your site?

5) Pamoja Media and the Vertical Advertising Network Business Model

6) The Long Tail Theory of the Internet

7) How did they get people to advertise on African Path
Was it easy to get publishers for Pamoja Media? Was it easy to get advertisers?

9) What you must understand if you are to deal with African publishers i.e. the large African newspapers and magazines?

10) How difficult it was to integrate African publishers to the Pamoja Media advertising model

11) What has separated the African online ventures that have succeeded from those that haven’t?

12) We had yet another feel good session

13) The unique strengths that Benin Mwangi Brown has brought to African Path that have helped it succeed

14) What unique strengths do African people have that they can bring to the West?

Websites and Ideas Mentioned

1)  The Long Tail

ii) Long Tail 2

2) Pamoja Media

3) African Path

4) Open X (Even I use it)

5) CPM

6) CPC

Why Live 8 Sucked and What You Can Do About It?

Hey,

If you didn’t think I was odd before, get ready to believe I am. I was reading a great free report by Rich Schefren and in the midst of it, he asked us to create a faux-advertisement to hire staff to our organization.

Rich proposed that instead of thinking of what we offer as simply a job we should think of our firm as standing for a higher purpose and giving folks a chance to join that.

Now, I don’t own a firm, hence, the unedited, unproofed, “quite different” article today.  Felt good to write it, pretty darn good.

Some time ago, some frat kids, some rock stars and a whole lot of celebrities got together and held Live 8. The premise of Live8 was to end poverty, particularly African poverty forever. Now, I know that you, just like me, knew that Live 8 wouldn’t result in much. Sure we knew they would sign dance and wave their glow sticks. We also knew that like politicians since time immemorial, the G8 leaders would step forward and present their latest way to increase the compound interest loans that have helped keep Africa under their boot while declaring it “relief” or “charity” or “their divine gift to us”

Sadly we all knew that a few weeks later, no one would remember Live 8 and more importantly, no one would remember your family and mine who are still living in a poverty that they never helped create.

Well it is time to put an end to that. My name is Tony Chomba Mwangi Njanja and I am going to tell you how.

First of all we need to change our focus. The focus of Live 8 was to make poverty history. We need to first change our focus to creating wealth today. I should be clear though, I am not just talking about Mercedes Benzes and 5 Star mansions. I am talking about a depth of spirit, relationships based on love, respect and friendship and a country and environment that we can genuinely feel proud to leave to the next generation. So, instead of focussing on how we will get our family members out of poverty and into that vacuum where they will now be middle class and ignorant, let’s change our focus to making them the best human beings possible and leave signs of divine blessings all over them.

The question then becomes, how can we help them create wealth. The answer is quite simple. By creating wealth ourselves and then teaching them how to do it. This is where you come in. For the last 8 months, I have run the blog, theDisplacedAfrican.com, where I have poured my heart and soul into revealing the best knowledge I had on how we can become true stewards of wealth in this world.

Over the past few months, it became increasingly clear to me, that trying to teach a hungry man how to have a better psychology is like trying to play tennis with an elephant as a racquet: very illogical to the point of being ludicrous. So I paused to reflect and realized something:

I wasn’t helping people take enough action.

I mean, you and I both know that this is where the success truly lies. When we take the greatest gift that God gave us, our free will and use it to take action and bring about results. My blog, however, was nothing more than an intellectual pitstop. A place where people could stop by and feel good about themselves, bad about me, bad about others, inspired, relieved etc etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love inspiring people, and I love having positive nurturing debates. But we don’t need any more Pursuit of Happyness movies, what we need are Chris Gardiners. We need more people so dedicated to results that they take action each and every single day.

And so, I expanded the Displaced African and opened up  the Displaced African mentorship program. Here, I take all my successes, the successes of all the great African immigrants I can find and process all this into a practical, get it done course, dedicated to helping people take action and achieve results in their life.

This is where you come in. You see, most people don’t understand immigrant law. In truth, most of us, don’t care. When we do, it’s usually because we have problems. We usually only care when we have a DUI that threatens to deport us, or our visa expired but we had no money for the ticket home or our friend has been arrested and we want to help them stay in the country. But a lot of this time, these people have nowhere to turn even in these desperate moments.

The Displaced African is committed to putting an end to that. We want to ensure that no matter the day, someone always has access to a sound mind that is well versed in immigration law. And so, I am inviting you to join my mentorship program as an immigration consultant, as part of my emergency team.

Whereas it may seem like the emergency team isn’t linked to the Live 8 goal ( remember that), I can assure you it is and I’ll tell you how.

Mark has been working so hard on creating a business thanks to the strategies presented in the Displaced African course that he doesn’t realize that his Visa application is due.

He is in a bind and doesn’t know what his options are.

One call to the helpline and his mind is put completely at ease: He can apply for the next six months, which he does through the firm and two weeks later he has his Visa in the mail.

Mark continues to work on his business which turns into the largest supplier of faux fur to the Alaskan people since the Eskimoes left.

He is wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

One of the conditions of attending the course is that you must find a way to use your wealth to both educate and resource permanently the leaders and growth of our great home. Mark has no problem with this because he has had this gnawing desire to go home and work on something meaningful for a while.

Upon returning to his homeland of Kenya he realizes that he can quickly and easily revive and expand the late great Fideli’s MICH project which took certain parts of Nyanza from poverty to excess. Using the business skills he picked up abroad, he expands the project so quickly that within 2 years it is not only in Nyanza province but the whole East African region, with plans to expand to Central Africa.

While he does this, he notices that the level of rape in his native community of Nyeri is quite high. Using skills he learned from the mentoring program, he starts up, and much to everyone’s surprise, succesfully implements sexual sublimation classes. Who knew men didn’t always have to succumb to their base level desires? They can just redirect the stuff. This program is also so succesful that it becomes part and parcel of the revivied MICH program and begins to expand throughout the region.

I could go on and on and on, talking about how he creates a church for young men committed to taking positive, aggressive action to improve the community every single day. I could talk about his Sri Lankan wife, who he actually chose as opposed to settled for. I could also talk about his business building courses which he teaches every Sunday.

Instead, I will remind you, that all this happened because on that fateful day, when Mark could have been deported, you were there. You gave him guidance, you have him comfort and now, you have given Africa a future.

Do you want to be that missing piece in our jigsaw puzzle. If so, call XXX-XXXX and let’s talk about whether you are right for the vision of the company. Are you just looking for a Just Over Broke (JOB) that will pay your bills do not apply? Do you just want paper? Next!

We want people who care so much about the mission above that even if they were poor paupers living on the Street in sackcloth, that’s what they would work on. We want people who have such a gnawing in their heart to see African immigrants and Africa do better that they will come to the office early and leave late every single day. We care about your heart much more than we do about your credentials, though we definitely need for you to have credentials in…………………………….

So if that is you, and I have described a place where you want Africans to be, then please call XXX-XXX and speak to Tendai about coming in to speak to us.

Have an absolutely magnificent day,
Mwangi

Let me apologize for constantly interjecting with”Yup!”, “Yes!” and “Mh mh” all the time. The mindset I went into this audio with was that it was a discussion as opposed to an interview and so that’s why I kept making those interjections.

That aside, I think this interview is extremely valuable.

Repetition of Truth

It is amazing how whenever one pauses to ask questions like:

What holds people back abroad?

You get the same answers again and again and again and again. One of them is:

When people immigrate abroad, they forget that they are not just competing with their peers or learning from their countrymen but competing and learning from people from all over the world.

So listen to this audio and you may pick up something new, but at the very least, you get reminded of the fundamentals.

Some Other Quick Things

This audio is long but I will release it and leave a gap between this and the next post, so listen to the first part today then pick up where you left of tomorrow or when you can.

PS: I am aware of the problem some folks have listening to these audio, and videos, in places where high speed Internet is as real as a Unicorn/Centaur Tupperware party.

I am fully aware of that and am working on it: A solution shall be found.

Audio File

Things Discussed

1) Brief introduction of Coach Caroline

2) We break down the 4 stages of culture shock

3) We discuss our own personal experiences with culture shock (she went straight to the “shock”)

4) Coach Caroline discusses her initial peer group

5) She also tells her story as an immigrant

6) Patterns she has noticed in behavior of Africans in the States

7) “The herd mentality”

8 ) Transitioning and learning when immigrating

9) Losing your identity abroad and the blessing therein.

10) Racism in the United States

11) Cultural differences

12) The importance of having a vision and the challenges of having a vision as an immigrant

13) The power of the Internet and telecommunication

14) Getting caught up in fancy titles and ideas instead of falling in love with the process and goals.

15) Stories on taking action

16) Ideas for getting out of inertia. Echoes the same ideas I got from Kirk Nugent and for more ideas on how to put this into action check out this article from Steve Pavlina.

17) Caroline’s most important piece of advice for people who are just about to leave home and immigrate abroad.

17) Dreaming big

18) What you can tolerate you won’t change

19) Much much more…………….

Let’s recap on what we have discussed so far:

1) One Thing We MUST Begin Doing NOW As African Immigrants

2) What Every African Immigrant Ought to Know About Recording and Sharing Success

This article has been written to give  you some ideas about areas where we as African immigrants need to share useful information with each other on a mass scale. It has two parts:

1) What I personally think is more important and what I value. MORE IMPORTANTLY:

2) What I have observed we as a community need to learn

What I Have Observed We Need to Learn

Getting Started Making an Income

Here folks need all the help they can get. There are a few situations when it’s especially necessary:

a) When a young adult arrives in a foreign country never having worked or been job searching a day in their life.

b) When someone comes from a poor family who put all their financial resources to send them abroad and have left them on their own.

c) People who are transferring over to a country to pursue an occupation but have a long transition, preparation and “one-more-damn-form-to-fill” period between their overseas arrival and working in their job.

Here people need to know where they can begin making money instantly. Not necessarily a lot, though if you know how, do tell. Just enough to get by.

One of the aims of this blog is to explore “alternative and unique” ways this can be done so that this is never a problem.

Material Success

Once people do get a job and begin working, and if their visa is in order, there is a tendency to get very very comfortable and stuck in a rut. You’re not growing. You’re not making as much of a contribution as you can to your community. You are not even close to maximizing your potential.

This is where people who have succeeded materially at an extraordinary level need to begin writing autobiographies and how tos so that they reignite the passions of the comfortable and give them a new pinnacle to aim towards.

Relationships

This is the area we’ll ask for the least help in and yet know the least about. One of the worst consequences of losing our tribal societies is we lost a sense of continuity of education in this area of relationships.

This world is constantly changing so fast that the rules that governed our parents aren’t the same rules that govern us and probably won’t be the same relationship rules that govern our kids. (As a sidenote, have you ever stopped to think about how weird, or probably repulsive, a lot of our generation’s sexual habits would be to our grandparents….we have changed A LOT as a people)

As long as there is this thing called man, and there is this thing called woman, majority of us will always be sexually attracted to each other and feel kinda incomplete if we don’t at least have some relationship with members of the opposite sex.

Why something so quintessential to the human experience isn’t part of the everyday school syllabus but logarithms are is beyond me.

As an immigrant it’s even worse. Not only were there “no solid rules” to begin with, but now you are in a country where the rules are entirely different. A world where people are more and more about “private space” and “individual ambition” as opposed to “just sitting connecting and sharing”.

When I began writing this section, I thought I was just talking about romantic relationships. I have realized I am not, even platonic relationships. If you have any sort of rock solid bond with another human being abroad in spite of the circumstances, you need to share this.

What I Think We Need to Know?

Marketing Impulse Control

We need to sit down and teach future immigrants how to avoid constantly jumping on the next material trend and entering themselves into debt so that they can live like a rich man on a pauper’s salary.

This is just my personal issue though. I don’t see why you should be buying leather seats, a plasma screen TV and a sports car when you have to work 14 hour days just to pay for all of that. Shouldn’t you build your financial foundation on a life of frugality first and then once you actually HAVE an excess of capital, live like you do?

Eating Healthy

Next time you are in an African function, look to your left, then look to your right and then look to the center. Tell me how many of those people have love handles that can only come from excess junk consumption or if not how many have a very high metabolism that pretty much gets rid of any signs of junk in take.

We eat like crap more often than not. We need to eat better. We have greater access to information and are much smarter than that.

Unique Immigrant Experiences

If you have gone off the beaten path and done things that people thought were undoable abroad, record your tales and share them with your fellow immigrant and enlighten us that we constantly remember that no life is not static and human life is indeed a fluid concept.

All breakthroughs and great innovations come from outside of the boxes, mental or otherwise that we chose to live within. Share your insights from outside this box and help the people within it expand.

Can you think of any other areas we need to record success? Have any thoughts on the matter? Leave a comment below.

In the next, and me thinks, final edition of this series, I will share some quick ideas on just how to present your message to make it most compelling and useful to other African immigrants.

Ladies and gentlemen if you have not, please sign up for and give me feedback on:

The Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter

If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) on my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.

I Hate Spam, So I Won’t Share Your Email With Anyone.

In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on:

i) Making friends

ii) Finding employment

iii) How to stay healthy on the run

iv) Things to prepare before you immigrate

v) Staying in touch with people from your home country

vi) Tips on how to transition from a student to a permanent resident and/or citizen in Australia etc etc.

So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:

I Hate Spam, So I Won’t Share Your Email With Anyone.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

In the first article in this series, I made the case for African immigrants recording and sharing in mass all their successes so that future immigrants have a shorter learning curve than those who came before them.

Today we’ll expand on just how we might be able to go about this

Mwangi What’s In It For Me

I wish I could tell you that your doing this will somehow make you a millionaire or the King of the World, but it won’t.

In doing so, you give back to the community from which you came and help raise up  future generations-or rather a future boat load of immigrants -”to your level” quicker so that all our boats can rise together and we can become the economic and social powerhouse that we know we can be.

I don’t know about you, but personally, I know I would not be as far along as I am in my life had people not taken the time out of their busy day to invest in me and my future.

Mwangi I Have No Expertise

That’s the wash of a hog, that is. If you are in a foreign country and you have a roof over your head, then you have a skill a future African immigrant needs to know about. If you have any form of hard earned income coming in, you have something to share.

If you have a rock-solid relationship in this Western world where everyone is a commodity, you have something to share. If you have had trials and tribulations and overcome, you have something to share. If you have been abroad and the culture shock has not driven you mad, you have something to share.

Alright, Alright, Alright, I Accept, I Have a Tip or Two to Share: How Do I Do It?

I think the primary principle we should remember is:

The information and the intention are most important. The Internet, blogs, telephone, letters, newspapers, radio etc etc are all just distribution tools.

The tools are not the ends in and of themselves.

These tools are used to disseminate information guided by a particular intention - e.g. the intention to see future immigrants do better. (Please tell me in the comments section if this idea is too abstract and I will describe it in another way that will make it clearer)

Here are a couple of ideas on how to do it:

a) Share on a blog: You knew I had to give this tip. Blogs are free to start up and if you want to host it yourself, it’s so cheap there really is no reason not to.

Speaking from personal experience, the greatest advantage that blogging provides, if you choose to follow in my footsteps or the footsteps of people like Thinkers Room, is that it strengthens and proliferates your brand and your name within a particular community both online and offline. Not a bad side effect for doing something positive.

b) Community Forums: Almost every African country, and in many places we as a continent have an online community. Whether its a forum, social bookmarking site, blog aggregator or just a blog where many people gather. Head on over there and assist anyone who might be making the move to a new country or is a newbie immigrant that needs some tips.

c) Get some penpals: If you know that someone in your community is about to immigrate over, start talking by phone, email or letter. Let him know how he can do things that you did. Give him some tips, some shortcuts, some ways to go around, under, above or through obstacles.

d) Give lectures at immigration organizations: If you are visiting your home country, go to the institution that helps people immigrate and just offer yourself up to give a talk during their lunch break about the pitfalls to avoid and the opprtunities to be seized abroad.

e) Write free reports: This is a tactic from the world of Internet marketing. You sit down and right everything you know about a particular topic that can be of use to other people and compile it into a free pdf report. Help that report circulate online.

I intend on doing this in the very near future so if you have no idea how to do this, check back in a couple of months and hopefully we’ll have a succesful model.

f) If You Know People from Mass Media Centres: Then go on the radio, tv or newspapers and just talk to the journalist about what future boat-crossers need to know.

For examples of this check out the Displaced African Press and Media Appearances page, and also check out SARFM radio every 2nd Saturday of every month where as of yesterday, I will be doing just that.

g) Youtube: It’s the 3rd most popular website on Earth, according to Alexa, and all you need to do to join in the frenzy is buy a cheap web cam. Check out the Displaced African Youtube page here. For examples of succesful African Youtube pages check out:

i) Ikahara

ii) AfricanRemix

Quick tip: If you can find a way to mix in music into your Youtube page that is a sure recipe for success. Poll after poll, article after article and simple observation will reveal that music is hands down the most popular thing on Youtube.

h) Podcasting: Again, an incredibly cheap and easy to implement endeavor. Put your podcasts on Itunes and they are accessible to millions.

Some Examples of What This Would Look Like

Not all these examples are specific to African immigrants:

1) Kelly’s article on Interview tips: Now picture this, tips for interviewing for a job in the States.

2) How to immigrate to Australia within a week guide.

3) Tips from an African Woman Who Started and Sold a Business for Six Figures.

4) Acolyte’s guide to apartment hunting.

5) Mwangi interviews Tabitha Togoi from the African Leadership Academy

6) Gal africana talks a bit about holiday visas

7) Nelson Mandela’s autobiography
Mwalimu.com

9) Dan Kennedy’s Google Videos

In the final part of this series, I will talk a bit about the areas that I feel we most need to record and share our successes so we can take this concept and talk about where we can immediately apply it.

The Newsletter

If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) on my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.

I Hate Spam, So I Won’t Share Your Email With Anyone.

In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on:

i) Making friends

ii) Finding employment

iii) How to stay healthy on the run

iv) Things to prepare before you immigrate

v) Staying in touch with people from your home country

vi) Tips on how to transition from a student to a permanent resident and/or citizen in Australia etc etc.

So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:

I Hate Spam, So I Won’t Share Your Email With Anyone.

The Interview

Brief Introduction

I have known Tabitha, her family and her sister, Julie Tongoi, who I interviewed a while back, for years and years and years. So, it is with much pleasure that I learned about her being accepted to the African Leadership Academy and also share this interview with you.

Let me encourage you: let us record excellence or success and share it with our fellow Africans. Even if it is in things that may be automatic or easy to you e.g. getting a job or getting a house, there is an immigrant somewhere out there who needs to know what you know, so please, we need more versions of the Displaced African (tDA) and success magazine out there. For an example of this, check out Kelly’s articles on the interview process.

More Interviews?

By the way if you would be interested in me interviewing any more of the people accepted into the leadership academy, then leave a comment below or email me at masmilele(at)thedisplacedafrican(dot)com and let me know.

Things Discussed

1) Brief introduction to her and the leadership academy

2) How did she hear about the leadership academy?

3) Why was she chosen out of all the people interviewed ?

4) The criteria to get into the school

5) How did the school measure whether “someone has a passion for Africa”?

6) Her plans as she goes to the leadership academy and beyond

7) The pros and cons of the Kenyan 8-4-4 education system. You can click on the link to find out more about 8-4-4 or leave a comment below and ask me a question and I will tell you the little I know.
Information about Tabitha’s Project ABC (“A Book for Change”) which had the goal of providing text books to children who do not have access to them. Now tell me this isn’t what innovation is all about? Compare this with the work Fidelis Wainaina did as well.

9) What is it about her psychology and her day to day habits that separates her from her peers?

10) Who are her parents and what do they do?

11) Mental exercise:

Let’s asssume that you have a young, fresh African mind that is a blank state in your stewardship:

i) What are the principles you would use to guide this person?

ii) What would this child be doing on a day to day basis?

12) What type of support network does she have?

13) Her work process which has been described as outstanding.

14) How would she like to be remembered

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A Small Digression

Tabitha spoke about how she is able to hold off on enjoying her friends’ company from time to time, to work, because she sees the long term vision in it. For those who may not know what their long term vision is, or for those who need ideas on that let me recommend you check out the interview with Kirk Nugent where he talks about that.

Websites Mentioned

1) Find more information on the African Leadership Academy and Tabitha Tongoi’s involvement in it, read this article from the African Loft website.

2) Find more information on Kenyan education system, 8-4-4.

3) African Leadership Academy website.

4) Irene Tongoi’s, New Dawn Kenya

5) More information on her father, Dennis Tongoi

6) Karura Community Chapel

We Don’t See Things as They Are, We See Things as We Are

This is one of the biggest lessons that immigration will teach you. Two people can be standing at the same moment in time at the same place looking at the same thing and be thinking entirely different things based on their background, culture, beliefs, race and conditioning.

Though we rarely are brave enough to admit it in public, in our heart of hearts, all of us know that as many flaws as we can point out in the other person’s perception of the world, there are probably as many holes in ours.

Who knows maybe the areas where his perceptual framework is full may help fill up places where there are holes in our view of the world. Take advantage of these different schemas, that’s where depth of character and creativity come from.

Just a little something to think about.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi