Mo Ma, did you see the musical reference? I got you man! The weird salts aside, I got you! The final trilogy in the Mo Ma meme. I am anxiously awaiting the results of you folks doing the meme so please get to it.

8 Things I Say a Lot

1) I laugh a lot

2) No…but

3) Yup, aha

4) Ummmmmm (As I listen and try to process what you just said 10 seconds ago, when I wasn’t listening)

5) Close the door! (People keep opening the door to where I work without closing it)

6) Sema? (Sheng for what’s up?)

7) The blog did this/ This happened at the blog today etc etc etc
You should……(anytime I hear a problem it’s kinda automatic)

To be honest I don’t really hear myself talk that often but this list feels about right and so we move on to……….

8 Books I Have Read Recently

As I have said in the past, I am at a stage where I physically can’t read a book because anytime I pick up literature, my mind rejects it by telling me:

You have enough information do something with it

For that reason, this won’t be a list of books I have read recently but rather books, reports and audio resources (all information, right?) that have really affected me:

1) Harry Potter series:

Though I haven’t read the last book because of my aversion to literature, I loved this book. J.K. is an absolute MENSA genius when it comes to creating fictitious worlds in the minds of readers. I always read them in one seating (which was sometimes interrupted by trivial things like sleep, school, class etc etc). Once I picked it up the latest volume, the bolt-headed kid was all I wanted to read until I knew what was going on between Harry and He-who-must-not-be-named-but-is-really-called-Voldermont….oh no, I said his name. I’m melting, I’m melting, I’m melting………….

2) Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky:

Oddly enough the most profound thing I picked up from this book wasn’t even from its content but rather the way it was written. This book taught me how I best learn….from hearing interactive conversations. I am one of those people who may not be able to tell you the statistics and facts delivered in a lecture but will be able to tell you the emotional tempo I detected in the way he spoke and in the room that day.
This huge volume was an absolute genius (genius in the sense of he had taken time and really narrowed in on a topic area and understood it, namely geopolitics of the US and the West) talking, just talking. No attempts at creating a Pulitzer prize winning piece of literature. Just talking in an intelligent, insightful way and that’s why I love Podcasts one of them being:

3) All in the Mind: If you love Psychology as much as I do, go to Itunes, type in All in the mind together with the initials ABC into the Itunes store and subscribe to All in the mind. I cleaned the bricks that built the house I am currently living in. For those of you who don’t know what that means, when a house is demolished, you take the bricks that are still whole and healthy, seperate them from the mortar and cement that bound them to other bricks and build a brand new habitat from that. It took me about 3 weeks of working 8 hour days and while I sat there in the sun, a couple of resources absolutely rocked my Ipod (well not really an ipod, I was broke at the time, let’s call it my portable mp3 player):

a) All in the mind podcast

b) Martin Luther King and Malcolm X’s speeches: If you have never heard MLK on an ipod while you sit somewhere quietly do it. That man is a brilliant orator.

c) Lectures on food stability, geopolitics, Roman history etc etc from radio4all.net conducted by other geniuses that I highly recommend such as Vandana Shiva and Michael Parenti.

d) Preachers like Erwin Mcmanus of Mosaic (find him on the Itunes store by searching for Mosaic, Mcmanus).

4) Strategy of Preeminence by Jay Abraham: I think I have also spoken about this before but in brief, Jay’s whole philosophy to business goes a little something like this:

You should sleep like a baby at night knowing that because you entered the market place, the world is a better place. You should strive to find clients you care about and be a confidante, a friend and an advisor who will make their lives better.

He made business seem like something other than institutionalized greed ( this isn’t empty rhetoric by the way, check out the definition of greed and the definition of profit and tell me that both don’t have remarkably similar definitions especially as pertains to the constant pursuit of excess) and that together with his ideas on upside leverage (use what you already have to make profit rather than going to build new assetts) made huge impacts on the way I think about the dollar.

5) and 6) Four Hour Work Week and Blog Profits Blueprint: I thought I would throw these two together because over the course of this blog, you have heard about them and will continue to hear about them so need to go into much depth. Absolutely awesome resources………

7) Get the Edge:

The 7 day audio course by Anthony Robbins combined with an interview he did on Larry King, were the catalysts behind my going to a wonderful life of semi-homelessness (no lie, it was a true growth stage it was) in Sydney. If you feel stuck in a rut and want to kick your life into high gear, listen and apply the teachings of Tony Robbins. He’ll help you get to your peak experience.

The Bible: I haven’t read the Bible in years now BUT I would be lying if I didn’t say that this book has affected me, does affect me and will continue to do so until the day that I die. This book is the foundation for how I understand morality and good vs evil and a lot of my favourite thinkers reference this book. It’s the best selling book ever for a reason, make sure you at least read it. We are having a little debate about it over on this post.

Hmmm, not enough fiction in this list so I will throw one work of fiction into the mix:

9) FAMBO/Fimbo or whatever it was called, the oral story told by Wallah bin Wallah: As Mo will probably be able to tell you, Bwana Wallah bin Wallah was universally known as two things: a man NOT to be messed with and one of the greatest gifts to the language of Kiswahili. He actually, off the top of his head, orated a suspense novel to our class over the course of a month or so. To say we were on the edge of our seats would be an understatement. He reminded me that once upon a time Africans did all communication orally AND to this day, no one can tell a story quite like an African.

8 Movies I Have Seen Eight Times

I want go into too much detail on those…so I say before I begin typing…..first of all there are almost no movies that I have seen more than once, actually now that I think about it, I wrote an article on this, my 7 Movie Classics article, I’ll just add one to the mix to make it 8.

1) The Game Plan:

The Rock + heart warming story + cloyingly sweet fun = A good day at the movies for Mwangi and his younger siblings.

Well Mo, I hope I did your meme justice. I know I butchered it, changed it and tweaked it but I hope I made it look good. Thanks also to intricately me for tagging me. If you enjoyed this meme and feel like memeing me too, then just create a meme, contact me about it and I should be good to do it (make it something other folks can get some use from though).

Anyway, you know where the RSS and email are to subscribe.

Enjoy,
Mwangi

Hey,
I have been tagged by Mo Ma. So I thought that with Mo Ma’s permission, rather than answering all the questions in the “Meme Mo Ma” (brilliant branding) at once, I would spread it out over time and discuss different elements of it. I begin with……

Eight Things for Which I Have a Passion

1) Women: The only thing on the list that I have loved, hated, feared, not understood, fully understood, cared for, been hated by, been loved by, lusted after and been lusted after all in a brief lifetime. Women are not just a dichotomy, y’all are a eight-cotomy (I was too lazy to Google it, what is it an octocotomy, is there a word for this situation?) with more sides than a sphere (the illogical nature of that statement is deliberate ). Not understanding the female side of humanity in my early years is part of the reason that I fell in love with:

2) Psychology: From the moment I heard that Psychology was taught in high school in Oz, something just switched on in my mind. I loved this idea that all our behaviour is driven by underlying principles and isn’t just based on random elements. Ultimately though, I love understanding psychology because it gives one:

3) Control:One of the results of living in a capitalist world is that anytime we investigate something we seem to do it either to use it to our own ends, control it or both. I never ever want to be at the mercy or the beck and call of anyone and want to be one of those people who will determine where I go, what I do and who I do it with. As a result I always:

4) Question Things: I love Timothy Ferriss, Erwin Mcmanus, Noam Chomsky, Steve Biko, Malcolm X and Tony Robbins basically for the same reasons (among other things). They act as points of contrast to the norm. They are living proof that there is success to be had and pleasure to be derived from living outside of what is normal. As a result of their existence I question everything (”Why does a company need to continue pursuing profit-which is basically excess after everything’s been paid off-when it’s reached an all time high in profit and all its workers are well paid?” or “Why do I go to school?” or “Why do I read books?”). Needless to say that this makes me:

5) Different:I love to be a mirror that forever reminds people that there are alternative ways to do things and be. My hope is that over the course of this blog, I will uncover and discover new schools of thought and bring something new to this African immigrant design. Aah and who can forget:

6) The Displaced African: For the 14 or so hours I am awake, I think about this blog for 12 of those. To be honest I am still not 100% sure where I am taking this blog, but I have many ideas that I want to test out and my hope is that this blog at some point will become THE GO TO PLACE for some element of the immigrant experience and hopefully this will make me:

7) Guru/Teacher:This occurs much more in the offline world than online (though I’m receiving quite a few, “give me advice” emails nowadays, thanks to the folks who’ve sent them). I love to give people advice and motivate and challenge them. I study so much success literature and self-help stuff that I am always looking for an opportunity to give advice. Yesterday someone asked me for advice on Internet marketing and I literally typed out a 3 page answer to three sentence questions. At some point I want to get paid for helping people change their lives for the better and if I live to old age I want to become a village elder or lecturer….move the passion I have in me to other folk. Finally I love:

8 ) Performance and Public Speaking:Entertaining folks just comes easy to me. I love being on stage, I love talking to and entertaining folks when I first meet them, I love telling and writing stories. Anything that involves my making other people feel something, I love to do and think I do in a semi-descent manner.

Enough About Me

What are you passionate about? What excites you about this life? Leave some comments below and let me know.

Eight People Who Should Do This Meme
I will link to Mo Ma’s original meme so that folks know what format to follow. I am really looking forward to seeing what folks come up with:
1) R from What an African woman thinks
2) Jim from Kenyan Zone
3) Tony (namesake) from Naija Ecash
4) Gal Africana from a search for sanity
5) Seinlife
6) Mzeiya (You have to start a free wordpress blog man)
7) Julia from Relationship checkup
8 ) akiey

Alright folks, I’ll end that one there. To be frank it’s always love-hate when I write posts about myself…I am human and I do love talking about myself BUT I always feel guilty when I write something that am not sure will help, so feedback as always is appreciated.

Who are Eight Minutes You Ask?

I searched for something to do with the number 8 on Youtube and here are the results

I End with Barrack Obama

First of all huge congratulations to Obama and all minorities and marginalized people in the States for moving a step closer to a race-neutral society. Every once in a while I write something which makes folks stop by and call me stupid, naive, silly, idiot, spawn of Satan etc etc and one of the articles that caused quite a bit of controversy was the article I wrote the Empty Symbol that is Barrack Obama. Anyway, this Daily Nation article doesn’t say exactly what I said, but still has the same conclusion: Obama doesn’t exist for our interests and so let’s not invest too much in him,even emotionally. He isn’t ours.

To receive the latest Displaced African posts first, make sure you stay subscribed to the site via RSS or email

Enjoy meme-ing away,
Mwangi