Chess is a game of War. And since war is an inherent part of life we can say chess can teach you much about war and life…without rambling too much these are some few Concepts to consider on how chess strategy can be used in daily life and in Warfare.
Key points from chapter one
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
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“You may delay, but time will not.”
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Making money is an art, those who are good in this art are those who end up with the bounty. It is a balance between attack and defense, many folks focus on attack and all you need to do to make money but few focus on keeping wealth. You can lose your wealth faster than you gained it, in moments… hence you need to be prepared. Let’s look at ways we can keep our wealth from evaporating…
Quotes are often the words of wise or famous individuals who have achieved success in their fields. These quotes provide insights into the thoughts and experiences of these people, and can inspire us to learn from their examples.
Many people learn along the path of life valuable lessons that can be compressed into a simple sentence. Therein lies the power of quotes, it looks simple on the surface but a closer look often reveals wisdom to guide,encourage warn,direct or just for some humor.
Quotes can be a great source of motivation, providing us with encouragement and inspiration to pursue our goals and dreams.
Quotes are often short and concise, making them easy to remember. This makes them great for sharing with others or for personal reflection.
Below are some money quotes to keep you thinking.
The ants are a people not strong,
yet they prepare their meat in the summer-Proverbs
The reason you are in business is to make money and profits. Yes, money and more money. This is a given, but going directly after money appears to be counterproductive. A person or business appears to be desperate when the business is all about profits. This ends up turning off customers. What you will like to do is developing a business empire such that if all the moneys you had vanished in one night, you will be able to build it up in no time. This brings us to the real reason we are in business, doing these will bring profits and wealth which cannot be taken away by even the best of thieves.
If you want to make profits, do these things and the money will flow in naturally;
Fulfil your clients’ dreams:
All customers have dreams and aspirations. What they really want! There is something they want that they will give a part of their fortune to obtain. Knowing this and fulfilling it is what clients value. If we fail to consider the ideal picture the client has in mind and cook up ours, we will be out of sync with the value being paid for. This shows up in the buyer feeling he/she is not being understood hence compels him to look elsewhere. Fulfilling our client’s dream is the ultimate which leaves as lasting positive impression and makes them come back for more while spreading your business with the word of mouth.
To remove our client’s frustration/problems:
Your customers have a problem you can solve. Help them and let them remember you or your brand helped them solve a problem. You have removed their frustration and they will pay for that. The word of mouth will also spread which brings more trust and costumers to your brand. And you know what this means. A solid customer base will increase your wealth.
Problems are the basis of making money. When you find a problem and solve it effectively money is bound to follow.
To distribute value:
Always seeking to add value a sure way to make profits. You get paid for bringing value to the market place. The value you distribute comes back to you in cash and kind. You are in business to distribute value to as many people as you can. This may be in terms of a product or service. What others get from you defines your business and you earn what you are. Apart from your core services, Some of the things customers value which seem abstract are
These are based on emotions. People buy for emotional reasons and look for a logic to back it up.
Respect
Integrity
Association
Value for money
To obtain total craftsmanship
Developing your brand into the that ‘perfect’ brand that knows all about the industry is a leading position to achieve. Total commitment to the process of creation such that there is a wow factor to your brand. During this process. If people see you as the total craftsman, chances are they will trust you enough to do business with you.
Obtaining total craftmanship also has the potential of increasing profits because you become highly efficient by focusing on what works only while striking out actions that waste time and energy. You are a master and can see miles ahead of any one else, this ultimately takes you to the top.
To build a fantastic team:
This is the foundation of good fortune. Henry ford said, take away all my possessions and leave me with the very best hands. I will rebuild the company hence his wealth. Carnegie said same.
There are four stages of team performance
Your aim is to get your team into the performing stage
If you think a team is not for you, think twice. To scale your business and make sufficient money, you need to serve more people and you can’t do this alone. You need a team, see yourself as the middle man and coordinator who gets the buyers and directs the team to get the job done. Be less involved in technical details because you’ll always be behind if you do this.
Building a fantastic team serves as an insurance against failure.
To have a beautiful life:
You need some assurance and confidence to keep you going. What gives you this. A beautiful life. Having a beautiful life is magnetic to more success. It tells in your relationships and communication with your clients. Their sixth sense tells them you are worth the deal, even more. This is due to your calm, assuredness, advise driven, non-grasping nature. If you are in genuine business and not seeking to scam others, having a beautiful life reflects in your thoughts, speech and actions such that people are willing to give you their money. These things are perceived at the sub conscious level without you trying to hard to convince anyone.
In all these making money is best approached from the answer to the question. The answer is that people need to be served. The more you do these, the more money flows to your direction. The months I made the most money were the months I lost myself totally to the service of others. I never for once looked at my account credits but only kept on serving. At the end of the month, I was surprised I made multiple times what I made earlier thinking about money all the time.
When others get angry easily, chose to stay in control
When others seek to rip off people, seek to add value
When others complain, seek to be thankful
When others blame people for their misfortune, blame yourself
When others spend impulsively, seek to save at every opportunity
When others have a sense of entitlement, know that no one owes you anything
When others always seek to receive, seek to give
When others seek for approval, make your own decisions
When others focus on talking, focus on doing
When others are selfish, be selfless
When others argue, prove it
When others chase wealth, seek to attract it
When others seek to speak, seek to listen
When other assume, seek to understand
When others waste precious time, seek to maximise your time
When others are disrespectful, deliberately seek to be respectful
When others want to do it all, seek to delegate
When others stay in busy cities with no time for self, seek solitude in quiet and calm cities
When others think that people are foolish, know that people are more intelligent than they appear
When others are surprised at occurrences, be calm knowing that anything is possible
When others seek to convince with logic, know that people decide based on emotions
When other have a scarcity mentality, have an abundance mentality
When others wonder if others love them, first wonder if you love yourself.
When others sleep, rise early and take charge of your day
When others are surprised at their lack, doing these you will comfortably be in wealth
Wealth is a game of producing something of value which can be exchanged for money. This can be a physical or virtual product. Before money was invented, humans used trade by barter to exchange value and wealth. This means if you produced more tubers of yam for instance, you could exchange for more liters of palm oil. The more you produced, the wealthier you were as your ability to earn other products increased. The person who produces nothing is automatically made poor as he/she has nothing to exchange. This still applies today, the only difference is that the medium of exchange is more convenient and universally accepted… we call it money.
In order to produce wealth, your ability to produce (productivity) has to be in top shape. Let’s take a look at the ways through which we can rev up our productivity.
Backup your life
Never, ever lose work that you have done!! Backup your files, backup your life, don’t do the same work twice and don’t lose the resources and money you have made else you keep going in circles. Making sure you keep your earned work and money gives a foundation to build on, else progress can’t be made.
If you’ve done some work be sure to have it off the internet… some hard drive somewhere that only you can access. You wouldn’t want to lose 6 months of work and start coming back to redo. That is a total waste of time, also you wouldn’t want to make lots of money only to lose it by being busy while trying to make more.
Keeping what we’ve got is very critical to ensuring we stay productive and motivated because once you lose what you have earned it takes a toll on your productivity.
Be aware
Keep learning, keep growing. The moment we stop learning is when we begin to get stuck in a rot.
You have to be in touch with what’s happening around you the impact you have on your environment, others and vice versa…without this you are bound to make the wrong decisions which will impact on your productivity.
Don’t allow things and issues to occupy space on your mind for too long because your mind is the engine room for production where ideas come to life, you don’t want anything tampering with the ability of the mind to produce its full potential. Once your mind is free, good things can come inside. Clogging your mind with unnecessary stuff will ensure that you sit at a table for 8 hours and achieve nothing.
Always your feet on the ground and be in touch with reality. Some life situations make common sense fly out of our head and ‘boom’ we’re making series of wrong decisions which we wouldn’t have made in our right senses.
Life is full of ups and downs and if you constantly go into an ecstatic mood in the ups of life you will lose touch with reality. Conversely if you go with the downs of life you will be at a disadvantaged position to achieve anything worthwhile. What you would want to do is to step out and look at situations from outside to get a clear picture.
Surely the direction of events will affect you but you should gain some control such that it doesn’t push you to the extreme else your productivity goes out of the window.
For instance if you suddenly make or lose a large sum of money you will want to control your excitement/anxiety so you don’t make hasty decisions which would make you lose out in the long-run. You still have to keep your calm and follow your own process.
Also, see things as they are. People are what they are and not what you think they are. Things are what they are and not what you think they are, the better you are at dealing with the true version of people and events the more productive you’ll be.
Learn to affect others with with words
This will save you a lot of time… people often misunderstand communication. It’s not just talking and expressing yourself it’s also about emotional intelligence, listening communicating your ideas effectively . Not every issue needs to be acted upon, some are simply solved with wise words. For instance someone demands you give them some of your expertise which will take your time, don’t force it if you can’t afford the time, you may kindly explain and give them someone to help or explain how they can get it done without being more involved.
What’s the big Picture??
The big picture is important in all you do. What is the end game you want to achieve…
What are you aiming at?? Simply knowing your goals helps you to trim out irrelevant stuff and makes you focus only on what’s important.
If you got the big picture, it’s easy to track your progress, without it you are simply just moving around with your energy being depleted and you achieving nothing at the end of the day.
Kill off all addictions
Addictions will steal your time and resources… this is very obvious because addictions control emotions which in turn controls people affected by it. And once you’re controlled by an emotion it’s bound to have ultimate power over you and what you can achieve. Killing of addictions means you can take back the driver’s seat of your life. If you can’t stop the addiction completely you can do it in stages.
For instance instead of playing an online game you’re addicted to everyday, you can decide to visit the website each time you’re able to increase your net-worth by a particular amount… it takes discipline but it works.
Write things down
Thinking on paper enables you to see and remember clearly. Better analysis, better judgement, more productivity. Yes the brain is a thinking machine but it works in conjunction with the eyes. There’s a reason the eyes are linked to the brain…so you can declutter the brain. There is only so much you can hold in your brain at the same time before it leads to confusion.
Writing things down makes it easier to set your priorities straight and get things done more effectively.
I could sit all day working but the moment I wrote things down and crossed them out as I tackle them, I found out I only spent half a day for what would have otherwise taken the whole day.
One thing at a time .
Going to two different destinations at the same time gets you nowhere…one thing at a time ensures all your energy is focused on achieving the task more efficiently. If you are focusing on two things at the same time you are bound to be less efficient or make errors and waste more time correcting those.
Take care of you
Without your body and soul working in synchronization you would produce nothing. Where there’s no life, health and other things necessary for production, nothing gets done so the most important thing is taking care of yourself. Many people neglect this important factor and put it in the background until it’s late. Being well-rested relaxed and in good health will make you able to produce far more than otherwise.
Use speech to text typing
You can decide to write, type or use speech to text typing. Speech to text typing seems to be the most effective of all these three… not without drawbacks but still effective anyway. Saves a lot of time that would have otherwise been spent typing.
Keep a journal, Document yourself
Document yourself for lessons learnt.
Most of the time we have to learn and relearn things over and over again. Sometimes gives us a lesson, we learn and forget then come back to learn the same lesson again after some years. This is surely a waste of time. To avoid repeating same mistakes, you have to keep a journal to record ideas, experiences and lessons learnt this will make you a better and more effective person. Also it’s not enough to just write them down if you don’t read through regularly you’ll forget the lesson. You have to read it over and over again and renew your mind using your own ideas.
Sometimes I thought I could never forget something but guess what?? after some years the experience is not as strong in my head and I forget and even end up making the same mistake so I learned I have to keep reminding myself and keep me informed.
Plan ahead
If you don’t plan ahead you surely plan to fail. The major thing we should be doing is thinking ahead one day, one week, one month one year and so on ahead. This makes things easier. If you don’t plan you will be attending to things as they occur and surely not prepared this will lead to not achieving anything worthwhile and you’ll be attending to things as they occur. Planning ahead puts you one step ahead of the game.
Deal with like minds
Whether you are ordering food, repairing your car, employing people etc., you should deal with like minds. People who think in ways not far from yours, else you’ll be surprised that a gap in thinking can cause a lot of friction and misunderstanding and zap up all your energy. You will argue more! explain more to people who are not on your frequency.
You will experience smoother deal with people who already know where you’re going before you even ask. If you employ people who don’t share your values you will have a hard time controlling and monitoring them, forcing them to conform to your own ways. A better way will be to employ people who share same values with you and save time and energy.
Stay positive and enthusiastic
You need positive energy to achieve stuff… you need to do all you can to ensure you are mostly in the positive state of mind. If you find it difficult controlling your state of mind, control the things you listen to and situations you put your self into. Using actions and thoughts to control your behaviour is a time tested system.
You may think something can be done or can’t be done and what you think will eventually drive you to the outcome you choose since thinking is all in the mind. You have control, why don’t you just choose the better option, believe it and run with it as the only way to predict the future is to create it.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
If something has been done a thousand times and works don’t try to create it afresh. You will only end up wasting time and precious resources. The best you can do is to always check for previous solutions and leverage on that. Trying to reinvent the wheel make you realize solutions exist to many issues you knew nothing about…unless you are inventing something novel.
Move to a less busy City
Moving to a less busy city at some point in my career helped me achieve much more then I would have in a busy city. If you commute to work 3 hours everyday at the end of the year you’ve used over 700 hours which could be put into something more productive.
Being in the a quieter city makes you more relaxed and your brain is capable of easily attracting ideas from the ether.
Busy cities makes you spend more time on moving around and performing various activities that do not count towards productivity. Busy cities makes you feel like a hard worker but you are only being less productive.
Mention your price early on/ ask questions
When taking on a service, mention your price (or at least an idea if you’re not fully sure of the scope of works) upfront and early in a negotiation before going into too long discussions so you don’t end up in a situation where you have been in talks for days or weeks only to realise the user is not willing to pay your price. You also need to ask questions generally and assume less because assumptions isn’t reality. Asking questions will give you some idea or insight before you commit too much time or resources to something.
Time is everything. It makes the difference between what one person achieves versus another, all other things being equal. Time is the substance that makes wealth possible between when a person is born till old age. Without time, a new born with no inheritance has no chance of making money if he/she is frozen in time. How we use our time is therefore one of the most critical factors for success. Hence this resources needs utmost management to become successful. Take a look at the 3D’s of time management below arranged in the correct order:
The first things you should consider when taking up a task is:
Is this worth my time? If task does not improve you in any way, the best thing to do is to
delete such. Don’t take up tasks out of pity and avoid the phrase “I will” as much as possible as this places too many obligations on you.
Only important stuff should be left for consideration for the next two stages.