Lessons on my Graduation

31^St July 2015 will remain eventful for me. This day marked the culmination of my basic education. Finally, I was able to successfully graduate with an undergraduate Bachelor’s degree in Business Information Technology (BBIT). I rightly said it- My first degree from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). The moment of my pride was learning I graduated top of my class with a First Class Honors. That’s no mean achievement.

I looked back and was more than amazed by the number of years I have spent in formal years and can only say, ‘THIS FAR  GOD.’ It was finally the end of at least 17 years of formal schooling. That’s the Kenyan system. Spend 1 year in pre-schooling, 8 years in Primary, and 4 years in Secondary school and another 4 years for a degree course in a college or university. That’s the least you can be schooling if you are luck and do not repeat classes and years.

As it is the tradition world all over, graduation ceremonies are hyped. There are major preparations. And as for the Africans, -where I belong, this celebrations will never be any better without inviting family members, friends and well-wishers both near and far. People join in dancing, feasting, praising and thanksgiving after the main ceremony in the university’s graduation square. God is the center of the ceremony and the center of attention is the grandaunt.

That day, I sat in the gathering of invited and uninvited guests listening to heaps and heaps of praises directed to me. I was humbled by the kind words, love and gifts I received from them. Right from the graduation square where the university management led by the Chancellor and Vice chancellor led the ceremony to confer the awards, the mood, talk and people were fantastic. The excitement could be felt in the atmosphere.

At the end of it all, I was thinking, I have the powers to read and to do what it pertains with the degree how do I become of use to the society- Kenya and the world? This is not a simple question to ask. That’s the subject of another day. Today I look back and identify some of the lessons, I’ve learn t over the years that helped me shape my convictions in excellence.

Success is a right to everyone

Success is a right to everyone but it is not a privilege, favor or priority to some. It is not for a selected few whom the nature has chosen in place of others to succeed. Instead the same natural terrain provides a level ground where all can work and succeed. Anyone can succeed if they so desire to.

Nature demands people of excellence

Nature demands that you work and succeed for a reward of success among other things such as a happiness, satisfaction, financial freedom and freedom to choose what you will do. Those privileges that come along with success cannot be enjoyed unless one succeeds. Only successful people join in the service of kings. The privilege of being excellent will make you step in place you may never get to serving, dinning with princes.

God should be the center of our excellence

When people trust in God in their life, they do not see their limits. They are able reach the level set for their perfection by God. God helps them to view things beyond the horizons of their ability and far beyond what they can conceive with their finite minds. It is because there is no impossibility with God. His grace is sufficient even in the hardest times and his promises yes and amen. I have tasted if this and have found it to be true. With God on your side, you will have comfort when things seem not working. You will not be afraid to start something and you will not be worried and anxious when there are people who seem to dislike you all over.

Understand Seasons of beauty in life

God has made everything beautiful in its time. We should thus strive to understand the season of beauty for every event and thing. Without this undisputed truth, we will act foolishly because failure to fathom this crucial time will see us act out of selfish ambition, hopelessly to see results and of course in ignorance. We shouldn’t be over-anxious for quick results which may be too costly for us in the end. Life has no assurance that in a single fraction of a minute anything planted germinates and matures to be fruitful. Some will be instant while others take long but the fact is that they all come to be harvested at the fullness of time.

Faith it till you make it

This is the last truth for today. Indeed my principle has been, creating perceptions around something and make people believe it is happening even when it’s not till it happens.  This is life and most often than not no one will believe you until they see it. They will demand something to see, touch and feel. You may not have it but make them have a perception it exists. You have to faith it that you are the best until you defeat the best in town. I am own a start up JoinTheDots Stationers & Printers which prepares revision materials for Students. No one was interested in our products we had to create perceptions that that they are highly successive even in its first year so that people can buy them. And its slowly paying off.

Those Five may not be all that I have learn t but that is the beginning. They are vital lessons in life as a successful entrepreneur and academician.

Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or join this conversation on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep it going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog.

LESSONS FROM MY ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

I am following this year's GES with a keen eye and interest. I was in an Integrated ICT Business school AND currently working on a start- up JoinTheDots Stationers & Printers. Our primary focus is creating quality schools’ revision materials and text for Kenyan students.

 We are the Publishers and printers of the authoritative JoinTheDots Revision series for Primary and Secondary students. We design and print institutional calendars, certificates, posters, brochures, organizational newsletters and invitational cards. We also do Branding of pens, T-shirts, note books, personal and office computers, telephones and office rooms.

Having your own start up is a lone journey. It is a great risk you’ve to take. You become a stranger among your friends. But thank God am having people whom I can lean on. They provide comfort when I need them most.

Far from the stories of the entrepreneurs at the summit this is my own story. I want to draw at least three major lessons I have learn t from my own journey and in my academic studies.

Join a network

You can’t do it all by yourself. Join a network. By joining collaborative networks, you can get help. Collaboration is co- creation. It requires giving up some control of assets so that collaborators may remix, add to, and distribute content. For me as a publisher and printer Entrepreneur, that may mean soliciting the public’s assistance in finishing books. It may mean recruiting and mobilizing the public to review and edit draft contents of books. It may mean setting them up in business. It certainly means welcoming their contributions and corrections. It’s in a network where someone will say something good about you online/offline because of your product, service, reputation, honesty, openness, or help­fulness. This should make you knock another hundred shilling off your advertising budget. This will get to zero if you are lucky. In a network you will have people- peers who you will work with, compete with or orbit around. They are your first customers, mentors, and employees, source of funding, competitors or helpers on your journey.

Be a platform

If you want to be successful in business and life, be a platform. Let your business be a place to help others build value on their own. Questions that I’ve had to ask myself are: How can I act as a platform? What can oth­ers build on top of it? How can I add value? How little value can I extract? How big can the network atop my platform grow? How can the platform get better learning from users? How can I create open stan­dards so even competitors will use and contribute to the network and I get a share of their value? The point in being an entrepreneur is creating wealth and money while making a positive impact to societies’. Be a place where people can utilize your model to come up with other awesome business ideas. Set the standards in your field and help other people come up with ideas they can integrate to your own idea. Do not think only on enriching yourself but also the welfare of others. The value you can add to others.

Use of the internet in Business

The internet and web applications are changing how marketing or rather interacting with customers is done. Designers put their ideas on the web. Customers then make suggestions and discuss them. Designers take the best ideas and adapt them, giving credit where it is due. The question is: Will you have to answers generated in the media space from conversations that occur daily? That’s how you should think of your site for your business: answers for every question you can imagine, each on a page that is clearly and simply laid out so both Google and busy readers can find it and figure it out in an instant. If you’re a manufacturer, customers should be able to find product details and support in an instant. If you’re a politician, voters want to know your stands and record. If you’re a food company, buyers want nutritional information. If you’re a clothing company, shoppers want you to give the information a good sales clerk would—does this run large? Where can I buy your product? How do I contact you?

Those three may not be all that I have learn t but that is the beginning. They are vital lessons in life as an entrepreneur.

Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or join this conversation on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep it going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog

Start before you start

Figuring out what to do in life- Career, business, Marry who, Join which political party or perhaps invest in which stock-  is one of the most important things you have do to ensure success in life, yet it’s often one of the most poorly thought out decisions.

This is the basis of our reflections in this article. Life is such that we always have an urge to start something. All the time is a time to start something in life. Sometime back in the same blog, I wrote that every season in life has something special that we must do and accomplish- TheAssignments in life. But then when we want to these assignments we must start but starting. Doing the outdoor work. This is the preliminary work.

Every day is an opportunity to do something new or become what you have been trying to be. And so every new day is and can be an opportunity to reinvent your image. Before you do these assignments consider these few tips.

If you want to succeed in life and defeat bigger and better-funded competitors then your focus and effort should be do first to the first things first.

When you want to start something in life say a business venture, don’t rush it. Don’t just pick what you know, or what you used to do, or even what you dreamed of doing when you were a teenager. It’s way more fun to run a successful vegetable stand than to be a bankrupt comedy club owner. Don’t fall into the trap of doing the easy, cool or fun things in life. Think about it for a good amount of time and consider the most basic things in life.

In a free society, the government doesn’t control who gets the right to start a what. Anyone can do it—in most cases without a license, a permit, or a training course.

First, when you start out in anything in life you must PLEDGE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR FIELD THAN ANYONE ELSE. You must read, learn and understand about that field. This will be your greatest value you can add to your own life as well as to the life of others. Research about it and get everything there is to learn. Be an expert in that field. Learn all the skills there are to use in your plan, research about all the legal, moral, technological, political and spiritual implications of what you are starting.

Remember always that MONEY IS A TOOL, NOT AN END IN ITSELF. When starting out in life, you don’t have to think more on money you have and will get. My advice would be that if you don’t run out of money, you get to keep playing. If you end up with more money than you started with, you win. Be consistent and honest with yourself and plan the future with the most reasonable target you want. Of course without money, there is no business. Run out of money and your creditors will shut you down, your employees will leave, and your spouse will worry.

HAVE PLANS THAT ARE PROTECTIBLE. Good and profitable ventures in life will certainly attract competitors. What are you going to do when they show up? It is only better if you come up with a barrier to entry or competitive insulation. Barriers can include patents, brand names, exclusive distribution deals, trade secrets (like the recipe for Coke) or first mover advantage.

KNOW IF WHAT YOU START WILL BE ADJUSTABLE. Remember how excited everyone got about the missiles the U.S. used during the Gulf War? You could aim after you launched it. You could adjust the flight along the way. You need a model in life similar to the one used by the Americans if you’re hoping to maximize your chances of success. For everything you start in life, think how you will overcome challenges that you will face.

GET MENTORED. Nowhere does it say you’ve got to do this all alone. Find someone who’s come before you and ask for help. They will always be odds in life and if you have a mentor you’ve someone to sort you out. The mentor you choose should be convenient and he should have life experience and a network of connections that really help you in the journey.

Be sure that what you are starting you can BE WILLING TO BET EVERYTHING YOU OWN ON IT. If what you are starting you cannot guarantee anything you have, then it’s not worth. Chances are you’ll not give it the effort and time in life. If you cannot lose your energy, rent, life, friends and family on I think it’s not worth going for it.

After considering that you can now start. Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep this discussion going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog

Have you completed all your Assignment?

I bet if we went through our lists of to dos, closets and drawers we would find signs of in-completion: undone task(s) in the list, a pile of magazines and book(s) we have not read; a guitar that we never learned how to play and uncompleted project/assignment. This is because we are a times people who are great in starting things and bad in following them through. And what about all the emails you’ve not answered? We are almost midyear and we ask what about New Year’s resolutions we find unmotivated to finish?

I guess this sounds familiar to most or some of us. And if this is so, here are a few things to consider before leaving something unfinished:

The hardest part is starting, not finishing. Starting something is already a big achievement in itself. Most people get stuck in the thinking phase. They never get to taking action on their ideas. Taking one little step towards your goals, is already some progress. You are on the right track. All you’ve to do is take more steps and little by little you will get there.

Procrastinate consciously. You’ve to be honest with yourself and say it out loud – “I know that if I postpone this task for later, I will feel less motivated to complete it. I fully realize that there’s no better time to complete it than NOW and I am deliberately making myself work harder.” If you still procrastinate, you will do it consciously. But more likely, you’ll complete what you’ve started.

Apply ‘All or nothing’ principle.  Something is either done or it is not. When it is not done, it does not matter if it is half done, nearly done or is going to get done some time soon or later – the result is always the same – IT IS NOT DONE. Therefore, make a commitment that any new task you start it’ll be completely finished. No excuses and exceptions.

Perfectionism is the worst enemy of completion. You can improve something for as long as you live. This process is endless. No matter how great you do something, there will always be some way to improve your work. So if you have a perfectionist streak in you, approach every task as a draft – do it as quickly as possible and if necessary make a few adjustments later.

Created in Eden Learnt out of Eden

Relationships and marriages are challenging. It’s really hard to believe people’s ideas on what romantic relationships and marriages are. Everyone have their own definition of what a perfect one is. For some, it’s having a perfect mate who they can click on everything – the proverbial lock and key sort of.

We however live in an imperfect world where even the best relationships become tested, pulled, stretched and strained by life’s circumstances.

And at the core of these moments of frustration, disappointment and even anger when they are tested, rest the desire for our chosen partner in life to be perfect.  The need for perfection mainly stems from our desire to fulfill the dream of a young lady and man about what true love is. This idea of a perfect relationship may be far from the truth and a hard truth to accept.

Hallmark cards, romantic comedies, poems and quotes, love songs, romance novels, parental influence or societal conventions stress this idealistic view of relationships as being perfect.

The unfortunate reality is that there is no such thing as the “perfect mate.”  We are human and as humans we are messy, complicated and fallen creatures.  In Genesis, Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world.  We do not inherent their sin but we remain flawed in our sinful flesh.  Any notion of perfection is the deception conceived by our mind into believing in a reality that does not exist.

Soul mates are the imperfection of two spirits made perfect in the union of love. People have shortcomings.

 

More so, what we forget is the simple biblical truth that what we know marriage and romantic relationships is limited. The true mirror of what it is supposed to be is what we lack. God introduces marriage in Eden but I can say if too unfortunate, he sends Adam and Eve away from the garden of the Lord when they sin. Given this circumstances, most of what we learn about it is actually when humans are out of Eden where there was perfection. People learn to live together in an imperfect world. They learn to relate while there is pain, suffering, and have to work and when they have a definition of good and bad. It’s not precise how long the first beings stayed in Eden and get instructions from God as he visited them in the cool of the day, but I guess perhaps by the time they left Eden, they had just enough ideas of how to rear children but no experience.  It’s actually learnt when man is away from God and he has to constantly look onto God for direction.

Marriage has been learnt in a world when everyone seeks the best for themselves. Because of our sinful nature, there is pride, deception and lust and in all these we hope to find the beauty of marriage. The confusion goes on.

Marriage having to be learnt out of Eden should not however limit and hinder our view of marriage and family as an institution that is real and important. It should work. Indeed the Lord does not withhold anything good to them that he loves and he has given us everything we need for our salvation. The reveled things are to us our benefit and the concealed things the delight of the King of Glory. We need not complain that the reason why it’s not working is because God does not love us and has not given us sufficient reasons and ways it should work. This is his only privilege to let it be a mystery. We cannot summon God to explain it.

God knows the only relationship of perfect love we could understand is marriage and so uses this example to mirror the relationship that Jesus has with the church- his own body. I would ask if this is what we can understand why we should not even make it radiant by praying and seeking to make love evident in how we treat each other in romantic relationships.

Our deliberate focus on our partner’s beauty, generosity, compassion, and spiritual faith, strength of character, forgiveness, nurturing spirit, motherly/fatherly love, and honesty should all transform our way of seeing each other on daily basis. There will be frustrating behaviours with your partner but this confirm that we are not perfect beings. The behaviours are as a result of imperfections. Instead of just pointing fingers to our patners and blaming them for all the bad they are, seek to love them and make them better bring out perfection in them. Be committed to make them make up for the areas that do not come up too well.

The lesson we should learn is that imperfection should not weaken true love, undermine healthy relationships and prohibit life-long marriages that continue to thrive year after year.  The foundation of all relationships needs to be God and Jesus Christ.  A marriage rooted in Biblical Principles is still a union of two imperfect characters but it is made perfect by having faith in God.

The kingdom principle of love requires that we choose to reach out and yield ourselves and our resources to the needs of others whether we feel good about it or not. Demand for privileges and the pressure to claim and cling to our rights ceases.

Do not focus on your own perfection because you have your own weaknesses. But ask what you can do to make your marriage become better. But also focus more on God because unless he becomes our priority, everything else will be confused. If God does not build a house, it’s all in vain for the builders and if the Lord does not watch over a city the watchmen stay awake for nothing in the night.

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