Thanks for sharing this Adilah, how wonderful to know its a victory for people of color throughout the world. I do feel that Obama was this dark horse who came out of no where, divinely inspired, calm and cool, educated and inspired. He faced the lion who felt entitlement, won with grace, while she showed her tail. In some sense, he is the Jesus of our age. Divinely guided, bringing a new message for change and wanting to unite the world. A man of peace. Let us pray for his safety and that he is able to complete his mission leaving a mark that history will record for ages to come.

A friend (Adilah) forwarded this email from Atlanta to me; we are doing a chain email sort of thing to celebrate Obama's victory. This email was originated from a black person in Germany, and Adilah is going to forward my own email to her to yet another person, and so the chain will go on. We all are truly blessed in our day!

I love you all.

'Walk in balance!'

There are sometimes when a person is simply in love with life. Pardon me. 

Today was a very great day for me. To start with, my country (what will eventually be my country, that is - considering I intend to swap my current citizenship with the other) handed their Democratic presidential nomination for the first time ever to Senator Barrack Obama, a black man. You can only guess how thrilled I was to listen in on CNN and see and hear him. Oh! That this should be happening, about 45 years after Martin Luther King Jnr (one of the most popular men my country has produced) gave his historic I Have a Dream speech. Barrack Obama himself is 46 years old, and is the youngest ever in American history to have clinched the democratic presidential nomination. Oh, it feels so good, believe me! I hope to meet him in person when I get to the US, and I hope by then he would have been sworn in as President of the greatest country on earth, the United States of America, my country - that is, what will eventually be my country. I know, I'm naughty; don't remind me.  I feeeeel gooood!

Today was a great day for me. I received my May salary from Intercontinental. They had earlier refused to release it because of the abruptness of my resignation. But today, after a lot of going back and forth, they did, and I became 173,000 naira richer for it. Now I think I have ample money to get to the States, and gradually begin the process of naturalization: Masters, PhD; lecturer's job; permanent resident status; renunciation of Nigerian citizenship; adoption of the American; living on, becoming a business owner, acquiring wealth, dying and being buried there.

Oh! Today was such a great day! 

I Love, Adore and Worship the United States of America!

God bless America!

(yawns) most of wetin una dey yarn are in 'the realm of conjectures'.

Finally, we are all encouraged to give back to the society, by way of philanthropy or the creation of jobs.

That's all folks! Sorry for boring you all to death. I'm naughty. I know, so don't remind me.

An ultimate investor is one that has created a business and has taken it public. These are the richest men, because they have created a business that many people want to own a share of.

Questions to make you think:

1. Do you want to be an ultimate investor?
2. Do you want to create a business and take it public?

But then again in Iboland, it is said, 'If someone is not pursuing something, something is pursuing him.'

On a lighter note, I say, eku igbadun-o! Egbon Opokonwa.

There are many kinds of investors, but I want to discuss only three:

1. The average (or qualified investor)

2. The inside investor

3. The ultimate investor

The average investor is the common man that asks, 'How much is that share price today? He doesn't know better. He is average, and he barely gets ahead.

The inside investor is highly recommended. He starts his own business and sells (not buys shares) to the public. He is the insider, and those that buy from him are the outsiders.

The ultimate investor is the insider (the owner of the business) that has finally taken his business public, as a Plc. Naturally, this individual is very, very rich.

Questions to make you think:

1. Don't you think owning your own business is the best way to invest wholesale?
2. Are you ready to 'mind your own business?'
3. What do you think the advantages of a business-owner investor are, over and above the average investor?
4. What do you think true investing is, for you?

Next time, we shall talk in detail of the Ultimate investor, after which we shall have our last topic: Giving Back to Society, and that will be all.

Happy Democracy indeed, Nigeria. Today is one year in office for Yar'adua, our president. I also want to continue with my discourse on wealth, which to me is power. I will talk on the three needs of a rich investor, and they are:

1. Education
2. Experience
3. Excessive cash.

According to Robert Kiyosaki, all rich investors need education. In this case, financial education. He encourages those that aspire to be rich to invest in financial knowledge wherever they can get it.

Secondly, they must begin to try their hands out at investing, regardless of if they make mistakes. They must gather enough experience in investing, so that they can become confident investors.

Thirdly they must have excessive cash to be able to invest like rich people do. For most of you that have jobs, I guess this is probably where saving comes in.

SO what have we said? You need the three e's to be a rich investor.

Questions to make you think:

1. Do you have suitable financial education?
2. Are you willing to buy books or to attend seminars on financial education?
3. Do you realize that financial education is an investment in itself?
4. Do you have any experience in the art of investing?
5. Are you willing to make mistakes in investing and learn from them?
6. Do you agree that an important way to grow in investing is to gather as much experience as possible?
7. Do you have excessive cash?
8. Are you willing to make more?
9. Are you willing to set aside some of your salary for investment?

When you have answered these questions, you would have taken yet another step on the road to investment. I recommend the following books to you at this point:

1. Rich Dad, Poor Dad
2. The Cash Flow Quadrant, and
3. The Richest man in Babylon.
The first two are by R. Kiyosaki, and the last is by G. Clason. Tomorrow we shall talk about some of the kinds of investors.

opokonwa:

You no wan post! But you wan come read?!!!
You think say na only you dey write exams?!

Abeg! No be me go come dey post wetin you go come read later.
Make we all go prepare for exams!

Good luck!

Man must wak, as well.

Anniffy no be engineer-o! Na economics the guy study. Kenosky take note. Aniffy, abi I lie?

niyooo:

Well Opoks, I'll say you've taken the Bull by the horn rather than crying for new topics by working on Stans post. Nice one. But wait o, hope say no be say u wan take style disappoint your chick wey u don promise say u go carry go vac? Just joking. But nice views anyway and thanks to Stannesi for making some of us see the way life is on the other side or the fence.

See the Pot "Pak" calling kettles Black? Oya bell the cat now. Announce date.

And speaking of marriages sef, You for allow Kenosky come back first o, before he go just vex go carry one white woman come tok say hin wan marry.

Guys gotta run now. I'll not be posting for the next 2 weeks or thereabouts 'because i have to prepare for an exam and the time i spend on the net (not just N/L) is really chopping into my reading hours. So if I no post, no be say I run away. But i'm sure i'll see interesting things to read whenever I get back.

Nite everyone.

Opoks? Marry? You may have to give him five more years.

I have gone some way into reading Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Guide to Investing. Yemi, was that where you first learnt about fundamental investor versus technical investor? The book talks of these two terms. And you were right in what you explained the terms to be. Kudos, brother. You're intelligent.

I promised I would share what I read in the book. So let me begin today. Everyday, henceforth, I will take a little I have learnt and share it with you guys. By teaching you, I deepen my appreciation of this third book of Kiyosaki's that I am reading.

So far, I have learnt that one basic difference between rich and poor people is in their style of investing. Kiyosaki states that the poor invest to lose, while the rich invest to gain. Ordinarily this seems easy enough to guess, but it does have profound meanings.

Kiyosaki stresses that for one to invest as a rich person, that person should have at least one plan. By having a plan, investment then becomes a vehicle to take him from where he is to where he wants to be.

According to Kiyosaki, there are three things to plan for:

1. to be secure
2. to be comfortable
3. to be rich.

A poor person needs only one plan, the plan of security. A middle class person needs two plans: to be secure and to be comfortable; the rich person needs three plans: to be secure, to be comfortable and to be rich, and it is the last plan (to be rich) that is most important.

Let me stop here today. Tomorrow I will deal with the 3 needs of a rich investor.

Questions to make you think:

1. Of the three plans, which is your priority (to be rich, to be comfortable or to be secure)?
2. How many plans do you plan to have, and have you started writing them down?
3. Who will help you follow your plan from where you are to where you want to be?
4. Before now, have you thought of investment as a vehicle?

By answering these questions, you will be one step ahead on your journey to becoming a fundamental and a rich investor. Thanks.

Hmmmm! splendid… d specific latent heat of a body is the amount of heat energy required to change one kg of the material from one phase to another- Latent heat of vaporisation takes a material from liquid to gaseous phase, Latent heat of fusion takes it from gaseous to liquid, and Latent heat of crystallisation from liquid to solid! These heat energy requirements are however latent, a body will not change phase unless heat equivalent to its Latent heat is supplied (actually exceeded). We have to transcend ourselves else we’ll never be able to maximize the innate potentials inherent in us by virtue of our compositions as humans!

Jeez! na mi type all doz words? I got to pause for a cuppa tea! abi na beer self? lol, aniffy keep up the good deed and like i said i m actually looking beyond Z for….

See what Kenosky is posting on Yemi's blog! Instead of him to share with us some of his engineering knowledge, he hides it. Is this fair?

Kenosky, I want to ask: How does peak solar radiation become trapped and used in the generation of solar energy that can eventually be converted to electricity, and why has it not been in use in Nigeria as a substitute to hydro electricity? Another question I want to ask is: what has thermodynamics got to contribute specifically to engineering? And last but not the least (pardon the cliche): what do you think is the role of steel in driving high level production in the country, from an engineering point of view (take note of ductility, tensile strengths, refining and so forth)?

Please share EMPIRICAL and NUMERIC facts on the foregoing. Please? Thanks, bro. 

Tomorrow is for the children. God bless them; especially the orphaned ones.

pak:

Opoks, the rate at which you talk about this girl begs the question

When r u getting married ?



Come to think of it, an old pal of mine from way back sec. school

got married penultimate saturday.

We were reunited at the NLNG assesment centre last year.


Sometimes I can't help wonderin if the difference between us was not the fact

that he made the cut while I didn't.


hmmm,  that means I could hav been married if I was picked.

quite a juicy prospect.

but on the flipside, when I think of guys

like Anniffy, Kenosky, Pgm et al, then I know

its not all about NLNG.


but wait a minute,

what's it about the guys on this thread?

which time una go marry?

which way 'which way nlng' ?

we'v talked sports, politics, business, investments and even earthquakes

but nobody is ready to braoch the subject of marriage.

I am getting  to feel am hanging out with some good old monks.


Agreed, this thread is not in the romance section

but then we don know ourselves pass the stage where we can't even yarn

'personal things with our personal persons'.


Really, really, the year is still young and

am wondering who's planning to get hooked this year.


I have a feeling stannessi might be the one to blaze the trail ( na yam)

Or maybe even Kuwena (but it's most likely will going to be American, unless he decides to go back to his former Love)

or my man Alfa prime (likely, quite likely)

or me ( There's nothing God cannot do).


So guys, who's getting married soon

abeg, I wan chop rice and chicken jare 

Shh! Just between the two of us, Pak, I may never get married; or at least, no sooner than fifty years old. I want to concentrate on being super rich. 

opokonwa:

Stannesi's pictorial messages have reinforced what I've once mentioned to my girl about spending vacations.

The conventional way from where I work is to travel abroad.

The guy who sits behind me is currently in the UK for his vacation.
My oga who sits by my left just came back from a joint trip to both the UK & Dubai, where he visited the world's only 7-star hotel,
The guy on my right recently came back from a vacation to the USA
The guy beside him was in the UK earlier.
In front of them is another guy who not-very-long ago, came back from the UAE.
Wow!

Everyone is waiting for Opoks! to either raise the stakes or maintain it!
_{O di egwu! Na beans!}

I've been talking to my girl about us taking vacation together and spending either the entire time or at least half of the vacation time in and out of Motherless babies homes.
I spend the whole year taking care of myself; earning, investing, spending and improving my life.
A whole 365 days gets spent on me; I don't even include enough time to take care of peeps who neither have a father, mother, proper education or loving arms! Some of them do not have enough to eat! Don't even mention clothes!

The last time I went there, one clung to me like I was his dad and refused to let go.
He even refused my dropping him to carry other babies; he was also almost as fair as I am and cried whenever I tried to drop him.
You could see the despair on their faces, the malnourished bodies and body language oozing that all they need is love & care.

That trip left me considering to adopt at least one child or two in future, in addition to the few I will bring on Earth.
I need to give life to peeps whom it has been denied.
And put a smile to the faces of the despair.

I've been considering that a trip to Dubai, the UK or the US will never be as fulfilling as trips to these homes for me.
And by God, I have to do it!

You see, we can give our own quota to the world, starting from our immediate and accessible environment.
We do not need to be rich to do that.

There are always people whom we are better than.
And we need to start caring.

And the God who protects them may look kindly at us!
Need I say that there are unseen hands watching & favouring those kids? That any kindness meted to them will never go unrewarded?
This is just the Law of Nature as the Creator has ordained it.

Think about this and come up with your own ways of adding your quota to the world.

Shift the focus from yourselves to other humanbeings once in a while.
And spend that money and time on them.
If you have a heart.

A word from Opoks!

You're doing well for yourself, bro. Keep it up.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JISI!

aniffy4eva:

@ Stannesi

My blog addy is www.folayemianifowoshe.

Its actually my signature, here on Nairaland

@ Kenosky

After the A-Z concept, most of my posts will be based on experiences, and may not follow any structured pattern. . . . Come to think of it, i just might come up with another concept.

Yemi, why don't we jointly moderate on the old topic of investing? I am going to the bookshop today to pick up Kiyosaki's Guide to Investing, and I would be willing to share what I read there with the thread. I have earlier read his Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and his Cashflow Quadrant, and I am fast becoming his disciple.

stannesi:

@pod thanx 4 d info, good idea, i bet u'll make it big in Lagos, u bet i'm going to patronize it, , but i don't think this is d right place 4 placing such ads,

HopE u guys r passin, on d mess. as a reminder why u hav to be thnkful to God,

@Opoks, don't worry, WE go drop one cool topic, that is it 4 now

@Aniffy wats your blog. page again, i do read your stuffs, cool stuff, cool concept (u know d A - Z stuff), but i don't usually drops comments, dough, i read on interesting stuff on O for Opium, cool write up, made a lot of sense. to me

@Keno (crazy loutist man), u don start again, na Aniffy body u come dey enter now, abi, after Z - Zeal he fit continue wit. A1 or AA anyhow, d man gat vision which one u sabi, anyhow u be mi guy any time, u yourself as u be u be "blog",

Just gat home, want to jump in da shower, good luck, people,

Guy, i dey feel u.

And let us have models. Plenty of them. Young, successful people like we want to be. Like Chimamanda Adicihie.

The latest on Yemi's Blog is Underestimation. Let me comment on that before leaving. He said a favorite mentor of his told him his greatest weakness was underestimation. But what really is that?

You see, I think underestimation is when you tell yourself that if you do something, everyone will say you shouldn't have done it. Truth, though, is: everyone will say, 'My, you really did that? You're great!' And then the crowds will split in two: the enviers and the lovers. And of course, it is the enviers we dread.

Read Carson's The Big Picture though, and you will find that when we deny ourselves the immediate gratification of being the coolest guy around, and 'everybody's man' we become more empowered to take the tortuous, lonely road to achievement. Nerds versus hippies; Holy Nwejes versus Casanovas; prudes versus libertines. Which categories of people end up the more successful? Use your tongue to count your teeth.

Methinks the start of all true success is daring to be unique, or as Antony de Melo would say, 'having the courage to be myself (regardless of what people may say)'.

Think about it.

Stan, your entire post is a prayer. And I say AMEN.

One last thing: Being out of work makes you begin to think fast. I also want to try and finish Small Small So Say. Help me O God. 

You guys apparently have read his Sensitization Wahala!

Opoks has said that I talk only about myself, and that I think the world revolves around me. This must be a grevious oversight on my part, and I know I am sorry.

But why do people sometimes talk about themselves? Take a look at my previous post. It is a verbatim rendition culled from Yemi's blog, and it is a very touching story, the realization of a loss. Perhaps one of the greatest losses in the life of a young man, especially as Sigmund Freud has said that for a boy, the loss of his dad at an early age is a critical psychological reality.

But why did Yemi go ahead and share that story? Perhaps he wanted to express some of the things that make him grateful for where he is today. St. Anthony Mary Claret has said that greatness is not what a person has achieved, but the hurdles he has had to cross in trying to achieve it. I think that what Yemi has tried to point out is that, either because or in spite of the early loss of his father, he is where he is today.

I have never met Yemi in person, but if there is one person I would rather talk about today instead of myself, it is him. I spoke with Yemi over the phone yesterday and told him exactly how I came to lose my job. He talked very consolingly, very patronizingly, very brotherly, and I must say that after speaking with him over the phone, I was glad for it. The long and short of what he said was: Move on, Kuwena; enjoy your resignation. And that is what I intend to do.

I think people talk about themselves because otherwise they might burst with all the memory of the experience within. Pain breeds art; it also breeds religion, and there is what we may call artistic religion, a repetitive expression of a motif of experience, an experience that has shaped a life and a destiny, and which has provided the impetus for the continued existence of that life, and the fulfilment of that destiny.

Believe me, Yemi is one guy I respect, and I have told him before now that we do have a lot in common. He is someone I consider richly blessed. And when you consider a person richly blessed, you either envy or love him. The latter option comes more naturally for me. He brings a wealth of creativity and purposefulness to his life, and the lives of those around him.

We all are capable of good. We all are capable of noble deeds. We are sparks of the spirit, as Eckists say, and we can act as God to other people. When we reach out in love and appreciation for the good that is life, then we are better inspired to contribute to the development of others: whether it is by helping rural communities to actualize themselves, like Yemi does, or supporting family members like many of the rest of us do. In each way we are called to responsible for human life, hence, let us be ever more mustered to do our best to actualize our capacity for good.

Yemi, can you hear me clapping for you? Keep up the spirit, brother. God bless you. There go I, talking about another person for a change. Opoks, what say you? 

opokonwa:

Abeg someone should get a better topic.

This thread lacks topics other than 'personalities'

_{And lately, 'sports'.}

Can someone take us through anything enlightening, entertaining or educating?
Most of the master posters have all left.
I miss em:
Adrianic
pgm
Thought
Tommyex
Kenosym
_{what other names?}

Opoks! is inconsistent.
Kuwena talks only about himself_{The world revolves around him}
Kenosky is more of a nuisance these days_{just waiting to yab sb.}
Annify just waits in silence to drop a one-liner once in a blue moon
Jisidaisy has balked_{only prefers to come in once in a while to say to annify; 'we need to talk'}
Alfaprime seems to be facing his job more these days, waiting to come and do Peace Talk when kasala starts!
Or calm Brother Kuwena when he begins to have his moods. Even that, I think, don dey tire am

The top scorers of the day for me are:
Niyoo &
Stannesi

The latter adds a crazy streak to the thread, making me not to miss pgm much.

The former is an more urbane version of 'Alfaprime-combined-with-Aniffy'.
Reels out intelligent posts like a wise lecturer.
It's easy to evaluate a man's mind from his posts & lines or argument.

I hail una both.

If I give this thread time and it does not improve beyond this, I might join the Greats!
adrianic
pqm
Thought, et al

After all, like Samson and later, Elijah prayed, 'I'm not better than my forefathers'.


Pak! Did I forget you?
I think you dey try!

All, I hail o!
Just my piece of mind.

I wish I knew what to do.

One day when we meet God, we will begin to ask him questions. We will say, 'Answer us, Yawheh; let us know:

Why was it that that innocent virgin was in her room when robbers came, and they raped he for no just cause; answer!

Why was it that Robert Mugabe kept on ruling Zimbabwe, and nothing was done to remove him?

Why was it that many people were hit by a sudden earthquake in China?

Why was it that many people lived life poor and hungry and destitute?

Why was it that people prayed long for certain things from you and they received no help, no response to their pleading?

Why was there so much hatred back there on earth, so much jealousy and vanity?

Why did Africa stay so impoverished even at the dawn of the twenty-first century?

Why did innocent children become thrown into destitution when they were ill prepared to fend for themselves?

Why, Yahweh? What happened? And was there anything we could have done to help the situation? Anything at all? Anything, Yahweh? Anything?

As we go through life you see
There is so much that we don't understand
And the only thing we know is that life doesn't always go
The way we've planned
But you see everyday that we don't just turn away
When our dreams seem to have come undone
We will stand by your side filled with hope and filled with pride
We are more than we are:
We are one!

This was one of the songs in Lion King, and it was sung by Simba to his growing daughter. At 27 years old, it is a song I am singing to myself at this crossroads, when I no longer have a job, and do not know what exactly the future holds. It appears that yesterday I knew I had an office to report to each morning, but now I know I don't. And I may not have grasped the implications of this novelty of life.

I am poor, and only God knows if by resigning I have become poorer, or richer (awkward though it sounds). But that is the reality, and I want to believe that God knew about it when even before it happened. And that is life. I didn't exactly plan it, but it happened. And once again in my life, after 18 months, I am without job. Again.

It was coming, but it didn't come exactly as I planned. Yet it came. And I am yet to grasp its full implication.

I resigned today.