By Joseph Akim Gordon
Money is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Money is primarily a medium of exchange, and it has three characteristics: it acts as a medium of exchange, it is an economic good, and it is a means of economic calculation. Although money is loved by many, it has negative impacts on how it is obtained and its uses. Money can become a source of evil; the world existed for millions of years without money, as people used to exchange goods and services among themselves. For instance, if you want to have a cow, you can exchange it for a number of goals or any other property.
There are people who can kill for money, but there is more to life than making money. Being nice to people and doing God’s work is more rewarding than making money and using it extravagantly, for instance, by bribing and committing crimes for money. The world has become obsessed with money, mere pieces of paper made by men. As such, never allow money to be the main reason to live; you will likely become a slave to money. Once you become a slave to money, you will sell your soul and your friends and kill for money. How many of us got hired to kill for money? We have noted that people who would like to become wealthy go to witch doctors and list relatives to be killed in exchange for money.
Who created money? God never created money in the first place; it was created by men. Although man created money, he lacks the power to control it, and he has become a slave to what he created. The state of unhappiness humanity is experiencing is caused by how money is used. We are all aware that our prisons are full to capacity of convicts whose crimes are money related.
To start a business, you must be acquainted with the marketing and advertisement process, study your market thoroughly, know your customers, market brokers, and competitors, place your market point in a strategic location, understand your market well as the market will dictate what to sell, improve the quality of your products to attract customers and advertise your product because people are likely to buy what they have seen and heard.
When you engage in business, be cheerful; it costs you nothing to be cheerful. Being friendly with a charming personality will always win you friends and influence people. Your positive attitude will keep customers flooding to your market location, and you must respect your customers; they are always right and a source of your income. Business does not need a high credential; paper qualification is not all that necessary. The only business credential you need is honesty, dedication, tolerance, approachability, persuasiveness, hard work, politeness, good public relations, farsightedness, skillfulness, self-drive, ambition, and resourcefulness.
The negative impact money has on humanity is that when money becomes available, you must have a plan for how to spend it. Many people worry about money and related problems. Money that is obtained in a dubious manner will disappear in thin air. How can you harvest what you have not sown?
Money that is got through corruption and cheating does not serve a good purpose. You reap what you sow; if you sow laziness, an inactive lifestyle, and complacency, you will exactly harvest nothing. On the other hand, if you sow creativity, hard work, dedication, and ambition, you will harvest plenty. Surely it is natural to worry about problems, but the smart thing to do is to find a solution, not an answer. In many cases, when people fall into problems, they drink heavily, thinking that the problems will go away. When you become sober, you find the problems are still waiting for you.
To be arrogant in business is a sure way to be a failure; it is better to avoid being known as a conceited person. If you think you are arrogant, you look down on others, and you assume wrongly that you know everything. The reason you’re so arrogant is because you have not achieved anything in life. You hide behind this image to disguise your true self-failure, and you assume that you know everything.
There is a need for you to take more time to listen and speak less. The reason we have two ears is so that we can take more time to listen and only one mouth to talk less. Take time to listen to those who know better than you; this is a sure way to increase your knowledge. The notion of getting rich in one day is counterproductive; you do not expect to plant your crops in the morning and expect to harvest in the afternoon; a baby cannot be expected to run before walking. Almighty God did not create the earth in one day, so it is absolutely necessary to master your business and study the market competition so that you can succeed in it.
Avoid becoming a champion of doom; you rejoice in other people’s misery, and you often say bad things about others. This is because you clog your mind with bad news and ignore all the positive development taking place around you. It is better to cultivate a good working atmosphere and accept all the positive development taking place around you.
You hit the bottle too hard in that you drink too much and are always the last to leave the bar, alcohol consumed in small quantities now and then is not bad but when you literally swim in it daily, then that is misuse of your most vital resources, it is certainly sure heavy drinking of alcohol destroys your health and it is waste of resources and time that could have been used to improve your business. Fear is a source of failure; when you start showing a fear about the failure of a business, fear of failure is a failure itself. Fear relegates you to the status of a non-achiever for whom good things pass by. Lack of initiative and expecting help from others—that is, lazy people expect everyone else to work for them; they want to harvest where they did not sow; they look for a shortcut to wealth; they want to achieve success without working for it; they are always full of excuses; they expect the whole world to sympathize with them.
The author can be reached via e-mail: akimgordon555@yahoo.com