On Motivational Content

 

It is yet another Friday and after a lot of writing and deleting I am hoping that this article will actually get to the full length.

Earlier today I saw a post from one of the meme lords on WhatsApp. This one was about a comment on a Facebook post about Henry Kachaje’s 50^th birthday. The comment stated that it was not right for people to buy him a birthday cake because with the amount one could spend on a cake could be used to buy a goat which could give us two kids in about 6 months. The rest of the comment went on to give a detailed business plan which would later give millions of kwachas following the multiplication of the goats and diversification.

Rather unusually, I did not take an interest strong enough for me to go to Facebook and look for the post. Ideally, I would do that just to look at the comments. I can imagine what the rest of the comments look like, though. Many in the comments are presenting overly ambitious business plans with estimated capitals being the money that one can spend on a birthday party, dinner or cake. This is because of the image that Mr Kachaje along with other motivational speakers have given to Malawians; that motivational speakers like to sell unrealistic visions and business plans to their clients. All this had me wondering as to whether these perceptions are justified.

My date first date with motivational speakers came when the man we started with, Mr Kachaje, came to speak to the College of Medicine 2010 intake on our orientation. I cannot remember much of the content but he talked about how we needed to be moneywise. In his talk, he mentioned how other people are trained to make money while others are trained to manage money. He urged us to do both if we were to do well in life. From the talk, I could notice that the man possessed a certain type of wisdom that many in the land do not have. This enticed me to follow him on social media and to patronize his events for some time until I later stopped some time in 2015.

Having gone through motivational speeches by Kachaje and other people, I can confirm that I learnt many things that I could not have if I had not attended such. Planning is one of such things. If you have ever listened to Kachaje or any other motivational speaker talk about how you need to have a vision and a plan, you can agree with me that life turns out to be different once you begin applying such wisdom. When you follow such things, you try to align the choices you make in short and intermediate term with your long term plan and vision and to be honest, that has proven to be more helpful than not. Then there are issues on managing finances which prove to be vital when followed. As I mentioned, at some point I stopped attending talks by motivational speakers and watching motivational speakers on YouTube. I will explain the reasons.

While many people stop listening to motivational speakers because of the business ideas and trajectories they advance, I stopped because I strongly felt like I had heard enough of what I needed to hear from motivational speakers. It is my belief that the best knowledge is the one that you put into use and that if one does not apply what they learn, then they are better off not learning at all. I had learnt a lot from motivational speakers and books and I thought it was time to cut the dose of motivational speeches and concentrate on applying what I had already learnt. I can point out two things that I have learnt in my quest for self-development; planning and money management. While I have managed to apply the former well, I have not done so well on the latter and until I master it, I will consider myself as a person who has no right to sit under another motivational speaker. Eetu.

The time around the one I was introduced to motivational speakers was interesting because there was a boom in the people of the kind. A lot of people seemed to be keen on telling people how to succeed in life. We saw a lot of posters on life and business coaches who wanted to share their knowledge on how we could join them in the ladder of success. With time, such people started to attract a lot of public scrutiny as people wanted to understand how much of financial success that the motivators themselves had achieved. Whether this was the right move by the populace is something I will leave you to debate but that is what happened. The result? Many were not satisfied with what they saw when it came to the net worth of the motivational speakers and success coaches who were making us pay to attend their events. As a result, there was a social media movement against motivational speakers and of late we have not seen many of those.

One main issue that people have had with motivational speakers is the issue of degrading others who are not doing what they do. At the time when motivational speeches and seminars were just becoming a thing, there seemed to be one message that was coming out of the speakers; being employed is a scam and business is the way to go. Motivationists created an impression that people who were formally employed were going about it wrong and business people were “the ones” as they were the ones who had the freedom to manage their own affairs and pay themselves and others. Success was equated to having more money. The result was the enhancement of the culture of striving to appear successful by certain standards instead of working to be successful in line with personal goals. Some people ended up using money they did not have on things they did not need to live up to certain standards. We could partly blame the social media for that but motivational speakers had their part in making us take and post photos of our meals before eating in restaurants.

So what should we conclude about motivational speakers? Are they useful guides who can take us to success or are they underrated money-hunters who would like to make a living off our hard earned money? Does what they teach really transform lives? To what extent? These are question we have to reflect on before we engage in any form of self-help, whether it is attending a motivational seminar, watching a motivational video or reading a self-development book.

Having gone through motivational material, I have a feeling that some of it is relevant and helpful. If one were to ask me about the best bit about having been involved with motivational speakers, videos and tools, I would say that they contributed to how I handle my career and that I would not have been where I am if I had not listened to some practical lessons on planning and having a vision. On the other hand, I feel like some of the content is vague and not tailored to the audiences. In some of the motivational seminars I attended, success in business was touted as the only measure of doing well in life. Having lived through 10 years after getting such messages, I have personally come to conclude that there is more to success than having a lot of money and that business is not for everyone. Not everyone can be a CEO and we all need to run our own race in our own lanes. The point? Some of the things that motivational speakers say need to be taken with a pinch of salt because not all of them apply to you. Being an academic, I have realized that I need to resist the temptation of judging everyone by whether they have a PhD or how many publications they have because for some success means having a fat account while to some it means having a stable marriage. We are fighting different battles and no one should be allowed to hammer our goals and visions into synchrony with theirs.

Have a lovely weekend, dear reader.

 

The 250th

 Today is not a Friday but we will have our weekly piece today. Transits and weddings happened yesterday and laptops decided to misbehave forcing us to get this piece today. Apologies. 

This is not your typical article, though. This is the 250th article on this blog. That tells you how much of a journey this has been. Richie Online has evolved and grown. 249 articles ago, I did not imagine that we would get here. 

I have on multiple occasions mentioned how you, dear readers have kept this blog alive. In as much as the highs and lows of my own life and the stupid things that happen in this country are the things that keep me writing, I mostly do it because I have an audience. If not for the 50 or so people who read these articles every week and the three or so annoying ones who pester me for the articles when I have not written them, this blog would have died a natural death. To you, awesome readers, I say keep reading and commenting. I will charge you with one extra task, though. Start sharing the articles for reasons I will go into later into the article if I do not get carried away. 

The other group of people I must thank for the survival of the blog is that of guest writers. Before writing this piece, I took the liberty of checking how many of the 249 articles I had written myself. I had thought that there would be no more than 20 articles written by this team of amazing guest writers but looking through, 35 of the 250 articles on Richie Online have not been written by me. The most appearing of these guest writers is the person who we only know as the Venomous Hope. This guy who happens to be a genius with the pain and his subtle attacks on me has given us 15 pieces on this blog. A special mention to Counsel Kamangila and Gray “The Daydreamer” Mulinga who have given us 3 interesting articles each. Walter Moyo joined the bandwagon and gave us two articles including that one about his encounter with a stripper in Las Vegas. Taonapo zinthu pamudzi pano. 

I would not have done this on any other day but since this is a celebratory article, I will mention the rest of the people who have taken time to provide content for the blog. At some point, Nandi Nyirenda, Chikondi Mwale, Louis Kaitano and Morgan Kamanga used this platform to voice their views on the termination of pregnancy bill. Harry Chikasamba had one entry in his promised 3 article series on career and job hunts. Chikondi Sato, Zaziwe and Tadala Rambiki came in with what I think were rants about something that was not going on well as did some who wanted to be known as the Richie Online Resident Politician and the Idiot from Ndirande. Edward “TNO” Chikwenda once gave us an article dedicated to students that had just been selected into public universities at some point. Even the famous manager, Pemphero Mphande took it to Richie Online and his piece was one against discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS. This blog has had it all but more is coming. 

While I appreciate the people, who have contributed their ideas to this blog in the form of articles, I would like to bring the spotlight to the people who have not.  The Richie Online readers list has a lot of excellent writers who I hope will share pieces of their brilliant minds at some point and I cannot help but mention their names. Coach Dr Cornelius Huwa. This platform needs your wisdom. I would want to hear something from the minds of Peter Yakobe, Pilirani Banda and Ken Mlomba. I could add the likes of Ralph Mvona, Yohane Gadama, Pauline Mlogeni, Dalitsani Madula, Dominic Moyo and Vincent Mkochi to this list. Innocent Kalulu and Father Frank Mwinganyama. You and a lot more others owe us articles. 

One of the things that makes my Fridays is getting reactions from Richie Online articles. Every time I send out that link I get different sorts of reactions from grammar police and proponents and opponents of the opinions propagated. Some have said that some of the articles I write will get me killed and for the longest time I did not believe them. In my view, the Richie Online readership was limited to my friends and their friends at best. What I had forgotten was that things have the potential of going viral and getting read by some interesting eyes. I learnt my lesson the interesting way when I got a reaction from a state house insider after I had written my reaction to antigovernment demonstrations then. The reaction? A text message which expressed agreement with the points I raised about misguided activism and baren demonstrations which organizers failed to call off even in the face of being offered an audience with State House officials. That one came from one presidential advisor and at that point I had realized that he had also been reading all the other anti-gaffment posts I had been writing. Long story short, these posts could have gone anywhere and maybe having kuchikamwa (a loud mouth) may be dangerous is at all such things are. 

Since the inception, Richie Online has had what we call a baseline audience. At any point there is a group of people that constantly reads and while that number may have halved between 2018 and now, there are some articles that always punch above the ceiling. The interesting bit its all those have something to do with either sex or relationships. I would like to believe that this is not a coincidence. On the other hand, other readers have lamented on how these articles are not sufficiently disseminated. Their argument? Not many may have what it takes to go to the link on the blog. I am not too sure that we need to actively expand the readership but in case the suggestion is the right one, I would like to ask you to pick your favorite article from this blog and send it to 5 people. Then you should go on and like the Richie Online blog page on Facebook and we will all live happily ever after. 

Having talked about the reactions from the posts, I will end by talking about the impression I have created. While the grammar police come to attack misplaced pronouns on every post and the good writers bring suggestions on how my articles could sound better, some have gone on to praise the craft of the pen that is displayed here. I have created an impression that I am a good writer and that view has tricked people into bringing their documents for proofreading and editing. Here is the interesting bit; every time I write my own business documents I have to pass them through at least two people before they can be sent to their destination. That, to me means that I am no good writer, but having gone through such processes I have learnt a thing or two about business writing. Here it is then. We at Richie Online will be introducing a writing clinic for business documents because we believe that most documents need to pass through an extra of eyes before you send them to people who matter. The reason for doing this is that we at Richie Online believe that there is an actual need for the service. Stay tuned. 

Richie Online has been a beautiful journey and I hope you and the 5 people you will send your favorite article to will be here to read the 1000th article. It is coming. 

How old is 28 years old?

 

It is obviously not a Friday and you are probably surprised by the fact that you got the link to this article on the day. You did not make a mistake clicking this link so keep reading.

On a Saturday like this one in the year 1993, a baby boy was born to my parents. That would be me. My birthday happens to come on one busy Saturday this week and I am wondering if I will have the opportunity to celebrate it well. I will try, though.

I have been struggling with the question of how old I am. Let me explain. If you do simple mathematics, the fact that I was born on Saturday, May 1 in 1993 places my age at exactly 28 years. I know that, just like 99 percent of the people reading this. What I do not know is how old a 28-year-old Malawian boy is. And yes, I said boy because I do not like the whole idea of referring to a person under the age of 35 as a man.

One may wonder as to why I am not satisfied by the knowledge of my numerical age. My reasoning has been shaped by one Dave Chappelle who in the time of the R Kelly scandals wondered how old a 15-year old was. This question was asked on the background of the allegations that R Kelly had emptied his bladder onto a 15-year old girl who hardly moved a muscle to avoid the shower. Dave Chappelle’s conclusion? A person cannot be as smart as they can get at the age of 15 but at 15 one needs to be able to make basic decisions on whether someone can pee on them or not. If you can tolerate a few swear words, you can watch the whole story in Chappelle’s standup comedy special titled For What Its Worth.

The comedy from which I borrowed this weird line of reasoning was done about 20 years ago and I got to watch it years back. Nonetheless, I have always wondered as to what Mr Chappelle would have said about the age 28. He did not say anything, though, so I thought I could cut the laziness and do it myself. Just thinking about it would now have been difficult so I have taken the liberty to open the vent and let you peep through what is going on in my mind as a reflect on this birthday. And yes, I said reflect because I am not celebrating this one.

When it comes to the question of how old someone is, we turn to the numbers as a measure. The first thing that comes to somebody’s mind when they are asked as to how old they are is the numerical age since that is what the teachers have been telling way before we could understand the concept of age enough to start hiding or lying about our age. Numerical age sense but ever since I got called for a job interview for a job I had applied with no birth date on my CV and no age in my application letter, I have been wondering as to whether the numbers are more important when compared to what one has achieved.

Here is the other side of it. Others have measured age by one’s ability and achievements. This is where the concept of maturity comes into place. There are some people who have grown through the easiest situations and those tend to “grow slowly. One the opposite end is the group of those who get to have difficult responsibilities from early on. This bunch tends to grow and mature faster and their decision making tends to be very different from those who grew up with a silver spoon. This might be a divisive opinion that some may not agree with but given the dichotomy of whether to agree or disagree with it, I would lean towards agreeing. I am not saying that growing up privileged is the wrong thing or undesirable. After all, when it comes to things of having it easy and having it tough, I strongly believe that it goes beyond money.

In one twitter thread I saw, people were mentioning their numerical ages and talking about their life situations. Some were single parents to more than one child and struggling to make ends meet at 26. Others were college graduates of 5 years who were struggling to find employment at 25. Interestingly enough, one person posted about how he was a successful business man and struggling to find love at the age of 35. Each of those struggles has a way of bringing a certain level of growth when handled appropriately. In a sense, however, the maturity scale fails to cover some unusual being whose decision making and execution abilities may be hard to fit on a conventional scale.

In medical circles, we have what we call developmental milestones. The concept of milestones is popular among pediatricians who assess whether a child is on the right track depending on whether they are able to perform certain tasks by a certain age. These may range from speech to motor functionality i.e. sitting, crawling, standing or walking. If a child is not able to do one of those particular things by a certain age, they are labelled as having developmental delay. This then, puts the numerical age in context and in as much as it may not have the same usefulness it has in babies, I would like to borrow the concept and use it to check how old I am. That, of course comes with its own challenges. I will explain.

The first problem is that it is difficult to define what an adult should do by a particular age. People who go on setting benchmarks on by what age one should have achieved a certain milestone are one of the causes of the surging mental health issues we have on God’s green earth. Think of it. We have set expected ages at which people should finish the different levels of education. Then in the tricky job market we have in this country, we have gone on to set an age at which graduates should find jobs and another one by which they should have moved out of their guardians’. You know the next one. Marriage. At 28, I am way past my marriage age according to some and I am just about to get there according to some. I feel for the girl children who were born before and in the same year as me because the situation is even tougher for them.

The second problem with this system is that people have this tendency of hinging their success to comparisons with what others have achieved. I fell prey to this despite being given the antidote to the same by my secondary school Additional Mathematics teacher back in 2009 (story for another day). Having graduated from secondary school, egos led me to picking medicine over other programmes of study.  That meant that I had to be in the oven of college for 6 years while the less intelligent Nyembezi went on to study agribusiness management at Bunda. By the time I was in my 5^th year in college, he dropped by driving a Toyota Corolla Axio from his workplace. He bought us meals and airtime and gave me a bit of pocket money. I wanted to be like him at that time. I just wanted to be done with school, because being about the same age as him, I thought I was in some sort of developmental delay by being in college. Stretch your imagination and think about how life feels for the 30-year-old girl who has been in 5 bridal parties and still do not have a loved one. Add the social media to this and you get a confused generation. The picture-perfect lives that people are living out there can depress you from thinking that your age mates are doing way better than you are. In the case of choosing whether to be inspired or intimidated, many choose the latter and subsequently add depression to it.

We are at a point where the numerical age is not helping and maturity isn’t doing much. Creating a composite method from the two is also kind of difficult so I am no closer to finding out what being 28 years old should mean to me. For the answer, I might have to turn to Henry Kachaje.

Back in 2013, I happened to attend one of those motivational seminars that Mr Kachaje had organized. This seminar was held at Mount Soche Hotel and had about 15 participants. As a part of the seminar, each participant was given a 22-page planner to write about how they envisioned their life 10 years from the say of the seminar. Now 22 pages was a long shot and one can imagine the details one had to fill as responses to the leading questions.

There were questions on bank account whose responses I cannot remember, but I am pretty sure that my bank balance is far from what I wrote in there. On career, I wrote that by 2023 I will be a licensed oncologist and if you know what I do now, you know how that is going. Church? I wrote that I would be an active member of the church possibly having an active post within my small church community. I am very active, but it will take a miracle for me to get where I thought I will be at age 30. My favorite? There was a bit about family in which I wrote that by the age 30 I will be married with two children. I am 28 now and plans of getting married are as far from me as they can be for a guy my age. The career and family goals were written from a point of naivety and I have learnt to forgive myself for painting such a picture.

There we are then. Even when you tie your age assessment to personal expectations, you may end up missing it. I am probably one of the few weirdos who has this problem, but here I am knowing that I am 28 without really knowing how old 28 is. There is one thing that I know for sure, though. Mine has been a life well lived. For a person my age, I think I have done it all and that is something to be celebrated. I have been a church leader and I have blacked out after taking too much whiskey. I have been heartbroken and I have broken hearts. I have been involved in charities and I have chopped money I was not supposed to chop. I have clapped hands at idiots and sworn at people I shouldn’t have. I have written articles on this blog, the 248^th of which you are now finishing. I have done weed. I have sung in a church choir. I have had an impact on lives on both extreme ends. I may not be proud of half the things I have done but I feel like mine is a life well lived. And here is to 28. Moving on, it will be time to do more good and less of the bad.

There we are, then. There is the good and there is the bad but then there is my life. Going back to the issue of age, writing this has led me to one conclusion. Using milestones may not be the best way to check how old one is. Perhaps knowing how old a person is should be about what they have been through and what they have learnt from it. I hope I have learnt enough from my 28 years. With all these thoughts, I doubt I will be doing any celebrating today. One part of me feels like I have learnt enough from my highs and lows and the other feels like I have not. When I look at both sides of that coin, I am finding it hard to get the energy for celebrating this birthday. 

Summary of the article? Your age is a product of how much you have learnt from the life you have lived. 

Have a good day.