You will soon understand that Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back.

But the other four Balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that, and strive for it.”

Brian Dyson, former CEO Coca-Cola

Ever since Mombasa road was expanded (towards Athi) and recarpeted, it has become a death trap. The Standard has a story on this.

The main danger spots are at the junctions:

• Bellevue – on either side of the road as pedestrians attempt to cross the road
• General Motors
• City Cabanas

It appears that as one approaches a junction, one feels the almost irresistible urge to stand on the accelerator, for whatever reasons (mostly slowing down is such a waste of time!)

Speed limit should be 110 KPH (at until around Athi when it becomes 100)

So do we care:

-> It is wet, when driving, do we worry about splashing muddy water on pedestrians (I have experienced this – in the morning – and it is not funny)

-> Driving habits – much has been written, blogged – cutting into traffic carelessly, overlapping

-> greed

Lot’s of areas to improve on.

Here is what Dr Dennis Waitley has to say on this.

It means you don’t base your decisions on being politically correct. You do what’s right, not fashionable. You know that truth is absolute, not a device for manipulating others. And you win in the long run, when the stakes are highest.

Read more on this subject: http://www.mypureprofit.com/integrity.html or watch this http://www.candogo.com/search/insight?i=1960

One of this is getting stuff done. Meeting goals and targets.

Its elementary really: since a good number of people go into shopping centres and markets with a shopping list.

Jim Rohn says something to the effect that you should ‘finish’ the day before you even start it. Meaning you have a plan of what you want to achieve through that day. Then once you have that you plan your week, the week before, the month etc. Then of course do the daily, weekly and monthly, and yearly reviews.

I don’t think I am perfect in this – considering how long writing this post has been on my task list. But the key thing is that it got done. I guess with time (hopefully very soon) I shall become much more disciplined.

It’s helped out a lot lately though since I get more stuff done in a day.

How much does your TV cost you?

One other thing that I have found rather easy to do is limit my hours in front of the TV. Dennis Waitley calls 7pm – 11pm prime time. When a good number of us spend watching other guys making their money when we could be learning a new skill, finding out about a new culture by interacting with people, or simply reinforcing our vocabulary with a good book.

I must confess though that I wouldn’t miss a game featuring Arsenal, unless it clashed with my music or bible study. I however hardly spend more than four hours a week in front of the TV. Sounds boring but in fact its not.

So the TV could be costing much more than the ~20000 KShs it costs to purchase.

My milestone 200th Blog Post

I got a second opportunity to listen to Eric Kimani, CEO of Sameer Group as well as founder of Palmhouse Foundation.

Eric Kimani is a highly successful Kenyan, and is becoming someone I would like to emulate in many areas of my life. There are very few people in Kenya, who having made great strides in their careers and callings, find time to share some of their experiences.

Back to Abundance vs Scarcity Mentality Talk. Eric Kimani had already made this presentation sometime this year( to a gathering of bankers I believe). Googling around, there’s quite abit on the subject available online from different people.

He started by giving an interesting story about two monkeys, both of which were caged and one well fed, the other underfed. After a period of time they released the monkeys and each monkey was given a number of bananas to eat. The well fed banana peeled banana after banana and ate them up, which the other banana scurried from end to end, stashing away bananas – and did not eat a single banana. Interesting.

He then quoted Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.“

He then defined the abundance mentality with a couple of words and sentences:

There is enough for all – think jobs, opportunities etc.
Optimism
Thinking big and expecting big

The scarcity mentality:
Your success implies that someone else must fail – success in a job.

This made me think of the land grabbing problem – it’s all about me me me me …
He noted that this mentality is one of the biggest challenges facing Kenya. I agree wholeheartedly with this. Look at how we drive in Kenya, the land grabbing, the selfishness and me-attitude that is very much present, the ‘its our turn to eat’ politician thinking.

Some of the things about the abundance mentality aree some areas that I have personally been working on:
value systems – what are your standards. One needs to have principles that govern your life. I ought to say some thing today and stand by it tomorrow because its part of what I believe in.
Internal Security

He also mentioned an interesting anecdote: a manager wanted a raise – he was actually about to leave the company. His immediate superior didn’t want him to get a pay hike, get this – because he would be earning more than him. That Eric called the scarcity mentality. So true. the senior guy ought to have used that to validate getting himself a pay hike.

One cannot excel at what they do not enjoy – this is so true and is something I very much believe in. Personally I do not think I can last for more than a month doing something I don’t like – even if I get paid for it.

Eric Kimani also mentioned the visionary thinking and problem solving nature of those with an abundance mentality. I like the term problem solving. Usually in a good number of organizations, far too much time is spent apportioning blame instead of solving the problem. Jim Rohn says – Attack the problem not the person.

We are undergoing what Eric called the Wisdom revolution. I think our economic systems are moving towards a Knowledge Economy. He said that none of us should anticipate working at the same place till 55. There is nothing like a permanent job. Instead we should consider everything as a project to be done meticulously and with excellence.
I concur – everyone is self employed, even if you work for company X.

Palm House Foundation
This is an educational trust run by a team brought together by Eric Kimani and his wife and have impacted positively the lives of over 100 students by providing for their secondary school education while mentoring them.

This somehow reminds of how Starehe started and now currently runs. I am absolutely thrilled that there’s more people setting up endowment funds which more or less can guarantee that a certain number of needy students can get access to education regardless of their circumstances in life.

Was an evening well spent. Visit www.erickimani.org for updates on his next talk. Also consider partnering with the Palm House Foundation.

I decided that I shall upgrade from the 10km race which I did last year in a not too bad time (but do I say )

I had not done as much training this year due to a variety of reasons but felt reasonable confident that I could manage it in a good time. They say that in a marathon, your legs give way before your lungs , and sure enough after 13 kilometres, I had to pace down (and take the occasional walk) so as not to hurt myself too much. I finished though. Having some music and Joel Osteen’s audio podcast helped a lot since I had something keeping my mind busy.

Some lessons for me
Its a bit like the Christian walk – you may finish first or last … but just finish. You need to keep drinking water on the way to cool down, and more importantly, to ensure that you do not get dehydrated. Constant spiritual renewal keeps you on the narrow path that is the Christian walk.

There is the ‘feel-good’ factor that you actually started and finished a 21km race. I did it in 2 hrs 10 minutes and I know I could have done it in less than 2 hrs if my legs did not give way. But it was my first attempt at 21 km.

If you start something finish it. I guess I could have deviated to south B during the race, go pay a visit to a few friends (though they probably would not let me past the door in my attire). Finishing the race is most important thing to do when you have started something that you value.

Next Year
Next year I think I’ll be much more prepared. Maybe a 1 hr 30 min – 45 min time to aim for.
But no 42 km for me. That’s way too long…. Meanwhile I am looking for a Mt Kenya plot for next year as the next challenge.

Visit the iTunes store (using iTunes of course ) and look for the iTunes U link.

I must say it is quite an entertaining game yet at the same time a learning experience. It took us a bit of time to get up and running as we all had to understand the rules of the game. Too bad we did not have too much time and some of us had to leave early.

However, I managed out of the rat race second. My next target is to see if I can get out within 30 minutes . I am now looking to get my own game as this was borrowed, and at the same time get 202. The weekend beckons…

Dennis Waitley goes on and on about dedicating oneself to ‘Life Long Learning‘. It’s always good to keep learning something so as to remain relevant in today’s knowledge based economy.

I feel that I’ll always dabbling in technology. So, I have decided that I’ll start finding out what the buzz is about Ruby and web development. The author – Yukihiro Matsumoto, a.k.a. “Matz” – says that when he was developing Ruby, he wanted ‘.. a language more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python’. I’ll decide what project i can work towards achieving sooner or later.

Some resources,

• Official Ruby home page
• Official Ruby on Rails home page
• The best way to learn Ruby: read the free book Programming Ruby
• Primary home for open source Ruby projects: RubyForge
• Ruby on Rails open source projects
• Ruby on Rails how-tos
• Four Days on Rails, an excellent next-steps guide to use after “Rolling with Ruby on Rails

Any one in Kenya with experience with Ruby, please come give a talk @ skunkworks