Are you going to be flying to Africa later this year? Do you want to save as much money as possible on airfare?
Without too much build up, this page was created to be a resource list to help you get the cheapest flights to Africa.
I am writing this article from Australia, but a significant share of resources that I recommend are international and Internet based.
Request Line
I only have two humble requests:
1) If you know a cheaper or a better way to get airline tickets, please leave a comment below and let us know.
2) Should you decide to use one of the resources I suggest please use the links within this article, a lot of them (not all sadly ) are affiliate links and it’s a great way to support the site if I can get a little cash boost from your flying back home.
The prices are the same regardless of how you visit the site, but if you visit the site via my website I get a commission. No obligation of course, but if you can do that, thanks in advance.
The Resource List
I will list the resources in order, beginning with the most cost effective.
1) Student Flights
This one applies only to people in Australia and as far as I can tell you need a student card to use this service. HOWEVER, their prices simply cannot be beat. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and watch the video where I hired a VA to investigate cheap ticket prices and compare those results with the Student Flight prices….no comparison.
If you ever needed a reason to re-enrol in school here it is.
Kayak is to airfare, what Google is to information, it is the search engine for the cheapest flights. Kayak is an absolutely phenomenal resource for a number of reasons:
1) They peruse through 450+ travel sites including Orbitz and Cheap cheap flights
2) They have a fantastic affiliate program
3) Outside of Student Flights, they have the cheapest prices I have seen thus far, even for flights from Australia.
4) Whereas Student Flights is restricted to Australia, Kayak is an international resource.
This one is a general tip I have heard from other people who have traveled to and from Kenya. If you are going to buy a plane ticket, browse around and search for travel agents within the African country you are traveling too and buy from them. Apparently they are cheaper. If anyone has anything to add to this idea please leave a comment below.
4) Intrepid Travel
Classify this one under, you probably would never have heard of this company had you not visited the Displaced African.
I first heard about Intrepid when the founder of the firm came to my former business school to give a talk. As always I sat there jaw open and fascinated by how people can take intangible ideas and use them to produce tangible results. Anyway, I digress………..
The firm specializes in giving tourists and backpackers cheap, affordable glimpses into authentic native cultures.
If it wasn’t for the restrictive nature of the travel with this firm (you’re entire trip is scheduled by the firm beforehand) this is BBBBYYYYY FAAAARRRRR one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest way for someone living in Australia to travel back to their native country.
Don’t believe me? Check out the Intrepid Travel Website and compare their airfare rates with rates from any other firm. Never used this firm so I don’t know if there are any extras involved. Worth checking out anyway.
NB: No affiliate link for this website
5) The V. A. Experiment
As part of my 4 hour work week journey, I thought I would see what type of results I would get if I hired a virtual assistant from Rentacoder.com for $7 and commissioned them to find the cheapest airflight tickets they could for the year 2008 between Melbourne, Australia and my hometown of Nairobi Kenya.
I think the investment is so minimal that everyone should experiment with this. You will probably save yourself a few hundred dollars but sadly I didn’t get the huge savings of thousands I was expecting. The VA actually got their cheapest rates from Kayak. But still definitely worth testing out.
Any tips, tricks, resources and ideas to share for those of us who want to save as much money and have as much fun and happiness during our trips back to Mama Africa?
Yet again my humble request that you please use the resources provided in this article….in some cases I make as little as $5 but in some cases, your buying a ticket using the links provided ( a ticket which costs the same regardless anyway) can be enough to pay for the domain hosting for this site for the next 5 years with enough left over to get me a brand new pair of shoes
….behind the scenes I have about 4 or 5 articles I am working on that are on their way to being done but need elements out of my control to come into place before they can be complete. I have a podcast that I am yet to edit and I have sent out quite a few invitations to interview people over the past week.
The End Result
The end result is that I have a wonderful back log of articles and podcasts and things in process, too much for me to want to move forward but little enough that it shouldn’t take me too long to clear up.While this vacuum exists I thought I would give you all some more thoughts as I have continued along my spiritual journey.
Why I’ll Never Leave the Church
One thing that I can predict with a fair level of confidence and certainty is that I will probably never grow disillusioned with the church and/or with Christianity as I did in my teenage years and I will never leave the church. There are a couple of reasons for that:
1) I never got taught, or rather never had sink in, the consumer mentality to Christianity: Growing up, I was taught about the immutable, unstoppable, never changing power of self-determination and that all through my life, I should always use that power to create my destiny. I guess I am one of those people who preachers would label, “That arrogant young man who thinks he can do everything himself.”
I don’t know if I can but I certainly know that I am going to take responsibility for the results I achieve in my life.
2) Christian people are hands down, the most loving and silmultaneously nicest people I have ever met: A lot of people who become disillusioned with the church do so because they feel condemned, judged, unloved and unwanted by Christian people. I have never ever felt that. Until I was an adult, all my real-world (as opposed to celebrity or fantasy heroes) were Christian African women.
If you look through my heroes list, you’ll notice that one of them is Erwin Mcmanus (if anyone knows how I can get an interview with him….do share) and I just love to consume and reflect and act on his podcasts and his ideas.
To put the full stop on this point, I don’t know if I have told this story before but what the heck, I will tell it again
She Listened, Really Listened
It’s amazing how one moment can mean so many different things to different people. I don’t think my aunty knows just how special that day was for me, and whenever I tell my mother the story, she always remarks:
That’s nothing special
Or something similar, but that truly was, one of the greatest days of my life.
Disposable Teen
So there I was, 16 years old, scared and angry. I remember walking into my aunty’s home for a visit. My aunty did something that no human being had never done before. She didn’t try to advise me. She didn’t try to give me solutions to my problems. She didn’t engage in discussion or debate. She just listened.
She listened as I talked about my crazy plans about buying a fleet of matatus (a fleet of mini buses) and using the revenue generated from this venture to fund a school where the poor and marginalized youth of Africa would learn not only about the political process but would be equipped to answer the question:
How can I use the current global and political system to the benefit of my community and myself?
I don’t remember if that was the exact thought I told my aunty so many years ago, but whatever it is I said, she listened. I remember she fed me delicious sandwiches and tea and for a couple of days just let me talk. It’s amazing how the Angel Gabriel’s love for Mary can be felt just by his merely sitting next to her………..
Don’t worry if you read this and don’t see what’s so special either, just know it was truly one of the best days during one of the best periods of my life, and she was there.
She was in that moment, the salt and light of my world.
Where this Spiritual Journey is Going?
I know I am not alone on this one, but I often fantasize about being interviewed. My favourite platforms are either a town hall meeting, a speech I am making to thousands of people or an appearance on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, and many a time, I have fantasized about being asked that very question in the sub-healdine.Here now is my smooth-as-Taye-Diggs-eloquent-as-MLK answer:
The way I see my life headed, I will probably end up the born again founder my own church dedicated to two things:
a) The upliftment and dignity of young African boys and men
b) Taking action: Every sermon will end with everyone either doing something to improve their lives or the lives of the members of the community or it will become compulsory with attendance that you must take action after every service and are accountable to other members of the congregation.
I would weed out all the passive watchers and remain with just passionate people committed to taking action and being angels among men.
Hey, I have been asked to lead my bible study group this Thursday so that might be the begining of all of this…….watch this gap in the time space continuum.
My oddly tired brain is telling me those are enough ideas for now.
This interview was actually done on request. One of you actually wrote to me and asked me to do a post on repatriating to Kenya. Your wish is my command. I hope its of use to you.
Late Night Stalker?!
Because of a misunderstanding, I ended up calling Linda at the wrong time and actually woke her in the middle of the night to conduct this interview: so if Linda sounds very ethereal, I can assure you it’s not because of any charisma or charm on my part
So That’s Why I Can’t Download the Audio Files!
I finally figured out what’s wrong with my podcasting system. I upgraded Wordpress too quickly and the guys who created the podcasting system are taking their time to catch up.
In the meantime, subscribe to the Displaced African podcast (watch this video where I explain how you can do it) and you will receive this as well as the Kirk Nugent and all other podcasts direct to your mp3 player in the very near future.
This interview was about Linda’s repatriating to Kenya from the USA. In spite of that, I think some of the material in the podcast applies to anyone moving back to anywhere in Africa from anywhere abroad.
NB: As is the case with any semi-informal conversation, there is occasional course language, but its so sporadic that it hardly matters.
2) Words of advice to anyone whose been abroad and is thinking of repatriating
3) The difference between good culture shock and bad culture shock
4) Difficulties she faced readjusting to life in Kenya (This answer will surprise you……and then remind you, lest you forgot)
5) Was it easy to readjust after so many years abroad?
6) Discussion of some of the technical aspects of repatriating to Kenya: getting an ID, NSSF number, P.O. Box etc. The connection between all this and a sense of history and legacy.
7) The sequence for getting your ID, pin and NSSF number. p.o. box etc
8 ) Give yourself time to readjust: some tips on that.
9) Does she talk to other recently repatriated Kenyans? What’s that like?
10) TIPS FOR GETTING WORK WHEN YOU REPATRIATE
11) How Linda got her job with Capital FM while still living in the States
Over the course of my time here in Australia I have lost my fair share of friends. Now granted, I have reconciled with many of them, and am in the process of being disconnected by some others, but still, I feel that perhaps I would best serve you by writing an article on how to keep friends from someone who is currently losing a few.
1) Reciprocity: If they feed you, feed them. If they pay for things for you, pay for things for them. Always assume that when they do something for you, they expect it to be returned. This isn’t necessarily selfish on anyone’s part, it’s the law of reciprocity that keeps relationships running.
2) Inform People of Major Life Decisions: If I were ever to redo what I did when I packed up my things and changed cities from Melbourne to Sydney, I would have done one thing differently: I would have informed all my friends and family of my decision and why I am doing what I am doing. Why? Courtesy.
My general state of being apathetic and quite oblivious to other people’s pressure dos and donts combined with a complete obliviousness to social rules and conventions mixed in with a little bit of my always assuming that by default I don’t matter to other people (quite a sentence full that was) meant that I never really saw how my moving affected other people’s lives.
Other people had probably built plans or at least thought of a future of which I was a part. At least do folks the courtesy of telling them when to change their plans.
3) Follow People Up: Here to this day, I absolutely suck. If you want someone to be your friend or relate to them in some way, PICK UP THE PHONE/TYPE THE FACEBOOK MESSAGE/SEND THE EMAIL = JUST GET IN TOUCH. Don’t wait for the moon, stars and planets to align before you just pick up the phone and reach your hand out to somebody.
4) Friendship Comes Over Lust: Let’s be honest. A huge number of modern day relationships for people below the age of 30 are either just an odd variation of friends with benefits or “mutual-flirtation agreements” as opposed to any deep friendships and relationships. Especially in the early stages, DO NOT ever put your pursuit of members of the opposite sex above your friends.
This one needs to be heard especially by the women, y’all are always so willing to throw away relationships or ignore your friends just because some man could whisper sweet nothings in one ear while convincing you to disrobe in the other. You’re friends know you and care about you more than the man. They will clean up the tissues/bedsheets with you once he leaves.
This one doesn’t apply much to men (though stealing from strangers and acquantances is an entirely different story), but speaking as a man who has done this on a few occasions………to use a technical term, not cool, not cool at all.
I loved this version of this song, check out the frog with soul at the end.
5) Give: Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they really want and especially what they need. Give them that thing they keep talking about. Don’t get them what people are supposed to get other people. Listen and get them and provide them with what makes their heart sing.
Any more to share? Got any stories of how you lost friends? Leave a comment below and let me know. Before I leave though…….
The Newsletter
If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.
In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on making friends, finding employment, how to stay healthy on the run, things to prepare before you immigrate, staying in touch with people from your home country etc etc.
So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:
You will notice that by this point, I am writing less and less about the book and getting straight into the Questions and Actions. Please read the articles that came before this one, listen to the audios and videos I have embedded in those articles or buy the book to fully understand the logic behind what I am doing here.
VA is short for “Virtual assistant”.
Some Security Measures When Working with VAs
These are for those people who might be scared and/or paranoid about working with virtual assistants who would have access to their delicate information. A couple of quick tips if you work on blogs and websites, like I do.
1) Create unique username and password for VAs to access your website:
A friend of mine is currently paying me to help him create and optimize his blog ( If you are interested in this service, please send an email to masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com ). He is the person who best taught me this lesson.
We hired a technician from rent a coder to take the domain name that he had already bought and create a Wordpress blog from it and install some plugins and software into the Wordpress blog.
Obviously, this would involve the technician logging into my friend’s hosting and domain account. However my friend is quite the risk manager. Scared that the technician may play around with his domain settings, he went the extra mile and created a limited authority account for the technician that has access to his domain and hosting account.
For those of you working with people on your Wordpress blog, its possible to create such accounts as well.
From now on, every time I work with a VA, for the next redesign of the site for example, I will create a brand new username and password for their use.
2) Use credit cards instead of debit cards: It’s easier to erase huge credit charges instead of debit charges.
Questions and Actions: Outsourcing Life
1) Get yourself an assistant even if you don’t need one:
I have already assigned more than a dozen tasks to VAs in the USA, India, Bangalore and oddly enough, Baghdad, Iraq (more power to Iraqis if they actually have Internet now).
As a matter of fact, there is one task I can think of that needs a VA’s touch right now……..look out for an article coming out soon that will have “the VA’s touch”.
2) Identify your top 5 time consuming nonwork tasks and 5 personal tasks you could assign for sheer fun:
Hmm this one will be tough considering I spend so much time online But if I were to outsource more than I do already, here are a couple of things I would consider outsourcing:
i) Find the absolute cheapest ticket to fly to Kenya over the next 6 months: I recently created a video over the course of about a week where I tried to see if I could get cheap airplane tickets to allow me to visit Kenya sometime this year using the site rentacoder.
It gives some helpful tips of how one might be able to save hundreds if not thousands of dollars on flights from Melbourne, Australia to Nairobi, Kenya. I will release this as its own independent article because I think cheap airfare is always worth discussing for immigrants.
ii) Buy me a very very cheap pair of size 10.5 sneakers: I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in a very long time, but its quite difficult to get a nice, comfortable pair of sneakers that doesn’t wear out quickly at a cheap price.
iii) Figure out the best place and price for me to sell my car: My car is at the end of its life and I want to find out how I can sell either the parts or the entire car for the best price.
iv) Perform most of the research necessary for me to create my cash flow muse: This will make a lot more sense once we get into the chapter on automation
v) You know what Tim did it, me thinks I might outsource my dating : Hmm, now should I outsource the search for dates or just the organizing of dates?I will let this marinate in my mind. It’s definitely something that I would do. I think the pure fun and novelty of having “my assistant” call a girl to confirm plans I have with her would make my day, and hers, pretty memorable.
A couple of things happened this week, that made me think about the Jungle Fever article:
1) The Direction of the Blogging
I am almost at the end of my blogging course, Blog Mastermind. As such I am thinking more and more about just what I will do once I have laid the foundation for this blog and have fully determined what this blog will be about.
After being in the blogosphere for a while I have seen that there are a few categories that are almost always guaranteed to get a lot of readers:
1) Sex and relationships: You can’t go wrong with this one on the Internet, you just can’t. Sad to say, but the cruder and more graphic you can be, the better.
2) Politics: I believe that if the Devil were to spit bile and mix it with the intestinal stew of a skunk, it would look a little bit like tribalism and irrational hate filled discussions about politics. However, there is no doubt: you want faces to come to your blog, talk about a controversial political issue.
3) Religion: This one surprised me. People love to talk about religion whether Eastern, Western or lack thereof.
4) Money: The key component to this one appears to be credibility. Once you have built credibility behind a particular brand and begin to talk about how people can make money or hustle a little smarter, you will get face time.
Back to the Set
Anyway, there I was sitting in a bookshop reading a book about blogging (I hope the irony of my spending my offline time studying the online world has not escaped you) I started to think about just how popular the Jungle Fever and other relationship articles had been.
I have talked in the past about spinning off the Displaced African and starting up a blog which is dedicated entirely to the exploration and discussion of foreign and mixed race relationships. I started thinking about this again, and thought it might be a good idea. Who knows? Watch this space……..
2) I Sent a Letter to an Editor
I have been sending emails to newspapers and online magazines and radio stations to try and get some publicity to the blog. I am not too proud to admit, I am doing it all wrong.
My microtest of about 15 media houses has produced below-mediocre results. If anyone has any tips on how I can approach African mass media right and get some publicity for the blog, hit me up on masmilele(at)thedisplacedafrican(dot)com
Anyway, one of the letters I sent to an online publication proposing that we discuss the Jungle Fever article on their publication. Their very courteous response in short was:
Thanks for the email. We think your article is a little too offensive and one sided for a publication like ours.
And so just like I responded to them, let me say to all of you:
It is BECAUSE the article is so offensive and one sided that it must be discussed
I Was Surprised
No one was more surprised than me by what the reaction so far has been to that article: whereas many white women have stopped by to tell me how narrow minded and stereotype-supporting the article was, the reaction from the African community can only be surmarised as:
a) Quite agreement
b) Outright support
Does that mean that we all agree that African men are pretty much scraping from society’s barrel as far as relationship and sexual partners are concerned?
Did I just verbalize something we all knew: that on the totem pole of society, African men are kissing the lowest part of the pole?
It’s one thing to stereotype and it’s another to point out the truth. So, read Jungle Fever now and you tell me, is it true? Does it resonate with your experience?
Secondly, how does the idea of a foreign and mixed race relationship blog sound? Does the blog exist? Leave a comment below with the link.
Though my podcasting service is currently undergoing some technical difficulties, I am on it and intend on it being up very soon.
If you enjoy this or any of the other podcasts, this blog has to offer then make sure you subscribe to the Displaced African Podcast. You can do this in two ways:
2) Go to the Itunes store, search for “the Displaced African” podcast and subscribe to it (I have created a video tutorial that shows you step by step how to do this which you can find by clicking here or watch below - I debut it today, Yay!).
Fortunately, considering I spend most of my time working from home alone, a lot of what is in this chapter doesn’t apply to me. But without further ado:
Questions and Actions: Interrupting the Interruptions
1) Create systems to deflect my email and phone availability: I created an auto-responder that states I will only check and respond to email at 5 a.m.
To be frank my email at present isn’t that big of a problem: I receive between 15 - 30 emails a day which it take me about 30 minutes to respond to.
This will probably matter a lot more as the blog grows and I try to do more things with my life so its good to set the foundation now.
Phone
I started doing this long before I ever read the 4 hour work week. I almost never get personal phone calls. At most maybe 1 or 2 a week. A lot of people now know that if they want to reach me, email is the way to go.
I leave my phone off or am away from it for most of the day (Right now it’s on my bed side table while I type this).From being a self-important young adult who camped by my phone and racked up $500 bills, I now only have a mobile phone because my cousin thrust a mobile phone in my hand as her way of contacting me.
As for professional calls, again, I don’t really matter enough to get that many a day.Almost everyone knows that email is the best way to reach me. If they don’t know, I guess the benevolent education begins now.
2) Get Very Specific When Communicating in Emails: I read the 4 hour work week and began applying this principle quite some time ago.
From day one, whenever I was emailing someone about interviewing them from a podcast, I always gave them my availability times and proposed a very specific time to conduct the interview.Now one thing I am going to add to that email is that I must obtain someone’s phone number and time zone in regards to GMT: GMT +10h, GMT -4h for example.
This proposing of an exact time has saved me countless back and forth emails and hours. In fact the one person I saw do it waayyyy more effectively than I did, wrote me an email that went a little something like this:
I read about your blog on X and I wanted to find out if you are interested in telling your story on (media outlet) at X time (Name of their city and proposed time). Let me know
My response was long and flowery:
Yes
and the deal was done. Specificity is a lost art.
It’s wonderful to be non-specific and ambiguous in social situations but not in matters of productivity and the work place, I think.
[See post to listen to audio]
3) Batch Activities: If it isn’t an 80/20 activity, batch it together and create a regular time slot for it. An example:
I work with virtual assistants, freelance coders and writers and am also a freelance writer and blog consultant (aaah, what do you know, I DO have jobs with fancy titles).
What I recently started doing is sorting out all the emails and communication and work that needs to be done AS SOON as I get on the computer. Usually, this involves sending out an email or two, checking on something here, something else there and usually in a couple of hours I am done.
This is definitely better than my previous style of checking on them in 5 minute chunks here and there throughout the night and leaves me a lot more time to write blog posts, market the blog, respond to comments and test out monetization techniques.
4) Delegate More if You are an Entrepreneur and Request More Control if You are an Employee: Avoid decision-making bottlenecks and give individuals as much power and responsibility as you can while they work on a particular task.
I have been outsourcing blog functioning from day 1 and intend on one day bringing a writer or two onto the tDA writing team so I have little problem relinquishing control right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that we have eliminated the unnecessary and can now move on with laser like focus upon that which is important.
Now on to what you and I have been waiting for, Step 3: A is for Automation.
Now as many of you would know, when I first showed up in this country of Australia, I wasn’t necessarily a popular person. That was probably the main catalyst behind what I lovingly call:
My Really Fake Philosophy Days
I was angry at the world and angry at everyone. For some reason I don’t quite understand to this day, I took all that anger and channeled it into trying to disprove the existence and authority of Christianity and the Christian faith.
Cue the Internet
And so I got online and started searching for any way to disprove the existence of Christianity. In addition to that, yet again for reasons I don’t quite understand, I got quite mesmerized by Eastern philosophy.
And so I began to study, especially meditation and yoga, and the wonderful effects they had had in riding people of all sorts of mental and physical ailments. And just because I was a super spiritual person, all this was somehow mixed in with porn.
And so my quiet moments away from the world would be spent watching a documentary on Confucianism, reading a website that nit-picked at every little contradiction and misspelling in the “good book”, and finding it how many licks……..another sordid tale, another sordid time.
When I Did Meet People
I became, and to some extent still am, that really obnoxious person who kept pointing out the truth that we all know but don’t like to be constantly reminded of:
All ways of life, schools of thoughts, paths and directions are flawed and incomplete.
Unfortunately though, I wasn’t comfortable with this ambiguity, I was just angry, very very angry and kept trying to attack any ideas that I could find a flaw in. Like I will never forget when I first heard a sermon on providence.
Are You Saying It’s all Predetermined?
The wonderful thing about her preaching style was that she was raw and she was open. If she forgot her thought, she would tell you, not really care and move on. If something angered her, she channeled the Incredible Hulk and went for it.
I think this was the first time I ever saw her preach. And she preached on providence. Now in truth I loved her sermon, I loved her style, but the fake philosopher wasn’t having that message.
And so I got an envelope, got a piece of paper, and across two pages managed to stretch out one basic idea:
If there indeed is providence. Then what’s the point of my doing anything. Isn’t it all predetermined anyway?
Robin Hood Story
I don’t remember who told me this story or even if it’s true. But apparently in one of the tales of Robin Hood, there was a time he was in the dungeon with other people waiting to be executed.
Everyone in the dungeon was going absolutely ballistic. But Robin Hood was as cool as a cucumber in a North Pole ice party. When his coolness was challenged, his response was simple:
What will happen, will happen. The course is already in motion. No use worrying about it now.
And that’s how I saw providence, albeit through much angrier eyes, as I wrote that letter.
The Response
Was totally, unequivocally nothing. I left the letter at the church reception to be sent to her and that was the last I ever saw or heard of my letter. Not a very good start in my philosophy career.
The Meditation Quick Fix
As I said before, I was obsessed with studying yoga, meditation and Eastern philosophy. In truth, I didn’t really care too much about understanding or following my Tao, or living by the principles of Confuscious, or achieving the enlightenment of the Buddha, I wanted a quick fix cure for my mental anguish and I thought meditation would be the cure.
I remember the first time I ever experimented with meditation:
Constipate Your Way to Enlightenment?
I went to the book shop and got this tiny booklet that explained step by step how to meditate and achieve inner peace.
1) Find a quiet place (there was background noise from the family TV in my room but I didn’t think this mattered too much)
2) Sit in a comfortable position ( I lay down on my bed)
3) Quiet your mind ( OK, Mwangi…….quiet your mind. Be still, stop thinking Mwangi. Stop thinking, QUIET your mind for Pete’s sake, stop thinking, AAAGGGHHHHH, BE EMPTY ALL READY)
4) If you are having problems quieting your mind ( phew a section for hyper-kinetic stimulus junkies like me) then simply focus on your thoughts and detach yourself from them until you achieve a state of peace. This may take time - “I don’t like that!” ( Alright Mwangi, focus on your thoughts, hmmm should I focus on the good ones or the bad ones, JUST focus, and then what, what do I do when there’s this empty vacuum and nothing to fill it? hmmm, still your mind, still your mind, STILL YOUR……Oh forget it, what’s on the porn tube)
Second Time was Never the Lucky Time Was It
The second time, I went and got not just a meditation book, but a book on ESP: Extra Sensory Perception.
Apparently there were some people who were able to bend the rules of reality and physics and bend spoons with their brains (I might have been a detached philosopher but I wasn’t above such superficial validation of such cool tricks) and move mountains all with the gray matter combined with the endless energy inside of me.
To be honest, I don’t even remember how I failed at this one. All I remember is one day, ESP was all I could think about, the next day ESP was nothing but a pile of……………………………..
Kinda Like Saul Before He Became Paul
Back to my Christian bashing era: I was hell bent on disproving Christianity and I found a cyber idol in some aethist from the States. I don’t remember much about the man, but I do remember that he said that simply because God didn’t exist that shouldn’t stop us from being moral beings who did fun things like spending time with family and tennis.
For that reason let’s call him Mr. Aethist Tennis (AT) and his site the AT site.
The AT site had listed every problem with the good book you could imagine. Where verses and ideas clearly contradicted each other:
Faith without actions is dead vs No one comes to the father by me vs All you need is the faith of a mushroom seed vs the wages of sin are death = How the heck do I achieve salvation and eternal life?
It listed times when family trees didn’t quite add up. And according to Mr. AT the Catholic church had a book full of biblical difficulties, which I have yet to read to this day.
So Am Sure After Reading this Convoluted Tale You are Wondering What the Heck I Learned
It’s amazing how in an 80/20 analysis, the simple acts of moving a crowd of people on a stage and having them admire and respect me afterwards cleared all my philosophical raging and bitching.
As cliche as it sounds, all I ever wanted was to be needed, wanted and cared for. And I think that’s probably the main thing that I picked up: as long as we people are unconditionally loved and cared for by at least SOMEBODY, a lot of things that would be problems just melt away.
I also learned that I really didn’t hate the Christian faith. After all, I still ended up going to church on a semi-regular basis and still do to this day. All my life I could still say that the most wonderful people I have ever met were all Christian people and that has never changed to this day. So sometimes what we are talking about and what we really need and want are really 2 entirely different things.
Thirdly, as I stated before, I learned that every way of life, including the Christian path was flawed. If it weren’t 1500 denominations would not exist, not to mention the many cults that use the good book as their guide, Da Vinci code wouldn’t have resonated as much as it did and we would all follow the same path.
Whereas I have no doubt that there is probably something deep at the core of all of us that connects us all and brings us closer to God, I personally think that fully understanding it is above the human experience. I also learned that there were probably some things I just wouldn’t know.
Finally, I learned that, even though I never ever truly know my perfect purpose and reason for being here, I am here. I have been loved and cared for and taken a chance on, even at my most wretched and my most wicked. I best make us of this life I have and make sure that somehow someday I repay the favour and love and care for folks who wouldn’t have gone very far otherwise.
I hope that kinda explains just a little bit more why I am particularly fond of the catchphrase:
For some unforeseen reason, I am unable to put this out as a podcast for the time being, however the audio file works just fine. It’s an absolutely wonderful interview, enjoy.
Probably one of the most controversial ideas in the 4 hour work week book. Tim begins by laying it all out (you’ll probably want to read the justification first, because the idea in and of itself will look totally crazy). I paraphrase:
I never watch the news and have never bought a newspaper in five years, except by accident.
The Logic Behind the Madness
Tim spends a lot of the chapter entitled Low Information Diet going into his reasons behind doing this. I will highlight a couple of them below:
1) Lifestyle design is about input: Whenever we take time to consume - input - information, we are taking our energy and focus away from the most important element of all taking action. While doing all this it’s important to keep in mind:
2) Most of the information we take in is: time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to our goals and/or out of our influence. He then challenges us to pause and reflect on most of the information we most recently consumed and see whether or not this is true.
3) Tim proposes that instead of always consuming information “just in case” something happens, let’s begin to take action and pause to consume information when we run into a problem or a challenge and need information to solve it.
My Take on the Matter
I tried writing a few paragraphs talking about my thoughts on this chapter, but I realized that it would probably be best for me to respond to whatever problems you guys may have with the statements above (I know some of you do).
In Case You Think I or Tim’s Ideas are Madness
So if you think the ideas above are full of bollocks or that I am a cheesecake head (creative metaphors today) for believing in his ideas, let me know by leaving a comment below and let’s get a dialogue going on the low information diet.
I think I will only leave you with 3 questions and a story to reflect on.
Three Questions
Reflect on the news you most recently consumed:
1) How much of it did you immediately take consistent action on to the point that you influenced what was being reported?
2) How much of what you consume on a day to day basis is actually relevant to your goals in life?
3) Do you find yourself engaging in and finding more pleasure in being smart and having intelligent conversations and thoughts than you do taking action and potentially failing?
The Story
I was once talking to someone who was watching the news around the time a mine exploded in China killing about 50,000 people. I was curious:
Now that you have spent 20 minutes sitting there watching that, what are you going to do?
Nothing
But you sit there everyday and consume news media, surely you must act on this?
No, it’s just good to know.
You and I don’t help anyone by just knowing things and sitting in the house mentally masturbating ( sorry for the strong language but this is what we do a lot of the time), philosophizing and engaging in endless discussions.
We help people by taking action. Period!
Anyway, to the questions and actions section.
Questions and Actions: Low Information Diet
1) Go on a complete media fast: I don’t consume the news…..EVER!
Yes, very sad but very true. In spite of this, I am almost always up to date in the news.
Because I spend so much time online, and quite some time offline chatting with folks who constantly educate themselves, I know that for example in my country, Kenya:
i) A hotel called the Grand Regency was sold to Libyans for what many consider a low price
ii) That the Kenyan Finance minister has not only resigned because of the preceding event.
One of the most watched videos in Youtube history
Quite a Challenge
The challenging bit is: no web surfing unless its necessary to completing the task.
Now that will be hard.
Without consuming Youtube, blogs, videos and other Internet material, that leaves a HUUUGGGE vaccum in my day. So I guess I have now found the time to do those two high impact tasks a day.
Future Guiding Principles
2) Will I use this information for anything important and/or immediate? If the answer is NO, on both accounts, axe the information immediately: As a general principle:
Information is only as useful as your ability to take action and produce a result using it.
I already started doing this and am doing it more and more e.g. not listening to CDs on emotional health and relationships when I should be learning more about how blog content creation and monetization works. I think as a general tip, eliminate everything in your world (that you can) that doesn’t have to do with your goal at hand.
The ability to focus on one thing at a time and eliminate all input that doesn’t assist in that endevour tends to result in a much higher quality of work even when you put in a mediocre effort.
3) Practice the art of non-finishing: If the article isn’t useful, put it down. If the movie isn’t pulling your attention, entertaining or educating you, walk out. More isn’t better. More important, useful things are. Practice letting go, even half way of that which is ineffective, unimportant or useless.
I just listened to this phenomenal podcast and I just thought I would share it with you. I am sitting on the fence at the moment as to whether I should try to organize an interview with Rick, about this issue because we spend majority of our time alive and awake at work, and it’s very important.
But the ultimate decision is up to you guys: Should I interview him, shouldn’t I?
That aside, regardless of your religion, and in spite of how you make a living, listen to this podcast because it has some great ideas.
[See post to listen to audio]
Final Thought: Definition of a Genius
I have always searched for a context to share this, but since the context did not present itself, I thought I would present it anyway. One of the definitions of a genius is:
Someone who focuses and takes action deliberately and consistently within a certain area of the human experience.
You don’t even have to produce Einstenein results in order for you to be labelled as a genius. Just reflect on and do things in a particular field, day after day after day.
This will make sense within the context of the podcast and is definitely something worth thinking about when you buy into the misconception that all genius is born and can never be manufactured, created or worked toward.
Tomorrow, my interview with the one, the only Kirk Nugent (check out some of his tracks on his Myspace page here )
In the midst of my assisting a brand new immigrant to settle in, I happened upon two cool resources that can help anyone who is settling into Australia.
1) Skills Info:
This webpage in short gives you more information on the skills and occupations that are in demand in Australia:
If any of you lovely readers know anyone or know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who is an immigration consultant or lawyer or is simply an expert on immigration law or the immigration process for Africans in the diaspora, I would love to talk to them.
My agenda is that at some point we create a section of this website dedicated to not just understanding immigration law, but leveraging it for our benefit so please, I am unable to be proactive on this one for the next couple of weeks, if you know anyone please send me an email at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com
They don’t even need to be a writer, all I need are their time, ideas, knowledge and expertise. I’ll figure out the rest.
I just thought I would take this time out to thank them and encourage everyone to check out their videos and let them know what you think of them.
Questions and Actions:Pareto’s and Parkinson’s Laws
As I continue to go through all the question and actions section of the book (and ignore the comfort sections), my hope is that by now you have your own copy of the book so that you can follow along.
You don’t neccesarily have to buy the book, but please make sure you are reading at least a free copy of it because it gives you a lot of the psychology, research and ideas that underly a lot of these exercises, which may seem ridiculous out of context.
Should you have any questions about just what on Earth is going on, please leave a comment or send me an email at masmilele (at) thedisplacedafrican (dot) com - I love that format of writing out email addresses .
The questions are:
1) If I had a heart attack and had to work only two hours a day what would I do?
Spend one day writing many articles and spend the other days editing those articles, putting pictures and posting them up.
Sending press releases and gauging the response.
The 4 hour work week journey.
Read maybe 1 or 2 blogs of people who I have great relationships with: Doesn’t help productivity though.
Market the blog.
Check on jobs being done by VAs to ensure they are being done effectively.
Implementing and testing blog monetization techniques
2) If I had to work 2 hours per week what would I do?
Make sure I have outsourced writing of the blog to good writers.
Focus solely on promotion and getting the word out there.
Podcast interviews if I enjoy them or ensuring I have outsourced to the right person.
Establishing and tweaking systems for testing blog monetization.
3) If I had a gun to my head and had to quit 4/5 of the time consuming activities what would I cut out?
Reading blogs
Watching and downloading so many videos.
Looking for personal development materials online.
Run less.
Watch TV and movies during the night less.
Not checking email so much.
Not chating when it’s time to work
Not multi tasking
Not putting too many things in my to do list.
Not trying to get work done when others around.
Deleting all Facebook funwall notifications received.
Consolidating my Facebook profiles to avoid going back and forth between them.
4) Top 3 activities I use to fill my time and feel as though I have been important or productive
Chating on Google talk
Watching personal development videos
Answering email
Rearranging and thinking about and reflecting on the blog instead of taking action
5) Put two high impact items on your to do list daily: This one has a couple of steps:
Plan the next day the evening before.
On your to do list, put at most two high impact (80% result) activities. If you have a hard time deciding from the minutae, simply ask the question:
If I finished one thing today that would make the most difference and bring me the most joy, what would that be?
Answer that and lock it in the list. To check out how I implement this, check out this video:
6) Put a constant reminder on Outlook or your computer asking either:
Am I being busy or productive?
or
Am I inventing things to avoid doing the important?
7) DO NOT MULTITASK: Single task to produce the most efficiency and impact out of every high impact activity ( think of the compound effect of focusing all your power and energy on a single, high impact task within time constraints).
Use Parkinson’s Law: Create false time constraints so as to increase your output. Parkinson’s law basically proposes that the complexity of an activity will increase to fill in whatever time we alot it.
Create a time constraint that results in you dedicating the minimum time neccesary to produce the maximum result.
Any questions or comments and that’s what the comments thread below is for.
To ensure you don’t miss a single moment of my 4 hour work week journey, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.
As always I like to give shout outs to everyone out there in the world wide African web doing great things. (Btw why are some of you African webmasters and bloggers so insular?) With that in mind, let me show some quick love to two people who have shown me an excess of affection:
Nigerian Entrepreneur
I asked him to write a tutorial on how people with lousy Internet connection can use Windows Live Writer to become more efficient bloggers and he complied. I haven’t read the article yet, but if it’s anything like his other work, it’ll be useful.
If you are reading this in a country or region where the net is slow check that link out.
Pam from SARFM Radio
If you check out the Displaced African’s media and press appearance’s page, you will realize that this week I added one new media appearance to the flock. It was a fun interview I conducted with Pam from SARFM Radio. Much more straight up fun than it was serious and insightful, feel free to check it out.
Anyway, Pam sent me this email after the interview requesting that I put the word out:
If you are an East African writer or artist or doing anything good and you need some free publicity, Pam from SARFM radio would love to hear from you. Either find them by checking out the SARFM radio website or by leaving a comment below or getting in contact with me.
On to the Main Business
The ideas behind this post are still quite fresh and have not fully marinated in my head: if you find the post, too abstract, leave a comment below and let me know.
I am not going to say anything particularly revolutionary or brand new in this post, because this post was caused by my being forced to remember something quite fundamental about frienships that even I sometimes forget:
There is a reason that someone is your friend. Take away that reason and unless there is/are another reason(s) that you are friends, they will cease to be your friend.
A Problem
A problem I often hear expressed when people make a life long change like converting religions or changing their lifestyle or changing anything dramatic or at the core of being a person is that they “realize that”:
People who they thought were their friends turned out to be “fake friends”.
Because this person ceases to be a friend the way they once were, it is taken as a betrayal of a friendship that one thought was eternal and immutable.
The Flaw in this Type of Thinking
I think the deepest flaw in this type of thinking is that its a very narcissistic way of viewing the world where you don’t take the moment to consider that perhaps other people may be just like you.
Isn’t there a reason that everyone who is your friend is your friend?
The Different Types of Friends We Have
Don’t you have friends for at least one of the following reasons:
1) Friends of circumstance: People who you see so often whether at school, work, church or anywhere you frequent regularly. You just have to figure out how to get along whether you like the other person initially or not.
2) Friends of events: Friends who you do certain things with: this is especially true for people who have friends for worshiping and others for partying. And then there are others for all sorts of hobbies or miscellaneous activities.
3) Friends who are like you: Immigrants get pulled to their own countrymen because they share a nation. Immigrants are pulled to each other because they are all foreign nationals. People think like you do, like what you like and have similar interests and since you like the same things, by extension you like each other.
4) Friends who make you feel good: This one is a huge category that encompasses so many things such as friends who make you feel good because they make you feel superior, friends who excite you with their humour and outlook on life and all sorts of things about them just make you happy.
I am sure I have missed a couple, so please leave a comment and add to the list.
This Element is What Pulls you Together
There are 6 billion people in the world. We are not all friends with each other. We tend to be pulled into relationship and community with people for one of the preceeding four reasons (and any others you may add below).
That element is what binds you together. It’s not that he’s human and your human and so you’ll just naturally get along.
Take away that string that holds the two of you together, and unless you have other things that connect you, your friendship will end.
Why I Wrote this Post
I wrote this post for a couple of reasons:
One Like the Sun
Firstly, to speak to those people who have the problem above. Take a moment and reflect. When you changed, did that affect the very thing that connects you to each other? If that is the case, then does it surprise you that your friendship ended?
Let’s turn the tables: If you had never changed and your friend had changed the way you had, don’t you think YOU would have found it a bit difficult to remain friends with that person?
Two Like a Shoe
Secondly, I wrote this to encourage you to reflect on the bonds that lock you and your current friends together. What are they? Are they strong? Are they weak? Are they multiple? This simple act of reflection can go a long way towards helping you strengthen whatever friendships you may have by working on strengthening the connections that bring you together day after day. It may also help you figure out why you drift apart should you do so.
Three Like a Tree
Finally, I wrote it to encourage you to go out there and form more bonds with the friends you currently have. To illustrate this point I will use an absolutely terrible example from my teenage years (hopefully you’ll do better )
The Story: the Last Time I Ever Shoplifted
I had this very good friend in high school. One day he and I decided that we wanted to drink alcohol and that we were also too poor to pay for it. And so we went to a supermarket in the city to restock on some poisonous brew.
We walked around the store pretending to browse around for close to an hour meanwhile taking sachets of brandy and rum and shoving them into whatever compartment and hole we could find.
As we were about to make the “victory march” out of the store, we were pounced on by two plain clothed store policemen who bumrushed us not out of the store but all the way to the back where we were locked in a tiny manager’s office.
What proceeded was an extended period of me and my buddy lying, being discovered as heartless, and very very cheap liars, getting beaten up by a store manager because:
” I go to work everyday to pay school fees for my children so that SCHUPID children like yourself can come here to steal our stuff”
Me and my buddy left the store and immediately jumped into one of the severely overcrowded buses which was the inspiration behind tales such as this one.
As we rolled home, and onto way more debauchery and self-destructive behaviour, we looked at each other and realized we had just become greater friends. We had stolen together, gotten caught together, lied for each other, had the sense knocked into us together and we were still here……..together.
No longer would we just have good conversation, a classroom and silliness to bind us. Now we had a whole lot more.
Back to the Final Point
I use this example half tongue-in-cheek but I hope you see the point. Friendship is one of those important areas that I do not think we should leave to chance: stop reading this post now, leave me a nice comment and go out there and create another bond with your friend.
The part that you and I have been waiting for. Over the past 6 days we have set up the foundation. Today we put a dollar sign on the destination and get into the most compelling part of my 4 hour work week journey.
Before I get started to be fully honest by this point, emotionally I am so over going through this journey. But I thought, even though my emotional reserves might be running on empty, better to put out something and keep going than stay put and so I hope you guys appreciate that as you read this.
Questions and Actions: What Do You Want to Be, Do or Have? How Much Will IT Cost Per Month/ Per Day?
1) What would I do if there was no way I could fail? If I were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?
I have already covered this in the following posts:
Tim proposes we create 2 timelines of 6 months and 12 months and in these two timelines put:
a) 5 things we dream of doing having and being over these two time periods
I am unclear as to whether Tim meant 5 things in total we want to be, do or have or 5 things we want to do, another five we want to be and another 5 things we dream of having. Therefore I opted for the latter.
In addition to that, I don’t intend on doing all these things concurrently and some I may not even end up pursuing because of time constraints.
I have limited attention and focus as a person and intend on doing all this stuff, one at a time. That having been said it will probably take me years to go through this list.
6 Month Timeline
Here are snapshots of my timelines
Within 6 months I would like to be:
Bodybuilder: I admire the discipline of Arnold and other elite athletes, including my friend in the army. Well chiseled individuals worth emulating would be folks like Tyson Beckford and Shemar Moore.
From this place of control I would love to experiment and see if I can go seven days in a peak state without experiencing negative emotion.
Not negative events or circumstances but where I am such control of my emotions that I am able to redirect the energy from these events into positive energy without going through negative emotions.
What I like about this goal is that I have never seen it done and don’t even know if its possible. Let me strongly suggest that if you have the stomach for it, you at least set one “unrealistic goal” like this.
Successful Internet entrepreneur: This one has a few parts:
a) I want to be the preeminent blogger in some corner of the African blogosphere and be the “go to guy” for advice on some aspect of African life and am still wading through to discover which area/ areas I should focus on.
b) I want to become a marketing and systemization consultant. I want to travel the world helping Africans make money or systemize their businesses or create cashflow sources so that they can live better and we can up our expectations and the amount of spare time we have so we can have significant, tangibe impact on Mama Africa.
Therefore I want to study the work of Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber and W.E. Demming to become the preeminent go to consultant on high leverage tactics for cash flow creation a.k.a. Mr. “Give You More Money and Or Time”</
15:01
) are affiliate links and it’s a great way to support the site if I can get a little cash boost from your flying back home.
) my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.
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Use Parkinson’s Law: Create false time constraints so as to increase your output. Parkinson’s law basically proposes that the complexity of an activity will increase to fill in whatever time we alot it.
