This is not a joke.  I mean that. Listen, back in my primary school days, we used to sing that song every morning and at least twice per week when we were in secondary school. It took me a long while, one of those sundays in church where they had us sing the song from our hymnal. I was shocked because

1. It was in our hymnals!
2. It had/has three verses!

How come we always sing the one verse only? Are we lazy to memorize it? Or it’s just one of those things we do before a state function and so on. Sad. Here is the second verse,

Our own Malawi, this land so fair,
Fertile and brave and free.
With its lakes, refreshing mountain air,
How greatly blest are we.
Hills and valleys, soil so rich and rare,
Give us a bounty free.
Wood and forest, plains so broad and fair,
All-beauteous Malawi.

It’s a beautiful piece, one which every Malawian has to wake up to. Really, because I think we have lost the bountifulness of our country. We have lost our courage and we are no longer brave to stand up for what is right. What is ours.

We have lost the reality of how rich we are as a country. ..but the others haven’t.

That is why they keep on coming here and invest and take our riches away while we bicker against each other. We should be turning this beauteous Malawi into a place they will come to and gladly leave their riches here because we have a rich country.

Look at that verse again. Look at what the writer saw in this country and you will see opportunities this land offers. And you would be very unfair to do nothing about it!

My take. Your thoughts?

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The more I study our national anthem, the more things become clear. A lot of things. Take the following line for instance:

“Bless our leader, each and everyone.
And Mother Malawi"

The Case for Blessed Leaders, Each And Everyone

I am totally convinced that blessings from God are conditional…read that again. I will wait.

I said blessings from God are conditional.

The question for all my fellow Malawian Citizens and well wishers is this: are we ready to place ourselves in a position to be blessed by God? The Ancient Script says that "the borrower is the servant of the lender, and the rich rule over the poor" and elsewhere it says "It is more blessed to give than to receive"….

And this brings me to the heavy borrowing that we have engaged in as a country and as individuals. That is not going to put us in a position of being blessed. We are ruled by those who lend us, not ourselves. Are we willing to do what it takes to get out of this? the answers are clear…very clear. Just look around.

Instead of the cursing and bitter finger pointing, we should own up to our lives including the warts and all, and start positioning ourselves for a life of blessings…otherwise these lines in our national anthem will continue to be just that: lines.

Make a note of this: nothing is going to work in our favour until we own up to our destiny.

And positioning ourselves for a life of blessing is not impossible. I keep seeing other countries and individuals that have done it. In my view, simplistic as it may sound, the answer is right before our eyes: we simply model those who have succeeded. Those who have moved out of debt. There are plenty.

When we do that and we finally start seeing blessed nation, which comprises of a majority of blessed individuals, we will then move on to do things that bless others – people as well as nations.

Blessed leaders do not have time for name calling or fattening their pockets while holding the entire nation to ransom. Blessed leaders will serve so that they leave their station, they will have left it having accomplished a lot more than they thought possible. Blessed people do not have time to pull each other down simply because you want to be “up there where it’s at” because when you are blessed you are where it’s at!

So as much as we sing, “Bless our leader, each and everyone”, it does not help if we do not reposition our attitudes, practices, strategies to  live a life of being blessed.

What do you think?

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From our national anthem:

“Join together all our hearts as one, That we be free from fear. “

They say that Malawians have a warm heart and our country has earned itself a reputation of being the “Warm Heart of Africa”, which is a good thing. It does wonders for our struggling and largely properly untapped tourism industry. But looking deeper, you realize that there is also a lot of fear in the people’s hearts….and I got thinking:

“Where did this fear come from?”

Sure we have stood up for what is right once in a while. We have, as a people, even sacrificed to get things straight…but I wish it would be a way of life such that just about every other leader (not just politicians) would learn the heavy responsibility that they have in leading the Warm Hearted People.

Warm is just a few degrees from hot.

Back to the question I ask: why are Malawians so fearful? Fearful to take on new challenges in entrepreneurship? Politics? Religious circles? Sports? Engineering?

Fear is misplaced faith. Where did it come from and how can we get rid of it? Do we want to get rid of it in the first place? Or are we so used to it that we think it is normal?

Shouldn’t we wonder how foreigners can come into this country and manage to accomplish things that we have always secretly dreamed of but we were too afraid to do because of fear?

I submit that we should/must/can get rid of fear and move on to accomplish the dreams we have a people. We owe ourselves, and the oncoming generation that quality.

Those who have dared to dream of better things have usually done it for the upcoming generations…and we admire them for their fearlessness and courage. We admire their ability to count the cost and then say “I will pay it for the sake of the next generation”

We call them martyrs, freedom fighters, great men and women. Martin Luther King, Martin Luther, Malcom X, Mahatma Ghandi, John Chilembwe, Chakufwa Chihana,  my mum (that’s not a typo) and a whole lot of others. Their lives were marked and have been marked by one quality that we have reduced to talk: courage.

I have recently resolved to return to being a patriotic Malawian citizen for the sake of my children and their friends. Courage, sacrifice and fearlessness is what I want them to learn from us otherwise our legacy as a fearful, warm people does them no good and they will be left wondering why dad or mum didn’t do this noble thing for our sake.

Read the history books again. Those we admire, the dying breed, had what it took to change their destinies for the better. Will you be inducted into that hall of fame?

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“Join together all our hearts as one, That we be free from fear. “

Here is the thing if you want hearts joined together as one: vision.

We need a national vision that is developed with passion. Passion that resonates from the heart of every Malawian no matter how ‘great’ or ‘small’. No matter whatever labels we like to put on each other or ourselves: religious labels, economic labels, career labels ad infinitum.

We need leaders who will stand up and say: “Let’s paint a picture of what we want Malawi to be. What we want our Malawi to be”. And while we are at it, picture it in colour. Dream it in colour, as the late Prof Bingu Wa Mutharika used to say. And while we are on the subject: the one thing I miss about the late is that he dared to dream. And he dared to share those dreams.

Visions are free. Dreams are free. Let’s do it in as much detail as we want to be. Then let’s document it and protect it at the level that we do our constitution (which needs serious adjustment) and then work with a bulldog tenacity that won’t let go until all of it or part of it is done in our generation. We should not care if it takes us 30 to 50 or 100 years. Every governing party that takes the seat will have to do their part in fulfilling it. It’s being done elsewhere.

All I have seen is that if you have a vision that is shared and documented and worked on in unity, with one heart, then nothing is impossible.

Even God had to stop a project like that back in the day (see Genesis 11)

And all this should be done without fear.

Before we all go south on our political leadership, I am calling on all of us to start this process in our personal lives, homes, in our businesses, in our churches, in our workplaces. It’s a movement that our political leadership will have to either adapt or step aside and let others with vision do the work.

The wise ones adapt….read your history.

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Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, First President of the Republic of Malawi

To day we are looking the bottom two lines. After asking God to bless this land (which I am convinced beyond double he has), I am arguing that we haven’t done a good job of taking care of it despite our 49 years of “peace”. Neither are we doing a good job of harnessing those blessings.

Now we move on to put down each and every enemy. Generally, the people of Malawi, and I am one of them, are very, very passive. So passive, in fact, that we do not want to do our part in putting down the enemies listed…hunger, disease and envy…and other enemies too.

We do have enemies, you know, whether you like it or not. They may not be planning military attacks or political assassinations, but they are there. I think that the worst kind of enemies are ourselves. We seem to have lost our own worth of self respect. The ability to drive our own destiny.

We expect donors to help us buy fertilizer for our crops when we could easily develop our livestock to give us the manure that would do the job. We want them to help us buy medicines when what we need is a healthy lifestyle. We are a nation that needs external funding to teach each other that we should wash our hands after using the washroom! We are so envious that we call outside third parties to help us resolve our internal issues. We pull each other down instead of pulling each other up. ad infinitum

Let’s wake up and take responsibility for our lives and destiny as a nation! I have seen enough to say that if we are not interested in taking this responsibility as Malawian citizens, nobody else will do it on our behalf.

It does not make sense to expect donors to fund our “school feeding programs”. Whose children are being fed? Where are their parents? Seriously, when did we know we need to feed our children before they go to school? That’s just one example.

I am convinced God has done his part. It is time, as Malawian citizens, we must do our part and watch the miracles flow. Criticism and blaming has not taken us anywhere. We need action from Malawian citizens. Actions from each and every citizen. Action that will restore the dignity that we deserve as a nation.

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I have come to love the Malawi national anthem in a new way. Call me patriotic but this was a masterpiece. I am convinced that the composer was inspired by God himself. As a Malawian born citizen, I have sang this song a countless number of times in my childhood. I know the first verse by heart…I can sing it in my sleep.

At leas I would like to think so.

I hope this series will awaken the love our forefathers had for this country. The vision and passion they had in building this nation…for all practical purposes, our country needs rebuilding.

I write only as a Malawian citizen.

The first line is interesting:

“Oh God bless our land of Malawi, Keep it a land of peace”

I am thinking: peace does not necessarily mean the absence of war. So just how peaceful are we as Malawians when are still rated one of the 10 poorest countries in the world? We are the poorest, peaceful nation on the planet!

Let us rethink who we are as a nation. Let us think about who we want to become. Let us be intentional about it. The destiny of this nation is in our hands. I am convinced that God has already blessed us. It is our responsibility to work out those blessings into the tangible reality.

We are a product of our thoughts.

We have peace, yes, but it just blows me to think that we are a peaceful poor nation. Something has got to give.

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Globally the talk is about how hard the times are and what needs to be done to make the situation better and all that. Yes, money is tight…for some people! Have you noticed that at this time, there are those who are silently making a killing and loving it all the way? It has just dawned on me that the money has gone nowhere away from this planet but it is shifting its “epicenter” if  you will. I am no economist but I can tell that the once powerful money magnets are losing their pull and there are “new kids on the block”.

Thinking Correctly

The interesting thing about the money magnets is that they think differently. Instead of worrying about money being tight, they simply follow the markets, join the market and cash in as much as they can…silently. So these people, and they are in every country, from the war torn to the seemingly most peaceful, while the rest of the populace are busy holding demonstrations, sit ins, go slows and all that…to get money!

There is a way the wealthy think about money. Learn it. Better still, there is a way the wealthy and righteous think about money…soak it in. For instance, they know that money follows value so they create value in any kind of economy.

Cutting Down

When money is tight, just about every “expert” tells you to cut costs. So you downsize you transport budget, your entertainment budget and all that but you do come to a place where you reach rock bottom. When you get to that place, there is only one way

UP.

For most people this means taking up a second job or starting a small business and so on. But the point is, after cutting down, you have to start increasing your income. Funny how most experts leave that one out. I have often wondered why. With the advent of the internet, there is a lot that you can do in your “spare time” that can bring in the much needed cash to your bank account.

Enjoy Life

We only go through life once and it’s a shame that most people do not look at life as something that needs to be enjoyed. Some of the happiest people I know live 15km away from the city where I live and they have no idea what they will eat for supper tonight but the one thing they sure know how to do is to enjoy life.

Even when money is tight, we can manage to enjoy life. We are able to live life to the full.

It is increasingly becoming an issue with me. In my line of work, I am almost constantly meeting with people, young people, with huge dreams. Dreams so huge that they go beyond themselves but are also young people who feel trapped, desperate and discouraged even.

What do you do with dreams that you know will make a difference in your life and the life of others around you but for one reason or another you are getting all sorts of stuff blocking your way to fulfill those dreams?

The young fella I met with recently is a budding artist. He can sketch your face. He can paint you just by looking at you or your picture. He has painted wildlife and continues to do so.

I met parents of an 11 year old who can draw a car that has just passed by. The other day she sketched her mother who was having her hair done by one of the neighbours and, get this, while it was happening.

What do you do with people like these?

Should you ever do anything with people like these?

Yes.

But a loan is not one of them because, for most of the time, a loan backfires big time…at least where I come from.

What I have been doing is to guide them in the right direction. Any formal and/informal learning opportunities they can find. I guide them to begin to use those talents to empower themselves financially. I expose them to financial literacy products as well as electronic tools that will make their work go viral online.

I challenge people not to look at the challenges and problems before them as hindrances, but as opportunities for them to move forward. Call it wishful thinking or whatever you like, but Robert T. Kiyosaki was right when he said

“Don’t think ‘I can’t afford it’ but rather think ‘how can I afford it?’”.

The second question puts your mind to work. It literary releases the creative juices within you. And you will be amazed what you can achieve.

It works.

Try it.

Here is the other thing I challenge people to do: set aside just 15 minutes per day to think. I did not say worry, I said think…and the two are different. Just get a notepad, piece of paper and a pencil and start to think of, for example, how you can afford to x, or think of how I can double my income in 6 months. Write down what you come up with.

Because nothing beats doing what you love and getting paid for it.

Except, of course, doing what you love, getting paid for it, and knowing it changes people’s lives for the better.

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The business consulting work I am now into gives me opportunities to meet with all sorts of people. Business people. Quite a number of them have come into my office with a line like “I have a small business on the side which I use to earn a little extra…” And that never ceases to amaze me. I mean, why go into business just to earn a little extra? And while we are at it, why go for a small business?

Reminds me of what I learned the other day in my readings. Someone said there are no small businesses, just small businessmen (and women). Read that again

There are no small businesses, just small businessmen.

You want proof of that? Okay. Here we go;

In my country, a company has been doing business for as long as I have been alive and they make: matches. Small products but big business. I don’t think they would call themselves a small business.

One young woman I went to school with a few years ago paid for her rent by cooking and selling doughnuts in restaurants every day with her sister…and rentals in my city are not cheap. These girls are the very definition of tenacity. That is not a small business.

Elsewhere, someone came up with an idea of ear buds, probably after being disgusted with doing “the wax job” with a match stick or something. And today, I see ear buds all over the place in use by adults and babies. There are no small businesses, just small businessmen.

Think about toothpicks. Small stuff but big business. It never ceases to amaze me that they have almost become standard issue on our dining tables both at home and elsewhere. This is not a small business.

The issue here is, why limit your business to being small when it has the potential of growing as big as big can get? Why shoot for earning a little extra when you can earn so much more that would drastically change your life, and the life of those around you for the better? Is it fear of the unknown? Or having a go at being humble? Or fear of people and what they think? Aw come on, you are far more useful with more money than less…or is it just me?

So, the way I see it, we should all quit thinking “small business” because then that is all we will ever be.

“As a man thinks, so is he.”

Solomon David

And Solomon David was a thinker…a wealthy thinker. And I am thinking big is the way to go. More is the way to go. It just makes sense. What do you think?

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After rushing my family through lunch, they took me to where I was to board the coach. Time: 13:40 Hrs. Well, the coach left the place one hour after the scheduled time…and most of the passengers went to town on it

AMONG OURSELVES.

And that is something we will pick up later about Malawians.

The coach leaves Lilongwe and our hostess begins the usual welcome speech. And get this: no apology or explanation whatsoever. Later on I emailed the company explaining our ordeal. I got a response some few hours later with an explanation that simply was not acceptable…to me but I did accept it and pointed out that next time such a thing happens, an apology should be made to the passengers even before the bus arrives or during the welcoming “speech” as the coach leaves town.

I am yet to see if this will happen…not that I would appreciate another delay on any other trip.

Now about Malawians and how we love to complain but scared to speak out to the people concerned. It is something that is killing us slowly. I wish we could have all let the company know how that delay inconvenienced us before we left. When we don’t do this, the company thinks that delays are okay for their clients. We should not be fueling complacency and mediocrity with our misdirected complaints…like this other passenger.

After he learned that I am into business consulting (and he knows my MD), he said to me “ask him (my MD) why Malawian businesses start off well and then lose it as they go along”…and this guy did not even give me his card for us to get back to him on his request. I don’t think he was serious.

Moral of the story is: if you are in business, stick to the commitment you made to your clients. If, for any reason you are not able to meet your end of the bargain, you owe it to explain, compensate or at least offer an alternative service for them.

Otherwise you are just killing your business without help from your competitors.

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