Today I went to the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) and discovered a lot of great stuff:
1) First of all for some weird reason I thought that ASX was so big that it would take up the whole building on 525 Collins St., Melbourne. I was wrong. they are hardly a drop in the ocean, they have a little office on the 45th floor and a great board on the ground floor where people-with-nothing-to-do hang around and monitor stock prices.
Side note: I noticed that people-with-nothing-to-do in Australia are quite different from people-with-nothing-to-do from Nairobi. To illustrate this I will do a day in the life of a person-with-nothing-to-do from Kenya and Australia.
Kenya: Wakes up at about 6:15 (or earlier AM). Gets a shower, a wash or some form of hygiene-enhancement (a lot of these places, they share thousands of people per tap). Then he oils his skin (I don't think I need to speak to Africans about the evils and the discrimination that goes with being ashy) and puts on his favourite (probably) only suit that he's had for the last oh-so-many years. Then he will step out with a strut that can only be compared to a cock that has just impregnated the whole roost ( I just realized chickens don't get pregant, oh well the metaphor is solid in my eyes....) en route to the bus stop. He can't get to the bus stop without stopping by the shoe shine kid.
The shoe shine kid refers to this fascinating species of individual who can make one shoes shine brighter than the surface of the sun faster than the speed of light thats been kicked out of the house by its wife while being simultaneously able to tell stories to the client and haggle with three customers waiting in a cue.Apologies this digression is long: They are similar to matatu drivers who can use one hand to steer a car screaming down the middle of a road with bumper-to-bumper traffic and the other to 1) select miraa (for the uninitiated it is a legal narcotic in Kenya that takes the form of a stalky leaf and is usually packed in a bunch of a few dozen) from the bunch while 2)adjust the volume on the music system 3) open the window 4) reach for the bribe to the police on the horizon
Digression over!After passing the shoe shine kid, they buy a newspaper. Now this is critical. A newspaper without a suit is like a ying without a yang,a Mbugwa without Atieno (I'm not sure if that's her name, if it is, please research their marriage and put it up on wikipedia, it will definitely make some one smile). And so with his suit, his strut, his shiny shoes and his newspaper he has his status and so he struts on to the bus stop and takes the bus.
Upon arrival at the city-usually alighting at Kencom station- they proceed to....well, they proceed to....do nothing, they sit with their friends and just wait for something to happen.
In Australia I have noticed that people without anything to do tend to dress the part (look shabby and usually don't shave) and spend a lot of daytime hours figuring out if they can compete with the alcohol brewery to see if they can finish all the bottles brewed that day and of course they have welfare, so every so often they actually get the pleasure of seeing money whereas in Kenya entirely different story.
Anyway I am excited because I am one of those who learns best through doing and so I am glad that I got some resources in the form of:
1) Investment expo this weekend at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre (www.investmentexpo.com.au)
2) The Australian Technical Analysts Association( www.ataa.com.au): A group that "is a non-profit association of both professional technical analysts and anyone who uses technical analysis for private investing, trading or advising." (from ataa.com.au)
3) I discovered the Educated Investor bookstore across the road from ASX's building Rialto Towers, here there is heaps of information about trading, investing and the like and a great place to start for people who wanna buy books as their avenue to trading.
4) Got the names of a few authors who are apparently gurus on trading: Murphy, Kaufman, Droke Schwager. I'll let you know which resources I choose to use to trade and how they work.
I am mostly excited about the expo and the ATAA because I can leave the house and go and learn by experiencing anyway I'll keep you posted on how they go.
Without further ado:
1) To become a modern day Renaissance man.
2) So that I can serve Africa and fulfill my deepest need as a human being,to be significant/important/needed/unique/special, by helping Africans get what they want and need. Zig Ziglar said it best: " You can get anything you want if you help enough people get what they want."
3) So that I can manifest the reality that takes place in my head: I have a lot of places I wanna go, a lot of projects I want to start up, a lot of people that I want to meet and achieving this goal would give me the confidence to pursue other projects and the resources to go after it.
4) So I can be financially free to pursue my MAS projects. The initial one I want to get involved with is to go around interviewing outstanding Africans and putting their ideas, knowledge and wisdom out there so any African kid interested in self-actualization as I am has resources from people like him, and ultimately knowing that people like him achieve too will help him go up the self-actualization ladder (below is an illustration of Abraham Maslow's self-actualization ladder, look his ideas up online, brilliant).
5) I want to go into life-coaching African youth and you can't coach until you succeed and so....
6) I wanna be able to brag to myself that I did it young
7) I am uncomfortable with the fact that I have spent so much of my life doing unimportant things after discovering what was important to me five years ago (including financial freedom).
8) When you set goals way outside your comfort zone, you're forced to grow at a rate you wouldn't have otherwise and I know going after this goal will take me to a whole new level.
And so there you have it ladies gentleman, the fire under my butt everyday to go out and bring myself closer to a million dollars by my 21st birthday on January the 7th 2008.
Salut
PS: And of course I am doing it because you only live once and in this one life you gotta dream big and live bigger.
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