Guide To Retiring Before You’re Tired Or Fired! (8)

Strategies for planned retirement

I know, without being told, that the large community of people who are jobless are up in arms against me for daring to suggest in last week’s column that they take up ‘menial jobs’ in order to feed themselves and their families.

“Who does this man think we are?” I could hear one of them scoff. “A bunch of idiots with no sense of decency? I mean, how would a sane person suggest that somebody like me should start ironing another person’s dress in order to feed myself? “Or occupy the driver’s seat sweating in the traffic, while the car owner is snoring sweetly at the back seat or reading the newspaper? Or, can you even imagine me, for a moment, staying awake in the night while all the fat cats who hired me as a guard to watch over their business premises are away in some night clubs enjoying themselves or sleeping peacefully in their homes?”

Well, what I can say to those charges but to appeal to the jobless person reading my article and is incensed by my suggestion not to crucify me yet but to patiently hear me out? You see, as I noted in last week’s write-up, negative thinking is one of man’s greatest challenges in life.

A negative thinker sees the dark side of everything. And all the objections raised about my suggestion is prompted by nothing but the most destructive type of negative thinking.

Here is my proof. A simple check on all the activities that a jobless person can start doing today and be generating steady income that I mentioned, plus all the others that I didn’t, will reveal that there is not one of them that cannot be developed into a big business that is capable of grossing multi-billion naira annually.

A few examples. If you take a driver’s job, that is the lowest entry point for being in transportation business. Your experience on that job, with positive outlook on life and strong faith in GOD and godly living, will lead you to the next level, which is running your own bus service.

If you stick to this plan –– that is having a positive outlook on life, unshakeable faith in GOD, and seeking first the kingdom of GOD and His righteousness –– you will soon graduate to the next level where you will be running a fleet of buses transporting people from one part of your country to another and from your country to another country.

This, in fact, is more or less the story of my very good friend, Frank Nneji, Managing Director of ABC Transport. As a student at the university, he ran a campus bus service. By the time he graduated, GOD had already given him insight as to how he could take that business to another level.

That was how ABC Transport was born. First, ABC was ferrying people from one part of Nigeria to another. Soon, GOD gave the unassuming but highly intelligent and indefatigable Frank the wisdom to enlarge the business.

Today, that same business, which was a product of something he did on the campus to pay his way through the university, is now a public limited company, operating transnationally along the west coast of Africa.

Not only has ABC Transport weathered the storm of economic adversity known to every genuine business, it has also made a lasting statement about the ability of any right thinking individual to build a big business from the scratch.

ABC Transport brought innovation to road transportation, focusing on passengers comfort and safety, a company that every Nigerian should be proud of.

But back to the point I want to drive home. Would Frank Nneji take offence if you called him a driver today? Not likely! Why? Because he knows that his company is driving people in and out of cities and across the Nigerian border all the way to Ghana and maybe beyond!

Yet, Frank would probably not have gotten the idea to start a transportation business if he didn’t have the experience he acquired as a student at the university.

Here’s the point so that you don’t miss it. If you have a positive outlook on life, and you have faith in GOD and your ways please Him, then no matter how low your take off point is, GOD will lead you all the way up.

I want you to know this. GOD made a statement of intent in Isaiah 48:17. He said: “Thus says the LORD your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the LORD your GOD, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go.”

GOD will do exactly that. I know. He has been doing it for me and countless others who care to trust Him to perform His Word in their lives. The Word of GOD is His integrity. It’s unbreakable just as it is irrevocable. If you act on His Word in faith, He will bring it to pass.

Let me connect it together for you step by step. You’re jobless right now. But because you’ve had a change of mind and you now have a positive outlook on life, you don’t rely on anyone to give you a job. You’re setting out to render a service for somebody, any service provided that it is legitimate, for which you’ll be paid.

So you ask yourself what service you can render. Then it occurs to you that you’re a good driver. So you are on the look out for a driver’s job. You prayerfully ask GOD in faith to link you with the right person to drive.

In a very short while, you’re engaged as a driver to a man who has means. Right from your first day on the job, you position yourself as the owner of the car, going by the way you care and maintain it. When you’re sent on an errand, you deliver it promptly and accurately.

If you’re asked to buy something and you’re told the item is sells for N1,000 but on getting there you got it for N800 and instead of pocketing the N200 as your ‘gain’ you return it to your ‘master’, your ‘master’ will start to take notice of what you’re doing and wondering if you’ve just dropped from another planet.

Not long afterwards, the Giver of all good and perfect gifts, the Almighty GOD that you’re serving with all your heart, drops an idea in your mind. The moment you receive the idea, you get so excited because you can see the possibility immediately.

The idea is that you should talk to your ‘master’ to allow you to be using the bus he parked in his compound gathering dust for transport business. Because you have genuine intention, you will stand before your ‘master,’ looking at him straight in the eyes without shifting your own eyes, and tell him your plans.

Of course, GOD has also convinced him before you ever mentioned it to him that you will do a good job if he gave you the opportunity. In a short while, you’re operating a bus service. Within a very short time, still sticking to your godly living, the business makes so much money and you could buy a new bus.

From one new bus to a fleet of new buses. And on and on like that. Your ‘master’ realizes the part you have played in all of this. So he calls you one day and proposes to make you a partner in the business. This is a great opportunity and you grab it with both hands.

You continue with your good works, consistently spending less than you’re earning, and putting money aside for investment while not forgetting to faithfully pay your tithe. Soon, you are in a position to buy your own bus. You tell your ‘master’ about it and he prays for you. And the business just continues to grow….

Do you think this can be you?