Don't be afraid

Fear is a negative emotion induced by a perspective threat. Fear is the second name for the devil. Fear is the number one enemy of faith. Fear is a monster that paralyses, leaving you weak and helpless. Fear is destructive and produces misery. Fear will produce defeat and keep you in bondage where it will torment you.

When you get a bright idea you first see it manifest in your mind, all the bright things it brings but then you see the problems with your idea. At this stage its either you come up with a solution or you allow fear to grip your heart. If fear grips your heart, that's the end. Fools mistake fearlessness with ignorance. Seek wisdom as a wise man knows the difference. Being fearless is realising that faith can get you past a situation but ignorance is ignoring all the possible imminent dangers. There is a thin line between the two and a wise man can differentiate between the two. No great man in this world has realised their dream with fear in their heart, they all have one thing in common...they over-came fear.

Its time you realised your dreams. The bigger the dream, the bigger the risk and the least room for fear. If you inspire to do great things, you have to learn to fight fear. Its easier to take the easy route of giving up on a dream or vision but takes real courage to see them through. Fear and courage cannot exist in one matter or space. Today and for the rest of your life, I urge you to choose courage over fear. Be fearless, be a hero and change the world with your vision and courage.

Escape the black mind

The biggest challenge we black people have is money. Money for us doesn't equal liberty and prosperity; it rather leads to envy, greed, competition and pride.

How can we train our black mind so to not fall into the trap of money? The change is almost instant to a black man as soon as he starts making money. This is because he has entered unfamiliar territory with no previous experience. The results are over spending and no saving. Debts creep up on him worse than a thief in the night. Once debt has a firm grip, he becomes a slave to his paycheck. Debt will cripple you in ways unimaginable, it’s an evil system meant to keep you slave to the working force so not to venture your mind into other profitable areas. Interests have been cleverly set up so that paying back debt is near impossible without declining your lifestyle drastically. How do we stop this, how do we train the black mind?

The theory is simple, save more and spend less. If only it was this simple. Thing about the black mind is that money makes him feel superior and being superior means you have to show the rest of the world that you can afford. Everywhere he goes everybody must see that he has made it. We know that majority black girls love money so to date the best you must make the most. The pressure put on us by those who are supposed to be supporting us is immense. That is why our cars are more opulent than the houses we live in. We live to impress others. We give little to no support to our fellow brethren who are trying to make money because we hate being “left behind”.

The saying ‘charity begins at home’ should be a pivotal starting point in our mind set. Don’t try impressing the world if your family is struggling. The thing with a lot of black families is that there is always that one rich person but the rest suffer. What prevents that rich person from sharing his wealth with his own blood and empowering them so they too can have the knowledge to make their own money? Remember that it’s not called wealth until the whole family lives in abundance. We also don’t take the time to plan, we just want to make money and enjoy life. Very few black people have a will put in place let alone life cover. We are big fans of funeral cover though, forgetting that we leaving loved ones behind. We don’t care much for them. We live for us, we die with our money, leaving them to fend for themselves.

It’s time to train the black mind to know how to handle money so that it doesn’t just come visit us for a short period of time and then leave again. Know how to save, take interest in investments, spend within your means, buy cash and borrow less. We have heard all of this before but the lure of spending when money is in your hands is too strong. Here are tips you can use; from here on settle all your debts starting with the very small one. Spend minimal until you achieve absolutely zero debt barring your house and car instalments. This process can take up to 5 years so a budget should be drawn to remind yourself where your money is going end of the month. After you achieve this, start saving. Save for anything and everything you want and stay disciplined and strict to your saving. The more money you make the more you should improve your budget. These are just some helpful tips to help you.

End of the day we have a problem that money changes us and we are weak to its lure and promise of a lavish life. A life that we as kids saw on TV and have been dreaming of ever since. Only discipline and wisdom can help us. We have to understand that what we are doing is leaving a legacy for our children. Wealth won’t be achieved at our generation level but if we nurture our mind, harness our skills and start educating our children at an early age then future generations will enjoy living in abundance.

Blacks have hope!!!

Blacks are fools, blacks are stupid, blacks are greedy, blacks are lazy and thus blacks are poor...we have heard all of this and I say its ENOUGH bashing of our race. Its about time we stop pointing fingers at the problem and start finding solutions.

Let's address us being stupid first. For that we have to look at the core of it all, education. Public schooling at large is the course of this problem. No one inspires to be a teacher no more because of the salary they earn therefore only those that are left with no choice end up pursuing teaching. With a lack of teachers we end up taking whatever is on offer to be entrusted with our children's future. In private schools its very different. They only pick the cream of the crop to educate their children. With our background most of us can't afford to take our children to private schools. We are lagging in a cycle of basic education. Teaching has to be made a high priority, let them encourage people to be teachers by paying teachers more but yet making the curriculum more difficult so only the best make it to educate our children. Parents must also do their part and encourage their children to read more often.

Next let's address this laziness we have. The fact that we think because we took power away from the oppressor our lives must automatically be easy. We are the last to work but when people are benefiting, we the first to complain. We say we want change but we want someone else to get the change done. We must individually take a look at what we are doing to contribute to this change that we forever asking for. Get off your high horse and be part of the solution.

Next big problem is our greed. A black man finds it easy to spend R20 on a burger than to give his friend R10 so they can both enjoy a pie. This is because we always want to feel more important and that's where greed takes over. We once preached about Ubuntu, that was quickly forgotten. Indian people, white people and to a large extent coloured people work to enrich their communities but yet we work to leave our communities. Charity begins at home. Stop making everything about you and your wallet, let's begin working together to rid ourselves off poverty so future generations can live a prosperous life.

We have hope as a race. We couldn't see it before because we never had an example. Now we have Patrice Motsepe who is the richest man in South Africa and hails from soweto. If he can make it, why can't you? Stop tryna shift blame and start looking at yourself and the decisions you made to end up where you are right now. We are free now so let's act free and not only voice concerns but put actions to address this concerns. The fact that we see the problem means we very close to a solution. Blacks have hope!

Vusani Jack Jnr