People may criticize you for what you do and how you live your life but they will always remember you for how you made them feel. And that was the case for Michael Jackson. He was the perfect example of how exceptional work can make all the difference. By being an exceptionally good musician he earned for himself a special spot in the world and within the hearts of many forever. He gave life to many charities, hope to many black musicians and created modern pop music.

image: bustler.net

His song Heal the world has inspired the creation of many charities. And you can say that through his music he did try to heal the world. He made us dance and try to imitate his moonwalk. He made us sing. He entertained us with music videos like Thriller. And he left us with many memorable tunes like You are not alone, We are the World, Heal the world and Black or White. He tried to unite us all through his music.

And I think that's the most effective way to heal the world. To find what you are exceptionally good at, pour your heart into it, do it at an exceptional level and inspire others to pursue their own dreams. Nothing bridges the gap between the rich and the poor, the strong and the frail, the old and the young better and faster than achieving your dreams. It takes you straight to the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- Self-actualization. There's nothing beyond that. At that stage you don't feel inferior to anyone. It reminds me of a statement Barack Obama made during his 2008 campaign about how despite his limitations he dreamed big and pursued his dream, and made said the following, "I am [just] a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him too". That's how powerful believing in and pursuing your dreams can be. It enables you to take on anyone in the world, to consider yourself the equal of anyone and to do the almost impossible.

That is the kind of healing the world needs most. If all the poor and weak people in the world can believe in their own beautiful dreams and work towards achieving them, less children will be born into hopeless homes and forced to live an empty life. Let's all take a clue from Michael Jackson, lets be crazy good at whatever we are talented at and let's generate exceptional work/content. Let's believe in our dreams and pursue them with our whole heart. Let's inspire others to dream big and live their dream. Heal the world.

People do overcome challenges. And they do so only when they make and pursue a goal that takes them beyond those challenges. Some people are lucky to be favourably set by their environment and people around them to overcome the challenges on their way to success. They are given opportunities to prove themselves and supported all the way. Maybe they were born by professional musicians and made to learn music at a very young age, and finally become a hugely successful musician. Maybe their parents are both professors and ensured they never lacked any educational resource they wanted; they enjoyed high quality education and, through family connections, got a very high paying job in a big multinational company. Or Maybe their dad is a popular successful politician and had greatly eased their way into politics. In some way and via some people they were given opportunities that made success somewhat guaranteed.

But my post today is not about those people. This post today is about the other people, the ones who are not lucky to have people and circumstances around them ease their way to success. The people who are not given any opportunity to succeed. And my message today to them is a quote by Ralph Marston -- "There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don't allow yourself to become one of them."

image: quoteeveryday.com

Don't underestimate your capability to succeed. Don't give up and give in to the challenges you are facing. Don't join the obstacles to your success.

You might find achieving success a tougher struggle than other people you know but it doesn't make success impossible. And even history has shown that the most spectacular successes come from people who had to work extremely hard (and with almost no help) for them. That the tougher the struggle, the greater the glory. 

So when life hands a truckload of challenges with little or no opportunities, don't be discouraged. Still go after your goal, put in the beyond average hard work and aim for a spectacular success.

Fear is like the brake pedal in a car. It helps you get to your destination alive, and also not ruin other people's lives as you journey. It helps as you make the right turns; it helps you to manoeuvre around obstacles and stay in charge.

It is also the cornerstone of true wisdom. The fear of the LORD is beginning of wisdom. 

Ever wondered why it's a lot easier to catch a fast and almost flying cock than getting hold of a big clumsy goat? It's because goats have one of the best braking system among the domestic animals. They seldom run in a straight line. They are a master at stopping suddenly and changing direction. They use their brake very well. 

Fear activates our braking system. But it's ultimately our choice whether we use it well or not. It kicks in when we are faced with a choice that doesn't align with our religious beliefs. It kicks in when we are faced with a very big decision that can make or mar lives. It kicks in when we are faced with an immediate big danger. It kicks in when things are falling apart and we need a better strategy. Fear is like every other human emotion (love, hunger, thirst ...) it's the brain signalling that there is an unusual situation that needs attention. And just as the right way to eliminate hunger is not by ignoring it, so also you shouldn't ignore your fears thinking that will fix them. The fear is simply a messenger bringing your attention to something special.

You will agree that USA is way more fearful that Nigeria. They have fears that range from terrorist attacks to alien attacks. They are the only ones who make movies about an asteroid colliding with the earth and wiping us all out. Yet they have a much better country than ours. They have learned to use their fear well. They let the fear of the Russians getting to the moon before them drive them to place the first man on the moon. They let the fear of terrorist attacks help them build the most sophisticated defense system in the world. They let the fear of China becoming a bigger world power drive them to develop extreme technologies that are so advanced that China will always be technologically behind them. They face their fears and, like hunger, use it as the motivation to get the nourishment they need. They don't ignore their fears or call it fancy names like "False Evidence Appearing Real", They let it make them shiver; they let it push them to immediate actions and they allocate a lot of resources to using their fears.

A near perfect illustration of the goodness of fear is when a family is about to have their first child. The pregnant and soon-to-deliver wife, the husband, their brothers, their sisters and even their parents all bound strongly together because of fear. They hold hands at the hospital and truly care for one another. They fast and pray and pray more. They let fear drive them to leave other engagements or work to be with others at the hospital. The let fear bring out the caring side of them. They don't just get along with their usual life with the help of a motivational tape on how fear is bad and should be ignored. They (especially the husband) let fear give them some shivers, push them to pray more and care more, and to allocate a lot of resources (time, money and energy) to the unusual situation.

Understand your fear rather than ignoring. Look for what it is alerting you about rather than naming it "False Evidence Appearing Real". Use the more alert state it puts you into to tackle the underlying problem. Learn to use your fears to your advantage because fear is good. Very good.

Power Map is one of the cool new tools in Excel 2013. It's more of a Business Intelligence (BI) tool. It helps you visualize data by plotting them on a map. And to explain a practical way of using it. I have gotten a table of the coordinates of the major towns in Nigeria (courtesy Blexxonmak Communications). It's not very accurate but that's the best publicly available data I could get, and I have included a randomly generated column of corresponding population using =RANDBETWEEN(500000,2000000).

You can download the Excel file here.

So how do we visualize this data on a Map (using Power Map)?
It's amazingly easy.

You select the entire table, goto Insert Menu, click on Map and Launch Power Map.

You'll get a new window that looks like the one below.

The two most important parts are:

In the rightmost pane (shown in the immediate image above), tick Latitude and Longitude. And at the bottom of that pane, link them appropriately (select Latitude for Latitude and Longitude for Longitude).

Click on Next. Tick Population and Town. 

And you'll get a beautiful map like the one below.

The populations are showing as data bars at the very location of each town. And you can zoom.

Placing the mouse pointer on any of the data bar will show you the full information for that data point.

Also let's turn on Map Labels so we can see the states and towns as they would show on a conventional map. Click on Map Labels on the menu bar.

You'll get something this cool.

And that's how easy it is to use Power Map in Excel 2013.

And to add more fun to this, we can change the way the map looks. Just head to Themes on the Menu bar. And try out the other themes.

Can you try guessing what theme I used for the following?

A.

B.

C.

I'll be waiting for your answer...

Life is full of opportunities mixed with difficulties. You never get all you need at once. The toolbox is always missing one major tool. When money is not the problem it is often the sacrifices you make to keeping getting it that is the problem. And when you are doing the very things you love and always wanted to do, you don't earn enough money doing them. Life is a strange mix of abundance and lack.

The good thing is that the things our happiness are built on are not complicated. If you let go of the outside noises; if you let go of what people will say or think; if you let go of what the trend is pushing you to do; if you let go of the things that don't truly matter to you, you will find out that all you need to do to be happy aren't much. They are often just things you are not doing already.

For me, that I am able to write everyday and without any restraint; that I am able to go after every passionate idea I have and that I live life at my own pace are all I need to be happy. And how do I go about achieving this? I simply do a bit of everything that truly matters to me everyday. I write an article everyday, regardless of how good or inappropriate it is. I try to end each day still in the entrepreneurship game regardless of how tough and bleak the future sometimes look. I have spent all my savings on every idea I have, whether silly ones like an FM transmitter to jam FM stations or lofty ones like building a world-class business. If I were my own adviser or mentor I wouldn't recommend for myself the life I am now living: no solid financial plan, no future plan beyond living out my passions daily and too much low paying hard work. 

image: cobases.net

There is, however, one useful advise I can share with you from my life. And that advise is that you can (and should) go after the real things that will make you truly happy one small step everyday. Whatever it is. You don't have to quit anything major. Just take a daily small action targeted at bringing you closer to the genuine fulfillment you deserve. I wanted to be more creative, so I began brushing my teeth daily with my left hand so as to unlock the creativity the right side of the brain is known for. Today, I hardly notice that I do it. But the results have been real. I have become more visual and less logic-limited. I'm awashed in ideas everyday. That's how powerful doing something small daily in the direction of your happiness can be. By the end of this year I would have written 365 blog posts on this blog. All by the small effort of writing one blog post per day. I am still an entrepreneur not because I'm making more money than I was while working a day job or that I haven't been getting job opportunities but because everyday I wake up I plan to sleep that night still as an entrepreneur. 

A small step everyday is all you need to become genuinely happy and go after the life of fulfillment you've always dreamed of. Don't let anything discourage you: not the thought that you are not competent enough nor the feeling that you have no time nor the perceived silliness of whatever you want to do. Don't think: If only I had more time and resources. Think: What if I started where I am with just one small step forward everyday?

Today I will be featured on a UN Online Volunteering newsletter and I got my first opportunity to be a TV program guest (unfortunately, a big client's work made me turn down the offer). I have been an active volunteer since 2010; volunteering for Red Cross, PEOI educational institute, Toastmasters, Catchafire partners and UN registered partner organizations.

image: breakyourjourney.com

Volunteering is all about having a positive impact on your community by giving your expertise and part of your time for free. And your community can be a global one, like mine. There is a special joy that comes from creating value without wanting anything in return, it's one of the truest way to connecting with your human side. It's the biggest difference between being a corporate tool and a soulful human. When people can depend on you because of your word and passion; not because there's an obvious gain for you that is compelling you do what they expect. 

Volunteering creates positive change and lasting relationships among people. It's the easiest way for introverts like me to network and be social. I get to pick a behind-the-spotlight role and fill a gap most people don't enjoy filling. I work remotely with teams spread across the globe and get mentioned in places I have never been (see one here). While it's afternoon here, it's morning for one team member and night for another. Setting up a meeting is no small task.

I have gotten more useful and practical knowledge by volunteering than I have from paid training classes. Nothing can take the place of working on a live project: one with deadlines, real people and someone else's money at risk. You stop worrying about whether you are skilled enough and start worrying about all you can do to make things work; every skill you have matters and can make the difference, even the skill you never thought very useful. And you learn to work with other people. People with volunteering experience make the finest colleagues at work and great team mates. They are tolerant and hard working. Volunteering is as much a test of tolerance as you ability to work effectively without pay. You work hard for no pay and have to respect others you are working with who are also working hard for no pay. Then you are all focused on seeing results because it's the only tangible outcome of your efforts. When you are volunteering you don't pretend to work. Unlike in a paid job, you'll gain nothing and lose time when you pretend to work. As a volunteer you fill each volunteer time with valuable work. You don't want to waste time for nothing. Volunteering is the easiest way to know your worth and add instant value.

You can also be a volunteer and have a positive impact on your community. Join a rotary club or toastmasters club or your community development club, and play an active unpaid role. Register as a UN online volunteer and do projects that positively impact lives in other countries. Celebrate today by becoming a volunteer too.

Occasionally, I get offers to do a job I could have done but is not data or Excel based. I turn them down. My Access and PowerPoint skills are excellent. I can program Access, Outlook, Word and PowerPoint. But I still turn down projects that won't let me use Excel at all. Is there any advantage in doing this?

Yes, there is. Apart from making my marketing easy as people remember you more when you do one very specific thing that got them asking, "Seriously? You do only Excel?". Then, it makes it very easy for me to charge high and not be told, "Hey, Mr X does the same thing and doesn't charge half this high." Oftentimes, I'm the only one the client knows who does only Excel and no financial modelling. Finally, I get to deliver very high quality and creative work that is error-free. I work on Excel almost everyday, I do a lot of things people don't consider possible in Excel, like manipulating a live MySQL database. I automate reports people thought were too complex to automate. I do some intense data cleaning that involves the use of very hard to explain formula mixtures. There is almost nothing I can think through that I can't implement using Excel. I have even seen some more creative Excel experts create games with Excel. Games like Tetris, with audio and full color. You can checkout Excel Unsual

When you are a specialist it is easier to build up on your successes and experience. There are features of Excel I haven't used yet. I will be using PowerMap for the first time this week. Now imagine if I was an Office Suite expert (doing Word, PowerPoint, Lync, Access, Publisher, Outlook and Excel), it will be a very difficult task to stay abreast of all the new developments in each new version of Office. Also, there will be that constant break of creative flow when one is constantly switching between projects that are very dissimilar. And that for me is a big deal. I know how hard it is combining my blogging with Excel work. I often have to take a rest and put myself in a new mood when I'm switching between the two. As a specialist, you can more easily know everything about your chosen field of specialization (or close to everything). And as you do more jobs successfully and work on different projects, things only get easier for you with time. You will know all the common sources of errors, what the clients will most benefit from and able to offer excellent remote support. There is hardly anything a client asks me about my work that I can't explain over the phone. I know my work so thoroughly that I don't need to be in front of it to remember all I have done, including complex formulas. If the client is experiencing a problem, I can troubleshoot by asking questions over the phone and correctly tell him what the source of the problem is. Maybe he has uploaded the wrong file or he is not connected to the required network.

As a specialist you'll become a little of a generalist. I have had to learn to interface Excel with MySQL, Access, Word, PowerPoint and some APIs. I am currently learning how to create Google Earth locations (KML files) from Excel to plot locations real-time in Google Earth. So being a specialist will require as much work as being a generalist but its results are much better.

When you work for a company, especially a big one, or you are in a senior position at a company it's very easy and almost certain that you feel that the company would be doing worse if not for your valuable contribution. That you add significantly to the company's revenue. You will often look at someone else running his own business (lets take an independent consultant for this comparison) and not see anything special in what he's doing. And that is the bedrock of the main differences between an employee and an independent consultant.

image: info.4nannytaxes.com

  I am now an independent consultant to three companies. But it doesn't look as good as it sounds. And that brings me to the main difference number 1. It is the things that do not matter to your getting the job done that matters most when you are an independent consultant. Like how to fix your price and which jobs to turn down. They have been my biggest problems. While I was an employee, two of the three companies I worked for had a fixed salary scale. There was a range, a quite narrow one, that ensured that no matter how low your stated expected salary was during interview you were not going to get lower than what was in that scale and no matter how high your stated expected salary was the company wouldn't go beyond the upper bound of that scale for your job role. But in the consulting world there is no scale. You would have begun a project only to realize that someone else had done a similar project for the company for about 10x the fees you are charging. Your value has little to do with your valuable work; it has the most to with your negotiation skills.

Secondly, as an independent consultant you will need to earn about twice the salary of an employee to have the same money. I pay my company tax, personal tax and VAT. I pay for my accounting and auditing. I pay for business rent (I was lucky to find a pay-as-you use office). I buy everything I use for my work. I pay for internet and business phone calls. I pay for my own training. I pay for everything an employee gets for free. I don't get a paid leave. And biggest of all, I only get paid for the work I do and not for sticking around. Once the work is done, no more pay. So I have to factor in the time gap between end of one work and the getting of another, and ensure I get it covered in my fees. I am obviously doing more high value work that I was as an employee. I meet with the key decision makers at my client companies: CEO, CTO and senior managers. But I only get paid what I put in the proposal when I was trying to get their attention. 

Thirdly, doing favours will kill you if you are an independent consultant. While I was an employee what got me a preferential treatment from my bosses was my never turning down a work request. I was always doing my colleagues in other department a favour. I got some favours paid back but most importantly it never adversely affected my salary. Now as an independent consultant, doing favours is almost killing me financially and health-wise. I am now learning to say no to people, to low paying jobs and to clients I sense will give me too much trouble. It's one of the main reason I am not wanting to provide service for individual clients anymore. They always ask for more than was agreed compared to corporate clients.

Lastly, your work experience, age and car do not matter. I have a car; I rarely drive it to client's place. I have chosen a field that requires a lot of technical competence and practical experience. On the few occasions that I have had to compete with other people for the same job I got the job despite charging the highest fee and being the youngest. If you are competent, people will know and value you as such. It's when you doubt your competence that you try to make up for it by promoting the not value creating part of you. I state my fee and stick to it. But as an employee, your work experience, age and the type of car you drive can impact your work and career progress. For me, as an independent consultant, I have decided to make my comparative advantage be the almost impossible work I do for clients and the quality assurance they'll get. And I have very few competitors. I just need to get my pricing right and marketing right.

Oil accounts for about 83% of our exports and is the biggest source of the federal government's revenue. And now that the global oil price has been falling fast we would soon be broke -- unable to fund our planned expenses and, soon, our necessary expenses. It's same as when your salary suddenly get slashed.

image: sweetcrudereports.com

And that is not the end of the trouble the falling oil price is causing us. As a country, two forces control our exchange rate -- the CBN pegs at a range and the demand - supply pull forces CBN to keep shifting that range. The biggest source of demand for our currency is our oil export and now that oil price has fallen while the amount of oil we export has not changed, the total dollar amount we get for the same amount of oil has now drastically reduced. Translating to a weak demand for our currency. So at the foreign exchange market the amount of dollars being exchanged to Naira is no longer at equilibrium with the amount of Naira being exchanged for dollars. And as we all learned in secondary school economics, when demand drops at the same level of supply, price has to drop. And that is what has been happening to the Naira. The demand for Naira has suddenly dropped big time while the Ladipo and computer village guys are still putting up the same supply of Naira to import their wares. The natural thing that will happen is the rate of dollar to Naira will increase, and do so until some of the importers can't bear it and reduce their supply of Naira in the foreign exchange market.But this doesn't happen as drastically as the sudden jump from N155/$ to N168/$ the CBN caused in less than 24hours. 

That is the demand - supply part. Lets now talk about the CBN part. Nigeria is one of the countries that doesn't let its currency float freely. Meaning we don't let just demand and supply dictate the exchange rate of our currency. We operate a foreign exchange system called managed float. We try to influence the exchange rate by using our foreign exchange reserve to generate artificial demand and supply. When the dollar is appreciating fast against the Naira, the CBN takes our foreign exchange reserve which is in dollars and sells some to buy up Naira, creating artificial demand for Naira and mopping up the excess supply of Naira. And when it has overdone this or for some other reason the Naira is appreciating fast against the dollar, the CBN buys dollars to increase the foreign exchange reserve and increasing the demand for dollar. And this is how the CBN tinker with the exchange rate.

Currently in Nigeria, falling oil price has reduced the supply of dollars (via export) and our federal income (money available for our politicians to waste) without a corresponding reduction in the demand for dollars (for import). The market force (demand - supply pull) is weakening the naira against the dollar, and the CBN has suddenly realized that the foreign exchange reserve cannot help as it's now small (due to overuse in keeping the dollar rate artificially low over the years and funding our gluttonous government). So it's taking an ingenious step that will improve our federal income and pretend to try to not let the Naira fall further. It devalued the Naira rather than let the market forces slowly find the new equilibrium price for our exchange rate. This will increase the value of each oil dollar. It is now trying hard to discourage the hardworking businessmen in Ladipo and Computer village from importing goods. The CBN has made it harder for banks to borrow businesses money (so as to reduce the amount they have to spend on importing) and also put in place draconian procedures to follow before your business foreign exchange transactions will be approved. The CBN is doing this with the ostensible reason of preventing speculators from taking over the demand - supply lever.

Unfortunately, the CBN is frustrating the wrong people. It's the politicians who are stifling the economic growth of the country, instituting life pension for their entire family, gulping more than half of the country's income and buying dollars to bribe their fellow politicians. It's obvious that the CBN can't do anything about them, directly. But I believe that if the CBN will leave the hardworking businessmen alone, let the banks be and let the exchange rate float freely, we would be better for it. The government will be denied of the money it does not deserve and the politicians will have to sweat some more for the money they will waste on electioneering. And most importantly our real economy and entrepreneurs will not suffer for the problem they did not cause.

Change is inevitable in life. Oil prices will not forever be high. In fact, a time will come when the world would not consume oil anymore. The falling oil price should be a wake up call for us to focus on fixing the structural problems that keep putting us at the mercy of a commodity we have no control over. The CBN should not use it as an opportunity to make life unbearable for banks and businesses. It should let the politicians and gluttons in power have a feel of what it means to be broke.

The easiest way to become creative is to use your current creative ideas. When you put to work your existing creative idea, no matter how little the idea, your brain feels rewarded and comes up with more creative ideas. But when you don't work on the creative ideas you currently have, your brain won't come up with new ones and those ideas will forever oscillate between your conscious mind and unconscious mind. They won't die nor give space for new ones.

image: imgkid.com

The mind is like a diamond mine, you have to dig in to get more. Some people have some of their diamonds very very close to the surface and with just a little surface scratching they come up with jewels. With little effort they come up with impressive creative works. But there are some, like me, whose diamonds lay far from the surface and require a lot of digging to pull out. We have to put in a lot of initial efforts to come up with any impressive creative work. We look untalented till we become obsessed with work or a particular hobby. We don't do anything extremely well until we have done it repeatedly over a long time.

Regardless of which category you fall under, your best and most creative ideas will always require a lot of digging. You will have to get rid of the initial creative ideas you uncover so as to access the ones lying beneath them. And the strange thing about ideas is that they don't die, you can't kill them. The only way to get rid of them is to use them up in something else. As you keep using up the ideas you have, you uncover more ideas. And soon, like me, you will have your head full of ideas.

The most special thing about digging up ideas is that you'll begin to uncover uncommon ideas, like rare jewels, and you'll also become an expert at valuing ideas. You will recognize all forms of ideas and their value, whether they are your idea or someone else's. You will be able to do more with each idea you have and become a big picture person.

Finally, I'll advise that you try out all your ideas. Except you've surrounded yourself with bad influences and have evil ideas, in which case you should change your environment first to have noble ideas. Then everyday do the most you can towards implementing your ideas. It's a very fulfilling way to live. And it's what I do. Everyday I sleep very happy knowing I have put in my best at giving wings to my ideas. I wake up the next day with vigor and the desire to continue from where I stopped the previous day. It makes me feel unlimited and rich in resources (mostly intangible resources).