How to keep yourself sane and functional in a world of idiots?

 

Photo by Nina Uhlikova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-standing-on-hand-rails-with-arms-wide-open-facing-the-mountains-and-clouds-725255/

We expect people to behave fairly, rationally and normally in their interactions with us. Not an unreasonable expectation considering that we would do just that in our interactions with them. But does that happen? Nah, not at all! How many times have you been let down by colleagues, friends, neighbours and relatives? Way too many times.

You will notice that people you have done favours to, made sacrifices for and helped them in every which way will be never grateful, but may in all likelihood resent you and behave in the most treacherous manner with you. Then there will be a whole horde of people who are both selfish and incompetent-people who would be lost, without your help, but would never realize how much they owe you, leave alone be grateful for what you have done for them.

You will find that the most talented, capable, competent and efficient people will not necessarily progress the most in life. There is no automatic reward for being the best or better than others. Luck plays a huge part in how much people realize their potential. It would be unnatural to not feel bad about such things. But you cannot let the resultant negativity cloud your judgment and veer you off the path that you know is the right one for you and the world.

If you and others like you did not go about performing your duties the right way, the idiots of the world would burn down the world-make no mistake about it. You may feel like Atlas shouldering the weight of the world, but that’s alright-somebody has to do it. Never mind that there are ill mannered people who don’t always pay the price for their boorish behavior, or half-crazy nit wits who drive on the wrong side of the road and never get fined, while you are penalized if you inadvertently jump a mal-functioning traffic light.

You should not be surprised if someone else runs away with the credit for a job well done by you, but remember to not be taken for a ride by that person the next time. The people around you might appear to be nothing but confidence tricksters who seem to surge ahead with their glib talk, but remember that they can get found out and when they do, it won’t be pretty for them. For they may be able to fool some of the people, some of the time, but they won’t be able to fool all the people all the time.

Don’t envy the fool who gets ahead on account of ingratitude, or the idiot who surges ahead of traffic by breaking rules. They will not always be able to ride their luck to success, but will sooner or later get into big trouble.  Let them be and leave them to their own devices while you focus on dong what is right for you.

It is not easy to be calm, collected and equanimous when people around you are so boorish, loud and loutish in their behavior. It is even more difficult to stay calm when what should have been perfectly decent and respectable people lie like common criminals and don’t do the decent thing like any well brought up people are expected to. Don’t remonstrate with such people because they can fall to any depths and would win any argument because reason, logic and truthfulness don’t mean anything to them. They don’t have a moral compass at all.

The best thing for you to do is to completely be oblivious to the very existence of such people. They will in all likelihood get into trouble sooner or later either with someone who is more depraved than them or when they run out of people who can stand the sight of their dishonest selves. But you should not waste any time waiting for them to get their comeuppance.

You should instead be busy doing whatever is of top priority for you-something that takes you closer to your goals in life. Remember our time in this world is limited, you just can’t afford to waste even a second thinking about how someone has wronged you or how that person needs to be taken to task for that.  Every living moment should be spent in doing what serves your best interest. If you are an upright person who progresses in life the right way then that is what you should focus on. Let the others do what they think is right for them and live with the consequences.

Like a surfer who manages to stand upright on the surf board for as long as he or she can by managing the waves coming at them and not fighting them-so should you hang on to your purpose in life even if the idiots of the world who cross your path try to veer you off course.

Solopreneur to Millionaire- Is it possible?

 

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-printer-paper-on-brown-wooden-table-6693647/

Becoming a solopreneur is the flavour of the times with more and more corporate employees opting out of the 9 to 5 and beyond rat race and striking out on their own. But how successful can they really be as solopreneurs? Can they become millionaires working on their own without any corporate or big brand backing? After all aren’t many of the superstar sportspeople, actors, and authors solopreneurs in a sense? What about the untold riches so many solopreneur You Tubers seem to be making?

The internet has levelled the playing field for all manners of businesses and scaling up massively from next to nothing is no longer a pipe dream, but something that enterprising individuals achieve quite frequently in the online universe.

So is it possible for anyone to become a solopreneur millionaire in today’s times?

In a planet of more than 7 billion people, is it not eminently practical for someone to come up with a sufficiently brilliant solopreneur business idea that addresses some specific need or needs of enough people to help one make a million bucks a year?

Think about it. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched anymore. This is actually a bit like finding life outside the safe confines of planet Earth in a universe teeming with billions of galaxies teeming with billions of solar systems teeming with billions of planets like ours. Is it possible that one would not find life somewhere out there, if one looked hard enough? But the fact is despite all the deep space research and all the probes sent out there, no evidence of life has turned up.

There are however a very large number of real life examples of solopreneurs who have easily made it to millionaire status.  So the chances of your solopreneurship making a millionaire out of you are not at all dismal if you have a great actionable business idea.

It is not enough to have a great business idea that brilliantly addresses a specific need or needs-you need to be sure that it has a market as well. This would mean that there are a sufficiently large number of people out there willing to pay a fair price for what you are offering them.

If your product or service idea is outstanding and you are sure that it has a sizable market as well, you won’t be able to cut it, unless you are able to market and sell effectively.

Once you have all the above under control, you will need to learn financial management to be able to keep your expenses in check, as well as get the pricing right enabling you to hit the sweet spot with your fund-flows-the life blood of a business.

For any business to grow and scale it is important for the entrepreneur in question to learn from market feedback and make the necessary adjustments and improvements to one’s products or services. This is even truer for a solopreneur where the margin for error is very little

Lastly and very importantly no solopreneur can be an island unto themselves and hope to succeed. Networking and networking is indeed the pathway to success for a solopreneur. It opens the doorway to collaborations and ever new opportunities leading to exponential growth.

Do you have it in you to become a solopreneur millionaire? Won’t you like to find out?

Learning to let go for our own sake

 

Photo by M Venter: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-sitting-on-a-cave-1659437/

We are driven by our ego-our sense of self-worth. This is true of every human being notwithstanding what or who one might be in life. Ego dictates the actions of corporate head honchos and family patriarchs as well as spiritual leaders and the farm labourer toiling in the fields. There is nothing wrong, immoral and unnatural about it, never mind what the purveyors of new-age spirituality ironically heading huge multi-billion business empires might tell you, while doing the exact opposite of what they profess. It is the way that we are programmed to live our lives. It is what it is.

It is, however, important to understand the fact that our actions and those of others are driven by ego to avoid falling into the trap of self-righteousness. This helps you acquire perspective with regard to how you interact with others. No body lives forever and there is a limit to how much a person can accomplish to satiate their ego. This realization can help you avoid stress, conflict and ultimately bad health.

The Buddha advocated the Middle Path or the path of moderation to find peace and balance in life. The Bhagwat Gita advises you to focus on performing your duty and not obsessing over the results or the fruits of your actions. In ancient Greece, moderation was a highly valued virtue that helped one follow an ideal course of action by eschewing excess. The progress that mankind has made over the millennia seems to have dulled our sensibilities to the simple facts about what is really needed to live a content and happy life.

The world today stands at a crossroads. There is climate catastrophe staring us in the face, an imminent unravelling of the global trading systems, and a demographic collapse in nations around the globe makes their future uncertain? How did we come to this pass, where our very existence is threatened? We don’t know if our children and grandchildren will even have access to fresh air and drinkable water, even as demagogue leaders around the world rave, rant and breathe fire.

Collective unchecked human ego and hubris lead the whole world to forget the plain truth that our lives are limited and the Earth’s resources are limited. We cannot become gods. In that sense we are all part of a classical Greek tragedy, where our weakness of character leads us to our doom.

We can rescue ourselves and the world by letting go. We need to tone down our hankering after all manner of achievements and settle for less. That will put less stress on the environment and ourselves. We may experience less fleeting glory, but more peace, contentment and better health. We can do with fewer cars, smaller houses, less gadgets and eating sensibly. There is no need to hoard possession and create idle wealth that no one has access to.

We can be kinder in our interaction with others and not convert everything into a zero sum game. Not doing so only builds up rage and angst inside us that manifests by way of quarrels, disputes and damaged health and vitality. Letting go puts one on the path to heal ourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It would do well to remember the fact that we are mere mortals with limited wherewithal and above all a finite amount of time. We need to be able to make the most of it. Living everyday stress free and with limited achievable ambitions is how we can do it. This is true of us as individuals and as nations. We need to learn to let go. Now.

How can a solopreneur scale up?

 

Photo by Tom Fisk: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-view-of-cityscape-2116721/

The biggest fallacy about solopreneurs is that they cannot scale up. They can and very successfully too. But, first they have to take care of a few things. Let’s see what these are:

1.       Being a solopreneur does not mean going it alone

No man is an island unto himself and that is certainly true of solo entrepreneurs. They cannot be like Atlas shouldering the entire burden of their business on their shoulders. It is neither practical nor sensible to do so and can lead to inordinate stress and burnout. You have got to connect with others of your ilk and find ways to exchange views and collaborate.

Connecting with others online or physically is important to obtain the information necessary to grow and develop in your chosen field of expertise. The more you interact with others-clients, suppliers, vendors, mentors, peers and industry leaders, the more opportunities you would be able to avail of to scale up your business.

2.       You have got to learn all you can

If you are serious about scaling up your business you have got to be serious about learning all you can. You have got to make time for reading the right books, listening to the right podcasts and getting a firm handle on formulating the strategy and tactics that are optimal for scaling up your business. Knowledge is definitely power if you are serious about scaling up your solopreneurship against all odds.

3.       Outsource

It would be a good idea to outsource certain tasks to professionals who are good at them. There are many things like content creation, posting on social media and website maintenance which can be taken care of by professionals while you focus on your core business functions of creating products and servicing your customers. Doing so will help you be more efficient and grow your business.

4.       Automate and Get Organised

Rapid strides in technology have enabled even solopreneurs to deploy CRMs to get the best out of their data, helping them optimise your sales and marketing processes. Importantly, you could also look at automating your emailing, giving your business a leg-up in the process.

5.       Build your Brand

A solopreneur needs to build his or her brand in a manner that its core values are clear to the intended target audience. It goes without saying that you should both know and epitomise those values so that your target audience know of your ability to serve their needs and interests.

Top AI Tools Used by Solopreneurs

 

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The age of solopreneurs is here and technology has had a big hand in that. Today, it is possible for a single man to do what required a team to accomplish in the not so distant past. This has encouraged a whole lot of enterprising people to launch themselves as solopreneurs.  Among the industries spanned by solopreneurs are ecommerce, web development, management consulting, event management, coaching, content creation, social media management, dropshipping, podcasting and so on.

Let us look at some of the tools used by solopreneurs to grow their businesses:

1. Jasper AI

For content creators, this is the tool par excellence. It helps with everything ranging from creating emails, sales copy and website content to writing sales pitches and drawing out content outlines. With Jasper AI, creating quality content becomes quite easy.

2. Post Wise

There is nothing that comes close to the power of social media, when it comes to promoting or advocating a solopreneur’s offerings. This is where Post Wise steps up to the plate and lets solopreneurs create incisive content on X and LinkedIn.

3. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM offers a varied suit of features that help a business scale up. These include facilitating email and social media communication as well as sales prediction. What’s more, it even allows for easy centralized client tracking. The pricing too is reasonable and you can easily scale up as your business grows.

4. Canva AI Tools

Canva AI tools are a godsend for solopreneurs.  You can for instance use Magic Media to convert text to images as well as video. Likewise Canva Magic Write can help create long and short form content. Canva Magic Eraser can help you edit your photos and make them clean.

5. Brand24

Brand 24 is an AI listening tool that allows solopreneurs to monitor product mentions across podcasts, articles, news, reviews, social media posts and so on. It keeps you in the know about your brand reputation

Where are the jobs in AI?

 

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With AI adoption being the centrepiece of government policies around the world, there has been a lot of trepidation amongst job seekers about how that will impact their employability. Everyone agrees that there will be some job losses directly attributable to the adoption of AI across industries, but one is also assured that it will also create many new employment opportunities.

What exactly are these?

The primary AI roles that are expected to be in hot demand are Machine Learning Engineer, Data Scientist, Artificial Intelligence Engineer, Robotics Engineer, and Software Engineer. As a matter of fact, careers in AI are not restricted to only technically proficient people. There are quite a few new opportunities that the rapid adoption of AI has given rise to for people with non-technical skills.

One will soon be hearing a lot about AI Consultants, AI Writers, Prompt Engineers, AI Ethicists, AI Researchers, AI Compliance Officers, AI Marketing Specialists, and Social Media Strategists.