How to Become Rich Without Fail

By Dr Jan Tibamwenda

This book titled,'How to Become Rich Without Fail' uses examples to explain the financial problems faced by the poor and middle class, explains the need for becoming rich and why becoming rich is easy. It explains how one can acquire financial intelligence, get rid of wrong financial habits and adopt wealth-oriented attitudes and mindset. It prescribes how to acquire financial education, the right cash flow management knowledge and how to derived strategic business and financial plan. Lastly, it discusses how to mobilise resources, engage in business or investment and ensure their long-term sustainability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jescho Publishing House
• Release date: Dec 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201024468

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

WHY YOU SHOULD BECOME RICH

W

hile I was watching TV many years ago, I saw a certain female peasant in Uganda being interviewed. She said that she and her fellow rural women had saved Sh.50million from selling a surplus of their subsistence crops for a period of one year. When asked what plan they had for it, she replied that they had planned to spend the whole of it on a major Christmas party. I felt sad because I clearly saw that they were going to throw away an investment opportunity that would have eventually enabled them to become rich. I came to the conclusion that they were going to make that financial blunder because they lacked financial education. That incident motivated me to analyze the socio-economic environment in which we live. I realized that such habits that are obviously wasteful of financial resources are rampant. You may be aware that in spite of having many opportunities, abundant resources and good brains at our disposal, most of us unfortunately remain poor until we die.

I decided to do something about it by writing a book. I was of the view that in order to write about such a popular, sensitive and practical topic, I had to be broadly knowledgeable. In preparation for it, I supplemented the financial knowledge I had acquired at university as stated above, by undertaking training that culminated in my becoming an East African Community Financial Education Trainer. I also broadly read relevant books, did research, attended seminars and analyzed strategies that the rich use in order to become rich. Armed with proven success theories and practices for becoming rich derived from that study, I made a deliberate effort to contextualize them in the socio-economic environment in which we operate using a variety of models. This book, which is a product of that preparation, is therefore intended to empower all those aspiring to become rich. I view it as my humble contribution to society in our protracted endeavor to become rich. As you read it, bear in mind that if you were born poor, it is not your fault but if you die poor, it is your choice.

STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR BECOMING RICH

In your endeavor to become rich, the strategic framework you should use is to explain where you are in terms of riches; where you want to be in terms of riches; why you want to be rich; and how you intend to get to where you want to be i.e. what you intend to do to become rich. It summarizes how you should formulate the strategy for becoming rich and how you should implement it until you become rich.

The framework provides that in order to become rich, you should:

Know where you are in terms of riches.

a)  Assess where you are now in terms of riches. Are you a poor or middle class person?

b)  State the problems you are facing as a result of being poor or middle class.

c)  Assess reasons why you have remained poor or middle class.

Know where you want to be.

a)  How rich do you want to be? Know the type of rich person you want to be.

b)  Have a superb vision or dream of the rich person you want to be.

c)  What riches, properties, investments and businesses do you want to own for a long time?

Realize why you want to be rich.

a)  Have strong reasons for wanting to be rich.

b)  This may be in form of:

Push factors in terms of the problems you face as a poor or a middle class person that you want to avoid.

Pull factors in terms of a high, pleasant and successful standard of living that you strongly desire to enjoy.

c)  These may generate in you the desire, purpose and determination for wanting to be rich.

Know what you should do to become rich. Know that you should:

a)  Acquire financial intelligence.

b)  Adopt the right financial mindset and attitudes.

c)  Adopt positive thoughts related to financial development.

d)  Acquire financial education.

e)  Adopt good financial habits.

f)  Acquire the right cash flow management knowledge and skills.

g)  Acquire business and investment education.

Implement your strategy

Base on the knowledge of what you should do to become rich and:

a) Plan strategically what you should do in order to become rich.

b) Translate the strategic plan into action.

THE PLEASURE AND COMFORT OF BEING RICH

Since this book is about what you should do to become rich, it is important that you should be conversant with the general meaning of what being rich is and how it will influence your life for the better. I have resisted the temptation of using the dictionary definition of what being rich is because, in real life, different societies view it differently. I prefer to explain it in terms of how it affects our lives.

People are said to be rich when they have enough material, information and financial resources to enable them avoid problems experienced by people categorized as poor and middle class; when they are wealthy with sufficient income that covers all their expenses for a long time whether they are working or not; when they are able to enjoy a high and pleasant standard of living which translates into a comfortable and enjoyable life for themselves and their families for a long time.

It is important to bear in mind that having knowledge of the comfortable and enjoyable life that you will enjoy when you become rich is important because it will enhance your desire to succeed and provide you a strong reason or purpose for striving to become rich.

PROBLEMS FACED BY POOR PEOPLE

The majority of the people in our society are poor. Since you are aspiring to be rich, it is important for you to know the deplorable conditions that characterize the poor so that they can act as push factors that will motivate you to strive to avoid them if you have not yet experienced them. On the other hand, knowledge of the conditions will enable you strive to escape from them if you are already experiencing them. This will motivate you to strive to become rich. Let us analyze them.

Poor people have low social status, low self-esteem and are, quite often, despised

When you study societies the world over, you will realize that poor people, who are the majority, generally live miserable lives.  The rich tend to despise them because they consider them to belong to a low social class. Unfortunately, the poor have been made to accept it. It is, therefore, not surprising to find that poor people in our socio-economic situation generally have low social status and low self-esteem. For example, whereas sons-in-law are generally respected by their fathers-in-law, when a poor son-in-law and a rich son-in-law visit the home of their father-in-law at the same time, the rich son in-law can be ushered into a sitting room to relax and enjoy refreshments while the poor son in-law is told to go behind the house and split firewood for cooking. What is surprising, such a poor son-in-law tends, quite often, not to complain as to why a rich son-in-law is given preferential treatment. Indeed, he is likely to split the firewood happily and even brag that he is an expert in splitting it quickly. Another example is a video of a song called ‘batusosola’ which I saw one day. In the video, a rich man gave a lift to a poor man in his car. When the poor man reached his destination and disembarked from the car, the rich man sprayed the seat where he had sat with a disinfectant because he assumed that the poor man who was poorly dressed could have left germs on the seat.

Their freedom of movement is limited.

Even when the constitution states that people should enjoy freedom of movement, poor people’s freedom of movement is limited. For example, when an innocent poor person is enjoying his freedom of movement on a public road in an area inhabited by the rich, he can be considered to be a danger to the rich in the sense that he can be assumed to be a thief looking for an opportunity to steal from the rich. Even when he has done nothing wrong, he can be accused of being idle and disorderly, be arrested, taken to court and sent to jail.

Their freedom of assembly is limited.

In spite of the constitution stating that people should enjoy freedom of assembly, the poor face constraints as far as assembling is concerned. For example, when poor people congregate and hold a meeting in a place where the rich live, they can be assumed by security forces to be having criminal intentions, be labeled a criminal gang and be dispersed. Worse still, they can be arrested, be taken to a police station and asked to explain why they were in that area at that time.

Poor people are assumed not to have good ideas

Even when the poor try to enjoy their God-given freedom of speech, they are often ignored by the rich because they are assumed not to have good ideas. For example, when a poor person who is attending a meeting that is also attended by the rich tries to contribute to the discussion, he can be told to keep quiet so that the people (meaning the rich) can speak. And if he is given a rare opportunity to contribute to the discussion and happens to be about to defeat a rich person in an argument, the rich person can intimidate him by using demeaning sentences such as, The reason he doesn’t understand what I am talking about is because he hasn’t travelled abroad widely. If he had been to England, where I was last month, he would have seen that what I am talking about is being practiced widely. The poor person who, quite often, would not have gone beyond the borders of his district would certainly have to keep quiet.

Poor people’s right to property is at the mercy of the rich

A story is told of a certain poor man who was told to remove his poor house from an area where the rich had their mansions. They argued that the poor man’s house could harbor robbers who would attack them at night. The second ground was that his poor house made their neighborhood appear poor which lowered the value of their posh houses. The rich claimed that if any of them decided to sell his house in future, it would be sold at a low price because of the alleged poor neighborhood. When the poor man refused to remove his house, the rich people influenced government authorities who came, saw a small crack in a corner of the poor man’s house, declared it unfit for human habitation and threatened to demolish it. To avoid total loss, the poor man sold the house cheaply to a rich neighbor and went away.

The poor are generally assumed to be criminals

Even when the poor have done nothing wrong, they are assumed to be criminals by the rich. Some time ago, I visited fellow students at their posh home when I was poorly dressed. Their mother who didn’t know me and thought I didn’t understand their language asked them in their language where they had got me from. Before they could even respond, she warned them to be careful and avoid bringing to their home people like me lest they would bring thieves to steal their property.

The poor are hungry most of the time.

When it comes to food without which we cannot live, the situation is not any better for the poor. Unlike the rich who have the problem of choosing from a variety of foods and beverages, the poor struggle to afford even one poor meal a day. Quite often, they do not have enough food to eat in terms of quantity. Secondly, even the little they have tends to be of poor quality in the sense that it is largely not a balanced diet. They, therefore, tend to be hungry most of the time. For instance, it is not uncommon to see poor people at wedding ceremonies quarreling that they haven’t been given meat. Imagine someone quarreling for food at a wedding ceremony. Worse still, the net effect is that a combination of limited quantity and poor quality food leads to the poor having stunted and medically weak children that are susceptible to diseases.

The poor tend to have poor houses.

When it comes to shelter, the poor tend to have poor houses. You may be aware of a slum in your town where the poor live in deplorable conditions. The situation is not any better in respect of the poor who live in villages. You may have heard that some of them co-exist with domestic animals such as goats, sheep and hens in the same small houses competing for the same oxygen. During the rainy season, some of their houses leak which makes them spend sleepless nights trying to avoid where the rain drops are falling.

The poor tend to live in a cycle of poverty.

It is disheartening that most of the children who grow up in such deplorable conditions tend to become poor also. This is because, due to shortage of funds, they go to poor schools, acquire poor education, get poor jobs or don’t get jobs at all, marry poor spouses, live poor lives and die poor.

What is important to note is that in your quest to become rich, you should appreciate the problems poor people lead which should serve as push factors for you to strive to become rich. 

PROBLEMS FACED BY THE MIDDLE CLASS

The middle class is a socio-economic class between the upper class that is rich and the lower class that is poor. It is in the middle of the rich class and the poor class hence the terminology middle class. It is socio-economic because it is part of the social hierarchy in society that is determined in economic terms. The middle class is composed of three types of people. The first type is composed of employees especially those that are formally educated. Examples of this category are doctors and teachers. Their jobs tend to be the only source of income which makes them tend to fear losing them. The second type is composed of the self-employed such as professionals who include private advocates and consultants. The third type is composed of small commercial farmers and small business owners such as travel agents who own travel agencies, car mechanics who own garages and traders who own shops. In general terms, middle class people begin their working lives by renting accommodation. They, thereafter, tend to reside in their own residential houses that are sometimes built using loans. Most of them pretend to be rich. A middle class man can, once in a while, take friends to an expensive hotel and give general instructions such as telling them to eat and drink whatever they want whereas internally he is praying that they do not order for very expensive drinks. The middle class tend to make their children pursue safe professional career paths. When they sometimes travel by air, they travel by economy class and sleep in modest hotels that are not expensive. They often criticize the rich for wasting money by travelling first class and sleeping in 5-star hotels. When they retire, pension becomes important to them because they tend not to have other sources of income. Please note that I have used the word tend in describing what the middle class people do because there are exceptions sometimes.  For example, some middle class people may travel in first class in planes.  

When you analyze the financial positions of the middle class using the