Just do it

I remember around this time in 2016, my A level results had been released a few weeks prior, and my dreams of being a doctor had gone up in flames; nonetheless, I didn't run short of advice on where to lead my life.

But while all my self-appointed advisers meant well, they weren't really helping. Most of their advice would start with a banal inquisition that consisted of questions like "What is your passion?" or "What do you want to be in Future." ... As if a 19yr old should know the answers to questions that even 40yr old fathers of 3 are still grappling with. Finding answers to such questions usually requires years of rigorous self introspection and the diligence to try several things and find what works for you and what doesn't... but I digress.

There was one particular piece of advice, though, that I found quite practical and intriguing, and the fact that I'm writing about it now, 3 yrs later, is testimony to its intrigue.

It came from my mother's older brother, a seasoned businessman that had ditched his job in the then Rift Valley Railways to make it big in Kikuubo.

"Look for a course in which you can employ yourself."

It threw me into deep thought.

The premise of his advice was that, in the event that I failed to find a job(which was more likely than not), I could still set up shop and create a job for myself.

Think medicine, dentistry law, surveying, art and design, etc

But, for some reason, I didn't follow his advice. I proceeded to do the course I had been given on government

But now, 3 yrs later, reflecting on that piece of advice, I still appreciate its wisdom, but I now clearly see why it didn't work for me, and thus, why I never followed it.

There are three ways of earning a living(for purposes of this post):

Leveraging your time(being employed/ self employed)
Leveraging your your money(investing)
Leveraging other people's time(having employees)

My uncle's advice falls in cartegory 1.

You see, the thing with acquiring a degree where you can employ yourself is that, despite being your own boss and living on your own terms, your earning is only as good as your work ethic. As soon as you stop working, so will you stop earning... Not to mention that there's a limit to the number of hours you can work in a given year. If you're looking at one day playing in the big leagues, you'll clearly see the impracticality of this approach. It lacks one very crucial ingredient: Scale.

Scale simply means that you can go "from 0 to 100 nigga real quick"-- mostly because you are not limited by things like time.

As a top lawyer, you'll earn a very high income(maybe hundreds of dollars per hour). But when it comes to growing your legal practice, you'll quickly notice the difficulty in growing to meet the larger demand. Either you'll already be swamped by the amount of work on your plate and thus cannot take on more, or you'll find it rather expensive to hire other lawyers of equivalent expertise(whose time is also limited). You'll quickly appreciate the glass ceiling on your earnings as an individual and as a firm. You'll also appreciate the near-impossibility to acquire cross-boarder business. Meaning that in addition to time, geography is a limiting factor. Not to mention that clients may refuse to be delegated to your junior staff, insisting that their case be handled by you(after all, isn't it on your reputation that the firm was built?)

On the flip side:

As a top industrialist, you'll surely earn a high income... but guess what. No limitations--be it geography or time. To manufacture your product, you need only robust machinery and a few workers to operate the factory(and in the event that you need more workers, they're usually semi-skilled and will not cost much). Any increase in supply will not require expensive capital investment contrary to the law firm where you might need to hire more brilliant lawyers to work on your growing client base; You can seek business from allover the globe as the logistics industry is very capable of shipping your product to all corners of the observable universe. And, best of all, you won't have to work. Once you've set it all up, you'll hire a ceo, whose worry it will then be to make sure your empire stays afloat and never ceases to grow.

I don't know about you, but I'm more inclined to the latter option.

Sorry uncle.