Category: Articles (Page 5 of 14)

Poverty Is Necessary – Part 1

February 9, 2021 / Onyekachi Anyanwu

In “Talking To Strangers”, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about our tendency to “default to the truth.” Humans have a proclivity to believe the best in outcomes even when facts say otherwise. The facts are glaring but we fail to admit them. Our tendency to default to truth might be as a result of limited financial education or maybe nothing more than sentimental reasons, but we sure do default to the truth.

Harry Markopolos in the financial thriller “No one would listen” wrote extensively about Bernard Madoff, the Wall Street financial Czar responsible for the 50 billion dollars Ponzi scheme. Let’s take a deep dive into the Madoff story. Madoff was a man many would regard as ” the prince of Wall Street” in his heydays. He served on the board of some of Wall Street important industry associations, moved within the monied circles of New York. He was imperious, reclusive and charming, one who could do no wrong.

His Hedge fund; Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LCC continually beat the NASDAQ industrial average for years leading many Corporates, Foreign banks, High Networth Individuals(HNI), charities to invest in the fund. Madoff’s hedge fund was alleged to have about 4,800 clients with an estimated value at 64.5 billion dollars.

If you are like me, you must be thinking, how did he pull off such a heist? Unlike other Ponzi schemes, this lasted for over twenty years. Wall Street firms employ some of the smartest people on the face of the earth, how did this escape their attention. One of the firms that invested in Madoff’s fund was Renaissance Technology. RenTec, as it is fondly called, was founded in 1982 by James Simon’s, an award-winning mathematician. As of June 2019, they had 110 billion dollars Asset Under Management (AUM)

RenTec has a large retinue of individuals with PhDs in mathematics, finance and economics from ivy league universities. You can’t argue about their brilliance and sophistication, but how did they miss this? The answer lies in our tendency to “default to the truth” in the face of glaring facts. RenTec trusted the system above basic facts.

In Kalu Aja words, “Ponzi Schemes are like musical chairs, when the music stops, don’t be the investors without a chair.” What does the above quote remind you of? Our present-day cryptocurrency referral and forex scams. They guarantee investors high-interest rates for their investment. It is important to state clearly, cryptocurrency trading for all intents and purpose is not a scam but any scheme or platform that guarantees a fixed rate for an instrument that is hugely subject to volatility is a scam.

Poverty is necessary is an attempt to understand Investors behaviour in a third world country like ours. Why do seemingly highly educated folks fall for the sophisticated shenanigans of Ponzi Scheme merchants? If Rentech with its sophistication fell, why won’t you? Could it be the allure of massive gains? I think so. What would constitute as due diligence in investigating the authenticity of investment vehicle?

Shaun Tully at Fortune Magazine nearly 20 years ago coined the term “HENRYs “(High Earners Not Rich Yet). HENRYs are Millenials who earn between 100,000 to 250,000 dollars per annum. That’s supposedly high given out current reality as a country. For the sake of this piece, I will adjust the parameter to relate to our reality. An honest assumption would be folks who earn between 2 to 10 million naira per annum.

Elon Musk Invested $1.5B In Bitcoin, You Should Invest As Well

February 8, 2021 / David Alade

Not up to two weeks ago, I answered the question is too late to buy bitcoin in this article. Then Bitcoin was trading at $30,000. Today it is trading that $42k after the news that Tesla (Elon Musk) invested $1.5B in Bitcoin already.

As I noted in the tweet below, great assets are never too expensive to buy. If they become too expensive to buy, they are probably not great. Their nature is that they will always increase in price and because a lot of getting to know them around that time when they break a new all-time high, newbies tend to think they are now too expensive.

https://twitter.com/DavidAlade__/status/1358017163609669634?s=20

Bitcoin was at around $10k when someone told me it was too expensive and I shouldn’t look into it.

Again, it is not too expensive. Just allocate enough of your capital to have exposure to it.

Why should you have exposure to it?

If for no other reason, you should because the worlds smartest are putting their bet on it. Yes, that’s enough reason to be exposed. Don’t be too smart in your eyes.

Beyond that though, Bitcoin represents another step forward in human progress, and like I’ve always noted, it is a lack of wisdom to bet against human progress. Human progress is inevitable. If you can’t lead it at least invest in to benefit from it.

https://twitter.com/DavidAlade__/status/1357732723822104578?s=20

That’s it for this article.

GameStop Stopped Gaming: Wealth Erosion And Aftermath

February 7, 2021 / David Alade

At the peak of the event that was GameStop, an acquaintance reached to me to enquire if it was alright for her to buy GameStop stock. I cautioned immediately and advised against it. What became of GME stock afterwards was that of premium tears for the uninitiated.

I have a saying for which I have been labelled with on Twitter. “Know your game, play your game” goes the saying. Unfortunately, a lot of people take the stock market as one of a play. It is a brutal environment where your wealth can be wiped off overnight if you are not careful. So far, it gives me great joy that some people that I know have made wealth than burn wealth.

Knowing your game and playing your game is my way of telling everyone to have a reason for being in the stock market, have an investment strategy and don’t sway from your reason or strategy except you are doing so after much thought and intentionally. The fellow that reached to me is an example of someone not adhering to their game. And it would have cost her, glad she consulted before acting.

As GameStop rose rapidly, so did it fall rapidly. But those who made the most gain were not the retailers who thought they were gaming the system but the folks whom they think they outsmarted.

Ryan Cohen made $1.3B from the event.

This hedge fund made $700M

And the mastermind behind it all Keith Gill was a CFA charter who understands very well the world of investing. He is not some amateur at all.

Do you know what happened to the amateurs? The ones who didn’t know their game or who knows it but didn’t stick to it?

See this:

https://twitter.com/nikitabier/status/1356793829240631296?s=20

Then this too:

https://twitter.com/thewealthdad/status/1357019599439605760?s=20

Then see this person lost $1m already and still hoping.

It is easy to think you can make easy money on the market, and make the maximum return possible but your goal, what you should be optimizing for, shouldn’t be about things like this. It shouldn’t be about being right 1% of the time like with GameStop but about being right 90% of the time and growing wealth slowly for that is the only sustainable way.

You Can Invest Your Way Into Wealth

February 6, 2021 / David Alade

Wealth is never gotten overnight and the want of overnight wealth is the root of all evils. Evils hiding under greed, fear and lack of contentment.

Investing is a game of wealth accumulation not that of income generation, at least not in the short term. When you invest you are betting that the future will be better than today. Not two weeks will be better than today, no. It’s that ten years will be better than today. Two weeks can carry a lot of disaster with it, but in ten years, even if there were disasters, it won’t matter because we would have had significant progress.

In a previous article, I wrote that investing won’t solve your income problem. Here’s like a sequel to say, investing will solve your wealth problem.

Anybody can build wealth from the habit of investing. And your income doesn’t matter here. Of course, it will matter when you are defining wealth for yourself. You can’t earn $100 per month in 40 years working career and expect to have accumulated a wealth of $1m.

So while investing will bring wealth to anyone, we still have to define that wealth within the threshold of someone’s lifetime income.

Investing your way into wealth

Investing is a way to put your savings (the difference between what you earn and what you spend) into work for you.

Do it for a long enough time, and you will make wealth. Yes, you will make wealth because assets that you are investing in will grow in value and your wealth will grow as they grow.

You don’t need to have the best of knowledge before you can invest. I wrote about how doing that investment with Risevest can be the best option for you. And I’ve also written about how buying simple ETFs can be a viable option. Both of which I am doing for myself by the way.

What I’ve not shared on this blog is the power of compounding as you build wealth.

S&P 500, an index that tracks the top 500 companies in the US have returned about 10% per year on average in 50 years. If you managed to invest just $100 per month for your 30 years of a working career, you would end up with a net worth of $200k. And as I noted in the tweet below, that might be just more than enough for anyone out of developing countries to maintain an upper-middle-class lifestyle.

https://twitter.com/DavidAlade__/status/1357439181253926912?s=20

Even though all that you were able to contribute in your entire working life was $36,000, with the help of compounding, you were able to earn more than $170k in interest.

This is to show you that investing can help you build wealth but it cannot do it overnight. It is so interesting that if you choose to work just an extra 5 years, your net worth would grow to $340k within that short period of time. Yes, with time, everyone can build wealth.

On the hand, the first 10 years of investing your paltry $100 monthly cannot even move a needle. That’s why all who desire overnight wealth never get it and they are almost always parted with their money. Oftentimes, out of greed.

You must define your wealth

When we talk about wealth, the first thing that comes to a lot of people’s mind is the kind of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos money. I’m sorry, very few people on earth will ever have that kind of money. Also, you don’t need that kind of money to be wealthy.

The beginning of your definition of wealth must start with contentment. Because wealth is not how much you have in your bank account or aggregate investment that you have but the difference between what you desire and what you have. Yes, if you desire a Richard Branson lifestyle, it doesn’t matter if you have $10m in your bank account, you will always be poor (albeit mentally). Someone with $1m may be richer than the one with $10m, it’s a matter of your desire and what you can afford.

I should mention lastly on this point that, you need not be able to afford everything that your eyes desire before you can be wealthy. As a matter of fact, only King Solomon has had that kind of wealth. Everything that his eyes desired, he gave to it. You know his conclusion; vanity. So please define your wealth.

While investing won’t solve your income problem, it can help you to build generational wealth.

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How To Buy Cryptocurrency P2P

February 5, 2021 / David Alade

Just like a lot of you, I have not bought any cryptocurrency in a p2p transaction before. All I do is use my Binance or Luno as the case may be. The argument for me is simple, buying on an exchange is frictionless and was a no brainer. However, with new regulations usually comes a new way of doing things. Today, a circulation prohibiting deposit money banks (the likes of UBA, Access, Zenith, etc.) from allowing the transfer of funds to cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Luno.

Well, as I said in a couple of tweets as a reaction to this new development, money is like water and it will always find its level. Also, the utility of crypto is so much that human nature will unavoidably innovate their way around the regulation.

I attempted doing a p2p transaction on Binance and I will quickly run you through how to do it in a simple step. Then we will become unstoppable.

When you log in to your Binance account, the first thing you want to do is change your payment currency. Click on the top icon that allows you to go to the settings, from settings, you will see payment currency. Change that payment currency to NGN, the default is usually USD. Once that is done, navigate back to the home page.

From the home page, click on P2P Trading. Binance currently supports only 6 cryptos for P2P transactions. All the 6 will be displayed immediately once you click on P2P Trading. Select the coin you want to buy and different offers as are available per time will be displayed for you. The choice is yours to select what you want to buy.

Once you select what you want to buy the next step is to confirm that this is what you are really interested in and you would be prompted on the payment method. Now, you would be required to select your preferred payment method from the list of options allowed by your counterparty.

With that done, you typically get a 15 mins time frame to complete the payment. Now something important here. Ensure your description doesn’t contain any cryptocurrency term if you want the payment to go through. Yes, it can be that serious. So use an alias instead. If you need to track it, you may need to use a consistent alias again and again. Just make sure not to use any crypto term.

Another caution, you only have the opportunity to cancel up to 3 transactions per day. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know that and I exhausted mine on the first day of attempting p2p transactions.

The way it works is that once you make such payment to your transacting partner, the partner has to confirm that they received the money before the coin you are buying can be transferred to you. What happens when you transfer the money but the other party refuses to confirm it?

You have a place to Appeal. You will be required to submit supporting documents and state the issue you are appealing. It will be attended by the customer support personnel.

If everything goes as expected, which is usually the case, you will have your coin added to your wallet and you are good to go.

You can also use this video for a quick guide. Don’t be stopped on your journey to making wealth and preserving your wealth.

You Can’t Solve Your Income Problems With Investing

February 4, 2021 / David Alade

Invest $200 and earn 30% ROI in a year, you will feel two things. One, 30% in the scheme of things is a lot and you may even brag about it. Two, when you realise that a 30% ROI is mere $60, you become unsettled. Unsettled because your target towards financial freedom is $1m.

So you wonder, how soon will I get to $1m if all I can do is to earn $60 more on my $200 per year?

On the other hand, if you earn the same 30% on a capital of $100k, you can see the straight path to $1m. It is so straight line to you and it’s so nearby.

The same 30% different outcomes.

I have an extreme example that I like to use. “200% return on a $200 investment will still leave you with $600 in the end.” Now tell me, is it easy to make that 200% return and how many times you can make it.

When people are plagued with an income problem, the easiest place they run to is the world of investing. The thought is that by investing, they can escape their income problem. If anything, the illustrations so far would have taught you that it’s not possible. Income problems can’t be solved by investing. Investing a long term game of wealth accumulation through compounding.

We run to investing simply because it’s the easiest way out. By doing nothing at all, you can earn 30% more. Who doesn’t like that? We all want our money to work for us. It’s laziness subtly showing itself in us. We want free money that doesn’t require work. Yet, wealth is a two-way equation. It is an interplay between your income and the part of that income you invest in compounding assets.

I don’t think we are unaware of where income comes from or what we can do to increase our income. We know.

However, the thought of investing 3 months, 7 months or 12 months as the case may be in developing a new skill or a new income source doesn’t sit well with us. We want an immediate result. If you invest in the stock market today, you can wake tomorrow and your portfolio is up 10%. Free money from doing absolutely nothing is sweet.

But you can’t solve your income problem with investing. While the 200% ROI from above will still leave you with a paltry income, just 10% on some capital can take care of your year’s expenses. Give or take, having N100m and earning 10% ROI per year means N10m per year. For an average person, that’s more than enough to maintain an upper-middle-class lifestyle. Can you see the power of a robust capital base? And yes, the capital base comes from your income. Else, where will N100m come from?

When you have an income problem the best you can do is to focus on solving that. Don’t be lazy around looking for some 200% that won’t even change your life significantly. People with a large capital base don’t look for that kind of high returns because little is enough in the scheme of things.

Where income comes from

Income comes from value creation. You make money when you contribute value to society.

Value creation may be arranged in the form of corporate employment or self-employment. It doesn’t matter where it comes from as long as someone is ready to pay you for the value you are creating or created.

Income is a societal way of saying “this person has created this value to someone at a particular time, so they can also earn equivalent value from someone else.” Your income is a representation of the amount of value that society owes you.

When is it right to start investing then?

Immediately! Right now is the answer. The fact that 200% on $200 isn’t that much doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get it if it’s available.

Investing should start immediately for everyone. There’s a caveat though. If you have an income problem, don’t obsess too much on investing in assets. Let your priority be geared towards investment in yourself.

That statement implies that if you find an opportunity to invest in yourself with great ROI but that investment would require you to empty your stock or other investment accounts, do not hesitate. You want to transition your career to a more lucrative field and you realise that everyone in that field has done a course. However, doing it for you mean emptying your stock or any other investment account, please do not hesitate. Emptying it already indicates that you don’t have a lot there relative to where you are going. Make necessary sacrifices and you will be fine.

Again, you can’t invest your way out of an income problem.

There Is Wisdom In Investing With Risevest

February 3, 2021 / David Alade

Last year was the year a lot of us were first introduced to stock market investing. It was an awesome and advantageous year for those who invested as much as a little of their money.

It was a bull market where the price of almost everything is increasing. We were all smart and made good money. On Twitter, I see a lot posting some 100% gain on some individual stock. In my opinion, there’s no better time to be introduced to the market.

Beyond the gain from the stock market, converting your money to dollars alone is enough to make you about 30% ROI. That’s because Naira lost that much in value from last year.

Amid this endless opportunity to make money from investing, I had people messaging me about how they bought a stock and lost 30% or more of their capital. I felt bad for them and wished they didn’t lose the money but they did already.

So a bull market, a lot of people making money and some even losing money. Why should you then give up buying stocks yourself and subscribe to a Risevest plan?

PS: I am an independent writer and I’ve not been paid to write this.

The extra work may not worth it

Risevest’s ROI in 2020 was 41%. Yes, a whopping 41%. The implication of that is, without doing any extra work, without investing any extra hour to research, without spending the time for rest on your broker’s app, you could have conveniently made 41% ROI in 2020.

But is the extra work that you did worth it? Two things will help you answer that question correctly.

One, what ROI did you make on your portfolio last year? I’m not talking about ROI on an individual stock but on every stock that you bought (and probably sold) during the year. If that ROI is not up to 40% you may need to reconsider if you are good with what you are doing now or you would like to do something new. Let Risevest which is freely available to you be a benchmark. Also, while considering that, remember not to take for skill what is pure luck.

Two, if your goal of investing is beyond the return you make, then you may be fine. Even if you do not make up to the Risevest’s benchmark. I know this because 2017 when I started investing, my goal was beyond the money made. It included the education that comes with it, the emotion, the intellect, the mistakes and the wins. All added to me and have made me better today.

Otherwise, if all you are interested in is to focus on your work, and not have to disturb yourself about which stock to buy and which to sell, then going with a product like Risevest will be a great option.

Risvest ROI in context

It is not enough to use one year to judge Risevest as well and past performance is no way a guarantee of future performance. However, because they are an asset management company with a defined investment they may have a hedge over you. Also, unlike you, that is their day to day work. It is not justled with something else.

Yes, I cannot give them the pass mark just on one year’s performance. However, I am giving them merit based on the fact that they have a defined process, and it is their primary responsibility to make your money work for you. In order words, I can trust them enough to work to the best of their ability to make my money work for me while I focus on my primary which I enjoy or that is taking a lot from me already.

If you like ease and you don’t want to bother with which stock is trending or which is not, you may choose them and watch your money grow with them.

The 4 Horsemen Apocalypse Of The Stock Market

February 2, 2021 / David Alade

Fear, Greed, Hope and Ignorance are the 4 Apocalypse. Of the 4, the first 3 have to do with human emotions and they have together wiped out more wealth in the world of investing than any bear market had done in history.

The last one, ignorance has to do with the intellect. Ordinarily, it should be the only thing that causes us to lose wealth. Unfortunately, it is not even as harmful as emotion agents.

At the peak of GameStop’s fiasco last week, some people invested their life savings, some invested other people’s money, others their rent and the story goes on. As it would turn out, a lot of them were buying at the peak of the price. And now they have to painfully pay for it. Emotions ruled, greed prompted them to think they could make easy money and cash out, fear of missing out from the trendy was their guiding light and the hope that the price would rise again won’t free them from cutting their losses.

We are all subjected to these emotions, GameStop only came in as an example because of its recency. How many people bought Tesla for the same reason or Zoom or any other stock. How many have sold a stock because they couldn’t control their emotion or buy because emotion prompted them to?

Handling the apocalypse

Fear

Fear can drive us to either buy an asset or sell one. Fear of missing out will drive us to buy what you were not prepared to buy and fear of being in will force you to sell an asset you are supposed to hold. On both ends, knowledge and having an investment process will save you a lot. Knowledge about the asset in question and having a process about what to do when what happens is a saving grace.

I know emotion though, and I know we cannot always act according to reasoning from knowledge and process. So It may be wise to follow the process advised here.

Hope

Just like fear, hope works both sides of the market. You can hope that the price will fall further allowing you to buy at the bottom. Or you can hope that the price will rebound therefore holding your position instead of cutting your loss. Again, knowledge and process is your best solution here. Knowing what factors drive the value and paying attention to the behaviour of that factor is how you arm yourself with sufficient knowledge.

Here again, emotion will want to overpower you. My suggestion is that you note when you are being led by hope or by knowledge.

Greed

This is the father of all wealth destroyers. I will use an example of a trader here. If you are a trader, the most important skill you need to cultivate is to know when to take profit and move on. Ordinarily, you might have set that from the moment you enter your trade. But you see as your strike price approaches, the potential of getting more gains from the trade will entice you and you will adjust your analysis to accommodate your greed. That’s the beginning of failure. You see, we all want to make the maximum money from the market and this has cost a lot of us. Your goal as I’ve always said is not to make the maximum return in the market. Rather it is to make enough within your acceptable threshold or risk.

You will have to deal with your greed (and we all have it) to be able to control this horseman apocalypse who can turn your fortune into an overnight misery.

Ignorance

Ignorance should have been the cause of a lot of woes in the market unfortunately it’s not. However, it has its fair share of woes as well. A friend called me towards the middle of last year to lament how he has lost about 50% of what he invested in the stock market. How do you lose that much in a bull market? He’d bought stocks in an industry that was negatively affected by the pandemic. He was unaware. That’s the reason.

Ignorance can only be solved with knowledge. Get knowledge about whatever you are investing in and you will solve this easily. Remember the mantra, ‘never invest in anything you do not understand’. Well, that’s me saying it again.

2 years ago, I wrote here that the stock market can be as simple as buying and selling. However, what is most important is your motivation for buying and selling. Is it greed or fear or hope or ignorance for you? Be aware. The most optimal reason for your buy and sell of course would be knowledge.

Get knowledge, have a process, yield less to emotions and you will see your wealth grow with time. Fear, greed & hope have wiped out more money than any bear market in history.

Social Media Is A Wealth Creating Tool

February 1, 2021 / David Alade

I use Social Media as a tool because out of all wealth-creating machines since human existence, it is the first machine to be made available to everyone at a fraction of a cost.

Erstwhile it was Land and Capital both of which also needed “mass labour” to be applied to them to build wealth.

Now, social media is the leverage that offers an unfair advantage. However, what we are all lacking now is how to apply it.

You see, once a thing becomes commonplace, and access is evenly distributed, abuse becomes the common theme of such. It takes a witty mind to bring value out of a commonplace asset.

So it explains why a lot abuse it or don’t see its value.

If it was capital, because that is scarce, you tend to place lots of value on it. Same goes for land.

Social media gives one thing that I’ve addressed on a large scale in a thread that I titled “What The Internet Did”

I will touch a bit on it again.

Before that, let me quickly tell you not to be narrowly minded…

When I say wealth, I don’t mean money alone, sure money is part of it. But only a fraction of it.

Wealth of all kinds are a game of asymmetry (benefiting from fat tails).

What’s the meaning of that?

If you want a rich relationship, the good thing to do is to work on it to make big attempts to impress your girl/guy and to make them happy.

But it turns out more often than not that while the big things are good and must be done, what really makes your partner happy and impressed are in the little things you do that you don’t even count on. When you ask the other, that’s why you will be acclaimed for.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do the big things, you should and if you don’t, it won’t be nice. But little things, in the end, added up, make the most important memories that strengthen the relationship.

Those little things are the asymmetry returns that I’m talking about.

Think about it sort of in terms of the Pareto principle of 80/20.

I will now talk about money because I know we all need that as well.

It is my opinion that when you don’t have money, to live a free life, the first thing to optimize for is that money. It gives you options

Same asymmetry returns are seen in the money as a fraction of wealth.

You will do all the work and more. But what launches you to plenty of money is the fat tail (the little things that you do).

The little thing can be just the 10% of your income that you save monthly and you allowed it to compound over the period. It could also be some side bets that you take on the side.

You may just help someone without even knowing and that will be the beginning of a life free from money issues or you build a thing that you never thought could sell and it sells like harmattan fire.

Asymmetry returns are what builds all sorts of wealth.

The thing about asymmetry returns (fat tails) is that you can bring yourself closer to it.

I mean that. I’ve seen it happen again and again.

Why do you think the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer?

The rich are closer to asymmetries that position them to benefit from such than the poor. Even Jesus said from those who do not have we’ll take and give to those who do have. “Having” gets you closer to asymmetry returns.

Before now, “having” used to be constrained to land and capital. And those two things are very difficult to come by (I mean that). So it makes it difficult for the poor to have. The one major thing that “having” brings is its distribution power.

Distribution has ramifications.

The rich have a lot of capital, in effect, he can get a lot of things and all he needs to become richer is for one to two of those bets among 100 to give some asymmetry returns and the result is more wealth. That’s richer yet again. The poor can’t afford such a luxury. You can’t spread much.

What I’m talking about can also be explained by the power law in mathematics (check that out). Well, the game is usually stacked against the poor man from time immemorial. Social Media changed that.

Look at me for instance, my parents have no big money to hand over to me, so I have no capital endowment or land endowment, invariably, I can’t compound labour. But a time came in 2019 when I needed a new job. The one I was doing at the time, I got from social media to start with.

For the new job, even though no one knows my papa’s name, I just messaged a contact on social media that I needed a new job and specified which industry I wanted that to be. Less than 2 months later, I had a new job offer.

Growing up, what society taught me and you through stories and Nollywood was that only those with capital (the rich) can make such calls and they will have it done. Well, the machines of wealth now include a new thing; that’s the social capital through social media.

With the help of social media, I also could make such a call even without capital or land. How could I or the “rich” folks do that?

That’s the point of distribution that I mentioned earlier.

Capital gives you access to distribution that gets you closer to asymmetry returns. Social Media is doing that for me. It’s getting interesting now, don’t stop reading yet.

The currency of capital is money (more money means more distribution power). I don’t have that but I can still get a type of distribution. The currency of social media is VALUE.

Social media is a place that once you prove yourself as a person of value, distribution will be handed over to you. Let me explain.

The person I called for that job said something about me later on after that episode:

“…I spot your talent”

That’s the word.

You see because you have no capital (money) you need to give the world an alternative to be worthy of that distribution. Distribution for social media is simply a function of “how many people can spot your talent”

The more people who can spot it, the more distribution you get and the more wealth you can command. That’s the social media equation.

And let me tell you this, if that value is there, it will ALWAYS be spotted. I’ve done it on two social media platforms (LinkedIn & Twitter) and I got results. When you exhume Value on social media, what naturally happens is that those who can relate to your kind of value will gravitate towards you. The more people who gravitate towards you, the “wealthier” you become. That’s because those gravitations are people who have spotted your talent and can be called on at any time once you build the relationship.

Okay, I exclaimed lobatan (it is finished) when I saw a comment from someone as I was writing this. This is someone I added to my list of “those to meet.” I didn’t know he’s been “understanding how I think” (his comment on a post I made).

I should just stop writing this long explanation now. You should know by now that I know what I’m talking about. Social Media (Internet as the parent) is a leveller and the ultimate leverage.

How I Use Twitter – Beyond the surface

January 31, 2021 / David Alade

In part one of this article, I explained how my journey started with a series of unfollowing and then some deliberate following. In case you missed that, you should read it here.

It is not enough to follow. I also needed to know what I am looking from this people. Just as everything that I might talk about may not interest you, so will everything not interest me about a person. Beyond that, I was clear about how I will prioritize different information.

This is where I talk about all those.

Threads above Tweet

There are two kinds of thread on Twitter. You may not know.

Obvious threads that are woven together. This for example.
Threads like comments. This category is none obvious and you need to be a very curious person to unlock its power. In my opinion, it’s one of the treasure troves of Twitter.

Threads are like short articles. Except they being in a thread made them very easy to read on Twitter. That’s compared to having to click on a link that will take you out of Twitter. What I discovered was that people use thread to share their thoughts on a deeper level than a single tweet would do. Sometimes, those thoughts are spontaneous which in my opinion adds more ice on the cake.

So I learn more from reading threads than from scrolling through tweets. Many times, I equate reading threads to reading for that day. And yes, that’s what it is. I spend hours going through some threads and they’ve been incredibly helpful.

Now the second type of threads.

A lot of people don’t do this, but when you stumble on this kind of thread, you might just have discovered the most valuable curation of resources on the internet. It’s best explained with an example:

https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1063797074964217856?s=20

Whenever questions like this are asked, the world gathers under such a thread to comment on the best of resources that are available out there. Utilizing threads like this have helped me to reduce the ratio of noise to signal whenever I’m reading. I always know that this is the best on this topic that I could find on the internet. I know this because I’ve contributed to some of the threads as well with the absolute best of what I have found on a topic.

You see, it’s all about being deliberate for me. Although I am still experimenting, I believe I’m yet to fully explore the ramifications of Twitter as I seek to create value.

Another example that is relevant here is what Dr Joe Abah is doing with #NaijaKnowledgeX. The thread is now a source of research for me on any topic that might have been raised.

Look for resource trove like that and keep it forever.

How I digest tweets

240 characters are more powerful than you may think. However, If you don’t think about it or read it in context, you may not understand.

To start with, remember I have my timeline well-curated. So relatively, I know what topic will show up on my timeline. This allows me to either get the idea of the tweet quickly or spark my curiosity as to why I don’t know something that I should know. In the latter case, I’d have to go down some rabbit hole to understand what they tweet is trying to say. The rabbit hole, by the way, starts with comments under the tweet where those who understand the tweet tend to share their understanding of what it is saying.

Sometimes, the comment is not sufficient. In such a case I will pick keywords from the tweet and do a google search for more resources to understand what I don’t get.

Some other times, I check their bio to see if they have a website that I can check to understand their background and how they think. And oftentimes, those that have a website may have picked their thoughts from an article on the site which solves the problem. I think my strength as you would have noticed is that I am never tired or bored of reading. Knowledge is always my priority.

Comment for context and understanding

There have been uncountable occasions when some would say something and I wouldn’t understand it. Here’s what I know, I’m not the only one that won’t understand. Secondly, more often than not, someone else would have attempted to explain the tweet either by retracing or even liking an article that explains it in the comment section.

I don’t just pass by if I’m curious. I click on the tweet to peruse the comment section for understanding. Often, I end up bookmarking the comment and not the tweet if it’s worth it.

You think it’s the person that said something that can teach you, well, it’s not always so.

Learn to explore the comment.

Mind My Business

Twitter is full of different drama. I hate chaos and that is freely distributed on Twitter daily. I stay away from it by not getting involved in any chaotic conversations. Especially when it’s on a topic where people have their identity tied to it. Topics like religion, politics, feminism, morals and basic dos and don’ts that requires a strong opinion.

I won’t comment on them or like them not to talk of RT.

I believe I don’t need to get involved in those conversations before I achieve my aim on Twitter. I am right. I simply mind my business and if I must engage in a conversation, I don’t criticize.

If I have a critical comment to make, I imagine how some of my tweets are basically just about me learning something new exploring an idea. So many times I excuse things. Beyond that though, who likes to be criticized in public? I just simply don’t want to add to that kind of conversation.

Occasions occur that I break that though. But that’s my principle on that. Lastly, join this:

https://twitter.com/DavidAlade__/status/1341478777327595522?s=20

That’s it in summary so far

You see, my life creed is that “if we can commit ourselves to reading and this increasing knowledge, only God can limit how far we can go in life.”

I’ve believed that statement since 2014 when I first stumbled on it and about 7 years down the line, I can tell you I am a living testimony of that. So when I came on Twitter, what I was just looking for is a new way to manifest my belive. of course, I had fun between all this. However, like Marcus Aurelius said in meditation:

“I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? So you were born to feel “nice”?

Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can?

And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.”