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Video: How to prepare for the job market

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The following is a summary of LEMP Founder, Douglas Waudo engaging season with students at Kenyatta University on how to prepare for the job market. 1. Have a professional CV. Most qualified job seekers hardly get invited for interviews by prospective employers despite applying for hundreds of jobs due to a poorly presented and lacklustre written CV. If an employer struggles to understand your CV, or has to literally spent lots of time dig for information, chances are your CV will end up in the trash bin. Ensure your CV is well-written and presented, easily understandable and has the following: a cover letter, contact details, career objective, education qualifications, career summary, working experience, listed skills and referees. 2. Know where and how to look for jobs. Don't just rely on one way to look for a job. Subscribe on various job sites, where you get alerts on job vacancies in your field of interest. Constantly check out newspapers and employment boards. Learn the art of networking. This can be achieved through engaging in alumni associations, having your profile and CV on LinkedIn, attending career fairs, product launches and events organised by prospective employers. Finally, identify prospective employers and follow them on social media to receive alerts on advertised vacancies, and be updated on happenings of the organisations. 3. Be prepared for interviews. Take time to research about the organisation and the position before you attend an interview. On the day of the interview, show up on time and look professional. Don't arrive late for an interview with excuses of traffic jam etc. Be confident and sell yourself. Let your education, experience and skills, achievements and your passion be manifested in the interview. Remember to carry educational documents and any previous work you have done to make your case why you believe you are the right person for the position. 4. Be prepared after the interview. Looking for a job doesn't end after an interview. Take time to analysis how your last interview went. Would you have answered certain questions better? What would you need to do to improve on for your next interview? Take each interview as a learning opportunity to perform better for the next. In negotiating for an offer - be ready to accept days of humble beginnings. Know your market rate. Most people have trouble getting jobs because they have either overprice or underpriced themselves out of jobs. Know your professional worth, and be realistic with your remunerations. Don't be quick to turn offers down simply because they didn't meet your salary expectations.

How to be poor

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The funny thing about life, and moreso about money is that we all want to be rich and wealthy. We want to be successful, prosperous and live a good life. The irony however is that majority of us don't take time to study and understand the principles of financial freedom and wealth creation. Our concept and understanding of savings and investments is based on speculation, trials and errors, copy and paste, and what I call 'get rich quick big ideas hype' such as 'quail eggs' investment, pyramid schemes etc. Its important to understand that wealth is not created in confusion and disorder. It doesn't happen by magic, hype or speculation. It takes discipline, commitment, consistency, focus, and more importantly, knowledge and understanding to create wealth and be financially free. Unfortunately, for most of us our ignorance has subjected us to years of poverty and being broke. Its almost certain, acceptable and normal for us to be broke every January. Well, allow me to share with you 12 things on how to be poor in 2016. 1.You hope salary will make you rich. Don't exclusively rely on your salary to become rich, unless it reads like the bank statement of a corrupt African president. Look for ways of having an additional income besides your salary if you want to create wealth. Utilise your gifts and talents, opportunities and networks around you to make an extra coin. Don't be a slave to a monthly salary. It can only take you so far. 2.You busy building others’ dreams. Remember if you don't build your own dream, someone else will hire you to build theirs. What are you doing everyday to build your dream? Outside your 'normal 8am-5pm' work schedule, how else do you utilise your time in building your dream? Are you busy building other people's dreams and forgetting to build yours? 3.You dream instead of doing. The only difference between successful and unsuccessful people, is that unsuccessful people are busy dreaming while successful people are busy doing. Many of us have super great ideas that would make us rich and successful in life. Unfortunately, the most we do is talk about it, and do nothing. We are afraid to take risks. We have become experts in procrastination. 4.You spend more than you earn. Oh boy! I learnt this through the school of hard knocks, you want to be poor, sweetheart, spend more than you earn. Live beyond your limits. Ensure your expenditure is always more than your income, and you will be guaranteed a life of poverty, lack and daily struggles. 5.Humble beginnings ain’t for you. We all want to live in fancy houses. Drive nice cars. Be wealthy, successful and rich. But then again, how many of us are ready to start small? So, what do we do, we borrow to buy the car or things we can hardly afford, then end up in financial bondage because our pride and ego couldn't allow us to be subjected to days of humble beginnings. No house is built from the top, honey. 6.Don’t start saving until you get big money. One of the biggest lessons I have learned about money over the years is the fact that there's nothing as small money. No matter its unit, each coin has a value. Don't despise small change. Develop the habit of saving the little you have, and little by little you will be building your empire. 7.Biashara’s and hustling is for Kikuyu’s. I can't tell you how long I have heard that. Business and hustling is for certain tribes. So, what do the rest of us do, we hang around in dingy bars, with our loan-financed jalopies parked outside as we blame the government and "that other tribe" for stealing our money and taxes. In the meantime, the chap who is cleaning our Japan-imported juggernauts outside, will end up being our landlord in a few years. 8.Compete for flossets. Assets are things that bring you income, flossets are things that take your income. We are more inclined to flossing and showing off the newest phones, newest cars, trendy design clothes. For us, we think we have arrived. We are with the it. We have arrived. We compete with celebrities in our dressings and lifestyle. Only problem is, our financial 'flossing' is build on quick sand, for we are busy impressing and pleasing our friends by investing on liabilities, instead of assets. 9.You complain and blame others. Walk on the streets of Nairobi and ask anyone randomly why they aren't rich or successful and you will be hit by a long list of people they blame. They will blame the government, their teachers, their boss, their parents, landlord, spouse, pastor, siblings etc. Newsflash buddy: its your life. You are the C.E.O of your life. You are responsible for your own life. Whatever happens in your life, you have either allowed it, tolerated it or ignored it. If complaining and blaming others will lead to richness, trust me most of us would be trillionaires. 10.You live for today. Its called the You Only Live Once (YOLO) mentality. So, what do we do, we blow up the little coins we have in our pockets without a care for tomorrow. And that's why there are so many people right now depressed because they have rent to pay, school fees, car insurance etc... The irony, you should have seen them rocking like rockstars in December, and literally making it rain. 11.You look for shortcuts. We live in the country of deals. Tenderpreneurship is the order of the day. We all want to get rich, quickly. As a result, we are busy stealing from each other, killing each other and abusing each other. We live in a man-eat-man society. People 'conveniently' falling in love to be assured of a better life. Politicians stealing the little taxes collected. Preachers inventing ways of collecting 'seeds'. That's why we bribe our ways into almost anything, including getting married. 12.You just don’t get it. Finally, after all has been said and done - we just don't get it. We don't get it that the essence and meaning of life should be tagged on a higher calling, involving a personal relationship with Our Manufacturer, God. We don't get it that success in life shouldn't be measured by materialistic things. For one day, we will all die. We will be lying on that cold slab. Breathless, lifeless. Finally, silent. We won't be buried by the things we loved or worked so hard to possess. The most we will be buried with, if we are lucky is a fancy coffin. Perhaps a designer suit or dress. And it will be a wrap for us. That would be it. Dead. Gone. Forgotten. And life will go on like we were never around. We just don't get it that it profits no man to gain the whole world but loose his own soul in eternal life. We don't get it that there's more to life than a fancy car, house, lifestyle and all the wealth and richness in the world. We don't get it that the essence of life is living a life of purpose. A life which God, the Creator of all things, intended us to live. Finally, we just don't get it that when we die, which we all would, nothing else will matter, except how we treated fellow human beings, and more importantly how we related with the Big Guy Upstairs. Unfortunately, by the time we finally get it. It will be too late. We would be breathing our last.
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Watch Video: Let’s talk about money

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Douglas Waudo shares his mistakes, experiences, lessons learned and achievements on personal financial freedom after going through the Centonomy 101™ – Personal Financial Management Course in October 2013. He delivered the talk during the Centonomy Open Day held at the Nairobi National Museum on January 18, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbKE4ytU8OA

LEMP Alumni changing the world

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One of LEMP's best moments is to hear an alumni sharing their story of how the program not only changed their life, but how they are also changing other lives, and by extension the world around them. Well, such is the story that I am about to share. Its the story of Ngumbo Njoroge, an alumni of LEMP Season 2 (the chap in glasses in the picture above). I remember the first time I met Ngumbo on October 10, 2015 in our second class of LEMP Season 2. Apparently he had missed the first class because that is the day he was to commit suicide. He showed up in class looking lost, dejected and frustrated in life. Our first conversation will forever be engraved in my memory. He had hit rock bottom and was in the process of contemplating suicide. I have decided to give this program a chance. Its my last shot. I have nothing to live for at all, he spoke with finality. Fast forward to now, Ngumbo story makes me give glory to God for turning his life around. His is a story of hope, gratitude, and more importantly a story of how to live effectively on earth. Ngumbo sent us this email and we couldn't resist sharing. As you read it, remember this: We are all alive on this earth at this moment in history with a divine assignment - to make a difference in our society: Hello LEMP, Happy to inform you that we launched Gatanga Youth Mentorship Program on 19th February. In a conversation with Mr Douglas Waudo earlier this year, I had expressed intent to share some of the ideas I had picked from LEMP's Season 2 with other young people, for me that was through a mentorship program targeting high school and primary school students in my Gatanga constituency of Murang'a County. I shared the idea with friends and peers and so far the program has a team of 15 mentors. We had our first event at Jogoo Kimakia school on 19th February that was very successful and we are receiving positive feedback from the students, the administration and other stakeholders. It was the first of its kind in the school. Our vision is to roll out to other schools in the district. Our next event will be in March, this time in a primary school. Our goal is to share our experiences and knowledge to the younger generation to equip them to become agents of change in society. I am personally grateful to LEMP  for positively influencing me. I am positively influencing the world in the best way LEMP taught me. I may not change the whole world but through this program, I will change someone's world.  God bless LEMP. God bless Africa. Sincerely Ngumbo Njoroge- Agent of Change and LEMP Alumni.
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