You must find your internal GPS

I want to thank you people for the very many birthday wishes and I do not take them lightly because it is not a must that someone should type his or her thoughts about anybody’s birthday.

Today I wanted to simply say that every human being tall, short, fat, thin, blue, yellow, black, chocolate or white has an internal GPS which informs their decision making but only if you know about its existence within yourself. It is also true that many people do not know how to operate their internal GPS due to the fact that they have not taken the time to learn how their GPS operates.

In many cases we learn how our internal GPS works through trial and error and become better with time. People who have discovered how their GPS’s work are generally happy people.

A friend who I thought was very talented in sports said, “I studied very hard and started working for a tobacco company. It is more about the money but I am not generally happy about the work, how did you discover your real passion?”

I told him that I have always believed that there is something special within myself.
Just like I believe that there is something special in every human being and thankfully, I discovered that a little earlier but also knew I had to make some sacrifices. Amongst the sacrifices was hard work, patience with things such as marriage and trying as many things as possible. I also knew that God was on my side but prayers weren’t going to be enough. In my Senior Four vacation, a friend of mine offered me a job as a turn boy, where I made some little money and revisited my old career of smuggling.

I went to Kenya and bought some books and went to Mbale and tried to sell them in some schools and yes, I was never paid for any books but a lesson was learnt.

I returned to school for my A levels and since we did not get any pocket money I made sure I was a prefect. I also cut other students hair as means of survival.

That was all a part of finding my fit. Of course I have written about how I started out in tourism from sweeper, office messenger, tour guide, and then a desk guy but along that I sold tea. While at Afrique Voyage I bought some cups, a second water heater and got a small space in the parking lot of Uganda House where we made tea and supplied to shops along Nkrumah Road.

However, since I had committed to working elsewhere, I had someone doing most of the work. There I learnt that when starting out anything, trusting other people can be so bad and I have remained with those lessons. Am not the type that gives up, I saved up again, went to Owino Market, bought some second hand shoes of about Shs100,000. I then sent them with a friend to sell in Mbale, he came back with a profit of Shs150.000.

I decided to go back to Owino Market to buy second hand shoes worth Shs250,000, my friend went back to Mbale, sold them and returned with Shs500,000.

All of that money was of course reinvested and while in Mbale, he found a girlfriend and I never saw him or the money ever again. I saved up and went to Owino Market again. I started out with a new person that I thought I knew and also changed the market. He went to Tororo; same story.

Neither of them have really gone far because they killed the opportunity. Being single then helped me make all those mistakes and my resolve grew even stronger.

I did not make the same mistakes when I started Great Lakes Safaris. I run up and down by myself until I was able to take on extra people.

People such as me should simply help you in making sure you understand that there is a GPS deep inside yourself and once you do that it is possible to discover which direction you are meant to take.

The above mistakes helped me find out how my GPS works and the direction I am meant to take.

The writer is an investment expert
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