FULIZA: A Mastery of Discipline in Financial Management and Stability in our Resources.
Today’s world has changed in how we view, handle and access money. From an individual point of view to a business’s point of view.
Tech disruption in the financial sector is happening so fast that we are having a problem catching up on just how easy and fast it has become to access credit.
My personal experience has taught me that if you can survive in the Kenyan market as an entrepreneur, then you can survive anywhere in the world.
The Kenyan entrepreneurship realm is the toughest there is in the world and surviving Nairobi as a resident should be included in the Survivor TV series.
Lack of Self-Discipline and Control
The primary reason for financial problems in life is the lack of self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control. They say that a man who can control himself is more powerful than a man who can kill a lion with his bare hands. This indeed is true.
Self-discipline, when it comes to money matters is very difficult if not impossible. It is the inability to delay gratification in the short term, the need to please people who do not matter with things that are useless that drives us beyond our financial boundaries.
It is the tendency for people to spend everything they earn and a little more besides, usually supplemented by loans and credit card debt that leads to financial mess and suicides. The ease of access to credit, inasmuch as is a good thing, the negative ripple effect of the same if dire and needs to be addressed.
Money and emotions are like oil and water
The primary reason that most Kenyan adults have financial problems is not that of low earnings. The reason is the lack of self-discipline and the inability to delay gratification. This is the KEY reason and why such an innovative service like FULIZA would be turned into a negative service so fast.
When the purse becomes empty, the mind becomes full of issues. Reason takes the back seat and emotions take over. Something that is dangerous when money is involved.
Money, like emotions, is something you must control to keep your life on the right track. Remember how difficult it is to manage your emotions when you are happy and when you are sad. Both states demand discipline from us to be able to live through them. Same goes for the essence of money. Money does not dictate your lifestyle. It simply reveals your character that is held prisoner by the chains of poverty. It reveals your weak points and your strong points. It’s what you do to get it and how you manage your finances that determines your lifestyle.
ALSO READ: FULIZA: The magic of credit access in Kenya
Finding maturity on financial matters does not come easy and it means that you have some experience under your belt and furthermore, it means that, when it comes to resolving your inner conflicts around money, it’s easier and manageable. It really comes down to discovering a sense of ease around money and this ease comes only from painful experience of having money and losing it or by reading the lessons of others and internalizing their lessons to heart, which is normally harder to do hence learning from our own experiences.
Money grows in an environment that adores discipline and circulation
I see on social media people asking how managing money in the new economy is different from managing the same in the old economy. I think what they mean is, how did our parents do it with so little yet they gave us everything we needed and now, we make so much more than them and we can hardly provide for your one or two kids yet back then we were more than four of us to a family. From my personal experience, it’s more or less the same. It’s about the financial discipline of the bottom line, understanding how much you make, segmenting your needs from your wants, understanding what emergencies are and what joy rides are and being able to build a world-class management aspect around your money for ease of being able to budget, save, invest and spend without emotions and without stress.
Fuliza has me laughing so hard from the comments am reading online on social media and I am not laughing at them, I am laughing with them. It reminds me of me when I was younger, 15-20 years ago and how managing money was such a herculean task to me that I got into serious trouble over and above. Fuliza by the end of this year will be registered into the Oxford Dictionary as a new word in the financial realm. It’s meaning…’stuck in a rut and no one to borrow or ask for help… Fuliza your way out of it like a landrover defender 110 from a muddy spot…’’.