Blueprint for Greater Soshanguve: Towards Africa’s Smart City

We are unleashing the dynamic creative potential and innovation of the great Sosh citizens to not only thrive and succeed but to prosper and become truly great second to none. We are the undefeated underdogs. We are second to nothing and we are not appendages of anyone or anything; be it political party or so called leader.

We do not need a central coordinating office. We are, each one of us capable to coordinate our own creative efforts, build momentum and achieve and succeed in our own way, in our own terms and within our own potentials. We are doing things in our own way – self organizing in our terms and own ways. We have already been burnt by believing that a political party or so called leaders can support us and work with us.

We have seen the very same people who come in the name of help and support becomes the greatest destroyers and rapists of peoples’ dreams. They have become so corrupt that is not funny – such corruption of unimaginable insane proportions. They are not leaders but cold monsters and we have nothing to do with their so called “help” or “assistance”. For so long people have surrender their lives to such leaders and their programmes of support only to become worse than before.

We have learned the hardest way, that there is not salvation out there – no help. Help is located within.

We belief in ourselves, we believe each one of us, inside of us is a leader – a true leader, an authentic leader. We aspire for self leadership, self-reliance and self sufficiency through self organizing. We are driven from within. We are not small but big.

While each one of us works individually in her and his own right – doing his own things and enjoying the process yet we are a community bonded by passion and love. We are more like bees in a colony – a bee community. Bees work individually to collect stuff from flowers and everywhere to turn that stuff into sweet natural honey. Yet while each bee is working along – doing its own thing and enjoying iself – yet it is part of the collective community of bees.

Because bees work individually they are able to unleash their creative potential. Nobody tell each bee where to go to collect stuff to make honey. So bees are independent while they are interdependent.

At the crux of the matter is self reliance and self sufficiency; working in your own terms, enjoying the process with no authority or central commands dedicating things to you thus dampening your spirit and making you small. And that calls for an entrepreneurial culture. That culture in Greater Soshanguve has become a buzz word – the culture of entrepreneurship is entrenched and has deepened. People having been disappointed by political leaders and been so raped and destroyed by political rhetoric of political parties they have now sketched their own path away from the corrupt political leaders: their destroyers.

This Blueprint is to harness and solidify this culture. It is to encourage each individual person to aspire life in his or her terms. There is no turning back and we are no longer going back to empty promises of political leaders and political parties. Once bitten by poisonous snakes in the grass you will never approach that area again where they are those snakes in the grass.

The people of South Africa – the majority of people in their millions have been so terribly wounded by the same political leaders and political parties who says that they work for them and love them. They have come to see how corrupt and self serving these so called leaders of the people can be. They have turned South Africa into one of the worst corruption capital of the world. We have been fooled and fooled for many years. But it is enough! There comes a time when people get sick and tired of the lies, the corruption they snake behavior of political leaders. There comes a time when people ultimately become sick and tired of being sick and tired. There is power in deciding – in drawing a line in the sand and saying no more the lies!

Professor Peter Drucker in his book Innovation and entrepreneurship defines entrepreneurship says that entrepreneurship is neither science nor art. It is a practice, and to get knowledge to be an entrepreneurship is by being an entrepreneur. You cannot become an entrepreneur getting a Bachelor of Commerce degree, although that might help some way but it is not the requirement it is not the recommendation. The requirement and the recommendation for a person desiring to be an entrepreneur it is to become one.

And so we are creating a movement – a mass movement of all people to take the destiny of their lives into their own hands – teast ideas, learns from failures, adapt and adjust the sails and continuing soaring.

When you are digging a borehole for water, some water is on the surface while in other areas the water may be far deep. The attitude is to continue digging the water until you finally achieve a breakthrough and you hit a fountain of water down below. From the beginning you have made a survey of the land and you know there is water down below. So the attitude is to keep digging until you succeed.

The versatile and beautiful Australian girl Marianne Cantwell has written a much helpful powerful book with an interesting title. The title of the book is: Be a Free Range Human, Escape the 9 to 5 life, Create A life You Love and Still Pay the Bills. The title is self explanatory and self evident. It sums up the message Marianne is trying to tell the world. Her father told her one day while she was growing as a young girl: enjoy your adventures now. Marianne says, more and more people are saying no thanks to the conventional job and are busting out of their offices to create remarkable lives on their own terms. And the mission? Freedom, fulfillment and satisfaction: not in retirement, not in their annual vacation, but every single day, starting now. These people are Free Range Humans.

She further says: Free range Humans work when, where and how they want and get paid to do what they love. Today you can find free range humans all around the world working happily with their laptops from parks, cafes, beaches and their kitchen tables, operating welding workshops, running all kinds of business and generally making a great impact in their own ways, their own terms and their own plans.

Marianne is such a gentle and simple girl who is comfortable with all people from all background and whatever race or tribe. She is a darling – a beautiful butterfly. I really like her book. Let us continue quoting from the book. This beautiful young girl – so young, yet so full of ideas – practical ideas and practical inspiration. By practical inspiration we mean that kind of inspiration that drives you to act now. She writes:

The free range humans are not united by race or tribe, they are united in income creation, finding ways out of obstacles, by turning disadvantages into advantages.

We are living at a remarkable point in history. Right now, you can make a living from pretty much anything you can imagine. Today, you can run a global seminar without even getting out of bed. You can pack your entire business in your bag and take off around the world – while you still see money drop into your bank account. You can reach thousands of people and create a consistent income in ways that unimaginable. You can have an idea, draw it out, and launch in under two weeks.

You can launch your business in your own bed or kitchen; you can experiment and run a test project.

This is a new game, with new rules. No funding, no big risky investment, no premises or staff. What is required is personal drive. You can start with what you have and create a free range income.

The free range community is growing and we would love you to join us. This is not a pipe dream reserved for the lucky ones. More and more people are discovering that life no longer has to be much like slavery with a box outlining your work, supervising you all the way while criticizing and demeaning you to show that he or she is superior. Someone else is in control of your life.

The idea of a free range human is taken from chickens. There are chicken which are caged and confined to small spaces in their lives. And there are free range chickens that have open air – the whole farm moving around freely obtaining healthy food and kicking and having good time. The chickens confines to a cage are a sad comparison to humans who are trapped in the offices where there are abused and dehumanized by organizational rules, regulations and guidelines. Not only that they find themselves subject to selfish actions of their bosses or supervisors. Any creative idea they bring out they are whipped and put to their place.

There are diverse of ideas that you can turn into business that you can operate in your own way and your own terms. Greater Soshanguve is alive with businesses of all kinds, from dry cleaning to teaching online classes across the world while based right in Soshanguve, to marketing health products and teaching people to eat and drink healthy, to mechanic and welding workshops to operating restaurants, pubs and resort. The whole landscape is unlimited in its scope – it is wide-ranging and covering every imaginable and some unimaginable territories. The sky is the limit – you are only limited by your own capacity to think and create.

To be human is to have the internal locus of control – to control your own world and live life in your own terms. To be human is to have inside of you the ability to think, to create and to innovate. Let no politician or political slogan or political party rob you of your own self by promising you stuff and saying they are the one who can make things happen for you. Learn to be wise. To be wise is to not be easily taken by the wind out there; it is not to be honk winked by political rhetoric; is to know that the only power, the only genuine authentic power lies in you. And success, real success, lasting success, satisfying is something that you can create by using your own God given abilities.

Develop internal locus of on control as opposed to having external locus of control. To have an internal locus of control means a person has self believe. The person believes that he or she is in charge of life and can make things happen. That self belief is important because without it you will not take the necessary initiatives of sitting down and planning for your life. People who have external locus of control are the ones that succeed do miracles in their lives and in their communities. There is power within and they are able to tap that power and unleash it outward, externally. Then on the other opposing angle of internal locus of control there are people who have external locus of control. These are the people that believe that they are not in charge of their lives but it is the politicians or the institutions of government or the economy that should do things for them. And usually with that kind of world view and focus, in majority of cases they end up being terribly disappointed and from that disappointment they start blaming and complaining about the politicians or the Government.

These two opposing poles of people is the stuff that differentiates the people who succeed from the people who seems to be stuck in one place not moving or things changing in their lives.

The Internet has become a big empowering tool, where people socialize, do business and create products and services. Our world has been changed for the better. In the age of the Internet, online niche marketing has quickly become the king of the business and marketing world. Now, both business people and marketers can reach out to increasingly small groups of people to provide them with niche solutions to their problems. As the Internet, and its reach, continue to grow, the development of personalized and targeted marketing to a niche group of people is not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon. If you want to take advantage of this popular way to make money online, then you need to find your niche.

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are the new trend of the internet. It opened new possibilities to communication and it improved the way people connect and share. Today, social media sites are no longer just an ingenious way for people to meet, connect and share. It is now also one of the most powerful advertising tools which businessmen can use to connect to their targeted market niche. Know your target market niche. This is important and it is worth repeating. When putting up a business, you must always think of your target market. It is a very important aspect when running any type of business. Since you're going to be conducting business at home, you must thoroughly evaluate the bounds of your business. Think of the people who are going to be your customers and you can start from there. Once you acquire your target market, all that’s left for you to do is make sure that your business runs smoothly and that your products and services are of highest quality.

Billions of people across the world are using social media. It’s a cheap form of entertainment that everyone can enjoy. It’s where people socialize. It’s where people share bits and pieces of their lives with everyone they know.

There are plenty of home based business opportunities for anyone. With the help of the internet, friends, and a lot of perseverance, you could turn an idea into a thriving business.

What are you good at? Most of the time, you could make a business out of the things that you have expert skills in. Baking, for instance, is a good example of a skill that you could make a business of at home. Another business opportunity is handyman. If you’re pretty much a know-it-all kind of guy when it comes to fixing things, you could very well make it a nice business. There are a lot of homes that need a helping hand every once in a while. People who do this kind of job aren’t afraid to face doing odd jobs like fixing a ceiling, fixing stuff down the basement, and just about anything that needs repairing. Start out locally. You could start fixing your neighbor’s broken stuff for a fee. You could do all these to create a portfolio for yourself. On the other hand, if you want to take an alternative route, you could always grab a handyman franchise. But that in most cases will require a lot of money.

There is another opportunity, and that is landscaping. Landscaping and lawn care is basically doing the dirty work to transform a bare lawn into a beautiful, well maintained garden. This kind of service can be offered throughout the neighborhood. You could take pictures of your finished work, put it on your facebook, twitter accounts and show them to your friends. It’s a fun job! The more artistic you are the better the results will be. Your prospect market should first be your neighborhood. This way, you’d have less problems looking for clients. Other than that, there wouldn’t be any issue with credibility since they already know who you are and how refined your work is. It’s not that much of a hassle, gives you a lot of exercise, gives you enough money, and you could enjoy what you're doing.

Another business opportunity is tutoring and teaching services. You don’t need a teaching degree or any specialized training to be a tutor. What you do need is knowledge of the subject matter and the ability to explain it in a way that others can learn. If you're good at relaying information to other people this is especially made for you. You could always begin with a few students starting with your neighbors perhaps. Tutors provide additional instruction beyond regular classroom work, often for students who need extra assistance in a particular subject area. Tutoring is needed at all levels of education, from elementary to college, and on a variety of topics.

Do you speak many languages? If yes, this is definitely one that’s worth your while. It’s no surprise to see people from different countries trying to learn the local language. Being multilingual isn’t something that everyone could do. It’s an acquired talent that not all people possess. Other than being useful in its own right, you could use this multiple language fluency to your advantage. There are a lot of companies, as a matter of fact, a lot of people who are looking for individuals who could teach them a new language or two. The good thing about this is that this job pays well.