Thank you for staying with us. You're still on the breakfast on plus TV Africa right now We'll be looking at what the headlines are saying on the national dailies this morning and joining us to review the headlines is Mohammed Abdul ahi He's a public relations analyst. Good morning sir. Thank you for joining us A good morning. That's my pleasure. Yes. Happy New Year to you Compliment of the season Snickers. Yes. Yes. All right Let's see what the national dailies are saying this morning and we'll be starting with the punch The major headline here says apc defends federal government as labor once against failed promises So yesterday the president Bola Ahmad Tinnable Gave a new estate speech to Nigerians talking about how he understands Our sufferings and all of the decisions he has taken so far Is you know for the growth of Nigeria and our economy and so APC right now is defending obviously his speech But we have some writers here which is pdp tag speech As our vest of the seats nlct uc says Nigerians are tired of failed promises And apc lampoon's pdp label party are just Nigerians to disregard mischievous opposition What are your thoughts on this on the speech the president's speech first and the fact that PDP has come to say it is a harvest of dissidents and apc also now Trying to just tell us that you know fighting back basically saying no it is not it's just a mischievous opposition And they're defending and the president right now Yes, um like we always have always have every you know first of january speeches by our president so it's not like A new initiative or something that is a novel thing. I mean we've always have this but What is what what is important? I think Is the fact that most times these speeches are just based on promises promises and promises and promises But they are actually no clear court agenda or clear court pathway For those promises to be delivered. Yes One of the major highlights in the I mean the president's speech yesterday was the fact You know, I think he talked about Electricity as a priority Right now, Nigeria as a country is actually running on less than and perhaps 5000 megawatt Of electricity for the whole country. I mean for more than 220 million people For a country that is uh more than 9 000 plus. I mean in terms of square meters and so on so which is quite appalling so hopefully Before the end of the president's four years because I know perhaps maybe a year is Not enough perhaps Before the the the the end of the tenure of the president. We should be doing more than 10 000 plus I keep telling people just a single mosque alone In South Africa just a single mosque. I'm not even talking about the city. A single mosque has more than 10 000 megawatt So why should Nigeria for 63 years still be running on less than 5000 at best? It's really disgraceful. I another thing I could pick up from the president's speech is the You know the issue of minimum wage. I know even in december Majority of the salaries of uh Public uh, what's it called? I mean civil servants even the military were not paid prompting rumor that The the usual armed forces celebrations this month might be truncated by I said rumor anyway, uh by by by by by by some of the military personnel Which is shocking. So it is it is encouraging that the president is talking about like a new minimum wage I mean in the speech yesterday Which like hopefully It will be implemented. It wouldn't be just three two weeks So yes the pdp like you mentioned and even the lp and odd opposition party have the right to uh query the speech of the president They also have the right to target what they wish because you know, it's like I said earlier This is speaking to nigerians every first of the year. I mean first of january is not a novel idea It's something that we've had over years, but it keeps being promises promises and promises and at the end of the year Uh, we have little to show for it when we go back to to to you know to to juxtapose The speeches with realities on ground. Yeah I don't know if it's really something to be happy about when we know that Like you said some salary people were not paid their salaries federal workers at least were not paid their salaries Um, at least we know of lecturers that came on the show and told us that they were not paid salaries for december And then some states have not been able to implement the 30 000 minimum wage And we're still talking about about a living wage improvement When we do not even have the ones that we are having that we're supposed to have now being paid So I don't know where that money will come from I don't know how nigerians are going to raise that money and then how it will translate to having a better life What about the people who do not work? What about the people who may not be working with the federal civil service? Because it may not cover for states and local government employees Yes, you're absolutely right. Uh, and that it be hopes on the I mean on on on the various state governments to Look at ways of improving the IG are, you know, uh, internally generated revenues and some other ways to to raise funds Uh, perhaps cost costs of governance and so on and so forth and so many of the frivolities that we spend money on in order to meet these very important uh obligations because uh, you know, uh whatsoever even the infrastructure that we talk about As well as other things that are very germane at the moment You agree with me that the welfare of the masses is uh, is paramount is should be top most Uh, I mean on on on the agenda of the government and even the private sector mind you I I I don't have the statistics Of off hand, uh, but I know perhaps if you put together the federal civil service and and and the state civil service Perhaps is I don't think is up to 5% or even 10 maximum of Of nigerians population. So, um What we are talking about is actually still very minimal compared to larger populations. So Like you rightly said, what about those people who don't work for government people? Perhaps at worst wouldn't even have anything to do. We don't have jobs and so on and so forth. How is You know, the the the government looking at making life Easier for for for such people. Uh, so it is a critical question which perhaps I can't provide answers to Uh, but again, I think what is important is for government to provide Enabling environment and some of the enabling environment that we talk about is like the issue of power You know, if if there is constant power supply that perhaps nigerians would definitely gladly pay for these might create a lot of uh, uh, employment opportunities except employment like the welder Who doesn't have to buy gigantic? Generator look for diesel here and there that is so expensive to power the generator in order to do is our job The bar bar on the street and so on and so forth. There are so many things that are dependent On uh, on electricity. So, you know, these enabling environment that we keep talking about are some of these basic infrastructures that government need to put in place Uh, to make sure that lives become easier for everyone because like I said earlier Not everyone works for the government. In fact, very minute Uh, very small percentage of the population works for government, you know So we need the enabling and this enabling environment I mean the the the socio-economic environment in Nigeria to be to to be at least good So that people can latch onto that and create employment for themselves and even other people In order to live a better life. Yeah, but you you just talked about power and you talked about enabling environment There's this headline also on the point there saying federal government insist on um electricity subsidy Amid tariff review federal government insist on electricity subsidy amit tariff review. Okay, so Your thoughts on that Subsidy on electricity Yeah, uh We I know for for a fact that every part of the world governments subsidize one thing or the other whether it's electricity whether it's uh, Uh food whether it's transportation You know, there are countries in the world where public transport is virtually free I mean in loosenburg wherever you're going if you're using public transportation is free everywhere So, you know, it is not something that is that that should be You know out of hand or out of place No, my question my question is my question is that If you want to subsidize something shouldn't you think of what the Nigerian people will benefit more? Because you're talking about subsidy in electricity There are some people who there are some communities that do not even have uh public power supply But they still have because I I thought our fear was People hijacking the so-called subsidy and using it to benefit. That's what happened in the petroleum sector What guarantee do we have that if electricity? Is being subsidized there will be no hijack and if there's going to be a hijack Why don't we let them hijack at the place where we know that we're already gaining because if petrol Or fuel generally is subsidized Invasion fuel I can travel by air anytime I like because it will be cheap enough I can go by land if I have a car and all those kind of things. This is something that was critical to Nigeria's economy Now you are talking about electricity subsidy, which is good anyway on its own, but Is that really the subsidy that we need at this time? Yes, you can't take it. It's not out of place as well Electricity is very charming. It's very important even though not 100 percent of Nigerians enjoy public electricity Like you mentioned, but I know at least more than 60 or 70 percent do so if you have if you have Subsidies around that area. It's also important because if you are impacting at this 70 percent of the population That's a good number. That's a very good number. In fact a very good number So it's subsidizing electricity electricity is also very very important Yes, but how are they going to make sure that The money is being used the way it should be used the subsidy is transparent enough because that's the problem We had in a fuel subsidy Now that's that's that's left for the government to implement You understand they actually know the loopholes if they are being sincere if the government wants to be better Tell me now You know, they understand they should understand and know the loopholes Where to, you know, block all these Corrupt activities and so on and so forth and that's why at the beginning even I am not the proponent of removal removal of subsidy from the petroleum sector because I am saying You know, you don't say you have a headache and then you cut off the head You just find medication, you know, in order to relieve you of the pain of the headache rather than just Outrightly cutting off the head We've seen where the petroleum removal. I mean subsidy has plunged Nigeria into a Nigerians So it's not a bad idea if the government decide to subsidize Electric remember again that is not just meant for household. We have whether our You know, our economic sector. I mean the few manufacturing plants and here so on and so forth do not really use public Electricity whatsoever, but they at least use as well. So if you have subsidies in this area, perhaps it might also reduce The cost of production and the cost for Nigerians to buy some of these these goods So I think it's not a bad idea if the government decides to subsidize electricity and then make life a bit more Better and easier for Nigerians. I just think he's digging one hole to cover another one. Just Well, I mean, I think for me personally, I just believe that There should be power supply and if we're saying that we want foreign investors to come in We need an economy that thrive and if they're going to use power, it should be readily Available for them, but let's move over to the garden now. We're not even in the whole country We are not having as much power as luck like Abdullah. He says the one mosque in in Saturday So, what are we talking about? Anyways, let's move over to the guardian and the major headline here says deficits Execution concerns over expanded 28.8 trillion Naira budgets now From what we know the budget was about 27.5 and then it has been expanded right now What are your thoughts on this? I mean if we keep going to borrow if we have to keep borrowing rather to Fund all of these things and we're still expanding the budget We're not seeing this politicians or the government actually cutting their spendings But then they're increasing the budget by at least 1.2 1.3 trillion Naira well, what are your thoughts on this one the deficit the execution concerns over the expanded 28.8 trillion Naira budget The national assembly, you know over the years. I've actually Mustard the art of looking over itself, I mean If you if the increase the increment In in in the in the budgets just signed by mr. President You see is specifically On you know the side of the national assembly. They actually increased their own You know their own budgetary allocation and it is what they've been doing over the years For the past three or four five years They do that every time every time the executives submit a budget On their own part of I mean their own part of the allocations They always increase by trillions of Naira, which is shocking, you know Some of the some of some of the frivolities like I keep saying that the budget for is is for What I call a play area within perhaps the national assembly where they are budgeting for a whooping 4 billion A 4 4 billion for I call that a play area like, you know You know a relaxation area for the senators and the house of verse member at this time Nigerians are groaning, you know, but again Aside that again some of the challenges with our budget over the years is that yes The only thing I will give kudos to in the past four five years Also in Nigeria is the fact that you know over the years before five years ago We are used to passing the budget perhaps in the middle of the year Sometimes may sometimes June or even July when the year is fast spent that is when we pass the budget but this kudos now for the past three four five years We've resorted to say before January 1 or maximum January 1. We have passed the budget that is actually the very I could that's actually the the very best thing I will say about Nigeria's budget in the past four years But in terms of implementation is still very very appalling seriously because we are doing less than 60 to 70 percent Of budget performance every year, which is very poor Seriously, because I know as at December 31st. I mean two days ago You know, I follow tracker a private initiative I follow them every time and I see so many mentioned On their their their handles about things that are budgeted for perhaps some some of them Have been paid for and then outrightly not done Projects not done so many all over Nigeria And you have it's like it's just cut out all over the country Then who is pursuing these things? I mean, why is the ICPC there? Why is the AFCC their Private entities have actually taken the initiative to do the harder job of digging up all these things But yet Nigerian Taxpayers money have been allocated to some people and then projects are not done outright Then some of the project that I even You know Done they are done shabbily. You are located 200 million for Very simple building and what you see is less than Maybe 20 or even 50 million that have been implemented. So we need to go beyond this I I hope this 2024 budget will not be the same as what we've been having in in I mean in in In our previous years It's it's we need this budget to be fully implemented And then we start talking about The impact on the lives of Nigerians because like I said earlier We've been doing poorly in terms of implementation of the budget People or organizations have just been paid keep we keep paying people and then they don't carry out You know the functions. They don't carry out. They don't implement the project and then they go scot-free You know with taxpayers money And some of the some of the very funny things that we see again is that we have perhaps in Nigeria Nigerians budget at this age and time we still budget for utensils at I mean at the state house with three budget for ports plates scarps and so on and so on so many privileges We pay restaurants to carry out Building constructions. It's it's so appalling. So I hope this 2024 budget will be very different Because we need every cobo to be accounted for Nigerians are going through so Much hardship that we need every cobo seriously to be accounted for so that at least The lives of Nigerians will be better as as we keep praying I spray out all the time. We like praying for me. I I I think that is that going to be a time whereby they budget there's a budget of maybe Five trillion and then they come back and they say, you know what we're trying to cut Spendings and we would just want you to give us three trillion Yeah, I repent. I'm not being devil advocates anymore. It will never happen How will they come and say it's it's too much. Let's cut it. I don't see that happening anytime soon Okay, if it will happen, maybe but not now But talking about people going scot-free It is still fresh in our minds in the previous previous administration where some Security chiefs were said to be corrupt and they had done a lot of things that they needed to be sucked But they were they retired and they were given Ambassadorial appointments. We know that is very fresh in our memory But now generals have been promoted and Horewa a body is Quaring the promotion of generals and meet insecurity But we'd like to have your thoughts the generals were just promoted. We are seeing killings in plateau state Where the people even have their frontry to write letters to communities and say we are coming again after killing up to 200 people And they actually went back and killed at least about four people Uh in communities that they wrote letters to so what are your thoughts on the fact that Generals are being promoted even when there is no security in Nigeria Uh, it's it's it's it's actually um, it's happening. Uh, what has been happening across the country It's not only in plateau state. Perhaps the number in plateau state. I mean the plateau state Incidents came to fall because it was a very large number. Yes, but it is across the country. Let's be very honest Again, the thing is this. Yes. We can't fault the promotion I mean of generals because you remember if you appoint a new service, I mean new service chips It means those people on the same rank with these service chips have to go We I mean is is a general Kind of perhaps whether on written or written policies. I mean in the military So because you can't have people on the same rank or the same class now Let me use that word with the service chips because you know in the military you can't be saying You can't be saying sad to your mate.  I think that's what happened because if you remember before even the promotion of the generals You have generals that were retired, you know, uh, and it is because of the elevation of The new service chips, but haven't said that I mean The problem with us is that we actually know what is right or what we needed to do But we are not doing it. You can't keep doing Same thing and then expecting different results Nigeria is just three years old for god's sake, you know And we are said to operate federalism But that this is just merely on paper Now, why do I say so? You can't say a sitting governor for instance in plateau state You know who is said to be the The chief security officer of his state But does not have power over the police does not have power over the military and so on and so forth Things are happening in plateau state in remote areas like for instance the bow coast and so on and so forth And then he has to call maybe abuja to react Even if you think abuja is close is closer is close to uh, what's he called to just and so on and so forth It takes hours our kind of roads and our kind of Topography and so on so we take hours for reaction and then we are always reactive. We are never proactive We've had this crisis separately. This is not the first time two three four five even ten years ago What have we done? What have we implemented? We've had white papers. We've had community sit-ins and so on and so forth What we are running away from Is the fact that we do not want community policy. We do not want state police We do not in fact, you know In my kind of advocacy I talked about even local government policy Yes Because like I said from just to bow coast probably is another one hour or two or three hours where you have perhaps maybe bad road You know people are being killed it took It about 200 people were killed in different areas of the same local government and so on and so forth Imagine it did this didn't happen in just two minutes or 10 minutes Even it must have taken at least one two three hours. What were the response from the military and the and the police almost zero You know, it is almost one week or even more than sorry. Yeah more than one week of this happenings How many were being arrested? You know At two uh, what's he called 24 hours after this We find that state governors were just hooping into um legos to say hello to the president and they were married You know, they were patting like I like I would say for for the xmas period Why 200 people 200 lives already were already lost in play too. Come on. Come on So we must rethink and I think the way forward is state policing and even local government policing We can't run away from that this idea of Making calls to abuja anytime there is crisis here and there We should understand that we need a restructuring and that restructuring means we need Local government policing because it will understand and know the area better than people who are bringing from abuja or elsewhere to come and police Perhaps so koto arms or even or play too So we need to rethink about this and I think it's one of the cardinal thing that the president promised Restructuring so perhaps before he leaves office. These are some of the things We need to sit down on the ground table as Nigerians to discuss and then implement All right, let's look at daily trust and a small headline here says dango tear refinery receives fourth crude shipment On another paper here on the punch. He says dango tear refinery gets fresh 1 million crude barrels So we know dango tear refinery is about to start producing I mean the president even spoke about it in his speech even though I want to believe dango tear is a private Refinery is not part of the government. So I'm wondering why that isn't a president's speech except Maybe dango tear is another arm of the government. We don't know But yes dango tear is about to start Producing and they just received a fresh crude oil of 1 million barrel What is your thought on this and the impacts we're going to have even on our fuel prices Is a good one that at least perhaps the we keep having shifts of Production dates, maybe at least finally, maybe I'm sure sometimes this 2024 will have dango tear refinery producing. I mean refining PMS and other petroleum products for Nigerians to use but in terms of pricing I am not optimistic that it will change anything. Remember dango tear perhaps the crude oil is not buying in Nairo. So I doubt it if you will be selling To government. I mean the nmpc who are in charge now to now dispose of Nigeria. I doubt it will be selling in Nairo I really doubt it. So what will my just be saving perhaps might be the foreign exchange You know, and then when we are saving that it means we are able to You know to use that savings of foreign exchange for other critical sectors like the aviation sector. Remember, we still have more than 700 million plus all the International airlines and so on and so forth, you know people that they are they are their their funds have been trapped in Nigeria For about two years because we actually were actually broke because we don't have enough foreign exchange to To go into that sector. So perhaps if we are saving from dango tear refinery producing We might be able to you know, look at other sectors that are also critical like aviation and so on and so forth that I mentioned And even agriculture But that might be the basic and the only advantage But in terms of pricing crashing I really doubt it because remember dango tear also is not just Coming into business. I mean the petroleum sector is not his first business He's been producing cement for only god knows when in Nigeria and then The price keep skyrocketing, you know, he's producing everything in Nigeria I mean the raw materials is there the whatsoever is there the plant is there, but we don't have it cheap You know, uh, so I don't think uh, there will be any great impact in terms of pricing The only impact I'm seeing is that perhaps it might save Nigeria some foreign exchange Money for us to use in other critical sectors That might be because it isn't saving Nigeria some money because if he's buying in dollars and selling in dollars Is it not the same thing? It just may be the shipping the money for shipping it from overseas down here that will change Yeah, definitely that would be great because you know, if you follow if you follow the trajectory of that The money for shipping the landing course and so on and so forth Actually make some huge difference in foreign exchange Uh Yeah, it's all right. Uh, this is where we'll drop it this morning. It's been a pleasure having you Mohammed on the show Thank you so much for being a part of it. Thank you Thank you very much. My pleasure. Happy new year. I hope you traveled and you are part of the people that I wish we I wish we took we took this headline, but it's okay Okay Well, we're talking with uh, Mohammed Abdullah he a public relations analyst and we'll take a short break and when we return We'll take a hot topic. Stay with us


My name is Mike Hammer and I make blob paintings and I guess I consider myself an explorer of the paint. Painting is fantastic, I teach as well and for years I poured my heart into teaching and in the last three years I've decided to take a chance with the studio, didn't know if I could cover the rent, the heat, but as soon as I moved here and took that risk things opened up. And now all I want to do is be here absolutely. I get to come in, listen to music, put paint on paintings and talk to galleries, talk to dealers, talk to clients, come up with new ideas, yeah it's a fantastic job. I grew up listening to psychedelic music from the 60s, looking at those album covers. I love music not for what it says but for how it feels and I make art in the same way just to excite you visually, to inspire you, to give you new ideas, to have you go holy, what is that? Just like that, oh my god. And I guess I've always been looking for some kind of technique that would define me. I always knew that I was looking for something and then I hit upon the blobs after being inspired by this artist Holton Rower who's like the drip poor master and that's it and now I'm just stuck on these blobs like I just want to make blobs all the time. A big part of the prep is the paint, preparing it is huge and the tricky thing is you know okay so you get a regular painter who can mix whatever pink he wants right on the spot because maybe he just needs pink over there. So he might mix a super light pink or a little bit of darker pink or a bit of a gray pink or a bit of a yellow pink. For me I need massive amounts of each quantity paint. I can't just mix it on the spot and then go because then I'll be, I'll run out. So I've kind of got to carefully choose the colors I want. So paint preparation is huge and then it's a lot of experimentation but I have an idea of where I'm going with each piece to some degree and then it develops naturally. And then I guess there's layering, do one layer at a time, it dries, keep going, keep going. So it could take anywhere from three to five or six weeks to finish a piece or seven weeks and then the top coat, then the resin. So number one, making the blobs is just more pleasurable. Like it's just, there's something pleasurable about squeezing the paint out in a circle and watching it kind of fill.  You see it relative to the colors around it. This pink changes if I put this beside it versus if I put you know a different color beside it. So as I'm putting the color down, I'm perceiving instantly and I think I'm not only kind of planning it but I'm soaking it up. It's an enjoyable process to have those colors feed into my eyes and so for me just enjoying soaking up the imagery as I'm making it plus the paint going down. It's like this reciprocal process, the paint squeezing out, I'm causing it. It's cool to go blobbing out there. I have to pay attention to how much but at the same time I'm perceiving these colors flowing up into my eyes and I'm also kind of watching the whole piece and seeing it develop. My ideas don't stop. I have too many ideas. I have to filter them because if we're up to me right now at a five times this space that I have three people working on an installation, four people working on a blob cube, two other people reaching out to galleries around the world, that's my idea. That's where I want to be in five years. But then at the moment what I remind myself of is creativity comes to responding to this piece. You know we get into habits. We do things over and over and even brushing your teeth can become a habit and if you don't actually pay attention then you're not really doing it right. That's how I have to try and keep this real. These paintings is that I have to be creative in that moment and allow myself to flow with that even if it's going to take me in a weird direction and I don't know if it's going to sell or whatever. Staying in the moment, staying in the moment with the piece as opposed to just trying to recreate something I've done, I think that that's when you get into big trouble for art. I think the most important thing in art if you really want to stand out is to be original. I really do. You've got to make mistakes like they say. You've got to burn and crash and throw stuff out and make stuff that's no good and not know where you're going and leave all that behind to find something that's something that you made. You know I mean for me the blobs are the coolest thing because there's only one other guy in the world who made paintings like this and that to me is very cool. The world recognizes originality in the end and I guess the one thing I would say is it's taken me 20 years to come to this or 19 years. So patience you know like eventually I think if your heart's there I don't know I think I've spent some nights crying saying oh god you know will it ever happen is just to stick with it. I guess it's like I talk to my wife you know right now I'm driving to work and I hate it. I used to bike and I love it and you say the cycling is cool because you're outside and you're exercising but there's one more thing I've forgotten. This is I think why I like these paintings is when you're cycling you have to attend to everything.  It's very intense. When you're driving you can just sit there and be like oh and you're not working so hard and we like to work and so when I'm on my bike I'm working all my senses and I guess that's what the blobs are like because I'm feeding the whole area, it's feeding up, feeding back down and then beyond that right so that's one piece right then there's the fact that you know I can make a blob piece that's all black and then I can do stripes on top and then I could make a giant blob cube that you can walk around like the opportunities are endless for the blobs it's like I could blob things I could blob people so it's this is the first series that I've come upon that I love the process and from my mind now the opportunities are endless and like for an artist I don't know there's nothing else right.


Welcome to the channel. This is reliable Rudy in this video We're going to make our part one video for Walt Disney Company now I do apologize and wanted to have my Walt Disney series out last week But I had a wedding that I was a part of for the weekend and rehearsal on Friday and had some work stuff Kind of a build up at the end of the week. So I had to prioritize that But I think the patients will pay off. I got a lot of good information to go over here And yeah, I hope you guys enjoy this video, but before we get into it I'm not a licensed financial advisor. Everything in this video contains only my opinion as for entertainment purposes only Okay, it's going into the video I'm going to treat this like at the stock that I have not looked at before and I still have the earnings report to go look through after this and Followed with that video will be our stock analyzer and then we'll wrap it up with the chart aspect of things So looking at this there are some red flags that I would definitely identify in this metrics tab So without going into any further analysis for it Revenue to that income. This is not equal out to a good profit margin You can see year-to-date profit margins 3.5 percent big disconnect from their five-year average of 8.6 percent Now looking at the PE big disconnect from their five-year average PE Price of sales a little bit on the higher side for these profit margins Same scenario big disconnect and free cash flow from their five-year average It shows that they're paying a dividend, but they are not paying a dividend Let's say announce something in their most recent earnings that they're going to continue that low return on assets and equity and Off of first glance it doesn't look like they invest their money very well either So we're going to dive into these and determine if it is a negative or something to monitor or maybe it could even be a positive or some There's room to improve right there So first we're going to click on this eight pillars tab now You can see off a first glance if I was just pulling this company up knew nothing about them Seven red checkmarks is not is not a good look, but let's remember Disney has a huge moat they own the Disney they own Star Wars they're in the streaming business of things they own the amusement parks. They're Connected with the ESPN and several different TV production production studios Disney has a large mode am I worried about them going out of business? I was I would be baffled if Disney went out of business So going back to this We're going to determine if these are actually red flags or if we can work with these and find a way to flip these to a positive Now I did have someone mentioned to me Hey, I can't use that software that you're using. How do I how can I look at this financial information and? Do what you're doing So for part of this video We're going to go to return on invested capital dot AI and we're going to look through some of these numbers in these metrics So starting with revenue from tooth from 2006 We are going to run this through all the ways I can see consistent growth all the ways through Now They kind of fell off a little bit and slowed down decrease revenue right here So we are going to monitor that before we do our stock analyzer tool now looking at the net profit from 2006 33 billion four and a half four and a half three four four point eight five point six pretty consistent growth in net profit going around here and then boom 2019 to 2020 they went from 11 billion to Negative 2.8 billion now hold that thought before we talk about that some more and I can see they did get back to profitability Looking into the future. Is it possible that they get back on this consistent growth from 2006 to 2018? Very consistent growth and net income. So looking back to our everything money. Am I as worried about this red check mark right here? I'm not as worried about it because they showed me in the in the past that they're able to consistently grow their net income Going back to a turn on invested capital. The next thing we're going to look at is their debt So long-term debt Consistently down here at this 10 billion the 12 billion a little bit of a spike right here in 2016 and they continue They paid off a little bit now 2019 they more than doubled their debt Now keep keep that in mind because this is a big component of my analysis for their financials now 2020-52 that way another big increase in debt now they've slowly started paying this debt off, but let's remember They took on a lot of debt in 2019 and then in 2020 COVID hit and Disney is in a rare scenario where they were Negatively affected by COVID in my opinion because they have theme parks And they have business that they construct where they needed people to be out in the public to be able to benefit from that So they took on a lot of debt and then boom hit by COVID now a couple interesting things that I want to point out the dividend from 2006 consistently increasing their dividend now This was a huge spike in dividend, but if I were to take 87 cents to a dollar 42 Still consistently increasing their dividend now 2019 the year that they had that they increased a lot of debt They have a huge drop-off in their dividend now. They actually cut their dividend So they took on a lot of debt they needed to be able to find ways to pay that debt What is one way to open up capital to be able to pay off debt? Cutting your dividend so do I look at this as a negative some people could have looked at this as a negative I look at it as a as a positive because they Needed to find a way to pay off their debt without issuing even more debt or Diluting a large amount of shares now that leads me to my next point I want to get across for a look at these shares outstanding from 2006. We're gonna move right along Consistently buying back shares now a couple of issuance is here That's nothing to be worried about because the long-term outlook. They've consistently bought back shares now 2019 the year they took on a lot of debt That's a decent spike in shares outstanding now 2020 with COVID they just took out a lot of debt They cut their dividend down so that they can pay off their debt easier But this was not enough you can see that they completely cut this dividend the following year now They had to issue more shares to get capital to be able to pay off that debt But looking long term out into the future from 2022 and beyond are they going to continue issuing shares? That I will leave that up for you to decide but from 2006 to 2018. They consistently bought back shares So something to keep in mind there in my analysis going forward Do I think that they're going to continue diluting shares like this? Let's look at the pillar over the last five years They've issued 15% of their shares. Do I think that's going to continue going forward that is up for me to decide but from 2006 to 2018 Consistently bought back shares. I'm not as worried about this shared illusion That it's showing right here So back to return on vest capital next thing we're going to look at is the net profit margins So from 2006 and moving forward 10 13 12 9 10 12 13 13 and a half for 15 and a half 16 17 16 21 and 2018 16% and boom 2020 they had negative 4.4% profit margin now They've started getting back on track 3 and 3.7 year to date but do I think they're going to Have these low amount of profit margin going forward from 2016 consistent profit margin and increases in profit margins and then the year they Took on a lot of debt. They got hit hard by covid so they're negatively affected by that Do I think they're going to hold these profit margins going forward? I don't I don't think this is going to be the case I'm not going to be plugging in low single-digit profit margins moving forward in my analysis now back to the These pillars these are all red checks, right? five year five year five year five year Looking at this their last three years are definitely skewing their five year numbers So I'm not in my analysis I'm not going to be taking these five-year numbers into account as much when they've showed me from 2006 to 2018 that they have done what they needed to do as a company and I think that they it's potential that they get back on track with that the question that you have to ask yourself Yourself is how long is it going to take them to get back on track? Now the last thing we're going to go over real quick here is the return on invested capital You could sit here and say oh Disney they don't invest their capital very well year to date one percent and five year average 2.8 percent we go back to Return on invest capital right here from 2006 moving forward seven ten nine seven eight nine ten ten eleven and a half thirteen thirteen point seven thirteen Seventeen okay now 2019 huge drop-off right here, and now they had negative return on invest capital 2.1 and 2.6 Moving forward. Do I think Apple are not Apple? Do I think Disney is going to put up a low single-digit return on invested capital? What it's hard for me to think that when they've showed me from 2006 to 2018 that they can deliver a return on invested capital at a Consistent rate so moving forward. I'm not as worried about this red check mark right here Something to something to monitor of course, and this is why in the next video We're going to go into their earnings report before we do the stock analyzer tool, and yeah This is going to wrap up my analysis on like first glance of their financial statements, and yeah I hope you guys enjoy the content, and I hope you return back for the second video on the earnings report And we'll see you on the next one


Yeah, so pretty much I play soccer my entire life. I grew up with my father being my personal trainer and we'll go to the field twice a week to work on the things I needed to work on. And that's how we bonded. I saw the difference in my performance compared to my teammates. And at a young age, I knew how important it was to do extra training sessions outside of your club training to get better. I always knew I wanted to do something relating to soccer, have a career in soccer. At first, of course, I wanted to play professional, which I did for a small time, but after that I didn't know what and how I was going to have a career in soccer. I knew that it was the only thing I care about. Everything else was pretty much in the way of soccer. And my senior year of college, I was coaching some local clubs and did some private sessions here and there, just pretty much like a side household. And I enjoyed private training the most because I was able to connect with players on a deeper level. And I felt like they benefited from it more compared to club training. Awesome. So how did you end up getting into business then? So my first client was from CoachUp. He reached out to me. He had two sons and we pretty much came into agreement. Okay, we're going to train. I can't remember the day Friday this week. We had our first session. He loved it. We continued training for two years and a half. And that parents refer me to other parents from the team and that's pretty much how the domino effect started. So I was able to get a lot of clients from that specific client. And I was spending more time on the field. So more parents were able to see what I was doing. So they will approach me during the sessions or after just asking for more information. And that's how I started with private trainings. So pretty much word of mouth. Yeah, word of mouth, cool. So tell us a bit about your business then. What is your company specializing? Yeah, so my business is in Miami, Florida. I started specializing with one-on-one training and little by little, we've been transitioning more to group training. My company focuses on the technical and tactical aspects of the game. But most importantly, I like to take high into consideration building relationship with my players, like knowing what they like to do outside of soccer, how school is going for them, how they get motivated. I've realized that the more time you spend to get to know your players, the more they will respect you and pretty much the more they respect you, the more serious they will take you in your training sessions. Mm-hmm, yeah, love. So do you have a specific favorite age group you like to train? Age group? I like middle schoolers. Middle schoolers, so that's ages, anything around eight to 10, around there. Eight, 12 is my favorite age group. Why is that age group? I think that at that age, they are old enough to understand if they want to improve in soccer, they need to put in the work and they need to do extra sessions outside of their club. Also at that age, they have more availability. The older they get, the more competitive, the higher commitment to their club. They train more days during the week. They have tournaments where they train, where they play three to four times a weekend. So they have more availability. It's a good age. Also they're beginners for the most part, so I feel that I make more of an impact on their development at that age. Okay, love that. So you've been in our coaching program for a while now, and how has your business changed since you joined? So I've been in business now for four years or so, and my business has changed tremendously. I honestly would have never thought I'd be where I'm at when I started. I now have systems in place that allow me to think more strategically and focus merely on helping my players. So for example, before I started the program, I didn't have any sort of agreements in place with my clients. This led me to always having to remind parents to complete payments for the session, which was after the session, I got paid after sessions. I didn't know if my sessions were going to be canceled last minute, which happened quite often, and if they canceled last minute, I didn't get paid for those. So my income was really inconsistent, but now I have everyone on recurring billing, I have them on contract. So I don't feel really comfortable talking about money with people, but now since I joined the program, I only talk money with my clients in the beginning of the process, and that's it. Any other conversation from there is just talking about the players' progress, their development and what they need to work on. So I can focus all my energy is on helping them and not thinking, oh, this parent owns me money. So I know also the biggest thing, well, of course the payment situation is huge, but I know my schedule way in advance. I know exactly who I'm going to train this week, the next week and the following. I know my schedule once in advance, yeah. So that is a huge difference compared to when I wasn't in the program. And Ben, the program Ben has helped me so much with organization, understanding my business, and he has offered so many ideas of what I can do next to continue building and expanding the business, which allows me to have more confidence in what I do, knowing that I have someone to guide me and mentor me through it all. And yeah, I'm just happy that this program really exists because I wouldn't be near where I'm at right now. And since I joined the program, my revenue has doubled in a year and a half. And I hope to continue improving those numbers, of course, but yeah, it has changed tremendously. Awesome. So tell us a bit about, so in 2022, what has been your business month so far? Now you don't have to give a number, but in terms of how many clients you added within that, within the year? My best month surprisingly was summer, which usually in the previous years, summer is the slowest because players are traveling, their schedule has a little bit consistent because they travel like either twice or three times during the summer or they're away for the entire summer. But this summer was the best one because I started doing clinics. I had four clinics. I also was able to take a trip myself and my business did not get hurt because I was away for two weeks. So just by having systems and being organized, I was able to do that trip and still keep all my clients, which before, and I think a lot of coaches can relate to this, you will either feel guilty or you will be afraid to take some time off thinking that everyone is going to leave. So just having that security that everyone is still there, you just have to make sure you stay organized and make up those sessions in advance. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So talk to us a little bit. How was the transition from going paper session to a subscription model? So that was the best part of starting the program. That transition, you just have to take the time to learn the system, the software, how it works and just have the confidence to sell that to prospects. First, I found it intimidating because the easy thing is just to get paid by the session. But now you have clients that have to pay you a month in advance and there are a recurring billing where they have to complete payments every 30 days where my hardest part was having that mentality and that confidence that parents, clients will pay for that and they will commit to your program if you believe in it. So it's just believing that clients will do that and what you offer makes a difference on the player's development and it's of high value. But once you go through that first stage of transitioning everyone and having the confidence that you can do it, everything else runs so much smoother. And like I mentioned earlier, now you can focus more on the player's development instead of having to talk money with clients all the time. So what would you say to a coach that's watching that wants to do that change or that transition but is scared to do it? I'd say practice your sales process, your sales code as much as you can when you're about to share how your payment works and you just need to get that first client. Once you get that first client, it will give you confidence, okay, like I did it once, there's going to be someone out there that will also agree to this. And then you get the second client and now it will help you get into the routine. And yeah, the hardest part is just breaking the ice, getting the first one. After that, it should give you enough confidence, like, okay, if there's one client out there that was willing to do it, there's many more. Yeah. And of course, if you provide good value, then you should have confidence that like what you do is really going to make a difference. Yeah, 100%, 100%. So what's the minimum commitment?  Minimum commitment is three months. I am looking to change that to six months very soon. But yes, three months. Excellent. And have you noticed that going three months minimum, you've seen more results with the clients you work with? Definitely, definitely, because we see each other on a weekly basis. So in three months, I see them 12 times. If I do a clinic, maybe 13 times. So that's enough to make a difference. Not only I provide sessions, I am in constant contact with the parents, asking them about the performance. My players need to complete journals after each training session. They need to complete post-game self-evaluation after each game. So I have an idea of how they're playing. I also do watch them play here and here and there. So I know exactly with my own eyes, I can see what they need to work on. But yeah, yeah. Okay, awesome. So where do you see this industry going in the next two to five years? It's going to continue growing. I think soccer as a whole is changing. It is becoming more data-driven. So players' individual performance can now be measured. So I think this will lead to a higher demand for private trainers in this industry as the game continues to develop more into a numbers game. Yeah. So talk to us a bit about your sales and marketing process. How do you market your business? How do you get clients currently? What's the main way? Yeah, so mostly my clients come from word-of-mouth, but I use social media specifically Instagram. So just posting on my story, I am now imposing twice a week. Actually three times a week, two videos of just my training sessions and players doing drills. And one of the videos is of myself just talking about my business or just providing tips and advice for parents. For example, I did a video for parents on how to deal with their child not getting enough playing time. So just providing free tips for prospects. I see as prospects on social media and hopefully leading them into a sales goal. I'm now working with email marketing, something I'm trying to add as another way to market my business. Love that. So have you got a referral system in place in your business? I do, I do. So I tried to, well, I started two months ago. So I have it on my calendar the first month, the first week of every month, I am providing some sort of like promotion to my current clients where it varies per month, but the most recent one this week, I have the promotion that if they bring one client, a friend that signs up, joins the program, then they will get a month free of training. So that helps to just bring other clients into the program without you really having to go out there and find it. How many clients are you currently at the moment? So currently I have 22 that I train myself and my assistant coach has five players. So in total, I have 27 players in the program. That's awesome, good. And we, yeah, it's 27 players, we train on a weekly basis. Yeah, is that mainly in groups or is that one-to-one? It's a mixture, it's a mixture. I'd say half is individual training, the other half is small group training. I'm trying to transition to mostly group training and hopefully all small group training. Awesome. Now, a common question we always get from coaches who they realize that doing one-to-ones is good until you're fully booked and then you can't take on any more. So what a lot of coaches wanna do, they wanna transition into groups, but they don't know how to sell the idea of group training. Right. So how was it for you when you started group training? How did you sell it to clients that there was still value in group training? Right. It's taking the time to schedule a phone call with each client and explaining what are the benefits of small group training. So for example, by having other players around, usually training sessions tend to be of higher intensity because players can feed off each other's energy and effort. You can work more on tactical movements because now you have six players during the session. I find it very difficult to work with tactical movement with only one player. So just being creative with explaining to the parents of benefits, which are true. And another strategy is to, if you're fully booked for one-on-one, then raising your price for one-on-one, which will naturally push more people to the group training. Group training, excellent. Have you noticed that your business has been able to grow a lot quicker with groups? Yes, because it's a more, it's a cost-effective option for parents. So I think it's easier to sell. Also, for the most part, players are used to playing in a group setting. So it's kind of like a natural transition. But sometimes it is hard with some clients because if they're used to one-on-one training and that's what they want, then that's where you need to be a little bit tough and say after the contract is over, this will be the new, this is how we're going to do things from now on and either they move on with you or unfortunately you have to go different ways. But you try to avoid as much as you can, but you have to think about yourself first, right? I wish I could do 100 sessions, one-on-one sessions a week, but I cannot do that with only one person. Yeah, so you brought up a good point. How hard is it or easy in maybe in your position to say goodbye to clients or to get rid of clients that maybe they only want one-to-one, but your time is obviously restricted and you have to say no to them. Right, how important is that? Yeah, it's hard because you want to keep them all, right? But I guess you need to realize that it's not possible and you need to put yourself first, right? So if I add another client, that means that I'm working another hour during the week, I'm already maxed out with one-on-one trainings and if I do more hours during the week, then that means I'm going to have less energy to give my best during sessions. So my clients will benefit more from me having full energy during every session than for me to have a lot of them and just kind of have asking them because I'm tired. And I mean, what has helped me with this too is also the program, Ben. You know, he's there to support me and he helps coaches put themselves first, of course, while still providing good value to your training session and your program, but yeah. Mm-hmm, good. So Antonella, where did you see your training business in the next five years from now? I see myself providing more value to my players, so maybe having a nutritionist come and talk to my players once a month, having us four psychologists talk to my players. I like to do only group sessions. I see myself hiring two or three more coaches, focusing more on clinics and camps or groups, clinics, camps, and yeah, making my time more efficient because it's also I live in Miami where it's extremely hot and hopefully having some indoor location. Yeah, we're very conditioning, right? Yeah, that's what AC is, that's what you are. Awesome, cool. Right, last question, and this one's a personal one. I always like to finish the interviews with this question, where it's a two-part one. So first one is what does failure mean to you? And the second one is how important is taking risks in business? Yeah, failure, how important it is. Okay, so of course no one wants to fail, right? You want everything to run smoothly, but it's impossible. But I see failure whenever something goes wrong in my business, I see as a learning opportunity and I focus on how I can fix it to avoid it, avoid from happening it again. So if you're having the same failures over and over again, then it's on you. The first one or two times, okay, learn from it, if it happens again, then there's something that you're not fixing. So either working on your terms in condition, adding new rules, yeah, so that's what failure means to me. It's just an opportunity to learn what I'm doing wrong and how I can fix it. And the second question, what was it? It's how important is taking risks? It is really important because if you take risks, it will help you gain more confidence and if you gain more confidence, then everything else will run more smoothly, but it's just mentally preparing to, that first time you're going to do something new is preparing as much as you can. So you have to think of things that can possibly go wrong. So if they go wrong, you already know how to deal with them. So preparation to what may happen after you take that risk. Love those answers, great. All right, Antonella, thank you very much for jumping on here, sharing your successes with us. If any coach is watching or they want to follow you or follow your business, what is the best way to do that? Instagram and TikTok under CA Training Academy. CA Training Academy, excellent. Right, well, thanks again, all the best with your business and hopefully in 12 months from now, I can bring you back on and we can see what further steps you've made with your training business. It sounds like a plan. Thank you for having me here, Ronaldo, I really appreciate it.


I was told this would be a book launch. So I really didn't prepare slides until I saw the program a couple of nights ago. And there was no mention of book launch. And I thought, well, perhaps I should put a few slides together and then just to open the conversation. So I have a few slides. I can talk about the handbook. But first, Augustin, how much time should I take? 15? OK, good. So I have a few slides. I'll go quickly through them. I would like to echo what Justin said earlier, which is really to thank the many people who have helped on this really challenging project. Starting with Adam, who is here. Somewhere hiding in the back, as usual. Yeah, Adam Swallow is our editor at Oxford University Press, who has given us really the support that we needed to do this. And of course, Justin was not only my boss, but my mentor and my teacher. And I always go to him whenever I have questions about almost any difficult topic. And we always have the right answers. And of course, the amazing group of scholars who have contributed. I was surprised really at the level of interest. Of course, I could thank my employers, my former employer at the World Bank, my former bosses there for giving me the space to do this. And the institutions, including WIDER, which really has provided strong support. Not only intellectual support, but also financial support to organize an autos meeting. The African Development Bank put a lot of its own best researchers and some money to help us do this. So I thought I should just ask this question to start the conversation here today. Is Africa an economic enigma? And I would like to basically do three things. Tell you a little bit about the objectives and principles guiding the handbook. Say a couple of things about what I pick up from the handbooks. And on the last third point, what I would tell the prime minister if an African prime minister asked me what the heck is your handbook about. And then as I was writing this, I got Tony Addison, who is our host here, chief economist here in WIDER, putting on his Twitter account that we should avoid power plans. So I wasn't sure. Tony is a very subtle guy, but this was not a very subliminal message. It was basically to say, we don't want fancy power points. So I decided I would have a mix of strides, a couple of serious slide and things which are less serious. So first, what are the objectives and principles of the handbook? I will say the idea actually comes from a long home. That's probably didn't recognize a younger version of myself there. Professor Robert Solow, in my student days, I went to him. I used to do some work with him. And I went to him and I was puzzled that Nobel laureate of his caliber, whom I admire so much, would never touch Africa. And I will always ask him, why are you not working on Africa? To me, Africa is really the next intellectual challenge from here. All the best minds in research should be working in Africa. It should be a requirement. And he told me, well, Africa is too difficult for me. He said, I deal with economic growth. I know nothing about development. And he explained to me, of course, his perception of the difference. I basically can give some opinion and advice on how you generate growth in an environment where you already have everything, institutions, all the things that you need. But development is a complete, dark subject for me. And I will never touch it. And I was puzzled by the fact that Bob Solow, whom I really think is one of the greatest minds in economics, would say that Africa is too difficult for him. What was that supposed to do to a student? So when we launched this book, we decided, Justin and I, to basically ask the contributors to reflect on two ideas. How economics, the discipline of economics, has been applied or approached in the African context. And what the study of Africa has brought or could bring to economics. So we encourage every contributor to have these two questions in mind. And we really welcome a diversity of opinion. There are 140 contributors in this handbook, each of them writing long papers, 6, 8, 10,000 word papers. And we really didn't want people who simply agree with us. And we were very lucky because I am our editor and courageous. He said, just go ahead. We want good stuff. So it was also a challenge for us as editors to publish things that we disagree with. But we welcome that. And we, of course, have the books here. And I really hope even if you don't buy those, you can have your library's order one or two copies of each. OK. Here is just a small sample of some of the contributors. By the way, there are 18 of them attending this wider conference. I counted on the program, 18 out of nearly 140. These are just a few pictures. Of course, you recognize, I hope, all of them, or almost all of them, from Joe Stiglitz to Hajun Chang. Next to Hajun Chang is Julia Kaje, who's at former Harvard and now in Paris, who's doing this amazing work on the economics of media. Somebody looked at this and said to me, well, what's the criteria that you use to select these pictures? I said, it was almost random. They said, well, economists are not supposed to be good looking. Most of them look quite nice. That's strange. So you have Jeff Sachs, Roger Meiss, and Korshik Basu, Ashley Ben-Undulu, Ernest Aite. Hakim Ben-Amouda here was minister of finance in Tunisia until a few weeks ago. And we are very grateful to him because he was writing his chapter while dealing with one of the most difficult period in his country's history. Mustafa Nabli, central bank governor in Tunisia at the time and also an amazing range of people. Paul Collier, François Bourguignon, Andrew Berg from the IMF. So you have people with very different views. Maggie Macmillan, who's been doing this cutting-edge work on structural transformation. So that's basically what I wanted to say on the handbook before giving you a couple of highlights. What I've seen in there, of course, it's impossible to try to summarize a work like this. It's completely impossible. But I just pick one or two questions which kind of present me from the beginning. Is the economic age different in Africa? That has been an old debated issue. Even in economics, people tend to forget that. But there is a very important paper published in 1960 by William Jones called Economic Man in Africa. If you don't know that paper, you Google it. It pops up immediately. Economic Man in Africa by William Jones, 1960. And he was an economist, and he wrote about this question of the rationality of the African agent, at least how it's perceived. And he debunked a lot of the fantasies. And he was attacked by many anthropologists who kind of held the other view, that the economic agent is actually different in Africa. And they thought he was positive. How about I can see, 20 minutes left? OK, so I wanted to revisit this question. So there are a couple of chapters that go through that. Is economic thinking in Africa has to be different? Are economic policies in the African context have to be different? Whereas I would say in the first question, no, the economic agent rationality of people, or irrationality of people, depends on the incentive system in place. So I don't think there are people who are particularly rational or people who are particularly irrational. Amartya Sen, by the way, has this interesting paper in 1977 called Rational Fools, in which he also attacks the idea of the rational agent in a very elegant way. But I think that in the African context, policies and thinking should be different, simply because the countries are at different levels of development. And as Justin said, the endowment structure there is different. And we need to build policies and thinking, which depend on the endowment structure. The half book shows me that macro policies in Africa have generally been very good. This is an exception. This is an actual currency from Zimbabwe, which they scrapped two months ago. It's only $100 trillion, Zimbabwe dollar. It's less than $1 US dollar, but they scrapped it. But this is completely unusual, even in Zimbabwe today. So things have improved a lot in terms of the macro. I could show that on the fiscal side. Let me skip this. Institutions. Let me say one thing about this because it's a bit controversial. And it's also something that Augustine probably would disagree with me. And since I see Professor Samuel Wang here with the guru of Tanzanian economics, I cannot resist to stop here for 10 seconds. These are two legends in African history. Former President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Everybody consider almost a cent. Probably the least corrupt leader Africa has ever had, if you perhaps lead the side Mandela. And then on the right, former President Felix of Ft. Bonny of Cote d'Ivoire, who advertised publicly that he was corrupt. At the press conference, oh, yeah, I found a reference. At the press conference, he was asked, is it true you have Swiss bank accounts? He got angry. He said, is there a serious man on earth who doesn't have a Swiss bank account? OK. So he didn't hide away from that. But the difference between these two countries, Tanzania, 60s, 70s, Cote d'Ivoire, 60s, 70s, they all have distortions. But I think President Felix of Ft. Bonny, he only said that his country needed to target industries which would generate a program which were really consistent with the country's comparative advantage, whereas President Nyerere did not. And today, even though he was advertising the fact that his government was not both corruption, people still see him as one of the best leaders Africans have ever had. My point being then that our obsessive focus with fighting corruption and building institutions for countries which are 400, 500, 1,000 GDP per capita may be two emissions and misleading. But we can come back to that. Social change has taken place. This is from an important paper by Margaret Macmillan in the handbook. I'll just skip this. But she has sophisticated empirical analysis to show that structural change is actually occuring. Actually, the title of her paper is Africa's Quiet Revolution. But of course, it's still very slow. So let me jump at the last final slide, perhaps, which is what I would tell the prime minister. I had a former boss who always said to me once I took Robert Barrow, Robert Solow, to Albania, and we wrote a report to advise the Albanian government on how to create jobs. It was a thick report like this. And I brought it to my boss at the war bank, and she said, well, I'm not going to read this. That's 400 pages written by Robert Solow and Robert Barrow. I'm not my showcase. And she said, can you imagine if you were in an elevator with the prime minister and you had two minutes, what would you say to the prime minister of Albania? That's what I want to know about your report. So let me finish with the two minutes, 10 seconds of advice that I would give to the prime minister. First, what Justin said, avoid taking the wrong reference. For too long, we have thought that Burundi should set its goal to be like Switzerland, because they are all land of countries, it's small. And that they should build in Burundi right away the institutions that Switzerland has. But it's difficult. And in fact, it hasn't worked my level. Let's not focus too much on precondition. You need to have all these before you can grow. Now, the last bullet point on Justin's presentation earlier, you really need to look at what you have now and how you can make the most out of what you have now. And that will generate a dynamic. Don't start by listing all the precondition of the things that you need to have. Any country, even the poorest one, people with little education, has something that they can do now to generate and start dynamic growth. You need to find a niche. You need to get into global value chain. And you need to remember one thing, Rwanda's market is the war market, not your next war market. And this is very much the last slide. Nothing else just to provoke, again, some of the people in the room here. I know I always get in trouble when I say this. There's been a focus, for good reason, on regional integration in Africa. We need to remember that Africa currently is 44, 45 countries. If you take the number from the African Union. OK, well, but these 55 countries, 55 countries, if you can't, yeah, by the African Union. African Union have 54, but Morocco stepped out. So when you bring Morocco, you have 55. According to the African Union, I'm not making any political statement about Sahara with the Republic. I'm just taking the, I know Mina is from Morocco, so she's jumping at me right away. I'm taking the African Union official. I'm here from the Royal Atlantic. So, and these 55 countries represent less than 2% of global trade. And look at how big the continent is.  And in fact, in Madagascar, I checked, if you can fit into Madagascar, Japan, and the two Koreas. OK, so it's really a large place. And that's less than 2% of global trade. If you want to put all your money into infrastructure to develop regional integration, you're wrong. I think at this stage, you should look at the US, 21% of global GDP, Europe, 23%, China, 16%, 17%, and that way you should go. That's what the Rwandans and others are doing. So let me stop here and hope we have time for a small fight.


If you want to write blog articles and get those blogs out to the rest of the world, but you don't quite have your own blog ready yet or you're thinking actually, I'm gonna use my blog and I'm gonna get it out there to as many different places as I can. Keep watching this video and remember to subscribe so that you never miss any of the amazing content that I'm bringing to you each and every week. Let's go. Now depending on what industry you're in will obviously depend on where you wanna show up but if you haven't got your own blog set up yet, there's no reason why that should stop you from holding back your wisdom and getting your expertise known in a huge amount of spaces and some of these spaces you might not have heard of that I'm about to share with you. Some of them you might have heard of but you might have not ever associated yourself with being known on those platforms, but why not? If they can do it, then why not you too? So these platforms, there'll be some that you think, no, that's not for me and there'll be others that you think, wow, didn't even realize I could be really showing myself up there in that space as a thought leader or somebody that can contribute. Now the first thing you wanna do is make sure that when I show you these platforms that you don't go into compare and despair or here but everybody is so much bigger and better than me or so much further ahead than me. Seriously, every single one of the people that you see showing up on these platforms that you admire, respect and look up to, they all started where you are starting right now. So just put one foot in front of the other and start helping people. Let go of the fear of judgment. Let go of the fear of the unknown of what if people don't like it or what if people reject it or they challenge it? Let go of any of those things because what if they don't? What if the people that read it actually get some great value from it and when you're speaking from the heart and you're really doing it from a place of wanting to contribute to their life in some way and help them move forward in their life, their career, their money, wealth, health, whatever area it is that you're an expert in or that you maybe don't see yourself as an expert but somebody who just genuinely cares about that topic and you'd like to see other people succeed in that then just start writing, start contributing. So the first place I wanna encourage you to consider is Medium. Medium is a really popular platform for writers and thinkers, people that wanna reach a broad audience and communicate your message in a way that is gonna either get them to think differently or maybe have a different belief than they had at the start of your article. They have a different belief at the end or that you've created some thought curiosity around it. It might be that you've sparked some creativity in them or you're helping them to go from where they are to just one or two steps further ahead than where they are now. There's so many ways that you can think about sharing your articles and Medium's a great place to start. I know a lot of people that share their content on Medium and had a really good response from it and they, like you, were starting somewhere too. So if you haven't started to share your articles yet, Medium's a great place to start doing that. Another great place is LinkedIn. If you have a business audience or a professional audience, if you're not using the blogging feature yet on LinkedIn, what you do is you just go to LinkedIn, go to posts like you usually would post on LinkedIn, but at the bottom currently, at the point of making this view, it might change. So just have a look around in LinkedIn. But when you go to post it, I'll ask you, do you wanna post an article? Do you wanna post an image? Do you wanna post a video? What do you wanna post? And if you wanna post a blog, then you'll choose article and it'll give you the exact layout and make it really simple for you. Title, copy and paste that here. Body copy, copy and paste that here. Add your images here. So you can, it is really plug and play. So you can really play with LinkedIn. And these can be really great ways if you're getting used to doing it on somebody else's platform like LinkedIn is an open platform that has millions of people on there. And if you post it on your own blog, then you've gotta drive people to your blog.  And I think that's an amazing thing. I think, how amazing is that? That without having to pay for advertising, without having to pay to get yourself publicly featured in magazines and paid for press, you could actually be in front of way more people faster who are really interested and intrigued and curious about that particular topic. So I think it's brilliant. You'll show up for that particular thing they're looking for. Whereas if you advertise, you can't guarantee the people that are gonna see it. So another place is entrepreneur. If you go to entrepreneur.com, they allow guest contributors to share their insights on various business topics. So if you write maybe two or three blogs, maybe four blogs and submit them, then you might get one of those articles featured. It's a great way of showing up. A place that I haven't talked about on here that I'll mention just briefly is if you want to really get found in a bigger way by journalists and people who are picking up comments and they're looking for people to write articles for magazines and things, is to go to ex formerly known as Twitter and use the hashtag feature, type in hashtag journal requests, which is J-O-U-R-N-O requests. And also there's a singular version of that. So journal request. So type one with an S and one without on the end. And you'll find that there are two Twitter feeds there or X feeds that have journalists asking for people just like you to contribute in major news articles on the global press, but also in local press too. And they might be submitting a research document to Harvard or somewhere that you could have one of your comments or some of your research published in their article. And now you're just using other people's platforms and networks to get your message out in the biggest way that you can. So that's another idea for you that you could use. Some other places for you, HuffPost. So HuffPost has a contributor platform that covers a wide range of topics, including business, entrepreneurship and perhaps even topics in your niche. So have a look at HuffPost and see if there's something there that you think, oh yeah, like there's somebody writing about this. I could also write about that from a different perspective. So that's another opportunity for you to get your content seen by thousands, if not millions of people over the course of time that that article is shared. Quora, you might have used Quora to go and ask a question, but you could also use Quora to answer other people's questions. So this is a great way of positioning you as an expert in your field. And of course, as you answer their questions, you can also say, I actually wrote about this in XYZ blog, go check this out. Or I created a video on this exact topic just last month. Go to my YouTube channel, you'll find out more of answer this question in more depth. You might even look at a question on Quora, decide that you are gonna create content to respond to that. And you could create a video on YouTube and say, hey, I just saw your question. I think it's great, here are some tips for you. And I've created an article, read it here or I've created a video or I've just recorded a blog, a podcast to answer your question. Click here to go find out more. You can use these platforms to drive them out to other things. And I really would actively encourage you to have your platform and their platform dancing together in that way. Reddit is another great place that you can show up. There are things called subreddits. So you go and find the subreddit related to your industry or niche and then start sharing content on that. So for example, I've just given an example here, if your business is in the spiritual space, you could go and find relevant subreddits that people who are interested in spiritual topics such as our stroke spirituality or our stroke mindfulness, our stroke stress, our stroke anxiety, our stroke workplace wellbeing, whatever it is that you want to talk about, go and do a search and see if there's already content that's showing up for that. Because if there is, then it shows that there's a potential need for what you're talking about. And you could just give yourself a month maybe, say I'm gonna submit one or two articles a week for a month to this platform. And if I don't get anything from it, then I'll choose a different platform. But over the course of that month, I'll have written topic that can be repurposed and used in other places. And you might choose two or three of these places that I'm sharing with you and share that article across those three places, maybe tweaking about 25% of that article. So write one article, but repurpose it. So you get in it into three different places and just rehash around 25 to 30% of the article to feature it on another platform. And that way you are creating unique content for each of those platforms, but you're using the skeleton structure of the main article to be able to do that so that you haven't got duplicate content that's either registering on their platform and also on Google. Remember, Google will look at duplicate content and it will just disqualify it. So all of these places are very keyword rich. They are Google juice.  The higher their website ranks, the higher your article has the potential to rank and for you to be found in a bigger way by more strangers converting them into friends. Mix is formerly known as stumble upon. You might have heard of that before. Mix allows you to share content with a wide audience. So again, you can think about what topic and niche you wanna show up in and go and see if there's something happening there. And if there is, start writing some content, contribute some content for it. Another way is you write your articles and then you guest post on specific blogs. So for example, you might do some research on your specific industry and find that there are three websites that are really crushing it that you could contribute your content on their website. So write the articles and then submit them. So send an email to the person who owns that website and say, hey, I would be really honored to write some content for your blog. I've taken the liberty of writing one that's in alignment with what I think your values are and the content you're sharing with your audience. I'd love to have you use this article on your website to help your viewers, help your readers with my specific area of interest, which is this. And so give them that blog. I've posted other people's blogs on my blog. They've sent me an article. They've done exactly this strategy. They've reached out to me by email. They've said exactly what I've just said to you. I've gone back to them and said, read the article, brilliant, totally fits with what we're doing. Where do you want it to link to?  Cause obviously you want to drive that traffic to somewhere else. So it might be your YouTube channel. If you don't have a blog or a website yet, you might have a Facebook group or something. So that might, you know, use this as an opportunity to have their blog be your lily pad to jump them from their blog to yours. Another way of doing it is to reach out to me. We have our Ripple Makers platform. So if you've got something that you think will be really impactful that would help Ripple Makers who are wanting to make a difference out in the world, they want to create opportunities for other people. They want to speak, train, coach. They want to create a ripple effect in the lives of others. If you've got content that you think will be really helpful for my people, then send me your article. Write your article, send it to me. Do exactly the same thing that I just suggested with a guest post, only you're writing it to me. And if I think that it will help our viewers and our readers and our listeners, then I will most definitely feature that. I'll copy and paste your content into our blog and I'll send it out with a link to you or your website or wherever it is you want them to go. And that will get you seen by all the people that I've built up in my audience. Another thing you could do is post on Google My Business. So if you have set yourself up with a Google My Business page, you will need a physical location to do that.  You can put your posts up there. You can share what's going on in your business that day. You can put articles. You can do all kinds of things with Google My Business. You can upload images. You can show demonstrations of your work, videos. You can put all sorts of things on Google My Business. Of course, anything to do with Google is gonna help your ranking and get you found by more strangers so that you convert those strangers into friends. And hopefully lifetime clients. So you can use the post feature on Google My Business to share all your updates and articles. It's a brilliant way of you getting found by Google. And of course, if somebody's typing into Google the problem that they have and your articles on your Google My Business account match the relevancy of the question that they're asking, then they're gonna show your article. Alignable is another way that you can connect with other local businesses and share your expertise on their community platform. So if you wanna connect with other business owners around the world or you want to collaborate, you might be looking for ambassadors. You might be looking for partners to take your content out, your message out to the world. You might even be training other people on how they can take your method out to the world. So you might connect with other people on Alignable and create a brilliant network of other people that could be sharing your content and maybe even training in what you provide and going out there and sharing it with their own networks. BizSugar is another one. You can share small business tips and articles. So if you've got a business-related niche that you're focused on or content that you're focused on, this is a great community-driven platform. You can share your articles and tips on there. Inbound.org is another one. If you have marketing-specific, so if you're a marketing specialist or visibility or branding or publishing or trademarks, anything that is specific to growing and building a business using marketing or visibility strategies, then this is a really good one to start featuring your business on. Write some articles for them. E-Zine articles is another one. It's a directory. You can submit your articles and promote your articles on there. BuzzFeed is another one. You might have heard of them before. So if you've got a bit of a lighter tone, then BuzzFeed could be the best place for you to be sharing your content. Just go on and have a look at the BuzzFeed community, see if they're talking about topics like the topic that you wanna share, and just get started to start submitting. Another one is Patch. So if your business serves local communities, then say you've got a charity or an organization that you wanna support in your local area, Patch allows you to contribute hyper-local content, like really, really local content around your local area with local audiences. So it's worth you checking that out if you have a physical, in-person business. D-Zone is another one if you are tech related. So if what you do is around the tech industry, having a tech conversation, then D-Zone is a great community for developers and tech professionals where you can start really building up your brand and your expertise, your wisdom in there. The Moz community is ideal for you if you're in the digital marketing space. I'm just gonna whiz through these now because there are so many places that you can get your message across. Bigger Pockets is a great one if you're in the real estate industry, and the property sector. Justia, if you're in the legal industry, you can post legal articles and showcase your expertise on there. Company updates, industry insights, thought leadership content, great. If you wanna get that across, use Crunchbase, academia, another one for academic-type content. I thought I'd throw this one in here as well because there are many people certainly in my community that are either in a spiritual business themselves or they want to create content and support people that are going through their spiritual transition, for example. So, spiritual networks is a really good one to create discussions around that specific topic and use their network to build your own network and drive them out to you. Tumblr is also another good one. Soul Bridging, if you wanna attract people that are going through their spiritual journey, I threw these in because I know there's quite a lot of spiritual people in my community.  If you're a coach or a trainer, a speaker, here are some that will really help you to get your message out there. And again, Harvard Business Review is an example we've published in there, we've featured in there before. And while it is more selective, if you can get your article published on the Harvard Business Review blog, then that can be a massive boost to your credibility, especially if you're a coach or a business leader in the leadership domain. If you're a speaker, there are some other places like Toastmasters for example, Psychology Today, Psychology Life Coaching niche, that's good for you if you're in that Forbes Coaches Council.  Training Industry Blog, so there are lots of places that you can feature your content, but create that content and then show up every day in as many places as you can to point people to it. I hope that this has been useful for you. I can't wait to hear how you're getting on or out of all of the places that I've shared today. Just put in the comments below, which ones do you think resonate with you? And maybe pick one or two that you think, yeah, actually I could create that one article and I can spread it across maybe three of the different networks here or the three that I'm gonna choose. And every day, if you spend an hour a day either creating that article or driving people to that article and then spend the rest of your day just getting on with what you do best, then you're gonna find that visibility strategy just one hour a day is going to significantly increase your footprint. It will create a ripple of impact beyond what you could ever expect. And you're gonna be helping lives that even if they don't comment, even if they don't take the time to share and say thank you, just know that you are making a difference and do it not for the likes and shares, do it because it's the right thing to do. Take care, make sure you subscribe if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet. Do make sure you do that so you don't miss any of our other awesome content and we'll look forward to seeing you in the next video.