Alot of the people I coach get really frustrated when it comes to getting out of their financial situation and getting their hustle on. I experienced this same frustration when I started out, and came to the realization that the problem I had wasnt a lack of money, it was a lack of ideas. I had no money because I had no ideas on how to make money.

That all changed when I picked up a book called Jump Start Your Business Brain by a guy named Doug Hall. He co-hosts a live radio show on WVXU in Cincinnati, is the founder and CEO of Eureka! Ranch, which is a corporate innovation, research and training center, and helps companies build their businesses with new ideas and strategies.The book didnt give me all the answers, but it started me down the right path. I highly recommend you check it out!

Ok, so where do ideas come from? The two best sources of new ideas are (1)”information cross-pollination” and (2) exposure to different ways of doing things.

Turning Information Into Ideas

Getting ideas from information is like cross pollination. Cross pollination occurs in the animal kingdom when birds and insects carry seed from one plant to the other, fertilizing the receiving plant in the process. Vast fields of blooms are the result of these animals going from plant to plant. Coming up with fertile ideas is rarely the result of reading a single book or studying a single subject matter. You will harvest your best ideas from going from book to book and subject to subject. You are more likely to discover new ways to make money by studying biology, history, sociology, and Mediterranean cooking along with business and financial books that if you just studied books on making money.

A great example of cross-pollination is the discovery of Velcro. The inventor combined his knowledge of engineering with his study of nature and became filthy rich. I make it a point to regularly diversify my information diet by reading books on a diverse array of subjects, listening to podcasts that are informative but have nothing to do with money (like Blog Talk Radio’s Zeitgeist Movement podcast), and watching The History Channel. Read newspapers from other cities and other countries. Watch channels that you have never watched before. Diversify your knowledge intake. The result could be the million dollar idea that youve been waiting for.

Turning Exposure Into Ideas

One of the best ways to gain exposure to new and different ideas, practices, and opportunities is travel. The time I spent overseas was more than just a break from the sameness of American society; it was an opportunity for me to experience first hand how other cultures lived and thrived. I discovered solutions to problems that they had come up with. For instance, Japan’s small land mass meany they didnt have room for expansive parking lots. Their solution was to build a mechanical parking garage that could store parked vehicles in a much smaller facility. My travels in the middle east exposed me to Aquaponics, a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics that allowed Africans to grow both crops and fish in the middle of the desert. Traveling is the absolute best method of coming up with new ideas. Just look at what Ed has done with the Japanese vending machine business model. (I wish I could find a Georgia Coffee in America!)

If you cant get to Japan, try heading to any other region right here in America. The cultures in Seattle, Los Angeles, Mobile, Louisville, and Baltimore are all different from each other. If youre not from those areas, you can learn much from the way they do business and take the ideas you come up with back home to launch a new and different product or service.

And even if you cant get outside of your region physically, theres the internet. Sites like this, The Block Standard Network, Dream and Hustle, and many others are all dedicated to helping you come up with new hustles and ideas that could help you change your financial situation. There really is no excuse for limiting your exposure.

Capturing Ideas

Keep a notepad on you at all times. Keep a notepad next to your bed. Keep a notepad with you while youre in the gym. The best ideas have the tendency to pop up when you least expect them to. Dont run the risk of forgetting your million dollar idea because you didnt write it down!

ACT!

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.” – Swami Vivekananda

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” – Buddha

Action is the most important thing when it comes to ideas. I have talked about this before in my post, Ideas are Useless, where I also gave you step by step instructions for capitalizing on them. Dont talk yourself out of the idea before taking action on it, but put it into action. Wear it out. Do everything in your power to make your idea work. Truly put it to the test. Invest your life savings into making it successful. If you have invested a godly amount of effort and money into making your idea successful and it still fails, only then can you call it a bad idea and move on to the next idea thats written down in your book. Re-read Swami Vivekananda’s quote above.

Diversify your knowledge, gain exposure to new ideas and cultures, capture your ideas in writing, and put the idea into action. This is one of the many formulas for success.

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This is a short, powerful film by my girl Naomi Klein. In the spirit of taking control of your world and the world around you, you need to be familiar with the tactics that your adversary/oponent/ antagonist will use against you. This video does just that. Watch and Learn.

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In honor of Black History Month, I give you this post.

Do you know what the number one methodology used by slave masters (BOTH IN THE PAST AND TODAY) to keep their slaves in a captive mentality was? I want to quote from a document called the Willie Lynch letter on how to thoroughly break a slave and keep him in pocket, and whether you think this speech was real or not, the parables that are talked about couldn’t be more real. So I quote:

You know language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people. The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country the more he is able to move through all levels of that society. Therefore, if the foreigner is an enemy of the country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign culture. For example, if you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets, and he is then no more a slave, for you can’t fool him any longer, and BEING A FOOL IS ONE OF THE BASIC INGREDIENTS OF ANY INCIDENTS TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE SLAVERY SYSTEM. For example, if you told a slave that he must perform in getting out “our crops” and he knows the language well, he would know that “our crops” didn’t mean “our crops” and the slavery system would break down, for he would relate on the basis of what “our crops” really meant. So you have to be careful in setting up the new language; for the slaves would soon be in your house, talking to you as “man to man” and that is death to our economic system.

Now, one of the reasons Im about to start doing podcasts and video is that a lot of the black men and women I market my site to say “Well, I don’t read a lot. I mean, I read the sports page, and that’s it, Im not a reader”.  And if you look at a lot of black social networking profiles under the section entitled “Reading” or “Books I like”, most of them type out the fact that they don’t read, don’t like reading, have no interest in reading.The title of this post came from someone I met in a restaurant. After offering him a book suggestion, he retorted “Mayne, real niggas dont read!”….

I agreed with that statement on one level: Niggas (root word niggers) dont read. The very word is synonymous with ignorance. But to imply that to be a real African American, you should embrace ignorance and shun reading is both sad and dangerous.

In today’s world, because we are in the information age, if you don’t read you are still a slave. Let me re-quote the Willie Lynch letter : BEING A FOOL IS ONE OF THE BASIC INGREDIENTS OF ANY INCIDENTS TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE SLAVERY SYSTEM. By avoiding reading, you remain an economic slave, a slave in the penal system, a slave in the corporate system, and a social slave.

Interpret these two graphs, and you should understand the resulting dangers of not reading, or exercising what limited reading skills you possess.

Are You Still A Slave?

Some of you are also familiar with “Blacks Dont Read: They are Still Our Slaves“. Reportedly written by a Caucasian, this post was circulated on the net in 2006 and read on air in New York via a radio station. In it, the author writes:

Their IGNORANCE is the primary weapon of containment.

A great man once said, “The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book.” We now live in the Information Age. They have gained the opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts of their fight for freedom, yet they refuse to read. There are numerous books readily available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com, not to mention their own Black Bookstores that provide solid blueprints to reach economic equality (which should have been their fight all along), but few read consistently, if at all.

He closes with his monologue with this:

Yes, we will continue to contain them as long as they refuse to read, continue to buy anything they want, and keep thinking they are “helping” their communities by paying dues to organizations which do little other than hold lavish conventions in our hotels.

By the way, don’t worry about any of them reading this letter, remember, ‘THEY DON’T READ!

Now the funny thing about this whole post is that while I was doing the research for it, I came across this blogsite called Preavil Haiti. Blacks Dont Read was re-posted there in 2008 with the opening statement, “How much if this is true for Haitian people, in Haiti and abroad?”. I hope black Americans, Haitians, and every other uneducated and mis-educated population in the world turns their back on the doctrine that they have lived by, the doctrine that “real niggas dont read”

If you encounter this mentality, print this post out, give it to the man or woman that believes that to be black means to be ignorant, and talk about it. Be the catalyst for change. It is willful ignorance and apathy that is the real danger to blacks in America.This post goes for every other socially disadvantaged and media consumed culture in the world.

On Thursday, Im going to post some very relevant video that will help you to open your eyes to whats really going on in the world around you.

Information is resistance. Arm yourself and others.

P.S. I just finished watching the movie Precious for the first time. Coincidentally, I think the whole point of the movie was what I just finished writing!

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If you are new to this site, one of my roles here is to inform offer consultation on the street level. I teach hustlers to maximize their earnings potential regardless of where they are in life and in business.This post is a very small example of the advice I give.

In an email from Derrick Chavis (aka “THE HUNGRY JEWELER”), one of the many people I met on Tariq Nasheed’s United Players of America Message Board, he asks:

Im getting my tax return in a couple of days..thinking on what to do with it so I can be straight this whole year. I want to invest some $$ back into my business like biz cards, maybe a website. Buy a few products to sell here and there…Plus I sell wheels & tires also as a side hustle so I need to capitalize on that too

Heres my response:
Im happy to hear that more people are starting to use their tax returns to invest in their businesses and their portfolios! To start off, you need to have some things on hand to make your business look legitimate. Business cards are a good start, and at Vistaprint , theyre free or very cheap ($14.00). You wont even notice spending such a small amount for a big return.

Setting up a website is a good idea, but only after you have tried selling on sites like eBay and Amazon to test the viability of your products online. Otherwise, think about setting up a free Wordpress site until you become proficient with eCommerce (If you aren’t already).

One of the best things that you can do in this down economy is educate yourself on ways to reach your market, and educate your market on why they should buy from you via intelligent marketing. Pick up Guerilla Marketing on the Internet: The Definitive Guide from the Father of Guerilla Marketing or Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days (I read this book 5 years ago, and I still use some of the low-cost, highly effective techniques taught).

Think about buying some adspace online at sites like Baller Status, Hip Hop DX, and Global Grind. Advertising need not be expensive; for physical material that will help you become an established brand, check out The PR Store, and think about hiring a graphic artist online that will help you design a flashy logo. Not to toot our horns or anything, but heres the Block Standard logo that exemplifies what a good logo should be:

All in all, if educate yourself and your market, operate intelligently, and continue to invest in effective advertising, you should make whatever you spend right back.

Keep Hustling!

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