iEphraim

see part 1 In this part, I will be highlighting some of the activities you can engage in outside work. If I may add,t you can also choose to close early from work and do some of these activities. Travelling/Vacation: Someone once said, traveling is a form of learning and I totally agree. However, that motivation is good for those who don’t like travelling for the fun of it. Just before you mention the financial constraints, note that you don’t need to travel far away. You can travel to the next street, just leave home and be away! Do Sleepovers: Do you really need a breakdown of this? Okay, this means sleep anywhere other than your house. You could go visit a friend, family or hotel. This breaks the routine, helps you to interact with others outside your regular cycle. Eat out – I know you do this sometimes at work. However, do this more regularly even when you are outside work. At least ones in a quarter, have dinner/lunch with that special somebody at a five star hotel (any...

I have seen many people; old and young make the same mistake every now and then in the quest to be make money quickly. I will attempt to show you how.       Firstly, let’s deal with your GREED! There is an element of greed in everyone, no matter how small. However, you must try to tame your greed level by first thinking with your BRAIN before anything else. Otherwise, you will end up frustrated or swindled.  Think about this, someone else already has the money you are aiming at. Guess what? That person is not satisfied! Ask the richest persons in the world if they are satisfied. So, even if you are Bill Gate you will still want more. Capisce ? Why do you need the money? This is probably a silly question. Is it? My grandma will always say, when motive is not defined, idea is distorted. Define your motive truthfully and justify why you think you really deserve to go on with the decision. Don’t try to deceive yourself. This self-examination will gives a clear mi...

Is it absolutely possible to have this in real life? Why is this important? How can one achieve this? I will try to answer these questions the best way I can in this piece.   Is it absolutely possible to have this in real life? The obvious answer is yes. The work system naturally makes allowance for work life balance by providing what they tagged, "Annual Leave". The annual leave period rages from10 to 40 days depending on organization and rank of the individual. This tag is not for decoration, it is for real! You are not expected to work throughout the year, you need to take a break that is the design. Whether you take your annual leave or not is a different ball game. The choice is actually yours to make. Why is this important? Taking your leave is your responsibility if you are serious about finding balance. You need to deliberately and consciously make that decision for a number of reasons. First off, your health! Your body is not a machine, even machines need breaks....

Entrepreneurship, Career and IT Blog: The Secrets to Passing ICAN PE1 Exams (Part 1)

This piece is dedicated to my good friend. I know she won’t want her name mentioned here but she will definitely be among the first people to read this. Thank you for the inspiration to write this. At different times in life, we expect to move to the next stage; like after primary school, secondary school, then JAMB, then University, then get a job, then get married, have children, watch them grow, and live happily ever after with your family…hmmm!!! Life would indeed have been so interesting without waiting for too long at any of the stages, it’d have been all trilling and bliss etc, but many a time, what we expect and how we want things to turn out do not always happen the way we expect. The worst part of the whole thing is that those we think/know we are better than always get past us along the way. And we wonder why our case was different. Some would even ask, “God, but why me?” This is a difficult situation to be believe me, I’ve been there not once and not twice. You’ll feel inad...

B usiness owners fall into two categories- the self employed and the entrepreneurs.   The self employed are those who have talent and skill and they know there are people willing to pay them for their time, product and service. So they employ themselves rather than work for someone else. They begin marketing their products and after a while they have some customers. After a while, they find themselves working too many hours, they can’t take too much time off because without them there is no business or income. The entrepreneurs, on the other hand are the business owners who seems to grow their business effortlessly, and maintain steady growth. They can afford to take some time off to participate in other activities because they’ve empowered people to be like them.   What do they know that the self employed do not?   They have gained the entrepreneurial mindset. An entrepreneur is a great strategist and a master at getting others excited about helping them grow their b...

Tackling Management Accounting (MA)   Management Accounting was perhaps my most dreaded course in my PE 1 days. Even after the results were released and I passed, I was still scared!!!       Ok back to you and your MA at the PE1 level, the simple technique which I discovered after the exams was that, MA has standards! There are selected topics in the syllabus that are recurrent year in, year out. You must identify these topics and master them. Some of them are; Capital Budgeting, Standard Costing, Cost Estimation Techniques, etc. You must practice them again and again. When you finally master them, no matter how they twist the questions you will definitely find a way around it.       Passing Advance Audit and Assurance (AAA)   Somehow I’m tempted to say there are no standard ways of passing AAA, but deep down there are! I’ve seen ‘scholars’ write this particular course repeatedly for up to three (3) times! The way I’ve come to understand it is t...