Musa’s RPC Blog

A great way to improve your productivity is to properly allocate your time. Time is our most limited resource, so it is crucial to use it as efficiently as possible. Combining that with Pareto’s Law (which states that 20% of our action accounts for 80% of our results), we can find the few biggest flaws in our schedules to make the greatest impact. By spending more time reading, wasting less time on electronics, and improving my sleep schedule, I can drastically increase my productivity.

Reading is a great skill to have, since it is frequently needed in our day-to-day lives. Reading improves your vocabulary and your comprehension, generally improving your English. Better yet, practicing improving your reading speed is a high return-on-investment activity, allowing you to read articles and consume information at a more efficient rate.

Improving our schedule is not only about what we start doing, but also what we stop. The average American spends about 7 hours of screen time per day, and much of it is spent on wasteful activities such as browsing social media, talking to friends, etc. By cutting out these activities, we can open up lots of time in our day for more beneficial activities such as reading.

A better sleep schedule leads to better productivity throughout our day. Many people have a tendency of staying up late while your brain is less effective, and sleeping in while our brain is most effective. By sleeping early and waking early, we can utilize these morning hours when our brain functions best, and eliminate the late hours when we are tired and unproductive. As you practice this early-to-bed, early-to-rise sleep schedule, you will notice a spike in productivity, as we are more productive when well-rested.

Since time is limited, it is very important to allocate it effectively. Increasing reading practice, cutting back on wasteful screen time, and fixing up my sleep schedule are the three ways that will most drastically improve my productivity and efficiency. As mentioned earlier, our biggest flaws cause the majority of our problems. So now that you’ve read this, try to identify for yourself the three ways your time is wasted the most and improve on them.

It is a common habit among most adults all over the world to buy consumer goods with credit. It is convenient when purchasing something that you can’t pay for at the moment, because it gives you a chance to get what you need now and pay the price later. However, it is unwise to buy consumer goods with credit, since consumer goods are not profitable, and your debt begins to compound faster as you earn money to pay it off.

Buying consumer goods with credit is a bad habit but borrowing money for an investment is acceptable. If you want to start a business, for example, it may be a good investment to borrow money to fund it. Other areas of investment are also acceptable reasons to borrow money. If you see a great opportunity in the stock market, in currency trading, or anything of the sort, it is in fact wise to borrow money to seize the opportunity before it goes. These are much more intelligent places to get money quickly, because if you make good decisions and invest wisely, will be able to pay off your debt and make a profit.

Contrary to intelligent investments, consumer goods don’t make you any money. When you’re investing money, you’re hoping to make more back, enough to pay off debts if you borrowed the investment money. But when you’re buying consumer goods, you just consume the product, and you’re left to face the consequences. You now have a debt to pay off that you can’t afford, and as you’re making the money to, it exponentially increases monthly. While it’s tempting to buy what you want faster and procrastinate paying, it’s important to remember that you’ll be left with a growing debt and to decide if the purchase is still worth the struggle.

Using credit to pay for products that depreciate is a bad habit and an unwise decision. It is wiser to borrow money to invest in a business or other matter, because while there is still a risk of loss, there is also a chance of profit. But buying consumer goods with credit is always unprofitable since the product can’t make you money and leaves you in debt.

ESSAY PROMPT: “How much money won’t I have at age 70 if I keep watching TV? Is TV worth this?”

    Watching TV is an everyday activity for people all over the world. It’s considered a waste of time and is a pretty tough habit to break. Every moment you’re sitting watching TV is a moment that could’ve been spent on something more productive. This is a concept called “opportunity cost”. If you decide to start a small business, depending on how young you are and how fast it grows, you will have a fortune by the time you’re 70 years old, a fortune you couldn’t have made spending your time watching TV.

    For anyone who isn’t familiar, opportunity cost is essentially the concept that whenever you’re spending time doing anything, even if it costs no money, this activity is costing you opportunities. Opportunities to do more work and get ahead, opportunities to start a business, opportunities to engage in any sort of entrepreneurial activity. But these are all neglected as your time and focus is being drained into a different activity. There’s a saying, “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” (TANSTAAFL), that’s purpose is to remind us of opportunity cost. Though barely qualifying as grammatically sound, the phrase describes a financially costless activity as a “free lunch”, while stating that there is no such thing because it costs opportunities.

    Businesses are great sources of financial income. Depending on how well you market your services, businesses can make lots of steady income. And as your business attracts more customers, your profits begin to increase. The income increases like compound interest. Use an online compound interest calculator to estimate a potential gross profit for a small business. Guess how many hours of TV-watching you do per month, multiply that by $20/hour, and then input that as your initial investment. (If you waste about 5 hours/day on screens, this should equivalate to $3,000). Enter 10 years in length of time, set the estimated interest rate to 25%, set the compound frequency to annually, and click “Calculate”. With $3,000, that comes out around $27.9k. Now add that result to how much you’d be making monthly if your rate was $50 per hour wasted on TV (for me that’s $7.5k + $27.9k = $35.4k). Set that as your initial investment and 40 years as your length of time, then calculate (my result is over $50 million). You will see crazy amounts of money, made over 50 years in a small business. These values are decently accomplishable for a business, and you can make this a reality if you hustle.

    A business looks like a great way to make money, but the majority of people don’t attempt to start one. Most people settle for a job instead, since it’s more achievable, lower risk, more conventional, and less complicated to start. Imagine a cashier, a very common job with a pretty low wage. Here in New York, a cashier is paid about $14/hour. The average salary of a cashier in America is around $29k/year, and if you multiply that by 50 years you get $1.45 million dollars. That sounds amazing, but considering you’d spend your entire lifetime working at Walmart 8 hours/day, and that your living expenses would take a huge chunk out of that, it’s not as great as it seems.

    If you worked a regular job like a cashier for most of your life, then spent your leisure time watching TV, you’re blowing major opportunities. If you put hard work and real effort into starting a successful business, you can make a fortune that your family could live off of for generations. In conclusion, if working a minimum wage job for 50 years makes a gross profit less than $1.5 million while starting a successful business can make you 40-50 times as much, it’s very clear that watching TV is not worth its gigantic opportunity cost.

American writer Harry Browne published a book called The Secret of Selling Anything in the late 1960’s teaching others how to be successful salesmen.  In 14 chapters, he explains in detail each step of his approach to selling a product and the logic behind the step.  The principle of service plays such a crucial role in his method, because without it, his strategy would be practically useless.  The principle of service consists of a consumer having needs, a seller providing a solution, and then making a happy exchange.  Harry Browne’s approach to selling relies on the principle of service because his steps consist of understanding a customer’s problems and providing a solution.

The first step Browne teaches is to identify the needs of your customer.  Doing this will help you understand what service is relevant.  Find out what the buyer wants to accomplish and help them accomplish it.  They are probably already motivated to, so it should be simple to get them talking about it, to gain information on which service is necessary.

Next, you need to confirm that you understand this buyer’s needs.  Agree with what they have told you and try to summarize it for yourself.  Verbally discuss ways to let him get what he wants, and answer any questions he asks, whether it will help you sell something or not.

Now that you know of his wants and needs, you may be able to solve his problems.  Think of something that you could sell to him.  If you have a product that fulfills the customer’s needs, then it will be easy to convince the person to buy it from you.

But to sell that product, you’ll also need to introduce it well.  Present it in a way that shows how it suits the customer’s desires.  Make it a simple process for him to buy it, by showing him the steps he must take to.  For example, a webpage with a clear list of instructions helps buyers understand how to buy a product.  And when selling any product, it is crucial to ensure that you don’t oversell it.  Never promise more than you can deliver.  The comparison of what the customer expected versus what they received will make them feel cheated, and unsatisfying your customers is never a good thing, since you need them to buy from you.

Finally, make sure to follow up after the sale.  Make sure that your customer is happy with the product, and not at all resentful.  The best sale is a sale that leads to another sale.  You want more sales; it benefits both of you.  Do your best to make sure you can keep your customers with you to keep buying from you.

That concludes Browne’s approach to selling a product and all the important content of his book.  In conclusion, Harry Browne’s selling strategy is reliant on the principle of service because he finds and understands a customer’s needs, solves their problems by presenting a solution, and he follows up to ensure the customer is happy.

                As many people are aware, machinery and artificial intelligence (AI) is improving rapidly over the years and taking jobs.  In the past, machines have taken jobs that were simple, easy, and tedious.  While they make processes simpler for bosses, workers are losing their jobs.  And as technology has been skyrocketing, machinery continues to replace more complex jobs.  This brings my point of how I won’t lose my job by starting a business.  AI and machines are becoming more and more capable and are taking most jobs, so I have to either become my own boss or get fired by someone else. While you can still go out of business, since you are your own boss, you have a lot more control over your situation.

                A huge part of estimating technological development is Moore’s law.  First theorized by Gordon Moore in 1965, Moore’s law predicts that roughly every 2 years, transistors (a component inside all computers and machines) will get twice as small.  Smaller transistors leave space for more transistors, which bumps up information processing speeds.  This is how technology is revolutionizing by the year.  Faster processing speeds give AI more capability, and as discussed, help them take more jobs.

                If we look back a couple of centuries, separating seeds from cotton fibers was a simple but tedious task that took many people cooperating to hasten.  But after Eli Whitney’s invention, one man simply needed to turn on a machine to get the job done.  Another example is how no one needed to write a copy of a book by hand anymore, ever since the invention of the printing press.  This situation has been repeated over centuries and will continue to repeat.  Whether this is a good or bad thing, it means millions of Americans have lost their jobs over the past few decades.  Today, people with simple jobs are being replaced by technology.

You will probably lose your job in the future to AI, but getting a job isn’t the only way to make money.  Another great option is starting a business.  Depending on how much work you put into growing it, you can make way more than any job could earn you.  If there has ever been a good time to start a business, it is definitely now.  AI won’t stop improving, and there aren’t many years left until there are only the most challenging jobs left.  If I run a business of my own, in about 10 years or so, I will have less of a threat of losing my source of income, while also making a decent amount of profit while learning how to be an entrepreneur.  Most of us don’t stand a chance competing with AI, since they can provide better service, work for free, and can work 24 hours a day without a break.

    In conclusion, AI is improving quickly and taking over most jobs. Employees are replaced by robots, but business owners can’t be. By owning a business, you will stay working, and stay earning.

    In A Bus Of My Own, the autobiography of American journalist Jim Lehrer, a crucial part of the story is when he had a heart attack. While having a heart attack is nearly never a good thing, Lehrer’s wasn’t all bad. In fact, it was more of a good thing than a bad thing. When he survived the incident, he changed for the better. Jim Lehrer’s heart attack was an overall benefit because he cut out unhealthy habits, took better care of his body, and taught others how to avoid heart attacks.

    For the past thirty years leading up to his heart attack, Lehrer described himself as a heavy smoker. He recognized this as a bad addiction and had been trying to cut it out for a while. However, while he was trying to break his addiction, he would just keep smoking in secret. This all changed when Lehrer had a heart attack. After seeing what smoking did to his health, he instantly cut it out. This was understandably a very difficult decision since it had been a very regular thing in his life for years. It was presumably the fear of the damage smoking can do and the danger of it that drove him to finally put an end to his habit.

    Like most Americans, Lehrer had a bad diet for most of his life. He mostly ate junk food and processed food every day. But when he had a heart attack, made him realize that he is not a healthy person, which pushed him to acknowledge his flaws and improve on them. While in the hospital, Lehrer wrote a list of what he needed to stop doing and took action on it. He cut out from smoking after decades, fixed his diet, and started going to the gym three times every week.

    Not only did Lehrer benefit himself from his heart attack, but so did others. When Lehrer recovered from his heart attack, he decided to make a short film about heart attacks. He covered a variety of topics such as what causes heart attacks and how to prevent falling victim to one. He mentions in the autobiography that a woman called him and told him a story about how his documentary helped her be prepared for one of her friends who had one, who would’ve had a heart attack unexpectedly otherwise.

    An important thing to learn here and to be inspired by is the fact that after the heart attack, Lehrer didn’t just sit back and pray that he wouldn’t go through it again. He recognized his problems and put as much effort as he could into fixing them, going as far as cutting out his addictions and habits. In conclusion, the time when Jim Lehrer had a heart attack helped him more than it hurt him. Since he survived the incident, he managed to cut out smoking completely, start eating healthier, start doing more physical exercise, and even made a documentary to educate others about heart attacks.