I’ve hit bottom before. I mean zero dollars both in hand and bank.

I hit bottom in my writing business during the first few years of working as a content writer. At the time, my only option was to give up.

This is not to say writing is not profitable. When done well, it is as lucrative as you want it to be. But when I just started, I made many mistakes that either left money on the table or made me lose money and time.

Why? I wasn’t creating the right system and routine that would sustain a business.

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In Nigeria, where I’m from, superstitious beliefs are held by many people. The Yorubas, for example, believe that a pregnant woman should not walk under the sun. They believe the evil spirit that roams the earth during the day would enter the fetal baby. In the Igbo land, it is believed that you shouldn’t sweep at night. If you sweep at night, you might sweep away the family’s wealth.

The lists of superstitious beliefs are endless. …

In her book, The mushroom at the end of the world, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, defined capitalism as

a system for concentrating wealth, which makes possible new investment which further concentrates wealth

She went further to describe what she calls a feature of capitalism — Salvage accumulation.

Salvage accumulation is the process through which lead firms amass capital without controlling the condition under which commodities are produced. Salvage is not an ornament on ordinary capitalist processes; it is a feature of how capitalism works.

Capitalism is only defined as “an economic system based…

In a world where there’s so much noise, it takes intentionality to have a better life. First, what does a better life mean to you? Does your ‘better life’ exist in a new job, your own business, houses, and cars, or when you begin to earn triple your current salary?

Having a better life does not revolve around big gestures. Often, we ignore the little things capable of fetching us the better life we desire because they’re not as huge as we expect. Here are five tiny gestures that can help you have a better life.

Identify Your Limiting Beliefs

Salem King, a Nigerian…

In the Zen tradition, the beginner’s mind is probably the most widely known phrase. Henry Shukman calls it the mind that knows little but is full of possibilities. It is the difference between one who is still open to learning and another who thinks he knows all.

In my writing, I have been developing the beginner’s mind. It is the only way to become an expert in the prosaic sense, and still a beginner in the Zen sense.

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. …

I write for money only.

I don’t care about views. I don’t care about my following and engagement. I also don’t care about the art or science of writing. The only reason I write is that I want to make money and plenty of it.

I do not write all day because I love to write (even though I do). I also do not write because I have the best ideas to share with readers — even though I do still try to share great ideas.

You see, money is my primary goal. It comes before anything else for me.

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Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “If you don’t plan, you plan to fail.” There is a world of truth in that sentence.

When I started out writing, my writing process went something like this: I get an idea, I pick up my laptop, open my word document, and I start to write. All I had to do is develop the piece of an idea into a full-length article. …

We fall for many fallacious ways of thinking. Psychologists call these fallacious ways of thinking cognitive biases. There are myriads of cognitive biases — from our all too common confirmation bias (tendency to seek or favor information that supports your prior beliefs) to the more subtle egocentric bias (tendency to rely heavily on one’s perspective).

Some biases and fallacies don’t seem like a bias but may come out as all-around senseless if you look twice. Thinking is hard. For that reason, our brain is always finding shortcuts for decision-making. …