Yesterday I saw a news snippet from Carte Blanche, a news broadcaster in South Africa, and they had an interview with Malcolm Gladwell (author of the famous books, The Tipping Point; Blink and the new Outliers).

He has a very interesting philosophy about success and how the environment can play a nurturing role or a destructive role our journey to success. I firmly am of the class that you make your own path and the enviroment has no choice ut to follow your lead.

When I was young I could have allowed my friends and school mates to make choices about how successful I was to become by not setting the goals for my life first. But my goals and ambition led to me moving away from them and into new surroundings. These new surroundings, according to how I understand Mr Gladwell’s teachings, are more condusive to my success and support.

It trully emphasizes the old saying, “If you don’t have a plan, somebody else has it for you.”

Hope you have a great day.

Before you go running into this post thinking that I have found the latest tips for you to trick your tax man then I am sorry to say You won’t find that advice or tips.

Tax evasion is a crime and you do not want to be caught evading taxes. Heck even Al Capone was arrested for only tax evasion, never mind the other major felonies they couldn’t prove.

Tax evasion is easy to prove and very hard to dispute. “Earning less than $35000 per year but you have a beach house in the Bahammas raises red flags.

My tip is go to an acredited accountant and let him/her help you declare all your income, all of it. Then work with your accountant to reduce your tax liability. This can be done a number of ways. 

1) As a business you can claim certain costs as deductions. 

Internet business:- How about telephone costs? Yes per month your bill might not be much but per year its really something.

How about your office size compared to the rest of your house? Your business can pay rent for the office from you but this also means you have to declare your rental income as your personal income. So please hire a good accountant because it can get complicated.

The best news is that the accountant fees are tax deductable in most countries/states. 

So please declare everything. Being legal you can make way more money and enjoy the freedom.

Enjoy.

Keep up the comments.

These letters are on a Black Label (a beer product from South Africa) billboard inside Khayelitsha (one of the bigger township from Cape Town South Africa.)

These words strike me everytime I drive by the billboard. I don’t even drink beer but the words stir something inside me. I feel a sense of pride, a sense of reward deep inside me.

How many of us actually say, “You’ve earned it!” to ourselves? How does it make you feel when you are trully in the moment and then say it to yourself?

Nothing can replace the sense of accomplishment that you can give yourself when you trully congradulate yourself after a protracted struggle. My parents, my teachers and my professors have said it to me countless times but my thoughts count more than all their compliments combined.

My thoughts would be along these lines:”Thoriso, you own property, you are a qualified medical doctor and a business owner…Thoriso, You’ve earned it!” Thinking that makes me almost tear up.

What about you? Have you taken a long hard look at your accomplishments and told yourself in earnest, “You’ve Earned It.”

It must be in the second person, like you are saying it to yourself as an admirer of your accomplishment through adversity. “I have earned it”, is cliche’d and weak compared to “You’ve earned it!” thats possibly why Black Label used the phrase.

Try this simple exercise, and as always please comment on this post and tell me what you think and felt when you said, “You’ve Earned It.”