IDEAS are money. I emphasized this point as much as I could in my first book, How To Make It In Nigeria Building Your Wealth From Ground Floor Up. And I’ve walked my talk, as they say, as far as proving its immutability is concerned in my own business life.

 

However, I still get feedback from readers of SuccessDigest who have problem with the concept. Hence, I’m devoting this space to take another look at the subject. Before I dig into it, let me again make a point that is not only true but is vital to your understanding of this important concept.

 

Every wealth, that is, every material wealth that you can see physically, is a product of an idea. None of it ever got created without its first being an idea in somebody’s mind.

 

If you take time to think about these statements, you will understand how awesome the power of idea is. Without idea, there is nothing! Idea gave birth to everything that is.

 

What is an idea, then?

 

When you look it up in a dictionary, you will find a variety of meanings. But let me boil it down to a few words: an idea is a thought, formed in your mind, which represents a concept.

 

Examples help to make it clearer. You probably have a GSM phone. Before you could have it, somebody (or a group of persons) conceived it. The idea probably started with somebody asking a question: How can we ensure that people don’t ever miss a phone call, even if they are far away from their telephone line?

 

That’s a concept. An idea. Just thinking along that line was enough to bring into existence what is known today as GSM.

 

Here’s another powerful thought that has changed the world: Is it not possible for events to be shown simultaneously around the world as it is happening instead of waiting to show them hours after it had happened? You of course know that thoughts like these led to the creation of the mega successful media empire known as CNN.

 

Each of these two examples are multi-billion dollar businesses today. Their influences have reached every corner of the world. The two ideas have created many millionaires, if not billionaires. And it will continue to do so into the forseeable future.

 

This is not the aspect of idea that I want to examine. I believe this aspect is pretty obvious to many readers of SuccessDigest by now. Without a sound idea, you can’t make it BIG in the world of business. The aspect I want to expand on, is how to convert ideas into money without borrowing to do so.

 

Let me explain. You get to hear Beginning Wealth Builders (BWBs) complain of having ideas that could shake the financial world but that they don’t have the money to start it. I have of late been telling such BWBs that they don’t need money to get their ideas off the drawing board. What they do need is another set of equally powerful ideas that will lead them to the source of funding for their ideas. Which is true. But I’m grossly misunderstood.

 

How do you convert a sound idea into money?

 

Here’s a simple, but practical two-step way to do it. The first step is to get the idea. (Get a copy of How To Make It In Nigeria Building Your Wealth From Ground Floor Up for a detailed explanation of how to receive an idea from God).

 

The second step is like the first one, but let me make a confession here. For many years after I mastered the first step, it never occurred to me that all l needed to do to get over the problem posed by having a sound idea and not having the money to execute it was just to repeat the first process. Most BWBs are familiar with the problem. They get an idea. And for many agonizing months (for many it is years), they go to bed with the headache of not knowing how to raise money to launch their ideas. Many entrepreneurial dreams are scuttled at this point.

 

But the solution to the problem is so simple but not so obvious. What is this solution? Remember that to get a sound idea, you had to ask God for it in prayers (refer to my book). Should it not have occurred to us who want to build financial empires that when we don’t have the capital to start the idea, we should simply go back to the very source where the idea came from and ask the Giver of all good ideas to show us how to raise the capital to start it?

 

That was the missing link!

 

lf God is capable of giving us ideas (and no one has so far disputed that and no one will ever do so, mark my word on that), then it stands to reason that He will also be able to provide us with quality information on how to fund the business.

 

Most of us who have ever spent agonizing days and nights, tossing restlessly from one end of our beds to the other, and worried almost to death that we lacked the capital to do business, have missed it all these years. In response to our lack of capital, we walk straight into debt and become slaves to the lenders.

 

Following the same steps that got you your great idea will bring you into contact with the money to finance it. I explain this step in greater detail in my soon-to-be-released second book titled: How To Bullet-Proof Yourself From Poverty.

 

Yes, you don’t have to cry about the lack of capital to fund your business from now on. Not again. Just go back to The Source. Yes, God is The Source of every good thing. He says in Haggai 2:8 “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine.” If He owns them, He surely can show you how to lay your hands on them without going into debt.

 

Think about it!

 

 

First published in April, 2003.