269. Joseph Rutakangwa | Never Stay Broke

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Joseph Rotokangwa, author of Never Stay Broke: Because Motivation Alone Won't Pay the Bills. Joseph is an entrepreneur, artist, and storyteller best known as the co-founder and CEO of Ruazi, a consumer-trained AI platform helping global brands make faster, smarter decisions with real-world data. Recognized by the Los Angeles City Council for innovation, he builds systems at the intersection of technology, Creativity and human potential. In this episode, you'll learn how to get out of stuck in the next 24 hours by creating motion, how to stack simple, high-margin gigs and trim the ones that drain you, and how to align your daily energy with your long-term vision using Joseph's physics-inspired work done framework so you can generate cash, build buffers, and design a life that moves forward. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Joseph Rotokangwa.

Joseph, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm very excited to chat with you about your brand new book, Never Stay Broke. And here's my first question. You grew up in a family that was doing well, but after your dad ran into some troubles, you had to move back home to your— his home village with absolutely nothing. But what happened when a group of tourists visited And tell us about how your mom taught you an important lesson about money.

Thank you for having me on the platform, Nick. Yes. So that was the context. You know, I grew up— I never pretend to be like rags to riches, like pure rags to riches. I grew up in a very nice, comfortable life. But then my dad's business went upside down. So we were forced, you know, we ended up finding ourselves in his village where, you know, there's no circulation of cash. All resources are super limited. Went from, you know, this type of lifestyle that we're used to all the way to like an extremely limited lifestyle. So we were stuck there for a total of 2 years. But, you know, from a kid's perspective living in it, that was like 20 years. Because remember, as we were going through it, there wasn't a notion that that would be over because that was like the end. So that was like the end of the road. That's where, you know, my dad's dad's dad's land is, which means you can't leave that place going somewhere else. So we're completely stuck there. We ended up starting to herd cattle and do all these menial things. And my mom looked at the situation and told us, look, you guys grew up in this type of environment, reading books, doing experiments and flying around. Staying in this place, we had we have moved, we've shifted, our vision has started to be affected, moving from me dreaming to start my own company in tech and so on to completely collapsing to wanting to be a priest so I can have a motorbike. So that's the kind of effect that poverty had on the way we started seeing ourselves. And my mom told us, well, to get out of this situation, we would have to pick either continue staying here and wait for Dad, who knows when he's going to come, or we start moving, we start taking our own, taking up agency and moving through the steps of getting out of this place and renting a room in a nearby town and so on. But how do we do that if we don't have money? So there wasn't any income-generating opportunities around. The only opportunity that popped up was this event that was happening in the village at the school in the village. It was like a anniversary for the school, and that brought in a lot of tourists. And we looked at that, like, okay, well, tourists are coming, the event is full day, multiple days. What do they need? Breakfast. Because, you know, the village doesn't have restaurants. So, oh, we can provide breakfast. Now, in the entire plethora of the things you can serve at breakfast, what things do we have a competitive advantage on? We looked— now luckily, my mom is a very, very good cook and we had a lot of books, like recipe books before things went south. But we came to the village with one of the books, which is called Food for 50. It has a lot of recipes, very, very nice different things that you can make from dinners, breakfast, and so on. And of those recipes, we looked at what thing would be like, what kind of snack would be so differentiated and in the environment, but that people would still accept. So it's not so different that people wouldn't know what it is or not eat it. It has to be so rare that they haven't had it before, but it's familiar in taste that they would still love it. But it has to be easy for us to make, which means the ingredients are around, you know, accessible and so on. And that was donuts. Now, in this environment, you know, no one had seen or tasted an actual donut, you know, as far as like a 200-mile radius. So my mom, you know, we borrowed ingredients from the nearby shop at the school. We made donuts the next morning. We put out our own furniture from the house on the road, put it on the road, set it up. We started selling milk tea and donuts. So like just 2 products, milk tea and donuts. I'm telling you, by, you know, people started flocking in around like 7 AM. By 10 AM, we had completely sold out. Like everything had sold out and we had cash and we had priced it above like the usual rates on, you know, how you'd price the snacks. So we made good profit that day, went back, paid off the store and then repeat. We went on repeat. We did the same thing next day throughout the week. And that's how we created cash. for the first time after living there for a long time. And we started using that cash now to map our exit from that phase. And that's how we started exiting, which is a very long story from that point. But to me, that lesson, that was a massive lesson for me, stayed with me for all these years on how do you generate cash in an environment with extremely limited circulation of cash. With very limited tools by just applying one, the existing knowledge that you have with the available resources around you. And even if you don't have the means to obtain the resources, you hear a lot of people saying, well, I can't start a business because I don't have capital. In most of these instances, well, what kind of business are we looking at? Are we looking at a business that could convert and generate cash in 24 hours? which was the case in this scenario. 2, the product that we're targeting, is it a product with extremely high demand that we're certain we can sell? You can't say, you know, you're broke, you don't know what to eat next day, and you want to start a software business. It's not going to sell, right? So this is the kind of business that, you know, there's absolutely local demand. It's time-based. You can get the ingredients. By borrowing. In this case, you have capital, which is like, you know, like trust, you know, people know you for that. And then you can turn around the cash immediately. And then you can do that repeatedly throughout the following days to generate like a buffer, right? So for me, that was a massive lesson in that, which is what I've carried along all these years.

Hey, really quick, we've got some exciting news. We are hosting our second Book Thinkers event that's happening November 9th. If you're an author, podcaster, or creator with a message that matters, you need to be at BookThinkers Live 2025, happening Sunday, November 9th, in Boston. This is more than just a conference; it's a weekend designed to shake you out of your comfort zone and help you take bold, strategic action toward your biggest creative goals. Whether you're dreaming of writing your first book, growing your podcast, or scaling a brand rooted in purpose, this event was made for you. You'll learn real-world book and podcast marketing strategies from bestselling authors and industry experts, and you'll be in the room with some of the most inspiring minds in the world, like Steven Pressfield, legendary author of War of Art, Dr. Cyndra Kamphoff, mental performance coach to the Minnesota Vikings and Team USA, Niran Chaudhary, former CEO of Panera and global leadership force, Jill Shulman, former U.S. Marine Corps officer and leadership expert. Evan Carmichael, YouTube entrepreneur and author of Built to Serve. Jimmy Soni, bestselling biographer of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, and so many more. Plus, you'll connect with over 200 like-minded creators, walk away with signed books, new friendships, fresh collaborations, and a renewed sense of mission. And yes, every standard ticket includes free entry to the Spartan Race at Fenway Park the day before, or upgrade to a VIP for dinner with the speakers, premium seating, And more. This is the weekend your message has been waiting for. Go to bookthinkers.com or click the link in the description below to grab your ticket now. We can't wait to see you there. Now back to the show.

We could spend the entire podcast unpacking what your mom taught you in that moment. And it was interesting because you dedicated to the book— you dedicated the book for everyone who has nothing and still dares to try. And I think that She really embodied that for you in that moment. I mean, is that how you feel?

Yes, yes, 100%, 100%. You know, the amount of, the amount of, you know, things we lost, like the progression from having things to not having anything, and then having to crawl your way out of that position. To me, you know, looking at how my mom did it and the burden she had, which was like, you know, you have 4 kids, you have not just to do it for yourself, but for the kids, that was a massive masterclass for me. And I have a million examples across life where we continuously found ourselves in a position of being stuck in a corner and we would work together as a unit and figure out a way to get out of that place, which is how do you generate cash immediately? How do you stack income-generating gigs? And then how do you pick one that is consuming the least amount of energy and generating the highest profit margin? How do you reduce your expenses so that you create a buffer, you know, a cash buffer? Because not every day you're going to get a sale. Not every day you're going to get like a, you know, good paying gig. So how do you create a cash buffer on the days that you have that kind of advantage all the way to like creating systems and so on to evolving to now having a a startup. So, so yeah, so my mom taught me a lot on that place. Yeah.

And this was in Tanzania?

Yes, yes. So that was in, you know, early days. I'm originally from Tanzania, so that was, that was in Tanzania.

Okay, so most of the people listening to this podcast are not based in a rural village in Tanzania. They're sitting at home in the United States or a major European country, and they're thinking to themselves, How can I apply this same lesson, the ingenuity to go out and borrow resources and make donuts and milk and tea and sell them around this event? What are some ideas that somebody sitting in the US could apply?

Yeah. So one thing to lay out, like the context, right? The picture. The US, if you're in the US, you're actually extremely lucky, right? So imagine we had to do it in a poor country with all these extreme constraints. If you're in the US, your job is like 50% done, right? The U.S. is the richest country in the history of the world. Like in all of history, it's the richest country. You know, like, you know, for context, Mississippi, which is the poorest state, is richer than the UK, right? So the U.S. is extremely rich and the U.S. is full of opportunities. And, you know, unlike other countries, I've lived in so many countries in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, in the Americas. Unlike many countries, I would say, I would even argue unlike any other country on planet Earth, the US has people who are more inclined to just reward merit, like to reward good valuable services, to reward a new valuable cool product, to reward nice to work with punctual people and so forth. Like they're more inclined to reward, right? To reward effort. So this is despite what you see on social media and everything else. I'm telling you, I've traveled so many countries I'll tell you, the US is so unique on that aspect, which gives you an ability to generate an income faster than anywhere else on earth. So you have the highest circulation of cash, and then you have people who are more open to new products, new ideas, new services, and so on. So now you're in the US. People have like— the way I wrote this book, I was reflecting on all the scenarios I've had to pull myself out of. Not all of them were in Tanzania. Some other scenarios found me in France, some scenarios found me in Italy, in the UK, some in the US, and in different positions in life. So how have I been able to pull myself out of it? How have I helped my siblings and my other friends who are in different contexts? And this applies when you're in college. And right now, for instance, you have this AI thing where you finish software engineering, no one's going to hire you because AI can kind of do your job. So what do you do with your skills? Others haven't even had the luck of going through college. Now, what do you do with your life? Others have actually gone to college, got jobs, worked for 20 years, but now you look at your bank account, it's $300 and you're looking up to retirement and you don't see a way out. Even the Social Security fund is going to go bankrupt in 10 years or something like that. So the future looks extremely bleak. Now, what do you do? The, the first concept that I would like, you know, the, the listener to think about is the concept of, uh, motion, right? So when you're— you know, I will use a lot of physics concepts, and this is not physics, so don't think of it as like a hard, hard, uh, hard, um, way of framing things. So like in physics, you have, you know, if you're in a stationary position, like you're just, you know, still, um, you're actually experiencing static friction, right? So this is like friction with the floor. Let's assume you're like sitting on the floor, you're experiencing friction with the surface, and that friction is kind of like stopping you from moving. In a normal human context, that friction is, well, I can't sell lemonade when I have a degree in software engineering. That's beneath me, right? Or I can't go and start walking people's dogs. I will, you know, I look like a failure. You know, what will my parents think of me? Or like the neighbors, you know, I can't do Uber because, you know, the $5, you know, per ride or whatever is small enough. I can't make $1 million doing Uber and so on. All these things we tell ourselves that are too tied to our identity are the actual, you know, like friction that we're experiencing that's stopping us from getting started. So what you need is to actually generate any sort of motion to just go against that motion, to be higher than the friction so that you can just move. So in the first 24 hours, you actually want to move. Now, it doesn't really matter if that motion is going to generate any serious outcome. This is not about you becoming a millionaire or billionaire or whatever. This is just so you can move and break that static friction.

Right.

Now, what does motion look like in this context? I'll tell you, motion is as extreme as going to volunteer. So I've seen a lot, you know, people telling me, oh, young people, they've lost direction, people don't have purpose, etc., etc. In the first, in the first initial moments, you just want to prove to your psyche that you have the skills, you're useful, you're contributing member of society. And you can get yourself to the vision that you have of yourself. And at the absolute bottom, that is you being useful to someone else. We haven't even gotten to a point of you being useful and getting money as a return for the services rendered. This is just you being useful. So getting out, you have homeless shelters, you have church, you have all these areas that need your help. Just get out of your house, go to the area, be useful. That's it. You can have an elderly neighbor. You can have, I don't know, any sort of scenario. If you go on Eventbrite, if you go online and find places that need people to volunteer, you'll find a place to get out. I use that. I have a long story on that, but I won't get into it. The second piece is, okay, now let's say you've proven that you can actually contribute. You're valuable. You have valuable skills. I mean, by the way, value is from you having eyes. You know, you can talk, you have ears. That's always value, right? So we're not getting into, you know, like being able to code. The second layer is you have access to items in your house where you're living, which you can convert those items into cash. So these are like low-hanging fruit stuff. You're stuck, you don't know what to do, but you have all these items around you. What stops us is the shame that we'll get if we list any of our items on Facebook Marketplace. We'll be seen that we're too broke. We're now liquidating our quote unquote assets or, you know, that, you know, gift you got at graduation or whatever it is. We have— we assign all this sentimental value to these items, which is okay. But the purpose of having these items is so that you can convert that, you know, you know, static energy, that potential energy into money so that you can eat and have this ability to generate motion. The other option, like in the US, you have too many options. You have gig apps, right? You can go on TaskRabbit, you have Uber, you have DoorDash. Uber assumes you have a car, right? So even if you don't have a car, you have tasks that you can do. All these apps you have, like all sorts of apps that you can do and games to generate initial cash. You can Even doing the old school way, this I'm assuming, you know, talking about apps, you assume you have like internet service, right? So even if you're like in Kentucky and, you know, in the middle of nowhere and you don't have internet service and you haven't paid your mobile, you know, service bill for a long time, you can actually walk door to door to all your neighbors and present yourself. So now you're selling yourself. Now what do you actually have? You have a body. you have energy, right? So you can convert that physicality into money by providing any service that people have. Now at this point, you're not saying, well, I did communications, I have a communications degree, so I'll be able to help you with any website or whatever. No, you don't know what the market wants. So you won't show up, knock on the door and provide yourself like, I'm here, I can do any job that you may have. I'll take, what are you offering? What kind of payments are you offering? At this point, you don't want to negotiate. That's not the important thing. You just want to convert cash. So those are like the 24-hour, I get deep into creating that 24-hour breakthrough. In the 24 hours you generate, you do any of these combination of activities, you generate your early cash, you get food, maybe you pay your mobile bill. So now you can get on the apps and so on. Once you've broken that 24-hour ceiling, right, the purpose of that ceiling is to prove to your subconscious mind, to prove to your, you know, to your internal processor that your current situation isn't you, right? So you're this thing that can actually generate materialize ideas and bring them into life. That's what you want to prove to yourself in 24 hours. The day that follows, you want to be able to repeat the same thing you did yesterday and to repeat it to the point now it's no longer as exciting because remember, it's not novel, right? You know, once you start doing it second day, third day, so you want to start repeating it while reducing the expenditure This is on food and so on as you generate more income. And then you want to stack the amount of things that you're doing in 24 hours so that you add more income-generating opportunities. So let's say in the first day you clean someone's carpet and the second day you clean someone's carpet and walk the dog, third day and walk the dog and babysit and so on. So you start adding those those gigs. So now you start generating this repetitiveness across your gigs. As you create this repetitiveness across your gigs, you start, you know, by the time this is approaching day 3, 4, you're looking at which of the activities that you're doing is consuming the least amount of energy. Those are the ones you actually want to rank higher. And which one is generating the highest Profit margin. Profit margin just means with the highest take home versus the amount spent in providing that service. And then the last one, which one would you rather keep doing? Right. So this is like a bit of passion. Now, passion isn't the controlling factor. Controlling factor is you want to spend the least amount of energy. So when you stack up, you're not getting drained. And second, you want to generate the most amount of cash. So you want your your cash expenditure in servicing this kind of gig to be low. Like Uber, you have to drive, you have fuel, you have a car and all that. So the cash expenditure is high. And then the last one, something that you'd rather keep doing. Maybe you like dogs, so walking dogs is a better thing for you. Maybe you like, you know, meeting new people. So driving, you know, for Uber is assuming you have a car and so on. And that's by the, by the, by the first week, You have trimmed off things that are high energy consumption activities. You have trimmed things that generate a lot of money but spend a lot of money in the process of servicing them. And you've kept a nice amount of stacked gigs that can generate income on a predictable and repeating cycle. And then of course, in the book, I lay out how to now generate from that point, start generating a bit of automation, predictability, get into pricing and all that. The idea there is breaking the static friction, which is keeping you still. So you don't want to be still. I remember there's a time I was so broke, I was at my mom's house, back to my mom's house. Instead of just staying in the house, I'll just wake up, do the chores in the house and leave and just walk. I just want to walk just so I know I left the house and I did something and I can come back home, right? So that's the extent to which you want to break that static friction. Now, before I bring it back to you, one thing people keep being surprised, getting surprised on is the fact that the amount of pushback and negativity and noise you keep getting regardless of how much energy you apply is just going to keep going up. Right now, what people need to understand is that is now the introduction of what in physics is called kinetic friction, which is— So you have static friction, which is stopping you from moving. You apply more energy, you generate momentum, you start moving. This friction becomes kinetic friction, which is as you're moving forwards, you're moving forwards in a vacuum, in space or on a surface. That surface is generating friction, which is attempting to slow you down. But then you have to apply more energy to keep moving forward despite the friction. Right. So despite getting the nos and rejections and insults and all that stuff in the, in the effort of lifting yourself from a stuck position, you just have to beat it by applying more efforts. Now, I'm not saying that you have to magically be mentally strong to take the hits. In the book, I talk about what kind of things, normal activities you apply to beat that kind of negative energy and market pushback you'll be experiencing. And part of it is like, how do you deal with a lot of nos, right? And, and so on.

Well, Joseph, I admire how clear you are and how actionable you are, because nobody listening or watching to today's podcast can say, yeah, that's not really a good fit for me, because you laid out every potential situation that somebody might be dealing with. And I love the idea that you can make yourself useful. If somebody came and knocked on my front door and said, hey, I'm down on my luck right now, but I'm going door to door asking if I can be useful. I follow through. I'm a decent person to be around. I have great morals.

Yes.

So I will not take advantage of you. I will work really hard and I'm willing to do anything that you need help with. Now, when I think about my own situation, if somebody knocked on the door and said that today, I'd say, you know what, we've been meaning to mow the lawn for the last couple of weeks. We have a lawnmower, we have gas. If you could pull the cord and push it, I'll pay you for that.

Yes.

Or I saw a great social media post recently where somebody said that they started a new side hustle where they clean out other people's garages.

Yes.

And then with all of the leftover junk, they go and they resell it on Facebook Marketplace, or maybe they bring it to a pawn shop. Or maybe they just offered to dispose of it for that person. And it's like, what a great side hustle because everybody needs their garage cleaned out. Nobody wants to do it even for $20 or $30 or $50 or $100. I would love for somebody to come do that for us. And so if you're listening or watching today's podcast, just observe the environment around you. Are there books that you have never read? Can you go sell them? Do you have a pair of shoes for that marathon that you never ran that you could go resell? Even at 1/10 the value, like you said, you're just creating motion. And I love that takeaway.

Yes. Awesome. The way you put it is 100% correct. And this applies not just at the level of, you know, I have $0, I need motion, I need like step 1. It also applies to people who, you know, you have saved up, you're starting a business, you started your business based on your initial idea, Sales, you're not getting sales and now you're looking to pivot, but you're very confused. Like, what do I do? I'm running out of cash. The idea there is, first of all, you can't go into the market knowing what the market wants. I run a decision AI company. We deal a lot with consumers, consumer demand signals, and helping brands generate more growth from understanding what consumers want. you don't know who your consumer is exactly, and you don't know what kind of product your consumer wants. And at this level, what you want to find out is, you know, just follow— if your interest is generating revenue and cash, you just want to provide a service and products that people are spending their money on right now. We talk a lot about in the startup world, we talk a lot about, oh, well, identifying pain points. Forget about identifying pain points. You just need to look at the money. If you look at your bank account, in your bank app, your banking app, look at where you're spending money. Guess what? You're spending a lot of money on food, spending a lot of money on beverages, spending a lot of money on things like transportation and maybe personal care products and so on. That's where the money is going. Now, how do you generate the difference of what foods, what beverages, what personal care products, what services Like I spend a lot on cleaning my apartment. If you look, if you knocked at my door right now and you want to clean my apartment, all I need, like the only, the only challenge and barrier you need to overcome is how do you get me to trust you? To trust that you're not going to take advantage of any of that situation. If that is sorted, then yes, you have a lot of business. So in this case, you're a founder, you're running a business, you want to just match demand, provide what people exactly what people want. You're in the career employment world, you're pursuing a career, you're not getting what you believe you're worth, which is correct because what you're worth is just the vision you have of yourself. And if reality isn't matching that, you need to optimize. You need to do moves that get you to get the vision of yourself.

Yes.

So how do you get paid what you're worth? You need to think of it as yourself providing a service and your employer as a business. You're providing service to employer. And how do you, how do you deliver? How do you show up like that? You don't say I studied accounting, I've been doing accounting for 20 years so I can provide accounting services. No, no, no, no, no. People who are looking, you don't know what people are looking for. People may be optimizing for RevOps. You may use your accounting skills in RevOps. People may be looking for, I don't know, modeling. You know, like financial modeling, maybe you can get into that. People, you just don't know where these employers who are the customers would put more money in. You just want to position yourself in a way that you can provide any services related to that entire field and even outside. And you know, what's accounting? It's just attention to details. So could you do operations? Could you do, you know, could you become a chief of staff? Could you become all of that? Because that's, that's all about paying attention to details. So it doesn't have to match what you want, you know, what you study in school and so on. And the skills that are required, if you approach, you know, if you approach your employers in your career as customers and you being a service provider, you won't approach your employers as, well, I need you to tell me what I need to do this year and then I'll do XYZ and performance evaluation and I need the, you know, 5% increase in salary. No, no, no. You say, what challenges are you experiencing? You know, I'm a human. I might, you know, I'm a lifelong learner. I can optimize. I can work to figure out what initiatives will generate more money for you, you know, save more money and get you to grow. No employer on planet Earth, you know, will reject someone who is going to generate more revenue for them. Right. So you don't have to What I see a lot is, you know, in the employment world, people approach employers as, hey, I don't have a job, can you please hire me so I can get a salary? That's not how you communicate. The same thing with in a business world. I can't go to my customers and say, my business needs revenue, can you give me, you know, can you pay me so I can have revenue? No, no, you say, we, you know, what problems do you have? And we'll be able to solve your problems, make sure you're having more success. And that way, of course, will be paid for the services rendered. So that's like the winning approach.

Yes, 100%. I mean, you make me, you make me think back to how my business started. I, I started sharing the books I was reading online just because I was passionate about it. And then some authors would DM me and say, how much does a book review cost? And I thought to myself, you know, if I'm reading for free and now somebody is offering to pay me to read and talk about their book, I bet if I proactively reached out to other authors, there would be people willing to pay for a service like that. That's natural momentum. And you, you talk about analyze your bank account. Where are you spending money? And also ask yourself, what, what tasks have my friends and family asked me to help out with?

Yes.

Babysitting, moving, transportation, like you talked about. And man, I was, I was down in Nashville for the last couple of days at a conference and I was talking to my Uber from, from my Airbnb, which is a service to the event, and she was telling me that she moved down to Nashville. She opened up a nail salon. When she bought it, everybody left. So now she has an open nail salon. She needs to hire people. So she's Ubering in the meantime to pay her monthly bills while she hires people to fill those slots. And I thought, Kudos to you. And I gave her a great tip just because I saw how hard she was working. She told me she's Ubering 7 days a week.

Yeah.

I just thought, you know, that's the kind of person that I want to support. And I know that not everybody is like me, Joseph, but if I saw a friend of mine was selling valuables around their apartment because they're falling on hard times and they're just trying to make it by, I don't judge that person. I get excited. Because I say that's somebody that I want to support. I may even buy an item even if I don't need it, just because I want to help, right? And so many people, they fear that shame and the judgment, but really if they're transparent and vulnerable, they'll find more people around them want to support them, I think, if anything.

100%. What you're saying is 100%. You'd be surprised, like in my mom's, you know, in the stories I tell in the book, you see that, well, my mom, when my mom became a full-time teacher, she started selling snacks to the staff members, her fellow teachers in the school, right? So under normal circumstances, you'd be like, well, these are my staff members. We all get a salary. I'll look like I'm broke if I'm desperate enough to start selling snacks. You know, that's how people look at it. But no, no, no. Like they were very happy because they come, you know, they wake up early in the morning. They don't have time to make breakfast. So they show up in the office and you bring snacks. They'll be happy to pay a good premium for the snacks and support you to succeed. You'd be surprised how many people, and you're not, you're providing something valuable. You'll become a very easy person to work with. Those are like the basics, by the way. You need to have, you need to show up always on time, always, always no breaking. You need to become very, like a good person, easy person to work with. You need to overdeliver all the time, always. You need to take initiative and you need to do more with less. So this is your personal operating principle to do more with less. And the big thing now, you know, the problem comes in twofold. One thing that I hear a lot, you know, from founders and other, you know, younger people, they say, well, how do I know my, you know, how do I know what my vision is? Right. And then I've been working for too long, but I haven't, you know, I haven't, I don't see that I've made any progress and I'm now in my 30s and so on. These are like 2 common things that I hear. On the first one, like how do I, you know, how do I figure out what my vision is, what my mission in life is and so on? I say all the time, the vision should be thought of as the vision that you have of yourself. I use that, you know, that arrangement of words. Like, this is the vision you have of yourself. So the vision isn't, um, isn't Joseph, you know, as a— is it me seeing myself in the future as a billionaire? No, no, no. It's like, how do I see myself right now? Like, how am I seeing myself? What is my perception of myself? That is the vision you have of yourself. So the importance, and everyone has it, by the way. Yeah, even people who, they just, all you have to do is stay still, no phone, you know, no TV, no humans around you, just stay still for an hour, 2 hours, whatever. And you will actually, you'll actually know how you see yourself, right? That comes out, you know, of our behavior and choices and all that. But us being conscious of how we look Look at ourselves is the first step. The second piece is motion. Creating motion in 24 hours, any motion, just, just you need, you need motion. 7 days, just do motion right down the line. I talk about the framework of work done in the book, right? The framework of work done. So it's coming from physics. When I was in high school, you know, I was introduced to this work done framework in physics. And like the sentence in a textbook was like, you know, work is said to be done when a force of 1 Newton moves a mass of 1 kilogram through a distance of 1 meter in the direction of the force, right? So like the mathematical equation is like, you know, work done equals force times distance. Now, the most important thing that caught my attention in that framework was in the direction of the force. So like in normal physics, if you push a massive stone or a fridge you're trying to push it forward and it suddenly falls on the left. Even if you spend 3 hours, all your energy trying to push this fridge is counted as you haven't done anything right. If you, you know, you're trying to push, you know, northeast and the thing just falls or something like if, if, if the distance— if you don't move, if you push your fridge the whole day and it doesn't move an inch, you haven't done anything in physics. If it moves an inch but not in the direction of your force, then you haven't done anything. It's very unforgiving, right? So now in normal life, how does that apply to normal life? In normal life, you have the energy, you have this life energy, right? You're applying it to your life, which is your life is, you know, your income, everything around you, relationships and all that. The distance is time, right? So you want to move, you're moving Through time. Now what you want is to spend your energy to move your life in the direction of your vision, of the vision that you have of yourself. So when when you haven't moved anything, you have a vision of I want this life to be here. You don't know at what you know. You don't know how long it will it will take, but just know you want your life to move from this position. To be like this, right? Let's say in this case you want to have a shop that's generating, let's say, $250,000 a year, right? And selling— you don't know what you're selling, just need a shop that generates $250K. If you end up, you know, accepting a full-time job, the question you always have to think about is, well, why am I accepting a full-time job? Is it so that I can save and start a shop, or is it so I can work? Is the company like Shopify so I can have more experience and use that experience to start a shop? Like, is this in the direction of my vision. If it's so far out of the direction of your vision, then there's no point doing it. And the way you apply this work done framework, remember when you talked about stacking gigs? So you do 24 hours because you need to survive. So no judgment there. Then you get into 7-day loop. Maybe the first week doesn't matter what you do as you increase and you continuously make that cycle of weekly cycle of stacking gigs. What you have to think about as you're arranging the gigs is, are the gigs that I'm picking and eventually creating this system, this repeatable system, is all of this taking me to this vision that I have of myself? Is all my life energy that I spend every 24 hours, is it applied to something that's taking me to the vision of myself? What does that mean? It means, well, clubbing I do not see, at least in my life, I don't see a scenario where clubbing helps me get to my vision. So I never club, right? I never go clubbing, right? And so on. There's a, there's a point— this is extreme— but there's a point I couldn't get in any relationship because a relationship in my mind assumed I've reached in a point of comfort, you know, a point of comfort. So I'm kind of like, you know, I'm chilling, I'm in a plateau stage. Which I wasn't. I was hiking up the mountain. So you can't have a relationship because the relationship isn't helping me move life, which is the mass, in the direction of my vision, right? And so on. So every single choice that you're presented with across work, life, and so on, if you apply and you say, okay, this is the vision I have of myself, is this moving life towards that vision? If the answer is yes, great. If the answer is no, then you pick an alternative.

Well, Joseph, time flies when you're having fun.

Yes.

I think, I think you gave a wonderful preview for the book, Never Stay Broke.

Yes.

Real quick, where can people go to get a copy if they want to buy this book and they want to implement it?

Never Stay Broke is available on Amazon in multiple formats. So you can get it in paperback, hardcover, As well as, you know, like ebook. You can also, you know, find— you can also find me on LinkedIn, Joseph Rutakangwa, on Instagram, @jrutakangwa, and other social platforms. So yeah, the book, the book, as you've— as we've talked about just briefly here, which feels like it was like 2 minutes, the book, the book doesn't apply just to one type of person or one type of scenario. It's It applies across different scenarios, different definitions of stuck, right? And in different— regardless of your gender, you know, the country that you're in, state that you're in, financial position that you're in, if you feel stuck and you feel like, you know, you don't have clarity on what move to make next and what would be the predictable outcomes, this is your book.

We will include those links in the show notes below. As we wrap up, I also just wanted to say that you are a fascinating human being and I love the way that your mind works. It's very easy to follow. It's very logical. It's probably your interest in physics.

Oh, thanks.

And I think that obviously for anybody looking to get out of rest and into motion, I think you can solve their problems. So, I just wanted to wrap up and say thank you. I admire you. I want to continue learning from you. I happen to know that you are a creator, you have music, you have all sorts of other ways that you express your talents. And so continue helping people. I just wanted to thank you for your time today, man. It was great to learn from you.

Thank you so much for having me, Nick. I really, really appreciate how you approach, you know, how you work with your platform and approach this. um, this mission. So really appreciate it. Thank you for giving me the, the platform to speak with your, with your audience.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.