For close to three decades, Phillip Chiyangwa has sold everything from tomatoes, shoes through to property, in the process amassing a fortune which has positioned him as one of Zimbabwe’s richest people.
Showy and unashamedly immodest, the property tycoon speaks the language of money. Now he says he wants to turn more Zimbabweans into millionaires and billionaires through a new book, ‘Common Sense To Become A Billionaire$’, which is released later this year.
The book, Chiyangwa says, will be released in four stages, the first exploring his early life and later series delving into his business with concrete steps young entrepreneurs can follow to make it in business:
The following is an excerpt from the new book:
“The name Phillip Chiyangwa has become a household name among the young and the old, business and non-business people, and it is synonymous with affluence and money. Whether you love him or hate him, you cannot help but admire him – he is an entrepreneur ordinaire.
Phillip was born in 1959 in Chegutu of poor parents. The eighth born in a family of fourteen, Phillip claims that the manner and ways in which he grew up taught him to be street smart – never to sleep and never to give anybody a chance.
“The first chance is mine”. This is a thought process that has underpinned Phillip’s approach to business over the years. He thinks of himself as a shrewd businessman. Speaking as guest of honour at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce business awards in Gweru in 2008, Phillip said, “I have got a doctorate in common sense – I start where professionals and professors stop”.
Phillip thinks himself as always the first and ahead of the pack, and that is what he has become because according to the Secret, we become what we think – “thoughts become things”.
By this thought process, he asks or commands the universe to make him first, and he believes and lives it. His focus is on being first, and that is what preoccupies his mind. He carries around a mental picture of a man who is smart and ahead of his peers, and he speaks and acts accordingly.
According to the Secret, that is the creative process and the universe obeys. As a result of this, Phillip has scored many firsts in his life. At one time he had a stint at promoting boxing where he raised the likes of the late Proud Chinembiri “Kilimanjaro”, the man mountain who became the All Africa Heavy Weight boxing champion and almost challenged for the World Heavy Weight Championship.
Phillip scored yet another first when he successfully brought the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to a packed sports stadium in Harare. An American who was in the entourage said about him: “Phillip is so sharp and smart that even if he were to come to America or the United Kingdom, he will make it big time.”
It was another first for Phillip when he brought Kanda Bongo man to Harare, and as it were, officially introduced rhumba and kwasa kwasa dance to Zimbabwe. Phillip scored yet another sensational first when he brought Michael Jackson, the late King of Pop, to Zimbabwe and hosted him.
From a very tender age, Phillip always believed in outsmarting others to make money. The family survived on selling farm produce in Chegutu, and as a small boy, they had to be at the market early in the morning to offload farm produce from the buses – the first one to get up the bus selected the best produce.
Phillip thought of ways to outsmart the competition, believed, visualised and acted accordingly. He made arrangements with the bus driver that every day he would intercept the bus as it approaches Chegutu; buy all the produce so that by the time the bus ranks, they will announce that all the produce belonged to the Chiyangwa family. They immediately became wholesalers.
Out of poor vendors, he created renowned vegetable wholesalers. Asked where he draws his inspiration from, Phillip referred to Jimmy Cliff’s song, “you can get it if you really want it”.
“Only if you really want it, and if you try and try again – he succeeded and so can you,” Phillip adds. This is in line with the Secret – you attract to you the predominant thoughts you are holding.
In 1978, as a teenager, Phillip moved to Bulawayo to take up a job as a junior clerk at a conglomerate. He had no money and no clues as to what he would do to get rich. But he was very clear on what he wanted – to get rich. That clarity of what he wanted becomes a command to the universe. Believing, according to the Secret, means knowing what you want and knowing it is going to happen, and when you feel good about it as Phillip feels good about being rich, that’s the receiving according to the Secret.
Carrying a mental picture and acting accordingly as Phillip did in the streets of Bulawayo and continues to do today, complete the creative process. According to the Secret, you have, or can be, or can become anything you want.
Today Phillip is not ashamed to declare that he is very rich because when you focus on the things that you want, the law of attraction gives you what you want.
After his short-lived stint in politics as Zanu PF’s chairman for Mashonaland West Province and then as Member of Parliament for Chinhoyi, before being wrongfully arrested for hiding vehicles of ENG bosses and thereafter for allegedly leaking state secrets, Phillip was asked why he had now gone quiet and why we were no longer hearing much from him.
His response was forthright, “These days I am no longer into politics – ndave kuita zvebuck.” (I am now focusing on making money). Phillip does not believe in sleeping – he says others will be making money while he sleeps. He is always thinking about making money and as a result, he is always creating money. According to the Secret, creation is always happening because you are always thinking – the law of attraction gives you whatever you will be thinking. The Secret says, “Like attracts like” and therefore your thoughts must be of the things you want. Phillip wants money, riches and affluence and he is always thinking about it.
Phillip has always had a penchant for affluence, and that is what he attracts. Having worked as a junior clerk in Bulawayo, he moved to Dunlop as a work study trainee in the Industrial Engineering Department, then joined Willowvale Motor Industry as an Administration Assistant then moved on to Van Leer (Zim) now Grief as a management trainee.
He created Native Investments Africa Group in 1983, and over the years through the creative process has created and attracted to his group various companies, including Pinnacle Property Holdings (PPH). In PPH where Phillip claims “we innovate, the rest imitate”, he has taken the creative process to dizzy heights by out-of-this-world artist impressions of the various hotels, architectural design houses and industrial parks he wants to develop across the country.
Slowly, these structures are unfolding because according to the Secret when you visualise, you materialise. When you visualise or conceptualise, that feeling or inner seeing will be an open door through which the power of the universe will begin to express itself.
The Sunday Mail described the completed Aristotle Crowhill Boutique Hotel as ‘sheer opulence’ – one could almost define it as a ‘state of mind’. (Sunday Mail Business, October 11-17, 2009). Indeed that is what it is – a state of Phillip’s mind! Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. (Einstein 1879- 1983).
Story from : NEWZIMBABWE.COM NEWS:
Published On: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 3:49 AM GMT
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news/news.aspx?newsID=4573
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