William Munyanya is in an African entrepreneur who lives in the Kitale region of Kenya. He told me the story of trying to teach some of his neighbors to think more prosperously by thinking long term instead of short term. Kitale is a rich agricultural area of Kenya and their biggest cash crop is corn which they call maize. The problem with selling the maize they harvest is that it is all harvested at the same time, and this creates a glut on the local market and drives the price of the corn down.

William explained to his neighbors that they could put their maize in storage for six months and then get twice the price for it. Of course it would cost them some money for storage, but they would still make significantly more than if they sell it at harvest time. William was ready to hire the storage space so they could all share that cost together. As he finished his proposal, his neighbors’ response was to laugh at him. In their minds they had never heard of such a stupid thing. They didn’t believe him because they were so used to getting all the cash right away at harvest. It didn’t matter to them that if they waited they would actually get more cash, almost twice as much. They couldn’t see it. There focus was only on today’s need. William ended up doing it himself to prove it to them. He did.

William wanted to demonstrate for them that long term thinking is more prosperous way of thinking.