The Formula For Winning at Life Is Actually Incredibly Simple - Quartz

5/3/2017 The formula for winning at life is actually incredibly simple Quartz
STACK THE DECK
The formula for winning at life is

actually incredibly simple
Mark Manson April 27, 2017
It's a game of life or death. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi)
Welcome, Player One, to a strategy guide for the game known as life.
As youve undoubtedly discovered, the game of life is often quite difficult. You
will face unexpected challenges and long periods of frustration. You will often
struggle with self-doubt, feel overwhelmed by helplessness and loss, and
sometimes take a shit when youre out of toilet paper.
https://qz.com/967594/the-formula-for-winning-at-life-is-actually-incredibly-simple/ 1/27
Yes, life is hard, as the saying goes.
But fear not, this short guide is designed to help you complete your missions and
complete the game at the highest possible level.
How to win at life
The goal of life is simple: it is to level up as much as possible. Each level in life
presents a particular challenge that you must overcome. Once you overcome that
challenge, you get to move on to the next level. The goal is to complete as many
levels as possible. At the end of the game, the person at the highest level gets to
have the best funeral.
There are five levels in life:
Level 1 Find food; find a bed to sleep in at night
Level 2 Know youre not going to die
Level 3 Find your people
Level 4 Do something thats important and valuable to both

yourself and others
Level 5 Create a legacy
Level 1 just means youre not homeless and/or starving. This is a prerequisite for
just about everything else. Chances are, if youre stuck on level 1, you arent even
reading this right now.
Level 2 gets a bit more complicated, because a lot of people do have a nice bed
to sleep in every night, but they cant sleep because of gunshots outside or
bombs exploding over their city, or maybe Dads a drunk and keeps trying to set
the house on fire.
None of these things are cool. Level 2 requires that you find a secure and stable
home to base yourself out of. Getting past level 2 requires finding a way to
successfully remove yourself from these dangerous situations.
Level 3 means relationships, finding the right people to love and the right
people who love you.
This sounds way easier and more fun than it is. Mainly because, as youve likely
found out by now, most people suck.
Navigating to the ones who dont is a whole tricky matter that Ill get to in a bit.
Level 4 means building up some skill or knowledge or ability that adds value to
the world around you and also makes you feel like kind of a badass in the
process.
Level 5 just means making sure your life mattered when youre dead. Good luck
with that champ.
Most of us get a nice head start due to our parents. If youre lucky, your parents
will have successfully guided you through levels 1-3 and even give you a nice
boost in achieving level 4.
If your parents took care of you but they were kind of emotional fuck ups, then
youll have levels 1 and 2 down pat but be totally on your own for level 3.
If you were raised by wolves, a) congratulations on figuring out how to read, and
b) please refrain from chewing on your mobile device.
The design of life
Life is a big and complex game. Its the largest open world game known to date.
We all begin with different starting stats and were placed into a wide range of
environments that can either give us advantages or disadvantages.
But because most people have trouble conceptualizing life, they therefore
assume that they have no control over life. But nothing could be further from the
truth.
Lifes game design is actually surprisingly simple. It is guided by a few basic

principles that are designed to give the player an experience of a large amount of
randomness.
1. Life is designed to continually throw difficult and unexpected problems

at you
Life is a never-ending stream of problems that must be confronted, surmounted

and/or solved. If at any point, life runs out of problems to give us, then as
players, we will unconsciously invent problems for ourselves. Problems are what
keep us occupied and give our lives meaning and are, therefore, necessary to
conquer levels 4 and 5 (give value and leave a legacy).
As players, we spend most of our time preparing ourselves for problems that are
expected. But it is because of this preparation that, by definition, the most
difficult problems we experience in life will be unexpected.
This steady barrage of unexpected problems gives the player a sense that she
lacks control over her own life, when in fact, the purpose of life is not to control
what happens to you, but rather control and choose higher level reactions to
what happens to you.
2. Players may respond to problems with either solutions or distractions
All players must meet problems with a reaction (even choosing not to react to a
problem, is itself, a reaction).
All reactions can be divided up in two ways: solutions and distractions.
Solutions are actions and pursuits that resolve a problem preventing it from
continuing or happening again in the future. Distractions are actions or pursuits
designed to either make the player unaware of the problems existence or to dull
the pain the problem may be causing.
If a player feels they understand a problem and are capable of handling it, they
will pursue a solution. If players are just sick of lifes shit, then they will likely
pursue distractions to help them pretend the problem isnt actually there.
3. The more each solution or distraction is used, the easier and more
automatic it will be in the future
The more often you use a solution or distraction, the easier it will be to use
again, to the point where it will eventually become unconscious and automatic.
Once a solution or distraction is unconscious and automatic, it becomes a habit.
Habits are necessary because they prevent you from falling back to previous
levels youve already conquered. A player, once theyve found a solution to a
level, must employ that solution enough times to make it a habit, thus mastering
that level and allowing them to move on to the next level.
4. Solutions move us towards the next level, distractions keep us on the

same level
Since gaining levels in life requires solving problems, distracting ourselves from
our problems guarantees that we will become stuck on the same level.
If our distractions become habits, then we will become perpetually stuck at a

level and not even be conscious of it. If youve ever wondered why all of your
relationships have failed miserably in the past decade, then chances are your
distraction-habits are preventing you from achieving the real intimacy necessary
to beat level 3.
5. The formula for winning at the game of life is therefore actually

incredibly simple:
1. Correctly identify your solutions and distractions
2. Eliminate the distractions
3. ????
4. Profit
One simple example: Theres a problem at work and my boss hates me, so I can
either pursue a solution (confront my boss, look to be transferred, work harder,
etc.) or I can pursue a distraction (party every night, smoke crack, masturbate
while watching Disney cartoons, etc.).
The more often I choose a solution, the more it will make choosing subsequent
solutions easier, thus leading to an eventual level up. The more often I choose
distraction, the more it will make choosing subsequent distractions easier, thus
making me a deadbeat with a weird sex fetish.
One final note before I teach you how to totally cheat life and get a giant
pyramid built for you when you die:
Just because you level up doesnt mean problems stop at previous levels. A bros
still gotta eat (level 1). We all need to be safe to accomplish anything (level 2).
Relationships take work (level 3), yadda, yadda.
So think of leveling up as not necessarily going from juggling baseballs to

juggling knives. Rather, leveling up is like going from juggling three knives to
four, then five, and so on.
Below are the five cheat codes to help you navigate your way through life and
reach the end fully satisfied and leveled-up.
Entering these cheat codes is easy: just press Tab at the View Screen to access
your Minds Eye. The Minds Eye is where you actively observe yourself and
choose what to think about. From there, just type in the cheats below at the
Brain prompt and hit ENTER.
(Note: These cheats, like solutions and distractions, also require repetition to
work. So be patient with them. They will also eventually become their own
habits.)
Cheat #1: I am responsible for this
The number one way people fuck up is by telling themselves that theres nothing
they can do about the problems life gives them.
You can always do something about the problems life gives you.
When you decide that theres nothing you can do to solve a problem, you
immediately limit your possible reactions to distractions. And if you limit your
responses to distractions enough, pretty soon you will build a life that is made
up of nothing but habits of distractions. Youll be running away from everything,
and everyone, all the time. And youll probably turn into a grade-A selfish prick
at that.
(Another note: selfishness is essentially a propensity for distractions over

solutions. Since the people around you and your relationships benefit from
solutions, and distractions generally isolate you from others, constantly

pursuing distractions will likely make you into someone no one else wants to
really hang around withunless, that is, they pursue the same distractions that
you do. You know, two peas in a crack-pipe and all that.)
This first cheat is so important, I once wrote an article about it called The
Prime Belief and posted it on Facebook like three whole times. Some people
even shared it and it wasnt just my mom. Cheat #1 is so important, I dedicated
an entire chapter in my book to it. Its so important that if you passed out drunk
at a party, Id write it on your forehead with a sharpie.
Cheat #2: Write this shit down
No, Im not talking about writing down that you owe your buddy, Mike, $12 for
those beers you drank. Although, thats probably worth noting.
Separating solutions from distractions in your life is surprisingly difficult and

complicated. This is because we have a tendency to lie to ourselves about our
distractions. We tell ourselves that we need our distractions. We tell ourselves
that our distractions are just innocent fun. That we totally have them under
control, and yeah, maybe I woke up under a bridge in my own vomit, but at least
I remembered where I parked the car. See, I am responsible.
But worst of all, sometimes we come to believe that our distraction is actually a
solution. We think that spending 12 hours a day at the office will give us the
loving family we want, that playing violin in the park for spare change is a career
waiting to happen.
We can often spend years (or decades) pursuing what we believe will level us up
only to discover that weve basically been tweaking our nipples for the last 12
years, and while it felt good, we have nothing to show for it.
As such, we all need to develop an ability to observe our own thoughts.

Psychologists sometimes call this metacognition. In the past, Ive referred to it
as meta-awesomeness. Here, Im just going to call it not being a jerk.
To observe your own thoughts and not be a jerk, you need to get your thoughts
out in front of you and pretend that they arent yours. Only then can you hear
how utterly ridiculous they sound.
One common way to do this is to write down your thoughts regularly.
This can be a journal, a blog (how do you think all this stuff started, anyway?), or
even letters/emails to friends and family.
The important part is that you are actively digging into the problems in your life
and looking at your behavior from a third-person perspective.
Like, I know it sounds amazing when you decide to deal with your mommy issues
by popping pills and sleeping with a series of emotionally needy women just so
you can take pleasure in telling them to fuck off later. That might feel like a good
idea. But write it down. Then see what a jerk you are.
Therapy also works in this regard. You go sit on a couch and say a bunch of
things to this person who sits there and pretends to care. Then that person says
your thoughts back to you, just in a different way. And then youre like, Oh wait,
that sounds completely irrational. Thanks, Doc. And then you get screwed over
because your health insurance doesnt cover it.
So, if youre like the rest of the people in the US and are uninsured, you can
accomplish almost as much by simply developing a habit of writing shit down.
Cheat #3: Stop fucking complaining
Complaining literally accomplishes nothing. Plane late? Taxi ride bumpy?

Favorite pizza restaurant ran out of pepperoncini?
Take a deep breath and then hold it in forever, because you need to shut the
fuck up.
Complaining takes a problem and then prolongs it. It takes this experience that
is anywhere from a nuisance to legit painful and then turns it into this social
entity, and social entities suck because then we feel obligated to stand by them
and defend them and make sure everybody understands them AND AGREES
WITH US. And then you become that dude who is ADAMANT that this restaurant
sucks, and will defend your opinion to the death, even when in truth, you really
dont care that much, and you might even kind of like the place if you hadnt
turned it into this big deal.
People complain not because something sucks. People complain because theyre
looking for empathy and to feel connected with those around them.
Unfortunately, complaining is maybe the least useful way to connect with other
human beings. Its like working on your cardio by swimming through raw
sewage. Yeah, youre getting a workout, but uhh, whats that thing growing on
your face?
Cheat #4: Stop fantasizing
Back when I was in college, I went on a Zen retreat, and I remember the Zen
master, during a Q&A session, suggested trying to stop daydreaming in our daily
lives and to let go of fantasizing in general.
I was like 20-years-old at the time, and thus, spent most of my waking hours
fantasizing about either a) hot girls, b) rocking out on guitar in front of a bunch
of hot girls, or c) throwing really cool parties that would be full of really hot girls.
Needless to say, the Zen masters suggestion destroyed pretty much the only
thoughts that gave me any semblance of happiness at the time. I resisted the
notion the way a cat resists a bath.
But then I got older, eventually got over the whole obsession-with-hot-girls
thing that I think is a requirement for any man seeking even the appearance of
maturity, and realized that Ms. Zen master (yes, it was a woman) was right all
along.
The human imagination is a powerful thing. And the imagination is a fun thing
to play withits what attracts us to books and movies and TV shows that we
binge-watch in a single weekend.
But when applied to ourselves, the imagination can become another form of
distraction. It can be a way of avoiding what is real and true for us in the
moment, a way to live vicariously through the images and ideas fed to us by
others. Its a way to feel a sense of accomplishment, all while sitting on our
couch, alone.
Most recurring fantasies we have about ourselves are reactions to our

insecurities.
Ill give you one guess what my one huge glaring insecurity was when I was 20-
years-old Yup, hot girls (or sex, or being attractive/desired/loved, or whatever
you want to call it).
And those fantasies didnt help me resolve that insecurity. On the contrary, my
propensity to live in a fantasy-world (*cough* porn *cough*) obsessed with
objectifying women and seeing them as sexual conquests pushed me into
behavior and obsessions in my real life that were harder to relinquish than they
needed to be.
If you spend years fantasizing about that yacht, then chances are youll be the
guy who will wreck the rest of his life just to buy it. If you obsessively fantasize
about being admired and loved by all, then you will fail to stand up for yourself
in those many moments where youll need to most.
Fantasies are like any other distractionthey are to be used sparingly and for
nothing other than pure enjoyment. Its when they begin to sustain your sense of
self-worth, your desire for importance in this world, that you will be hobbling
yourself, and you will never level up again in life.
Cheat #5: Share your shame
Im about to sum up the biggest problem everyone deals with in the game of life
in one paragraph. Are you ready?
When were children, we are genuinely powerless to many of the problems in life.
We therefore rely on our parents to help us find solutions. But the more our
parents fail to find solutions, the more distractions we must create for ourselves
(notice how much children fantasize? Thats not a coincidence) in order to cope
with the difficulty of life. The more distractions we create for ourselves as
children, and/or the more distractions our parents teach us themselves, the more
they will form into habits that will continue into adulthood. Once adults, we will
forget that our distractions were merely reactions to problems, and we will come
to believe that there is something inherently flawed or wrong about us and we must
hide it from other people at all costs.
And so, we hide these things about ourselves, and to hide them, we must distract
ourselves even further, and it just creates this downward spiral of distraction and
shame.
The best way to get rid of our distractions and to reclaim the problems that have
been haunting us since childhood is to expose them, to share them, and
recognize that a) no, youre not a freak, most people struggle(d) with the same
problem, and b) that your distractions are just that: unhealthy ways to
compensate for how shitty you feel about yourself.
Theres an old saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Well, thats true for
ourselves as well. The only way to cure the darkest parts of yourself is to shine
light on them.
Good luck Player One. Remember, the game of life is designed to be complex and
confusing. The difficulty is not winning, but knowing what winning itself means.
Because thats the real challenge: deciding what our own life is worth and then
having the courage to go out and live it.
This piece originally appeared at MarkManson.net. Follow @iammarkmanson on

Twitter.
GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW
The best days of selling cheap

Chinese goods in Africa are over
Lily Kuo 4 hours ago Quartz Africa
A place for business. (EPA/Daniel Irungu)
NAIROBI, KENYA
In just 20 years, a sleepy residential neighborhood east of Nairobis central

business district has become one of the most globally connected trade hubs in
Africa.
Here, thousands of wholesale and retail traders sell clothing, electronics, fabric
and more that make their way across East and Central Africa. Purses, dresses,
and suits displayed in the neighborhoods many malls are branded, Made in the
PRC, a deliberately vague label that shoppers often dont realize refers to the
Peoples Republic of China. Other items come from Ethiopia, Dubai, and Turkey.
Investment flows in from entrepreneurs based in the United Kingdom, the
United States, and elsewhere.
Eastleigh, or little Mogadishu as the area is known for its number of Somali
residents, owes much of its wealth to the trade of mass produced goods from
China. Sales of Chinese goods make up almost all of Eastleighs 2.9 billion
Kenyan shillings (about $28 million) in turnover a year, according to the
Eastleigh Business District Association.
Eastleighs main shopping avenue. (EPA/Daniel Irungu)
Ninety percent of these items are coming from China. We rely more and more
on China, says Omar Hussein, general secretary of the Eastleigh Business
District Association. Hussein has been traveling to China to source clothes for
his menswear shop for most of the last decade.
Now, more people are finding that this line of work isnt as reliable anymore.
Years of quick profits have inspired more people to get into the business and
expanded trade connections between China and Kenya have made it much easier
to start. Today, Eastleigh is home to at least 50 malls, each housing hundreds of
stalls selling often identical merchandise from manufacturing hubs like
Guangzhou or Yiwu in southern and central China.
The business is too slow and the malls are too many. You can see it from the
stores, all selling the same things, the same quality, says Mohamed Ali, who
owns a menswear store in Amal Plaza, a five-story mall on Eastleighs main road,
First Avenue. The walls of Alis shop, Nasiib Fashions, are lined with jeans, suits,
and polo shirts brought over from China.
Mohamed Ali in his mens wear shop in Amal Plaza in Eastleigh, Nairobi. (Quartz/Lily Kuo)
When Ali first opened his store almost eight years ago, he could make about
$100 a day, enough to build a house for his four children and wife in Isiolo in
northern Kenya. Now, making even half that is hard. Other local traders and shop
owners say business isnt as good as it used to be.
Its more about surviving these days when in the past it was about thriving,
says Neil Carrier, author of a recent book on Eastleigh, Little Mogadishu:
Eastleigh, Nairobis Global Somali Hub.
The boom years of trading in Chinese goods may be over not just for Eastleigh,
but for the thousands of African and Chinese who have been facilitating the flow
of cheap Chinese goods into Africa. Across the continent, Chinese products
dominate the market for everything from cell phones to traditional dutch wax
prints.
Now, African traders from Kenya to Nigeria are struggling with competition and
the rising costs of Chinese goods. Its easier to move goods between China and
Africa than ever before, but tightening visa regulations are making it harder to
operate in China. Guangzhou, the main hub for Chinese products destined for
Africa, has begun to empty out of the African traders and businesspeople that
have collected there over the past decade.
Chinese traders who have set up shop across Africa, selling to African traders or
directly to customers, are also getting hit by weak local currencies and growing
competition from other Chinese and African traders. In South Africa, home to
Africas largest Chinese community, Chinese traders are moving to less saturated
markets in Africa or going back home. Chinese communities in Botswana,
Senegal, and Angola have shrunk as more consider leaving.
My suspicion is that the days of Africa-China trade in Guangzhou are going

down, and that the best days are done, says Gordon Mathews, an anthropologist
at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who has written a forthcoming book on
the topic.
Guangzhou to Eastleigh
Its surprisingly easy to get things from Guangzhou, a port city of 14 million, to
Eastleigh, a central Nairobi neighborhood of 200,000 that struggles for
government funds just to fix its roads.
Hundreds of businesses, from brokers and money changers to transport and

logistics companies, exist to cater to the trade of Chinese goods. Cargo
companies with offices in China and Kenya arrange every step of the process
from picking up buyers at the airport, to checking on their orders before
shipment. Traders who cant afford to fill an entire container themselves can
share with others in a process called groupage.
Even traveling to China isnt as necessary anymore. Those with established

connections in China make their orders through WhatsApp or WeChat, using
video chat to check on their products. Payment is made through trusted relatives
and friends to avoid extra fees charged by banks.
These links are more than two decades in the making. In the late 1990s and early
2000s, Somali and other African traders who had been sourcing from Dubai and
Hong Kong began going directly to mainland China as the Chinese economy took
off. At a time when global consumer giants were ignoring Africa, African traders
began importing more and more Chinese goods.
One of Eastleighs many malls selling Chinese goods. (EPA/Daniel Irungi)
Eastleigh, where many Somalis fled to after the outbreak of civil war in their
country in 1991, became a base for the Somali diaspora. As it expanded, Somalis
based in the US, the UK, and elsewhere invested in property and businesses in
the neighborhood, and more people got into the business of buying and selling
made-in-China items.
Up to and during the mid-2000s, there was a moment when just importing
goods to African markets was enough to make money, says Emma Lochery, a
post-doctoral researcher at the University of Liege in Belgium who has
researched trade between Eastleigh and Guangzhou.
China accounted for just 1.8% of African imports in 1992. By 2013, it had become
the continents largest source of imports, sending three times as much (pdf.
p.40) goods as either of Africas traditional trading partners, the US or Germany.
Chinese exports to Africa reached $103 billion in 2015, according to UN
Comtrade data. Some researchers say the real amount could be as much as 60%
higher than official figures, given how much is underreported or smuggled
through peoples luggage.
China-Africa trade
Chinese exports to Africa African exports to China
$120 billion
90
60
30
0
93 95 97 99 01 03 05 07 09 11 13
Data: SAIS CARI, UN Comtrade Data Share
Its an industry that straddles the line between the formal and informal. African
entrepreneurs run business associations, logistics companies, consulting
services, hotels, restaurants, and in some cases their own factories in China.
Academics describe this flow of goods and people as a kind of second economy,
or globalization from below, directed by individuals in developing countries
with limited resources rather than multinational companies.
In Eastleigh, this dynamic is on full display. There are few things for sale that
arent from China, including items specific to its majority Muslim Somali
population. Small shops and traders sell prayer mats, compasses that indicate
the direction of Mecca, fake gold jewelry styled after the elaborate necklaces and
bracelets favored by Somali women, and Somali wedding dresses, called dirac.
A shop near Amal Plaza in Eastleigh sells childrens clothes imported from China. (Quartz/Lily Kuo)
Critics say Chinese goods are being dumped on African countries to the
detriment of local industry and African shoppers. Chinese textiles have been
blamed for the decline of the local garment industry in Kenya, South Africa, and
elsewhere. In April, hundreds of Ugandans protested in Kampala calling on
Chinese traders to leave.
In some cases there are health risks. Counterfeit medicine, often from China,
causes as many as 100,000 deaths a year in Africa, according to the World Health
Organization. Ivorian authorities in March burned 50 tonnes of fake

paracetamol, antibiotics, vitamins, and other drugs that appeared to have been
made in China.
In Eastleigh, low-quality Chinese items are referred to as one time goods.

(Theyre called fong kong in South Africa or chinko in Nigeria.) Traders and
shop owners in the Nairobi neighborhood defend their merchandise by pointing
out that Chinese factories produce both low and high quality goods. It just
depends on the price buyers are willing to pay.
A Kenyan trader holds up a placard during a protest against Chinese hawkers in Nairobi in 2012. (EPA/Daniel
Urungu)
Others say China has brought cheap cell phones, machinery and other staples to
people who would have otherwise struggled to buy such goods. Many people say
China items are fake, but the fact remains that everyone goes to China to buy
goods, says Hussein.
A shrinking market
Its in part because of this ease of trade between China and Africa that business
has slowed in Eastleigh. Down the road from Amal Plaza is another shopping
center, Mega Mall. A few stores dot the ground floor. The second and third floors
sit empty except for a local nonprofit and a storeroom of shoes. The Eastleigh
malls are starting to see more vacancies and turnover of the shops is high,
according to locals.
Eastleighs shops face more competition from Kenyan traders who have made
their own connections in China as well as other Somali shop owners and traders.
Chinese companies are also new rivals. Phones made by the Hong Kong-based
mobile phone company Tecno are now ubiquitous across the continent. Telecom
giant Huawei is also ramping up its marketing to sell cell phones directly to
middle-class Africans.
Small-scale traders also face the threat of expanding supermarket chains like
South Africas Shoprite, which can import in bulk from China. Nakumatt, a
Kenyan grocery chain, is scheduled to open in a new upscale shopping complex
in Eastleigh, the Comesa Shopping Mall, named to embrace the spirit of the
trade bloc, or the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
I think that we are seeing a process of market change from a period of new
connections and opening up to a period where making money requires a large
amount of money, good networks, and the ability to protect a niche [or] secure
contracts, says Lochery.
Mega Mall, a shopping center in Eastleigh, Nairobi is mostly empty. (Quartz/Lily Kuo)
A shrinking market for Chinese goods will hit small businesses, traders, and
hawkers the hardest. In South Africa, where Chinese traders and business people
have opened dozens of shopping centers, generically called China malls selling
inexpensive Chinese goods, more Chinese shops are closing.
Eric Phiri, from the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province, owns a computer shop in
one of these centers, China Mall, in Johannesburgs industrial Crown Mines area.
He says the departure of the Chinese will eventually mean less foot traffic to
stores like his.
If the Chinese leave, its going to affect us. Well have to close down, he says.
Hell struggle to find somewhere with similarly cheap rental space.
Eric Phiri runs a store in South Africa in a Chinese-run shopping center selling refurbished computers.
(Quartz/Cornell Tukiri)
In Eastleigh, that will mean job losses and stores closing, a painful process given
that several families often go in on one shop together. Its not great for factories
in China either, where demand from the US and Europe never fully recovered
after the financial crisis.
For now, many are doing their best to cut costs, develop a niche market, or get
into new businesses. Dan Kamwanza who owns a ladies wear shop in Amal Plaza
with his brother, researches the latest styles on Instagram and browses the other
malls in Eastleigh to see whats selling well. Hes been able to make enough to
fund more purchasing trips to Guangzhoulast year he went four times.
Its a very nice business. If you have the capital, the business is not bad, he
says.
Others are doing extensive market research through their networks in Africa, or
looking for new niches, importing specialty items like ice-cream machines or
fish eggs. They can still benefit from what they learned in China, like how to
import toilet bowls, materials, air conditioners, says Heidi Haugen, a researcher
at the University of Oslo studying China-Africa trade in Guangzhou.
Abdirahman Hassan owns a shop in Garissa Lodge, the first of the Eastleigh
malls that got its start in the 1980s when Somali traders and refugees would sell
smuggled goods from their rented rooms, spread out on their beds. (At night the
traders stashed their merchandise underneath their cots while they slept).
Hassan buys womens clothes in Guangzhou where he spends several months out
of the year. He thinks competition is tough but theres still money to be made.
The demand [for Chinese goods] is too much, he says. Hassan is confident that
he can get into other businesses, like selling electronics or building materials.
There are other things you can turn your attention to. In China, there are a lot
of opportunities.
Another way to do business
Slowing trade with China could also give African businesses and entrepreneurs
an opening to make the goods theyve been buying from China. Manufacturing
accounted for 10% of GDP on average in sub-Saharan Africa in 2013, around the
same rate it was in the 1970s. As labor costs in China rise, more manufacturers
might look to African countries with ready supplies of cotton and leather as well
as a growing labor force.
Ethiopia is expanding its textile processing industry and other garment factories
have started in Rwanda. Across the continent, industrial zones have been built,
often with Chinese funds, to jumpstart manufacturing.
There are challenges to producing goods here rather than in China, like
inconsistent and expensive electricity, poor transport infrastructure, and a lack
of regulatory protections for growing industries.
Still, local entrepreneurs and business people think something has to change.
Africa will have to rely on itself and rely on local industry, local factories. Thats
a long-term solution, says Hussein, of the Eastleigh business association. Hes
considering opening his own garment factory in Kenya. This, he says, referring
to the import of goods from China, is a short-term solution.
Abdi Haji from Hargeisa in Somaliland, a self-declared state in northwest

Somalia, has been helping traders from Djibouti, Mozambique, Tanzania,
Somalia, and Kenya source their goods in Yiwu in southern China for more than
a decade. Now, Haji approaches his customers with a new proposal: buy the
machines to make the items theyre importing, are at least parts of them.
Abdi Haji, a businessman from Somaliland, in Yiwu China where he works as a broker for African traders.
(Quartz/Abdi Haji)
As a broker, Hajis job is to check and monitor the progress of his clients orders,
an excuse for monitoring and studying every part of the production process. I
take video in the factories of every item. I study how it started, how it finished,
how its produced, he says.
His advantage, he says, is that he knows exactly what people want to buy as well
as how to make those items. For the last few years, hes been importing light
machinery from China for cutting building materials, garment stitching, or
screen printing.
I show them there is another way to do business. They can take this machine,
they can do the processing and finishing in Africa, he says. The money has to
stay in Africa. Its a lot of money we can make by creating here.
Read next: Chinese migrants have changed the face of South Africa. Now
theyre leaving.
Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief the most important and interesting
news from across the continent, in your inbox.

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5/3/2017 The formula for winning at life is actually incredibly simple Quartz

STACK THE DECK

The formula for winning at life is

It's a game of life or death. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi)

Yes, life is hard, as the saying goes.

How to win at life

There are five levels in life:

Level 1 Find food; find a bed to sleep in at night

Level 2 Know youre not going to die

Level 3 Find your people

Level 4 Do something thats important and valuable to both

Level 5 Create a legacy

The design of life

Lifes game design is actually surprisingly simple. It is guided by a few basic

1. Life is designed to continually throw difficult and unexpected problems

Life is a never-ending stream of problems that must be confronted, surmounted

2. Players may respond to problems with either solutions or distractions

All reactions can be divided up in two ways: solutions and distractions.

4. Solutions move us towards the next level, distractions keep us on the

If our distractions become habits, then we will become perpetually stuck at a

5. The formula for winning at the game of life is therefore actually

1. Correctly identify your solutions and distractions

2. Eliminate the distractions

So think of leveling up as not necessarily going from juggling baseballs to

Cheat #1: I am responsible for this

(Another note: selfishness is essentially a propensity for distractions over

solutions, and distractions generally isolate you from others, constantly

Cheat #2: Write this shit down

Separating solutions from distractions in your life is surprisingly difficult and

As such, we all need to develop an ability to observe our own thoughts.

One common way to do this is to write down your thoughts regularly.

Cheat #3: Stop fucking complaining

Complaining literally accomplishes nothing. Plane late? Taxi ride bumpy?

Cheat #4: Stop fantasizing

Most recurring fantasies we have about ourselves are reactions to our

Cheat #5: Share your shame

This piece originally appeared at MarkManson.net. Follow @iammarkmanson on

GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW

The best days of selling cheap

A place for business. (EPA/Daniel Irungu)

In just 20 years, a sleepy residential neighborhood east of Nairobis central

Eastleighs main shopping avenue. (EPA/Daniel Irungu)

My suspicion is that the days of Africa-China trade in Guangzhou are going

Hundreds of businesses, from brokers and money changers to transport and

Even traveling to China isnt as necessary anymore. Those with established

One of Eastleighs many malls selling Chinese goods. (EPA/Daniel Irungi)

Data: SAIS CARI, UN Comtrade Data Share

Organization. Ivorian authorities in March burned 50 tonnes of fake

In Eastleigh, low-quality Chinese items are referred to as one time goods.

Another way to do business

Abdi Haji from Hargeisa in Somaliland, a self-declared state in northwest

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