By Dennis Ndlovu I Zim GBC News| Arts and Entertainment reporter
Entrepreneur and author Augustus Siziba is sparking a national conversation on the true nature of prosperity with his provocative upcoming book, Making Money While Sleeping.
In a wide-ranging interview with Zim GBC News reporter, Siziba said his book seeks to debunk the myth that hard work leads to riches, a message he believes has shaped African societies for generations.
“That is the lie that has plagued Africans for quite a long period of time,” he said.
“They worked very hard building this country under colonial power, but they are not the richest people that you will find on this planet.”
Siziba points to farmers, commuter omnibus drivers and construction workers professions often associated with long hours and physical labour as examples of people who work tirelessly yet remain financially vulnerable.
“If hard work really paid, then our farmers, our kombi drivers, our construction workers should be the richest people on earth. But that is not the case,” he said.
Instead, Siziba argues that wealth is created through systems that generate income independently of an individual’s time and physical presence.
“If people are to create wealth and start making money while they are sleeping, then they should come up with ways of making money that are not linked to their geographic location and time,” he explained.
He is quick to clarify that the book is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but rather a guide to transforming informal hustles into structured businesses and eventually into income-producing assets.
“It teaches you how you can convert your hustle into a business and how you can convert your business into an income-producing asset,” Siziba said.
The idea for the book is rooted in personal experience. Siziba describes himself as a lifelong hustler, inspired by his mother, who raised him after a divorce when he was young.
“I could see how she would do anything just to put food on the table,” he recalled, describing how she identified opportunities, including providing catering services to white communities holding meetings in Chivu.
“That is where I got my initial inspiration from,” he said.
However, it was his own experience running a funeral parlour that crystallised the central theme of the book.
At the time, Siziba says, he was responsible for nearly every aspect of the business from body removals and washing to marketing and burials.
“Whenever I was not feeling well, everything would stop,” he said.
The Covid-19 pandemic further exposed what he saw as the fragility of income streams tied to physical presence.
“During Covid, because I stopped earning, I couldn’t go outside. But during that time, there were some people that were making money,” Siziba said.
Curious about the difference, he began studying how wealthy individuals structured their operations.
“I noticed that most of them have created systems that continue to generate income even when they are not doing anything,” he said.
“So that is what led me to penning down these principles.”
Siziba began writing the book in January 2024 and completed the manuscript in November. It is currently undergoing editing and typesetting ahead of publication and launch.
The most challenging part of the process, he said, was organising the many ideas he had gathered over the years into a coherent structure.
“As entrepreneurs, we’ve got so many ideas in our heads. So for me, the hardest part is organising the information so that it’s presentable in the right sequence and order,” Siziba said.
He also reflected on what he sees as a broader cultural issue.
“As Africans, we’re not cultured to document things,” he said, describing the difficulty of structuring chapters and rearranging content as new ideas emerged.
Although the book focuses largely on principles and systems rather than personal stories, one account stood out emotionally for him that of his brother, whose farming business collapsed, forcing him to move to Harare.
He later discovered that his brother had repositioned himself as an intermediary, connecting clients to services and retaining a margin.
“That’s when it dawned on me that all along he was just a middleman,” Siziba said, describing how his brother eventually celebrated buying a laptop with his earnings.
In the book, he argues that such intermediaries often underestimated position themselves where money flows and can build significant wealth.
Siziba hopes the book will spark debate about how business is taught, particularly in universities.
“I don’t believe in sitting down and being lectured on how to run a business by somebody who is not running a business,” he said.
He believes academic institutions should learn from entrepreneurs operating in the school of the street, where practical systems are developed and tested.
He also wants readers to rethink what is possible for African entrepreneurs.
“We’ve been conditioned to think small,” Siziba said, questioning why more local businesspeople do not collaborate to build larger corporations or even financial institutions.
At its core, he says, the message is about mindset.
“Hard work leads to struggle and survival. But systems create wealth.”
Drawing on a biblical analogy, Siziba notes that creation followed a structured order.
“There’s a certain order that was followed, and ever since then, God has been resting,” he said.
“I want us as Africans to develop that mindset and approach things systemically.”
Summing up the book in a single sentence, Augustus Siziba said:
“Hard work leads to survival. But systems lead to wealth.”
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