That is when he adopted a new attitude and returned with unprecedented success, moving from breaking point to breaking the bank as Yahoo’s chief solutions evolver. His first lesson is useful to entrepreneurs everywhere, but more so to us as Zimbabwean entrepreneurs struggling to grow our businesses in a slow and depressed economy.
Success is not a destination, because you will never get there. Success is a journey. Millionaires are still working hard to make even more. Look at Phillip Chiyangwa, Nigel Chanakira, Strive Masiyiwa and Shingi Mutasa. Do you see them relaxing drinking champagne and eating chocolate every day? Bill Gates, Steve Job, George Soros, you name them, they are busy developing new products and making new deals to create more value on top of their billions. So why should you be satisfied with mediocrity? The biggest determinant of success or failure is your own mind, that’s Sanders’ first lesson.
FEED YOUR MIND WITH POSITIVE STUFFWe all know there is a global recession and that business is difficult. We might want to wait until things getter. But the reality is that opportunity waits for no man. Indian firm Essar has decided to invest $750 million in Zimbabwe in the middle of a depression, political uncertainty and an unclear future. The biggest reason why people hesitate to move forward is the fear which results from the negative information they feed their minds. Feeding our minds the toxic information from the news, rumours, gossip and analysts’ commentaries could be the very thing holding us back. The toxic information cascades down to our behaviour, our leadership qualities and how we do business.
When your mind ingests a piece of information, it gets to work, chewing it, digesting it and converting it into thoughts. The thoughts influence your actions and outlook on life, which determine your success or failure, your happiness or misery and the circumstances of your life. Learn to filter what you watch, read or listen to; feed your mind with mostly good and positive stuff and you will move ahead in spite of the current perceptions of hardship and negativity.
Learn to filter negative people and their nasty attitudes. You probably know a few; the ones who, when you tell them about your brilliant idea, will say: “That will never work, look at how John failed when he tried it.” Or, “Who in your family ever set up a successful business?” Or even, “Ah, Peter uses juju to attract customers and Mary was set up in business by her rich government Minister boyfriend.”
When you decide to get into successful business, you may find yourself alone. You become boring to your friends and acquaintances. That’s understandable. Entrepreneurship is hard work.
You need to spend time planning your business, acquiring essential knowledge and business skills while your friends may want to relax or party. And your mind needs to be focused.
The good stuff you need to feed your mind with includes business books and magazines, newspapers with an editorial style that’s intended to enrich your point of view and give you necessary information that’s also relevant to your life.
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It is not wise to isolate yourself, so you need to look for people with a similar entrepreneurial spirit and spend time with them.
Instead of begrudging successful entrepreneurs, try to find opportunities to learn from them. Successful entrepreneurs are always networking with others who can benefit them or their businesses. Never miss a chance to widen your network of business contacts.
One of the challenges I noticed while working with entrepreneurs is that too many are secretive about their business stories. Perhaps since the economy has opened up we shall see more coming out with their inspirational stories for others to learn from. We don’t want to keep quoting foreign entrepreneurs for success stories.
Over the past year, as part of my new book project entitled Back to Business: 12 Lessons for Entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe’s Transitional Economy, I managed to talk to some successful entrepreneurs to hear how they are managing in this new environment of US dollars and free markets. I will share with you their stories over the coming months.
To join my mailing list and receive free weekly newsletters, please send me an email. The next SME BusinessLink networking event will be a breakfast meeting on August 25 where a speaker will talk about how smaller companies can get to do business with bigger firms.
n Phillip Chichoni is a business planning consultant who works with SMEs and entrepreneurs. His email address is [email protected].
