The Zimbabwe football “Warriors Dream Team” led by Reinhard Fabisch between 1992 and 1995 is said by many soccer lovers to be the best the country has ever seen. Although the team failed to qualify for both the World Cup and the Africa Nations Cup finals, they played beautiful, exciting and purposeful football.
First they beat African giants Egypt 2-1 in the World Cup qualifier on December 20 1992. The team then secured a goalless draw in the second leg on April 15 1993 in Cairo.
Many attributed those giant killing acts to the motivation that Fabisch inspired the team with. The team galvanised the patriotic zeal of the nation. Everyone was talking about it. Stadiums were filling up. Zimbabweans became wild about football.
Imagine if you could motivate customers to think, dream and sleep your product or service!
Well, it’s not impossible. Great entrepreneurs have done it. Look at Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, Bill Gates at Microsoft, Steve Jobs at Apple and Strive Masiyiwa at Econet. These entrepreneurs share a common characteristic: they are or were wild about their businesses.
How do you know if you are not wild about your business? Well, you will be shy about telling everyone you meet about your business; when you do talk about it, you are lukewarm; you don’t think your business will make you a millionaire; you are happy with your company being small and ordinary and you don’t worry about being mediocre.
True entrepreneurs know that to succeed, they have to inspire other people. For this to happen, you need to first motivate yourself. It starts within; you first need to be wild about your business before others can believe in you. When asked during an interview how he managed to reach the top as a professional bodybuilder and Hollywood actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied with a single word, “Drive!” All great success ultimately begins with an idea, but what makes ideas become reality is the fuel of human desire. An idea by itself can give you a temporary feeling of inspiration, but burning desire is what gets you through all the perspiration necessary to overcome the inevitable obstacles along the way.
Here are some tips to help you generate the motivation to drive your business ahead:
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Avoid weak goals Goals are the soul of achievement, so never begin them with “I’ll try . . .” Always start with “I will” or “I must”.
Then define the goals in measurable terms. A common and easy to measure metric is money. How much income or net profit do you want to achieve at the end of the year? At the end of five years?
The bigger the goal, the more you will achieve and the higher the motivation you will need. Create visual images of how your life and family will be like when the goals have been reached. And when you have set goals, burn the ships; don’t give yourself a fallback plan.
Beat your limits dailyAct on stretching your limits. Do something new or better or bigger daily. Doing the same familiar things makes you old. Stretching makes you grow and evolve. Never stop learning new ideas about improving your business and your life.
Avoid negative people Hanging with negative-minded people drains your energy and wastes your time. The same with reading or listening to negative things in the media or on the internet. The same way that enthusiasm is contagious, so is gloom and doom.
Stop the blame game Once you accept that your own thoughts and actions are responsible for your results, and then you will be free from making excuses. There is always something to blame; the government, the economy, the weather, the financial crisis or even your enemies and detractors. Once you accept responsibility for your own life, you will replace gloom with enthusiasm.
When you start acting on these few tips daily, you will find yourself thinking positively. Positive thoughts will lead you to build a better business, motivate your team and inspire your customers.
Just like there was biologically no difference between the players who were in the Dream Team and those in the current Warriors team, nothing can stop you from being like Strive Masiyiwa or Mark Zuckerberg.
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- Phillip Chichoni is a strategic business planning and financial management consultant who works with entrepreneurs and SMEs. He may be contacted on email [email protected]
