The Sunday Mail
Entrepreneurship is the art of taking money from people without them complaining. Yes, its a shocking definition.
It is only when you use force that it is called “robbery”; if you use misrepresentation it’s called “fraud; if you take without someone’s consent and you don’t intend to return it back it’s called “theft”.
But when you take money from people without people complaining it’s called “entrepreneurship”.
Come to think of it, you buy airtime to be on Whatsapp. You might not even know the founder of WhatsApp. The owners of WhatsApp do not even give you data or a handset to use, but you still find joy in using their application.
You do not even complain when you are topping up your airtime, you do not complain when you are parting with money to buy those pieces of roasted chicken in that shop, you do not complain when you are walking into that restaurant to enjoy a cup of coffee and “free” wifi.
One thing is certain in life, it’s either you are taking money from people or some people are taking money from you.
Have you ever sat down and asked yourself how much you put out of your pocket daily, weekly or monthly?
What are you doing to take money from people without making them complain?
The motivation behind this article is to provoke people into entrepreneurial action.
The recent developments in the labour market are not a secret, and the consequences have affected thousands of families.
People are being chopped in their hundreds, and even after the intervention of the legislature, employment contracts are still being terminated. This I can understand from my legal background. There is no security in a job. The greatest mistake many people make is to seek security in their jobs.
The reason why many get stranded when their contracts are terminated is that their whole life was summarised in terms of a “pay slip” and they knew nothing besides this.
Israel’s King Solomon shared some interesting thoughts on entrepreneurship and increasing income streams.
“Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6).
There are definitely some keys that can help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
Take charge of your life: You need to reach this point where you take 100 percent responsibility for your life.
Stop being a victim or living like one: There are people who are really angry at their bosses for nominating them for the chop. Sometimes, you might even have served the company dutifully for years, and they are putting you on the notice list. Stop blaming anyone for your problems, take charge of your life. Do not blame anyone for your poverty.
Do not blame anyone for the crisis in your house. You can transform the state of your income by transforming the state of your mind. When you refuse to be a victim, and choose to be in control of your life, you can move your life from where you are to where you ought to be.
Many people in Zimbabwe have become so accustomed to complaining such that they complain practically about everything.
Complaining will never improve your life: One needs to introspect and examine the quality of decisions that he has been making in the past.
One of the decisions that you might not have made is to increase your streams of income. When you pass the blame on others, you give up the power to change your life. If your life is going to change, it is going to take you. Who controls your income?
Anyone who gives you a salary can stop it at any point in time. Any person who controls any part of your time can release you from it.
The Supreme Court in the Zuva case simply demonstrated how insecure a job is.
The tendency by many people is to see the devil in the terminations. This is a victim mindset! Do not forget that the organisation that you work for is someone’s vision. What you need to strive for in life is to find your own vision and become good at it.
If your life is to change, you need to take this as a wakeup call to personal productivity.
You might not have been terminated on notice, but you need to open up your mind and make yourself more useful.
There is no millionaire with a payslip. Some people have to be fired in order to be fired up.
The “pay slip”
A pay slip is someone’s estimation of your value. Do you understand your own value?
If you are going to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, you need to start looking beyond your pay slip and stretching your earning capacity through being creative. One of the ways of doing this is to take charge of your time.
Between 8am and 5pm every working day you are selling your time. You do not own this time.
It belongs to your employer, if you are employed.
“Sow your seed in the morning . . .”
In the current context this means you have to go to your job if you have one. This is what many people do every day between 8am to 5pm. So, if you have a job, go and work and serve your employer to the best of your ability.
The challenge we have today is of people who go to work and don’t serve competently.
They simply work for the sake of working. The trend is to look at what they are being paid and formulate a measure of performance which is commensurate with the remuneration.
You can choose to do what everyone is doing and end up where everyone ends, or you can choose to do the uncommon and end up with an uncommon result.
If you are going to run your own business effectively, learn to serve other people’s businesses effectively.
You are not paid for appearing at work; you are paid for the value that you bring to work.
“. . . and at evening let not your hands be idle”
This is the interesting part of Solomon’s advice. The key words are “evening, hands, idle”. Many of us put our brains and hands to sleep after 5pm. We come back home very tired and exhausted and all we think of is just to eat and sleep and wake up the following day to the routine that we hate most of the time.
We stop thinking about working because we were serving on our jobs. Idleness is an interesting word.
Idleness is a state of doing nothing. A lot of people are idle after their normal working hours.
We are not using our hands after we finish our day jobs. We are also not using our time effectively after we finish our day jobs.
Once it’s 5pm, we think that it’s the time to go and sleep, watch movies and lots of television as well as invest more time on social networks which sometimes are not even bringing our meaningful results.
Why do people do these things? The defence is simple, “tired and need to rest”. This is a consistent defence which many are holding on to everyday.
If your life is going to change, you have to change the way you are doing things. You cannot be tired for your own growth; you cannot be tired for the betterment of your life.
You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Break the routine and start making yourself useful.
Arthur Marara is an attorney and speaker. He is also the author of the “Personal Development Toolkit, Keys to Financial Freedom and Keys to Effective Time Management”. Send your feedback to [email protected], WhatsApp: +263 772 467 255 or visit www.arthurmarara.com
You can also join him on Star FM on Wednesdays (09:30am-10:00am) for some moments of inspiration on the Breeze with Tariro and Iyati.
