By Francis O. Nmeribe, FNIIS
Entrepreneurship in my own words
means legitimate activities engaged in by a person or persons with the aim at
first of, providing services that solve problems for people; enhance people’s
enjoyment of their lives, promote other people’s security, peace and happiness
and in return provide the same equities for the entrepreneur through the profit
he or she made providing the services to others and the joy of engaging in
wholesome activities that uplift the mind, heart and spirit of man.
In life, it is what you seek that
you find. If you resign from searching for
the true enrichment of your life because the road is hard, you stay right where
you are. One way of life which the advanced
cultures of North America, Europe and the Asian tiger nations of China, South
Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, etc, have which I strongly recommend we in
Africa adopt is to live life with the end in mind.
From secondary school, young people
in these advanced cultures mentioned earlier learn a trade or more which they
use to provide service for other people and thereby make money to put
themselves through university and get married with at the same time and at a
reasonably early age. They do not wait for parents and patronizing elder
siblings, uncles and other persons to sponsor them through education after a
certain age.
It is wrong for a 21 year old man
to wait for parents or anybody for that matter to pay school fees for him. It is this sense of independence that can
strengthen a young single adult’s mind to make the decision about his how his
or her life would turn out. It is Eric
Eilholm1 who said that “one way to access personal power is to make
a decision how your life would be different from what it is at present.” An independent mindset which starts with a
decision to take care of yourself as soon as you turn into this great stage of
life known as the ‘young adult years’ is the nucleus of the entrepreneurial
spirit and entrepreneurship.
If you want to develop the attitude
that supports you to move forward in life, then start with a skill. Get the skill in the area of your passion or
what you love and, are happy, to do. Use
your newly acquired skill in an innovative way. For example, if you learned to be an
automobile mechanic, instead of waiting in a shop for people to bring vehicles
for you to fix, why not be aggressive in searching out those who need services
and rendering such service to them. Start
with people in your neighbourhood, your teachers at school, your friends’
parents and relations, who know you well.
Instead of the common trend where a
mechanic would shortchange his customers, why not you go the extra mile in
satisfying the customer in such a way that he or she totally depends on
you. Many people have gotten life-saving
and enhancing referrals from satisfied customers who introduce them to great
benefactors and new opportunities for growth in their trade or a change to
another more lucrative vocation. You
would be able to take care of yourself and a wife while you are young and you
can make real progress in your life that count.
We hear about unsavoury
unemployment stories every day in Nigeria.
Recent figures state that as much as forty-six per cent of Nigerians are
unemployed. This figure does not address
under employment which I think rubbishes any feeling that fifty-four per cent
of Nigerians are employed. The rate of
under employment or people working below their mental, physical and academic
capacity is quite high. We learn about
people who spend five to ten years after university without a job. Such situation and associated stories about
them, in my opinion, should not ever be told.
It is disastrous to a man's life to wait for a job in a country like
Nigeria where there are no functional industries and no infrastructure to
encourage investment. It is high time we move away from the job hunting mindset
to the job and wealth creation mindset.
Entrepreneurship is the key to the
future. This is not just for the folks
who leave primary and secondary school to learn how to buy and sell. It is for every young adult in Africa,
especially for Nigerians, single or married so that we do not delay our
blessing and preparation for leadership in the kingdom of God on Earth and
participation in the political process in our countries. For it is in, as many of us as has capacity
to effectively participate in the decision making process of our countries,
that there is the power to bring about the change that we all seek.
Entrepreneurial spirit is the
leading light for the temporal salvation of mankind.
Even those who work at paid
employment should start early in their employment life to learn how to be
entrepreneurs. The need cannot be
overemphasized. Most people would leave
paid employment earlier than when they attend the statutory age of
retirement. There are those who would
make thirty-five years of service before they are sixty years of age. Most people would still be strong and healthy
and able to work for many more years before they would really want to take the
back bench in final retirement. For all
of these people, it would certainly be awkward to go seeking for another paid
employment where they would probably be reporting to someone the age of their
own children. Entrepreneurship is the
appropriate recourse for these people.
The only opportunity that retired
persons have to be successful entrepreneurs hinge solely on skills acquired in
one’s area of passion and practised throughout the period of paid employment as
a side business which has grown into a
business venture. Those who try
otherwise find out before the gestation period of the business they started
after retirement, that they have no more money left to fund the
recapitalization of the business venture.
The horrible state of these retired persons is best imagined than
experienced.
The only way to avoid “turning age
sixty, broke and needing assistance” as Jim Rohn would say is to imbibe the
spirit of entrepreneurship from young adult years and practicing it throughout
one’s life and or throughout paid employment.
Entrepreneurship, therefore, is the
way forward for everybody whether you are currently employed in paid employment
or not, in school or out of school, starting life or in the middle of life.
Think about it. Do something about it and see the
transformation of lives that you would achieve.
The great strides you reach in the process of entrepreneurship is what
would remove acrimony, disunity and wars among us.
Widespread entrepreneurship spirit
and skill burning in our hearts and mind would ensure that all peoples of our
country, regardless of their tribe, tongue, ethnicity, religion and whatsoever
persuasions, would be able to live in peace one with another.
A country with a growing entrepreneurship
base would have more of its citizenry creating wealth and the good life and
would have no time to bicker about sharing “the national cake”. And this is because entrepreneurship provides
opportunity for all.
Entrepreneurship is indeed the key
to the future.
·
Eilholm, Eric (2009), How To Be A Super Star Salesman (Audio
CD), aSuccess University, NY, USA
