One of the women in business that I admire is not anyone you probably know, she is not in the news and I do not think she is tech savvy at all, so that chances of catching her online are very slim.
She is simply known as “Iya Favor” (simply translated as “Favor’s mum”. Favor is the name of her daughter). She operates the everything store located in front of my Lagos home. She is one of the most consistent women in business I know, she has been running her store for up to 10 years (or more).
What strikes me about her is her work ethic. And that is the key to her success.
Observers can see her hard working and always looking at ways of expanding the business, adding various streams of revenue, always adding more and more products to her store. The store is usually open before 7AM and I do not think it is closed before 11PM. And She does not live inside the store.
If only she had better education, I am convinced she has the capacity to run a giant commerce operation like Shoprite or Walmart.
On the opposite side to this Iya Favor is many young people with great dreams, but lacking the work ethic needed. All young people interested in business seem to be willing to do is buy books, buy various business resources, network with other (equally lazy) Entrepreneurs and attend various seminars and forum where they will talk and talk and talk all day about how to start and grow a business.
Indeed, the average young Entrepreneur is usually interested in everything about a business except actually developing the work ethic needed to get it done. The way they set out in business, you would be forgiven for thinking they intend to simply speak the business into existence.
While Iya Favor lacks the power of an educated mind that would have allowed her to make much more money than she can ever hope to make from her current business, many young Entrepreneurs lack the power of having a good work ethic which also stops them from making any serious money or headway in their business.
The successful Entrepreneurs you read about in the news found ways of combining both. A well educated mind combined with good work ethic produces a magical result in life. Do not spare yourself! Any man who consistently wakes up before dawn and gets to work will always have enough to feed his family.
It is not enough to be a visionary, you also need to work hard. Getting the idea is only half of the work, if you do not work it out, it does not count.
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Watching The World
- You can now clone your animals for $100, 000. Here is an inside look at the world’s first animal cloning factory in Korea.
- Some Japanese Robotists have built a real life Transformer Robot that can transform from a car into a humanoid.
- I have a guest post up at TechCabal, Will The Real Startups Please Stand Up?
A big thanks to everyone who sent in their congratulatory messages for yesterday’s 100 posts milestone. (If you have not sent in your own, it is better late than never… )
