Welcome to the second of our five-part series of excerpts from The Entrepreneur’s Mind, a book by Ugandan entrepreneur and engineering specialist Joel Jaffer Aita. In this excerpt, he offers a series of tips on the prerequisites for young people to succeed, why mentorship is important, why a young entrepreneur must have a mentor, and how to find and retain a mentor, among others.
The youth constitute a powerful population in the world today. Youth can mean freshness, vigour and spirit. Youth is a stage of construction of self-concept. The self-concept of youth is determined by variables such as peers, lifestyle, gender and culture. It is a time in people’s lives when the choices made are most likely to affect their future.
In most Sub-Saharan Africa, the term youth is associated with young men and women from the age of 18-35. The youthful stage is a very powerful stage. It is a stage between childhood and adulthood. Youth have the power to the change the world positively. The youth were actively involved in civil rights’ movement of Martin Luther King. The youth participated actively in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. The youth in Nigeria have been on the front line for a fight to end S.A.R.S and bringing justice in the police force. Many youths in Liberia have come out to protest against the barbaric act of rape against women. The youth have participated in positive change across the globe, even in America. The youth have the energy, charm, charisma and power to change the world.
Positive attitude is a very important virtue that youth must adopt in order to have a very fruitful life even for the future.
The following are among the many prerequisites that the youths should know.
- Success is Not by Accident
Success comes from with hard work. Hard work is a great virtue in life and laziness is one of the worst habits you can ever adopt. Hard work pays and laziness robs. There is no way you can be hard working in vain. There is no way you can sit sluggishly in the mighty throne of laziness and expect success to come looking for you. If you want to be successful, look for success aggressively like how a predator looks for prey.
You must learn that;
- Perseverance is a very strong foundation for success.
- You must be patient as you persevere. Patience is painful but it pays. The best reference story patience and perseverance can be drawn from the Chinese bamboo tree. It may take time to grow but eventually it will skyrocket and escalate.
- Learning and studying: Learn everyday and never get tired of learning. We never stop learning for every day we learn something new. Learn from your peers. Learn from books or the environment near you. Studying and learning do not only stop in the classroom but they go on and on. We must admit that we are lifetime students.
- Sacrifice. Make sacrifices for your dreams. There is no dream that comes without sacrifice. Your dreams will cost you a lot of things, including friendships and material things but keep persisting. At times you may have to cut your budget or even your precious time, but you must choose your dreams over everything. There is no success that comes without sacrifice. You reap what you sow. You must sacrifice a lot so as to enjoy the fruits later.
- You must love what you do. Love for anything is very powerful but above all, love for what you do is so important. When you love a certain dress, you will find yourself saving money to buy it. If you love a particular food type, you will find yourself gaining high appetite to eat it all times. It is the same love that you should have for what you are doing. When you love what you do, there is a certain force that will drive you forward like a force of a wind that makes leaves fly. Love is the greatest factor of it all. Even when you persevere, learn, sacrifice, work hard but don’t love what you do, you may not succeed. Even if you do, there will be no element of sustainability. Be passionate about the love for what you do that it will become part of your DNA. Love for what you do is the biggest foundation of it all. You will stand strong like concrete when challenges come your way.
- Time and opportunity do not wait for anyone. Never waste time for you can never know how much time you have left. If you want to do something, do it now. Avoid procrastination for it is a sin. Grab opportunities by the horn. Some opportunities are very rare to find for they are like eclipse; they come once in a while.
- Poverty is a choice.
Young people need to learn that poverty is a choice. Poverty is a bad thing. Poverty is evil. People choose to be poor either knowingly or unknowingly. Some people have made peace with poverty. You should learn to avoid poverty against all odds. If you were born poor that is not your mistake but it is your mistake if you live and die poor. The main causes of poverty are negative attitude, pride, excuses and blames.
So many people are filled with negativity even regarding themselves. When your attitude is totally negative spiced with laziness, you will definitely be on you way to the city of poverty.
Negative attitude is contagious, avoid it. Sometimes you don’t actually possess negativity but the people around you can make you catch it.
Lame excuses and blaming other people can make you emotionally drained. You are responsible for everything that happens in your life. It is very useless to complain but rather it is useful to get positivity towards the solutions.
Success is not by accident. It only comes to those that claim it aggressively. Somebody is winning over that situation you are complaining about. Some people chase after their dreams because they want to fulfil them, other people chase after their dreams because they are running away from reality. Be a person who will chase your dreams because you fulfil them. 
What do successful entrepreneurs do?
Here is a list of what successful entrepreneurs do;
- Set goals.
Your dreams can only be valid when you set goals. Goals can be compared to those small steps you take as you accomplish your dreams. Every goal counts just like every step counts. Drops of water when collected over night can constitute 20 litres. Do not be reluctant to set goals for we live in a competitive world. If you don’t set goals remember someone else is doing it. Here is how you can do it;
– What are you aiming in life
– Power point ideas
– Aim big but start small. The bigger challenge with success is that many people want to become ‘Mr. Big’ instantly. People want to achieve big within a blink of an eye. It takes time to build a very big house, equally it takes time to achieve a very big dream. Patience may pain but it surely pays. Learn to avoid the love of quick money; anything full of success is worth working for.
To read the other eight things that successful entrepreneurs must do, according to Eng. Joel Aita, please buy his book via.
A Young Entrepreneur Must Look for a Mentor
To be successful in your entrepreneurial dreams, you have to be able to learn from others. The best way to learn skills of a successful business owner is to study the skills of successful entrepreneurs and then amplify those skills for yourself. If you want to fly like an angel, you cannot hang out with ducks. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you must have a mentor.
When I completed my engineering course in 2004, I worked briefly for a company that worked on Jinja-Bugiri road and in January 2005, I joined M&E Associates and Beller Consult, now Fitchner.
Eng. Erhard Schulte, who was the resident engineer, played a big role in my engineering development journey. In 2007, I left beller Consult to form Joadah Consult in partnership with my wife.
Ten years later, I was delighted to meet Erhard in kigo Serena Hotel and we were both happy for each other. He introduced me to his wife and we had some great chat about the present and history.
When I joined Erhard in 2005, he liked me so much because he found me very hard working. I would be in office as late as 10pm. He decided tp sacrifice his time to mentor me technically and holistically. He would always give me very sensitive and tough engineering assignments to accomplish. By doing so, I was learning a lot from. My two years under his mentorship opened my mind in a great manner to the consulting world. I thank him and I am forever grateful for his kindness.
A young man named Samson had for long been looking for me. He asked for fifteen minutes of my time. Among other reasons that year had been very busy one. I hadn’t given him time. He never gave up sending me messages. Finally, one day I gave him a whole day of developmental conversations and chats. Samson asked me so may questions about entrepreneurship. At the end of the day, below is the message he sent me;
‘Thanks, Joel, for the time we had together today. I promise, it was awesome! I was expecting a ‘takeaway’ meeting but you gave me a ‘whole buffet’. I was blown away! Man, you are a genius! Great advice! Great work! Humble!’’
I reached home excited and celebrating. I can’t wait to register my IT company!’’
I plan to spend some time with him to mentor him more. I have done this for several young entrepreneurs.
Why Is Mentorship Important?
Many times, our young people look at the bright side of the story. They want to hit the jack pot instantly. Hidden is a huge rough side of the journey. So, without getting the tough side of the journey, many of them after trying for some time and failing, they automatically give up. The reality is when someone tells you how they struggled for ten years before they got a break through, you won’t be seeing them from a breakthrough point o view. Your story can give someone hope and power of persistence to become greater in the future.
Great Mentorship For Great Business
If taking your business to the next level is one of your dreams, then having a great mentor is step one. Many experienced entrepreneurs are more than happy to take the time to help someone else learn from their experiences and avoid the mistakes they had made in their respective journeys of progress. The process of mentorship can be a catalyst for you to believe in yourself. It is also an important way to expand your network because a mentor can introduce you to people who could help you with your career and business growth.
At Joadah Consult and Development Infrastructure, we have mentored over 800 young people through our training and mentorship programme. The mentee should have the self-drive to ensure this works out. The mentor may be a greater asset, but don’t expect them to come looking for you from nowhere and then do all the heavy lifting. Much of the onus is on the mentee to seek the relationship, cultivate it and make the most out of it. Therefore, a mentee plays a bigger role in the progress than the mentor. A mentor is like a coach; all he or she does is blow the whistle, while the mentee plays with the ball.
How to find and retain a mentor.
1. Be like a fierce a Hunter
A Simple LinkedIn or Facebook search can help you find people who are currently in your dream job. ‘somehow, they managed to get the very thing you want. How did they pull that off?’’ Send them a short message and tell them your aspirations. Ask if they can spare 10 minutes for you to visit their office and ‘pick their brain’ about how they achieved success.’’ You need to know that networking with the kind of people that are linked to your dream career is very important. That way they will teach you the beautiful and ugly, the dos and don’ts. You should never forget the simple fact that they are the experts; any opinion from them is regarded as ‘expert opinion’.
Many of these guys have tight schedules and some will not reply you. Never give up, keep trying on.
2. Carry out Proper Research.
After succeeding in getting the opponent you need to avoid showing up unprepared. First of all, understand, why you set up this meeting, what you want to gain out of this meeting? The way you dress up will talk a lot about you. What are the questions you would like to ask? Write them down. Ensure you are at your best. Do enough research about your mentor before you plan to meet them or have an appointment with them. That way you will be able to rhythm in your conversations.
3. Develop a symbiotic relationship
The relationship with the mentor should not be a one-way benefit relationship. The mentor should get to know that he can have a benefit from you. A good relationship goes both ways and its important to keep this in mind when you’re establishing a relationship with your mentor. The best way to ensure that you’re adding value to the relationship is by asking your mentor if there is any way that you can help them in return. For example, if your mentor is working on a project that you’d like to learn more about, offer to help even if its not part of your current responsibilities. When I was working with Erhard Schulte, our official closing time was always 5pm, but I would go to him to ask for extra assignments, which would keep me in office up to 8pm. That way he kept guiding me and I gained more knowledge and experience.
Once you’ve gotten a sense of whether or not the person is interested in becoming your mentor, the next step is to outline your goals and explain how they can help you achieve them. Since your mentor is likely to be a busy professional with a lot on their plate, coming to the mentorship with clear sense of what you’re hoping to get out of it will ensure that you maximize he time you have with them while also being mindful of their busy schedule.
4. Always pay attention to your Mentor’s advice
You may not follow through on every suggestion your mentor makes, but you do need to listen to what they have to say. After all, the wisdom and experience they can provide is the whole point of having a mentor. Mentors are not just for the youths, they are for everybody. If you have not yet considered adding one or more mentors to your lifestyle, it is probably the best thing you can do for yourself because it will help you gain knowledge and experience.
I follow a lot of mentors online. Some give free advice on Twitter and Facebook. These are invaluable pieces one should pick. Every morning, I like to go to the pages of people like Chris Kirubi, Strive Masiyiwa, Tony Elumelu and Patrick Bitature etc. There is a lot of mind-picking you can get from these guys.
Look out for the third part of this series, out tomorrow, Wednesday.
To buy a copy of Joel Aita’s book, please log onto his website, www.joelaita.com, click on the “My Book” section and make your online purchase.
