The Art of the start

As human beings, we all have dreams; we have ambitions, we aspire to be successful in all spheres of life. These are natural human feelings. However, most of our dreams and aspirations are unrealized as we do not act upon them. May be you have tried once to pursue your dream and experienced some form of setback and you gladly accepted failure as inevitable. This is not the way to go. Remember what the mind conceives, it will surely come to pass. Remove the word ‘impossible’ from your vocabulary, as nothing is impossible to achieve under the sun.

Mark Twain said 'The secret of getting ahead is getting started'. Procrastination is a thief of time. It is human nature to procrastinate, but it is a terrible thing to have a dream and not do anything about it. Many people have excellent ideas, but fail to take action. Theodore Roosevelt said 'It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.'

Many people are languishing in their current status because of fear to follow their dreams. It is human nature to be afraid of the unknown, especially when it affects your comfort zone. It takes great courage and effort to start any type of business. Great entrepreneurs and innovators recorded in the annals of history had great dreams and worked on their dreams to achieve success which is evident today. If they had not worked hard to realize these dreams and aspirations the world would have never seen any of these inventions and innovations.

There is story I always recite every time I talk about following and accomplishing our dreams. A close ally of mine from my days in high school Douglas, was a gifted artist, Douglas could draw anything imaginable. In school he scoped all available accolades for his drawing skills. After school he went on to enroll at an art school in Harare where he graduated with distinctions.

I recall talking to Douglas soon after he had won a scholarship to do his masters in the US. Then he was working as a part time lecturer at a college. He said to me, 'you know I have been thinking of establishing an art school for the past three years.....I interrupted and asked him why he had not started the college? Without mincing his words he said ' you see, this venture is BIG, I need so much money to start this school. Where on earth am I going to get the money I need as a start up? You know banks are very difficult to approach'. He went on and on, telling me how impossible it was for him to realize his dream.

I asked him another question, 'but Douglas, have you ever tried approaching a bank or individual people to come in as Joint Venture partners? He gave me an emphatic no, and justified why he had not thought about this route of funding. As Douglas narrated his story, every time he mentioned an obstacle his voice radiated in agreement. My friend had already succumbed to failure before he had even tried.

Douglas's problem is similar to millions of people who have brilliant ideas but have been sitting on their laurels without taking any action to actualize their dreams. Just imagine if Larry and Sergey of Google had not taken action to actualize their dream, what could have happened to Google?. The world would have been deprived of a search engine that has redefined and brought great innovation and empowerment to millions of people worldwide.

Take Action

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. You need to take action and start working on your dream. Start small and grow gradually. Remember you don't need money to start actualizing your dream. What you need is drive and passion to follow your dream. Don’t let fear and ill advice distract your thought process. Keep your eye on the ball. Michael Friedsam said ‘Concentrate on finding your goal, then concentrate on reaching it."

Fear is an enemy of progress

Fear is defined as being afraid of the unknown. If it’s raising capital that has been impeding on your success there are several ways to raise money apart from borrowing from a bank. Honestly I don't know why people waste their time approaching banks for funding when they know they don't have collateral to cede against their loan. As a start up banks are not the right place to look for capital. You can raise capital through your personal savings, contributions from friends, parents and Joint Venture partners.

Live and cherish your vision everyday

In order to remain focused, you need to visualize everyday what your venture would be like once it is set up. Every day you need to set aside time to reflect on the dream to keep it alive in your heart. When Sam Walton the founder of the biggest retail chain in the world, started Wal-Mart, he had a vision of building the biggest grocery chain in the United States. But when he started, he started with a small grocery store. Although he started small, he never at once lost sight on his goal of ' building the biggest grocery chain in America'. Today Wal-Mart is the biggest Supermarket chain in the world employing millions of people worldwide.

Proper planning and conscious effort can take you far in realization of your dreams. Dennis Green said, ‘The secret to success is to start from scratch and keep on scratching."