Ambition - 21 April 2013

Day 7 – Sunday

It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my way to campus. This is the life that I have become accustomed to, however I have actually starting to enjoy my time at campus, as dull as that sounds, sometimes ambition can drive one to push themselves beyond what they can imagine. This is something that you need to embrace within your very nature as a person.

“They are going to love you for your ambition”……… that’s a profound statement. As it’s easier to dream a dream then it is to live it. This shows you how hard the road ahead is. As priceless as your ambition is, it defines the very purpose if your existence. They only way you to find your true ambition to put your mind off the money and fame and look within yourself to what drives you.

This brings me to the lesson learnt of defining a mission statement for oneself, in essence I see this mission statement as my ambition…that is to say who I want to be in this world. I initially undertook this exercise in the sunrise exercise, in that case we were given a week to compile a mission statement. You might be thinking that’s enough time to write a short paragraph. However once you understand the importance of those couple of lines and the bearing they will have in your life if followed through properly you realise that that even a month might not be enough to set a life defining mission statement. This should give you an idea of the amount of time required to be able to be to tap inner being and seeing what’s in your veins, the essence of our existence. We all have different backgrounds and cultural beliefs and life has put us through our own struggles and no one will ever understand or phantom what another person has been through except the individual themselves. That is why each person’s drive needs to come from within. Guidance is internal. Some might say to lead an inner centred life however for the purpose of this blog is shall refer to it as ambition.

The best way I could explain it the beautiful music that paints your vision. Ambition drives your vision, and as we know there is no direction when there is no vision. This is why this is such an important statement. By defining your life it’s to say the mission statement should always be your reference point for any major decision to be made. As each decision taken should be in line with attaining the goals which lead you towards your mission.

I try to press the importance of a mission statement, an exercise that requires time to be fully effective, however the benefit derived from a well thought out mission statement can be life changing. 

Take it to the moon; take it to the stars, wherever you want…as you don’t know what you capable of. The opportunities are limitless just takes one to have the right conviction. You have already come a long way, just need to take off that jacket and keep strutting.

The time is now….on everything

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Thank god its friday - 19 April 2013

Day 5 – Friday

Thank God it’s Friday, this is probably my favourite day of the week. Even though this is a false reality as I know I’ll probably spend most of my day busy with school. It’s still good to bask in the excitement of the day. There comes a point where we all need to accept that time is a rare commodity and needs to be treated with due care.

As I had thought the day proved to be very eventful with a lot of things needing last minute running around, that was mostly personal stuff though. I do have a life outside the Genesis program after all..lol.

With that said today our group decided on the official company name; however what impressed me was the process we used to get to the final name. 3 sessions of different length used for diverging on a number of ideas and converging through the process of elimination to arrive to the final decision. A concept learnt in business in context.

The advantage of this process is that all group members get a chance to contribute in the process and no one feels left behind. All members feel that they have contributed to the name and can thus identify with it. This shows that the group has come a long way since our first couple of weeks when things were still bumpy. This shows me the amount of growth that is taking place in this team. As much as the program has put us all under a lot of pressure, the benefits of the hidden curriculum are starting come become visible.

I feel that growing as an individual is a very important aspect of this course; we have learnt to deal with our differences as individual and finding a way to make it all work has been evidence to this growth.

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Where are the opportunities - 18 April 2013

Day 4 – Thursday

In life we all sometimes take a moment where we look back at our lives and to where we want to be heading to, the opportunities that lie in front of us which we are blind to. They say luck is a result of hard work, so I would like to take this moment to make an absurd relation. As absurd as this may sound hope it will open your mind on what I’m trying to get across, that sometimes we overlook this simplest of opportunities in the chase of the golden pot.

According to a google search the first envelopes were made of cloth, animal skins or parts of vegetables and even clay which was wrapped around the item to be sent and then baked. The first paper envelopes date as far back as the 10^th century and were hand made up to roughly 1840. The first documented postal service was started by a Frenchman by the name of de Valayer in 1653. Another website I visited mentioned that worldwide there are billions of different variations of an envelope. Come to think about it there are hundreds upon hundreds of different sizes, colours, shapes, some with windows, some without and they are even classified differently in terms of the materials used to manufacture them. Some you don’t even have to lick to seal anymore.

I am sure that most if not all of you have never taken the time to look up the history of envelopes. Trust me, it was a first for me too, but I had to find something to relate which is so simple but often overlooked as to its importance. Now that I have given you a bit of a history lesson and we have all learned a bit more about envelopes, who would like one?

Now take everything I had to say about envelopes and change the word envelope to opportunity. So in other words what I want you to have summarised is as follows, there are billions of opportunities, not only in this country, but worldwide. Opportunities present themselves in hundreds upon hundreds of different shapes and forms, and opportunities can even be classified just like envelopes.  For example personal opportunities, work opportunities and the list goes on.

Basically that is what an opportunity is, it is a time or set of circumstances that are suitable for doing a particular thing. Important in this definition is the word doing, it implies that to take advantage of an opportunity something must be done.

Truth can then be found in the words of Thomas Alva Edison, who said and I quote ‘we often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work’. Milton Berle said and I quote ‘If opportunity does not come knocking, build a door.’ Once again implying work. What you need to understand is that opportunities don’t just fall into your lap; you have to go looking for and work hard for them.

You have everything at your fingertips, all you have to do is look at the facilities and realise that they are second to none. South Africa has the greatest potential for any person with entrepreneurial abilities who is willing to push the boundaries in order to effect change.

It is however up to each and every one of you to make use of the opportunity that has been handed to you. Remember these words by Sir Winston Churchill ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity an optimist sees an opportunity in every difficulty’. Let’s all be optimists.

Lastly, be true to yourselves and remember that only you are accountable for your actions. Do whatever it is that you want to do and become whatever it is that you want to become. And use every opportunity that comes your way to achieve it all.

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The use of technology and all accompanying implications - 17 April 2013

Day 3 – Wednesday

Today I woke up with a feeling of anxiousness. I work up with a troubled feeling unable to sleep I tried meditating. After reading on medication techniques and the number of people who have seen real benefit from the exercise in my Entrepreneurial Strategies readings. However this proved to a fruitless exercise, I could not keep my mind clear for longer than 2 minutes. After reading that 10minutesis a standard norm for beginners I decided to leave this exercise for another day.

All that kept springing in my mind is what submission is due for what date. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’m forgetting something. So as late is this is.. Today is the day I buy a diary, you probably wondering how in been getting through the program all this time. The answer is simple. The beauty of technology, being able to ask a friend what needs to be done for tomorrow has been a revelation that I have accepted with open arms.

 At what cost has this come at?

I ask this question as I have seen the rise in the use of technology in communicating and discussing group work. As convenient as this method of communication is, we need to ask ourselves to what extent are we willing to sacrifice face to face human communication and the benefits which come with that. As easy as it easy to communicate to each other via social media, how long are we willing for this to erode human interaction? The meaning is sometimes lost on social media as we don’t pay full attention to what is being discussed and the ability to easy switch from a conversation should be a worrying factor, furthermore some people aren’t as effective in expressing themselves through this platform. These people’s input is thus being overlooked if they can’t easily participate.

I raise this point as I feel that any business communication should be done in person as far as possible. Especially when it comes to issues that need to be discussed before getting to a group decision. The value of human interaction should never be underestimated.

However with that said it may be a question of a generational shift. The tech savvy youth seem to be perfectly comfortable with using technology for their everyday communication. Are these the lessons we need to learn and be able to adapt to an ever evolving world? The amount of technological advancements has made all of us to wake up to the fact that we need to get in tune with the internet and advancements attached to it. If we are to survive as entrepreneurs, the ability to adapt and be flexible to the world around you is the only way to success. The world is changing, that’s a fact. The question is do you change with it and adapt to new opportunities that may present themselves with every change that comes about, or do you refuse to bend to the will of an evolving species? The answer to this question will determine where you find yourself in 20 year time.    

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Making use of every opportunities - 16 April 2013

Day 2 – Tuesday

Today we had no meeting with Stuart………Yeahhhhhhh….that means no school today. My smiles were quickly swept away as I thought of the amount of work I need to catch up on.  As result of cake and the tests that took place during the course of last week, I fell behind on most my readings which means I wasn’t getting full value from the lectures I was attending as I was unfamiliar with the topic discussed. So I have to drag myself out of bed and head to school….

On that note I would just like to share my opinion about lecture attendance, as an undergrad I barely ever saw the need to attend lectures, being young a naïve was the main cause of that. I would rather take a day off to nurse a hangover or spend it watching movies with friends. All this led me to have an enormous amount of work to catch up with before exams. This as you can imagine led to long nights in the library a huge amount of caffeine and hardly any sleep. This is never a good thing as one cannot function effectively with a tired body. Same way as a bank manager would never approve a loan on a Friday afternoon as he is unable to make an objective decision due to fatigue suffered during the week and is mostly likely to overlook important information in the rush to get home. It goes to say that as business person you cannot function and effectively if you are not well rested. Same for a student, you would not be able to an engage with the content being presented to you. This brings me to my lesson for the day.

During the course of this program I have decided to attend all lectures and workshops, as hard as it is been, I have found that it has made my studying a whole easier, as I would have gotten an understanding on the depth I have to get into in order to grasp the material being taught, I have found that it enables one to ask any question that may rise and clarify any misunderstanding. Trust me it’s an awful feeling struggling with a concept at two in the morning before your final exam. It just leads to further confusion.   An experience I have been through once too often. However this can only happen if one takes time to familiarise themselves with the material before going to the lecture. So my advice to any budding entrepreneur, take each lecture as a new learning opportunity and do your best to amass as much knowledge as possible. At the end of the day you pay a lot of money for this opportunity, so it only makes sense to make the best of it.

This approach has been working for me as late and hope to stay on the same track for the remainder of the program. Id likes to share a quote that I ran across in some shop in town.

“Customer service is like making love to a Gorilla, you don’t stop till the Gorilla is satisfied”

                                                                                                            Anonymous

This is the approach I’d like to take to acquiring knowledge, and remix it to suit my intentions, you dint stop till the mind is satisfied.

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The morning after the night before - 15 April 2013

Day 1 – Monday

Having spent the night on campus before a big test is an experience that I thought I’d never go through. Marketing Research has managed to make me do the unimaginable. The experience has taught me a lot in terms of time management and spending too much time in the 1^st quadrant. Time management has proven to be a big issue during the course of this program. As much as I would look back to this event, as learning curve in terms of time management, other things I appreciated is the acknowledgement of the of amount of discipline and dedication required in order to be successful. This is something that most of us take for granted but one needs to accept it within themselves that this is an issue to be given due care. Doing the things that fit on with your long term vision should be at the forefront of your everyday endeavour. Life these days comes with many distractions and we are easily tempted to sit back and tell ourselves that as a person we need a break to release tension but at what expense are this all at?

Leading a productive life need not be tedious, focusing on activities that have value in our lives, and being an item that has value to your life you would derive some sense of satisfaction on accomplishing it, sense of satisfaction would lead to self-belief and confidence. In this way doing something you value, you not only get a sense of satisfaction but become a better person as well. Food for thought….

With that said I’d like to think back to the cake sale exercise which was held last week and elaborate further and specific issues I picked up. The day started of pretty early, 4 am morning is considered the best time to be scouting for worms. This proved to be the case on the day, having a head start on the day our team was able to prepare and set up for the day ahead and this is one of the factors we got right as compared to cake sale 1. We were pretty much disorganised from the beginning of the day. And I’d like to take this time to express my gratitude to the amount of team effort which was evident on the day. I really came to appreciate my team members and realised the potential we have not to only succeed in the course but to rather do well.

With that said I’d like to be put up a challenge that every project going further be better than the last one.

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Lessons Learnt

So sadly this is my last blog till the next time you are graced with my presence. Thus far being an aspiring entrepreneur has taught me a few things...

1) School is in fact an important key to being a successful entrepreneur. Knowledge equals power and power equals success and without it you can only get so far.

2) The value of working as a team. Team work is never easy, however if you work together you will be able to achieve more, for at the end of the day you all have the same goal, and working alone to reach that goal will only get you so far.

3) Be open to stepping out of your box. So many times we get caught up in what we think is right, and are not very open to change or taking peoples advice. Sometimes taking time out to listen to what people have to say and not being so negative about such situations can benefit you tremendously in the long run, without you even realizing.

4) Work hard. As much as it pains me to say this.. the saying is true.. Hard work never killed anyone. It has produced mouth ulcers, headaches, back pain, and stress, however it is yet to kill. So we should try our best to buckle up and work hard.

5) Last but not least remember to have fun!!!! Being serious all the time is boring. Take some time to relax, engage in hobbies that enjoy, like for instance I love eating out and trying different foods. Do what makes you happy, as it is a good way of relieving stress, and gathering your thoughts.  

Learning is a journey, not a destination, we will never stop learning and I hope to continue learning even more!

Well that's all I have for today, till we meet again, I'm out.

Tarisai
xx

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Graduating and Becoming Entrepreneurs

 So this week proved to be one of the hardest weeks as Aspiring Entrepreneurs. The drive to make as much money as possible and still get an education seemed harder than we thought it would be. However we managed to get through it, and our journey still continues...

'Hell week' so as we called it got me thinking. I know one may think its a silly thought, but I was just thinking, and feel free to comment on the subject. All this hard work we are going through in order to gain a diploma to become entrepreneurs, is it really necessary? Just think about it, some of the most successful entrepreneurs didn't go through all the hassle we are going through to get an education to back up their entrepreneurial skills like we are, for example Bill Gates. Are we really not just wasting our time furthering our education instead of just leaping into the big world and starting up our businesses, and making what is sought by so many, $$$$$$.

My mother would kill me if she saw me writing this, but I mean think about it, isn't being an entrepreneur a state of mind, something that cannot be taught. Isn't it an inner drive from within, having an idea that can change peoples lives in many ways. So why must we learn finance and marketing and other courses to act on this idea, why not just embark on your dreams and hire a financial director and marketing director to be in charge of those areas in your firm. I mean think about it, your PA or secretary will probably do all your written reports for you, so really all you need to do as an entrepreneur is have an idea, act on it, and employ people to help you keep the business going. Your job as an entrepreneur is to keep coming up with innovative ideas and be a good leader (and sign the cheques of course, lol). So do we really need school to become successful Entrepreneurs?

I guess we do, because without the knowledge we wouldn't be able to check if our business is being run well or not, and as my mother always says in order to lead you need to be able to do what the the people you are leading are doing, and lets face it, without school knowledge you have to be real bright to do this. So I guess graduating and school is important to be a successful entrepreneur.

That's all from me
Tarisai xx

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The post death, or was it really????

So its me, Tarisai again... So you know how my last blog was about how the dreaded cake sale is now over and I was all smiles. Well guess what, the life of an Entrepreneur is never all smiles, and just as I thought I was past death, I realized death had only just hit me. So the day after cake sale 2 I had a big Marketing Test that I had stayed up the night before reading for and had been prepping for the week before. So I thought I had nipped this one in the bud. Yea lets just say that wasn't the case.

The day started off well as days normally do for me, I woke up early, started school at 9am with a marketing tut, and proceeded with the day. I had class the whole morning but would peak at my notes in between just to reassure myself that i knew what I would write come the test at 5pm. I even found myself teaching a few of my mates the theories I knew about the 'Situational Analysis', 'Marketing Mix' and 'Market Segmentation'. All was going well till around 3pm when slowly found myself starting to crash. I wrote what I had studied and really hope I answered the question and passed the paper, because yea, by the time I wrote the 2 hour paper I was now exhausted from all the work that was done the night before, but however managed to solider through.

The post post death however wasn't over yet as I still had another test to go a day after my Marketing test. Come this test I worked just as hard as I always try to do. It's always a little hard to know how you did in a test after writing it and knowing if you answered the question correctly. I try my best not to think about tests or talk about them till after the results, so fingers crossed I managed to pass both of them.

What did i learn??? I learnt that trying to be an Entrepreneur and student at the same time isn't as easy as i thought it would be. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and self discipline to excel in both areas. I am still learning how to balance the two, and hopefully by the end of this year I will have some good news for you in that area and on how I did in the course!!!! But as for now.. the post post death of the cake sale continues..

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The 2nd Cake Sale!!!!

Hi all, my name is Tarisai, and now its my turn to let you in behind the scenes. As an Entrepreneur start up capital is a very important thing. The 2nd Cake Sale was an opportunity for us to make more start up capital to start our business. If you had asked me at the beginning of this course if i thought i would be learning how to make pizza somewhere down the line my answer would have been "Hell No". lol

Not only was the 2nd cake sale an opportunity for us as a group to make money, but it was also an opportunity for us to grow as individuals. The night before cake sale was spent preparing for the big day ahead. My team member and I even slept on Jammie Plaza that night in the freezing cold, just to reserve our spot for the big day to come. Its an experience I will never forget, and to be honest never want to do again, lol. All the other teams who weren't sleeping on the Plaza actually thought we were mad, because winter was kicking in and to sleep in the boot of a Buckie was not really anyone's cup of tea at the time. However we did it and still managed to wake up bright and early at 5am to start the big day.

Though it did rain on the cake sale day, our outcome was amazing. We had a long queue during our peak time, between 12 and 2, unfortunately not as long as our competitors, the Burger stand, however we did provide fair competition, which was a great improvement from our first cake sale. I was in charge of the finance and at times found myself pouring coffee, tea, hot chocolate and handing out brownies at the same time as I was doing sales. Lets just say the hand sanitizer bottle next to me was my best friend that day. We stopped selling at around 7pm and started clearing up. The day was finally over and the hard workers we are left us being the last team standing once again.

I learnt a lot from cake sale about myself. I have always been a rather reserved person and being in charge of the sales and dealing with customers on a face to face basis let me enhance my communication skills as well as allowing me to step out of my shy bubble, and in the end I actually started enjoying taking to strangers, something I never thought would happen. Am I happy cake sale is over.. YYYEESSS I am, but am I glad It was an opportunity for me to grow, yes I also am. So its good bye to the Cake Sales!!!

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The Role of the Ego, the Group, Achieving Results and most Importantly, Happiness!

This is my last post until next blog-duty-shift-week (we need a more fun name for this!). I’m actually slowly getting into this whole bloggin’ thAng!

You know, one the biggest lessons I’ve learnt during this course is about the power of working as a team. When I first looked at the calendar of deadlines at the start of the program, I thought to myself, “Oooooh sh#t! How the funk am I going to do all this??”

It’s amazing to watch when the group comes together and executes assignments left right and centre. And it’s humbling to get out of the ego and focus on the team.

I’ll leave you with this thought I heard from the author, Anthony Robbins: “If you’re depressed, chances are that you’re thinking about yourself.”

Isn’t that interesting? You actually have to be focused on yourself if you’re depressed. So the fasted way to come out of it is to start looking to serve others immediately.

I hope I’ve served the team this blog-duty-shift-week, and look forward to finding more ways to contribute.

Peace out yo

P.s. if you like the sound of this Tony Robbins guy, here's a clip:

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Enlargening the Brain - Course Readings that Blow the Mind

Today was sort of a quiet day at home for me catching up on readings and doing assignments.

I must say that even though there is a lot to get through, I am thoroughly enjoying the readings for our course, Entrepreneurial Strategies. They are compilations of what our lecturer has deemed ‘the best literature on the subject’. The course pack includes chapters from Steve Jobs’ biography, Stephen Covey, Malcolm Gladwell and other such visionaries.

Another great move today was in announcing the winners from the raffle we conducted on our first cake sale. Largely what I am so excited about is that we are building an email list… something which can be of great marketing value if handled with care. Stay tuned!

Here is a video of one of my favourite readings so far: Blue Ocean Strategy

 

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Changing the Way we do Business - Hemp & Pizza!

Today I visited our hemp supplier to collect sample materials for our prototype. It was quite amazing to get a sense of how influential one company can be in shifting the mindset of the market. Although there is a long way to go in changing the overall market demand for non-environmentally friendly products and practices, much ground has been gained thanks to companies like Hemporium.

On the other hand, plans for our second cake sale day are looking great. We have secured sponsorship from an awesome little pizza place in Wynberg called Eat out the Box. They are super enthusiastic about getting on board and are supplying us with quite a lot of goodies. It looks like we’re going to kick some serious ass!

Visit their webpage here: https://www.eatoutthebox.co.za/

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Turning Ideas into Prototypes

Today we met on campus and had a super long meeting! Loads to plan for our first day back and time never seems to accommodate us by adding an extra hour to the day. Somehow they got an exclusivity deal there at Bar One Ltd.

Besides writing our micro enterprise reports, as a group we need to plan our second cake sale day and develop our first product prototype –while we still are in two minds about the idea for the latter.

We have a product idea that we have been advised to keep quiet about to avoid being copied. This is largely due to the product’s success somewhat depending on us getting distribution rights for components, but more so to have first mover advantage when getting into the minds of the consumers.

So for now we are going with our Red Herring, decoy product idea. Hemp Caps.

These are in no way ordinary caps. They have interchangeable front designs, and are made of hemp. This means that one could attend a soccer game and show support for their team by adapting the design of the cap, and later perhaps go to the beach and display something more personal. All this, and the cap is made from hemp, a natural eco-friendly material. Irie vibez, mon.

You can read more about hemp material here: www.hemporium.com/history.php

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Monday 22nd March - One Week of 'Holiday'

Hello there,

My name is Craig and this week I will be on blog-shift.

We are currently on a ‘short vac’ from varsity. It’s quite different from most other varsity vacs I’ve had in the past in that there is definitely more mandatory bed-time reading. I guess the adventures of Winnie the Pooh will have to stay in the draw for now.

We have been assigned a project for this vac called the Micro Enterprise project. It involves interviewing the owners of a small business and applying some of our readings on business theory to evaluate the enterprise.

Over the weekend I went to the Saturday morning Biscuit Mill market and met an old couple conducting an interesting venture. They had setup their stall and were selling rare cooking ingredients. They were called MainIngredient and can be found online at www.mainingredient.biz.

I was inspired by their tech-saviness as they had taught themselves how to make use of certain online facilities, such as Google Adwords and Twitter, to market, save and grow their business. Today we went to their home in Sea Point to interview them and found out more about their story. Needless to say it was a great experience and we learnt a lot from their tale.

Owners of Main Ingredient: Lynne & John Ford

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