General

As businessmen and entrepreneurs, we are all constantly trading in futures, in a sense. We trade in our time and resources every today and bet that at every tomorrow, we shall get fair value in return. That’s the contract we have with Life. Once you’re living and breathing, you are constantly altering the set of events that are most likely to happen to you the very next minute. The problem with an invisible futures contract with Life is this: the contract and its terms are invisible. You still have influence over the probability of things ultimately going in your favour, or not. Knowing this, if we want to get the best out of every next tomorrow, we have to reverse engineer the desired result to get the required contribution to offer every single today.  I hope the above is understandable because it leads to my main point below. For a species so terribly apprehensive about our imminent death, our vast majority do very little to slow down the inevitable dying of every single one of us. We always hear “health is wealth”. Yet, being wealth-chasing entrepreneurs and businesspeople like you reading this very text and myself, we fail to see how fundamentally true that is. So, if health really is wealth, and we desire wealth, it is obvious then that what we need to do is to strive for good health. You need a good, healthy body for good health. And that brings us to the heading of this writing. Being businesspeople and entrepreneurs, we would be addressing the topic in a way we are familiar with. Like with any business, being able to properly manage means you have to communicate clearly what you want, motivate your team, and plan operations efficiently. That is how to make any company flourish. We need to apply similar concepts like these to our healthy living agenda. These aren’t new ideas but they are really helpful to me and to many others. When you think ‘Exercise’, think ‘Money’. Mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is very real and popular now. Bitcoin miners receive Bitcoin as a reward for completing “blocks” of verified transactions which are added to the cryptocurrency’s blockchain. So, it shouldn’t be hard to think of being rewarded with abstract cash after you have completed exercising. The reward of completing exercises is an improved state and improved movement capabilities. That has value. Ever since you started moving as a child, you have been building up your ‘motion reserves’ to be able to move about the way you do now. People that spend many years in a coma cannot move right because their reserves are depleted; it’s like getting back to square one. Within the construct of your body being your business, Exercise is Cash/Money and Movement is Expenditure. And as we all know, cash is king. Whenever you complete an exercise, you get rewarded with more movement capabilities and then increase your proverbial cash reserves, just like the cryptocurrency guys do. As you continuously sweat and improve your limits, you’re able to buy motions that you previously couldn’t buy. The rich ones can buy the Lamborghini of movements, like run an entire marathon. In real life, if you buy anything without money, that gives you debt. It’s the same here. Without the exercise that gives you the proverbial cash to purchase a greater range of movements, you will then have debt that you pay afterwards by way of pain or injury or even death. As grim as that sounds, it’s the truth. Your bank account needs to always have enough cash such that when you need to make a sudden withdrawal, you’ll be ready and set to go. That is why when you’re out of shape and you suddenly sprint, you feel pain and discomfort. That is why when you stretch yourself too much without prior exercise, you risk injury or worse. Build a good team. The secret to any great business is a good team. If your body is your business then your body parts are the team members. You must learn to build a good ‘team’ by making sure that you take very good care of your body parts. You do this by operating just as you would with your company’s team. Plan and communicate clear targets. Communication is key within a team. When targets very well communicated and understood, the team can then understand what the end-goal of their endeavours should be. Targets shouldn’t just be about monetary milestones. It should include the type of culture you’d like to encourage in your business, the business environment you’d want to foster, and even the pace and stress limits that would be most optimum for growth. With your body as your business, that would translate to setting clear goals from the beginning with respect to what you want from your exercises. As you exercise, there are various outcomes that can come out of it and depending on your lifestyle, these exercises should fit well into that. It also means you should consider the environment of your exercise. If you target exercising at home, or at the gym, or outdoors, or even in the office, setting targets help you manage expectations better and gets the most out of your efforts. Reward good work. Your boss recognising your good work and giving you a bonus sure feels goods. It makes putting in the work a little easier. Frankly, it also pushes you to put in that extra work that wasn’t explicitly required of you. When a team member is disgruntled, you start having issues in the flow of operations. For companies that have different parts dependent on other parts, it can be a real problem. Have you ever exercised with a targeted number of repetitions and then when you get there, you like “I could go a couple more”? That’s what’s going to happen when you reward your body after good exercises; it gets ready to put in more work. You reward your body by,

The lies about this COVID-19 vaccine are just too much. Typically, conspiracy theories start off benefiting a clear side. In the case, I dare say most of us peddling lies about this COVID vaccine are merely mal-articulating their innate fears and concerns as well-thought out concepts in an effort to keep up appearances as not quaking in their boots. Their so-called “evidence” is forced, desperate and made to fit some story they need you to believe in order for them to fully believe. But facts will remain facts whether we accept them or not. Luckily, accurate data can nowadays almost instantly be confirmed through one google search and a quick read on a trusted website, like that of the WHO.  Still, these lies exist because even after you systematically prove them wrong, you are seen as being part of the conspiracy, leaving you a slim chance of making your case successfully. Even this article will have some pushback and be seen as propaganda towards a certain agenda. I know because when I asked a few people I know to go get the vaccine, they asked if they’ll get the “real” vaccine from America, the fruit juice that was pumped into Nana Akufo-Addo’s arm or the synthetic version they sent to Ghana. Kim said that. Stanley and Wilfred also said similar. How do I even respond to something like that?! Social media especially has been a very efficient channel for those spreading lies about these COVID-19 vaccines that Ghana has been very lucky to have. Many more people around you have or have had COVID-19 but you just don’t know it. They just won’t tell you. Everyone suddenly has malaria now smh. Last week, I was a speaker in the ever-popular Ghanaian Lounge Clubhouse Room with moderators like Bev Danquah, Moe Diggs, Kumi, Kwadwo Benko and a couple others. I believe that was the first time I had witness the concerns and worries about this COVID-19 vaccine being discussed on social media in an unbiased manner. How do we stop spreading these lies? The key to stopping the spread of misinformation is through education and awareness. Read this whole article and educate yourself. Afterwards, be aware of the lies out there and do not be quick to take in any data from just anywhere as true. Verify things for yourself. Your life might actually depend on it. I will admit that there’s no sure way to identify and curb all the misleading information out there. The hardest part is that those perpetuating these lies are mostly friends and family who have been already mislead and scared to believe a couple “if’s”. “What if I grow a tail when I get this new vaccine?” Well what if you die if you don’t take this COVID vaccine? Because yeah, you might just die just like millions of other people have. It is the best chance you have to protect you and your loved ones from a pandemic that has killed so many people like you across the world and continue to spread very quickly in Ghana. Read the full article and educate yourself on what COVAX is, how the Oxford-AstraZeneca works, and even more reasons to be more afraid of not taking the vaccine than you should be about taking it. Ghana is lucky to be the first. Ghana has become the first country in the world to receive a shipment of coronavirus vaccines under the COVAX program. About 600,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune (the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world), were sent to Accra in Ghana on February 23. The AstraZeneca vaccine was given Emergency Use Listing (EUL) by the WHO this month. AstraZeneca and SII will together work with the COVAX facility to begin supplying the vaccine globally. Under the COVAX program, over 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be delivered by the end of 2021. What is COVAX? The COVAX program is led by the vaccine alliance GAVI, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in partnership with UNICEF, vaccine manufacturers and the World Bank, among others. The aim is to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally in what is being called the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The program wants to vaccinate roughly 20 per cent of the population in the 92 Advance Market Commitment (AMC) countries, which include middle and lower-income nations that cannot afford to pay for COVID-19 vaccines. This means countries with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of less than US $4000 and some other countries which are eligible under the World Bank International Development Association (IDA). As vaccines receive approval, they will be bought by the COVAX facility, which will then try to provide the doses for an average of 20% of each of the eligible country’s population free of cost. Out of its target of 2 billion vaccine doses, 1.3 billion doses will be delivered to the AMC countries. The funding target for this program for 2021 is about US $6.8 billion, of which it has raised about US $4 billion. The funding is partly coming from high and middle-income countries that will also receive a share of the vaccines produced for COVAX. The US has pledged to give US $2 billion to COVAX and make available further funding of $2 billion over the course of the next two years. An editorial published in the journal Nature in January said that COVAX is key to vaccinating the world’s poorest people and ending the pandemic. Which vaccines are included in COVAX programme? Oxford-AstraZeneca became the first vaccine manufacturer to sign up under the programme in June 2020, and has guaranteed to supply 300 million doses. In January, COVAX announced that it had signed an agreement with Pfizer-BioNTech to purchase up to 40 million doses of their vaccine. In addition, the program has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Johnson and Johnson for 500 million doses of their single-dose vaccine, which the US

Learn How to Embrace Failure and Make Your Startup Thrive In the start-up world we often hear phrases like ‘fail fast,’ ‘celebrate failure’ and that failing can be the best thing that ever happened. But let’s be honest: failure sucks. At the very moment “the failure” hits you, often the last thing you’re thinking about are the positive takeaways, let alone documenting the failure – your heart is pumping faster, your face and ears getting hotter, your legs going so weak you momentarily question if they can even support your weight. Failure can be a wrenching feeling. Thoughts and memories of everything you have risked on this venture, and all the promises you have made on the hope of its success come flooding through your mind, bringing with them intense feelings of pain, hurt, loss, anger, vengefulness, embarrassment…anything but logic or rationality. However, time does heal, and reflection will heighten your perspective. That’s not to say the pain ever fully goes away, but that the value of the lessons learned because of that pain increasingly outweighs that initial emotion over time. This value becomes apparent in the new found clarity and focus – plus a touch of the confidence that experience brings – with which you take on another approach or venture in the future. While the initial high of success and winning may be euphoric, there is little long-term learning that comes from it. The emotional reaction to a loss, however, with perspective and hindsight, are far more instructive. You want to understand why you failed, and successful entrepreneurs will doggedly delve as deeply as it takes to understand “why” to ensure their next steps add way beyond the value of a win. “If, one day, you look in the mirror and see only success, know that you have in fact learned nothing, any humility has evaporated, and greater failure is on the way.” –Simon R Turner, Managing Director, Founder Institute Ghana (FI Ghana) The Topic of Failure A lot has been written on the topic of failure, and several studies (e.g., CBI Insights) have pinpointed the top three root causes of startup failure being product-market-fit, running out of cash and disharmony in the team. Extract from CB Insights  When we look at ‘failure’ from a distance, it is easy to romanticise and sugarcoat it with inspiring quotes about the struggles entrepreneurs and scientists, such as Walt Disney or Thomas Edison, who had to go through several failures before reaching success. But what does failure actually feel like for entrepreneurs, especially in an African context? How did they manage it, and how did they bounce back? To look at this with an African lens, FI Ghana held a virtual event with seasoned and serial entrepreneurs who have experienced successes and failures firsthand, with ventures spanning Ghana, Kenya, USA, UK, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire We dived deep into failure as a potential fast track for finding purpose and success while providing some practical advice on how to manage failure, especially when it comes to losing people’s trust and money.  Accept failure as part of the entrepreneurial journey FI Ghana Mentors and panelists invited us to challenge the way in which we think about failure. It is not something we can control, but is part of the process of becoming a successful entrepreneur, not a deviation from what you’re supposed to be doing. “By default, you’re meant to fail to get where you need to be and, by default, it allows you to reprogram your mindset and get ready for it. Don’t shy away or avoid it but get through that as quickly as possible.”  – Samuel Baddoo, Founder, Fleri To build resilience in the face of failure, an important learning and mindset shift required is the decoupling of your own personal success from the success of your startup. That means the failure of a startup or project does not equate to personal failure, but might, in fact, be propelling you to your next personal growth phase. The “Founder First” principle, ie “Great companies start with great people, not great ideas,” is what makes a great entrepreneur, not just your successes but also your expertise built over years of trial, error, success and many failures. This is the reason why Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are increasingly talking about ‘celebrating failure’, because it is inherently linked with expertise. This is true in business as much as in any other discipline. Like physicist Niels Bohr once said, while studying the structure of atoms: “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.” Failure is part of any journey, and is arguably what makes it worthwhile, exciting and interesting, just like a Titanic movie without an iceberg would be as boring as watching a cruise ship cross the Atlantic (Sam). A mindset shift around failure is an essential starting point, but how can we prepare ourselves for the time when we hit that iceberg and the cruise ship starts to sink? Marco Rovagnati, Innovation Consultant and Founder of Poa Poa Soaps talked about the importance of setting up guardrails and intentionally designing functions in your organisation that allow you to experiment with failure, shifting the narrative from failure to prototyping. “After launching several businesses and at least half a dozen pivots,” he said, “I think about failure in two buckets: “avoid it at all cost” and “actively embrace it”.” The bucket of things to “avoid at all cost” are those that have been tried and tested, and that you can teach yourself online (which can be immensely time-consuming) or with fast-track, sprint programmes like Founder Institute. admin, operations, customer support, digital marketing – those are “basic hygiene” factors in business that are (relatively) easy to get right because they deal with the tangible management of the present. How to go about this is down to you, your team, and company culture. In the second bucket are all the future-focused activities, such as new product development, prototyping and testing new features, finding