General

Death is a punitive reminder of our mortality, a rude expression of the old adage that one day we will all perish just like those that have gone and left us behind. Once you remain alive and breathing, you’re bound to experience grief.  My mother passed away a week ago and it has been as daunting as it has been revealing. The moment my sister set eyes on me that late evening, she fell on her knees, arms to the skies and let out a long, loud, hair-raising roar of despair. She has a business and has been struggling to keep herself together since. She will overcome this in time. I have a business and still feel like I got hit by a train that day. So how does one grieve and work? GRIEF IS AS A BUSINESS RISK When Mr Asare called, he was the first to mention that my being at work would be moot because of the way that grief is. Not that I can’t work now. He’s technically saying that my grief is bound to have an effect on my work. Ergo, my being at work is a risk to the company. And he’s absolutely right. When my wife’s boss heard the news, she almost instantly told her to take as much time as she needed off from work. These people understand that for the business, a literally malfunctioning employee should be sent for repairs. The delight and curse of running your own business is that the buck stops with you. As an entrepreneur, your main product, which simultaneously is your prized intellectual property, is your brain. Grief messes with that. Delegation is never easy with business owners, at least not for those that don’t own mega corporations. DEFINITELY TAKE SOME TIME OFF. Grief is more than just sadness. That much is true. However, I am seeing that it can manifest itself in many different ways. Common traits of grief include depression, anger, denial, shock, confusion, disbelief, despair and many others. Any version of any of these is not the ideal state to be in at the workplace. You’ll probably end up doing more harm than good. Also, it would be wrong to put your colleagues and customers through that. It should be expected for you to feel that you can do more for your business as you grieve. Do what you must and try to find actions that don’t get you engaging so much with the outside world. That’s how you take some time off. Limit activity. You have to admit to yourself that you need to grieve and allow yourself to go through it. GRIEF IS A TIME FOR REFLECTION While taking time to reflect on life, your loved one and what’s lost and gone, utilise your reflective tendencies by assessing your business, how it’s run and where it’s headed. A lot of things will reveal itself as you have been forced to take a couple steps back. Maybe things run just as smooth and you realise that you have more room for growth than you think. Maybe you realise the strengths and weaknesses of your staff. Or maybe you see that the ground on which your company is standing is shaky. Whatever it is, the reflection will be useful. Most businesses are jolted into growth out of necessity. At the point of grief, you will realise the utility of an improved business offering. You will definitely realise the need to create additional revenue streams, borne out of your appreciation for the line “anything can happen”. As businessowners, life is often fast paced. I have to follow in Alan’s footsteps and learn to pause. Every now and then, he goes to a remote place like the mountains to meditate. Currently, my head feels denser. My thoughts feel intertwined. I really would like some meditation about now. IT’S TIME TO THINK SMALL That doesn’t sound right, but it is. As entrepreneurs and businessowners, business development takes the bulk of our time and effort. It looks, sounds and feels just right to go after that next big client. That’s not wrong. But it’s not the right primary strategy either. Alan has also mentioned some time back that I should concentrate a little less effort on trying to get the next big client and more on smaller gigs, and then build from there. I now see how that is good advice. Smaller gigs are the foundation for non-mega corporations. Any project I have with smaller companies is much more secured in my absence than bigger ones. The breeds stability. It breeds steady growth. And most importantly it breeds predictability. During grief, when you realise that no one knows tomorrow, predictability, if you have any, would be your best friend if you had many small gigs like a couple of big ones. THINK “COMMUNITY”. The human being stands alone as one unit. The next unit of which you are a subset is the family. A group of families form a community… a group of communities form a society… and so on and so forth. That’s the basic concept. We are social creatures. This is never as evident as when “abusua” sits to talk. That’s when you realise there has always been a roll call and once you’re alive, you are marked as present whether you knew about it or not. My abusua is around and is talking. Seeing them, I am reminded that just like ants, I am part of a bigger structure with characteristic and unifying culture that makes us all “one”. If I need a business connect, I attend conferences. When in grief and need comfort, think community. Fall on your family, nuclear and extended, to be there for you. Many of them are grieving just like you. In my personal opinion, the labelling of “family”, “community” or “society” is really dependent on the level of interaction. A family need not be a small number of human beings. Likewise can a society be as big

You are the boss. YOU make your world go round. Your proverbial sun rises and sets where you command. The moment you allow outside money into your camp, all that changes whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, whether you accept it or not. Celebrating the mere raising of capital is a mistake. The keyword there is “mere”, which means ‘being nothing more than’. Capital is good. It is however a total disconnect from reality celebrating the mere raising of capital, as I often do witness. It’s the good that the money does that’s a win. “Kofi & Ama Enterprises gets funding from ABC Capital and doubles its revenue”.  Now THAT is the kind of headline I am talking about. The hype around just raising capital is a disconnect from reality and reality is that a lot of new challenges are going to manifest with the raising of capital. It is prudent to celebrate the conquering of those challenges rather than its commencement of them. MANY ENTREPRENEURS FAIL UNDER PRESSURE Most people, especially entrepreneurs, forget that when it comes to money, it’s in very few instances that people care about anything else other than the subject matter: THE MONEY. Has anyone owed you money before? When it was due, how did you feel? What did you think? It’s already difficult raising capital, especially during a pandemic. Limited access to capital is one of the main reasons why entrepreneurs and SME’s fail. Yet, when the money comes, many do not have what it takes to stand the added pressure, or understand why the added pressure. Raising capital adds to your responsibilities. You’re merely trading one headache for another and that’s a fact. When you’re not ready for the responsibility and it comes, that’s when it turns out to be discomforting. Even when you think you’re ready, the path of growth is generally hard, also for successful people you look up to. The journey has always been hard for entrepreneurs. It still is. So, yes, discomfort will come. It is the recognition of that discomfort… the management of that discomfort… the mental labelling of that discomfort… the rationalisation of that discomfort that’ll make you a great entrepreneur, or not-so-great entrepreneur. WE ALL NEED TO BE MORE PREDICTABLE We are almost done with our company’s 5-year strategic plan. Over the next couple years, we want to be more predictable. We want to be more focussed. And most importantly, we want to be calculated. During a pandemic, predictability is credibility. When people do not know what will happen next, they move towards constants, something they can depend on, like their faith, or a company that’s open and predictable. Research on how many more people have bought Apple shares during the pandemic. Apple feels safe, and predictable. People are scared. Everyone is having some irrational “what if” at the back of their heads. So what do you do when everyone is scared, even the big, massive companies? We figure that breeding predictability starts with reporting and communication. We need to communicate our intentions, our plans. We need to communicate our operations when they’re happening, and retrospectively when they’re over. You also have to be genuine, to others and to yourself. Remind yourself of who you are and who you aspire to gradually be. Life is evolution. Many people will invest in the vision but the vision bearer is always part of the package. It’s just as bad lying to yourself as it is lying to someone else. Arguably, it’s even worse. Lastly when all is well, capital raising isn’t easy. Imagine uttering the words “trust me” during these times. That won’t work. So we need to also be honest about our strengths and be transparent about our dealings. Don’t expect much of blind trust these times. YOUR LACK OF INFORMATION CAN COST SOMEONE MILLIONS As I just stated, do not expect much of blind trust these times. It’s the harsh truth. I’ve been telling this guy Nii about how he uses the words “trust me” too many times when speaking with me. He’s very guarded. In response, he tells me the commonest story ever told among entrepreneurs, of how many people pass behind his back and cut him out of deals so he’s admittedly scared of sharing vital information. The harsh reality is that at a certain age, time flies, I wake up at 4am, blink, then it’s 6pm. If I started seeing opportunities as a factor of time, I wouldn’t have babysat some ideas for too long, especially when the downside costs me nothing. Nii’s million dollars might be the next person he talks to. But he seldom reveals anything and that makes me antsy. Because even though I know he’s a bright young man with lots of lucrative opportunities for him and I to collaborate on, his privacy can cost me a lot, literally. That’s when Alan came to mind because one of his favourite words is “report”. I suddenly started seeing things from his side of the telescope. Without reports, even if all is fine through my side of the telescope, all he sees through his end is RISK. WHEN YOU RAISE CAPITAL, YOUR PRIVACY IS DEAD So understand this: when you raise capital, accept that your corporate privacy is dead. When you want to raise capital, accept that a sizeable number of good, prospective investors will need to hear every secret you have under your sleeve to make a decision, that is if you don’t want to be rationally questioned. You can nail the pitch better than anyone but without adequate information, investors will pass. It’s just the truth. In that same line, after you raise capital, you no longer hold the only key to company information and processes. Members of the funding party, through regular reporting should get to know your supply routes, your most dependable suppliers and customers, how much money you make, how much money you spend, and many more. I feel like reading thing can maybe

Maxwell: This pandemic, are there any lessons to be learned from this pandemic? [Otema Yirenkyi is currently the Vice President for Global Engagement at the Project Management Institute. Formerly of IBM, she also was the first-ever female country manager in Microsoft’s Africa operations.] Otema: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the thing we’ve learned is, we are indeed our brother and sister’s keeper, right? We do get some guidance from the government, you know. “Wear your mask”. “Wash your hands” and stuff, because it’s a disease that’s communicable. It spreads. So we’ve learned that we’ve got to take care of each other, and be responsible for each other.  The other thing I’ve learned in the pandemic, is that the message of light is so, so, so important, because people are feeling weighed down, they are feeling heavy. Everyone has that thing they see as the light. For me, it’s my faith. For me, my faith is that light that I lean into. It’s also really important this time to remember that we’ve got to push back the darkness, and darkness could be whatever is weighing you down.  They often say that people who are really successful are in what they call “the flow state”. They’re in a state of constant positive movement; that’s the flow state. And if you’re in that flow state, guess what, you are squarely looking at the light, you’ve pushed down the darkness, you’re into positive interactions, you’re into positive business connections, you’re into positive positivity, which leads you to success. Maxwell: Flow State – I think that’s one thing I will keep in my back pocket from now – get into that flow state. Otema: Get into that flow state, exactly. Maxwell: I’m seeing how that is really practical, because we tend to be distracted by the darkness. We tend to pay more attention to the spot in that white linen, rather than the 99.99% of white positivity that’s there surrounding us. In the time of a pandemic, when everything seems gloom, that message of life might just be the difference between someone losing all hope and someone saying, “wait, I can do this – I will persevere!”.  Which leads me to my next question – the message of life and hope.  This pandemic has come with so much sadness and confusion all around. I mean, I literally have good friends that have died from this pandemic. And I have to mention this for my audience to understand I’m not saying this from a disconnected standpoint. I am witnessing the distress, the havoc that it’s wreaking.  What message of life and hope do you have for anybody that might be listening to this that feels like “things are going so bad; my business has lost 90% of its revenue flow; I have lost a loved one or family member; what am I going to do?” What message of light do you have for the audience that might be just reaching out? Otema: First and foremost, remember to stay focused on the light. You know, even when all feels lost, you do that. I think it goes back to one of my heroes, Nelson Mandela, 25 years of captivity. How dark must that have felt, right? But he continued because he was so clear in his aspiration and his “why”. So if you know the why for your business, and you are very clear about what you want, even though you know you might be on your knees, you are going to be resilient.  So then I ask you, what helps you to be resilient? That’s what I’m going to leave you with. When I find myself in a bad place, I try to hold on and reach for the light. My light, as I have said, is my faith. So that becomes my anchor through my storms when they come. And then I really try to get into that flow state, because that’s also about momentum. Momentum builds upon and builds upon, and then you start to see yourself gradually improving. You might have been crawling, now you’re walking, then you’re trotting. And then, guess what… you’re running!  I’ve lost friends as well in the pandemic. I’ve seen people, businesses being crushed. Surround yourself with a good team, good people. Ask yourself, “who’s my squad or my posse?” “Who works with me on this journey?” “Who walks with me, who works and walks with me?” “Who’s coaching and mentoring?” “Who’s supporting me” because that is what will build resilience. Maxwell: I always wonder ‘who inspires the inspiring, and why’. You are very inspiring. I wonder who inspires you, Otema. Otema: Well, I’ve got two people that I find very inspirational. Nelson Mandela – most people say that but there’s a quote that he says that just… I often repeat over and over and he says “The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time you fall”. It’s why I find him so inspiring; it’s that resilience factor.  As a businessperson, as a corporate executive, you must be resilient through the change, when you’re succeeding, and also when you’re failing. Have that ability to say, “you know what, I’ve fallen, but I’m going to get up”. And what helps you get up is maybe telling yourself, “I need a better team, I need more knowledge, the acquisition of knowledge, maybe I need to relook at my product or my service”. Another person who really inspires me on the artistic side is Maya Angelou. I think her story is so interesting because she started the first part of her life unable to speak due to trauma, and that ability to find your voice, as an entrepreneur, or as a businessperson to understand “What’s my brand? Who am I? What do I stand for? How do I grow my business?” There’s one poem of hers that I love, ‘I Still Rise’. Again, that idea that you do fall, that sometimes things don’t work out, but she says “still like air, I rise”, you know? It’s