Fear, Entrepreneurship and Organization

A few mornings ago, I selected Dallas Mavericks owner and billionare Mark Cuban’s blog for a quick perusal. In one of his entries, he makes some interesting comments regarding starting a business and the spirit of entrepreneurship. He says, “There are few things more exciting than starting a business and getting things rolling. The fear, the adrenalin, the excitement, the hope that every entrepreneur feels, are all intoxicating. In fact, very often they are TOO intoxicating. Very often, along with some success comes the feeling of invincibility. I have been in situations where I have told myself that Im smart, I know what Im doing, that I will figure things out as I go, so its OK to take on this new opportunity.” (Emphasis mine).

I couldn’t agree more with this thought leader’s statement. Being at the point where I’m just starting my own organization, Better Life Company, I’m feeling exhilarated. It’s deja vu for me. When I was in college at the University of Nairobi, I started the Center of Knowledge as part of the SHEBA partnership (Stephen Herman Eternal Brotherhood Association). The Center of Knowledge was a resource unit that provided lots of personal growth materials to students at my college campus. Stephen was and still is a very close friend who worked with me in equipping so many young people back home in Kenya. Both organizations lost traction when I left Kenya and came to the United States but I can’t forget the feeling of invincibility I felt as I walked around the campus and toured the country speaking at high schools. 

Mark Cuban’s article is very insightful. He talks about the ‘fear’ of starting a new business.  That transitionary period is very tricky and you must be very focused. Successes through the transitions of life are determined by what happens inside of us. Think of the process of metamorphosis. When I was a kid growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, we had lots of ladybugs in our part of the country. I used to enjoy watching the process of change that happened as they metamorphosised into adult insects. At the larval stage, few people can tell that it will ever turn into anything that can fly.  Soon it transforms itself into a pupa and makes a cocoon around itself. The final stage of maturity comes when changes happen INSIDE the cocoon. The larva BREAKS OUT of the cocoon and becomes a beautiful ladybug. 

Nothing excites me more than embracing positive changes. Every single change I have embraced over the past seven years has completely revolutionized my life. I moved from Africa, to Texas, to Colorado, to Massachussets, to Tennessee, to Omaha and now I’m in Cincinnati, Ohio, which will be the US location for the offices of the Better Life Company. While this might seem like too much change, it’s been a journey towards the ultimate. Epic living! I’m intoxicated! Opportunity has knocked on my front door and I won’t be caught raking leaves in the back yard. I’m ready! All systems are tuned up and ready to fire. As Robert Schuller said, “You can’t fire a missile from a canoe!” If Mark Cuban will define my spirit as intoxication, I’ll accept his definition based on my philosophy of living an epic life and being in the flow of changing society.

Leadership Anatomy

One of the key characteristics of an epic life is being in the flow of leadership. A few weeks ago I drove by a bakery and discovered the anatomy of leadership. I was attracted to the bakery by a group of people that were hanging out to get some free bread. I came up with the following four things that leaders should follow:

1. Follow your ear (I heard the noise)

Learn to act on what you hear your followers whisper. If you can act on the whispers, you won’t have to react to the screams later on. Sensitize your ear to the imperceptible cries of your people. Your ear should be able to vibrate with what is resounding from the lives of your followers. A leader should always have his ear on the ground but not all the time because if you are always bent on the ground and listening you can’t be able to see ahead. There must be a balance. The leaders ear must ring with the voices of the people. 
 
2. Follow your nose (Oh the smell of bread!)

Strive to perfect your ability to smell what is coming. I learnt this from watching leopards hunt back home in the plains of Kenya. Their main advantage is that they can smell their prey from very far. Let us endeavor to smell the future before it arrives. The better your leadership smell buds, the more accurate you will be in anticipating inevitable happenings. The leadership nose is able to determine what is good and what is bad. We like what smells good isn’t it? Leaders should be able to sense the flavor before serving their followers. That’s the key to winning their hearts. 
 
3. Follow your eyes (I saw the crowd)

This is where many leaders lose it. They leap before they look. In more adverse situations, they think before they look. I would like to change a very popular saying. They say “Look before you leap” but I say, “Look before you think and then think before you leap.” As a leader, you must be able to first analyse a situation, synthesise it and then pounce on it. Because leaders possess the big picture and see the whole view before their followers, they can easily be enticed by what looks appealing. Leaders should be able to see, then use their minds and determine the right course of action.

4. Follow your gut (I sensed they were getting free bread)

Intution is a leader’s best friend. This is something that many leaders have yet to fully grasp. You can’t teach anyone how to listen to the gut. It’s something that is cultivated personally. Just a little wisdom to help you as you do this: THE GUT SIGNAL is like red lights flashing within you. Leaders should be able to sense things so that they are not caught unawares.

Ear, nose, eyes and gut – the anatomy of leadership!

Creating Strategically

We can learn a lot from architecture. Some of the most beautiful creations of mankind have been done through architecture. Architecture is simply the structure of anything. In construction circles, it is the act or process of building.

In the flow of life, the architecture of vision is the act of giving structure to that which has been intangible – your vision of the future – and you need a strategy to do that. Going back to our opening quote, we are the architects of our own fortune. Fortune is a child of vision. When it is said that where there is no vision people perish, what that really means is that where people lack hope in the future, there are no fortunes for them to reach for. Vision should birth strategy and strategy, my friends, is the key to your fortune.

Let us briefly look at the work of an architect. An architect takes a user’s vision and brings it to life. He plans and designs that which had been conceived in the mind. Many architects are great visionaries and strategists.

One of my favorite visionary architects is R. Buckminster Fuller, the creator of the Geodesic Dome. His concepts were revolutionary. The dymaxion car (contracted from DYnamic MAXimum tensION), for instance. Fuller had a superb ability to dream big and develop audacious goals. 

Living an epic life is directly proportional to how well we act on vision – strategy. Developing goals and objectives that bring the vision into clearer focus is essential.

Interacting by Sharing Your Vision

As a young teen in the late ’80s I used to enjoy watching heaveyweight boxing fights. Those were the days of men like Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman and Lennox Lewis. What enabled me to understand each fighter’s vision for a match-up was the press conferences right before a fight. I liked it even more when it was between the heavyweight champion and a contender. The boxers would vividly describe what they would do in the ring and then it was up to them to go out and show that they could back-up their words with action in the ring.

I think living an epic life demands that we be able to share our vision with the wider society and then back it up. I have shared a lot about my vision on this blog and on many of my other sites. Sharing vision gives us the ability to pursue it on a higher level. We don’t share vision to impress people but to set standards for ourselves and benchmarks that will provide us with a goal. Share your vision today.

Engaging by Crossing Bridges

Some wise sage once said, “We are told never to cross a bridge until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have ‘crossed bridges’ in their imagination far ahead of the crowd.” I’m thinking of leaders like Martin Luther King Jnr, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. These men crossed bridges way ahead of the societies and times they lived in. they engaged their times with a life that was epic. They got into the flow of what their generation demanded of them. Life demands of us to be prepared for our time when it comes. But the truth is that in order to be prepared we must be able to cross bridges before we get to them. Crossing bridges before we get to them means having a healthy imagination full of ideas on how we can solve the challenges of today and avoid the obstacles of tomorrow.

I’m at a point right now where I’m beginning to develop that capacity to block out time in my day where I can get into my creative space and do nothing but cross bridges in my imagination. Any thinker should be able to do this. That’s the key to leadership – being able to see farther than everyone else and then communicating the dynamics to those around you. I think that we can all develop that capacity to cross bridges before we come to them. Putting in that extra effort in the beginning will enable us to begin accessing the epic life.