Embark on an enlightening quest to demystify the secrets behind starting and scaling innovative enterprises with a seasoned entrepreneur who debunks the conventional wisdom that domain expertise is the silver bullet for business success. As the founder of WestCape, our guest unravels the narrative of how personal frustrations with the financial services industry spurred the inception of his company, setting the stage for a broader discussion on how challenges can be transformed into impactful solutions. This episode promises to reshape your perspective on the ingenuity that drives the startup world.
Our conversation stretches into the practicalities of distinguishing mere ideas from profitable ventures, with a focus on the lifeblood of any business – unit economics, scalability, and the power of a visionary mindset. We examine the evolution of iconic brands like Samsung and Adidas, emphasizing how their beginnings hardly hinted at the titans they would become. By recounting stories of success, reinvention, and strategic acquisitions, we provide a masterclass on what it truly takes to transform a spark of an idea into a market-changing powerhouse.
Lastly, we traverse the harrowing yet rewarding terrain of entrepreneurship, reflecting on the sustainable foundations necessary for business longevity, the nuanced approach to leadership that fosters team growth and personal development, and the indelible impact a successful venture can make on the community it serves. This episode not only shares the wisdom of our guest's experiences but also ignites a conversation on the core values and pivotal choices that craft a meaningful entrepreneurial journey. Join our Konnected Minds community and take a step toward your own path of progress.
Watch the video episode of this on YouTube - https://linktr.ee/konnectedminds
Embark on an enlightening quest to demystify the secrets behind starting and scaling innovative enterprises with a seasoned entrepreneur who debunks the conventional wisdom that domain expertise is the silver bullet for business success. As the founder of WestCape, our guest unravels the narrative of how personal frustrations with the financial services industry spurred the inception of his company, setting the stage for a broader discussion on how challenges can be transformed into impactful solutions. This episode promises to reshape your perspective on the ingenuity that drives the startup world.
Our conversation stretches into the practicalities of distinguishing mere ideas from profitable ventures, with a focus on the lifeblood of any business – unit economics, scalability, and the power of a visionary mindset. We examine the evolution of iconic brands like Samsung and Adidas, emphasizing how their beginnings hardly hinted at the titans they would become. By recounting stories of success, reinvention, and strategic acquisitions, we provide a masterclass on what it truly takes to transform a spark of an idea into a market-changing powerhouse.
Lastly, we traverse the harrowing yet rewarding terrain of entrepreneurship, reflecting on the sustainable foundations necessary for business longevity, the nuanced approach to leadership that fosters team growth and personal development, and the indelible impact a successful venture can make on the community it serves. This episode not only shares the wisdom of our guest's experiences but also ignites a conversation on the core values and pivotal choices that craft a meaningful entrepreneurial journey. Join our Konnected Minds community and take a step toward your own path of progress.
Watch the video episode of this on YouTube - https://linktr.ee/konnectedminds
Business is a numbers game. Building a business traditionally is different from building a tech product.
Speaker 2:What person must you become to be able to lead a startup? Number one business and self-development podcast. Connected Minds podcast. My man, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm great. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2:I'm doing fantastic.
Speaker 1:Look, I see you're wearing white and I'm also wearing white white is my favorite color well, I live for white hey, that makes the two of us yes um, I've seen several interviews of you right and I've watched the trajectory of businesses that you started in Ghana.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that really strikes me is how you can move from an industry to an industry, because most people would like to be comfortable in the space where they're in.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:How you? Would you start this business? I mean you started. There was a company you started. You sold it to trips Right. That's true, you got employed by them again, so how are you able to do that?
Speaker 1:So I think most people first of all like to think that to be successful in business, you need to have a domain expertise in that sector. So someone should start a restaurant only if they are a chef. Or someone should start a fashion business if they've gone to a fashion school. I am of a completely different opinion only if they are a chef. Or someone should start a fashion business if they've gone to a fashion school. I am of a completely different opinion. I actually think that outside people so if you do not have sector-specific experience in that domain you can bring new perspectives or new thinking and that can bring about innovations and new ways of doing things.
Speaker 1:Because the people who have domain expertise think conventionally. They will say that, oh, this is how it's always been done in this sector. Oh, this is how it's always been done, you know, for the past 50 years. So what are you going to change? But if you are from the outside, you think differently. You think like a customer, you think like a user, you think like an innovator and you disrupt the system. I mean, today, facebook or Meta is the biggest media platform, but it wasn't built by a media professional. You understand? X is a media platform, but it wasn't built by a media professional or media and communication platform, but it wasn't built by PR and communication professional. So, as an entrepreneur, I just like to think about how can we do things differently, regardless of whether I have a domain expertise in that business or not.
Speaker 2:You know, most people get scared right when they're moving into new industries as an entrepreneur especially when it's a startup, you usually want to be comfortable in the space where you are. But then for you, what does it take to say that today I'm going to do a business in transport and I'm going to disrupt it, tomorrow I'm going into healthcare, the next day I'm going into construction. What does it take?
Speaker 1:So for me personally and I think it varies for different people I have to experience the problem or the opportunity. I have to experience it, I have to feel it, I have to connect with it and then personalize it and then I own it. That's how you start. So let's go back to my first venture, which was a fintech, a financial technology company called West Cape. I was working at Imani at the time. Imani is a policy think tank, you know, based in ghana. I got into money to launch their francophone project. Then I became communications director. I also did a lot of work on governance and economic research, you know.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to leave imani to do something different, because I thought that I had outland the system, you know, and I wanted to start a business. So I was looking for loans. I had saved up to it's close to about 200,000 Ghana cities, all right so, but I wonder I wanted to start would require about 500,000 Ghana cities to launch it. So I needed loan to to top up the savings I had. And I was then that and that was the first time I came into contact with the financial services industry firsthand, because the only thing I was doing was either saving, investing, either through intermediaries or through my relationship managers. At the time you didn't have apps like this, you know. So I wanted to borrow money and I went to the banks. They said you've got to have this, you've got to have bank. They said you got to have this, you got to have that, you got to have that.
Speaker 1:It was a shock for me. I didn't know that. That's what many people you know were were going through, and I would tell them that I saw this interest rate on your website. It says 21, but now you're telling me 29. You know why is that the case? I don't understand. You said that what I only need this, this, this, these five items on your website, but now you're telling me about 10 things I need. So it didn't make sense to me and I got frustrated. That was the birth of my first company called Wayscape, and what we sought to do was pretty simple Digitize financial products like insurance, loans and investments, so that you don't have to go through multiple steps to have access to this product. So let's take insurance, for example. If you wanted to buy an auto insurance or a car insurance, you would have to be harassed by an insurance agent and they tell you that their premium is the best, their claim process is the best, all, all of that.
Speaker 1:And then they bring you some forms to fill out with tiny text you know and you you need to have a lawyer to understand what the text means all of that, and so with our platform, that was completely different. So what you would see what the insurance cover is about. So, auto insurance from enterprise, for example, this is the premium. This is the. So, auto insurance from enterprise, for example, this is the premium. This is the claim process. This is the description. These are everything. You see it, and you'd even see reviews from previous users, which then gives you the confidence to go ahead with that, with that service provider or not. And if you are interested in the auto insurance from enterprise, then you go ahead and request it on the websites. Once you request it, you input your details, your car number, everything. The request goes to the Enterprise insurance dashboard. Then they act on it and they deliver your sticker to you or they ask you to come to the office pick your sticker. It was as simple as that. So I wouldn't have thought about it if we hadn't felt the pain. If I was from the inside, I would not be thinking of the solution that way. And then we moved to. So what happened is that we raised $100,000 in equity investment from it locally, because the problem we're solving was, I think very good. And so one investor saw the opportunity and decided to invest. And that's when you know building a product.
Speaker 1:I actually saw the challenges with building product like tech product, because building a business traditionally is different from building a tech product. With traditional business, you're just concerned about providing the service to the user, right, you know. So the user needs insurance. You provide that insurance. It ends there and then they pay you for that.
Speaker 1:For a tech product, you've got to think about a problem and you've got to understand the user's problem. You know how do they use the insurance. You know how would they access it, because you're not going to sell it to them physically or in person. They have to. You're going to give them the tech and then they have to then buy the service using the tech. All right. And so you've got to think about the user. Understand the user, the user's journey, very well. How do, where did they discover it? Did they prefer to buy it on a mobile app store or a USSD short code? Or they want to call and buy that insurance product. You've got to do this and it's not easy, and sometimes most entrepreneurs tend to think that they know better than the user. So they start to build from their bedroom, and that's what we did. We spent about $50,000 building a solid platform. We were super excited about it and you know, without any feasibility studies.
Speaker 1:Without talking to the user. You know, and that's what being the first time founder teaches you. And so we went to the market. We saw that the product was over-sophisticated for the user. We had too many features that the user didn't need, and so it wasn't solving the problem for the user and we had to go back to the drawing board. Well, thankfully, we managed to recover from that mistake.
Speaker 1:It wasn't fatal Sometimes it can be fatal, but it wasn't fatal and so we pivoted and we did the right thing by talking to the users. We started calling users to come to our office would create a round circle, you know, and I would sit in the middle and be asking them questions. So what was the last time you bought an insurance product? When was the last time you borrowed the money, you know? And they were giving us ideas and I'll be noting the things down.
Speaker 1:So that's how we built the finished product and built it better, and that's how we managed to sell that software asset at some point when the banking sector faced some crisis between 2017, 2018, and 2019. And what happened was that many financial institutions were undercapitalized, and what that means is that they didn't have the required reserve to operate their business. So at every given point in time, the bank of ghana, which is the regulator, requires financial institutions to have a certain amount of money sitting somewhere, you know, so that when we all go to this financial institution or to this bank for a drop money, they will be able to honor that, that request and many of them could not could not because they had divested the funds.
Speaker 1:You know they were investing in real estate, which were, you know, long-term assets. And if a market woman is saving at the bank, they don't expect to keep the money for the next 10 years, you know, even five years.
Speaker 1:They expect to come for it in a month's time yes but the microfinance savings and loans and banks were investing the money in real estate, in new ventures like Resolve and things like that, and these things take time to generate returns. So we had a bank run and our business was exposed to the industry and so some of the contracts we had got canceled, some of the lease we're pursuing that we're going to give us, you know, millions in revenue were cancelled. I was already dreaming of becoming a millionaire when I saw when I saw the revenue and everything.
Speaker 2:You've already started spending the money before you even get it In my head. You know it happens you know I wanted us to touch on for the average person. How can they generate a startup idea in this economy?
Speaker 1:So I think it's pretty. I shouldn't say it's simple, because then it might be simple to me, but it's not that it may not be simple for other folks. But I think the less frictionless way to go about it is to look at the environment first. Start with your environment. If you live in the village, for example, and everybody's thinking about is complaining about the water. The water bodies are polluted. Everybody's saying that, oh, the water body's polluted. That's everybody's thinking about is complaining about the water. The water bodies are polluted. Everybody's saying that, oh, the water body's polluted. That's everybody's nightmare concern.
Speaker 1:As an individual within the community, what can you do to address that concern? You can do many things. You can consider, for example, importing a chemical you put in the water body to purify the water body so that when people fetch the water it's not contaminated, and you charge the government or you charge whoever is to pay you a fee for purifying the water body. This could be an idea. You could decide that you would extract the water from the river, treat it and supply it to people's homes, so people don't come to the water bodies themselves directly, but you're extracting the water from the water body and then you're treating it and distributing it, and you're still addressing the content. Because the content is that they don't have access to quality water and the water bodies are contaminated. Or you can say that there's a water treatment plant in Accra. I'm going to do a joint venture with them. I'm going to ask them to come to this community, set up a plant. They bring their machinery. I'm going to have 10% of the business, they're going to have 90%, they will do it and they will do everything. I will simply be coordinating the success of the business on the ground in that community and you are addressing the issue. So that's one way to think about generating startup ideas. Start with the environment and think about the ways you can address that problem for the user.
Speaker 1:But not every startup idea can be a business as well, and that's another thing to think about. Because it's a good thing to have an idea. It's another thing to have a business as well, and that's another thing to think about, because it's a good thing to have an idea, it's another thing to have a business. A business must make money at the end of the day, and so if you're not able to make money profitably, then you don't have a business. So not every startup idea is worth pursuing and most of the times there's no way of knowing at the beginning. No amount of visibility studies or projections can tell you what the market is going to teach you at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:If you look at Airbnb, for example, everybody said that it was a stupid idea. I'm sure many of our audience know what Airbnb is. In fact, some of the greatest investors in the world at the time 10 down the Airbnb investors because nobody thought that it made sense for one to give out their private room for another person and that business would be able to make money at scale. All right. So because then that was a good idea, but you didn't think that it would be a good business. So the only way to know is to do it right. To know if a good idea is going to be a good business, it's just to do it, okay.
Speaker 2:I was in the car in a conversation with one of my friends, daniel, and then the question I asked was at what point do you know when you've started a business right, or do you know when you've started a business right, or when you start the idea? At what point then do you know whether I am in it, is it going to work, or should I leave it and move on?
Speaker 1:I think it's a first of all, I think it's a feeling. It happens like a feeling, but it should not be that way. Business is a numbers game. If you're spending, say, $5, to make $3. So let's say today, for example, your customer pays you $5 for the service you're offering and for you to be able to make that $5 from the customer, you spend $4. And out of that you have $1 left you have to pay rent, other things, pay salaries, all of that and so on. So your objective as a business person, as an entrepreneur, is to reduce the cost at which you're producing the service to the customer. So from $4 to maybe $3, $2, and so on. And so if by tomorrow you try again and you're unable to reduce the cost of producing the service from $4 to $3, then you know that there's an issue with your business. Or if you attempt to reduce the cost of production from four to three and the customer stops buying from you because they say that there's a reduced value from what they're getting, you know that there's a problem with the business. So that's one way to look at it.
Speaker 1:Your unit economics Do the unit economics add up? Do they make sense at scale? Would you have after producing the service or the product and the customer paying you for it, would you have enough left to pay for your office, for payroll, for other things and so on, and then to even declare profits? If you don't see it happening, then you know that it's not going to cut it. But one must be patient. You know there are different types of business. There's what we call the margin business model and then there's the volume business model. A margin business model is when you simply need a few people to buy the service and pay a lot more for it and that's it. And then volume is when you need a lot of people to buy the service at a cheap price. So if you're running a volume business, you need to know it means you have to give yourself time to acquire a lot more customers in order to make up for the cost of production.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I understand that. You know it's very difficult to, in most cases, right If you don't have any experience in starting a business which most people don't. That's true.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just started out of school. The only experience I had was what I used to do in college. Here and there, it's really hard to identify what could potentially work Because you know. For someone like yourself who's got several industries where you've got, you know businesses sometimes it can be very difficult to understand if this will work or not now to you as an entrepreneur. What would you say to that person running that business? I?
Speaker 1:just, I think that you've got to be visionary about the future and not content yourself so much about the present. There are many businesses we thought would not work but worked. I mean, samsung, for example, was a shoemaking business. They were just doing shoemaking. They weren't doing electronics, but they were concerned about the future. You understand and then build about the future. You understand and then you know, build for the future. If you look at adidas today, adidas was just doing, it was repairing people's shoes. And as they think about the future, you know, yeah have the future in mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I you as an individual. You've built a business, you've sold a business you've acquired a business recently?
Speaker 3:yes, I think one of the companies you just acquired was Waffle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Waffle, yeah, that's true Now do you think people should, because a lot of the companies these days they're looking for acquisitions?
Speaker 1:acquisitions.
Speaker 2:Do you think we should build businesses with the hope to sell or with the hope to?
Speaker 1:live to posterity with the hope to sell or with the hope to live to posterity? I think that we should build personally build business for the long term, regardless of whether the founder wants to sell it or not. The business itself should be able to stand on the foundation that guarantees its long-term sustainability, because, if you look at many of the things that we're using today, they are built and manufactured by businesses that are not just recently founded. These are businesses that exist or have existed for a very long time. Just look at everything around you. These things are not manufactured by new businesses, and so, if we seek to create value for the future what, which is what the business should be creating value for the future we need to think about the long-term sustainability of the business. Now. Every founder, every entrepreneur must have an exit strategy for their business yep you.
Speaker 1:You know, and so if your goal is to at some point exit your business, you shouldn't exit the business with the business exiting itself as well, you know. So I think that has been the challenge for our industry.
Speaker 2:Somebody will say that right, this guy has been lucky for too long. Yeah, yeah, he starts it, it works out, sells, it comes back again, do a quick runner, come back again and then each time he's got a business that he talks about. Yeah, I you know many startups that I have seen around here. The biggest problem is funding. How are you able to navigate that in your businesses?
Speaker 1:So funding, first of all, is a relationship business. You cannot secure funding if you don't have the relationship. That's the first thing. So it's not a financial transaction. Securing the funding for your business is not a financial transaction. It's not. It's a relationship thing. So that's the first thing. I didn't know that Our first business, our first venture, we got the funding because I used to design websites. I used to design websites and I was very good at it.
Speaker 1:I designed a website for this lady, ohi McCarthy, yvonne McCarthy. She's a customer service professional. She was just from the UK as well and she wanted to do something in the customer service industry and she was always frustrated with the quality of service she was getting everywhere. She said she had gone to fill out the form on the website to have her website designed. She didn't get feedback. But she got the feedback after 72 hours and she was really frustrated. Look, in the UK I'll get an instant feedback. So when she reached out to me I don't even know how we actually met, but she was so happy and elated with the quality of interaction we had. She would say something the next minute. I'm providing feedback on that. She said I need you say don't worry, we'll do the research and I'll send you now. We'll do the research. Give her three options she has to choose from. So, oh, wow, you're even giving me options. Are you doing the research for me? She was so happy with the experience, so we, I built her first website.
Speaker 1:She was super happy, and so one day she went to do, she went to conduct a training for a shipping business in Tema called Ben Marine Services in Tema, and so this Ben Marine Services gentleman, a guy, wanted to actually upgrade his brand. You know, he wanted to make his digital brand, everything solid, and so she recommended us. She recommended me to the man so he's not even a guy, he's a man, you know and she said all the nice things about me to this man, all the nice things. And then the man said, yeah, hey, isidore, someone just talked to me about you. I want to see you. See, you know that we went.
Speaker 1:At the time I had a partner and so he has background in finance, so we went to his office. Yeah, I even like you more in person. You know, I like the energy. You know all of that. Because I said we can do this, we can do that, we can do that. You're so happy, yeah, I, and so on, because I said we can do this, we can do that, we can do that. You're so happy, yeah, I think you also come and work here. I can give you an office here, you work here, you can do your stuff outside, but work here, you know, because we, you're so happy, excited to want to do something with us. And then we just told him about the idea, the idea of starting the marketplace for financial services. Then he said he would invest.
Speaker 2:The power of recommendation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the relationship business I'm talking about. So it's not a financial transaction, because I wasn't expecting him to even invest. I didn't go there for investment, I was going there to design websites and upgrade people's flyers. So that's how he started.
Speaker 2:We hear the success story You've done fantastic with all the businesses that you've done, but there are black stains behind you.
Speaker 1:You've gone through it Sometimes you can even feel to the extent that you don't have money to put fuel in your car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you just mentioned that you have to sell a car yeah, exactly, right, exactly it's, it's entrepreneurs go through it and I always say that if you're crazy enough to think of you, I want to start a business and you need to be prepared for all the things that are going to come your way yeah, that's true, because you will sell your car you might even sell your house. Yeah, that's true, you have your family, depending on you and your staff members and their families.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. That's what I love about entrepreneurship when you succeed, you are empowering not just your yourself, but an entire economy. All right that you don't even see, you don't't even know. Because this is it. If I succeed today, I pay better salary or I pay salary. Let's just say I pay salary. This colleague is going to use the salary. He's going to give part of it to his wife. He's going to use some to pay his children's school fees.
Speaker 1:He's going to buy something on the roadside from the roadside seller and the roadside seller is going to use that to pay children's school fees, is going to use that to buy some things. You can understand how the replaying effect of that sucks. It goes a long way that we don't see, which is why I'm a big believer in entrepreneurship, except that I have challenges with the way we're doing it here, especially the way I mean government-supported entrepreneurship programs have not been successful, and that is a big challenge with the ecosystem. We need to incentivize people to get into entrepreneurship. To incentivize people to get into entrepreneurship not by giving them like 20,000 ganasides after taking them through a 12-month program to launch something.
Speaker 1:No, no, that's not how to incentivize quality talent into entrepreneurship, because someone with the right talent will not subject themselves to six months, 12 months of so-called training and then wait for 20,000 Ghana cities or 50,000 Ghana cities, 100,000 Ghana cities from you, to just launch a business. Quality people will not subject themselves to that process, for sure. What we need to do is to allow people to be bold and crazy. So, for example, I shouldn't. I mean, I've registered. I was just saying it. This morning I was talking to someone. I registered like five companies in the US without stepping foot for each type of the process in the US right, I know where you're going with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I registered a bank account just last week or this week. It happened in two days. I didn't have to go and sit in some banking hall. Bring this, take a picture. I didn't have to do that, and the way it works in our system is the reverse, and that is a big frustration to people who have something to offer, right, right. So or look at how the currency is dancing, don't?
Speaker 2:even know what dance it is I can't figure it out. You know whether it's at duwawa, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So these things can frustrate quality people with a quality talent to first come back home, wherever they are, or to stay within the system and build for the system, all right, or the cost of finance. So one of the things that I think it should be easy for um for for government to do is to say that is to actually guarantee um risk for banks. You see, ask banks to give, and this is something that's working at the part of what. Ask banks to give, and this is something that's working. The other part of the world. Ask banks to give x, to reserve a portion of their loan book to entrepreneurs to start up, so entrepreneurs doing this in this industry yeah and if they don't, without any collateral.
Speaker 1:If they don't, if the loans don't perform, we will pay back, right, government will pay back, right, okay, if the loans don't perform, we would pay back. And that's why business loans are so easy to access in some markets and with competitive interest rates, and here you don't have anything. And so you realize that the folks who have access to all the business loans are people who are doing things that are not so transformational for the future. We're just financing real estates, right. We're not thinking about I mean, we're not thinking about AI.
Speaker 1:All right, just look at how much was invested in open AI before it started commercializing. More than a billion dollars. More than a billion dollars, I mean. Can you go to a bank and say I need $10,000 today to start an AI company and they'll give you it? No, of course, they will not. All right. So we need to think about our regulatory environment. We need to think about our financial system, the way we support entrepreneurship and the way we support people who want to invest in entrepreneurs. We need to create a better tax system or tax regime for both investors and entrepreneurs. Many investors, I know, are not so confident about the regulatory framework of African government, so they prefer that. You know, startups they invested in are registered outside, and so that's why and so these things are headers that you know deter quality people from going into you know entrepreneurship. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, Isidore. What person must you become to be able to lead a startup?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that you've got to be a listener. You have to be observant a lot, because leadership is a people's business. It's just a people's business, and so you can only do that effectively if you know how to listen to people. So listening is not just about what they say, but really paying attention to them, because I know many a times what I have had to do or say that changed the way someone is feeling, and if I wasn't listening or paying attention, I would have missed that and that would have affected their productivity, that would have affected the outcome of the business. So that's one you have to be a good, good listener. You also have to be willing to learn. That is important.
Speaker 1:Um, many a times, some leaders tend to think that they have to be the most dominant voice in the room. But you already have authority by virtue of the fact that you're the leader, so you don't have to do anything for you to exert that authority. So talking and having the most dominant voice is not an expression of leadership. So you've got to allow other people to have a position and to think and to execute, to feel as well. That's how you discover new opportunities, that's how you empower your team. That's how you build the foundation of the business, because the foundation of the business is the people. If the people have the confidence to execute, do things and all of that, you'll be good. You can scale it very easily because you won't have to be in every department for things to move forward. So that is important.
Speaker 1:The other thing I've seen that works really in leadership or in, you know, leading, especially startups is doing the things that you expect other people to do. So I can take the customer service call, for example. I mean, I can take the customer service call, for example. I can take the customer's line. I even this morning we we did some campaign and we got some leads and I told the gentleman in charge of that project don't call, I'll be calling, I'll make the first calls yeah I just want to make the first, so do the things that he said.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, remember, we got someone recently and, uh, we're going on some sales visits, you know, and she told me that, oh, what we need is that, and what you need is that you need about five people. Give them the cars. You don't have to come on the sales visits, just sit in the office and you know that's what you need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's what she was saying. You're already racking up the bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, racking up the bills. Yeah, that's it not even that you need to do what other you expect others to do, so that you learn, you experience what they go through, and then you can empathize with them as well. You know that's true. Yeah, so these are some of the things I see work in in leadership, but most importantly, you've got to just learn. You've got to learn and be flexible to adjust, you know yeah, we're getting into the questions that we like to ask.
Speaker 2:Okay, when we get into the end of the conversation? Now, if you haven't subscribed, please do become part of the family and stay connected. No-transcript. What are your limitations and weaknesses?
Speaker 1:Oh, limitations and weaknesses. I know for sure that I have the mind to see opportunities everywhere, and that can become a weakness, in the sense that it turns from an opportunity into a distraction. Okay, all right, so it's not the real opportunity that you should go after. It's everything that you should want to pursue, and so I think that is one weakness that I am working on. I think I've managed to do better. It's something I'm aware of. There are many things that I've I've noted down. I say I'm not touching, but I just noted them down. Okay, um, that's one um limitation, I think, so big some time that I, um, I I know that I have to start small somewhere, but I just dread starting small. Okay, because I have always believed that if someone could achieve building this and this skill, why not me?
Speaker 1:You can do it, I can do it, but by the point of truth is that they started from somewhere and they didn't just start by doing it big and so yeah, I was saying that.
Speaker 2:You know human beings, we like to learn from finished products. Yeah yeah, and sometimes it can be very detrimental. Yeah, yeah, it is better to learn from someone within your circle who is doing better than you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Than to take that huge target. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It can be very difficult. Even that huge target didn't just become that target all of a sudden. It went from the infancy stage to the puberty stage. You're an adolescent, an adult, and a grandfather. You see, I've seen a grandpapa somewhere. You want to be a grandpapa?
Speaker 2:No, you've got to start from need to take the first step for the first step. Yeah, now then our next question is motivation or discipline?
Speaker 1:I think, for me motivation, for me motivation, uh, because, um, I, I, I, I, I well, I think it's also a chicken and egg problem, you know. But most of the times I just know that once I have the motivation to do anything, I can get it done because I'm motivated to do it. Right. You can have the discipline, but I'm not sure if yeah, but for me, once I I know that my motivation is to do this, I just do it. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. What's the?
Speaker 1:best advice you've ever received don't do it. Yeah, don't, don't do entrepreneurship that's the best advice yeah, wow the best advice you've ever received. That's the best, because I mean, you're an entrepreneur and and there are many entrepreneurs out there I wouldn't advise anyone to be an entrepreneur unless you're ready to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay, right, right, gotcha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Unless you're ready to do that. Crazy enough right. Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. Okay, now what's your favorite personal development book?
Speaker 1:So, I'm not a huge fan of personal development books. I rather have learned so much from books on specific topics, right, and one of the things I've loved is the Word of Nations by Adam Smith. When I started working in policy think tank, it was one of the first books that I started hearing. You know, in the Word of Nations by Adam Smith, he talked about how some nations you know develop to become so wealthy and others remain poor for a very long time. And when you look at our lives as well, others you know grow to become wealthy. Others remain poor for a very long time or forever, you know.
Speaker 1:And so I've learned a lot from that book on how to really it's a mindset thing, it's a systemic thing to get to where you are. I mean, wealth is not the goal, but it's it's, it's a natural byproduct of, of development. Wow, you know. And so once you're developing yourself, you become wealthy without thinking about it. You understand, you can become wealthy in health, wealthy intellectually, wealthy materially. You wealthy with the connections. So yeah, and so that's for me one of the best books. I've also loved some podcasts.
Speaker 1:I mean I enjoy listening to the diary of a CEO. Yeah, I love some of the content and guests that Stephen brings on the show. Show, yeah, and I just yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's amazing um, we need a question for the next guest from you if you, um, I mean, that's, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, so if you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? I mean, that's, that is a very simple question, but, um, in fact, I think this question is so, it's so popular that it's writing it for yeah, it's the.
Speaker 2:The tablet is writing yeah, yeah, predicting it, yeah because sometimes you look back.
Speaker 1:You look back at your journey and say oh okay, I wish I had done this differently yeah I wish I had done this different and I think everyone has got that right.
Speaker 2:Anyone you ask this question to over the age of 15 will probably tell you something. They'll tell you something. I think it's quite a profound question yeah, no matter how simple it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if I'm allowed to ask um a second question so that the guest has two questions to ask, maybe that would be a new well it would be a new thing, but I'm willing to write it down.
Speaker 2:Okay, then maybe they have a choice, you see, all right, all right so you have money, health and relationship.
Speaker 1:What would you prioritize? Wow, money, half and relationship and have relations what? What would you prioritize and why?
Speaker 2:that's a good question, no that's a very good question, I like that we have about 80% of our viewers on the channel who have not subscribed. Now we still have about 9,000 subscribers and we're very close to getting to the 10. And I'm hoping that before this conversation comes out, before you hear it, we'll be on 15Kk and if we are not, then be part of the family. Connected minds podcast is for those that want self-development and wants to move ahead in life stay connected.