7 Business Lessons To Learn From Ants 6 You Need to Drive Yourself

There are two incidents that one of my mentors related to me some time ago. First, it was a case of her church member who gave testimony of how God delivered her from being stranded on the third mainland bridge (in Lagos) where the driver got angry, and left her in the car. Apparently, she might have been insulting or treating the driver unfairly.

It got to a point that day, maybe he couldn't bear it anymore, and knowing that the 'Madam' didn't know how to drive, he decided to ' teach her a lesson' by abandoning her inside the car, on top of the ever-busy and risky Third Mainland bridge. She almost became stranded simply because she didn't know how to drive herself, despite having a nice high-performance car. Thank goodness, there was a divine intervention for her.

The second incidence was the case of her husband's driver who started 'misbehaving' after working with him for a couple of years. At times, he will come late, other times; he will drop him in the office and disappear into the thin air and will not be found to be sent on errand or to drive him home. One day, despite the fact the husband told him (i.e. the driver) to come early because he had an appointment that morning, he came very late as usual.

Guess what? The 'Oga (i.e. my mentor's husband) had driven himself to the meeting. That was how he lost his job, though coupled with other misdemeanours. If I may ask, what is the difference between the two 'Ogas? The inability and ability to drive.
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From our study of the Ants, though they have no king (or boss) to make them work, yet they labour hard all summer, gathering food for the winter, we can see inner drive and self motivation. In clear terms, we can see that Ants are able to drive themselves to work. They are inner directed, and they take initiative. They don't wait for any employer to come and instruct, direct, or motivate them to work. They know what to do, and pronto, they go to work. It wouldn't be untrue that this sense of initiative could have been borne out of the fact that they already had a clear mental (now written) picture of the type of future they want to have.

You can then see how vision connects with your sense of initiative. Without vision, there is no inner drive. And it is this inner drive that people see in you, and they make remarks like, "this guy (or girl as the case may be) is going somewhere in life." And they would want to lend you a helping hand, in any form, to help you achieve your vision.

Sincerely, if you must achieve a worthwhile feat in business and in life generally, you must be a self-driven person. This is a core trait of most successful entrepreneurs all over the globe.

Entrepreneurs are inner-directed. They don't wait for people to push them; rather, they push themselves to work. They have a sense of responsibility; they don't live as liabilities on others, rather, they are assets. They don't wait for someone to come and pay them salaries, or wages, rather they 'create' the money to pay themselves, and that of their employees. In fact, they are driven by results. No wonder, one of my boss (while working in a Telecommunication company) would often say, "We don't pay for efforts; we pay for results."

It is however, very unfortunate, the wrong mindset some young graduates in Nigeria want to go into business with. You hear them say, "I don't want to work for anybody; I want to be my own boss so I could wake anytime I like and go to work any time I like." The truth is, if you go into business or entrepreneurship with that mindset, I guarantee you; your business will go into oblivion within the first six months of operation.

If you doubt me, please go and ask the Ants. They will definitely tell you that to succeed in business, or in any endeavour, you need to be self driven; inner directed, and always work with your initiative.

In all honesty, entrepreneurship is a very challenging endeavour. I can attest to that. But it is very rewarding if you learn to motivate or push yourself to do what you must do (not what you will do when it is convenient) so as to get the desired result. If you don't drive yourself, you won't get anywhere. May be, you may even get stranded on the road to success in life.

This is Business Lesson No.3; you need to take initiative and drive yourself. To achieve this, I suggest you don't lose focus on the big picture (i.e. the vision) you have painted in your mind, and on paper. Let's go to lesson No. 4.

Chapter end