Life demands so much of us, we’re constantly performing, pleasing others and busy with stuff. Is it any reason, therefore, that we find ourselves so tired, depleted from doing our long list of to-dos, meetings to attend, deadlines to meet. We are enslaved to the other side, the other person, the competitor, the client, the customer; living in fear to secure acceptance, the deal, the market share, the sale, some semblance of happiness. When we start a business, the ‘busyness’ consumes us creating a constant avalanche of activity and expectation of high performance, and if we don’t take a break, we will start to underperform. Most performances have an interlude, a break, half-time, an interval, an intermission. 

Who are you? What is your identity? These discussions often lead to a reference of one’s roots, where one comes from. As a business-owner you don’t lose your identity, you just show up differently.

Nature provides many lessons for humans to learn from – biomimicry is the study of nature-inspired solutions to human challenges. It takes 300 bees flying to 2 million flowers over a distance of 88,000km to make less than half a kilogram of honey. That is an average individual bee run of 6,667 flowers over 293km! A study of bees thus provides many leadership lessons that can address some of the issues encountered when leading and managing a business.

In the last 6 months, I have been broken by the passing of two dear entrepreneurs and the critical hospitalisation of one. If a distinction is not made on the importance of self-nurture, the body and mind take the biggest knock and who will run the business when that happens? The things that matter need minding and it is time the entrepreneur pauses that business button and presses the mind me button.

There’s something breathtaking in the shimmering beauty of a moving blanket of water and foam that seems woven together by microscopic gems of different hues. Spread across a vast expanse of space the body of water moving rhythmically swaying gently to its own tune, to its own invisible authority. The breadth, depth and width of the sea inspires supernatural possibility in our measured humanness, thinking beyond the immediate on what we can envision, what is possible, what can be. This great expanse that kisses the edge of the horizon unearths desires for equaled greatness lying within us. Picture the scene of designs that can be visualized, dreams that can be realized, and concepts that can be materialized. There’s something freeing and foreboding about the sea all at once.

Every year in July I travel, but this time I won’t be, so allow me to do so vicariously through nostalgia of a past sojourn’s images etched colourfully in my mind. Though I traversed the breadth of Italy, it is Rome’s smells and spirited tales that beckon to be revealed and re-explored and I find myself willingly teleported to strange yet familiar sounds from my history books and daily business Latin phrases. 

Birding (or birdwatching for those not in the know), may seem to be a fruitless pastime amidst the many challenges of life. However, when I conjure it up in my mind and envision the experience of birders, it presents itself as a welcome reprieve and distraction from the harsh ugly reality of clipped wings, the stationary, the dull, the silenced, the wingless. I ponder on Maya Angelou’s “I know why the caged bird sings” and picture the contemplative constraining space of life’s trappings and the freedom and opportunity in roaming outside of confinement but only within the boundaries of your natural capability and inclinations.

A few weeks ago we experienced a very unpleasant cold front – out came the boots, beanies and coats. Heaters were dusted, stews and dumplings warmed our bellies and talk of an impending colder winter this year, trended. I love the warm things of winter. We’ve figured it all out: central heating, warm, fluffy sweaters, winter sheets, cup-a-soups and trips to warmer locations are easy to arrange. Animals do the same, they migrate, hibernate or adapt – we could learn a thing or two from them and apply this knowledge to business.

Like in ballet, let’s assume 3 positions to sum up what compels and sustains the entrepreneur. First position, the power of a well-developed idea and executed plan gives you the opportunity to audition. Second position gives you access to contracts which provides further opportunity to prove your ability and credibility to deliver. As your offering is selected and you deliver to high standards, a time may come to expand which gives you the third position.

What I’m about to say may seem bizarre, but next time you order your grilled or fried salmon, think for a moment about its biology. Thing is, salmon swim upstream, purposefully, willfully; they are the natural essence of being disruptors. They don’t go with the flow, the norm, the usual, the easy – they are focused and passionate in pushing boundaries. They swim upstream to reach fresh water that they were born into; some make it, some remain in the ocean unable to fulfill their innate biology to go upstream.

To be young in Africa today is to carry within you hopeful and delusional optimism about your future as you survey the unemployment lines from a high-rise office that you will occupy. It is despairing to talk about the youth unemployment rates as I watch my sanguine nephews, one in final year of university and the other in matric, discuss their post-learning options. Especially when the OECD UNDP 2016 Africa Economic Outlook Report states that 9 out of 10 working youth between 15-24 years of age are poor or likely to be poor.

An analogy of war conjures up images of destruction, conflict, pain, looters, prisoners, death and losers. There are no real winners in war – victory and winning mean different things in wartime, yet it is used as a backdrop to many a competitive strategy. 

Networks are those connections and pathways that define the world around us; in our communities, relationships and business engagements. The first modern talk of networks was technically in reference to a collection of computer components that were interconnected by communication channels, allowing a sharing of resources and information. Nothing new here – nations have always used their networks to get ahead.

People produce and people consume. Businesses are because of people – it is a commercialized form of Ubuntu. One cannot exist without the other.