The media pays a lot of attention to the Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote but the story of how it all began can be traced to his mentor who happened to be his grandfather.
He was mentored by his grandfather, who was a successful businessman in his time.
Dangote’s grandfather, Sanusi Dantata, was once named one of the wealthiest people living in Kano. He made his fortune selling commodities like oats and rice. Dantata became Dangote’s guardian in 1965 after the death of his father.
His grandfather gave him a small capital to start his own business and an additional loan of N500,000 from his uncle, which was not a small money those days.
Dangote was supposed to repay the loan in 4 years, which was when the business was expected to have begun yielding profits.
However, Dangote repaid the loan within 6 months under the guidance of his mentor.
Behind many a success story is a fantastic mentor.
Nelson Mandela was mentored by Walter Sisulu, Oprah mentored by Maya Angelou , Bill Gates mentored by Warren Buffett.
Even if people claim to have paved their way on their own, there is a strong chance that someone was there early on to set them on the right path or give them sage advice.
I have been lucky and privileged to spent the last ten years or so with entrepreneurs, teaching, mentoring, speaking, learning and writing about their journeys of overcoming fear, doingwork that matters, and finding the ability to dance with uncertainty.
All those interactions and interactions are summed up in this book: Letters to Entrepreneurs.
Being an entrepreneur can get lonely. I wrote this book to let you know that, what you are going through is not unique or limited to you, you are not stupid, you are not inadequate or made a mistake by choosing to be an entrepreneur.
There are many entrepreneurs who struggle with the same challenges that keeps you awake at night.
This book echoes many of the ideas, tips and lessons I have been writing about here for the last 6 years, but it’s completely original work.
Mostly, I wrote it to make it easier for my readers to encourage the change they would like to see in the people around them [and in ourselves].
I wrote it for you, and I wrote it for me, too, to help me get straight about what matters in doing work that makes a difference.
While there are definitely joys of entrepreneurship, there are also significant challenges. Entrepreneurship can feel isolating.
It is when you get lonely, that you need someone who understands your journey to share their wisdom with you.
Letters to Entrepreneurs is a list of lessons, tips, wisdom that I acquired over a period of 10 years of mentoring and learning from startup and seasoned entrepreneurs.
In this book I compile tips and lessons I have picked up from over 100 entrepreneurs I have worked with over a period of 15 years. Some of the lessons are personal lessons, lessons from friends and colleagues and lessons from other entrepreneurs.
The book contains over 100 distilled lessons, tactics, mistakes, life lessons, tips, strategies and advices.
If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go farther, go with others.
This books is lessons from journeys travelled with others.
About the pre-orders:
The book comes out in February 2019, the 06th to be precise..
My plan is to distribute it horizontally, from reader to reader, as opposed to top down via retailers and promotion.
For that to work, though, I need a few hundred fans who are willing to take a chance on me and order a pre-pack.
They will get the very first copies from the printer and have an easy way to share it with friends and colleagues. After a start like that, the book is on its own.
I’m announcing this now because I’m about to go to print and need to know how many to make…
My hope is that people won’t be able to resist sharing it, just as we enjoy sharing digital work online.
For many people, of course, they will prefer to wait, to see what others say, and to avoid being an early adopter. That’s fine. Books last.
But, if you are up for it, I hope you will place and order and pay on the link provided at the bottom and dive in so I can make an intelligent decision about how many to print.
Who knows, if this works, we will be able to make the change we seek happen even faster.
Thanks for sharing.
Pre-order now:
rochemamabolo 