Driven to be Remembered for Much More than His Money
Dear Net Buddy’s and Blazers,
Becoming a successful entrepreneur, or becoming successful at whatever field you choose is not a day’s job. All successful people have a driving force and this is their motivation to keep going when things become hard.
A powerful quote by Aliko Dangote states that, “I built a conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008 but it didn’t happen overnight. It took me thirty years to get to where I am today. Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work. To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big. In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.” A good take away is that the harder you work and apply yourself, the more you increase your chances at success.
If you are motivated by Dangote and his success, here are two questions you need to ask yourself that Dangote asked himself.
- “What do you want to be remembered for?”
- Is your enterprise driven by a vision of stomach infrastructure and sustainability or a larger-than-life purpose?
Lastly during an interview with TIME magazine, Dangote was asked “You started with a loan from your uncle and built the most successful locally owned business conglomerate in Africa. What were the turning points?” His response was that, “I always tried to move up the food chain. I started with cement, and then moved into textiles, and banking. When I was trading sugar, I added salt and flour, so that then we could do pasta. And then I thought, why not make the bag for it too? So, we started making packaging.”
However Dangote, doesn’t keep the rewards of his success just to himself. In 2018, he was named the 6thMost Charitable Person in the World! That he is as concerned about creating solutions in health and nutrition, education, empowerment, and humanitarian relief as he is about building new businesses speaks to how seriously he takes his first question above – he has made it a priority to succeed not only in making oney but in making the world a better place too.
Dangote is a success story and a role model to many people not just in Africa but around the world. It all started with a passion, wanting to move up, setting goals, and never giving up. Ask yourself do I have the above qualities? If not acquire them. – Andrew Johns, Net Blazer