7 Business Lessons To Learn From Ants 9 Diligence Is A Mus

I wish I know a better way to put this thought across. Let me believe that in the next edition of this book, I should be able to summon some euphemistic expressions that will enable me to do that. But for the now, let me say it the way it is; without any intention to scare any aspiring entrepreneur reading this book (you know that the objective of writing this book would be defeated if I have any intention of scaring you in this chapter). The point is, entrepreneurship is a very challenging and risky journey, but it's worth embarking on. It is not a piece of cake neither is it a walk in the park.

And it is not for the lily-livered folks.

I know that it feels good or prestigious to be called MD/CEO of a particular business venture. And I am sure that is one of the main reasons some youths in Nigeria today keep bragging and making statements like, "I will never work for anybody. I want to be my own boss..." even when it is very clear that they do not have the requisite business management skills. The truth is, when your business succeeds and become a known brand, you will definitely have every reason to be happy. This is because it comes with a lot of 'Goody Bags'.

However, to make your business succeed and remain successful, you need to put in some hours and years of real hard work. Research has shown that for your business to become a known brand, you need to put in a minimum of ten years of hard work. In fact, Malcolm Gladwell in his bestselling book, The Outlier, calls it the 10,000 hour-rule. He discovered in studies carried out that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery a.s.sociated with being a world-cla.s.s expert in anything.

He further stated that ten years is roughly how long it will take to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. He then concluded that ten thousand hour is the magic number of greatness.12 Hence, to succeed, you need to be dogged. I mean you need to be very diligent or hard working.

Please hold on; I know somebody reading this book may argue that it is smart work, not hard work that produces success in business. Before I differentiate between the both (though I know that a lot of people using that cliché do not even know the difference) let's take a close look at the Ant which is our subject of discourse in this book you are holding in your hand.

While researching about Ants in the course of writing this book, I came to the conclusion that ants are indeed diligent workers. Here is why I said so.

Ants never sleep. I am not in any way insinuating you shouldn't sleep. They are capable of carrying objects 50 times their own body weight with their mandibles. I believe you can attest to this when you see Ants carrying a prey or food to their colony. Relative to their size, their muscles are thicker than those of larger animals or even humans. This ratio enables them to produce more force and carry larger objects. The research shows that if humans had muscles in the proportions of ants, we'd be able to heave a Hyundai over our heads. That is incredible!

Furthermore, the earliest evidence suggests that ants began farming as early as 70 million years ago. Even more amazing, these ants used sophisticated horticultural techniques to enhance their crop yields. They secrete chemicals with antibiotic properties to inhibit mould growth, and devised fertilization protocols using manure. Also, in certain ant species, the soldier ants have modified heads, shaped to match the nest entrance. They block access to the nest by sitting just inside the entrance, with their heads facing out like a cork in a bottle. When a worker ant returns to the nest, it will touch the soldier ant's head to let the guard know it belongs to the colony. That is intelligence at work, or call it smart work.

Even if this research doesn't fascinate you, let me ask if you have seen ants' 'super-colonies' before now. I leave to your judgment to decide if the 'architects' and 'builders' of those colonies are lazy folks; I know that if you are very objective in your judgement, you will agree with me that Ants are indeed diligent workers.

Reflecting on the studies above, it became clearer to me why my mentor instructed me to go and understudy the ants. Let me remind you of the instruction he gave me, in case you have forgotten. "Take a lesson from the ants, you lazy fellow. Learn from their ways and be wise! Though they have no king (or boss) to make them work, yet they labour hard all summer, gathering food for the winter."

I am yet to come across any 'lazy- successful' entrepreneur; I am very sure there is none on this planet earth. Successful entrepreneurs are very diligent people. They do not toy with their time and energy (be it physical or mental energy); they conscientiously deploy their resources for optimal results.
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This is why I cautioned earlier that if your intention of going into business is to prove a point or to validate your braggadocios a.s.sertion before your friends that you will never work for anybody, you shouldn't bother venturing into entrepreneurship because your business may become a DOA (Dead On Arrival) initiative. That is not my prayers for you. But for your business to work, you need to work it out. And that will definitely require both hard work and smart work.

Now, what is a smart work? Simply put, it is the ability to get more work done within a lesser time duration, without compromising on the quality of the job delivered. To achieve this, a lot of hard work would have been done to invest in the development of the brain and other needed technologies.

To achieve outstanding results in all areas of your business venture, you need to be diligent. Be it in the area of market and financial planning; recruitment and training of staff or staying ahead of compet.i.tors in your chosen field of business, you need both smart and hard work. I mean you need to be diligent.

And diligence pays greatly. If not for anything, it will open doors for you and your business as well as bring you before kings and Presidents of this world. It will continue to put money in your bank account(s) and free you from the grips of poverty. The success of your business will help other people, especially your employees and customers to solve their problems and live a better life.

The creation of employment opportunities by your organisation will also serve as a social security for your business. All this will lead to the development of your community as well as your nation at large.

Aren't these dividends of diligence enough motivation to make you give your business your best shots of hard work?

Let me conclude this chapter by imploring you to glean wisdom from these business nuggets I discovered from one of the bestselling books my mentor (King Solomon) wrote. This is what he said; Observe people who are good at their work-- skilled workers are always in demand and admired; they don't take a back seat to anyone. Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common sense, and profits

wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts.14 Be wise.

Diligence in business has no subst.i.tute; it's a must!