The Business of Success

By Ochieng Aoyi

This book is based on real life experience gained from different cultures. It takes the view that success is a process. According to the book, the principal elements of success include the provision of leadership of self and continuously acquiring the skills of learning how to learn.

Practical examples in life based on the concept of biomimicry are given to illustrate how we can succeed in life if we take success as our core business and allow nature to guide our thoughts. This is the unique approach that differentiates the book from many other books of the same genre.

It is widely believed that success begins with a dream. This book goes a step further to explain how those in the business of success, dream scientifically and change lives. In this competitive world, we must work hard, but more importantly, we must work smartly-hard, as only smart-hard work pays these days. Nature teaches us that there is integrity in the smart aspect of hard work. Working smartly-hard requires a constant conversation with the self.

About the Author
Ochieng Aoyi is a renowned author, an entrepreneur and professor of chemical engineering. He is a motivational speaker and has taught at different universities in many countries across the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ochieng Aoyi
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005689957

Book preview

The Business of Success

The business of

success

Ochieng Aoyi

Copyright © 2022 Ochieng Aoyi

Published by Ochieng Aoyi Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Ochieng Aoyi using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Nicola Jenvey for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

Ochieng Aoyi

[e-mail]

I dedicate this book to our beloved late son Oduor Abang Ochieng, who passed away in a tragic road accident in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the 27 July 2021.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Dream Aloud

2. Strategic Goals

3. Remaining Focused and Connected

4. The Winning Strategy

5. Learning to Learn

6. Working Smartly Hard

7. Think, Do and Run

8. The Four Legs of Success

9. Leading the Dream Team to Dream Good Dreams

10. Significantly Successful

11. Humility in Success

Acknowledgements

Preface

This book advocates success as a process. The chapters are specifically arranged for the initial ones to deal with the fundamental elements of success and the balance focusing on leadership and giving back. The business of success is the sum of the activities in which we engage during our pursuit of excellence. Aeroplanes fly like birds; submarines are large sharks circling the deep waters and vehicles are the mechanical representation of horses as their four wheels replace the four on which the animal runs. Essentially, our innovative thinking mimics nature (biology); a concept called biomimicry.

This book offers practical biomimicry-based examples to illustrate how we can succeed if we anchor success as our core business (the business of success). It includes true stories to illustrate the different concepts in which we engaged and the challenges experienced in the modern world. Typically, things start as an imagination, but we require the courage to shift that thought from ethereal to real. Dream with abandon, but do so scientifically as it is the science that constitutes the innovative thought. Transforming our dreams requires more than courage. There must be a winning strategy leveraged off the existing platform and our competitive advantages. A winning strategy must address the need, and this often involves providing a solution to an existing problem. In doing so we must communicate our ideas not only through our choice of words, but most importantly through the content of the character. These ideas reveal our character and define our life goals. Strategic goals guide our choices and require nurturing our talents and undergoing a journey of self-discovery. The processes start with solving smaller problems ahead of our major launch into the real world where competition rules. The only possible outcomes are failure and success.

The principal element of success is providing leadership of self. This is the preamble to leading a team; a challenging task if the leadership steps are skipped or ignored. Effective leadership requires a transformative mind aligning vision to the team’s needs. A transformative leadership style is more important now than ever, because technology and social needs are rapidly changing and virtually everything depend on technology. Individual success is effective when transformed into the more sustainable collective success. Pursuing the team’s success involves building others and thus being built in return. Working in teams requires learning the art of saying it as it is, but not always. With experience we learn when, what and how to say something to build or break the team.

Remaining focused and connected requires persistence, patience and tolerance. Life is a journey in the jungle without any global positioning system (GPS) guidance and has a hierarchy of ideas. In many cases, it will be make as we go. Every milestone we call success marks the beginning of another. In the process there is self-depreciation controlled by continuous assessment and development. The wear and tear of negative thoughts will blind us. Similarly, positive thinking creates the right attitude to unleash the virgin energy required for achieving excellence. As we engage in this noble journey, we ask child-like questions while answering those directed at us with the wisdom of King Solomon.

We continuously acquire the skills of learning how to learn because life lessons are learnt through living. We can be ignorant of something at any point, but if we take pride and remain courageous in our ignorance, we are doomed. The cost of ignorance is high; of a scale not compared to the cost of education, something we acknowledge is increasing daily. Real education is not only found in classrooms, but also on the streets. There will always be constraints in the business of success. External and internal constraints are merely pressure points to assist in releasing internal energy and must not be used as excuses for not acting. Moreover, action is important, but timing is critical.

In this competitive world, we must not only work hard, but work smartly-hard, as only smart-hard work pays. Working smartly-hard requires constant conversations with self. The strategy is never to chase money, but to chase excellence. The main determinants to reaching the point where you belong are fear factors and whether or not you have put yourself under mental house arrest. Consider yourself as your primary resource or else someone else will use you. It begins with looking at things not as they are, but as they should be. In the process, we make countless silly mistakes and a few clever ones, but learn from every one of them as fast as possible.

We must think and make quick decisions so we can run with it or we run away without quitting. Running away without quitting recognises a tactical retreat. This may mean losing the battle as a setback to winning the war. Think like a Nobel Laureate but act like a military general. In war, once a strategy has been thought through, action must be precise and fast. If possible, work in your sleep and in the morning, transform the idea into reality by putting numbers to ideas. Thinking in numbers sharpens our acumen and produces managed thinking. Numbers provide insight into the magnitude of success or failure; informs the strategy of transforming ideas into action. In the business of success, what your mind tells you vaguely through ideas, your body tells you explicitly in response to the chosen action.

Typically, the success vehicle drives on four wheels – family, career, economics and humanity. How smooth the vehicle moves depends on its alignment and tyre pressure to ensure mechanical harmony. This harmony is established when the driver pays equal attention to the wheels. Those considered successful or in the business of success have the responsibility to provide this harmony that only comes if there is humility in success. Like the harmony of the wheels, the journey of success is pursued without individual happiness being the goal. The type of success creating happiness for others produces a permanent decoration in their hearts. The joy resulting from a successful outcome may breed pride and it requires a deep sense of humility to avoid the default leading to arrogance. In this way, one becomes significantly successful. The elements include acquiring bragging rights without using them. Achieving significant success means leaving a legacy; creating something for which you will be remembered. The most obvious penalty you pay for being regarded as successful is jealousy and sometimes enmity from competitors. These can be destabilising and remaining healthy demands consuming a well-balanced mental diet. A successful legacy results in being wealthy as opposed to rich. Wealthy people are privileged since they have what many do not. Therefore, it is a moral responsibility for the wealthy to become the trustees of resources.

Introduction

The philosophy underpinning the ideas, analogies, concepts and approaches in this book is biomimicry, meaning imitating nature. The biological analogy of different phenomena makes this a unique, but easy-to-understand approach. Considering success as a business and a natural process provides an insight into the continuity and dynamism of the ingredients defining success.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines business as the activity of buying and selling goods or services. This book defines business as occupation. Success begins with the belief that you can do it. The business of success, as used here, does not mean the pursuit of success. Rather, it is conceived as the pursuit of excellence in our endeavour to improve the quality of life. In 2009 the former US President Barack Obama conceived the powerful campaign slogan Yes we can and became the first black American to win the presidential race. He was not the first person to use those words, but within the context of his presidential campaign, they had a profound, riveting impact on anyone with whom Obama interacted. Yes, you can do it and, if you do it well, you can and will succeed. Success is for what every creature – from plants to animals – yearns. Critically, the business of success does not consist in looking for it. Instead, it consists of looking for excellence and success is the consequence. Respected world leaders including Obama, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and former South African Nelson Mandela regard failure as an integral part of success. Churchill played a pivotal role in defeating Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and had this to say about success: Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.

The most elementary form of success is to stay alive in a world where prey and predators change roles. Countless animals eat plants while some eat other animals. When animals die, they become a nutrient source for plants and plants eat animals. In his book The 4 Pillars of Leadership, American author John C. Maxwell believes the only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become. In this context one can compare the child of a street family who later becomes a gardener to a prince who inherited his father’s throne and becomes a king. The gardener, who should have been a street person like the father, is more successful than the prince. Success may appear as an end, but this need not be the case. Success involves breaking barriers and is a continuous process.

In the business of success, the main products emerging from the factory are innovative ideas – a highly perishable commodity. The product is the discovered and developed talent and the discovery can be by self or by another person, essentially a family member, friend or mentor. After the discovery, uptake follows and a significant amount of effort is required in the initial stage given take-off consumes the most energy. Pilots know and understand this law of physics, while astronauts know to reach the moon, the first hurdle requires overcoming the Earth’s gravitational force.

1

Dream Aloud

Dream and dare

Dare do what you dream. Your inner self may tell you to go for it, but another suppressive voice will respond: How dare you? At this point courage must rise with danger. A dream is for free; you can dream of anything, anytime and anywhere. They can be as wild as the Amazon Forest fires. The daring part is transforming wild dreams into action. We can dream of utopia even when in the worst prison; a hell on Earth for anyone. Most of us are fortunate enough not to experience these extreme circumstances and it means we have the framework for the freedom to think and dare. In most free societies, one has the freedom to dare by taking innovative steps to accomplish their goals. Yet, this is where we potentially squander the opportunities we have via freedom. The framework may completely collapse at the daring stage when you attempt to dare without ensuring plans are aligned to the realities.

"For better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Former US President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

Many entrepreneurs dream of becoming millionaires or billionaires. This is perfectly right given most of the current billionaires started their careers as small-scale entrepreneurs. The value of any dream is its link to reality. To expect a dream to be realistic from the onset is to stifle the freedom of thought that had created it. A dream is the egg, while the idea the chicken. The egg must be incubated for a given time and temperature for the chick (an idea) to hatch. Even then, the idea requires further incubation and extreme care must be exercised to protect it. An idea has more freedom of movement than the dream; hence it needs more protection from predators than dreams. In this analogy you are the hen. After hatching her eggs the hen must protect and feed her chicks and each task is critical for their survival and subsequent growth into independent chickens.

I once worked at an institution that had a highly organised staff transport system whereby drivers and vehicles transported employees to and from the site of duty. One day I had the privilege of being driven somewhere by a lady driver; an unusual situation as most drivers in Africa working in these circumstances are men. I immediately engaged her in conversation as I was curious about how she had landed the job. She said there were only two female drivers at the institution and she loved her job despite its challenges. Our trip took about three hours and she did most of the talking as I listened to her numerous experiences.

When she collected me from my hotel the