“One of These Days” may be too late. By Dr Strive Masiyiwa

When I start some of my projects, I’m sure a few people think I’m really “way out there” as far as what seems possible in this world. “Too ambitious!”  “Impossible!” “You must be joking!?” Although I don’t know if many would say this to me, I expect they think it sometimes.

What about you? Do you sometimes have a great idea but, even before other people tell you, “No way! Not you!” you say those words to yourself?  Do you make the big mistake of stopping yourself in your own tracks even before you do your research? Even before you start putting real foundations under your business visions?



__Stop that kind of thinking right now!  Wherever you are in life, you can’t change where you began, but you can definitely change where you end up.

When I wrote the story about the Buffalo Hunter I was so interested to read your comments. Thank you. Many of you are very very wise indeed! Now, I have some questions for you:

What do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night, or you’re walking down the road, and you suddenly have this “light bulb” moment, this great idea?  Do you write it down? Do you look up on the Internet to see if someone else is already doing it?

__What you do AFTER you have a great idea, is what becomes your legacy in life.

Do you get to work on it ASAP, or do you doubt yourself and get busy with something else? Maybe you just roll over and go back to sleep, saying to yourself, “Yep, I’ll give that idea some thought… one of these days.”

I guarantee you that a “One of these days” attitude will get you nearly nowhere in life. I promise that if you don’t take concrete actions to do something about it, that idea of yours will get forgotten or lost, or…

“One of these days” you might wake up and hear about someone else who’s just done the greatest thing -- maybe even made millions or changed the world in a way others thought impossible -- with almost the exact same idea that you had, except…

We’ve talked a lot about business thinking and planning, but let me tell you, you can have a top MBA from Harvard or Stanford or anywhere else in the world… You’ll still go nowhere if your approach in life is to get down to work on it, “one of these days.”

Now some of you with ideas already have money. Some of you don’t. Many of you lament about funding, but that’s really NOT the key thing:

__You must first believe in yourself. (This whole topic is a subject for another day!  There’s much to be said about faith, and faith at work.)

Believe in yourself and get to work on your dreams.  You won’t know if you don’t try.

If you have a great idea, “one of these days” should be... now.  You’ve heard it before, and I hope you’ll hear it again and again: “Yes, you can!”   The question is, when?

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