Turning misfortunes into opportunities

industry.
He could not imagine living without those perks. He drove his car into an oncoming haulage truck and perished along the Harare-Masvingo highway.
Some of you might have encountered tragedies of missing or losing good privileges.
Don’t feel so depressed about what you have reaped today but feel strongly and enthusiastic about what tomorrow can give you. Tomorrow can be your day of reckoning.
I am persuading you to try fishing again the following day. Fish by nature will eventually feed.
Opportunities will eventually crop up. Keep searching. Today might appear hopeless but tomorrow you will be all smiles. Your breakthrough can come from today’s setback.
People who have tasted success will tell you that it does not come easy.
Most of my fellow Empretecos who are running small- to medium-scale enterprises normally sing this hymn: “It’s rough and tough out there.”
Privately most of them will tell you that they regret having left formal employment where good perks seem to be guaranteed.
However, they are still soldiering on because they hope that tomorrow the bites will improve. They have to keep fishing for them to catch fish.
The level of persistence required in acquiring new business is similar to the level of persistence required to catch fish.
You have to be in the dam to catch fish. Staying in the dam enables you to predict how bass fish think and eventually you will end up with baits/tackle that meet their current needs.
Being in the dam is 90 percent in doing 90 percent of the job and the remaining 10 percent is accounted for by skill of executing the game.
I am reliably told that success in farming is determined by physical presence and only a small fraction is accounted for by skill.
For you to catch bass you must think like bass. It takes a long time for a fisherman to get to a level where he thinks like a Bass.
This requires a lot of research into the behavioural patterns of the bass. This entails a lot of expensive experiments with tackle etc. Even after doing all the correct moves there is a day bass will not bite. This must not worry you.
Sooner or later they will bite. All you need is adequate rehearsals about the future and the persistence to go and fish.
If you want to win a lottery you have to play it. In other words you have to buy the lottery ticket. You have to be in it to win it!
For you to get customers you must think like the customers. A shop owner needs to familiarise with his/her customers to enable him/her to think like his/her customers.
This is definitely not a one-day event. You have to stay in water much longer and you eventually strike the right code
Every business faces demand cycles. At times there is no demand at all. At times all its production line is bought before the goods are produced.
Business cycles can be nerve breaking. Waiting periods can be six months, three years or six-year business cycles culmination of your efforts. They act as a barometer for measuring staying power. Spending a whole day without catching a single fish can be devastating to novices in fishing.
Most novices quit the game if the barren days coincide with their first days of trial
Allow me to conclude by asking you to revisit your potential regardless of your personal circumstances at the moment. We all encounter failures in our endeavours. In Shona we say: “Hatirasi mbereko nekufirwa”(You don’t give up because of failure).
Let’s not behave like locusts that shade off their legs in difficult circumstances.
Therefore work hard like a duck which when in water appears still but there is a lot of pudding and raffling under the water.
l The writer is a managing consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail: [email protected].