₦airaland Forum

Reading through all of this, I am surprised that much of out thinking is still centered on outdated models of Entrepreneurship.

Yes, gone are the days when entrepreneur  is one man business. Gone are the days when entrepreneurship primary goal is to make money or get financial freedom. Gone are the day when a tree can easily make a forest or a man can be an Island. Today's business/economic system falls out of sync with these models.

The definition of entrepreneurship has now been streamlined  -  The science of Adding, Subtracting, Substituting, Multiplying, dividing, Integrating and differentiating for the sole purpose of minimizing cost, maximizing outcomes and optimizing performance of goods and services. (Which kin gramma be all this? ). Put simply, entrepreneurship is the art of creativity and innovation and these simple mathematics tools can be helpful in leading the way. Happily, unlike leadership (some who are saying financial freedom are the one who will likely deny/delay their workers of wages at the end of the month - A branch of bad leadership), creativity and innovation can be learned with time.

It is important to note here that while creativity and innovation can be learned overtime, it needs a culture or an environment to thrive. That environment is made up of collective minds. That is why it is said in the western world that creativity and innovation resides within groups. Where is group entrepreneurship? Today's economic environment welcomes group entrepreneurship than the old aged lone-entrepreneurship. Withing this groups ideas, resources and strategies can emerge not only for venturing but for successfully implementing entrepreneurial ventures. The complexity of the business environment can hardly be captured in one mind. Meeting of minds can make the difference. This makes entrepreneurial success difficult in Nigeria. Yahoo,HP,Google,Microsoft(In its early days),The Jackson 5 and the likes were products of disciplined group entrepreneurship. Even business giants like Virgin (Richard Bronson), Wal-Mart and Dangote build fora for Intrapreneurs (Entrepreneurs employed within business organizations) to meet and creativily defined the future of the business.

Let me quickly leave a point here. Small business? My dear, no business can afford to be small these days. Remember how we got water to drink when away from home back in the 80's and early 90's? It started with a boy or girl with a bucket of supposed clean water and a cup to fetch it for drinking (I cannot remember how much a cup of water cost then). Then the one tied in cellophane came into vogue. Today, compare the "Pure Water" business. I can assure you too that many who sold in the 80's and early 90's are not the ones holding the package water business today. The model of small business is dying if not dead.

That said,let me point out here that unfortunately, the quest for financial freedom is the first killer of long-run entrepreneurial success. Financial freedom seekers do not have the patience to grow start-ups and in a partnership, they are the first to cause a split. Still unfortunately, Nigeria has more of financial freedom seekers than those who are not. Even in already established businesses, profit and creativity do not agree at least in the early stages of creativity and innovation. That is why HP has a center were all the work done there is creation of new ideas and testing. The other centers are for producing already created new products. the profit oriented managers cannot take the waits, wastes and work that go into creativity itself. Profit oriented managers cannot even lead creative people. That's an established fact. That is why during the first stage of the creativity in entrepreneurship, the financial freedom mental model is a demon. It runs contrary to the primal essence of entrepreneurship.

Moreover,many Nigerians have viable business ideas, products and services in their heads. So are many who have no ideas, no products and no services in their heads but have the finance to move these ideas,products or service. Many do not have the work skills to efficiently bring ideas, products and service to market. Yet there are many who have the skills but without finance, ideas, product or services to apply them. All these are because we want to go into entrepreneurship, almost often, solo.

Can we change our mentality to seek work first and not wealth in entrepreneurship? Can we do more to look into seeming impossibilities and constrains and find solutions to them creatively? Can we find were the simple mathematics tools of Adding, Subtracting, Substituting, Multiplying, dividing, Integrating and differentiating can help in generating business ideas. Can we accommodate the model of group entrepreneurship in our quest for work? Can we understand that there are no miracles in entrepreneurship but hard mental and physical work? Can we understand that in entrepreneurship, you cannot say it and it will come to be - (PastorChristisism no dey o)? If more Nigerians can come to reality with these questions, then we can see entrepreneurship thrive in Nigeria.

Please do not get me wrong. I have only argued here that financial freedom should not be the first reason for entrepreneurship. Interestingly and fortunately, viable creativity comes with financial returns. So let creativity pull entrepreneurship and not financial freedom or the joy of owning a business or the freedom from a boss pulling entrepreneurship.

Additionally, I have argued for group or joint entrepreneurship. This may not be very easy here in Nigeria because most of us are greedy or have to much responsibilities that need money. Or have a super-flux life style (How many successful entrepreneurial ventures have flashy life styled originators? Bill Gates?).

For further reading, I wish to refer persons to:
1. The Discipline of Innovation - Peter Drucker
2. Bootstrap Financing - Amah Bide
3. How Entrepreneurs Craft Strategies that Work - Amah Bide
4. Spark Innovation Through empathic Design - Dorothy Leonard and Jeffery Rayport

All are published by Harvard Business Review.

If husband should be there to know what pains a woman goes through when giving birth, can wifes go with their husbands to work and see what husbands go through to take care of the child uptill the child leaves home?

Ok, what if the hunband faint and an emergency occurs were money is needed for a next move and husband don lie down for baby bed?

Ok. Some say if the husband see watin woman dey pass through, he go know how to control him kini. What is husband come decide to control the kini for inside house but lost control of it for outside?

dem dey talk am say when wound heal, dem nor dey remember the pain. Na so to born pikin be. So wifes, carry your load. Na Eve - Adam wife do una, nor be your husband.

There is one thing everybody seem to be missing. abstinence from sex before marriage. sincerely, two who find themselves as hubby and wifey and who have never engaged in sex before marriage, would observe a different feeling for each other. They do not easily get bored of each other - not when both have strong sexual fantasies waiting to be explored; fantasies which would take a long time to remember,venture, learn and perfect over time.This learning process would not be there for those who have been "testing" - males and females.

Yes, this is hard to find in our day. But you cannot eat your cake and have it.

Yet another issue to getting bored or not of hubbys and wifeys is open communication about each others feelings - emotional and sexual.

Husbands, even if you feel your wife is telling her past when she Tells you her sexual needs, hold your assumptions that she will seek satisfaction for these needs outside. Just find ways to satisfy her as best as you can.
Wifes, una dey there? I will put it simple. Be spoilt in the bedroom, but when in public, act in such a way that your husband will be wondering if this is the wife that sleeps with me in bed.