Nosi Ncoyo
While August is women’s month, I would like to reflect on the “get rich quickly” mentality among many aspiring businesswomen.
This is not an assumption. It is something experience has taught me.
As a skills development facilitator who trains and mentors small business owners, I have over the years come across young women seeking advice on how to start a business.
However, when it comes down to it, what they really want to know is: “How do we get rich quickly?” and “How do I succeed and drive the latest car?”.
Sadly, this makes many such businesswomen pursue only the bottom-line and prioritise profits over principles.
As businesswomen we need to expand our definition of success from just making money to also making a difference. We need to become businesswomen of significance.
I believe one of the factors of sustainable growth in our economy is to develop businesswomen of significance – when these women are economically empowered they are likely to lower household poverty.
Developing significance is about having a sense of purpose and knowing we offer value to others. It’s the ability to recognise a purpose that is greater than ourselves and how we can impart this.
As a businesswoman of significance, you understand that you need others and therefore you will lift others as you rise up the ladder of success. You make sure that the value proposition in your business does not lie within you, but in your business which is made up of others. Your attitude will be that of developing your staff so that the business continues even when you are not around.
A businesswoman of significance has an “abundance mentality”. This means that she is willing to share knowledge and skills with her employees so that she enables them to do the job well and, sometimes, even better than herself. Someone once told me that the key to living a significant life, is to have as many significant moments as possible. This made me realise that significance is not some far-off, esoteric ideal that requires lofty personal accomplishments. Instead, we can live a significant life by finding significance in everything we do.
- Nosi Ncoyo is the founder and managing director of Vision 4 Academy.