IMPETUS TO ACHIEVE: HORSES FOR COURSES
Horses for courses: this is a British proverb that means people are to be matched with suitable jobs or tasks.
WHEN you put a snowman in the typical sub-Sahara African environment, he will melt and be no more. He can’t survive in these unforgiving temperatures of ours. Similarly, if you take us Africans, especially we the Lozi people to winter in Europe or America, we’ll be freezing in a miserable way. However, give us the scorching sun and the mushabati of Barotseland, and you’ll find it amazing how we can walk kilometres on end in such unforgiving conditions.
In as much as this column is about speaking to young people, and indeed certain elderly people about some of the things that we can achieve to not only take ourselves forward, but our people and country as well, it is important to also note that progress and achievement have more to do with you as an individual more than anything else. The conversation going on within you is not only very important, but cardinal to the long term direction that you will take with your life. Are you satisfied with what you do career wise? Do you feel bored and don’t mind moving from job to job in search of satisfaction? Are you absolutely happy at your current employer and want to stay there for two decades until you hit the apex? Or do you feel like you need excitement whereby you are definitely satisfied with where you are but at the same time you feel that there’s a lot more that you can offer society?
I know that there are a number of followers of this column that love to read motivational material, be it books, magazines, articles and other such kinds of literature. Motivational material is meant to give real life examples of actualised dreams, stories of those that have walked the path of the special and successful and continue to do so. Again I say, the direction that we choose to take in our lives has much to do with who we are at the core. Someone I know very closely often complains to me about how she is ever trying to push her husband for them to jump on the agriculture gravy train. Now is the time, when so many countries including our own are so food hungry, there’s a billion dollar local and regional market just yearning for food supply. She has tried to sell him the idea that they can make a killing in the market but he is indifferent to not just the idea of investing in agriculture, but most other business ideas that she has.
I often tell her that she must just go it alone, try to solicit his support for funding, and as progress is made, hopefully he may want to jump on board with more dedication and commitment. There is such a things as horses for courses. Perhaps business and investment, as important as it may actually be to his desire for personal comfort and indeed the prosperity of the Zambian economy in a wider way, is just not his course. There is often little you can do to sway someone toward pursuing a useful investment path when their inner conversation is telling them something else.
Horses for courses: this is a British proverb that means people are to be matched with suitable jobs or tasks. The expression refers to the fact that horses race better on a track that suits them. This saying is so relevant when you look at some of the events going on in our country. You tend to wonder why and how people can accept poverty as their lot, yet we have foreigners that come to our country dirt poor, only to pick up and live comfortably in just a few years with the help of members of their community already established here. It really is baffling and you begin to question whether our lot is to constantly struggle; is that the proverbial track that we race best on? Surely, that can’t be so. And as I always like to say: whereas we cannot all manage to be mega business people, the very least we can do is own a small enterprise that will absorb one or two of our youth from the desperate army of the unemployed.
When I talk about horses for courses, my mind drifts to those that have every attribute required to contribute to the struggle for a better Zambia. Those that know exactly what our economy needs from us, and what’s more, they dream that they could be part of the solution. Yet, this group continues to be a let-down owing to cowardice that is laced with the risk factor. Many of you would be surprised to learn how many people out there are living in silent desperation. They wish they could pursue a certain path but their cowardice relegates them to the spectators’ stand. The sad part is that for many, that is all they will ever be.
Nothing breaks my heart more than the feeling that someone with a lot of potential to contribute the progress of our economy cannot and will not do so. Imagine analysing that a horse is purpose built for a certain course and could easily become the betting horse of choice but it just won’t race for fear of losing.
This has got to be an enigma of a paradox.
Here is the thing, this economy will only prosper when a big part of the business in this country is done by our own people. Each time you see a foreign owned trucking company, retail outlet, service business, block of commercial real estate or any other business for that matter, you must know that they form linkages in the value chain with people from within their communities as much as possible and there goes millions in economic benefit that would otherwise trickle into our people’s hands. They stretch these relationships are far as they possibly can.
This is why we need to wake up. If you work somewhere but there is more that you can offer society, then get moving as quickly as possible, the country needs you. If you have the talent, the drive, that every day unquenchable yearn to move on to a serious investment agenda that will transform your original humble beginnings into major value over a couple of decades which in turn will benefit thousands of our people, then go for it. The country needs you and so does your heart need its desires to be fulfilled. For those that think dreamers cannot get anywhere because only Indians, Whites and Chinese are capable of flying certain heights, then leave us be, and we shall duly ignore you. Yours is to walk the simple, average path through life. Of course there is nothing wrong if that’s what you want, after all there is such a thing as horses for courses.