AJULU

” Slow and steady wins the race”

The story of the tortoise and the hare is one of the most famous stories that teach the power of consistency.

Below is a brief account of the story as written by Aesop.

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

“Do you ever get anywhere?” he asked with a mocking laugh.

“Yes,” replied the Tortoise, “and I get there sooner than you think. I’ll run you a race and prove it.”

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing, he agreed.

So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight.

And to make the Tortoise feel very deeply about how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare;

He lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping.

But the Hare slept on very peacefully; when he did wake up, at last, the Tortoise was near the goal.

The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

Whenever this story is told, the focus is almost a mockery of the Hare for sleeping.

The tortoise is also praised for being dedicated to the race despite the odds stacked against him.

These are great lessons, but there is one that I have not seen anyone talk more on.

And that is Love.

Now let me explain.

No matter what business you do or what you are trying to build.

It pays to ask yourself one question.

Why did the tortoise keep going despite the massive gap between it and the hare?

In a race like this everyone would have most likely focused on the Hare and also laughed at the tortoise for being foolish or proud.

Some weeks ago, TG Omori tweeted that he would one day charge a million dollars to shoot a video.

There were a lot of people calling him proud and unrealistic for that declaration.

To those people, there is no way a Nigerian can be paid $1 Million for a video shoot.

Those people didn’t pause and consider the fact that there are people who charge more than that globally.

But TG Omori and the tortoise have something in common.

They love the race.

Loving the race was the only thing that kept the tortoise there.

It didn’t care if the Hare won.

The only thing that it cared about was finishing the race.

And by the time it got to the finish line the hare was way behind him.

By now you should have picked up a lot of lessons from this article.

A love for what you do is what would keep you consistent with whatever it is that you are building.

Now, let’s start from the root.

Loving What You Do

When I talk to my student and mentees, one of the things that I tell them is not to fall for the shiny object syndrome.

Now ask yourself.

That thing that you are building or that business that you are involved in.

Are you doing it because you understand what it takes and also the process?

Or you are doing it because someone told you that you can make money doing it.

There is one thing that you need to understand.

It takes time to extract profit from anything.

It takes six to eighteen months to make money from the average skill.

And it takes 10 years to build a career in anything.

10 years here means the time it would take you to get to the top 1% of that field.

Sure you can make money within a few months, but the journey ahead is still very long.

You need to understand this so that you don’t fall for a certain skill or business because you focus on the harvest of others.

So the next time someone comes to you and tells you they made x amount from something.

Ask them how long they have been in the business and the process involved.

I am saying this because you need to understand that buying a course or launching a product would not automatically put money in your pocket.

All this is the reason why it is important that you pick a career or business that you actually love.

Not the one that is trending.

That way, you can put your head down like the tortoise, show up daily and do the work required.

Many people claim that they struggle with consistency.

But their inconsistency is just a symptom and not the main disease.

You have probably had malaria before.

And some of the symptoms of malaria include muscle aches, headache, and fever.

Now if you start taking paracetamol in this case because you have a headache.

You are just wasting your time and money.

The headache will persist until you take the required dose of malaria medication.

So before you diagnose yourself with inconsistency find out why you are building whatever it is that you are building.

Tech is Not For Everybody *

The tech craze started three to five years ago.

And now everywhere you turn you see people who want to be developers and designers.

Recently I started preaching to everyone to look inwards before trying to build a tech career.

Yes, media is a branch of tech that we all need to learn how to leverage because you can use it to sell your business online.

But don’t confuse the need to sell your business online with jumping into an online/tech-related skill.

There are people who are craft inclined, they started making shoes/ clothes at the age of 6.

If you are someone like that.

Don’t abandon your shoemaking or dress-making and jump into software development.

It doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to be a successful coder.

But believe me, you will find more happiness with making shoes and dresses than coding.

And you can still make a lot of money making dresses.

The second richest man in the world ( Bernard Arnault) owns several fashion brands.

So If your case is related to something like this, I will advise you to focus on it and with time you can learn content/digital marketing to push your products online.

Or just hire someone.

Conquering Procrastination

Procrastination becomes less of a problem when you are doing what you love.

This does not mean that the process would be easy.

Naval said that your dream career would look like work to others but feel like a game to you.

It involves hard work that you are glad to wake up to do daily.

Writing is not easy for many people, but I love doing it.

Get it?

Another important thing when trying to be consistent is understanding that there are days you will fail to do something.

The key is to not miss two days in a row.

So is there a daily routine that you failed to do today?

It can be creating content or working out at the gym/home.

Make sure that you don’t fail to do it tomorrow.

Missing one day is normal, missing two is where the problem starts.

Closing With Service

The secret to succeeding in any field is service.

This is the greatest lesson. that I learned from Jesus Christ and Jeff Bezos.

The most valuable asset on earth is not gold, dollars, or Bitcoin.

The most valuable asset on earth is human beings.

For any door that you want to open in this life, a human holds the key.

It is a human being that refines and stores gold, prints dollars, and wrote the code for Bitcoin.

A good way to serve people is to champion excellence and offer people the best.

You owe it to the people that you are serving to upskill.

And it is not just about getting good at what you do.

You need to express it.

It doesn’t matter if you have 2 or 200 hundred customers, serve them with all your might.

It doesn’t matter if it is only one person that reads your content, ensure that it is worth reading.

Don’t save your best content for when you have 10,000 readers.

Write it now.

 

Conclusion

When I write articles like this, there are a lot of potential directions that pop up in my mind.

But pursuing them means that I would write a book and not an article.

With that said, you are welcome to ask any question that you might have in the comment section below.

I will reply to every comment.

Also, I would deeply appreciate it if you share the link to this post on your WhatsApp status.

This post took me one hour to write, but you can share it in just ten seconds.

Thank You.

 

Further Reads

On Starting a Business: Ideas, Partners, Capital, Luck, and Hardwork.

 

On Names and Numbers: How To Become The Best In The World At What You Do.