▹ You don’t owe anything to anyone; you owe everything to yourself.
▹ I didn’t get here by mistake. If you all think Rogers just appeared from the blues, NO!
▹ It was intentional; I made everything intentional to be here.

“He gave an example of magnate, an entrepreneur; he is where he is today because he makes everything intentional, people usually watch him betting and shouting, but he is winning.”

Title: Ascend To The 2% By Breaking Your Boundaries

Opened with a question. Are you unstoppable?

⇈

Who Are The 2%?

▹ The 2% are those changing and shaping the world (inverters, innovators, etc.).
▹ In Zambia, we would say, the people you are spending your money on.

These are people who take:

▹ Initiatives and Actions
▹ They don’t wait for things to happen; they make things happen.

Who Qualifies to be in the 2% ?

▹ Those with vision and passion
▹ Pro-activity and Risk-Taking (Ready to invest time and time again.)
▹ Determination and Drive. (Those determined to make a difference and not afraid to pursue their goals even when faces with problems.)

Now The 98%

▹ These are those who watch things happen and only wonder how it happened.
▹ They never take action.

“The Choice is Yours — Become Unstoppable.”

Background:

“Entrepreneurship with life in abundance (leaving life in alignment with the word of God) took us back to the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land. 600 men left the land, in approximate of 3 million people altogether. But only 2 reached the promised land as of the original people, who were Joshua and Caleb. A moment later, he spoke of things that influences people.”

What influences people?

Him:

When I went to the US for the entrepreneur (leadership) program. One of the professors asked. Between the media and the people, what influences the other? I said, THE PEOPLE. Then the professor said, you wrong sir. “The media influences the people,” he continued explaining… Now these are things that get people influenced.

People get influenced through:

▹ Pressure (Media)
▹ Trauma

You Need This To Be Succesfull

① Passion:

▹ Something that makes you do something. Something you wake up for;
▹ look for something that drives you to work without clock checks.

② Talent is not Enough:

▹ If you have a recognized talent, GOOD. but it's not enough to get you to where you want to be.
▹ Get skills and other resources.

“When I wanted to make a new investment, I asked one of the prominent men in Zambia. JITO KAYUMBA—A Special Assistant to the President for Financial, Economic, and Investment Plans. I asked him, "What do you look for in a company you want to invest in?"
He said, “Is it scalable?”

So one thing you have to look for in a business you want to invest in is the scalability of that business.
Once I identified that, I had to cut off certain things in the Atmosphere nation till we made our business scalable. Since the we have manged to reach 75+ million streams across albums.

③ Vertical Integration:

▹ You have to be vertically integrated; integration is either upward toward natural resources or downward toward the customers.
▹ The potential examples are from the bible;
⇾ Our father of faith is Abraham. He was vertically integrated; he owned wells, grazing yards, and livestock, essential for humanity.
⇾ Second, The woman found in this passage of the bible.

Proverbs 31:13-27

“She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands.”
▹ This woman also was vertically integrated. She made fabrics from wool and clothes from fabrics.

“Integrate your entrepreneurship journey with life in abundance.”

Title: LESSONS FROM MY MISTAKES

① When You Become Big-Headed, You Create Competition.

▹ When we were at the top with the printing machine in Zambia. We thought we had reached it and never had to look on both sides. ↳ Because the money in printing machines isn’t in selling printing machines but in selling consumables.
▹ I thought we were the best, so we introduced the competition, and our potential customers started buying from other companies.

② Lack Of Vision For Your Company Makes You Dig Your Grave.

▹ You need to have a bigger vision.
▹ If your vision is not big enough, when you have the money, you will always run to buy liabilities instead of investing your money to grow the company.

③ If You Want Power and Control, You Don't Deserve Support.

▹ When I wanted to start an institute, Which is the DLN Entrepreneurship Institute. I wanted to have full control. I had hunger for power, that I coined the name of the institution "DLN" before investors. The deal was, I wanted everything to be centred on me. As the start-up company, this lead to have no investors. and eventually I invested alone.

④ Don't Over-Invest Without Fully Understanding The Business.

▹ Every business has its own language. Always try to learn and understand it. As the DLN group comprises of many businesses, when I started, I thought all of them were the same. But no, when I was starting up an institute from the DLN tech. It was a different story. I invested 7 Million in total and made a loss of 10 Million in total.
▹ I made very unnecessary investments and positions without students or any potential investor, which still made it worse.

⑤ There Is Always Somthing To Knock You Out.

▹ When Covid-19 Came. Our institute was just beginning. Rented, and before made any profit from it. So during a national quarantine; every institute is closed, and we had to close also. But wait,
▸ The rentals didn’t close.
▸ The DLN Tech had limited supplies because our buyers closed too.
Meaning: ∞ Cash flow reduced → Wages increased.
▹ Our company started drowning, and we drowned because we had employees and rent to pay while the cash wasn’t showing up.

⑥ A Moment Of Reckoning Always Comes.

▹ When you find yourself in such kind of situations, you have to take time to think about what’s wrong and how you can come back. I did that.
▹ I left the fancy offices with glasses and went to my roots, where I couldn’t pay any rentals. I moved my office to our house along Great North Road.
▹ I reduced the spending, so I can just meet up with repayment and wages in need.

⑦ Shrinking Was The Best Decision That Allowed Me To Rise Again.

▹ Reposition yourself. I decided to shrink.
▹ I had to cut off certain positions in our company, such as secretary, HR, whatever..... I only needed the assistant.
# Now here is where the problem comes with a lot of people. Thinking too much about what others are going to think and see. The truth is, those people are not the ones in the situation, and they will not get you out of that situation and are never going to pay your bills.
▹ Since we shrank and cut off certain spendings, we made a powerful comeback, and I can testify that we have done and been doing massively, way better than we were making.
▹ Shrinking has made me bounce back.

Closing Remark
By Dr. Dumisani Ling'amali'nga Ncube

“Who are more risk takers, Employees or self-employed individuals?
The common view is that, Self-employed people are the risk takers. But here is my take: employees are the risk takers. You know why? Because these people spend many years in school, for example, 4 years, and to get the job on average, it takes about 6 years. So you will spend your 6 years just to start getting a salary. Now here is the comeback: how much would you have made or how far would you have gone if you had pushed for your enterprise 6 years back?
These people think they are more secure than the self-employed, but NO! When a business collapses, the first to be affected are the employees. When the mining company closes or loses in shares or anything, the first to be affected are the employees. So where is the security in being employed? ,Why do you think you are more secure and safe if you have been employed instead of running your own business?”

Her Question:

I am new to business and investment, and this is the time that I want to step in. Since you, Mr. Dumisani, You are an entrepreneur, when beginning a business, do you go with passion or what's on the market?

Dr. Dumisani Ling’amang’ali Ncube:

That’s a good question. Do you go with passion or what’s on the market?
Well, sometimes passion won’t pay your bills. I’ll advise that most of the time you go with what is on the market, and then when you have the funds, you run with your passion. Because money will fund your passion.
As for me, this is my passion, standing here and talking to you all, but this won’t pay bills or bring you here, so I have the businesses running to finance my passion. I’m sure all of you wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for my business. So yes, go with what is on the market, then run your passion.
However, glory to Jesus if your passion can bring you money. Go for it.

My Take

“My take is all of this. That’s the reason I spent time writing them down in my notebook. And here I am, typing them so that they remain part of me. Thank you! Esiah Kapinga”

“I’m Already Borne. Why not be great?”