07/12/2025
Okwu ndi Okenye!
Okwu n’enye ndu!
Words that give everlasting LIFE!
What pigs taught me about business when I was a boy
__"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing". Warren Buffett
Nelson Mandela once said, “I never lose. I either win or I learn.” This reminds me of a lesson learned in my youth. My industrious mother once came up with the idea of running a commercial pig farm after someone told her it was “lucrative and simple”...
In no time, she had built the sheds and recruited her young son to get involved! Then one day, the pigs just started dying. It turned out that it was because of something very “simple” ... but which we did not about...
We lost money, and everyone who heard about it in our small agricultural community either laughed or felt sorry for Mom. For me, I LEARNT a powerful lesson: There is nothing “SIMPLE” out there, and those who say something like this probably have “expertise or knowledge” that you might not have!
For instance, someone asked me the other day, “Mr Masiyiwa, do you recommend investing in cryptocurrencies?”
“No, son, I do not,” I replied firmly. “I’m totally clueless about cryptocurrencies.”
“But it’s easy!”
“That’s what they said about the pigs!”
I then explained to him that my knowledge of cryptocurrency, whilst probably much greater than his own, was not yet at a level where I would risk any of my hard-earned money.
“I have not run out of ways to make money in the fields where I have actionable knowledge,” I concluded.
Does this mean that I do not want to new things? Of course not.
I do. And you will be surprised at what I have read about crypto... but it’s casual knowledge, not knowledge. Know the difference. Some of the biggest scams in the world involve cryptocurrency trading and related activity.
While some people have made some extraordinary fortunes, and that is good for them, it's not for me. And by the way, a warning again: If you see a video of “me” ever talking about investing in it, THAT IS NOT ME. It’s fake!
Never get tempted by something that sounds too good to be true, no matter how well packaged. I might have shared here before about an accountant friend of mine who quit his job, emptied his savings, and sold everything he had… because he met someone on a plane who advised him to go into long-haul trucking.
It all seemed so simple and yes, very lucrative, to him. But instead, he lost everything and became almost destitute. From the moment he told me, I was tempted to say, “A fool and his money are soon separated...” Be careful.
This is not entrepreneurship. It is a desperate lunge to get rich quickly. So many people are simply running around like headless chickens, “CHASING MONEY”.
Entrepreneurs don’t "chase after money!” I know it seems like a paradox to some people, but if you have spent time on this platform, you are getting the hang of it!
As you develop your business through an ever-increasing body of , , and in your area of interest, continue to take stock. By that I mean: know what you know, and what you still NEED to know. Then set out to it.
If someone comes to you and suggests there’s money to be made in some other business, my suggestion is to go ahead and cheer them on.
“Go for it, my friend,” you could say. “But I must focus my attention on my own area”.
Sometimes saying No is one of the most difficult, yet most important, things you must learn to do as an entrepreneur.
Learn how now.
Image credit: KWB-Ubuntu Hope via AI. "He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance. One cannot fly into flying"... Friedrich Nietzsche
