Two Bits – 11 September 2015

I can’t believe it’s five years already since the start of the Entrepreneur competition!

Thursday will be the fifth awards evening for the competition, hosted by the Ilembe Chamber of Commerce. We’ve seen some real success stories with this competition.

Why am I excited about it? Because it’s all about grooming successful businesspeople and creating jobs. We can sit around and bitch and moan as much as we like about the state of the country and who’s in the wrong, but none of that will change a thing. Here the Chamber is getting off its backside and making a difference.

Not a humongous difference. A small one. It’s called the Starfish Factor.

You may have heard this story, but I find that it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it every once in a while.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out,” Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied, “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves.

“When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!” – Adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

You might not be able to change the entire world, but at least you can change a small part of it, for someone.

They say that one of the most common reasons we procrastinate is because we see the challenge before us as overwhelming, and that a good way to counter that is to break the big challenge down into smaller pieces and then take those one at a time – like one starfish at a time. And to that one starfish, it can make a world of difference.

This year the Chamber’s mentors have taken 17 aspirant businesspeople and spent the last few months giving them the tools they will need to make their businesses successful. How to use a spreadsheet, how to run their accounts, how to manage credit (and debt), how to focus on building their businesses. A kind of mini Masters in Business Administration, taught by some retired, some not retired, people who want to pass on their knowledge to make a difference.

I salute them. Come, spare a hour or so and come to the exhibition of these businesses this Thursday. It will be at the Umhlali Country Club all through the afternoon and evening and you can talk to the entrants about their experience. The winners of this year’s competition will be announced at 7pm.

* * *

Despite that fact that the taxi involved in the Shaka’s Head train smash was a rolling timebomb of faults, the real shock is the disclosure by the department of transport that the owner of the taxi is not accountable for its dangerous condition. Only the driver shoulders the blame.

The notion that a fleet owner is not accountable for the state of his vehicles is absurd. The chances of a driver refusing to take to the road in a faulty vehicle are less than nil, as he would very likely be without a job.

This is a shortcoming in the law that needs to be addressed immediately.

* * *

I took the shell off my racing snail, thinking it would make him slide faster.

If anything, it made him more sluggish.