Start2Finish: Fueling Discipline, Focus and the right mindset

Look back in order to move forward: Celebrate the wins however small, and prepare to win some more.

• Kuda Munemo • Episode 22

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What if the key to personal growth is embracing the hurdles and imperfections along the way? In this episode, I open up about the rollercoaster journey of launching this podcast at the end of 2023. From grappling with initial challenges to discovering the power of simply starting, we explore the significance of setting realistic goals and celebrating even the smallest victories. Together, we'll reflect on the triumphs of 2024 and gear up for the opportunities ahead, emphasizing persistence and gradual improvement over chasing perfection.

Join me as we celebrate stories of resilience and growth in the face of adversity. We'll delve into the exciting expansion of a solar business in Zimbabwe, culminating in a significant 500-kilowatt installation for an international client. Meanwhile, I'll share insights from a new transport venture fraught with setbacks but powered by strategic decisions and unwavering perseverance. The focus on single goals, incremental progress, and the celebration of small wins serves as a testament to the strength needed to push forward with determination and smart strategies.

Discover the transformative potential of effective time management and continuous learning. We'll explore how dedicating a mere 30 minutes daily to acquiring new skills can profoundly impact your life. Through examples like adapting businesses to seasonal changes, learn how reverse engineering goals into manageable parts can lead to success. We'll wrap up by discussing the benefits of meditation and reflection, fostering a deeper understanding of personal visions and dreams as we all strive for a better version of ourselves. As we prepare for 2025, let's focus on financial wisdom, self-development, and strategic planning, keeping an eye on future security and personal growth.

Change comes from starting small and celebrating your progress, no matter how minor. As we wrap up 2024, we reflect on personal wins, resilience through challenges, and the importance of maintaining focus for future goals. 

• Emphasizing the importance of starting from where you are 
• Celebrating small wins to fuel motivation 
• Discussion of personal weight loss achievements and maintaining fitness 
• Overview of solar business progress amid economic challenges 
• Emphasizing resilience through setbacks in vehicle transport business 
• Shifting from addition to multiplication in both personal and professional endeavors 
• The significance of continuous learning and skill development 
• Highlights of effective time management and breaking down goals 
• Motivation for adapting and strategizing for 2025 
• Encouragement to celebrate achievements as we transition to a new year.

Fueling Discipline , focus and the right mindset!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Start to Finish, fueling discipline, focus and the right mindset. That's the game here. We need to change and shift the way we think. Now, 2024 is coming to an end and it's time to review, it's time to look back. What have we achieved? What have we accomplished? What have we accomplished? Have we started? Are we walking the processes to that finishing place? But, for some, have you finished what you have started? If you haven't, the journey continues into 2025. So, look, I started this podcast I think 31st of December 2023. And that is when I launched the first episode. It took me a couple of months of 2023 for me to eventually launch an episode and yeah, it was.

Speaker 1:

Starting is always very difficult. Breaking new ground is always always very difficult. But the moment you start and you set your mind in motion, the game changes. You begin to make the progress that you need, you begin to push forward, to break forth into new ground. So you better start. You know, if you did not start on that thing, that you were supposed to start in 2024, a new season is fast approaching. Be ready to start, be ready to get things going to, to get things going, to get things moving. I, I. I just think goal setting can be very complex. You can't be setting new goals every year. Every year, you come up with brand new goals, but you have not started. It's time to take an audit and review what is in front of you, you know, and start working on that and start making sure you begin to achieve on what is already on your radar. It's tiresome, it's frustrating to start thinking of new goals, to start thinking, oh, let me set another one, let me come up with a new idea. You know, go with what you already have, push through with it and we see you at the finish line. Start where you are with what you have and move forward. And it's time to celebrate wins. What did you achieve in 2024?

Speaker 1:

For me, look, uh, when I started this whole process, this whole journey, when this idea of start to finish kicked in in my spirit, I'm like, wow, I need to push on this thing. It was hard Like I say, in 2023, I was trying to kickstart just a single episode. I'd written the vision down, to kickstart just a single episode. I'd written the vision down, I'd come up with a clear plan of exactly what I wanted to do with this program, but the issue here was starting. I'm like, okay, I need a better camera, then I'll start. Oh, I need a better microphone, then I'll start. But at some point I just decided, you know what, let's just do it. And we started and we just started moving and we never stopped until then.

Speaker 1:

And up to this point we are still here and recording and sharing our passions In my heart with you, because for me, it's not about the person who has already reached the pinnacle of their lives, but it's not about the person who has already reached the pinnacle of their lives, but it's about you, who wants to get somewhere, who wants to achieve something in their lives, who wants to accomplish greatness. Because this conversation never happened. How did someone achieve what they achieved? There was ups and downs. We never really talk about that. We, we talk about the successes you talk about, you know, being at the top of the game, but we never really talk about the journey itself.

Speaker 1:

Because between starting and accomplishing something great, there is a journey in between, and that's a lonely journey. Some days you're with your friends. They are rooting for you. Some days, you have to go at it alone, because it's your vision, it's your dream and that's the game, you know you have to push through with it and reach the top of your game. So today I'm just so excited because I just want to share my wins they're not great wins, but you know that's the thing now celebrate your achievement on this journey.

Speaker 1:

You know you can have this big plan. You can break it down every single day. I'm going to do it this way. You know I have to accomplish this by in 30 days. I have to accomplish this in so much spirit, but when you get down to it you have distractions. Some days you focus on other things. That doesn't even add value. But when all is said and done, if you have sticked with your plan, with your visions, with your goals, I can guarantee you you would have achieved something, and I'm very sure some of us we've achieved some form of success, some form of progress, and that's what it is all about just having some form of progress. If I push forward, if I push forward, that's what it takes, that's what is needed for us to move forward. You know, when I started this podcast I I recorded it on my own on a black screen, but I'm sure you can see things are sort of like coming up now. You know we are putting up, uh, some flowers and trying just to make sure everything looks good and brilliant as we continue on this journey. It's not about wanting to perfect everything once off. It's about picking up that journey and begin to move. You perfect as you go. You don't perfect in one day, but you perfect on your journey, so you better get on it and start pushing so celebrating my wins.

Speaker 1:

So when I started off this year, I think I was weighing um, almost 90 kgs. Yeah, and I know at some point I was weighing more or less more than 90 kgs and I dropped and went down to, I think, about 80 kgs. But then life happens, you know, you start eating, you start forgetting to exercise, you start doing the old things that you've been doing, and I gained some weight. So my mission has you've been doing and I gained some weight. So my mission has been look, I need to lose some weight. Obviously, I wanted more, but I managed to lose 5 kgs and I've maintained. So what it simply means is that when I get into a new year, I push down. When I push down to the right weight that I want, I have to make sure I maintain it. Continue going to the gym, continue cycling, continue doing the thing that I'm doing. So I'm so excited that I've achieved this.

Speaker 1:

So what have you achieved? If you have lost 1 kg on your mission, be excited about it. If you've lost 0.5 kgs, be excited about that achievement, because what you need to do is, like you know, when you get excited about making an achievement, it means you get more energy. You become more energetic, more driven to achieve more. You know you cannot bring down the mountain overnight. You have to work at it and chop it, and chop it, and chop it until it's non-existent. So don't be discouraged with your achievement. I'm happy with my 5 kgs because I've made progress.

Speaker 1:

So we've got this business. We do solar and I think, for those who know Zimbabwe, things have been tough politically. So we've got this business. We do solar. You know, and I think, for those who know Zimbabwe, things have been tough politically, financially, economically. You know we are not making the progress that we want to make. But that's life, that's the journey, that's what we are on.

Speaker 1:

But I'm so excited that this year, a pinnacle goal for us is we are used to doing 30 kilowatt, 80 kilowatt. You know these small systems, but now we are getting into bigger units. So it's basically the same. The same way you build a five kilowatt system I'm not going to get into a lot of technical it's the same way. You can build even a one megawatt system. It's basically the same, uh, the same structure. So this year we installed a 500 kilowatt system, from start to finish, completed, everything working perfectly, no issues.

Speaker 1:

The client is happy and for us that's progress. You know we did not achieve the financial breakthrough that we wanted for 2024. But we achieved something that continued to position us to achieve the great things that we want. And the exciting thing, the same client this is an international client that continue to position us to achieve the great things that we want. And the exciting thing is, the same client this is an international client. They are so happy that they want to work with us on future projects. We're actually working on a project right now. So you never know, what we did not achieve this year, we might just triple and multiply into the coming year.

Speaker 1:

So celebrate those wins. I'm celebrating mine and I want to celebrate with you. I want to encourage you to sit down, review the year. Don't worry if you did not achieve anything, but I'm sure we all achieve something if we put our minds and our hearts to it. Maybe you did not achieve the good things that you wanted. You achieved the negative, which is not a good thing, obviously. But if you look at yourself and check yourself and say, huh, so I have achieved the negative thing. So it only means that I have the capability you know to achieve the good thing. So it only means that I have the capability you know to achieve the good thing. All I need to do is to set my mind on that thing and focus on it. No multitasking. Just pick one goal, just push on it, grind on it. I can guarantee you you will get to your finish.

Speaker 1:

The most important thing is to start. Once you break the starting point, you're on your way. Sometimes we expect an overnight sensation. No, that's not what life works like. Life is compound, you know. But on this journey you don't start by multiplying. There's no multiplication at the beginning. You start by adding. You're starting off from zero. You know, with nothing. But when you begin to take those baby steps with that vision, with that goal, and just begin to focus day in, day out, day in, day out, you're doing this thing. You're going maybe to achieve that one goal and when you have achieved that one thing, be excited about about it. It's not going to quickly shift into multiplication. You still need to work harder, but think smarter, because eventually, when the game shifts into multiplication, you're moving.

Speaker 1:

So we started off this transport business this year. I bought this vehicle and the journey has been tough, with its ups and downs. One of the vehicles was involved in an accident, another one for some weird reason. In the morning you try to crank it up, it could not get up and guess what? The engine was dead. But we did not stop on the vision. We had to continue going on. The plan was like you know what, by the end of the year we should be sitting on at least four vans doing the business that we're doing. But it did not work out that way. We had so many setbacks along the way, you know, and we are still in that addition mode whereby you're like it's just so frustrating, but that's where you are. That's why I'm saying from zero to one, you're going to go through the ups and downs, you're going to go through setbacks, you're going to lose momentum. You know it's going to try and break you, but be unbreakable, because they say what doesn't break you makes you stronger. I can tell you that we emerged out stronger than ever before and the journey went on throughout the year.

Speaker 1:

I remember the second quarter was the most difficult one. All our vehicles were out of service. We had to hire vehicles to maintain the operations going. So for a period're hiring vehicles and I remember we were maintaining the momentum going Because I say, look, we're in business, we already have clients who are enjoying our services. Instead of shutting down and say, oh, we're sorry, the vehicles are down, can you look for someone else. We said no, don't worry, we'll provide you with the transportation. So we went on that particular journey and we restored our our vehicles to service and the journey went on, and where we are right now, we have managed to add another vehicle to our project. It wasn't the three vehicles that we were expecting to add, but I'm more excited because we achieved something.

Speaker 1:

The year has come to a close and now we are approaching multiplication. Are approaching multiplication Because if you have two, it's easier to multiply from there, but if you are operating on one, it's very difficult. But this is the time where you need to work smart. It's no longer about too much hard work and sweating and everything it's about now working smart to make sure you begin to multiply your game. I don't know what game you're on, whatever it is you need to shift from. You don't need to stay too long on addition, you need to get into multiplication. Money should work for you. Whatever resource that you have, that's the thing that should work for you, you know, as we make the progress.

Speaker 1:

So, coming back to this podcast, so when I started, the target was episode per week. Right, that was the target, man in episode per week. But now, 22 episodes later, I did not achieve the goal that I've set. Guilty as charged, I only managed to do 22 episodes out of 52 episodes that I'd targeted for 2024. But this is some achievement. This is some progress. I'm excited because I've made progress. I've made 22 episodes progress from the day that I started doing this podcast and that's the most exciting thing. You know, progress, life is about progress. So stay on course, be consistent, do the thing that you're supposed to do. You know, exercise continuously. Some days are going to be good, some days are going to be bad.

Speaker 1:

I enjoyed a book called atomicomic Habits. It's just talking about building habits that you continue with. That will shape you to success, that will shape you to achieving your goals. And this is what I'm talking about. I had to build those habits, but some days, because it's a new habit, some days you don't do the habit as much as you should.

Speaker 1:

But the most important thing is when you look back at the dotted lines, what have you achieved? Planning is important. Set a goal and follow through with it. You can achieve. You can achieve, you can achieve. It's guaranteed that you can achieve the results when you follow through on your goals. It's not about just writing them and you forget about them, but it's about internalizing that thing. So, from nothing to something, that's the game, that's what shifts, that's what changes it, that's what brings us forward into a better place.

Speaker 1:

So I'm celebrating these wins for this year and I'm so excited approaching a new season. I believe I'm about to get into greater things ahead of me. I do have the willpower, I do have the focus and I know I can achieve it. I know God has given me the grace to achieve my goals and I truly believe that you have the same grace for your goals. How passionate are you about achieving those goals?

Speaker 1:

Remember the big goal is exciting, thinking about it. You know when you sleep and you are thinking about things, you know it's exciting. But simplify it. Break it down into daily, bite-sized, achievable. Instead of chewing, instead of walking that journey, and when you're doing this thing, it becomes like clockwork. Everything just becomes like clockwork, like your second nature. It becomes a reflex to you. Let's be excited about the big goals, but let's break it down into something that you do every single day, because when you then look back, the days that you worked hard, the days that you did what you were supposed to do, you notice, huh, I've, I've resolved. The game has changed. So, as I've said, don't set new goals. What do you have in your bag? That thing that you want to achieve? You did not achieve it in this period that you can continue working on and you achieve it in the next. So let's keep moving, let's keep going.

Speaker 1:

I recorded a couple of episodes 22 episodes, to be exact and there are a couple of episodes that really resonated with me, and number one is the principle of time. Everyone has 24 hours. You know, from the day you got out of your mother's womb, you have your 24 hours, and the difference between the achievers and the non-achievers is how they use their 24 hours. It's how they use every minute, every second of their lives. If we master the art of time, then money will be something that we're never going to be worried about. If we don't master the art of time you always complaining he has it, I don't, and this and that and this and that then what it means is that we are never going to make the progress that we should. So understand time management.

Speaker 1:

Break down your next 24 hours. How are you using it? Obviously, you've got your eight hours to go to work. You You've eight hours to sleep. That's 16 hours already. So, out of the 24, you're still left with enough time that imagine if you're going to just allocate 30 minutes, 30 minutes of each and every day that you're going to live and breathe in this earth. It's going to be a game changer that I can guarantee you. So what goal, what vision? What new language? What is it that you want to learn? And you are constantly saying I don't have time for this, I don't have time for that, but you have time to do nothing really, to sit and watch Netflix, to sit and see your time wasted away.

Speaker 1:

If you can master something in 2025,. Master the art of time management. Master the art of using your time, squeezing every juice of your 24 hours, because imagine achieving 24 hours it will be easier to achieve every second and every minute of 365 days of a year. So let's go, let's learn. There's an episode that I did. It's called Learn your Way to Success. Success is about learning. How much knowledge do you have that will help you succeed? Do you know others make lots of money, but they lose it overnight? It means we did not learn to keep that money. If you know, there are people you say, huh, this was rich, this is a lot of money, but right now they're living in the streets. The game is about learning.

Speaker 1:

Someone said learning is same environment, new behavior. You're operating in exactly the same environment, like here in Zimbabwe. You're operating in this bad environment. There's no liquidity in the market, but what is it that you are learning? Not just lessons to. It's about learning and understanding. Okay, fine, I've learned this. What can I apply in my situation to be ahead? So there was this analogy that was given. They said if I slap you right and you did not dunk, you did not learn anything, but if I raise my hand and you know the slip is coming. And you done, you have learned something. So it's the same environment For some of us, zimbabwe is what we know.

Speaker 1:

We're never going to travel beyond those borders, but let's make use. Or your country is what you know, but let's make use of that time. Experience life where you are and enjoy it in the process. So learn Skills taking that's another form of learning. What new skills are you adding on to what you have? You get your degree, kudos Woo. We are happy for you, but beyond that, have you staked up those skills? Are you staking them up? Are you building up a mountain of skills of things that you know that you pick up Soft skills, hard skills, mountain of skills of things that you know that you pick up soft skills, hard skills, anything that you can pick up that can become, uh, helpful to you in the future, where you're going to refer to this skill and say, oh god, thank you, I've learned something that is helpful. I've picked up so many skills in this year. You know this room here, you know was dirty on the wall. I learned how to paint, go on youtube, picked up the idea on painting. I've learned how to do this podcast, how to focus a camera, and I'm still doing this by myself, but I need to begin to shift, obviously bringing more people for assistance, but it all comes back to learning. What do you want to learn? What new knowledge can you pick up? That is a game changer to your life.

Speaker 1:

Reverse engineering I was talking about breaking down your goals into bite size. This is another episode that we recorded. Reverse engineer your goals, break it down. Do you know some of the greatest companies that has ever lived? They've not produced new products in a very, very long time. Their innovation is around reverse engineering.

Speaker 1:

How can we make this one better than before? How can we make this one better? What can we improve on this one? You break it apart. You, you put it together. Ha, I figured it out. We can do this.

Speaker 1:

Reverse engineer your goals, break it down. What goal do you have? The same goal that you have. I was talking to my uh, to, to, to my one of my, my cousins recently and you know he's got this small business where he's selling caps and during the summer he's doing lots of business making lots of money. But when winter comes, you know he shuts down and waits for another summer to come. But when you reverse engineer that goal, you then begin to ask yourself okay, winter is coming, what is it that I can offer the same clientele that I've been offering my hats to? And you figure out oh, I think they'll need some woolen hats because it'll be cold. They'll need some clothes. Then you add on new products based on reverse engineering.

Speaker 1:

The same thing with your goals. You have a goal that you want to achieve. You cannot achieve it as a gigantic goal. You need to reverse, you need to break it apart. When you break it apart, you know all the components which one is the head, which one is the hands, which one is the body, which one are the feet or the legs. Then you begin to say, okay, let me put the head here. You then, when you have broken it down, you begin to say okay, let me put the head here. You then, when you have broken it down, you begin to start doing that thing that will give you the steps towards achieving it.

Speaker 1:

Then there's the power of meditation. I think being in a quiet place is very important. Most of us, we are afraid to be by ourselves, with ourselves, just being alone. You know, you, you, you begin to think negatively, you begin to get depressed. But it's not about that. It's about when you meditate. Meditate on the word of god. When you meditate, meditate on your visions and dreams, begin to see the end in mind During meditation.

Speaker 1:

That's when new ideas begin to flow through you. Creativity begins to get unlocked. You know, if you had this analogy where the cow chewed the cub, the cow is ruminating. You know it has four stomachs, so the first stomach it grazes, it puts in there, but it sits under the shed, it starts ruminating, it starts chewing the cud, it keeps chewing it, chewing it, it goes until it's you're satting all the nutrients. That's the same thing about meditating. When you meditate, you're trying to see things from a different angle.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, when you're in frustration and you stay there without really giving yourself time to think okay, what could be my solutions? You know you're just thinking about oh, I'm in trouble, this is happening, na, na, na. You're all complaining instead of looking at the opportunities that are out there that will help you get out of that situation. Don't get into into depression mode. Don't get into frustration mode. Continue with life. Continue building the momentum. You know, no one says it's going to be easy. You know no one says it's going to be easy.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes you don't spend a lot of money. I know we need this thing whereby I need to live life now and later you still need to survive. The one who had the wisdom to not spend a lot of his money now and save it and invest it is now living la vida loca and you are walking. Life is bad. So I think it's that time where we need to review and reset the trajectory of where we want to see our life, where we want to get to in our lives and begin to focus until we achieve it. So, as we approach 2025, be ready. Be ready with your goals, be ready with your visions, be ready to work, be ready to be strategic, to do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. As I continue on my journey, I will reveal it to all of you, because all these experiences that I've gone through, the learning that I've experienced in this year, has been so amazing. This thing will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1:

I think this issue of self-development becomes very important. Develop yourself. If you cannot achieve money in in in the new coming year, but you achieve self-development, that's value on its own, because once you know and you have more knowledge, more understanding, more revelation. It means you are able to tackle life's issues, because the knowledge that I achieved made me achieve 22 episodes. The knowledge that I achieved made me put a 500 kilowatt, but my vision is to go megawatts, not just one multiple. It's to be in good health.

Speaker 1:

My target is 80 kgs, so if I'm down to 80, I'm excited, but it would take a lot of effort and commitment to maintain those achievements. That's where personal development comes in learning new things, understanding new markets, understanding where you are, because we have to continue growing and maturing. The moment that happens, the game is changing for you and for me. So let's go out there, let's kick some butt, let's do whatever it takes and become a better version of ourselves as we approach this new year. If I don't get to see you or hear from you, enjoy your holidays and I truly, truly believe that you are going to start some great stuff and you are going to see them through all the way to the finish line. That's what we stand for, so let's go and accomplish our best. Happy holidays.