Konnected Minds Podcast

Segment: Money, Mentorship, and Mastering Your Business Vision

• Derrick Abaitey

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Walking a path no one in your family has traveled before can feel impossibly lonely. Where do you turn for advice when there's no blueprint to follow? How do you navigate the complexities of business and finance without generational wisdom to guide you?

This powerful conversation explores the emotional and practical challenges of being the first in your family to pursue entrepreneurship or professional success. When you can't ask parents or siblings "What did you do in the past that made you fail?" or "What can I do better?", finding mentors becomes essential for growth and sanity.

We dive deep into how cultural backgrounds shape our relationship with money. For many communities of color, financial literacy wasn't passed down generationally, creating patterns where money is viewed as a source of happiness rather than something requiring strategic management. True financial wellness comes not from accumulating wealth for impulse spending, but from developing comprehensive plans that incorporate retirement goals and create security for your future self.

The conversation explores a common entrepreneurial pitfall: abandoning ventures at the first sign of trouble rather than persisting through challenges. As one mentor advises, "Go down into the little details... and master whatever you do." This mastery approach builds expertise that can't be easily replicated by newcomers, creating sustainable advantages in your industry. Smart diversification means building on existing strengths rather than randomly venturing into unrelated fields.

Perhaps most importantly, we confront the paralyzing fear that prevents many potential entrepreneurs from ever starting. These fears often stem from childhood experiences where attempts at growth were met with discouragement. The antidote? Ask yourself: "If I were dying tomorrow, would I regret not trying?" Sometimes the biggest obstacle to success is our own mindset.

Subscribe to our channel as we continue our journey of changing lives through these conversations about entrepreneurship, mindset, and creating generational wealth.

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Watch the video episode of this on YouTube - https://linktr.ee/konnectedminds

Speaker 1:

Even though you are trying to be bigger than your father, you still have the foundations of information that you need. So imagine wanting to be a lawyer and your father wasn't even educated or your mother was not even educated. Who do you go to to get that? Or you don't come from a family and you are the only one in your family that actually standing out to be a lawyer or to be a business person. Who do you go to for advice on?

Speaker 1:

You know, what did you do in the past that made you fail? What do you think I can do better in the future? So it becomes like a lonely place for you. You have to either do the work fail so many times and then your lesson, or you have to find a mentor, someone that you see like there's something in them that you want to learn from that can actually help push you up and give you that kind of a cushion. But other than that, it's very difficult and you're going to make a lot of mistakes and you're going to do so many businesses and fail before you can actually have you know the right one do you think a lot of us has bad attachment to money and our financial resources?

Speaker 1:

I think, especially when, uh when it comes to people of color in, especially with black, you know people. I think that we don't teach a lot of financial literacy. When I, when I, when I was studying outside and I lived outside, I saw that my friends that came from other racial backgrounds actually did have their parents, did have a strategy for them. So, you know, growing up they tend to, you know, have them do certain things in order to understand money. You know, have them do certain things in order to understand money. For us, I think, money has always been a source, something that we grew up not having, and so we see it as a source of happiness. So anytime we get money, it's equal to happiness for us. So it's hard for us to sit down and understand that. That's not how money works.

Speaker 1:

Money works by strategy. You need to plan. You need to be able to plan in the next know what my retirement? A lot of people don't even know what when they want to retire, and most people know when they want to retire. If they want to retire 40, you don't always have to retire a 60. You can retire 40, 45, 50, 60.

Speaker 1:

But most people know that if I would live up to 80 and I retire 60, I have enough money to start. I would say that I'll be able to travel. That's what I want to do if I want to go back and live in my village. This is how much money I need. So once they plan, toys that their life is usually a lot more comfortable than when we have money and we spend it as we go because we think money is buying things. That is going to make us happy. But having a plan is actually what makes you happy, because it's like you're creating your own cushion, so you don't wake up with a sense of fear as to where your life is going, because you have everything being laid out.

Speaker 2:

If you and you know, I know a bit of your portfolio and what you've done. Now, if you were to start again building your business and, you know, becoming who you are today what would you have done differently to reduce the the mental pressure on you?

Speaker 1:

I think I would have identified who I was, which is something that is very difficult for us when we're younger to sit down and understand who we are. One of my mentors always told me this thing and I'll never forget. He said to me Jahara, everything that you do, make sure you go down into the little details of it and make sure you know everything that you are doing, the little details of everything, because once we start doing businesses, we tend to look on the top. We forgot the little details that come from it. So that is something that I think came from that book. What's the name of that book? With mastery, being able to master whatever. If you pick one business and master, it doesn't matter how many times you would have the up-and-downs. You're still going to be better than anybody who started that business, like you know, a year ago or two years ago, if you've been doing it for 10 years. So I think that is what I think.

Speaker 1:

In the beginning, I started jumping from one business to another. The minute I see something that's not working out like, I'm quick to give up and move on to the other, instead of me actually sitting down and going through. Why is this thing not working. Usually there's a solution to most, you know, business problems as long as you've started a business. Sometimes you're able to open your doors and a few people are able to come in. I don't believe in closing it. I believe in, you know, sitting down to reanalyze what is going on, re-strategize and bounce back. But I always run away from my businesses and you know I'm glad I am where I am now, but I would have usually put a lot more effort into my businesses before ever walking away from it.

Speaker 2:

I think one of the the beautiful strategies that I've learned is doing one thing really well and master it before you know moving into the next business. And you know there was. This chapter was saying that nobody ever made money from multiple businesses from the beginning. You know a lot of the people that we see they have so much money, they work. So this chapter was saying that nobody ever made money from multiple businesses from the beginning. You know a lot of the people that we see they have so much money, they work so hard on that business. When that generated enough funds, then they sort of put on an autopilot, then they moved on to the next. But but sometimes, like you're saying, you know we are very quick to say you know what? This is not working, let's move. But do you still think multiple businesses are important for financial success in the long run?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I think so, I think multiple businesses, like you know. I mean, if you're going to make money, you have like, maybe, a business here and this business is covering your rent or your car and you have another one covering your home expenses or something. It kind of gives you that balance where you're not afraid if one is going to go bad or not. Now, in saying that, just like you said, starting a business and beginning to diversify right away can be very dangerous, which I have made that mistake before. So I I would not advise anybody, anyone to start and diversify.

Speaker 1:

But when it comes to businesses, one business, one business has its own internal diversity. So when you look at that business and be like, okay, this is what I do, I have a hospital, I have a hospital, but then medical supply is actually under hospital, and then you realize that, okay, fine, I'm bringing my own medical supply, but instead of supplying just my hospital, I can supply other hospitals. So that's actually a different business under the same umbrella. But you are not just going from doing a hospital to going to maybe opening a restaurant. Those are two different things that can actually, you know, drive you a bit insane, because those are two different things, but once they kind of correlate, you can build outside of that to generate a different kind of business. So you are not really leaving what you're doing, you're only opening up the windows for you know other things to come in.

Speaker 2:

I I posted a video and I had this young man who sent me a message and said I'm scared of starting my business why, do you think those things happen? Where does the fear come from?

Speaker 1:

well. Well, I think that most fears as someone who is into psychology and studying psychology I think that most fears come from our childhood trauma Such a person may be, you know, experiencing when they were younger maybe, anything they were trying to do, they were being like oh, maybe you can't do this, you can't do that, oh, this is too big for you, or that. So when they grow up, venturing into new things become a problem. They are used to stability. They're used to having to have a certain way of doing things and not coming out. But the thing about business is you have to be willing to risk it. You have to know that, okay, I'm going to do this. There's a possibility I'm going to fail. But I'm not looking at a failure, I'm going to look at the positive side of it.

Speaker 1:

And you're going to have people when you're starting a business and I experienced that a lot in the past that they would tell you when a minute you say I want to sell tomatoes, they would tell you you know, tomatoes, you, if you don't sell it two days, is going to rot.

Speaker 1:

You know you have to need a car. You know it's like they would always look at it the negative side and try to advise you. By the time they are done with the negative and they try to tell you the positive, you're actually even like ready to give up. So I think that, uh, thinking outside the box and do sometimes it has to come from your own sense of self that, okay, that's what a person thinks about selling tomatoes, but that's not how I'm gonna go. I'm gonna can my tomatoes. I'm going to put the tomatoes in a hole in a can and keep it so when the tomatoes is out of stock, I'll bring my canned tomatoes and people have no choice than to buy it because it's going to be cheaper than the fresh tomatoes. So, instead of looking at all the negatives that they have about the business, take that negative and re-bottle it and and make even your business better rather than being afraid of it but you know, there are two groups of people, right.

Speaker 2:

So there are the people who get demotivated by words like this, and then there are people there are a group of people where, even when you've given them all the motivation, they still don't do it so for such people, I don't think business is for them, unfortunately, and we always talk about entrepreneurship and we talk about business as if it's something that is all for one thing, it's actually not.

Speaker 1:

not every one that is listening to us can actually go to school and be a medical doctor. Not everyone can be a nurse because they are not used to taking care of people. They don't have that motivation to do that. If not everyone wants to be an engineer. They are not interested in technicals and you know angles and things. So I think for a business person, you have to know yourself as a person. Like who are you? Are you someone that is ready to tackle certain things? Are you ready to deal with certain things? You have to analyze that Is your personality someone who likes to go out there and get things done? Are you a creative person? If you're not a creative person or you're not interested in creativity, it's not going to be a fun job for you to go on a film set and say I want to be an actress or an actor. So, just like business, you have to have that tendency Like I'm ready to risk it. And yeah, fear is something that I would.

Speaker 1:

even as I sit here sometimes I'm afraid when I'm venturing into something new, but my fear is I'm afraid, but'm venturing into something new. But my fear is I'm afraid, but that doesn't stop me.

Speaker 2:

Let me stop it here for a minute. If you've been watching this show, I want you to subscribe and become part of the family. We are on a journey of changing the lives of people on this channel and we appreciate you for being here, but if you haven't become part of the family, connect with us, hit the subscribe button and let's carry on the conversation how do you break that?

Speaker 2:

though how you would, you know, cross that and say, yeah, I've got a bit of fear, but I'm still gonna move on yeah, because for me, when I sit down and analyze myself, I think fear is just something that is fake.

Speaker 1:

We just use it to tame ourselves now. And so when I look at myself and I say to me, imagine if I was dying tomorrow, would I have been shy of this person? Would I have not told this person exactly how I feel? Wouldn't I be? How would I feel if I was dying tomorrow? And I wasn't able to do this because I felt somebody was going to look at me a certain way, or people are going to talk about me, or if I feel people would say, oh, she didn't. If I feel so what? I start again.

Speaker 2:

And so that is how I get through my fear Just the feeling of if it all doesn't work, I would stop again so there was this young guy who sent me a message and for the purpose of this conversation I call him Sam and he said you know, he's feeling very financially stuck and that sometimes, you know, because he's the only person in the family that can potentially turn things around, but he's not able to, you know, get it to work and that sometimes gives him suicidal thoughts, it makes him feel like he's alone in this world, there's no help. How do you talk to such a person?

Speaker 1:

What I would say to such a person is that communication is key. Even the people that we are struggling for, the people that we are trying to feed, they tend to think we are okay or we are magicians, or we are just like. You know, god sent people that don't have problems of our own because we always tend to provide for them, so they don't get to worry the way we worry. So the first thing I would say is that, for the people that he helps or he's trying to make their life better, he needs to communicate to them a little bit more so they know actually how or what he's going through as a person, because feeling suicidal is like a. It's like a point where you feel like there's no hope, but in any situation there is hope.