No one said that life is easy. Each person’s journey is filled with hurdles, hardships and downright shocks to the system — yet for each event endured, the stronger you become. As an ecosystem that supports business owners at all stages of their businesses, we've noticed that startup founders received a lot of setbacks when starting out and finding ways to get off the ground, sustain the new business and thrive. 

Fear of failure is the biggest obstacle to success. Fear affects everyone’s decision-making from time to time. If you’re a full-time entrepreneur, then you probably felt some fear when you decided to quit your 9 to 5 job and commit yourself to making your new business a success. The thing is, fear doesn’t go away even when or after you make the leap. Every entrepreneur at some point is afraid of their business failing, or of embarrassing themselves in front of potential investors, or of making changes to normal patterns.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a business but were too afraid, or if you have a business and you’re letting fear get in the way, you need to know about the impact of fear on your success and happiness. Overcoming the fear of failure means actually taking the scary step of embracing it. That doesn’t mean you should jump into any situation headfirst without considering the potential risks and rewards, but it can help you turn the dialogue of fear around and help you make empowering decisions.

Remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears.

Not everyone is going to like your idea, and that’s okay. You just have to keep going until you find the people that do. Don't be surprised even if your family and friends don't or never support your entrepreneurial endeavours. Likewise, be careful of the people around you - are your friends real friends? They may be people who are there for the good times, but if it ever turned ugly they’d leave you in a heartbeat -- Be careful of who to trust (if you have to) !

If you’re going to pursue greatness, if you’re going to be a great businessperson or a great leader, you have to understand that not everyone is going to cheer you on. I’d love to tell you that your family, friends, coworkers, co-founder(s), employees will celebrate you, but that’s not necessarily the case. Some people simply can’t handle your success. As you grow and increase, as your business starts growing or gain traction, someone will get jealous and start finding fault.

Don’t be surprised if a relative tries to belittle or discredit you. You can’t focus on making everyone around you happy or you’ll start changing and lose sight of the goals of your business (grind). Remember, your destiny is too great to be distracted by people who are never going to affirm you.

The older you get, the smaller your circle of friends. The higher you pursue your dreams, the quicker you will lose friends. If the people around you don't inspire you to greater heights, it's time to let them go - audit your inner circle with immediate effect!

You cannot change the family you're born into, but you can change or curate your descendants and choose your friends. You are even allowed to limit your exposure to the people you cannot change - mediocrity is infectious.

Although most people are limited by circumstances, most will never be successful simply because they have poor attitude towards life. If you’re in your 20s or early 30s, there’s still time to set aggressive business ownership goals. The first step is to understand what your excuses really mean.

We all want to be successful in our careers. Starting a business, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant and navigating the politics of an organisation are all essential if you want to achieve your goals. But they’re hard to do. Aspire to achieve great things, and never look back.

Take it as sign of you being onto something and not a dig at yourself. You always need to be prepared for what’s to come, because you're going to fail your way to success along the way. You must be mentally strong.

Many people would experience a serious blow to confidence when they encountered setbacks. But the key to success is to persevere, especially during the most difficult times. Many successful people have failed dozens of times, but you can also deal with “micro” failures along the way too. You have to just try and try again, or pivot until you succeed! Only when we persist, can we succeed. Don’t give up because of a little setback.

Spend your money on developing new skills, gaining knowledge, and making powerful connections. You can never lose when you invest in yourself. Add skills and your value will increase in the marketplace - Spend money on yourself so that you can get your income to massive levels.

Your knowledge of the business will help maintain the competitiveness of your company. When you have the ability to learn, you have the ability to continue to grow.

Aside the many world-class services we offer startups and new businesses in Ghana, we also offer practical advice for those hoping to develop their skills and mentality, including how to bolster resilience levels. We provide you the strong, reliable support system when your resilience levels aren’t as robust as you’d like it to be.

Whatever your reason is for not grinding yet, it’s clear that young people aren’t doing the single most effective thing that will make them successful, wealthy and impact their communities: Starting a business.

Think long-term goals and legacy. Real estate has been proven for many years to be the preferred inflation hedge investment for many. Why? It produces income - a solid bet. Whether you choose to invest in real estate or something else, look for income producing assets to park the rewards from your business aside reinvestments into your business. That means cash flow.

Keep the money coming and put it away. Be smart — position yourself to get rich for sure by making big plays on reliable assets! It pays to be discreet, more frugal and take cognizant of your spending when you make money.

Remember to give back to your community, local church, or any good cause. Most affluent people are much less inclined to wear their wealth — or talk about it. The people more likely to flaunt their wealth are actually the ones with less money in the bank.

All your big dreams cannot be achieved if you're unhealthy and always clocking out. We share with you some of the power foods you can add to your grocery list to keep prop-up your energy levels, even if suriving on 4hrs of sleep. The first 90 minutes of the day are yours, to work on and create the life you truly want to live.

Between 4:30am and 6am is when you can work on yourself, your body, your dreams and your vision for life; distraction free and with a fresh mind, body and soul. Your life won’t change until you give yourself the gift of time to create and work on yourself and your ideas.

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” – Benjamin Franklin.

GhanaStartups.org is an equal opportunity platform, where all faiths and religions are tolerated. On this ardous journey is business ownership, you need constant communication with your maker upstairs or whatever your higher force is. You would need it.

You’re capable of doing unbelievable things, if you talk less, take more action and keep your eyes on the ball. I believe that you can do it. See you on the other side of the grind and hustle.