Elevate U With Ifeanyi: Business Lessons From the Spider

Spiders are awesome creatures. A close look at the nooks of any household can almost always reveal evidence of their presence. This creature, whose presence we often perceive as the undeniable evidence that we have not done our housework properly, conveys in the day-to-day activities of their very existence, timeless lessons that are worth looking into. Below are a few interesting ones.

Start From Somewhere
After a few weeks, a baby spider would have to cater for itself. It simply takes a tour of its surroundings, locates an environment where insects visit frequently and without waiting to embark on any time-wasting, morale-stifling market survey, it begins building its web. One of the reasons why great men die poor, is the illusion of someday. I will start a business, someday. I will write a book, someday. Many times, those men grow old and die and that someday never comes. Out there today in the nooks and crannies of our beloved country are men and women, young and old who have, implanted in their very frame talents and skills enough to make them successful. Many, who have raw gold in their possession, and therefore, have no business with poverty, yet struggle to make ends meet.

Believe in Yourself
The spider does not wait for its neighbor to validate its ability to spin a web before it goes out to spin one. It knows it can do it and, therefore, does not wait for anyone to buy into its ability to spin one. It is folly to have a dream and expect every Tom, Dick and Harry to believe in you. How do you convince a Skeptic Thomas that an idea you are just developing and have not even covered with much logical flesh now stands the chance of becoming the next million Naira start up? Be sure to have some great holes poked in your ideas that would not only discourage you, but make sure you ask yourself what made you start out in the first place. All the baby spider does is, go out and spin its web, and so should we.

Use Your Strength
The average spiders we see in our homes are slow, fragile creatures that can barely kill any insect. Despite its great weakness, the spider has found great strength in its ability to make its cobweb. Therefore, it would rather depend on it for food than on anyone or anything else. No matter how small a spider is, once it is able to spin its webs, it can almost capture insects as big as five times its size in its web. We may be small, weak or considered insignificant, but sitting latent in every being is an endowment capable of making him a success – should he use it right. No matter what it takes, find what you have grace for ease in doing and don’t quit until you have found it. Until then, don’t settle for anything. Don’t let anyone, deceive you into believing that you are unintelligent, for they may be judging you with the wrong yardstick. Find your strength and use it effectively.

You Can Always Start Again
No one likes seeing cobwebs in their habitation, so every Saturday or so, we use those brooms and sweep those carefully engineered structural work of nature away and send the spiders running for dear life. Does it not amaze you when you come back to the same place in a few days’ time to discover that the webs are growing back again? To the spider, it didn’t matter much that you destroyed the web; what mattered more, was the fact that the insects still assembly in that location. As soon as the web is gone, the spider begins building another one. Sometimes, we may lose our jobs, our company may run out of money or we may even go bankrupt, but as Ralph Marston put it, “life’s abundance never ends”. Yet, our various connections to that abundance come and go. If we mourn their passing too obsessively, then we miss out on opportunities to make more connections.

Our networks are priceless. In Nigeria, people are quick to call it the Nigerian factor, but from experience, it is not really a Nigerian factor. It happens the world over – in the US and elsewhere. Ask job experts in the US and they will tell you that over forty percent of job openings were filled, not by people who saw the advert online and applied, but people who know someone, in-house. Have you wondered how many contracts are given to people who just saw it and just applied? Like a friend of mine would often say, your net worth is a function of both your network and what you know. Spiders understand this, so they make sure that their cobweb, is immediately rebuilt, no matter the number of times it was torn down. It is the conduit that leads to their supply.

Know When To Quit
Many times, owing to the perception that they constitute nuisance, we tend to want to kill spiders each time we come in contact with them. The average spider is always crisis-ready. Each spider’s life gets threatened over and again both my humans and often, lack of food supply. Many times, its traps would catch no insect. When this persists, the spider simply takes another tour of its environment, identifying locations that have become venues for more frequent insect visits and, immediately begins building its cobweb there. It is important to know when to quit. A change in direction is not always a function of failure or defeat.

Persistence is essential; nonetheless, knowing when it’s time to move on is also important. If your horse is dead, I think it would be best to dismount. Many times we are stuck in situations that are not working but are too afraid move. If your career is not working, and you are not seeing any future in there, take a professional course and begin looking elsewhere. I know it is not easy, but when compared to spending your life in a hopeless situation, it is a far better option. If we are failing to get the results we want in life, there is no point hanging around in our comfort zone, fearing the unknown.

Photo Credit: otvali.ru

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Ifeanyi J. Igbokwe is a peak performance expert, motivational speaker, consultant and an action coach with special interest with personal and corporate growth and effectiveness. He can be reached at [email protected]