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GET RESOURCES
Look around.
ONE CHALLENGE PEOPLE face is that of acquiring resources for their ideas. The difficulty factor increases during lockdowns because banks close doors, they are trying to play safe and everyone’s trying to survive. No one is willing to give a hand when they are struggling themselves. It thus becomes a huge burden to push even the finest of ideas.
You may have a beautifully well thought idea but you realize that getting resources is an uphill task. It’s no news the complaints around town of how mean economic realities are. You perhaps are going through a bad situation. Look at the challenge like a high mountain, if you have to get on top, you have to face it and climb.
What resources do you want? Every idea doesn’t need similar resources. It is your place to effectively mark out and define what resources you need so that you define how to channel your energy.
Resources come in variants. You may need human resources, financial, spiritual, land, mental or educational resources. To be able to define what you want, you should have analyzed your idea.
In sincerity, despite how scarce some resources may seem during this lockdown, not all resources become scarce. Some kind of resources become surplus to requirements. You may not be able to seize on the opportunities and the resources the lockdown provides adequately if you don’t see the need for them.
The truth is, the average person complains about his lack of financial resources and puts that as the major challenge but he is blind to see that there are other very important resources available which he can apply for his idea.
You might have creatively thought out your idea, but you also have to creatively think out your resources. The lockdown tightens some bits but it also loosens others. While you may find it difficult borrowing money from a friend or getting a loan from a bank, you may get human resources at a cheaper cost and discover opportunities to acquire mental and educational resource development too at a cheaper rate.
No correct idea only needs finance. When we focus on only money, we’d waste all other valuable resources so that we’d end up doing nothing when money does not arrive. Here’s why some persons may have money but don’t get to use the money rightly.
Now you have a beautiful idea, write out all the resources you need. Be sincere to yourself. Of the resources you have written, tick those you can easily get by considering in all sincerity all the resources within your disposal, around your family or friend sphere, because in reality, there are resources at your disposal that you may not recognize until you do a search.
Every idea that arrives from you is trusting on some available personal resource. It’s either you have an experience, you have a facility, or you have a talent or skill.
When I started a school in 2014, I had faced tough times. I had been out of job since I finished school in 2012 and only barely survived as I jumped from one interview room to another. When I got the idea for the school, I had no money, no food, nothing. If I had looked at my financial handicap, I wouldn’t have started.
I realized the same concept I am sharing with you, that resources aren’t just about the money. I looked around for what resources I could gather. I had an uncompleted house which needed some finishing and I had talent and started with a lesson that barely brought anything substantial. The good news is on school resumption, the building was finished, the house was taking a new shape ready for resumption and I had people ready to start the idea. Today the school is blooming.
You did a great job thinking through your creative idea, how about finishing it off with a creative resource gathering approach. This lockdown provides you with ample opportunity to see what you can bring to the table when the bits are down.
I always advise people to look around when trying to figure out their ideas because ideas created from around gets resources from around too.
While brainstorming for a business idea with a friend who was lost and looking for direction, we got talking and decided it was time to look inwards. Naturally, like any average person, his first thought was money but I did well to change his thought pattern.
I asked my friend to check around for what he could do with available resources. At first he said he had nothing but as we thought further and I quizzed him, he realized that his father had a piece of land. The next question I asked him was “what can you do with the land so that you can earn daily or weekly income?” my friend had no idea. The idea that poked into my head was “we need to plant vegetables on that piece of land”
My friend bought into the idea, but the challenge was getting water for the farm so that it would run round the year. He got thinking this time. His uncle had a borehole close to the land so we planned how to get water to the farm connecting pipes. Seeds wouldn’t be a problem and he’d invest in fertilizers when its time. My friend left me and got to work with that idea.
A few weeks down the line, the idea had blossomed into a big farm with market women rushing in to buy vegetables for the weekly market around town. He soon paid workers to run the farm and had more to pay his way to school.
I think we can have our ideas sorted out when we are willing to look inwards and proactively engage our creative side beyond just creating the idea but also creating the resources.
I heard a story about how one father who saw opportunity in his son’s paint production idea offered to sell his landed resources to help buy equipment for his son to take off his paint production business.
While it’s easier for us to blame the lack of financial flow in the economy due to the lockdown, and that is what most persons will do, now may be the right time to find a way around your idea if you truly believe in it.
What skill do you have? What physical property is within your disposal? How can you turn what you have into a veritable tool for pushing your idea? It starts from here.
While it’s great to think about some external support from a relative or friend, depending on them may turn out not the best idea especially if they don’t catch your idea. Some persons will want to know what they’d gain before supporting your venture and you don’t want to eat your cakes before you have it. Its best to stick with what you have first, exhaust all available personal options before going out.
Its best to have a solid foundation with your resources before stepping out so that in case you meet any wall, you can keep pushing. The only guarantee for your idea is you.
Acquiring resources is an important variable in getting your idea to work. It’s actually the bridge between your idea and reality. The type of bridge you choose to build matters. You may decide that you want to build a solid bridge that will ease your work greatly or you just want to do a fast ramshackle bridge which will arrive with its corresponding difficulties when trying to run your ideas.
What you need is the best resources. Everyone will do well when everything needed is available but the reality of life is we don’t get everything to start with. If we have to wait, it will take forever.
All the resources for an idea arrive in the process of working the idea. Don’t allow not getting all that you need stop you from the possibilities of your idea.
This lockdown is helping you look down at least so that you can see what resources are available that you never thought were available. These resources may just be the seed you need to begin your life on a fresh note.
You may choose to consider collecting loans. But pro-life-after-a-lockdown, you don’t want to start life under the burden of a debt profile. You want to ease your life off debts until the economy is stronger when leveraging on loans won’t be a challenge. Loans should actually be an option when you are trying to expand. You can however leverage on grants
It is important to define your resource gathering mechanism right so that you know what’s available from the onset of your idea. This way, you will be able to make correct plans based on the quality of the available ideas and resources.