The Club of Terror - Part 2

(continuation from Serial Entrepreneur) I recognized these people as my brothers and sisters.” What happened in my thought process to recognize these Ghanaian’s as my spiritual family?

It was the "terror" to quote Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Rewind the tape, its 1990 - Accra Ghana. The class was enjoying the sessions but on this third Monday, I sensed restlessness. The unofficial leader of the group, the son of a local king, asked if we could not stop and talk about things important to them. He went on to say this was not commentary on the course - we just had not covered things that kept them awake at night. He then relayed a story of his first startup where he was the principle financier. They had just secured a large deal with a multinational company brokered by the Accra office of the UNDP (my current employer). They set up the deal and negotiated with local suppliers in the immediate area. The contract was signed, money paid and spent, orders placed, and the clock started clicking. Their suppliers were providing pre-assembled materials and the young prince's firm finished the product. An excellent example of his London Business School education. 30 days passed, then 60 and still no partially finished products from their suppliers while they were trying to stave off the multinational and preserve a considerable investment. The story ends with both irony and tragedy; Unilever fired them and when the product was finally received, the supplier was incensed that it was refused and the invoice denied.

This story was followed from a petite woman who had remained silent until now. Women in Africa have a special set of problems because in most countries they cannot own property and in others are considered part of the husbands or fathers property. She was from Senegal and had started a business in her home village. It was a cooperative weaving cloth with her tribal pattern - just like the Scot's and their beloved tartans. She pooled money from her sisters, aunts, and friends, added it to her own in order to purchase old manufacturing equipment and leased space for production. She could not secure any loans because she did not "own" anything including herself. After two years, the business was providing a good living for her employee's and she was actually considered rich in the village. Her bank account was growing, she was respected in the community, and it was all lost in an afternoon. Her husband suffered from the chronic under employment endemic to this part of the world and decided it all belonged to him - legally it did. In a day two years of work was lost and yet here she was sitting in my classroom having left her husband and country behind to pursue her dreams. I cannot even guess what demons she had to face down but a year later she had just started a weaving cooperative making kinte with a micro-loan provided by a local bank (part of our course).

Our future tribal king was now involved in a state-of-the-art chicken processing business. Although the equipment was used and low tech, the business design was not. Both individuals had overcome failure and their private terror from wiped out assets and now were back better than ever. They never lost faith in themselves, never succumbed to their very real fears.

It was then I understood my feelings of family, our connection. I was weeks away from bankruptcy spending the last few dollars on getting to Africa and start this new client relationship which did not pay very well. In fact, the fees were so low that six months earlier I would have been forced to turn it down. Now I was in the middle of nowhere, accessed by half a day trip by Land Rover over unpaved roads, performing my own rope-a-dope 4,000 miles away and trying to keep it together without blatant lying. I remember the fear and my thoughts about foreclosure, no presents at Christmas for my young children, or living in the car. That was replaced with the feeling of an exhilarating narcotic of self-redemption, of being the business Houdini - I understood the root cause of OUR fear; it's being a member of the herd, of being normal, of being average, of living by someone else's leave, of not living and then dying filled with regrets.

How you handle the fear is so important. There is no one to talk to unless they are members of this club; the club of terror. It is like the Harley Davidson bumper sticker..."If I have to explain it, you won't get it.” If you take it home, it will incapacitate your spouse and destroy the relationship. Show it at work and employees will be looking for jobs, the banks will shut done your lines of credit, and customers will only pay after the delivery of products and services.

Welcome to the Club!