In the past 8 years I have been privileged to meet with about 12,000 business owners. Almost all of them wonderful people, and almost all of them being hammered.

The reality is that very few of us prosper. Sure we might pay the bills each month – even if it’s a stretch – but this tiger we’ve got by the tail is ruling our lives [and often ruining our lives]. Why? I don’t have a direct answer to that, but may I share a hypothesis?

For the most part we South Africans are very gentle by nature. [Don’t be confused by the huge stress levels which cause our current irritability on the roads – that’s pure stress associated with living in one of the worlds most dangerous countries right now.] That gentleness pervades all our relationships – and that’s where the problem is.

We’re so gentle that we even battle to say the word NO. Test yourself. When was the last time you gave someone a direct NO as an answer – instead of “let me think about it”, or “I’ll get back to you”? [Both of which mean no!] So when we get to Europe or Australia we’re stunned by how brash these folks are – because they’re very direct. Not rude – just direct.

Let me illustrate by asking you to imagine that you are the captain of a ship. Way back when, the captain’s fortune was tied in with the fate of his ship. And it’s in a bit of a storm. This is not a time to go for democracy and look for consensus. This is not a time to be timid. This is a time to gather all your previous training [whatever it may be] and use it to save the ship and your fortune. That’s what the crew expect of you. Yet we timid captains of SME industry are too scared to be bold. Isn’t that why we tolerate the shocking service we get from the peasants of big industry?

Where else on earth do people sign away everything they possess to borrow a piss-willy bit of money? Or sign away everything they possess to get a supply line from a supplier? Or accept the service we get dished out by these same suppliers?

Yet we accept this as our lot in business life, when we should be voting with our feet. This is Africa where we have a simple business rule – it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.

I am constantly stunned when otherwise remarkably intelligent business owners try to implement one of the crashproof strategies – that of opening a 2nd bank account. They know why they have to; they know it’s possible; and they know that 10,000 people have paved this path before them. Yet, let a single inexperienced youth of a bank clerk tell them it’s not allowed – and these same business owners run yelping for cover. Why?

Don’t ask – just do it! This is the only life we have, and I am tired of being timid while I live mine. Let’s grow some [sexist comment deleted] and start scaring a few people. We all have the stuff of legends in us.

Why aren’t you the person in the [long] bank queue creating so much noise that the bank immediately adds another 4 tellers? Why aren’t you the person issuing invoices to suppliers each time they screw up?

Why aren’t you the person registering the website www.telkomsucks.co.za, or changing your name by deed poll to National Westminster Bank Are Bastards, and then going to court to force them to open a bank account for you?

What happened to that adventuresome spirit, that inquisitiveness that we all shared as kids? What happened to that “I don’t care what I look like” [cos my Mom dressed me funny] happy go lucky feeling we all shared before we grew up. I don’t know about you, but I’m going back to that time.

You can’t scare me any more – because I’ve taken out my timid module. Next time you visit your bank and you see someone with 14 earrings in his left ear, spiky orange hair and wearing a Superman suit 7 sizes too small – please come up and introduce yourself. I’ll be real happy to meet you.

© Peter Carruthers, www.petesweekly.co.za

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