How my Mother compounded her Way up (#challenge 3)

she weaved her wondrous suite of skills to engineer her own path

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Recently, Strive Masiyiwa, a rags-to-riches billionaire, reminisced an intimate talk he had with a West African student in the 1970s. "If the truth be told, the first Africans to study in Britain from West African countries like Nigeria and Ghana, were sons and daughters of 'market mamas," he boldly told him.

This statement rings true to my ears in the sense that I grew up knowing my mother more as a razor-sharp business woman than even my carpenter father. I was too young to recall everything about her but her milk business stood out more. It was the only thing etched in my memory to the extent that my high school dreams remained tied to hawking milk when I grew up. It was a childhood longing. And it's still a dream that's possible because, now, my bachelors is in agricultural background (maybe I only need your fanatical prayers from a distance).

My mother, compellingly, had no godfather to rely on her craft stardom. She had no phone. She had no VC. She had no bank account. she had no government support. She literally had no access to a suite of what you called commercial tools that a proper modern-day entrepreneur has. Yet, despite a backdrop of obstacles thrown her way, she weaved her wondrous suite of sharp-wittedness to carve her own path. She bootstrapped her way up, saving and patiently recording every penny she could make.

Today, the story isn't different from other market mamas. It's a story of paving their own paths with mearger resources closer to nothing. They do so with utmost hardwork, the legwork of sourcing produce from their own farms (and buy from other farmers) and sell in local markets. The little money they make they reinvest, invigoratively scale up their small businesses and to some, it translates into teeding up to greater heights of revitalising the slumber local microeconomy of the immediate communities.

It's a story that I hear and I still want to hear often because market mamas’ ingenuity coincides with the parable of talents that teaches us that diligently allocating all the resources (time, money) marvelously work for us. The one whom the master gave him 5 talents returned five more extra. The one whom the master gave two returned four.

The famous prodigal son parable is a warning to us, nevertheless. It teaches us how the vanity of inherited wealth can ruin us to despair. It's easy to get lavishly deluded and not fall a little but crash and shatter thunderously when you don’t know how to build from ground up like market mamas.

It wouldn't have been possible, however, for them if they didn't possess and hone the rare qualities that many don't have. Grit, persistence, discipline, adroitness, patience, thrifty, name them; they have what it takes to navigate the complex politricks of vending at the dusty, sun-scorching streets. They didn't shy from forfeiting instant gratifications (expensive stuff that vanish the minute one gets out of the shopping), the all sorts of gratifications that society more often than not bombard us with spicy displays.

"Such a pity that in most instances, their educated kids then saw entrepreneurship as being completely beneath them and chose the comfort of jobs in the civil service and the corporate world," Strive Masiyiwa quipped. The lacklustre of the educated sons and daughters of market mamas including me cannot be left unblemished in the current economic turmoil. We played a part in the menace.

While we are free to pursue our own interests, we've been captured by school-based economy that requires us to toe the line of the government fiat. We abhored what would have been the artfully ideation of today's behemoths. We instead let the exploitatives build their riches on our poor backs.

We can, nonetheless, rest assured that market mamas have left us with timeless lessons that while borrowing could be good, it can, nonetheless, be done without it. The fact that we can borrow now and pay later means that we first didn't afford to make purchases now. The acrimonious long haul of repayment extending into decades afterwards reminds us of the painful thirsty taste we would have decisively shunned to avoid the dreary consequences.

Compounding, instead, has audaciously worked to their advantaged. Minimalizing the flushy lifestyles and investing the difference is the egg nest we can count on ourselves after we stopped working. The goodness with compounding is that even those with mearger means can build more if they prudently allocate resources and make wise decisions.

History has shown us that those who figure out their own ways of creating wealth do so in a way that benefits and raises the standards of the many. Henry Ford, for instance, revolutionised and cheapen the once expensive assembly line. We all know he became fabulously wealthy but he made it less expensive to own a car and created thousands of jobs worth working for.

As one of their ardent consumers of their fresh produce, I have incisively observed market mamas have kept a clean bill of wealth consciousness, an awareness that's free from money worries. Their absence of money worries implies that they understand that there is plenty of money to set their eyes on. They work hard with the acknowledgement that one can never get enough; they know, rather, that wealth is a function of their own mindset. They don't despise their humble beginnings; they build on them. They don’t wait for inspiration; they're inspired by what they do.

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