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Nicholas Bhero

It’s been months since the finale of the famous TV series “Money Heist”. Whilst this was a drama series, the meticulousness of the professor left his fans in awe.

Like in a game of chess, the professor’s losses never counted for nothing in his grand plans.

Such a level of prowess is a necessary piece of acumen, which all business planners should possess.

I have met a lot of people who wish to own enterprises but have no “start up money” or mari yestart as my mum and her friends used to call it.

This common excuse and phenomenon has buried so many ideas, of which some may have been unicorns.

Firstly, I need to clarify that owning enterprises is for entrepreneurs and not for wishers.

Secondly, I need to make it even more clear that entrepreneurship is a philosophy and not a condition or status.

It is one thing to start or own a business; it is another to be an entrepreneur.

To justify the difference, I need to revisit the etymology of the word entrepreneur. It is a loan word from French, which means two things, one — “to undertake” and two “self motivation”.

The two meanings point out to the reasons why the English decided to borrow the word and for whom they borrowed it.

It was not introduced in the English terminology to define business owners or those who wish to become business owners, but for those who are self-motivated and do take action.

My inference to the idea of taking action, also reads into the scripture, Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you”.

All entrepreneurs cannot explain how things worked out, they may tell you how it happened but they can’t explain the process. Eventually, they all credit the fact that they acted on the ideas.

They motivated themselves and set out to sail the unknown horizons.

That decision to step out and start is “The Capital” of an entrepreneur and not the attainment of resources. Going back to my introduction, in the series “Money Heist,” all fans appreciate the professor for his thorough planning and carefully oriented steps but even in such millimetre perfect planning, the professor still finds himself in losses and death of his heist partners.

This goes on to show, even on a drama series scripted around the art of planning, it will be beyond science fiction to see a plan that gets through without facing challenges and setbacks.

In our innovation programme at Women’s University, we emphasise on the fact that no idea is too small, too big, nor silly. All ideas are bankable and sustainable.

A lot of potential entrepreneurs miss it by assuming that innovation is a moment, “that famous light bulb moment,” the moment when an idea hits you at three in the morning and suddenly you cannot sleep. Innovation is a process, and a very deliberate process.

Before I lose you, let me take you to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality.

In his theory, he rightfully alludes to the fact that our cognitive processes happen in two spaces simultaneously, that is, the conscious and the subconscious.

Borrowing from that theory, I hereby base my notion.

What we call light bulb moments are simply thoughts transferred from the sub-conscious to the conscious.

The conscious mind is a busy space since it’s the one directly connected to our sensory system.

As it continuously onboard new messages into our brain and actively retrieves outgoing messages into our awareness, it never finds enough time to carefully process these to the benefit of our awareness.

Take the eyes for example, they may be seeing in a one hundred and eighty degree span but the conscious mind can only focus on about 45 degrees only.

Whilst we can only focus on a portion of our sensory detections, it should be noted, everything the eye sees or the ear hears or the nose smells or the skin feels or even the tongue tastes, all of it gets to the subconscious and gets stored.

Therefore, the subconscious space has more time and information to work within its cognitive processes.

What we then simply call ideas in our conscious space or awareness, are carefully processed plans based on all the information gathered in the subconscious.

Sigmund uses the iceberg metaphor to cement this argument, whilst we can only see the tip of an iceberg in the ocean; there is a whole mountain of ice buried in the sub-ocean.

Whilst we may become conscious of a simple business idea, there is a whole bankable business plan buried in the subconscious.

What I call the “Capital Heist” is the process in which an entrepreneur deliberately goes into the sub-conscious to retrieve this buried bankable business plan.

All resources, which form capital or equity for a start up are tied to this business plan. In a heist, like the professor demonstrates, it is not wise to leave everything to chance and hope.

One has to take time to process every detail within their imagination. Don’t just rush into ordering stock just because an idea has hit you to buy and sell clothes online.

The first idea may have come so easy like that, but take your time to retrieve the whole business plan from your subconscious.

Your friend may have suggested the idea to you, but for a decision to come back and say let me do it.

Your subconscious mind will have taken time to process what your friend told you and test it against terabytes and terabytes of information in your subconscious.

If you invest your time and resources on proven methods of innovation, your mind will be guided to retrieve your unique business plan behind what may sound like a common idea.

The Executive Certificate in Innovation and Transformational Entrepreneurship currently offered at the Women’s University in partnership with STIR Mentoring Class has proven to be one such programme worthy of one’s time and resources if they decide to venture into the path of entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship.

The transformation I witnessed in the inaugural graduates of this new programme has left me believing that indeed all of us have that “CAPITAL HEIST” factor within us. It’s just about how we make that conscious decision to break into our subconscious bank.

Nicholas Bhero is a thought leader, entrepreneur, mentor and chairman of Stir Zimbabwe Trust. He can be contacted on 0783184726