12 THINGS I HAVE LEARNT FROM A BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN

Every successful business person has a story, a real, non-fiction, super story. From Harland Sanders to Bill Gates to Elon Musk to Dangote to Obi Cubana to Adenuga to Cosmos Maduka.

Today, I want to share some of the wisdom I have enjoyed from Cosmos Maduka, a father figure to me, mentor, successful businessman and philanthropist.

Cosmos Maduka is the founder and chairman of Coscharis group, a conglomerate worth over $500million with subsidiaries in Agric and agro-allied, automobile sales and services, auto care and auto components, ICT, manufacturing, and petrochemical business sectors.

Starting off his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 6 and marrying at the early age of 19, Cosmos failed at several businesses before succeeding with Coscharis. Here are 12 things I have learnt from this business mogul about life, business and everything in between;

1. “Use your adversity, when life throws everything at you to make you lose hope.” Resilience would take you places where hardwork wouldn’t. Be hardworking but also be resilient. Work hard, fail and use your failure to start over again. Sweet are the users of adversity. Adversity is nothing but a refining fire that burns out impurities in your life.
2. “You require three things to succeed in life — Vision, Faith and Courage.” When you have a vision, you’re close to a mad person because nobody believes you. First have a vision, then the faith to believe your vision and take a step, then the courage to act. Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to work in the face of danger.
3. Be more worried about finding the right team, rather than the best team. The best team may not always be the right team but the right team always eventually becomes the best team.
4. “Nobody grows in their comfort zone.” Entrepreneurship is demanding. If you have to succeed, you need to stay committed and unrepentant.
5. Never outshine your master. if you’re too quick to show your master you have become better than him in his art, you’ll end up losing out on certain secrets you could have learnt. Be diligent, be loyal, be good, but also make sure your master takes the glory.
6. “When I started off with just N200, which my livid uncle used to settle me after working for him for almost seven years, I understood that in business, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiated.” Never neglect small beginnings. Your beginning can be small, but your end will be great. When you know your value, no one can value you less.
7. “Life gave me no chance for success.” Failure is inevitable in order to succeed. You can’t succeed if you have not first tried and failed, and repeated the process.
8. “I always believe no door closes before me and when I get to any door, it would open”. Start first of all, no matter how small, then grow and get creative, then use your creativity to drive innovation. Innovation is the key to global excellence.
9. “I have done menial jobs many people today wouldn’t be proud to do.” There should be no shame in entrepreneurship. Even if you’re selling sachet water, be the biggest and best sachet water seller.
10. You cannot have peace and success without God. Your problem starts when you remove God from the equation, because you really cannot do anything by yourself.
11. The universe will always reward hardwork, smart work, commitment, humility and legit work. But the universe also rewards patience and perseverance more. When you think nothing is working, stay true, stay committed and keep pushing, the universe is just testing you. Soon you would get the reward for your labor.
12. “When a man or a woman is passionate about the things they want to do, they would find the will power to do it.” To be a successful business person, you need passion. Passion is the fuel for the will.

Wow right? I hope this inspires and motivates someone.

Dr. Cosmos Maduka and the Coscharis group have also won several awards both locally and internationally. In 2015, Cosmos Maduka appeared on Forbes Africa cover as the man who turned $1 to $500million, and was featured in an exclusive interview of Forbes Africa TV Series “My Worst Day with Peace Hyde”.

Blessed with four children, Dr. Cosmos Maduka was among the few persons honored by President Goodluck Jonathan with the National Honors of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in 2012.

What a man!

What a personality!

What a billionaire!

What an inspiration!

“Onye si igaghi emeli ya?” (Who says you can’t do it?)