When I first ventured into entrepreneurship, a relative strongly advised against it. He told me I was in for heartbreak and wondered why would I want to pursue a path I could never predict the outcome of.
My relative wasn’t the only one. A friend’s parent told me I needed to gain at least 10 years of experience in a day job before thinking of pursuing any kind of business — and having pursued a small business before and failed, she didn’t recommend others to pursue that path.
Their advice made me think twice about my decision until I had a conversation with my great aunt.
She smiled and told me that having lived in an arid environment with little resources, our ancestors could never predict what was going to happen, but that never stopped them from living their lives and taking risks.
Pearl divers certainly did that, while merchants travelled to India and the Far East for business, even though many didn’t survive the journey across the ocean and the storms they faced.
“If there is one thing they knew about the future, it was that it’s best to be well prepared for whatever is going to come,” my great aunt said.
Our ancestors never took anything for granted. They always saved extra food and prepared for rain or shine.
My great aunt’s advice is among the most valuable I have received.
It’s true I could never predict the future, and any business I decide to pursue will always carry its own risks and I could face any unforeseen challenges.
But the best way to weather a storm is to prepare for it. If I don't want to drown in a pool, I need to learn how to swim. The same logic could be applied to entrepreneurship.
While I couldn’t exactly predict the situation I would face, I needed to be prepared, whether mentally or financially. I needed to have a risk plan in place.
Years before remote working became the norm for many as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, we embraced remote working and a digital infrastructure.
When the pandemic struck, it didn’t affect us in the way it affected other entities that had not yet jumped on the digital wagon.
Being prepared also means that I needed to have my finances in order, and a plan to run a business in the event of an economic crisis or any other negative situation.
But mental preparation is the most important.
I knew that to survive any negative situation I face, I needed to be agile. I needed to go with the flow and not against it. I needed to welcome change, because the more I resisted, the more my business and I were going to suffer.
As important as being agile is, I needed to borrow a lesson from the way our ancestors lived their lives, and that is to never stop being prepared and to continuously evolve.
That meant I needed to always learn, to embrace new skills and to widen my perspective by being exposed to new experiences and knowledge channels.
No one could have predicted the effect Covid-19 had on our lives, and we won’t be able to predict every crisis thrown our way.
But we can prepare for it and it all starts at the mental level.
Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer and communications consultant based in Abu Dhabi
