 I'm lucky in so many ways. One of such luck was the understanding I had when I became an entrepreneur in July 2008. I knew without doubt that I wouldn't be successful overnight. I understood how difficult it was to operate a business. I understood the level of effort it would take. As an entrepreneur, you often cannot tell which idea will succeed. As a result, I didn't emphasize success in one decade. Yes, I set out to achieve success in one decade. That sounds crazy. But if you want success fast, you wouldn't get the success you desire. Warren Buffett said, no matter how great the talent or efforts, some things take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. In other words, it doesn't matter how smart you think you are or how many books you have read about entrepreneurship. It takes time to build a successful business. You must be willing to sacrifice those years. Given it the time it takes, growing up, I thought like everyone else. Whenever I saw people who had achieved success, whenever I saw great footballers, I imagined they succeeded because they were talented. When I listened to a beautiful song, I thought the musician was talented. I even thought the rich were lucky or talented. Well, all these changed one day when I was a teenager. I read the story of Michael Jackson. In that newspaper article, I read that Jackson practiced eight hours every day. I didn't think that was true. How could Michael Jackson practice eight hours every day? His music and dance were effortless. This story changed the way I thought about success. To this day, I love to study the lives of great successes. That is why I love biographies. Two months ago, I read the biography of Albert Einstein. A month afterward, I read the autobiography of Obafemi Avalor, who was a great politician in my country. At the moment, I'm reading the biography of Elon Musk. Having read the stories of hundreds of successful people in politics, business, science, et cetera, one lesson I learned is this. It takes a large amount of time to achieve success. Don't try to negotiate this. Life is not nice. Don't try to think yourself into believing that if you can perform some magic, you can succeed easily without sacrificing time and effort. So many people hate entrepreneurs because they envy their successes. What the public don't know is the amount of sacrifice that go into building a business from scratch. You have to know this as a potential entrepreneur or you'll fail. You have to know what it takes to build a business and be willing to give the sacrifices required to build. You have to forgo normal life and be willing to live in the wilderness for five years or more. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. But you preach against hard work, you say. If you're subscribed to this channel, then you would notice I speak against hard work in most of my videos. Please don't misunderstand my point. Here's what I think. Never work hard if hard work leads you nowhere. My father worked hard as a farmer, but never had enough money. My uncle worked hard as a teacher and retired poor. I don't plan to work hard that way. I speak against misdirected hard work. If I must work hard, then I prefer to run with the horses, then compete with rats. It's better to rule in the kingdom of horses than to reign in the kingdom of rats. So I don't follow the rat race. Robert Kiyosaki said farming, teaching or your job isn't a rat race. It becomes a rat race if it never leads you to where you want to go in life. No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. Play hard. I had a conversation with a friend recently. He said some people return to look for jobs in their former place of work after they have retired. I asked, what if they love their jobs? They don't want to rest, he replied. My friend always reminded me he hated his job. So I understand what he meant when he insisted the retirees should rest. Well, as for me, I doubt I would ever need to rest till I die. Let me explain. You see, I love what I do. So I work every day of my life. Although I don't work on Sunday mornings, I resume my home office by Sunday evening. Of course, I sacrifice some of my working hours for my family. But my point is, working isn't work if you do not like it. If you don't like what you do, find what you love instead and do it. A wise man said, find what you love and you won't have to work a single day of your life. Most people think they are working hard. Yet, if you love your job or business, you'll only be having fun doing it. Because you're having fun doing it, you can enjoy the challenges along the way and remain committed to your dreams for several months or years. No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. Gratification and success. In an old study, some researchers told some children that if they could keep the snacks given to them for a few minutes, they would get more. Years after the study, the researchers followed up on those children who were now adults. They discovered that children who held their snacks until they had more did very well in life than the children who didn't wait. Listen, if I were allowed to rename entrepreneurship, I would call it sacrifice or delayed gratification. There is no shortcut to success. You can't have a baby next month by impregnating nine women. There is no shortcut to building a successful business. Even if you're smart, what then is my advice to you? Be a soldier. A soldier knows he's signed up for battles, pains, endurance, difficulties, injuries, even death when he joined the military. As an entrepreneur, you signed up for mistakes, failures, rejections, and pains. There are no two ways about it. You'll make hundreds of mistakes. Many of these mistakes will be little and manageable while some will be disastrous and will draw you back. You will fail and cry. You will be rejected and even dejected. You will be attacked by scorpions, tigers, and snakes. They will make your journey slow and difficult. That's what you signed up for. Knowing this is how you win. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.