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5 Meditations from dr roze phillips

Dr Roze is a futurist, a consultant, and an advocate for the abundance of Africa. LevelUp was lucky to have her conduct a masterclass for our community.

Her central thesis for our session: Africa has a bright, bright future, and all of us are part of that. There is a caveat, of course: success in our world doesn’t flow without us doing significant work, starting with really getting to know ourselves, and ultimately achieving excellent self-mastery.

Here are five meditations that grew out of her masterclass:

  1. There is only “do” or “do not” – there is no “try”. That’s Yoda speaking, the jedi master in Star Wars. The principle here is about avoiding the excuses of being tentative: it’s about deeply committing to your intent, and making happen what needs to happen. When one’s intent is to “try”, it’s easy to give up when things are hard. But when you approach something with conviction, you can – well, as Luke Skywalker demonstrated, lift a fighter plane out of a swamp. Or navigate through any governance maze to launch your NPO. Or crack the code to reaching your elusive target market.
  2. The current ‘scramble for Africa’ is about our people. Africa has the largest number of entrepreneurs in the world; it has the fastest growing rate of entrepreneurship in the world; and 58% of African entrepreneurs are women. And then there’s the age demographic: in the “old world” people are, well, getting old. In many countries in the developed world, they’re starting to worry about who’s going to pay for and look after their disproportionately ageing populations. The youth bulge in Africa is anomalous, and represents massive potential in terms both of future markets, and future skills. That is, if we can get away from the narrative of Africa being a basket case, economically speaking. Which is exactly what our entrepreneurs and innovators are spending their days and their energy on doing. The importance of your work extends far beyond your own enterprise.
  3. Many of the truths that we cling to, depend on our own point of view. Wait, another Star Wars quote? We’re starting to get a feeling for Dr Roze. This one, from Obi-Wan, is a warning that there can be many versions of the truth, and that being unquestioningly committed to what we think we know for sure, can lead us in wrong directions. We’re living in an age of disinformation, in which “fake news” and cooked-up facts bear scant connection to reality; it is good practice to maintain a healthy ability to question what we think we know, to listen to contrary voices, to test our assumptions, and to be open to explore alternative interpretations.
  4. We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are. This one, originally from writer Anais Nin, had a spotlight cast on it by Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Here we’re not talking only about commonly held beliefs and convenient truths: we’re talking about the often subconscious world-views we hold. Optimistic people (that would mostly describe you, entrepreneur friends) believe the world is fundamentally a place of hope and opportunity, and will find the silver lining to the clouds that may block their sun; pessimistic types live in a world in which the road is always trending uphill, and may be populated by robbers. Can you change your world view? Perhaps not. But you can surround yourself with colleagues and people who provide an alternative viewpoint, who believe we have the agency to make things work, or who have the clear sight to manage risks. Let’s choose to engage with people who provide balance to the way we ourselves are.
  5. We are both the descendants of those who came before us, and the ancestors of those who come after us. Choose your actions and your inactions – we have agency, and we can help to define what the future will look like for those who come after us. As Benjamin Franklin said: “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Leaving a legacy means doing something that is worth the storytelling. That is what all entrepreneurs and innovators do – whether you succeed the first time, or the tenth time, or whether your story lies in how you tried something that didn’t work. However it plays out, there are stories worth telling. Find that story in what you do, and tell it. Don’t leave those who come after you to make the same mistakes; rather put them in a position to build on what you’ve learned.