THINK TALK: Start Small, Dream Big

MATALAM, North Cotabato (MindaNews / 19 July)—Anybody has the right to dream BIG. But not so many people are blessed with how to start right.

“How do we start” is not really the big question. The more relevant concern is: we should know what compels us to dream big, and what would tell us to start. Most of the answers to these questions are circumstantial. You don’t even have to think about it. Just think about yourself now and where do you want to go, or better still, how do you see yourself in the next few years amidst the social milieu that engulfs you around.

Some of us are privy, or even witness, to how some entertainers started by joining small musical competitions in the barangay, and from there, become what they are now. How some owners of big businesses started by peddling few grocery items on wheels, and how an ordinary government employee quit his job to become the owner of a big agribusiness empire, should ignite our consciousness that every big things started from small things.

We are replete with “rags-to-riches” stories that abound. How did they start or do it all is important but it is more important to know “what do they have in common.” They started small but dream big. But what were the compelling reasons for such thoughts and actions? THEY ALL WANTED TO GET OUT OF THE DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES THEY WERE IN BEFORE.

At this part of the year we have seen hundreds of thousands of college graduates march to receive their diplomas. Surely, they will all be looking for jobs, and with only meager jobs available, we shall be seeing an appreciable numbers added to the long list of the unemployed.

Today, we are already seeing some fresh graduates approaching a few employers and demanding for high-paying jobs which imply that they may be looking at landing on the middle management level of the organizational rank. And what more? We have yet to hear fresh graduates starting on their own business ventures or pool their talents to offer professional services. All of these are indicators of how not to start or examples of starting with the wrong foot forward.

Graduates are trained to specialize on certain professional skills such as lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, agriculturists, economists, etc. They are in a position to pool their talents together and offer professional services to clients. Who would imagine the lawyers who formed the ACCRA Law Office shall become a premier law firm in the country, or the SGV Accounting and Auditing Firm shall rise to such prominence and success? Or a group of physicians joining together to put up their medical hospitals which were almost always funded by bank loans? Or, engineers pooling their talents to put up engineering consultancy? These are some of the opportunities available to skilled professionals to leverage business opportunities around.

A wealthy Chinese businessman once said: “If you give money and banana to a monkey, he will choose the banana because it does not know that money can buy a lot of bananas.” Unfortunately, some of us think like monkeys. They chose the banana because it gives them outright benefit. They do not have the patience and acumen to make a choice that will multiply the opportunities to earn more.

Another wealthy businessman said: “If you work for salary, you will be able to eat three times a day. But if you put up your own business it can give you a fortune someday.”

Start small, think big. And do not forget: make the right choice at the right time because, more often, opportunities knock only once.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Maugan P. Mosaid holds a doctorate degree in rural development. He is a planning consultant and teaches Statistics and Methods of Research in the graduate school. He can be contacted at mauganmosaid6@gmail.com.)

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