"The opening line in a speech is important. As a business man, I hear pitches almost every day. Everyone wants to sound inspirational from the beginning. To tell you the truth, not everyone manages it, but sometimes I am surprised and even inspired…
I recently met a very surprising Tanzanian woman while at a Shelter charity shop. She worked the till and we got talking about food, one of my secret indulgences. After a brief discussion about our favourite dishes from various cultures, she informed me that she posted Swahili recipes on her Instagram feed [no pun intended] and they were authentic, what she called tasty ‘local food’.
Upon my next visit to Shelter, we got talking again and she explained the reason for so many recipes… she plans to open her dream restaurant! As dreams go this is as good as any, but she informed me it wasn’t just a dream, and from her bag produced CGi images of the building along with photos of the foundations already in place. I was gobsmacked to say the least!
Call me hypocritical, but I never would have guessed that this lovely but unassuming woman working behind the till in a charity shop was day by day, brick by brick, turning her love of culinary delights from her homeland into a place of food and warmth to be shared by all.
I was really impressed by the sheer amount of detail that she had put into her vision. She understood the steps it would take, and the rate at which she could achieve them. Her project was fully costed, 700 chickens bought already, all funded through her full time charity shop work. She was literally building the bricks and mortar of a business that was not only her financial future, but her dream as well. She even has her social media primed for launching her business one day, with more than 110k Swahili followers on Instagram! She's already achieved influencer level of followers! www.instagram.com/mapishi_yetu
It was truly an inspirational moment for me. I was inspired by her aspirations. Or was it the nostalgia of a humble beginning? Did she remind me of something I have forgotten? Or did she teach me something new? Whatever it was, she was inspirational!
Achieving your dreams...
Few of us get to work on our real dreams. My new friend is a reminder to us all that our dreams are achievable with hard work, no matter what walk of life we come from. Sometimes they might take years to achieve but with a steady constant effort, no matter how small, anything is possible!
Inspiration, in my opinion, is one of the most important drives in human society regardless of class, culture or creed.”
By Mark Emlick