In collaboration with TEDx Accra, The British Council hosted the ever-inspiring ‘The Success of Failure Summit’ at Impact Hub, Osu-Ghana. Gathering achieved and budding entrepreneurs, the two-hour event dared the wits of all, inspiring each mind to see failure only as a component of the success journey.
Briefing participants, Liliana Biglou, Country Director of The British Council (Ghana), highlighted the history of The British Council in Ghana, its main roles and how passionate it is about equipping young people with skills to impact society and the world at large.
“Einstein said, “Failure is success in progress”,” she summed up the purpose of the summit.
RUNNING WITH A PASSED ON BATON- THE TEKURA STORY
Audrey Forson calls herself a “carpenter”.
“I thought I had a plan. The plan was to get stock. Attend more exhibitions. Sell them off. Buy more stock. I thought it was that easy,” she revealed. “Life is not easy,” she admitted.
She set up a gallery but the products were not well patronized. She lost all her savings with no capital to run the business. “I went back to the drawing board,” she narrated. She researched, gathered some money and picked herself up.
“If there’s no substance, no one would invest.”
William Senyo, co-founder of Impact Hub, joined the corporate world as a sales and marketing personnel. With five (5) months’ salary as savings, he quit his job and ventured into social entrepreneurship.
“You have to balance opportunity with preparation,” he advised. “I had opportunity to meet VPs [vice presidents] of global businesses but missed the opportunity because I had no substance,” he bemoaned. He had learnt his lessons.
Similar stories were shared that evening from other seasoned entrepreneurs who had gone through similar experiences of wrong decisions which led them to huge failures. However, amidst these challenges, they encouraged themselves; went back to the drawing board and made the most of their setbacks.
It was an impactful evening and in the end one message remained prominent in all the presentations, ‘Failures will always come; challenges will always be there, but one can find a way to use them to build capacity and experience for a better business’.