In business, just as in any other area of your life, the long way hurts, the long way is boring but the long way leaves you rich in experience, knowledge and very satisfied.

Take the analogy, you want to travel from Nairobi to Mombasa. You have several options, take a plane and arrive within the hour or take a train or bus and arrive after several hours.

Business is just like the trip to Mombasa.

If you take the plane, you will arrive at your destination within a short period. You have met your target, but have missed out on a more personalised experience, you have a shallow depth of knowledge about the physical features, culture and more that you could have encountered had you gone by road or rail.

If you take the train or go by road, you amass a wealth of deep knowledge about different things that you encounter along the journey. This is the equivalent of gathering deep knowledge in different aspects of business.

More often than not, people want to know, what’s the secret, what’s the shortcut? You ought to start asking, what’s the long way? Sometimes it is worth taking the long way so that you form a deep understanding of the subject.

So next time you want to get into a business, think of all the benefits you’ll amass by going the long way. Take time to hone your skills. Enroll in business studies. You’ll find that you are worth much more because of the little struggles you faced along the long road to success as opposed to the short quick wins you had.

I leave you with an excerpt from Kevin Amulega’s Facebook post:

“What I find funny is people wanting to profit from any business venture without investing in any education and dedicating time and effort to learn the skills of any trade.

It is like someone with a degree in economics and no piloting skills or experience, going to an airline and requesting them to give them one of their Boieng 747’s to fly yet they do not have any professional training to fly a plane. Knowing nothing about necessary active flying hours to prove they can fly the plane. Yet new traders expect to learn some pre-packaged strategies for 2 or 3 months or peruse through trade forums and expect to make money.

It doesn’t happen and were it that easy, every economist, financial analyst and trader would be overnight millionaires. It takes hard work, patience, an open mind, and willingness to learn to attain competence in any skill or field.”