An Unconventional Guide to Success for the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs with Freddie Achom

Freddie Achom is a Nigerian born British business man, entrepreneur, and investor who decided to follow an unconventional route by dropping out of medical school and starting his own business. Freddie founded what would be his first million dollar company, the Rosemont Group, in his early 20’s and is currently serving as Chairman of the company.

Freddie is now focused on giving back to the next generation of entrepreneurs helping young inventors, businessmen, and CEO’s acquire the capital and develop the relationships necessary for personal and professional success.

Favorite Success Quote

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage continue that counts.” ~Winston Churchill

Key Points

1. You Cannot Live Your Life for Others

Each of us have a plethora of voices vying for our attention. Our parents, friends, coworkers, and even society all tell us how we should live our lives. Although none of these voices is necessarily bad, almost none of them are looking out for our best interest.

They all want something different for our lives than we do, they want us to have security, they want us to have safety, they want us to stay on the same playing field they’re on, in short they do not want us to live the lives we were designed to live. As men, we want lives of danger, lives of risk, and above all, lives of purpose, but we cannot accomplish our purpose if we are following a plan laid out for us by someone else. We must march to our own drum and create our ideal lives, not the live’s of others.

2. Relationships Are Key to Business

Many young and aspiring entrepreneurs forget the famous saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” We focus on developing our skill sets, on absorbing as much knowledge as possible, we read as many books and listen to as many podcasts as is humanly possible in a single day. But we forget that first and foremost, all business is relationships.

No matter what you are building or creating, you cannot do it without creating and sustaining relationships with your customers, employees and mentors. As you begin building your knowledge and skills, remember to focus on growing your network as much as yourself.

3. Do Not Try and Scale too Quickly

Many otherwise promising businesses have failed because of  hasty growth. Do not try and force your business into its next chapter prematurely. Build your companies core values, build your brand and client base, and allow the growth to happen naturally over time.

4. Focus on the Core Values of Your Company

Instead of getting caught up in the valuation of your company or your projected growth over the next quarter, focus on the core values of your company. What are you and your business here on this earth to do? How well are you achieving this mission? Every couple of months, take time to analyze your business and the direction it is headed in, make sure that every action is in alignment with your ultimate vision for your company and your life.

5. Make Sure You Have a Large Market Disruption

Too many companies aim for small or mediocre impact within the marketplace. Set audacious goals, make it your mission to have such a huge effect on the marketplace that your niche will never be the same again after you enter. Think of companies life Google and Microsoft who have revolutionized entire industries, you must strive to have an effect on the same scale.

Regardless of whether you believe you can have an impact on the same level as these companies, companies that have defined a generation, remember the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, “I would rather aim for the stars and hit a stump than aim for a stump and miss.” Don’t aim for a stump in your life, dare mighty things, and at worse, when you fail, you will fail heroically.

6. Failure is Never Final

In the modern world, almost no failure is final. There is always a way to pick your self up by your bootstraps and get back on your feet. Think of people like Donald Trump who went $9 billion dollars in debt when the recession hit…and then paid it all back and became, once again, one of the wealthiest people in the world.

No matter how catastrophic you may feel your failure is, there is always a way to get back to the top if you are committed.

7. The Journey is More Important Than The Destination

As men who are not content with average lives, it is often very difficult to live in the now whenever our whole existences are so far below what we imagine. However, we cannot lose sight of the joy of the journey, we can’t stop enjoying the grind.

In reality the only end destination is death, enjoy the journey, because the journey is life, enjoy improving, enjoy failing, enjoy succeeding. Whatever you do, enjoy it, and enjoy it to the full, don’t wish for tomorrow, because tomorrow will bring its own challenges, live for today.

8. Understanding People is Key to Success in Business

One of the most crucial skills you can develop in your life is the ability to read and understand people. This will put you heads and shoulders above your competition in business, love, and life. Take time to study human psychology, understand what drives people to action, what holds people back.

Learn to understand what people want and to read how they react to situations and you will have yet another force multiplier in your quest for the good life.

9. You Must Balance All Pillars of Your Life

Life is short, you must never allow your desire for material success and fame to outweigh the important things in your life like family and friends. Learn to balance your life. Build your business, hustle like heck, but spend time with people in your life that are important to you, reignite old hobbies, call a friend you haven’t seen in years, in short, live life like you knew you would die tomorrow.

All the material gains in the world aren’t worth a damn when it’s all said and done, all that you will have to take with you into the great beyond are the people you loved and the lives you impacted.

10. Break The Rules

As Mark Twain so famously said “When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” No one on this site wants to be average, no one here wants to work an average dead end job for 50 years only to find they can’t retire and then continue that job until they die.

Everyone here wants to be extraordinary. But to be extraordinary sometimes means bending the rules, it means taking the path less traveled or doing the unconventional thing. Do not be a slave to tradition and “supposed to’s” create the life you want, whether it fits society’s mold or not.