To become a successful entrepreneur is not a day’s job. Successful business men all have a driving force and this motivation is what keeps them going in the face seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Many of you young entrepreneurs might not have met Africa’s richest man Alhaji Aliko Dangote, but if you can connect with some of his quotes you can grasp the scope of how he thinks, his motivation. These five quotes are words by the man himself and I hope you will find inspiration from them. To all Africa’s young entrepreneurs, regardless of the type of enterprise you are trying to build, applying these words gleaned from experience to your daily activities and your business would be immensely beneficial.

“I enjoy myself a lot but I derive more joy in working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secrets is hard work. It’s hard to see a youth that will go to bed by 2am and wake up by 5am. I don’t rest until I achieve something.” 

Africa’s richest man sleeps 3hours a day!!! Are you oversleeping? Do you love your business?

“I built a conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008 but it didn’t happen overnight. It took me thirty years to get to where I am today. Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work. To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big. In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.” 

The tenacity of purpose is supreme. The harder you work the luckier you get.

“After my death, I want to be remembered as Africa’s greatest industrialist.”

Here is a question to every entrepreneur: “What do you want to be remembered for?” Is your enterprise driven by a vision of stomach infrastructure and sustainability or a larger-than-life purpose?

“If you don’t have ambition, you shouldn’t be alive”.

Strong words akin to Jack Ma’s quote: “If you’re still poor at 35, you deserve it!”

“Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems, before retiring home.”

First, Dangote boosted local cement production, plummeted cement importation and reduced cement congestion at Nigerian ports. Now, he just slashed cement cost by 50 percent! Are you seeking to just enrich yourself without thinking of how to solve the market’s problems? If your answer is in the affirmative, you need to learn from Africa’s biggest industrialist. He knows better!

This article first featured on Enterprise54.com