Believe In Yourself...Even When The Experts Don't

Maria Elena Ibanez fell in love with computers as a teenager in Colombia when her father enrolled her in a course on programming.   She went to the United States to study computer science at college and after graduation had an idea to set-up distribution of personal computers throughout Latin America.

The computer companies rejected her offer to distribute their products in her home country. They felt as though the region was too poor to afford computers.
Maria Elena believed otherwise and as a 23 year old woman with no sales experience ventured forward. She went to banks and they too turned her away. She then went directly to the distributors and was able to get Altos Computers to give her an exclusive distribution agreement for nine months.

With no marketing or sales plan, she traveled throughout Latin America and used the Yellow Pages to call on as many computer companies as she could locate. Her knowledge of computers and belief in herself gave her the momentum she needed to succeed. She had projected sales of $10,000 a year and returned to the United States, only three weeks later, with $100,000 worth of orders--prepaid--with cashier's checks in hand.

Eventually, Maria Elena's sales would be millions--many millions. In the next five years, her sales grew to an astounding $15 million. In 1987, Inc. magazine ranked her company, International Micro Systems, number 55 on its list of the 500 fastest-growing businesses. In 1988, Maria Elena sold the company and stayed on for another three years until sales reached $70 million.

Using the same approach she used to succeed in Latin America, Maria Elena started International High Tech Marketing and started selling computers to Africa. Despite the experts telling her it couldn't be done, Maria Elena flew to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and within two weeks had $150,000 in orders. In her second year sales totaled $2.4 million, a figure that doubled the following year, and again the next.

With sales averaging $13 million each year through the early 1990s, International High Tech Marketing made Inc.'s list of the 500 fastest-growing businesses. Maria Elena is the only person in the magazine's history to make the prestigious list with two separate companies built from zero capital.

Questions To Ask Yourself

• Maria Elena believed in herself enough to pursue her dream and find a way to make it work despite being told she could not by the experts. What "experts" have told you that your dream is not realistic?
• How did you react once the experts told you that your dream was impossible? 
• Do you feel inferior at this very moment? If so why? 
• Do you allow experts to dictate your thinking? If so, how can you challenge them? 
• How often do you believe in yourself throughout each day?