{"id":5871,"date":"2025-11-18T09:45:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/?page_id=5871"},"modified":"2026-02-19T03:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T11:36:17","slug":"blog-the-four-minute-mile","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/blog-the-four-minute-mile\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog the four minute mile"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Busniess<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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THE FOUR MINUTE MILE<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Roger Bannister\u2019s four-minute mile proved that limits are often mental, inspiring others\u2014just like entrepreneurs worldwide whose success stories show how innovation can change lives and spark global collaboration. Sharing such stories motivates people everywhere, and the narrative ends by showing how even small practical fixes, like adjusting iPhone settings, can solve everyday problems and improve life.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Naeem Zafar<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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THE FOUR MINUTE MILE<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The four-minute mile showed the world that limits are often mental\u2014once broken, progress accelerates. Entrepreneurship follows the same pattern, as success stories like Maktoob\u2019s $160M acquisition inspired founders across regions.belief changes what people dare to build.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It was called the greatest sporting achievement of the 20th century by many.\u00a0 No one believed that a human can run a mile in under four minutes.\u00a0 The belief was considered an ultimate barrier for generations.\u00a0 This disbelief was until one fateful day in 1955 when the British medical student Roger Bannister broke the barrier by a hair.\u00a0 He ran a mile in just under 4 minutes.\u00a0 Unbelievable feat!\u00a0 Never in the history of mankind had such had an accomplishment ever taken place.\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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But within one year the record was broken again.\u00a0 By seventeen other people!\u2028What does this tell us?\u00a0 The clarity is profound for me as an entrepreneur.\u00a0 The barriers are often mental.\u00a0 We convince ourselves that it cannot be done.\u00a0 It is not until we see others do it that we believe it\u00a0 might\u00a0 be possible after all.\u00a0 Such was the turning point for the entrepreneurs in the Middle East and many Muslim majority countries when Maktoob, an Arabic language web portal and email service, was acquired by Yahoo for $160M last year.\n\u201cTell the stories\u201d \u00a0 \u2013 telling simple stories about how somebody did it makes a huge difference in somebody\u2019s life \u2013 some place far far away.\u00a0\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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This was my main message as I attended and spoke at the TechWadi event at the presidential summit on entrepreneurship in Washington DC this week.\u00a0 This was a follow up from President Obama\u2019s historic speech in Cairo on June 2009 when he promised a new beginning on how US communicates with the muslin majority countries in the world.\u00a0 Obama asserted that a new chapter in US foreign policy that is based on mutual respect and dialog will usher a new era.\u00a0 Well this was the follow up and it was a great week. We had the opportunity to hear so many stories from entrepreneurs from 55 countries on how they innovated and created compelling companies.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I was moved by the story of Puni, an Indonesian entrepreneur who invented, sold and installed 60 micro power plans that can generate water if there is a water fall of 3 meters or more.\u00a0 She told the story of how it brought electricity to remote villages and how that changed lives.\u00a0 I was also moved by\u00a0 the story of a Turkish entrepreneur who started a service to enable remote order taking and delivery of food from restaurants by signing up 4000 restaurants.\u00a0 He is doing 22,000 transactions per day and is very profitable. Several initiatives were created and the US State department is encouraging collaboration and providing the infrastructure now that should make America\u2019s greatest strength and innovation (Entrepreneurship) its strategic piece of diplomacy.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Read Latest Blogs<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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The Power Struggle\u00a0<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Above all, celebrate failure. Silicon Valley has entrepreneurs who got lucky on their first try. But more succeeded on their second or third attempt.\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead Blog<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Busniess THE FOUR MINUTE MILE Roger Bannister\u2019s four-minute mile proved that limits are often mental, inspiring others\u2014just like entrepreneurs worldwide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5871","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":88,"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7390,"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5871\/revisions\/7390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naeemzafar.com\/staging\/3170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}