To be successful in life you must have a purpose and the drive to take action on your own terms.

That was some of the advice Wayne Furbert shared with attendees at the first Bermuda Entrepreneurship Summit.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office drew from his entrepreneurial background, which included creating and operating a city centre café, and starting a coffee business.

Trust yourself and recognise that you were born with a purpose — and do everything to be successful, he said, warning also about having an idea and not following up on it.

“We’ve heard that the richest place on earth is the cemetery,” he said. “The graveyard is rich with dreams, inventions, books, masterpieces and businesses that could have changed the course of the world, but instead went to the grave of the person who wanted to do it, but didn’t take the steps to start.

“Purpose and destiny are designed for those who are alive with vision and determination; alive with the fire that will keep you up all night, working to satisfy your customer.”

Mr Furbert has been an MP for 26 years. He was the owner and operator of the Paradiso Café, on Reid Street, from 1996 to 2011.

“Fostering entrepreneurship in Bermuda is of the utmost importance to the Government,” he said.

“Throughout my life, I have engaged in several entrepreneurial endeavours. I’m constantly driven to look at new ideas, to spot where there is a gap in the market or a need in our community.”

Giving an example, he said: “I used to have a coffee business, on Reid Street. I knew people wanted to drink coffee. So I created this niche and then I created a coffee company to sell coffee at the café, Paradiso.

“Then I created a company to sell coffee to businesses, and both became very successful, and we still have the coffee business today.”

The one-day summit was staged at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, and was cofounded by Americans Jared Kleinert and Matt Thomas. It attracted about 100 delegates from the island and overseas.

Mr Furbert gave the opening speech, and said it was vital connections are made for Bermuda’s entrepreneurs at such events, giving them the chance to engage with people doing similar things, and to create partnerships and gain inspiration from others.

He said: “To be truly successful in life you have to find your purpose. Purpose in life gives you a sense of security, a sense of direction, a sense of stability. Purpose gives you focus, even during the rough times.”

He urged the audience to put their dream to the test, to understand their purpose, get comfortable with it and live it.

Mr Furbert said purpose gives everything meaning, and quoting Sir Winston Churchill, said: “It is not enough to have lived, we should be determined to live for something.”

If your customers believe you are interested in helping them but only to make a dollar, you are not going to make it, Mr Furbert said.

“If your business goes beyond just making money, you will actually make more money. If you actually do what it takes to make it work.”

He added: “You can build a business to make a lot of money, or you could build something to enrich your life, and that is your purpose.”

Mr Furbert said there are two ways to live your purpose: one is to trust yourself and ignore what others think. “Follow your own intuition, operate on your own terms. No one can tell you how to be you,” he said.

“Secondly, recognise that you were born with purpose and have something — do everything to be successful.”

He said you should “do what you can today, what others won’t do, so you can do tomorrow what others can’t do.”

He added: “You can succeed even if no one believes in you, but you can never succeed if you do not believe in yourself.”

The summit’s list of sponsors and partners included Bermuda Business Development Agency, the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, Ptix.bm and the BEDC, KPMG, AAC, and Meeting of the Minds.