My Story -- A Journey to Discovering Purpose -- Part II
December 18, 2014
This post is not just about a business idea, it's about "Inspiring a Revolution of Change".... ~BK
In Part I, I told my personal journey of self discovery, which can be read
here. On my mission to find purpose, here's a quick recap from the last article of the major lessons I learned along the way:
- BE HAPPY
- PROVIDE VALUE
- BE OF SERVICE
- HAVE FUN
- GIVE, GIVE, GIVE & then GIVE some MORE
- WE ARE ALL PART OF ONE HUMAN FAMILY
- NEVER WORK A JOB JUST FOR THE PAYCHECK
- NO MATTER WHAT, FOLLOW YOUR HEART
- MONEY IS JUST A TOOL, TREAT IT AS SUCH
Part II is all about finding passion through inspiration and
taking action. In this blog post I continue to share all of the most profound realizations I have had along my journey to finding purpose. These concepts and formulas can be used and adopted by ANYONE aspiring to make their dream a reality. This is my Story...
Moral of the Story #10: ACTION IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS
"when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking & GO."
If you have an hour to spare, I go into a lot of detail in my interview with Hope Girl on the current project I'm working on now, how it came to be, what the objective is and how it all plays into my personal vision for the future. A few of the videos I share below are also very beautifully dubbed into this interview. For the sake of redundancy I label which ones those are:
As mentioned in the video with Hope, determining our "why" for this business concept was and continues to be our focus to this day. Answering this question has not only encouraged the biggest breakthrough, for this project specifically. It has also helped me to understand personally, what was missing from past business start-ups I was involved in, and quite possibly what made some of them fall short of reaching the level of success we had intended.
Based on my personal experience in business, I would imagine, when posed with the question, of 'why' most entrepreneurs are in business, these would likely be the most common responses:
"To make money."
"To provide for my family."
"Because I love it."
"Because I enjoy the freedom of working for myself."
"Because I make a great income that allows me to do the things in life I enjoy"
"To make people's lives easier/better by..."
Through everything I learned throughout part I of this story, the above reasons were no longer good enough standing on their own. There had to be a greater purpose than just money, security, stability or even attaining total happiness. The realization here is that securing happiness for just myself is no longer good enough. Although, it is the very crucial first step to sharing happiness with others.
Being an entrepreneur is about improving people's lives by offering a product that solves a problem, simplifies a process, or by offering a service that gives people more quality time to enjoy family, etc. And of course, loving what you do, having freedom and providing for family are all part of what make up the thrill of becoming an entrepreneur.
BUT, if business was designed to make people's lives better/easier or solve a problem, commerce as a whole seems to have missed the mark in a very major way. See for yourself:
- Almost half the world -- over three billion people -- live on less than $2.50/day
- At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10/day
- 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on Earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world"
- Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names
- Less than 1% of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen
- Every year there are 350 - 500 million cases of malaria (a curable disease), with 1 million fatalities
- Water problems affect half of humanity: some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water & 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation
- 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometer, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 liters of water/day. In the UK, the avg person uses more than 50 liters/day flushing toilets. The highest avg water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters/day
- 1.6 billion people -- a quarter of humanity -- live without electricity
- For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment
- In 1820 the distance between the richest and poorest countries was 3 to 1,in 1992 it was 72 to 1
The stats above barely scratch the surface of the issues facing humanity today. More found
here at this link.
Are your eyes opened yet? What do you see in this picture?
$11 billion on ice cream in Europe!? Can you imagine how much opportunity around the world could be created with $11 billion, let alone $780 billion on military spending. I had to wipe my eyes and do a double take when I saw that one.
Here's our main tenet at 9 Gifts of Gaia: All human beings are born with unlimited potential, unlimited capacity and unlimited creativity. No exceptions.
Every year we see multiple global summits that give the illusion that key issues are being addressed and steps have been put in place to solve them. This illusion of change has taken the power out of our hands, and into those who don’t seem to care or do anything about it.
Nobody is going to change the world for us, and if we continue living our lives and being so into our own lives while ignoring what is happening to planet Earth, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the outcome won’t be sunshine and roses.
If we've learned one thing it's that the solutions to the world's problems will NOT come from any so-called government or political leaders. They will come from people. People just like YOU. People just like me and millions of other creative minds from all around the world. This is why I believe deep down everyone is an entrepreneur. Everyone is a creator.
Moral of the Story #11: WHEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO SOLVE A PROBLEM, PEOPLE ARE SO INCREDIBLY CREATIVE
I have seen it for myself so many times in my life. As a businessman and as a person in general. Look around you, there's creative people and projects just about everywhere you look. Just imagine what happens when our creative juices are focused on a collective intent for a peaceful, sustainable, poverty free world...
"Why hide your talent in the closet of complacency, when you have greatness within you."
Moral of the Story #12: KNOW YOUR "WHY"
"What's your why? When you know why you do what you do even the toughest days become easier."
The why doesn't start and finish just with business. It can apply to literally everything we do in life. "What's my why?" is just about the best filter we can use to determine the value of whether or not to DO one thing or the other, no matter what IT is. And like the quote above says, when our why is big enough, we will always find our how.
Many of the videos and info that follow are all a result of researching "daring to be different in business." I had no interest in going back into business the old way it was done. My search for purpose was quite literally a combination of going within to see what resonates, as well as digging on the internet :)
Moral of the Story #13: SOMETIMES INSPIRATION NEEDS TO BE SEARCHED FOR
"Don't waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin and inspiration will find you."
Here are a few videos, also dubbed into the interview with Hope, that provided much needed guidance and inspiration on my own personal Journey to Why. Hard not to tear up watching this one in particular.
I gotta hand it to Sevenly for what they have accomplished. Dale Partridge and his undeniable success as CEO of Sevenly has been a HUGE inspiration for me and my partners. To raise over $4,000,000 in $7 increments, while helping over 1.3 million people in the process is not only inspiring, it's a miracle.
What does this prove? One person with a great idea can make a HUGE impact...
You better believe Dale & Sevenly know exactly what their Why is.
"There's nothing more powerful than a great idea, whose time has come"
Here is the email I sent to Dale to thank him for the inspiration:
Dale,
I'll keep this brief because I know you are a very busy guy. I too am an entrepreneur and interestingly enough, used to own and operate a business in Costa Mesa. Now in the process of launching a new business, I found Sevenly in doing research on "daring to be different in business." I felt strongly the entire way we do business was in need of a major over haul. When I found Sevenly and watched your "how it works" video I was blown away. Tears of inspiration flowed down my face...not afraid to admit it :)
What you have created is nothing short of amazing. I know part of your mission was to inspire other businesses to be less profit and more people focused. Consider me a success story. 9 Gifts of Gaia will launch soon, donating $9 from every purchase toward helping to alleviate poverty, followed by what will be a series of other causes and paradigm shifting projects. So, I just wanted to say THANK YOU. You are a bright shining beacon of light this world needs right now. Keep up the good work my friend. Blessings & Namaste.
His response:
Wow thank you man, that means a lot. :)
Keep fighting the good fight,
Dale
Moral of the Story #14: IF SOMEONE ELSE HAS AN IDEA THAT YOU CONNECT WITH & ITS WORKING: MIRROR IT
Actual advice shared with me by one of my mentors.
There is absolutely no shame in copying someone's idea and adding a few twists to make it your own. These are the basic components and building blocks of innovation. Most commonly, new innovations are a product of taking an existing idea and improving upon it to make it better, more efficient, etc.
Sevenly is an incredible business concept. Leveraging business to support a cause is not a new phenomenon. All they have done, is taken a for-profit business model and placed the cause, as opposed to the product up front and center. That was
their twist, and ultimately the main ingredient that resulted in such incredible success.
"You are confined only by the walls you build yourself."
When diving deeper, one of the only major issues I could find with the Sevenly business model was their charity focused approach. Instantly I had major recall of all the horror stories I've discovered about so many of the major charities.
Some of these stats are mentioned in the video with Hope, so no need to repeat again here. Although, if interested in exploring the deep levels of deception
here is a great article.
Below is an excerpt from another article I found which helps to illustrate the fundamental issue between targeting symptoms as opposed to focusing on the actual cause:
(this is a really great article)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml
Charities often target symptoms, not causes
The accusation is that charity helps the recipient with their problem, but it doesn't do much to deal with the causes of that problem.
Particular aspects of this are dealt with in the next two topics.
It certainly is true that some charities do stopgap or 'band-aid' work, either exclusively or some of the time.
But in fact, a lot of charity work is devoted to dealing with the fundamental causes of problems: for example trying to reduce global poverty, or doing research into diseases like cancer.
These two examples highlight very different problems.
Combating cancer is a relatively simple scientific problem, while global poverty requires more than a scientific operation, or finding a better way to manage world resources.
Combating poverty involves slow processes of political, cultural and social change, with many stakeholders, significant opposition and serious issues of self-determination and coercion to be navigated.
And long-term campaigns pose another ethical problem: should we spend to make a better world in 10 years' time if that means that people who we could have fed starve to death tomorrow?
The famous story of the boy and the starfish shows why using charity to fix individual problems can be very valuable.
If I can just help one person, all of a sudden my life is filled with purpose...
"It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing that matters."
If so many non-profits and charitable organizations lack transparency, and only target symptoms, not causes, then how can we circumvent the charity and get directly to the individual?
The answer? (at least one of many. Vid also in presentation)
Truth be told, this whole concept of microfinance didn't sit right when I first discovered it. As an ex-finance guy, I walked away from the business with a very sour taste in my mouth. I felt that all loans were a scam and enslaved honest and hard working people to fictitious, userous debt. I didn't lie to my clients about the types of loans they were receiving, like many in the business did, but at the end of the day it was companies just like mine that played a major role in the housing collapse of 2008. As a result, I put the word "loan" in the same category of all the other 4 letter words that shouldn't be spoken.
Challenging to grasp, especially knowing what I know now, after years of research into how debt, money and credit really work. So, I needed to dive into it a bit to fully understand the mechanics.
The figures and videos shared below helped me to see the light...very quickly.
These statistics are mind blowing. Why more people don't know about this? A basic lack of awareness. Well, it's time for that to change...
Synchronistically, I found this Ted Talk with Dr. Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Prize in 2006 for creating microcredit. Microcredit loans to date have pulled close to 100 million people out of poverty
by focusing on the cause, not the symptom. These next two videos tell the story of how it all began. Worth watching if you have the time. Or bookmark and come back later.
After watching this video, I purchased
Dr. Yunus' book, Banker to the Poor, on Kindle and read through it in just a few days.
Jessica Jackley, co-founded Kiva after watching Dr. Yunus' video above. More proof one person with an inspired idea can change the world.
"The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a place where he/she no longer needs our gift."
These videos led me to some very profound realizations. For the first time in my life, I started to really understand that quote, "you're either part of the problem, OR part of the solution." The fire was lit. My commitment to becoming a part of the solution has never been filled with such extreme levels of passion and determination. Every fiber of my being is telling me, it's time to take a stand.
Moral of the Story #15: GENEROSITY IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES IN ALL OF CREATION
"Generosity isn't just about what you do. It’s about who you are. Before it’s a matter of giving or of doing, it’s a matter of being."
Here are a few quotes from Dr. Yunus' book that opened my eyes to not only the reality of poverty, but also the gross misunderstanding around it, as well as our absolute ability to render it a part of our past:
“Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.”
“When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.”
“If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty.”
“People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.”
“Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. For building stable peace we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives.”
“I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social systems that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.”
Here's the clincher...
“The needs of people around the world are real and urgent, and how we respond to them will help to determine the future of the human race."
Why such a strong focus on poverty? Because I believe when one person suffers, we all suffer and poverty results in more suffering than all the various other noble causes combined. I feel very strongly that until we can conquer this issue on a social scale we will be limited in our collective ability to evolve as a species. As I said before, people have within them infinite wells of potential and creativity. However, poverty stunts creativity in a very major way. Pull people out of poverty and what happens is creativity multiplies exponentially.
So, it begs the question, if we carry within us the power to end world poverty, then HOW are we going to do it? This picture illustrates my prediction:
