A quick sincere thank you for wanting to read some lessons I've learned and how they relate to business life/my own life. To cut to the point of why I am writing is that I spent Summer 2017 and 2018 in Haiti, providing business skills and abilities for the greater good and accumulating continual change in transformational thought, wisdom, stories, and philosophical views from interacting with the people and landscape of Haiti. While I was not paid a penny, I was paid enormously in purpose, new thought, ideas, and personal growth and development that cannot be attributed to a $ sign. To the people I've met on the way the past 4 years, you've served me, blessed me with your presence, and blessed me with your wisdom and thought beyond anything, so — thank you for pouring into me.
Anyways, I’ve arranged this in a series of concepts or lessons/principles about business and its correlation to life along with bits of my life below it. Hopefully you find this interesting and thought provoking.
Key lessons 1 & 2: Business is all about relationships, and business is about trust.
Beware... I'm coming in here with some loaded cannons on this key lesson about trust/relationships: If business is about trust— why do business with someone when sincerely skeptical about trusting them? I believe this is something our generation is going to struggle with immensely, especially in the era of 'fakes news' and trying to sift through what is 'truth.' Now we all have different values, different beliefs, different life experiences, etc. that allow us to connect and build bridges for or sometimes barriers against trust. To my (somewhat limited) experience, I've seen it be more about finding the commonalities between people and sharing life to build trust quickly and caring about that person. I've heard somewhere people find out if they trust you within 15 seconds of first meeting you. The power of perception. Just like you're probably finding out right here and right now if you want to read the rest of my article — which I hope you do so!
There's a degree of investment when it comes to building relationships. This was something I had to really learn in Haiti, a HIGHLY relational society, where people invite you into their homes and seriously break bread and do life with one another. It was crazy adapting to that. But it taught me about investing in friendships, investing in the people around me, in the conversation, in their lives, and lead with empathy in it. Anyways, I love and am fascinated with relationships. In looking at businesses, relationships are at the core. How did the organization start? Relationships. How did it grow? Relationships. How did it fail? Relationships. How did some type of door open up for innovation or knowledge? Relationships.
How do we build trust? I believe that we must extend it. I worked for two different organizations each summer, both having to build relationships and quickly extend trust to people that I never knew. I had to be vulnerable, I had to be truly authentic to people and extend trust in hopes they would protect me and guide me. I had to quickly build circles of trust. Guess what… they were created! ... And these people still have my back.
Lesson 3: Business is innovation.
During my time in Haiti, I came across a multitude of individuals trying to start businesses in an economy where there is an egregious 70% unemployment number (a # that has personally captivated me to go to war against).
I came across people trying to make legitimate dents in the community through job creation, unique jewelry businesses, or cool disruptive concepts like getting away from cement based housing and tapping into side like sheet panels to construct a house. Now, that didn’t mean they would actually work, but they were attempting to solve a problem like the panels idea since cement is expensive in Haiti and it takes forever to build a home. Needless to say, innovation spins the business wheel. We need innovation to solve problems and we need innovation to serve people and efficiently create new trends and products that disrupt life in positive ways.
Lesson 4: Business requires high degrees of decision making, empowerment, teamwork, boldness, ability to be resilient and what I like to call 'decision liquidity.'
How would I have had an incredible experience in Haiti in Summer of 2017 if the non-profit I worked for didn’t entrust me with the creation of an ice-cream and coffee shop that would go on to hit thousands of dollars in revenue and continue to be a sustainable business long after I returned home from Haiti? None of that was capable if they didn’t entrust and empower me. They extended trust and believed in me. Now, I didn’t build up that business alone. It was with the work of a small team where we generated ideas.
Regarding decision liquidity, I like to think of decision liquidity as to how quickly we can make the decisions and turn these decisions into action. In Haiti, I had to make decisions quick and think on my feet a lot. Just like we all have to in the business world and in tough situations in life. A thought on many decisions both personal and professional is that they require boldness. We have to be BOLD in the business world, to get into new markets, to unleash new trends, or be BOLD in thought, and have to be BOLD with our friends and family.
Anyways, the only way that business was able to sustain itself… was because of empowerment. I left. Then what? No, it didn’t fail. The business kept going because Haitian workers and employees were EMPOWERED to run it even if they weren’t what typical 21st century business world says is ‘qualified.’ We left that business better off with a sustainable view in long term economic development. And, it seems this is a business that is going to continue to reap dividends for years to come.
Lesson 5: Business is about and starts out with simplicity.
Some of the greatest businesses that would work in Haiti wouldn’t work here in the US… or would they? You see, business in Haiti was more about business to survive and less about business for surplus like here in the US… When you dumb business down to a simplistic view… man oh man its crazy what you can do. Its not always doing the sexiest thing. Its actually quite humbling when you look at business simply, because sometimes… it’s simply washing dishes for money, cutting hair in a shack for $ because thats all you have, or selling clothes on the side of the street for ends meet and less about selling cloud software all the time or Netflix video services (mind you that small business represent a majority amount of business jobs in the business world). So yes, business is a bit about humility, too. Moreover, perhaps running a business requires a great deal of humility. But, now let me be clear here… big business is NOT wrong but it helps in developing a bigger picture view when you can humbly look at a VERY small business and empathize with them. Lets not forget that Amazon started out in a garage selling books as an online bookstore before hitting it big!
Lesson 6: Business is less about more, and more about less (when maximizing your current capacities).
ITs literally not about how much you have, its literally about how well you use it. With that in mind, business involves a high degree of stewardship and stewarding things well allows you to do things more efficiently/effectively while honoring what you don’t have vs. what you truly have. But, take the ‘spend within your means’ typical quote here but throw in a growth perspective because we need capital and we need debt to fund things. Back to the point here: I’ve seen many businesses kill it in Haiti dealing with less… I mean we were selling milk shakes without lids because we ran out and still achieved high rates of success…. Question here: Did having that lid on really affect what was inside of it? NO! Its funny, as people still wanted that milk shake in the blazing heat regardless if we ran out of lids or straws. Quick S/O to Elon Musk for providing thoughts on First Principles Thinking/critical thinking (First Principles Thinking has helped guide my line of thinking in many different ways such as the example mentioned above).
Lesson 7: Business is about growth — oh, and so is life.
Business is growth. Check out those sweet businesses on the stock market… ya… you know those fortune 500 top companies that EVERY person has shopped at or knows of. How do they sustain that? They grow, they innovate, many of them chase a higher vision or purpose on this earth. They till the earth, and churn whatever it is they’re doing out and they do it WELL. Moreover, many of those companies chase the value they add to clients and what it means for them.
Key Lesson 8: Business is 10X more effective with an altruistic purpose/greater purpose.
The craziest part about a leadership buy in is that the majority of people jump on the vision bandwagon with what the organization is trying to do. I saw it at the non-profit last summer where it sought to bring life transformation for every man, woman, and child in Haiti, I see it in other companies like Apple or Google who seek to provide technology all for its customers, and I am seeing it now at my University where the staff members are buying into the University's vision of being the University Of and For the Common Good. You know, I am NOT kidding when I tell you every intern (YA, all 50 of us) that interned during Summer 2017 with Mission of Hope, Haiti bought into its vision and greater call for life transformation for the people of Haiti. In doing this, we were FAR more lethal to the cause, we were more resilient, we were more passionate. You want to talk about what motivates people, its a greater sense of purpose, it's a greater sense of meaning. Yes, its actually that we want to make a meaningful impact on this earth and change things positively. Thats fierce. Seriously, this is legit and scary in the best way possible.
Final Thoughts:
SO... Watch OUT business world, because many of the Gen Z'ers already in and coming into the workforce are out for purpose, they're out for meaning, and they're coming hungry and ready to problem solve some of the world's most difficult issues hopefully with your organization.
Anyways, I hope you found some type of value in this. Thanks for reading! I'd love to connect.
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