I have molded my life around the fact
that work is the best way to move people
out of poverty and that work is at the
core of human dignity but it’s not all
that there is for me it was it was tough
as a as a child there was always kind of
an outcast we never had enough money to
shop at normal I would cobble together
different jobs I did in fact clean
toilets for our campus we call it dorm
crew but it’s like a janitorial service
run by students people who have endured
hardship in some way can build grit and
resilience from it when you’re poor you
depend on each other you depend on your
relationship with your neighbor and your
family because if you don’t have that
you have nothing the only real power we
have in the world is choosing our
response we can’t choose what happens to
us we can get stuck into situations
where we are abused where we are not
treated fairly where any number of bad
things can happen and so the only choice
we can make is how to respond and I find
that that knowledge gives me so much
freedom because if something bad is
happening to me that I can say is beyond
my control I can say well at least you
know I have the power in my response to
show the world what kind of person I am
and I can’t tell you the number of
really interesting examples of
post-traumatic growth that we’re now
cataloguing people who’ve lost
everything people who’ve had their kids
murdered in front of them people who had
just everyman manner of hardship who are
able to choose their response and rather
than shutting down and you know getting
more and more depressed which is
something that you have to get through
but the the choice to take that painful
experience and mold it into something
positive for the world is I think the
deepest kind of healing we can have as
humans and for me I think part of what
got me through those tough times
eventually as I matured was the
knowledge that I had transform that into
something good for the world
I did struggle with with pretty severe
depression in my 20s I had a year in
college when both my aunt and one of my
best friends committed suicide and that
came at the same time right yeah it was
my roommate she was my block mate we
were in the same like rooming group and
we had very similar backgrounds and very
similar relationships with our parents
and so and both my aunt and this young
woman were incredibly beautiful
incredibly bright like the least you
know you would imagine the least likely
to take their own lives and so it was
such a such a huge burden to carry that
and at the time you know therapy and
counseling wasn’t as known maybe as it
is now and there weren’t very many
resources so I didn’t seek that out and
at the same time that that was going on
I was undergoing tremendous financial
pressure my parents had gotten a divorce
and couldn’t pay for school at all so I
was I was working three jobs and always
trying to hustle to make ends meet with
a full course load and then maybe to add
to that I would go and spend time in
Africa so I did research in Rwanda
literally working on this project with
victims of the genocide who’d had you
know I’d go there and interview people
with like machete wounds on their head
from this horrific genocide talking
about having seen their children
murdered in front of them and so I
didn’t even understand the concept of
PTSD and you know how if you’re exposed
to people who’ve undergone serious
trauma you yourself can take that on so
it was just a hot mess actually after
these few years and then and then I
graduated and I moved to New York City I
took a management consulting job just to
be able to pay the bills and hopefully
learn about business I knew I wanted to
create a business that would help people
and ideally a business that would hire
poor people and move them out of poverty
but it was tough times I was alone often
as a consultant getting up at 4:00 in
the morning on a Monday to fly to some
random city and spent most of my time
alone in hotel rooms so it kind of all
added up and at one point just exploded
and I went through some very dark times
anyone who’s been through depression
knows what I mean
and I guess what got me out of it was I
feel very blessed to have found a career
that nourishes me spiritually I feel
like when your core spirits
all values or your morality are aligned
with what you spend the majority of your
time doing it creates this this I don’t
know this unity in your soul and I feel
like having that has been such a
cornerstone of my life it’s what I often
go back to when I’m really struggling or
when I’m feeling depressed I will
literally like go back and read I have a
file in my Gmail of inspirational
stories from our workers stories that
people will send me about their own
transformation or stories that managers
of our centers will send me and I
whenever I’m feeling depressed I’ll go
back and read those just to ground me I
also think that connecting with other
people who are suffering there’s all
this research that empathizing with
someone else who maybe has it even worse
than you can relieve your own burden and
so as much as possible when I was in
those states I would try to immerse
myself in issues around global poverty
or understand what life was like for
someone who had it even worse you know
who might be struggling with depression
but living on $2 a day and also
struggling with HIV or some other
problem and that would help bring me out
of it let’s remind ourselves that some
of the most famous and prominent social
leaders were not flawless MLK was a
known you know cheater he cheated on his
wife regularly unfortunately Gandhi it’s
well known in India was really really
cool to his wife there’s even a play
that I watched about it which was kind
of shocking and I guess the the moral of
the story is that no one is a saint you
know even when they’re canonized they do
there’s a there’s a whole book that
criticizes Mother Teresa’s work and I’m
not saying this to take down our heroes
I think that what all three of those
folks have done is truly heroic and
great and should be celebrated I see
this because it’s important that we
don’t absolve ourselves of a moral duty
to act we all have that duty to act you
don’t have to be flawless these people
are not you know genetically different
and I think that’s another problem with
this pedestal issue is that when we put
people on pedestals we then start
nitpicking and saying oh well if he or
she wears a nice dress and she can’t
possibly care about poverty because
she’s too consumed with her own
appearance or in MLK’s case you know he
was many people tried to take him down
because he had such great I think a
great sense of style
those two things are not incompatible
you can have you can have an interest in
fashion and a desire to make aesthetic
choices that fit your taste and at the
same time find poverty to be morally
objectionable and want to do something
about it people who do work and service
of humanity do not need to be Saints we
do not need to put them on pedestals
they don’t have to you know take vows of
poverty I think when we when we say that
and do that it makes ordinary people
feel like they could never enter this
field and that’s part of the problem
when you’re poor you depend on each
other you depend on your relationship
with your neighbor and your family
because if you don’t have that you have
nothing and when an accident happens you
know there’s this social capital that
helps people get through that and so so
it’s tough because on the one hand I
think a lot of the traditional values or
a lot of the values that I see in poor
communities are values that we want to
perpetuate and and that are important
and on the flip side there are things
like really you know avoidable suffering
in health care for example and I
remember talking to a doctor in Kampala
who would tell me that he would watch
people routinely die in his hospital
because the hospital didn’t have enough
sutures so people would come in from
like an accident on the street and they
would literally die from hemorrhage
because the hospital did not have
stitches so that’s the kind of thing
that just should never happen in 2017
not on our watch right I also think that
we’re learning more and more that more
money after a certain level does not
equate to more happiness or a more
fulfilled life talent is equally
distributed and opportunity is not and
we live in a world where we’re more than
2 billion people live on less than $3 a
day and that number is adjusted for
purchasing power so that’s what three
dollars buy you in a u.s. city in modern
times so just imagine what that means I
mean it means that you were living in a
constant state of scarcity we now know
there’s a very interesting book out
called scarcity which talks about how
scarcity reshapes your brain they took
fortune
like I think fortune 500 CEOs and had a
um volunteer for a study where they were
basically voluntarily starved for a week
and these guys stopped being able to
make good long-term decisions
universally because your brain chemistry
is focused on finding food it’s focused
on whatever is scarce and so when people
are living in a constant state of
scarcity they cannot possibly make you
know what we would think of as good
decisions they are locked into a state
of suffering and and not achieving their
full human potential that is just tragic
and it’s tragic not just at the
individual level it’s tragic in the
sense of this is the greatest natural
resource we have in the world more
important than going to Mars more
important than finding the next oil
reserve or the next diamond mine is
figuring out how we can mine the talent
of the bottom billions of people who’ve
been left to fester and I think it’s a
tremendous loss to the world and so for
me I think it’s so exciting to be able
to go to places like Nairobi or Uganda
and see people shine see people who
could easily be astrophysicists if they
had only had the opportunity and
hopefully get them on the path where
they can achieve more of their human
potential and it is the most personally
satisfying job I could ever imagine
having and I think as a society when we
do this we you know we feel more
satisfied collectively as well one of
the ways that you can push yourself to
get beyond your comfort zone
I think is to read about failure and try
to immerse yourself in more case studies
that show you how failure can profoundly
shape you and it’s hard I mean in the
early days of a start-up I think
rejection is inevitable so there’s an
element of just getting back up again
when you’ve been punched so many times
that you feel like you can’t and and I
don’t know what it is in us that is that
that creates that sort of tipping point
when you decide to get up again
but it’s among all the entrepreneurs I
know who are successful that is the
single biggest factor it’s not not
quitting
[Music]
you
that work is the best way to move people
out of poverty and that work is at the
core of human dignity but it’s not all
that there is for me it was it was tough
as a as a child there was always kind of
an outcast we never had enough money to
shop at normal I would cobble together
different jobs I did in fact clean
toilets for our campus we call it dorm
crew but it’s like a janitorial service
run by students people who have endured
hardship in some way can build grit and
resilience from it when you’re poor you
depend on each other you depend on your
relationship with your neighbor and your
family because if you don’t have that
you have nothing the only real power we
have in the world is choosing our
response we can’t choose what happens to
us we can get stuck into situations
where we are abused where we are not
treated fairly where any number of bad
things can happen and so the only choice
we can make is how to respond and I find
that that knowledge gives me so much
freedom because if something bad is
happening to me that I can say is beyond
my control I can say well at least you
know I have the power in my response to
show the world what kind of person I am
and I can’t tell you the number of
really interesting examples of
post-traumatic growth that we’re now
cataloguing people who’ve lost
everything people who’ve had their kids
murdered in front of them people who had
just everyman manner of hardship who are
able to choose their response and rather
than shutting down and you know getting
more and more depressed which is
something that you have to get through
but the the choice to take that painful
experience and mold it into something
positive for the world is I think the
deepest kind of healing we can have as
humans and for me I think part of what
got me through those tough times
eventually as I matured was the
knowledge that I had transform that into
something good for the world
I did struggle with with pretty severe
depression in my 20s I had a year in
college when both my aunt and one of my
best friends committed suicide and that
came at the same time right yeah it was
my roommate she was my block mate we
were in the same like rooming group and
we had very similar backgrounds and very
similar relationships with our parents
and so and both my aunt and this young
woman were incredibly beautiful
incredibly bright like the least you
know you would imagine the least likely
to take their own lives and so it was
such a such a huge burden to carry that
and at the time you know therapy and
counseling wasn’t as known maybe as it
is now and there weren’t very many
resources so I didn’t seek that out and
at the same time that that was going on
I was undergoing tremendous financial
pressure my parents had gotten a divorce
and couldn’t pay for school at all so I
was I was working three jobs and always
trying to hustle to make ends meet with
a full course load and then maybe to add
to that I would go and spend time in
Africa so I did research in Rwanda
literally working on this project with
victims of the genocide who’d had you
know I’d go there and interview people
with like machete wounds on their head
from this horrific genocide talking
about having seen their children
murdered in front of them and so I
didn’t even understand the concept of
PTSD and you know how if you’re exposed
to people who’ve undergone serious
trauma you yourself can take that on so
it was just a hot mess actually after
these few years and then and then I
graduated and I moved to New York City I
took a management consulting job just to
be able to pay the bills and hopefully
learn about business I knew I wanted to
create a business that would help people
and ideally a business that would hire
poor people and move them out of poverty
but it was tough times I was alone often
as a consultant getting up at 4:00 in
the morning on a Monday to fly to some
random city and spent most of my time
alone in hotel rooms so it kind of all
added up and at one point just exploded
and I went through some very dark times
anyone who’s been through depression
knows what I mean
and I guess what got me out of it was I
feel very blessed to have found a career
that nourishes me spiritually I feel
like when your core spirits
all values or your morality are aligned
with what you spend the majority of your
time doing it creates this this I don’t
know this unity in your soul and I feel
like having that has been such a
cornerstone of my life it’s what I often
go back to when I’m really struggling or
when I’m feeling depressed I will
literally like go back and read I have a
file in my Gmail of inspirational
stories from our workers stories that
people will send me about their own
transformation or stories that managers
of our centers will send me and I
whenever I’m feeling depressed I’ll go
back and read those just to ground me I
also think that connecting with other
people who are suffering there’s all
this research that empathizing with
someone else who maybe has it even worse
than you can relieve your own burden and
so as much as possible when I was in
those states I would try to immerse
myself in issues around global poverty
or understand what life was like for
someone who had it even worse you know
who might be struggling with depression
but living on $2 a day and also
struggling with HIV or some other
problem and that would help bring me out
of it let’s remind ourselves that some
of the most famous and prominent social
leaders were not flawless MLK was a
known you know cheater he cheated on his
wife regularly unfortunately Gandhi it’s
well known in India was really really
cool to his wife there’s even a play
that I watched about it which was kind
of shocking and I guess the the moral of
the story is that no one is a saint you
know even when they’re canonized they do
there’s a there’s a whole book that
criticizes Mother Teresa’s work and I’m
not saying this to take down our heroes
I think that what all three of those
folks have done is truly heroic and
great and should be celebrated I see
this because it’s important that we
don’t absolve ourselves of a moral duty
to act we all have that duty to act you
don’t have to be flawless these people
are not you know genetically different
and I think that’s another problem with
this pedestal issue is that when we put
people on pedestals we then start
nitpicking and saying oh well if he or
she wears a nice dress and she can’t
possibly care about poverty because
she’s too consumed with her own
appearance or in MLK’s case you know he
was many people tried to take him down
because he had such great I think a
great sense of style
those two things are not incompatible
you can have you can have an interest in
fashion and a desire to make aesthetic
choices that fit your taste and at the
same time find poverty to be morally
objectionable and want to do something
about it people who do work and service
of humanity do not need to be Saints we
do not need to put them on pedestals
they don’t have to you know take vows of
poverty I think when we when we say that
and do that it makes ordinary people
feel like they could never enter this
field and that’s part of the problem
when you’re poor you depend on each
other you depend on your relationship
with your neighbor and your family
because if you don’t have that you have
nothing and when an accident happens you
know there’s this social capital that
helps people get through that and so so
it’s tough because on the one hand I
think a lot of the traditional values or
a lot of the values that I see in poor
communities are values that we want to
perpetuate and and that are important
and on the flip side there are things
like really you know avoidable suffering
in health care for example and I
remember talking to a doctor in Kampala
who would tell me that he would watch
people routinely die in his hospital
because the hospital didn’t have enough
sutures so people would come in from
like an accident on the street and they
would literally die from hemorrhage
because the hospital did not have
stitches so that’s the kind of thing
that just should never happen in 2017
not on our watch right I also think that
we’re learning more and more that more
money after a certain level does not
equate to more happiness or a more
fulfilled life talent is equally
distributed and opportunity is not and
we live in a world where we’re more than
2 billion people live on less than $3 a
day and that number is adjusted for
purchasing power so that’s what three
dollars buy you in a u.s. city in modern
times so just imagine what that means I
mean it means that you were living in a
constant state of scarcity we now know
there’s a very interesting book out
called scarcity which talks about how
scarcity reshapes your brain they took
fortune
like I think fortune 500 CEOs and had a
um volunteer for a study where they were
basically voluntarily starved for a week
and these guys stopped being able to
make good long-term decisions
universally because your brain chemistry
is focused on finding food it’s focused
on whatever is scarce and so when people
are living in a constant state of
scarcity they cannot possibly make you
know what we would think of as good
decisions they are locked into a state
of suffering and and not achieving their
full human potential that is just tragic
and it’s tragic not just at the
individual level it’s tragic in the
sense of this is the greatest natural
resource we have in the world more
important than going to Mars more
important than finding the next oil
reserve or the next diamond mine is
figuring out how we can mine the talent
of the bottom billions of people who’ve
been left to fester and I think it’s a
tremendous loss to the world and so for
me I think it’s so exciting to be able
to go to places like Nairobi or Uganda
and see people shine see people who
could easily be astrophysicists if they
had only had the opportunity and
hopefully get them on the path where
they can achieve more of their human
potential and it is the most personally
satisfying job I could ever imagine
having and I think as a society when we
do this we you know we feel more
satisfied collectively as well one of
the ways that you can push yourself to
get beyond your comfort zone
I think is to read about failure and try
to immerse yourself in more case studies
that show you how failure can profoundly
shape you and it’s hard I mean in the
early days of a start-up I think
rejection is inevitable so there’s an
element of just getting back up again
when you’ve been punched so many times
that you feel like you can’t and and I
don’t know what it is in us that is that
that creates that sort of tipping point
when you decide to get up again
but it’s among all the entrepreneurs I
know who are successful that is the
single biggest factor it’s not not
quitting
[Music]
you
Please follow and like us: