I sat next to a man on my flight to New York last week who was on his way to a meeting he was dreading. He had spent his entire life working in the insurance industry and now with only 14 months until retirement, he said he could barely stand to go to work.
He said he was the first person to go to college from his family, the son of immigrants and therefore expected to find a good job and work hard to 'get ahead.'
I would say he's done a good job - he and his wife are financially secure and own their own home. For most of his career he was happy to go to work, to compete and make his company bigger and more profitable. Now, it's painful to think of all the things that go on in this corporate atmosphere that make his stomach turn, he told me.
Deep in his heart, he wants to do something good. He wants to be aligned with his nature of having some purpose in his life that betters the environment, other people or the world at large.
His face lit up when he talked about his post-retirement plans of going to a developing country and building houses or volunteering with an international aid organization. So we brainstormed
He said he was the first person to go to college from his family, the son of immigrants and therefore expected to find a good job and work hard to 'get ahead.'
I would say he's done a good job - he and his wife are financially secure and own their own home. For most of his career he was happy to go to work, to compete and make his company bigger and more profitable. Now, it's painful to think of all the things that go on in this corporate atmosphere that make his stomach turn, he told me.
Deep in his heart, he wants to do something good. He wants to be aligned with his nature of having some purpose in his life that betters the environment, other people or the world at large.
His face lit up when he talked about his post-retirement plans of going to a developing country and building houses or volunteering with an international aid organization. So we brainstormed
about these ideas for the rest of the trip.
I certainly understand this desire. I left a career in journalism because I couldn't stomach the changes in my profession anymore. I went into journalism with a desire to help people - but after the initial high of being a reporter waned, I started to wonder what real impact I was making. Whatever it was, it was too diffuse. The nature of journalism means that you are covering the surface of an issue and once the story is done - you are off to the next story. I knew my role as a journalist was to shed light upon a topic. But what about the next step?
So I decided to focus on one idea, one area and one community - to test my idea that a for-profit business could mix with a social mission. I would provide jobs by employing handloom weavers in villages who desperately needed work, create a beautiful product that I would sell to the rest of the world and then invest back into the weaving community where I worked and therefore have a discernible impact.
At the time I started, there was no term to describe what I was trying to do - I remember hearing the phrase 'social entrepeneur' for the first time around 2006. Now just six years later, the idea and interest in social entrepreneurship has exploded. Entire business schools have sprung up and huge organizations like SOCAP and LOHAS have been created to support these new style entrepreneurs.
It seems this itch, this desire to throw yourself into some bigger than yourself, resonates with people more than ever. IN fact, according to the famous English sculptor Henry Moore, it may be the secret to a full, satisfying life.
In his words, "The secret to life is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do.”
So I decided to focus on one idea, one area and one community - to test my idea that a for-profit business could mix with a social mission. I would provide jobs by employing handloom weavers in villages who desperately needed work, create a beautiful product that I would sell to the rest of the world and then invest back into the weaving community where I worked and therefore have a discernible impact.
At the time I started, there was no term to describe what I was trying to do - I remember hearing the phrase 'social entrepeneur' for the first time around 2006. Now just six years later, the idea and interest in social entrepreneurship has exploded. Entire business schools have sprung up and huge organizations like SOCAP and LOHAS have been created to support these new style entrepreneurs.
It seems this itch, this desire to throw yourself into some bigger than yourself, resonates with people more than ever. IN fact, according to the famous English sculptor Henry Moore, it may be the secret to a full, satisfying life.
In his words, "The secret to life is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do.”
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