Changing the World--Entry 12

This week I had the opportunity to read a talk given by Muhammad Yunus about changing the world.  In his short talk, he was very inspirational through speaking about trusting those first so that they can trust you.  Also that we are all creative and need to be given that opportunity to show our creativity.  Sometimes that means we need loans and every person should be given that opportunity to even have access to money.  Through his own studies, he found that banks would not give loans to those living in poverty because they didn't trust them to pay back the loans.  However, he trusted these people.  He knew their dreams.  He wanted to help them achieve these dreams.  So, he created the Grameen Bank which gives loans to those who otherwise would not have access to that money.  I'm so impressed by his trusting nature and reporting back that 97% of the loans are paid back and most of the people borrowing money are women.

In reading his talk this week, I was sad to hear about fast food workers wanting to raise the minimum wage in the state of Illinois to $15/hour.  I understand that minimum wage is $8.25/hour right now and is in talks to be raised to $11/hour by 2016.  I have worked minimum wage jobs and those are jobs that are great for teenagers to learn financial responsibility and integrity.  Sadly there are some of the people wanting this minimum wage that don't accept the responsibility of working while at work.  There are hard workers that would want to move up into management to make more money, but that's the reason there is a minimum wage--to get people to move up and work hard for what they earn.

My husband is an airline pilot and he made less than $15/hour equivalent in his first year of becoming a professional airline pilot.  Many people we came across those first couple of years of him being a pilot were hard to talk to because they were, "Oh, the money must be great!"  Sadly it wasn't.  I had to work a job that paid no more than $10/hour because that is what my skills gave me at the time, and half of my paycheck each month would go towards care for my oldest daughter (who was 2 at that time).  Now when people comment on the money with his job, we say, "Yes, it's nice, but the schedule is crappy."  We would like to make our cake and eat it too, but you can never have both sometimes in our lives.

What Muhammad Yunus did for me that I think I will learn to instill in my children is trust.  Learn to trust others in a way that you know that it is a good thing to trust them.  If you do not feel it a good thing to trust in, then don't, but because you won't get the trust in return.  We need to follow our dreams and trust in ourselves as well, and that is the first step in learning to trust others in our paths as well.

Being a Baker--Entry 9

Guy Kawasaki has an amazing video where he talks about baking and eating.  Not the actual baking and eating, but metaphorically.  He says that bakers are the people who see "the world as an opportunity to make more and bigger pies."  Eaters "need to get as much of the pie as possible."  There are moments in my life where I feel like a baker and other moments where I feel like an eater.  However, as Guy Kawasaki points out, "Trustworthy people are bakers, not eaters."  I feel like I'm a pretty trustworthy person so does that make me a baker?  Not necessarily.  I view owning a business as an opportunity to make it so that I can a) do something I love and want to share with the world, but also b) as something that can make me money without having me do a lot of the work.  I know that the latter won't happen unless I turn my business into some kind of conglomerate or franchise, or even the business makes the money I'm looking for to let me retire early.  Maybe this is why I should be an author since they are sort of entrepreneurs themselves.  Especially the self-publishing authors because they are entering the publishing world on their own, having to do their own marketing and sales, but if they do their work properly, they can be a baker.  The ones who make the money are the authors that just want to share the story with the world hoping to change someone internally.  To get them to connect with the author in some way through page after page of words that are captivating.

I have been a person that has been reserved in myself for a long time.  I have had hard times trusting people with things at certain times in my life.  Listening to Guy Kawasaki speak about trusting first, being a baker, and learning to think in terms of "How can I help that person?" really speaks to me that this is something I should work on.  I see myself as a baker because of how I'm always looking for opportunities to teach my children bigger and better things about life and living it.  I know I talk a lot about my kids and my family, but they are my biggest support and they are my life right now.  They are the ones that I am technically trying out all these new ideas of entrepreneurship on through different aspects of play, doing chores, etc.  I am learning to run a business through my life at home.  I think this may translate really well into the actual business world because I will see my business as my family and it will mean all the more to me then.

Video: Aspects of Building Trust by Guy Kawasaki