After watching the final Presidential debate, I tuned in to a show about micro lending and the incredibly positive impact it is having on poverty in the third world and beyond.
The contrast between the two, as business models and how well they are each working is striking.
Try to stick with me, I promise I'm not climbing on a soapbox and there is an important point pertaining to your business.
Politics is a service industry, not unlike the hospitality industry.
That means the primary objective is to serve others.
If our political system were a waiter, it would be fired!If it were your business it would be bankrupt.
It is failing to serve.
What happened to bring our political system to the brink of being fired?And more importantly, how can it be fixed? Call me Pollyanna, but I think the solution can be a rather simple one.
Be careful not to confuse simple with easy.
I think at least part of the answer lies in the next show I watched on micro lending.
In case you're not familiar with it, here's an overview of the concept of micro lending and how it began.
The story of micro lending One day, a man was teaching children about the principles of economics from inside a school house while people in the village outside it were starving to death - literally starving to death.
He saw the sad irony of this and began to speak to the villagers about their lives.
A woman who wove bamboo baskets explained that she was only able to make two cents for each one because she didn't have the money to buy the bamboo herself so she made a deal with a loan shark - he supplied the bamboo but she was required to sell the finished product to him for whatever price he named.
The cost of the bamboo she needed to make her baskets was 25 cents and she didn't have "that kind of money.
" The man learned that 42 others in the village were in similar circumstances and the total amount of money required to free all of them from the jaws of the loan shark was $27!He had this in his pocket and it birthed an idea.
Banks would not lend to these people because they had no collateral.
He developed a system whereby these people could borrow money from him and pay it back a little each week with reasonable interest, based on trust.
The bamboo basket lady borrowed $60.
It took her a year to pay it back but by the end of that time, her family was enjoying three meals a day, something they had NEVER done before.
The repayment rate on these loans is above 95% - a figure that any commercial banker would envy! I was struck by the entrepreneurial spirit of these people and their passion.
It wasn't that they had a passion for turning trash into treasure, like the woman who made shopping bags out of recycled cement bags and soon had to hire three others to sew in order to meet demand, or the one who made purses out of empty juice boxes and had to hire five others to distribute them for the same reason, or the one who used her loan to buy trinkets to offer children for bringing her the hair from their mother's hairbrushes so she could use it to make the wigs that she sold.
The secret weapon Their passion was not about the product, producing the product or the money that the sales generated.
Their passion was about what the money could allow them to do.
Like keeping their children from starving and being able to have a second piece of clothing to wear while they laundered the first and sending their children to school so they could learn to read and write (which most of these business owners could not do themselves).
What is your passion?What drives you to do what you do each day?If you are struggling in your business then I suspect, that at least in part, it is because you are not clear about what your passion is.
Sometimes it can get clouded over by fear in one form or another.
Fear is a very temporary motivator.
It doesn't work in the long term because it is based in negativity.
For the long haul, you need to be clear about the reason why it is essential that you succeed over and above your fear of what will happen if you don't.
Fear is powerful but passion is more powerful and problems develop when one person's passion ignites another person's fear.
When a person, or a business or a government is fueled by fear, things can get really messy.
So the simple, but not easy, solution for restoring order and abundance in such a situation lies in the return of passion-based thinking, living and action - one person at a time.
I'd really like to know what you are passionate about.
What is the thing, behind the thing that you do that drives you to keep doing it?Send me a note and let me know.
The contrast between the two, as business models and how well they are each working is striking.
Try to stick with me, I promise I'm not climbing on a soapbox and there is an important point pertaining to your business.
Politics is a service industry, not unlike the hospitality industry.
That means the primary objective is to serve others.
If our political system were a waiter, it would be fired!If it were your business it would be bankrupt.
It is failing to serve.
What happened to bring our political system to the brink of being fired?And more importantly, how can it be fixed? Call me Pollyanna, but I think the solution can be a rather simple one.
Be careful not to confuse simple with easy.
I think at least part of the answer lies in the next show I watched on micro lending.
In case you're not familiar with it, here's an overview of the concept of micro lending and how it began.
The story of micro lending One day, a man was teaching children about the principles of economics from inside a school house while people in the village outside it were starving to death - literally starving to death.
He saw the sad irony of this and began to speak to the villagers about their lives.
A woman who wove bamboo baskets explained that she was only able to make two cents for each one because she didn't have the money to buy the bamboo herself so she made a deal with a loan shark - he supplied the bamboo but she was required to sell the finished product to him for whatever price he named.
The cost of the bamboo she needed to make her baskets was 25 cents and she didn't have "that kind of money.
" The man learned that 42 others in the village were in similar circumstances and the total amount of money required to free all of them from the jaws of the loan shark was $27!He had this in his pocket and it birthed an idea.
Banks would not lend to these people because they had no collateral.
He developed a system whereby these people could borrow money from him and pay it back a little each week with reasonable interest, based on trust.
The bamboo basket lady borrowed $60.
It took her a year to pay it back but by the end of that time, her family was enjoying three meals a day, something they had NEVER done before.
The repayment rate on these loans is above 95% - a figure that any commercial banker would envy! I was struck by the entrepreneurial spirit of these people and their passion.
It wasn't that they had a passion for turning trash into treasure, like the woman who made shopping bags out of recycled cement bags and soon had to hire three others to sew in order to meet demand, or the one who made purses out of empty juice boxes and had to hire five others to distribute them for the same reason, or the one who used her loan to buy trinkets to offer children for bringing her the hair from their mother's hairbrushes so she could use it to make the wigs that she sold.
The secret weapon Their passion was not about the product, producing the product or the money that the sales generated.
Their passion was about what the money could allow them to do.
Like keeping their children from starving and being able to have a second piece of clothing to wear while they laundered the first and sending their children to school so they could learn to read and write (which most of these business owners could not do themselves).
What is your passion?What drives you to do what you do each day?If you are struggling in your business then I suspect, that at least in part, it is because you are not clear about what your passion is.
Sometimes it can get clouded over by fear in one form or another.
Fear is a very temporary motivator.
It doesn't work in the long term because it is based in negativity.
For the long haul, you need to be clear about the reason why it is essential that you succeed over and above your fear of what will happen if you don't.
Fear is powerful but passion is more powerful and problems develop when one person's passion ignites another person's fear.
When a person, or a business or a government is fueled by fear, things can get really messy.
So the simple, but not easy, solution for restoring order and abundance in such a situation lies in the return of passion-based thinking, living and action - one person at a time.
I'd really like to know what you are passionate about.
What is the thing, behind the thing that you do that drives you to keep doing it?Send me a note and let me know.
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