I’m always surrounded by books, in my office, on my bed night, in my bag, all around me there are books waiting for their turn to be read. Reading is one of my passions and since leaving the corporate world more than 6 years ago, it’s become quite addictive and one of my main sources of learning and inspiration.
Are you also a book lover?
So, once a month, I’ll be sharing with you my out takes, learnings and inspiration from my monthly readings.
One of the topics I love to read about is entrepreneurs and their journeys, and foremost about social entrepreneurs. Social impact, making the world a better place through business and SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) are another passion of mine. Learn more by reading my manifesto. If you are curious about the SDG, all you need to know is here. .
It’s fascinating how much you can learn from these individuals who have the courage, the drive, one day to start small and move forward through the difficulties to make the world a better place. Yes, you learn a lot about becoming entrepreneur, but even if entrepreneurship is not your calling there’s so much wisdom in terms of mindset, attitude, facing fears, ideas, that their stories are valuable as well for your quest of a meaningful job. You never know where inspiration will come from.
So, for my first book review in this blog, I wanted to share about Give Work from Leila Janah.
Leila is a first generation American from Indian parents, who graduated from Harvard and then became management consultant at Booz & Company . She is now the founder and CEO of non profit Samasource, Samaschool and for profit LXMI, organisations through which she fights poverty by giving tech related work to those living under $2/day.
The 3 topics I’d love to highlight from this book are:
- >> THE POWER OF PURPOSE
Leila connected with her why at 17 years old after 6 months in Ghana volunteering as English teacher to blind kids. This transformative experience made her devote her life to try to fix poverty. But for that she had to get ready. Thanks to a scholarship, she was able to attend Harvard, where she majored in government, thinking it was the best option for tackling poverty. But she later switched to international economic development with a focus on Africa, and learnt French and Portuguese, the continent two major languages. While studying she worked and raised money for grants that will allow her to spend many summers working for NGO’s, doing field research and travelling to developing countries like Rwanda, Mozambique and Senegal. All her efforts got her a chance to work at the World Bank for a semester. Once graduated from Harvard, she took a bold decision, but very calculated, she took an offer from a management consulting firm thinking that this job would prepare her better to contribute later to the international development sector and to acquire the business skills she’d need to potentially launch her own company. Some years later, with $10.000 saved and $35.000 won in a couple of business plan competitions she quit her job to create SamaSource.
Through her story, Leila illustrates very clearly how powerful identifying our purpose can be. It brings direction, clarity, alignment, coherence. It will not necessarily make your work easier, but it will certainly provide a sense of why. This doesn’t mean your work is easier, I would say completely the opposite. But you know why you are doing it everyday, it brings meaning and so motivation to keep fighting. Having a clear purpose helps you take career decisions, as you know your direction, one job or another are different stepping stones towards your end vision. Purpose doesn’t need to be as big as fight poverty, it can be something much closer to your everyday, and much simpler.
Do you know your purpose?
Is your work aligned with your purpose?
How meaningful is your current job?
“After the injustices I’d seen, it would have been impossible for me to go home and not devote my life to trying to fix it”
Leila Janah
- >> THE GIG ECONOMY
After airing an ad about Samasource, Leila received an angry email criticizing her work being done in Africa while many Americans were jobless. That email was the trigger to start Samaschool, the american version of Samasource, a training program for low income people to connect them with work. The approach here was different. It was about preparing them how to earn extra money through the growing on-demand tech-driven services like Uber, Taskrabbit, Upwork, Fiverr, Care, etc.
Think about it. The new economic era we live in represents a sea of opportunities. For Leila´s Samaschool students and for all of us alike. But as I have experienced first hand in recent years, there is a full spectrum of skills and capabilities to be gained to successfully play and take advantage of this thrilling new task-based, freelancing, digital economy.
This made me think, along with my personal experience in the online space in the last years, even the people out of the low income spectrum, do we really have the right skills to play in the new work world? And are we exploring it enough? Especially seeing the global trend of the Freelancing Economy.
Do you know how to create a strong online profile in the work offering platforms?
Do you know how to build online reputation?
Do you know how to have Linkedin profile filled with the right key words?
Looking for a job in 2019 also requires new skills that we haven’t been trained on, so get ready to learn. Nowadays with you-can-find-everything-in Google there are no excuses. Update your CV, be active on Linkedin, work your personal brand, etc. Additionally, the Gig Economy brings a breadth of totally new opportunities to either complement your salary while you look for a better job, monetising your current skills, or to try a completely different job or skill as a side hustle. Think Etsy, Fiverr and similar. Embrace the opportunities out there by adopting an entrepreneur mindset.
“The new economy depends on people to act as independent contractors – to have hustle and find their own “gigs” on the new labor platforms. And that essentially means that more and more people have to learn to be entrepreneurs”
Leila Janah
- >> SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A MEANINGFUL CAREER
The book talks at length and very inspiringly about social impact business, and how this model can solve social issues like ending poverty, homelessness, education gap and other social problems through business creation. It’s becoming a real trend: corporations are realising their part of responsibility as well as the profitability of it and more and more businesses are incorporating the doing good factor into their strategies, while new start ups are also emerging in this field.
Does social impact resonate with you?
Would you dream of having more impact on others through your work?
Don’t think you need to become an entrepreneur and start a company to have an impact. You have many other options. You can join new ventures to apply your skills to a social mission. And you can also work for companies who have a social mission at their core. You can find many of them as BCorp, or as members of the Global Compact. If you already own a business, you can give work, as Leila preaches in her book, you can review your hiring and procurement practices to ensure you include low-income people in your supply chain; or you can work with companies who support special communities. Think that with every purchase decision you make you could be helping marginalized people. And this of course also applies to your personal life.
“At least I will be able to say I tried. That’s all I’m asking of you. Just try. Make it your business to figure out what good needs to be done in the world, and then do it”
Leila Janah
I hope this post inspires you to read the full book for more insights. But foremost I hope you got some new perspectives around how and where to get a meaningful job. I would love to hear your thoughts on the comments below.
To your fulfillment,
Sophie
“Hate Mondays? 5 Steps to Unlock a More Fulfilling career.»