I’ve been waiting on a piece of news. I’ve been playing this waiting game for a while now and throughout this period, I’ve let myself believe that the outcome will either make or break the next year of my life.

For those of you that have played this waiting game before, I’m sure you know that this period of limbo is an excruciating space to be in. Over the last week I’ve tried every perspective I could take. I’ve tried being an optimist - believing that I would stop having to wait within 5 minutes…then 10 minutes…then 5 more. I’ve tried being a realist where I brace myself for the worst scenario possible then try to believe that the outcome never really mattered too much after all. Neither strategy really worked and for a while I couldn’t reason out why that could be possible.

Stockdale solved my problem. In Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about his interview with Admiral Jim Stockdale who was imprisoned in the Vietnam war for 8 years. I’m not saying that my position is at all comparable, but he does still have some very applicable lessons to anyone in a place where their immediate fate lies in someone elses hands.

“Jim - How did you deal with not knowing the end of the story?

I never lost faith in the end of the story.

This is a very important lesson.

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

So 2 big things to remember:

1.) There is a huge difference between being optimistic and in ignoring the facts

2) There is a huge difference between being realistic and forgetting the rest of reality beyond the immediate obstacle

I’m quickly figuring out how hugely important these distinctions are.

Reading Hot Flat and Crowded at the moment and had to share an excerpt:

“History indicates that we don’t accept large-scale change easily, especially when this change challenges our accepted beliefs. It generally takes a crisis to overcome our resistance. The challenge of sustainability, particularly climate change, has characteristics that make our normal resistance to change both deeper and longer-lasting. It is an enormous system-wide challenge that affects every and every country. It requires sweeping change in every aspect of our lives and our society. It also questions many fundamental beliefs about growth and the market economy and threatens some very powerful interests. All this deepens our resistance. Unfortunately, this means the crisis will have to be large and completely undeniable before we respond. So when the crisis is big enough to force change, it will also have great and unstoppable momentum.”

I know I’ve shared the following saying in the past but it fits the situation too well to not be reiterated.

“Ordinary men learn from their own mistakes. Stupid men make the same mistakes over and over. Exceptional men learn from the mistakes of others.”

Why are we as a society choosing stupidity as a way of life?

I played a fun little icebreaker with the newly hired co-chairs of SEE 2010 so we could start getting to know one another, and in the process discovered that my greatest weakness was my confidence, or lack thereof. So I had a heart-to-heart with a friend to see what I could do about it. His response was two succinct but pretty beautiful lines that I needed to share for anyone who like me, allows nerves to interfere with life.

“If you ever feel like you’re not good enough, or that you’re too luckly, or if your self-confidence ever lapses - know that the opportunities you’ve been given are there because really smart people believe in you and are endorsing you. They’re basically putting themselves out there for you so if you truly look up to them and respect their judgment, you should be able to come to terms with your own abilities.”

Thanks =)

A recommendation from a friend coupled with a recent TEDtalk by Viktor Frankl led me to purchase his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Within the foreword, he talks about the irony of the book and its eventual success. Turns out that he was incredibly close to publishing the book under an anonymous name because he did not want to draw attention from the message to the author. And of all the books he ever published, this is the one that spread like wildfire. His point in those first pages? Success truly comes only when you don’t aim for it.

I agree to a certain extent. The last few days here in Toronto have been a bit of a whirlwind filled with happy surprises and small but fulfilled wishes culminating in an intangible but deep contentment with life in general. For those of you who know what’s been happening in the last two months the reason I’m in Toronto doing what I am doing at the moment was the result of missteps and disappointments followed by a moment of luck. Well…this is the summarized story I tell thought in reality, it wasn’t quite that simple. Yes, opportunities fell in front of me by chance, but I know enough to admit that they never could have solidified had I not spent the last year reading, learning, and pursuing the goal that never came true

In short, it is true that I couldn’t have seen any of this coming, much less aimed for it. At first glance, it seems like Viktor Frankl is right in that the things that we don’t seek are what come to us. However, while we cannot control the environment that hits us, this is not a reason to just wait because we can control the state we’re in when it happens. Viktor didn’t know that this book was going to ultimately become his message to a worldwide audience, but he had spent the years leading up to this moment capturing his challenges and experiences and distilling his philosophies not as seeds for his own success but because he saw a real lesson he could share with others. This made it such that when the right environment was in place, he made a real and enormous impact on the world.

So what have I learned in the last month? The first is that there are opportunities every single day all around me. And rather than chasing them, I should focus on bringing myself to a point where I can make those opportunities count. Aka taking in and giving back to those in my immediate surroundings so that I create an ongoing environment filled with small lessons, small victories, and small failures that all push me to a new starting point.

Secondly, I’m learning the verity in the statement repeated over and over again by leaders everywhere and that is that in order to move forward and find true meaning, we should seek to fulfill a cause that is larger and far more important than ourselves. When you do that, the context around you changes for the better. I think I spent many of the winter months trying to get myself somewhere and trying it convince myself that self-determination and well, selflessness, was the only way to accomplish that. It was only when I redirected my efforts to greater causes without motives that life got a little more awesome.

These aren’t new realizations but they are lessons that I’ve forgotten. The last few months have been a wonderful reminder.

Thanks to all who keep smiling with me through the big dips and the big bounces.

Short and sweet TEDtalk up where Derek Sivers analyzes the Sasquatch Festival video that circulated like mad a few months ago. Here it is:

When most people saw the original video, the lessons that people drew from it went along the lines of - don’t be afraid to step up and be the first, or don’t be afraid to be yourself even if no-one else believes in you.  But Sivers is right.  The transformative moment here is not the first guy, but the second guy.  Until the first follower takes the plunge, the leader is, and remains the lone nut. As Sivers says, what we need more of is people who are brave enough to be the first followers.

This piece of advice holds true in almost every growing community.  The problem is not so much the lack of leaders but  the lack of cooperation and trust in other people’s initatives, as well as the lack of people willing to put their hearts into something they may not get credit for.  Until we have more brave followers, there will remain a lot of precious and disjointed initiatives that won’t get the necessary momentum.

Whoa, thanks Andrew for commenting and making me realize that it has been four months since my last post. I’ve most definitely lost some momentum on this blog. But when all else fails, it’s always a good time to fall back to your fundamentals. So here, I am turning back to one of my favourite quotes by Yunus reminding me to start small.

I’m going to start with just a baby post to share a recent discovery.

A good friend told me yesterday that I was an anthropologist. According to the Ten Faces of Innovation,

The Anthropologist is rarely stationary. Rather, this is the person who ventures into the field to observe how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to come up with new innovations. The Anthropologist is extremely good at reframing a problem in a new way, humanizing the scientific method to apply it to daily life. Anthropologists share such distinguishing characteristics as the wisdom to observe with a truly open mind; empathy; intuition; the ability to “see” things that have gone unnoticed; a tendency to keep running lists of innovative concepts worth emulating and problems that need solving; and a way of seeking inspiration in unusual places.

Pretty accurate. I invite you to figure out your persona. It may just lead to a new level of self-understanding and appreciation for how those around you work.

Yes, #see09 is finally done and I’ve been catching up with school again.  But that doesn’t stop my continued involvement and commitment to the social enterprise community in Vancouver.  Since meeting many of the fabulous people driving this circle, I feel like I’ve been introduced to a whole new world where people from opposite sides of any given spectrum can converge to make huge amounts of impact. Most importantly, what I’ve been noticing is that people in the SE community asks the most vital and underestimated question - why not?

I wanted to share some of Mike’s words to give you a glimpse of the type of community that exists in SE.

“Traditional business is a flightless baboon,” I said. (It’s a long story!) “I’m interested in the evolutionary next step.” And I believe it’s social enterprise.

The nature of ’social entrepreneurship’ is as diverse as the individuals who adopt the moniker. Each of us can choose how we’ll build our organizations, but what we all hold in common is a purpose beyond profit, and an open, collaborative approach to resolving issues of sustainability. Yet it is the diversity that makes this burgeoning sector so hard to pin down. And so fascinating.

Consider the speakers and panelists in attendance at SEE 2009:

• Ray Williams, Co-Founder of Success IQ University.
• Elizabeth Lougheed Green, Founder and former Executive Director of Potluck Cafe & Catering, and now Manager of Social Enterprise at the Vancity Community Foundation.
• Ken Lyotier, Founder of United We Can.
• Mickey McLeod, Founder of Salt Spring Coffee.
• Donovon Wollard, COO of Offsetters.
• Janice Abbott, Executive Director of Atira Women’s Resource Society, and CEO of Atira Property Management Inc.
• Brian Smith, Social Enterprise Developer at Building Opportunities with Business.

Diverse, talented, successful and inspiring, each of these speakers had the rapt attention of an audience of undergraduate students from no fewer than six post-secondary institutions—and one noteworthy high school student already fascinated with social enterprise.

So what is it that’s bringing social enterprise to the fore—finally? After so many years of markets watching and waiting for pioneers to try and fail, it seems that overnight, ’social enterprise,’ ’social ventures,’ ’sustainable enterprise,’ and numerous other buzz words seem to be top-of-mind.

We point to three distinct trends that have aligned to push business to a tipping point: First and foremost is the climate crisis. While many have been warning for decades that we are on a collision course with serious ecological trauma, it was clearly former US Vice President Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth catapulted climate change into the centre of consumer awareness. But it may not have been sufficient to ignite sustainable enterprise.

The second trend is a direct result of the past year’s financial meltdown: Consumer spending patterns have shifted in a way that’s atypical for post-Depression recessions. According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, even the affluent have cut their spending during this recession. Is the consumption economy seeing a backlash?

Third is the incredible sweep and scope of Internet-enabled social networks. Whereas a decade ago, firms who fell afoul of consumer opinion could ’spin’ their way out of trouble, the Facebook generation moves way too fast for companies to get away with anything less than totally forthright operations and communications.

Put these three together, and we arrive at a phenomenal opportunity to redefine the social license by which businesses operate.

Smart companies see the opportunity in the change. And more than 70 sharp minds had a first hand Social Enterprise Experience of their own on November 21.

We enjoyed MC-ing the day. Primarily because it was so gratifying to see young, energetic minds opening up to the possibilities of a sustainable economy.

Thank you Mike (and Stephen!), for helping us and introducing so many young minds to the possibilities in SE.

We couldn’t have done it (or had nearly as much fun) without you!

Sometime last year, I decided that it was time for me to start something new… something BIG  and something that felt like my own to play my part in enriching the university before my time was up.  So over the last few months, I’ve been pouring myself into a new event with the idea of giving something back to other students with similar passions and aspirations.  I thought that this was me giving back.

What I never expected was a complete role reversal.  Since summer, I have met so many amazing people and learned so much about the world and myself.  More than anything, I have been so humbled by the number of  business people that have been willing to help me, and have been blown away by the applications I have received.  The experience has reminded me of the number of truly phenomenal people there are out there.

I’m sharing a sample of one of the applications I have received below so you can be as stunned as I am and begin to understand my refreshed belief in the what St. Francis of Assisi and Robert Half said years ago..

“For it is in giving that we receive.”
&
“Giving people a little more than they expect is a good way to get back more than you’d expect.”

The application goes…

Why would you like to attend this conference?

For the past year I have been living in and relearning Vancouver.  Despite the fact that I grew up here, I feel that in the last 12 months I have traversed more territory, met more people, and truly appreciated the uniqueness and creativity as well as recognized the challenges of a place that has been blessed with so much natural and social captial, than I did in the 16 years I was in school.  Having worked on exhibitions addressing the city’s heritage restoration, gentrification, and building in light of the 2010 Olympics, and then conversely being involved in a social housing proposal for the DTES, and then on the other end of the spectrum sustainable mixed-use and mixed-income neighborhood development on the West End and the North Shore, I feel that there are many disconnects between the not-for-profit, public, and private sectors.  The possibilities for value creation, I know, would be endless if we just chose to collaborate, and that is what I see this conference as, a space for collaboration.

What does social entrepreneurship mean to you?

Entrepreneurship derives from the French word entreprendre, meaning to “undertake,” and inherent in that undertaking we know is a high level of risk, which means that the one undertaking the risk accepts the chance and the possibility perhaps of danger, but more importantly the possibility of opportunity in the face of danger.  Social entrepreneurship redefines what this opportunity looks like.  It says that opportunity can present itself for the good of more than a single founder.  It says that opportunity can result in many rewards, not just one.  And ultimately, it says that opportunity can truly mean success.

If you could start any initiative right now, what would it be?

INVEST in the poorest urban neighborhoods of Vancouver.  LOOK to SEE and to UNDERSTAND what are the greatest challenges, and then ASK the residents what they need to fix them.

Employ the best MINDS, TECHNOLOGY, and urban planning/COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT practices to

CULTIVATE these forgotten streets so that SOCIAL INNOVATION and SUSTAINABILITY can

RUN WILD

and SOLUTIONS can just keep on coming, like the rain.              -Faaiza Lalji

So to everyone that has either helped in small ways, or been side by side with me throughout the path of starting this, thank you.  I couldn’t appreciate your efforts more.  And for all those coming, I really hope you take away from this as much as I have in the process of pulling it together!

On a sidenote, there are three spots remaining so if you would like to submit an application, click here, and if you would like to learn more, click here.

Two days ago, Matt gave me a shove:

“It’s official. Waiting so long between your posts makes me anxious. Just sayin…”

He couldn’t have said that at a better time.  When I look at my taskpaper I’ve got this great list of categories - everything from schoolwork and meetings to big dreams.  But no Me-time.

None!

Aristotle recognized 2400 years ago that leisure was a
prerequisite for contemplation, informed discussion, participation in politi-
cal life, and genuine freedom. It is also essential for relaxation and health, for
spiritual practice, and for a decent quality of life.

In [our current measure of wellbeing],  time is simply
money,and we sacrifice it for material comfort in the name of progress. -Colman

Stephan Sagmeister agrees: