The Purpose-Driven Social Entrepreneur

by Karim Abouelnaga

  Why am I the right person to be doing this right now? Despite all of my efforts to educate my friends and mentors about what I was involved with and how it was revolutionizing summer education, they still saw Practice Makes Perfect as a tutoring company or an after-school program. If that was what they saw it as, then I needed to reflect on that question with that context in mind. Why was I the right person to be running an after-school program or a tutoring company right now? I had never run an after-school or a tutoring company before. There were people out there who had run these types of companies for years before. If you are looking to transition from one industry to another, ask yourself what indicators or qualities you possess that make you believe that you can be the best person for that particular opportunity right now.

  When I thought about why I was the right person to be doing this work right now, I kept thinking about how much freedom I had in that very moment. I was ready to graduate from college with zero dollars in debt. I was young and had little to almost no familial obligations. I had the fortune of hearing older entrepreneurs come to my classes and encourage the students to go into entrepreneurship early. They made it clear that the risk is very high. You have to want and be ready to go all-in. And that is much easier to do when you are right out of college without kids or a family than it is ten or fifteen years later.

  There could not have been a better time for me. I only discovered that my work with Practice Makes Perfect was more a part of my purpose after years of believing it was my passion. I got to the right point in my life where it made sense to reflect on these questions with my purpose-driven work already in my mind. It also gives me hope, and helps me to believe that all of us are already engaged in work or in something that is waiting for us to claim it as our purpose. We just have not done the reflection yet.

  I made these six questions the foundation of my reflection and the ones I have advised people to reflect on before they begin any purpose-driven work, because they are the most common questions that you will hear from your friends, your family, your potential supporters, and beyond.

  Chapter Five

  Defy the Odds

  “It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”

  —Muhammad Ali

  One of the funny things about purpose is that everyone is looking for it, all the time, whether they are consciously looking or subconsciously looking. When someone around them says they have discovered their purpose or are going to engage in purpose-driven work, their natural instinct is to react in disbelief. They default to questioning how someone else could have found their purpose while they are still looking and have probably made very little progress. They may even believe that life has no purpose and while they are on Earth they just need to live. So when someone in their presence finds their purpose, it puts to question their own beliefs.

  That person may very well have been you or someone you know. It may have been what inspired you to pick up this book. Now, instead of asking those questions of others once they have found their purposes, you have the tools to ask them of yourself.

  Going back to my initial point, what matters more than the responses to the questions that you reflect on is whether or not you believe in the responses to the questions. You know in your heart of hearts that the response is true beyond a reasonable doubt. The events and the moments in your life that you are pointing to that have lead you to this very point were not orchestrated by chance or mere coincidence.

  I have had far too many moments that have grounded me in my purpose after coming to this realization. After I graduated from college, I was running my organization full time. Within a month, I wrote a hand-written letter to a billionaire hedge fund manager who had supported nonprofits and programs I was a part of when I was in high school. With no expectation of a response, I received an email a month later to set up lunch. The lunch got delayed and rescheduled twice before we finally met in person. By the time we were ready to meet, I was two weeks short of missing payroll. Of course, I had been directed to the hedge fund manager’s family foundation weeks before I came in for lunch, but they had respectfully denied my funding request. At the time, I asked them for $70,000 to support our team for the upcoming year. By the time the lunch rolled around, I viewed it more as a formality than as a request for funds.

  Somehow, the conversation strayed in the direction of my funding request. I told him I had been denied and encouraged to apply later. Within moments, he reversed the decision and approved a grant request for $100,000. The amount was more than we had asked for, but exactly what we needed to give me faith that I was indeed engaged in my purpose.

  My entire life has been set up in an odds-defying fashion. The odds of traversing the ladder of social mobility at the rate that I have were slim. The odds of graduating from my high school and being college-ready were slim. The odds of my attending and graduating from an elite college were slim. The odds that I would work on Wall Street were slim. The odds that I would be so connected to the hundreds of people who would one day work with me on my mission to improve our public education system were slim.

  The best tool to evaluate the thoughtfulness of the responses to your purpose-driven questions is to reduce the likelihood that something could have happened just because there was a high probability that it would happen. Work to understand why it uniquely happened to you. Another thing you can do is ask yourself, what are the odds? If the odds are little to none, as they were most of the time in my case, then you are well on your way to engaging in work and in life with more intentionality and purpose.

  Ultimately, what you are trying to do is have enough conviction in your reflection that you believe it beyond a reasonable doubt. People will question you and your ability to identify and engage in your purpose the moment you share that you believe this is the work you are meant to be doing. The more conviction you have in your responses, the more committed you will be to your work. You will be more unwavering in your aim to achieve your purpose because you know that this is your reason for being on Earth at this very moment, at this very time.

  Chapter Six

  Purpose in Action

  “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

  —Mark Twain

  In 2016, Forbes granted me my own column and gave me the latitude to cover anything I wanted. I chose to cover people who were living in their purposes. I profiled over a dozen individuals from whom we could all learn something. They wake up with a sense of urgency and a desire to improve the world. They all believe their lives and their work are about something much bigger than themselves. The following are three of their stories.

  How This 27-Year-Old Filmmaker Is Helping People with Disabilities Own Their Narratives

  Reid Davenport, 27, was born with cerebral palsy and has dedicated his life to giving people like him a voice in today’s narrative. “For a while, I watched news and documentaries that portrayed people with disabilities as inspirational tropes, passive bystanders, or villains. I was none of the above. I had a story and was living with a disability,” said Davenport. According to a 2011 United Nations report, there are over a billion people in the world living with a disability; almost 200 million experience very significant difficulties.

  “The increasing prevalence of social media and the need for the broader public to understand that people with disabilities are not all inspirational, passive, or villains makes me believe that people with disabilities can take back the narrative by sharing their own stories through video and streaming on platforms like Facebook,” says Davenport. Now there are over 2 billion monthly active Facebook users, of which one billion are daily active users.

  Davenport started making films about people with disabilities almost seven years ago, after he was discouraged from studying abroad in Europe because of its lack of wheelchair a
ccessibility. “Instead of quenching my desire to explore Europe, I applied for the Luther Rice Collaborative Fellowship to travel to western Europe and document my experience and the lack of physical accessibility for people with disabilities,” Davenport said. The trip led to one of Davenport’s most well-regarded documentaries, a 28-minute film titled Wheelchair Diaries: One Step Up that received the award for Best Short Documentary at the 2013 Awareness Film Festival.

  “I have lived with a physical disability all of my life, and I learn more about myself when I make films. Rather than attempting to cure society’s hesitancy toward disabilities and disabled people, I turn to filmmaking, which allows me to appreciate my own struggles unlike anything else,” said Davenport. He’s gone on to produce four other short documentaries that explore the perspective of people with disabilities and has received a handful of other awards, including the Artistic Visions Award at the 2016 Big Sky Documentary Festival.

  In 2016, Davenport took his work one step further when he cofounded Through My Lens, which is an organization that works with schools and community centers to teach students with disabilities how to collaboratively make films. “I think other young people with disabilities who have gone through identity issues or internalized frustration could potentially benefit by expressing themselves through video. I’ve experienced the catharsis of recognizing and sharing my struggles through video,” Davenport said. He hopes that his work will lead to more narratives from the perspectives of people with disabilities. “In a media that is riddled with the disabled human-interest stories that strengthen the taboo of disability, firsthand perspectives—whether they’re feature films or Facebook live events—will show what it’s really like to be disabled in today’s society,” said Davenport.

  How One Digital Marketer’s Inspiring Story Amassed 1.7M Followers

  Nathan Allen Pirtle believes his purpose is to help leaders understand how to use social media to connect authentically. “First it was radio, then it was television, and now it is social media,” Pirtle says. Per the Pew Research Center, as of January, 70 percent of Americans use social media for entertainment, connection, and news.

  “Social media helped one person rise from the bottom of the Republican rankings to President of the United States,” said Pirtle. With eight months left to go until the general election, President Trump had an estimated $2 billion in free media coverage. This allowed Trump to spend about half of what Clinton spent on her campaign—$238.9 million compared to $450.6 million. Pirtle believes, “if we teach the right people how to use social media, they can be the leaders of tomorrow.”

  In 2014, Pirtle founded a digital media company called Work with the Coach to help leaders connect authentically with their fans and consumers. “Nobody wants to be sold to on social media,” Pirtle says. “When you engage with your fans in a genuine way, the fans will organically spark business.” His start is a testament to just that. Pirtle landed Wyclef Jean, one of his more recent celebrity clients, through a cold tweet.

  And though it might seem like Pirtle was always at the top, his life’s journey tells otherwise. Pirtle was born in East St. Louis and raised in Decatur, IL. The cities rank as being safer than 3 percent of other cities and 12 percent of other cities in the US, respectively. After years of disenchantment with school, Pirtle dropped out when he made it to tenth grade. The next few years were marked by instability. He did what he needed to do to fit in and avoid standing out. Before he knew it, he was arrested for an armed robbery and was looking at a prison sentence of fifteen years to life. Pirtle caught a lucky break and got off with six years of probation and only one year in jail.

  In 2013 Pirtle’s father passed away, and it marked a turning point in his life. “I packed up my things, moved out to Los Angeles, and picked up jobs at a call center and at Coffee Bean while I was starting my digital media company,” he said. He was convinced that social media was the wave of the future. The territory is also very familiar. Just a decade ago, Pirtle used to manage an artist’s brand and his own page on Myspace. “It’s a gift I was always good at. When I started my company, I did it using a twenty-nine-dollar app,” said Pirtle.

  Earlier this year Nielson published a study that showed adults eighteen and over spend, on average, over five hours per week on social media, with the heaviest users spending over three hours per day. “Social media is one of the biggest opportunities companies have to connect directly to consumers,” the report stated. Pirtle echoed this same sentiment.

  “Most digital media companies advise people on how to build their brands, but they don’t have people engaging or following them on their own platforms. Digital marketing and social media should be about letting people into your life and helping them feel like family,” he said. Today, Pirtle has 1.7M followers on Twitter. His company has several notable celebrity clients and has worked with Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Wyclef Jean, and Paula Abdul. He’s been credited for worldwide trends and each month reaches over 100M between his Twitter following and client list.

  His following and what he calls “family base” didn’t really start to grow until he owned his story. Pirtle shared, “At first I was afraid to tell my story because I believed that people would judge me. One day I just put it all out there. I accepted that I wasn’t perfect and I will never be perfect. Once I came to terms with my mistakes and the things I did wrong, people started to respond positively to it. They were able to relate to me on another level because we all have skeletons in our closets, we all have secrets, and we’ve all done things we wish we didn’t do.” The rise of social media has provided us with an opportunity to augment our reach and our presence.

  This work for Pirtle goes beyond his day-to-day. He believes that minorities need more role models who aren’t just athletes and entertainers. He believes that if black boys pursued coding, medicine, and business with the same vigor they do becoming a rapper or an athlete, then we’d have more black men doctors, programmers, and entrepreneurs. “There aren’t that many minorities in digital media. I want my story to inspire. I want to be that one piece of hope when it feels like there is no hope,” Pirtle concluded.

  How One Marine Biologist Is Working to Save the Giant Clam

  About ten years ago, Mei Lin Neo, 31, was tasked with reproducing an offspring of giant clams. What was originally supposed to be just another science experiment, where she would take the larvae of the offspring to examine for a few weeks, has now defined Neo’s lifelong purpose to save the giant clam. “I faced multiple failures in trying to rear the giant clams to age, but I couldn’t give up. During my work, these microscopic larvae did not give up; they showed me what it meant to fight for their survival and want to be alive,” said Neo.

  Today Neo is the world’s leading scientist on the giant clam, as measured by publications in the field. “When I finally succeeded, I felt immensely gratified to ‘give new life’ to these miniature giant clams. This became a constant reminder for me as to why I go to work daily, knowing that I can help make a difference and develop solutions to help save a species,” said Neo. At the time, Neo was just starting to discover that giant clams were on track to extinction because of the rapid over-harvesting that took place in the 1960s and again in the 1980s.

  According to Neo, the case to conserve the giant calm is a no-brainer, especially as it pertains to its role in protecting coral reefs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the tourism industry is boosted by $30 billion globally because of the coral ecosystem. Giant clams are known to make their shells out of calcium carbonate, the same material hard corals use for their skeletons, which allows their shell material to become a part of the reef framework.

  Also overlooked is the role giant clams play as greenhouses for algae. The most important living things on our planet are algae, because they produce more oxygen through photosynthesis than any other living thing. Algae need sunlight to grow, but too much is harmful, so giant clams, w
hich have tiny iridescent cells inside their mantles, create a perfect balance. Not to mention, giant clams also serve as shelters for fish, small shrimps, and crabs.

  “Most definitely, there have been other predecessors who attempted this work before, and I see myself continuing their legacy. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else, but I’m different in how I am obsessively interested in the giant clams and my utmost determination to work out smarter conservation solutions,” said Neo. According to Neo, as the marine environment continues to be disrupted by human pollution and apathy, we need to take a multidisciplinary approach to conserving giant clams. “Conserving giant clams may very well extend towards the conservation of reefs and their inhabitants,” said Neo.

  Part ii: Mindset

  One of the most revered entrepreneurs of all time, Henry Ford, summed it up best when he said, “Whether you think you can, or can’t, you’re usually right.” Being an entrepreneur, succeeding in life, accomplishing goals, or realizing your biggest dreams comes down to your mindset. If you can tame your thoughts and control your mind, you can shape your outcomes. I spend a decent amount of time on mindfulness meditation because it allows me to work on focusing my thoughts and my energy.

  Being an entrepreneur is not easy. The mental toll is large, and having the right expectations is important. In a 2013 Inc. article titled “The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship,” the author reveals that many entrepreneurs harbor one common secret demon: “Before they made it big, they struggled through moments of near-debilitating anxiety and despair—times when it seemed everything might crumble.”

  Unfortunately, there is no easy way around the mental battle. One of the things that helped me early on was imagining that the entrepreneurial journey was essentially a compressed sine graph (that graph that they showed you in math and physics that you never imagined you’d ever hear referenced again) that was tilted slightly upwards.