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March 2024
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INTERNALIZED POVERTY3/11/2024 This internalized poverty mentality is pervasive in non-profit, purpose-driven space. The wages are way too low compared with other industries. There's no mentorship and workforce development within this sector. No investment in anything long-term. They are proud of Zero budgeting. A zero-sum competition exists between non-profits in smaller cities especially for funding. The skeletal staff is doing 2-3 jobs for a salary of one. The Board is always a hands-on board, sometimes meddling too much on implementation. Volunteers are used as second-level staffers. Funders do not trust them to develop their organizations, only to deliver the programs. I got almost into a debate after I spoke about the fallacy of 10% administration budget that funders would only fund. I reasoned that 10% is too miniscule to account for what non-profit needs to scale, grow, and build stronger and robust systems for the community good that they do. A woman retorted, " so Executive Directors get to pad their pockets with lots of money?" Is this really what we think about this issue? What a narrow, escapist notion that people will pad their incomes when given more money for administration. It's like saying that we should not build bridges and roads because the contractors get the best of taxpayers monies or that politicians get a kickback somehow. There's no future in this poverty mentality than more poverty, scarcity leading to bad, low quality, one-size-fits-all services that serve no one. This is the loop that should be condemned by everyone. The non-profit is in a crisis and it has been like that for a long time. If these structural issues continue, no amount of billion dollar funding can make it better, it could trigger a more dog-eat-dog scenario. Let's stop kidding ourselves that it will change when a new government comes, or when the funders will get an epiphany, or maybe, if we can just demand for reforms. No! this is a case for societal response to a major overhaul. And I don't think we are near fed-up which is what I hope so.
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FALLING INTO PLACE9/4/2023 Remember a time when you walked into a room and you sensed belonged or met a complete stranger and felt that you clicked. You didn't figure out what happened but you knew something happened that made it work. For some people, they call it a magical moment, a cosmic reaction, or chemistry. But for me, this was a situation of ease where what happened was not a product of your hard work but your non-work. Lately, these days, they would say, ' trust the process.' You can't trust the process if you don't know what process you're at. So many people are caught up in the hustle of life and business that they forget what actually makes them feel truly alive and well. That goes to show, that much of what we are programmed to do does not mean it's good in the long run. Today's mantra is 'you can do everything and be somebody' but in reality, we can only do something that we're really good at (to get paid at it) and not more. Based on the latest poll, students these days wanted to be social media influencers and YouTube creators than planning on entering a profession and spending a few years honing their craft. They'd rather be millionaires now (as promised to them by those marketers) than complete degrees, certifications, apprentice work, and more work. Being at ease is not just being comfortable. It's being comfortable despite the uncertainty and what goes into surrendering with that process. Eventually, it is being yourself and understanding that whatever comes, will come eventually. It is of the belief that your life is full of abundance and not of scarcity and lack. That your life is a not a series of boom and bust but a cycle of renewal and dissolution. Chance and luck happens to all of us. Adversities happen to everyone. It's up to you to be in the situation of ease even when things are not falling into place.
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PREMATURE FAILURE3/9/2023 You must have heard many times of the term "premature success." Well, there's also what I call premature failure. Premature failure is when you just started to fail and not when you have failed and tried hundred of times but didn't find an ounce of success or simply an opening for a reiteration. Premature failure is giving up way too early when in fact, the pains of any early startup or journey or first few steps are always longer, harder, and perseverance-required than in any other stages. It is just what it is. An indication of something that must be done, evaluated, and relaunched again. Realistically our concept of failure is flawed in a sense that we always have high expectations of our initial actions. We allow this momentary discovery elude us of the benefits of the real results that come after many tries and retries. We see a well-polished book and we thought that the author must have written it in one go while watching Netflix or a new app that we install in our tablets and phones had been imagined and developed with a matter of months just by talking to friends. We seldom see the behind the scenes of product development of many companies whose tasks is to lower customer barriers to acquiring, using, and marketing their product for them. We often don't look at how the after-office hours of business would look like when this means revamping everything that they think great about their product to build a better one. Start-ups know this by heart. But the non-profit sector doesn't, not even those who are serving a purpose-centred mission. There is an idealistic notion that they should be successful at their campaigns because they have lofty goals. That the public should be donating more, supporting more, the government giving more budgets because the needs are greater and that squares a lot of the wrongness in society. When that didn't happen, they blame it externally rather than look within their own limitations. Honestly, this idealism leads to regular failure. Regular failure is what we need. Regular failure is premature failure. Regular failure becomes the necessary ritual to attain the next level of competency. The culture in the purpose sector should be stripped away from idealism to pragmatism. Regular failure is under appreciated. Premature failure is not the time to make a direction-changing course of action yet. Ask more questions and listen attentively to market signals. Go back to the drawing board and recalibrate. Stay in the learning mode until you get it right. And when you get it right, do you really want to change course? |