There are way too many people in the wrong jobs sleep walking from one promotion to the next. In the past it was acceptable to 'settle' for a job that didn't tick all the boxes. You had to pay the bills so you put on your work-mask and did whatever you had to do to get the job done. Result: Regret. When its too late to do anything about it. Bonnie Ware in her book 'Top 5 Regrets of the Dying' observed some rather stark regret themes across the people whose last days she spent with them.
- I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the one others expected of me
- I wish that I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I had let myself be happier.
This hack is about ensuring people don't 'settle'. It is about giving them a chance to discover their WOW. In the past investors looked to pick the right companies to invest in. In the times to come, they will look to find the right people to invest in.
FLOWSTARTER - Giving every person on the planet a chance to live their dream
She was raised in Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland to Irish parents originally from County Donegal, Ireland. Her father, Patrick Boyle, was a miner and veteran of the Second World War who also worked as a singer at the Bishop's Blaize; her mother Bridget was a shorthand typist. She was the youngest of four brothers and five sisters. She was raised thinking that she had been briefly deprived of oxygen during a difficult birth resulting in a learning disability. She has, however, recently been told she was misdiagnosed and instead has Aspergers Syndrome with an IQ "above average". She says she was bullied as a child, and was nicknamed "Susie Simple" at school. After leaving school with few qualifications, she was employed for the only time in her life as a trainee cook in the kitchen of West Lothian College for six months, took part in government training programmes, and performed at local venues. On 11th April 2009, she walked onto the stage on the TV programme Britain's Got Talent to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. And everything changed. Today Susan Boyle is world famous. (Source: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Boyle)
27-year-old economics graduate Eleni Katsarea is unemployed and worried she might not have a job when her benefit runs out in a few months. "I am trying not to think about it because I get too stressed," she says. The first person in her family to go to university, she never imagined she would end up dependent on the state. But today one in three graduates in Greece is without work and unemployment among postgraduates has doubled. "I have a degree, I speak several languages and I have something to offer the country but they don't let me, there are no opportunities," says Ms Katsarea.(Source: BBC News - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17464528)
A sports charity set up by steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal that helped produce India's only individual Olympic gold medallist has shut down, apparently due to a lack of funds, an official said Wednesday. The Mittal Champions Trust (MCT), founded in 2005 to raise India's sporting standards and produce Olympic medallists, was headed by Mittal's son-in-law Amit Bhatia. The charity backed shooter Abhinav Bindra, who won India's first individual gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt who took bronze in London four years later.(Source: Times of India - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/others/Indian-sports-charity-behind-Olympic-medallists-closes/articleshow/31897750.cms)
These three stories from across the globe highlight the problem more emphatically than any statistic. Eleni Katsarea's tale is one of ability without access. India's 1.27 billion have just one individual Olympic gold to show for all their efforts. With the MTC pulling the plug on funding, a few million aspiring Olympian's dreams just went down the tube. Susan Boyle's story tells of the magic that happens when Talent, Access & Funding all come together.
The problem is that we don't have a platform to bring all these 3 together and that's where FLOWSTARTER comes into the picture.
The Solution is a simple web based platform that I call FLOWSTARTER. It allows people from all over the world to showcase their TALENT. The Internet means that ACCESS is free to everyone irrespective of where in the world you live or come from. People can FUND human potential by investing in people they find truly talented.
When people login to the website they will be able to either post a funding request or fund a request. Once a request has been fully funded, the applicant will get access to the funds staggered over a period of time since personal development isn't instantaneous but happens gradually.
The practical impact is again best understood through a story of a little boy who was born in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, to parents Jorge Horácio, a factory steel worker, and Celia María Cuccittini, a part-time cleaner. At the age of five, he started playing football for Grandoli, a local club coached by his father Jorge.
At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. Local powerhouse River Plate had showed interest in his progress, but were not willing to pay for treatment for his condition, which cost $900 a month. Carles Rexach, the sporting director of FC Barcelona, was made aware of his talent as Jorge had relatives in Lleida in western Catalonia, and he was able to arrange a trial with the team. Rexach, with no other paper at hand, offered the young lad a contract written on a paper napkin. Barcelona offered to pay his medical bills on the condition that he moved to Spain. The boy and his father duly moved to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the club's youth academy. The rest as they say is history.
I'm talking about Lionel Messi, one of the best footballers in the world at the moment. His story was possible because Talent (which he had) Access (relative in Lleida in this case) and Funding (FC Barcelona's willingness to pay his medical bills) all came together at that crucial moment in his life. Messi's record-breaking fourth consecutive Ballon d'Or award and buy-out clause at €250 million has brought Bracelona rich dividends on this investment.
Flowstarter will provide access and funding to talents across the world making stories like this the rule rather than the exception.
Regulating the Spends: In T.A. Edison’s words, a great idea is typically 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. And, it’s not surprising that Steve Jobs years later said that “Real Artists Ship“. People funding this talent will need to be invested for the long term with no payback other than the joy of seeing another human's potential fully expressed, and talent takes differing times to blossom from person to person.
Potential Misalignment: There's always a chance of misalignment between talent and backersexpectations. Flowstarter is faced with a complex task in finding a solution here. When you invest in talent, a different kind of patience is required. It isn't an investment like a share that you can buy today and sell tomorrow.A potential solution is the implementation of tactics which require the talent being funded to report regulalry on the use of thefunds and the progress they are making. In a sense you are sort to shifting the responsibilities of backers to the talent itself.
That may solve the problem? In part, yes, its setting a foot down with rules to generate a set of practical solutions. But what I am hoping is that it starts a process that allows all to contribute to finding the best possible solutions. More specifically, its important for the community to respond so that FLOWstarter can gain a better understanding about what might be the best course of action towards solution.
2. Have people sign up. Apart from some basic selection criteria, Flowstarter allows you to present your talent as a “dream” meaning that it must have a definite end. Other than that the rest of the process of proliferating your needs for funding is more or less up to you. The complexity here is keeping things this simple while bringing more alignment between talent and funders.
3. Be completely transparent. This exchange requires minimal intermediation. Its designed to have millions get a chance to live their dream lives, to find the fullest expression of their human potential. To meet this challenge it is essential that we let people know this is not a body shop! Policies must assure that Flowstarter wants to make things more transparent and clear to funders and the larger audience of talent in search of funding.
4. Explain the model and its flexibility. This isn't an investment for people who want to get rich quick. Its an investment in human potential. There is no monetary pay back! You invest in an asset but you don't own it and have no control over it.
One of my favorite quotes, which I repeat often is the famous line from Saint Irenaeus: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” FLOWstarter empowers more people to be fully alive living their most pwerful lives.
Raynah Remedios
The Center for Creative Leadership
You need to register in order to submit a comment.