Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.
The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck & to provide new ways to get it unstuck.
There is nothing more powerful than a new idea in the hands of a social entrepreneur
It's not to give people fish It's not to teach them how to fish It's to build a new and better fishing industry
Of course you can do it. It doesn't require brilliance. It's just giving yourself permission and then being persistent. Persistent in seeing the problem or opportunity and persistent in thinking about it until you have come up with some interesting ideas that might change the pattern. It's really a mindset, not anything in the objective world - that is the problem.
What is the most powerful lever you can imagine? A big idea, but only if it's in the hands of a truly outstanding entrepreneur. It starts with the person and the idea, and then grows to the institution. All three are intertwined.
The one single factor that determines society’s success is the percentage of change-makers within it.
The biggest problem is getting beyond the "you can't" syndrome. The moment you figure that out, you're on your way to flying. Anyone who cannot see problems around him or herself is utterly blind. All the problems sitting there are an invitation for you to be creative, make use of your skills and resources and find a solution.
Imagine a world where everyone is really a change maker.
What does an entrepreneur do? The first thing is they've given themselves permission to see a problem. Most people don't want to see problems ... Once you see a problem and you keep looking at it you'll find an answer.
We need to teach empathy as we do literacy.
An entrepreneur is someone who brings a pattern change.
Listening is understanding. The skill of empathy is a must to be able to listen...One can listen better if one sees the whole.
All the problems sitting there are an invitation for you to be creative, make use of your skills and resources and find a solution.
Everyone says youve got to do a foundation and legal structure to finance social change. What nonsense!
What is our job as entrepreneurs if not to change things that are crazy?
The most critical variable [to becoming a change-maker] is one's willingness to give oneself permission. To break the mental chains that make us small because everyone tells us we cannot.
We need to reverse three centuries of walling the for-profit and non-profit sectors off from one another. When you think for-profit and non-profit, you most often think of entities with either zero social return or zero return on capital and zero social return. Clearly, there's some opportunity in the spectrum between those extremes. What's missing is the for-profit finance industry coming in to that area. Look at the enormous diversity of the for-profit financial industry as opposed to monolithic nature of the non-profit world; it's quite astonishing.
If everyone is a changemaker, there's no way a problem can outrun a solution
There are millions of people who can get things done. There are very, very few people who will change the pattern in the whole field.
Entrepreneurs almost always have to step out of existing institutions that embody old ways of doing things to build their vision.
Organizations must shift away from repetitive-function hierarchies with rules and enforcement and walls. Instead, we must migrate rapidly to becoming a global 'team of teams' that comes together in whatever combination necessary to add the greatest value to the changes underway.
What is your personal definition of "good"? A world in which everyone is universally empathetic and exercises love and respect with full change-making power.
In an increasingly connected world it is less likely that a few people 'manage' everyone else. The new environment requires a shift in the organization of both institutions and societies, one of flexible teams of teams that come together around whatever change opportunities exist and then reform around the next.
Social entrepreneurs are married to a vision of, for example, a better way of helping young people grow up or of delivering global healthcare. They simply will not stop because they cannot be happy until their vision becomes the new pattern.
