Hi everyone!
My name is Claudia and I am here today to talk to you about a recent experience I had as part of my MBA program. I study at London Business School, and there is a class we get to take called GBE: Global Business Experience. For this class, you choose from a list of locations and topics where you would like to spend one week emerged in a city that faces a specific business problem, and you both learn and give back to the community.
My chosen destination was Johannesburg (not because Johannes is a good friend, but because I had never been to South Africa) and the importance of microentrepreneurs for the economy. The experience itself was sick; in a group with 5 other students we helped a microentrepreneur named John (disguised) who owns a convenience store and internet café in getting tighter control of his business in order to expand his opportunities. While I could write a lot about this itself, I want to focus on what I learned from John as a person and why it impacted me so much.
John lives in a township of Joburg called Alexandra, which is extremely poor and suffers disproportionally from load shedding (periodic electricity cuts as an effort to control the energy crisis, Google it if you're interested!). This prevents businesses from having a consistent supply of electricity, which for my entrepreneur in particular was tough as his business involved food and fridges were non-operative for a great part of the day (you can imagine how this messes up the fresh products stock). This problem is not easily solvable, as the work-arounds such as generators or solar panels are expensive. You can imagine how frustrating this would be for anybody trying to run a business...
But not for John. John's optimism in the face of adversity was like being woken up with a bucket of cold water that checked my privilege faster than any other experience could. The first day we met John, I remember him telling us that he was so lucky to have access to so many opportunities. This guy, who barely made enough to survive and whose business was falling apart due to the structural issues of the area where he lived was thankful for having so many opportunities. He went on to explain that living in a developing country was great, because the biggest issue was that there was not enough time for him to chase all of the chances he was presented with. Talk about a different point of view.
Growing up, I have always heard from my parents, family and teachers that I was lucky. While I did realize this was true on the basic level, I never realized how this impacted my outlook on life until I lived this experience. I think it is easy to realize you are lucky when things are going your way, but whenever I get frustrated I tend to focus more on the negative aspects of a situation rather than the factors for which I am thankful. And the example of John being able to stay positive despite his problems was a great opportunity for me to learn to maintain this awareness of my luck even in situations where it feels that the world is against me - because it is not.
So, when on the last day I told John that I got a lot more out of this experience than he did, it broke my heart when he said "yes, because you need it for your credits in order to graduate right?". Needless to say that the credits were the least useful outcome of this experience, but it was a lot more about personal learning and growth, as well as a wake up call to do good and use my luck to help others in more long-lasting ways than I had been doing until now.
Thank you so much for reading and have a great day!
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