Change is addictive

I was doing some research for work yesterday and I ran across a video online that I thought was neat. It was a training seminar hosted by the Acumen Fund. .... BTW, Acumen is a really incredible organization - a "non-profit venture fund" which uses philanthropic capital to invest in organizations (non-profit or for-profit) in developing countries that are working to solve the problems of global poverty. They've had some fabulous results and are worth checking out. And I'm proud to say that Acumen was founded by a Stanford MBA, Jacqueline Novogratz, whom I had the pleasure of meeting when I was in b-school. Anyway, I digress...

Acumen was having a training session for students and Seth Godin, a marketing expert and bestselling author, was trying to inspire the students to choose careers that make a difference. Here's what he had to say (paraphrased in some parts)...

Making change is addictive.

Making positive change, doing things that matter to people will change your life forever for the better.

What you need to do is to learn how to lead, how to connect people, how to break rules (that don’t get you in too much trouble). But don’t expect that when you set out to make it happen it will happen right away.

What you are going to do is fail … over and over and over again. But every one of the cycles of failure is going to teach you something. Because if it was easy, everyone would have done it already. But it’s not easy and that’s why you are here. You are here because you are going to do something that we don’t have the formula for yet and everyone else is going to copy you. But you are going to have to decide first [to follow that path] and I really hope you do.

I just thought it was a neat call to arms, of sorts. And I should note that Seth is also a Stanford MBA ... makes me proud to call myself part of the same community as inspirational people like Seth and Jacqueline.