…That time saved from being distracted has enabled me to read 35 books, plant a garden, and focus on my passions of family and work with greater focus and clarity. I've taken 4 trips to Africa, gone backcountry camping with my girls, and traveled domestically 4 times with great peace and clarity. My "downtime" is used for actual leisure instead of being "distraction time" in place of downtime.

It’s not just water, it’s not just material poverty, it’s the textured lives of determined people with their heads held high in the most difficult scenarios you can imagine—and we’re going to figure out how to end the crisis of water and failed water projects by listening to them, designing delivery of safe water in the way they want, responding to needs each day through the feedback of consumer purchases, and keeping it flowing forever because that’s what will be good for all involved.

My Daily Prompts

Morning:

Look at schedule and answer:

What difficulties and I likely to encounter today?

How will I respond to these with virtue and my values?

What one thing must I get done today?

What am I grateful for today?

Afternoon:

What is worrying me right now?

How can I decatastrophize today's problems?

What is in my control?

What is not in my control?

Before Bed:

What did I do well today?

What could I have done better today?

How will I improve tomorrow?

Memento mori, memento vivere

I observe that we often think it’s unvirtuous to derive a profit–especially if you mix in people who have been labeled as poor.

The problem with thinking profit is unvirtuous: charity actually comes from deriving profits.

Why do we see it as the epitome of virtue for our donors to make profit and then use it to help people in need; while not having that same aspiration for people still trapped in poverty?

Why is it virtuous for companies in wealthy nations to earn profits and use those to help people but it is wrong to build companies in Africa to earn profits and use those to help people?

As we talked her daughter came out of their small one room home and mixed some dried cassava in a bowl, which looked like fine flour, and she then twisted the tap and filled the bowl with NUMA water, mixed it together, and readied it to boil over coals for her dinner as we talked. Effortless... Like a microwave dinner thanks to a water tap at home. I smiled as I watched Rhabiatu’s steely demeanor roll between humor, iron determination, affection for her kids, and the almost unconscious motion of preparing food with a razor sharp knife–affectionate and terrifying like a few other mom’s I have known.

This book is a reaction to Mazzucato’s “Entrepreneurial State,” so it reads a bit like you’re overhearing someone behind you in the coffee shop tell a colorful breakup story, but despite the drama and emotion, the facts, like some of those stories I’ve overheard, are very interesting, compelling, and relevant to the world.

I’m not an economist, I’m a theologian-philosopher so I come about this conversation from an untraditional angle, but I come to it in a search to end the suffering that comes from material poverty. I want to see human flourishing and am on a quest for truth to see that happen through my impact on the world.

I see government price fixing on water causing massive water shortages because they’ve kept the price so low that there is no incentive to produce or deliver water. The more water delivered, the higher the losses to state, parastatal, and private actors. In the name of protecting people, the private sector is shackled from innovating to provide greater and greater levels of service, technologies, and models that would cause breakout innovations to serve increasingly “bottom” but abundant markets.

My first home visit, after the community assemblyman, was that of Ester Jomo. She has a small curio shop behind her home where she sells loaves of bread, peanuts, tomato paste, rice and other small food products. Esther is a self described “elderly woman”, living by herself. She has a unique sweetness and depth that wonderful Grandmother’s all have and she described her “status”—one that comes from living on as a widow in your hometown when your adult children live elsewhere.

Philosophizing on the need to release entrepreneurs as apostles in the world

We take our “simple is beautiful” thinking everywhere and create a discipleship model that is a huge but “back to the basics” philosophical innovation. Here’s how it works as a disciplemaker: pray for God to show you the right person/people, share a relevant passage of scripture, have them restate it in their own words, have the individual/group make application to the scripture, have the individuals make a commitment to apply that scripture and share it with someone that very week.

If you watched my TEDx, you know I believe our philosophy stems from a deep belief in the potential of rural Africans. Rural individuals are constantly taking the resources they have and leveraging them against the perpetual obstacles they face for personal and communal advancement. I believe that if I prioritize their wants, really believing these wants are aligned with their needs, and obsessing over their experience as clients is how sustainability will be achieved. If we can find a way to give these tenacious and resilient people what they ask for, they’ll find a way to support it and make more of it.

Here I’ll unpack a little of the thought work that went into my TEDx talk around the problem in the way we’re using charity and some of my perceptions around what causes it.