Transcript
I will never forget the first time I visited a client in jail. The heavy, metal door slammed behind me, and I heard the key turn in the lock. The cement floor underneath me had a sticky film on it that made a ripping sound, like tape being pulled off a box, every time I moved my foot. The only connection to the outside world was a small window placed too high to see. There was a small, square table bolted to the floor and two metal chairs, one on either side.
That was the first time I understood viscerally — just for a fleeting moment — what incarceration might feel like. And I promised myself all those years ago as a young, public defender that I would never, ever forget that feeling. And I never have. It inspired me to fight for each and every one of my clients’ freedom as if it was my own.
Freedom. A concept so fundamental to the American psyche that it is enshrined in our constitution. And yet, America is addicted to imprisonment. From slavery through mass incarceration, it always has been. Look, we all know the shocking numbers. The United States incarcerates more people per capita than almost any nation on the planet.
But what you may not know is that on any given night in America, almost half a million people go to sleep in those concrete jail cells who have not been convicted of anything. These mothers and fathers and sons and daughters are there for one reason and one reason only: they cannot afford to pay the price of their freedom. And that price is called bail.
Now, bail was actually created as a form of conditional release. The theory was simple: set bail at an amount that somebody could afford to pay — they would pay it — it would give them an incentive to come back to court; it would give them some skin in the game. Bail was never intended to be used as punishment. Bail was never intended to hold people in jail cells. And bail was never, ever intended to create a two-tier system of justice: one for the rich and one for everybody else. But that is precisely what it has done.
Seventy-five percent of people in American local jails are there because they cannot pay bail. People like Ramel. On a chilly October afternoon, Ramel was riding his bicycle in his South Bronx neighborhood on his way to a market to pick up a quart of milk. He was stopped by the police. And when he demanded to know why he was being stopped, an argument ensued, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground in handcuffs, being charged with “riding your bicycle on the sidewalk and resisting arrest.”
He was taken to court, where a judge set 500 dollars bail. But Ramel — he didn’t have 500 dollars. So this 32-year-old father was sent to “The Boat” — a floating jail barge that sits on the East River between a sewage plant and a fish market. That’s right, you heard me. In New York City, in 2018, we have a floating prison barge that sits out there and houses primarily black and brown men who cannot pay their bail.
Let’s talk for a moment about what it means to be in jail even for a few days. Well, it can mean losing your job, losing your home, jeopardizing your immigration status. It may even mean losing custody of your children. A third of sexual victimization by jail staff happens in the first three days in jail, and almost half of all jail deaths, including suicides, happen in that first week.
What’s more, if you’re held in jail on bail, you’re four times more likely to get a jail sentence than if you had been free, and that jail sentence will be three times longer. And if you are black or Latino and cash bail has been set, you are two times more likely to remain stuck in that jail cell than if you were white.
Jail in America is a terrifying, dehumanizing and violent experience. Now imagine for just one moment that it’s you stuck in that jail cell, and you don’t have the 500 dollars to get out. And someone comes along and offers you a way out. “Just plead guilty,” they say. “You can go home back to your job. Just plead guilty. You can kiss your kids goodnight tonight.” So you do what anybody would do in that situation. You plead guilty whether you did it or not. But now you have a criminal record that’s going to follow you for the rest of your life.
Jailing people because they don’t have enough money to pay bail is one of the most unfair, immoral things we do as a society. But it is also expensive and counterproductive. American taxpayers — they spend 14 billion dollars annually holding people in jail cells who haven’t been convicted of anything. That’s 40 million dollars a day.
What’s perhaps more confounding is it doesn’t make us any safer. Research is clear that holding somebody in jail makes you significantly more likely to commit a crime when you get out than if you had been free all along.
Freedom makes all the difference. Low-income communities and communities of color have known that for generations. Together, they have pooled their resources to buy their loved ones freedom for as long as bondage and jail cells existed. But the reach of the criminal legal system has grown too enormous, and the numbers are just too large. Ninety-nine percent of jail growth in America has been the result — over the last 20 years — of pre-trial incarceration.
I have been a public defender for over half my life, and I have stood by and watched thousands of clients as they were dragged into those jail cells because they didn’t have enough money to pay bail. I have watched as questions of justice were subsumed by questions of money, calling into question the legitimacy of the entire American legal system. I am here to say something simple — something obvious, but something urgent. Freedom makes all the difference, and freedom should be free.
But how are we going to make that happen? Well, that’s the question I was wrestling with over a decade ago when I was sitting at a kitchen table with my husband, David, who is also a public defender. We were eating our Chinese takeout and venting about the injustice of it all when David looked up and said, “Why don’t we just start a bail fund, and just start bailing our clients out of jail?” And in that unexpected moment, the idea for the Bronx Freedom Fund was born.
Look, we didn’t know what to expect. There were plenty of people that told us we were crazy and we were going to lose all of the money. People wouldn’t come back because they didn’t have any stake in it. But what if clients did come back? We knew that bail money comes back at the end of a criminal case, so it could come back into the fund, and we could use it over and over again for more and more bail. That was our big bet, and that bet paid off.
Over the past 10 years, we have been paying bails for low-income residents of New York City, and what we have learned has exploded our ideas of why people come back to court and how the criminal legal system itself is operated. Turns out money isn’t what makes people come back to court.
We know this because when the Bronx Freedom Fund pays bail, 96 percent of clients return for every court appearance, laying waste to the myth that it’s money that mattered. It’s powerful evidence that we don’t need cash or ankle bracelets or unnecessary systems of surveillance and supervision. We simply need court reminders — simple court reminders about when to come back to court.
Next, we learned that if you’re held in jail on a misdemeanor, 90 percent of people will plead guilty. But when the fund pays bail, over half the cases are dismissed. And in the entire history of the Bronx Freedom Fund, fewer than two percent of our clients have ever received a jail sentence of any kind.
Ramel, a week later — he was still on the boat, locked in that jail cell. He was on the cusp of losing everything, and he was about to plead guilty, and the Bronx Freedom Fund intervened and paid his bail. Now, reunited with his daughter, he was able to fight his case from outside. Look, it took some time — two years, to be exact — but at the end of that, his case was dismissed in its entirety. For Ramel —
For Ramel, the Bronx Freedom Fund was a lifeline, but for countless other Americans locked in jail cells, there is no freedom fund coming. It’s time to do something about that. It’s time to do something big. It’s time to do something bold. It’s time to do something, maybe, audacious?
We want to take our proven, revolving bail-fund model that we built in the Bronx and spread it across America, attacking the front end of the legal system before incarceration begins.
We’re going to bail out as many people as we can as quickly as we can. Over the next five years, partnering with public defenders and local community organizations, we’re going to set up 40 sites in high-need jurisdictions. The goal is to bail out 160,000 people.
Our strategy leverages the fact that bail money comes back at the end of a case. Data from the Bronx shows that a dollar can be used two or three times a year, creating a massive force multiplier. So a dollar donated today can be used to pay bail for up to 15 people over the next five years. Our strategy also relies on the experience and the wisdom and the leadership of those who have experienced this injustice firsthand.
Each bail project site will be staffed by a team of bail disrupters. These are passionate, dedicated advocates from local communities, many of whom were formerly incarcerated themselves, who will pay bails and support clients while their cases are going through the legal system, providing them with whatever resources and support they may need. Our first two sites are up and running. One in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and one in St. Louis, Missouri. And Ramel? He’s training right now to be a bail disrupter in Queens County, New York.
Our next three sites are ready to launch in Dallas, Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky. The Bail Project will attack the money bail system on an unprecedented scale. We will also listen, collect and elevate and honor the stories of our clients so that we can change hearts and minds, and we will collect critical, national data that we need so we can chart a better path forward so that we do not recreate this system of oppression in just another form. The Bail Project, by bailing out 160,000 people over the next five years, will become one of the largest non-governmental decarcerations of Americans in history.
So look — the criminal legal system, as it exists — it needs to be dismantled. But here’s the thing I know from decades in the system: real, systemic change takes time, and it takes a variety of strategies. So it’s going to take all of us. It’s going to take the civil rights litigators, the community organizers, the academics, the media, the philanthropists, the students, the singers, the poets, and, of course, the voices and efforts of those who are impacted by this system. But here’s what I also know: together, I believe we can end mass incarceration.
But one last thing: those people, sitting in America, in those jail cells, in every corner of the country, who are held in jail on bail bondage, right now — they need a lifeline today. That’s where The Bail Project comes in. We have a proven model, a plan of action, and a growing network of bail disrupters who are audacious enough to dream big and fight hard, one bail at a time, for as long it takes, until true freedom and equal justice are a reality in America.
Thank you.
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The Tragic Story of Bail in America
/in Humanity, Justice, TED, Truth/by Mark LovettThe bail system in American is nothing short of criminal, a tragic story of incarceration for those who lack the funds to get back on the street while awaiting trial. It means being separated from your spouse & children, maybe missing work, and potentially losing your job. It means being guilty until proven innocent, which is about as un-American as it gets.
In an attempt to turn the tide on this tragedy of justice, Robin Steinberg and her husband, both public defenders, founded the Bronx Freedom Fund, and in doing so, attempt to change the story of thousands caught up in an immoral system.
The Bronx Freedom Fund envisions a society that humanizes instead of criminalizes. We restore the presumption of innocence by keeping clients with their families, at their jobs, and out of jail while they await trial. We work tirelessly to fight mass incarceration and the criminalization of race and poverty, and to end the cash bail system as it exists.
A decade later Robin took the stage at TED2018 to talk about The Bail Project, taking the idea to a national level as part of TED’s newly launched Audacious Project.
What if we ended the injustice of bail? by Robin Steinberg at TED2018
Transcript
I will never forget the first time I visited a client in jail. The heavy, metal door slammed behind me, and I heard the key turn in the lock. The cement floor underneath me had a sticky film on it that made a ripping sound, like tape being pulled off a box, every time I moved my foot. The only connection to the outside world was a small window placed too high to see. There was a small, square table bolted to the floor and two metal chairs, one on either side.
That was the first time I understood viscerally — just for a fleeting moment — what incarceration might feel like. And I promised myself all those years ago as a young, public defender that I would never, ever forget that feeling. And I never have. It inspired me to fight for each and every one of my clients’ freedom as if it was my own.
Freedom. A concept so fundamental to the American psyche that it is enshrined in our constitution. And yet, America is addicted to imprisonment. From slavery through mass incarceration, it always has been. Look, we all know the shocking numbers. The United States incarcerates more people per capita than almost any nation on the planet.
But what you may not know is that on any given night in America, almost half a million people go to sleep in those concrete jail cells who have not been convicted of anything. These mothers and fathers and sons and daughters are there for one reason and one reason only: they cannot afford to pay the price of their freedom. And that price is called bail.
Now, bail was actually created as a form of conditional release. The theory was simple: set bail at an amount that somebody could afford to pay — they would pay it — it would give them an incentive to come back to court; it would give them some skin in the game. Bail was never intended to be used as punishment. Bail was never intended to hold people in jail cells. And bail was never, ever intended to create a two-tier system of justice: one for the rich and one for everybody else. But that is precisely what it has done.
Seventy-five percent of people in American local jails are there because they cannot pay bail. People like Ramel. On a chilly October afternoon, Ramel was riding his bicycle in his South Bronx neighborhood on his way to a market to pick up a quart of milk. He was stopped by the police. And when he demanded to know why he was being stopped, an argument ensued, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground in handcuffs, being charged with “riding your bicycle on the sidewalk and resisting arrest.”
He was taken to court, where a judge set 500 dollars bail. But Ramel — he didn’t have 500 dollars. So this 32-year-old father was sent to “The Boat” — a floating jail barge that sits on the East River between a sewage plant and a fish market. That’s right, you heard me. In New York City, in 2018, we have a floating prison barge that sits out there and houses primarily black and brown men who cannot pay their bail.
Let’s talk for a moment about what it means to be in jail even for a few days. Well, it can mean losing your job, losing your home, jeopardizing your immigration status. It may even mean losing custody of your children. A third of sexual victimization by jail staff happens in the first three days in jail, and almost half of all jail deaths, including suicides, happen in that first week.
What’s more, if you’re held in jail on bail, you’re four times more likely to get a jail sentence than if you had been free, and that jail sentence will be three times longer. And if you are black or Latino and cash bail has been set, you are two times more likely to remain stuck in that jail cell than if you were white.
Jail in America is a terrifying, dehumanizing and violent experience. Now imagine for just one moment that it’s you stuck in that jail cell, and you don’t have the 500 dollars to get out. And someone comes along and offers you a way out. “Just plead guilty,” they say. “You can go home back to your job. Just plead guilty. You can kiss your kids goodnight tonight.” So you do what anybody would do in that situation. You plead guilty whether you did it or not. But now you have a criminal record that’s going to follow you for the rest of your life.
Jailing people because they don’t have enough money to pay bail is one of the most unfair, immoral things we do as a society. But it is also expensive and counterproductive. American taxpayers — they spend 14 billion dollars annually holding people in jail cells who haven’t been convicted of anything. That’s 40 million dollars a day.
What’s perhaps more confounding is it doesn’t make us any safer. Research is clear that holding somebody in jail makes you significantly more likely to commit a crime when you get out than if you had been free all along.
Freedom makes all the difference. Low-income communities and communities of color have known that for generations. Together, they have pooled their resources to buy their loved ones freedom for as long as bondage and jail cells existed. But the reach of the criminal legal system has grown too enormous, and the numbers are just too large. Ninety-nine percent of jail growth in America has been the result — over the last 20 years — of pre-trial incarceration.
I have been a public defender for over half my life, and I have stood by and watched thousands of clients as they were dragged into those jail cells because they didn’t have enough money to pay bail. I have watched as questions of justice were subsumed by questions of money, calling into question the legitimacy of the entire American legal system. I am here to say something simple — something obvious, but something urgent. Freedom makes all the difference, and freedom should be free.
But how are we going to make that happen? Well, that’s the question I was wrestling with over a decade ago when I was sitting at a kitchen table with my husband, David, who is also a public defender. We were eating our Chinese takeout and venting about the injustice of it all when David looked up and said, “Why don’t we just start a bail fund, and just start bailing our clients out of jail?” And in that unexpected moment, the idea for the Bronx Freedom Fund was born.
Look, we didn’t know what to expect. There were plenty of people that told us we were crazy and we were going to lose all of the money. People wouldn’t come back because they didn’t have any stake in it. But what if clients did come back? We knew that bail money comes back at the end of a criminal case, so it could come back into the fund, and we could use it over and over again for more and more bail. That was our big bet, and that bet paid off.
Over the past 10 years, we have been paying bails for low-income residents of New York City, and what we have learned has exploded our ideas of why people come back to court and how the criminal legal system itself is operated. Turns out money isn’t what makes people come back to court.
We know this because when the Bronx Freedom Fund pays bail, 96 percent of clients return for every court appearance, laying waste to the myth that it’s money that mattered. It’s powerful evidence that we don’t need cash or ankle bracelets or unnecessary systems of surveillance and supervision. We simply need court reminders — simple court reminders about when to come back to court.
Next, we learned that if you’re held in jail on a misdemeanor, 90 percent of people will plead guilty. But when the fund pays bail, over half the cases are dismissed. And in the entire history of the Bronx Freedom Fund, fewer than two percent of our clients have ever received a jail sentence of any kind.
Ramel, a week later — he was still on the boat, locked in that jail cell. He was on the cusp of losing everything, and he was about to plead guilty, and the Bronx Freedom Fund intervened and paid his bail. Now, reunited with his daughter, he was able to fight his case from outside. Look, it took some time — two years, to be exact — but at the end of that, his case was dismissed in its entirety. For Ramel —
For Ramel, the Bronx Freedom Fund was a lifeline, but for countless other Americans locked in jail cells, there is no freedom fund coming. It’s time to do something about that. It’s time to do something big. It’s time to do something bold. It’s time to do something, maybe, audacious?
We want to take our proven, revolving bail-fund model that we built in the Bronx and spread it across America, attacking the front end of the legal system before incarceration begins.
We’re going to bail out as many people as we can as quickly as we can. Over the next five years, partnering with public defenders and local community organizations, we’re going to set up 40 sites in high-need jurisdictions. The goal is to bail out 160,000 people.
Our strategy leverages the fact that bail money comes back at the end of a case. Data from the Bronx shows that a dollar can be used two or three times a year, creating a massive force multiplier. So a dollar donated today can be used to pay bail for up to 15 people over the next five years. Our strategy also relies on the experience and the wisdom and the leadership of those who have experienced this injustice firsthand.
Each bail project site will be staffed by a team of bail disrupters. These are passionate, dedicated advocates from local communities, many of whom were formerly incarcerated themselves, who will pay bails and support clients while their cases are going through the legal system, providing them with whatever resources and support they may need. Our first two sites are up and running. One in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and one in St. Louis, Missouri. And Ramel? He’s training right now to be a bail disrupter in Queens County, New York.
Our next three sites are ready to launch in Dallas, Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky. The Bail Project will attack the money bail system on an unprecedented scale. We will also listen, collect and elevate and honor the stories of our clients so that we can change hearts and minds, and we will collect critical, national data that we need so we can chart a better path forward so that we do not recreate this system of oppression in just another form. The Bail Project, by bailing out 160,000 people over the next five years, will become one of the largest non-governmental decarcerations of Americans in history.
So look — the criminal legal system, as it exists — it needs to be dismantled. But here’s the thing I know from decades in the system: real, systemic change takes time, and it takes a variety of strategies. So it’s going to take all of us. It’s going to take the civil rights litigators, the community organizers, the academics, the media, the philanthropists, the students, the singers, the poets, and, of course, the voices and efforts of those who are impacted by this system. But here’s what I also know: together, I believe we can end mass incarceration.
But one last thing: those people, sitting in America, in those jail cells, in every corner of the country, who are held in jail on bail bondage, right now — they need a lifeline today. That’s where The Bail Project comes in. We have a proven model, a plan of action, and a growing network of bail disrupters who are audacious enough to dream big and fight hard, one bail at a time, for as long it takes, until true freedom and equal justice are a reality in America.
Thank you.
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!
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A Remarkable Life Story – Tess Vigeland at World Domination Summit 2013
/in Career, Passion, Radio, World Domination Summit/by Mark LovettI think it’s safe to say that deep down, we all want to live a remarkable life. One that is both rewarding on the inside, and garners respect on the outside. But what happens when our life story takes us to that place, and we’re living the dream, yet know that it’s time to move on, time to sever the ties that have served us so well, and take a brave leap into the unknown?
Tess Vigeland was at the peak of her career, and so well known as the host of Marketplace Money that people on the street would recognize her voice. But as you’ll hear in her talk at the 2013 World Domination Summit, Tess had been unhappy for a while, having become bored with the repetition of reporting on the world of finance. As much as she loved the people and position, in the end she had to go because she had too much self-respect to stay.
Have you ever been in a similar situation, when you knew it was time to jump without a net? Did it feel like you needed to close one chapter in order to being writing the next one? I’ve been feeling that way lately, and am contemplating a big leap, one that would take me across an ocean. I’m not sure when or where, or even how, but I’ve been gaining clarity on the why. (more on that in due time, once I’ve figured out a few more things and feel I’m ready to leap)
There’s a point in Tess’ story where it seems that everything is going to work out fine, a classic storybook ending, but her journey takes a turn onto a rocky, and uncertain road. To her credit, and what’s makes this talk so powerful, is her vulnerability, her facing up to self doubt and uncertainty, to admitting that she was no longer feeling remarkable.
At one point she states, “It has been terrifying, it has been awful, it has been heartbreaking.” Not the sort of thing that one usually admits to on stage, but in doing so Tess provides the audience with a stark dose of reality. Sometimes taking a leap of faith is not the rewarding experience that we hoped for, but if our desire is to lead a remarkable life, a few bumps and bruises may come our way in the process. And in the end, it’s worth it.
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De Oratore by Cicero – Book 1 – The Essence of Oratory
/in Cicero, History, Narrative, Public Speaking/by Mark LovettIn addition to being a lawyer, politician and philosopher, Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) was also a preeminent Roman orator. Drawing on the teaching of Greek rhetoric and the craft of oration in Roman times, he composed De Oratore to highlight the principles he believed were at play whenever someone planned to speak on an important topic.
While political speeches and legal proceedings were at the forefront of public speaking during this time, the concepts presented here are valuable in the drafting of any nonfiction narrative. Written in 55 BC, and comprised of three books, De Oratore is a dialogue that is set in 91 BC.
Cicero wrote De Oratore to describe the ideal orator and imagine him as a moral guide of the state. He did not intend the dialogue as merely a treatise on rhetoric, but went beyond mere technique, to make several references to philosophical principles.
Cicero recognized the challenges inherent in mastering a discipline, especially those of a legal, scientific, or philosophical nature, but he considered the ability to speak of these subjects in public, and to do so in a way that brought an audience toward the speaker’s way of thinking, to be the most difficult of all.
I would offer that little has changed in the two plus millennium that’s passed since, with few individuals in modern times considered to be great orators. In my view, however, that notion misses the point of storytelling which comes from the heart and need not reach the pinnacle of public speaking expertise. And in my experience, the vast majority of people, with effort, strategy, and practice, can become impactful public speakers.
I couldn’t agree more regarding the careful construction of words, as word choice has a dramatic effect on the impact that a story will have on an audience. Too often our first draft will rely on the easy words and expressions familiar to us, but may not accurately tell the intended story. This is where rewriting becomes the most important phase of writing. Using a thesaurus provides alternate words that may be closer to the truth of your story.
The second part of the equation, Cicero’s reference to understanding the emotional side of storytelling, is another vital component of narrative construction. The story is, to some extent, about how you feel, but equally important is how the listener will react to what you’re saying. Ideally they will hear your words and feel your emotions.
When working with speakers I ask them to annotate their manuscript by identifying the emotion present at each point in the talk. When it’s time to rehearse, make sure the tone of your voice (as well as body movements and facial expressions) matches the tone of your narrative.
Besides grammar and emotions, Cicero offers his view that oratory requires knowledge of everything important, including all liberal arts. The terms thought leader and subject matter expert are relevant when a talk addresses themes of society, history, politics or science. For an audience to buy into your viewpoint, they must feel a sense of subject mastery. But when telling a story based on personal experience, your expertise relates to the sequence of events alongside your inner reflections, beliefs, opinions and decisions.
But his point about delving beneath the surface is spot on in either case and speaks to the level of honesty and vulnerability that you’re willing to embrace when telling your story.
[De Oratore excerpts from Delphi Complete Works of Cicero, Translated by J. S. Watson]
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Find Your Bliss, Your Passion, Your Ikigai
/in Career, Entrepreneurs, Ikigai, Passion, Storytelling/by Mark Lovett“Follow your bliss,” said Joseph Campbell
“Follow your passion,” said everybody else on the planet
I’ve heard these phrases mentioned since I was born, or at least it feels like it’s been that long. So I find it interesting that millennials are, to a large degree, pushing back on this approach to life, and they have a point.
The point being, “how do I know what my bliss/passion is? and if I don’t know, how the hell can I follow it?”. Well said, and I know what they mean.
While most of my friends jumped from high school to college, then dove into their career the moment they graduated, I had no idea what I wanted to do after high school, which may explain why I found myself building helicopter landing pads in Augusta, Georgia at the age of 18, and why I’ve bounced from one discipline to another, from VP of Ops, to CIO, CMO and CEO in the decades that followed.
It’s only by looking back at this point in my life that I’ve come to see how I was, in fact, following my passion. But as it turns out, that passion was for learning, not for a specific career.
The reason I took on so many different roles was that I was fascinated by the process of acquiring new skills, of challenging my mind to discover procedures and processes as a way to understand how things worked.
And I see that same trait in a lot of millennials. They’re hungry for learning, and will jump from one job to the next, decide to become an entrepreneur, or adopt the life of a freelancer, rather than pursuing a “career”, as is often expected of them. New gets them excited.
But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the idea of bliss, or passion. It just means we should look at our life a bit differently, which is what I found myself doing as last year was coming to a close.
I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but as each new year comes around I do take some time to reflect on the last twelve months gone by, and the next twelve months on the horizon.
It was in the waning moments of 2017 that I discovered an article on Medium by Remo Giuffré. Remo is something of a savant when it comes to people, and in this post he talked about finding one’s purpose.
He brought forth a new term (well, new to me) to describe the intersection of many factors that lead to discovering our purpose – Ikigai. According to Wikipedia, Ikigai is a Japanese concept which means “a reason for being”, and according to Japanese culture, everyone has an Ikigai, though we often have to search for it.
I invite you, as I did, to take some time and examine this visual concept. I admit it’s a bit complicated, especially the empty sections surrounding your Ikigai, but I think you’ll come to realize that Ikigai is far more than passion – it’s service, it’s fulfillment, it’s the gift that only you can share with the world.
For me, it represents the work that I’m doing now, which is storytelling, by way of storylistening. Passion + Mission + Profession + Vocation. And it took decades to discover. So to those who buck the trend of being defined by their career, who have this unbridled thirst for knowledge, and experience, and service, you’re doing just fine. While some will find their Ikigai early on, don’t worry if it takes a lifetime to discover. Enjoy the ride, and remember that each day you’re writing your life story.
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Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Sharing Ideas in San Diego
/in Brand Storytelling, Entrepreneurs, Storytelling, Workshop/by Mark LovettWhenever I get an email from the San Diego Diplomacy Council, I know something interesting is afoot. In this case, it was a group of entrepreneurs with the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative coming to San Diego, and they wanted to know if I could develop a storytelling workshop for them. How could I possibly resist.
The Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) builds linkages between younger leaders across the hemisphere and address the opportunity gap for youth, especially women, by empowering entrepreneurs and civil society leaders with the training, tools, networks and resources they need to transform their societies and contribute more fully to economic development and prosperity, security, human rights and good governance in the hemisphere.
On October 20th I had the pleasure of meeting a dozen entrepreneurs from a dozen Latin America and Caribbean countries who had founded a dozen very cool companies, each with a different focus.
Aarón Bendfeldt, founder & executive director of Grønn (Guatemala)
He previously participated in SPOR, an exchange program between Guatemala and Norway. Aarón is studying Chemical Engineering at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.
Altagrace M. Maignan, founder of Belle Créole (Haiti)
She serves as a Manager at Fondation Esther Boucicault Stanislas. Altagrace holds a Master’s Degree in medicine from the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo.
Andrea Baltodano, founder of Maracao Beachwear (Costa Rica)
Andrea holds an Associate’s Degree in Fashion Design from the Universidad Creativa of Costa Rica.
Carolina Ramos, founder & COO, Natural Pop (Ecuador)
Carolina has a degree in Food Engineering from the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and attended graduate school for French and Social Skills at the Institute de la Providence de Herve in Belgium.
Christine Daley, founder of DoodleSurprize (Jamaica)
Christine has previously worked in Accounting, Marketing, and Project Management at Digicel Jamaica, Zinergy International, and Black Ink Marketing.
Jau Ramírez, co-founder & president of Movimiento SOMOS (Venezuela)
He also works as a Communications Coordinator for Grupo Social CESEAP, and has led communications trainings for a human rights program on the border of Colombia and Venezuela.
Junieth Machado, founder of Cousy (Nicaragua)
Junieth previously worked for DeHumoTV as a journalist and producer, Imaginarte Films/Abre Tus Ojos as a trainer.
Miguel Ángeles, co-founder of CIRSYS (Peru)
Miguel previously worked as a production manager at Corporación Ingelsa S.A.C. and as a junior project engineer at Gloria S.A.
Pedro Young Parietti, co-founder & GM of Huerta en Casa (Uruguay)
Pedro has previously worked at Estero S.A., a seed production company, where he managed the experimental field.
Roniel Guzmán Toribio, CEO of Hub Makerspace (Dominican Republic)
Roniel previously worked as a Project Manager at Domotics Dominicana, and he holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo.
Shamiro Anita, founder & CEO of Bizness Success (Curaçao)
Stephanie Hong, co-founder of Garateá (Brazil)
After going through the basics of personal storytelling, and a session on brand storytelling, many of the entrepreneurs got up and gave the audience a two minute overview of their company, and the ways in which their product or service would changes lives.
That’s the reward I get when working with entrepreneurs, especially from outside the United States – so passionate and dedicated – focused on the the critical issues that millions face in everyday life.
Hats off the the San Diego Diplomacy Council and the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative for allowing entrepreneurs to share ideas, wisdom, and best practices, across countries and continents.
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!
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