By Kevin Langley
When I re-entered New Orleans in a boat and stood on the roof of my
flooded, hurricane-ravaged house, I realized it was a tipping point in
my life.
It was surreal to witness the disaster and tragedy from
Hurricane Katrina in the city that I love. A television clip just
doesn’t capture it. From my flooded house in Lakeview, near the 17th
Street Canal breach, you could drive for two hours without ever leaving
this flooded, lifeless zone— an urban devastation seven times the size
of Manhattan. All of my neighbors and most of my employees lost their
homes and everything in them. Several of our neighbors and friends,
along with 1,836 other people, died from the hurricane force winds and
flooding alone.
My new office flooded. Twice we moved our
temporary office and worked on folding tables until we were able to
rebuild. Six months after the storm, we moved back into our office. We
had no phone lines or electricity for months, while 15 employees were
forced to live in trailers in our parking lot.
Though the
rebuilding of New Orleans is slow and painful, like so many other
entrepreneurs, I refuse to be a victim. Somehow, what might have been a
crippling blow to our morale and ability to function actually brought
out the best. It showed us, without question, that our future success
is ultimately a result of our mindset and attitude. Katrina didn’t
cause the problems, it simply revealed them.In an address to the
nation, standing in Jackson Square two weeks after Hurricane Katrina,
President Bush said, “It is entrepreneurship that creates jobs and
opportunity. It is entrepreneurship that helps break the cycle of
poverty. And we will take the side of entrepreneurs as they lead the
economic revival of the Gulf region.”
What do entrepreneurs do?
Some have dreams and pursue them for personal success, but it doesn’t
end there. Entrepreneurs create new jobs and innovations that fuel the
world’s economy. We have the power not only to revive my region of the
world but to revive economies and communities around the globe. Even
before the floodwaters subsided, the members of EO New Orleans were
picking up the pieces of their lives, the lives of their employees and
their communities. They did not wait for the bureaucracy to begin
rebuilding their lives. They adapted, innovated and moved quickly to
begin the rebuilding.
My fellow EO New Orleans member Marshall
Klein, who has since passed away, shared with us all a profound
realization he had before his death. In the months before he died, he
expressed that he had found clarity of purpose: He discovered that true
fulfillment only comes with life balance and the selfless sharing of
knowledge with other entrepreneurs as they strive to realize their
dreams. He challenged that we all find our own purpose, with clarity,
and pursue it wholeheartedly.
After Katrina, despite the
suffering and difficulties around me, I found this clarity, along with
many others in my chapter. We saw the power our dreams — though we had
pursued them individually — had on a great number of people. We
realized that every community, if it is filled with highly skilled
entrepreneurs, can transform the economy of the region. We felt fully
the vision of EO — to build the world’s most influential community of
entrepreneurs — and the importance of that vision beyond the
organization. We made it our goal to empower small businesses to
overcome the grave challenges threatening their survival and prosper.
It
might seem that we had little to give in the months following Katrina,
but the truth is that we still had what mattered: time and talent.
Though money matters, it is knowledge that truly transforms lives. So
we decided to share our hard-earned knowledge and expertise with
entrepreneurs at every stage of development by participating in the EO
Accelerator Program.
On Thursday, 2 November 2006, a little more
than a year after the storm, our chapter held the largest event in our
history to launch the EO Accelerator Program. It was truly a moving,
rewarding and exciting experience to see so many members from our
chapter step up, embrace the program and get involved. Even better, it
was a home run with the participants.I
’m not going to go into
details about the program, because it’s one of those things I’m so
passionate about that I could fill a library. But I will tell you that
it’s essentially about mentoring, in its simplest form, a connection
between individuals, one entrepreneur learning from other
entrepreneurs. Though it’s just getting started, I see myself in the
participants. When they show up, eager to learn and know and grow, I
can’t help but be moved, knowing that we, as people and as
entrepreneurs, are really fighting for the same thing.
Sometimes,
when we are in a comfort zone, we miss the big picture. This disaster
forced me to focus on what’s most important: family, friends, giving
back, a sense of community. And I realized that one of the greatest
things about giving back to other entrepreneurs is that it really is a
win/win situation. We may be giving our time and talent, asking for
nothing in return, but chances are, like it or not, we are going to
receive much more benefit in unexpected ways as a result of our
charitable actions.
We all have an end. We can’t live forever.
But when you find clarity of purpose, you can give it life and it will
continue long after you are gone. The dream never has to end.