Templeton’s response was more positive: they felt that we had a great plan but needed to work on its implementation.
Together with my friend and OTF business partner Michael Fairbanks, we conceived the idea of the Social Equity Venture Fund (SEVEN Fund), a philanthropic foundation that promoted the idea of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. Our objectives were to invest in research of best practices, to expose what works and what doesn’t work in development, and to find and promote the best entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
The basis of our approach was a series of frameworks which Mike has developed throughout his twenty-plus-year career in development. We proposed a person-centered ethics in economic development efforts. We would synthesize Mike’s vast experience in emerging markets and my work in the high technology startup sector to explore and propose enterprise solutions and wealth creation efforts in emerging markets.
The wisdom of Pope John Paul II provided a key inspiration: He once voiced frustration with the current way of measuring poverty by how many dollars a day a person earns. To him, that was both demeaning and a poor way of stating the problem. He said that poverty was not so much dollars a day, but the exclusion from networks of productivity and exchange.
George Weigel, papal biographer and Catholic scholar, writes that “Wealth in the contemporary, post-industrial world is not simply to be found in resources, but rather in ideas, entrepreneurial instincts, and skills. The wealth of nations is no longer stuff in the ground; the wealth of nations resides in the human mind, in human creativity.”
Hope as a means to create prosperity will prevail if the world’s poor can be integrated into networks of productivity to use their “ideas, entrepreneurial instincts, and skills” productively. This is a shift from the mindset that poorer countries should spend their efforts relying mostly on extracting their nation’s natural resources.
The “networks of productivity” image is in contrast to the aid model where the poor are seen as a de-humanized “problem.” This model says the problem needs to be “solved” by someone other than the poor, which removes their dignity as individuals in control of their own destinies. We believe that aid money converted into investments in companies is the more effective and empowering solution with the potential to build sustainable change. “Networks of productivity and exchange” can take a plethora of forms: Internet access, Internet market places, cell phones, schools, health networks, infrastructure, etc.
Mike and I considered this definition of poverty—exclusion from networks of productivity and exchange—to be among the best. It describes both the state of poverty and the best way forward: through enabling solutions that connect the poor with networks of productivity and exchange. It became a cornerstone of our approach.
Within six months we started our new foundation and, with it, an incredible journey into the world of promoting ideas to help solve one of the world’s most pressing issues.
It was then that I noticed my work and my faith coming together, becoming more explicitly related by the day. I found myself going back to John Paul’s writings more frequently. What I found spoke to me with increasing clarity.
I also started remembering—recalling the days and nights I spent by his side, guarding him and watching him while I guarded.
This was a man who not only led the world’s one billion Catholics, but who had taken the Church into the modern age. He held a fractured Church together when the forces of liberalism, traditionalism, secularism, feminism, and dozens of other “isms” were working hard to pull her apart. He challenged the culture’s lies head-on and stared down the entire Soviet Regime. The Eastern Bloc had crumbled under the power of that uncompromisingly firm yet loving gaze. He did all that with the utmost fidelity to Christ and with the utmost love for those he served. Amazing.
I started to make sense of it all with the help of these memories—of what mattered in business, of how companies should be run, and above all, of how leaders should lead. In Pope John Paul II, I found the example of true leadership for which I’d been searching. I’ve tried to follow his example, leading my companies as he led Christ’s faithful. I haven’t been nearly as successful, but I’ve been a much better leader than I otherwise would have been. My companies also have enjoyed more long-term success. And most important, my wife, our son, and I have been immeasurably happier, leading richer, more joyful, and more rewarding lives.
So what did I learn from John Paul about leadership and business all those years ago?
There were nine lessons all together. The first is this: Know who you are.
Questions for Reflection
What have been my greatest professional successes? What did I gain? What did it cost me to achieve that success? How did it change me?
What have been my greatest professional failures? What did I lose? What were the sources of those failures? How did it change me?
How do I define success, or the “American Dream?” How, if at all, is that different from the culture’s definition of success? Whose version of success am I living? What am I willing to sacrifice for that success?
Chapter One
Know Who You Are:
The Importance of Vocation
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
Jeremiah 1:5
Whatever you shall be in life, whichever calling you choose, remember, that the fundamental calling of a human being is to have humanity. And you must always realize that fundamental calling, always and everywhere I fulfill my calling to the extent that I have true humanity … Only one who is truly human is truly a child of God.
—Blessed John Paul II
When I entered the Swiss Guards, I was twenty years old and, like my fellow guards, in peak physical condition. But as fit and energetic as we were, John Paul II could still run rings around us.
That running began before 6:00 every morning when he would rise, pray, dress for the day, then head to his private chapel for more time in prayer. At 7:00 a.m., small groups of visiting dignitaries, Catholic pilgrims, or Vatican staff would join him for Mass. After Mass, guests joined him for breakfast. An hour or two of office work followed. Before greeting official visitors at 11:00, he would meet briefly with linguists to review the finer points of whatever language he would be using to speak to the visiting crowds or dignitaries. Then the audiences began.
Sometimes he spoke to thousands, sometimes only a select few; yet these audiences lasted until one or two in the afternoon. Then it was on to lunch, where various Vatican staff joined him, followed by more time for prayer, with John Paul II often heading to the rooftop gardens of the Papal Palace to walk and talk with God.
After that there was more office work and more audiences, lasting right up until dinner at 8:00 p.m. when guests often dined with him. After the meal ended he would return to reading and writing and working well into the night. Sleep came around midnight or even later. Somewhere in all that, he also found time to ask a Swiss Guard about his day, chat with the sisters who cooked for him, and keep up with old friends.
That was just his Rome schedule. Compared to his schedule while traveling, it was comparatively light. John Paul II traveled far and frequently—more than any other pope in history—104 trips to 129 countries. That’s 775,000 miles or the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe 32 times.
While preparing to write this chapter, I tried to remember any times I saw that schedule taking a toll on the pope. I couldn’t. I recalled plenty of occasions when I was worn out with exhaustion. I remembered the guards who traveled with him returning home and just shaking their heads in wonder, saying, “I don’t know how the guy does it.” Not once do I recall him being bleary-eyed. In fact, it was just the opposite.
When he would return to the Vatican from weeks on the road, he didn’t head straight for his rooms and collapse in exhaustion like most would. Instead, he would stop and greet all the staff who had gathered to wel
come him home. Like a general reviewing his troops, he would “inspect” us, the guards lined up in honor formation, talking to us and shaking our hands as he moved down the row. He had every right and reason to walk right past us to the calm and quiet of his apartments, but he knew it was his sacred duty to make a gift of himself to us as much as to the crowds that greeted him in foreign lands.
Day in and day out, John Paul II poured himself out in response to what God asked of him. The reason he could do that, joyfully and unfailingly, was because he knew what God had made him to do. He knew his vocation.
The Three Levels of Vocations
The term “vocation” means much more than the standard dictionary definition of “a career path or line of work.” It is more of a “calling” than a “job.” If you had to sum up the Catholic understanding of the word “vocation” in one sentence, you could say that one’s vocation is one’s mission in life. It’s what God made you to do.
You could also say it’s what you do for God. God gave you life, and now, by means of your vocation, you give it back to him.
Either way you look at it, your vocation gives meaning to your life. According to John Paul II, your vocation answers the question, “Why am I alive?” Moreover, he believed, only when you’re living out your vocation can you find fulfillment in this life. Your vocation, understood, embraced, and lived, is what makes you feel truly and fully alive.3
The Universal Vocation
That’s the simple explanation of vocation, but there’s still a lot more to the concept. There are three different levels of vocations. They focus on different aspects of your life, and differ in importance.
The first of these three is the universal vocation. This is the vocation in which we all share. It doesn’t matter who you are or where or when you live, you have the same universal vocation as every other human being on the planet: To know, love, and serve God in this life so that you can know, love, and serve him eternally in the next life. Your objective is to receive grace now so that you can receive glory later, or even more simply put, to cooperate with God in his work to save your soul.
God calls all of us to be co-creators with him as part of that cooperation. He charges us with giving life to others: either physical life or spiritual life. He charges us with giving life to ideas: creating works of art, gadgets and products, or systems of thought and service. That co-creation, John Paul II believed, is the essence of love, the fullest realization of the possibilities inherent in man. He described our ability to give life—to give birth, to invent, create, conceive, and build—as the true “grandeur” of love. When we create, we are doing that for which God made us. We’re carrying out our mission and making a gift of our life to God.4
Primary Vocation
After the universal vocation, it starts to get more specific. After all, it’s one thing to say all Christians share in the vocation to love, but it’s another thing to actually live that vocation. How we live it, the way of life in which we love and serve God and others, is our primary vocation. According to the Catholic Church, there are three primary vocations: married life, the priesthood, and consecrated life (brothers or sisters living in community and consecrated singles living in society at large).
Each of these vocations is a permanent and freely chosen way of life. Each also entails a gift of self. In choosing a primary vocation, you make your inalienable and non-transferable “I” someone else’s property. In other words, you give priority in your life either to God and the consecrated life or to your spouse and family.
This gift of self gives your life a concrete direction and purpose. It orders your desires, priorities, and responsibilities, at least in a general way. If I’m married and have a child, I’m responsible not only for myself, but also for my spouse and child. I’m called to provide for their physical and material needs. I’m also called to provide for their intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs. The care of their souls, as well as their bodies, is entrusted to me. It’s my “job” to help them get to heaven, just as it’s their “job” to help me get to heaven. The choices I make, the actions I take, and the responsibilities I undertake are all decisions that have to be made in light of my responsibilities to them.
The same goes for priests and those living a religious life. A religious sister considers the good of her community before her own good. Her path to heaven is paved by the rules and obligations of her life with the other sisters. A priest is likewise tasked with providing for the spiritual well-being of his parishioners and supporting his bishop in teaching and defending the Faith. How he orders his life and time needs to be directed to those larger ends.
Our modern notions of freedom can confuse us about the value of this kind of vocation. So often, we see the type of limitations to our freedom that a permanent commitment brings as impediments to “being who we are.” But real freedom isn’t freedom from outside restrictions. Real freedom is the freedom to love and give ourselves fully. Freedom in fact exists for the sake of love. It is the means to the end we all desire—loving communion with God and others. It is when we give ourselves most fully that we fulfill ourselves most effectively. That’s when we’re truly free.5
Secondary Vocation
Your universal vocation gives you the overarching purpose of your life, your ultimate goal. Your primary vocation gives you a framework for achieving that goal. It sets certain parameters or, to phrase it a bit differently, lays out a path for you to follow on your journey to heaven. The third level of vocation, your secondary vocation, is what you do on that path. It’s how you use your gifts and talents in service of God and others while living out your universal and primary vocations. For most of us, this means our work or profession. It also, however, can apply to your civic and community involvement, apostolate work, or simply bearing the various crosses and trials that come your way in life. It’s your plan of action for living.
When it comes to work, John Paul II believed that our profession is integral to who we are as human beings. He said that not just of seemingly exciting and important professions, such as being the pope, but also of the harshest forms of manual labor. When it comes to labor, John Paul knew of what he spoke. Growing up in Poland during World War II, the one-day pope worked long hours in a lime quarry and a chemical plant. He knew from those experiences just how challenging work could be.
But he also knew what happened when work was taken away from man or when man was not free to pursue the work for which God made him. He learned that as a seminarian, priest, and bishop in Soviet-dominated Poland, where economic centralization led to the elimination of private property and ended entrepreneurial activity.
John Paul saw freedom curtailed, workers denigrated, and human dignity violated. He came to realize that in order to become the person God made us to be, we each had to be free to choose, free to create, and even free to fail in our professional lives. John Paul argued that when we do that, when we freely pursue the work for which we were made, and which our gifts, talents, nature, and circumstances suit, we discover who we really are.6
John Paul II likewise realized that through our work we don’t simply make more: We become more. Work shapes us, refines us, and pushes us to discover and hone our natural gifts. It enables us to love, becoming a means by which we’re able to serve our family, customers, clients, neighbors, and communities. Through that, work becomes a means of giving our life to God.
When you think of work in that way, you can see that, like your primary vocation, it too is not a constraint upon your freedom. It’s not something that keeps you from doing what you really love—fishing, cooking, or checking the box scores for the Boston Red Sox. It’s something that enables you to live more fully the life God intended you to live.
The fact that work is sometimes difficult, monotonous, or downright painful doesn’t lessen its efficacy in that endeavor. It enhances it. All the difficulty, monotony, and pain you face are things you can unite to the work, Passion, and death of Christ. They are something y
ou can, to quote centuries of Catholic mothers, “offer up” in order obtain grace for yourself and others.
That ability is a holy thing. Work can, in fact, be a holy thing. More than the work of priests and religious, all work can be holy when done as an act of love, service, and sacrifice according to the mind of God. That’s what the Incarnation made possible. That’s why St. Thomas Aquinas could say with such confidence, “There can be no joy in living without joy in work.”
The Chaos of Competing Priorities
So why does all this vocation stuff matter? What does understanding it have to do with leading a company or small business?
The answer is, “Everything.”
What John Paul II understood so well—his universal (his call to holiness), primary (his priesthood), and secondary vocation (his being a priest, bishop, and then pope)—is the very thing most of us spend our entire lives trying to figure out. We want to know who we are, why we exist, and what we were made for. Those are eternal questions asked by every man in every age. Answering them is never easy, and all the demands of life—the competing roles we play and priorities we juggle—make answering them harder still.
The Pope & the CEO Page 3