In my career as a salesperson, I had a motto that went like this: “I don’t sell anything, “I figure $*&% out.”
What I meant by that is I don’t have all the answers, but I will go get whatever is needed.
- I am tenacious, persistent, and creative. That’s a hell of a combination. I call it my superpower.
The same superpower I used to create an amazing business career, will now be utilized to help get people off the street. I spent the past year researching solutions to helping people who found themselves without a place to call home.
I searched and cataloged the best practices and noted what didn’t work. Am I an expert? Hardly, but I have developed a strategy that has never been attempted before and am excited to introduce it in the coming weeks.
My Crappy Tuesday
Earlier this year, I gave a sneak preview of that strategy to a local service club. I wasn’t really ready to share my idea, but I was excited for the opportunity to tell the first group of people the plan that I had developed. I threw together a 20 minute speech in about 45 minutes and was ready to start my revolution!
The speech couldn’t have gone worse.
You see, my plan isn’t to convince more people that the homeless need help. There’s a percentage of the population who think people choose to be homeless. Unfortunately, the audience in that room was 98% of that group.
I had even included a spiel in the speech that if you thought people choose to live on the street, my speech wasn’t for you. Well, they took that sentence to heart! It sucked, and I was pissed off, because I couldn’t defend myself without pissing off the club members (telling them how ignorant they were) because I was a guest there, invited by a dear friend.
My speech was intended for those who think human beings deserve a second chance and are looking for steps that can provide tangible, verifiable evidence that their time and or donation would help get an individual off the street permanently.
Is my plan foolproof? Of course not. Does my plan answer all the questions about getting people off the street? Nope, but as I said whatever problem or issue that pops up we will figure it out.
The more people who get involved, the more creative ideas that will surface! Here’s an example. My book editor just connected to this researcher in Columbia. She got Stanford University to fund an app to help coordinate local donations for organizations that help the homeless.
Stanford spent $20,000 on this app and I am being given it to help refine it and put it to good use. I may have spent 20+ years in IT sales but I am probably the least technical person in this room but…..I know people who can finalize the app. My book editor connected me to this researcher who connected me with an app that hadn’t quite been tweaked for mass use.
People will continue to become homeless, but they won’t need to stay that way. My idea is the first step to coming up with permanent solutions. There is no reason this cannot happen. It’s coming. We are just going to Connect the Dots!