A Gathering Storm With A Garden Interlude

I am reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Lincoln and his 'Cabinet of Rivals' which talks about how he took his rivals and welded them into an effective cabinet for prosecuting the Civil War. It is also a great history of the events leading to and through that conflict. I am just at the point where all the activities of his first election are leading to the secession and the war itself...the gathering storm clouds of the conflict...the feeling that the terrible fate was at hand.

My Ghana project is going full bore toward our own moment of truth...fundraising. Just since my Bastille Day post on July 14 we have:

• Given our project a name - The Theodora Project - named after the famous Byzantine Empress and wife of Emperor Justinian who started off as a sex worker as a teenager
• Completed the business plan
• Complete incorporating our not-for-profit corporation
• Are close to completing our IRS filing to become a 501(c)(3) foundation to have tax deductibility for donations
• Completed two beta tests of one of my escorts in Ghana doing virtual personal assistance projects
• Got such encouragement from my Rotary Mentor that I am going to apply for a Rotary Global Grant and am working on same
• Have lined up my list of initial people to begin the fundraising process scheduled to kick off with a meeting with a key prospect on August 12 
• Have lined up a number of businesses who are interested in being Mentor/Clients for our women once we start training them.

And all the while business continues to move forward (YES, I have the CEO calmed down...for the moment).

Despite what looks like I am working full time, in reality, I still have lots of days when I don't have much on my schedule. When I can take it easy. My 'for pay' work, in particular, is down to such a science that there is rarely a time when I have to put in long hours to meet client expectations.

As one of my advisors puts it, "Those who take the transition seriously and proactively, don't retire. They create new realities that nurture and fulfill them."

A Garden Interlude

I spent mucho dinero on well developed tomato plants this year and bought less of them

It has proven to be a great investment

Not only are the tomatoes coming in much earlier but as I bought three varieties, the timing is syncopated so they are not coming in all at once

The peaches are within just a week or two from ripening

While the good moist weather has meant chile is already being harvested

 

Never Ceased To Be Amazed

If one likes to enjoy life and be filled with wonder, it helps to be easily amused. I am easily amused. What I will write about today has certainly happened before. But it continues to amaze me.

In the post-career,  all-consuming, transitioned state of my life, work has taken on a different role as I have frequently mentioned. It serves to keep me connected to the world that is younger than me. It gives me pleasure when I use my well-honed skills - both for the sheer enjoyment of using them and because of the good it does. AND quite important, it funds our lavish travel lifestyle.

And I have written often how I will drift in and out of the intensity of working based upon what else is going on that has my attention or my energy level. And if money is not a pressing need, I will certainly have a tendency to coast. Inevitably what results from this lack of focus is the dreaded slow period where money stops coming in. That leads to the equally dreaded being called on the carpet by the CEO of de-I Enterprises...WIFE. This will look and sound something like this...

"de-I, we only have $X in the bank account. And we have no accounts receivable to speak of. AND you are running around spending all this time and money in Ghana..."

It usually ends like that...with this unarticulated indication of imminent doom to he who is supposed to be bringing income to support the travel spending addiction. And I must say when I look at it from a management technique standpoint, it is quite effective. Because I will usually get my sorry ass in gear and get out hustling.

Now here is where the easily amused part comes in. I have spent close to 3 decades building a selling system based on networking and referral selling. It takes a long time to build such a network. It's like having a long, long pipeline. It takes a long time to fill it. But once it is filled, anything you put in it on one end produces results on the other end. So it is with my 'pipeline', my 'network'. At this point, the decades of work building a reputation, a ton of contacts, a world of reciprocity based on things I've done for others, I can be away for months but I come back, start calling people, setting up meetings and literally within weeks even days sometimes results start flowing.

I never cease to be amazed.

Coming Back On LIne

Happy Bastille Day!

I know you were kicking back French Wine and Brandy. Well, I was. But of course, I do that all the time.

It has been 9 days since I posted last. Pretty typical actually after any international travel. I post like a maniac when traveling and then go into tortoise mode until I have readjusted to stateside life. So what has been happening?

Work - I had a great sales week and brought in a bunch of moola. Which was good because I'd had a number of lean months.

Garden - The effects of the wet spring, earlier planting and buying tomato plants that were well developed are paying off with earlier produce. I already have been processing tomatoes, roasted the first green chile of the year (New Mexico Chile...not Pueblo Colorado Chili Hah!). The basil and parsley are doing great so looking forward to lots of cooking stuff.

Ghana - Hardly forgotten. Working on finishing the business plan, coordinating with my partners on the other side of the pond and prepping for the big fundraising effort that will start soon. Still coaching and mentoring various businesses back there. AND was referred to THE ONLY African restaurant in Albuquerque (thank you KK!). Yes, folks, this took place right here in Albuquerque NM USA.

Lunch on Friday

Banku with groundnut soup and goat

I had to send these pictures to all my contacts back in Accra

They thought it was a hoot and could not believe you could find this out in the far reaches of the American Southwest

Political Commentary - I have to say maybe it is a sign of the second coming when you have President Trump and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal coming to the defense of Nancy Pelosi when she was called a racist by one of her own party members, the nihilist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I've never been a big Pelosi fan until this session of Congress. When even Peggy Noonan, a conservative opinion writer, writes per praises you have to take your hat off to Nancy. I only hope her solid pragmatism keeps shaving down AOC, her Squad and her emulators among the presidential candidates until they are no longer of outsized relevance.

"Ghana Project - Phase II - The Ghanaian Village

You only visit the main city of any country and you are going to get a distorted view of what life is really like. In my short time working here in Ghana, I have spent all my time in Accra, the capital city and the largest city. But as I mentioned in my last post, we went out into the countryside on behalf of one of my proof-of-concept clients who drills water wells for villages to give them clean water supplies. I brought my camera and had the opportunity to get some photo ops.

Water Is Important!

We take it for granted

This village used to get its water from a stream that was not sanitary and would dry up during the dry season

Then it got a hand pump...a big improvement

 But it got blocked

My client put in not just an electric powered well but a distribution system with multiple distribution points so people did not have to walk so far to get their water

Don't think this is valued?

My client Emmanuel

With another of the people I am mentoring, Mary, who is becoming a personal assistant

Scenes from throughout the village

Registering at 18 to get your government ID card...very important!

And as I have seen throughout my time in Ghana, people love to mug for the camera

The major crop here is cassava and it is processed into a product called Gari, basically, a ground-up toasted grain that gets added to other food

"Ghana Project - Phase II - Day 10 - Phase II Finished

Following our day with the FSW group, it was three busy days.

On Wednesday, I met with my partner for the FSW to recap the Tuesday meeting and discuss all the follow-up actions that will need to be done.  Following that, I had a meeting with a prospect for coaching I had met the last trip. It was very positive and we will be moving forward. Ended the day with a Rotary Club meeting in the evening. You can never tell what kind of meeting you will run into. This was a celebration for an incoming President that was loud and raucous.

Thursday was a full-on Ghana-man-time day...that is the local term for people pretty much coming to things whenever they want. In fact, all the business aspects of the day when well. I had three prospects for coaching that all are moving ahead. But for the first one, we were to drive an hour and a half out of town to see an example of a water well system for a village, leaving at 8 AM and getting back at 12:30...only our guy didn't arrive until 9:15! Having been very late for the first meeting, we somehow made it back and to our 2 PM meeting...where we promptly waited for an hour and 20 minutes before our meeting started, which since this was a lunch meeting at their restaurant meant we were starving by the time it took place. We managed to do our work in 40 minutes and still got to a 4:30 meeting on time. The day ended with another Rotary meeting.

Friday was a bit mellower because I was staying in the same hotel for all the meetings. There was a new mentoring group of four women organized by one of my existing coaching clients, the introduction of one of the FSW women to one of my clients for potential Personal Assistant work and finally a recap meeting with the guy with the water drilling company.

I was totally wiped out after the week though really enthused about the progress made in just my second trip. Very glad to have a weekend to chill and relax before schlepping back to the US.

Ghana Project - Phase II - Day Five - And The Grand Plan Is Still Alive

The big day has come and gone. Five hours of meeting with the cooperative of female sex workers (FSW) my partner John has been working with for three years. And we are agreed that we all are going to take the next steps forward.

As I expected there was a lot of defensiveness. Why wouldn't there be? Who was this strange person, coming from another country with this claim that he could create an exit for these women from their current situation. We got off to a late start as many came late, really late. There is this concept called 'Ghana-man-time' which is pretty much the same as 'manana' in the Latin American cultures. But despite that, we had a qurom and were able to get started.

I have found with defensive audiences that it pays to tell the warts of one's own story first to gain trust. This was surely the case today. Relating a number of the painful challenges of my past, was a key to getting the wome to become open. Then I developed a (what I thought was a) cool way of engaging in conversations. I cut up colored paper so they had squares of three colors. One stood for "you just used a world I don't understand". Another was for "You just insulted me or hurt my feelings." The last was, "I don't understand the whole last concecpt you were talking about."

Happily, I had none of the 'hurt feelings' cards, only a few of the 'too big word cards' (mostly because I was very proactive in asking them if they understood things, but quite a few of the 'not undersand concept' cards which insured we had good dialog and clarified important misunderstandings.

Ultimately the six women were all in agreement that this was worth giving a shot. They had been realistic about the amount of money they needed go give up sex work. And we were able discuss what we (the ladies and we sponsors) expected of each other. As one of the ladies has a good degree of business education, she was charged with designing a little contract of mutual expectations between us. The major work of raising money now looms. Step-by-step we progress.

Ghana Project - Phase II - Day Four

Been busy as advertised. On Friday I did a five hour coaching session for the lady I call my best apprentice. She teaches at a college and has food condiment business on the side. But she is very ambitioius and wants the food business to really grow. She needs quite a bit of help but has been very good at following through and think she will ultimately succeed. Since my whole project is about developing jobs, I am very happy that our work has identified two or three positions that she really needs to get help with either by hiring part-time or outsourcing. Even though these are small, it is proof of concept.

On Saturday I took some time off and went to a Mall (it's a mall) and the beach. Then on Sunday I was doing more coaching for another of my apprentices and went to a Rotary Club meeting I had visited last time where reconnected with a number of people which was good.

Today was more frustrating. I had a coaching session in the morning which was very effective. Then I went to a new Rotary Club meeting that evidently had changed the location for the day. Then went to a meeting where I couldn't find the person I was meeting with for almost an hour because he didn't have his phone on. Ultimately the meeting went well. This preparation for the major event of this trip, the meeting with the FSW (female sex workers) to present to them our proposal for an exit strategy. Should be interesting. Not sure if they will think this is all smoke and mirrors or take as a real opportunity.

Pictures from Saturday

Each culture is different

This is particularly true when it comes to having one's picture taken

From both last time and this I have found so far that Ghanaian's love to have their picture taken

We were in the Mall when this group from a village outside Accra visiting asked us to take their pictures

 Scenes from Kokrobite Beach

On the way in I caught this guy's silouette

Lol, he made sure I knew I was getting the best guy picture on the beach

General beach scenes

Proof that de-I was there

Study of drivers

While waiting for our car, these other drivers all wanted their pictures taken

But there was this one older one that just exuded class