Lesson 30: Impact
Kobe Bryant won 5 NBA championships, but he was also an author. Kobe was one of the greatest players to ever pick up a basketball, and his legacy transcends the game in storytelling through his multimedia platform called Granity Studios. In one interview, he said, “I had a great English teacher… and she explained the art of storytelling to me.” Her impact on Kobe brought more out of him than basketball, and my journey through business school will produce more than an MBA.
I want to have an impact that is greater than myself, but I wrestle with balancing Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition with being a resource to my community. There seems to be too few hours in the day to make time for anything other than my MBA and ETA. It almost makes me wonder if I have to “make it” before I have time to make an impact.
Yesterday, I spoke with Sekou Calliste, founder and managing partner of Island Heritage Partners, and he launched a search fund this year to acquire a company and join the management team. When asked how he balances ETA with impact on his community, he said, “You now have a platform, what will you do with it?” He emphasized the work of a business leader is inherently impactful on each stakeholder from the employees and their families to the community in which your business operates. We are responsible for our intentions and our impact on people today.
After my meeting with Sekou, I looked up resources people use to acquire small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). One resource to acquire an SMB is the SBA 7(a) loan. Tearsheet wrote an article saying, “Although women owned businesses account for nearly 40% of all businesses in America, women owned businesses only accounted for 30.7% of all SBA loan approvals last year. Similarly, black-owned businesses account for 13% of the nation’s businesses but have received only 7.2% of the SBA loan approvals.” Loan approvals for women and people of color does not reflect the population of business owners in need of capital. However, stories like Sekou’s give me hope because he found a community of investors to support his goal of owning a business.
We may miss the chance to make an impact on someone today, but that does not mean we will not make an impact on someone tomorrow. Kobe’s high school teacher might have imagined him going to the NBA, and she might have seen his gift for storytelling. My mission is to increase representation for Black leaders at the executive, investor, and board level. This mission might take years, but these newsletters might make an impact on someone today.
Impact is Lesson 30. Next week, I will share Lesson 31: Courage.
