Why empowr? (Part 2) By Johnny Cash on January 26, 2017 | |
Why empowr? (Part 2) Hello everyone, By popular demand, here's the 2nd chapter of the Why empowr book, written by one of the empowr founders. If you're just joining us, if you like you can read the first chapter here. By the way, many thanks for your thoughtful comments that you left in the first chapter. It's clear that we are surrounded by revolutionaries here at empowr. I can promise you that each and every comment, each and every word that you leave is being carefully, read and digested. Thank you! I'll try and post a new chapter every day when there's not another announcement. Chapter 2: My confession I’m neither a professional writer nor an expert in all of the fields that I discuss in this book, but I am a pretty good computer scientist who is just pigheaded enough to believe that he can make the world a better place for millions of people if he works hard enough, keeps getting back up every time he gets knocked down, and surrounds himself with the right team. Before we go any further into what has motivated and driven me and my team so hard and for so long, I want to make a small confession. I’m not a professional writer, so I recognize that this book may have shortcomings. I’m not a political scientist or economist, either, and don’t pretend to be an expert in many of the fields that I write about in these pages. I have great respect for those people who have a deeper knowledge than I of those areas. To achieve my goals, however, I don’t need to be an expert. One of the goals of this book is to encourage a lively discussion around the problems that I present and my proposed solutions. I sincerely hope that experts, intellectuals, and specialists in each of the referenced fields will become part of that discussion. Now that I’ve been candid about who I am not, I do want to tell you about who and what I am. I am a computer scientist that was fortunate to discover at a very early age that he had a talent (software development) and who was inspired by a handful of economists, a few self-help gurus, and some psychology theories. Those men injected big ideas into my head about my own capabilities and motivated me to pursue a life of purpose (or “self-actualization,” as Abraham Maslow calls it) without self-limiting beliefs. And they did that with impeccable timing: precisely at a time when I was experiencing monetary success and realizing how empty that felt because it wasn’t accompanied by a strong sense of purpose. It’s worth noting that I was also lucky enough to be born into a family that, starting with my grandmother, has given away the majority of its wealth to charitable causes, primarily for the building and operating of orphanages that have enabled thousands of children to receive a respectable room and board and a solid education all the way up to and including a higher education. And they did it quietly and without the usual chest-beating, look-at-me, and stick-my-name-on-everything fanfare that we’ve somewhat grown to expect from philanthropists. If you ever meet my parents or had met my grandmother before she passed, you’d have a hard time believing the level of their contributions because of how much humility they possess and how simply they live their lives. When you have that type of real-life example to look up to in your home, and then further hit the jackpot when you discover your talent at a young age, you can’t help but feel like you simply don’t have the right to live your life in the service of yourself. It turns out that pursuing a life of purpose can be a hell of a lot more difficult than it sounds. But, in setting and pursuing that goal over the years, I’ve created a number of businesses designed to make the world better in the hopes of finding the personal and professional fulfillment that I have been chasing. That said, I’m not so delusional as to believe that anything my team and I come up with will change the world overnight or that any of them will be wonder drugs that cure the world’s ailments. Always faced with the next big challenge or obstacle, my team and I live in constant fear that not only won’t we ultimately succeed, but that we may not even make it to the next chapter of our evolution. So, with this book, I also hope to inspire others to pick up the ball if we drop it. We’ll gladly share our experiences, strategies, and even patented technologies. I know that a bunch of people and companies claim to be open to sharing their patents and technology; behind closed doors, though, they make sure their lawyers keep everything locked up tight. I take pride not just in talking the talk but also in walking the walk when it comes to this aspect of what we do. For proof of this, please feel free to look at all of the companies that use our patented technologies but against which we are not pursuing any form of legal action, including Facebook, Twitter, and virtually all social media platforms in existence today. If they offer third-party application developers the ability to launch apps in their platforms; or utilize transactions, a credit system, virtual currency, conduct transactions over mobile devices (or any of a few dozen other critical technologies that are essential to their revenue models and existence), they are using technologies that we invented and patented. To review our patents for yourself, simply visit www.Google.com/Patents and enter my last name (Pousti) into the search field. The primary reason for our strategy is not generosity or altruism; rather, it’s selfishness. We freely share our intellectual property because we believe, in doing so, our own personal and professional goals will be achieved more quickly and thoroughly. And for us, achieving those goals is more important than the money and prestige that could come from monopolizing our patents and technology. Thank you for purchasing this book and taking the time to read it. I've purposely written it in a concise format. Most of the people interested in reading a book like this are consumed by their own projects; reading a long book is a luxury they can't always afford. So I’ve edited each section down to bite-size. Even the busiest person should be able to find time to flip through it. I have also encapsulated my key concepts in the titles and topic paragraphs of each section. I very much hope that you get a lot out of the reading experience and that, by the end, you will share at least a small part of my passion for what the empowr team and I are trying to accomplish. Perhaps you’ll even gain some inspiration and launch your own start-up, which would delight me and my team. So, with these caveats behind me, I’ll give you the quick and dirty on what you’re going to read about.
(more) ►
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment