Thoughts on Success, Leadership and Business from a Haitian-American Entrepreneur
My name is Jean G. Orelien and am the founder and CEO of SciMetrika, LLC (http://www.scimetrika.com). The purpose of this blog is to share thoughts on success (accomplishing goals), Leadership and Business. I plan to share not only ideas, guiding principles that have worked for me or I have seen worked for others but to the extent possible very concrete actionable information.
Specifically with respect to success, I will share principles and techniques that have helped me to fulfill both personal and professional goals. I have been able to learn a lot of leadership not only through running a small business but mostly from others. Most of what I’ve learned came from others (books read) or things I didn’t even know I knew that business coaches have pried out of me. On business, the blog entries will document the many lessons learned from starting and growing SciMetrika from a start-up to a midsize company (and one day to a great company recognized as being premier in providing solutions to improve human health).
I recognize that both leadership and success are long life journey. Hence, this blog should be seen as my own scrapbook to share lessons learned on that journey. The way, I see this blog they are personal notes that I am leaving to my kids hoping that they are also useful to others.
Aside from discussions on success, leadership and business; given that this blog is written by a Haitian-American entrepreneur (thus the name of the blog “AyiPreneur”; Ayiti is the name in Creole for Haiti), there will be entries on Haiti (hopefully related to success, and business but not necessarily). Like most members of the Haitian Diaspora, I carry deeply in my soul the love for my native country and the hope of seeing in my lifetime Haiti fulfilling its full potential of becoming a jewel in the Caribbean. Hence, there is no doubt that a lot of what I have learned about success, leadership and my approach to running a business is colored by my experience as and Haitian-American.
I thought I should let you know a bit more info about me. I was born on the Haitian side of the beautiful island of Hispaniola (the other side of course is Santo Domingo, see map below). I left Haiti when I was 10 and moved to Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, where I stayed until I finished high school. I attended Rutgers University in New-Brunswick where I obtained a bachelor in Mathematics. Shortly after completing my undergraduate studies, I married the beautiful Valery and we moved to North Carolina where I pursued graduate studies in Statistics at North Carolina State University (Masters Degree) and the Unviersity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (doctorate degree in Biostatistics).
Below are some pictures from Haiti and Guadeloupe.
The greatest enterprise: Your Best Self
One of the reasons I’ve decided to shift the focus of AyiPreneur from success and entrepreneurship to “achieving our best self” and “contributing to a society where humans achieve optimal living” is that I believe this to be our greatest calling. We have an obligation to create our Best Self. We were endowed with unique skill sets and ways of being, a sort of DNA imprinted in us by the Universe. Our obligation is to fully express this.
Unfortunately, we often lose ourselves in the images society projects onto us, the images we project onto ourselves from our own brokenness. Then there are the norms, value systems, institutions, and rituals from society designed to make us conform, rather than allowing us to be our authentic selves. As a result, most people end up living as copies.
There are a few parallels between starting a business (entrepreneurship) and creating our best self:
- Creating our Best Self, like an enterprise, requires the courage to take bold actions and to dare to follow an uncharted path; our very own.
- Achieving this Best Self is a journey, much like entrepreneurship. When I started in entrepreneurship, a lawyer who worked with startups told me it’s like flipping a magical coin. Initially, you may land on tails (lose) instead of heads (win). But if you keep flipping, eventually you will land on heads. The more you flip, the better your chances, as you gain more experience and learn from past mistakes. While I wish more guidance and tools were provided on creating our Best Self, it’s a journey that involves self-discovery.
Creating this Best version of ourselves is the ultimate act of entrepreneurship. This is our ultimate calling and where we make the most worthwhile contribution to our fellow human beings.
Below is my favorite poem by Rumi to encourage you to embark on this journey.
The one thing you must do
There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It’s as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It’s a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It’s like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, “But look, I’m using it. It’s not lying idle.” Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought. You say, “But I spend my energies on lofty projects. I study philosophy and jurisprudence, logic, astronomy, and medicine.” But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself and your impressiveness.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don’t, you’ll be like the man who takes a ceremonial dagger and hammers it into a post for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You’ll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.
Rumi