The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (19 page)

By the time we finished the fourth and fifth school openings in the villages of Pak Pa and Xienglohm, my wrists were covered in white cotton string. I looked like a boxer training for a fight. It’s customary to let the threads fall off on their own. They can be untied, but are not supposed to be cut off.

John was referring to the strings that had been tied on my
wrists at the opening of a new school in the village of Bo He, one of the poorest in Luang Prabang Province. During the ceremony I sat on the floor between Leslie and Lanoy, and afterward we rode along a dirt road to return to the city of Luang Prabang. I drove my motorbike as I had hundreds of times before, cruising along the dusty gravel, but driving much faster than I should have been. As the dirt road ended and I neared the turnoff for the highway, I suddenly saw a local girl on a motorbike coming right toward me. I swerved to avoid a major collision, and my bike slid out from underneath me, sending me flying headfirst over the handlebars.

Big potholes dominated the connecting road, and I landed in one, crushing my left shoulder and gashing open my hand. Lanoy rushed to help me, but the damage was already done. My shoulder had been torn from the socket. By the time I returned stateside the following week, my shoulder was in excruciating pain, loudly cracking and popping with every minor movement. I needed surgery as soon as possible.

But I had opted out of health insurance when my coverage ended through Bain. I hadn’t wanted to drain PoP’s resources unless medical attention was imminently necessary, and now I was stuck because no individual-insurance provider would take me because of my preexisting shoulder injury. Suddenly, John’s offer gave me a way out by joining his company’s group plan.

*  *  *

I started to spend my mornings and evenings exploring his idea. I began by creating a model that donated money to a cause through every item sold. The company would be able to give back, and every person who bid could contribute to charity too.

Meanwhile, I continued going to the PoP office, working with Jocelyn and the interns. We were planning weekly fundraisers
while creating a curriculum of sanitation, health, and nutrition lessons for the children attending our schools. In the shadows, I began to build out John’s idea on the side. I created a logo and started working with Israeli contractors to design the site. John was courting me hard and trying to make it official. “Do whatever the hell you want with PoP in your spare time,” he said, “but our company should be your focus.”

John had thrown a potentially lucrative opportunity in my lap. We both believed it would be a cash cow. If the company took off, I could potentially make millions in months off the equity alone. And philanthropy, something I cared deeply about, was built into the business. But the motivation would undeniably be the dollars, not the social impact.

Meanwhile, everything at PoP was finally taking off: I had an office, a staff, and a website on the way. How could I build two companies simultaneously? I knew that I needed to pick one and go all in.

I was tormented by the weight of this decision. Every day I went back and forth on which to choose. When I told my parents that I thought I would work on PoP instead of joining forces with John, my dad shouted, “What’s wrong with you!” They weren’t alone in their thinking. Every single person that I sought counsel from told me I should join John. I ultimately decided that his offer was too good to turn down and told him that I’d come out to Greenwich in a few days to sign the paperwork.

But I never made peace with it. I had spent the past week collaborating with Rich on the website, and one night, over dinner, I told him about John’s offer and asked for his thoughts on whether I could build PoP and another company simultaneously.

“I only have one question for you,” he began. “Can you be in love with two girls at the same time?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are people who can be completely in love with two different women at the same time; there are others who say they can only love one. Which are you?”

“Well, I know myself pretty well, and I can only be in love with one person at a time.”

“That’s your answer. Pick the one you truly love.”

I knew in that moment exactly which one I had to pick. We had only recently met, but I was so grateful to have found someone who could help me wade through the contradicting voices in my head.

I didn’t sleep at all the night before I went to sign my operating agreement with John. The paperwork would make me CEO and grant me a salary, equity, and benefits. Between the money and the health insurance, I could cover all of my immediate needs.

But I’d have to change everything I stood for. You never realize how much you value something until you are faced with the prospect of losing it. And you never know your selling price until someone makes you a hard offer. I stayed up through sunrise, furiously scribbling in my journal, sealing my decision in ink on the final pages.

I took the train out to Greenwich and told John that I couldn’t accept the job. I was going to stick with PoP. I knew if I wanted any success, I had to devote myself to it fully. When you’re part of something special, you have to cherish it and defend it against many outside distractions and temptations. But nothing is more potent or deceptive than the competing interests of another great opportunity. In those moments when priorities clash, always stay guided by your values, not your perceived necessities. Necessities exist in a state of mind that will not last, whereas values are transcendent and enduring. I understood that I might fail, but I wouldn’t let it happen because I changed my compass along the way.

F
or nearly eighteen months PoP had been run exclusively by volunteers. I’d had so much fun collaborating with my friends on something meaningful, but the organization was rapidly attracting new donors, and we needed to transition from a leadership team of people working with us on the side to those working full-time at the organization. The growth of early-stage companies is highly dependent on how much time you can spend on the entity, and with more funds coming in we had the opportunity to evolve from an army of volunteers and evangelists into a legitimate team of experts and ninjas.

But where could I find these people? I considered posting on job boards for certain positions, including someone to manage our financials and another person to lead the staff day to day while I was traveling and building relationships. But I was too impatient to sit around and hope for the right résumé to show up, so I decided
to be proactive rather than reactive. I began aggressively recruiting key individuals for a small team. The two things I cared most about were passion and talent. Everything else could be taught or learned.

I began my recruiting mission by looking to my circle of friends. I knew that every person on my Semester at Sea ship had backpacked through areas of profound poverty, often spending days in rural villages and gaining deep appreciation for and insights into the developing world. Many had forged academic and career paths focused on addressing social issues. My friend Jill had worked with multiple global NGOs and was finishing a double master’s degree on nonprofit management and human rights. She agreed to become the point person to liaise with our in-country staff. My friend Hoolie was finishing four years as a management consultant at Deloitte and was planning to extern at the Clinton Global Initiative for the summer before heading to Dartmouth for his MBA. I persuaded him to extern at PoP instead, and after a month in Laos where he helped Leslie and Lanoy build the first completely independent school (hiring our own architects, builders, and staff), I offered him the job as our chief operating officer.

“Come on, you’ll never get another opportunity like this in your life,” I urged him, trying to appeal to his inner entrepreneur. “You’ll build an organization from the ground up, lead all staff, and educate thousands in the process.”

“You know how badly I want this,” he replied. “My fiancée will kill me if I defer business school any longer, but I’ve secretly been interviewing for doorman positions so I can do this while working nights to supplement my income.”

I was amazed. This guy worked for one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world and was accepted into Dartmouth’s
MBA program, but he was looking for doorman jobs so he could work at PoP. I never doubted his talent, but now his passion blew me away too.

“I’ll tell you what,” he continued. “I’ll take the job, but only if you promise that you won’t try to persuade me to stay any longer than one year, because you know I will.”

“Deal.” I extended my hand to shake on it. I had a COO—and one that I believed in just as much as he believed in me.

*  *  *

I desperately wanted to bring on someone from the Bain network to instill a focus on results across the organization, so when I received an email from Emily Gore, who was widely regarded as one of the superstars in the class below me, I met with her right away. She was looking for an externship that gave her international experience. I made her an offer on the spot and she agreed to join for six months, creating robust monitoring and evaluation programs (referred to as M&E in nonprofit lingo) around our work in Laos.

Our international operations there were growing rapidly under Leslie’s guidance, but we were having trouble expanding in Nicaragua. Due to bad roads and low population density, we were spending far more per build while reaching fewer students than expected. We were committed to supporting the schools we built in Nicaragua for the long term, but I urged the team to consider expansion to the Lake Atitlán region in Guatemala, an area that I knew well from my days with Joel Puac. The need there was tremendous. If we were to grow rapidly in the region, though, we would need someone with experience to guide our work there. Once again, rather than looking for a random leader, I turned to someone I knew and trusted.

My childhood friend Noah had, since graduating from
college, worked in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Bolivia for a large NGO. When I reached out, he was living in Bolivia while advising on a multimillion-dollar national health-care project. He explained to me how restricted he felt by rigid, bureaucratic grants that didn’t allow him to address the most important issues that those they were trying to support were facing. I saw he had both unique passion and talent for global-development work, and I recruited him hard. At our mutual friend’s wedding I slipped him a PoP presentation detailing our programs and told him to interview with Hoolie the following week. Two months later Noah moved to Lake Atitlán to become our Latin American regional director.

*  *  *

As the team started to grow both internationally and at home, our office situation in New York started to present some significant challenges. Norman had offered us one room in the back of his office, which we filled with ten to twenty interns every day, and we had shared access to the showroom to use as a conference room. Since I couldn’t conduct major meetings with staff crowded all around, I had to meet with potential donors and heads of companies in the shared showroom space. Since Norman’s company sold ladies’ apparel, the showroom showcased its line of women’s underwear. The walls were completely lined with granny panties. During in-depth conversations with major donors and partners, rather than looking at me, they’d be gawking at the oversize underwear hanging over my shoulder. It was awfully hard to be taken seriously with extra-large pink bloomers all around.

Our panty problem was solved when Mimi left her job in commercial real estate at the end of the summer to join PoP full-time and, as a departing gift, her boss offered us an amazing deal on an eight-hundred-square-foot space in the Lower East Side that contained
a large room and an attached conference room separated by a sliding glass door.

This space became our first independent office, and we vowed to uphold a PoP company culture that was true to us. I wrote eight office rules the night before moving in and read them aloud on our first day. Rule #1 set the tone for the type of staff we would recruit: “Hopeless idealism in things that are utterly impossible is required to work here. If you want to be realistic, please work elsewhere. This is a place for dreamers.” Rule #3 stated the importance of staying humble and asking for help. Rule #4 was to recognize how your energy affected all others around you, and Rule #7 stressed the importance of bringing family (especially grandparents) to the office so you could share your work with those who got you there.

I wanted to create a dynamic environment in which all could express themselves and make others better. Every person was required to create a quarterly playlist of their favorite songs, which had to be included in their email signature. You can learn far more about a person from the music he or she listens to than you can from the number of followers he or she has on social media. I also insisted that music be played in the office at all times to keep energy high, and that since most of the staff were unpaid, they’d get compensated in meaningful experiences. Through a Lunch and Learn policy, they spent time with accomplished CEOs to hear about their lives and personal paths. They met with every leader I met with. Soon our office bustled with more than twenty committed, passionate interns, part-time and full-time staff members who lived and breathed PoP.