A change in direction

Wow, it’s been a long time since writing on here!

Unfortunately I’d made writing a post on my blog a big deal – just like that assignment you dread, that essay you have to write, or that research you need to begin; that it became painful to begin and led to a whole lot of procrastination. I don’t want this blog to feel like that; I want it to be exciting to write in. I want to be able to document my current reflections quickly, and leave it there if anyone’s interested to read it.

So, in the footsteps of several of the top writers/business people I admire, I’m changing the direction of this blog to be short, quick-fire, unedited posts which I can get done instantly and fit into my other commitments. Examples of amazing writers that I’ve learnt a tonne from who do this include Seth Godin (the so-called “Godfather of Marketing”, James Altucher (this writer has some of the craziest business stories in existence) and Matt Mullenweg (The founder of WordPress, which happens to run 25% of the world’s websites, including this one and most of the others that I’ve made). Enough explaining though, let’s get into it!

Just over a year ago, I co-founded the charity The Learning Collaborative (TLC) with a bunch of friends. It’s been an exciting time; I was super-passionate about making as big an impact on the world as I could, and so were the rest of the team. Averaging probably about 20-30 hours/week of a commitment on top of med school since then, it’s no doubt been a huge part of my life. The premise of TLC was simple: create social impact using a business model, combining the two as a social enterprise.

One thing I’ve learnt from the experience is not to try combine profit and impact in one organisation. The market is a wild beast with huge potential in terms of profits and growth, but it simply isn’t wired perfectly for social impact. And to stay alive in a capitalist economy over the long term, you’d better make sure your organisation is absolutely focussed on profits and growth. The organisation can still donate it’s future profits to a charity/foundation of its choosing later on though!

This reality that best exemplified this to me was comparing the founding CEOs of two high-growth education organisations, both of which I’m privileged to be friends with; Jamie Beaton (Crimson Consulting) and Jade Leung (TLC), who despite both being incredibly intelligent and ridiculously dedicated , are such polar opposites in the way they aim to impact the world. While Jade carries a large amount of social influence and admiration from those around her; Jamie, who is a year younger, has a current net worth of $40 million. My personal opinion is Jamie’s money could create more impact than what Jade’s amassed through her impact-first projects, and most importantly will likely grow at a faster rate (living in a capitalist economy) than Jade’s impact, in the end delivering far more impact over the long-term.

Today, I’ve therefore made a change in direction, walking away from TLC, the organisation I co-founded, and instead joining Crimson Consulting, a personalised education company. One has to swallow a lot of pride to leave an organisation they’ve founded, especially when I can imagine being considered a traitor on TLC’s side. I’ve always had a passion for both organisations, and had attempted to unite the teams on both sides several times even from the start (where TLC would have been launched as a “Crimson Foundation”), although in the end things ended up not transpiring.

All in all, one thing is clear for me; I remain absolutely committed to maximising the impact I can have on the world , just as when I began this blog and began TLC. My method of getting there however has changed, with the aim to grow myself as far as I possibly can through business to later impact the world in as big a way as possible – Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg being prime examples of this philanthrocapitalism model to change the world.

So here comes a new start, contributing as much value in Education as I can through Crimson Consulting, with 5 school talks already lined-up. My mindset will be focussed on personal growth above all else while in my youth, to be able to maximise the impact I can have on society in the long term. With high-speed growth heavily embedded into the culture of Crimson , based on a business model that is admittedly legacies beyond what I had contributed to at TLC, I see a good alignment of values – it looks like it’ll be a fun ride!

Sidenote: This post ended up being far longer than I anticipated, but only because this is a topic close to my heart that I could write so quickly about – expect shorter, more frequent posts in general though, and I’d encourage unsubscribing if you become sick of it