Reflections on My Journey to Date

Entry Started on a Local Train En Route to Bundi, Rajasthan on February 8, 2014 and Completed on a UNESCO Heritage Train to the Himalayan Mountains on March 14, 2014

I am starting a new “Reflections” series of blog entries focused just on, well, the name says it all. I am a month past the halfway point of my sabbatical and reflection is something I knew I needed to do. Putting my thoughts on paper helps me think through where I have been, what I have learned and where I would like to focus going forward.

Articulating the Struggle of Being… Me?

The first half of my sabbatical has been a truly transformational time of my life. I am starting to get a sense of how my time in India will shape me over the long run.

Nearly six years ago, I was a pretty happy backpacking traveller without much of a care in the world. My journey in Asia was nearing its closure and corporate life in Canada awaited me. I was faced with a real tough decision: should I keep doing what made me happy or pursue the corporate ladder?

I went for the corporate ladder and wondered ever since if I had made the right decision. Part of me often daydreamed of a parallel universe where I chose a different path.

I have always struggled with the trade-off between pursuing happiness and ambition. Even during my sabbaticals, my ambitious nature doesn’t allow me to simply relax and I find myself filling my time with courses and volunteer work at the global level. At the same time, being a part of mainstream society saps my spirits and geographical isolation has been the only effective antidote I have found to date.

My internal struggle led to an identity crisis. Am I the Henry that walks through a live mine field in Laos for fun while dressed in rags? Or the Henry who kills it in the corporate board room while rocking fancy tailored suits and French cuff shirts? The Henry who wanders into a slum hoping to get lost? Or the Henry who saved an energy company $11M USD four months into his management consulting career? It sounds like I’m describing two different people here but all of that is just… me.

My idea of a good time: This photo was taken in Bolivia during my six week trip to South America in 2011. We set out at 1am for a five hour stroll in a high altitude Andean desert to try and catch flamingos sleeping. Our only assurance that we would not get lost was that we were on a flat desert and would be easily found by a search party. We were dismayed to realize that flamingoes did NOT sleep where they fed on the lake. 

I am on the left in the photo with a tablecloth draped over my head to protect me from the desert winter. Stupidity had nothing to do with our adventure, my travel companion was a member of Mensa. It sure is tough to find these sorts of adventures as a working professional in a developed country.

Where This Sabbatical Fits In... I Think?

I think the life I'm living now is the life that I would have lived if I never returned to Canada and kept travelling. It is helping put my mind at ease about the "what if" of continuing to live as a homeless backpacking bum.

After travelling the world and realizing its awesomeness six years ago, I concluded that creating a better society and planet was an important part of what I wanted to do with my life. One of the intentions of my sabbatical was to figure out what exactly this meant. With the rise of impact investing and social innovation across the world, I knew now would be an opportune time to ride the front of the new wave of social change. 

The other goal of my sabbatical was to create a sense of inner harmony. The same relentlessness and drive that attributed to my success in life also tore apart my health. I simply cannot turn off my brain. Seeking spirituality is deeply important to me and there is no better place to do it than in India.

I have made tremendous progress in the last five months, especially as I now read some of my darker blog posts that I wrote during the early parts of my journey but didn’t publish. I am lighter than before, more willing to strike conversations with strangers, generous to those around me and overall starting to turn around what was a fairly precarious psychological state when I first embarked on this journey.

Enough Philosophy... Where in the World is Henry?

Here are some fun statistics (as of 3 weeks ago):

• 14,400 kilometres travelled within India, mostly by local trains and buses
• 19 cities/towns visited across 9 states
• 3,200 photographs captured

What I have covered to date. Because Mumbai served as my central base of operations, my travels around India were by no means contiguous or efficient. On the bright side, I am a pro at navigating India's railway network now

Much of my time to date was spent volunteering for an NGO called Dasra, India's leading strategic philanthropy foundation for large scale social change. I was serendipitously connected to the organization through one of my Senior Managers who happened to be the sister of Dasra’s co-founder.

Dasra is a phenomenal organization which has directed $38M USD to date towards impactful NGO’s and social businesses in India, not to mention countless NGO-sector executive education courses delivered and capacity building hours offered to leading NGO’s in the country.

The Dasra Story

Dasra’s founders, the husband-wife dynamic duo of Neera Nundy (an Indo-Canadian) and Deval Sanghavi (an Indo-American), are two of the most inspirational people I have ever met. They met during a prior Investment Banking life at Morgan Stanley on Wall Street and identified a need to direct the same level of screening rigour to social investments in India as financial investments in the developed world.

A passionate Deval arrived to India first, 14 years ago, and was joined by Neera shortly after she completed her MBA at Harvard. The early Dasra days were stuff of legend. They held their wedding at a school run by Neera’s mom, providing pretty strong incentive to upgrade the rooms and toilets at the school in the process. Deval painted the school himself in the scorching Indian heat. They travelled the country by train, met philanthropists and social entrepreneurs, and slowly but surely figured out their model for success.

Today, Dasra is one of leading and most respected NGO’s in India with 65 employees and backing from some of the top funders in the sector such as USAID and the Omidyar Network. Neera was recently awarded the Governor General of Canada’s Medallion for her outstanding work in creating social change. There is no doubt that Deval and Neera could have become immensely wealthy and lived a life of luxury in America, which is why I admire them so much more for directing their vast talents to a noble cause.

Moral of the story for Henry: marry a social do-gooding woman and gallivant into the sunset with her, spreading love and peace across the world in the process.

Here's a nice article about Neera and Deval's philosophy to building a great office culture.

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/X8LlZtYnSwgHO1R5yMgHpM/The-social-multipliers.html

Photo of Deval and Neera borrowed from the linked article above

Where Dasra Fits in the Ecosystem

The world has a lot of kind hearted people doing amazing things to create a better society. India is no exception. There are over 3 million charities, non-profits, trusts and foundations in the country. The challenge is that many of them lack the resources and pragmatic business acumen to exponentially scale their programs. Philanthropists are weary of this and are painfully unwilling to part with their money because they want assurance that their investments will create their intended impact.

Dasra addresses this gap by channelling much needed knowledge, funding and connections into the sector. Its innovative approach combines research, investment due diligence, capacity building and education to enable leading NGO’s across the country to do what they do better.

The organization has done great work in illuminating the profile and knowledge of great NGO’s in the overall areas of health, education and livelihoods. Its focus has now shifted towards adolescent girls. Believe it or not, some conservative philanthropists believe that girls are not worth the investment because they just become housewives in the future. This is a mindset that Dasra aims to shift. Studies show that adolescent girls are actually an area of high social return on investment. Here are some quick stats often cited by Dasra:

• 37% of girls marry after the legal age of marriage in India
• An extra year of secondary school increases a girl's potential income by 15-25%
• Girls are the largest reservoir of talent in the world
• Delaying adolescent pregnancy could add 12% to India's GDP

Invest...

...in...

...their...

...futures!

While focusing on the social sector at the issue level, Dasra brings together high potential organizations for educational workshops focused on combating those issues, helping them create a sense of community amongst each other in the process.

A snapshot of the Child Marriage sector workshop. This part of the workshop is called the "Gallery Walk" where social entrepreneurs showcase their work, learn from each other and have opportunities to share best practices

So where does Dasra fit in the ecosystem? Well, Dasra sort of IS the ecosystem. It is the glue that sticks all the social impact players together and helps them work in greater harmony.

Dasra’s website is http://www.dasra.org, but if any readers of this blog want more information on the organization, certainly do get in touch with me and I would be ecstatic to share.

Dasra colleagues cheering on the runners of the Mumbai Marathon

The office cat. Some hated him. Others tolerated him.

My Role at Dasra

I was extremely lucky to have a chance to contribute to the organization as a volunteer and get exposure to the sector at a strategic level in the process. I kept busy on a number of initiatives during my time at the organization:

• I helped improve a corporate CSR initiative where Dasra partnered with Vodafone to place employee volunteers with organizations across the country for two months to contribute their skills to the sector. I visited one of the volunteers in rural Rajasthan to identify improvement points for future offerings of the program. The organization was Educate Girls, an NGO focused on getting out-of-school girls back in school (and keeping them there). With Dasra’s help, the organization has been able to scale from 50-5,000 schools in the last 5 years and aims to expand to another 6,000 schools over the next year (I hope I remember my numbers correctly there!)

• I played a role in helping the due diligence team screen social investments in the area of Menstrual Hygiene. This included a series of due diligence phone calls and a screening site visit out to the Centre of World Solidarity, an organization near Hyderabad which is like a mini-Dasra for grassroots NGO’s with an educational curriculum for menstrual hygiene management

My site visit to a school in rural Andhra Pradesh to evaluate an implemented menstrual hygiene program. I was accompanied by my Dasra colleague and all-purpose Finance all star Anisha (top row, third from left)

Sanitary pads produced by the NGO and sold at a subsidized rate. Sadly, the NGO ran out of funding and could no longer run the manufacturing operation

• I spent around 3 weeks off-site just outside of Bombay helping deliver Dasra Social Impact courses, India’s largest and most reputable education program for social entrepreneurs. These courses were awesome and my role included anything from mentoring the attendees in crafting their business plans to acting as the course photographer. Over 200 graduates have completed the DSI courses since inception and Dasra is in the process of launching a marquis program in partnership with Harvard Business School over the next year

The Strategies for Scale class. I supported the delivery of three similar courses and had invaluable networking and learning opportunities. I rekindled with a number of these contacts and visited their operations as I later travelled the country

• As a true consultant, I couldn’t resist trying to find ways that the organization could work more effectively. My Manager challenged me to find opportunities for improvement and I came up with 70-something slides of recommendations to help Dasra keep up with its own growth through institutionalizing its processes and practices

Yes, they turned one of my Powerpoint slides into my going away cake as I wrapped up my tenure at Dasra. I have had my slides printed, projected and whiteboarded but never caked. Thanks Dasra for a memorable going away! My consulting colleagues should note that I am still using proper MINTO headlines and all boxes are both horizontally AND vertically aligned. Don't worry, I haven't lost my magic Powerpoint touch yet... ;)

There were some times when I could have been busier but overall I think I managed to squeeze a measurable degree of contribution during my sabbatical while learning a ton in the process. Because Dasra operates as an ecosystem builder for the entire social sector in India, it provided a strategic perch from which I could quickly gain exposure to the sector and unravel how all its different agents come together to create social impact. I will always value my time with the organization and can't wait to see where it plants seeds in my future impact initiatives.

Life Outside of Dasra

I spent up to three days a week studying at The Yoga Institute after work and finally found some of the answers to inner peace that I have been looking for. I will write more about my spiritual experiences in another reflections entry.

Between Dasra, Yoga, and my body’s inability to adjust to India in general, I spent most of my spare time just being a total vegetable. I spent my weekends exploring the city, meeting new friends or taking trips out of town. For the most part, the Bombay experience was like life as usual but I was living in a whole different part of the world.

Bombay is hard to describe. It is a city of 20 million people (2/3 the population of Canada!) and serves as a commercial and cultural hub for all of India. Below are my best attempts at being a documentary photojournalist:

A rickshaw stand at the Bandra Railway Station. Rickshaws vary in shape, color and engine type all across India. These black and yellow rickshaws are a signature of Bombay's rickshaw style. I call them "bumblebees" because of their color and constant annoying disruptions to my peace and quiet

It is more common than not for people to hang outside the city trains even much further out than shown here. The trains in Bombay do not have doors simply because of capacity issues. People jump on and off the trains to the station platforms while the trains are still moving (sometimes you have to, the trains don't wait for everybody to get off). Sadly, this is all very dangerous and there are deaths pretty much every day related to railway safety incidents in the city

Ladies only. Given the crazy crowdedness of the trains in the city, separate cars were set aside for the comfort and safety of women

This is the Bandra Railway Station, the nearest station to my home. As the gateway to my exploration across the entire city, the sight of this station reminds me of adventure

A narrow lane of the largest slum in Asia. My full blog entry can be found here

The Global Vipassana Pagoda of Bombay, an off the beaten track gem which Hank the Travelling Domo thoroughly enjoyed

The inside of the pagoda boasts the world's largest unsupported stone dome. This meditation chamber can seat an astounding 8,000 meditators

Sarees drying at the Dhobi Ghat, Asia's largest open air laundromat

The view of the Dhobi Ghat from a nearby overpass. It is a laundromat at an industrial scale which largely serves local hospitals and businesses

The boiler room within the Dhobi Ghat where hospital uniforms are thoroughly sanitized and washed

A boy eagerly jumping into my shot of the cityscape. He shook my hand immediately after this shot and then ran off

The sun setting behind Bombay's sky line. India's sun is masked by pollution and mist so it always looks circular rather than bursting with beams of light like I'm used to in Canada

The colonial era architectural wonders of Bombay. The building on the right is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) station

The CST station is a complete monster. It is the main station which serves a city of 20 million and is one of the last places I would want to lose someone

Locals enjoying the beach scene. As a conservative nation, Indians love running into the water fully clothed. It's quite a scene to watch but I have never seen happier people so they must be doing something right

Bombay is a seamless blend of old and new, rich and poor, religion and everyday life. One can expect to see temples and shrines on nearly every single block in this city

The inside of the St. Peter's church five minutes from my home. I visited this church many times during my stay. It is the one place in Bombay I could find peace and quiet.

Hanging out with my landlord. Besides the fact that he is one of the most stand-up guys out there, he also works as a Bollywood extra as a hobby. I'd usually come home to stories of his day as a patron sitting at the back of a restaurant, one of hundreds of guests at some party, the father of a hot daughter or the man who got assassinated immediately upon leaving his car

My building and my park. I wanted to do Rocky Balboa style workouts at the park playground but sadly they had really strange hours. They weren't open on weekends and weekday evenings. What the heck??

My studio, measuring roughly 300 sq ft and cost roughly $500 US/month

The switch panel right above my bed. Even after 4 months of living there I could never figure out which switch I needed to press when I woke up in the morning 

My Journey Continues

I was really sad when my time in Bombay came to an end not because I was going to miss the city itself, but the people within it. My colleagues at Dasra were amazing and I will always be a part of the organization’s fan club. If I ever became super rich, I would totally help contribute financially to a Dasra Giving Circles which directs funding towards specific issues.

Because discovering social impact is the theme of my sabbatical, I have been meeting up with social entrepreneurs all over the country who I’ve run into throughout my journey. Some of them include:

• Vasudev and Lakshmi of The Good Karma Foundation, an organization set up by Vasudev, an early Hotmail investor in the Silicon Valley who now owns a Private Equity firm in San Francisco. His Lakshmi sister runs a couple social businesses, Wiksdom and Rolapena, through the foundation in India. I met both of them in Kerala and learned a great deal about how a Chartered Accountant was able to make tons of cash and give back to his home country
• Anita from Insights Applied, a co-owner of social business consulting firm I met during a social enterprise networking event in Bangalore. She is still in the process of tweaking the consulting model for the sector and I’m excited to see where it goes
• Anubhav of Care Companion, an educational platform that prepares patients and families to safely return home after a major surgery. He’s a stand-up guy and we actually share a lot in common despite being worlds apart in culture and geography
• Ridhi of Rainbow Voluntours, who I met while in a coffee shop in Kochi. She was working on the organization’s website on a massive laptop screen which caught my attention and we spent the afternoon chatting about the work we have been doing in India
• And my favourite to date, Arvind of URMUL Trust, a wise force of the desert. He is one of my greatest inspirations to date and I will write about my visit with him in my next blog entry

These social entrepreneurs are a huge source of inspiration for me. I have been fortunate to get to see some of their operations and am grateful for all the knowledge I gained from my interactions with them.

So What’s Next?

With my employer saving a job position for me in June, there is a sense of urgency to make sure that returning to a consulting career is the right decision for me. Ultimately, I am at a crossroads between diving right into an impactful life like Deval and Neera of Dasra did 14 years ago, or build up wealth first and distribute it later like Vasudev of The Good Karma Foundation.

…or maybe there’s a middle road? I feel that with the growth in the social innovation space, creating an impact and pursuing my career does not have to be mutually exclusive. There is huge scope for ecosystem building as a consultant. Or the application of financial acumen as an impact investor.

I am really at conflict right now about what it takes to create a great society. There are a lot of contradictory forces at work in the universe which make it hard for me to visualize what it means to actually make a positive difference.

For the time being, I do have at least another month to crystalize my thoughts. In the meantime, the rest of my journey will be focused on continuing my spiritual practice, getting my health in order and figuring out my next steps in life. I have an upcoming 10-day silent meditation course and I’m feeling like living like a Tibetan monk for a week in the Indian Himalayas.

Surely there will be more reflections to come over the next couple months!