056 How to Start Where You Are – Advice from Amel, Steli, Jose and Garyvee

The Immigrant Entrepreneur

Immigrant refugees appear every day. A dictator claims more power, an invasion occurs, discrimination grows. Nations that could do something, do nothing. Some of the people in those countries decide to take their chances on a new land. When they arrive in that new land, some of them are welcome, some are unwelcome, but mostly they are ignored, left to their own devices – that is to say, they must start making a new foundation, and quickly, where they are. This episode is dedicated to two refugees among the 120,000 Venezuelans who fled to their neighboring country of Colombia, South America over the last month, to seek food, medicine, and safety, which followed more than 1.5 million Venezuelans who fled over the last 10 years. These two refugees, Katherine and Alexander, written about in the Miami Herald, said that back in Venezuela they could either work, he as an engineer, she in a bank, or they could wait in a line all day to get food, but you could not do both. So they arrived to the streets of Bogota, Colombia, with $250. Alexander could not apply for work as an engineer because he was illegal, and besides they had to eat today. For the same reasons, Katherine could not apply for a job or a loan to start a business.. So as you listen to this in September, 2016, they took their $250 and bought some corn flour and oil and a little stove, and began selling corn tortillas on the streets of Bogota. This episode is dedicated to this young couple starting where they arrived, standing on the street, in the rain, in a city that is not their own. Dedicated to the 1.6 million other Venezuelans who started over in some other land over the last 10 years, and dedicated to you, dear listener, whether or not you are an immigrant – after all, aren’t we all immigrants to this world – as you start over – as you begin some part of your life standing right now, where you are. The lessons I’d like to focus on from four of my past guests are: Have the courage to imagine that you have power to change your condition. (Amel Derragui) Identify your natural talent – and strengthen it. (Steli Efti) Trust your family. Trust your ability to persevere. Trust the little that you have. (Jose Prendes) Outwork others. (Gary Vaynerchuk) Please visit our website, www.theimmigrantentrepreneur.com, to see links to their companies and read the transcript of this episode. The first is Amel Derragui a serial entrepreneur, who today creates opportunities for others here in New York, with her two companies Blink and C, as well as Tandem Nomads. Amel moved frequently in her life. In fact, she grew up in three warzones. Listen to her amazing story in episode 26. Here she speaks of her experience as 14-year-old in Uganda, with the overflow of refugees from the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis. Many immigrants are children, who have power; the power to imagine that they can better their condition AMEL DERRAGUI And then after that I went to Uganda where it was right in the middle of the genocides issues between the Tutsis and the Hutus and I was in a school, in the French school at that time, and a lot of kids that were refugees ended up in that school. The courtyard, where the kids would play during the break, it was like a warzone too; it was crazy because you had kids from every country but also from every ethnic group like Hutus, Tutsis, and thy would just fight. I heard black people insulting white people, I heard white people insulting black people, I heard kids saying to people who were black and white, ‘you are not white, you are not black, you are nothing’. And then you would hear Hutus and Tutsis fighting on their ethnic groups; like, what’s happening here? I was really shocked and this was like the third experience in my life on the road with issues, society issues and human issues at the end of the day. I started really thinking, ‘what can I do here?’.