GIVING. PRAYING. FASTING
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must be able to answer the critical questions in what she calls
the “Concentric Circle” Why, What, and How. She sat down
with Living Wisely magazine to offer some tips on starting and
maintaining a non-profit.
LW: What advice would you give to someone starting their own
non-profit?
Jackson: “Well, I think that-I’ll quote a motivational speaker that I
listen to. His name is Eric Thomas. He’s always saying, you know,
‘You’ll be successful when you want it as bad as you want to
breathe.’ And, so in starting your non-profit, your why and your
purpose and your mission of what you’re trying to do needs to be
very central to your success. If it’s not, if it’s not something that
you’re motivated to do, you’ll be procrastinate. You’ll come up
with excuses. You’ll delay it and it won’t materialize and so that
would be my first thing. What’s your why and making sure that
thing is central to what’s happening. And then you need, you
need mentors. You need coaches. You need people that are
going to be able to help give you strategy especially if you’re
not a strategic thinker to help you get your plan in place and it
should be people that are willing to invest. When you’re starting
out, you’re asking people for their help You’re not asking them
to introduce you to who helped them or who’s given them an
endorsement, you’re asking them to give of themselves. Those
other things will happen but first you [have] to network, not use
people because I think sometimes when we’re first starting out we
have a good idea we’re starting a business we don’t necessarily
lever opportunities for mentoring from the people that are close
to us. We’re trying to emulate their plan of success where every
situation is unique and different … The methods will work for you
but my exact path may not work for you if that makes sense.”
LW: So, how do you encourage someone to follow their own
path instead of someone else’s?
Jackson: “Exactly, you have to be clear on what you’re trying to
accomplish so we talked about goals, them being pure, positively