Until now, my business trips have taken me to London, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Seoul, Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris, the glitzy global seats of corporate power. Last week I found myself driving to rural Greenville, Mississippi to meet a group of folks from the Delta Citizens Alliance. On the 9-hour drive, when I was wondering what in the world I was doing, I reminded myself that this is the time for me to give back. It’s time for me to apply what I have learned in my 20 years in business and lend a hand. What I found is that I had a lot to learn from the most courageous group of people I ever had the fortune of meeting. More powerful than any group of business leaders I have ever met, simply because they know they can make a difference in the world.
This was a group of very busy people. They run non-profit organizations that target the youth, they are consultants to non-profits writing grants and getting through the red tape, sociology professors, and community activists. These are the movers and shakers of the Mississippi Delta. Some had high school diplomas and others had PhD’s. We were white, black, and brown. We were all the same, in our hearts, and we were all there to ask a hard question that few are willing to ask.
No one was afraid to ask the question, and everyone was ready to receive the answer, no matter where it pointed. No one squirmed in their seat or tried to deflect. No one was trying to be a victim and point the finger elsewhere. Everyone was ready to take full responsibility, even when the answer pointed back at all of us.
The question we were there to explore was, “Why, after all the money spent and all the programs implemented, is the Mississippi Delta still so void of hope and prosperity?” It takes a lot of courage sometimes just to ask the right question. This group was also determined to find the right answer and get on with doing something about it.
They all share the dream of seeing the Delta turnaround, and become an shining example of what can be achieved when people are willing to love and care for themselves and others. They can visualize their hometowns full of healthy, beautiful and happy kids playing on the streets without drug dealers on the corners. They can see the houses and yards cared for and manicured and neighbors greeting each other on the sidewalks. They can see the old abandoned school down the road revitalized and brimming with squirming, learning children once again. They can see young adults in local colleges and new shops and businesses opening up every year. They have a tremendous dream!
We asked why the community colleges weren’t full when scholarships and transportation were readily available. We asked if towns were really ready to work on race relations when turf wars prevented people from getting in the room together to just start a discussion. What was amazing, and a real testament to the validity of the concepts we were discussing, was how quickly everyone came to the same answer. They may have said it in a slightly different way, but the answers were all the same, and we all knew without a doubt that they were true.
The Center for Sustainable Change, an organization out of Northern California that has had tremendous success facilitating the turnaround of some of the most hopeless communities in the US, was there to share the 3 Principles of Psychology and how they promote positive change. Three simple principles that help individuals form an understanding of how we create our own realities (good or bad) through our own thoughts. External circumstances are simply challenges to address and “things” in life to deal with, but they do not create our mental reality. We create our reality in our own heads, one thought at a time. Once you give yourself permission to question your thoughts and choose to dismiss the ones that are not helpful to achieving your goals, the possibilities become endless.
Our collective answer to the hard questions was this: programs unfurled and money spent weren’t working because (1) the people they were designed to help had little or no say in what they truly needed, so community residents had no investment in the outcome, and (2) until we take time to focus on the innate well-being and wisdom that exists in all of us, it will remain difficult for people to see a different reality and work together for change in the Delta. These are simple truths, but according to this group of warriors, they hold the key to success in the Delta.
The Delta Citizens Alliance in conjunction with the Center for Sustainable Change have established a steering committee (of which I am honored to be a member) to start conversations with the communities of the Mississippi Delta about innate mental health and the 3 principles. With a renewed sense of hope, positivity, creativity and well-being, these communities will no-doubt create their own successes.
If you belong to a business organization that is jumping onto the band-wagon of corporate social responsibility, I would encourage you to consider supporting the work that is happening in the Delta. Communities and businesses can accomplish twice as much if they work together. And when the status-quo “thought box” is opened and “out of the box” thinking jumps out, the possibilities for win-win collaborations are boundless.
