“I am solving the problem of poverty.” Ulysses S Grant
To feed his family, the future leader of both the Army and the United States Grant chopped and sold firewood. He sold his watch. He did what he had to do, whether it was financially for his family or to win the war.
Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia matter of factly talks about cleaning toilets. No job was beneath him. His company is now worth more than Apple.
Andrew Carnegie grew up in abject poverty, yet built his steel empire to the point he could sell it as the richest man in the world and spent the last half of his life giving money away to the tune of ~$7B in today’s dollars.
The rags to riches story is classic Americana, but the heroes are not the people with their name on the building or magazine cover, it is the countless people that have gone from nothing to something.
- The mother getting her degree while working and eventually getting a house and home for her kids whose name you will never know.
- The immigrant that works the menial job no one else will, learning English and eventually becoming the manager of their place of business.
- The dyslexic kid struggling and finding ways to overcome their learning disability and graduate, getting a job that plays to their strengths and succeeding more than their parents could have hoped.
- The guy working two jobs to keep the roof over his kids head, defering their own dreams so that their kids have a better shot at success and their version of the American dream.
- The retiree that volunteers to mentor high school students, helping them get through the chaos of being a teen and ultimately going to college.
There is nobility in the willingness to work where others won’t to pull yourself or others up. Solving the problem of poverty is not going to come from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, but from the willingness to work and the ability to set the ego aside to do what you must to eventually have what you want.