How a Trip to Zimbabwe Transformed So Many Lives

Each year, Hills of Africa Travel partners up with philanthropist and business coach, Suzanne Evans, to create an inspirational journey that gives back to the people of Zimbabwe and Zambia. These annual Give Movement Journeys give philanthropists, small business owners, and entrepreneurs the chance to educate local Zimbabwean women on business development and participate in a community upliftment project in Zambia (among many other experiences!). We are working on planning our Give Movement Journey 2015 now (learn more about it here: https://givemovementjourney.hillsofafrica.com/) and are super excited to share this wonderful trip with others.

A participant from one of our recent Give Movement Journeys was kind enough to share his amazing experiences with us. Matthew Goldfarb is the founder of Corporate Renegade, a creative agency focused on creating breakthrough copy , messaging and strategy (with the occasional design project for those clients who want to look as good as Corporate Renegade makes them sound).

Below, Matthew describes his amazing experiences from The Give Movement Journey: 

I’ve had a tough time writing about my recent experience to Africa. I’m sure you’ll see the irony, given my chosen profession.My difficulty stems not from being unable to express myself but from the feeling of having so much to say and not sure which is the most important to share.

I always walk a fine line in my writing, looking to find the balance between sharing my knowledge of writing and messaging, coupled with my own life experiences and what I like to believe is “Renegade Wisdom.” I am conscious of never becoming preachy as I don’t believe that’s the way to impact others, yet at the same time it’s important to find the words that get your point across in a way that’s impactful.

· It might sound cliche’d to say to you that it was a life changing experience, even though it was.

· It might sound trite to say to you that you can’t understand the beauty of a place like Zimbabwe without going yourself, even though I do believe it.

· And it might sound preachy for me to write to you that most of us have no idea how fortunate and blessed we all are (and I NEVER use words like blessed) compared to some of the people I met, even though in my heart I’ve come to see that as reality.

Instead, I just want to share a bit of what I saw on the other side of the world, and how it’s had an impact on me, the way I want to live my life, the way I want to run my business, and more importantly the legacy I want to leave in this world.

First some background: I went to Africa as part of the Give Movement Journey, a partnership created between my mentor, Suzanne Evans, my client Sandy Salle from Hills of Africa, and Camfed, an organization dedicated to educating women.

Originally, I didn’t want to go. Or put another way, I wanted to go, then I lost a big client project, and then didn’t want to go. Keep in mind that for me, the trip was to serve a few purposes:

1. Help others less fortunate than myself

2. See a part of the world that I’ve always wanted to visit

3. Have a final independent journey before becoming a father

Even knowing that purpose, I got scared, and cancelled my trip. Then Suzanne ripped me a new one. I changed my mind (The one with the most certainty gets the sale!) And despite turning to me at least once an hour and saying “I told you so”, I’m entirely grateful for her ass whooping.

Our goal on this trip was to work with two different groups of women entrepreneurs:

· The first were a group of women in Harare, Zimbabwe, who were educated and owned their own businesses.

· The Second was a group of women in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, who weren’t educated and were part of a collective of women selling “curios” or crafts in a small market.

We spent one day with the first group, and 2 with the second. To say that no one left the same way they came in would be an understatement.

I’ve got a feeling I’ll be writing about this for a while, but for the moment, I want to share some insights (in no particular order) I discovered while being there:

Marketing, meeting, pricing. Whether you’re selling copywriting from an office in Northampton or selling bowls in Victoria Falls, you still need to get customers in the door. You still need to have a selling process. You still need to create stories that inspire clients. Even though we come from different worlds, the solid business principles that allow us to make a living are the same. It changed the way I look at people in other countries.

I just finished the book “Imagine” by Jonah Lehrer. While I was in Africa, there was a chapter on the outsider, the newbie you bring into an organization or a situation who by the very nature of being an outsider, brings new perspectives, and imaginative solutions to previously thought “unsolvable” problems.

When many of the women told us some of their business problems, they were unable to imagine some of the solutions we recommended because their experience had given them no frame of reference to think in a different way. Once we explained how to do something, they immediately got it and wanted to implement, but shared that the insight could only have come from an outsider.

The women of the curios market in Victoria Falls by all definitions are in poverty. They sell similar products in a market of similar products, and quite often if they don’t sell, they don’t eat. Coming into the market, it’s easy to feel sorry for them and buy from them to make ourselves feel better in that moment. It also made me feel temporarily guilty for all that I have in my life. For a quick moment I told myself that maybe it was time to be more austere, and pull back on the luxuries that my business has afforded me to enjoy.

Before I left I realized that taking pity on someone (and at the same time curbing the things that make my life pleasant) benefit no one. What I realized was that if I take pity one time on someone, it doesn’t give them the power to change their lives. If I buy a bowl one day, while it allows them to buy food that one day, it doesn’t change their ability to make money in the long run.

The other thing to take note of here is that despite their circumstances, none of the women blamed others for their lot. And they certainly didn’t feel sorry for themselves. And that’s why we realized it was so important to not feel sorry for them. But instead, to empower them and give them the tools they need to create the life they want. Yes, this sounds simplistic, but in many ways it’s the truth.

Without the tools to build your dreams, they’ll just stay dreams.

I’ve always vowed to be as transparent as I can with you, so long as it doesn’t negatively impact my family or loved ones, which is why I’m okay sharing the next part of today’s article.

Writing today is a bittersweet experience for me. I am reflecting back on a trip that helps me to see who I want to become as a man, a business owner and father, while at the same time recognizing that today is the anniversary of my own father’s death, who passed away 14 years ago. It’s always a rough day for me, as I try to wonder what my father would be like now, and what he might think of the choices I’ve made, the business I’ve created and the person I’ve become.

I know in my heart he’d be proud. I also wonder what might have become of me had he not passed away. (He died 2 days after my 21st birthday). At the time I was planning to graduate school for psychology and become a therapist. After his passing the thought of more school seemed awful. So instead I broke into advertising, wrote commercials with Mr. T, got fired for writing stupid stuff on Facebook, and ultimately started this company.

It just makes you stop and realize how fragile life is, and how easily we could end up somewhere other than we are. But the funny thing for me is that I really like who I am now. I really appreciate what I’ve done. And I also know I wouldn’t have been able to do what I’m doing, had he not passed away and set me on the chain of events that brought me here.

And so I have to believe this all happened for a reason.
And I have to believe that I went to Africa for a reason as well.
And I have to believe that for any of the tragedies that have befallen us, they are meant to happen to put us on our path to becoming whoever we are destined to be.

Thanks for listening.

About Matthew Goldfarb: 

Matthew started Corporate Renegade in 2010 out of his spare bedroom in Brooklyn after spending 12 years writing television commercials, radio spots, and websites for clients such as 1-800-Collect (the ones with Mr. T!), Volvo, Subaru, Dove, Campbell’s, Viagra… well, you get the picture.

Fed up with the politics of corporate life (and being told one too many times to do things a certain way because “that’s how we’ve always done them, results be damned”), Matthew decided to take his talents and work “on the road” to find clients who were tired of looking, sounding, and behaving like everyone else and help them create copy, messaging, and strategy that actually helped grow their business instead of feed their ego.

It only made sense that he would name his company Corporate Renegade.

From day one, Matthew had one simple goal: to help people stand out.

And although Corporate Renegade outgrew its tiny office in Brooklyn and migrated to a bigger office in Western Massachusetts as the team expanded, the mission hasn’t changed.