One of the ‘ah-ha’s’ I’ve had on my social enterprise journey is from this event. I haven’t been to an event like this for four or five years, and I remember when I used to come to them. I used to have all this passion; many founders have passion for their project. But this doesn’t always translate into getting the support, funding, and the buy-in that they need to actually get it off the ground and scale to the level of impact they want to. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that your ability to sell, to generate buy-in, and garner support is pivotal. You can have the most passion in your heart, but if it takes three minutes to explain what you do, if you get on stage and are unable to inspire that same passion within the audience, then your passion stays in your heart and the magic does not go mainstream. God has really been talking to me at this conference and saying, “hey Navdeep, you went on this whole journey just being this passionate person to now getting a skill where you invoke that same passion in other people”. Maybe I can share it with others; how to get more support, buy-in funding, and ultimately, impact through their social enterprise.

Marlise Edwards, Kiril Park Wild

I think when times get hard, you can still keep going. The world’s not going to stop you, and you can keep on going. Keep swimming everyone.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the past two years as a trainee (at Hotel Etico) include amazing skills in hospitality and housekeeping. There are lots of skills I’ve learnt there, like being in a bar and serving customers, and then being a waiter and serving customers. It has been great fun cooking meals and learning the way they do those in an Italian way. Then there is the housekeeping part of it, I’ve learned artistic ways of organising hotel rooms and making them unique for guests so they can have a pleasant stay there. I also love the idea of being connected, and love socialising with guests. I always love meeting new people. It’s really awesome to be a part of something really special. Hotel Etico encourages anyone with a disability to work here, they’re international. I graduated a couple of months ago, even though I wish I could go back. But now, I’m still working for them and I’m a mentor to help new recruits That’s been a blast as well!

The biggest lesson I’ve learned on my impact journey is you need to be courageous and allow yourself to make mistakes.

Learn from Your mistakes and be brave, manage your risks, but be bold. look forward and be passionate.

One of my biggest lessons to date is to talk to as many people as possible, and when you’re doing the talking, make sure you’re two-thirds listening and only one-third talking. That is the correct ratio according to Greek philosophy and the wisdom of the sages. Make sure you listen more than you speak, and you should be on your journey to social enterprise success.

My biggest learning learnt from running my own enterprise probably sounds cliche, but it’s that you need other people to go forward.

I’ve really learnt the power of relationships and finding what other people care about and how they want to contribute to the overall journey.

It’s been pretty massive in terms of building networks, collaborations and relationships there.

Kat Anderson, Fair Threads

The biggest lesson I’ve learnt through our social enterprise journey has been patience. Just because you have a good idea doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to happen overnight. You really do need persistence to see it through and know what avenues to go through to find the help you need.