Where Alan is from
Carmel, Monterey County, California, USA
Interview
What was your dream when you were a kid? What was the reason?
I wanted to be an archeologist because I was obsessed with dinosaurs. I could name all of them. Basically, I wanted to be the Indiana Jones of dinosaur treasure.
What was your dream when you were 18 years old? What was the reason?
At 18 I didn’t really know what I wanted. The closest thing to a dream was to be a journalist because I liked writing.
What made you start thinking about social entrepreneurship/social enterprises? When was that?
You know the song in Grease, ‘Summer Lovin’’? Well, a gal who turned out to be a summer fling mentioned that someday she wanted to start a company that made bikini’s from recycled materials, and that donated some profits to social causes. While the fling didn’t last, the inspiration for business with a purpose did!
How much do you think social entrepreneurs play an important role in the world?
I think social entrepreneurs can model for the rest of the business world that it is possible to scale both impact and profit, and that it might even be a competitive advantage to do the former to achieve the latter.
What would you say to future social entrepreneurs / those who are interested in social entrepreneurs?
Any degree, industry or singular passion can be purpose-driven or socially-oriented. That’s because it’s not about what you are doing but how you go about doing it.
What is your favorite quote? Who said that quote?
“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” – David Mitchell, from Cloud Atlas.
Who Alan is
Alan is a mature and calm person; a polisher and enhancer. He was one of my teammates in my first team at Hult, which is why I can tell you this; I cannot count how many times he helped and saved our team. Our team would not have been the same without him, for sure. He listens to others respectfully, accepts different opinions and – this is actually my favorite quality about him – he responds to every single criticism and question in each team meeting that we had. He asks insightful questions during conversation to try to truly get to know the person in front of him. He can build strong relationships very quickly with anyone; literally anyone. He grabs everyone’s heart in the first minute. That is Alan.
Alan is also good at public speaking and answering questions at presentations, too. He is also a fantastic researcher. He can complete tasks amazingly quickly, like in a blink of an eye. Alan is like the engine of an airplane. The engine is the most important part of the plane because it makes the plane fly; however, people usually only pay attention to the plane as a whole. Alan is the one at the center of the team,pushing the team to fly. You can trust him and count on him. I know you would love to work with him, too.
Alan is an amazing writer as well. If you read one of his articles, you will not read it but “feel” it. His articles will take you to the places he writes about. Each article posted on my blog about MSEs were edited by him. I could not have accomplished this project without him. If you think that the articles are beautifully written, it is because of Alan.
Here are articles that Alan wrote. You will enjoy reading them. One is about Musana Carts!
http://www.hult.edu/news/optimism-in-a-brexit-kind-of-world/
As you can probably tell, I am a big fan of Alan.
Alan and I also love sports and have become great sports buddies. Basketball, baseball, American football, etc. We watched a lot of games together and talked about sports. We rock climb together as well. I mean, I was nothing compared to him. He is excellent at climbing like an ape. It was so much fun, but hard to keep up with him.
Awesome Episode
I already mentioned that Alan is a calm person and it comes from one of his interests: mindfulness. He knows how to meditate can control his mind.Last February, Alan took me to an very interesting conference, ‘Wisdom 2.0’, which brings together people from many different industries who are interested in learning mindfulness. Guest speakers were also awesome, including social entrepreneur Pete Carrol and a Japanese-American comedian,Ryan Higa. We even bumped into Premal Shah, the President of Kiva. The conference was very interesting but the most interesting thing for me was meeting Alan’s former colleagues. They seemed to have similar qualities to Alan. One Japanese proverb says “Birds of a feather flock together” and it was true. The opportunity let opened my eyes to the world of mindfulness.
The Power of MSE
What Alan is holding is a symbol called “go-en(ご縁)”, which means ‘fate’, ’destiny’ and ’special tie.’
I believe that it is meant to be that we met in San Francisco! I studied Social Entrepreneurship with Alan for a year, saying “We will make the world a better place.” I would love to spend the rest of my life with MSEs (Master of Social Entrepreneurship; my classmates) until the very day I die. They have already completely changed my life.
At the same time, however, I also think that we should not be together all the time, because that is not the reason why we learned Social Entrepreneurship. That is not how we will deliver the impact we want to give to society and to the world.
I think MSEs are like dandelions. We were seeded at the first day at Hult and we bloomed on our graduation day. Our mission is that we spread all over the world like dandelions and seed the future, the next generation, from each place where each of us has landed.
本当にありがとう(Honto ni Arigato-); Thank you very very much for everything!! The world needs you! Let’s make the world a better place together!!
Joyage 
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