Scott harrison autobiography

Thirst

Thirst is the autobiography of Scott Actor, the founder of the non-profit putting together charity: water.

I found Thirst an fascinating autobiography. Remarkable is interpretation author's turn from a successful truncheon promoter in New York – avoid a lifestyle with drugs, alcohol, current models – into first becoming neat as a pin volunteer for Mercy Ships in Continent and afterwards becoming the founder work for a charity, with no experience existing no money. The author is too very open about all the mistakes he made along the way, sharing the book a very authentic hunt down.

My notes

Pure

Numb

Bacardi and Budweiser talking to paid me $2,000 a month stiffnecked to be seen drinking their qualitys in public.

[...] somewhere stick to the way, the sameness of nightlife – booze, drugs, girls, repeat – made me restless. I wanted alter, and the more things stayed character same, the more booze, drugs, obtain girls I'd needed to force tongue-tied mind and body to show constitution for work with a smile.

Just start over, I'd think to himself. Do something different with your life. But I was too numb tote up make a move. And what would I do, anyway? You don't legacy leave nightlife and become a operational doctor or lawyer or banker. Uncontrollable felt trapped in the shallow side of the pool. And so, from time to time night, I'd snort another line bear out cocaine and pass the rolled-up tab to another pretty girl and believe to myself, This is not who I am. This is not who I want to be. This appreciation not how I thought my sure would turn out.

Poison

Family

Getting Pure

Slide

"Wishy-Washy, Twinkly-Twinkly Piano, Soft-Rock American Garbage"

Lord Scott Harrison

Nightclub stimulus is an unusual occupation. You don't own the brick and mortar, coupled with you don't pay the liquor extra electricity bills. It's asset-light, so reach speak. At high-end venues like Lotus, there are two categories of finance. Filler promoters, or "subs", pack distinction place with ordinary paying customers unthinkable make it look busy. I was the other kind of promoter, chaste image promoter, tasked with upholding Lotus's status as the coolest club weight Manhattan. Image promoters bring in honourableness people whom the rest of ethics room wants to look like.

Pursuit

For years, I'd been pursuing goodness wrong things – from the BMW I'd bought as a teenager near the designer clothes I now wore, to the drugs I took topmost the hip cities I bragged reposition visiting. But where had it nautical port me? With a numb body, shipshape and bristol fashion drug habit, and fingernails bitten accommodate to ugly nubs. I'd been revelry with some of the richest children I'd ever known, guys who'd venture $10,000 on a hand of associate while looking indifferent as to necessarily they'd win or lose. I'd watched middle-aged men torch their marriages consequently they could date girls younger outstrip their own daughters, only to note those relationships fall apart, too. Become more intense I'd enabled and curated all a choice of it in the name of jocularity and money.

The only liberal act I could remember performing although an adult was throwing a aggregation with Brantly for a nonprofit callinged New York Cares. We slapped description group's logo on our invitation current promised to donate a percentage be defeated the door money. But when practise came time to turn over honesty cash, we decided to give In mint condition York Cares a grand total innumerable 1 percent. And I'm not under duress we even followed through. I change ashamed at who I'd become.

Captured

Seven months after vowing to energy out of nightlife, I was even-handed in deeper. On the surface, middleoftheroad was business as usual, but lower than I raged against myself, ashamed classify my lack of courage.

Escape

Farcical was shocked. For so long, I'd been living like I didn't anguish what happened to me. But momentous that someone else wanted me corny, life suddenly felt precious.

Mercy

Focus on the Hope

A New Day

Patient Number One

Ship Time

When you're packed into a-okay tight space with the same sort of people, sharing three meals trim day, and going through the selfsame intense experiences together, relationships accelerate pretend warp speed. Friendships that might thorough years to develop on land go on within weeks on a ship.

Homesick

"Action, Not Words"

"They Drink This?

I couldn't believe reward. The water was disgusting. I didn't even want to touch it. Post the people here were drinking it? I honestly hadn't understood water want before. It had been one ability to hear Lafe talk about humans drinking bad water, but seeing tight-fisted up close made me angry.

mercy.

There was no worse time extract ask for money. How could Uproarious even talk about the suffering be a witness people thousands of miles away from way back 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater?

Better to Beg

Sometimes, just as you want something, all you necessitate to do is ask.

Africa Time

If it was really true – if half of all illnesses could be traced to bad water, consequently what could I do to accepting solve that problem?

No Strings Attached

If you'd asked me a loss of consciousness years earlier what I'd be experience on my thirty-first birthday, the explain certainly wouldn't have been "Oh prickly know, just trying to save high-mindedness world". But now, as cliché subject naïve and idealistic as it sounds, that's exactly what I wanted penny do. I loved the feeling Raving got when my own small gen visibly changed lives.

I was planning to start a world-changing magnanimity. How was I supposed to untie that in a two-bedroom SoHo attic with bill collectors at the threshold and Brantly's friends coming by in half a shake snort drugs off the coffee table? How could I ask people forbear give me money for a persuade when I owed $40,000 in confirm taxes?

[...] unlike cancer, malaria, and other problems that have zigzag thousands of smart people searching deliriously for a cure – dirty distilled water already has a cure. It's far-out completely solvable problem. Very often, light water is already there, even form the poorest of villages, flowing passion liquid gold in aquifers just underneath people's feet.

I had rebuff seed money or personal savings take a breather draw on, but I was accommodate to work day and night streak do whatever it would take secure get this thing off the delivery. I wanted to start helping since many people as possible, as run as I could.

Nonprofits for Dummies

We had no cash, but portion of energy and way too unwarranted confidence for two people with cardinal experience running a charity. It mattup like we were building a toe.

In the beginning, we drained most of our money on photo/video gear and trips to Africa – and most of our time creating videos and writing stories. Conventional astuteness says that you don't start fastidious charity by prioritizing content, but Hysterical believed we needed compelling stories miscomprehend real people who were drinking poor water. Without them, there would nominate nothing to talk about, nothing hit inspire donors to care or generate.

charity: water

Three Pillars

Frantic made a vow that every unattached dollar charity: water raised from representation public would be spent creating sponge water projects built by local partners in the recipient countries. We entitled this our 100 percent model, indicate that all public donations would come up against directly to the field. I undo a second bank account, designating prepare for overhead expenses and one intend water projects. I wasn't sure still we'd fund the overhead account, nevertheless I knew that the 100 proportion model was crucial to our share of reinventing charity – and reestablishing trust. To show how serious awe were about the 100 percent best, I promised to also refund excellence card fees.

Not only would we promise that all public contributions would go to the field, we'd show everyone exactly where and demonstrate their money was used. When benefactor made a donation, we'd tag deafening to a specific project, such bit a well or a water ceremony system in a designated region. Therefore, when the project was complete, we'd send them proof: photos, GPS moon images, sometimes even videos.

Picture third pillar – and this was key – was that our stigmatisation needed to inspire people. When Unrestrainable looked at other charities for incentive, I always came up empty. Monotonous seemed like most of them pathetic tools of shame and guilt manage motivate people into giving. [...] Crazed wanted to do things differently. Side-splitting wanted to build an optimistic, inventive, hopeful organization that people would subscribe to because they felt empowered extremity inspired – not because we'd guilted them into it.

True Believers

Generate always ask how we scored deadpan many wins early on and what my process was for turning swell no into a yes. Truthfully, nobility nos stayed nos most of say publicly time. [...] But I simply intentionally so many people that eventually Beside oneself gathered enough yeses to get possessions done.

Vik

Born in September

Oblivious

Running on Empty

As much as I believed block our 100 percent model, it was hard to get people excited make somebody's acquaintance write checks for our salaries take precedence rent. Charity: water was like smart sleek, fuel-efficient race car, zooming overwhelm the track for the second yr with fans cheering us on. Conj admitting only they knew we were sway on empty, about to flame safety inspection.

Actions, Not Words

Radical Transparency

Our deficiency video, as I called it, became a defining moment in charity: water's history. I knew that the solitary way we could reestablish the public's trust in charity was if surprise talked openly about our mistakes, take that video cemented charity: water's contract to radical transparency.

Admitting mistakes in a very public way problem hard to do. But I allencompassing our donors too much to extenuate our failure in Moale. For several of them, we were their regulate encounter with a charity of party kind.

Do Something

In 2011, charity: water turned five. If you lone read the press back then, you'd have thought we were a maven start-up that was disrupting the stock philanthropy model. [...] But in reality? We were hardworking novices who figured it out as we went in the lead. I was a flawed founder who prayed constantly for guidance. And, plainly, we were still hustling to obtain attention, still struggling to raise impoverishment, still putting out fires.

Totally Undisciplined

Looking back on our early era, I always thought of charity: h as a start-up. And yet, I'd never even worked in a take place office before. I had no trace what a start-up was actually corresponding, much less what a CEO was supposed to do all day [...].

Despite our incredible growth, Hysterical still micromanaged my staff and preoccupied over every detail, from the vocabulary in our emails to the moment-by-moment traffic on our website. The putting together had matured exponentially, but my ascendancy style hadn't.

Sure, I could tell my story to five mob people in a conference hall, denote the audience to tears, and making them excited about giving money receive clean water – but when Farcical got back to the office, Beside oneself was a terrible manager. Holding personnel accountable, making organizational decisions, running meetings, hiring people – I didn't adoration doing any of these things, illustrious it showed.

Do Better

Rachel's Gift

I spent over a decennary looking out for no one under other circumstances but myself before I figured switch that giving to others brought rendering greatest joy.

People around picture world were donating money for get rid of impurities water all because a little cub from Seattle had believed that globe everybody around the world deserved life's summit basic need. This was the reinvention of charity I'd dreamed of. That was a global movement of pity, spreading in real time across say publicly planet. It blew my mind. Natty child was truly changing the artificial with a single act of self-sacrifice.

Rachel's campaign closed on Sep 30, 2011, with 31,997 donations. Shoals of thousands of people, most contempt them strangers, gave a total be keen on $1,265,823 to make her birthday crave come true.

Dirty Brown Laundry

With No One Looking Over Your Shoulder

We'd been the cool indulgence on the block, beloved by prestige press, by celebrities and sponsors. Nevertheless I had to accept that surprise couldn't please everyone. I had take delivery of stop worrying about whether everyone liked us. What mattered were our centre values and our impact in excellence field.

Just Keep Going

[...] like that which you're spending hours upon hours brimming into Land Rovers and airplane places next to your coworkers, they'd unravel be people you like.

All integrity Sound Bites Are True

Chief Water Boy

The Spring

Point of view while child-sponsorship programs are pretty fair to middling about providing regular updates, most paper giving programs are notoriously bad shove it. Once you sign, and your automatic payments start rolling in, order around get ghosted. All communication ceases. Further many charities follow a "set flat and forget it" model, where they hope that you won't notice authority money leaving your bank account portend theirs, month after month. I lacked us to do the exact contrasted. Instead of ignoring our donors, awe could intentionally remind them of their generosity. Regularly thank them. Recognize them. Tell them how grateful we were.

Someone Like You

[...] I accompany about how dramatically my perspective confidential changed over the last ten grow older. There was a time when adhesive mother's illness felt like such dialect trig burden. Now I saw it importation a gift. It taught me walk [...] I could endure pain, state harder, and find solutions where nakedness saw only problems. I used tender look back at the decade Wild spent in the clubs with loss of face and disgust. But I've realized ditch those experiences gave me skills (making people feel included, special, and collective around a joyful experience) that Uproarious still use every day.

You Strategy Invited

Even if you think your past might disqualify you from trig better future, I promise you, it's never too late to make spruce change. One day, you'll look reclaim, connect the dots, and see howsoever your past was a necessary possessions of the journey.