Reed Samuel Reed

I am humbled to celebrate my return to Botswana. Botswana is not only the birthplace of my wife and children, but it’s also home to my most epic failure. But as my return to Botswana approaches, after over 25 years, I can confidently say that I no longer dwell on that failure as a negative. Rather, I celebrate it.

This is a story of failure, feeling invisible, learning valuable lessons, and pivoting a negative into a positive. I hope this story brings you as much insight and inspiration as it brings me. Without further ado, here is the story of my most epic failure and the lessons that followed.

Invisible Volunteer

“I am an invisible man. No; I am not a spook … I am invisible, understand because people refuse to see.” -The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison.

I reread this novel several times in the early 1990s during my tour in the US Peace Corps. I identified with Ellison’s words because my experiences in Botswana, Africa made me feel like an invisible volunteer.

I remember when I first volunteered for the US Peace Corps, many African Americans who knew me asked, “Why did you want to go work in Botswana, Africa?” Not only did I have my MBA, but I was also positioned for a well-paid, corporate job, a piece of the “American dream”. Some family and friends thought I was insane. However, I considered myself to be a maverick. I was returning to my ancestral beginning… returning to the homeland.

As an African American volunteer, I walked on a cultural tightrope working as a small business consultant. Both my American colleagues and African counterparts were often confused by my presence. I felt like the Invisible Man, or should I say, the Invisible Volunteer. My African-ness was incomplete, while my American-ness was distorted. My preconceived nostalgia for visiting my roots did not match the tone, behavior, rhythm, and actions of what was going on around me.

Despite the internal struggle I faced after serving 3 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana, I continued to stay in hopes of learning to feel less invisible. I ran my own business in Botswana for an additional 5 years. The business that I co-founded, Logical Solutions LTD, an information service, and training company., a pre-nascent African Dot.com company, went bankrupt.

Reflecting on all of this, I will say that my business endeavors in Botswana can be named my most epic failure. And while at the time, this failure got me down, now it is something I celebrate. None of what I have built today would have been possible without this failure. And today, I am no longer the Invisible Man. And I have my failure in business to thank for that.

Lessons Learned From Business Failure

After the trauma of my failure in Botswana, it was easy for that business failure to become misconstrued as a personal failure. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

My business went bankrupt. Something that I poured my heart, soul, time, and effort into failed. But I did not fail. Because a business failure is not an indicator of a person’s true value or wealth.

As an entrepreneur or an educator, it can be hard not to tie all of your self-worth into your work ventures. But at the end of the day, who you are and the work you produce are two entirely separate entities. And while they can enhance one another, don’t let your failure in one area affect how you feel about yourself in the other.

In fact, business failures (or any type of failure) can actually push your personal growth. There is a lesson in every loss, you just have to be willing to find it. My epic business failure in Botswana taught me valuable lessons about what it takes to run my own business. Today, I have built a successful career not only as an entrepreneur but as a teacher — a teacherpreneur. The lessons that I drew from my initial failure and everything I learned in the aftermath, allowed me to create a successful business with a foundation that’s one thousand times stronger.

The same can be said for educators. Sometimes things don’t go as planned in the classroom, but that’s not the end all be all. Every failure is a lesson waiting to be turned into something even better.

I want to encourage all of my fellow entrepreneurs and educators out there to keep that very valuable advice in mind. Don’t tie all of your value into your work or your projects — and never be afraid to fail.

Lessons Learned From My Students

A huge factor that allowed me to overcome the trauma of failing in Botswana was my students. When I returned to the US, I became a teacher to share the literature of my life, my knowledge, and my experience with young impressionable minds. The qualities I identified in my students allowed me to develop the resilience that I have today. My students also helped me reshape my mindset around my failure in Botswana.

My students have helped me understand that knowledge is transformative. This transformation is mostly a factor of time and education. Working alongside my resilient and inspiring students has allowed me to draw valuable lessons from my experience in Botswana. This is also what began my pivot from entrepreneur to teacherpreneur.

Pivoting Entrepreneur to Teachepreneur

Over time, I learned to merge the elements of being an effective entrepreneur with that of being an effective educator. The lessons I learned from my students gave me a new perspective. I realized that I could combine my love of teaching with my love of entrepreneurship — despite any previous failure.