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In California, whenever I want to start a conversation with someone
I have just met, one question I always ask is, what do you do?
I often get one line responses like, I am a consultant, or I am an engineer.
On a recent trip back home in Ghana, I started a similar conversation
on the four-hour bus ride from Accra, the capital, to Kumasi, where I come from.
I started a conversation with Kwame, the gentleman seated next to me.
What do you do, I asked.
He gave me a paragraph of information in response.
In fact, I believe he gave me a chapter worth of details,
just on the topic of his occupation.
It went like this, I am a lecturer, but
I also operate a car wash business on the part time.
I have recently discovered an arbitrage in buying fish from the Futaa region and
selling in Kumasi for 50% profit margin and
my wife is helping me expand our business.
For next 30 minute of our ride,
Kwame went on to discuss the numerous business opportunities he is thinking
of perusing from exporting cashew to Germany, and processing shea butter.
He ended up by expressing his interest in quitting his job as a lecturer to
focus on entrepreneurship full time.
At this time I feared for him, so I proceeded to tell him why he would fail.
I used every entrepreneur framework I have learned at Stanford,
carefully telling him to focus on one opportunity.
>> [LAUGH] >> Afterwards, I took a deep breath,
and we both fell in silence for the rest of the four hour journey.
As I sat in silence, I looked out the window and
I saw the dozens of hawkers that would rush towards our bus at every bus stop,
selling us everything from toothpaste to snacks to phone recharge cards.
And I began to fall into the reality of where I was,
this is Africa that was the decent amount of the population
don't wake up every single morning not quite sure of the deal of the day.
If it is too hot you saw iced water,
if it is raining you saw umbrellas, and if it's Christmas time you sell cookies.
You don't need a business address for
my business registration or any formal training.
You just need logical strategies of survival.
It wasn't just about where I was.
What I saw looking out the window, on a seven hour journey in the Philippines.
Wasn't different from what I saw on a two hour train ride in India and
a seven hour bus trip in Mexico.
And it wasn't different from what I was seeing in Ghana.
Kwame's intro revealed to me the fabric of the local economy which
I completely ignored in giving him advice.
Our conversation was about the informal economy.
The term informal economy refers to any economic activity that is in law,
or in practice not sufficiently covered by formal arrangements.
There are 2 billion people employed in the informal economy,
which is 60% of the world's working population.
And it's mostly present in developing countries, but
it exists everywhere else in the world.
In advanced economies like the US and Europe,
humanity is grappling with a fear of AI and robotics technologies.
And the question on everyone's mind is,
how can we adapt to this talent mobility revolution?
My answer is, learn about the informal economy.
It is a place in the world where people are experts in embracing
an artist in navigating life's difficulties.
I believe learning about the informal economic is helpful in preparing us
towards the future, where most of us would be self employed.
Yes, currently, 162 million people who are self employed in the US and in Europe.
For some of them, it is out of choice but for others it out of necessity.
Which ever your position is, here are three skills you can learn from people who
are working in the informal economy to help you better prepare for
the future of work.
The first skill is adaptability.
The Kejetia market is the largest open air market in West Africa,
and it is located in my home town Kumasi.
It has 45,000 stalls, made out of concrete floors,
wooden slabs, and aluminum roofing sheets.
With a wide variety of business activities,
it faces at least three major fire outbreaks every year.
After every fire, store owners whirl, count their losses, but
go back to work the next day like nothing happened.
On one such occasion, I visited a market two days after a fire gutted 150 stores.
I was standing right in the spot, but to my surprise,
there was no sign of the fire.
Rather, fresh paint, and business as usual.
There are so many shocks in the informal economy, but fear and
uncertainty isn't one of them.
To move forward in terms of disruption,
we would need to learn how to embrace chaos in order to adapt.
The second skill I would like to share is diversification.
One thing that surprises me about living in the US
is most people tend to focus pretty much on one career.
I come from a culture where almost everyone has a side hustle or a side gig.
The concept of a side hustle is having a blend of jobs.
It's like having a full time job and a part time job or
having multiple independent jobs.
Just like the street hawker switches from selling ice water to umbrellas,
just by studying the weather,
having a diversified career is helpful in adjusting to shifts in the market.
One thing that is very addictive,
which we talk little about is the concept of a salary.
If you have an opportunity to generate multiple streams of income, take it,
it changes how you think.
The last scale I would like to discuss, is relationships.
The informal economy is a large network of people,
not connected by business class but by trust.
My mother introduces herself as a business woman, period.
But let me provide you more details, she has a 9 to 5 job as
a high school administrator and a portfolio of side hassles.
As a kid I remember she used to buy bale of clothes and
distribution a small lots to fashion shops.
She later went on into coconut oil processing.
And she had to develop relationships with food chains and
restaurants to sell to them.
Seven years ago, she came up with an excellent idea.
She wanted to travel to China to manufacture products and
import into Ghana.
It was crazy,
aside the fact that she wasn't quite sure what she would sell this time.
She didn't even have a passport, but
just like that, my mother graduated into an international business woman.
For someone with a full-time job, didn't even own a retail store or a warehouse,
all her successes came from phone calls, and developing the right relationships.
People in the informal economy have three skills we could all use adaptability,
diversification, and relationship building.
Research suggests that by next year, 50% of the US workforce will be
self-employed working as independent contractors or independent workers.
I employ you to think forward.
It is 2035 and we are leaving in the disruptive economy.
We meet somewhere and I ask you, what do you do?
How would you introduce yourself?
Thank you.
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