 |
| Globe showing Asia - Satellite image - PlanetObserver (Photo credit: PlanetObserver) |
(written for
Vishwa Sandesh)
A Global Citizen
By Paramendra Bhagat (www.paramendra.com)
People who attempt and succeed at global endeavors, all else equal, will make more money than people who are based entirely either in
Nepal or in America. There is enormous money to be made in the Nepali market, in the
South Asian market, once there is political stability in Nepal, which should happen soon. As soon as the country has a constitution and regular elections, the law and order situation surely will improve. The beauty of a democratic arrangement is if the people demand law and order, they will get law and order. If they demand political stability, they will get political stability.
When there are
elections in America, you can follow the polls and have a pretty good idea of how the horse race is shaping up. But there is no poll taking in Nepal. I have no idea how the various political parties will fare. My wild guess is the parliament will be even more fractured than last time. On the federalism issue as well, the people will give a fractured verdict. Neither the identity federalists nor the geographic federalists will garner the two thirds majority needed to push through, and so a grand compromise will have to be forged out, which means the last assembly was just as good for the purpose as the next one will be, which means the country just wasted billions of rupees on a second election.
A few years back when I was the only full timer among the 200,000 Nepalis in America working for Nepal’s democracy movement, it cost me money. But contributing to Nepal’s economic revolution to last decades is to be a money maker.
I am a network marketer with ACN. A few days back I spent a few hours one fine morning reaching out to some of my friends outside America for the business. I sent out Facebook emails to about 50 friends spread across
the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Denmark,
the Czech Republic, and Finland.
One of the challenges for me in the business has been how do I reach out to people in my personal network who are spread across the
United States who I don’t have the option to bring to a meeting in
New York City. Looks like digital technology can go a long way. Emails, phone calls, and videos shared can go a long way. The basic premise behind the
Internet is that geography ought not matter.
When Mike Maser, the top performing Senior Vice President with ACN, was at my house a few weeks ago – the guy makes 80,000 dollars a week – I told him if we could do NYC right, we could go from a presence in 24 countries to a presence in 124 countries. Nepal is the poorest country outside of Africa, and quite literally every town in Nepal is represented in NYC. That means it has got to be the case that literally every town on the planet has somebody from that town living in this city. A few weeks later his brother Patrick Maser relayed that same thought on stage at
Hotel Pennsylvania when he addressed over a thousand people.
A big part of tech consulting is to do with techies in India for me. That really speaks to the Indian in me. But that is also tremendous in terms of business efficiencies. I also bring the home ground advantage of not getting tripped by cultural nuances when communicating with my engineers. They can be subtle, but I have had friends who went on to raise millions for their startups who have been tripped by the same, to the point they plain gave up.
Nepal hydro as I see it has a major role for the investors who are based in New York City. You necessarily have to get investors from India, China and America excited if the sector is to take off like it deserves to.
But then globalization can also go the other way. The inter mixing of peoples can feel dizzying for some, and they look for symbols and people to clutch to. NYC is very diverse, but it also has ethnic enclaves. People who are alike congregate. You can see that in Jackson Heights. The various country groups maintain strong inbound bonds.
Globalization and the Internet bring enormous opportunities. For the first time in human history, it feels like poverty can be eliminated. That is going to be the biggest achievement of my lifetime. But those same forces also put pressure on people’s traditional sense of being. I for one feel very comfortable crossing the lines, and mixing things up. I am known to visit various places of worship in the neighborhood. And I will take absolutely anyone of any background into my network marketing business. I am not trying to be the master of some ethnic ghetto. I want the members of my team to be typical New Yorkers bound by the city’s subway system. Screen time as time spent staring at the laptop and the phone has to be matched with face time: time spent networking with people, building teams. And so I mean to point out health benefits to networking.
For a guy like me who has been to every nook and corner in America, my choice of NYC as my base is some statement. This is a city I have chosen. I am a New Yorker and a global citizen.
