Jonathan Reckford on Building Foundations – Time To Get Great At Business Development

Mo asks Jonathan Reckford: When did you realize you wanted to grow something big and make an impact?

• Jonathan had a lot of great role models growing up, with his grandmother being one of the first women in Congress. She would always ask Jonathan what he was going to do to be useful, a mindset that he eventually adopted and grew into.
• Jonathan assumed he would follow her footsteps into politics and law, but quickly realized after college that law wasn’t what he wanted to do.
• He later talked his way into a job at Goldman Sachs, received a grant and moved to South Korea to work for the Seoul Olympic committee, and ended up working with the rowing team as their coach for a few years.
• That experience allowed him to reorient his perspective and after returning home, Jonathan came back with a mission. He went into business school and spent the next 15 years helping large organizations grow.
• After that time in the private sector, Jonathan went to India on short-term mission trips. Seeing the challenges and suffering in rural India touched his heart and he realized the power of small interventions in dire situations.
• Jonathan began focusing on helping churches grow and contributing to the mission of alleviating international poverty, ultimately culminating in working for Habitat for Humanity nearly 17 years ago.
• You can’t always connect the dots going forward, but when you look back you see how everything got you to where you are now. Jonathan’s experiences in his career lend themselves perfectly to his current role as the leader of Habitat for Humanity.
• Work on the ‘who’ before the ‘what’. Build your character and skills instead of looking for some grand career plan. No matter what you do in your 20s, consider it continuing your education.
• As long as you’re learning and aligned, you will eventually find your vocation where you have an impact that lines up with your passion and skills.
• Habitat for Humanity is thinking big for the future and is focused on making markets work more effectively to create just societies where really everyone can access safe, decent, affordable housing.
• Really bold leaders are ones that reframe everything.
• If you have the right mission for the problem you're trying to solve, you'll gain the power you need to get there. If you're focused on gaining power, that's ultimately going to be self-defeating.
• Start with crafting a story around why what you’re doing is making the world a better place and get clarity on your true purpose.

Mentioned in this Episode:

GrowBIGPlaybook.com

habitat.org

linkedin.com/in/jonathanreckford

Our Better Angels: Seven Simple Virtues That Will Change Your Life and the World by Jonathan Reckford