Entrepreneurship to create positive impact can be a lonely path. Entrepreneurship itself requires a lot of perseverance, focus and good management of uncertainty. Many times, social entrepreneurs can feel misunderstood by the people around them. Being part of a community can help us a lot when we are undertaking to create a positive impact on society and the planet.
In this episode I have the pleasure of talking to Fernando Sola, co-founder of Learning by Helping, María Lorman, founder of OK4BRAIN and Luisa Mendoza, from Aris Yupanqui – Empathic Communication. Both are agents of change and the Learning by Helping community, they have courses in business models, innovation and impact creativity and with already more than 16,000 students in 64 countries and more than a hundred projects that have been developed and converted into social enterprises. Ana Amrein: I am very excited, especially because in this episode we have representation from such a diverse group of countries, countries, nationalities, genders, colours and sexual orientations. It speaks volumes about diversity as everyone is dedicated to bringing about positive change. It’s become apparent that in the last few years we’ve seen a shift towards everyone being ‘online’ and online courses are springing up like mushrooms! Fernando I’m really interested to understand how from Learning you managed to set up and launch everything you know in a virtual format, what were the challenges and the challenges? What have you learned in the process?
Fernando Sola: It was to make an online course have the best it could be without missing out those things that one gains in face-to-face courses. It’s true that what an online course has is – as you mentioned at the beginning – diversity. Suddenly, in a classroom of 30 students, you encounter people from all over the world, different professions, cities, rural areas, someone who is in the middle of the Pyrenees, in the mountains etc. But how can we take advantage of this diversity? It’s not just about connecting online and that’s it, the magic happens. These days in our training courses we do a lot of dynamic networking events in order to facilitate connections. That’s why our training courses include mentoring, workshops, one-to-one support so that you don’t miss out on any of this. And most importantly of all, the step of doing what we want to happen online, so that each person, wherever they are, can set up their own creative project with a social impact, with an environmental impact.
Ana Amrein: It’s incredible what you have achieved in such a short time, because you have given access to knowledge relevant to the planet and society to so many people, how many people did the end of the master’s degree?
Fernando Sola: The Master’s in Social Innovation broke all our parameters, we were used to training between 20, 30 people. Some trainings oriented to the creation of creative projects with social and environmental impact, others to the design of a plan that goes in that approach, but suddenly this idea of the Master’s in Social Innovation for 10 euros came up, this one you mention, where we had between the two editions 18000 students and now in November we are going to launch the third edition and let’s see how many people sign up! It’s really going crazy in a good way. We said let’s do the best Master’s in Social and Environmental Innovation in the world. We got together with the team, we designed it but in the end it turned out it would need ten people paying 10,000 euros and so the social impact wasn’t there at all. They were only giving the tools to those who could pay that amount of money. And that’s when we decided to turn it around and said: If we do it the other way round for 10,000 people and it’s worth 10 euros. And that’s what we did and the results were spectacular! The editions that have already finished are still going on, things are happening, there are bursts of the connections that took place in that master’s degree and the projects that were born there.
Ana Amrein : We also have as guests Luisa and María, who are first-hand witnesses of the whole experience. How do you feel Learning by Helping is for you?
Luisa Mendoza: From my experience as a student, the first time I saw the Master’s advertisement on Facebook and I said this is the future, this is the way forward. It is exactly what Fernando has just said and it is not the restriction of knowledge to those who can pay for it. Instead 10euros that’s within everyone’s reach. Of course I told all my friends who might be interested, it went viral. The first class was a wonderful thing, collaborative philosophy, love is important, creativity, and a lot of very positive values that are definitely the ones that are building this new world. So I was absolutely hooked, at a methodological level it was an extraordinary experience, some valuable tools, it’s definitely something revolutionary, it’s a before and after.
I believe in education and innovation, not only social innovation, but innovation in the broadest sense in which we democratise this information and thanks to the fact that many people, at least 18,000 people, already have this new information, we will be able to build a better world together, so I’m happy.
María Martínez Lorman: For me it was a way of breaking the mould. When I found the master’s degree I found it through Playground and browsing the internet, because of my interest in social innovation. I had already researched the teachers on the course and at the time I couldn’t believe it. At first it was like my moment of disbelief, what are they going to offer, what are we going to learn?
But I swear that now I am the biggest groupie of Learning by Helping and I feel proud because they exceeded my expectations and they showed me that what is important is the knowledge that they have given us.
Because when you access the master’s degree they tell you look, you are going to access a group, you are going to have access to these Drive folders, you are going to have access to the videos through YouTube, we are going to pass you a link here in this group, you are going to have contact with the rest of your classmates at the project exhibition level. They really are tools that exist there, that they have put together to create a wonderful project, because the important thing, what they show you, is that you have to be simple and that what is important is not the tool, but really the knowledge.
María Martínez Lorman : You see the world, the possibility of seeing everyone wanting to help, everyone united in wanting to help the people next to them.
They often said to me: María, that’s very western and I died laughing and said ok, well, let’s change, now you explain it to me. Being able to talk, to share, it’s magic. Because I really believe that with 10 euros we have crossed so many barriers in terms of technology, knowledge, companionship, and on top of that you end up with a project that is viable, well, good for you.
Ana Amrein : The truth is that you have said a lot of things: community, creativity, magic, relationships, empathy, amplifying the vision and making impact projects tangible. Fernando, am I saying it right?
Fernando Sola: Yes, it’s really beautiful to hear it like that. All these energies can be felt and this is what you shared, that you are surprised at the end when you see the presentations of the projects that they came up with. Because during the training you already feel that things are happening, but as it is a methodology that invites you to do and act – what happens is that your idea starts to come into fruition. You start by exploring a problem, a theme that moves you, then comes a creative stage, a stage of creativity and achieving that idea of social impact and then putting it into action.
Hence the name, learning by helping, helping is the best version of doing. Otherwise, we would call it learning by thinking and we stay there, but the invitation is the step to DOING, which always freezes the step to DOING. The world of ideas is more comfortable and we invite them to put those ideas into action and when we see that those ideas start to have results, a reaction from the other side is very beautiful.
Luisa Mendoza: I would like to add to what Fernando is saying, because as part of the research I did for the Master’s project, I discovered a very important insight. I did a lot of interviews and a deep approach to these social entrepreneurs and all the people who have some kind of social initiative, the insight is the following: all people are clear about their purpose and the cause that makes them get up every morning, that is clear and they are so committed that they are even willing to give up things in their personal life for that cause, or their formal job, their income or even things with their family.
What does not allow them to execute or make their project a reality is a question of taking it step by step, of how to turn an idea – as María said – but more than an idea, it is more like an ideal, like a cause, turn it into a project that materialises, that is executed and that in the end has tangible results. Not only from giving, giving, giving, but from the complete business model, the complete give and take, where it gives that possibility of sustainability to that project. So, they are not projects that are made simply to be delivered once and that’s it, but projects that are created and conceived from the methodology so that they have a long life and can even be scaled over time, it’s marvellous.
Ana Amrein: Yes, that’s the most important thing. Because now at Efecto Colibrí we also work with a lot of social entrepreneurs, that’s the most important part. We get a lot of requests for us to give them a voice and help them reach their client audiences, but everything is still in a very early stage, so there is nothing that can really be offered and this part of making them sustainable is the most difficult part. But before asking about your projects, I would also like to understand a bit about your personal transformation process. Who were you before you met learning by helping and who are you now?
Luisa Mendoza: I felt at that time, before I met learning by helping and all this master’s degree, that there were very few of us with this intention and we all had to work extremely hard for even small initiatives. That’s why I was so excited when I met this master’s degree and Learning in general, because I realised that we are an infinite network, already worldwide. They are not isolated initiatives, there are more and more people, so my life split in two, because of course, I didn’t know this social world.
I didn’t know that there was so much formality, to give you an idea, and it must seem incredible to those who listen to this podcast, and I didn’t know, for example, that Ashoka was this kind of thing, I had no idea. So, thanks to the master’s degree and especially from here I would also like to highlight the community that was created on Facebook, on the networks in general, with the intention of this master’s degree, how I have learned so much about this social and environmental world – now that I am also doing this master’s degree – and realise that this is not just about individual initiatives, which are perfectly possible and that’s fine. But above all it is about weaving the collective, about always being able to add up from the small or big things we can do, so that together, as a collective, we can have a much greater impact. That’s where my life was split in two, so I think that was the great contribution of these masters for me.
María Martínez Lorman: I think the feeling that I have, for example, on a personal level, is that suddenly you have done global networking on social issues, because everyone is interested in the same thing. But on top of that your mentors are really great mentors, people with a lot of knowledge, because often what happens is that you sign up for a course and they are very knowledgeable, but they don’t know how to pass on their knowledge or how to apply it. But here it’s different, because here what they do is guide you towards the projects, there is a theme, they talk about that theme and then you have to apply it and at the same time apply it. So you often assimilate what you have been told when you see it applied in your colleagues, when you speak clearly, much better. It’s as if everyone is helping you in your project, you have that feeling, that you suddenly have a great team to work with.
Ana Amrein: Fernando, I am also very interested to know who you were before Learning by helping?
Fernando Sola: I was always involved in entrepreneurship and so on. I have had two ventures. One that failed a lot, but won a lot of awards, and another venture that did very well, but didn’t win any awards. And both were projects that didn’t have a social impact approach so I had the creative part, I enjoyed the entrepreneurial part a lot, but at the end of the day I found that all my energy was focused on creating products, services that solved the problems of millionaires and that my creativity was satiated, but I really went out into the street and it hurt me what they saw and that made me uncomfortable.
That’s when I wanted to make a change in my professional and personal life, I moved to another country and so on. That’s when I met my partner, Tommy Aymará, and that’s when we started to create creative projects with a social and environmental impact, which is what we wanted to do. We began to create this methodology, to see that the projects were happening, that these methodologies were working, that the projects were continuing and so on. And then we said that we had to try to make it bigger and we created Learning by Helping – that listened to them.
But Learning by Helping does not invent anything for them, it is something they already have, which is that energy, that desire to really make this world turn the other way, added to the talent that already comes from their experiences and training.
What Learning by Helping does is to bring that energy together with more people who have that energy so that everything explodes. At the same time, a methodology and tools are provided so that this energy is well channelled and so that these projects have what they said, we are working on social impact, never on negative impact, that this is guaranteed and that the projects are set in motion.
Ana Amrein: You must be very happy to be listening to María and Luisa, they have certainly given me a boost of energy.
Fernando Sola: That’s right, it’s beautiful because that’s what motivates the whole Learning team, every message we receive, every selfie they send us when they are testing their projects and so on, it gives us a lift, it feeds us, it feeds us a lot. Creativity is a play of energies and when we receive this from this side it’s very precious.
Ana Amrein : I would like to hear about your projects, Luisa, what is the problem you solve and how do you do it?
Luisa Mendoza: It’s a project that my husband and I work on together. His name is Aris Yupanqui and he is an expert in communication issues, and he works from neuroscience and, let’s say, from everything that has to do with the human voice.
That is to say, from the moment you listen to the person speaking with the methodology he has created, you can recognise this person if for them it is much more important, for example, to talk about figures, data and facts, or if it is a person for whom recognition, for example, or stability is much more important. Whatever that profile is, you manage to adjust the whole message and communication to be much more persuasive obviously in the most positive way with those stakeholders.
So the project has to do precisely with that, it is a whole consultative process in which we make a diagnosis of the organisation, the leader, each of its stakeholders and we create a communication strategy to be applied, of course always looking for the achievement of the main objective of the organisation. So that’s basically what it’s all about Ana.
Ana Amrein : Interesting, I think the people in the Efecto Colibrí network will be very interested. María, what do you do?
María Martínez Lorman : My goal is to take care of everyone’s brain. My project arises to take care of the brains of people who have had a brain injury or a brain disease, because it is a project whose aim is to raise funds, but to take care of the brains of healthy people.
90% of people who have a stroke could have avoided it if they had had a series of healthy habits. What I have done is to generate a programme by brain health experts.
It’s very simple through seven simple habits: What to do to rest better and at the end, little by little I am going to teach you neuro-healthy lifestyle habits that are going to help you take care of yourself, but also if you donate anything that contributes to taking care of those who have not had that luck, those who already have an injury, an illness and with that money we can really achieve the Foundation’s objective. Which is to have day centres, residences, generate urban gardens that serve as a therapeutic project, to bring sport as a tool for many families, to teach families play as therapy, so that when they get home and have to look after their children with special needs they know how to do it. As I am going to offer it for free thanks to the fact that people will be donating to me to look after their brains and in the end these people will also achieve that if in Spain and every year 120000 people suffer a stroke, then maybe 108,000 were saved with seven simple habits. For me it is a milestone and that is what I am dedicated to.
So I came up with an application and after a lot of thought, thanks to the methodology and talking to people like Fernando, like Toni, like Alonso, they managed to turn it around and tell me María, you are thinking small. So that is why I am very grateful, because I really believe that by turning it around in the way they have managed to get me to see it, to be able to reach many more people. My project is called Ok4Brain and it can help companies, individuals and schools. I have the great challenge of making the cities neuro-healthy, because just as there are people in the parks doing tai chi, why shouldn’t they be doing the table of exercises that I have put in the programme? They are super basic exercises that anyone could do while waiting on the bus, bending your head and moving one arm.
Ana Amrein: A pleasure to listen to you, I think you are a source of inspiration for a lot of people who are also still in that idea phase and as you said Maria before, I think that many of us are alone on the road and it is key to surround ourselves with people, with whom to share, to whom to tell your fears and your vulnerabilities, because in the end it is a process of constant evolution and the more people, the more powerful the personal growth, that of the project and the positive impact that we are going to create. I had a question before finishing, if you could say in a couple of words or in one sentence what excites you most, what would it be?
Fernando Sola: What moves me most is the inspiration. I listened to María and Luisa and it was really inspiring, and when you see someone on the other side who inspires you, who makes you want to do something, for me it’s something precious. Two concepts that I would like to highlight: the first of Maria’s project, I think it’s incredible that it’s not a social project, it’s a social innovation project. If they had stayed with caring for those who have a brain injury or a brain-related illness, that’s fine and it would be a social project. It is social innovation, they set this up so that also people who have an apparently healthy brain can, let’s say, do this programme and that’s where the money comes from, the income comes from. It is a project where the difference between social innovation and social project is very well understood.
After Luisa, I love the project that is also focused on learning, on Efecto Colibrí, which is about professionalising the third sector, professionalising social innovation. If we give them tools in this case of communication like the one Luisa’s project proposes, clearly this segment will start to grow more and more. So, these are projects with a direct, measurable and indirect, impressive impact. Because those organisations, companies that improve their use, their communication with Luisa’s approach.
Luisa Mendoza: I sum it all up in one sentence and that is ¨we are already there¨, we are no longer dreaming of a better world, when we can all be a unit, a single being, no, we are already there, we are there. So, more than dreaming, it is a moment and a time for humanity to act and to be consistent in each of the moments and things we do in our lives, that’s what it is and with Learning and this master, that’s exactly what I’ve lived and what I’ve learned too.
Ana Amrein: How beautiful, thank you very much Luisa and María.
María Martínez Lorman: For me it is overcoming. The word of life, so when I look around me I realise that it’s not just me, but that my environment or everyone around me has stories of overcoming and I think that also drives me, it’s a driving force to want to improve, to help, to get out of where you are and it’s not a subject that stays in a project at an overcoming level, but it stays in the person and in the social part, I think it’s very nice because seeing those around you overcome is wonderful.
Ana Amrein: Inspiration, self-improvement, that we are already there. A pleasure to talk to you girls.
