Poverty, Perseverance & Purpose: Setbacks into Opportunity -Elevate Côte d’Ivoire

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0:44 Thanzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to. Do the same. Stefan, Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Hey, I appreciate you being on this show. You have such an interesting story and you're doing some amazing things for people, and love for you to kind of share with the audience just briefly who you are and what is it that you're doing now. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Stefankoki, I'm a founder of Elevitodiva, a nonprofit that empowers Africans through education and opportunities. I am a native of Cultivoa in West Africa, and I've immigrated the United States about ten years ago and I presently leave in a Salt Lake City area in Utah, Okay.

1:35 Wonderful, perfect. And so you've you've had a journey in your life that is in my mind extraordinary and something that really needs to be shared with people, because so many of us in our own journeys struggle so deeply and wonder whether we can ever overcome. And yet you have done that to the point you are now really having an inflight on others. Could you share with the audience your story. Yes, of course. So as I grew up in Courdivois and Codivois is in North Africa, for those who don't know, a native French country, a French speaking country independent from friends since the nineteen sixty so that's the context of the country. As as you may know from many African country poverty is a big challenge opportunity. We lack opportunities will like access to the basic necessities of life, and so that has been most of my life. By age twelve, we unfortunately had a civil war, and I will say about half of my lifetime has been you know, experiencing those those challenges. So that has caused a lot of challenges, a lot of difficulty being able to access school, being able to have an educational opportunity, and just a feeling of never feeling safe and I'm being dancing all so much suffering and challenge it. You know, you wonder will I ever be able to get out of this? Which is it's tough, it's a tough feeling. But I went

3:07 taught to keep pushing. And you know again from twelve up to like twenty nineteen years there I go to Ghana to for for religious service, my for my church. And after two years I returned home to go Divoir and we had another cycle of a very big cycle of the war that led to the damage causing severe damage to my university. And so then you call me at crash. It was way worse than it was you know, even growing up, and I was wondering, okay, well what do I do from here? How do I get an education? How do we cure opportunities for myself? And after two years of struggling, you know, doubling between different things, becoming and what I call a necessity entrepreneur, selling anything that I can to survive and help my family. I was.

3:54 I was, I was fortunate enough to help with the family to go to because essentially they're like, there's nothing for you here, there's no opportunity, there's no job. You need to find a better place for better education. So I end up in China in twenty fourteen, twenty thirteen, and again unfortunately the agency that led me there was was a scam. So I get to change in China in twenty thirteen and no one shows up and I speak no words of Chinese besides just nihaw. And then I have this long journey of a year in China where I essentially survive, learn learn Mandarin, and then finally get a scholarship out of China to come to the United States to study business and then eventually computers, and that led me to a successful career in some of the large, large firms in the United States, and then then from that in that process also started my nonprofit to be able to give back the opportunity that I didn't have when I grew up into they.

4:58 Are okay, So it's you presently work full time and you also have your nonprofit. That's correct, Yes, yes, you know, and you know, go ahead, Yeah, I was going to say, I'm I'm a product manager in a technology from here in Utah. Okay. Wonderful. And so as you talk about that, I'd love for you to get a little bit deeper. I'd love for you to kind of share some of the emotions you were experiencing as you were going through this. You know, what was going on with your family and just the challenges that you were facing on a regular basis, and what was your thought process along that, and then what ultimately gave you the strength to move forward? And even when you were in China where it was a scam and you were dealing with that, what gave you the strength to be able to move forward and ultimately get over to the United States and get into college.

6:00 Yeah, that's a that's a great question. It is I'll say, lots of emotions. And as as you were saying that, I was going through my journey in my mind and thinking about you know, fear, you know, abandonment or anger in a way, and disappointment, and that that was I'll say the theme of what what I've experienced, the experience growing up. I will say, we have this expression in Ivory Coast where we say it life is hard, but we're already here. We're already here, as in like what are you going to do about it? And not that you're here. And that's something that my mom, my mom also taught us. You you need to do something. You in control of your situation and you have the power to change your situation, So what are you going to do about it? So from a very early age, she she used to say, you know, in life, there's two ways to succeed. Usually it's either you're born in a rich family or you were born in family politician at list.

7:02 In my country, those are the ones to have the opportunity. And she said, well, sorry for you, sorry, like you're born in neither. So you have to figure out. You have to figure out how to get out, and education is a way to do this. So I'll say I think those words and those motivations from my mother were very essential to that, to that drive and having the the the end goal in mind, as in my Foruss family, where community culture where the children drive to succeed for themselves are more importantly for the family. We wanted to help you. And I want to interrupt you there for just a minute, because you're talking about something that I think is so essential.

7:47 And if I'm getting the impression that although you were living, from what I'm understanding in fairly deep poverty, is that correct? Uh huh. Yeah, here's your mother. It seems like rather than being a victim of all of this, she's saying to you and her other children, you know what, it's up to you. You can get out of this, rather than just being negative and victimized by the whole situation. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because you could to your point, you know, you could complain about your situation all day long, and that not that we don't you know, it's a human feeling.

8:27 But my principle has always been and I know I'd drive my coworkers crazy and I was like, let's complain for about thirty minutes, but now what are we going to do about it for the last the next thirty But yes, that's essentially the mindset that my mom has always been teaching us. Yes, there things we can control, but for the things that you can control, what are you going to do about it. Yes, Oh, and I love that. So I just wanted to stop there because I thought that was such an important part. So okay, so here you are is a young child and you know, whatever age that is, and you have developed this mentality because of your mother that as you say, if I understood it correctly, you know what you cannot change, accept but you can change what you can change, and so you move forward. So continue on, talk a little bit more about what your life journey was on that and your experience. Yes.

9:24 Yeah, so you have family, you know, you have matter words. You also have faith, strong believer in God and the power that it has for those who act upon the faith that we have to transform our life. So always you know, thinking I'm not alone in this journey. There's a family that's supporting me, the friends, but there's a higher power and there's the divine that's supporting us. So that you know between you know, like the motivation in a motivation that you know of wanting better, better life, you know, the the the motivation from the mother, my mother, and also like my your faith and your belief that you know in this journey God is going to do miracles and and and you see them every day, and and that's a I I do say that I am.

10:22 You know, when I was a child, if you had to ask me, was I happy or excited that I was born where I was born? I would say absolutely not, because you you watch a TV and all the you know, you see the world outside and you think, oh, man, why don't I have these things? But as an adult looking back, I am grateful for the things I've experienced because it has shown me the It's given me gratitude for the little things. And it's also and I said, that's a principle I'll add to the list. And it's also showed me that the power of like miracles when you act on small things. And then sample of that is you know, you know, in the first world, for the for the most part, at least from my experience here, figuring out what to eat the next day is not the biggest thing. You know, if you look at a marshal pyramid of needs. Because of development and opportunities, a lot of people have moved past that stage. But you know, in the developing world and mill mold, a bigger majority of people still worry about the day to day and in a lot of time for us. I remember those days where we had no idea what it is, what's gonna happen tomorrow, and but you believe that something will come out the next day. And and then you have a lot of opportunities to experiment, as in like, well tomorrow is no food, but I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna figure out. You have no idea where you're going,

11:53 You have maybe one or two things you could sell, and you don't know who's gonna buy it, but you still go up every day. So it gives you that practice of faith and you see the result every day. It's like, man, yesterday we thought we were never going to make it the next day, but we did. Okay, what if we try it again? So you get so much practice, and that by the time you get to adulthood, you know you essentially your feels. And I think that's a preparation. I helped me in China, and despite you know, being lost and all the things that were happening, I was like, Okay, I have seen firsthand that you believe an action, there is always an outcome. It might take longer than I expect, by always works, and that that I'll say it draw that resilience, and when I want to give up, I'll remember those things and be like, you got to keep pushing. Something is going to work out because you've experissed it over and over again in your childhood.

12:48 Well, and you know you mentioned your faith in God. Okay, and you know what comes to my mind? A couple of things do. But one of the things that comes to my mind is so often people blame God for their circumstances. You know, why wouldn't He let this happen to me? What is you know? Why was I born here? And why does He let me do this? It sounds like you kind of reversed that a little bit. And yet I think in other situations people just totally wait for God and don't do anything else. They just keep waiting and waiting and waiting, and then he you know, he hasn't done anything necessarily. So how how have you fit that in to your life? And as you work with others helping them to understand that fine line between totally relying and not doing anything about it, being angry because you know, if he's God, why is he letting this happen? How have you put that together so that you're able to move forward with such as you say gratitude, which I think is great. Appreciate you sharing that.

13:54 Yeah, that's a good question. It is. It is a fine balance, and I'll say I have refined it over the years for sure, because in French and I recourse, we have this saying do you propose the long proposed? Do you disposed as in the man proposes, or send a proposal to the heavens and the heaven's blessed in a way, and that implies that you have to have a proposal, you have to have a plan, you have to desire something. What do you want for the heaven to be able to bless And so I've always operated that way, as in like I will pray for guidance, and you know, if I don't have a clear guidance, I make a plan which I believe is the best plan, and I ask for god blessing on the plan. And even if sometimes Christians will often say I'm still not getting any answer, my next stage is I'm doing it, and I'll tell God, hey if I'm if I'm doing wrong, please correct me along the journey. But I'm taking the journey, and then and then I've seen it work so well where you know, it's it's that first step. You know, we've seen in the Bible, the scriptures paid with that work is in its vain. You take that first step and then and then you see the next step open.

15:19 It's it's so incredible to have experienced it so many times. Like for example, you know the matter of food, like I've mentioned, well, step one is you need to get out of the house. I don't know where I'm going, but I need to get out of the house. I know God wants me to to to be happy. You know, he wants me to eat that day. As as basic as it sounds, he said, he will provide for me like it provides for the you know, the beasts and the flowers of the nature. But I own the plan and I only act the steps that I take towards it.

16:00 But then once I'm out, then it's like, okay, where do I go next? Then you start hearing, you start feeling sort of a we get the revolutions or the insights from him. Okay, you've shown you've done your part. Now I'm going to guide you. And then are you acting upon it? And that's another big, big principle here and as you act upon it. What I've noticed is the more you trust, the more you act upon it, the more you receive. Yeah. Well, and and so you know what comes to my mind also is you know, you talk about the poverty they're in Africa that you experienced, and I see the same thing here in Thailand, and of course they're they're very much Buddhists for the most part. And what amazes me here is, you know, I see people, for instance, if I'm driving, there's always children or teenagers at the lights selling flowers, selling cookies and so forth. In the United States, if we saw that happen immediately, what's our.

17:04 Thought, It's strange, I guess, yeah. And yet here it's just here's people that are living in what we would call poverty, and yet they're out there, as you say, just trying to get food, trying to make a little bit of money. And I think here the average income is probably if they're lucky to live on four hundred dollars three hundred, four hundred dollars a month, they're very fortunate. It amazes me how we look at the United States and see the poverty, but even moving up that scale to where you have people that are definitely not impoverished, but they think they are and they complain that they are. What how do we change that mentality?

17:54 How do we change that culture to help people understand that, you know, whatever our circumstances, that you know and in your case, you grew up in poverty and yet you have been able to break through on that. How do we help people to develop that sense of gratitude that what they are where they are in their life. Number one, there needs to be gratitude for that and appreciation and then also recognizing that potentially they can do something about it. Oh, that's a that's a good question. And that's something I think a lot about my experience, and I am still trying to figure out like the to your points, like the best way to translate those principles for someone to someone that hasn't lived it. So that that's why it's really hard, because it's like I just for example, here is I. I I last year I went with my with my board my board members for my organization and they're from Hawaii. They've been great help to elevate and all the nonprofit work we do, and I we've talked about a lot of things we had a lot of chat about poverty and you know, culture and challenges, and they have their own experiences in Hawaii and stuff, but there's also so much that was such an eye opener.

19:19 When they went by themselves and I questioned that, I was like, is the answer that people need to go and see? But how can they still have lived those values without seeing? Like I keep debating that myself, so all to say, like, I don't have a great answer, but I could share some insights. But to your point, when I came here, it was interesting. That was the first thing that I've observed. I remember I was given a campus store and they they we saw a parking lot and I made the comment that, my goodness, there's a lot of professors here. And they were like, what do you mean And I was like, well, I mean there's a lot of cars. I would assume only professors can afford cars. And they were like, oh, no, this is student parking. That's not even professor parking. I was like, wait, there's that many students with cars? Like how And I was just baffled by, like the opportunities, the access and obviously I learned later that this credit system and all that, but it was interesting to me that things that sounded to me like unachievable, as in like my dad worked thirty forty years, he had a decent job. But then like getting a car was like, oh, my goodness, that's like the retirements when you retire, you're close to you've saved for then twenty thirty years, having folks that were younger than me driving cars, I was like, my goodness, there's so many opportunities here. But it made it so because of that contrast, it was so much easier for

20:53 me to get, you know, the most feed up car and being like the happiest kid. I had them first nineteen eighty nine Toyota Body for three hundred dollars and I just love that car. My friend thought I was crazy because they grew up in the system where it is expected that you have a car, and I grew up in a system where it is a lux even if you know it barely works. So I ad think in conversation by sharing those stories, it's helped some people seeing it from a different perspective, but still trying to know, like how do you is it enough to share the stories? Do they have to travel there? But all to say this country is so blessed. I remember the first day I landed he I called my mom and I said, Mom, we're never going to be poured. She was like, what did you see? I was like, just looking at Washington, d C. From the plane, there was just a feeling that was so unique to this place. There is so much wealth, so much opportunities, but you could only see it from the lens. It's so much easier to see it when you've come with a different lens, and then if you have grown up with this lens. And I can empathize with that perspective too, because as even as I noticed, the longer you stay your lens start changing.

22:14 You start expecting those things instead of being grateful for it. And for me, what has helped me to stay grounded is always my Gratitude journal and remembering those small moments. For me, the first time where I had a full glass of milk milk is very expensive where I grew up. First time I have my full glass was here and I was like, this is that dusting in the world. And I remember too, my adoptive family laughing, and I thought it was super funny that I got excited about so many little things and I look back and I'm thinking, man, I don't get excited excited as I did when I got here, when I was eating grapes and drinking milk, because now it's almost like it's normal. But once in a while I try to get to remember this is not a given, it is a privilege. And I think constantly remembering that has helped me a ton, and traveling back, it's helped me so much. Now I'm seeing it from a very unique perspective. I was there, I left, I've seen what the world can be. And I went back and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is this is this is incredible. Makes me feel even more grateful, and I draw on the energy of the people down there.

23:23 It is so amazing to see. And I'm going to end with this one example here how grateful people are. And the story one story where I went with a friend and from the east from Vegas and he yeah, and then I just saw context here. I've been gone for ten years. I haven't seen home in ten years. I'll go back and I'm reverse culture shock. And that's the whole story is to share. But we had a dollar bill. This driver taxi GUYE drove us around and we say, hey, here's a we pay them. The local camecy, but we gave me a dollar people and he was like, oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, this is this dollar. Bill is the coolest I'll ever be to the United States of America. You have no idea how much you bless my life. And I was like, it's just a dollar.

24:11 I mean, I have homeless people here and I get mad at me for giving them a dollar. Then here's this guy that's gotten the dollar and he is like, I'm never spending this. This is gonna be my good luck bill and this is the best. And that kind of energy every time I go back, tells me, man, I feel so grateful for everything that I have. Well, and you know that that's so fascinating. You know what comes to my mind if if you were to compare the poverty that is there in Africa where you grew up and look at the United States, who would you fit what? What group of people would you fit in the US into that poverty level in Africa?

24:56 What group? As in sorry, I'm trying to understand better. Well, so so you know here they are in poverty looking for their next meal. Can you compare that to the homeless or is there a level above the homeless in the United States that are experiencing that? It is? It is it's hard because I feel like what I've learned from my travel is also poverty is also a very relative turn, as in, like I've asked a lot of a lot of my friends I've gone to college with will say, oh, yeah, we were very poor growing up, and then I will I'll go to the home and realize, my goodness, your version of But why with it they thought they were poor was because they're comparing themselves to the house on top of the hill, because to them that is perhaps middle class, and maybe the house higher is like it is rich. So it is quite interesting to see that that that prince people.

26:00 But if I were to say comparing like when it comes to basic necessity and having access to those, I would say, the best majority of people here have access to those things. And I would say in the United States, like and and the reason that is is I like to say, there's a lot of social nets here that can you know, where catch you when you fall down? You know, the in the in society as in like if if I'm if I'm hungry. Here the church activities, whether it's my church or my not my church, I could go there. There are food banks, their their donations, they for the homeless, the homeless shelters. There's very and then that's not even including all the other nonprofit that work in the space of hunger. There's so many places to draw from. Plus, you know, there's if if you are social social security, social benefits that you can get the problem. In our commune country, due to the nature of the poverty and the system, there's none of that.

27:09 So if you if you are nothing, you are in big trouble and you cannot go to the hospital. Well, I means you could, but the the likelihood that you survive it's very low. You can't. There's no food bank. I mean they can't even run food bank because imagine the millions of people that will be overwhelming the food banks. So what you do is really community and the way it works is, you know, I go to my neighbor, Hey you have some tomatoes, take a tomato there, Hey you have a piece of fish, take a fish. Hey, you have this and that, and then here's your steal. And then you hope you can get some rising between that's how people live in a daily day there. But like the idea that I could go to a place and I'll say even like the could describe it as the poverty opportunity poverty, and and again like there's the job element to there's an abundance of job. I mean, we're talking four to six percent unemployment rate. We're talking forty to fifty percent in agricas so tenex that. So even if let's say if you're able, you're physically able to work, you're not sick, you know, mentally physically, there is an opportunity here to earn. It may not be a lot over there. We have PhDs. I think someone was saying two thousand or three thousand PhD that ire unemployed.

28:34 We have PhD that can't even get jobs in like fast food. I mean, so they end up selling on the street. That's how bad it is. So let alone the high school kid or the bachelor degree kid or the associate. So I think that's the biggest challenge. That's what Elevt is trying to solve, like the fact that one there's no social net and two even if you wanted them, you're able to work, where do you and the United States has done a fantastic job with both of those things. There's so much more we can do, I mean socially here. No it's not perfect, but there's a lot of incredible opportunities here for those who were willing to take advantage of that. Well, and you know, you said something and I'm curious whether that's real or not. You know, you're talking about your experience there in Africa and the poverty, and yet the community. Was there really a culture of community where if if you went to a neighbor, if they had it, they would share with you. Was was that actually part of the culture there that you grew up in?

29:42 Yes? Yes, And I would say I don't know how we would have survived if we didn't have that. Yes, it is. And it was quite a culture shock moving here. Do you know that I just couldn't go knock and ask for you know, any any random thing that I need my neighbors. In fact, I mean I didn't know most of my neighbors for years because you know, you have the garage door opener that was a novelty to me, where you push that button and you drive in, you drive out, and you don't really see each other versus you know, where I grew up, it is, you know, morning, good morning to all the neighbors on the way to work, and then good evening to all the neighbors on the way to work, and then you sit outside and you chat and you talk about your day. So that's that's kind of what I was used to. So it made it a lot more seamless to to to to talk, integrate, share, but like, yeah, I mean, and I like to share funny stories of you know, we we have about sixty plus tribes and each tribe has different culture. They also have different type of food, and so I was bought the I knew the tribes of my neighbors. I knew the kind of food that they like to cook the home.

30:56 So if I didn't like what my mom cooked, I'll go to the other tribe whatever whatever food they made, because I knew that was my favorite, and I knew my mom strived in like that food that much. So I really enjoyed. That's something I really missed about about tackle. And it's just beautiful that you know, they most of that have a time, but it was always this you've got to keep enough food and for the tended visitor, because you never know who might who might need it well. And so two things come into my mind. One community, uh, and how somewhere along the line we lost that in the United States to a large degree. But but secondarily, you know, you talk about your path of here you are in the United States, You've grown up in poverty, You've struggled and yet overcome, and now all of a sudden, what was a blessing of great import in your life is not just to be expected. And how how do you help people to develop that sense of gratitude rather than the egoic or the ego longing or expecting this to be a part of their life. And as you see that, how does that affect an individual's life if they can get to the point of being grateful for what they have rather than just expecting that that's how it should be.

32:23 Yeah, yeah, that's a fantastic, great question. And I'll say I think you ought to think about it from you know, maybe bring a little bit of my computer thinking here. I think about a process that goes into the things you do every day. So you know, the first step being you get up. How many people did not get up that morning? It's all uncommon that people dynasty. I have a few friends at it. That's step one. And people say, well, you get up so often that you've assumed that it's a out. But think about that first step. You know, every day, so being grateful in the morning every day that I'm up and I am able to function, that is a That's that's it. That's a big thing.

33:13 Then from there usually move on to you know, get breakfast in food. That food will served to you because of the collective work of a lot of people, from farmers, distributors and all. So being thankful that our wool was given to you. And if you're religious, then you thank God. But in reality, any of the things that you provided to you, starting with food, is because of someone's self, someone else labor. You're going to get on the internet to work, You're going to get on social media, check out memes, whatever you do, all of the infrastructure that I was meant for that and I perhaps I think a lot about those details. But I wonder if people do like it is literally somebody else keeping up, keeping up the light, and I think COVID it cannot help us remind us, reminded us of that with central workers. Oh, my gosh, there have people, millions of people that we can to ignore because there seem to be in a background that are working to make something possible. When when those people aren't able to work. We all saw what happened on supermarkets. We saw happened to you know, a supply chain system. So I think thinking about the step that we take every single day and be thankful for each of that is a big step towards like living a life of gratitude. And in terms of how does that impact your life, Oh, I think it's a huge impact.

34:36 I mean, I honestly feel like and I maybe misremembering my memory religion classes, but in Buddhism they taught us that the you know, Buddha has found out that the greatest, the greatest reason that the biggest reasons for unhappiness is people is expectations, high expectation and outcome to things that you do. And and that was that was an important lesson for me When I learned that, I was like, yeah, like, people are very unhappy because they feel like to be happy, they they need to have this thing, they need to have that thing, and that causes a lot of suffering. And I've seen that that distinction in the US versus in Africa, like it is so it's it's it's it's wild to me that to to interact with my own phil Africans are variance Wifrico, specifically to see that they are happier than a lot of people I know here just and we hear that in principle, but it is true.

35:39 Having lived in both places, I know so many more people that are happier. And I've asked myself the same question, was it's different. I mean these people again, like this is your living in the harsh reality of corruption, lack of opportunity and all. And they're not pretending to be happy. In fact, I like to say when you if you ask someone on the street back home, how are you doing, They'll probably tell you, you know, I just had I got this stinking malaria annoying, but I'm alive, so I'm grateful. How you doing? And you know, you hear that for the first time, you're thinking, wait, what you ever die? It's like this is serious, but they are. They acknowledge the pain because being grateful doesn't mean everything is fine.

36:22 They acknowledge that no, things are not good right now, but they will be better. And it's that that I've tried. So I've been trying to like how do I teach that to my friends here because it's like it's so beautiful, but like knowing having not having those expectations and just being grateful for the fundamentals of life and keeping life really simple. Talking to people there is like and I want to be able to spend time with my neighbors, I want to have food every days to sleep, and time with family and friends. And it's it's not necessarily a lack of them. It's more of a what matters the most? And I said, that's another principle here, like they prioritize what matters the most? Do I? You know, I went to business school. Like when you business school, it's all because when are you gonna make the six figures?

37:16 When are you gonna get to this title and your company and all this? And you end up in this rat race, which many of us are familiar with, where you start identifying those success success in your life as needs to be successful if you hit those things, when you're gonna buy the house, American dream and what are you gonna do this? You're gonna do that? And for a lot of people down where I'm from, which again they teach me so much every time I go back. It is keeping it very simple and you know, being grateful for the simple thing and realizing that I already have so much already and I'm happy for I have. I'm striving for more, but I'm not basing my happiness as a if whether or not I hit that target.

37:59 And I see a lot of people doing that, and it causes the love and happiness. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting a scripture that comes to my mind, Blessed are the poor, for they showing hair at the kingdom? And what is it? I mean, as you look at the culture of poverty where you grew up, and I see the same thing here in Thailand. They're happy, They're grateful for anything that comes their way. It's amazing that somehow we have lost that culture in the United States, and wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get back to it rather than the victim mode that everyone seems to be in. So, just as we have a short amount of time left, I want you to share with the audience what you're doing for those people in Africa, what your nonprofit is all about.

38:53 Yeah, absolutely, thank you for the opportunity. Again. So when I came here in the United State in twenty fourteen after a year in China, my thought I first I was like, oh, my goodness, Like I mentioned, this is, this is so incredible. I went from a college with no computers where I was learning out program on paper to multiple computer labs. You know, I went from a college with no no our professors won't show up because they weren't getting paid, you know, to being you know, in labs and you know, office hours with professors and knowing them by first name and all that too. And that made me think right there when I got here, I'm like, man, I wish my brothers and sisters back in Africa I could have those opportunities. Unfortunately, most of us will never make it here. It just it's so hard to come here. So my thoughts were, how do I bring those opportunities back the most the best I can so they don't like they have to make their treasures journey to come here. So what that's all all of it is about. So we're about bringing education, We're about bringing opportunities to to African countries. And we started in Godiwam Home and we're expanded to four different countries Ghana, Nigeria, and Botswana to to provide out those opportunities. So we

40:23 train people locally through remote remote training, and then we find them jobs here in the United States as virtual assistant. I know in Asia that's also as a popular popular business. Africa's live behind those opportunities, so we're trying to push for more African talent in a global workforce so then they could earn you know, you mentioned I think three or four hundred dollars the good good income in Thailand. More in my side, people live usually around the one hundred and two hundred dollars one hundred on average people earn, so we try to push that income to to five hundred and for some places we try to even ten x some countries the income by having them earning American dollars and then working remotely from from the place. That's what that's what.

41:12 We do, okay. And And how do people find your What is your website where they can learn more about it and potentially become a part of that. Yes, thank you so one Elevate dot org is our website and there you will learn about all the initiatives that we're doing both from the education and the virtual assistant side. If you are looking for virtual assistant, we serve all sorts of businesses. We have a lot of experience with real estate businesses, fitness businesses, social media businesses, and we have we do bookkeep from between bookkeeping, social media and also of general assistant type of job or web web website creation and go to Elevate Virtual Assistant dot com. That's where you could book one of our well not virtual assistance.

42:01 Okay, so one elevate dot org as O n E elevate. N E elevator door. Yes, yes, an elevator. Yeah. Excited. What what would be that final message you want to share with folks, It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me here. In reflecting on what we've talked about today, I'll say, uh, gratitude, full of gratitude for all the blessings that I've received personally in my life and for all the things that I was able to achieve. But wanting to also share the audience there is happiness in gratitude, and there's also happiness at the end of the journey. If you do not give up, it might it will be hard. It will be challenging, but I promise you that if you keep pushing, if you keep doing one little step every single day, at the end, you can create the life that you dream more. And to my friend, I always tell when they say how you're doing, Stefan, my answer is, I am living the dream and now I'm not even joking.

43:04 I'm living the absolute dream. And I believe you can too. Oh wonderful, Stefan, Thank you so much. Is this has really been enlightening for me. I mean, you know, it's fascinating how you know, here you are, having grown up in poverty, but having a mother that taught you rather than becoming a victim, taking charge of your life and doing something about it, and having that faith that you have in God, and then yet moving forward and doing what you have to do and achieving where you are now, I think is just an incredible example. But the most important thing is that now you're going back and you're seeking to lift the lives of those from where you came.

43:50 And to me, that's the blessing of the experiences that we have in our lives wherever we happen to be. If we look at those experiences and the difficulty overcoming and then realize that that has given us the ability now to reach out and to touch someone else's life in a positive way. So thank you. So much, Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it. And folks, thanks for listening. I hope you really got something out of this because this is this has been very inspiring for me, and I hope it has been inspiring for you. So meanwhile, hope you'll join us again soon. This is doctor Doug saying no mistay