Entrepreneurism is the lighthouse on the hill, signaling cultural and lifestyle revolution to approach. It is the stuff nations and empires use to rise from the ashes of political tumult and ruin. Often churned from necessity, the entrepreneurial mindset seeks to elicit change and efficiency, solution and justice. These last two generations of young people understood this and were inspired to resolve the needs often overlooked and ignored, even during crisis of a global pandemic. The forsaken voice of the Black community, the cries of unlivable wage, and legislative biases were heard and are being overturned simply as a product of the political waves from this revolution. From watching my parents pioneer through the 2008 recession with their own businesses to raising my own jewelry hustle from age twelve, I have been molded to find my own solutions to this day. There is so many more principles, laws of nature, and efficiency techniques that we as people have yet to uncover and need to uncover as the world continues to change. Because of these unknowns, I am truly inspired by these prompts to walk the streets paved from innovative revolution. Innovation comes from a knowledgeable, consistent, inundating yearning within to get an answer to an unsolved question out. Innovation greats, like Thomas Edison who spent hundreds of trials to find the perfect combination to create the lightbulb, found a need and consistently immersed themselves into finding a solution. The knowledge of the laws of nature is vital to the first step to recognizing the bounds of a problem. Then, steadily using those laws to produce the correct result attempt after attempt builds patience and efficiency. The process to create inventions never conceptualized before required deep integration with the problem to the point that inventors’ sole focus in all their life was to solve it. That process of total alignment has spurred countless innovation and development in the modern world. My entrepreneurial venture is planned to create a vacation rental business named Hometown that promotes immersive traveling to tourists. Often when traveling to a new place even within the country, a tourist neve gets to experience what the culture in the area outside their hotel actually feels like. This defeats the whole purpose of touring a new place, and may give an incorrect understanding of what lifestyle in that new place entails to the traveler. Through Hometown, visitors may live in similar homes, eat local food, and experience hidden community treasures hidden from public view. Residents of the area can be instantly employed as tour guides to the visitors in similar fashion to booking a ride from Uber, and will show them hidden regional gems. These contractors would be thoroughly vetted for honesty and experience through extensive background checks and be placed under the careful eye of regional supervisors by city or district to ensure customer security. Through Hometown, travelers can live like the locals do without the uncertainty of safety or how to engage with the culture. I plan to lead the property development and management department by arranging where to flip or build rentals and coordinating commodity arrangements with neighborhood businesses. I am driven to be thoroughly immersed in whatever project I undertake, so I desire to make rotate through each sector of Hometown’s operation. I hope to also spread out internationally and create new methods of college studying abroad and backpacking opportunities after conquering the American East Coast and eventual North American continent. Additionally, this company would inspire new jobs for International Trade and Business students and allow students to freely visit other countries without fear as citizens of the world. Even in the midst of all the possibilities, at Hometown’s core, the entire purpose is to free each traveler to feel a sense of familiarity and experience adventure in every new country. Please see a visual representation of what Hometown would offer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfaMhZeqRJo

Mysterious, innate, precarious, mesmerizing – Nature herself has seduced mankind through being the very essence of the force of life within us all. Existing in a state of playful paradox, Nature teases poets and engineers, those in medicine and those in the arts into contemplative frenzy. Time displays the ageless pursuit of knowledge from mentions in most ancient texts and world religions to woven threads into modern culture. You see, nature is mankind’s master reset button, through which all can rest and release and realign. She keeps the very universe’s secrets of healing and interdependent balance evasive yet ever-present. The enigmatic presence of Nature enthralls us all still and even to this day. As the world found it’s essence in using her sustainable practices, I too go to nature to remember my purpose. As the proverb asserts that “the herbs of the field will be your medicine,” going outside to think through my challenges eases my mind. Facing the wind blows destructive mental weeds from the whole of my body. Grounding my feet in the grass helps my mind to think new thoughts of life and meaning. Cleaning the earth from the rubbish left by other idle selves helps me to unpack the subconscious refuse of unmet expectations, unhealthy desires, and sets up a clean slate. Regardless of what stage of life I am in, from explorative elementary school to hectic high school to the busier and busier life of a university student, I still always ground myself and remember that She’s still here and so am I.

While I do not officially pursue a degree in international trade or economics, I have studied much in these topics and have mentors instructing me in the field. Currently, I study Accounting to assist my entrepreneurial endeavors of an organization named Hometown to manage vacation rental properties domestically and internationally. In launching my own business, I plan to use accounting to manage the administrative side of the organization and knowledge of international trade affairs to spur growth in its success. Through my studies of economics and marketing, I have observed traits common to each precept – that people value order and gravitate towards the familiar. Executives in large businesses know how to manage projects, deadlines, and the public eye’s view of the firm on a sophisticated and difficult level. All this is to ensure the customer feels ease throughout the transaction. In hiring administrative staff for Hometown, I would encourage every hire go through an apprenticeship training with a senior resident before officially working. I am learning more about other countries and cultures to aid the process of conducting foreign trade negotiations. Understanding the customs of the trade region is considered polite, and often endears client to prospector. I am in the process of learning two other languages - Spanish and Mandarin Chinese) aside from my native language to assist my future trades. If I were able to mandate new legislation and employee standard into border management, I would implement teachers to train those directly involved with customer service on each area’s culture, customs, common courtesy and religious practices in every region’s department. Additionally, those teachers would instruct a mini course in the native language for business conversation and negotiation affairs. If, in fact, Hometown does become as successful as Amazon, reaching the neighboring 4 continents of North and South America, Europe and Asia, the ethics and business moral code will be promoted to other institutions through its popularity and inspire them to conduct themselves similarly. This, in turn, will effect a wave of change in the order of trade and border management. Though this method plays a long game to establish change and redemption to those hurt by a flawed trade system, leading by example through creating a cordial but sustainable method should be a final straw to make the switch pertinent. Legislation, regulation and threats are wonderful fear tactics, yet self-motivation proves to be the best coercion.

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind". This saying has been used on many a tee-shirt and tote bag in recent fashion, and it could not be any truer. Just the smallest act of kindness, while insignificant to some, can move mountains for those on the receiving end. As a college student, I often find myself short on funds for anything other than the necessities, yet I make a point to budget for a yearly retreat with old friends. One year, money was tight for me and my family. I realized that I would have to choose between attending the get-together and having enough money for school, and devastated, I chose to continue working. I grieved the time I would have been able to spend with my friends swapping nostalgic stories or chatting about each other's goals without mentioning much to anyone. Sadness weighed heavy on my heart then. My best friend is a hairdresser by profession and was diligently managing time and money to make ends meet with school as well. While I had not detailed my internal woe to her, she knew how much the retreat was to me. She invited me over to talk, then offered to do my hair. As a Black female, doing one’s hair can be time-consuming, lasting as long as up to a two-day-long process. For this reason, doing someone’s hair for free is a large gift. I agreed and enjoyed the time spent joking and watching movies in her room. When she finished, she would not accept any payment except the smile on my face. Kindness is more powerful than what people give credit. For my friend, doing my hair was only a small favor, merely conversing with a friend while using her favorite creative outlet. To me, the act was as if she had stopped time and moved heaven and earth just to help me feel better. In the days thereafter, I continued to feel especially loved, and a regained confidence in life’s expectations. Though plans may fail and time hasten, I and my loved ones will be all right with perseverance. When the date came that I would have gone on the trip, my fear of missing out had gone, and I felt peace. This notion has convinced me that the most powerful weapon on could ever wield is kindness. The well-known advice is live by the “Golden Rule” of doing to others as you would have done to you. Extending to others the same measure of patience, gentleness, and fairness one gives himself would simplify the complexities of war and politics, absolve the tensions in social relationships, and reduce crime exponentially. The Golden Rule embodies kindness in every form, and the eras in which Americans practiced this as their personal rule were the eras of the least civil conflict in history. Therefore, I stand by the phrase “In a world where you can be anything, be kind” to enact change in my country, and I hope readers of this essay will do the same.