When Life Tugs Pay Attention

I thought quite highly of myself entering my senior year of high school. As the summer of 2004 wrapped up and my classmates and I were getting ready to finish our last leg of high school I already had my eyes set on achieving great things in college and beyond. To me this meant going to a school that sounded prestigious, or at least gave me the chance to go a different path than my siblings who went to Oregon State University. So as I applied and researched different schools from southern California to the outskirts of Philadelphia I went through the motions and did a campus visit at Oregon State as part of a program offered by our high school. By the end of the trip I pivoted and realized I had caught the Beaver fever and was Corvallis bound. For every pretentious thought in my head to go elsewhere there was an authentic and distinct tug pulling much harder to don that orange and black and have “Go Beavs!” become a common salutation for the rest of my life. This tug is as powerful as the desire to drink water when thirsty, or the inclination to hold the door open a moment longer for the person coming in after you. Some call it following your gut, or trusting your instinct, but however you label it there is a tug that pulls us in the right direction if we are truly honest with ourselves and courageous enough to follow it. I am very grateful for following this tug and have reaped the benefits from it including numerous lifelong friendships such as the one with my brother from another mother, Ben Misley.

Over a decade ago Ben Misley and I found a very similar path to working at the Department of Recreational Sports at Oregon State University. We quickly became friends with common interests in business, Christ and the Blazers leading to years of great times and memories. Ben is one of the most genuine and reliable human beings I know and so it was natural he found his way into a career advising others on personal finance and small business development. He developed his skills initially working in a manager development program ay Key Bank where he learned the nuts and bolts of banking and evaluating business loan requests. While he learned a lot there he consistently felt this tug to help those who came in that unfortunately fell short of the traditional lending qualifications; typically those with poor credit, small amounts of capital and who may have recently gone through a difficult time. Ben explains “I was in banking during a time when lending was a little ‘tight’ and although I had great conversations about financial literacy and next steps with individuals, I found a tension that many of those I wanted to help I couldn’t in my current role as I watched them walk out the door”. Through a random series of events Ben was recommended by his brother to check out a position at Mercy Corps NW. The position oversaw small business grants and worked with the very demographic Ben felt a tug to help more. As you can expect Ben got the job and has been busy ever since coaching and advising potential borrowers on their current financial state, developing business plans and guiding them to the next practical step to reaching their goal.

Being part of that next step and helping to fund a person’s dream when they have met stop signs and dead ends with the more traditional avenues of financing is a great feeling, however Ben mentions the situation of the “positive no”. “Toughest part of my job is when I have to tell a client ‘no’ and have them go back to the drawing board…you have to remember that when I talk with a client about developing a business plan many of them have never seen one before let alone created one…however this is all critical because a favorite quote of mine from Jesse H. Jones is ‘one of the greatest disservices you can do to a man is lend him money he can't pay back’”.  The way I see it Ben plays a role in giving that ‘tug’ I’ve been speaking about to get/keep folks on the right path; the tug isn’t always comfortable, but frankly we all need someone in our life to provide those doses of reality that keep us grounded and on a steady trajectory upward.

Right before sitting down to write this post I noticed a large cargo ship outside my window gliding down the Willamette River. This ship spanned the length of several football fields and seemed to just barely squeeze through the major waterway that flows through the center of Portland. What was not immediately noticeable was a pair of tug boats out in front puttering along as the large vessel made its way to the Pacific. Despite the size and power of this ship, the fact remained it needed a few tugs here and there to get it going and guide it through narrow waters before reaching its full potential on the high sea. If you don’t get that analogy well, your brain just might be stuck at harbor.

What is tugging at you and what are you doing about it? Whatever it is, I challenge you to listen to it, ask if it is true and be willing to trust it a bit more...one tug at a time.

- Miles

 Fun Questions

What do you want to be when you grow up?

• “Not exactly sure, but I would say I want to be in a position where I am living a life positively impacting people and is helping build the kingdom”.

Are you dressing up for Halloween and if so what as?

• “Oh man! I need to get on that. I always try to leverage the fact that my wife has red hair…one year we dressed up as Fred and Wilma. I am thinking this year we may dress up as Lucy and Ricky from “I Love Lucy”.

Any tips to deal with the days getting a bit darker as we head into the Fall?

• “Good point…hmmm…I switched my desk around to see more of the window at work and at lunch I try to go out and walk, or run”.

 

Want to learn more about Mercy Corps NW and their Small Business Development Program?

Find out more info here: https://www.mercycorpsnw.org/business/ida/