I grew up in Zambia, and there are a handful of lessons from that time that I carry with me every day. They don't come up in conversation often, but they shape how I work, how I make decisions, and how I think about what matters. The first is resourcefulness. When things break in Zambia, you fix them. You don't order a replacement on the internet. You figure it out with whatever you have. I watched people solve real problems with almost nothing, and that stuck with me. It's why I'm drawn to building with constraints rather than waiting for perfect tools. You learn to start with what's available. The second is community. People in Zambia show up for each other in ways that feel rare in other places I've lived. If someone in the neighborhood needed help, you helped. It wasn't transactional. That taught me something about how teams and organizations should work: the best ones operate on trust, not scorekeeping. I see this echoed in a lot of what I studied in my [[notebook/Lessons from Org Behavior|org behavior notes]], but I felt it long before I read about it. The third is patience. Not everything moves fast, and that's okay. Some of the most important things I've been part of took years to develop. Growing up in a place where the pace of life was slower gave me a tolerance for long timelines that I think serves me well, especially in work that involves real change. I don't romanticize it. Life in Zambia had real challenges, and leaving was its own complicated story. But those early years gave me a foundation I keep building on. It's part of why I have this [[life/Seven Continents Goal|goal of visiting all seven continents]]: I want Kian and Nova to feel the kind of perspective that comes from seeing how differently the world works in different places. ← [[Life|Back to /life]]