It’s Not Bad to Be an Outsider, After All.

I was reading the transcript of an interview done with Chrystia Freeland, the Editor of Thompson Reuters Digital on her book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. In that interview, Ms. Freeland said something that I found very interesting. She said:

“I think it’s quite helpful in having both an outsider’s perception of the world, which helps to see change, and maybe an outsider’s desire to succeed”

That’s a very powerful statement: an outsider’s perception to see change, and an outsider’s desire to succeed.

This is my brief commentary on her statement. If you’re part of a system, if you’re an insider, you see change as a threat; you’re comfortable with the status quo. But if you’re an outsider, you see change as an opportunity to profit, a chance to succeed, an opening to take a new position.

So the next time some major changes take place in your business, church, school, government, if you’re an outsider, you’ll ask: what opportunity does this offer me? If you’re an insider, you’ll fret, sweat, and panic.

Bringing it home, I can see a lot of changes taking place on the African continent right now, but the people that are taking the most advantage of it are Westerners, the Chinese, the Indians, the Malaysian and generally, the Not-Africans, the Outsiders. It’s not bad to be an Outsider, after all.

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