During an exercise in a session on Exponential Fundraising being led by Harvard professor Jen McCrae, a lady tells me about her work in Uganda educating
girls/women. The education is holistically based. They teach the whole child/woman. It is even sometimes necessary to impress upon them the initial
spark of desire that leads to education process. As she is detailing her service, I ask, “Is this a REAL need?” She appears puzzled by my question,
but can tell it comes from true ignorance of the Ugandan culture and out of a sincere desire to know. She informs me that in Uganda it is an anomaly
when you find a girl or woman who already has the goal of working outside of the home, going to college, or owning a business. I learned that they
firmly believe their position is to support the family.

In a dialogue around social entrepreneurship, I learned from a Tawainese woman who works with various social entrepreneurs there, of the many difficulties
and great successes she has witnessed and experienced throughout the island,

There was the gentleman from Lagos, Nigeria who exclaimed, during a discussion about generational advancements, “…the future is bright. I can already
see it!”

An hour-long conversation about hope between twenty-five people from over ten countries and the room was filled with tears, smiles, contemplating eyebrows
and not one trite statement about some generally vague concept of hope. It was real!

We debated about how to teach this generation of children to push back and remain alive in the process.

I learned of great work being done in Connecticut around educating the underrepresented minorities in the STEM fields. I learned of the innovative approaches
to education being done in China, the Middle East, Seattle and all over the continent of Africa. 

I learned of the strides being made around racial equity and proximity in South Carolina. Yes, South Carolina!

A gentleman from Panama advised us, “if being personally financially secure helps alleviate some of the fear of uncertainty, as it pertains to committing
your life to what you know you are here on earth to do although it doesn’t come with a hefty salary, then BY ALL MEANS, become financially secure!”
Those of you who know me personally know that really resonated well with me.

As I wait on my flight itinerary to become a little more clear, sitting in this Denver airport I feel like I want to get up and run! See, I just spent
the last five days at The Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado. Upon invitation from their Global Leadership Network, I participated in the Resnick Aspen
Action Forum. “One of the greatest platforms for effecting real and measurable change in the world, …that encourages entrepreneurial leaders from
around the world to commit to putting their ideas for impact into action.” This year’s theme: Leading Toward Justice. My internal compass has always
been my driving force in life. While still a relatively young man, I have committed my life to driving change and addressing the inequities that adversely
affect minority communities and populations in the United States through sports, education, entrepreneurship, mentoring and philanthropy. I can honestly
say I truly love helping others grow their capacity. Yet, leaving this convening and for the first time in my life, I feel moved to action! So much
so, it was either blog or literally sprint through this airport. While my physical body could definitely use the cardio, mentally I need to get this
out!

For far too many nights to count, I’ve pondered at my desk, “Where else is the help?!” While far from making any direct correlation between my life and
that of Dr. King’s, since undergrad learning of and reading his sermon “A Knock at Midnight,” I have on many nights experienced that midnight hour
weakness and faltering of courage that he talks about. However, I never heard that inner voice he spoke of that told him to stand up for righteousness.
Time and time again, I heard my grandfather’s voice say, “Buddy, just do what’s right cause in the end right wins.” That always gave me the strength
to not see the problem as being bigger than the solution. Yet, the loneliness of leadership is more than a platitude.

Spending a week at the ACTION Forum with 350 of the world’s thought leaders, who are also doers, my question has finally been answered. “Where else is
the help?!” It’s spread out all over the globe. There are highly intelligent attorneys in Alabama committed to juvenile justice. There are teachers
in South Texas waist deep in the struggle to create equally accessible quality education for ethnic minorities. In Egypt, oh my God, they’re doing
a myriad of things! Israel, El Salvador, Minnesota, New Orleans, Hong Kong, San Francisco, you name the place and help is there. Now, with a new paradigm
established, armed with a network that has multiplied a hundred-fold, I’m sprinting through this airport, not literally, but sprinting nonetheless
because I found the help. As is the case in so many circumstances; finding your help gives you strength to DO more. I WILL DO MORE!

Edward R. Boyd, Jr.

iNvictus Group Holdings, LLC, Founder/Chief Strategy Officer

iNvictus Forward Outreach, Board Chair

#iNvictusWORKS

Life Happened

Life happened. See, I was contacted by a publication in early January 2016 and asked if I would be interested in writing a blog for them using a conversation
between the current me and the twenty-year-old me as the theme. Basically, I was to mentor myself. I thought it was a great idea and subsequently,
I began writing the blog. Well, I sit now just a couple days after we have all celebrated Independence Day. Yep, seven months later, I had not managed
to finish the blog, yet the publication contacted me once again to pen a blog for them (different subject matter, of course) and I reeked of guilt.
The guilt we all experience when we know we simply did not perform up to our standard. And with all sincerity of heart, I simply offered to them, “Life
happened.”

That has also been a familiar refrain from many I have had conversations with about entrepreneurship. It is often the case that someone is working a full-time
job and participating in their career yet they are experiencing their passion on the side. It’s the accountant that plays upright bass in a jazz band
and performs weekly in front of hundreds of people. It’s the United States Postal Service mail carrier who designs, creates and markets her own clothing
line. The school teacher who codes and creates and sells apps to others because “it’s just something that has always interested (him.)” During these
very separate conversations, a few relatively similar concepts manage to weave their way in. Repeatedly, these part-time entrepreneurs explained to
me that they found the fulfillment of their passion for life while working for themselves. Over and over the sentiment was relayed to me that, “this
is what (they) feel (they) were put on earth to do.” Rarely did I hear mention of their disdain for their full-time jobs. But, overwhelmingly I heard
the tale of their dream to live out their passions as a full-time career. And when pressed about their hesitancy to take that leap, “life happened”
was often the reply.

So many times the foundational reasoning for why an extremely talented person was not currently enjoying the trials and bliss that come from the day-to-day
inhaling and exhaling of being in your purpose was that simple; life happened. Yet, at the same time, that complex; life happened. The waiter who meticulously
details automobiles has a wife with ongoing health issues that prevents him from working a job he cannot easily adjust his schedule to ensure he is
available for his wife’s aid. The government official who makes leather goods and successfully sells to a nationwide customer base without an Internet
presence has seemingly unsurmountable student loans from a college degree she never completed. Life happened. Yet, life happens…

I’ll never forget my first major blunder as an entrepreneur. I took a risk. It failed. I doubled down. It failed again. My business and my credit suffered.
I was twenty-four years old, just five years into my lifelong journey of using entrepreneurship to help solve the social problems I realized were adversely
affecting minority communities and populations. The decision was simple yet, complex. After wading months without paying my mortgage and instead pouring
that money back into my business, the bank had grown weary of the infrequent rate at which they were receiving my mortgage payments and had initiated
the foreclosure process on my home. Wow. Lose my house? …still relatively a newlywed with a newborn daughter, I weighed all options carefully. I
sought help, direction, and mentorship. I was drowning. Life was in fact happening. I was trying daily to figure out how to continue as a full-time
entrepreneur, husband, and father while opening foreclosure documents detailing my options under the law if I so choose to continue to live in my house
until HUD found a new owner to acquire it. As I worked diligently through to the other side of those troubles and fought off depressive moments, I
remember vividly a mentor of mine saying to me, “WHAT NOW?!” His language was little more colorful, but the message was clear, “YES, that happened.
What did you learn from it and what are you going to do next?!” LIFE HAD HAPPENED…TO ME!

It was his tone more so than his words. He seemed upset, almost angry that I would dare pause this journey except to figure out what lesson I should learn
from this. Thinking back, I wasn’t at all clear as to my next move. But, I was more than sure what my next move would not be. I had no intentions of
quitting. Quitting served no purpose for me. So, I went on. I simply went on. Over the last quarter century of being a full-time entrepreneur, I have
learned so many lessons. But, none more valuable than understanding that life happens and I must go on. Not quite as eloquently vulgar as my mentor
once put it to me, but true nonetheless. 

Edward R. Boyd, Jr.

iNvictus Group Holdings, LLC, Founder/Chief Strategy Officer

iNvictus Forward Outreach, Board Chair

Edward R. Boyd, Jr., a lifelong serial entrepreneur, has taught in public and charter schools and served in the nonprofit sector working with urban adolescents
and focusing on national and neighborhood gang prevention, intervention and sustaining. He served as Area Director of Urban YoungLife of Durham/Chapel
Hill, and is the co-founder of the Durham H.A.W.K.S. (Helping All Willing Kids Succeed,) which is currently an iNvictus Forward Outreach program. While
still very active serving on boards and volunteering with organizations dedicated to lowering the prison recidivism rate, he currently serves as Chief
Strategy Officer of iNvictus Group Holdings, an investment group started to address the inequities that adversely affect minority communities and populations,
using entrepreneurship and education as vehicles of change. Edward also serves as Director for the E.M.E.R.G.E. program (Entrepreneurship, Mentoring,
Economic Development, Research, Growth in Business(es) and Education.) Its programming revolves around their mentor-based minority entrepreneurship
curriculum and is headquartered at iNvictus Office Center – A CoWorking Community Space, highly regarded as the HUB of Minority Entrepreneurship and
also houses iNvictus Forward Outreach, the 501(c)3 federally tax-exempt non-profit arm of the iNvictus brand.