Let’s face it. You know there’s something more you can contribute than feel isolated in your 9-to-5. You also know you have a unique ability or developing abilities that nobody else has, and can share that with the rest of the world. So why lay those talents and skills dormant to what the world THINKS you ought to be?

What the world NEEDS of you is your ability to work with others and to share with them your individual talents to support your as well as the world’s dreams. Let me clarify that I’m not talking about delusions of grandeur or wishful thinking. Watch a beginning episode of American Idol and that should give you a clue of who hallucinates for stardom versus those who are star-material. And what separates the star from the dreamer is the person who realizes what it truly is, that person has of him/herself to offer to the world. And more than likely a team of people had to believe and support that star in the first place. If the “bigger” market is always in a state of basic supply and demand then consider what this “smaller” person and his total interaction with world had to offer.

Born in 1940 in Bangladesh he spent his childhood years in a village called Bathua and was raised Muslim. A few years later, he moved with his family to the city of Chittagong for his father to run a jewelry business. He was always the studious type but also interested in activities and travel that would complement his studies, such as being involved in the Boy Scouts and the World Scouts Jamboree. During his teen and adolescent years, not only did he travel through Europe and Asia by road to experience cultural activities, but also as thespian means to enhance his drama acting performances.

From 1957 to 1961 he completed his B.A. and M.A. to join the ranks of the Bureau of Economics. Starting off as a research assistant, he was later appointed as a lecturer in economics at a college in Chittagong, the same city where he had spent much of his youth. He was soon offered a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States and obtained his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in the United States in 1969 and became an assistant professor in economics at Middle Tennessee States University in 1972.

However in 1976, his research and visits to some of the poorest nearby villages began to channel into a vision that he saw the world desperately needed. He realized that very small loans could make a huge impact to a poor person. Yet traditional banks would not make small-sized, or micro-loans, even at equitable interest rates to the poor since they were considered repayment risks.

Drawing from leadership inspiration from Dr. Khan, a rural development expert, and from what he saw could help both traditional banks as well as the poor, this man by the name of Muhammad Yunus finally succeeded in securing these micro-loans from a government bank to lend to a part of the country’s poor in December 1976. Other banks provided loans to the government bank to help fund the loaned business projects and was later renamed Grameen Bank, which stands for “of village.” To ensure the repayment of these loans, the Grameen Bank uses support or “solidarity groups” to apply together for loans and to use individual members as co-guarantors of repayment. Not only would individual members be held accountable for fiscal repayment, but they would also support each other’s efforts towards their ventured advancements.

To date the Grameen Bank has issued more than $6 billion to over 7 million borrowers and offers loans to various types of public as well as private projects. The Grameen model has inspired very similar efforts throughout developing nations including industrialized nations such as the United States. Finally in 2006 Dr. Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Grameen Bank.

This is a joint award that not only the individual Dr. Yunus deserved but also to the team that shared in that vision. Build your team. Build your dream.