Future-Proofing You

15Pay It Forward

In the order of nature, we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation

CHARLES MULLI IS THE most remarkable man I have ever met. Mulli was born into a typical family in a small rural village in Kenya. One morning when he was just six years old, he awoke to find that his entire family had moved during the night, leaving him behind in their abandoned hut. Alone and without food, Mulli walked 43 miles to the big city of Nairobi in search of work. Although Nairobi streets had many orphaned youths, Mulli was lucky to find a private home that fed him and offered him a job doing domestic chores. Working many odd jobs, by the time Mulli was 22, he had saved enough money to buy an old van. With one vehicle, he started a business of transporting workers between the towns of Eldoret and Nyaru. As his transportation business grew, he continually reinvested his profits into more vehicles and became very wealthy.

Happily married with eight children, one evening when driving through the city, he saw a small boy who was a street orphan, just as he had been years before. Moved to tears by the experience, he took the child and his two friends home. Mulli greeted his shocked wife by telling her that they now had three more kids. As kind and generous as this selfless act was, what makes Mulli so remarkable ...