Five things Janice Howroyd can’t teach you

SAN JOSE — Janice Howroyd, whose ACT1 has been an enduring commercial success for 31 years, took a walk in Silicon Valley.

It was in the middle of a packed luncheon audience during the California Black Chamber of Commerce Ron Brown Economic Summit, so her wisdom was shared with the hundreds in rapt attention to her every word.

She focused on the tables of students who had participated in the youth summit.   “There are five things I can’t teach you, common sense, experience, confidence; and I can’t teach you anything you don’t want to know and I can not teach anybody anything if they already know everything.”

One of the points we’ve made continuously during National Black Business Month in August is that every black entrepreneur we’ve ever met is a philosopher at heart.  They only need an audience to begin laying out their approach to life and business.

This Tarboro, N.C. native was no exception.

A few examples:

“Confidence is the marriage of common sense and experience.”

“Everyone is in a global business.”

“A risk not taken is an opportunity missed.”

But the one point she wanted to make perfectly clear, so much so that she handed out $50 bills wrapped with a copy of her book to those who figured it out, was that everything had changed.

“The playing field has been levelled for us–Africans in America.  Technology along with the really bad economy has levelled the playing field for the first time in this nation’s history.   No one knows what works and everyone’s having to invent new infrastructure.  The whole world is open to you through technology.”

“We’ve got people who don’t know how to say President Obama, and we’ve got some of us who don’t know how to be it.”

She urged African-Americans to embrace and lead change instead of clinging to old structures.  “Like they said back home, don’t catch somebody else’s cold.”

Howroyd urged the young people particularly, “Never compromise who you are personally to get ahead professionally.”

Suffice it to say Howroyd handed out a lot of bills Friday.