TED Fellows Friday - Meet Meklit Hadero

Fellows Friday is a weekly series on the TED Blog that profiles one TED Fellow each week. We have asked the Fellows to answer our question below to share their knowledge and advice with other social entrepreneurs, innovators, and changemakers who are coming up with big ideas that can change the world. Read past Fellows' answers here.

Meklit Hadero’s soulful songs have launched her explosive rise in the music world. Her sound draws from jazz, West Coast folk, and her Ethiopian roots. Meklit’s performances and community outreach projects - in North America, Africa, or where the winds take her - continue to enrich her music and be an integral part of its evolution.

Question: There are many aspiring social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to take their passion and ideas to the next level. What is one piece of advice you would give to them based on your own experiences and successes?

Answer: You do what you want to do, by doing what you want to do. Meaning, you get the experience you need, by doing the work. So the important thing is to start doing the work.

The other thing is, when you have a big idea, sometimes if you really knew everything it would take to do it, you would never do it, because it’s always going to take more than you think. So there’s this aspect of really needing to just jump in. That also means you’re probably going to make a lot of mistakes. But you’ll be learning from them, and growing from them as well.

Finally, I’d say to do what you can to help others on their path. It really comes back to you. For me, running the Red Poppy Art House was really all about creating a space for artists from multiple cultures to find each other and flourish from the meeting, as well as to have a place that helps artists to actually live as artists. Through that work, I inadvertently found the musicians who have become my band, the fans that support my music, and the inspiration that comes from interacting with artists of so many disciplines.

Read the rest of Meklit's Fellows Friday post here.