Please Go Change the World
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
It is said that change comes two ways: Gradually, and then suddenly. Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, shows that big changes can take years bubbling below the surface before they reach a “moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” Gladwell recounts in his best-seller the story of Hush Puppies, a shoe brand that had an initial wave of popularity and then sank into retail oblivion. For years, it sold poorly and was considered an archaic and obsolete brand. And then, thanks to a viral marketing campaign, interest in Hush Puppies simmered, sales rocketed, and it seemed as though everyone was wearing them once again.
The movie “A Star is Born” tells a similar tale. (And it must be a resonant story too; the film has been re-made four times.) A talented singer trudges along in anonymity for years without recognition, and becomes so discouraged that she considers quitting her fruitless quest for fame. Then, without warning, she emerges one day as an “overnight success” that was actually decades in the making.
The lesson here is that it’s always difficult to know the effect we’re having. I’ve been shocked to hear how often friends or family have recalled in detail some small moment we shared together years earlier, took some off-handed comment of mine to heart, or remained touched by what I considered to be an inconsequential gesture or courtesy. In my work, I continue to be amazed at how often even modest interventions have ultimately generated profound shifts over time.
We are often blind to important things happening all around us, even when we’re searching intently to see them. Sometimes we can’t know we’re succeeding until the moment that we have.
Because you can’t always perceive your effect, the struggle to bring about change can be demoralizing. I know that at times it can feel like a waste of energy to start, and a fool’s errand to continue.
Despite those obstacles, it’s my hope that the concepts in this book will have raised your awareness about how change can happen, and mobilized your energy to persevere. I invite you to take whatever you can use for the ideas I’ve shared throughout this series of blog posts:
Develop your presence, emotional intelligence, and moral compass to keep your focus on what matters most.
Enroll others to broaden your perspective, boost your power, and support you when you falter.
Cultivate your listening skills, and learn to hold your perceptions lightly as you show interest in the views of others.
Attend to the moment to raise your awareness and generate energy.
Consider multiple levels of each system in which you operate.
Incorporate strategies to deal with = volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity,
Accept resistance in its many forms, and broaden your strategies for moving ahead when it inevitably appears.
Acknowledge the beginning, middle, and end of every task, and maintain your attention throughout the entire cycle of experience.
It takes courage for any change agent to step forward, and even more to keep going. I wish you courage as you take the next small step in front of you now.
