Get Excited and Change Things

If you're trying to figure out how you'll leave your imprint on the world, start by thinking about what bothers you.

What do you not like about the world? What is irritating? What is unfair?

Keep calm and carry on was the message for people in Britain during World War II. I like get excited and change things better.

As fun as that is, though, the thing about change is that when it gets too personal, most of us don't actually like it. That's why it's easier to work on change in small doses. How can we take one tiny step towards something new?

Be aware: if something bothers you, you're probably not the only one. Mobilizing people to improve things is powerful. As mentioned before, this is my personal year of scale and reach... but I've also been thinking a lot about the theme of empowerment.

As I consider it, empowerment is helping people to consider new possibilities and take courageous actions. This is the essence of leadership, as John Quincy Adams said --

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

Few leaders are appointed anymore. Instead, leadership comes through influence -- when you influence someone, you're an instant leader. If you look around and can't figure out who the leader is for something that bothers you, step up! Followers need leaders. We'll follow you when you give us a direction and an action plan.

By the way, if you don't like thinking about what bothers you, you can also think about what excites you. Then you think about what you can change so that other people can get excited too.

What are you excited about? How can you create some kind of change around that?

P.S. "Get excited and change things" is also a good business plan. If you're struggling to create something, leave the 65-page "target market analysis" behind and adopt this five-word strategy. See what happens.

 

Follow Chris Guillebeau on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chrisguillebeau

Comments

[nantucketsunset]

03:34 PM on 06/09/2010

I promise you that keeping calm and carrying on whilst your city was being carpet-bombed night after night and your children were being housed with strangers 200 miles away and you had to work and live in the dark and many of the young men in your family and neighborhood were being killed at young ages on foreign land was an INCREDIBLY "courageous action". Getting "excited" and stirring things up during such a national crisis was the behavior of fools, madmen, and unpatriotic sorts. It's just a really bad analogy to try to apply the WW2 British government slogan of "Keep Calm and Carry On" to the point of this article.

It's also foolish to compare another culture's way of doing things in the early 20th Century with 21st Century America's way of doing things. Americans often act first, think later; assume they should fight each other to take control and are better qualified to do this than they actually are; prefer to tell others what to do and think rather than listen and discuss and maybe learn something. There is a lot of wisdom and strength in the traditional British reserve, modesty, politeness, and fortitude. (Sadly, there isn't much of that on display anymore in the UK, but it's still a proud aspect of their unique culture.)

We don't need more excitable, ADHD "instant leaders", we need more thoughtful, wise, strategic, moral, well-educated, and emotionally-controlled people as decision-makers/managers/bosses.