“The power in people is so much stronger than the people in power.” {Bono}

Now, more than ever, the people have the power. We have the knowledge, access and the tools for change. We have the ability to create momentum and alter the status quo like never before.

We are democratizing our global society more and more each day. Revolutions are happening. It’s our choice to join. Our choice to embrace the power and opportunities we’ve been blessed with.

We are the people; the people with power. Remember this. Engage.

 

If you want to be a world changer, you must embrace your idealism. Hold fast to your ideals so passionately that your life becomes a mechanism for bringing them into fruition, no matter how outlandish.

Today, more than ever, it’s easy to be an idealist. We have more information, connectivity and inspiration at our fingertips than ever before.

The excuses that used to hold us back are no longer valid. The world has become accessible.

The Internet has become a bastion of endless chatter of achieving an egalitarian society. But it means nothing if our lives don’t reflect that altruistic idealism.

We cannot let apathy and the tug of the status quo prevent us from inciting positive change. We cannot allow “life” to prevent us from engaging and pursuing our passion for a more loving world.

If your life doesn’t reflect your idealism, you’ve squandered your greatest opportunity to be truly human.

 

We’ve all contemplated the questions, “what is life about” and “why are we here”. I contemplate them daily.

There’s almost a gravitational pull towards letting life get away from us. Life tends to live us, rather than the other way around. But we all have an opportunity to paint a beautiful picture on the canvas of life if we choose to take the reins and be deliberate about it.

We all have an opportunity to write our story. Something that teaches, inspires, compels or incites change.

And I ask, why not? What else is there really? My answer to “ why are we here” has become “to write a story worth telling”.

We have the opportunity to write a story that ultimately makes the world a more loving, peaceful place. Everything we do either contributes to or detracts from that. We may make installments, lose ground and sit idly, but it’s all connected.

My story can be whatever I want it to be, or nothing at all. I can merely exist if I choose. But that seems like a wasted opportunity when I could write something inspirational or even revolutionary.

We make our impact by what we do, what we accomplish, who we help, how we treat others, how we innovate and even in how we look. I like to try them all. It gives me purpose. It drives me to be a better human being. Otherwise, what’s the point?

The reason we have such a thriving entertainment industry is because we love great stories. Unfortunately, technology has made it so easy to live vicariously through others that many have forgotten to write their own stories.

If your story were made into a film, would you be compelled to watch it? Would it inspire you? Would it be worth watching? What would it be about?

Whether you’re actively engaged in it or not, you’re writing it right now.

 

What is perspective?

It’s how we view the world; the lens we see through. It’s the platform from which we make decisions. It dictates how we react to the world around us.

Every experience influences our perspective. The more experiences we have, the more robust and powerful our perspective becomes.

Life happens, and those experiences impact the way we view the world. However we can choose to deliberately engaging in experiences we know will impact our perspective in a certain way.

When I don’t know how something works, I study it until I do. My perspective is altered forevermore.

If I fear something, I learn about it and do all I can to understand it until the fear dissipates. If I want train myself to think or react in a different way, I find experiences that will influence me to change.

Watch a film. Listen to a song. Get out of your comfort zone. Do something insane. Hang out with someone you think is outrageous. Visit a country you know nothing about.

Deliberate, profound, extraordinary experiences manifest deliberate, profound, extraordinary human beings.

Over the past few years, I’ve joked about contributing to my “experience bank”. Little did I know how paramount that discipline is to who I am, and who I become.

 

We all possess the ability to change the way we view the world, which in turn directs how we react to the world. Our perspective is who we are.

It is developed from our life experiences as well as our deliberate contributions and disciplines. From this we form habitual reactions, understandings and beliefs.

For those that have endured great tragedy or suffered through oppression, it requires a great deal of deliberate investment to alter their worldview.

The same is true of anyone striving for a deeper level of enlightenment and understanding, regardless of their life experiences.

Like a hungry animal, our perception ultimately reflects what we feed it most. The friends we choose, food we eat, places we live, media we consume and experiences we have are the elements that fuel our perspective. We can mold it, change it and hone it if we wish for it to change.

If we don’t like the way we react to something, we must go to the source and alter the way we view the situation. Why do I believe this way? Do I want to believe this way? What experience can I engage in that could alter my perception of this issue?

Our perspective is not always, or even naturally, a product of deliberate attention and discipline. But as soon as we know it is within our grasp, it can be.

Our character is largely determined by how we react to life. Our reactions are largely a reflection of the resolve of our perspective.

Our perspective will consume whatever we feed it. It’s within our control to determine who we become. Every moment of every day.

 

I can’t lay my head on my pillow at night and feel peace unless I know I’ve given my best. That doesn’t mean I won, or that the project was a success. It just means that I know I gave it my all, even if I failed.

(Part of doing your best is recognizing and welcoming the potential lessons that come from failures.)

It’s taken most of my life to understand what my best is, and it’s still a daily evolution. But now that I know the basics, I have a clear expectation and standard for myself, no matter what is at hand.

What is your best? Obviously it differs for everyone, but there are some general principles at play that apply to everyone.

Did you…

• Make an excuse as to why you could not finish? (Any will do.)
• Say, “well, that wasn’t on the list”. (Also an excuse.)
• Do the bare minimum, with the primary goal of just checking it off your list?
• Do only what was asked of you?
• Cheat?
• Blame someone else for your lack of follow through?

Or, did you…

• Choose to do more than what was asked of you, or more than you initially planned for?
• Assess the situation and think through the variables?
• Care enough to notice the nuances?
• Care enough to act on the things you noticed?
• Care enough to discipline yourself to continue trying even when the task seemed impossible.
• Take notes so you (or the person behind you) can be more efficiently next time?

No one can take “your best” away from you. It’s one of the few things in life you truly have control of.

Problem solvers are people in the habit of give their best, no matter the circumstances. They do more than what is expected (by others, or themselves). The push harder than others. They are ardent strategists. They care. They care so much that they can’t bare to do anything less than give their all.

Your best applies to home life, work, art, relationships and anything else that matters in life.

I’ve found few things in life that provide me with more genuine peace than the simple knowledge that I’ve done my best.

 

Strategy isn’t a skill. It’s a discipline. It’s the result of being acutely aware of your surroundings, examining past experiences, listening intently, calculating, planning, playing out scenarios, accounting for variables and then making a logical decision based on those filters and analysis.

It takes patience, determination and years of trial and error to master. It often takes a healthy dose of empathy as well. Like anything else, you get better at it with practice.

My quality of life is much greater as a result of deliberately creating a habit of honing my strategizing skills. I have more time to think, create and enjoy life because I don’t have to spend so much time figuring things out, recovering losses or fixing mistakes I could have easily prevented. This practice results in a lot of inner peace and joy.

When I’m teaching my kids, mentoring a street kid, guiding an employee, teaching a budding entrepreneur or even consulting a seasoned philanthropist, the topic of strategy always rises to the top.

Strategy both employees, and fosters wisdom. It’s the discipline of problem solving. The constant practice of strategy alters your perspective over time, opening up a whole new world of possibilities.

As a humanitarian and consultant, I can’t think of any discipline more powerful and effective. If you want to help someone rise out of poverty or oppression, invest the time to mentor them into a strategist.

If you’re making a New Years resolution, consider investing time to become a better strategist. Make it a habit. It’s difficult in the beginning (like anything else worth doing), but the rewards are profound and lifelong.

*If you really want to make a profound humanitarian impact this year, invest your time in teaching strategy to someone in need, rather than just donating money. Money comes and goes. The wisdom of strategy will last a lifetime. And if you teach someone to strategize effectively, they’ll have a much better chance of managing money…strategically, in the future. 

 

In the fast paced developed world, we are largely a “big picture” society. We look at the world from 30,000 feet and can’t be bothered with the details or nuances of life. We’re busy and have important business to attend to.

CEOs and Directors spend most of their time just skimming over the top and very little time in the nuances. This takes them further and further out of touch with what their customers or beneficiaries actually need or desire. This creates serious inefficiencies and results in lost opportunities for achieving the extraordinary.

People spend so much time trying to correct big problems that they forget that, more often then not, it’s a multitude of small issues that created that big problem. And until those dynamics are understood and addressed, the big problem is going to continue to reoccur. If they took the time to dive deep, even for a few minutes, they could reach a level of understanding that would allow them to solve the problem once and for all. But they are usually far too busy for that.

Understanding is most often achieved through nuance.

You learn a lot about a person’s character and motivation when you pay attention to the nuances of their behavior. It’s not the big achievements or failures that show who they are. It’s the constant nuanced disciplines and behaviors that got them there.

Big charities and aid organizations so often miss their objective because they’re too focused on meeting the budget or pleasing the donors that they neglect to spend quality time with their beneficiaries. If you don’t spend time in the trenches, face to face, you’ll never solve the word’s greatest needs. So often, the most profound discoveries, and consequent solutions, are realized during a seemingly unrelated event. It’s the time when a director ends up sharing a car with a beneficiary and that profound conversation occurs in the car on the way to the airport.

In relationships, it’s not the big celebrations or losses that define us, it’s the nuanced daily behaviors that tell are the most telling. They show what we truly care about, and how much.

Society habitually and compulsively attempts to simplify life down to categories, boxes, calculations, stereotypes and formulas. We want quantifiable results and clear paths to success. That formula works just fine in a factory, but it’s never going to result in anything extraordinary.

Trial and error, attention to detail and dedicated face time expose us to the nuances that can often lead to profound discoveries.

If you’re baking a cake, you won’t find “cake” on the list of ingredients. You’ll find an assortment of small ingredients that come together to create that delicious confection. Nuances are the ingredients of life. That’s where I continually discover the most beauty and profound understanding.

 

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, birthdays, anniversaries and other holidays have exponentially grown to revolve around consumerism and excessive behavior. We feel we have an obligation, rather than an opportunity to give. This leads to stress, resentment and spending beyond one’s means.

That may be about as far removed from the original purpose of these holidays as we could get. Like most everything else, major corporations and much of the rest of society has successfully monetized these formerly meaningful events and sucked a lot of the beauty out of them.

But just like anything else in life, we can take it back any time we choose.

As a family, we are making a conscious decision to start our own holiday traditions that are more congruent with our ethos and consequent lifestyle.

For us, holidays are a time of reflection on the many blessings we have. It’s a time to be aware and grateful for the deep, meaningful relationships we have, and to invest dedicated time in them. It is not a time where we stress or feel obligated to consume, spend money, attend every holiday party or gorge ourselves on foods we normally wouldn’t touch. (Except Eggnog. I love Eggnog.)

For holidays, we give a gift of time, art, gratitude or service. We give from the heart. Gifts that reflect our attention, care and awareness of those we love.

We may give a coupon for a date or plan a family vacation. We may create a piece of art like a painting, poem or a letter of appreciation. Or we might make an herb garden together. We gift dedicated time to each other. Either in the time we spent creating a gift or the time we will spend with each other.

We may also give a gift of philanthropic service by donating time or money to our favorite charity on behalf of the person we are gifting to.

We are not against gift giving at all. Every day we pay attention to what our loved ones care about. We love to give gifts from the heart. Throughout the year, we may see things we want to buy for a friend or family member. Something we know will bring a smile to their face.

When we do, we don’t wait on a holiday to give it. We just buy it or make it and give it as a random act of caring and kindness. That way the gift is always given as a genuine gift from the heart, and never out of a feeling of obligation.

Have you ever received a gift from someone at a random time? We are usually flabbergasted that someone gave us a gift outside of a designated gift-giving day. It’s an entirely different experience than when you receive a gift on a holiday, anniversary or birthday.  It’s memorable, impacting and meaningful.

You know you’re on the right track when the act of giving outweighs the value that the recipient puts on the actual gift.

Holidays and other special occasions are about spending dedicated time with one another, and we are committed, as a family, to taking our holidays back and making them our own; keeping them sacred. This is the tradition we want to teach our children and pass down the family line.

Imagine what the world might look like if everyone rejected the tradition of stress, excess and consumption and took their holidays back. Every revolution starts with one person making a commitment to change. It could be you, and me, and….

 

Society constantly pushes us to simplify life down to black and white terms. But I’ve found that the much of the beauty of life is discovered in the gray areas.

Those areas that teach us, refine us and reveal who we really are. It’s where we find our character and what we’re made of. It’s where we’re challenged and shattered and overjoyed. There is pain and weeping, as well as indescribable joy.

People are often under the delusion that a happy life implies simplicity and ease. However, I believe it is the struggles, the challenges and gray areas that afford us true, deep happiness. It’s a happiness and peace that stands strong in times of heartache and loss.

I decided long ago to embrace the gray, where things aren’t so simple. It’s like that here in Africa. That’s part of why so much traditional aid that may work well in the developed world, continues to fail. This is not a black and white zone.  1 + 2 doesn’t always = 3. And for some people, that’s a deal breaker. For me, I appreciate how that constant dynamic affects my character and fortitude.

In School, we learn about a simple little world encapsulated within the pages a curriculum. But when we experience outside of the classroom, things don’t add up. We’re hit with conflicts that do not fit into that black and white world. We run from the gray because we were taught that it is wrong, irresponsible, or even sinful.

But I love the gray. That’s where I find the most interesting people and most extraordinary things. It’s in those moments that I’m most challenged to broaden my perspective and study emotions and feelings I don’t understand. This is where I learn and grow.

My willingness to value, embrace and listen to the gray has afforded me endless opportunities to experience extraordinary relationships and boundless beauty. I am grateful for the gray.