May 23 2010
I believe…
This morning I started the day with a mug of lemon-flavoured green tea and a TED.com video about how to be a great leader. The point of this talk is basically that people follow your cause or buy your product because they believe what you believe.
Simon Sinek goes through the successful example of the Wright Brothers who, he argues, succeeded because they believed in the power of flight to change the world and thus inspired and attracted people working for them to give their blood, sweat and tears to the cause.
This opposed to Simon’s example of a guy named Langley who was the Wrights’ competitor, who had all the money and media backing any inventor could want, but who was doing it for the money and prestige and therefore had only people working for the paycheck for him.
Here’s the video if you’d like to see it:
So I ended the talk by asking Malcolm: “What do you think the ‘Why’ is behind Touchwood?” The ‘What’ is all the pilot projects and Power Off Weekends that we’re doing, but what is the reason behind our dedicating almost two years to it unpaid?
Well here’s why:
We believe we can do something bold about the environment, that we can take action right now, and that it should be fun.
Pretty simple, really.
It doesn’t sound to me like the kind of manifesto that would inspire millions off their chairs, but then again, who needs millions? I’ll start with the amazing people who have come our way already like Jess and Julie who helped us build a chicken pen, a compost bin, and plant our first garden. Or Victoria, who is leading the Upcycling Your Clothing pilot project this month (really, really need to write a post about these projects but have been so busy actually doing them to write about it). Or Kelly and Laura, who have inspired and led people to join the Power Off Weekend and fended off miserable people on the Guardian.
These people have been amazing and we all seem to share this same core belief that each of us can do something to help the planet and to help our own lives, and that it’s fun to do so.
So what do you believe?
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I’ll tell you what, you have us hooked! I know we’re out of sight, off on the sidelines and all caught up with caring for small kids ~ but Touchwood is often a topic of conversation here at the farm. We can’t wait for our kids to get a bit older so we can start to impliment more “eco-living” into our lifestyle: a garden, greenhoose, milk cow, home-industry with sewing and knitting, weaving, more and more cooking and baking from scratch. I know it’s easy to think we could just up and do all of this now but it’s not very possible seeing as how we’d have to learn so much from scratch ~ and do so much from scratch, such as tackle the garden, put up a greenhoose, tame a milk cow, and take all manner of instruction for sewing etc.
But our immediate future will soon encompase these things.
Rachel you should read, “Radical Homemakers.” Holy smokes! The stuff in there echos so much of “Touchwood Project.”
Me and Erlend say that you two are “prophets” if you will. That, “Malcom and Rachel see something coming. They know that there is going to be a change in the way we are living our lives here in the West. Like so many prophets they’ll be ignored until *after* things come to a head… but we feel it too. We see it coming too and we had better pay attention to what those two are doing and saying!”
I’m Catholic but I’m also Crow indian. I have always been able to allign that native mysticism with my Faith. No one has to believe me but hopefully they’ll respect my beliefs: I keep seeing that there is something not so great on the horizon and we had better prepare hard-core. There’s not a lot of time to farf about watching TV and losing ourselves in the easy life of Tesco and microwaves, central heating and drive-every-day. I say give it about ten years and that is when the wave is going to start to crest. Those of us that start to prepare now will suffer so much less when things start to come down around us on all sides. What is it? I have no idea ~ but it’s heavily related to this big, international, large-corporation economy going to hell in a handbasket and our Western lifestile going into a tailspin. Our kids will be better equipped for the future not by fancy college degrees and obedient consumerism, but by mastery of so many of the basic self-sufficency skills that have been lost.
Anyway, take it or leave it.
Cheers! I learned how to lead on the farm by taking a bucket of barley and running ahead of the flock. It works haha! So you’re taking your bucket of barley and running ahead of the people-flock. Hopefully more and more will chase after you.
Michelle Spence hopes you will read blog ..Ok…
Michelle, I love the enthusiasm — so encouraging and inspiring. You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of “Radical Homemakers” would you? I see our library doesn’t have it and there’s not a cheap used copy on Amazon, but I’d love to read it.
And ha! I know just what you mean about taking the bucket of barley and running. Like the Pied Piper I led our cockerel (who we HAVE to get rid of because he’s too noisy) and his girlfriend into the wilder parts of our yard with a shake of pot barley in a bucket.
Definitely definitely just take things as they come. I feel like I just stumble from one goofy experiment to the next, never knowing what I’m doing really, but trying to learn from others, enjoy it and not beat myself up for not doing things perfectly.
You’re already doing enough, and one day you’ll be able to do all the things you mentioned because you won’t be doing the things you’re doing now. It all happens in its own good time, doesn’t it?
What you are doing is a great example of how a movement grows. You are right – it’s not about instantly inspiring millions of people. I’m not even sure that’s possible. It’s about inspiring people who believe in your WHY so deeply that they join the cause and preach the WHY as if it were their own (and in fact it is their own). You inspired Jess and Julie and they will, in turn, inspire two or three more people to take their cause and embrace it as their own. Victoria, Kelly and Laura will do the same, and so on and so forth. As long as the WHY remains clear at the top, those who are involved in bringing it to life will remain clear in their own work and when they share the cause with those around them.
Stick with that and before you know it…you may in fact inspire millions.
Love what you’re doing…
- Simon