How to Change the World
You don’t have to do a lot. Just three things.
I want to share a tiny tale about how to change the world. A lot of people think that changing the world means something grandiose. That you have to be some kind of Steve Jobs-ish visionary, or a militant hustler like Gary Vee, or an artistic force like Kendrick Lamar. And, indeed, those people do change the world. But there are so few of them, and chances are that those people are not you. And that’s okay. I’m not anyone special, either. But I did have the opportunity to do something pretty special that I’d like to share with you now.
Now, this post is a little different, in that I’m going to both beat my own chest a little bit (I know, you’re used to the self-deprecation and existential ache, so this could be a bit of whiplash), and also be a little bit topical, because I’m going to tie this story back to the events of the day, happening now in Washington D.C.
I first came across a certain congressional candidate through Brand New Congress in November 2017, while she was an organizer and educational coordinator moonlighting as a bartender to make ends meet. I knew from hearing her speak and reading her core policy tenets that she was the one — the first candidate in my lifetime I unanimously agreed with, and who spoke to me the way that she did. (Like a real human who really cared.)
I signed up for her newsletter right then and there. I donated to her campaign and she personally called to thank me. (She could do that back when she had 500 Twitter followers, which feels like forever ago but was really just last year.) I was in for the long haul from that day forward — a journey that reached it’s jaw-dropping apex today, as by now you’re all very much aware. Who knew an insurgent candidate in a congressional race in one of the smallest (geographically) districts in the U.S. could transfix an entire nation?
In the end, only 15,000 people voted for her in the primary — roughly the population of Leander, TX. But that was 5,000 more votes than her opponent garnered, and a star was born. But that’s not how you change the world. That’s how you get elected: get more votes than the other guy.
Changing the world requires three things: developing good ideas, refining a set of skills, and getting people to believe in you. For the candidate, her ideas were the core tenets of her campaign, her skills were abilities as an orator and organizer, and it was her genuine empathy and fiery tenacity that got people to believe in her.
In the end, she wasn’t about getting 15,000 votes so much as she was about getting the attention of the political establishment and people sick and tired of living in a world where freedom, truth, justice and prosperity are either inaccessible or unequally distributed. Safe to say she’s doing that. So where do I fit in?
As I said, changing the world requires three things: developing good ideas, refining a set of skills, and getting people to believe in you.
My idea is that an Egalitarian republic is possible, both in our institutions and interpersonally. We can be kind and fair, invest in others, and share our wealth and our success. I believe that life isn’t zero-sum. That our purpose in life is to ease the burden of suffering — both for others and for our selves.
My skill is storytelling. It’s been honed and harnessed through years of working in total silence. I started writing at 25. Didn’t get paid for till age 30. Didn’t make a damn dent in the internet till 33.
There were lean years in there. Really lean. I was sleeping in a rental Jeep in a Wal-Mart parking lot just shy of my 30th Birthday, trying to make it in a city that had already rejected me the first go-around. Safe to say I’ve rebounded from that precarious point in the six years since.
Lastly, getting people to believe in you. Jim Valvano once said “the greatest gift you can give someone in life is to believe in them.” I’ve gotten no opportunity given to me without someone first believing in me, and I’ve offered my ideas and skills to no one I didn’t believe in. And so for the campaign, I did what I could: send postcards, call voters (in English and Spanish — bilingualism is another skill I’ve learned over the years), and basically tell everyone I could about this 28 (now 29) year-old in New York who had the courage to do the unthinkable.
Then came a call for a copywriter. Wouldn’t you know I jumped at that chance. I was set up for an interview. Her creative director asked “so, why you?” And you know what I told him?
“I’m one of two global brand copywriters at one of the largest companies in the world (I told him which company, I’m not telling y’all, though I bet you could figure it out), I’m one of the 100 most-read writers on Medium, a board secretary at a local non-profit preschool and a freelance writer and brand consultant. I’ve been published at SI, HuffPo, Thought Catalog, Business Insider, Scary Mommy, The Mission, and so on. My words are all the walls at JFK Airport, and have been printed in FADER Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Globe. And less than six years ago I was homeless.”
I wasn’t bragging so much as I was impassioned about my work and the opportunity in front of me.
“Sounds like a no-brainer,” he told me. “You’re in.” And so I got to write ad copy, emails and policy pillars. For a political campaign. A winning campaign. One that sincerely made actual history. I believed in the cause enough to do that. They believed enough in me to let me. We literally changed the world, and I got to play a tiny role, and I will take pride in that for the rest of my natural life.
Changing the world doesn’t require you to be an activist, or an inventor, or an artist, or a politician. It merely requires a good idea, whatever skills you have, and the gift of someone else’s belief in you.
All change starts small. Sometimes while you’re moonlighting as a bartender. Sometimes while you’re writing for no one while living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. But if you have a good idea, and you keep growing and applying your skills, and get enough of the right people to believe in you, you can go to congress. You can be on the front page of the New York Times. You can start an Egalitarian movement. You can just receive tiny notes from around the world about how you inspired someone to be a writer, or a better person, or decide not to kill themselves. (Thank you for those, by the way, truly. I’ve met some of the most fascinating, most awesome people here, and I appreciate you reaching out.)
I ain’t nobody special. I don’t come from money. I don’t have a ton of it. I’ve never written a bestseller or dropped a charting album. Hell, there are nine people with my name in Wikipedia and I’m not one of them. I could never run for congress (I have shitty credit and a criminal record, so, I’m out). I’ve never won an award. I’m not even considered a “thought leader” in my own field. I’m someone who likes to write words, living in a one-bedroom condo in Austin, who agreed with, and believed in, someone enough to volunteer to write words for her. That’s it.
So whatever you are — whoever you are — use your powers for good. Develop your ideas. Cultivate your skills. Get people to believe in you. You never know who’s lives you’ll touch, who’s path you’ll cross, or where life might take you next. Maybe the halls of congress. Maybe.
