What you do is a tattoo.
Change can happen only when you let it. With all of this free information available, you’d think the world is becoming a better place, that people are becoming smarter about the things they do and how they do them, but evidence shows that “openness is not the end, it’s the beginning.”
It’s not enough to have all this free information out there. Nobody will look at it and say, ‘right, let’s disrupt this’. (I wish they did!) So what the world needs is to put the right information in the right hands.
I have this thought it my head — you can call it a gut feeling — that if you put the world leaders in a room and play them the most famous TED talks, they would learn things they’d never heard about. It would enrich their leadership style, change their worldview, and even — dare I say it — inspire them to take action for the betterment of human kind.
Why is it that media showcases sentimental things like twins getting back together after years of separation or how much money someone has thrown into the latest crazy project, but doesn’t showcase the most innovative ideas in the fields of education (Logan LaPlante on TEDx), architecture (habitat ‘67) and business (for introverts)? Those are the fields that sustain us!
That’s what TED.com is for, yes, but out of the 2 million viewers who watched Dare to Disagree — which I recommend to company executives the most — how many were the intended target? How many were leaders? I’d assume that most viewers were people like me — people who like to discover new ideas and share them, but who don’t have the sufficient power to implement change.
This is sad. And it’s all the more sad because I know — right at this second — a silly ad is playing during the Super Bowl, which cost some company $4 million, and there’s the latest spoof or blunder of some celebrity I never cared about, and finally, there’s yet another productivity article in the making on media outlets that everybody reads, but there’s not ONE innovative idea in the mind of someone who can make it into reality.
It’s kind of ironic for this article to come from me — a marketer of all people. I mean, I’m surrounded by talk of SEO and paid ads, and I often find myself thinking about cyber-stalking and the latest networking tool, but I recognize that those are the small things. On my personal twitter account I like to spread great ideas and hope that they will reach the right people.
That’s all many of us can do.
I mean, I can’t help the fact that modern society overpraises status and stupidity over change and charity. I can’t change how social media amplifies videos of dogs dressed in a spider suit and crazy cute baby owls who like petting. I can’t even contact the founders of those networks and talk to them about the worth of sharing because virtually nobody cares. Everybody just wants a funny story, and that’s that.
I understand. I’m there with you. But please… watch some TED talks. Talk about them with your colleagues and friends. Share them on social media. Recommend them to the right people. And hey, VC’s, I know you’re skulking around, why not fund some of the ideas on TEDx?
I know everyone’s psyched about the latest tech startups. My God, I’m glued to Product Hunt. But don’t forget to support ideas that truly make lives better. There are so many social entrepreneurs out there with amazing missions that you should be part of. Like Stefania Druga of Afrimakers who is helping bring technology to African schools and teach children to be makers. Like Julie Weigaard Kjaer, who came up with the Ruby Cup (a menstrual cup, who knew, right?) to keep African girls in school.
Those are missions worth passing on. At the end of the day, I know you have your bottom lines and your achievement books (oh no, just me?) but have you thought about your legacy recently?
I think about my legacy daily.
Being a millennial, who’s probably addressing a bunch of millennials, I probably should not be thinking about my legacy as much because I have so much time left, right?
A couple of months ago, a friend died. He was 26. I’m sure he had big ideas and never thought about legacy either. I don’t want to make you sad. I want you to be brave this year — like my friend Monika, who’s writing this incredible book of interviews with other brave women who started the businesses of their lives. And my fellow writer friends who are now authors — they’re leaving a legacy and it’s the legacy they will love forever. Kind of like a tattoo that you don’t get bored of in a few years.
What you do every day is a tattoo in the making.
It’s up to you what it will look like years from now. And when people ask you: ‘What does it mean, dude?’ (Trust me, they’ll ask.) you can answer proudly: ‘It means the world to me.’ And if you have the power to change human lives, that tattoo would look amazing, wouldn’t it?
Finally, with the progress humanity has made, we could have done more. We could have fixed more. And we could be more proud by now.
So let’s work on that. Watch more TED talks. And tend to your tattoo.
P.S. This article was originally published on Editorial IV. Check it. ☺
