Insights on doing good from 10 change-makers
Since starting Good stuff. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with 10 passionate people who are doing amazing things for their communities. From running fantastical starlit bike rides, to letting criminals run their business— and everything in between — these people are challenging the status quo and facing environmental and social issues with rolled up sleeves and a ‘can-do’ attitude. Below I share my top 10 insights from our conversations thus far.
1. Mental and physical wellbeing can’t be separated.
Sarah O’Connor and Andrea Bates from Wellbeing Wellington taught me a lot about holistic wellbeing and how we too often compartmentalise mental and physical health without fully recognising their effect on eachother.
“There’s a lot of impact from these medications and we can’t just put our heads in the sand and ignore that it’s happening…We need to acknowledge that physical health is equally as important as mental health. Sometimes when you get a mental health diagnosis that becomes the primary focus, and physical health falls away, but you can’t have one without the other.”
Read Sarah and Andrea’s interview here
2. We must go beyond sustainability.
In an era where a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude won’t work anymore, James Bushell and Bart De Vries of Motif taught me that aiming for sustainability is no longer enough — instead we need to work in regenerative ways to fix the existing damage done in the world.
“There are some companies that donate huge amounts to charity — which is great — however, the way that they make their money is actually more detrimental to society than what they then give back. So rather than creating damage and then trying to fix it, how do we create things in a way that is fixing it as we go? The world’s so far past (aiming for) neutral — it’s just not going to cut it. You have to be regenerative in the way you approach things.”
Read James and Bart’s interview here
3. People pursue purpose in different ways.
By reflecting on her own journey to clarify her ‘why’, Do Good Jobs founder Julia Capon reassured me that while some people experience an ‘aha!’ moment in finding their personal purpose, for others it can become clearer more slowly over time.
“Everyone has a different value set that will guide their focus. There’s such a variety of things that people would like to focus on, and I think as you go through life you get clearer and clearer on those values.”
4. The future of cycling is integrated.
Dan Mikkelsen, founder of Wellington’s friendly neighbourhood bikery Bicycle Junction, helped me look beyond the short-sighted cycleway dramas to see his vision of how cycling could become an amazing part of our creative culture.
“I can see Wellington becoming a really cycle-centric city. That may sound foreign to people right now but when you think about the council’s plans to build a mountain bike capital, if you have those mountain bike tracks interlinked by city paths and you’ve got that creative city buzz going on, it could create a uniquely Wellington culture where creativity and sports all mix together...That’s the kind of city I want to see and be a part of.”
5. Listening is not enough.
Toi Aria’s Anna Brown reminded me of the importance of closing the design loop by moving beyond merely listening to communities to acting on that feedback.
“…There’s lots of designerly ways of thinking in government at the moment, but it often happens in the early ‘ideation’ stages, and when it comes to implementation we go back to what we know and what the existing system allows you to do.”
6. Plastics are fucked, but we can fix it.
Boomerang Bags champion Jemma Buckland freaked me out by making me realise the scale of our plastic problem. However she also gave me hope in how shared problems can form tight-knit and driven communities.
“Plastic bags take 500 years to decompose. They became commonplace in grocery stores in the 1980s, so we’re only 37 years into a 500 year process — and we’re already making more than we can cope with.”
7. Voting is just one way to shape your world.
Peter, Isabella and Victoria from Active Citizenship Aotearoa expanded my view on what it means to be an active citizen, and gave me hope for young people’s involvement in the design of New Zealand’s future.
“Civic participation shouldn’t revolve around a three-yearly cycle. The bigger, more important picture is seeing more youth starting their own groups, sharing ideas, and designing what they want the future of their community to look like.”
8. Working in new ways with with unlikely partners pays off.
Marie Monmont of Wildness Chocolate reminded me to not accept the status quo, and that working with every kind of individual or organisation — be that government agencies, local farmers, big corporate entities, or even criminals — extends what you can influence positively along the production chain.
“There’s no templates. I look around but nobody’s doing it, so I knock on every door and say, “I want to work like that” and they say, “well, nobody’s done it before but we can try it”. When I go for something, I do it without listening to people who say it’s not possible or it’s going to be too hard. I get pushbacks everyday, but I know me.”
9. Great things can come from shit situations.
Rachel Friend — General Manager of the Auckland Neonatal Trust — shared with me her deeply personal story of mothering a premature child, and showed me that good things can come from life’s hardest experiences.
“The biggest thing is that I’m able to help other families and that out of the worst situation in my life has come the best situation in my life. Although a lot of the time I don’t hear great stories, I go home feeling like I’ve made a difference.”
10. Self-care is a continuous journey.
Christine Langdon — founder of The Good Registry — shared her intense but rewarding start-up journey thus far, and reflected on how wellbeing isn’t something you can find, rather it’s an ongoing experiment of trial and error.
“The plan was that I was going to do a year of living mindfully — but that all went to custard. I was surprised to find myself so unable to sustain what I knew what was important; I left work because I didn’t want to juggle and rush these things, and there I was, back to juggling and rushing them!”
