Trusting Total Strangers
“Time To Dare” series — Article 3
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
Ernest Hemingway
The act of trusting takes a leap of faith. But it has to start somewhere. I would even venture to take Hemingway’s quote further, and boldly postulate this: I believe that the act of trusting will actually breed trustworthiness. For instance: would you trust a total stranger with your action-camera? Tricky question. Perhaps not. So much could happen to it, whether intentionally or by mishap. Would you entrust your same costly, high-tech device to TWENTY people you have never even met in your life? I hear you answering: “Absolutely not!” But we did just that. And this is how the year-long, incredible “Go Live ‘n Tell” Motorcycle Road Movie was born.
Sharing — the concept
A few years ago I was working on the development of startup project called useit, based on the idea of sharing our possessions with one another, so that each individual could access new opportunities without this entailing a significant increment in personal spending. As part of creating awareness through setting an example, our team decided that we would launch an experiment revolving around sharing something we ourselves possessed. How could we illustrate the multiple benefits of sharing, via the deployment, say, of a relatively high-cost object, one that not everyone could afford to buy, and by designing a process whereby the use of such an object could be experienced collectively, amongst many people? Another question we asked ourselves was: “wherein does the true value of an object lie embedded? Is it about the possession of it, or is it to do with its functionality?” and “how can we express this essence, and bring it to light?”
After much deliberation, the team came up with the idea of basing the initiative around the sharing of a GoPro action camera. The camera would act appropriately both as a relay baton to be passed from one person to the next, and also as a window into people’s lives: it would create a wonderful opportunity to tell a string of interconnected stories. The camera would travel from hand to hand, across Italy, and generate a never-ending tale of travels and new friendships, whilst weaving new connections and uniting a community of former strangers, via the fil rouge of a shared experience. It was time to set a precedent and inspire people: it was Time To Dare!
Daring — pushing past those niggling mental NOs
The big question was: how to initiate this model? The barriers for setting this up successfully were many and considerable. I decided to approach the motorbiking community as a potentially receptive group, and a good place for me to start sounding out possibilities, since I had many biker friends that could give me advice and recommendations. I will be honest and confess that many naughty little negative voices popped up and started to tug at our big idea, and to whisper:
“Ah! Complexity of logistics!”
“Alert: high-risk idea!”
“Beware: no guarantee of success!”
“Come on, who is going to listen to you?”
“What happens if the camera gets lost, damaged, or simply… disappears? Then what?”
It was indeed daunting to think of all the things that might happen. But I set out on the task, after mapping out how to best communicate the event, and started looking for candidates. I did not have it all figured out, quite the contrary! There was much on-the-spot improvisation, and impromptu learning. I hooked up with a dirtbiking community down in Sardinia, where I myself took the camera from Rome to Cagliari on its first pilot episode of road-movie filming, and then a few weeks later, up to Genoa, to meet another biker and launch the “relay baton” into its own autonomous orbit.
Storytelling — daring to open up
From that point onwards, I continued to orchestrate the relays from my own city via a Facebook event page (that lived on long after the event dates had expired), connecting people and opportunities via the Internet, and swiftly the action camera began taking on a life of its own as the vested “GLT Road Captains” enthusiastically carried out their missions: each of them was keen to share a glimpse into their respective lives as motorcyclists, and to show off the treasures of the land they knew so well for having driven time and again across it.
The action camera then gradually made its way across multiple provinces, climates and seasons: from Liguria, over to Piedmont after having even fleetingly crossed the border into the French Riviera, before heading East towards Veneto and Padua, across Tuscany, back through Rome and then down South to Caserta and then Sicily. The whole event lasted almost a year.
There were hiccups, delays, and moments of suspense, but the overall response was nothing less than heartwarming. It was amazing, and a huge revelation, to see how reaching out with honesty of purpose and absolute vulnerability, resulted in the manifestation of such profuse goodwill and generosity.
Fear or apprehension are states of mind that often reside merely within our own imagination: once that barrier is identified and overcome, a new world of possibilities is able to open up in the most surprising and delightful of ways. It was a laborious but exciting task to gather all the visual content and construct a series of interrelated episodes.
The ongoing story that ensued was a magnificent, community-powered work of art: the result of having dared to envision, dared to risk, and dared to ask: those who responded to the call dared, in turn, to open up and share their stories.
Connection is about daring to make the most generous assumption about people, and witnessing this trust being returned, echoed and amplified. Trust is like a seed, that once planted and watered, blossoms and ramifies into infinite new possibilities, and turns total strangers into the new fabric of a community connected through layers of giving, taking and sharing.
The Go Live ‘n Tell experience has taught me about a kind of daring I would call “social daring”. It’s when you go up to someone you don’t know at all, and ask them to help you build this crazy, wild idea you have. Reaching out is a very powerful process, and surprisingly fruitful. Through this project I discovered the deep yearning we each have of being heard, acknowledged and appreciated, and of being part of something meaningful that is much greater than us. As is so beautifully worded by Paul Coelho:
“None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.”
Paolo Coelho
The entire Go Live ‘n Tell series with the video of each lap of the Road Movie can be found here on my YouTube channel.
The “Time To Dare” article collection is composed of narratives and reflections about the courage to:
- challenge commonplaces: the inner and outer “no” voices that hold people back from reaching for their dreams
- take the plunge and do unorthodox things
- set ourselves up for “inner success” despite the naysayers, thus growing our personal anti-fragililty by being daring
The stories are based on my personal experiences, endeavours, projects, and on recollections and musings of other daring people that I have met in my life, and that have inspired my behaviour and thinking.
