Let’s Dent the World
I’m not sure exactly when it started for me, but certainly when I was very young, I had a feeling that I wanted to change the world. I bet most of you did too. It’s not an uncommon feeling for people; most of us want to leave our positive mark on the world. But as I’ve experienced more of my life, and the world has evolved as it has (or DEvolved, depending on your perspective), sometimes I feel a little less like that optimistic kid.
It’s easy to see that the world has a lot of problems right now. But I’m done with feeling like I can’t have an impact. As the saying goes, slightly paraphrased, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing’. And I don’t feel like any of us who had that ‘I want to change the world’ feeling are interested in doing nothing.
So in our first show of Season 4, the Where There’s Smoke podcast decided to tackle that little question:
How do we change the world? ……or at least make a significant dent in it.
“So I coined the word Onlyness back in 2011–2012, and at the time I was just trying to capture this economic shift that was happening. I’m an innovation guru, so here I am watching the industry and noticing ‘Oh my gosh, value-creation has shifted from organization-centered models, and capital-centric models, to ideas-centric models.’ And I’m like, ‘if ideas are the things that are going to fuel the next generation of innovation, then ideas can and should come from ANYONE.”
This is from a recent conversation I had with Nilofer Merchant before her talk at the Rotman School in Toronto. Nilofer has enormous credibility in the business world, having personally launched more than 100 products, netting $18B in sales. She’s held executive positions at Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Autodesk, as well as startups in the early days of the web. She’s been called a visionary, and according to the bio on her website, “she is an unfortunate addict of caffeine, poetry, dark-chocolate-covered-orange-peels that are best when eaten in France, and all-things-bacon.” But what has always drawn me to Nilofer and her work, is that I find her to be a genuinely curious, intelligent, insightful, and spiritual person who believes in the power of people, all people, to change the world through the uniqueness of who they are.
At a recent event in Milwaukee, Nilofer illustrated the three important phases of Onlyness by using her arms and hands to reenact the growth of a tree.
First come the roots: your sense-of-self bursting up from the ground to form the trunk. This is CLAIMING your idea. Then come the branches: your idea spreading to your immediate community of like minds. And finally the leaves and fruit: the “galvanization” and “virality” of the idea.
Now on it’s face, those three phases may seem very doable, even easy to some. But for many, there are a lot of barriers. Claiming your idea and owning it, that requires a strong level of self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-love. And then even if you muster the courage and conviction to fully express your idea, to not cover it up, it’s likely that those surrounding people, the one’s in power, they’re often not interested in your ideas.
So if ideas are going to fuel the next generation of innovation, then how do we get them out into the open? What do we need to know to best equip us to make that mighty dent in the world?
That is what we explore in the most recent episode of Where There’s Smoke, entitled Let’s Dent The World (Onlyness). Nilofer joins us on that journey. And in addition to her work, in WTS style, we weave through a 70s rock anthem, a couple of TedTalks, Brene Brown’s new book, and seven kids taking on a clown in the sewer.
In her new book, The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World, Nilofer writes,
“I believe that each of us have something of value to offer — all 7.5 billion of us. While not everyone will, anyone can.”
So we invite you to come take the journey with us, find the power of your onlyness, and go dent the world.
