The M.A.P. Maker [Meaning, Abundance & Passion]

Small things / Big impact

It's easy to get caught up in thinking that the only way to make a positive impact in the world is with big goals and big actions. When we do, we forget that every day carries with it countless opportunities to make a difference - often in ways we would never expect.

I was down in San Francisco this last weekend for the wedding of my closest friend, Misa, who played a significant role in the growth (both personal and spiritual) that paved the way for my shift from an ill-fitting career path to my Passion Catalyst work.

I could probably fill a book with the ways she has had an impact on me, but one thing in particular springs to mind because of the way it planted the seed for the meaning element in the M.A.P. concept. It wasn't big. It wasn't the result of a deep conversation. It was a random comment she made while we were out on a walk one day several years go.

As we walked along, she bent over and picked up a piece of trash to throw away when we got back. "Leave the world better than you found it," she said with a smile.

She wasn't telling me that I needed to do that, she was just expressing her own philosophy. No preaching. No agenda. It was a small, off-hand comment, and the conversation quickly moved on elsewhere, but it penetrated deeply into my view of the world, and that comment has become a cornerstone for what I want to achieve in my work, and my life.

Misa wasn't trying to change my world. All she was doing was living and sharing her own values. She had no idea that it would become such an important part of my journey, but it did. It was the right comment at the right time. It was a tiny action, but it has rippled out through all the lives I have touched with my work.

As we go through our lives, small comments or small actions can reverberate in ways we would never anticipate. That could be either positive or negative (for example, the kid who is told he can't draw, and gives up any creative endeavors as a result).

The more our voices and actions align with our values and the world we want to create, the more potential there is for the small things that come out of our day-to-day existence to have a big impact on the people we encounter.

An often-cited quote from Gandhi goes, "Be the change you want to see in the world." And sometimes that is as simple as picking up a scrap of garbage. Or making a point to tell someone how fabulous you think their idea is, or that you believe in them. Or making a positive observation about something that might have gone unnoticed.

So here's a thought for you as you start off your week. As you go through each day, ask yourself, "What seeds am I planting with my words and actions? Are they the seeds I want to plant?"

You never know what good might grow from it.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

What is a social entrepreneur?

I've been having a lot of conversations lately about social entrepreneurship (not least because I've been talking to a lot of social entrepreneurs). I'm really psyched about the positive potential as more and more people explore the possibilities i n that arena.

While the idea has gotten a lot of play in the media of late, I've also found that there is no single tidy definition of it. With that in mind, it was interesting to find this collection of social entreneur definitions over on PBS' Enterprising Ideas site. They give their own definition first:

A social entrepreneur, in our view, is a person or entity that takes a business approach to effectively solving a social problem.

They then go on to offer definitions from a variety of organizations:

Social entrepreneurs...

Are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems.
Ashoka

Act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value.
  PBS "New Heroes" Program

Are driven by a social mission and a desire to find innovative ways to solve social problems that have been neglected by either the market or the public sector.
  Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership

Are pioneers of innovation that benefit humanity.
  The Skoll Foundation

Use the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems.
  Fast Company

Recognize a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.
  Wikipedia

Social entrepreneurship is...

The art of "simultaneously pursuing both a financial and a social return on investment (the double bottom line)."
Institute for Social Entrepreneurs

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

What's your Big Why?

Let's face it, however much you love your work, there will always be times when it will be complete crap. Maybe things go wrong and you have to deal with it, or you have to buckle down and do something that isn't all that much fun but needs to be done. Whatever.

If you rely entirely on the Whee Factor ("Wheee! I can't believe I get paid for this!") for the energy in your work, it can be challenging to get through those stretches, because the Whee Factor is missing.

That's one of the reasons a focus on making a personally meaningful difference (in addition to the parts that make you go whee) can be so beneficial. It gives you a bigger context beyond just what is happening to you day to day. When you put your passion to work towards something greater than yourself, there's a difference that inspires you that pulls you forward. 

I've been thinking a lot about this lately for my own journey. I call it The Big Why. Why am I doing this? What is it that I ultimately want to achieve? What is my big dream when it comes to the difference I want to make in the world?

I'm still working on turning my Big Why into actual goals, but the spirit behind it is, I want to help people put their passion to work to make a difference that inspires them, in a way that lets them thrive.

Basically, I want to tap into the incredible power for positive change that comes when people are on fire about what they're doing and why they're doing it. And for each person's efforts to be a long-term, sustainable thing, they need to thrive.

So now I look at everything I do in terms of that Big Why. What are my opportunities to take what lights me up and put it to work in service of my Big Why? Doing that provides both an additional source of energy and a cohesiveness to what I'm doing and the direction I'm going.

What about you? What's your Big Why?

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Sir Edmund Hillary: My kind of hero

One of my heroes, Sir Edmund Hillary, has died.

It wasn't so much the fact that he was the first to summit Mount Everest that made me admire him, though that was certainly impressive. What made him hero-worthy to me was that he always stayed humble and unassuming, and used his fame to do good in the world. Here's a snippet from an Associated Press article...

"He inspired people to climb, but he also inspired people to do more than just climb," said Francis Slakey, a physics professor at Georgetown University who reached the summit of Everest in 2000 and was married at the Thyangboche monastery. "He used his world stage to actually improve the lives of people throughout the Khumbu. It's impressive."

...Hillary was a model for other climbers to try to follow. It took decades for others to catch up to his class act. Where many climbers left behind trash, Hillary left a legacy of education, health care and bonds of friendship.

Here's a paragraph from an article in Time describing his efforts to make his world a better place.

Beginning in 1962 he began working with the Nepalese sherpas who had so often helped him. Raising funds through his Himalayan Trust, he helped install bridges and pipes, built nearly 30 schools, two hospitals, 12 medical clinics, two mountaineering clinics, restored monasteries and planted more than a million seedlings in and around the towns of the rugged and poor Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal. Much of the last years of his life were dedicated to the work of the Trust, which opened offices in New Zealand, the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Germany. Even into his 70s Hillary spent an average of five months away from New Zealand every year raising money through lectures and visiting the projects in Nepal. He still felt uncomfortable with his knighthood and fame but realised their advantages and the obligations they brought. "I would like to see myself not going [to Nepal] quite so often," he told TIME in 1996. "But at the moment... the responsibility is there. It has to be done."

Sir Edmund Hillary, thanks for all the good you did, both directly and through the people you inspired. I hope when it's my time to check out I can say the same, in some way, about my life.

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

"Giving-gifts" - Last minute gift ideas

So you've let your gift buying wait till the very last minute, and the last thing you want is to hop into your car and plunge into the sea of last minute shoppers. What to do?

How about giving a gift that allows people to give?

Here some last minute "giving-gift" ideas...

Kiva
Lets you invest as little as $25 in a microcredit loan. Best of all, it gets paid back and you can invest it again!

Heifer International
Help people break the chain of poverty with livestock. You buy a cow (or a goat, or...), and the recipient passes on the good fortune with its offspring.

Nothing But Nets
Help save a life from malaria.

HeroRat
Save lives and limbs by adopting a mine-sniffing rat.

TerraPass
Help fight global warming with carbon offsets

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscription
Buy local. Eat fresh.

Just Give
Giving site that lets your giftee pick the charity they want to donate to.

Universal Giving
A grab bag of giving-gift ideas. You're sure to find one that tickles your (and your giftee's) fancy.

Oxfam Unwrapped USA
Oxfam Unwrapped UK
Another mixed bag of giving-gift ideas.

Of course, this list is perfect for birthdays or any other special occasion as well. You might even start doing some advance preparation by paying attention to what the people on your gift list really care about. Ask questions. Instigate conversations around making a difference, and pay attention to what puts a spark in their eye. Then tailor your next giving-gift giving with that in mind.

Do you have any other giving-gift suggestions?

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Give kids the gift of altruism

As we close in on the holiday season, parents around the world are thinking about what to give their kids. Want something more meaningful than the latest whiz-bang toy for the kids in your life? Try giving the gift of altruism.

Here's an article that takes a look at the benefits of instilling a sense of altruism in kids, and some ideas for how to go about it. It takes more work than whipping out the ol' credit card, and it can only be given over time, but it also has a significant long-term effect:

...And here's added incentive for raising altruistic kids: Ever-growing research shows that altruistic people are healthier, happier and live longer than those who don't give back.

Sociologist Christine Carter has made this subject her life's work. She is the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, where she studies the roots of happiness in youth. Carter focuses on positive behaviors and helping people raise emotionally literate children.

In the study, "In the Course of a Lifetime," published this year by University of California Press, social scientists followed adolescents born in the 1920s for 50 years and found that those who displayed altruism as teenagers were happier and healthier in the long run.

Carter suggests volunteering as a family.

"All the things that altruism is associated with -- empathy, compassion, caring -- are big parts of social intelligence," she says. "When you instill the desire to be altruistic, the kids get all the positive emotions and time with you."

Here's a suggestion that's near and dear to my "put your passion to work towards positive change that inspires you " heart.

If a child is unwilling to get involved, Carter says, you need to build on their strengths and show what an impact they can have. If your son is an athlete, encourage him to start a soccer league for homeless kids. If your daughter is a good writer, suggest she pen letters to nursing home seniors.

"Teaching them to share their natural gifts is how you build intrinsic instead of extrinsic motivation," Carter says. "The benefits of helping behavior are huge and often overlooked. Adults know the community benefits, but don't often think about the individual benefits."

Some lessons there for all of us, I'd say.

But wait! There's more! The article points out additional benefits of instilling altruism in kids...

Among those is increased confidence. The 2003 Commission on Children at Risk found that helping behavior contributes to diminished depression rates in adolescence. And come junior high school, when preteens begin to look inward, altruism can displace negative emotions, lower stress and increase self-efficacy and confidence, Carter says.

Toys break. Clothes are outgrown or fall out of fashion. Altruism though, lasts a lifetime. And so do its benefits.

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

O is for Outstanding (now pick 5 and tell them)

Troy Worman has put together an uber-mondo-super-big list of blogs he considers outstanding. It continues to boggle my mind how much great content people are putting out there.

Here's an idea. You know how it feels to get some positive feedback about something you're doing, randomly, out of the blue? Feels great, right? Well, why not actively spread that feeling to others?

Pick five blogs you think are especially good and let them know. E-mail the authors and tell them you love their blogs. Better yet, tell them why you love their blogs. (You might also peruse Phil's Make It Great! list and this list of personal development blogs.)

I love the cumulative potential of small positive acts by the masses. Imagine if everybody who reads this list in turn reaches out to five people on the list and tells them, "Hey, you're doing great work! Keep it up." I don't think we can hear that too often. And sometimes, it can be precisely what we need to hear, at precisely the right time.

Click on the extended post link below to see Troy's list (or check out the original on Troy's site here.)

Can humor change the world?

I have a client who loves making people laugh. It's when he's at his most energized, and it's one of his greatest gifts. On several occasions though, I've heard him play down its importance in the greater scope of things, saying, "It's not like it's going to change the world."

I disagree.

Maybe it's not going to "change the world" by itself, but I think the lightness that humor brings can play in important role in a sustainable approach to positive change.

If you've been reading this blog for long, you know I often think in terms of ecosystems. That is, what is the environment that is most conducive to a given result (in this case, positive change)?

The trouble with an uber-intense approach to making a difference in the world is the potential for burnout. Have you ever run across someone who seems absolutely militant about their cause. It starts to color their view of the world. It's like they're in a constant state of emergency. You can almost see the cortisol pumping copiously into their veins in response to the stress.

At the end of the day, creating a personal ecosystem for positive change is about figuring out how you can be most effective, internally and externally. What is going to let you put your best efforts into your work?

Humor can be like a mini-vacation. It can defuse the stress, and give both your body and your mind a little R&R. It has proven benefits for both mental and physical health. It also has a positive social impact, making it easier for people to connect and breaking down barriers.

So can humor change the world? Well, at the very least it can change your world, and that's where it all starts.

 

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM 

Don't change THE world, change YOUR world

This may sound strange coming from me, but I want to encourage you to stop trying to change the world.

Why? Because you can't!

Here's a little remedial lesson in reality. The world is big. I mean, really, really big. Way bigger than you. There's no way you can change it all.

What you can do though is change your world. Every day you are presented with options and opportunities to leave the world better than you found it. Some require a deep commitment, like the career you choose, while others are fleeting and random, like your day-to-day interaction with the people around you.

Deciding that there's nothing you can do because it's all too big and overwhelming is a little like someone deciding there's no point in eating since they can't afford dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town. It doesn't make much sense.

Just because turning the world into a utopian shangri-la is beyond your reach doesn't mean that the change you have the potential to make isn't incredibly important.

It's a little like that story about the little boy wandering along the beach, throwing starfish back in the water that have been stranded by the tide. An old man sees him and, thinking his efforts seem futile, says, "There are thousands of miles of beach on the ocean. With all the stranded starfish in the world, what difference can you possibly make by doing that?"

The little boy thinks for a moment as he looks at the starfish in his hand. After a moment, he flings it far out into the water, looks back at the man and says with a smile, "It made a difference for that one."

So don't ask, "How can I change the world?" Instead, ask, "How can I change my world?"

 

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Vocabulary skills = free rice

OK, so it's not quite the same bug-eyed lunacy as Cubicle Freakout (kindly pointed out by Phil and Chuck), but for a word geek like me, the FreeRice vocabulary challenge was every bit as addictive. I couldn't stop playing.

Think you're a walking dictionary? Test your skills and earn a donation of ten grains of rice for every word you get right.

Ten grains of rice might not seem like a lot, granted, but consider that since the site launched a month ago on October 7th they have donated 1,008,771,910 grains of rice. It all starts to add up.

So go on. Give it a shot. Show 'em what you're made of. If worse comes to worse, you can go back to Cubicle Freakout and send that computer sailing out the window.

Or you can just plan on doing them both and get the best of both worlds. Feeding the hungry and senseless destruction, all just a mouseclick away. Who could ask for anything more?

 

Download The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM