Be willing to lead your tribe
We all have that sense of who our “people” are. Those people who are passionate about the same weird or lofty things we are. The people who get giddily excited about hashing out details and visions of things that maybe most everyone else thinks is silly or impossible.
For example, I love talking to other writers about our big visions for what we can do in the world–what we want to say in our work, whom we want to reach, which people we hope to help. I love being inspired by someone like author Ben Mikaelsen, whom I met at the Rochester Teen Book Festival last weekend, and who decided years ago that it wasn’t worth doing a talk at a school unless he believed that school would be changed because he’d gone there. I get insanely hyped up about stuff like that. I want to do that. And I needed Ben to get me started and tell me how it’s done.
[And by the way, while you're on Ben's website, check out the stories and pictures about him and his 700-pound black bear Buffy. A-freakin-mazing.]
So I offer you this presentation by Seth Godin about being willing to step up and lead a tribe of “your people.” It doesn’t have to be hard, it doesn’t have to mean giving up everything else in your life to go be a do-gooder–it just means being willing to be yourself, care about what you care about, and then connecting with the other people who care about it, too. And then all of you can keep talking to other people, and eventually your tribe grows and more people know about and care about the things you think are important. It’s like that old shampoo commercial from my childhood: “She tells two friends, and then she tells two friends, and so on and so on . . .”
Where’s your passion? What’s your secret mission? Maybe it shouldn’t be so secret anymore. Just something to consider . . .