“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.” - Bruce Lee
Good friends,
I'm launching a hub that will allow us to motivate, encourage, and advise one another. It will be a forum for shared experience, thought, and innovation. As much as we are willing to contribute them, our collective energies can make a significant impact not only in each other's lives, but throughout society.
I recognize tremendous untapped potential in every one of us. Inevitably, it is sometimes wasted. It is lost to distractions; television, Angry Birds, facebook, football/hockey season, etc. We have all spent several hours in the past week on these. Distraction, procrastination, and laziness sap so much unproductive time. I know that every one of us still has lofty hopes for ourselves. Sadly, those hopes often just remain hopes, never coming to fruition, never even recorded. As we settle into adulthood, we are in danger of comfortable complacency. We have not become the heroes we hoped to become when we were young. Life is alright, though, and we make enough to pay all the bills (usually) and splurge on fun once in a while. We become homeowners. Family men. Account holders. Office Zombies. These are not all bad things, but they sap so much of our attention that little is left for our dreams. What was the last truly remarkable project that you pursued wholeheartedly? Can you easily think of three things you did in the past year that you are most proud of? Aren't you capable of so much more?
Life has taken us to different places...Connecticut, Buffalo, California, Boston. A space is needed where we can reciprocally share and appreciate the most meaningful prospects in our lives.
Enter Collective Impact. Here, we will state and deadline our ambitions, to be noted on a linked page for each of us. Through posting and commenting here, we can remark on our progress and the challenges we confront daily, weekly, or even monthly. By publishing our intentions, we are held accountable to them.
Protocol
Your mission list should be
specific (not "get better at X", but rather "grab X by the back of the neck, bend it over, and spank X til my palm bleeds"),
measurable ("said palm will bleed one pint of blood"), and
timed ("by the stroke of midnight on February 30").
I have listed a whole matrix of missions, spanning four categories of
body (for physical/athletic pursuits),
business (for money matters),
brain (get knowledge), and
benevolence (for altruistic endeavors; could be social, political, spiritual, environmental). I designated three missions for each category; generally, one for each of these three types: trying something new, peak performance in something I have done before, and a consistency goal for long-term commitment to an activity. Use or ignore any of these categories and types as you see fit.
Most importantly, you need to define objectives that are critical and inspiring to YOU.
Join me. We have a world to conquer.
And if my call to action isn't compelling enough, heed the words of someone whose eloquence moved masses and shook society:
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."
-MLK, Jr.
