I used to want to change the world. I worked in the world of social impact for over a decade and worked on nearly every issue area. Disaster preparedness, health, education, poverty alleviation. I worked with FEMA, NASA, Intel, The Robinhood and Rockefeller Foundations and myriad other amazing organizations, institutions and change-makers. I developed global innovation strategies and worked with technologists on the ground to create hardware. I was inspired, driven, and adamant about our need and potential to create a better world by fixing all the world’s problems.
But eventually I burned out. I ran myself into the ground — driving myself from 4:00 in the morning to 11:30 at night trying to realize every possibility, and fix every issue. I used to feel like it was all up to me. Eventually, I realized the fallibility of that belief and others behind my approach. Let me explain.
My approach to change was driven from a world-view that saw it as my singular responsibility to save and change everything. This is obviously not true and an impossible idea. As I began what became a deep healing journey, I started to realize how this and the many other beliefs held in my psyche and body, shaped my understanding of the world, my role in it and my ability to achieve the change I so desperately craved.
Our Beliefs Shape our World
Each and every person has their own version of these world-views. Some people’s world-views suggest that they can’t allow themselves to trust others. Others believe that you have to make people do what’s good for them. Others believe that this is an unsafe world and that the only way to be safe and valuable is to marshal and hold onto as many resources as possible.
These beliefs drive what and how we create in the world. They drive how we are in our relationships, how we run our companies, what products get created to satisfy or feed these beliefs, and define our culture and values. These beliefs and world-views ladder up to systems of culture and economy, and when these world-views are formed around scarcity, you get systems of greed, manipulation and lack of transparency.
Now there are lots of great beliefs out there too; world-views that embrace abundance, care, and trust.
My point is that what we believe shapes our world. If you believe that you can’t trust anyone, you will build systems that reinforce questioning, side-conversations and lack transparency. If you believe that there is never enough, you will create systems that serve to aggregate more than is needed. If you believe that you are never enough, you will constantly stride to prove your worth, whether through your work, what or who you buy.
Changing People as A Systems Approach to Changing the World
Throughout my career, I have always been a systems thinker. I don’t want to just change things at a small scale, I want to know what the leverage point is for real impact. I don’t want a band-aid. I want to understand and address the root cause.
Through my experience in working in impact and my work as a healer, I have come to realize that the path to true systemic change and impact is changing people.
At the root of our world, people, humans are the key to every possibility and challenge we experience. Therefore, the key to changing the world is changing people.
Innovation from a Place of Wholeness
Now, I’m not saying that it’s not still important to address all the issues that come from our human conditioning. It is still beautiful and powerful to offer healthcare to those in need. To fight for social justice. To champion the environment. But without a lens that understands the fundamental root cause, we are missing a core part of the picture and will invariably be caught in an unending fight.
As long as there is greed, there will always be inequality. As long as there is insecurity, there will always be the coercion of power and violence. As long as there is scarcity, we will continue seeing constructs of power that seek to maintain control and domination out of fear.
Some might argue that these qualities and characteristics are human nature. I’m not suggesting that we all just learn how to sing, Kumbaya and get along, ignoring what is evolutionarily engrained in us. Quite the opposite. We need to create (or recreate) systems of society and culture that help us cultivate these ways of being. That grow whole humans who can create systems that are reflective of that wholeness. Because again, what we create is reflective of us, and if we embody wholeness, the system will reflect this too.
We need people who embody healed relationship to create new structures of power that govern and create restorative justice. We need people who act from a place of abundance to create wholly new ecosystems of business that create wealth for the whole of society. We need people who embody trust and transparency to create new models for authenticity, vulnerability and accountability across everything from media to law.
Pathways to Transforming People and Society
The Leo Tolstoy quote goes “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
What’s needed now is a new theory of change. One that embraces transformation as a core theory of change for social impact.
This transformation happens through direct experience. It happens through personal interactions, through self reflection, through healing, art and culture. It happens in connection and community — whether that is a community of two or an entire culture. These domains have often been relegated as soft, nice-to-haves when compared with meeting basic needs. But I would argue that these are core to developing our understanding of self and our place in the world.
These domains give us meaning, purpose and the safety of belonging that are core to what the human spirit needs to not only survive, but thrive and realize its potential. In a world that is suffering from mental health issues and the existentialism of possible extinction, these domains are more critical now than ever.
Realizing purpose and meaning today is not just a nice to have. It is a requirement for the survival of our species.
And people who understand their role in the world and their connection with it will create more beautiful works and lives. They will act in more responsible ways. They will have agency and accountability.
All the things we want people to do and be — all the ways we want people to change come from being more whole humans. More whole humans create a more whole world; reflective of who they are.
I believe that fundamentally, people are beautiful, powerful, whole and seek goodness and connection. We all want love. We all want care. And when we find wholeness within ourselves, we start to make decisions that reflect these inherent human attributes.
When we start embodying this as a society, we start to create a substantive shift. One that has the potential to change systems and change the world.
So I am no longer seeking large-scale interventions to specific problems. For me, this is plugging fingers into a sinking boat. These days, I am seeking out the beauty that will transform the hearts of every person to realize who they truly are, with the understanding that this will lead us to more beautiful choices and decisions that will create the more beautiful world we know is possible.
