#137: One Person
A long long time ago (perhaps in 1996 or so) I asked one of my coaches if he preferred to work with certain people more because of the potential ripple effect that perhaps working with a CEO of a company as compared with a small shop owner and I was really surprised by his answer. He was indifferent between the two. To be clear, he wasn’t indifferent to working/helping or not. He wanted to work and help. He was indifferent as to who he was helping. This was at odds with my notions of “making the BIGGEST difference I can” which was I think burned into my software.
He wasn’t comparing potential “ripples”.
He wasn’t hooked by “scaling”.
Sometime not long after that rich discussion I started to get suspicious of “scaling”. I would hear Silicon Valley dismiss ANYTHING that couldn’t “scale”. I could hear humans at times “de-humanized” even by those aiming to “Save The World”. Maybe – ironically – particularly by those aiming to “Save The World”. I thought that the “grandness” of a “Save the World” mindset could seduce me in to a waaaaaaay false importance of ME and essentially become one of those who might dismiss the cumulative benefit of maybe each of seven billion people just doing a couple nice things for a couple other people each day and nothing more and see where appreciating that “every ‘LITTLE’ thing matters IS the BIG thing” re-orientation.
Thank you Sasha for elevating making a difference to “just” ONE other human… maybe we will get rid of the “just” in that phrase one day as we see more so that maybe moment to moment there is that one person in front of us…
Cheers… pip
Sasha Dichter sdichter@acumen.org
One Person
I remind myself that if this post can create a change for just one person, then it’s a good post and a good day.
One person, not hundreds or thousands or millions.
An individual who experiences a small shift and does something different because of it. Someone, somewhere, who takes words and ideas and turns them into positive action.
That shift doesn’t appear in the stats, the likes or the shares.
Those numbers measure something else, and maybe that something matters a bit, but it is poorly correlated with the thing I’d really like to measure: the number of people who are more hopeful today, more committed, more empowered to make a change they seek to make. The number of people who take one more step towards their mission to create positive change.
The measure of success is you and what you do.
Ain’t no stat for that, so why do I keep on checking the numbers?
And why do you?
Sasha's first-person bio:
As Acumen’s Chief Innovation Officer, I oversee Acumen’s three fastest-growing verticals: Lean Data, which brings customer voice into impact measurement; the Acumen Fellows Programs, with more than 400 Fellows globally; and +Acumen, the World’s School for Social change. I’ve also been blogging since 2008 and have written more than 1,000 blog posts on generosity, philanthropy and social change. I was the instigator behind Generosity Day and, frustrated with how nonprofits approach fundraising, I wrote the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs, a free resource that has been shared with thousands of nonprofit CEOs and Boards who care about making a difference. I find I get the most joy from my work when I see someone around me change and grow.