CHAPTER 13
One Person Always Matters
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
Robert Kennedy
Much of this book has danced between two concepts, the need to take responsibility and the results of what happens when we step up to take action. I hope that by now you are convinced that looking in the mirror is better than pointing blame; that when we focus on what we can change rather than what others need to change, we move into a place of power; that even if only a small portion of any problem is ours, something important shifts when we decide to take 100 percent responsibility for that part; and that taking responsibility creates a ripple that spreads. This final chapter focuses on the second concept, that one person stepping up really matters.
Most of us have at least one time in our lives when we know it mattered that we stepped up, that something was different because we chose to act. Just before I sat down to write this chapter, I went to cast my vote in a local election, and on my way back I picked up several plastic bottles off the sidewalk to throw into the recycling bin. I might rightfully wonder if it really mattered that I decided to take those two actions. They are both acts of faith.
When I think about my own experiences, I can think of several times when I do believe my stepping up mattered. I grew up on Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. At the time the island still had lots of green space, even farms. As the population grew, green space turned into burgeoning housing developments and roads. Rows and rows of cookie-cutter housing developments replaced the island’s parklike beauty. In the middle of the island, however, there remained a circle of green—a series of parks and natural areas that remained intact—that came to be called the greenbelt.
When I was in high school, a major fight erupted over the future of the greenbelt as new development threatened to break the circle of green. Over the preceding years, many people had helped to preserve the belt, and now decisions would be made that would forever determine its fate. Along with many others, I stepped up to express my views, helped write articles about the greenbelt, and even participated in protests. I have not lived there for almost fifty years, but flying over Staten Island on a recent business trip I could see that beautiful ring of uninterrupted green right in the center of the island. Thousands of people had stepped up, and there is little doubt that if we had not done so, that green would have long melted into the urban sprawl that enveloped the smallest borough. It is a small victory in the larger scheme of things, perhaps, and not one I can claim as mine alone, but I am sure that if people (including me) had not stepped up, things would have been different.
The many stories in this book bear ample witness to the power of stepping up. Joanne Beaton and her team at TELUS saved the operator services business; the woman on the bus saved the life of a stranger contemplating suicide; Devin Hibbard’s choice to start BeadforLife changed the lives of thousands of women in Uganda; children went to University and graduated who would not have done so because Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin chose to create an alternative school system; Starbucks continued to reward shareholders handsomely partly because one store manager in Santa Monica kept on pushing; homeless people found new dignity because of Ken Lyotier; whales swim still in the wide oceans in part because of Rex Weyler; and a Canadian Tire collection agent changed the life of one customer while helping to create customers for life.
But there is more. In each of these cases, the starring cast is much larger than it appears. Think of the people who hold BeadforLife parties every year across Europe and North America, doing their own stepping up. The money they have raised is as much a part of helping women out of poverty as what Devin Hibbard does in Uganda. Think of all those who wrote letters to save the whales, signed petitions, made phone calls to politicians, walked in marches, and so on. They are the real reason whales roam free. Sure, that agent made one customer for life, but the future of a company and its reputation are in the hands of thousands of employees who will make a choice this very day to step up and be counted.
One person always matters, and one person acting in concert with others—what I referred to previously as aggregate influence—matters even more. In fact, my advice to you is always to assume that others are acting. When we assume others will act, we often decide to claim our power. In fact, research shows that if you tell people to vote because turnout is low, voting is actually suppressed. Apparently, people think something like, “Since no one else is voting, why should I vote?” On the other hand, that same research shows people who hear a message such as “a record number of people will vote” are much more likely to act, presumably because they feel both that it matters but also that they might be left behind by not voting. The same has been found to be true in hotels that are trying to reduce use of towels and change of bed sheets for environmental reasons. Simply by putting a note in the bathroom that says “Eighty percent of the people who stay in this room choose not to have their towels changed every day” significantly increases the number of people who make that choice. In other words, the perception that others are stepping up actually causes others to step up. This is why what we do matters so very much. And that’s why I think we should always assume others are taking action. The worst that can happen is we are wrong and will have acted nobly anyway.
Step Up . . . or Live to Regret It
One of the most important reasons to step up is that most of the time we regret not stepping up. As Rahul Singh told me, “Life is short, and you don’t want to wonder what might have happened if you had stepped up.” It was this very realization following his best friend’s death that compelled Rahul to start Global Medic even though he had no experience raising funds or running a nonprofit.
Life gives us many opportunities, and those opportunities require us in one form or another to raise our hands and say, “Count me in.” As one person told me, “There are always voices telling us not to step up, a voice telling us that we are not good enough, skilled enough, worthy enough.” But these voices are not our friends.
In 1994 I had the privilege of attending the UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. Although I went there representing an environmental organization, I was only a volunteer and not an employee of that organization. As part of a conference run alongside the UN conference by NGOs (non-governmental organizations), I had no particular authority. The job of the NGOs was both to influence the official delegations that had gathered to tackle the daunting human challenges of sustainability and to help win the media war, to tell the story of why it mattered so much that we act.
The first day of the conference, all the environmental organizations from around the world gathered together, meeting by region. I found myself in the North American caucus surrounded by scores of qualified people, most of whom were full-time environmental activists. Organizers told us that each region needed to select a chairperson to represent the caucus. As we gathered together, I thought about putting my hand up, but then I thought, “Who am I to be the chair, since many of these folks are full timers with a lot more experience than I have?” Still, I wanted to have influence; I wanted to step up. In that moment I thought of other times in my life when the chance had come to step up and I had not done so out of fear of failure. Suddenly, my hand was in the air. “I will do it,” I blurted. Before anyone had the opportunity to suggest an alternative, someone had seconded the motion, and the chair was mine. You could see the stunned faces of the more qualified candidates who probably had expected to be selected but had held back for whatever reason.
For the next two weeks I had the time of my life. I attended daily meetings with Timothy Wirth, the head of the US delegation, and got to have my say directly about what our caucus felt needed to happen. Numerous media outlets interviewed me, and one interview ran on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition all across America. One of my clients called to say she was in the shower when she heard me on NPR and almost slipped and fell! I also learned a great deal about issues that mattered to me and felt that the experience led to other choices to step up later.
As the conference wound down, several members of the North American caucus confided in me that they had wanted to volunteer to be the chair, but they had hesitated in part because they had listened to that other voice we have talked about. Having seen how much fun I had and how much influence I wound up having, they told me they were sorry that they had not raised their hands.
What might you step up to do right now in your life if you knew you might regret not doing so later on? It might be stepping up at work to say what others are thinking but will not voice. It might be volunteering to write an article or lead a project or simply to change how you are acting in relationships. One thing is for sure, as United We Can founder Ken Lyotier reminded me, “It is safer to stay on the sofa and watch the game, but you will never know what you are capable of until you step up.” He stepped up, and in spite of years of homelessness and alcoholism, he wound up influencing thousands of people’s lives, earning an honorary doctorate, and helping to spawn a recycling revolution. He might not have felt good enough to put his hand up and say “pick me” and might even have doubted his own voice, but step up he did.
This is the time to step up, right now. It may not matter if you do so, but you won’t ever know if you don’t.
The world is always different when we step up. Something changes in the field of energy when people take initiative. Your voice may be one of many or wind up putting you at center stage. But those who wrote letters to save the whales were as important as those who ran after the Russians in rubber Zodiacs, and those operator services staff members who changed their behavior were as important as the woman who led them.
What I Learned from a Pile of Rocks
All of us wonder if what we do really matters. As you recall when we asked those hundreds of people in a survey why they don’t step up more, the largest response by far was “I can’t change things/I am only one person.” It has often occurred to me that one of the greatest challenges of our day is the feeling of impotence—but not the kind that can be fixed with a little blue pill. This is the impotence that comes from feeling like we are powerless to wield influence whether at work, in society, or even in our personal lives as witnessed by a several-decade shift toward an eternal locus of control on Rotter’s scale, referenced earlier.
This question loomed over me in the summer of 2019 as I walked the Camino de Santiago for the second time. This 750-kilometer walk across the north of Spain began twelve hundred years ago as a pilgrimage for Christians but is now routinely taken by people of many faiths, nationalities, and ages. The one common denominator in my experience is that almost everyone who chooses to take the thirty-day walk is on some kind of personal quest.
Near the height of the walk is the Cruz de Ferro, which is about 222 kilometers from the end of the traditional path at the cathedral in Santiago. The iron cross sits atop a mound that has developed over the centuries where pilgrims by tradition leave a rock or stone to symbolize their journey. It is a place of great emotion for people who take this path.
The first time I arrived at this place, when I walked the camino for the first time in 2015, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion. Here was a place where for over one thousand years, an untold number of people from all over the world have left a rock to symbolize their life’s journey. It occurred to me that there were two possible reactions to this giant pile of human-placed rocks.
One response is to be stricken with a sense of how unimportant your rock truly is. After all, the vast majority of the people who have laid these rocks are long gone and most remembered now by no one. Some painted their rock or left a note attached to it to make their rock stand out, but these rocks sit now with colors long ago faded and notes blown away or withered by time. “What,” I thought, “does it matter if I place one more rock on this pile?”
But there is a another, wholly different response one can have approaching that hill, and this was what welled up in me. In that moment I realized that I was a part of a very large and long conversation, one that had begun thousands of years before my arrival and may well go on for thousands after I placed my rock. While my one rock might seem insignificant, it was a part of the entire human journey of which I am a full participant. This hill was representative of something much bigger than myself. My rock was significant precisely because it was part of a large conversation. All human progress, all good things accomplished from the abolition of slavery, the rights of women, the emergence of democratic ideals, and even the success of a particular organization were all built on the foundation of a rock that was laid before mine.
Stepping up is about choosing to put your rock on the pile of human progress or even the progress of your small part of humanity—your family, your team, your organization. Your rock matters. Everything that has ever been accomplished has happened because people like us put our rock down. Each of us is the descendant of a long list of survivors who placed a rock in hopes of a better future for the next person who would place one. Placing our rock, stepping up, is ultimately an act of faith—one I hope you will take.
So . . . You Have a Choice
Ending a book is always a great challenge. On the one hand is the desire to end with something profound, some memorable words to send you out. Yet again and again I am reminded that the end of a book is never written by an author; it is written by the readers. One of the most rewarding things about being a writer is that often, out of the blue, people will send me an email, write a letter, or call me to tell me how something in one of my books lit a fire in them, changed their perspective, spurred them into action, or merely gave them comfort in an important period of their life. Just a few weeks ago, a man told me that he and his wife keep a copy of my book The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die on their bedside stand. He told me that they often read a passage right before bedtime. He went on to tell me that they had recently made a decision, spurred on by my book, to take six months off to visit family overseas and give the grandchildren a chance to spend time with grandparents before it was too late. They had sacrificed some money, but the sacrifice had been worth it.
I cannot be certain what you might do because you read this book, but it is my fervent hope that you will do something. It is my hope you will focus even more on taking responsibility and even less on pointing fingers. I hope you will stop trying to get others to change and focus even more on trying to change yourself. I also hope that you will assume you can change things and do what you can, while encouraging others to step up even if it seems naïve of them to try. Maybe some of you will be the next Devin or Rahul or Ken or Joanne. Maybe you will simply step up more actively and make a bigger difference in your five rows of influence. The world is waiting for you. It is waiting for each of us. One person stepping up always matters. It is all that matters.
So repeat after me:
I am IT.
I can change things.
If not me to step up, then who?
If not now, then when?