Choose Something You Want to Be Remembered For
First published on November 14, 2019
This is an edge for me. Something I’ve never done before. I’m sitting, in an online conference room, with 98 other people. And I’m leading them. We, together, are completing this practice. This one, the one you’re reading.
Sit, write for 12 minutes. Write as much as you can, don’t worry too much about the content. Then post it.
What a game. Then, if you repeat and repeat and repeat, who knows what you create after three years?
It’s Seth Godin’s community, and I realise, as I do this, how much Seth has been an influence, ever since my brother bought me the Icarus Deception at a key moment in my development. For this workshop, I picked myself. I stood up and was counted, and offered myself.
I didn’t know what would happen, but here I am. Carrying a lot of nervous energy.
It’s a strange time to be writing about this practice, and stepping up to deliver this 20 minute ‘stage act’, because yesterday I was working on my forthcoming book, I Wrote This Book in 12 Minutes, which stems from this practice. I was pulling together, editing and wrestling with Resistance around the 80,000 words of the book, structured to help people win their creative battles.
This is one of those times, as I wrote last week, where I can feel myself changing. Where I can feel one phase of my work and life drifting away and another approaching. One where I feel able to step up and offer myself in front of 98 amazing leaders.
But, and I can’t say this loudly or clearly enough: this change in me comes from practice. It comes from practising writing and sharing, working and leading, trusting myself and listening to my intuition, leaning into courage. That’s how my shift has happened. It hasn’t always been pleasant, but that practice has been there throughout.
And now, hopefully, I’ll pass on the power of that practice to some of the people on the call. If even one person finds the power in a practice like this today, then the world will be a better place. These are 98 amazing people, who want to make a ruckus in the world, and it’s exciting to play even a tiny part in the work they are doing.
That’s the game, in a complex world, that we have to play: we have to make the small, positive differences everywhere we go, trusting that if we are more creative, kind, skilful and wise, in all our interactions, and pass those kind of qualities on everywhere we go, that we will make the world a better place.
We have to play like that because the world is so complex - it is impossible to predict what the outcome of the things we do will be, there are just too many moving parts for this. So we have to focus on ourselves, making sure we are making things better rather than making them worse. That we are making the kind of contribution we would like to be remembered for.
Make that your practice, perhaps. 12 minutes, every week, of making the kind of contribution you would like to be remembered for. That might be writing, or gardening, or parenting, or giving, or smiling, or being present. Whatever is calling you.
If you do that, every week for the next three years, what a contribution you will have made. 1872 minutes of writing, or gardening, or parenting, or smiling, or being present. That’s something to be remembered for.
This 12 minutes today has been strange. I’ve had to stop and speak to the group partway through, and I’ve had people potentially watching me. So it hasn’t had the same ‘through me’ flow as I sometimes conjure. But I’ve still written, I’ve stuck to the practice, and that’s the most important thing.
Choose the practice, choose something you want to be remembered for, and then stick with it. No matter what.
That’s how to change the world.