I was happy to discover that my piece last week, Defining Core Values, had a direct impact on two readers. One faced a similarly ill-timed family trip, and used the family first framework to make the decision to go. Another let me know that they had written down their own core values, and were using them to simplify decision-making.
That’s what this writing project is all about.
My goal with each piece is simple: To impact at least one reader. As I say on my website, “if I can help ease anxiety, spark inspiration or just make you smile, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.”
Despite such a clear objective, I often find myself distracted by the temptation of scale. So many of the writers I admire have audiences in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, and it’s easy to contrast my influence with theirs. Compared to them, my two reader emails are just drops in the bucket.
But the reality is that I do not care about scale. If I did, there are many things I would do differently: Share my posts on LinkedIn, pester all of you to forward my newsletter, or spend more time writing and reposting content. The reason I don’t do any of that is because it would turn this project that I love into something entirely different.
More importantly, prioritizing scale might actually detract from my impact.
If I had spent time up front worrying about how many people I would reach, instead of just firing off that first email to a dozen close friends and family, I might not have gotten started at all. That’s what happened with another project of mine, Bare Naked English. I spent all my time preparing for good content instead of creating good content, and ended up building something I had no hope of actually supporting.
This paradox is reflective of a broader truth:
In our quest to make change, we often let scale get in the way of action.
We identify problems we want to solve, but then dismiss the easy first steps as too insignificant. Here are some examples:
- Politics: “My vote won’t make a difference.”
- Poverty: “I can’t just throw money at the problem.”
- Work Culture: “Only my boss can fix this.”
My uncle’s favorite expression is “all politics is local,” but the truth is that almost everything is local. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa may be the symbols of their respective movements, but there were millions of people who fought for civil rights or fed the poor in their small pocket of the world. It may feel nice to think of ourselves as once-in-a-generation agents of change, but it’s much more likely that we will be foot soldiers than leaders. And that’s okay. If everyone waited around to be the next Mother Theresa, no one would get fed. Change is built on foot soldiers.
The same is true for changing individual behaviors, like investing more and exercising regularly. The path to being a millionaire starts with investing $100 a month. The path to running a marathon starts with a daily walk. In my case, the path to sharing ideas I care about starts with a weekly email to a few dozen people.
As Seth Godin says:
“Oceans are made of drops.”
Faced with the insignificance of our actions, the most important question we can ask is “so what?”
Then we can get started.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
Meetings Are Miserable – Arthur Brooks
“When meetings are a waste of time, job satisfaction declines. And when job satisfaction declines, happiness in general falls. Thus, for a huge portion of the population, eliminating meetings—or at least minimizing them—is one of the most straightforward ways to increase well-being.”
Don’t Let Crypto Bros Undermine Effective Altruism – Annie Lowry
“Yet this crisis also creates an opportunity. Effective altruism, the movement, is not the same thing as effective altruism, the practice of financially maximalist and rigorously data-driven philanthropy. Divorcing the latter from the former would benefit everyone on the planet.”