Find Your Emprise to Uplevel Your Impact

our

typical responses to injustice and

inequity in our society

are simply not enough to affect

institutional

sustainable change to create the seismic

shifts in policy making and individual

behaviors that we need to make our world

more just and equitable

we’re going to have to radically rethink

the way we design our lives

we need to adopt a more effective

approach toward activism

one that better leverages the strengths

of those of us who want to work toward

the greater good

i’m going to share with you my framework

for a design process that enables us to

live our

most fulfilling lives in service of the

greater good

which i call the m prize i’ll also share

four principles with you that you can

use to design

a life of activism and they are

abundance courage ownership

and authenticity tell me if this sounds

familiar

you’re going about your daily life doing

the things you do

news hits about some horrific incident

or political maneuver that you find to

be abominable

you do what you typically do maybe you

attend a march

you post your reactions on social media

you make a donation

to a charitable organization you feel

satisfied that you’ve done your part

and then a few months later history

repeats itself

and you go through the same set of

actions once again

and again and again

sound familiar activism

is often seen as something activists do

and something that we might engage in

from time to time when we see yet

another example of injustice or

irresponsible leadership

when we think of the notable activists

doing truly remarkable work

like the late representative john lewis

malala

greta tunberg mothers of the movement

naked athena

wall of moms we might question our own

ability

to rise to their level of selfless and

relentless service

these people are doing tremendous work

to move us to a better place

but for so many of us watching from the

sidelines with awe

and admiration our lives aren’t designed

to incorporate acts of civic engagement

into our daily activities so we’re left

fuming about political leadership

reposting articles on social media

that typically only get read by people

we agree with

and generally preaching to the choir we

feel frustrated

by our inability to affect change and

overwhelmed by the enormity

and complexity of the problems we’re

facing

we need to radically rethink the way we

design our lives

civic engagement needs to be integrated

into our daily activities

into our identities and into our

expectations of what success means

we need to shift our thinking from

building our careers around

enterprise and instead design our lives

to support our

m prize the word

emprise was established in the english

language

during the 13th century to describe the

bold and chivalrous activities of

knights

i’ve reappropriated the word to describe

the adventurous

daring undertaking of choosing the

biggest best life that brings you the

most fulfillment personally and

professionally

and contributes to the greater good of

the world

pursuing an end prize enables you to

play a leadership role

in your own life so that you have the

bandwidth

the skills and the resilience to keep

walking the road

toward justice inequity i

grew up on capitol hill in washington dc

and i had

first-hand experience seeing change

makers in action

throughout my childhood we had protests

happening literally on our doorstep

i’ve spent my life working for various

causes that have been really important

to me

my family has gotten good at hosting

activist parties my mom

cooks the chili my dad helps with

logistics my daughter’s

decorate the posters i’m now 45 years in

and still working on the same causes i’m

writing letters attending protests

voting volunteering for campaigns

fundraising

but a few years ago i got to a place

where it all just didn’t feel like

enough

i felt like i needed to find a way to do

more to be more effective at what i was

doing

for me it was a question of scaling my

own activism

it needed to be a bigger thing

once i got it into my head that i wanted

to do this bigger thing

i couldn’t stop thinking about it it

almost became an obsession

it became my end prize

i wanted to figure out how i could help

female change makers be better at what

they do

i wanted to grow a community of women

leaders dedicated to supporting

and uplifting one another i would ask

these women to commit to a process of

learning and growth

not just with their own advancement in

mind but with the clear goal of also

advancing

the other women in our community we

decided to call this enterprise

tide risers because a rising tide lifts

all boats

when i launched tide risers i was

thinking i would have to twist the arm

of my five closest girlfriends to help

me pilot it

to my surprise i ended up with 47

applications and it’s grown quite

quickly

since then our members

give freely of their time and talent to

help one another

build skills and extend their networks

the partnerships that have been created

within tide risers have spawned

women-owned businesses

created job opportunities and enabled

female

entrepreneurship ours is a community

where

if you raise your hand and ask for help

someone’s there for you

i’m constantly amazed at the generosity

of spirit that has developed from my

empires

this brought me to uncover the first of

four principles of emprise

abundance when it comes to building your

emprise abundance is about generosity of

spirit

giving help with no regard for payback

we need to learn to trust that when we

put good work out into the world

it’ll create a ripple effect of change

that may not be obvious or measurable

but it will serve the greater good we

need to

evolve the framework of traditional

enterprise in which we

put in some unit of effort and in return

get something back that is measurable

measurably bigger traditional enterprise

is structured to track and reward

specific quantitative metrics which are

quite useful

but the risk is that when you’re chasing

specific numbers you can lose sight

of your values and your mission

the abundance principle demands of us

that we

redefine what success means to us and to

our empires

this leads us to the next principle of

emprise

authenticity an end prize

has to be authentically true to you

to ensure this happens you have to

define your own success measures

don’t rely on traditional measures of

enterprise success

to figure out what success means to you

within the framework of the enterprise

you’ll need to challenge yourself you’ll

have to dig deep to learn more about

your values

you’ll need to uncover hidden biases and

set aside assumptions you’ve carried

maybe your whole life about how you’re

supposed to live

to do this put yourself in places with

people who are different from you so you

can learn from multiple perspectives

this brings me to the next principle of

emprise

courage in the context of the emprise

and leading a life of activism courage

means pushing ourselves out of our

comfort zones

to engage in ways that may be really

hard for us

dr martin luther king said it may well

be that we will have to repent in this

generation

not merely for the vitriolic words and

the violent actions of the bad people

but for the appalling silence and

indifference of the good people

how do we ensure that as the good people

we aren’t

engaging in appalling silence and

indifference

it takes courage to initiate engage in

conversations about inequities in our

society

these conversations are especially

important for white folks like me

an emprise and a life of activism

require that we develop this muscle that

is courage

so that we can move onto the fourth and

final principle of emprise

this for some of us may be the most

challenging it’s

ownership to pursue enterprise and a

life of activism

we must own our role in sustaining a

society that is

rife with inequity it is critically

important that we all

every one of us take ownership of the

structures in our societies that uphold

inequity and injustice

as a child i walk past the supreme court

every morning on my way to school

my dad made me memorize the inscriptions

on the east and west facades

of that big white marble building that

read equal justice under law

and justice the guardian of liberty

i feel fortunate to have been raised by

parents who

from an early age talked to me about the

profound privilege those words in part

they also made sure i understood that

the promise of those powerful words

are still to this day not afforded to

all americans

it’s easy to look at a grand building

like the supreme court

and see those inscriptions and buy into

the notion that those statements

are true and universal to everyone in

our society

in the context of the empires and

leading a life of activism

ownership means nurturing an ongoing

questioning of assumptions about the

world we live in

and resisting the urge to abdicate

responsibility

for the outcomes that we don’t like

we must take ownership of the biases

ingrained in our social and governmental

structures

our industries and in our minds we have

to dig deep to understand

where existing systems have benefited us

and oppressed others we must ask

ourselves what we can do to dismantle

such systems

our entprise must serve this purpose

to enable a life of activism

i want to leave you with this thought

recent events have offered us

unprecedented opportunities for change

the societal structures we grew up with

don’t have to be the blueprint for our

lives

right now we have the opportunity to

shape the future

let’s not let that opportunity drift

past us

no one is going to create your

enterprise for you this is your life and

if you don’t take the reins

someone else will so stop

chasing enterprise go find your m prize