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