On finding focus: part 3 / 3
How concentrating energy into a few meaningful issues can ignite action and keeps a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.
This is a three part series introducing Meaningful Transformational Focus* - a simple process to help individuals, teams and businesses to get fired-up about impactful issues.
Get fired-up about issues you care about.
Part two explained how empathy opens our eyes to defining meaningful problems where we can participate. Problem-solving isn’t empathetic, because it leads to magical thinking. Empathy is empowering people to solve their own problems.
Assess how much difference you can make and how quickly.
Are you suffering from a crisis of meaning? You are actually one of the lucky ones. It might not feel like it, but it’s a sign that you have more resources to make lasting change.
It can feel pointless in our era of “permacrisis”. 2022’s word of the year.
The term “crisis” would be a celebrity with as many fans as Beyoncé. People are obsessed with crises, they practically stalk them. It’s an unhealthy obsession, one that should be a reason to take action, but it seems more like an excuse for inaction.
Many problems might feel insolvable and that’s precisely the point, you are one person, you don’t need to solve anything, and it doesn’t need to be make a lot of difference in the world to make a lot of difference for you.
Don’t be deterred, be persistent.
Persistence is the outcome of Meaningful Transformative Focus.
It means you confront the issues, you keep showing up and seeking out opportunities.
You already know the issues, you will have actively considered them through the process. You just need to write them down now. Thank discipline for that.
“Your passion is right in front of your face. If you have to look for it, then you’re probably not passionate about it at all.”
What’s more pressing is that you focus your energy on one, maximum of three issues. When you try to tackle to many issues, your fired-up will soon be burned-out.
Meaningful Transformative Focus includes a simple scoring criteria to help you decide.
Don’t forget your superpower: authentic credibility
Credibility alone is often enough to be influential, but it shouldn’t be, because much credibility comes from charm and charisma, not expertise.
We keep seeing the same irresponsible lack of focus from leading creators and podcasters, most recently Steve Bartlett unwittingly spreading health misinformation.
Authenticity is based on evidence. The higher your authentic credibility the more focused impact you are likely to have in attaining goals. It will help you to find your voice and connect with different communities.
That’s not to say that lacking authentic credibility should disincentivize you from an issue that gets you really fired-up, to then invest in skills development.
My fired-up five:
Fresh water supply for all,
A safe home for all,
Purposeful made solutions,
Critical and creative thinking as a life-skill,
Protect the internet and open-source.
OK, OK, I know I said a maximum of three. Let me explain.
I am very passionate about all five issues and will try to find ways to support them. I feel I’m authentically credible about two of the issues. This is where I will place my energy, in order of focus.
#1 Protect the internet and open-source
96% of the internet is built on open-source architecture (BlackDuck). The principle of information accessible to all has been twisted through Web 2.0 by ultra powerful ‘free-to-use’ platforms that have partitioned and monetised the internet and search. We are now in the enshittification phase.
Where American policy is in the ‘everything’s fine’ camp and the EU is in the ‘nothing is fine’ camp, there has to be a workable solution between these extremes; technology gatekeepers are obligated to be responsible for their algorithms and invest R&D into how algorithms can support society not just profit.
#2 Critical and creative thinking as a life-skill
Having worked in creative industries for best part of two decades, I have worked with some amazingly imaginative people to see firsthand the surprising ideas individuals can bring to difficult problems.
It’s really clear that we need more of this kind of thinking to address bigger world problems and to buttress our brains against mass disinformation and disingenuous leaders. American journalist Ambrose Bierce believed the people should not trust institutions but should not disengage from them, he was a proponent of critical thinking. Nicholas J Johnson wrote brilliantly about this topic.
#3 Purposeful made solutions
Too many products are made to satisfy what people want not what people need. Too many products are trying to find a problem to create, rather than responding to a problem today. A trip to the huge technology convention Vivatech reinforced how few Startups were built on a well-stated problem.
There’s a great article in Scientific American “Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real” - that is not invention, that is hubris, plain and simple. Innovation starts from a problem today, not a space opera from last century. I know, I have read them. My father is an engineer, so I have always been excited by manufacturing invention and product innovation.
#4 Fresh water supply for all
The wisdom of the Roman Empire was that clean water was a basis of civilization, yet many poorer countries face severe problems of water security. This in turn has resulted in immense amounts of plastic water bottle waste - 14% of all trash. Soaring water demand and groundwater depletion has caused Earth's axis to tilt by 31.5 inches. Let that sink in (badum).
There is no obvious solution to this problem, desalinization is energy intensive and releases toxic waste. Intensive water collection and recycling is very expensive. The answer is probably interstellar, water-rich asteroids near Earth contain up to a billion tons of water. Nasa’s Artemis program is testing how to do achieve this.
#5 A safe home for all
“Men are lost” has become a popular headline, since women are doing better than men on a wide variety of metrics. Policymakers do need to recalibrate what equality means.
That cannot distract from the fact that one woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by their intimate partner or family member (UN). Worldwide, nearly 1 in 3, or 30%, of women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence (WHO). Men are also the most likely to harm themselves, the global suicide rate is over twice as high among men than women. Creating a safe home for all, would solve a huge variety of social problems. For an unflinching view of this America, check out Soft White Underbelly.
Through this process we’ve worked with empathy, discipline and persistence.
We’ve recognised the power of ideas from a problem well-stated and time invested.
Meaningful Transformative Focus is embracing futurism with enthusiasm.
*This framework was inspired by the Massive Transformational Purpose created and distributed by the Singularity University for the purpose of enabling moonshot business ideas. As an advocate in using and adapting open-source materials that democratise benefits for a wide range of users I don’t shy away from adapting things I find, especially if the result is aiding a crystal clear vision in a world thick with the fog of distraction.