self-peers-world
by PD
My friend Neal introduced me to someone last week who was trying to understand the Probity’s methodology. Although it was a small group discussion, I was tasked with explaining the reasoning of why we’re taking steps in the order we are. I can see why this could be confusing to no small number of people. The conversation goes something like the following:
Confused Person: Oh, you’re a web company?
Me: Pretty much, yeah. We’re on our way toward developing simple web applications to better the world and make people happy.
Confused Person: So what’s your product?
Me: We’ve got a couple of carrots in the pot, but we haven’t decided definitively on something. But that’s beyond the point. Right now we’re focused on learning and development.
Confused Person: Oh, like web development?
Me: Well, that too, but mostly personal development.
Confused Person: …and that makes you money how?
Me: It doesn’t, but it hones the skills to be successful.
Confused Person: Like what?
Me: It breeds passion, purpose, and engorges our hunger for learning. We hope it will be infectious, but everyone else isn’t our primary focus.
Confused Person: Didn’t you say you were about bettering the world and making people happy? Doesn’t that sort of set your primary focus (just a little bit) on everyone else?
Me: Right, but how do you actually get to the point of affecting the world?
Confused Person: Uhh…
Me: You have to take that passion, purpose, and hunger for learning, or improvement, and scale it to epic proportions. But you can’t do that if it isn’t ready to go at home. Think of it like a space shuttle. Space Shuttle Probity could be ready to fly across the ages in space, to the farthest reaches of our galaxy and beyond, but it would never get there if we haven’t *first* figured out and adjusted for how it’s going to leave Earth’s atmosphere.
Confused Person: So you are focusing on personal development to the point where you think your passions will act as some sort of impetus for your peers and the world?
Me: Exactly.
Confused Person: Okay, I guess I’m following you there, but what about the web applications? Aren’t you supposed to be making those?
Me: The actual products we’ll develop, if we want them to really be far-reaching and effective, have to be grounded in the very same principles that I just mentioned. They have to be overwhelmingly positive and infectious. If a cook doesn’t wash his hands before he prepares food, he’s spreading bad stuff to everyone he serves. We’re taking deliberate action to be prepared to create something(s) really special. Think of it like we’re cooks, but rather than just doing a regular hand-wash, we’re using a pressure hose filled with awesomeness to cleanse ourselves, and then helping each other to get all the hard-to-reach spots. Once we’ve finished our purification (well, it’s never really complete–more of a work in progress, but that just means periodic booster shots along the way), we can start really creating our masterpieces–made with passion, goodness, and vim incarnate.
Confused Person: Riiiighhttt. I’m going to say I’m following you, but I’m really still confused. Just let me know when you start actually doing something useful, will ya?
Me: [laughs] Haha, will do.
It’s a difficult thing to understand, especially when we live in a society focused on output, output, output. What’s the minimum viable product? Let’s get it out there! Why wouldn’t you get on the bandwagon and start selling? Make some money!
The thing that is really difficult to understand, and something that I know I struggled with, too, was that in order to empower the world, you first have to empower yourself. Then you can empower your peers or your team. THEN, you might be ready to start giving the world a taste of your Gummiberry juice (to steal an apt metaphor from that guy who knows everything).
I had plenty of trouble with that concept when I started working on this blog. I thought, what’s the point of this whole “overwhelming good” business if it isn’t for, solely and completely, the world. Isn’t it wholly hypocritical for me to be writing about and helping myself when I’m writing a blog on selflessness?
As it turns out, it’s not. As much as I’d like to think breaking out of the paradigm of personal gain is like jumping through a massive page of tissue paper, and suddenly you’re in the realm of selflessness, it turns out the paradigm is more like a stone wall. You chip away at it all of your life. If you try to run through it, then you’re going to end up with a great big bruise on your head and a missing ability to take care of yourself. Reaching selflessness is like reaching Nirvana. Maybe you’ll one day reach it, but chances are we’ll all just be working closer to it all of our lives. Nirvana’s a good analogy. To be in tune with the universe, you first have to tune yourself properly. Now, this doesn’t mean you should be doing things all at the great expense of your peers and the world. It’s no good to be starving others just so that ten years down the line you can feed some of the ones that are left. It may not be that you’ll know every effect that you have on others and the world, but it’s your duty to at least make an effort to be aware of and minimize any negative effects you might have on your way toward overwhelming good.
So new beginning start with the self. This blog here, and Probity’s work, starts with each of us individually. From there, we reach to our peers. Our team. Our families. Our friends. They’re our vetting process, our trusted ones who have always been powerful forces in our lives, encouraging and motivating us to constantly improve. We tweak and we shuffle and we embrace adversity as we inspire. We ignore the limits superimposed on us by society, and we redefine a reality where we right the wrongs, and we never look back. We cultivate ourselves, and then we synergize.
Hello, world. Watch out, we’re coming.