thefirst30days – The Give Back Experience

One of the cool things I get to do is draw from my experiences both as a Community Organizer and as a Project Lead. A key component of any project is Balance: Dreaming and doing. Feeling and thinking. Planning and risk-taking. Science and art. Linear and spatial. Finance and Dance. Offense and Defense. Moving forward and looking back.

It’s important that I learn as I go. To look at what I could have done differently and give myself grace for not knowing all the answers, not being able to explain things clearly at first but doing things anyway. Moving forward anyway. Trying anyway. Giving myself a second chance anyway.

What I know is that what happened in Month 1 was special. Magical. I have heard from so many friends, near and far, old and new, and everyone in between. We work in different sectors, have families, and have so many strengths. We work in Finance, Operations, Media, Tech, Sports, Entertainment, Fine and Performing Art, Healthcare, Education, Government, Corporate and Non-profit. We are originally linked by a powerful Force for Change: Friendship.

I intend to leverage everything I can to keep things going and balance all the beautiful things at play. As I said to one friend…people are in scoring position. It’s time to drive them home.

May we always remember the lessons learned in Month 1:

If you don’t allow yourself to DREAM BIG FIRST, you’ll never know what you want.
If you worry and focus on THE HOW before you’ve let yourself dream of THE WHAT, you will give up too early.
if you don’t invest up front in exploring and articulating THE WHY, your project will run out of gas.
If you don’t love THE WHO, your project will have no meaning.
If you don’t BELIEVE, you’ll never know that dreams do come true.

As the late John Lewis wrote “If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to to do something about it.”

That’s just it. We are giving back because it is our moral obligation to do so. This is the spirit that drives The Give Back Experience. It really is that simple. xoxo

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

It begins something like this.
I have an idea. It’s an old idea really, instilled in me at a very early age. It’s simply to give back. To whom exactly? Everyone and anyone with whom I connected in one way, shape or form. That’s really it.

Now, I could talk myself into thinking that’s too broad, too big, too much. But that’s a trap I really don’t want to fall for this time. I want to try this time and I want to go further than that.

I want to do it.

Are people interested in helping me? Are people willing to give? Are people committed to creating change?
The answer is a resounding yes. Thanks to an amazing, smart group of friends, I am receiving the kind of advice I need to build a smart, sustainable and impactful force for change. This is my dream and largely because of your support, it’s going to come true.