Let’s Get You Moving Toward Inspired Strategy

Well, here’s the good news: People want to make a difference now more than ever.

The folks you want to reach are longing to move beyond worry about the economy. They hunger to get past the noise and fear, the dismal headlines.

It’s a great opening for a new conversation.

Even if they’re hunkered down, waiting it out, still they yearn to get off the sidelines. We can get them back into the game.

How?

By influencing what they’re seeing (and what they see as possible) — their “mindset.”

The way to shifting their mindset is to shift our own. Confidence and hope are two of the ingredients, but a special kind — what I like to call grounded hope and confidence, the opposite of rah-rah cheerleading. (And much more than just “positive thinking.”)

Can anyone make a difference?

You see, there’s an unspoken question floating around these days: “Can things, can the future, be influenced?” Or are we at the mercy of forces larger than us?

Well, if people are going to invest themselves in your cause, they first have to believe (more than that, they have to know) that it is possible to make a difference.

Grounded hope — confidence in the future — underpins every act of philanthropy and civic leadership. Without a belief that a difference can be made in the world, that the future can be shaped by our efforts today, why would anyone give of themselves?

In your work-a-day-world, I’ll bet that may seem, well, high-sounding. Maybe even a tad philosophical.

And that’s exactly why it’s so powerful: Because few others are thinking at this level.

But you can think and talk like this beginning right now, and immediately distinguish yourself and your cause.

After all, your cause is one place where personal initiative has made a difference, and has changed lives. You have more than just an abstract answer to people’s fears and doubts — you have living proof that there’s a way forward.

So your first step is to turn up the volume on what encourages you — in the world around you, in the people you work with, and especially in the accomplishments of your organization or cause. Make sure you’re seeing everything you have going for you (and taking nothing for granted).