—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Ash Beckham is an inclusion activist known for her viral Tedx talk Coming Out of Your Closet, the “accidental advocate” for equality, does not shy away from hard conversations. Her book Step Up: How to Live with Courage and Become an Everyday Leader is an empowering call-to-action to help mobilize all to embrace a different vision of leadership to create change in our workplaces, schools, places of worship, communities, and homes cultivated from both Beckham's personal and professional experiences.
From her About Page:
I had no intention of entering the public speaking space. I was just living in Boulder doing my thing until about 2013. My level of activism was just being myself – a gender non-conforming, shaved headed lesbian. I had a great group of friends. My family supported me. I lived in a community that was for the most part safe. And then I had an influx of kids in my life. Not my kids but kids of people that I loved very much – my sister’s kids, friends of mine who were like family. And I had this realization that my sexuality affected more people than just me.
I knew these kids would have a hard time at some point, because they loved me because I was gay. Someone would say something in a hallway or a locker room that would be intentionally or unintentionally derogatory to gay people. And this little kid would be torn between what they had always known and this new tiered paradigm. And I realized that despite my security and comfort in my life and my identity, I had a responsibility to be part of cultural change. It was my first inkling to directly attempt to make the world a better place.
Everyone has their own method. For me it wasn’t about protests or policy change or guilting people into making changes. I had yelled and screamed and soapboxed to no avail. For me real change was explaining to them why a cultural shift was necessary. At first it was simply to get people to understand that their words have impact on others. I don’t want you to stop using the word gay in a negative way because I told you so. That just means you won’t say it around me. That is not change, that is selective editing from a place of guilt.
What I want is for you to understand the impact your words have and then make the conscious choice to change not because of me but because that is who you want to be in the world. Feeling exclusively responsible for such a seismic shift is daunting. But this reframe put the responsibility back on others. I can’t blame you if you don’t know how your words impact me. But once I tell you, the pressure is off of me and now on you. Change your words or not – your call. But you can no longer plead ignorance in that you don’t know the effect they have.
Listen to the difference between Ash's tone, her level of engagement, and her type of engagement between what she talks about in the first few minutes and about fifteen minutes later. In both cases she shows a high magnitude of emotion. At the beginning she's outraged at stuff outside her life. Later she's passionate about things in her life. Nearly everyone trying to motivate on the environment focuses on problems elsewhere, trying desperately to convince, cajole, or coerce people to act because they have to or disasters will happen. That extrinsic motivation comes off as bludgeoning, all the more because it always comes from someone who isn't living sustainably. If you want to motivate someone, connect with intrinsic motivation. What do you care about? What do they care about? I recommend interrupting the pattern in you of getting into cycles of outrage, blame, helplessness, hopelessness, and so on leading to pointing fingers and inaction or pointless action. I recommend interrupting it in others too, though more tactfully. Instead, recall what you care about and do everything you can for it. Take responsibility for what you love, the opposite of blaming others. If you've bought into the lie that personal change conflicts with systemic change, drop the lie. Don't spread it. Systemic change begins with personal change. Listen to what engages Ash, what she cares about, and compare with abstract things, however big and bad. What can you connect with?
We started from Ash's TEDx talks, which cover vulnerability, intimacy, and support. You can listen to our conversation on its own, but it won't hurt to watch them first. She could easily say, "As a lesbian, I have it so difficult," but she speaks more universally. Everyone has something difficult to share, hides parts of their identity, has been made fun of, has felt judged, shamed, or the like. She shares about opening up. She takes no high ground, nor victimhood. She reflects and shares insight mixed with plenty of humor and humility. I hide my share of things and welcomed her role modeling to open up more. I suspect you'll want to too.