People who don’t want to act on the environment will create and believe any rationalization to justify not acting. A common one is to say what they do doesn’t matter. Or that their results wouldn’t make a difference. I kept myself from acting for years for “reasons” like these.

Nobody said to act once and stop. Any one individual action divided by the results of billions of others rounds to zero. But you don’t have to stop with one act. If you find yourself judging someone’s first actions by what he or she did at first, you’re off the mark. In fact, you’re likely discouraging themselves and yourself. Want someone not to try something new? Tell them you’ll watch and judge how they do it.

The greatest effect one can make is in leading others. It multiplies your effect. To do so, you must first lead yourself, which means living by the values you promote. Acting by yourself teaches you what to do. It gives you experience. So you have to act before you make a big result. Notice early actions don’t need to solve big projects.

When people say one person’s actions don’t matter, they’re evaluating based on irrelevant criteria. Any person can lead others. What they do with, say, a particular

Going through a cycle of acting, learning from that experience, acting more, and leading others to learn and spread, likely affect the world more than someone who acts and then stops.

Here’s what to do.

• Act
• Learn from the experience
• Act more
• Lead others

Leading others

I didn’t say leading others is easy, or even learning to lead others. But you can and it works.

• ← Hear me speak on Initiative on Moving Mountains with Sasha Laghonh
• 488: Maxine Bédat, part 1: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Fashion’s Sustainability (or lack thereof) →