Category Archives: Nation-Building from A to Z

N is for natural resources

I was always taught to be “humble” about my abilities. I was under the impression that it was prideful to talk about what I was good at…or to even think that I was good at it. And to say that I was better at it than someone else was downright arrogant.

Your abilities are a huge part of your nation’s natural resources (and when you’re just starting out, sometimes your abilities are all your nation has). When you downplay them, you hold back what your nation can do.

I have learned that humility is just having an honest view of myself. No exaggerating. No minimizing. Being good at something is not reason to be worshipped or envied. And being bad at something is not grounds for beating myself up. So, let me give you permission to be honest with yourself about what you’re good at. You have incredible abilities! Own them.

Notice what gives you energy. Then do THAT!

The things you are naturally good at will give you energy, not suck it away. These resources are the ultimate in sustainability…the more you use them, the more you have.

Try keeping a log of your energy as you do different tasks and do them in different ways. Are you more energized when you have variety or repetition? Personal contact or solitude? Written work or verbal work? Etc. Notice it; write it down; and make a conscious effort to begin to reshape your day and your career around it.

What are your non-renewable resources?

Sarah was telling me about a study where they made a group of people resist eating cookies, while the other group got to eat the cookies. Afterward, the cookie-eaters were able to work much more diligently on a problem they were given. I thought she was going to say that the sugar gave their brains more energy. I know I’m pretty motivated by cookies. But, in fact, the group that had to resist was so exhausted from resisting the cookies, that they were not able to sustain the energy to concentrate on the problem at hand.

We as humans only have so much diligence, creativity, and energy. They can and do run out. It’s helpful to think about what is in your tank, and how much. If you know that you have a very limited supply of patience with dealing with clients, you have to be willing to design your workflow so it will minimize the demand for human interaction. Show some respect to your inner fossil fuel supplies before you exhaust your entire emotional ecosystem.

That’s an interest, not an aptitude.

Your aptitudes are the innate abilities that you were born with, which solidify around age 14, and don’t change much. Interests are affected by all sorts of outside factors like education and what your mom and dad told you to do for a living. Both are valid, but it’s important to know the difference. You can have an interest in music, but no aptitude for rhythm or tone. If you chase after an interest without focusing on the facets in which you are apt to succeed, you’ll just end up beating your head against a wall. Maybe, for you, pursuing music will be on the business side, or creating great venues.

And when you find what you’re bad at…

Improve if you can. And if you can’t, don’t do it. Or at least minimize how much you make yourself do it. To have a thriving nation, you have to be honest about your weak spots, and make it a point to fill them in. The solutions can vary.

If you’re struggling in something you know you have an aptitude for, it might just mean you need to broaden your own knowledge in that area, or changing your approach. Do some research. Ask questions. Don’t disqualify yourself or give up. And don’t keep doing a poor job.

Sometimes you just need to buy some new equipment. For a while I thought I sucked at photography, comparing my work to that of the people around me. Come to find out, the camera and lens you use makes a WORLD of difference. Now I know that I could succeed if and when I decide to fork out the money it would take to upgrade my gear.

Sometimes it’s all in the timing. Knowing what season you are in will save you gallons of frustration and disappointment. Do you have the money right now? Do you have the time in your schedule? Are you emotionally ready for this step? Just because the answers might be “no” for now, they won’t always be.

And finally, here’s a little secret: Collaboration = asking others for help. Gasp, I know. This is a good thing, a great thing. When you figure out what you are bad at, breathe a sigh of relief that you don’t have to do that anymore! Start talking with the people you want to collaborate with. It’s amazing how often they will just happen to love doing the things that make you cringe. Those activities give them energy. And everyone wins.

Let bright-spotting become a way of life.

Regularly look at your energy levels and your enthusiasm. Notice the bright spots where they were at their greatest. What were you doing? Why was it so enjoyable? Can you see a pattern? Then give yourself permission to duplicate those moments of glorious bliss. Stop bullying yourself or wishing you were someone else. You’re not. You’re awesome. Your nation needs you, your vision, your strengths. Build on your awesomeness, and watch it become awesomer than you ever imagined.

Need to know what your natural resources are?

We’ve created this handy inventory so you can figure out what your nation has to work with. Not just your talents and skills, but your money, time & man-hours, and a slew of other resources that you may not realize you have.

For more intensive support on building your nation’s identity using your natural resources, you can also take our Discover Your National Identity course.

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M is for mentoring: How (and why) to become a good mentor

Jeff, Jen, and I made this video to share the hows and whys of being a good mentor (and finding one).

Written by Julianne Carson

Today I’m commissioned with writing an article on mentoring. And wouldn’t you know it, I’m as cranky as a hen, especially toward the nice young lady who I am meant to be mentoring. Maybe it’s hormonal. Maybe I’m on a bit of a crash from all the stress of launching a new product. But, no matter the reason, all I want to do right now is close myself in my room for the rest of the day and watch old Star Trek episodes.

Human interaction is hard.

I never knew that so keenly until I decided to collaborate on professional creative endeavors with a team of my friends. And even more so since taking on the mantle of mentoring.

Relating with people means dealing with their issues. And, perhaps even more daunting, being a mentor forces you to deal with your own issues. It’s hard when I’m chatting with someone I mentor not to put all of my biases, and self-protective vows on them. A guy cheated on me, so I lecture them about how men can’t necessarily be trusted. I’ve decided that college was a waste of my time, and that belief system comes out in my conversations and advice. When I realize that my words and my life are not setting the example that I want them to, I am forced to reevaluate myself.

Maybe you don’t feel like a mentor. Maybe your shortcomings seem to outweigh your expertise. I know mine do. There are days I feel like I have nothing to offer at all. Jeff asked me recently how I would sum up mentoring, if I could plaster it on a billboard. I said rather instinctively: Share your failures.

Sharing your failures.

The best advice I have for anyone, whether it be professional or personal, was born out my own stupid mistakes.

  • I dated the guy that I shouldn’t have and paid the price for it.
  • I was too scared to take risks and got stuck doing work that I hated.
  • I thought I knew better than God did for my life, and my pride caused me to fall.

When I sit down with someone who is having relationship problems, or wondering how to excel creatively, I am positively brimming with stories of my failure, and how I overcame.

The most beautiful part about it: I have compassion and grace for their situation that I never would have had unless I had stumbled there myself.

Becoming a mentor.

You may never have someone approach you, asking you to mentor them. It isn’t because they don’t need it and wouldn’t love it. It’s mostly because mentoring just isn’t “a thing” in our culture right now. We are independent and self-sufficient, or so we think.

It’s also because no one wants to be an imposition. I promise you there are people in your life right this minute who look up to you. They would love to gleen from your wisdom. But they don’t want to be a burden.

Approach someone. Pray, contemplate, meditate on it, even ask for it. See if someone doesn’t pop up who is an obvious choice. Choose someone who you believe in. Someone who maybe reminds you of yourself from years past. I know I would have given anything for someone to come along side me when I was younger, and show me the ropes. I hungered for that.

It’s time-consuming.

Yup, it sure is. And it’s also emotionally draining sometimes, if you’re doing it right. But the rewards are immeasurable. To invest in another human, to save them the pain you had to suffer, to see them succeed and even carry on your legacy…well, there’s no drug like it on the planet.

One way to save yourself some headaches is to set very clear expectations with your mentee. Let them know what kind of time you can give them, and ask them to be clear about their goals. If they aren’t ready to take initiative and responsibility for their own growth, they are probably not ready to be in a mentoring relationship.

Give it all.

Ideally, you will mentor someone you grow to trust, someone you respect, and even love. Sharing your mistakes is just the beginning of the vulnerability that mentoring requires. Don’t be afraid. The more of your heart you are willing to share (while keeping healthy boundaries, of course) the more you will impact their life.

Teach them skills they lack. Share insider knowledge that would save them tons of time. Explain how you’ve had to wrestle with moral issues and decisions that affected your whole family. Tell them that you believe in them. Watch their life and business change for the better.

And be encouraged; as a mentor, your struggles and mistakes and days when you didn’t want to get out of bed were not for nothing.

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L is for Legacy: Discover yours and make it happen

I’ve always had an independent streak. The second phrase I uttered on this earth was “I’ll do it myself” (right after “I want a cracker”). Maybe that’s why I’ve always interpreted the word “legacy” as it relates to my personal actions. What am I going to be remembered for?

Unsurprisingly, I’ve never been motivated to spend much time plotting my legacy. After all, I’ll be dead by the time people start to say, “Remember Sarah J. Bray? Remember how much she liked toast, and how she built all of these nations? Remember how she loved people, and how she would serenade her family members in the kitchen? Remember how she read a billion books, and just could not stop learning and having new ideas?” I don’t need to plan my legacy for people to remember the strange and wonderful parts that make me me.

Still, there’s something about the idea of leaving a legacy that I can’t get away from. It used to be an important part of people’s lives. Families would accumulate knowledge and wealth and land and titles and connections, and they would pass it down to their children. The children would continue to grow that legacy, building onto the legacy of their parents.

That’s a beautiful thing. I want that. It makes so much sense to build on the knowledge of the people who came before us, rather than trying to start over in an effort of independence and individualism.

So now when I think of the legacy I want to leave, I don’t think about how (and how many) people will remember me. I think about the parts of my life that can continue to be built on after I’m gone. The parts that I can pass down to people that I love dearly, as well as people I’ve never met.

Discover the legacy you want to leave

We all know that nobody lays on their deathbed wishing that they’d acquired more possessions or spent more time at the office. So what matters? What is truly meaningful?

Julianne, Jeff, and I have spent a lot of time talking about this “meaningful work” that we build nations around. Meaning is a very personal thing. It’s not something you can discover by consensus. You have to discover what means the most to you, and then build your life and your work around those things.

For me, it’s helpful to limit myself to three things. Those things are:

  • My relationships. My family is an amazing organism…I can’t believe I get to go through life with them. This is one of the reasons I agreed to build The Light Room with Treacy Mize. Because I believe that life is about relationships. I believe it starts with my relationship with myself, and then goes out from there. If we can fix relationships, then we can fix everything.

    But I’m not only concerned about family relationships. I’m concerned about my relationship with people I’ve never even met. I’m concerned about my relationship with people who believe very differently than I do, who have had a completely different background than I have. I want to use my natural empathy to be able to connect with people who will share a very different view of the world with me.

  • My faith. I only put this after my relationships, because I believe people are where the heart of God lives. I believe faith has the power to heal our lives, but it’s not about convincing people that their faith is “good” or “bad” for believing or not believing in what I’ve found to be true. As C.S. Lewis said, “What is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously…a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad.” An important part of my legacy is exploring my own faith, shedding light on the evidence I’ve found, and giving room and a context for other people to explore theirs.
  • My passions. My passions are things that have changed the quality of my life because of their presence in it. Reading is one. I’ve said that if heaven is not one giant library, I’m going to be severely disappointed. Art is another. I am amazed at how even the smallest effort at making something ordinary into art changes the direction of my day. And when that art is directed as a gift to someone else, that change is magnified. Enthusiasm. Nature. Learning. Writing. These are all things that get me excited about being alive.

What three things are important enough to you to leave a legacy that others can build on?

Create your legacy today, not sometime in the future

Legacy doesn’t happen by accident. You have to understand the things that are truly important so you can change your daily routine to match the kind of legacy you want to leave.

One of the exercises we do on the Tour de Bliss is to ask ourselves, “Would I want to be doing this every day for the rest of my life?” If the answer is “yes”, we do it with gusto. If the answer is “no”, we find a way to stop doing it.

Life is a series of patterns. Your legacy is a result of those patterns repeated over time. If you don’t want to be doing something for the rest of your life, don’t do it today.

Legacy is not something you can plan out, step by step. Trying to “get there” is a futile exercise. You can no more plan your legacy than you can know what the state of your bank account will be on October 18th, 2027.

But you can live your legacy today. You can choose to stop acting in ways you wouldn’t want to act tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And you can choose to replace them with things you can imagine yourself doing when you’ve reached the summit of your life experience. (Which, hopefully, will include lots of toast and kitchen dance-a-thons.)

Build your nation

Want to discover your national identity and learn how to communicate it through design, photography and video? We would love to have you as a student. Read more and register here.

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K is for kinship: How (and why) to cultivate relationship with your clients

Chris, fabulous mother of twins, called me several years ago for a portrait session with her and her family. She left me a message mentioning something about not being happy with her former photographer.  As anyone who serves clients for a living knows, when a potential client starts off the conversation with a complaint about someone else they’ve worked with, it’s a red flag. I almost put that follow-up call on the back burner.  But something in me had to know her story, and I wanted to see if I could meet her need.

Turns out, we had a great conversation, I showed up, took the photos, they went bonkers over them, and we’ve been friends ever since.  They take me on family vacations to document their stories, and we’ve become like family.

Image by Treacy Mize

Kinship is exactly that — when the people you serve become family. Maybe not every individual you come into contact with becomes a lifelong friend, but you share an affinity and a connection. One that allows you to make decisions based on strengthening that connection over strengthening your bottom line (funny how that bottom line tends to get stronger in the process).

Why would you want to be friends with your clients?

Most business wisdom would say to separate your personal and professional life. It’s not personal, it’s business. Don’t get too close or you won’t be able to make the hard business decisions later.

While it is difficult to make hard choices (that’s why they’re…umm…hard), distancing yourself from having a real connection with the people your nation is serving is not the answer. Kinship requires vulnerability (which can be scary), but it breeds trust, honesty, respect, and the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. A little emotional risk is worth it.

The three things you need to know to foster kinship

First, I can only experience kinship with people who I have chosen to be in relationship with. That includes the client relationship. We may have a world of differences — if you were to stand me and Chris side by side and look at demographics, political and religious views, etc., you’d think that kinship had no chance — but the potential of a relationship between us needs to be important enough for me to take a risk.

Kinship doesn’t work when I take on a project that I’m ambivalent about because I need the money. It doesn’t work when I acquiesce to someone who is manipulating me or when I say yes to a job because it’s too uncomfortable to say no. I must be aware that I have a choice in who I work with. And I need to make that choice based on the kind of person I want to be and the kind of relationships I want to have — not based on obligation (even the financial kind).

Image by Treacy Mize

Second, kinship happens when I stop complaining about my clients and start listening to them. Ouch. (I’ll pause while we all nurse our wounds.) It hurts because we’ve all done it. It’s so much easier to complain about how inconsiderate, oblivious, and demanding our clients are. It’s less easy to see how unclear, assuming, and prideful we’ve been.

If I keep having problems with people being late or not paying on time, is it possible that my boundaries are unclear? If my clients aren’t doing what I’ve asked them to do, is it possible they have no idea what my jargon-y instructions mean? If my clients don’t want to pay for work that I’ve done, is it possible that I wasn’t clear about the cost before I started the work?

You are the leader of your nation. You make the rules and you create the structures that need to be in place for everything to operate smoothly. Use every difficult client confrontation as a clue to a new problem that your nation can create a solution for.

Image by Treacy Mize

Finally, kinship requires love. Love is the only thing that allows kinship to flourish, because its motivation is pure. You can’t fake it. In order to contribute to a client’s project (and their life) in a meaningful way, I need to feel compassion and empathy for the problems they’re experiencing. And that kind of emotional investment is something that can’t be conjured, manufactured, or manipulated.
 
What Chris needed wasn’t for me to come to her home and wield my camera.  That’s just what the initial request looked like. What she really needed was for me to care. Care about what happened before, care about what she wanted, care about her family and the story they shared, and maybe most importantly to care about who she was as a person.

And when I care, I do great things, with the camera and without. Serving becomes less of a buzzword and more of a way of meeting a deeper need than what’s on the surface. And somehow, I get my own needs met in the process.

Co-written by Treacy Mize and Sarah J. Bray

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We changed the entire way that we work in order to have the space to truly develop kinship with the people we work with. It was drastic. We’re willing to spill how that’s going for us, if you’re curious. Or about whatever questions or conversation you want to get into. For the next 24 hours, we’ll be here with bells on. (And after that, feel free to conversate…we just won’t have quite so many bells.)

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J is for Juxtaposition: Freedom in chains

Photo by Jeffrey Dear

Freedom in chains. Impossible, right? Chains bind. They enslave. They imprison.

But when you choose to wear chains for a purpose, they also bring freedom.

Chain your beliefs to your nation

There is freedom in knowing what you believe. When you say your beliefs with conviction, bind them to who you are, and make them your nation’s identity and mission, those beliefs become the catalyst that moves your vision forward.

Many of history’s great men and women bound themselves to a vision they were not willing to separate from. Their beliefs caused division, but they also produced widespread movements that compelled large numbers of people to take action. For example:

  • Martin Luther King, Jr. committed his words and actions to his dreams of peace, influencing hundreds of thousands of people to join together against racial discrimination in the United States.
  • Mahatma Gandhi bound himself through fasting and other forms of non-violent protest, starting a movement to free Muslim and Hindu Indians from religious persecution (and setting the precedent for non-violent change across the world).
  • William Wilberforce chained himself to unpopular views and helped abolish the British slave trade, working toward that cause for 26 years and dying just three days after his Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833.
  • Jesus Christ allowed himself to be nailed to a cross to free mankind from sin, spurring the explosive worldwide spread of Christianity.

Except for the born-to-a-virgin, came-back-from-the-dead Jesus (if you can forgive my bias here), these are ordinary people who understood that they would be absolutely ineffective unless they were able to compel large groups of people to take action. The same goes for you.

Chain yourself to your nation’s struggles

Chains cause division and they cause struggle. But struggles have an interesting ability to clarify values and uncover your people’s hidden strengths. No amount of beachfront cocktail-sipping could compete with that.

For example, when your nation is struggling financially, stop looking at finances as your only natural resource. Look at your relationships — maybe that’s where you’re rich. Or look at your skills, your equipment, or your high levels of energy and chutzpah (a surplus of energy and chutzpah is not to be underestimated!). These are constraints that help you develop creative solutions to the problems that your nation is facing — solutions that haven’t been trod to death by others before you.

Accept the obstacles that may temporarily bind your nation. By surrendering to the struggle and raising your white flag high, you unlock your nation’s potential.

Chain your nation to self-sacrifice

True freedom comes when we fight the natural tendency to take the easy road, fall apart, and get our own way, right now. When we set aside our sense of what we are individually entitled to, we open up the possibility for a much greater freedom for the people we are trying to serve.

Freedom for you might look like…

  • …foregoing the need to be right.
  • …forgiving the one who has wronged you.
  • …waiting to let someone else go first.
  • …listening with openness rather than becoming defensive.
  • …erring on the side of life when making a decision that effects the unborn and their families.
  • …asking for help when you discover you can’t do it alone.
  • …failing, and then beginning a new idea, adventure, or relationship.
  • …working it out, maintaining your vow and bond, with a life partner.
  • …choosing the long, hard, stupid way over the easy, practical, strategic way.

We all have choices to make. Sometimes we face moral dilemmas where all solutions are flawed, and we have to choose the least horrible option. But when you lead with conviction and an openness to self-sacrifice and putting other people’s needs before your own, you open yourself up to freedom and possibility. Not to mention the amazing experience of having your own needs met in unexpected ways.

Chain your nation to the strength of many

There is strength in a chain — when we bind ourselves with the people of our nation, we become an interlocked community of members, dedicated to a common goal and a unified cause.

Working with other people is scary. You risk hurt feelings and miscommunications and confrontation. You increase the amount of financial responsibility that a project needs to generate to support the people working on it. But while it may seem easier and less risky to do things on our own, we miss out on producing something greater than ourselves.

When we work with others, our strengths are magnified and our weaknesses are diminished. We exponentially increase the diversity of thoughts in the room, which then exponentially increases the number of solutions that become available to us. We pool our resources of intelligence, opinion, experience, community, and commitment. We gain support and encouragement and validation and humility and accountability.

Strength does not lie in a single link in the chain. When we come together and hold fast to a single pursuit, we can do the impossible.

Decide what you stand for and bind yourself to the beliefs, struggles, self-sacrifice, and people that will ultimately bring freedom to your nation. And when you fail (and all great leaders fail), get back up, dust off your chains, and begin again.

Co-written by Jeffrey Dear and Sarah J. Bray

Why juxtaposition?

It’s one of Julianne’s favorite words. And it’s one of the communication tools you can use to make people see the Great Good that your nation is fighting for. By putting two completely opposing objects next to each other (like chains and the word “freedom”, for instance), you force people to re-think their paradigms. And when you want people to understand that they DON’T already know what you’re going to say before you say it, a paradigm-shift is exactly what you need.

When Jeff and I talked about collaborating on this piece, initially, I was skeptical — my life’s theme is freedom. There is no way I want to chain myself to anything…ever. I needed convincing. And Jeff convinced me.

I’d love to hear about your experience with freedom and sacrifice. As usual, we’ll be reading and responding to all comments for the next 24 hours, until tomorrow around 5pEST. (And if it’s past that time and you want to comment, be our guest…we check back from time to time and read and appreciate everything, even if we don’t respond. Plus it gives other people a chance to respond with their own brilliance.)
- Sarah

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I is for Identity: What’s your true identity?

Notes from the underground

In a couple of weeks, we’re releasing our first course on finding your national identity. It’s a course for non-visual artists to learn design, photography, and videography skills, and how it all fits into your identity. OPA! (This is our new word to replace WOOT…we’re trying to get it to catch on.) To get sneak peeks, sign up to get emails from us.

Also, don’t you love this graphic Jules made? She (and this graphic) makes me happy. As per usual, for the next 24 hours (until Friday at noon EST), we’re actively responding to your high fives, glass clinkings, and comments. OPA!

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H is for High Commission: How to experience your nation’s dilemma

(Don’t watch this movie yet, unless you just want to — it’s about two hours long. Later on, we’re going to point you to a few short clips in Amazing Grace to demonstrate what we mean by experiencing a nation’s dilemma.) Sidenote: Next time you find yourself faltering in your belief in your ability to make lasting change, watch this movie. It’s amazing.

Every nation needs to go through their own High Commission process — it’s what allows you to experience the beauty and the dilemma of this new nation so that you can develop its identity and design solutions that serve its Great Good using your natural resources.

There’s a whole lot involved in this phase of nation-building (for us, it’s a process that takes at least 6 weeks). But the first part happens before we ever commit ourselves to a project. You MUST have experienced the nation’s dilemma for yourself. And then you must be able to help us experience it so we know exactly why this is a nation we’d be willing to shed blood for (not because we’re so entirely selfish, but because great work happens when everyone who is helping build your nation believes in it just as much as you do).

Step one: Discover the dilemma of this nation for yourself

Before you’re ready to commit yourself to building your nation (and before you can get other people on board to help you), you must clearly know why you’re doing it. Part of that is being able to experience the dilemma for yourself.

When you experience a problem, you’re going to get frustrated about it. That’s a good indication that you might be able to build a nation around it, but it’s not the only one. Lots of things make me throw my hands up and say, “Why, God?!?!”. But some things frustrate me because I think to myself, “If only somebody would [fill in the blank], then this wouldn’t keep happening”. When I can imagine the solution, or I know I can find it, I know it’s a dilemma I can confidently fight for.

For a dramatic example of someone discovering the dilemma of their future nation for the first time, watch “Amazing Grace”, starting at 25:08 and ending at 27:30.

Your nation doesn’t have to involve a life or death situation, but you must believe in it. It must compel you to clearly say, “I will not stand for the alternative.”

Step two: Help other people experience the dilemma for themselves

We are inundated with other people’s agendas every day of our lives. It is overwhelming. For a nation to thrive, the people of that nation must have a common goal. They must have experienced the dilemma for themselves and decided not to walk away, but to stay and do something about it.

As the founder of your nation, getting other people to experience its dilemma is your responsibility. When someone is getting ready to build a nation and they come to us, they must be able to communicate that nation’s dilemma in a way that makes it impossible for us to walk away from it. We have to be compelled to make that nation’s Great Good our own; so much so that we will stay and fight for it, rather than continue on the same path we were on before we encountered it.

Watch the way William Wilberforce interrupted the influencers of his day while they were at the height of their comfortable lives. (The clip starts at 52:20 and ends at 54:15.)

Step three: Persevere in the face of ambivalence, and you will be victorious

Middle-class people are wealthier now than at any other point in human history. And yet, our response to the nearly unlimited options that wealth brings is often detached indifference (not to mention that we don’t fully understand how wealthy we actually are, but that’s a dilemma in itself).

Your nation must persevere against indifference. It must serve and keep serving in a way that pulls people in from right where they are (rather than from where you want them to be). Eventually, you will overcome. Because perseverance is the surest road to victory.

[Spoiler alert! Don't watch this next clip if you don't want to know how it ends. If you do, watch the video starting from 1:44:30 and ending at 1:45:56.]

What do you think?

What dilemma have you experienced? What are the specific experiences that made you stop in your tracks and commit yourself to fighting with everything you’ve got? We’ll be actively responding to everyone who joins in for the next 24 hours, until Wednesday at 5pEST. (And we really love this part…so bring us your questions, your comments, and whatever else is bursting out of your founderly passion.)

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G is for Great Good

Happy Friday everyone!

I think this graphic Jules made says it all. Taking a break from obsessively responding to comments today, but we’ll be checking in randomly if you have any questions or celebrations (or declarations of your Great Good). Happy Friday, everyone!

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F is for Founders: We’ve got trading cards!

So, today we’re doing something fun — trading cards! Because we think goofing off is just as important as strategy and hard work when it comes to nation-building. (Surely there is scientific research to support this…I just haven’t read it yet. Have you? Share it in the comments…I love having new stuff to read.)

We used a random number generator to choose some of you who have been in conversation with us during this series to get a free digital trading card! The only hitch is, you have to have a good quality high-resolution photograph of yourself (or live in the hampton roads area and be available to meet us for a photo shoot).

Here is who the almighty random number generator chose:

We’ll be emailing you shortly to get your information.

Here are our trading cards. (Ummm…yeah. You have to turn your screen upside down to see the answers. Could also be a good opportunity for you to stand on your head.)

Talk to us!

What’s your alter ego, superpower, and kryptonite? I tip my hat to you, fellow founders of nations. The world needs you. (And for the next 24 hours, we’ll be answering your nation-building questions, engaging in riveting discussions, and giving numerous high fives, as per usual.)

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E is for experience: Finding the struggle that unites your nation’s people

When we were planning the writing and shooting for this piece, we had different ideas about how to approach it. What type of experience did we want to talk about? The “user experience” (how people experience your nation), or something more fundamental — the unifying experience that bonds the people of your nation together.

I realize now that the two are inseparable. You can’t talk about the way a person experiences your nation without first understanding that person’s individual experience…the way they experience the world.

A COMMON STRUGGLE

Have you noticed that self-sufficient people are often the most detached? Studies show that the more wealthy a person gets, the more they tend to isolate themselves. The more self-sufficient we are, the less we need to ask other people for help, and the more we protect ourselves from uncomfortable situations. Like asking a neighbor for a cup of sugar, for instance…which, if you had my neighbor, might actually be a harrowing experience.

This wealth-detachment phenomenon is also true on a national level (The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner shares some really interesting research on this). I’m sure you’ve heard stories of American ex-pats who have discovered the joy of going to a “poorer” country and finding rich relationships formed out of needing other people to fill life’s basic necessities.

While wealth and affluence have a tendency to separate people from each other, struggle brings people together. And people who are united in their struggle will also unite around the cause that will end that struggle.

IDENTIFYING THE PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE

If your nation isn’t helping overcome the people’s struggle, there is no cause to fight for. There is no reason for the people to unite together to support the nation’s Great Good. No founder makes a nation successful by sheer force of their own will. It takes the entire community.

The difference between a struggle and a symptom

When we were researching the experience of the people in Treacy’s nation, at first we thought it was relationship problems. People not understanding each other, families becoming more detached as they gained a wealth of technology. But when we looked at the relationship problems, we became overwhelmed. The solutions we were coming up with were all generic, and we couldn’t figure out why.

The reason is, we were looking at the symptom, not the struggle. Families were detached, yes. There were relationship problems everywhere we went. But trying to fix that problem without understanding the problem behind the problem is like going to the doctor and saying “I hurt”, with no other information. You have to look closer.

When we looked closer at Treacy’s nation, we found a theme in our relationships — our beliefs about ourselves and other people. We realized that we develop these theories over time that define every single interaction we have with a person. Take our relationships with ourselves, for example. We noticed that our relationship with ourselves was often the most damaged (and the one we needed to work on first). And we discovered that we had these theories about ourselves that we never spoke out loud, but became the lens that we interacted with ourselves through.

Some theories that hold us back in our relationships.

Once we knew the problem, we could then observe how Treacy fixed it. Because she was already doing it subconsciously (which is often how we operate in our true gifts…we have no clue how we’re doing it, because it comes naturally). And the answer turned out to be finding evidence that the theories are incorrect. Physical evidence, like pictures and the meanings we attach to them, are powerful things when you combine them with a context and a method for finding it.

You have to ask why. And then ask why again. Like a two-year-old, keep asking why until you get to a problem that is small and specific enough that you can actually solve. Be annoying about it. If you don’t, you’ll be struggling to fix a symptom without knowing its underlying cause.

But aren’t there lots of causes? Lots of struggles?

Yes, it’s true. There are many reasons people feel alone in their relationships. There are many root causes that you could attempt to solve. But you can only solve one problem at a time.

This is where weak products and services and brands fail. They haven’t reached deep enough to find the problem — they’re attempting to fix a symptom. And no matter how brilliant you are, you can’t fix a symptom. Solving one problem at a time is the only way to make big change happen.

The 24-hour comment conversation

Thanks to Carla for naming what we do here! For the next 24 hours, we’ll be actively conversating around this (I like making up words). All questions and points of view welcome. If you need a springboard for talking about this, what is the uniting experience of your nation’s people? What struggle do they need to overcome? What obstacles are in their way?

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"You can choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know."
– William Wilberforce