ChangeThis
ChangeThis is our weekly series of essays from today's thought leaders that are meant to evoke conversation by bringing forth new and unique ideas.
ChangeThis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Don't Let the Sidewalk End: How To Create a Revolution
By Porchlight
"This manifesto is about creating revolutions. Not big political revolutions, although it could help there too, but revolutions of any size and in any field or industry. It is also about innovating, and how to be better at it and how innovations, properly nourished, are the catalysts of revolutions. To start with, we should all recognize that innovation is a process, not an event. When the process results in dramatic change, it is called a revolution. At any one time there are numerous revolutions underway that will affect our life. We have a choice – we can be a part of the revolution or we can deal with it when it comes. In our modern world I really don't think the latter option is a viable choice."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Happiness Advocacy, Or, How Positive Psychology Will Save Us From Zombies
By Porchlight
"Happiness. That feeling you get from StuffOnMyCat.com or Skyping with a far away friend. Side effects include: joy, contentment, glee, elation, and surges of confidence, hope, and gratitude. That happiness. If you're ready to throw in the towel (or this in the garbage), kindly allow me to clarify something. This ain't yo' momma's (or for that matter my momma's*) self-help book so don't get all judgmental. If MacGyver can stop a bomb with a toothpick, we can save the world with happiness. 'Fiction!' you say? It's even been scientifically proven. You see, it's all in the technique, my friends."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Three Gaps Between Goals and Greatness
By Porchlight
"In the global race to achieve faster, better, cheaper business greatness, most leaders face a huge gap between the goals they set and the actual results achieved by the people in their organizations. This phenomenon is not a failure to plan, but rather, a failure to execute. [...] While there are many possible explanations for the root cause of the gap, the one common, recurring element is a stubborn, nagging blind spot: People issues. They won't go away. They are always around. No matter how much you try to avoid them by setting goals and staying busy, people issues are always right in front of you, either helping or hurting your organization's competitive advantage in the marketplace." Like the Manifesto? Buy the book!
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Social Sharing Manifesto: The Arguments For and Against The Rise of the Sharing Consumer
By Porchlight
"Nothing has really changed, even with the popularity of terms like social consumer, sharing consumer etc. people have always shared. Whether sitting around the campfire, standing at the water cooler, or chatting over the garden fence, human beings share their opinions with others. If those opinions prove to be useful, that person will be sought out for an opinion about other things and on a more frequent basis."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Why "Free" Is the Wrong Price for Water—Even If You Live on $1 a Day
By Charles Fishman
"Free turns out to be exactly the wrong price for water—whether that water is being used by huge global corporations, farmers, ordinary middle-class citizens, or the poorest people living in developing countries."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Mistake Manifesto: How Making Mistakes Can Make Us Better
By Alina Tugend
"While I am not advocating that we all run around blundering and goofing up all the time—and certainly none of us like dealing with people who make the same mistake over and over—our fear of mistakes has a very high cost. We exert enormous energy blaming each other when something goes wrong rather than finding a solution. Defensiveness and accusations take the place of apologies and forgiveness. Mistake-avoidance creates workplaces where making changes and being creative while risking failure is subsumed by an ethos of mistake-prevention at the cost of daring and innovation."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
This Sentence Has 5ive Words: Eigen Values, Creating Truisms and the Future of Marketing
By Stephen Denny
"Our first sentence—"This sentence has five words—is an eigen value: a self-referencing, self-defining concept. The thing itself is its own definition. Our last rambling sentence is not an eigen value. It isn't self-defining and frankly lacks meaning to anyone but its author. This is an important distinction, because the casual reader of this sentence frankly doesn't care one way or another about the message or the messenger. The concept of eigen values comes from the vast body of work attributed to the father of cybernetics, Heinz von Foerster. His work, and the work of others in this field, has influenced the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, architecture, mathematics, cryptography and art. Why is this concept important to your idea, your brand or your movement? Because creating eigen values is what marketers do when they're doing their very best work. The concept of eigen values should change how you look at the marketing discipline completely."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Shine: Brain Science, Practical Psychology, Ancient Wisdom and the Cycle of Excellence
By Porchlight
"How do we draw the best out of people when so many of the rules and practices in life have changed? How in today's new world can people reach their best at their best, given the speed of life and the torrent of information and obligation? Is there a coherent, evidence-based plan that every person can use to bring the best out of themselves or the people they manage? With the help of Dr. Shine, I offer a theory here of how to do just that. It includes 5 steps. I call it the Cycle of Excellence."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Micropreneur Manifesto: How to Stay Solo, Bleed Passion, and Build Products that Matter
By Porchlight
"Single founders creating products for niche markets are known by another name: micropreneurs. Micropreneurs may write software. They might design themes for a blogging platform. They may produce exquisite wedding invitations, or how-to books. Micropreneurs are agile, inspired, independent, knowledge seekers who can't live with the 9-to-5 status quo. If this resonates with you, read on. This manifesto attempts to distill the key points you'll need as you begin your micropreneur journey. I learned every one of them the hard way."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Lizards & Leaders: How Meditation Accelerates Change
By Eric Klein
"The goal is to cross your learning edge. [. . . ] To do this you have to let go of the structures, beliefs, and habits that constituted your old sense of self–without losing awareness. It takes a resilient awareness to remain at your learning edge without being overtaken by the inner lizard. It takes a form of awareness that sustains itself even as the structures of your old self are let go. But, how can you let go of beliefs, attitudes, strategies, and self-images and still be aware. Even more to the point, what is left to be aware when all those mental and emotional supports are withdrawn. To discover this takes a special kind of practice. [. . . ] The good news is that this specific kind of practice has been developed and refined for thousands of years by researchers and practitioners around the world. I'm referring to the practice of meditation. Meditation practice develops your inner capacity to remain aware when the conventional supports of position, title, beliefs, attitudes, and self-image are let go.
Categories: changethis
The original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin, and was built in the summer of 2004 by Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu, and Michelle Sriwongtong. In the summer of 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ. In addition to selling and writing about books, they kept ChangeThis up and running as a standalone website for 14 years. In 2019, 800-CEO-READ became Porchlight, and we pulled ChangeThis together with the rest of our editorial content under the website you see now. We remain committed to the high-design quality and independent spirit of the original team that brought ChangeThis into the world.