First Event!

Had my first event to rally the troops, get feedback and start the movement forward. Turn out was great. Lots of great people responded to my invite and lots of great people showed up, some with interested friends. We generated a lot of positive actionable next steps that i’m looking forward to taking.

There were two things I really wanted out of the event: the first was just to get some feedback about my missions to plant trees and clean the ocean. Part of it was explicit…direct, literal feedback about who’s seen what happening where and how did it work. The other part though was just to read the room as I explained that I want to both plant a trillion trees and to clean the plastic from the ocean. The group was highly selected based on interest in those topics and I didn’t invite anyone who would have been anti, but it surprised me to see the spark of passion ignite in everyone’s eyes. There was certainly some skepticism and I can understand why, but from a concept level there was a lot of energy and excitement to be presented with real actionable solutions.

The second thing I wanted was to start to lay a foundation of support to build on and I think that objective was very well accomplished. The next mastermind, soon to announced, I think will have greater attendance and more forward motion.

Now for what I directly learned:

1. Rally interest groups with financial incentive.

- In the case of the Ocean: beach communities, tourism organizations, effected island countries, fishing industry

2. Facilitate conversation between interest groups

- Lots of non-profits and for-profits working toward similar ends who are not talking to each other. Facilitate their conversations around direct action

3. Sell the solution

- Information is great, but action is what’s needed. We’re already overloaded on info without enough direct, actionable steps to solve problems

- Solutions are exciting and motivational, problems are depressing anti-motivational

4. Action is harder than talk

- The most challenging part of getting anything done is getting it done. Future meetings should be focused on action-steps that pull the cause forward

5. A multifaceted approach is necessary

- Everyone agrees that there’s a problem. Everyone does not agree about single solutions because the issues are systemic

- Systemic issues can be addressed one piece at a time with direct action.

I’ll be announcing the next mastermind, shortly. For those of you that didn’t make the first one, please join us next time. Was a lot of fun and we need support! Also, if you did attend and have comments about what you took away, I’d love to hear them.