• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
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One of the 18-minute presenters at the Q conference last month was culture-thinker/author Andy Crouch. He opened his presentation with a little research he did about books that have been written on the subject of changing the world.

In the first seven years of this century (2000-2007), there were 154 books published containing some iteration of the words “change the world.” Crouch estimates that by 2010, there will be 220 titles. In comparison, only 140 books were published over the entire 100 years leading up to 2000. The allure of changing the world is obviously on the rise.

I can relate. For as long as I can remember, whenever someone asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I always responded with an audacious, “I want to change the world!” Lately, I’m beginning to think this inclination is not only unhealthy, it’s also counter-productive. In my humble opinion, the idea of changing the world has derailed a generation from actually accomplishing it.

There’s a reason for this, and I think it has to do with how humanity has progressed over the centuries when it comes to knowing and being known.

First, everybody knew everybody.
For thousands of years, communities were made up of interdependent individuals that knew everybody within their vicinity. Lacking long distance communication and the ability to travel far, you didn’t know anybody else except the people in front of you. Everybody knew everybody.

Then, everybody knew somebody.
As travel and communication increased (1500s moving forward), we moved away from everybody knowing everybody to everybody knowing somebody. As cities increased in population and as people spread out, it wasn’t possible to know everybody in your “world” because your world was getting bigger. As long as we knew somebody, life would still be livable.

Next, somebody wanted to be known by everybody.
Enter the dawn of pervasive marketing and celebrity (1800s moving forward). P.T. Barnum immediately comes to mind as a master of publicity. Revival preachers were also good at positioning themselves publicly so that people wanted want they had. It was no longer possible to know everybody, and knowing somebody was a given. It was now time for everybody to know me. The more people knew me, the more I would be associated with wealth, influence, etc. Yes world, you need to know me.

Now, everybody wants to be known by everybody.
With the immediate and permeative nature of communication these days, we’re now living in a period where everybody in the world wants to be known by everybody in the world. The Facebook population alone is as large as the fifth most populated country on earth. Facebook’s entire premise is to be known by everybody. Why else would people spend so much time updating, uploading and upchucking everything about themselves? Yes folks, we want everybody to know us. We’ve come full circle because this is how it started. Everybody knew everybody. Only this time our world is in the billions, not the barrios.

I’m convinced that the more we want to be known, the more we want to change the world. And the more we want to change the world, the more we want to be known.

It’s a vicious cycle, and I think it’s paralyzing our potential.

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