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.
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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. Water that is so cheap provides no incentive for big users—corporations, farmers, even cities—to spend money necessary to better manage their water. [...] And poor people—who have to stand in line for water, or walk to get it from suspect ground-water wells—pay the highest cost for 'free' water of all, sacrificing time, good jobs, and even the educations of their children in order to secure their daily ration of water."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Three Gaps Between Goals and Greatness
By Pelè Raymond Ugboajah PhD
"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!
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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
The Micropreneur Manifesto: How to Stay Solo, Bleed Passion, and Build Products that Matter
By Rob Walling
"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."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
A Call Against Complacency
By Dambisa Moyo
"Many will agree that a system of incentives is, and has been, the backbone of the success of the capitalist economic system. That over centuries, a network of incentives has driven innovation, which in turn has encouraged the inventiveness that has led to the unparalleled generation of ideas, goods, and services across America and the industrialized West. [...] Given the evidence and importance of positive incentives, why, over the past 50 years, have policymakers embarked on a systematic and deliberate strategy of putting in place a catalogue of policies that dis-incentivise citizens from acting in a manner that could be beneficial to their economies, and the world at large?"
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Ending Ephebiphobia: Young People Deserve More
By Sarah Newton
"The stereotypes of young people and the irrational fear we have of them have no place in modern society. Pliny the Elder was on to something when he said, "What we do to our children, they will do to society." If his words are to ring true, then we are in for a whole lot of trouble. If we don't counter this trend, our young people will increasingly lack the emotional resilience and social competence that is needed to make society a safe, fair and happy place. What we need is a model for empathetic behavior when it comes to dealing with young people. A model that every adult can apply in every situation—be they a parent, an employer, a schoolteacher or a concerned citizen. Isn't it about time that, as a society, we stopped crushing the spirits of the next generation and started to understand their situations, feelings and motives and in turn change our own feelings, thoughts and attitude towards young people?"
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Maxwell Fallacy: There's More to Leadership than Influence
By David Burkus
"John Maxwell, billed often as America's foremost authority on leadership, has made his career around the phrase: 'Leadership is influence; nothing more, nothing less.' This is the key phrase has guided the writing of the most prolific leadership author in America and influences the work of countless others. As a result it is perhaps the commonly accepted definition of leadership. It's brief. It's pithy. It's wrong."
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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
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Reinvention Imperative
By Daniel Burrus, John David Mann
"In the good old twentieth century, you could reinvent your company, product category or industry once, and then go for a decade before doing anything especially innovative again. That doesn't work anymore. The world has changed, and more importantly, change itself has changed. [...] In the past, stability and change were two contrasting states: when you achieved stability, you did so despite change. Today change itself has become an integral part of stability: today you can achieve stability only by embracing change as a continuous and permanent state. It used to be, you could find something you do well, learn how to do it, and just keep on doing it. Not anymore. In the past, reinvention was an option. Today it is an imperative."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Disciplined Dreaming: How to Build Your Organization's Creativity Mojo
By Josh Linkner
"I developed the Disciplined Dreaming system to give creativity its own place and practice, to provide everyone in the organization a structure for developing their own creative ideas, and to bring creativity back to the heart of business—where it belongs. Disciplined Dreaming isn't a stifling, rigid "innovation process", but an open system. It provides a strong and flexible framework that frees individuals and organizations to improvise and explore—and, in the process, develop their creative chops. The ideas, processes, and practices of Disciplined Dreaming will help you build your chops by expanding your creative capacity and targeting your creative energy."
Categories: changethis