How to Save the World

Six Not-So-Easy Steps To A Brighter Future

We’re taught to imagine heroism as a grand gesture. A single moment of glory.

The lone figure stepping in to save the day.

But, the heroism the world needs now looks very different.

It often looks like sending a difficult email. Or showing up to a boring meeting.

Holding space for someone’s grief.

Staying curious in a tense conversation.

Asking better questions instead of demanding quick answers.

Trying again after you thought you were done.

This is the heroism of deep care and sustained attention. Of choosing to be in the right relationship with yourself, with others, with the systems around us, and the futures we shape together.

This is a guide for that kind of heroism.

Rooted in practice, not performance.

In love, not ego.

In clarity, not certainty.

Without further ado, here are “Six Not-So-Easy Steps To A Brighter Future.” 💕

I invite you to read this piece with a notebook for brainstorming.

Step 1. Identify Your Inner and Outer Levers

Any system, whether it’s a government, a school, a nonprofit, or a family, can be changed in two ways.

We can change its outer structures: policies, budgets, or technologies. These are the visible levers, and they’re often the first ones we reach for, because they are the easiest to measure and control.

But they also have an inner logic: a set of beliefs, assumptions, and emotional defaults that shape how the system behaves in the first place.

These are the inner levers. They’re harder to see, and harder to shift, but they are often where real transformation begins.

Imagine a tree: you can prune the branches all you want, but if the roots stay the same, the fruit will too. The visible outcomes of a system won’t change unless we nourish a different root system beneath them.

The work of change is both internal and external. Heart and structure. Root and branch. Both matter.

If you are reading with a notebook, make two columns (one for inner levers, one for outer levers) and write down the inner and outer levers you can reach.

What are you thinking about after reading this? Feel free to leave a comment, I’d love to hear.

Step 2. Find Where You Belong

If we want to save the world, one of the first questions we have to ask is: how? what should I do?

The following has been adapted from “How to find Joy in Climate Action” by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

Ikigai is a Japanese word that translates loosely to “a reason for being.”

It lives at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what can sustain you (and you can sustain). When these four align, your work stops being a performance or obligation and starts becoming a source of vitality.

You don’t have to be everything. You don’t have to do everything. You just have to be deeply, fully you.

When each of us becomes rooted in our specific role, the collective becomes more adaptable, more resilient, and more powerful.

Doing what you do best isn’t self-indulgent. It’s a gift to the group.

It frees others to do what they do best. That’s how we build leaderful movements that are robust, diversified, and led by many people.

So, the question becomes not, “how can I do more?” but rather, “what is mine to carry, and how does that help us all move forward?”

If you are reading with a notebook, make 4 intersecting circles: (1) what I love doing, (2) what I am good at, (3) what the world needs, and (4) what can sustain me (and I can sustain). Fill out the Venn diagram. Here is a printable worksheet if you prefer: download.

Step 3. Find Longevity

If Ikigai helps us figure out where we fit, Eudaemonia helps us figure out how to last.

Eudaemonia, in Greek philosophy, is the highest form of human wellbeing. It is not about comfort or pleasure (that’s hedonia). It’s about meaning, virtue, and growth.

And it recognizes something essential: struggle and fulfillment are not mutually exclusive.

You can feel deeply alive while also holding grief. You can be grounded even as you carry uncertainty.

Activism grounded in eudaemonia becomes more than reaction — it is a path of becoming.

It asks us to cultivate our values, for example:

• Courage, to keep showing up even when it’s hard

• Wisdom, to understand the deeper roots of what we’re trying to change

• Justice, to act from integrity and care, rather than performance

• Balance, to pace ourselves for the long haul

Instead of asking, “what am I fighting against?” we begin to ask, “what am I building?”

Instead of, “am I winning?” we ask, “am I growing into the person I want to be?”

If you are reading with a notebook, write down a list of the values you want to cultivate. I recommend between 3-5.

If you want to go above and beyond, perform the following Values Exercise to identify your core values.

Step 4. Cultivate A Both/And Ethic

There’s a painful gap between how we imagine saving the world and what it actually looks like.

In our minds, we’re often heroes—charging into the fray, bold and brave. In real life, we’re just people—doing dishes, writing emails, making calls, questioning ourselves, starting again.

This work is not glamorous. It often won’t feel meaningful in the moment. It won’t always be seen or celebrated.

You may be criticized for doing too much. Or for not doing enough. And often, you’ll feel both: exhausted from how much you’ve already given, and overwhelmed by how much is still left to do.

This is where the both/and ethic comes in:

• You can be doing world-changing work and feel completely ordinary

• You can know your efforts matter deeply— and still know they are not enough.

• There is grief. And there is beauty. In the same breath.

There is no fixing the contradiction. There is only learning to live inside it with grace. That is the Both/And Ethic.

If you are reading with a notebook, write down 1-3 conflicting truths you will need to hold inside you at the same time, in order to save the world.

Step 5. Ready Your Weapons

I have identified 5 weapons that wield impressive world-changing power.

This is not a checklist, but rather, ways of moving or habits of attention and action that support deep transformation.

Move upstream

Don’t just react to symptoms. Ask: What’s making this possible in the first place? What cultural or structural logic lies beneath it?

Align incentives

We shape what we reward. If we measure speed over care, or growth over equity, we’ll reproduce exactly that. Are we creating the conditions for the change we want to see?

Challenge assumptions

Systems rest on invisible beliefs—”that’s just the way things are.” But those are stories, not truths. What is the water you’re swimming in?

Widen the lens

Step back. Everything is connected. What becomes visible when you zoom out and look at the full ecosystem, history, and pattern?

Choose legacy over urgency

Urgency may spark action, but legacy sustains it. Ask: What kind of ancestor does this choice make me?

If you are reading with a notebook: What other weapons do you have?

I always welcome replies. If you want to share a thought, a question, or just say hi, feel free to message me. I write back when I can.

Step 6. Choose Your Objective Wisely

In machine learning, every model is trained to optimize for a specific outcome. This is called the objective function—the thing the system is trying to get better at over time.

Activism has an objective function too, even if we don’t always name it. And the one we choose—implicitly or explicitly—shapes everything that follows.

There are two common orientations:

Minimizing Harm

The goal here is to reduce suffering, stop injustice, prevent further damage.

It’s an important goal. Necessary, even. But when we optimize only for harm reduction, the best-case scenario is zero—a world that is no longer hurting, but also not necessarily thriving.

Each step forward yields diminishing returns, because we’re getting closer to absence: absence of pain, absence of damage. The work becomes about not doing harm.

Maximizing Good

This orientation asks a different question: What kind of world do we want to grow?

Instead of minimizing harm, we choose to maximize beauty, joy, justice, belonging, connection, regeneration.

Here, the best-case scenario is infinite—there’s no limit to how much good the world can hold. Each step forward opens up more possibility. The work becomes about creation, not just prevention.

This is not about choosing one or the other. Harm still matters. But when we root our activism in maximizing good, we shift the center of gravity.

We orient from love, not fear. We act from vision, not just urgency. We see ourselves as co-creators, not just responders.

Because to those we love, we don’t say:

“I tried to shrink myself to hurt you as little as possible.”

We say:

“Look what I made with my love for you—a garden, a meal, a movement, a lifetime.”

Let your activism say the same. 🤍

If you are reading with a notebook, which objective function do you prefer? And how do your Venn diagram & inner/outer levers relate to this objective function?

If you want more of this, I’m here every week!! Please consider sharing and subscribing to join the movement. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Further reading -

Erosion, not Explosion

Not Doing Things Better, But Doing Better Things

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