Climate change and the decimation of our coastlines is not a new narrative. We’ve been hearing about this since before the time of Al Gore – who remarkably stated, “We must protect and preserve our planet for future generations. Once we find the courage to change, we can create a world that our children and grandchildren can safely inhabit.”
Now It’s Time For Change
When that dirty word – change – comes into play, we all tend to shy away from the issue at hand. We don’t like to talk about change and that seems especially true in the moments we need to talk about change the most. In the news recently, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, appointed a new Chief Resilience Officer to begin addressing the state of the world, with preventative action and resiliency measures.
The appointment of this position aligns with a new Resilience program being rolled out with access to almost a billion dollars in funds to support resilience efforts. You might be thinking, I don’t live in Florida (I don’t either!) So why are we talking about this?
One Very Important Reason
Learning and growing in how we think about resilience has the potential to create a more sustainable world for future generations. Of course my line of work puts resilience to the test when it comes to business, leadership and purpose – but there’s so much more to it. The principles I teach for leadership are the same principles we can apply to caring for and creating a better world. And it seems more prevalent than ever before to understand that these principles carry preventative power – not just reactive power.
In Florida, and everywhere it seems, flooding, warming and weather have negatively impacted communities. As have crime, poverty and illness. When we begin to look at these impacts, our approach has been to see clean-up potential after the fact. True resilience is much more aligned with prevention, which is what we’re starting to see with this initiative in Florida.
Change Proof Gospel: We can’t avoid change but we can use it to pivot in ways that create better outcomes.
A Change Proof Mentality
I talk about becoming Change Proof, being able to use change and uncertainty to build a better future or outcome, because it is relevant in every area of our lives, large or small – individual or collective.
Adjusting homes to sea level, rebuilding fire stations and emergency response facilities before destruction is just like meditating before making a decision. We’re taking preventative steps to ensure a better outcome. Pausing and reflecting at each stage of our life – hell, every day for that matter – is just like taking in the environment around us and asking, what can we do to make this better?
The future of humanity rests in a constant balance pulled at every corner by change. How we use this truth will decide how we continue into the future.
