I wish I was at TED 2013. I followed Bono’s talk on Twitter and the TED blog. Wow Bono, the U2 front man, is passionate about music and world change. He is also co-founder of the ONE campaign, a movement fighting the injustice of extreme poverty.
I’m sure when U2 started Bono never dreamed that his music would give him the platform he has today. It is not only his music that has allowed him to fight poverty. He understood the influence or the platform his music gave him beyond his performance.
Bono asks us all to become “factivists” at TED.I’m in!#ted2013 twitter.com/BillGates/stat…
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) February 26, 2013
Means and End
I am not aware of Bono’s motivations when they started U2. It may have started out as a means to get their music out to entertain people and make a living. As with many things, you never realize the true potential of an endeavor until you actually pursue it.
The potential impact of endeavors gets more obvious when they are pursued
From Bono, we can learn not to make our vocation the end but a means. Dare to make your career more than getting cheese on your table. It is important to provide for your family but you have to live for something more than just fame or your career for the sake of it.
We have more to give to the world than our selfishness
Not having money, skills, time and other resources like Bono, does not excuse you from not contributing your share to world change. To leaving posterity with a great future. Reading this is evidence that you have more than enough to give.
Stop looking at what you don’t have and use what you do have to play your part in changing the world.
You may not grace the stage at TED like Bono and many others, but that is not the point. The point is leaving something for your children’s children’s children that you will be proud to give. A world where poverty is something read from history textbooks. A world where posterity looks back in history in shock and disgust at the levels of corruption in our time because it will be foreign to them.
changing the world is not reserved for few rock stars. everyone of us has a part to play and we can do it passionately and big like rock stars
image by World Economic Forum | cc
Influence
Consider how much influence you have. You may not have a rock star’s platform but there are people you influence. Leverage your influence. Influence is currency and catalyst for world change, but only works when it is traded. Dare to make big asks in making the world a greater place. Do it like a rock star and be unashamed and unapologetic about making the world a greater place.
What else can we learn from Bono and other rock stars to help us make the world a greater place?
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