The pointer on the world economic situation barometer points to bottleneck. Prices and inflation are rising. Gas, construction and spare parts, labour, food - everything is becoming less, many say: there is already too little of it. Shortage, undersupply, emergency?
Suddenly, even those politicians whose narratives usually revolve around the vital necessity of unrestrained growth are openly and publicly talking about renunciation, for years to come. Ouch!
It means:
We have to cut back.
We have to be modest.
We have to prepare ourselves for a loss of prosperity.
We have to save and do without, otherwise everything will no longer work out with each other. Not at all, neither in the back nor in the front. Doing without, that is the current story that is building up in the public conversation.
TOO LAZY TO READ ON? THEN LISTEN TO ME:
In the blogcast, I read this recent blog article to you. With emphasis, of course!
We humans, our societies and every personal or social development always follows a narrative that drives it.
We know this very well from our own area.
All too bitter: when relationships break up, for example, the tale of Prince Charming quickly turns into the morality tale of the clean bastard. You have to get rid of him, don't you?
But also the other way round: about the freshly offered job, for example, which is nothing but fantastic. You have to take it, don't you?
This is also true for the stories of people and brands that have a so-called purpose (or pretend to have one). The famous "Why?" that wants to be found in the "Golden Circle" is nothing more than the impetus for an origin story.
"I have a dream!" said Martin Luther King.
"Rebellions are built on hope!" says Jyn Erso in Star Wars: Rogue One.
With the right narrative, you can inspire people and get them moving. Is "We must make sacrifices" one such narrative? Hmm...
The "Blood, Sweat & Tears" story of the Nobel Prize winner for literature Winston Churchill, who was also known to many as the British Prime Minister, was also successful, wasn't it? - That's right, but it was not a renunciation story, but a - right: Hope story.
So?
What would we be giving up if we gave something up?
Above all, the excess, right?
Too much on your plate and too much food in the trash? With about a third of the world's food being destroyed, we could easily do without a little bit in our part of the world before anyone notices.
Are we consuming too much energy? – Simply by changing our behavior from consumption to use, we could achieve a great deal, long before anyone actually has to restrict themselves. And is one degree less heating in the home really a problem? Really?
The list could go on for quite a long time. Soon the thought creeps in: Hey, we're not doing without, we're liberating ourselves!
What if those who lead our society, those who are the authors of our future, were to tell a whole new story, namely that of liberation from excess? From excess and immoderation? Want to bet it would work? Definitely! Anyone who truly understands the magic of fasting will confirm this.Incidentally, I recently wrote down some thoughts on this topic.
When the narrative in a society goes wrong, it leads to the abyss. Or to the same abyss. You don't believe that? Then open a newspaper or check the news. It says where we are.
The things that are really getting out of hand (keyword: climate) are based on a false story: "More is better". Gordon Gekko put it more succinctly in Wall Street: "Greed is good! - Excess and inadequacy, glossed over with a wasteful drop of hubris. The winner takes it all, the more the better. Everything grows and grows.
When something grows for the sake of growth, I believe it is called cancer.
And when someone can no longer imagine that tomorrow will be better than today, it is called depression.
Do we have both?
We need anew narrativefor ourselves as individuals, businesses, and society. One that allows us to grow—yes, grow beyond ourselves. Beyond our addiction to self-actualization, which drives us up the career ladder until we finally stand on a rung high above and search for the "why" somewhere in the past. Fun fact: if this happens to you, chances are there never was a why. Just a more. So stop searching and look for something better: the "what for?" and the "for whom?" Lift your head and look up, because that's above you, above your self-realization. That's where tomorrow is.
Wouldn't that be a powerful new story for us as people, as teams and as a society? For it to come alive, it will probably take at least a generation, if we start - urgently - already in schools. And with ourselves.
If you want to get up there, I'll be happy to give you a leg up. To that end, my ever-popular PowerHour, my one-on-one mentoring program, is now available to you again.
Because maybe you feel the same way as one of my newsletter subscribers who wrote to me about thelast issue:Thank you for this great newsletter – it hits home... What do you do when the mission of the company you work for no longer fits your own, but you haven't found the right one yet, and you also believe that you can't do anything else because you've been doing the same thing for over 20 years and supposedly haven't learned anything else...?
InPowerHour, we find answers to these questions. Together (in person or online), we discover something even better than your "Golden Circle," namely your "Growth Circle" – as the steering wheel for your new story.
And if you want to tackle it in a really substantial way, then I recommend mybrand-newNew Story Mentoring Programfrom theNew Story Academy. If you like, I can accompany you as a mentor on your journey to yourNew Story. This isavailable now with very few places for advance mentees(first come, first served) and on a larger scale starting in the fall. For you personally, your team, your brand, your company.You can find out more about how your new story can make you strong and how you can find ithere.
It is about a new, a better one, about our inner story, beyond noise, lust & larifari, with which we plug the vacuum inside us, but in fact and truth we turn it up further every day.
In the process, we do not need to go in sackcloth and ashes, to live poor but happy. On the contrary, we will do without nothing except renunciation and be liberated because we will suddenly use things and love people - and not the other way round, as is usually the case in the old story. Right?
What we never, ever do without, however, is the advice of my grandmother, old Story Dudette: "New Story. New Glory."