Good Life Project - Bonus Episode: The Art of Revolution: Movement-Driven Business

Episode Date: October 6, 2014

So, I’ve got something different for you today. It’s a bonus episode that features a 90-minute audiobook version of something I published last week called The Art of Revolution.It’s about an idea. Actually, something that started as my own personal geek-fest. I was trying to figure out if you could tap the power of movements and revolutions to build a career or business or body-of-work. What I discovered, well, let’s just say, it surprised even me.What does this have to do with living a good life? Well, potentially, a lot.Because if you can earn your living by surrounding yourself with people who are fiercely committed to building something together, fueled by shared values and aspirations, something astonishing happens. You light up. And contributing to the world in a way that lights you up, that’s a pretty important part of a life well lived.But, enough of the set-up. Here’s the audiobook. The Art of Revolution.As always, you can listen below or, probably a better option for this (since it's 90-minutes) is to head over to iTunes, subscribe and download it to your phone, then take it on the go. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So I've got something different for you today. It's a bonus episode and it features a 90-minute audiobook version of something that I published last week. It's called The Art of Revolution. So it's about an idea. Actually, it's something that started as my own personal geek fest. I was trying to figure out if you could tap the power of movements and revolutions to build a career or a business or a body of work. And what I discovered, well, let's just say it surprised even me. So what does this have to do with living a good life anyway? Well, pretty much everything. Because if you can earn your living by surrounding yourself with people who are fiercely committed to building something together, you know, fueled by shared

values and aspirations, well, something kind of astonishing happens. You start to light up. And contributing to the world in a way that lights you up, well, that's a pretty important part of a life well lived. So enough of the setup here. Here's the audiobook. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk This is an audiobook version of The Art of Revolution, Don't Just Build a Business, Start a Revolution, written by Jonathan Fields. That would also happen to be me. Copyright 2014, all rights reserved. For more information, go ahead and visit revolutionu.biz. That's revolution, the letter U, dot B-I-Z. So what I'm about to share was really never supposed to be public. The crazy backstory. It began as a personal research project exploring

how mass movements and revolutions, evangelist organizations, and charismatic leaders capture the hearts and minds of millions and move them to action. I was on a hunt for patterns to see if there was a way to integrate all these worlds, to create a roadmap that could fuel not only social causes and movements, but launch bodies of work, businesses, products, brands, and careers with the speed and power of a revolution. Because if you could do this, then you could not only launch or grow a venture exponentially faster and with a fraction of the resources, you could massively expand reach and impact globally. That's pretty much the holy grail of launch and growth hacking. I looked at everything from faith to felons, ministers to misfits, icons to infiltrators.

I became obsessed with the way ideas and actions ripple into the collective consciousness, fueling mass numbers of people to action. I mined the language of influence, social dynamics, social technology, evangelism, cultural anthropology, corporate culture, and story architecture, then integrated what I learned with my experience as a lifelong maker and entrepreneur, artist, community builder, and a student of language, influence, and writing. And at a certain point, a new way to fit all of the puzzle pieces together began to emerge, and a coherent, powerful, and robust framework for nonviolent consumer revolution took form. Now, as all this was happening in secret, a friend who was a conference organizer asked me to give a keynote at an event he was running.

It was an invite-only gathering of about 80 of the most accomplished health and medical visionaries, educators, and CEOs on the planet. No cameras, no recording. This was about two days of raw truth and breakthrough ideas. So with a fair amount of reluctance, I offered to talk about what I had been working on. And why reluctance? Well, because this was never supposed to be public. It was for my own edification and application. I'd already put just a few of the elements of the framework into action and seen powerful results. A few months later, I found myself standing in front of those 80 sets of genius eyes, nervous as hell, to be honest. These were people

who could not be snowed. They represented billions of dollars of revenue, revolutionary ideas, and millions of people served on a global scale. As I spoke, heads were down and people were just furiously writing. There was almost no audience engagement, which is pretty much the kiss of death for a speaker. I thought I was bombing, and I wonder if they thought I was just some lunatic with a radical idea. The one thing I did know was that they never heard anything like it. When I finished, the room remained silent and then erupted. After a fast and fierce Q&A, I walked out of the room to clear my head, thinking, what the hell just happened? And I passed a man gesticulating wildly and panting into his phone.

He grabbed me as I passed and shouted into the phone, this is the guy. Yes, he's right here in front of me. And then to me, that was astonishing. I'm on my phone with my business partner. We're rebuilding our entire company around your framework. And I'm thinking, what? But it's not even complete yet. Over the next two days, a parade of similar conversations ensued with physicians, founders, and CEOs. And I've been

writing and speaking for years in front of audiences of all sizes. And in all that time, I have never received anything like the response that one talk generated. Someone in the audience was running a conference in Vegas the next week and asked me to fly down to give the same talk. I did, and this time the audience ranged from activists to artists and corporate titans to educators. Same exact result. I've since shared it a few more times as a keynote, and every time the same thing happens, people won't let me out of the room, which is just a wee bit uncomfortable for this introvert. They want to learn more, they want to go deeper, and they want help. And the big question, the one everyone asks over and over is, what are you doing with this?

Well, my first answer was nothing. It's for me. This was never supposed to be a public thing. End of story. You can't do that, came the replies. I don't think you realize what you've stumbled upon here. And still, I resisted. I mean, seriously, I'd say, there's nothing all that revolutionary about this. Of the core elements in this framework, I didn't create a single one. All I did was see a way

to put them together. Plus, this isn't my thing. I'm building my own venture. I don't have time to make it my thing. And again came the reply, you can't walk away from this. It needs to be shared. To which I would answer, just watch me. But that one line, it really began to haunt me. You can't walk away from this. I kept coming back to it. And so finally I relented and I decided to share it as an experiment with a limited number of people in a private webinar at the end of 2013. I announced the webinar, and 24 hours later, nearly 2,500 people signed up, and I freaked out. We added an overflow webinar the next morning because my webinar system only has 1,000 lines. And in a matter of hours, more and more and more signed up for that.

After the webinars, the reaction was the same. And I started to realize there was something bigger going on here. My whole team felt it. This was never supposed to have been a thing, we said. And yet, here we are. The manifesto that follows is an edited and expanded version of that first webinar. It reveals the full 18-element framework for nonviolent consumer revolution, a methodology that taps the power of revolutions and movement dynamics,

blends them with story architecture, response messaging, and social technology to potentially launch a career, body of work, brand, business, product, or idea exponentially faster and with a fraction of the resources and effort. But I do have one ask. It's free, but it's to be used for good and not evil. Like I said in the beginning, this was not created with the intent of anyone ever seeing it but me. So I was never concerned with how people might use it. With my decision to share it, though,

it's something I now have to consider. In fact, after every keynote where I've shared the framework, I've been asked by audience members, well, what if the wrong people get their hands on this? And my answer is twofold. One, the framework alone is neither good nor evil. It's all about the intent of the people who wield its power. And two, the quotes wrong people from dictators to warlords, cult leaders or institutions that seek to disempower. Well, they've already figured out a lot of it. They use it every day to provide the forces of light, people like you, with a roadmap to build your own path, movement, business venture, or body of work that provides an alternative. One that not only fuels your vision and venture, but inspires, supports, empowers people to connect and come alive.

That creates benevolent engines of belonging and belief. Because the world needs that right now. My inciting incident. Tunisia, December 17, 2010. A 26-year-old fruit merchant walks out into the street and lights himself on fire in protest of the oppression and harassment. This incident incites deep emotion and mass response. Thousands of people take to the streets. Protests begin around the country. Global media takes note and less than a month later,

the Tunisian regime falls. It's a stunning moment on so many levels. But what happens next takes the world by surprise and by storm. Tunisia becomes the Middle East Roger Bannister. Bannister was the first person to break the four-minute mile running. Until he did, it was always assumed that human beings simply could not run that fast. Bannister proved everyone wrong and in doing so made the impossible possible. But here's where it got really interesting. In the years after he ran the first ever sub four minute mile, others did the same because the thing that was stopping them wasn't as much physiological as it was psychological. In a heartbeat, the belief system within the global community of Milers changed. Assumptions about limitations were shattered,

and that inspired massive action. This same thing happened in the wake of the Tunisian uprising. People living under the dark cloud of oppression outside Tunisia said, if it happened there, well, maybe it can happen here. Tunisia became the inciting incident for a revolution of revolutions. Uprisings broke out in an expanding wave of countries, some successful and some not, some still ongoing. Looking back, the world calls this the Arab Spring, a series of mass revolutions that would eventually change profoundly the face and even the geography of the entire countries and millions of people's lives. Watching this unfold, I was filled with emotion, so much pain intertwined with hope and evolution and power and transformation, I became fascinated by the raw power of movements

and revolutions, by their ability to ever vest around a touch point and a message to rally large numbers of people to action and to affect change on a mass scale in a stunningly short period of time. I was mesmerized by the phenomenon and its potential impact on the human condition. But at the same time, the entrepreneur in me, the founder and the maker and the seeker, well, it began to ask a different question, a more narrowly drawn question. Can the core ideals of political revolution be applied in a consumer context so that you both empower large numbers of people and at the same time grow a business, brand, or body of work? Or to put it another way, can you swap political defiance for consumer defiance? Or would doing this so bastardize the process of what movements and revolutions are about that it just wouldn't work?

Why do you care? On one level, this started as a personal project and a deep interest. But it became pretty clear that if you could tap the power of movements and revolutions to launch or grow a venture, the benefits could be game-changing. You'd gain the power to leverage a virtual army of consumers and leaders and evangelists working for the cause, a shared sense of ownership in the outcome that fuels massive sustained action, the ability to scale reach and income and impact at a fraction of the cost, the ability to scale reach, income income and impact exponentially faster, and a highly motivated community working to do amazing things. Most important, you get to build something that empowers mass numbers of people to join together to make something extraordinary happen and create

their own new realities, to build not just a business, but an auto-expanding engine of growth and impact. The Secret Strategist It turns out, when you want to find out about non-violent revolution theory and dynamics, all roads point to one 86-year-old University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor emeritus of political science named Gene Sharp. Sharp spent his entire professional life studying the dynamics of nonviolent political revolution. About 30 years ago, he distilled his ideas into a process and released them to the world in a book called From Dictatorship to Democracy. In that mini-treatise, he laid out the critical elements and dynamics of nonviolent political revolution. And he shared why nonviolent revolution

very often is far more effective than any type of violent revolution. He also shared 198 forms of nonviolent resistance, incredibly powerful. Nearly every revolution in the last 30 years has used From Dictatorship to Democracy as a guidebook. Powerful information, but still the huge question lingered. Can Sharp's work be adapted to support a nonviolent consumer revolution? Can it rally people to help launch an album, an event, a brand, a product, or an entire company, and then fuel rapid growth, sales, expansion, and impact? The answer is yes, but it needs to be both adapted and complemented by other fields of knowledge for a few reasons, really. I mean, one, Sharpe's methodology is more about disintegrating the current regime than detailing how and what to build in its place. And this makes sense in the political realm. Each culture and dynamic is so radically different,

it's exceedingly difficult to provide universal guidance for durable democracy that applies across all cultures and geographies. In fact, one of the lessons from revolutions, and we see it in the Arab Spring, is that building a better future is often far harder process than tearing down an oppressive current reality. On the business entrepreneurial and commercial side, even when it's cause-driven, we have a fairly strong set of processes that guide us in building what we want to create or moving large numbers of people to a better experience that already exists. Sharp ideas really don't speak a huge amount to this. Two, the emergence of social technology as an organizing tool and action catalyst, a message accelerant is a game changer for both political revolution and business and artistic revolution.

But only if you deeply understand its capabilities, limitations, and ethos, and tap it in a way that allows you to ride the wave rather than get pummeled by it. Three, messaging and story architecture is a critical piece of the puzzle. In political revolution, it tends to emerge more organically. The story and the rally cry are fairly self-evident. In a commercial context, though, it can be equally powerful, but often requires more effort to craft deliberately. There's an assumption of pure motivation on the political stage, but in the world of business art performance or for-purpose ventures, the why becomes much more suspect since the end goal eventually will involve money changing hands. So you need to be far more deliberate in

how you tell the story to ensure that you're not perceived as being in any way opportunistic or predatory. And four, most obviously, Sharpe's methodology, it's about regime change. It wasn't about commercial endeavors. The truth is, I wondered whether that single difference would make all the tenets of revolutions and movements unavailable or ineffective. Turns out, the answer is no. Sharpe's ideas can not only be applied in this new realm that can be massively effective, but you need to adapt and expand upon them. You need to bring them to life differently. A new framework for consumer revolution emerges. Building on this foundation, I began to utterly geek out on that oddball who latches onto channels of interest and explores them fiercely.

Over the last two decades, these areas of exploration have included entrepreneurship, influence in the psychology of language and behavior change, story architecture, response marketing, social dynamics and technology, and evangelist growth mechanics. I know, like I said, total dork, but I'm somewhat obsessed with why people do what they do. And I began to bring my experience in these worlds into the quest to develop a robust framework for nonviolent consumer revolution. And over time, patterns began to emerge. Data points from worlds I never thought would collide began to form this powerful mosaic, and a new methodology was born. In the beginning, it was entirely for me to apply to my own ventures. But once I showed

it to people, the response was, this is larger than you, man. It can not only help a lot of people, it can help a lot of causes and foundations, artists and makers and other for-purpose ventures. Put another way, it needs to be shared. The framework is still a work in progress. My guess is this will always be true. I will constantly be researching, testing, and refining, but even its current state, there's power in the application of even select elements of it. In the pages that follow, you'll learn the 18 elements. You don't necessarily have to apply every single one in place to get tremendous benefit. The more you integrate, the more powerful the potential compounding effect, and the more likely you'll be to experience the potential for profound outcomes.

Element number one, revolution avatar. Who is your revolution serving? To tap the power of revolutions, you first need to define what I call your revolutionary avatar or your RA. Who is that person who is going to join the revolution, become an advocate, a participant, a consumer, a listener, viewer, or co-creator, a deeply committed member, and potentially even become a leader that helps grow this venture far beyond you. This is a step that almost everybody skips because it's hard work. Skipping it though is a near death knell to your ability to succeed. Because you cannot effectively serve, speak to, or rally someone if you don't understand who they are, what they care about, what's wrong, what they fear, and where they'd love to go.

Defining your RA allows you to better understand what people need and how to give it to them or create it for them. It also lets you speak to that person in a powerful, direct, relevant way. Like you're in their head. You already know what they need and want. And it does one other thing. It helps ensure you're truly connected to your RA. You care about them, very often because they are you. When you have that, people will feel your authenticity and your ability to truly connect and serve goes up exponentially. So who is this person you seek to serve and rally to join with others

to solve a bigger problem? Where does she live? What's her mindset? What does she think about? What's her life like? What are her needs or aspirations, hopes or desires? This takes serious work to be able to do it effectively. But if you don't do this work, almost everybody else and almost everything else that you try and do will fail. Without a well-defined RA as your starting point, your ability to serve, message, and rally the right person at the right time in the right way will be left largely to luck. Defining your RA applies in fields that might not also be apparent. This applies whether you're an artist or an entrepreneur. What might happen if you went beyond just creating in a vacuum and hoping someone will like what

you've made? What if you really took the time to understand what drives the people you most seek to connect with, touch, inspire, or uplift. Who will join your army of listeners? What are their lives like? What makes them who they are? What draws them to you and what you create? What will draw them to each other? Are they freaks, white-shoed toe-tappers, metalheads, hipsters? What are their lives like?

Understanding these things is the difference between putting on a show and building a connected, mission-driven community. The latter, that's where the true power lies. An interesting non-traditional case study is Rick Warren, the founder of Saddleback Church. Warren dropped into the middle of nowhere in Southern California and said, I'm going to start a church. Rather than just showing up and hanging out and building what he wanted, he spent the first few years out in the community interviewing people on a quest to understand the lens the locals brought to faith. He asked about their lives, what they needed, their views on God, church, and commitment. He asked what was working for them and what wasn't, and this allowed him to better get

how to create a community and culture around faith that opened huge numbers of people to the gospel who'd been turned off for years. Now, Warren is a polarizing person with very strong beliefs, and that may resonate or repel you. And we'll talk about beliefs later. I'm not asking you to accept his views. I bring him up here purely as an extraordinary example of somebody who has built a massive mission-driven community by first understanding the needs of the people he sought to serve. It's a fascinating example also because unlike entrepreneurs or brands who have the ability to create or modify the core offering from the ground up around the needs of their market, his core product, the teachings, weren't something he felt he could

just adapt to make people happy. It was sacred. Many artists, performers, and makers feel the same about their art. What he knew though was that the bigger experience, the culture you create around the core offering plays a critical role in the way that people interact with what you put into the world. And that's where there is immense room to play. Number two, identify your shared pain. The second element is identifying a shared oppression or pain. You have to underscore and understand what people are living with. How is it keeping them from joy, belonging, awe, vitality, ease? What's the pain or unease or disease they would love to be free from? What's the driving emotion behind it? Beyond the feeling that I'm stuck, I'm in pain, I'm isolated, I don't have what I want, I'm not fully expressed, whatever it may be.

It's the emotion behind that. More important, what's that pain keeping you from doing? Is this thing felt or latent? Because if it's felt, then you can speak to it fairly easily. But a lot of people are living with some oppression or pain, and it's not on the surface. They just bury it. They don't want to own it. Because if they own it and they don't do anything about it, it creates even more suffering.

So they basically say, I don't feel this. You've got to understand whether it's actually felt or latent. Because you respond to that differently. You need to understand the pain for a number of reasons. One, it allows you to solve it more effectively if in fact you're capable. Two, it allows you to build messaging that speaks directly to it. And three, it allows you to understand whether it is unique pain or a shared pain. Unique pain, well that's something that's relevant only to that individual or a small number of folks just like them. Unique pain, well, that's something that's relevant only to that individual or small

number of folks just like them. Unique pain does not lead to widespread harmonized action. So it's not a great basis for a revolutionary or a movement approach to career, brand, or venture building. Shared pain, however, is something that exists across larger numbers of people. This is the type of unease that can serve as a powerful engine for connection. Shared pain binds people together. It also fuels action. It's far more difficult to sustain action when you're alone in what you're feeling than it is when you are part of a larger group acting in concert. By the way, one of the greatest societal pains

right now, both latent and felt, is loneliness. People can't find their people. Very often, the simple act of creating a vehicle to bring like-minded people together removes that pain. Add in the shared quest to do something deeply meaningful, and you get a double shot of belonging and purpose that transforms pain into power. A fascinating example of this is the fitness industry in the United States. I founded, grown, and sold a couple of ventures in this space, so I know the industry well. For more than 30 years, 80 to 85% of U.S. adults will not join or stay members of health clubs. At the same time, more than 90% say they must be

exercising every day to live the life they want to live. There's this massive disconnect. People are in incredible pain. Obesity, disease, inflammation, chronic pain, anxiety, and depression are rampant. Exercise is potent medicine for all. People know this and want to exercise, but the solutions that are being provided on a mass level by the industry, they're often a blend of terrifying, boring, alienating, ineffective, inconvenient, or all of the above. It's just layering pain on top of pain on top of pain. Then you add in the guilt because folks know and want to exercise, but every time they try,

they're terrified and rejected by the solutions available. Now, CrossFit is an interesting case study. They see this pain, and they're not wedded to the traditional model. So they basically create a solution that is the exact opposite of the industry. And along the way, they create a revolution in the way that fitness is experienced. Instead of boring, it's engaging, novel, and exhilarating. Instead of alienating, you're an instant member of a mission-driven community that will support you until the end. Members become diehard evangelists not just for each other but for the bigger brand. Whether you agree with their fitness modality or not, the way they've tapped a series of long-standing and pervasive pains is a stunning example of what can be done when you understand and respond to shared

pain. But what if your business is about expression and delight and not pain? What about people like artists, musicians, professionals, and makers who see themselves as largely operating on the side of delight? Well, we'll speak more about the delight side of the spectrum when we talk about where we're taking people in a later element. For now, a simple answer. There is always pain hiding in the shadow of delight. All emotions are rooted in contrast. Without the darkness, you cannot know the light. So you create moments of awe and transcendence, which simultaneously remove moments of complacency and futility. You create moments of connection and expression,

which alleviate the pain of isolation, lack of belonging, and an inability to be with people who accept you as you are. You create beats, canvases, verses, events that move people and in doing so lift them from the pain of a flatlined life. It is the existence of pain that allows you and them to know when you are no longer in it. So when musician Amanda Palmer leverages Kickstarter to raise over a million dollars for an album, she's not just crowdfunding an album. She's tapping Revolution Dynamics to do something much bigger.

She's creating a vehicle that lifts people out of the pain of isolation and running the pain of having to go through gatekeepers to hear and see great art and rallying the pain of having to go through gatekeepers to hear and see great art, and rallying the energy of the collective to resolve the pain of a pervasive lack of purpose and give them a mission to play a role in. Final thought on this element. People often struggle with the idea of leveraging some pre-existing pain as a motivator for action to remove it. What you've got to understand is that you did not create the pain. You're simply asking people to own their current realities as a tool to inspire a better one. Pretending pain doesn't exist and refusing to explore it denies

those you most seek to serve, inspire, and connect with, a strong motivator for action and elevation. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Now we need to identify our dictator. And if you don't love the term, well, we can just swap swap source of pain or common energy because that's what's coming up next. Element number three, who is your dictator? This may be the single most contentious element of the framework. Most people don't like the thought of calling out someone else as bad. So I'm often asked, do I have to name a person and will I have to take that person down? The short answer is it depends and no.

You do have to identify a dictator because it serves as an incredibly effective way to better understand how to get people out of pain and rally them to your cause. But you don't necessarily have to publicly name it or any individual, and you don't have to destroy it in order to succeed. So here's what I mean. In politics, very often the dictator is a person and or a regime. Generally, they must be both identified and named. But in the business or for-purpose venture world, very often it's not an individual. Very often the dictator is a company or institution, an entire paradigm or industry, a defining trait or set of traits, a societal norm, or even an internal saboteur. Actually, one of the most effective ways to harness the power of revolution without ever naming a person or a company as your dictator is to identify its defining traits. The traits that really define a person, company, or product that are causing harm,

and then call those traits out as the dictator. So here's an interesting sort of popular TV example. There's an infomercial that's been running for a line of hair care products. At a certain moment, the founder turns to the camera and says something like, if it foams, it strips. He's taken a defining trait of every single competitive product and named it as the dictator. And every time somebody lathers up, they'll be thinking bad things about their shampoo. What's really fascinating about this example too is that shampoo does not naturally foam. It foams because companies add a foaming agent to make people feel like something's happening when they shampoo. So the psychology is stunning here. He's

taken an element that's universal for all his competitors that doesn't exist naturally that was added in to convince people the product is working and then named it as the dictator and said it's doing something terrible. Another classic example is Apple's legendary 1983 television commercial, the one that launched the Macintosh. It shows this woman running down an aisle of drone like workers throwing a hammer to shatter a massive screen with what displayed as a dictatorial figure. No company was ever named, but everybody at the time knew it was IBM and the pain or oppression was conformity. Once you identify the dictator, you need to understand what is propping it up.

We call this the pillars of power, and that's how Sharpe described it in the political realm as well. And then you need to create an alternative that is so much more compelling that those pillars move to support you. In this way, you don't have to topple or destroy a dictator. You just give its pillars of power something better to support and watch them move from the dictator to you. Even if the dictator remains, it's left powerless and eventually either disintegrates on its own or becomes compelled to change its behavior and potentially even join forces with you. In political revolutions, these pillars are most often the population, police, military, industrial complexes, and allies.

In our context, though, they're most often some blend of customers, clients, patients, and then suppliers, vendors, distribution channels, trade organizations, and more. But the big one, the one you really need to remember for our purposes, is customers. Moving on to element number four, who is your leader? We start with a really fascinating question here. In this day and age, with digital adoption and mass proliferation of messaging, do you even need a leader? And the answer is maybe yes, maybe no, but for the most part, yeah, you still do. If you're looking to do something very short term and not asking people to

do a whole lot, you may not need that one person to organize and run things behind the scenes because it happens so fast. And social technology can cause a big burst of energy that leads to a single action. But if you're looking to create something more sustained where there are more than a few basic behaviors that you're looking for people to take, well, you need somebody behind the scenes running the show. One of the questions that emerges from this is, well, does it have to be me or should it be me? And what if you're introverted or you just don't have the need to be front and center, you don't want to be? Do you have to be the person who's out there on the stump leading and rallying in a very public way? The answer, interestingly enough, is yes and no again. You do need to have

or be a leader, but the leader can also be behind the scenes organizing and orchestrating. In fact, very often in political revolutions, the leader is actually hidden for safety reasons. We generally don't have that concern in a consumer context, but even if the leader is obscure, there is always a leader. So then the logical question becomes, well, what are the traits that you should look for in a leader or cultivate in yourself if you want to be that person? It's pretty basic. You can probably guess a lot of these. Humility. You don't want a big, ego-driven, arrogant person because they won't connect with people. Vulnerability. Someone who owns their humanity. Someone who's one of us. Sharing a common

pain and path cultivates believability. Trustworthiness. People need to believe what you say and a genuine desire to serve. Lead by a true desire to serve, not a fabricated desire to benefit. So think about that if you want to step into the leadership role. And if not, is there someone close to you who would be a better person to play that role? Element number five, create an inciting incident. Every great story, every great revolution, every great movement generally starts with an inciting incident. Every great story, every great revolution, every great movement generally starts with an inciting incident, an incendiary device that kickstarts all the action. Sometimes it's naturally occurring. Sometimes there's some geological thing that triggers mass action. Sometimes it's political. Sometimes it just happens. More and more, and especially in a commercial context, it can be engineered, meaning you

actually create the moment that stops people in their tracks, introduces them to a new possibility, and inspires that action needed to travel down this new path. So when Apple would launch a new device that was destined to start a revolution, they would create a big dramatic event. Most recently, this has taken the form of giant gatherings that are live blogged to millions in real time. Increasingly, documentary film and online video are being used to create multi-sensory experiences that serve as inciting incidents. So when James Calhoun sought to launch a revolution to change the way people look at

the food they put in their body. He created a documentary called Food Matters, and that would serve as an inciting incident. He launched it online, and it absolutely exploded. There was no theatrical release, but it rallied millions of people to watch, share, and then change the behavior and tell others to join. Rallies, festivals, conferences, tours, and pretty much any other kind of launch can serve this same purpose for those who seek to inspire and connect with. And one clarification too, the inciting incident that we're talking about here is, with rare exception, different than the inciting incident in your own personal journey. In the example above, the thing that led James to start the food manners revolution was very personal. His father was getting sicker and sicker and he turned to nutrition as a way to help him get well.

His father's illness was the inciting incident that led to his own awakening, and that in turn led James to create a similar experience of awakening on a more mass scale through an eye-opening, provocative media experience. The Food Matters documentary, in fact, served a dual purpose as an inciting incident in the form of a manifesto, which we'll talk about in more detail very shortly. Element number six, identify your away from rally cry. So we're now moving from the foundation elements into the key messaging elements, starting with identifying your rally cry. So what are you rallying against? What is the source of pain? What do you want people to move away from? You need to identify this and also link it back to the dictator as a source. And remember, in our universe, that dictator very often is not a person or even an entity.

It could be a paradigm or a trait. You may also have to do one other thing. If the pain is felt, then it's going to be on the surface and can serve as an effective rally cry. Your community knows what's not working so they can see what they want to move away from. It's easier to say we don't want X when they already feel X. But if it's latent, meaning people are in a lot of pain, but they're not owning it, then part of your job in crafting the rally cry becomes understanding how to bring that to the surface. What conversations, experiences, or proof can you create that will allow people to step into

their reality enough to want to change what's not working. You then harness this desire to create a shared rally cry that both expresses what must end and unites people in making it happen. This is a really important thing, though. You can't stop there. A lot of people stop there. They're all about tearing down, laying blame, and complaining about what's not right. That's a piece of your RA's reality, but you do them and you a deep disservice if you leave the conversation there. Because the power of the rally cry is that it leads people not only away from

pain, but toward something better. You need to be a part of that solution. So let's keep building. Element number seven, identify unifying beliefs. Building on the rally cry, we now add in unifying beliefs. These are beliefs that bind us together, where you stand up and say, this is what I believe, this is what my heart says is true, this is the core set of values that I'm going to bring to this revolution, this venture, this endeavor, this movement. You need clarity around it, and strength, and specificity. Then you share these values in the form of a creed. Now, your creed is your statement of strong beliefs. It can be text, video, audio, art, any other medium.

It can be a page long that the Good Life Project live in creed, or it can be a single sentence like all beings are created equal regardless of race, sex, ability, or anything else. As long as it is clear, specific, and easy for anyone to get. Now, you may believe that an interpretive dance piece beautifully expresses your beliefs with absolute clarity, but if nobody else instantly gets it, then that form of expression is not adequate. Make it an automatic process. Creating your creed becomes a massively important tool. From a messaging standpoint, it gives you a strong statement for people to say hell yes or hell no to. You want people to say one or the other. Revolutions polarize.

Strong ideas, businesses, ventures, and movements all provoke strong reactions, and that's a good thing. If people don't feel strongly, they won't act strongly. Nor will they share or become members of your community. From a team building standpoint, your creed also serves a key role later in the process. When you're assembling a team to help you grow your venture, it becomes a strong decision making tool to see who's in and who's out. And it's okay for people to be out. It's okay for people to not belong and people to not actually have that same set of shared beliefs. But the people who are in, you want them to all

be on the same page about what's fueling them. Zappos is a powerful example of a mission-driven brand built upon a set of beliefs that they call the Zappos family core values, and it is a deliberate set of openly expressed values and beliefs. Ostensibly a shoe company, Zappos is really something much bigger. They're a billion-dollar venture built upon the dual quest to create the best culture in the world and the best customer service in the world. Everything revolves around the core values and beliefs. In fact, after an initial window at the company, employees are offered thousands of dollars to leave. This is a test. If you truly buy into the core beliefs and mission, you'll laugh at the money.

But if you don't, you'll take it and run. And everyone is better because of that. Element number eight, define your toward vision. Building on the rally cry and unifying beliefs, we add the messaging element of the toward vision or solution. In other words, what are you moving people toward? Simply put, what are you building that will help people and rally them to join with you to make it happen? What will be so compelling that it will inspire the dictator's pillars of power, most often consumers, to move from it to you and what you're building?

You need to create a clear vision for that new reality. And here's an important point. It cannot be small, especially if you're asking people to not only buy your stuff, but make that stuff a reality. It's near impossible to harness people to become not just buyers, but fellow revolutionaries, evangelists, and future leaders if you're thinking small. The reason is simple. People don't rally to make small things happen. What they rally behind is, oh wow, this is big. This is going to make a huge difference in my life and the lives of so many other people. I want to get behind this and I'll sacrifice. I'll work. I'll go out there and spread

the word and evangelize because I believe so deeply and the impact is so potentially big and profound. You need to paint a clear picture of that great shared outcome. Engage every sense. Make it real, and if possible, make it present tense, as if we've already arrived. We saw Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. do this incredibly powerfully in his famed, I Have a Dream speech. When he kept moving people to that future state, this is the mega dream. This is where we're going. I have been there. Now we're all going there together. And here's the critical point. This is where you integrate your product, service, brand, art creation, experience, or venture. Because very often, that toward things you're moving people toward, the better reality is either participation in

your service, experience, product, business, or brand, or it's the opportunity to join together, to rise up and help you create or grow what everybody needs. Even if you can't yet define the precise solution, you must be able to define the key qualities of it. And by the way, a great way to get to those qualities is to look at the defining traits of the dictator, and list the exact opposite of them. But, and here's the big but here, you must never force your product, service, experience, brand, solution, or company into the role of being the toward. It must be A, an organic fit, B, genuinely moving people out of their shared pain, and C, it's got to be directly relevant to the community, the revolutionary avatar you're looking to serve. Too many times I've seen great marketers or copywriters see gaping needs, craft tremendous

marketing funnels and irresistible copy and offers, but then try to slide in a product that really doesn't fill the need. This never works. Even if you can sell it, the returns and blowback will be brutal. And in the context that we're talking about, leveraging revolution and movement dynamics to build a venture, you may well be viewed as predatory or opportunistic. That is a label you do not want. More important, it's a behavior you do not want to participate in. If you can serve, solve, and rally in an organic, deeply aligned, and authentic way, do it. If not, just walk away. So a few interesting examples. Over the last seven years, acclaimed blogger, New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur Chris Guillebeau built a massive online army of mission-driven creators, instigators and makers united around shared pain,

beliefs, and aspirations. He identified who they were. He identified the pain, which was conformity, stifled expression, and isolation, and then rallied his tribe to co-create a powerful toward vision called World Domination Summit, or WDS. WDS is now a 3,000-person conference slash festival that consumes Portland for three days every July. The name is actually a play on words. What he's really creating here is what I call Woodstock for World Changers. So for three glorious days, 3,000 people who feel alone and different come together and realize, wow, there are 2,999 people just like me. I'm not alone. This desire to make meaning and connect with fellow nonconformists sells WDS out in a matter of hours every year. Let's circle back to musician and performing artist Amanda

Palmer. She didn't just create and sell music. She brought together thousands and kick-started a revolution. When she leveraged Kickstarter to bring an album to market, it wasn't just about raising money to launch an album. It was about joining together around shared interests, beliefs, shared values, pains, and desires to be a part of something. It was about raging against the traditional music industrial machine and showing them you don't control us anymore. It was about building an engine for deep connection, personal expression, and respect. It was about creating something bigger, integrating music, art, and belonging. This dynamic led more than 25,000 backers to contribute over $1 million to make Palmer's Tourd a reality. One final note about developing your tourd, and it links back to the dictator.

The end goal of your tourd should not be tied to having to eliminate the dictator. Identifying and naming a dictator can serve as a powerful rally point, but your core mission, what you're really in this for, is to create something great for those you serve. Whether the dictator falls along the way or remains as a disempowered shell once its pillars of power move to you, it doesn't really matter. In fact, sometimes a wounded dictator can awaken to your cause and become an ally. This can be a win-win if you're open to it and a source of power through reconciliation and multiplied resources. Element number nine, building your resonant story. If you want to rally people to some kind of cause, whether it's non-commercial or commercial,

building a powerful shared story is a must. You need to ask, what is my personal story or the brand story? And what is the story that we want to build the revolutionary movement around? What is my RA's story? And how do they tie into each other? The archetype that tends to be most effective and most real is the classic hero's journey described by Joseph Campbell. You start out in pain, though you may not even know you're in it yet. There's an inciting incident. Still, you're reluctant. Eventually, you cross the threshold as the journey gets rolling. You face tests, gain allies, meet mentors, face an ordeal or two or

three or four, find the elixir and salvation, and then you become resurrected and return home to share what you've learned and now play the role of mentor to others. In sharing that story, you're simultaneously telling the story of every other person who you would like to move into your movement or revolution. And as you tell that story, they transfer into it. The story becomes what David Gordon called a therapeutic metaphor. This creates an incredibly powerful state of deep connection and resonance. And of course, whatever story you tell, it must be based in truth. You never make stuff up.

You just learn how to tell the story in a way that's most compelling. Once you've returned from your own hero's journey, you're now in a position to play the role of the mentor in your RA's journey. And this is where you share your story, then tap all of the earlier steps to create a unified, powerful message that moves people to action. And you put it all together in the next element. A well-told story illuminates the human condition and makes a beeline to the soul.

Element number 10, crafting your manifesto. So it's time to integrate all the prior elements into a single work, the manifesto. We know who we're creating the revolution for. That's our revolutionary avatar or our RA. We know what's ailing them, what the source of that pain is that's keeping them in a position of power. We've stepped into the role of leader, seen the importance of defining or piggybacking on a powerful and exciting incident. And now in the

manifesto, we tie the pain and source together in a rally cry, establish a set of unifying beliefs, and craft them into a creed. We paint a clear picture of a better reality that we've either already created for our RA or will create with their help. And we link our product, service, book, brand, business, work of art, or venture to that solution. We map our own hero's journey and share it in a way that allows our RA to transfer into it. And now we bring these all together with one powerful message in one place. Then we add a call to action. We pace our RA's current state and then offer glimpses of a future that could be we have a dream and call

people to rise up to come together, to work as one, to make it happen, and to do it now. This is the power of the manifesto. A well-crafted manifesto catches fire. A poorly crafted one or one with missing elements, well, it just falls completely flat. So how to weave all of these moving pieces together in the manifesto with the right tone and the right order is something that's taken years and a lot of failed attempts to figure out. Admittedly, it's part art and part science. And for me, even though I've written a number of my own manifestos, one launched a book and another launched a business,

and consulted on many others, a truly robust roadmap didn't fall into place until earlier this year. I literally woke up with what I now call the manifesto code channeling through my head. We teach this actually in our Revolution U training. It's pretty extensive, so we don't have time to go deeply into it here, but it really is a combination of all the elements that we laid out together. A few other key points about the manifesto. It does not actually have to be written. It's going to be different for different people.

So depending on both who your revolutionary avatar is and what medium you feel most comfortable with, it can be print, digital, video, it can be audio, it can be pretty much anything. Whatever is going to be most effective for you and for the people whose minds and hearts and souls you're trying to inspire. Over the past few years, I've seen a rising interest in the use of documentaries as manifestos. With production costs plummeting and the world adopting online video at a stunning pace, this makes a lot of sense, actually. The Food Matters documentary is a perfect example. It had every one of the above noted elements powerfully bundled into a multi-sensory experience

capped by a call to action. It was viewed over a million times in a short window and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to raise their hands and say this must change. It also led thousands of people to join together and quote fund the revolution, purchasing DVDs and books in support of the mission and generating not only a global community, but a highly successful business venture along the way. My first book, Career Renegade, invited people to build a career or business around meaning, purpose, and joy. But it came out in January 2009 during the single worst week in the history of the economy since the Great Depression. I was trying to figure out how to change the story and rally people to understand that something bigger and longer term was happening. Immense possibility in the shadow of unexpected disruption. The chance to do the thing you really wanted to do and not be judged because the thing you were doing simply didn't exist anymore.

And I also wanted to condition the market to be more receptive to rallying behind the book when it came out. So two months before publication, I wrote the Firefly Manifesto to offer this bigger reframe and call people to action. The manifesto took off online, moved thousands of people to action, and profoundly changed what we were able to do with the book launch, pre-selling a large number of copies and convincing the publisher to up the opening print run by 50%. So what about large businesses or brands? Will this still work? Well, if they're genuinely mission-driven and building around the framework, then yes.

We've seen how Zappos leveraged its values and beliefs to build a giant business that's revolutionized corporate culture and customer service. Zappos built on this with a manifesto in the form of CEO Tony Hsieh's blockbuster book, Delivering Happiness. The ideas in this book form manifesto so strongly resonated, the book launched an entirely new venture, a delivering happiness culture training company that seeks to teach how to build cultures of joy, happiness. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe,

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. And yes, profitability. So now it's time to move into the final elements

and shift from messaging and execution into action or from words to deeds. Before we move into the 11th element, just a quick note though. You've probably discovered by now that there's a ton of information you'll want to review, take notes on, and work on. Listening to the audio is a great primer, but to be able to really take action on what you're learning, be sure to download the actual print manifesto so you can read it, maybe even print it out and mark it up with your ideas. You can find it at revolutionu.biz slash manifesto if you haven't already done that. Great, now let's get back to the framework. Element number 11, defining the path. This is where we really get into nuts and bolts.

How do we take all the foundation messaging and turn it into a viable venture? Well, step one is to define the actions you want your RA to take. What are the steps, the path, from the very first action to the very last? This will no doubt change over time, but the more work you do around this in advance, the better guidance you'll be able to give and the easier it'll be to adapt the path as needed. Start by asking, what are the behaviors we want people to take to allow them to become empowered and then to empower the community and then allow that community to empower an expanding wave of people beyond them. So we start with the outcome that we're looking to create, the toward, and we reverse engineer the steps that we need to

get there. One of the biggest decisions that you have to make up front is whether your endeavor is going to be transactional or sustained. That determination will have a massive impact on the path that you choose to create, the channels you choose to bring your venture to life, and the behaviors you seek to inspire. So let's define these two terms, transactional and sustained. A transactional revolution generally requires only a short one-time or a limited number of fairly simple actions over a short window of time. You can build a transactional revolution to launch a book, a show, a product concept, album, or company, or an event. Instead of rallying people to build

or connect over time, you just want to harness the energy of the framework to inspire purchase and word of mouth over a short window. It works stunningly well if it's the right project and if it's the right ethic and intention. A sustained revolution requires a series of more involved action over a longer period of time and often builds a stronger, larger, and more connected tribe along the way. Transactional revolution paths. As a general rule, transactional revolutions are about a single and immediate outcome, and the behaviors are limited to three things. One, consume. Engage with the media messaging and potentially the conversation. Two, evangelize. Share how all the above has moved you in a real way.

And three, transact. Take action to get what's being promised. I've been seeing a number of people tap crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to launch transactional revolutions lately. A fascinating example of this is Jake Bronstein and his apparel company, Flint & Tinder. So Jake wanted to revolutionize and reinvigorate the American cut and sew industry, but nobody really cared. People don't get all that excited about reinvigorating the American cut and sew industry.

Jake realized, however, that people would potentially rally around something far more personal. So he launched a Kickstarter campaign. Now on the face of it, he was looking to raise money to create a $90 hoodie that he guaranteed would last for 10 years. His funding threshold, or the amount of money he was asking for, was $50,000. 30 days later, he had rallied more than 9,000 people to pledge over $1 million. How? Because he understood the power of this platform to launch a transactional revolution. Instead of just trying to sell a hoodie, he laid out a powerful argument.

It's not the hoodie that you're buying. We exist in a world where you've got multi-billion dollar apparel companies who are designing and creating apparel based on planned obsolescence. They use things like coarse thread and delicate fabric, he said, because they know that six months after you buy it, it's going to fall apart and you'll be forced to buy something else. That's not cool, he said. That's not fair. It's causing pain. That's taking money out of our pockets. It's disgusting. So we need to rise up and show them that we're not going to take it anymore. So people weren't just buying a hoodie for $90. They were raising their hands and saying, we've got to teach that dictator in the form

of a predatory apparel industry a lesson. The revolution messaging was so powerful that Jake raised more than 20 times the amount of money he set out to. And if you don't believe this was actually a revolution and not just a sale or transaction, well, here's an example of a tweet I got when I shared this campaign on Twitter. In quotes, it says, at Jonathan Fields, thanks so much for sharing. Just backed it. I'm so sick of clothing that falls apart. Hashtag, we deserve better. I can almost see this person's fist raised in the air as they're hitting the funding button on Kickstarter. The energy you can create

in a short intense burst when you understand how to harness the psychology of the framework is stunning. Sustained revolution paths. Sustained revolutions are about inspiring people to act over a longer, sometimes indefinite period of time. In general, they require more energy, focus, sacrifice, investment of time, money, love, and resources. The actions we want people to take are often more involved, and the outcomes often take longer to experience. So in traditional business, this is a brutal task. Most humans just aren't wired to invest effort in the name of long-term gain, especially when they're acting alone. But here's the amazing thing. Sustained revolution dynamics are the great equalizer. They bring people together to create hyper-connected engines of belonging and action

that support the ability of each individual to accomplish what would be near impossible alone. This is why the average big box health club that's built on the repetition, isolation, and distraction model has a 40% annual dropout rate, abysmal long-term participation rates and outcomes, while newer revolution dynamics driven players like CrossFit and SoulCycle experience the exact opposite. So what is the secret sauce in sustained revolution driven ventures? It's what we call the path. We create a simple, friction minimized path that allows people to move from being outsiders to becoming increasingly committed, then devoted, then potentially even leaders and evangelists. Here's one example. Somebody stumbles upon you and your

venture. She starts out consuming and that's all it is. Maybe it's just your content if you're a blogger. Maybe it's an idea or maybe it's a keynote. Maybe they buy the smallest possible thing they could buy or they don't even buy it. They just get something free. They consume it and they think, oh, this is interesting. Now they're a regular consumer and a dabbling buyer. Then they start to connect with your message more deeply and they participate a little bit more in the conversation, the community. And then they start to move from there to starting to contribute.

They build friendships around a sense of shared values and aspirations. And then we move from there to becoming more committed, maybe participating in helping to grow the venture or working in small groups. And then from there, taking that last step to potentially even become a leader. At every step along the way, they're also given the opportunities and mechanisms to reach back out to individuals who are at the very outsider level and say, hey, there's more. There's more power here. There's more work that we can do together. We can create something immense, amazing things together. Let's circle back to Rick Warren at Saddleback Church for a really interesting example. When Rick was starting his church, he identified his revolutionary avatar

person as the unchurched. Now that's about the hardest possible person you could try to build a new church around. These aren't just people who are unhappy with their current congregations. They don't believe at all. So you have to not only convince them that you'll give them a better experience, you need to convince them to believe in God. What Warren understood, though, was that he couldn't just immediately walk in and force somebody to accept that. He had to meet them where they were, then take them where he wanted them to be. He also had an interesting challenge. The gospel is the gospel. He couldn't change that. But what he could work with was the way people were introduced to it and the culture that allowed them to experience and adopt it. So he built his path. He identified five levels, five levels of engagement, and those were, one, community, people who stopped in here and there, two, the crowd, those who participated

more often, three, the congregation, those who joined and really started to participate regularly, four, the committed, loyal members of the congregation. And then five, the core, those who helped build the organization and lead. These are the levels of engagement you see at the top of the bullseye chart in the print version of this manifesto. So if you haven't downloaded it, absolutely go get it. It'll be a really powerful visual for you to see. Head on over to revolutionu.biz slash manifesto. Now at the bottom of that same diagram is the path that he built to move people from the community to the core. He realized he had to create different experiences and programming to accommodate each person at each level of the circle. The experience at each level had to both enable them to move deeper into their spiritual

journey and then also inspire them to move from the outer ring to the next ring and to the next and to the next within the church. So over time, they would become ever more deeply vested in the community and develop a deep sense of belonging and then potentially become leaders. And again, this is not about whether you agree with Warren's teachings or approach to the gospel. It's about how one person built a revolutionary avatar path that kick-started a faith-based sustained revolution that has rallied mass numbers of people to action, where so many who've come before have failed at a similar attempt.

Fundamentally, what you're trying to do with all of this is meet people where they are, literally and metaphorically. Then give them a simple way to take the actions needed to get from where they are to where you all want to go together, which brings up a little concept known as the consistency principle. The consistency principle tells us that people are compelled to act consistent with their prior acts and statements. So if you want to inspire them to take a series of actions, start with one that is so easy

to take that it's almost impossible to say no, and then slowly up the ante from there. Lay out a path of actions that ask incrementally more and are consistent with each prior act. So thinking about what you're looking to accomplish, is the better model for you transactional or sustained revolution? Once you choose, what are the actions you'd like people to take, and what will you do to foster them? Element number 12, deepening the tribe mentality for shorter transactional revolutions deep allegiance to the tribe is less important

for sustained revolutions though we need to build the most connected engaged community possible it'll serve as powerful support for action and also create a force that's capable of accomplishing more than what any single member alone might accomplish. All of the prior elements are critical in providing the structure, ideas, actions, and stories that bring the tribe together and keep it together. Still, unifying all will remain a big priority. So we move now into item number 12, and here's where we start to deepen the tribe mentality. When we think about messaging, part of what we want to convey is the idea that you're not alone. You belong to something bigger, that together we succeed and divided we fail, that united we're capable of more, and that success is not just about you.

Two powerful mechanisms we can tap to deepen the sense are symbology and language. So we all have images burned into our minds of people using color or bandanas to represent revolutions. We know a green revolution is one thing, and then there's the orange revolution or the jasmine revolution. Shared symbology shows I am part of something. I am committed to this. It's incredibly powerful. And this symbology can also be leveraged in a commercial, artistic, or for-purpose context. Jumping back to that bastion of commercial revolution, when Apple came out with the first iPod, they made the headphones white. In short order, you saw millions of people walking down the street wearing white

headphones. This was powerful, publicly observable symbology. A statement that said, yeah, I'm in the Apple revolution. I'm part of that tribe. This is what I believe. I'm self-expressed. I'm not just a conformer. New York-based SoulCycle is another amazing example of symbology that symbols membership in a movement built around a commercial venture. So what does a skull and crossbones have to do with indoor cycling? Well, nothing, but it's on everything that they do. So when you look at SoulCycle bandanas, apparel, accessories, you find a skull and crossbones, and this is part of their symbology. It's a rebellious symbology, but they've built it

around a community of a business based on fitness. And that's not all. They've even adopted a particular Pantone yellow as their color and a signature scent as their scent. The bright yellow and skull and crossbones is part of what they're all about. Interestingly, too, people pay to wear the symbols all over New York City. So they've not only turned certain icons, colors, and scents into symbols of the revolution and belonging, they've also made them revenue centers that help fuel the venture. The founders, by the way, know exactly what they're doing, evidenced by the fact

that when you walk into many of the studios, you see a wall of photos of all the people with a sign that says, I started my revolution. On the back of this powerful experience and messaging, the company has exploded. On the language side, an interesting example is what Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is doing with the Downtown Project in Vegas. He's putting $350 million into building a mini, hyper-creative, innovation-driven revolution within the city. And he's created his own language around it. Knowing and using this language signifies I'm part of something bigger. I'm an insider. When Tony tells you about what he's building, he doesn't talk about revenue per square foot. He talks about an insider metric he calls collisionable hours, which is how often people bump into each other in the street, inspiring novel conversations, serendipity, and innovation. Instead of security guards who patrol

the area while it's under construction, they're called downtown rangers. Instead of people who are interested in supporting the project, you're a subscriber. And when a subscriber comes to stay at one of the apartments that they have at the Ogden to do work for the project, well, they're not called apartments. They're called crash pads. It's amazing to see how symbology and language unify people and how different leaders are using them in different types of adventures. Livestrong had yellow rubber bracelets. The Grateful Dead had skeleton head illustrations. Glee had its Gleeks. Motorcycle riders have their brain buckets armored big slabs in burnout. These are just a handful of examples. So think about how you've seen others leverage symbology and language as a tool to unify a tribe and allow members to show their colors publicly. Then think about how you might bring this into your endeavor.

Element number 13, assemble your torchbearers. Every great revolution needs its torchbearers, people who buy deeply into the vision then go out into the world and become voices, advocates, evangelists for it. You need to start asking critical questions to figure out who is on your team. Who are your zero-day true believers? Most of us will start with some idea of who those early adopters, evangelists, and co-creators will be. And once you start to go public with your messaging, more will arrive. Similar to launching any new venture, you're looking for a blend of skills and abilities, social and risk orientations, creative orientations, and maybe more important than anything else, buy-in. It can't just be about growth metrics or money or systems.

There needs to be a deep and abiding belief in the core values, beliefs, and mission. So how do you know who to let in and who to keep out? Well, there's no simple answer here, but a powerful threshold test beyond having the core skills you need is to share the manifesto or the elements that go into it and then ask, how does this hit you? Listen to the answer, but also watch for the answer. When people need to react to a powerful set of beliefs and mission, there should be a strong physical embodiment along with whatever

comes out of their mouths. Look for that. It is telling you they're truly lit up by what you want to build, or it's telling you they're repelled by it, or are they just indifferent? Your launch team must not only have skills, they need to buy into the bigger why and the long-term where. Determining this is incredibly important, and again, it's a step that a lot of people skip. They just want to get going, so they focus on skills and devalue visionary buy-in. Big mistake. You need both. Things will fall apart along the way. Huge challenges will arise. Doubts and fears and questions will be a natural part of the journey. If you don't have agreement on the values and beliefs that should govern decisions, you won't know how to navigate these critical moments.

This is also why you need to do all that foundation work that we talked about in the beginning. It's important for solution development and messaging, but it's also a critical tool to help determine who's in and who's out and how you'll make decisions. Element number 14. ID key resources and allies. Building on the torchbearers, we need to then start to identify potential key resources and allies. These are people and entities who are not part of your core team, but who are well aligned with what you're trying to create and are capable and interested in supporting you. The list of potential resources and allies will become or will be completely dependent on the nature of what you're building. But some general categories to

begin mapping and detailing in anticipation of outreach would include influencers who have access to well-aligned communities, technology partners who can help set up systems, creative partners who can help craft a solution or messaging, well-aligned trade or interest-based organizations, legal partners who can help with legal details, aligned media editors, producers, and journalists who can help get the word out, funding partners who can help with legal details, aligned media editors, producers, and journalists who can help get the word out, funding partners who can help contribute to the cause, and many others. You need to really just create your own list. Now, all of this begs a really interesting question. How are all these potential contributors compensated? Well, money is certainly one option, and no doubt that will be a part of the equation.

But I've found that when you build your venture around a deep sense of authentic alignment and service to a community and understand how to tell your story, something incredible happens. You become a beacon. You start to radiate, and here's something I've come to experience. Beacons exert a powerful gravitational pull. True beacons are such a rare occurrence these days that when people find them, they flock to them. Resources and allies become attracted to you and your vision and your tribe. This dynamic gives you a huge competitive advantage. It draws allies into your orbit who want to be part of the revolution, not always in exchange for money, but because they believe. They want to play a role in working with others like them to bring something powerful to

life. In some cases, they feel it's more than a want, it's a must. This dynamic unfolds in political or cause-driven revolutions all the time. Nobody is getting, quote, paid in the traditional sense, but everybody's working hard, sometimes risking what they'd never risk in the name of just themselves. They're contributing on a level they'd often never work at for plain old cash. Does this mean that they're working for free? Not a chance. That's one of the big fallacies. They're simply receiving their reward, their compensation, but in a different way. One, they place great value on. Value that often cash alone would never approximate. This is one of the most powerful benefits of building revolution dynamics into a venture. You gain the capacity to harness emotion, passion, and effort in exchange for

non-monetary compensation. People will work for the revolution in a way they will never work for a company or just a business or just a product or just a brand, which again is why it's so important not to skip all of the elements in the first half of the framework. They're not just about messaging. They're about planting the seeds that allow you and your venture to blossom into beacons, then capture the myriad benefits that derive from this status, because beacons exert a powerful gravitational pull. Element number 15, swarming the launch. Finally, we get to a point where we're ready to take all this work and flip the switch on.

We call this swarming the launch, and the idea, like everything else here, is not mine. Swarming is a concept that comes out of cultural anthropology and has been applied to all manner of businesses, brands, and product launches. The concept is pretty straightforward. Be everywhere all at once. Don't just put up a blog post. Create media for a dozen different channels. Video, audio, print, digital, social snippets and objects, live engagements, speeches, and appearances. The idea is to create the experience of being swept up in something bigger than any one person. I've leveraged the swarm approach to launch everything from businesses to products to books. But the one big difference here is that it's not

just about a product or a company or a piece of content. It's about an opportunity to join with others, connected by values, beliefs, shared pain, and aspirations to create and improve reality that alone would be near impossible. It's about being part of something that matters, belonging, playing a role that not only solves your problem but connects you with others and in doing so solves a deeper, often latent pain, that of isolation. At the heart of this launch methodology, the idea is to build ubiquitous messaging and action channels and then tap them simultaneously. So we don't just try one tiny thing and then try another and then try another. It is not a sequential process. The idea is that we identify a whole bunch of ways to create this swarm effect where

the experiences and messages are coming to you from different places at the same time. Everywhere you look, this is the thing people are talking about. This is happening all over the place and there's an energy that you get swept up in and captivated by and you feel called to be a part of. When that happens, it's incredible. But from the organizer side, it's also incredibly complex. There are so many moving pieces and limited resources. So you need to identify and tap channels that people most seek to serve and they already use and trust. Then build messaging that tells your story and calls people to action.

At the same time, you know some of those channels and a bit of the content will take off and some will fail. So you're in constant test, observe, and adapt mode, doubling down on channels and messages that are landing and cutting channels and messages that aren't. The faster your community grows, the more people you get to serve, to inspire, and to tap and turn around and become evangelists and advocates. And of course, you'll also need to weigh the need for community in light of your choice of sustained versus transactional revolution. You may or may not need community based on how long or short this whole endeavor is designed to last, and whether

you're looking to create a moment of change or enduring change. The shorter it is, the less a need for in-depth community and the more you can lean on online messaging as a source for motivation and action. For a sustained revolution that asks for more action over a longer period of time, motivation and messaging alone won't get you there. You're going to have to build community and you do that in these channels where people already go. So what are some examples of channels to explore? Well, in the online world, start out with a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, podcasting platforms, and YouTube. In the offline world, think about small local groups in the community, mini tribes, meetups, and events. And in traditional media, we're talking about the three big print, TV, and radio.

It's also important to understand that social technology is profoundly changing the game. It is massively compressing the time it takes for ideas to spread and the resources needed to mobilize word of mouth or media distribution. Instead of having to pay thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of dollars, it can happen basically for free. Actually, strike that. Nothing is free, ever. There's always a cost, even if it's measured in time, effort, heart, and soul. And that's where the idea of the beacon comes in. The benefit of creating something that is powerful enough for thousands to want to share is that you get to harness the effort of a huge community in microbursts with their compensation coming in the form of social capital, meaning they get credit for discovering and sharing something that will help thousands or millions of people,

but it's also important to honor the fact that those same people you seek to serve are making what you want to build possible. Continually honor that and offer appreciation at every step along the way. So one more big question here. Do you still need to swarm the launch if your revolution is sustained, meaning it's just going to happen under a really long time? The answer is yes and no. Even though messaging and motivation alone won't get you where you want to go long term, it can serve as a powerful mechanism to rally enough people, resources, and allies to get you to a point of self-sustainability faster. If the swarm

approach doesn't resonate though, you can move more slowly and build in a more organic groundswell manner. In the end, it may end up more a question of early resources than anything else, but it's important to know that if you don't feel you can pull off an effective launch swarm, that doesn't mean your venture is dead in the water. It just means you'll need to plan for a longer, gentler path to where you want to go. Element number 16, mechanisms and milestones. Now we talk about the issue of measurement. So we want to be able to track what's working and what's not. Having access to this information allows you to create clear intermediate milestones to work

towards so you know if you're succeeding or not. There are many different tools that can be used to track messaging and channel efficacy now. Some are free, others are paid. Choose the one that works best for the nature of the campaign you want to run. And a word on transparency here too. Think seriously about building a transparent process. Well, what does that mean? It means create a way to dashboard your data that is somewhat public, at least within your core team. You may even explore creating different levels of transparency for each level of engagement in your revolution. So your core team sees everything, then maybe your allies see slightly less, and your community sees

only what's relevant to them. It's important to know what people are doing or not doing, and what channels are and are not working. Sharing these metrics, being transparent, can also foster trust and action, and allow more people access to information needed to come up with better ideas. Trust and transparency creates action. Element number 17, designing for contagion. When you think about the way you build your messaging language and symbology and the actions that you want to inspire, you may also want to keep their propensity for contagion in your head. Wharton professor Jonah Berger spent years researching what makes ideas contagious, what makes them go viral, and he found six core elements. The more you have, the more contagious

an idea becomes. When you're designing a revolution, ask, can any of these six elements be organically integrated into what I'm creating? Now, the word organic is critical here, by the way. Never try to force something that's not meant to be. So here are Berger's six elements of contagion. First, social currency. Having an idea that you want to get credit for when you share it. People share both online and offline in part because they want to be viewed as someone in the know. They want credit for having found something of value. Next is triggers. Are there regular triggers that make people think about your idea? We used that example very early on with the if it foams, it strips line. So every time somebody goes in the shower and they lather up, there's a daily trigger that reminds them about what you are trying to build. Next up is

emotion. Does it trigger emotion of some sort or does it just stay surface level? Next up, observability. When you look at all the symbology and language we've talked about, that makes something incredibly observable. It's something that other people can see, hear, and ask about. Next is practical value. Is there genuine value in the idea or solution? This is what the tour is about. We're solving a problem, sometimes many, and there's great value in that. And finally, stories. Are you telling a compelling story, preferably one that others can transfer into? Stories make an idea memorable, and you share things you remember. Now we come to the final element, element number 18, the ultimate structural goal, the tipping point.

All of these earlier elements move us toward that magical place, the ultimate structural goal of the revolution. Hitting a tipping point where you no longer have to feed the beast constantly, it starts to become self-sustaining, to grow on its own and expand and generate beauty and evangelism and power and touch lives and help a lot of people become this self-propagating, self-generating, auto-renewing engine of belief and belonging. At some point, once the idea begins to catch on in a longer way, you'll also be faced with a certain reality.

You'll need to get comfortable with the idea of losing control over the messaging, having faith that you've done a good enough job of defining the core idea, beliefs, common pain, shared values and aspirations, and your deeper intention, that people will make the messaging and even the solution their own. And that is okay. The more you do the hard work of defining the earlier elements of this framework and identifying with so much clarity what it is you believe in and what people are working for, away from, and toward, the easier it is to trust the power and integrity of the idea and let people make it their own. Moving forward. When I look at this entire process, here's what I've come to believe. Creators, artists, entrepreneurs, makers, organizers, leaders, and founders who learn and master these core elements gain the capability to serve more people on a deeper level,

magnify reach and impact faster, better empower others to self-actualize and create their own improved realities, very often with a fraction of the effort and the cost. How amazing would it be to have the capability to do that instead of just building an old school business body of work product or brand the old way? I want to leave you with two thoughts, two ideas that I think if you don't even remember anything else matter the most. One, give people something or someone to believe in. We live in a world where people have lost faith. If you create something for people to believe in or someone to believe in, it is massively empowering, not just for what you're trying to build, but for other people. And fundamentally, we're here to make a huge difference,

not only in our own lives, but in other people's lives. And two, give people something to belong to. I believe we are in the throes of a global belonging crisis. People are out there feeling the pain of not having their people. I've seen this firsthand so many times as I've built a number of businesses of belonging around deeply connected communities. When you find your people, nonspecific pain on many levels often leaves. People come alive. Magic happens.

If you can play a part in that process, if you can serve that role and that purpose with what you're creating, the outcomes can be stunning. Our greatest opportunity for impact, it lies not just in connecting people to us and our ideas, but in creating a safe place where people can connect with and support each other in the quest to take the sustained action that leads to deep and profound change. What if you don't have to do this alone? So the framework is a lot to take in. I get it. Every time I've shared it, there's been a line of mission-driven world shakers and venture builders asking for more. I mean, do you consult? Is there a handbook or manual? Can you train me and my team to master each element and bring the whole framework to life in my business or career or path? Give me

something. And in the beginning, the answer was always no, because I never intended for this to be something beyond first, just something personal for me and then a roadmap. But after so many requests for help came, my team and I finally decided to just give you exactly what you need and want, the next giant step. And it's called Revolution U. Over 10 fiercely immersive weeks, you'll not only discover how to apply every element of the framework to your venture, you'll unlock a stunning level of insight about your business, the people you want to rally and serve, and how to move them to action. You'll also learn what's been called the epic epicenter of this training, the manifesto code. This single roadmap reveals how to turn the foundation and messaging elements into a document or video experience capable of moving large numbers of people to action.

It also includes live access to me and a team of mentors and a global inner circle of co-visionaries to support you, to hold you accountable, and to help you execute something bigger than any single person alone could do. So if you're cool going it alone, that's great. Just take everything we've been talking about and go do great things. Go for it. If you'd love help doing it right though, if you need something more, then check out the details of Revolution U. You can find them at revolutionu.biz slash tell-me-more. That's revolutionu.biz slash tell-me-more. dash me dash more. And if you feel inspired to share the art of Revolution Manifesto, to help me start a revolution of revolutions, a global army of people building careers and businesses and bodies of work differently, serving and inspiring people to come together and create something to believe in and belong to, then please go ahead and share this manifesto. Send your friends and colleagues and

collaborators over to revolutionu.biz manifesto to grab their own copy and then join with you to light up the world. I'm Jonathan Fields, and I thank you so much for your kindness and your energy. Here's to doing something extraordinary together. We'll see you next time. season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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