Feckless Moderate or Radical Centrist - Lessons From a Motivational Speaker

Feckless moderate or radical centrist?

What’s this got to do with change?

Well, I take the middle ground. It drives my wife nuts.

But I don’t see the world in black and white, I always see it as gray.

Likely this came from decades behind the documentary lens, listening to both (many) sides of the story, at length.

No surprise then that I was just listening to a podcast called The Gray Area.

The episode was about Albert Camus, Nobel-winning French writer. During Algeria’s bloody war for independence in the 1950s, Camus took a measured stance, calling for an end to the atrocities on each side. He was criticized widely as a ‘feckless moderate.’ 

Ooh. Am I a feckless moderate?

I prefer radical centrist.

Historically when two opposing sides go to war, the first people they kill are centrists in their own courts. They are after all, closer to the enemy than the extremists. You’re either with me or against me.

In my mind, it takes some courage to adopt the middle ground.

But, maybe not.

Why is this instructive about change?

Because knowing who you are makes getting to who you want to be a whole lot easier.

How can you plan a journey if you don’t know where you’re starting from?

So I welcome prompts like this one today. It challenges me to know better who I am. At least then I can take a position on that.

--------

If we haven’t met yet…

I never considered myself good at change until I went from

-free-range kid to army sniper

-home movies to National Geographic cameraman

-fumbling card tricks to a professional magician

-never swinging a hammer to building a home

-high school dropout to published author

-business illiterate to building & selling a business

-stutterer to motivational speaker

Turns out I know how to change, I know how to make it simple, and I know how to stand on stage & make it fun so others want to do it too.

#change  #changeability #motivationalspeaker