Where Change is REALLY Coming From

It is hard not to get wrapped up in the energy from Obama’s 2nd Inauguration this week in D.C.  The speeches, promises, hopes, and agendas all around changing where things are today.

Yet perhaps our excitement is ill-placed.

To hang our hats on one man’s team to make the types of changes many of us crave and yearn, on issues like gun control, climate change, health care, immigration, and war may not be realistic.

I am learning this first-hand by being a member of a group overseeing one of the most toxic Superfund Site cleanups in the United States, the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY.

Our group is the liaison between the EPA and the local community.  To illustrate my point, these past few weeks have gridlocked us by trying to agree on the wording of a flier we are to distribute to our constituents announcing an important upcoming EPA meeting for the public to attend.

A freakin’ flier!

If it is almost impossible for 50+ concerned citizens and community leaders to agree, imagine how difficult it is to get 435 people in Congress, let alone the other branches of our Federal Government to agree on anything more complicated than a flier!

Change will not come anytime soon from those guys.

It will, in fact, come much sooner instead from entrepreneurs.

You entrepreneurs are the leaders.  You are the creative problem-solvers.  You are the resourceful hunters and gatherers.  You are rarely stopped with a simple “no, can’t be done”.

Or even a hundred “no’s”.

And it is definitely you that will create change by finding opportunities where all the naysayers see only hardship.

In fact, the fastest way to make change happen, real and positive change, is by entrepreneurs showing people how to make money doing it.

It is the entrepreneurs offering social and environmental solutions to anything, ranging from dry cleaning (Green Apple Cleaners) to building energy management (Bright Power), from alternative fuels (Tri-State Biodiesel) to cleaning supplies (Ecologic Solutions), or from recycling (RecycleBank) to waste management (Action Carting).  Each of these entrepreneurs are handsomely beating their competition, while generating well over $1MM a year in revenue.

So yes, please do get excited about the promises for positive change happening this week…

from the entrepreneurs driving them, not the politicians in D.C wishing them.

 

Action Steps for the Week

What are you committed to creating as an entrepreneur?  What is the positive impact this will have on society and our planet?  On the economy and your bottom line?

What is your revenue model from this?

Most importantly, how will you scale this to a level where real change occurs?