In trying to come up with the “Why of Bob” and how it is connected to the “Why of our Seven Capital series,” I dug deep into what gets me up every day.
Why do the links in this chain keep our society together?
How can these systems and values and work ethic leak over into our post pandemic society and cause real change?
So It starts with:
Waste Not, Want Not
Which demands Curiosity
And connects us to Systems Thinking
Which leads to an Awe and Wonder of the world.
And then it crosses the bridge to “What if?”
Let me explain:
I don't waste effort, resources and energy.
They are too hard to come by. I look for efficiency, but only after I have found effective. This is where my Waste Not Want Not comes from. The judicious use of these Capitals is prudent because they are so valuable.
You can't squeeze efficiency and effectiveness out of something you don't understand. So this drives Curiosity.
Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." - I apply this to everything I come across. So as we dig deep into these Capitals, we understand each one better and how they are interdependent.
Which leads us to Systems Thinking
Interconnectedness: seeing overall structures, patterns and cycles in systems, rather than seeing only specific events. Systems thinking requires a shift in mindset, away from linear to circular. Menken said, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” Einstein said, "Make things as simple as possible. But no Simpler."
To get an appreciation for System Thinking, look at our natural world
Our civilization, our industries, and the everyday wonders of how things got put together. It is astounding how someone can flip a switch on the wall, and the sun shines on the earth, creating warm air, causing high and low pressure, making wind blow, turning turbines, pumping electrons through a grid to provide light in the closet.
4-1/2 Billion years of development, and this world never ceases to provide us with Awe and Wonder.
So, Combine all of these – Waste Not, Want Not, Curiosity, Systems thinking, Wonder of the World, and you come to a bridge over a deep canyon, a bridge from your comfort zone to where the magic happens and the motivation for crossing that bridge is the burning question that haunts me every day, "What if?”
Look at the Seven Capitals through the lens we have created here, and you can easily jump to
“What if we applied the Seven Capitals to the issues we have today in rural Iowa, in our nation?
What if we didn’t waste these Capitals, these resources, and got really curious about how they operated and interacted with each other, depended on each other.
What if we treated them all as equals, as connected gears in a sustainable system?
What if we patterned our Capital construction like the natural world, using biomimicry as a guide?
What if we listened, and then became brave, and went where the magic happens, to build a post pandemic world that had better, more just, more accessible systems?
