This is a guest article by Lauren Speeth, PhD:
Have you ever been given a gift so precious and so vast you knew you just had to share it? This is the very motivation underlying my new book, Taking the Stairs and Liking It: Seven Steps to an Amazing Life.
It all traces back to a moment in time when I was unsettled – such a common feeling in today’s unsettling times – and I had the remarkable opportunity to meet my hero, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) – who was an extraordinary social entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize (and Grammy Award) winner, for a private conversation.
The Carter Center is an NGO dedicated to waging peace, fighting disease, and building hope. Their engagements, which include election monitoring, mental health programs, and combating neglected diseases, are based on a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering. Carter also built houses for Habitat for Humanity and taught Sunday School into his 90s.
I asked President Carter, “How do I not feel so small and ineffectual against this big, broken, daunting world?”
He took my question seriously, and the advice he gave me changed the course of my life.
First, the fact that he had taken the time to answer me thoughtfully implied a “Yes, you can make a difference, and I’m willing to help you understand how.”
President Carter treated people with respect and concern, whether they were on his level as a world leader or simply starting out trying to make a difference. I try to do the same with my students. We are all equal as souls, after all.
What did he advise me?
In a nutshell: trust and follow my vision, find my authentic niche (go where needed), focus on an area of my special skills, work in partnership, share credit generously, gather feedback, and cultivate staying power.
In the years that followed, I got to know his work better through the Carter Center, eventually joining the Board of Councilors, where I’m now a Life Member. I enrolled in a university and studied his wisdom in an academic environment. As I researched his guidance and put it into practice, I developed a framework I could teach others. As I traveled the world teaching students what I’d learned, I realized I’d been living the wisdom he’d taught me. It was wisdom for life.
Traveling really does open your eyes. Each time I set out to teach this framework, I learned something new, as my travels teaching students brought me into contact with various student perspectives. Students in Australia were worried about koalas, which aren’t an issue in the USA, for example. Our eco-ed resources for younger students exist because a student in Jordan pointed out the need for them in a Q&A session after I had addressed the World Affairs Council in Amman.
Everywhere I taught these precepts – Asia, Africa, Europe, the USA, the Middle East – my students shared similar concerns, with different specifics. They love the environment. They worry about the future. They want to help. Who doesn’t appreciate help to forge a path through challenging times, having someone offer a “Yes!” to them? And we need their empowered involvement.
Wherever my travels take me, I tell folks they don’t have to wait until they’ve “made it” by some external standard to begin thinking about making a positive difference. Your life already matters. Your actions are already rippling out and touching others, and only you can choose the flavor of those actions. For example, in a world where suicide is at epidemic levels, a simple kindness could save a life. And you can find joy even in the midst of life’s turbulence.
My latest book is about a life well-lived. It aims to inspire others to find joy through leading a life of purpose, coherence, and significance. It was released on the first day of summer to critical acclaim and quickly became an Amazon bestseller in new releases across multiple categories.
Multiple AudioFile Magazine “Earphones Award” winner Jean Ann Douglass narrates the audiobook. Portuguese and Spanish editions will be released on 10/1 to coincide with the 101st anniversary of President Carter’s birth. Here is a short excerpt where I make the point that travel builds our cultural skills:
Not all of us will spend time in another country to gain a global perspective through experience. But reading expansively or watching movies filmed on location, travel shows, or even international TV programming can help us gain a broader understanding of cultures and experiences outside our own.
We may find ourselves noticing things that others miss when armed with such information. Bringing in external ideas and experiences can help us better understand our own culture, as well. And the wider the cultural landscape, the better. Casting a wide net in this way offers both increased cultural insight and perceptiveness. These attributes can help us move up our life staircase of wisdom and perspective.
As for social entrepreneurship, you’ll find the basics for free at elffound.org because I believe that much is expected from those to whom much has been given. And there’s also my book, Intelligence and Compassion in Action, for those who want to delve deeper.
Having lived abroad in my youth, I’d already traveled widely, but I’d never say I was done learning what travel can teach. In fact, it was my later travels – my interactions with students worldwide – that opened my eyes to the wider application of the wisdom that, twenty years ago, set my life on a new trajectory, wisdom that can set you on a positive trajectory as well. Keep traveling, keep shining, and “Never underestimate your ripple!”
Lauren Speeth, PhD, is an author, filmmaker, and social entrepreneur who has dedicated herself to hope alive through educational and environmental projects… and music! (elfenworksproductions.com).
