Peacebuilding Starts at Home will be published in early November which means that the blog posts I write between now and then will discuss each of its chapters and main points as part of our efforts to build a market for the book and the movement we will be creating around it.
As part of that effort, last Friday I spoke with my new best friend, Bilaal Ahmed about plans to advertise the book on the Next Bg Idea Club’s Substack feed during the week before what insiders call “pub day.”.
What made the conversation remarkable was that I had no idea that he was about to become my next best friend when I logged into his Google Meets account.
He made it into the Chip Hauss hall of fame because he put his finger not only on the marketing challenge we face with the book but, more importantly, on what we are going to have to overcome if we want to change the directions our country and our planet are heading.
And by we I literally mean me and you.
Especially you—and how you can be what Sivers calls a first follower, albeit not primarily as a dancer.
But as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Derek Sivers And His Challenge To Us
Halfway into our conversation, Bilaal reminded me of Sivers’ remarkable video. When he mentioned it, the name range a bell, but I took me a few minutes and a couple of gentle reminders on his part before I remembered it and had one of those classical face-palm moments because, fifteen years ago, Sivers recorded one of the most power TED talks ever.
It was also one of the shortest—less than four minutes.
I remembered loving the video when I first saw it at least a decade ago, but its message carries a much bigger weight today than it did in the early 2010s.
Sivers himself is an odd characterwho began his career as a musician and musical producer who has not held what my mother would have called a conventional day job in ages. Yet, his insights on leadership and the good life in general have given him something of a cult following in large part because of this single video and TED talk.
His cult status came about because the video operates on two levels which is why I want you to watch it twice which is my idea, not Bilaal’s by the way.
First, watch this version.
And do it with the sound off.
The voice isn’t Sivers’ and listening to it takes away from seeing his first lesson.
Actually, only watch the first twenty seconds.
What went through your mind?
Some weird guy making a fool of himself in public?
In my case, it brought back my worst memories (really nightmares) about dancing whch Bilaal could not conceivably have known about.
I don’t dance.
In fact, I won’t dance.
Because when my parents sent me to Mr. Garvey’s dance class in the seventh grade, I knew I was going to look just like that weird guy—even if I had a crew cut at the time. I think that that’s what the girls told me. I know that’s what my mother told me. And because we were the first Jewish kids to be allowed to go My Garvey’s school, I felt a lot of pressure to not look weird.
Now, unpause the video and watch the rest of the video.
Still keep the sound off, please.
And just marvel at what happens. First one equally weird (and seemingly awkward) dancer joins him. Twenty seconds later, another. Then three more. Withing two and a half minutes, just about every one is up and dancing, seemingly not giving a damn about what other people think of them except for a few dorks like me who are still sitting on the sidelines. Maybe that’s what Mr. Garvey had in mind, but somehow I doubt it.
Now, watch Sivers’ TED Talk with the sound on and listen to his analysis.
For him, that crazy weird (stoned?) dancer is a kind of leader.
But if you want to build and lead a movement that grows exponentially as I do, attracting and empowering the first and second and third followers so that they are also willing to “get up and dance” is at least as important.
As he puts it, they transform “the lone nut into a leader.”
As he calls him, the first follower has a pivotal role to play as do the other dancing pioneers who follow him onto the stage.
Within a bit more than a minute, you pass what he calls a tipping point. The first dancer and first follower have created momentum. They have started an unstoppable movement. As Sivers says, it becomes a lot less risky to join in. By the end, there is no reason not to get up and dance.
Unless you’re the teenaged Chip Hauss. Or the seventy-seven year old Chip Hauss.
Well, there will always be a few non-dancing laggards like me who are still sitting and moping on the grass. But they don’t matter.
But don’t miss the key point.
The first few followers are as important as the person who came up with the idea of dancing in the first place.
Why Bilaal Gave Me This Problem (Hint: The Answer Has Nothing To Do With Dancing)
Neither Bilaal nor I want you to watch this video because we want you to start dancing.
Rather, we want you to see that reading my book or getting involved with Peacebuilding Starts at Home are among the steps you can take toward building a movement that change the direction(s) this country is heading in during the second half of the 2020s.
Most Americans—however they voted in 2024—know that our country is is trouble.
More importantly, the polls don’t lie.
The majority of Americans are convinced that people like themselves can’t make a difference and look at isolated, individual, risk-taking activists the way the kids in the park initially looked at the first dancer or even the first follower.
Somehow, we have to find ways of doing two things:
- Showing people that they can make a difference, that they can dance in Sivers’ terms
- And that it is cool to do so
So, our audience for the book and the people we want to reach with the Peacebuilding Starts at Home community will be the equivalent of the first, second, and third followers who are the community leaders. They become the “cool kids” that everyone wants to hang out with.
It’s a lesson that I learned from three of my mentors in graduate school more than fifty years ago–Bob Putnam, Chuck Tilly, and, especially, Everett Rogers who all helped me learn how to build this kind of movement—off lllthe dance floor, of course.
It’s the overarching lesson of the book, one that I will be driving home in the next eight blog posts.
Why Bilaal Is My New Best Friend
In other words, Bilaal became my next best friend because I could not have defined the market for the book and the movement this sharply without him.
Our challenge is to Identify and reach the first and second and third followers who have the courage, audacity, and (maybe a tinge of) foolishness and see the value of getting on the clichéd dance floor.
If you look at them, they are noticeably more normal looking than the first three people who took the stage (unless you think that shaggy, overweight men are normal and cool, of course).
That means you.
Once you become the first or second or third follower of any of the leaders and organizations we are assembling, others will join you.
Presumably, you will “dance” better than the weird guy and his first two followers. But even if you don’t, a few others will join you.
But, most of all, don’t be me and sit this “dance” out.
After all, I’m not me at least when it comes to something other than dancing.
In fact, I have spent my life being a first follower.
I’ve rarely been the creative weird guy who comes up with the innovative ideas (not to mention dance steps).
But I like being the second guy on the (non) dance floor and being what Everett Rogers called an early adopter.
It’s a lot of fun.
As long as you don’t ask me to dance.
And, as you may have noticed when Sivers does a few steps at the end, he’s not a candidate to win on “Dancing with the Stars” either.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Alliance for Peacebuilding or its members.
