LEADERSHIP IS ACTION

It was last week that I had intended to tell you about this, but as you have likely heard by now, things got a little intense here on Maui.?

I’ve seen tragedy in paradise that I never imagined I’d see.?

That depth of pain - and the breadth of injustice that only the wild of Kali can inflict - called me into action in a way I hadn’t been called in many years.?

There are a few responses to the hurt that the people in Maui have suffered, many of which are a tumbling into fear.?

The freeze response to hurt has you doing nothing and saying nothing. This looks like a drop of your normal routine and a kind of aimlessness.?

The flight response to hurt is invisible because it has you leaning even more into your routine. Running from the reality of it all by hiding in a kind of forced normalcy.?

The fight response to hurt is big and loud and mostly made of air, be it the flavor of complaint, villainization, or myth-making. I’ve heard stories of space lasers and billionaire baddies being to blame for the fires here. A woman with millions of views said there was no wind that day, which I heard while looking at fallen trees in my yard. A scared mind makes monsters in the dark.

Personally, my first response was the freeze flavor. I found myself wandering around our property somewhat aimlessly. I couldn’t even bring myself to start clearing the branches from our driveway, which only became apparent once my wife was out there doing it. Her domain of care is typically within the four walls of our home, and mine without, so it startled me into awareness.

In waking up to the slow freeze that was occurring in my being, I started asking questions to break free.

“If I were to help, what would I do?”

“What could I do?”

“What might I love to do?”

“If I were being called to help, what might I be being called to do?” It was then, a couple of days after the fires started, that I saw my friend live streaming from the west side of Maui using a satellite connection he’d come upon a neighbor sharing. He lived very close to where the Lahaina fire stopped and he had no clue what was happening around him compared with me. He’d been cut off from the world since the fire - no electricity, no water, no internet, and no mobile phone service. All he knew was what he heard from people he’d bumped into on the street - an area that had gone from a bustling cultural and tourist center to the grey and smoking streets of the apocalypse.?

This friend was a 45-minute drive from me and cut off from the world. The unnecessity of it was like a siren call for me.?

Instead of spinning out in aimlessness, hiding in hurriedness, or groaning in complaint, I asked myself one of the questions that I orient my life around:

“What would I love to create?”

Within 72 hours of asking this question, my friend and I had raised over $50K, I’d managed to convince an airline that was evacuating people to put supplies in the cargo bay of their planes on the way into West Maui. This led to me delivering food, water, and supplies to people who couldn’t otherwise be reached. I also secured the donation of a Starlink satellite internet device, got it flown in, from the mainland, and deployed it with a doctor in West Maui who’d been unable to call prescriptions in, limiting her ability to help people.?

A few days later, we’d raised another $50K, I’d gotten a call from SpaceX and, because they saw what we were doing, they gifted us 6 more Starlinks, which we immediately deployed at community centers in West Maui.

Now, two weeks after the fire, we’ve raised nearly $200K and started a non-profit called MauiLFG , which is focused on finding and filling the gaps between actual needs and what’s being provided by the government and larger organizations.?

What unfolded from that one question and my immediate action are not only these results I share but also a wave of energy that has magnetized hundreds of people into giving, action, and service.

My phone is blowing up with people here in Maui and from around the world offering help and asking me how they can help.

Allow me to remind you; my initial response to the shock of the fires was aimlessness. I felt disempowered and was fairly certain nothing I could do would make any difference.?

Now today, I’ve become a conduit of support.?

What changed?

My thinking.?

Both in the questions I was asking myself and also how I responded to the answers I got -

With immediate action.

I’ve heard the phrase “leadership in action” before. It sounds exciting.

But I think it’s even simpler than this.?

Leadership IS action.

When you take action in the direction of something that matters to you - and when you do so with fervor and commitment to the good of all - leadership simply IS.

At the heart, Creating is a dance of both leading and following.?

Last week, in the midst of all this, I had the pleasure of being in a conversation with Heather Quick who leads The Book of Being Instagram channel.?

We dove deep into the dance of leadership and followership; how it works and how to express more of it in our lives.

Tap here to watch the interview now.

Loving you, JPM

PS - We have an exciting announcement coming soon. You may want to clear your calendar and save the dates of 9th -12th November this year!