Can a brand save the climate?

"We continue to search - to know ourselves, to find our niche - because we all start off lost and wandering, hungry for meaning and belonging" - Somewhere, Yes

I just read an interesting take on brand building called Somewhere, Yes by Beat Baudenbacher. While much of it distilled the influence of brands on each of us and why that is, the interesting thought nugget is how branding may help us solve climate change.

How you ask?

First, brands have the power to divide us as much as unite us. They can be used for evil (i.e. the Nazis) or they can be used for good. We all want to belong to something and brands have the power to foster belonging.

Second, they help make the complex simple. The meaning imbued and nurtured behind a brand is summed up in a simple mark. Think about all of the emotions that come up with you see a Starbucks logo (for me it's predictable food on road trips, business meet ups and pumpkin spiced lattes) or Apple or Nike.

Solving climate change is one gnarly problem to wrap your head around. It needs simplicity to engage us. Branding is a tool that enables collaboration and connection on a global scale. Beat doesn't pretend that branding can solve it; rather it's the key to bringing us together to figure out how to solve it. A good brand offers a vision and a purpose along with a rallying cry that can unite us.

I've also recently been thinking a lot more about our place in the universe, how small we are, and how fleeting our time here really is. Maybe that's because I'm past the intermission and finally waking up to this fact. Anyhoo, recently looking at human existence in the context of a day at the American Museum of Science and nature in New York comprises the last 77 seconds of a 24 hour period!

Now doesn't that just put your annoyance at the kids socks left on the floor in perspective?!

"The story of being small and insignificant will give hope to solving the climate crisis. It is only by recognizing our smallness that we can being to address the larger issues facing the human race." - Somewhere, Yes

Each of us longs to belong and make a difference. We want our work to matter. And it should! The thought of just punching a clock is rather soul sucking. I started this letter to inspire doing work that doesn't suck and make you more financially resilient.

In the spirit that there are riches in niches, What if we niched down into making a positive impact by considering how you can create the career you want through tackling the climate problem? It's going to take business and capitalism to solve it ALONG with our governments. It's not an either-or.

The Financial Times has an entire section devoted to how businesses are looking at the opportunity in "Climate Capital."

The Unreasonable Group, which I've mentioned before focuses on the world's toughest problems. Consider this quote from their website:

"We envision a world where our greatest leaders are those who see vulnerability as a strength, prioritize people and the planet over numbers, and act with integrity."

Why can't that be you?

Why not do everything we can to reverse this course? To make sure this isn't our destiny. We have so much to lose if we don't try. From a work perspective, tackling this thorny problem requires deep thinking and taps skills many others may not have nor can do. These skills, developed through experience may be hard to train for, increasing your value. If what you can do is easily replicated, then it makes you easy to replace for someone less expensive. You're more vulnerable to market fluctuations.

But if you're solving society's hardest problems, you'll get a strong market edge.

I know more and more kids today are fearful of the future. They don't want to have kids because they're starting to believe they'll see the end of humanity.

Let's not allow that to happen.

Sounds good but damn, that's a tough lofty goal I don't have the foggiest clue how to tackle you're probably telling yourself. Yep, it's hard. I don't exactly know how either, but am trying to iterate myself into the how. The 'why' is pretty darn easy. Just look at Pakistan and how 1/3 of the country is flooded right now! Or the excessive heat in Europe.

Sometimes we get stuck in our head. Spinning. Worried. So stuck and anxious we don't move past it. And then get more anxious because our progress has stalled. So we berate ourselves. Talk smack about how we're shit. And so we go watch kittens on YouTube. Pretty much a downer, no? If you've ever experienced this, don't despair. Really. It's part of the deal. It's part of being human. It's part of the slog towards greatness.

You can't just slog; sometimes you need a few minutes of levity. Just make sure you leave the kittens and get back to work, okay?

So here's the deal, any endeavor worth doing is going to have periods where you feel you're making no progress. Everyone experiences this feeling. And if they say they're totally confident and never doubting they're either lying to themselves or are a rare unicorn.

Naval Ravikant who wrote a major 'Tweetstorm' on how to get rich has this to say about work: combine specific knowledge with leverage and you become unstoppable.

"Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now."

If you are fundamentally building and marketing something that is an extension of who you are, no one can compete with you on that."

Still overwhelmed? Take small steps by making yourself 1% better everyday:

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No kittens, but a little music from Dolly to get you going: