Distilling two decades of research and practice led to a roadmap that change-makers around the world have found logical and insightful. Mirror it in your course or pick-and-choose!

Section 1: Finding your purpose. Why do you want to change the world?

Your purpose is your “why.”  A clear sense of mission characterizes, in my experience, not only the most effective change-makers but also the most content ones, and the opposite holds just as true.  In addition to exploring the concept and its implications, this section offers exercises to help you unearth your purpose.  Your purpose is the lava simmering under your surface;  the superpower you can guide but not contain.  I chose to begin the book with this section because I believe that discovering your purpose may be the single most important factor in how impactful you are as well as how fulfilled and healthy you remain through your journey toward impact.  To help, I share mine.

Section 2: Identifying the idea. What is the change you’d like to make?

Change-makers who have remarkable impact over time tend to have a clear sense of their unique mandate;  a mandate that sits at the intersection of their purpose (Section 1 Finding Your Purpose), the evolving needs of the world, and their unique skills.  In this section, we explore the latter two of the three.  I will take  you on a 360-degree tour of megatrends influencing our world, introducing the opportunities they create, and helping you ground that awareness into the best way that you – and only – you could remake this world for the better.

Section 3: Vetting the idea. Does this idea warrant your all?

If Section 2 helps you identify at least one big, world-changing idea with the power to consolidate all that you are and fuel both optimism and action, then Section 3 will help you gauge whether the idea is ready for you to give it everything you’ve got.  I will take you through opportunity analysis, a rigorous process of vetting ideas through a series of filters that I have framed as a questionnaire.  Even if any part of you balks at the notion, I will do my best to demonstrate why the idea is not enough by itself.  The most impactful change-makers are also often the most disciplined, methodically tending the weakest aspects of their ventures.

Section 4:  Creating change. What will it take to make the difference you target?

Designed to help you plan for the impact you seek to create, this section is the meatiest portion of the book.  An overwhelming portion of transformational initiatives fail, so let’s significantly boost your odds.  In this section, I introduce the concept of change design as distinct from the established discipline of change management.  To help you wrap your mind around both the macro and the micro aspects of change-making, I delve into systems theory and introduce you to what I have distilled to be the building blocks of transformation.  Then I will zoom in on the practicalities of setting up governance and getting operational basics right.  Through this prominent section, I guide you through strategy, launch, scaling, embedding, and evaluating transformation, introducing priorities for each phase as well as helping you discern what may lie around the corner.

Section 5: Getting yourself ready. How might you resource yourself for your vital work?

Even your most perfect plan is nothing without you.  You are the engine of the change you are here to create.  I came into this work through watching too many phenomenal change-makers suffer and burn out;  an unacceptable waste of this world’s most precious resource.  In Section 5, we look at resourcing ourselves.  I share hard-earned insight about owning our fears, making our comfort zone more pliant, making room through decluttering our lives, financial planning, and support systems.  However effective all of this can be, as a change-maker, you will not have the protection of inaction.  You will be moving through a damaged world, exposed to its best as much as its worst.  While it may be futile to try to avoid challenges, I will sit with you in those moments of trial by sharing some of the ways I have been brought to my knees. 

Section 6: Exit. What is your venture’s legacy after you move on?

Like birthday balloons that clutter our atmosphere long after the occasion for which they were created, too many ventures exist long after their purpose has passed, siphoning headspace and funding as well as trapping change-makers.  In this section, I challenge you to consider whether your venture is perennial or evergreen.  Even if it is the latter, you may want to leave it in good hands and exit before it burns you out.  I argue that starting with the end in mind is as good an idea for your venture as it is for a road trip.  We explore what exit means for commercial, nonprofit, government, and public ventures and how to put yourself in the best possible position to cement your legacy.

Section 7: What now?

You are at the finish line, and I am honored that you have allowed me to take you through so much terrain.  It is time we regroup, reflect on what we have learned, and chart next steps.