“Otherwise, all we’re going to get is what we got out of Ferguson: a bunch of politicians and celebrities expressing sympathy and outrage. If we don’t have a specific agenda—a list of exactly what we want to change and how—we will be gathering over and over again beside the dead bodies of our murdered children, parents, and neighbors.
— Kareen Abdul Jabbar, The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race

To grow is to change, and to have changed often is to have grown much.
— John Henry Newman

Though the first quote from an article by Kareem Abdul Jabbar is very much worth reading for its painful insight into the Ferguson, Missouri turmoil, it was this line that grabbed me:

“If we don’t have a specific agenda—a list of exactly what we want to change and how…”

Something to change; something to do. Something to do about the problems we face. Something to do to put into practice what I have read and what I am trying to learn. (Because, in reality, learning is not fully complete until we do something with any new way of thinking.)

I read business books. They are filled with insight. But, many people who “learn” ways to think from such insights do not necessarily put that thought into practice.

This is commonly called the “knowing-doing gap.” Maybe we should call it the “we talk about it, but never do anything about it” gap.

When a leader says, “This is what we should do now,” and then the people actually do it, that is when the real changes get made.

Contributed by:
Randy Mayeux
Professional Speaker & Writer
Co-founder, First Friday Book Synopsis