When big ideas come before big money

Emily and I have been talking about where we can take Lane Change. We started Lane Change to kick off our “Winter B-icicle Challenge” but were careful to chose a name that was only vaguely linked to bicycles, thereby giving us the capacity to expand. After all, the two of us are not bike nerds. We’re environmentalists. We’re activists. We believe in change, in a better world. And the bike thing is just one battle in a bigger war to “win hearts and minds.”

Now we’d love to make a living out of Lane Change so we can dedicate more than just a few hours a week on it. But when we got talking suddenly the “how to make money” question began to dominate the brainstorm.

At some point I stopped and said, “Emily, if money was no option, what would you like to do?”

It’s kind of the same with this writing group I belong to, in which every week someone from the group submits a short story for the rest to critique. And the thing I’ve learned recently is that it’s important to first ask yourself, before you’ve written a single word, what is this story really about? What is the big picture theme? Because if you want to really create something meaningful, something great, there needs to be BIG IDEA behind it. Otherwise it’s just shadows and glitter.

In the bio-pic about gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, it’s clear that for Harvey he was not driven by a thirst for power or the prestige of a political career. “Politics is theater,” he says, and he used it only to further a greater cause: the acceptance of gay people in a then incredibly hostile environment. For Harvey it was the gay movement first, and politics second. And without the former, the latter had no meaning.

And that’s how Emily and I need to think. We need to ask ourselves, what do we want to achieve, how do we want to change the world? And then work out how to fund it.

Which is the opposite to how a businessman might think. They search for business opportunities. They first think, what can make me money? And the impact that it has on the environment and society is a secondary issue, or in some cases, not an issue at all.