Keep Showing Up
This blog isn't perfect, and I’m often unsatisfied with my writing, but I care about what you’re reading and remain committed to keeping it authentic.
We cannot live our lives if we are dead set on perfection. We have to be okay with not being perfect. The most important thing I have found is this: whatever you do, do it with care, consistency, and authenticity.
I give myself the grace and the freedom to complete things that aren’t precisely how I want them to be. I keep my standards high, but I get whatever I’m working on done, pray it does something, and start the next one.
I believe the solutions to many of our world’s greatest challenges require this mindset: take leaps of faith, put your heart into it, and return even when results aren’t materializing as you hoped.
Governments and private corporations often aren’t very amenable to this mindset, but it works.
If we are looking for solutions for nature and your question is, “What actually works?” then my answer is “the things we actually try.”
I’ve interviewed many people who work in conservation, and the best solutions are the ones that receive ongoing attention. Often these come from grassroots efforts rather than intergovernmental ones.
Data scientist Lindsay Moore archived 60 years of USAID project reporting data and used a tailored LLM to read it, extract key points, and learn lessons from this dataset worth billions of dollars. She found clear patterns.
Often, the best solutions for sustainable projects are the ones where local people have the tools, training, and empowerment to keep projects running themselves. This takes consistent care, monitoring, and ongoing training. It is slow, takes years, and does not show results immediately. Governments can easily overlook this and repeat the same mistakes. Often, governments fund a pilot program and then exit, with no overhead to keep it going.
This means the ‘problem’ isn't the average person who cares enough to do something, but our systems, which require endless reporting, bureaucracy, and deliberation before action—and often don’t stick with a program.
They want to avoid risk; they expect perfection, and relatively quick success.
But nothing good is perfect, nothing great comes without risk, and the biggest changes often take years to materialize.
Barry Hunter told me at the ‘nature positive summit’ in Sydney. “I think there’s some amazing thought processes [but] we need to show that action on the ground, and we need to get moving with it.”
I want to add to his statement that we need to get moving and keep moving. Even if your government isn’t moving in the way you need, you can still do this in your life.
If you’re reading this and you’re sitting on an idea, a project, or something in your head that you want to make real, please start now and keep going. You truly never know who or what you will inspire.
That’s why I started this blog, and why I keep doing it.
Mike
Disclaimer: Thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Not that of any client or employer.
Image: A forest near Jodogahama Bay, Miyako, Japan. Photo by Mike DiGirolamo.