Be A Droplet
While others "flood the zone," it is the small, subtle, and "insignificant" acts that change everything.
I had a call with Steve Brock this past week. He’s a brand and marketing guy who wrote books on travel (Hidden Travel: The Secret To Extraordinary Trips) and, most recently, creativity (The Creative Wild).
I wanted more time to unpack what he wrote to me in an email: “The one other theme that seems to be in everyone’s heart (artists) is something around NEXT STEPS … the personal desire for ‘now what do I do with my life’ feels even more pressing … I think if all we do is figure out the next baby step, that’s all we need.’”
He and I call this the “revolution of smallness.”
Everyone is desperate for the next big move, the grand plan that will change everything. But what if the real revolution isn’t in the big? What if it’s in the small?
Just under 60 years ago, on the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion — occupied by France, about 110 miles southwest of Mauritius — 71 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. That’s nearly 6 feet of rain.
I think of little La Reunion island every time I hear the strategy “flood the zone.”
What happens when a downpour creates flooding?
People run for cover.
Natural boundaries are eroded, erased.
Destruction and damage, and in many cases, rising waters cause tragic loss of life.
Massive clean-ups.
Flood mentality — the desire to cause a moment that touches everyone, changes everything, and remakes the landscape — is attractive when we feel out of control, restless for something big to happen, and the fatigue of “long obedience in the same direction” sets in.
It’s a dangerous strategy.
Floods overwhelm and destroy. They force people into survival mode. But droplets? They don’t demand attention. They move steadily, persistently, reshaping landscapes over time. The better way isn’t to drown the world—it’s to carve a path through it.
While others “flood the zone,” be a droplet.
Believe me, everything within me resists that idea. I want big things to happen, immediately and with consequence.
And yet …
It’s the drip, drip, drip of small, subtle, and “insignificant” acts — done together and over a lifetime — that creates the deep grooves of a good life, a good city, a good career, a good marriage, a good _______. You fill in the blank.
Most will never notice. We may even feel like our dreams never came true, our impact was small, or our gifts and talents were wasted.
Not true.
The older I get the more I admire the “plodders” — the definition of a “person who works in a slow and perseving and uninspired manner” — steady, unflinching, never leaving the journey, and finishing well.
There’s an urgency to this moment. I think we all feel it. The temptation is to find the strategy to “flood the zone” — whether that is to make more money, get the kids into the right colleges, or to counter-act what is happening in the government or in business or with the climate.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The revolution of smallness. The next step, as Steve wrote. The patience, persistence — yes, plodding — of a life that is determined to do what we can, where we can, and in the best, most creative, most loving, and most alive way possible.
Start the revolution of smallness today. Send the message you’ve been putting off. Help one person, without expecting anything in return. Show up for your craft, even when no one is watching. Choose one habit, one act, one commitment. Let it drip, drip, drip until it reshapes your world … and ours.
