#014 - Navigate Your Issue - 7 Day Challenge - Day 1

So let me ask you something. Has a politician ever come up to you and said, hey, do you have an idea for something that you would like to see in your district? Is there some change that you want? Is there some problem that the government can help you with? Now, for some people, the answer is yes, but for most of us, the answer is no. That has not happened. And the other thing is, you need to be proactive if you want to get something done. That's the term that is often used. So in order to do this, what we are going to do is say the first thing I told you the other day was we need to focus on message. If you had a meeting with your legislator, they would say to you, great, nice to see you, how's it going? And what can I do for you today? Basically what they're asking you is, what is your issue? And generally people are vague about this because they don't know. So the point here is for you to figure out that message very quickly, know what it is that you want, and that's really your core message. The other thing is often there's so many issues, you don't know which one to focus on. In fact, there are actually 78 issue codes that the Senate uses in the body of the Senate and at the government level. And they range from transportation to immigration, to taxes, to the budget to civil rights, on and on and on. So what you need to do, and I've included this in the PDFs that are associated with this, you need to look and figure out the first thing that you want to do is what is the most important thing to you? What is the issue that you are concerned about? Is it a problem at the local level? Is it a problem at the federal level? Where is the issue that is just bugging you? That's what you need to find out. So the first thing you're going to do here as part of the exercise by tomorrow is you figure out what your core issue is. You don't have to describe it in detail, just very high level, one word, two words. And that's all we're going to do today. Okay? So, so think about an issue or a problem that's bugging you. Tomorrow we're going to work through this and then what we're going to do is we're going to take this and structure it in the form of a story that makes sense. I won't get into the detail of that. But tomorrow we'll look at the issue that you care about, or you and your partner, or if you're working with a small group of people in a non profit, you could do that too. So there's lots of ways to approach this. But what you want to do is figure out the core and message of the thing that is bugging you, even if it's in the broadest general sense. Now let me tell you very briefly a little bit about me. So I have worked at a handful of, I've worked at a handful of major companies in the tech world and the entertainment world. And recently I wrote a book called how to Change a Law, which is on Amazon. Okay. It goes into much more detail about how this process works. And in this course I will give you the relevant portion, the how to, specific steps that will accompany what we're doing right here. So you're not going to be left alone. It's going to be about, it's going to be a 30 page ebook and you can have that as part of this course. We'll make it available in the next day or so and it will include what you need to know and learn to move forward. So hopefully that's enough for today. Figure out your issue, decide what's important, find the trouble spots in the world that bug you, whether it's in your local community, something at the state level, something at the federal level, and we'll talk about that. And the one caveat, the one warning I want to mention to you, and this is where many people get confused and that is they mix politics and policy. And because we're in the political season, people say, well, who should be president? And we know who the contenders are, we know who's going. But what you need to understand is that this is not about politics, this is about policy. And policy is different. Because imagine this situation. Imagine you call up your congressperson and you say, I'd like to have a meeting, I would like to come in and I want to talk to you about X. They're going to say, well, who are you? What do you want to get done? What is your position, you know, who else supports this, who is opposed to it, etc. What you're talking about are the issues. Because they will use what you tell them to formulate their own judgment from their own perspective, with input from lots of other people, by the way. And they will use that to then say, ah, I think I understand this issue. This is how I will vote on it. And if I'm really passionate, I will try to convince other members of my committee or other members on other committees or in the other bodies, which is either the House or the Senate or the Assembly. I will try to convince other people to join me so we can get the votes, to get a bill moving forward and then to pass legislation. That's really what happens. Okay, so this isn't about should Trump be president or Hillary be president. That's not what this is about. This is not about elections. This is not about politicians. This is simply about issues. And what are issues? Issues that we face are really problems that exist in the world that are not being addressed or laws that need to be repealed, but they're issues where the politician might be overwhelmed or they might be stalemated or they don't have input from their constituents or the people who live in their district and they can't move that forward. So the idea is you can look at something that is important to you and instead of going it alone, what we're saying is find like minded people, come together and you can begin to build a base or what I refer to as an ad hoc coalition. Okay? And that's what we're going to start talking about in this course. So your first order of business for tomorrow, if you're still with me, figure out your issue. One or two words. Look at the categories below. Something will tick. Look at the newspaper, look on the Internet. There's something that is bothering you that you would like to change and in all likelihood it's related to a law. So that's it. We'll see you tomorrow. Glad you can make it today and keep up the good work. Thank you.