For What It's Worth

(Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)

Five Key Principles

(10 minute read)

Key Takeaways:

• Real influence begins with inner commitment. Lasting change doesn’t start with platforms or popularity, but with a deep internal resolve to live differently and act with integrity.
• Truth is more than opinion—it must correspond to reality. In a culture saturated with noise, narratives, and competing claims, truth requires discernment, humility, and a willingness to test beliefs against what is real rather than what is merely felt.
• Small actors can shape large systems. Like birds in a flock or agents within complex systems, individuals can meaningfully influence collective outcomes—especially when grounded in clarity, courage, and principled action.

“All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our own body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.” –Mahatma Gandhi

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” –Barack Obama

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

–Jane Goodall

Becoming an Influencer

On Wednesday morning, June 17, 2026, these were the most shared stories on the NYTimes website.

1. “The One Surprising Mistake Everyone Makes With Pancakes.”
2. “Trump Ordered ‘American Flag Blue for the Reflecting Pool. It’s Green Again.”
3. “There Is a Solution to the Housing Crises, and One City Just Stumbled Into It.”
4. “In Its Tragic Finale, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Is Interrupted by a Cat.”
5. “Sick of Swiping, Some Daters Would Rather Sweat Together.”

This is not a criticism of the Times. I’ve subscribed for years, and as a print publication they have long been among the very best. Nor is this meant as a judgment on readers and their taste in news.

On the same day, environmental scientists reported progress on two fronts: understanding how flocks of birds and schools of fish move together, and finding a way to break down forever chemicals using intense UV light.

The chemicals breakthrough is clearly good news. But what about the birds?

How flocks move as a single unit has puzzled scientists for centuries, seeming to challenge Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Researchers in Dresden explain that while birds can see broad stretches of their surroundings, when flying in a flock they focus only on the birds directly ahead.

Birds are not the only living things that behave this way. Systems of bacteria, crowds of people, and groups of cells in living tissue show similar patterns.

In these systems, individual components respond to only part of their environment rather than everything around them. As a result, the interaction works in one direction, meaning that action and reaction are no longer balanced.

This may seem far removed from perfect pancakes, but discoveries like these often lay the foundation for future breakthroughs. Farming, environmental management, tissue science, disease control, and our understanding of crowd behavior are just a few areas this work could influence.

Pancake jokes aside, the reason to linger on this study is its quiet importance. The author of the perfect pancake piece will likely draw far more clicks than the scientists in Dresden, yet what slips by today may ultimately matter far more.

One could even argue that both efforts are trying to be game changers—each in its own way.

The Challenge

There are seasons in life when it can feel like we’re not in the driver’s seat, being carried toward places we never chose. It happens to all of us. The question is how to let that happen less often.

In this series, we’ll explore what it means to become an agent of change—someone willing to take practical steps to make a difference. We’ll start with change in your own life, then look outward to your family, friends, community, and the organizations you’re part of.

I should say up front that this series does have an agenda. I’ve wanted to be a game changer most of my life, and I’ve failed more often than I’ve succeeded. That might sound counterintuitive—why listen to someone who openly admits that failure is part of the journey?

Yet examples of this are everywhere. A baseball player with a .300 average—three hits out of ten at-bats—is celebrated as one of the best. A scientist may run dozens of failed experiments to find the one that finally works. Michael Jordan, often called one of the greatest basketball players ever, missed more than 9,000 shots, lost 366 games, and didn’t even make his high school team as a sophomore.

Stories like these invite us to do one simple, difficult thing: lean into failure.

Whatever you believe about the big questions of why we’re here, the fact remains that we are here—and we can choose to make the most of it. Many of us feel something more, a quiet restlessness that insists there has to be something more. Our first step is to lean into that restlessness too, and choose to become an unfettered game changer.

Principle #1: Commitment

For those who feel drawn to make a difference, the idea of becoming a game changer often doesn’t feel like a choice so much as a pull. Many of us start without a clear picture of what that means, only a quiet sense that there must be something more.

This first principle is to notice that inner pull and choose to honor it. We may not yet know how to act on it, but we sense we’ll miss something important if we ignore it.

This nudge doesn’t have to be a mystical sign. Waiting for a perfect moment of guidance can be discouraging, because what matters most is not finding the one right thing, but being willing to take a step.

If we hope to be game changers, we begin with ourselves. Change rarely happens all at once, and we don’t need everything figured out before we start. Sometimes the truest move is a small, unsteady step while we learn what works.

Principle #2: Telling the Truth

Jesus said, …my kingdom is from another place.

You are a king, then! said Pilate.

Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth …

What is truth? retorted Pilate.

—John 18:36-38; NIV – Second Testament

This passage from Christian scripture is often read as a story about the mystery of Jesus. Yet it may be inviting us to consider something even broader.

It is easy to see why it became central in Christian tradition. Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus is reported as saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life, a claim not found in the earlier Gospels. The author of John seems to use this scene to deepen that theme.¹

Seen this way, Pilate’s meeting with Jesus takes on a different meaning and should stop us in our tracks.

What is truth?

Depending on where, when, and with whom we are speaking, truth can mean very different things. One challenge to the English language is the use the same word, but in many different contexts.

• I love watching the sunset
• I love ice cream
• I love my cat
• I love my children

Most of us can recognize the nuance. We know there is a real difference between saying we love ice cream and saying we love another person, and we rarely confuse the two. Our grasp of hyperbole helps us sort this out. What we do share is the sense that the word love signals something we value deeply.

Yet, seen this way, the word truth can become complicated. Consider a few everyday examples.

• The earth is flat
• The election was stolen
• If you don’t agree with my politics you’re an idiot
• Science is always 100% right

Sorting out truth in statements like these is often straightforward. In a later article, we will look at critical thinking—how to test information and form more careful judgments.

There was a time when many people in the United States lived with several shared assumptions: graduating from high school mattered, governments and schools could be trusted, the news generally reflected reality, and corporate America put employees first, to name a few.

Of course, not everyone believed these things, and never all at once. Still, many people treated these assumptions as truths, a value that was almost always self-evident.

Over time, our society has fractured. Information—and what counts as truth—is no longer widely shared. Alternative news sources and social media have given a powerful voice to smaller groups that once had little reach.

As with any major technological shift, we have gained some things and lost others. We will explore those gains and losses later. For now, let’s stay with the question itself, especially because many people now turn to technology in their search for truth.

What Is Truth?

To say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true; while to say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false.

—Aristotle, Metaphysics

If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.17

To become game changers, we need to know what truth is and where we can reliably find it.

A classic understanding of truth is simply this: saying what aligns with reality. For our purposes, that begins with looking honestly at our lives as they are now.

For Aristotle, truth was straightforward: To say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not. Truth is not a hopeful wish about what we want to be real. It is what can be shown, by reason and fact, to match reality.

But whose reality are we talking about?

Truth is more than a bundle of ideas and perceptions backed by strong emotion or conviction.

This is true because I feel that it is …is not enough.

When asked, what is truth? it’s not a throwaway line. It is written as a full stop—a question that should make the reader sit up and pay attention.

The Jewish Psalms often use the word Selah, which many scholars see as a cue to pause, reflect, and let the words sink in. It invites the reader to stop and meditate on what has just been said.

Pilate’s question almost begs for a Selah of its own.

Within the Christian tradition, the scene with Pilate matters because Jesus is understood as the embodiment of truth. But this is only one recent interpretation among many. Yet, if we leave it there, we risk missing a deeper invitation in the story. Perhaps the implication is broader: like Pilate, we all wrestle with truth.

Even thinkers who reject religious frameworks have warned that a culture untethered from shared standards of truth becomes fragile.

The one thing that I think is really dangerous, in many religions, is that it gives people a gold-plated excuse to stop thinking. They stop thinking [and] say I don’t have to think about that because my religion says this is right, this is wrong. It’s as clear as that … black and white [and] I don’t have to think about this anymore. It’s just a matter of faith.

—Daniel Dennett, PBS, Sep 1, 2008

In the same interview, Dennett notes that faith itself is not the problem. The danger comes when faith becomes so rigid that it refuses to face reality and insists that one interpretation is the only possible one to consider.

Dennett’s broader philosophical point identifies a danger that cuts across ideological lines.

If we hope to make a difference we must be committed to seeking, identifying, and telling truths. We start with ourselves and extend that commitment to others. Being a truth-teller means leaving behind the habits and systems that helped us hide—from ourselves and from the institutions we serve. It means holding ourselves to standards of honesty, transparency, and accountability. In all we say and do, we aim to stay grounded in facts and in reality.