by Rebecca Margiotta | Mar 18, 2020 | Uncategorized
We are making ourselves available to help pro bono as sounding boards or thought partners to organizations that are trying to figure out how to scale essential services or address the challenges of virtual collaboration in view of the constraints presented by the Coronavirus.
This includes both co-founders of the Billions Institute, Becky Margiotta & Joe McCannon, as well as some graduates of our fellowship program who have specific areas of expertise in health care, human services, philanthropy, education and virtual collaboration among others.
All of our events at the Billions Institute are on hold for the next few months, so you will not be imposing if you give us a ring. Please email info@billionsinstitute.com if you want to take us up on this offer.
Meanwhile, please be safe and stay home if at all possible and be good to yourselves. As my friend Nicole Hockley reminded me this weekend: “Distance is needed but connection is needed even more.” The main reason I created the Billions Institute is so that nobody leading social change has to do so alone. If there is anything we can do to support you in navigating this global crisis, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Most warmly,
Becky & Selena
p.s. close your eyes and imagine what penguins would look like going down the stairs. It’s even better than that…click here to see for yourself.
Unleashing Social Change Podcast Season 2 is Out!
- Christine Margiotta, my wife and Executive Director of Social Venture Partners Los Angeles, on shifting their model from charity to justice.
- Dimitry Anselme with Facing History and Ourselves about teaching history as a way of bolstering our fragile democracy.
- Jason Marsh with the Greater Good Science Center on spreading research-based practices that advance happiness and well-being.
- Kate Hilton with the Institute for Health Care Improvement on getting out of your own way as a leader.
- Helen Smith, Forensic Psychiatrist with the National Health Service about taking the fear out of the system to unleash massive creativity.
- Gerry Balcazar and Hugo Ramirez from Vision y Compromiso on building movements of love and support around children
- Sasha Rabkin from Equal Opportunity Schools on bringing equity to AP/IB classes.
- Jake Maguire from Community Solutions on what happened after the 100k Homes Campaign ended. If you stick around til the very end you will get to hear him tell me a hilarious story that cracks me up to this day.
- Chris Chatmon from Kingmakers of Oakland on transforming schools to work for black and brown boys.
- Bruce Nilles from the Rocky Mountain Institute on climate change as an equity issue and why your natural gas appliances are no good.
- Peter O’Driscoll from the Equitable Food Initiative about how they’ve worked with the entire food production cycle to get healthy produce and fair wages for everyone.
- Arfon Williams, a General Practitioner in Rural Wales about how he responded to the crisis of being the only doctor around for hundreds of miles.
- Parvathi Santhoosh-Kumar, Vice-President of Equitable Results at StriveTogether, about how they’re working with dozens of communities to go from proof points to systems transformation on behalf of children everywhere.
- Tema Okun, Duke University, Facing into your own Racism with Courage and Love.
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jan 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
Ok so I’m 50 years old and true confession time: I love TikTok. That’s right. I love it.
15 second bursts of creativity from regular old folks all over the world. What’s not to love?
If I wanted to connect TikTok to some concept related to large-scale change I totally could. Virality. The science of memetics. The importance of people being able to make things their own. But you know what? It’s a gorgeous afternoon here in sunny Southern California, so I’m just wanted to invite us to be ticktok friends.
Have a great weekend and you’re welcome!
Love,
Becky
Unleashing Social Change Podcast Season 2 is Out!
Each week we will release a new episode but four interviews with amazing change leaders are already up on itunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Check these out:
- Jake Maguire from Community Solutions on what happened after the 100k Homes Campaign ended. If you stick around til the very end you will get to hear him tell me a hilarious story that cracks me up to this day.
- Chris Chatmon from Kingmakers of Oakland on transforming schools to work for black and brown boys.
- Bruce Nilles from the Rocky Mountain Institute on climate change as an equity issue and why your natural gas appliances are no good.
- Peter O’Driscoll from the Equitable Food Initiative about how they’ve worked with the entire food production cycle to get healthy produce and fair wages for everyone.
- Arfon Williams, a General Practitioner in Rural Wales about how he responded to the crisis of being the only doctor around for hundreds of miles.
- Parvathi Santhoosh-Kumar, Vice-President of Equitable Results at StriveTogether, about how they’re working with dozens of communities to go from proof points to systems transformation on behalf of children everywhere.
- Tema Okun, Duke University, Facing into your own Racism with Courage and Love.
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jan 16, 2020 | Uncategorized
On R-Day, my first day as a “new cadet” at West Point, back in the summer of 1987, I was taught my four responses. These four responses were to be the only acceptable answers to questions upperclass cadets might ask me for my entire plebe year. I remember somebody much bigger than me in a very stern voice showing me my four responses and giving me the opportunity to recite them from memory until I got it right.
And I still remember them 32+ years later:
Yes, sir/ma’am.
No, sir/ma’am.
Sir/ma’am, I do not understand.
No excuse, sir!
Perhaps not surprisingly, for something so seemingly simple, under the duress of R-Day it took me a couple tries to get it right! Since I wasn’t taking selfies on R-day back in 1987, I’ve included a stock photo below that pretty much captures the gist of my first year of college.
Thus began my plebe year – an extraordinary context based on the premise that you can’t be a leader until you’re a good follower first. And one in which just about every aspect of your behavior and character receive copious amounts of feedback, to put it in the most positive terms.
Physical hazing wasn’t allowed but verbal hazing was the norm, and the smallest mistake or poor decision was noticed by somebody. This gave me lots of opportunities to unlearn the habit of making excuses. Here’s what it would look like:
Upperclass Cadet: ”Cadet Kanis, your shoes look like a dog literally took a shit on them. Did you shine them with a Hershey Bar? I guess you’re just too good to shine your shoes anymore, huh? You’re better than the rest of us now, right?” (yelling at me, and inch away from my face, with bad breath, too).
Me: **has a reasonable explanation and attempts to offer it **
Upperclass Cadet: “NO EXCUSE, SIR, right Kanis? NO EXCUSE, SIR” ** continues hazing me but now it’s no longer about my failure to shine my shoes but about my attempt to make an excuse.
Here’s the thing that’s totally bananas – you’d think I’d figure it out pretty quickly, right? ** JUST SAY NO EXCUSE, Sir!!! ** but I couldn’t make myself do it!! Becuase I had an excuse. It took me a solid 6 to 8 months of my plebe year and plenty of unnecessary suffering to get out of the habit of offering excuses.
For the record I also had a really difficult time “removing that smirk from my face.” Military bearing took a tremendous amount of effort for me and even now I have nothing resembling a poker face! If I think something is funny, I am gonna laugh! But that’s a story for another day.
What would your life be like if you spent zero energy justifying your own behavior or trying to explain to someone how they misunderstood you? I’m not saying don’t apologize and commit to doing better going forward, especially if you’ve caused harm. But I am saying it might be more efficient if nothing else for you to dispense with the habit of making excuses once and for all.
Next time you find yourself wanting to defend your behavior, try “no excuse” on for size and see what happens. You just might free yourself up from a whole lot of wasted energy so you can get on with the important work of making the world a better place.
Love,
Becky
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jan 6, 2020 | Uncategorized
| I hope you had a restful holiday and that your 2020 is off to a great start.
Two of the things I am most excited about in the year ahead is I will be publishing my first book (!!) by the summer and we’ll be rolling out a brand new, shorter, less expensive workshop in the fall. I’ve gotten crystal clear that I want to support people who are working to make the world a better place in being happy, loving their work, and doing the most good possible. The new book and workshop were designed with exactly that in mind. More on both soon!
Speaking of being happy and loving your work, I wanted to share a tool that I developed many years ago to help me reckon with how I was choosing to spend my time as the Director of the 100,000 Homes Campaign for Community Solutions, the “Genius Tracker.”
Once again, I was at a workshop led by Katie Hendricks when she asked us this question: “What percent of your time are you willing to commit to spending in your genius?” By genius she meant things where I lose track of time, I’m really really good at it, so good, in fact, that it doesn’t even feel like “work.” For a much deeper dive into this concept, I recommend her husband, Gay Hendricks’ books, The Big Leap and the Joy of Genius.
When Katie asked me that question, I realized I had no idea what my baseline genius was. So being well-versed in continuous quality improvement, I decided to go about getting that baseline data. I created the genius tracker as a spreadsheet and kept it as an open tab on my laptop for four weeks. I recorded every single thing I did, how long it took, and whether or not I experienced myself in my zone of genius, excellence (which is you’re good at it, but it still feels like “work”), my competence, or my incompetence.
After a month of tracking, I realized that I was spending about 43% of my time in my genius. I used what I had learned to proactively change some agreements with my colleagues that resulted in me – and several others, too – being able to contribute from a much greater percentage of our genius.
I thought it might be a nice gift to share the Genius Tracker with you so you can get some baseline data for yourself and start your new year off right. Please let me know if you use it and what percentage you discover. In the coming weeks I plan to answer your questions about how you can spend more time in your genius so please circle back!
Love,
Becky |
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by Rebecca Margiotta | Dec 30, 2019 | Uncategorized
I’m hoping this finds you in the midst of a luxurious holiday, enjoying some down-time with loved ones.
Wherever you are, I have a few cool things I want to share with you.
1. Every New Years Eve since 2000, I have asked myself these same personal vision questions. The nutty thing is that just about everything that I’ve journaled about has become real in my life – one thing in particular became real 19 years later this year! Previously I’ve only shared this with our fellows but it’s so powerful that I want to share it with you, too.
2. Selena Liu Raphael, our Operations Manager, was interviewed for Pregnantish Podcast about being a single mother by choice and her process in choosing a sperm donor. I cried happy tears twice while listening to her story and wanted to give you this chance to know this amazing person who does so much to make the Billions Institute hum and sparkle.
3. In case you missed it, episodes of Season 2 of our podcast, Unleashing Social Change, are available now – with more being released each week. Here are the top 3 most downloaded in 2019.
Dan Heath: A Primer on Behavior Change
Angele Davenport: Grounding Your Work in Racial & Social Justice
Dr. Kate Hurley: How Two Veterinarians Launched a Movement That has Saved Over 2 Million Cats from Unnecessary Euthanization
January 1st marks the five year anniversary of the Billions Institute so Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary to Us!! And to you, too! I feel so proud of what we’ve created together so far, and so excited for what’s to come!
Love,
Becky
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by Rebecca Margiotta | Nov 26, 2019 | Uncategorized
In the summer of 2011, I found myself in a workshop with the Hendricks Institute in Ventura, California. This workshop changed the course of my life and I want to share one of the brightest gems with you.
What brought me to the workshop was that I wanted to fix my relationship with my then girfriend, Christine. We had been together for just over a year and predictably, shit had gotten real. We were caught in a cycle of blame, criticism, and power struggles. Therapy had been no help to us – at least not the therapist we had chosen at the time. This workshop with Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks was a last ditch effort to recussitate our relationship.
The final day of the workshop, we mustered up the courage to approach Dr. Hendricks during a break. With tears streaming down both our cheeks, we told her that we were afraid that we were just too different to be compatible. Katie, as we now know her, registered our concern, put her hands on our shoulders like a coach in a huddle, and reassured us with these words: “You two clearly love one another. You just need to build a bigger corral.”
We wiped away the tears, breathed a collective sigh of relief, and got to work on building that bigger corral. Fast forward to today, we’re living happily ever after, married with two beautiful children and a cat named Sneakers. In fact, Katie herself officiated our wedding the following year.
As many of us are heading into the Thanksgiving break with various configurations of relatives who put the fun in dysfunction, I thought it might be helpful to pay it forward by sharing Katie’s words of wisdom with you.
How can you build a bigger corral for yourself – the wiggle room to be your most authentic self – and how can you extend that graciousness to others, too?
Lemme know how it goes!
Meanwhile, if you’re bracing for heated debates about religion and politics, two of my favorite podcasts from our first season of Unleashing Social Change might be worth a listen (or re-listen) as you make your way to wherever you’re going:
And just in case, here is a helpful resource Christine, shared with us last week in her Anti-Racism for White People course (now enrolling for 2020):
Love,
Becky
