Nilofer Merchant: How to Turn Ideas Into Impact with Onlyness
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2017
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nilofer Merchant is a master at turning seemingly “wild” ideas into powerful new realities and showing the rest of us how we can do the same.
Over the years, this has taken the form of books, her top-ranked TED talk, strategic advising for some of the largest, most-innovative companies in the world and game-changing startups, as well as being a member of organizational teams responsible for global impact and billions in product revenue.
More recently, though, she's focused her fierce ideation and research lens on a bigger question. Nilofer asks, "do we really each have within us the unique capacity to make a substantial impact?"
Her conclusion, indeed we do. And, we're living in times that, maybe for the first time ever, have made it possible for people who've been marginalized, disenfranchised and stripped of power to bring forth and build momentum around ideas that, in her words, are mighty enough to "dent the world." Merchant explores these ideas in her intriguing new book, The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World.
Big idea: Every single one of us has the ability to contribute. The fact that we don’t is the society’s greatest problem and the greatest opportunity.
You’d never guess: How one woman was able to sway the decision of a group of Pakistani tribal leaders to change the way they create justice.
Current passion project: Educating people about the power of ideas and the power of all people to move ideas to create impact in the world.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The reason that we don't all bring our best ideas to bear is because we haven't found |
| 0:10.0 | a safe enough place to take that risk. |
| 0:12.9 | So it's not the fact that we're not bold enough. |
| 0:15.7 | It's the fact that our group, the context in which we're in, does not make it safe enough |
| 0:20.0 | to bring our best ideas. |
| 0:21.2 | So it's not boldness, it's belonging. |
| 0:23.6 | It limits how much we can actually bring our best idea to bear in. |
| 0:28.2 | If you look at the about part of the website for today's guest, Nilla for Merchant, you'll |
| 0:36.2 | find that she has been responsible for launching over 100 products netting more than $18 billion |
| 0:43.0 | in sales. |
| 0:44.0 | She's become a mover or shaker, a force of nature in Silicon Valley and the world of innovation |
| 0:50.0 | working with companies from Apple to Autodesk and advising many others. |
| 0:54.4 | She has a huge TED Talk. |
| 0:57.3 | But here's the thing. |
| 0:58.8 | The Nilla for that I know, the Nilla for who has become a friend of mine over the years |
| 1:03.9 | is a woman who is stunningly bright and deeply curious about the power of ideas, the power |
| 1:14.8 | of people to move ideas to create impact. |
| 1:19.9 | And more recently, how seemingly disempowered people, seemingly powerless people, people |
| 1:26.1 | who you would assume would not have the power status to take an idea and bring it to the |
| 1:34.2 | world in a way that would allow it to expand out and make a huge dent in the universe. |
| 1:41.2 | She's curious, fascinated and deeply committed to understanding and helping that process. |
| 1:48.8 | She's the author of a new book, The Power of Oneliness. |
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