Design your own utopia and be a quietly positive influence on the world

Looking at the news and seeing what’s going on in the world can really get me down. It seems like there are such unbelievably big problems – with the climate, with human rights, politics, and so much more – and I don’t know what can help fix them. What is the answer? And what can I do?

One phrase I think back to is from Derek Sivers, author of Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Type of Entrepreneur, one of my absolute favourite business books. He writes, when you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.

I love this idea of designing your own utopia – in business and in life.

We can change more than we think. We’re not the powerless authors of our own lives that we sometimes believe we are.

You can be the kind, generous person you wish others would be too, starting now. You can change your diet and cause less harm as of your next meal.

Set aside some time to dream up your ideal day and routines and make them your new reality. You can create the art that you wish existed and let the world enjoy it. Or write your ideal book or blog and share what you’d love to read yourself.

You can start a business and make it your perfect world, designing the culture, team, and product that you want to exist in the world. You can choose its values and ensure they actually mean something. You can throw everything you despised about your previous jobs out the window and engineer your workplace utopia.