"Derek Sivers: How to start a movement" Reflection

In the Video, Derek Sivers uses humorous footage to explain how a movement really gets started, exploring the significance not only of leaders, but of those who have the courage to follow. This video offers an opportunity to discuss leadership and risk, the glorification of leadership, the validity of the belief that “everyone can lead,” and the transformative power of followers in both large and small-scale movements.

To me, a true leader is one that knows how to follow.

When a leader is starting something they cannot know what the people are going to do or what the people will let them accomplish. The best leader is aware of his incredible dependence upon his followers. The real power a leader has is that of his followers. A leader’s power stems directly from the commitment and focus of his followers. If a leader is without followers he is just another man.

Your followers are your power.

And so, Mr. Sivers says that your first few followers are your most valuable allies. You must nurture and encourage them so that they can slowly increase your base of people. The more people you have a positive impact on, the more people they can tell about you.

However! When a leader recognizes that the people are not following him but what he stands for, then he will have achieved a position that few in the past have achieved. And if he/she does so, then the movement takes on a whole new aura. If you think about it, would you be more willing to follow someone who is famous and knows that everyone worships him? Or a person who is famous and yet, believes that people follow him because of what he stands for? Selflessness is such an attractive quality that often it can override less appealing qualities. Mr. Sivers’ talk is not about leaders however; it is about how to start a movement. And in a movement, the leader should actually want to get lost in the movement.

To start a movement, you must love it.

This type of innocent enrapture with the movement or whatever it is you love, allows the followers you gain to be of a true and absolute type.

-Jia Xuan (15)

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