By Alec Hogg
In recent months, personal experience has focused my attention on the power of thought, the mystery of how mind overcomes matter. Having strived towards rationality, seeing results of this up close has significantly shifted my thinking on metaphysical issues.
As the journey progressed, waves of fresh evidence were presented. Discarding scepticism and approaching alternatives with an open mind was all it took to open the way. Goethe said it best: “At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.”
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Among these prods was a memorable interview in Davos this year with 68 year old faith leader Jim Wallis. Founder of Washington-based Sojourners, Wallis is a writer and political activist who played an important role in the Struggle and is a close friend of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others of his ilk. Among Wallis’s latest adventures was getting arrested with activists in Ferguson while helping the #Blacklivesmatter campaign get off the ground.
Wallis said in their darkest moments during the 1980s anti-Apartheid activists embraced what they called a “theology of hope”, embracing the power of mind over matter. They consciously imagined what it would be like to live in a free South Africa and believed totally that despite what was happening then, this would be manifested. A regular visitor to SA, Wallis says he sees the same in the country today – a growing belief among people of faith that corruption, racial division and political misrule will end.
I’m not sure whether that brilliant business thinker Jim Collins would endorse Wallis’s approach, but am willing to bet he’d agree the process of meaningful change is well underway.
In his masterful book Good to Great, Collins introduced us to the concept of a flywheel – imagining change as having to move a huge heavy disc mounted on an axle. Collins explained that it takes persistent effort to get the flywheel to inch forward and for those applying the energy, feels like forever to complete a full rotation. But as you keep pushing in the same direction, consistent effort gets the flywheel moving more freely.
He writes: ”Then, at some point – breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in in your favour, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn…whoosh!…its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort.”
Whether in business, personal relationships or national issues, imaging this flywheel makes it easier to understand the result of a sustained, focused effort. In SA, evidence abounds that momentum for meaningful change is building. August’s municipal elections and emergence of movements like Save SA tells us the flywheel is turning. The Rainbow Nation which global icon Nelson Mandela dreamed about, will take hold. Believe it.
