Access

Hi, there were three things that are holding us back. It's apathy, access and affordability. For some who are really apathetic and think there's no point in trying to make a change, then it really doesn't matter. So for the rest of you who are looking at this and saying, wow, you know, access is the big problem and the question is...

access is a big problem. I mean, part of it is you don't know who to go to, what you need to say, how to get something changed, how to get a law moving forward, how to have your opinion moving forward, and then ultimately you realize it's a huge amount of work. So what we want to do is say, let's eliminate the roadblocks. Let's eliminate the pieces that are preventing you from taking action. And the simplest thing you can do is write down the things that you're unhappy with. So if for instance you say, you know, I am upset by education in my state, or I am upset by the current state of the gun laws, then what you want to do is create a framework. And all that is is really listing. If you had the perfect answer or the perfect solution that maybe the politicians don't have, what would that include?

Would that include certain things like no bump stocks, not selling guns that are automatic weapons to people under 21, limiting the number of bullets, et Cetera, or in education, would it be having a more fair way where you can decide what kind of education you want for your children or in taxes? Could it be lifting certain regulations or changing certain things that you know are preventing your business from growing and that's where it starts. It starts with, no different than creating a list. You create a list and you write down the things that you think are important. [CRASH]

Let's try that again. OK.

So you create a list and you write down the things that you think are important and it's really just line items. So that's what I mean when I talk about a framework. I'm just saying list down like I would like to have this and this and this. Just like a list that you create when you are writing down your goals or anything else. And these are the things that I would like and these are the things that I don't want. These are the things that should be included, these are things that would not, these are the sensible solutions to the problem. And you just list them all. When you do that, you're going to have this framework and you don't have to get into the detail. This is like a wishlist, so you're just putting down the things that you want in terms of what that would look like.

And that becomes the basis for you deciding what that final bill or law or idea is going to become because that's where you start. So it's not as hard as you think. I mean, it really is looking at problems that you're facing every day in lots of different areas and saying, this doesn't make sense. The speed limit in this part of town should be 35 miles an hour and not 25 miles an hour. One of the big problems that hasn't been really resolved clearly, and there's so much argument around it is the issue of immigration. So if you have specific ideas where you say, look, this is the answer, what I see is that the right and the left are on completely polar opposite sides of this issue and what's missing is they don't have the facts. So the three things I mentioned are apathy, access and affordability.

So the first part really apathy. If you don't care about any of these issues in your community or your city, town, state or country, then again, it really doesn't matter and you're probably not listening to this anyway. But if you do, then your next issue is access. And the whole idea, the whole idea behind access is OK. So assume that I can get access to my law maker. What am I going to say? How do I say it? How do I present it at? What I'm saying to you is don't make this so complicated. Make it easy on yourself by saying, the way to begin to look at this is to say, you know what? Here are the five top things that should be in the bill and here are the top three things that should not. And from that, use that as a basis for broadening it out. You don't need to write the entire bill as we've talked about there are numerous folks who have gotten bills at the state and the federal level done and they're in the legislative bodies and they started with just outlining what they wanted to get done. And then finally, the last part, of course it's going to be resources or affordability.

How do you solve that? Well, you might think only the very rich or people who have a lot of spare time can do this, but it doesn't take a ton of time to write a list of things that you want to get done. Begin to use that to form or build a debate which we encourage you to do on the site and then share it, which is the key. You need to share other people's ideas. They need to share yours and little by little by little, you're going to have somebody who really believes in what you're doing and you're going to end up with lots of people who will do that for you. So it is a reciprocal thing that you do for other people, they do it for you and your issue of resources begins to go away. So I hope that's helpful in terms of understanding that don't get overwhelmed by this stuff.

You know the people who actually get this done, or the people who say, hey, we're going to take a look at this. We're going to figure it out, what we want to get done, and we're going to find other people who agree with us, support it, and want to help. That's all it is. So you start by just writing down a few key sentences and you can do that on a napkin, on a notebook, on your phone pretty much anywhere. So give it a shot. If we can help you out in any way, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to guide you through. And again, we have a free course and other materials that will walk you through how to move from being totally stuck to getting past these obstacles, to being able to realize that you could actually be involved in making change in your community. This is John Thibault with iLobby Thanks for watching.