I set-up a phone interview with her, and prior to jumping on the call, did my journalistic due diligence- you know, conducting some background research and scribbling down a few questions like, “what kind of venue do you prefer to play in?” and “Who are your musical inspirations?” The fluffy and feel-good stuff.

The interview came and no amount of prep could prepare me for what happened. To say she was ruthless would be an understatement. I remember at one point she said something along the lines of, “I am used to reporters asking me more technical questions,” and, “you didn’t research me enough.” I don’t know if it was shear embarrassment or my shock at how bad this interview was going, but I blurted out, “I am sorry, I have never really done this before, I used to be a geophysicist…”

… and I begin explaining how I went from being a geophysicist to working within a communications role.

Yes, I went from a career that had all the math and science your heart could desire, to one that requires knowing adjectives upon adjectives and tapping into your creative side. While the two are very different, if it wasn’t for geophysics, I wouldn’t be half the communicator that I am.

See, when you are studying to become a “rock doctor”, you are immediately thrown into every calculus, physics, and computer science class that you could imagine. With seemingly endless labs and lectures, your jargon begins to change. While I was learning about seismic processing or Poisson’s Ratio, I was also learning a new language.  Within our cohort, we all knew what we were talking about, but to everyone else we were speaking in hieroglyphics.

Just like any language barrier this becomes problematic when you are trying to achieve business goals, and my second summer internship project proved just this! It was my job that summer to map faults and identify “no drill zones” because we had to prove to the drilling engineers why what we did mattered. Before I started, they had already lost the company over $250 million because they thought they “didn’t need us.” While both of us worked on the same team, our engineers didn’t understand us.

Fascinated by this lack of understanding, in the years following that project, I took it upon myself to break that language barrier. If my team members knew what I was doing, then I could develop stronger working relationships and ensure our business goals were met. Eventually I became a liaison between our geophysics group and business development team and helped create marketing strategies for our company. 

And that leads me to where I am now, particularly in the agency world. While us as individuals have our own set of vocabulary and definitions, it serves no good if no one outside of our team can’t understand us.

Oh, and for the lead singer; after their concert I went back stage to do a quick “post-show” interview. When I got there, she ran over, grabbed my arm and goes, “this is the geophysicist I was telling you guys about!” 

How Being a Geophysicist Made Me a Better Communicator

I was working as a reporter for my hometown’s paper this past summer and a super 80’s Canadian rock band was coming to town, and I was tasked with interviewing the lead singer (when I say ‘super 80’s’ I mean I remember listening to them on cassette tape with my dad).

Condensed

“I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do.”

We are firm believers in the power of tiny habits – those small, daily, recurring actions that build up over time into something far greater than one single grand gesture. Routines can be difficult to work into your life, but are ultimately what push you (and the world around you) toward the better future that you want to see. 

In a world overflowing with ‘self-improvement via smart habit building’ books and TED talks, what about leveraging the power of habit for activism? How can you tackle a social issue just as you would a personal goal like weight loss or skill-building? 

Here are our 3 steps to becoming an activist of habit (a champion of tiny change? a micro-world changer? You get the idea):

Find your ‘what’ and your ‘why’. As with any grand vision, identifying the heart of a goal is what will make your project or personal movement something meaningful and worth sticking to. Do it.

Uncover your how by breaking your vision into the tiniest pieces possible. We call these little moments of activism Tiny Actions. They are the antidote to “I don’t have time” or “I’m not that kind of person who ____ (goes to marches, jumps on anti-whaling boats in the Arctic, etc).”

It’s not about the grand gestures. Rather, how can you break down a global issue into actionable pieces that you (and your family and friends) can take on every day? 

Here are some big problems with immediate next steps to get your brain thinking:

How can I positively impact climate change?

How can I help stop gun violence and school shootings?

How can I help increase literacy in my community and around the world?

Now that you have clarity on your Tiny Actions, turn your passion for change into a personal routine that ultimately contributes to the greater good, day-by-day and tiny-action-by-tiny-action.

Write it down. Writing down your goals dramatically increases your chances for success. If you don’t write it down, it’s probably not going to happen. Easy first step!

 Make it daily and make it manageable. While you might actually be trying to change the world, you may burn out if you attempt to do it all at once. Start small—smaller than you think you need to help you adopt the habit. Then build your actions from there.

Find an accountability partner. Whether it’s a friend with the same fire in their belly or a handy habit building coaching app on your smartphone(like Coach.me or Habitica), leverage the relationships and technology you need to get things done.

Get savvy with your reminder system. You are training your brain and need to give it nudges to grow in the ways that you want it to. Invest in the coolest, most obnoxious Post-It notes you can find or pair your desired new habit with something you already do habitually already to make things stickier.

Embrace imperfection. New habits don’t lock in overnight. Give yourself room to forget, make mistakes or slack a bit and then get right back to it.

Tiny actions create the sparks that have changed history. Embrace the power you hold even in the smallest of gestures, these gesture are what will help re-shape our culture and build new narratives that challenge the status quo. Baby steps all the way.

We are firm believers in the power of tiny habits – those small, daily, recurring actions that build up over time into something far greater than one single grand gesture.

The Mighty Power in Your Tiny Actions