The Tipping Point

[In the Beginning – III]

Malcom Gladwell wrote a book some years back, The Tipping Point. He explores what causes a product, idea, or trend to “tip” over a threshold and spread rapidly. It’s a book about social phenomena.

What about personal tipping points?

A friend asked me the other day about when a concept I learned about became a principal I lived by. He was asking about a personal tipping point. When did I cross the threshold from bystander to believer, from witness to advocate, from student to practitioner?

Step by step I traced my journey back to the beginning, and what I found was not a formula or implementation strategy; rather, it was an admission of failure.

Failure of an old system that couldn’t fulfill it’s promises.
Failure of a former method that proved hollow.

The new way “tipped” from idea to a fully-embraced norm when I finally and unashamedly admitted to myself that the old norm was futile.

The old must die before “tipping” into the new.
There’s often a death before a new beginning.