today I speak as a president of quite a
big animal rights organization that runs
campaigns both in Poland and in many
countries in the region five years ago I
was sitting with a group of my friends
we had absolutely no money no experience
and we were just about to start a big
campaign against one of the powerful
enemies in Poland which is the fur
industry and every time I think about
this period between five years ago and
today and I’ve tried to come up with
idea on what make us successful like
starting from being very small and
having nothing to growing and important
in a big organization I realized that
it’s probably not things that we had but
things that we lacked that actually made
us successful and when I think about
challenges that we that we had in the
very beginning one of them was that we
are the first organization in Poland
that tries to solve problems concerning
farmed animals which is the biggest
problem about animals it’s much easier
to work with cats and dog dogs because
people tend to empathize with them much
more and we decided that our focus would
be 100% on forint animals if you ever
try to do any activists in Poland you
probably realized that we don’t really
live in a country with high levels of
social engagement it’s not very popular
here to be a member of an organization
to be a volunteer unlike in many other
countries in Europe also Poland as a
country has a huge industry we are one
of the major producers of fur in the
world we are one of the three biggest
producers of animal fur the only two
that are bigger than Poland are China
and Denmark we are also one of the major
producers of broiler chickens caged eggs
in Europe and so on and so forth so
the problems we were trying to solve
were really really big and because the
industry is so big farmers have a huge
influence on politicians as well and to
ask to all those problems that we were
facing we also had no money when we were
studying we just had a lot of good ideas
and a lot of passion but we had
absolutely no experience in running an
organization everything we tried to do
felt kind of confusing and scary and
also we felt that because we are so
different like we really had no money
and no resources so we are so much
different from established and big NGOs
in Poland we cannot really copy and
mimic what they do and now I think that
this lack of experience was actually a
good thing because it made us it made it
easier for us to experiment and to look
elsewhere for inspiration so instead of
copying what other NGOs are doing we
looked for the mother community that
also that is also based on good ideas
and usually does not have many resources
and we started finding inspiration among
the startups it’s from the startups and
the IT community that we learned that
it’s really good to work remotely
because of this we can hire people based
on their real skills and not based on
the city they live in
it’s from the startup community that we
learn to use this is the structure with
very flat hierarchy and with so-called
open allocation which means that every
activists and or every worker can freely
choose projects and campaigns they work
on and then we also realized that all
those tools that are not so popular
among and NGOs actually are really great
to make people engaged and motivate it
so I feel that the this problem that we
have the lack of experience actually
forced us to look
elsewhere for inspiration they follow
forced us to learn it for it forced us
to like not not to look at things that
other people were doing in our sphere
and it really made our organization
stronger and better another problem and
it’s always a problem if you try to do
almost anything was the money
many non-governmental organization
strongly depend on grants or some sort
of governmental support but even though
we were trying to solve a really huge
and important issue which is the factory
farming that harms not only animals but
also human health and ecology there are
not many grants that actually support
this important work so knowing that
there is no money waiting for us to take
so that we can start doing the good
things we realized that the only way for
us to really do what we want to do is to
communicate with people so that we can
get support from regular members of the
society we had to become super efficient
and super effective in the way we
communicate and I think the fact that we
basically had to do it actually made our
campaigns much better we learned that as
activists we cannot just have our great
ideas and start talking to people or
rather shouting shouting to them through
the megaphone and I think a lot of
people have had this picture of
activists we really we really had to
learn what people think we had to learn
to listen to them we had to learn what
is their belief system so that we can
explain what we believe in and how we
believe the world should look like in
such a way that they are really able to
understand it another problem we were
trying to solve was low level of social
engagement I think it’s easy to start
complaining that people don’t care about
what we do that they are not active that
they are passive
but because we had this passion that we
really wanted to make this world better
for the animals we decided that you know
getting mmm getting bitter is not an
option we just have to find ways to make
people inspired we had to find ways to
bring people to the organization and to
make them so motivated that they also
stay there and I think one solution that
that that we found was that what brings
people to activism it’s actually showing
people that are activists and I think
how it works is that is that it actually
the mystifies activism you show that
behind every successful event behind
behind every successful campaign there
are just regular normal people like you
and I but one question is to bring
people to the organization and another
is to make them stay there and probably
if you start a new project it can be
either an organization or a company you
usually have this great great idea and
you become so focused on it
that you want to have full control over
the whole thing but if you really want
to change the world for the better you
need something more than just an
organization what you really need is
more of a movement if the work that
you’re doing depends on people being
motivated and creative you have to give
them the right to make decisions so that
they really feel that they are part of
your project nowadays I really think
that if you believe in what you’re doing
you have you need to be brave enough to
share it with other people and let them
use it as their own during those last
five years I also found out that a lot
of great and creative campaign
and ideas that we did were started
because of some new and inexperienced
people for example when a couple of
years ago we wanted to find a way to
make people interested in the fate of
over 40 million caged hens that live and
die in Poland every day we wanted like
because it’s not it’s not easy for
people to empathize with birds we wanted
to engage a person that can speak about
those birds to people so that they they
will start empathizing with the birds
because of this person and as most of
animal rights organization our
organization mostly consists of vegans
but one of our new activists had this
idea that maybe the best person to talk
about the problems with birds would be
actually a meat-eater
and also a person that is really
well-known to the society because he’s a
cook and culinary critic we decided to
invite Robert McCormick to become a part
of the campaign he told us is going to
be a failure because people will will
hate us for this people were criticized
as for this because it’s not really
common that people who eat meat actually
become engaged in campaigns in favor of
of farmed animals we also had a lot of
reservations but the truth is that
nowadays a film where Robert McCall
which is talking about a rescue Han
named Katarina and about all the
problems connected to caged eggs in
Poland is one of the most popular videos
that we’ve ever made and I think if it
was the experienced activists that were
planning this diss campaign we would
never choose him as our ambassador so
one thing I know now is that if you have
those new people that are very green and
inexperienced and they have crazy ideas
you don’t have to always agree with them
but you should always listen I also
think that
overcoming obstacles that we have on our
way is one thing but another is actually
dealing with failure failure is always a
part of what we do especially if you are
running an NGO and you’re really trying
to change the world for the better
because if you are in the business of
changing the world by definition you
want to change what is now into what it
can what the world can be in the future
so like to change the world for the
better
you need to take a step into the future
and into the unknown you have to do
something that hasn’t been done before
so failure will always be a part of this
process because there’s nothing that we
nothing is sure yet I think it’s
extremely important to accept this risk
of failure because only when we accept
the fact that we can fail we can be
brave enough to really try new things to
really experiment and to really change
things for the better I believe that
having a culture that accepts and is
very comfortable with failure is also
extremely important if we work with
other people people in general are very
scared of criticism and of failing they
are much more scared of being criticized
because they did something wrong then
they strive for approval if what we are
trying to achieve depends on human
motivation and creativity we should do
our best to make people feel okay with
the possibility of doing something wrong
or failing I don’t know losing money
because the the biggest problem we can
have is not that they will make mistake
but because they are they are scared of
failing they would just become passive
and will not try to come up with
creative ideas and I think one of our or
maybe even the most successful thing
with it
was strongly connected to failure once
we got an anonymous tip that in a fur
farm there are two little fox cubs that
were injured by their own mother because
of the conditions at the fur farm she
was so so stressed that she started
being aggressive towards her own
children and in the end even bits out
their hind legs we knew that there is
the situation in the farm and we wanted
to help the animals but we also we also
knew that to bring real change for the
for the fur animals and to possibly get
a ban on fur farming in Poland it’s not
enough to just help individual animals
but to show to the society how big the
problems connected to the fur farming
are so we wanted to both save the
animals and to share the story then we
started consulting lawyers and asking
them can we actually go to the farm and
take the animals and show it to people
that we are taking those animals from
the farm and they their opinions were
not very optimistic so a lot of people
decided that it will be a big risk to
both to the people that that decided to
go to the farm and to the organization
itself because we can be sued by the
farmers it was quite scary and we were
debating about this for for a couple of
days and hours and I think we were still
discussing if it’s actually a smart
thing to do very late at night when
finally my own sister volunteered to be
the person to go to this farm so we
decided to do it even though it was
scary
and we’re almost sure that consequences
would be very bad we decided to rescue
the Foxes and then told their story to
the public today both foxes Hansel and
Gretel they live in a small sanctuary
and I think the fact that we can
show their story of their life and to
say that conditions on factory farms are
so bad for the animals that a fox mother
can even start attacking and almost
killing her own babies because of the
stress and because of this terrible
environment their I think their story
tells much more about the cruelty of the
fur farming than any numbers of reports
or like statistical data that we could
provide it was also the biggest news
story that we’ve ever made and it was
featured even in Reuters what I’m trying
to say here it’s not that there is a
specific list of things that you should
do to become successful it’s easy to
find those lists of five sure steps for
success but I truly think that such
lists are just stupid and fake I just
want to share that from my personal
experience trying to avoid failure and
avoid possible challenges and problems
is not only impossible but it’s even bad
for you I think that if you have a right
mindset towards failure and problems
they actually make you better and
stronger if you see problems ahead of
you you shouldn’t treat them as
something to be scared of but rather as
heavy weights that you have to practice
with everyday and regularly so that you
can actually become strong and fit in
the long run overcoming failures and
problems make you better make you
stronger so problems are actually your
friends and next time when your project
something you believe in fails instead
of being scared of it you should just
get prepared look it at the face and
think how interesting thank
you
big animal rights organization that runs
campaigns both in Poland and in many
countries in the region five years ago I
was sitting with a group of my friends
we had absolutely no money no experience
and we were just about to start a big
campaign against one of the powerful
enemies in Poland which is the fur
industry and every time I think about
this period between five years ago and
today and I’ve tried to come up with
idea on what make us successful like
starting from being very small and
having nothing to growing and important
in a big organization I realized that
it’s probably not things that we had but
things that we lacked that actually made
us successful and when I think about
challenges that we that we had in the
very beginning one of them was that we
are the first organization in Poland
that tries to solve problems concerning
farmed animals which is the biggest
problem about animals it’s much easier
to work with cats and dog dogs because
people tend to empathize with them much
more and we decided that our focus would
be 100% on forint animals if you ever
try to do any activists in Poland you
probably realized that we don’t really
live in a country with high levels of
social engagement it’s not very popular
here to be a member of an organization
to be a volunteer unlike in many other
countries in Europe also Poland as a
country has a huge industry we are one
of the major producers of fur in the
world we are one of the three biggest
producers of animal fur the only two
that are bigger than Poland are China
and Denmark we are also one of the major
producers of broiler chickens caged eggs
in Europe and so on and so forth so
the problems we were trying to solve
were really really big and because the
industry is so big farmers have a huge
influence on politicians as well and to
ask to all those problems that we were
facing we also had no money when we were
studying we just had a lot of good ideas
and a lot of passion but we had
absolutely no experience in running an
organization everything we tried to do
felt kind of confusing and scary and
also we felt that because we are so
different like we really had no money
and no resources so we are so much
different from established and big NGOs
in Poland we cannot really copy and
mimic what they do and now I think that
this lack of experience was actually a
good thing because it made us it made it
easier for us to experiment and to look
elsewhere for inspiration so instead of
copying what other NGOs are doing we
looked for the mother community that
also that is also based on good ideas
and usually does not have many resources
and we started finding inspiration among
the startups it’s from the startups and
the IT community that we learned that
it’s really good to work remotely
because of this we can hire people based
on their real skills and not based on
the city they live in
it’s from the startup community that we
learn to use this is the structure with
very flat hierarchy and with so-called
open allocation which means that every
activists and or every worker can freely
choose projects and campaigns they work
on and then we also realized that all
those tools that are not so popular
among and NGOs actually are really great
to make people engaged and motivate it
so I feel that the this problem that we
have the lack of experience actually
forced us to look
elsewhere for inspiration they follow
forced us to learn it for it forced us
to like not not to look at things that
other people were doing in our sphere
and it really made our organization
stronger and better another problem and
it’s always a problem if you try to do
almost anything was the money
many non-governmental organization
strongly depend on grants or some sort
of governmental support but even though
we were trying to solve a really huge
and important issue which is the factory
farming that harms not only animals but
also human health and ecology there are
not many grants that actually support
this important work so knowing that
there is no money waiting for us to take
so that we can start doing the good
things we realized that the only way for
us to really do what we want to do is to
communicate with people so that we can
get support from regular members of the
society we had to become super efficient
and super effective in the way we
communicate and I think the fact that we
basically had to do it actually made our
campaigns much better we learned that as
activists we cannot just have our great
ideas and start talking to people or
rather shouting shouting to them through
the megaphone and I think a lot of
people have had this picture of
activists we really we really had to
learn what people think we had to learn
to listen to them we had to learn what
is their belief system so that we can
explain what we believe in and how we
believe the world should look like in
such a way that they are really able to
understand it another problem we were
trying to solve was low level of social
engagement I think it’s easy to start
complaining that people don’t care about
what we do that they are not active that
they are passive
but because we had this passion that we
really wanted to make this world better
for the animals we decided that you know
getting mmm getting bitter is not an
option we just have to find ways to make
people inspired we had to find ways to
bring people to the organization and to
make them so motivated that they also
stay there and I think one solution that
that that we found was that what brings
people to activism it’s actually showing
people that are activists and I think
how it works is that is that it actually
the mystifies activism you show that
behind every successful event behind
behind every successful campaign there
are just regular normal people like you
and I but one question is to bring
people to the organization and another
is to make them stay there and probably
if you start a new project it can be
either an organization or a company you
usually have this great great idea and
you become so focused on it
that you want to have full control over
the whole thing but if you really want
to change the world for the better you
need something more than just an
organization what you really need is
more of a movement if the work that
you’re doing depends on people being
motivated and creative you have to give
them the right to make decisions so that
they really feel that they are part of
your project nowadays I really think
that if you believe in what you’re doing
you have you need to be brave enough to
share it with other people and let them
use it as their own during those last
five years I also found out that a lot
of great and creative campaign
and ideas that we did were started
because of some new and inexperienced
people for example when a couple of
years ago we wanted to find a way to
make people interested in the fate of
over 40 million caged hens that live and
die in Poland every day we wanted like
because it’s not it’s not easy for
people to empathize with birds we wanted
to engage a person that can speak about
those birds to people so that they they
will start empathizing with the birds
because of this person and as most of
animal rights organization our
organization mostly consists of vegans
but one of our new activists had this
idea that maybe the best person to talk
about the problems with birds would be
actually a meat-eater
and also a person that is really
well-known to the society because he’s a
cook and culinary critic we decided to
invite Robert McCormick to become a part
of the campaign he told us is going to
be a failure because people will will
hate us for this people were criticized
as for this because it’s not really
common that people who eat meat actually
become engaged in campaigns in favor of
of farmed animals we also had a lot of
reservations but the truth is that
nowadays a film where Robert McCall
which is talking about a rescue Han
named Katarina and about all the
problems connected to caged eggs in
Poland is one of the most popular videos
that we’ve ever made and I think if it
was the experienced activists that were
planning this diss campaign we would
never choose him as our ambassador so
one thing I know now is that if you have
those new people that are very green and
inexperienced and they have crazy ideas
you don’t have to always agree with them
but you should always listen I also
think that
overcoming obstacles that we have on our
way is one thing but another is actually
dealing with failure failure is always a
part of what we do especially if you are
running an NGO and you’re really trying
to change the world for the better
because if you are in the business of
changing the world by definition you
want to change what is now into what it
can what the world can be in the future
so like to change the world for the
better
you need to take a step into the future
and into the unknown you have to do
something that hasn’t been done before
so failure will always be a part of this
process because there’s nothing that we
nothing is sure yet I think it’s
extremely important to accept this risk
of failure because only when we accept
the fact that we can fail we can be
brave enough to really try new things to
really experiment and to really change
things for the better I believe that
having a culture that accepts and is
very comfortable with failure is also
extremely important if we work with
other people people in general are very
scared of criticism and of failing they
are much more scared of being criticized
because they did something wrong then
they strive for approval if what we are
trying to achieve depends on human
motivation and creativity we should do
our best to make people feel okay with
the possibility of doing something wrong
or failing I don’t know losing money
because the the biggest problem we can
have is not that they will make mistake
but because they are they are scared of
failing they would just become passive
and will not try to come up with
creative ideas and I think one of our or
maybe even the most successful thing
with it
was strongly connected to failure once
we got an anonymous tip that in a fur
farm there are two little fox cubs that
were injured by their own mother because
of the conditions at the fur farm she
was so so stressed that she started
being aggressive towards her own
children and in the end even bits out
their hind legs we knew that there is
the situation in the farm and we wanted
to help the animals but we also we also
knew that to bring real change for the
for the fur animals and to possibly get
a ban on fur farming in Poland it’s not
enough to just help individual animals
but to show to the society how big the
problems connected to the fur farming
are so we wanted to both save the
animals and to share the story then we
started consulting lawyers and asking
them can we actually go to the farm and
take the animals and show it to people
that we are taking those animals from
the farm and they their opinions were
not very optimistic so a lot of people
decided that it will be a big risk to
both to the people that that decided to
go to the farm and to the organization
itself because we can be sued by the
farmers it was quite scary and we were
debating about this for for a couple of
days and hours and I think we were still
discussing if it’s actually a smart
thing to do very late at night when
finally my own sister volunteered to be
the person to go to this farm so we
decided to do it even though it was
scary
and we’re almost sure that consequences
would be very bad we decided to rescue
the Foxes and then told their story to
the public today both foxes Hansel and
Gretel they live in a small sanctuary
and I think the fact that we can
show their story of their life and to
say that conditions on factory farms are
so bad for the animals that a fox mother
can even start attacking and almost
killing her own babies because of the
stress and because of this terrible
environment their I think their story
tells much more about the cruelty of the
fur farming than any numbers of reports
or like statistical data that we could
provide it was also the biggest news
story that we’ve ever made and it was
featured even in Reuters what I’m trying
to say here it’s not that there is a
specific list of things that you should
do to become successful it’s easy to
find those lists of five sure steps for
success but I truly think that such
lists are just stupid and fake I just
want to share that from my personal
experience trying to avoid failure and
avoid possible challenges and problems
is not only impossible but it’s even bad
for you I think that if you have a right
mindset towards failure and problems
they actually make you better and
stronger if you see problems ahead of
you you shouldn’t treat them as
something to be scared of but rather as
heavy weights that you have to practice
with everyday and regularly so that you
can actually become strong and fit in
the long run overcoming failures and
problems make you better make you
stronger so problems are actually your
friends and next time when your project
something you believe in fails instead
of being scared of it you should just
get prepared look it at the face and
think how interesting thank
you
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