This morning I was listening to an incredible podcast by NPR called ‘How I Built This’ featuring an interview with the founder of computer game company Atari, Nolan Bushnell. A great quote, which stuck with me today around one of the reasons why Nolan believes Atari was successful which was that the product, Pong ‘fed in to the narrative of what was going on at the time’. There was a huge women’s liberation movement happening at the time (late 60’s early 70’s) and the bar game ‘Pong’ enabled women to legitimately ask a guy in a bar if he wanted to play ‘Pong’ without being judged for asking.
This made me think, what does society need more than anything as we sit here today. Not to get too political, but in the last year we’ve seen two major shifts happen in the world; Brexit & the inauguration of the most controversial US President maybe since Andrew Jackson in 1828. Both of these recent events had one consistent narrative, which is around looking after the interests of your country above others and a driving rhetoric leading to creating divisions within society as opposed to bringing people together.
It is clear from history that these types of divisions rarely lead to positive change, this tone tends to lead to negative disruption in its worst-case war, and best case limiting the movement of goods or something similar. It’s with this in mind that I realized that any project or concept that pro-actively brings people together in a positive way is exactly what the world needs right now for the good of society as a whole and to move the world forward. Collaborations, partnerships and positivity are some of the mindsets and values that will help the world to flourish for years to come. There are a few positive ways that people naturally come together. Examples are through the arts such as music, theatre and film. Another is through sport, whether that be participating or watching with friend. I heard just yesterday that to foster team spirit, the Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has each player shake hands at the start of every training session. The idea that physical interaction helps establish meaningful relationships is a really strong insight that I think we could all learn from in our daily lives.
So with all that said, last week, I mentioned a project, which has inspired me greatly in recent months, a passion project that I’ve been thinking deeply about and driving forward. The concept is grounded in one core belief that the benefits of physical activity have the potential to fuel happy and healthy communities around the world. The message I heard this morning from Nolan around fitting in with a wider narrative, reinforced my belief entirely. This project will aim to break down as many barriers as possible to the participation in physical activity and build on all the learning’s and experiences I’ve had in my active and sporting life so far.
A bold statement, I hear you say? Well, all will be revealed soon. What’s key is that I’ve started to talk to similarly passionate people about the creation of such a concept and momentum is building!
I look forward to sharing more with you very soon. Any questions or thoughts in the meantime just let me know!