Did you know that in 1977 there was only one hundred St. Luci Parrots left on the island of St. Lucia?
Did you not?
Shame on you!
Call yourself a Caribbean parrot expert? 😉
With it’s bright blue face, green wings and red chest it was a rather lovely bird, but was facing extinction by the year 2000 at the latest.
Its habitat was being destroyed by development and hunters were capturing them to sell on as pets abroad.
The swines!
The bird was to benefit from an unlikely saviour.
21 year old North East London Polytechnic student Paul Butler received an unexpected job offer from the head of St. Lucia’s forestry department, based on his final dissertation on the bird’s plight.
The actual what of what he felt needed to happen was fairly straight forward.
Increased punishments for poachers.
A protected parrot sanctuary.
And licensed rain forest tours to raise money for the above.
Problem was though that he had no power to implement any of these.
And those that did weren’t remotely interested and there was no economic benefit to what he was suggesting.
What he did was make people care.
To give a shit about something that they previously had barely noticed.
He talked endlessly about “our bird”.
He had t-shirts, bumper stickers and cards distributed.
St. Lucia Parrot puppet shows, school visits in giant parrot costumes, local ministers citing relevant bible passages and much more.
As people started to care about the survival of “their bird” everything else fell into place.
Rather than extinction, by 2000 there were over 800 of the birds and they continue to thrive to this day.
By making people care enough and tying things into their sense of identity the previously insurmountable challenges fell by the wayside.
And that’s what we’re trying to do with you.
To make you care more about about the advantages that healthier living brings than you do about it’s costs.
To care more about living longer, feeling better, having more energy, etc………….
Than you do about the odd bit of cake, biscuits, wine, etc that might have to make room for it.
Part of the problem with ‘losing weight’………..
Is that when we just concentrate on a number on the scales………
It’s hard to get particularly excited about that and bought into it.
When we’re sold on all the other, better, benefits……….
The motivation comes more readily.
That’s why it’s important to find your ‘Why’.
Your deep routed reason for wanting to change.
Because the more it is something you truly care about………
The more you really care……….
The easier it gets!
And it’s why we try and tie our guys into a collective identity.
No one is “a member of a gym” or “on a diet”.
They are “part of a bad ass ninja family”.
When people can tie the healthier living, exercise, etc into an identity they want for themselves…….
Like Paul Butler found, the actual what of what needs to happen………
Kinda just falls into place 🙂
Much love,
Jon ‘What’s orange and sounds like a Parrot’ Hall and Matt ‘A Carrot’ Nicholson
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RISE Macclesfield –Â myrise.co.uk
Serious transformations. Fun times!
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Or check out our monthly find-out-more meeting if you want to learn more about our free ’20lbs weight loss in 8 weeks’ and ‘Beach Body’ challenges –>Â myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting
