Time to OFFICIALLY welcome all of you to The Walk a Mile Project! This blog post is the launch of our weekly content! Yes, I’m using exclamation points!! That’s because yes, I’m excited!
Alright sorry about that, calming down. The reason it’s such a great feeling is that we are here to literally change the world… together, with all of you. Today I’m going to shed some light on HOW we’ll do that, and I’ll give an introduction to the project in general. But first, let me give you a little background.
The idea for The Walk a Mile Project really originated about 3-4 years ago in its initial form, which really was just an extension of the racism-fighting work I do over at Hollywood 27 Productions. The concept is simply just walking a mile in another person’s shoes to get perspective, rather than passing quick judgment on someone based on preconceived notions, prejudice, etc., but it’s evolved into something much bigger than that original concept.
Now we take those core concepts of gaining perspective and seeking truth and then focus and amplify them to solve one giant problem at a time. It’s a carefully-crafted model designed to engage all interested parties and then bring out the truth and the solutions for everyone to see, all at once. And I really can’t understate it – we’re literally going to change the world, and you’ll be right there with us every step of the way.
So today, for our inaugural post here, I’m going to detail what the project is about, and then really briefly touch on how it works. The point of today is to set the framework, to use this as a reference point for people just discovering the project, and really to get everyone else as excited as those of us already involved. We need that passion and excitement from others as well, because not only does that provide a positive boost for us doing the core work, it also helps build momentum and awareness for the project, two huge keys to our success.
First of all, WHY The Walk a Mile Project? Since I left my day job 2.5 years ago, I’ve talked to a LOT of people, from all different walks of life, from around the world, and there’s a common thread that exists between many of us — it’s a distrust, and almost a growing disdain, for the media. And the reason it feels like a growing disdain is because there should be a sense of responsibility to all of us, as the human race, from our media. It’s supposed to be a vehicle for communicating truth to the masses – I mean that’s really the philosophical point of it. And most people I’ve talked to believe in that philosophy for our media — in fact I would venture a guess that most people in general believe in that philosophy.
But media, whether it’s mainstream, alternative, somewhere in the middle, it’s really grown into a profit-driven and at times propaganda machine – or in the very least a manipulation machine. A longtime media guru I know here in Phoenix actually threw it out there recently that maybe it always was like this, and we just never paid attention – since the dawn of the printing press. He suggested that money has always dictated mass communication more than anything else.
Now I don’t really care what’s happened before, because we are in such a different time thanks to the internet and places like Twitter and Facebook that can swing the news pendulum so quickly. So there’s no negativity here because we all have a lot more power than we used to – our voices are stronger, and that’s a big focus of The Walk a Mile Project, which I’ll talk more about later.
So for us, when there are really, really important issues, where without the truth the world may be at an extreme risk, that’s the point where we step in. To sum up the WHY, well it’s because somebody’s gotta do it. And I think you’re gonna find out pretty quickly, we’re really good at it. And here’s why we’re really good at it.
#1 –Our laser focus on one topic at a time gives us an extreme edge over pretty much any other media outlet related to that subject matter. That’s a big part of why I really wanted a nonprofit structure for Change The World Films. We need the breathing room to relentlessly hit one issue home at a time.
#2 – Our commitment to the truth, and again coupling that with our nonprofit structure, puts us in a position to do what other places can’t, or simply won’t, do. We answer to the truth. We don’t answer to corporate sponsors, we don’t take corporate donors, and so we never feel a need to tiptoe around anything. Truth runs The Walk a Mile Project.
#3 – This might be the biggest reason of all that people are signing up or following The Walk a Mile Project right now… we maintain the voice of reason throughout the entire process. And that’s because our mission is “Discover the truth and change the world”. To do that, we need to reach people, as many people as possible, in order to effect that change. When people visit the website here, they need to know first thing that we speak with the voice of reason — that we hold ourselves to the highest standard. You can’t reach across two sides of an argument and find the truth of the matter, if all you’re doing is simply taking one side and jumping right into the argument. The voice of reason gets lost every single time you take that route, and the problems that we’re taking on here are WAY TOO IMPORTANT for us to let that happen.
The final part of that WHY is that I’m running the project from the top, and I’m an insane problem solver, I always have been, ever since I was a kid in grade school. Later in life, if things got crazy when I was working my longtime day job, boom! Call Eric in to help solve the problem. That’s helped me succeed my whole life, but now it’s time to use that on a much bigger scale to help the world. That’s why I took the scary jump and left my job in the first place, to live what I’m supposed to live, and this project truly is it. Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, from Mark Twain:
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
The Walk a Mile Project is my why, and I hope that over the next several years, not only do we effect the important change we need to, but we also help some others to find their “why” along the way too — and I really think we will.
Last of all, let me talk about the HOW really briefly… how we’re going to make this all happen.
The Walk a Mile Project is essentially a 3-step sequence, documented in 3 different sections on the website here. Those sections are QUESTIONS, INVESTIGATION, and TRUTH. Now we’re pretty much always going to be working multiple angles at once, until maybe we’re really close to the end of a phase, where we’re just wrapping up the finishing touches on the film. But those 3 sections flow right into each other in order, and they’re the framework for finding the solution. We can’t fix anything if we don’t know the truth.
One key point on the HOW… everything we record for the project, we keep and open up publicly at the end of each phase. I don’t allow any manipulative editing on our films, and it’s important to me that we offer proof of that. So all of our raw footage will be posted online after the film is released and at its final position. That may sound absolutely crazy to some people in the film world, but we’re a nonprofit whose mission is the TRUTH. Period. And putting everything out there, well, that’s how we keep everyone’s trust. That’s how you’ll know that we deliver what we promise.
Now I was going to go into detail on the 3 of the project, but there’s a pretty solid breakdown of them on our TRUTH ON THE INTERNET page. That said, if anyone has any burning questions on our methodology, feel free to email me at eric@walkamileprokect.com, and I will most certainly address your questions.
Also, for next week, I’ll be putting out some important information on WHY we decided to start with the GMO Situation as our 1st phase. The reasons are just as relevant to someone who feels either pro-GMO, anti-GMO, even in the middle… because there’s a clear and indisputable philosophical truth in the need for this whole GMO situation to be clarified.
There should be NO ONE who is honestly listening to the voice of reason, on any side of the GMO discussion, who speaks up right now and says “Oh no everything is 100% crystal clear here, we all know exactly what’s going on.” Because believe me, I’ve been researching GMOs for a couple of years now in-depth, and I couldn’t speak that statement honestly myself. It’s why we chose this topic first – I mean it affects so much of our world food output right now that we can’t just sit by and let whatever little tidbits kind of drip out into the mass media serve as any kind of answer to all this.
So next week we start to turn over that very first stone so to speak, and I’m excited to see how everyone reacts to it. Also. tomorrow our first podcast will be posted on-site here. It’s basically a recorded version of the blog here, but for the 2nd half I answer several questions sent in by our Email Subscribers. Since you’ve already read this, just fast forward accordingly.
See you next week as we really start to make some noise…
