Belief, Courage, Action
One Red Paperclip is an interesting and entertaining read. The author, Kyle MacDonald, a then 25 year old Canadian, decides he wants to trade a red paperclip for something bigger and better, ideally a house!
Belief
The idea sparked from a childhood game called ‘bigger and better’, where he started with something small but tried to turn it into something ‘bigger and better’ by trading with friends and people in his neighbourhood. When Kyle was 16, he had full belief in the potential of this game. He recalled stories of a clothes peg becoming a fridge and he had heard a rumour that trades, that began with a toothpick, had culminated in a car.
Courage
Now in his mid 20s, Kyle had let his belief fade. The red paperclip hung around in Kyle’s wallet for a few weeks before he got the courage to do something with it. He procrastinated initially, feeling he needed to do more preparation before he could begin his plan. His father asked him, “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Finally, Kyle got the courage to take a photo of the red paperclip and upload it to Craigslist, (a classified ads website) with a message outlining his intention.
Action
To Kyle’s surprise, he got many responses. Now he had to take action, he emailed people back to find out where they were located, as he wanted to make the trade in person. For his first trade, he changed the red paperclip for a pen shaped like a fish. Around one year and fourteen trades later, Kyle had a … I won’t spoil the surprise in case you want to read the book. If you are impatient to know more about the story, Kyle recorded a TedX talk in 2015.
He believed he could do something, had the courage to give it a go and started taking action.
Who knew a red paperclip could be so inspiring?
Sinead Huskisson 