Be a Trim Tab

In a world of more than six billion people, it may often seem hard to believe that we can make an impact individually. However, the 20th Century genius Buckminster Fuller sheds some light on what one person can do by becoming what he calls a “trim tab.”

He said, “Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary–the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, call me a Trim Tab.”

Never underestimate the influence that you as an individual can have. Find what you were born to do, become a “trim tab” in your sphere of influence, and the world will change because of it.