The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews

The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters by Andy Andrews

This little book has changed my life!  I have purchased over a dozen of them and given them away.  I want everyone to have it. 

My family and I have been following the Leadership Education homeschool philosophy for over 12 years.  When I was first introduced to it by reading Oliver DeMille’s book Thomas Jefferson Education, I was immediately drawn to it.  With a quote –

“Greatness isn’t the work of a few geniuses, it is the purpose of each of us. It is why we were born. Every person you have ever met is a genius. Every one. Some of us have chosen not to develop it, but it is there. It is in us. All of us.”

…how could I not be?  I saw my kids as leaders and I wanted to give them the best education I could.  We’ve loved it but there has been one drawback.

DeMille and others following Leadership Education (also known as TJEd) tend to focus on how we need good leaders right now because of historical cycles and where we are in those cycles right now.  They may or may not be right in that but I have seen how this world view has caused many young people to be disillusioned.  They either don’t feel up to the task of saving the world, or they feel that the long awaited disaster they have been training for isn’t coming.

Either way, I wanted to help the young people in my community.  Several years ago when I read Andy Andrews book, I knew I had to share it.  I convinced the leadership of my homeschooling community to use the book as the basis for the annual youth conference we hold.  As the principle mentor for my community, I read it to the other adults and led discussions on it.  I got the children’s version of the book – The Kid Who Changed the World – and read it to the kids in our community. I gave out little gifts with butterfly themes throughout the year. I was trying to slightly shift the paradigm of our community.

The Butterfly Effect has stories of how people made seemingly small decisions that ended up changing lives. Many of them were in hard situations – war, discrimination, famine.  They stood up for principles such as love, kindness, decency, loyalty, etc., and changed the world as we know it.  They shared their genius.

Rather than seeing the world as broken and needing to train our children to lead us out of the problems we are faced with, I prefer starting from the premise that each of us has our gifts, our genius, to share with the world.  If we help our children find their genius and share it effectively, the world’s problems can be taken care of. 

This year I taught a class of seniors and I read The Butterfly Effect to them.  As they go out and conquer the world after their graduation I want them to know that their gifts that they share with the world – their genius – is sometimes forced upon them.  It isn’t always fun, but it is always needed.  They make a difference.  They are needed.  I hope that by sharing the genius paradigm in this little book they get a glimpse of what they can do and how the world can change if they are willing to take a chance and actually do it.

DeMille, Oliver. A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century (The Leadership Education Library Book 1) (p. 8). TJEdOnline. Kindle Edition.