My experience has been that people can do a tremendous amount of good just as they can do a tremendous amount of evil. No person is perfect. We are each inadequate at some things, and we all have flaws. And, we must take individual responsibility for ourselves.

Individually, we each must work to be good people. We must do that for ourselves and those in our immediate surroundings. To do so, we must look inward. We must learn how to become adequate and rid ourselves of our flawed character traits.

We must work diligently to build ourselves up. Expand our knowledge and become more capable of whatever it is that we choose to do in life.

Few people are alone on an island. Others surround us. Some choose the people in their surroundings, while others accept what life presents to them. As individuals, we have a choice of the people in our circle.

The more diligent we are in expanding our knowledge and capabilities, the more we will find ourselves surrounded by others of the same mindset. There we will find strength in the numbers. When a mix of people surrounds us, the strength will depend on the weakest link in the circle.

When we find ourselves surrounded by a significant number of knowledgeable and capable people, we have a collective responsibility to protect the circle, no matter the size.

Know this, each person in our circle will have their circle, and together we have an ever-increasing number of circles that form an ever-increasing cluster of good.

What started on an individual basis can become a collective, but only if we provide excellent knowledge and capability for the others in our circle and allow it to spread to the much more extensive cluster of the people surrounding us.

We each must continue to learn and continuously increase our knowledge and capability. In this way, our circle grows stronger. As we continue to expand our career, we eventually become capable of being an effective leader. With our ever-expanding knowledge and capability, we attain wisdom and make wiser choices. This expansion allows our collective to accept the responsibility and also make more knowledgeable choices.

All that said, before any individual can become an effective leader, they must have their own life in good order. Only a strong leader can build a strong circle that will be capable of making knowledgeable and wise decisions.

Attempting to become an effective leader with a personal purview and deal only with our moral improvement will not suffice. We should not get ahead of ourselves. We must cleanse ourselves first to be accepted by others and then become more effective as a leader of others.

Every great culture, society, cause, or thought in life must have a sizeable collective responsibility to be successful. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an influential collective of like-minded individuals to build anything that makes a massive difference in the world. We cannot make the collective better unless you first make individuals better.