It is easy for a person to feel small and without influence, but what we should realize is that even though we are one, we can create great change and have a positive influence on those around us. Life is challenging, continuous, and ever-changing. We have to discard the numbing thoughts that change is impossible and difficulties are inevitable and realize that we have the power to create a positive environment for ourselves as well as those around us. It starts with one step and it’s based on the trim tab principle.
A trim tab is a small rudder attached to a larger rudder on a ship. Because of the enormous amount of water pressure needed in order to provide enough force on the rudder to redirect the ship, a trim tab is used to create a tiny vacuum which literally sucks the rudder in the desired direction. The small vacuum self-regenerates into larger vacuums that shift the large ships into new trajectories.
Buckminster Fuller, an inventor, engineer, architect, and design innovator, said the following:
“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 Trim Tab.”
Stephen Covey devotes a chapter in his book to “being a trim tab.”
Here is a wonderful video by Stephen R. Covey on the trim tab principle:
While the video talks more specifically about work, try thinking of it in more general terms of daily living – parenting, relationships, work, networking, and community service.
Remember the secret to the big is the small.
Becoming a trim tab starts with identifying a need and then doing something about it.
Each and every day, you are faced with moments of choice, moments where you can choose to be a trim tab.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! Very powerful. I will never forget that story.
What a great story; and inspiring lesseon that everyone should learn at a young age!