Having a Whale of an Impact One Person at a Time

The naturalist who recorded and publicized the whale sounds the started a world-wide environmental movement was just trying to influence a few people care more about whales. We never know our full impact, so let’s just try our best to share our truth with authenticity and conviction and not worry too much about the outcome.

I listened to a wonderful story on the radio this morning commemorating the 50th year anniversary of a humpback whale recording that became incredibly popular and has been credited as a driving factor behind the interest in protecting whales and that is still having a huge impact in the way that we interact with whales even today.

The story started with a naturalist hearing about a whale that washed up on shore. The dead whale had been defaced rather horribly. People had carved initials into the body and someone had even stuck in a cigarette butt in the whale’s blowhole. He decided then and there that he had to do something but he didn’t know what to do that would be most impactful.

Then one day, rather randomly, a friend of his who was working with the US Military gave him an idea. The military service person told the naturalist about some sounds that he had recorded that he believed we’re humpback whales. The naturalist went on board the ship and heard a tape recording of the sounds. He talked about how haunting and heartbreaking the sounds were and he felt confident that he had found his way of impacting the world. And I guess the rest, as they say, is history.

But I’ve never been satisfied with that phrase. It’s easy to see how a certain series of events can lead up to remarkable results when we look back retroactively. It’s much more difficult to believe in what we do and in our convictions when we are just living day by day hoping that our impact will reach the people we’re trying to reach. Undoubtedly, there had been thousands of other attempts to influence society to care more about whales that didn’t have nearly as much of an impact. I know this particular naturalist might have dreamed of having this kind of impact, he certainly couldn’t have ever known just what kind of impact that recording would have over the coming decades.

And that reminds me and actually gives me some hope in seeing that even the most impactful decisions and programs that end up making huge splashes are never a sure thing and the people pushing their ideas through them can ever be completely certain what kind of impact they will have or if they’ll have much of an impact at all. So what do we do with that then? Does that mean that we shouldn’t try to make any impact because so many efforts go unnoticed?

I think a lot of us have aspirations of hitting it big with YouTube channels or becoming a known TikTok personality but the reality is that most accounts get lost in the static. And in reality, having many friends that have developed quite large followings on social accounts, have shown me that it takes a lot of work to develop a big following normally. No, the thing to do is to not  just throw up her hands and decide that it’s not worth ever trying to make an impact for good. But I think it’s healthy to evaluate why we are endeavoring to make an impact in the first place.

If we’re trying to get famous and grow millions of followers then when we don’t achieve that level of notice, it’s easy to get disappointed and discouraged. On the other hand, if our goal is to make our contribution to the world, do our best to reach as many people as we can with an authentic and caring voice about something that matters to us, then the few people that we might start following our content can be impacted in significant ways indeed, and we can feel fulfillment in that. And if we’re willing to stick with our storytelling about the things that we care about longer than it might be easy or convenient, we’re more likely to reach a larger audience than if we give up too early.

The naturalist who recorded and publicized those whale sounds was just trying to influence some people to care more about whales, and he ended up causing a worldwide environmental movement. We never know our full impact, so let’s just try our best to share our truth with authenticity and conviction and not worry too much about the outcome.