How Jane Goodall Created Worlds

---

The Winding Path to Creating Your World

2025 is the year we lost Jane Goodall. And what a loss it is at a time when her tenacity and truth telling are needed more than ever. 

But she leaves a huge legacy for us all to embrace - moving with the winding path of what you love, no matter the odds or circumstances. 

It started in a little village with a dog named Rusty and a pile of books - The Story of Dr. Dolittle, The Jungle Book, The Wind in the Willows - and became one of the most well-known stories of our day - Jane Goodall, ceaseless champion for animals and the planet.

Jane Goodall didn't start her work life as a primatologist. She started as a secretary. She hadn't even studied Biology in school. She took a vacation to Africa, fell in love with the place and figured out how to stay there. In a random conversation, she learned about Louis Leakey. 

As someone who doggedly pursued what she wanted, she met Dr. Leakey and went to work for him which would lead her to the world of the chimpanzee.

Jane's was not a linear path. She followed her heart as it zigged and zagged her to becoming one of the world's most well known scientists and advocates of the natural world. She didn't start with credentials or titles. She did school "backwards," learning along the way all that someone else would typically study before ever setting foot in the field. And she did this at a time where women simply didn't do that type of work. They were the secretaries, not the researchers. She was widely ridiculed in the early years of work because of these things. Yet, she was undeterred. And continued to accomplish what people said couldn't be done.

She created a world with her chimpanzees. She became their family, accepted as one of their own. And it was a world that she treasured.

But it's not the world where she stayed. Her love for her primate kin called her out into the larger world of animal advocacy. She traveled around the globe educating people about the plight of wild animals and the need to preserve and protect the natural world. She challenged people to examine their relationship to the planet and to do better by it. She pissed a lot of people off. She touched the hearts of millions more. 

It was advocacy that led her to creating another world - Roots and Shoots - a global organization that inspires and empowers youth to create positive change in their communities. With the mission to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for animals, people, and the environment, they now have over 2,000 chapters in over 100 countries. 

Tens of thousands of young people across the globe are learning how to become advocates themselves because one young woman decided to say "yes" to traveling to a country she'd only read about in books.

Creating a world is about following your heart - your cravings, your yearnings. It's about listening to the still, small voice within you that speaks of a life-enhancing reality of which you long to be a part. And then it's about following that voice and birthing that world. 

It's not always a global phenomenon. Far more often it's on a seemingly small scale - in your family, in your neighborhood, at work. It's the free little library you put up. It's the potluck delivery you organize for someone recovering from surgery. It's the outsider you embrace.

But as everything is energy, even the smallest actions ripple out into the Universe. An act of love is like pushing on one domino in the chain - the love moves through the next action and the next action and the next.

We can light up the world one small act of love at a time. We can follow our hearts and be a stand for what we believe in whether it is eagerly accepted by the prevailing culture or not. 

As we embark on 2026, many aspects of our world are collapsing around us. 

That makes it the perfect time to move with the new worlds that are calling us. 

What reality do you want to envision as you step into 2026? What ache is finding its voice? What in you is calling to be born? 

It probably won't be a straight line, but like Jane Goodall, with your heart as your compass, you can zig and zag your way to the world that is yours to create.