PeopleCount.org started as most organizations do: an unmet need was found and we sought a way to fill it.

In late 2010, I realized I wanted to do more with my life. I was a software engineer with a small, successful company in the heart of Silicon Valley. Over the years, I had grown to enjoy working with customers much more than plugging my mind into software to build applications.

I was already taking Landmark Education seminars (ten evenings over a period of about 15 weeks), and I had heard about their Wisdom Unlimited course (five 3-day weekends over the course of ten months).  So I signed up with the intention of creating a more fulfilling career. In the course, we looked at ourselves in completely new ways. After the first weekend, I began intently “listening” for a new opportunity, asking myself “What’s next?” and “What do I want to do?”

At the small company I worked for, we ate lunches together and had wide-ranging discussions, often touching on politics, which especially interested me. However, there was widespread resignation, cynicism, and complaining. Cliches were shared as if they were true.

Simultaneously, in the Wisdom course, we studied our own complaints and I saw how habit-forming they were. Not only would the same complaints come up again and again, but when certain subjects arose, the complaints immediately arose in my thoughts and emotions and colored my thinking, limiting the possibilities I saw. It seemed to happen with others as well. For example, often times, people believed the following:

• Politicians are corrupt
• The government is a money pit
• Vested interests won’t allow change
• Money controls politics
• The tax-and-spend Democrats are gridlocked with the borrow-and-spend Republicans
• To participate in politics, I should volunteer, phone Congress, and give money
• My actions won’t make much of a difference, so I have to trust a party

I realized I was buying into “what everyone knows” about government and politics. My resignation was limiting my imagination. So, I set these aside and asked myself the following question: What would make the difference in politics?

Subsequently, I became more politically active. I joined special interest groups, signed petitions, and wrote my representatives. I discovered websites that were taking new approaches to empowering democracy. However, these took a lot of effort with little benefit. They were great ideas, but left me frustrated. I felt I was swimming upstream.

Then came breakthroughs. My first breakthrough came in realizing I want a government I love, one I’m proud of. I realized my resignation and reasonableness were not only limiting what I thought was possible, they were also invisibly suppressing my wants and hindering my desires. I want to be proud of what my government has done — everything, not just a few dramatic accomplishments. I want to be proud of its plans and direction. I want to be proud of its efficiency. I want to be proud of its transparency, its honesty, and how quickly things become declassified. I want to be proud about how it champions our rights and obeys the spirit of the Constitution.

My second breakthrough was in realizing what was missing — a way for me to be fully self-expressed about what I believe and have my voice count. I don’t want to react to bills; I want my representatives to know what I want from the start.

This led me to realize how little I knew about what others want, what the country wants. I can learn what the Democrat or Republican or Libertarian party wants (although on some topics, they say little or nothing). To know what we all think, we can count the people who belong to each party, but most people don’t agree with all of their party’s positions. Or we can look at what each interest group wants, but there are many people who support an interest group’s positions without being members, and not all members support everything the group wants.

I simply couldn’t learn what we all wanted. On many topics polls are available which show a general idea of what people think. Some are done once, many are done once a year. Often the polls are hard to find, with the data hidden inside articles.  And often, the questions are very general, the recipients aren’t prepared to answer, and the ranges of answers are limited. In the end, these methods make me skeptical and their margins of error seem large.

So, I began to ask myself: What if I could answer questions about my opinions, sort of like a survey, but better — better questions on more topics and with better answers. In addition, what if I could update my answers at any time, as I learn more? And, as the issues changed, what if the surveys could change and people could add new answers?  What if all voters could vote for what we want?  What would our world look like then?

And suddenly I knew what I wanted to do.  I wanted to make a difference, to contribute to something big.  I want to help us all govern ourselves well, help us build a government that we love.

The idea behind PeopleCount.org was born.

Continue to Part Two of the PeopleCount.org story!