about 4 impactful experiences

Ok, so I figure I owe myself writing this blog post capturing 4 very impactful experiences.

1. Meaningful Kenya

2. Marketing Academy Boot Camp

3. Marathon in Copenhagen

4. Bikram Yoga

Meaningful Kenya

Safari – pictures captures this experience better than any words possibly can: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150206554944273.331551.518259272. However, what I will remember from Masai Mara in some sentences are:

• Will and Peter - awesome guides that quickly turned in to nice friends. Together we created an empowering environment where dreams were shared and learning took place.
• Masai community – living in harmony with all aspects of society. Having the opportunity to spend a few hours with these amazing people was simply amazing. Sure, a bit touristic, but equally, very important for me to experience. Could I imagine changing my life so as to live like the Masai tribe? Not sure. I probably wouldn’t survive longer than a week…- that aside – living in a mutual beneficial relationship with nature is possibly the most important thing I have to learn – knowing that it is possible. Other practices of the masai tribe I found less impressive, e.g. polygamy – however I wasn’t there to judge – just learn and thus suspending my judgements was critical to really enjoy and immerse in the experience.
• Close connection to nature and with the animals of course stood out. E.g. seeing lions showing compassion and love. Experiencing a leopard hunt was incredible and watching cheetahs chilling under a tree was so powerful.
• Majken getting ill was less exciting, but she patiently recovered and was determined to enjoy the experience though being from the back of the car, waking up to take the amazing pictures that now shapes what we remember from the magical days in Masai Mara.

Kibera

Kibera – Caro took us to Kibera. It was a difficult meeting simply because never before have I seen so many difficult realities. I think I had a naïve aspiration coming to Kenya, trying to think about a systematic approach to at least in theory tackle extreme poverty. I left Kebera not knowing where to start. It moved me and then and there I knew that Kenya had moved me for live. Spending some hours playing football and reading with the children was amazing. On the surface it seems so small, i.e. to have a kindergarten that impacts 20 children every day, but having been there, actually experiencing it made me realize that these initiatives are so important and they really make a difference. They are absolutely critical.

Retreat

Retreat – from Kibera to retreat at a very nice hotel in mombasa. In the beginning a shock. How could we go from the slum to a luxury hotel? We were there to celebrate Majken’s big birthday, but felt confused. Seeing all western tourists exploiting beautiful Kenya felt un-real and wrong. Unfair, I know, but that was how we felt. We transformed our confusion to four very impactful days. We created a flow with meditation, powerful conversations, exercise, good food, healthy life and relaxation – amazing. Majken and I discussed our collective 2016 vision and also our individual visions within the scope of our collective vision. We are clear and it feels great – now we need to bring it to live!

Precious sisters

Precious sisters – spending time with a dear friend, hosting some sessions and participating as mentors at the precious sisters event in Nairobi was incredible. It probably gave me so much more than what I could give back to the girls and the organization. The precious sisters thought me about the power of a dream and that anything is possible with a bit of support from people that genuinely care. Precious sister will become the structured way in which I will come back again and again to Kenya. Sometimes in person, but always in my mind, heart and will.

I call this experience meaningful Kenya.

The Marketing Academy Boot Camp

The Marketing Academy Boot Camp – outstanding. Deserves a blog post on its own. The Programmes for life leadership development program combined with the thought leaders sharing their experiences and the amazing fellow students made me expand my leadership vision. It is now, clarity, compassion, choice and CONVICTION. Conviction being the addition. Having the fundamental belief, being convinced that you can be or do whatever you want is something that I believe great leaders embody. Gratitude the best word to describe how I feel about the boot camp. Anticipation is what I feel about the year ahead.

Marathon in Copenhagen

Marathon in Copenhagen – absolutely exhausting, but so much fun and an amazing catalyst for living a physically healthy life in 2011. I completed the race. A stretch, but so enjoyable. Will I do it again – most probably yes!

Bikram Yoga

To conclude this quite long Sunday post I felt like sharing about my bikram yoga class on Friday. I was super close to pass out several times doing yoga exercise in 40 degrees C. After the class I concluded I felt physically fit, but spiritually a bit tired and confused. 2011 has been an amazing year to date, but I also feel to need to ground myself again. Come back to my practices, but also visit my family in Sweden. I miss them and it doesn’t feel right knowing I haven’t been home yet this year.

This post was about celebrating the last few months to enable me to look ahead and move on. Thus writing has also been about thinking about what the nearest few months will be about. While enjoying the bank holiday weekend the emerging themes are:

• Continue the momentum Majken and I have in our relationship
• Become part my close family lives
• Take my work through the nearest months with excellence and then gain clarity about my next professional challenge
• Fully immerse myself with what the marketing academy has to offer – being clear that this is an experience for me to:

1. Critically evaluate the leader I want to be
2. Build my marketing philosophy

I think this is it for now. Time for bed as an early start with some golf on my bank holiday Monday in on the agenda tomorrow!

Until later

Emanuel

About 2010

Breaking up constant

The year is coming to an end – our need to divide and break up constant is once again celebrated. I will join in the celebration and use this opportunity to reflect and learn from the past, hopefully enjoy a peaceful present, and find inspiration towards what I hope should be an amazing and incredible 2011!

Magical day – inspiration flowing through my body

Today is a magical day – I am in my flat in London and as I am looking out the window everything is white – it’s beautiful. I am inside, it is warm, I have lightened up candles – inspiration is flowing through my body. A light feeling of being here! I am also slightly nervousness about what this post will be about – I am currently writing within structuring my thinking about what to write – the theme is 2010 and 2011, that’s it! I am enjoying the journey! I feel slightly nervous seeing the beautiful snow as Majken is in NY and I hope to get her home! I am also keen to be flying out to Sthlm on Wednesday next week – I hope the things will have worked out until then. Hey – no need to worry about the future, when I instead can just appreciate and be amazed by this present moment.

Early days of 2010 – flawed thinking

In the beginning of 2010 I was obsessed by the idea that the year was supposed to be about doing what I do what I do better as opposed to introducing new elements and change in my life – I was thinking it would be a year of order, not chaos! Why the need? Not sure – but surprisingly the learning is something I thought I already knew – only putting up principles and goals that I can actually impact.

It started to love the my time when I realized that my year is about practices - not about ideal states that require things out of my control to converge – I deserve beauty when I attract it, but not when I am trying to control events or when events control how I feel about my life and overall situation – the early days was about flawed thinking, but it got better!

2010 in some key words

A year of practice…

I have had good practices in my life in 2010…

Regular physical practice– discovering that I enjoy jogging, ending up signing up for Copenhagen Marathon in 2011.

Regular spiritual practice – trying to focus on regularity instead of length, 5 min a day makes a difference for me to feel better equipped to be my best

Regular sleep, 6-8 hours a night – seeing the clear correlation between good sleep, performance, inspiration, willingness and drive my practices: physical and spiritual

Close relationship – discovering the power of a healthy energy giving relationship, where the whole is greater (sorry for cliché) than the sum of the parts…

Learning – the practice of learning is realizing that there is no end to learning, just learning and learning…

…reflecting on my leadership vision of clarity, compassion and choice, I conclude that I when I manage to practice my healthy practices I can stay true to my vision… a powerful realization and a comforting discovery for me!

I have also had some bad practices in 2010…

Drama – bringing in drama into my life on different levels; in my professional career, in some of my close relationships, in my mind, not always feeling comfortable about my abilities and overall direction…always convinced that I can be my best!

Tobacco – using my “snus” at times simply because I find it delicious, it is not a regular practice and a routine so I won’t punish myself for it, just trying to exchange the practice for a better practice…

At times being outside my integrity zone in some close relationships, without really shouldering the responsibility and really understanding my role

Powerful discovery – I have good and bad practices.

Challenge – not punish myself for my bad practices, just be aware of them, and try to exchange them for better practices…!

Temporary Conclusions – when life is about practices and the end goal is about learning, when I trust my discovery, I am accepting more what is and I can allow happiness for what it is…Running a marathon will be a good metaphor for the art of practice – I hope to practice the practice of capturing the experience, to further embody my discovery!

This is becoming a long post… doesn’t matter, I would love to be able to go back at it at the back end of 2011 and see how I feel then about how I feel now!

Thriving professionally…

I have had enormous support from my mentor and various coaches and leading thinkers within the field that I am in. I am humbled by my opportunity to learn and I feel so much gratitude for everyone playing a role in my development! Gratitude especially to my two managers that have guided my journey within the business during 2010 and gratitude towards my mentor!!! I find it hard to describe in words how important my mentor relationship has been for so many aspects of my life – helping me to stay positive, smile and thrive in areas I want to thrive!

Experiencing different places – travels I remember personally and professionally!

Personally I experienced the UK: Lake District, Wales, Bath, Devon and the south, beaches and surfing! I am growing to love the country. London is also growing in me the more time I spend in the city!

I also went to Sardinia and Turkey – both amazing trips that I absolutely enjoyed!

Easy to forget, but also very powerful – my trips to Bornholm and the Archipelago of Stockholm – my peaceful places in Scandinavia!

Professionally I went all over the place in Europe, mainly to Zurich and Vienna, but I also experienced Central and Eastern Europe, Boston and some other amazing places! All in all, exciting, but also a big stretch as all of these travels means a lot of preparation to deliver as per what I expect from myself!

Travel seems to be a constant in my life! As much as I love these experiences, it is also a big scarify to my life in London and also, travels makes it hard to practice some of my healthy practices…at the same time, there are new excuses, just good and bad practices, hence I need to exchange some of my bad practices while travelling to better practices!

My family and closest relationship

I feel an enormous gratitude for everyone in my family – they are all my biggest supporters, and it is hard to describe in words how much I love them!

My unique love to my closest relationship is growing, she inspires me and I am feeling so much respect for her and our love!

Friends

I feel so much gratitude for my close friends, some of which have celebrated their love, others entering the magical chronological age of 30, some thriving in their professions, some are physically very close to me, others are spiritually close, common for all – you are all very close to me and I give you so many thoughts all the time! I am very rarely around – but all of you means a lot to me.

2011

I feel very positive about the year ahead! I think magical things will happen! I open for what is.

2011 – I hope a year of more healthy than un-healthy practices!

I hope I will thrive my relationship – I will do everything I can be present in our space baby – I suggest a daily spiritual practice for us every time we are in our space!

I hope some of the themes of 2011 include…

…learning, both un-structured everyday learning and some more structured learning.

…professional surprise, excitement and fulfilment

…health and successful spiritual practice

…re-establishing late nights with leading thinkers...

…invest time to connect with leading thinkers influencing culture, trends and health of our society

2010 – a year of gratitude, thriving, practice and drama

2011 – a year of practice, gratitude, daring and of course clarity, compassion and choice!

__________________________

I just read this quote that I think is a nice way to conclude this post:

“If you create an act, you create a habit.

If you create a habit, you create character.

If you create a character, you create a destiny.”

André Maurois

Until next time

Emanuel

Free flowing

At home.

Saturday night.

Don’t feel particularly energetic. I am not sure why, but will give a go at journaling about it.

Have had delicious food. A wonderful evening with my love. I am reflective. I don’t know how I feel about the last few weeks – they could be described as professionally enhancing. Personally enriching. Great learning. Experiential. Still not sure how I feel about the.

Loved last weekend as I did a running race – survival of the fittest. 12 k with hurdles – I finished in 1h 02 min+ something. Really enjoyed it, felt proud that I could push all the way through the race. Thinking of it – that is probably my highlight of the last few weeks. Great people around, cool atmosphere, great training! More of that!

As for work – I have been spending time in, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Czech republic, Switzerland and Austria and on Monday I am going to France – the travel agenda is immense at the moment, and in all of the travels and work my creativity and personality is very challenged. I am performing, I am doing well, but for some reasons I feel quite reflective about the number of hours I spend, where I channel my energy, the inspiration I give to it and the inspiration I get. What is important is that I am learning and the learning curve is almost beyond what I can cope with at the moment – everything from hard facilitation, and leading an agenda, to process and ways of working development, market selection and creative design development – the role stretches me and I am learning!!! Learning and energy giving activity and surrounding is critical. The learning is there – I have the drive, but I am also challenged by very late nights in dark hotel rooms where I am catching up work that I supposedly could have managed at an earlier hour.

What I love with the learning that I am going through at the moment is that some of the ways in which I do things that I have trusted to date needs to be re-evaluated in this new setting and context. I need to re-learn an approach or generally expand the ways in which I assume my role in different situations. I wonder when this happened before? It probably happens regularly for people, but I am not sure I have always been this conscious of it as I am now! In the past I have always tried to create a blue print for how things works and how I should behave to be efficient and achieve my goals. I think the last few years, my approach have been the same, but now I am in the process of expanding/evolving it – not throwing away my past ways of doing things – just adding new in my library. In the end – to be able to select “which golf club” to play, I need to sleep, train, spend time with family and friends and recognize that leadership for me will as I know it today be about clarity, compassion and choice – but the way I play on a day to day basis will vary on the situation – a situation I can only identify and see if I am present and show up – i.e. feeling and playing in the field.

Wow – sorry for mumbling – but these are very raw thoughts in an emotional feeling that isn’t great, but that already have some clarity around why its there!!!

I am learning, but my energy level is rather low – partly because of physical exhaustion, but also because of the fear of sitting my young years in empty dark hotel rooms doing serious stuff that I actually have the entire life of doing. If the learning wouldn’t be there, I would probably be doing something ells, but the learning is awesome, super intensive and very aligned to my personal objectives, so hey, I am a very fortunate person at the moment – yet just appreciating that I am quite challenged at the moment.

I appreciate impossible to follow, but meant a lot for me to write down.

Until later

Emanuel

Long time no blogging…

I have wanted to write a blog post for a long while now, but I haven’t done it – I refuse to blame lack of time, so I guess the real reason is that I haven’t prioritized it…for some reason, I have felt that what i have been going through hasn't been appropriate to write about...but I guess the real reason is that writing is not a practice anymore, its not something I do… I love capturing and learning as a result, understanding the journey I am on, but haven’t felt like writing… blogging for me is like journaling, but slightly more daring…when I need journaling the most, I probably do it the least…same with blogging, when I need to sit down, reflect and capture my experience I rush, forget, run and move on… the idea of practice is that you practice, and improve, practice and improve.. as for my blogging, I am out of practice and thus this is not a post that I feel is flowing, instead, I am forcing myself to write something. Bear with me, I need to practice and learn again to see the value and enjoy capturing my experience!

The summer kicked off with two weeks holiday in Denmark and Sweden. Beautiful Bornholm in Denmark, reading, socializing, meditating, swimming and training, being with my energy Majken!

Archipelago in Stockholm – the place I love, my inspiration, my peace! Nature and activity, harmony and fun! Sweden always gives me mixed feelings - I was there last weekend as well! I love coming back, meeting family and friends, but at the same time if I decide to move back one day I need to come to peace with how I want to live my life there.

After kicking off the summer with two weeks of holiday it was back to work, confirming a new role in the new organization! It feels like I have worked for three organizations the last year: Legacy Cadbury, Cadbury-Kraft and Kraft Foods – the new role is a stretch, one of the toughest professional challenges that I have had, but also great fun and an enormous learning experience – really enjoying it actually! The weeks during the summer has been a lot about work, quite bad hours at the moment, but the weekends have been about experiencing the UK – the lake district, for hiking and the south coast for surfing and Bath for golf and nightclubbing! We also visited Sardinia, a beautiful island in the Mediterranean sea – celebration, good food and connecting with family and friends was what that trip was about. One of those when I didn’t feel that I needed a break, but nevertheless really nice!

The summer has come to an end, it has been amazing! I haven’t managed to play as much golf as I wanted, but still, that is a practice I want to carry with me! I am doing good, I enjoy life at the moment, not trying to challenge what I am doing, instead, practice, re-learn, be patient, trusting that the path is right for me at the moment!

Not a particularly inspiring post, but hey, I am back in the game, blogging again! I enjoyed it!

Until later

Emanuel

The post I should have written a long time ago…

2010 to date has been a very interesting year for me! My thought for the year was to “do what I do better” as opposed challenge and change the fundamentals in life, i.e. where I live, what I do, who I meet, etc, etc…

Interestingly, Kraft bought Cadbury and my real estate agent, CEDAR ESTATE decided to increase the rent beyond what I wish to pay for the apartment where we where living and out of no where, my job is at risk and in two months we need to change apartment…

As for the apartment – we have moved and we love our new place! Today I am thankful that Cedar Estate behaved in the way they did and that we moved from their property, simply because we never knew when they decided to enter the apartment to do what they call “maintenance work” or when they without notifying decided to show the flat for new possible tenants. Not to mentioned the times when they left windows open after maintenance work, when their cleaners destroyed our table and refused to take responsibility or when they always left the apartment in a very bad condition after they had been there without our consent. I usually don’t write these kind of things, but Cedar Estate real estate agents in London is by far one of the most unpleasant relationship that I have had with a service provider of mine, ever. WATCH OUT FOR CEDAR ESTATE - is a line I have felt like writing for a long time.

Having written all of this, it so important to trust life, simply because as a result of the fact that they pushed us to move, we have now found an apartment that makes us calm and that we really enjoy spending time in. We have a little garden where we have managed to bbq 9 times since we moved in some weeks ago…

Apartment solved.

In terms of work – my journey since joining Cadbury has been incredible! My learning curve has been beyond expectation and my motto is to challenge myself NOT TO WORK, but see what I do as learning with clear accountabilities. If I would have been asked if I needed change at the time when Kraft bought Cadbury, I would probably have said no, but now as it is coming I am trying to embrace every single piece of it.

As I am writing this post I am going through consultation, i.e. my job is at risk and I need to either leave the company or negotiate a new role. I am quite excited about the emerging organization so if an opportunity comes up I am keen to join in. Lots of people have sensitively asked me how I am doing etc, and my answer is consistent. My heart is beating, I have legs and arms, I can walk and smile, thus, nothing really to feel sorry or bad about… having said that, the situation is rather stressful and I am keen to resolve it as soon as possible, without jumping into something which doesn’t feel right. One on the things I am happy about was that I established a worse case scenario, i.e. what is the worse thing that can happen in this process? For me it is not about loosing my job, but loosing myself by taking a job that is not me!

I will try to keep this space updated going forward – because I do feel that the intensity of these last few months needs to be processed. I feel with the start of the world cup that the wind is changing. I am excited to be in London, about my learning environment, my relationship, my family and friends – things are good!

Soon England first game in the world cup – really exciting! Football is religion in this country – the city is stopping and everything is about this game. Last time, back in 2006 I was having an AIESEC transition during World Cup – Its hard to imagine all the incredible things that have happened in my life the last four years! The world cup is super BIG and I cant wait, but to enjoy every second of it, every second of a tournament that unites the world and shows that everyone can WIN.

Until later

Emanuel

My experience in Istanbul: EuroExpro 2010

It was indeed great to come back and visit an extraordinary organization AIESEC and to chair their biggest European conference of the year, EuroExpro 2010.

I did not go there to check up on the organization or to challenge or trying to shape its direction! I just came there to be myself, to reflect on my current situation and to understand if I am living within my integrity zone. Above all of that, I came there to facilitate an environment to enable the delivery of an amazing experience for everyone involved. Looking back, I feel that we did have an amazing time there and the kind of things I have heard after the conference really make warm inside and also feel comfortable that we had a magical, truly transformative week in Istanbul.

What I loved with the experience was that it wasn’t a pushed or a forced environment where everyone had to go beyond what’s reasonable to deliver. Instead, it was a systematically designed environment that was set up around a very clear vision for what we, i.e. every single person involved wanted to experience, combined with a great team environment, and some practices.

To use words that I have used before – our guiding idea was to experience our best AIESEC conference ever, our practices were regular faci meetings, morning breathing exercises, etc and our artefacts where clear principles for how we wanted to behave and a strong team built up by excellent individuals. Every single person involved did give that little extra in every situation, and that really made the experience extraordinary, but I believe that was possible because of our very solid and strong foundation.

Outside the flow of the conference, i.e. the nitty gritty content of the conference the words that comes to my mind about what this conference was about are the following:

Authenticity

Integrity

Clarity

Compassion

Choice

Transformative experiences

AIESEC

Guiding ideas

Practices

Artefacts

Stories

Conversations

and…

Inspiration

Thanks everyone who made this possible – it was an honour to Chair this environment that I hope was transformative for everyone involved!

Until next exchange

Emanuel

Post Copenhagen events

I have had the opportunity to attend a number of post Copenhagen reflections the last few weeks... the first one was organized by Tällberg (http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/) and the other by the science museum.

Both these organizations have a tradition of organizing and host high quality and interesting conversation. So even this time! I guess I came there with the expectation to get a sense of what some thinkers on the topic of global governance and security had to say about what happened in Copenhagen and how the process and ultimately outcome can be improved in the future. I also wanted to understand the role of science versus the role science assumed in Copenhagen.

The role of science…

In the months leading up to Copenhagen science started to play a role as a communicator about the “truth” of the causes and the effects of climate change. I have always been in the space that we should communicate and view the indications from science as possible causes and effects, and accordingly pursue risk mitigation efforts in case the terrible scenarios they are suggesting could be a reality…why take the chance?! I feel very comfortable they are somewhat in the right space of where the world is likely to evolve, but I do understand that people are confused on what to believe at this stage…

To me, nothing has changed in terms of my views on science…What I hope though going forward is that leading scientist will learn about what they are best placed to do, and allow other people, better placed to do other things, do those things… (wow, a complicated sentence)… e.g. communicate and translate science and the conclusions that we can make especially around the science around climate change.

As science reached out receivers interpreted their messages as the “truths” of the world and that clearly provoked quite a few that then decided to make sure to challenge the validity of the scientific statements feeding the debate. An unfortunate situation, but maybe what we really needed to think about the way we assume the roles we are playing in the debate…

My reflection – everyone don’t need to be good at everything, but what we need to ensure and take responsibility for is that we are trying to do and live in spaces we are best placed to be in. science are great in the spaces of analyzing patters and defining scenarios, other people are better placed to interpret those and communicate the implications to a wider audience.

Science will still have an incredibly important role to play – their challenge, focus on what you are really good at and delegate the rest to someone ells!

The process…

As for the process aiming to create the most important consensus of our time it wont be fixed. I understand that people in the system are trying to fix it, but after having spent some hours simulating that Copenhagen process I have to conclude that nothing good will ever come out of that a process. It is a process defined forgetting that people will actually take part in it. It is set up for some to win and others to loose, i.e. in the end of the day, it is a zero sum game.

In terms of being well placed to do things. I doubt that the prime minister of Denmark was well placed a to manage a process like that – I feel sorry for the people who would expect that from a head of state. He is brilliant in many other way and thus should allow other people better placed to facilitate processes, do that! – the process wont be fixed by replacing the Danish prime minister…

There are people working full time with process work, and there are great processes e.g. the U-process, appreciative inquiry, open space technologies, that all are great processes to help articulate a new desired states – any of these would have achieved a better outcome that what we saw in Copenhagen, simple because they are trying to create a new desired state as opposed to set up a zero sum game.

As for the events that I attended…I listen and I listen and I was somewhat really challenged during most of the conversations simply because most participants never challenged the fundamentals of what really needs to happen. They were convinced that we need to try fixing something that is fundamentally flawed and most were incapable to see a new way of doing things implying a new way of living life! I felt challenged because of the inability to see a bright future, a future that at least I would want to be part of. They believe that we can act and achieve from a space of fear as opposed to from a space of opportunity and optimism.

There is something about the way we talk about generations these days that also challenge me quite a bit. I have never believed in the chronological way of measuring age – I think age as understood and measured from an emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical and chronological perspective where we are currently only focused on the chronological perspective. The reason for that is because it is the easiest way of measuring age in the same way as profit is the easiest way of measuring the success of a business, or GDP growth for a nation and the number of cars we have as individuals. – dare to allow complexity, but don’t make it too complicated.

What became clear for me during these events though is that I will be very difficult for some who have dedicated their life to understand the current system learned current ways of doing things and living life to think about and practice new ways of doing things…we need to help each other!

As we are realizing and recognizing that some of the past ways in which we have lived our lives have been flawed we need to encourage all of us to trying to practice new ways of living lives. I came to these events with an expectation to get answers and that was really ignorant! It is not that easy anymore – we all need to explore new ways of doing things… some will work, share them and reapply them, others wont work so try not reapplying the... What makes this task really interesting though is that no one really knows how the world is likely to evolve and needs to look like so we all need to assume responsibility for the way forward – bearing in mind that we all will have different roles to play, ideally roles that we are best placed to play!

Until next exchange

Emanuel

What does it take to make a change in the 21st Century – My commitments

The second out of hopefully many more “What does it take to make a change in the 21^st Century” event took place yesterday. The day was about our body and mind as opposed to only our minds. We danced as an expression for how we felt and we all felt really inspired by the more creative elements. The topics for discussion were. 1. Environment 2. Education 3. Personal change 4. Enlightened Businesses. I was in the enlightened businesses group and we attacked the issue from three dimensions. Entrepreneurial businesses, People and how existing businesses need to evolve. We all felt empowered to do what we can as individuals in business to try to shape our organizations, but we also recognized that the guiding principles of business needs to be re-evaluated and evolve. Not rocket science, but an important acceptance of the group, to really start exploring some solutions.

When we started to explore solutions we discussed individual actions that we can do to shape our environments. I loved that angle because that made most of us leaving the room committing to actions we all can take to really shape our businesses. Personally I committed to my practices of health (sleep, physical and spiritual health) cultivate close relationships and development, but also to empower super people to live a more healthy life. What this exactly means will be explored the nearest couple of months.

Thanks for organizing the event and for inspiring me to continue to live and learn.

Until next exchange

Emanuel

About Late Night With a Leading Thinker

Our first London Late Night With a Leading Thinker gathered around 14 people in our home around the question of WHAT TO DO NOW? The last few years I always find myself discussing the big questions and more seldom than often I really challenge myself to go down to individual actions that I can do in my everyday life to really live more in harmony with myself and nature. As much as I really guard that dialogue because I really believe it is important to get it right, this week’s session was initially all about the actions we can all do every day to reduce our negative footprint on earth.

Catalyst, a network of passionate professionals set the scene by introducing their perspective on the issue and also their specific focus: FOOD. I loved their focus in the sense that FOOD is something that connects us all. All being ALL as opposed to only human beings. Their story was touching and helped us finding beauty in connecting with nature. All participants got to eat organic nibbles that one person from Catalyst had harvested from his home in the countryside of England. We also go invited to just walk around with our bear feet on earth helping harvesting some organic products that he is farming in his home.

After being challenged on the scale of the issue, there was a sense that we needed to empower each other to think and act from a space of optimism as opposed to from a space of fear. Sustaining Ability as opposed to sustainability was a manifestation of focusing on a vision of having a choice, i.e. sustaining our ability to chose how we want to live our life, as opposed to the more negative goals of sustainability which is more about sustaining a sinking ship.

As always, I left with more questions than answers, but also with inspiration to continue my journey of exploring how we ALL can live in harmony with earth.

Thanks Catalyst for coming and sharing your powerful story and thank you all participants, i.e. Leading Thinkers for showing up with your mind, hearths and wills to make the evening an inspiring one!

Until next exchange

Emanuel

About Spiral Dynamics

I got a very vivid introduction to spiral dynamics in the beginning of this week: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics

Spiral Dynamics is about human development. It is an integral theory that helps us to understand the evolution of mankind. I had some transformative hours in the sense that it helped me to understand myself better, but also some of the tensions in today’s world. Some of the questions I have post allowing the theory and the worldview to sink in are if we have time to await the evolution to have its journey or if we need a revolution and also, is the theory applicable globally or is it more skewed towards a the vantage point of western societies?

The introduction made a very strong impression on me and I am keen to explore the implications further. I can feel that it is a worldview that can help me to understand the current state of the world better and in a more holistic way. As much as it helps me to understand where we are at, our challenge ahead is to understand how we move ahead from here. I think the rest of the week helped my explore that further. Partly through our first "Late Night With a Leading Thinker" here in London, but also from yesterday's session on "What does it take to make a change in the 21st Century.

Until next exchange

Emanuel