The Gathering for Change Agents
Year 7
“Creating Agile And Sustainable Change
That Matters”

Welcome!

On this page you’ll find the full collection of audio and resource archives from Year Seven of our monthly Gathering calls. Speaker bios, call summaries, audios and recommended resources for each month’s call will continue to be added to this page soon after the call.

Our theme for this seventh year of Gathering together is Creating Agile And Sustainable Change That Matters. Whether you work with individuals, organizations, communities and/or your inner world, join us to explore topics like these:

  • What are some of the best tools, perspectives, resources and strategies to help change-makers develop more agility, resilience and ease in the face of ongoing complexity, change and uncertainty?
  • In times of ambiguity and chaos, how can we honor and also transcend what is… to build bridges that help us create and navigate essential change?
  • How can you improve your inner and outer relationship with power to increase your purposeful impact in the world? Let’s explore perspectives, paradigms, dynamics and relationships with power.
  • The ability to identify, connect with, inspire, motivate and expand your divine audience is essential to your success as an agent of change. How can we amplify our ability to create and sustain purposeful communities?

Along with our Year Seven offerings, please take some time to explore the past years’ program archives:

Year 1 Program Archive – “Mastering the Inner Game”
Year 2 Program Archive – “Align Your Outer Game with the Inner”
Year 3 and 4 Program Archive –  “Integrating the Inner and Outer Collectives: The Dance of ME and WE”
Year 5 Program Archive – “Co-Creating the Global Collective”
Year 6 Program Archive – “Radical Relationship; Embracing the Gifts of Polarity”

You’ll find an amazing library of topics and speakers that are relevant and useful in supporting and expanding your purposeful work in the world. To receive notices of future calls so that you can attend live, go to http://truepurpose.net/gathering

A great planetary shift is happening, with challenges that are inviting us to move beyond individual will and divisive strategies and to co-create a world that works for everyone.

In service to purposeful transformation,
Your hosts Beth Scanzani and Andy Swindler

Study Materials:

Browse the Year 7 archives:

12/4/19: Weaving Golden Threads of 2019 to Build a Bridge into 2020
11/6/19: 6 Lessons Learned from a Collaborative, Community-based Change Process
10/2/19: Emergent Leadership—Embodied Awareness Collaborating to Shape Change
9/4/19: Integrity is Essential for Changemakers
8/7/19: Lessons from Nature – Change You can Sustain
7/10/19: Sustainability through the lens of individual and planetary flourishing
5/1/19: Seeing Each Other Through the Story of Change
4/3/19: Imaginal Transformation; Using Community to Create the New World
3/6/19: Co-Creating Sustainable Community
2/6/19: Coming Together to Build The Gathering Community with Purpose

 

12/4/19: Weaving Golden Threads of 2019 to Build a Bridge into 2020

Tom Rausch
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On this call, we celebrated together the completion of our 7th year and our 2019 theme “Creating Agile and Sustainable Change That Matters.”

The lion’s share of this call was devoted to exploring what it takes to co-create and to evolve a community like The Gathering – that exists for the soul purpose of supporting change-makers who have a deep and unrelenting desire to make a meaningful difference in the world.

Tom guided us through a spacious inner exploration and expansive discussion about what it takes to co-create our Gathering community and monthly calls in ways that feel welcoming, connected, supportive, meaningful and irresistible.

Here are some of the questions we considered:

  • What golden threads have you discovered over the past year of Gathering calls and how have you woven them into your life and life work?
  • What gives you hope for the future and what role do you want to play in co-creating that?
  • When have you felt especially alive, engaged, excited to be part of making an important difference?
  • What motivates you to be a part of a movement or community that supports you to create the meaningful changes you are compelled to make?
  • What’s necessary for you to achieve our dreams in 2020 and beyond – and for us to support you in that?

One thing that was remarkably clear and energetically alive was the importance of having a place like The Gathering that feels like a safe place to be, to share, to learn, to be supported and to support others in service to co-creating a world that works for everyone.

There was so much rich sharing in this call that we created a Google Doc with Notes from the 12/2/19 call to capture some of the questions and comments.

Here are the ACTIONS and RESOURCES Tom suggested for those of you who want to go deeper into this topic:

Actions:

Reflect on the following questions:

  • What would need to be true for you to fully step into your impact as a change maker?
    • Make a list, notice any themes, identify areas for personal work or support
    • This is an excellent alternative or augmentation to any New Year’s
  • Consider one or more of the evolutionary growth and development models that resonate with you. Where are you with your purposeful work? Where would you like to be? What do you need to be and do to step into that.
    • For example you might consider Michael Beckwith’s 4 Stages of Spiritual Growth and Development:
      • To me
      • For me
      • Through me
      • As me
  • What’s needed for you to BE the change you want to create?
  • We’d love to expand our community. Who can you invite to join us in this purposeful Gathering? Do that.

Resources

Read – “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success” by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp.

If you don’t yet know Tom Rausch, here’s a short bio and… when you join us on The Gathering calls in 2020, you’ll have the opportunity to get to know him as one of the Gathering hosts.

Tom Rausch is the founder of Leadership Beyond Limits where he creates impact on a global scale working primarily with large organizations with leadership teams spread across the globe. Tom has developed deep expertise in creating sustainable and scalable transformation across many cultures. His clients include industry innovation leaders like Accenture and Saint-Gobain, with leaders from many different cultures; including India, Argentina, USA, China, the EU and others.

Tom holds several advanced certifications in executive and leadership coaching including Social + Emotional Intelligence coaching, Team Performance coaching, & MasterMind Executive coaching. He is also a Certified CTT Culture Change Consultant with expertise in creating values-driven, whole-system change using the Barrett Values Center Cultural Transformation Tools & the Appreciative Inquiry approach developed at Case Western Reserve University. His formal education includes a BA in Psychology from Lawrence University and advanced studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Masters Program in Continuing Adult Vocational Education.

Beyond the purposeful work that Tom does on a global scale, Tom was one of the cofounders of the Gathering and a co-host in our first year.

11/6/19: 6 Lessons Learned from a Collaborative, Community-based Change Process

Kevin Kelly
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On this highly interactive call, our guest speaker/facilitator Kevin Kelly, presented six lessons that he learned when implementing equitable change within an educational system in California.

Kevin explained a clear vision for the different roles that are required for sustainable change agency, and how changemakers must remain agile to adapt to the needs of the community.

The Gathering participants weighed in throughout the session so we had a rich weaving of ideas and experiences throughout.

We talked about the nature of conflict and finding ways to come together through tension, as well as the positive impacts on productivity and innovation that more diverse teams bring through collective wisdom. “We are smarter than Me.”

Here are Kevin’s key lessons that we discussed:

  • Become a champion for making the change.
  • Be prepared to create something new.
  • Actively solicit different points of view.
  • Work with purpose to promote change.
  • Use your network to scale change.
  • Give change meaning for new audiences.

Kevin Kelly’s academic and professional pursuits are geared toward empowering individuals and organizations to make decisions and changes that have an impact on themselves and the world. As a consultant, Kevin works with colleges, universities, state-wide systems and non-profits on strategic planning, adopting and implementing technology, distance education, leading organizational change, addressing equity and more. As an online instructor, he guides university learners as they learn how to learn with and without technology.

Kevin holds an Ed.D. in Organization and Leadership from University of San Francisco, an MA in Instructional Technology from San Francisco State University, and a BA in American Studies from UC Santa Cruz. He is the co-author of two books launching in 2020–Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers, and Advancing Online Teaching: Creating Equity-Based Digital Learning Environments. Kevin’s consulting, research and teaching focuses on a cycle of creating greater awareness, addressing needs through intentional action and reflecting on next steps.

Here are the ACTIONS and RESOURCES Kevin suggested for those of you who want to go deeper into this topic:

Actions:

  • Choose one of the six lessons and try it in your work. Join the next Gathering call to report back what you experience, or share on the Facebook group.

Resources:

10/2/19: Emergent Leadership—Embodied Awareness Collaborating to Shape Change

Carri Munn
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On this call, our guest speaker/facilitator Carri Munn, presented some really leading edge perspectives on leadership, communication, organization and engagement that generated lots of insightful conversation, learning and curiosity to go deeper.

One of the many things that stood out for us, is that Emergent Leadership is beyond “Conscious Leadership”. Conscious leadership is essential and… from that place, leadership can evolve from hierarchy to network systems – creating a regenerative energy that flows through leaders to serve the whole system.

We’re facing so many complex challenges today – social, economic, climate, political – that cannot be solved by simple infrastructure changes. For that, you need access to the heart. One of the most important roles of leaders becomes maintaining harmony and flow in alignment with purpose and wholistic service. The larger the system, the more volatile, uncertain and ambiguous this task can be. Emergent Leadership is a leading edge perspective that addresses these issues. (Oh, and by the way, we’re all leaders!)

Here are some of the key points we discussed:

  • How leaders can adopt new mindsets that will shift their inner states of being?
  • The 3 essential aspects of Emergent Leadership
    • Adaptive mindset
    • Agency
    • Alignment with others
  • The 4 Jedi skills and capacities of Emergent Leaders
    • Focus on awareness, tell yourself the truth about where you are
    • Open Connection and Mutual Agreement
    • Owning your narrative as a force that shapes experiences
    • Creating a Context of Possibility
  • What is required to optimize and maintain alignment to create value for the whole?
  • How leaders can achieve sustainable, high functioning, and responsive systems

Carri Munn activates connective wisdom for collective flourishing. A systems strategist and facilitation ninja with a career spanning 25 years in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, Carri is devoted to supporting collaborations where people do what they love and work together in service to life. She consults and coaches using ecosystem intelligence to create conscious organizations and multi-sector collaboratives with regenerative cultures. Her firm Context for Action partners with visionary leaders to design thriving organizations that operate as purpose-driven networks and utilize collective intelligence to respond wisely and efficiently in an ever-shifting landscape. Their holistic approach to evolutionary work rewires individuals and organizations for success in a changing world.

For the last three years Carri has been a student and trainer of Collective Coherence and Emerge Dialogue, a heart centered, We-Space discussion practice for changemakers engaged in re-designing social systems. Carri holds a Masters in Public Administration, a BA in Political Theory and Philosophy, and is a recognized corporate shaman certified as a True Purpose® and HeartMath coach.

Here are the ACTIONS and RESOURCES Carri suggested for those of you who want to go deeper into this topic:

Actions:

  • Actively appreciate one thing about a person in each interaction you have for a full week.
  • See if you can make a habit of deep noticing and heartfelt attention that cultivates an increase for someone else.
  • Daily Reflection for Emergent Leaders:

Life is a practice of increasing awareness of our feelings,
sensations, and intuitive knowing.
Everyday we wake up to the opportunity to be responsible,
curious, truthful, integrous, accountable, and grateful.
We can express our genius, play, and choose your perspective
based on abundance and interbeing.
We can co-create with life,
holding the possibility that all of us thrive together.

Resources

  • Explore: Here’s a Quiz Carri developed for learning more about your capacity to go with the flow. https://go.bucketquizzes.com/sf/51d11c62 The results include three resources:
    • One for cultivating flow through embodiment
    • One for perspective taking
    • One exploring how changemakers can work with interbeing
  • Read:
  • Listen: In the Gathering Archive:
    • Catalyzing Creative Emergence with Elizabeth Debold & Thomas Steininger 9/2017
    • Activating the Social Mycelium with Terry Patten 10/2017
    • Making Collaboration Work David Ehrlichman & David Sawyer from Converge 2/2018
  • Learn: free half hour consultation and a 15% discount to participate in an Emergent Leadership training cohort. Email me at carri@contextforaction.com

9/4/19: Integrity is Essential for Changemakers

John Blumberg
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On this call we enjoyed a highly interactive dialogue and explored how values are the fuel for integrity, and how integrity is the fabric of every value. Integrity is whole, entire and undiminished – to quote John, “Core values never divide, they integrate and connect.”

John led us through a process of brainstorming what we value most and then, helped us break down our list into Behaviors, Wants, Needs, and Core Values and appreciate the characteristics of each as well as the differences. Lots of great insights were received and shared!

Here are some of the key points we discussed:

  • The meaning of integrity and how it impacts every moment of your life
  • The distinction between values, wants, needs and behaviors
  • The relationship between purpose and values
  • An understanding of how our values impact the change we make in the world
  • Practical ideas for continuing to establish and explore your values
  • A core values exercise to deepen your understanding of your core values

Here are the RESOURCES John suggested for those of you who want to go deeper into this topic.

  • https://www.blumbergroi.com/thebigdig/
    • Collected 750 words from blank sheet exercise
    • Four elements worksheet
  • John’s PM/AM Exercise:
    • Each evening:
      • Review the various relationships, choices, and decisions you made during the day and the associated outcomes
        • Celebrate where the core values you’ve identified brought value to those interactions, choices and actions
        • Reflect on moments that could have been better if you honored your core values
          • Where did I violate one of my values today?
          • How could honoring my values have enhanced the outcomes?
          • No beating yourself up. Just notice.
          • Express gratitude
    • Each morning
      • Review what’s coming up for the day. Ask:
        • How can I bring my core values to life?
        • When and where do I get to?
        • What are the opportunities to experience me core values today?

John G. Blumberg is inspiring a disruption in how we think about culture by redefining ROI at the intersection of personal and organizational core values. In 1996 John left behind an 18-year career he loved … one that had taken him from CPA to worldwide recruiting responsibilities at Arthur Andersen. Over the two decades that followed, John has evolved his general focus on leadership and culture to a laser focus on precisely what fuels them. John is the author of Return On Integrity: The New Definition of ROI and Why Every Leader Needs to Know It. His newest book is Return On Integrity: The Individual’s Journey to the One Essential Thing.

As promised, we’ve suggested some reflections/practices/field work for this month to help you expand and integrate your understanding and move into inspired action between calls. At the beginning of October’s call, we’ll offer you an opportunity to share your experiences with these practices or anything else you realized after our gathering.

  • Check out the resources and deepening practice that John offered
  • Expand (or try out) the Values blank sheet exercise John did on the call. Fill in the 4 columns in his 4 Elements worksheet.
    • What did you learn?
    • What will you do with these insights?
  • Try the AM/PM exercise and see what shifts you experience and insights you gain.

8/7/19: Lessons from Nature – Change You can Sustain

Javan Kerby Bernakevitch
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Our speaker, Javan Kerby Bernakevitch, shared with us a remarkably broad range of concepts, insights and nature-based models that are essential for change agents seeking to create agile and sustainable change that matters. Using nature as a mirror and metaphor for inner and outer change, Javan led us in a highly engaged and inspiring conversation. For example:

  • We are nature
  • We are a system of systems
  • Ecology is all living beings interacting since the beginning of time. We are ecology.
  • Understanding and integrating ecological principles and feedback loops into our lives and our work is imperative; we ignore nature’s lessons at our own peril

Javan is an international land designer, consultant, speaker, facilitator and educator with All Points Design. Since 2009, he’s worked with over 1800 students and clients to help them design and create inner and outer landscapes, businesses and lives that get better year after year. Javan helps his clients clarify and strengthen their values, direction, and decision-making and reduce and alleviate limiting beliefs, behaviours and patterns that limit their success. Learn more about Javan at http://allpointsdesign.ca

This call was so rich with useful concepts, information and valuable perspectives that many of the participants are looking forward to listening to the call again and/or checking out Javan’s website including his coaching, courses and podcasts.

Below are some of the high level highlights of topics that Javan discussed:

  • Nature by and large is all about the why, not the how
  • There are three kinds of systems in nature, and in life:
    • Degenerative (less than)
    • Generative (same as / sustainable)
    • Regenerative (more than before, greater than there was)
  • Design by subtraction, not addition
  • There is always an exchange in nature
    • Every action in ecology costs energy.What are your actions and choices costing you?
    • Animals and ecology evaluate if this is a good trade for energy exchange
    • What is taking your energy that doesn’t have an equally valuable return?
    • Regenerative (and not so regenerative) forms of capital
  • Nature provides feedback loops to support sustainability
    • Check out the dialogue on the dynamics of wildfires (and Javan’s podcast on that topic… very enlightening!)

Javan also offered a number of resources for those who want to find out more about his work and the concepts he talked about (and more!):

As promised, we’ve suggested some reflections/practices/field work for this month to help you expand and integrate your understanding and move into inspired action between calls. At the beginning of September’s call, we’ll offer you an opportunity to share your experiences with these practices or anything else you realized after our gathering.

  • Check out the resources and podcasts that Javan offered; especially the one on wildfires
  • Consider the feedback loops that you may be ignoring in your life and your work.
    • What is the cost of ignoring them?
    • How can you become more attuned to these natural feedback loops and take action accordingly?
  • Every action in ecology costs energy.
    • What are your actions and choices costing you?
    • What is taking your energy that doesn’t have an equally valuable return?
  • How can you upgrade the design of your life and your work by subtraction, not addition?
  • How are the three kinds of systems in nature at play in your life? What shifts can you make to enhance your desired outcomes?
    • Degenerative (less than)
    • Generative (same as / sustainable)
    • Regenerative (more than before, greater than there was)

 

7/10/19: Sustainability through the lens of individual and planetary flourishing

Gabriel Grant
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In this call, Gabriel led us on a deep journey into the power of purpose to motivate sustainable change rather than the short-lived transactions of externally focused motivation, guilt and/or shame. This applies to environmental sustainability as well as any kind of work change agents are doing.

What are the best ways to compel people who share our vision for the world to act together? Gabriel shared some really essential and game-changing perspectives in this, including:

  • Connecting through our hearts rather than retreating to facts, figures or down-putting
  • Sharing our deepest love for humanity and vision for the world
  • Trusting that, as another human being, this person we’re trying to motivate also has a heart and love for humanity

Gabriel Grant’s academic, professional and non-profit ventures are committed to the dream of all life flourishing together through people experiencing their life as a calling. Gabriel is the founder of Human Partners, where he helps senior-level executives craft high performance cultures powered by purpose, wholeness and trust. He is also a co-founder of Byron Fellowship Educational Foundation. Gabriel holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Sustainability from Yale University, an MS in Ecological Systems Engineering and a BS in Physics from Purdue University. He recently published his first international bestseller, Breaking Through Gridlock – The Power of Conversation in a Polarized World, to support people in sharing about what matters most. Gabriel’s consulting, research, and coaching focuses on how people and organizations flourish within the pursuit of societal and planetary flourishing.

In this call, we explored:

  • How to increase the quality of sustainability motivation for yourself and others
  • Why even purpose-driven change agents sometimes retreat from sharing their internal motivation when talking with someone who views the world differently
  • The relationship between speaking our truth and changing the world
  • How we can show up in all this messiness for the greater good of all
  • How organizations with high sustainability performance wield both internal and external motivations

Here are some resources that Gabriel shared for those who want to go deeper:

 

 

5/1/19: Seeing Each Other Through the Story of Change

Tonika Johnson
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“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela

On this call our guest speaker, Tonika Johnson, shared the story of her purposeful project called Folded Map, which clearly demonstrates the subtle and expansive power of stories to plant the seeds for sustainable change that matters.

What’s the impact of two people sharing a story? What happens when people have the courage and curiosity to sit face to face and lean in to the awkwardness of our world’s disparities through the eyes of another human being? As new perspectives stir about and settle in, what shifts inside and out?

While Tonika’s inspiring project focuses on a specific story of segregation and systemic paradigms in Chicago, we also had a felt sense of universal truth around our shared human spirit. Tonika shared some of the stories of her life that led to the creation of her Folded Map project, which elegantly and deeply connects people across physical boundaries to expand their understanding and appreciation of their shared humanity.

In this call, we explored:

  • The purposeful unfolding of the Folded Map project
  • How storytelling serves as a bridge from adversity and separation to diversity, connection and understanding
  • How systems and structures create resistance to change
  • What does polarization and separation cost us?

Tonika Johnson is a visual artist/photographer from Chicago’s South Side Englewood neighborhood. She was featured in Chicago Magazine as a 2017 Chicagoan of the Year for her photography of Englewood’s everyday beauty, countering its pervasive media coverage of poverty and crime. Her “Everyday Englewood,” photography was exhibited at Loyola University’s Museum of Art (LUMA) in early 2018. Her current project, Folded Map, visually investigates disparities among Chicago residents while bringing them together to have a conversation, was also exhibited at LUMA in 2018 from July-October. In January 2019, Columbia College Chicago named a scholarship after her.

Shared values build community. By asking the simple question, “How did your life lead you to have the values you share with this Gathering community,” small groups opened up to each other through deep vulnerability. This idea of connecting on values means that we can avoid the common blockage when trying to connect with people with wildly different ideologies. Shared values connect us as a much deeper level of humanity.

In the after party, two people shared how inspired they were by Tonika’s work, and how it has renewed their own efforts to build brave spaces for shared stories to bring people together.

Here are some resources that Tonika shared for those who want to go deeper:

As promised, we’ve suggested some reflections/practices/field work for this month to help you expand and integrate your understanding and move into inspired action between calls. At the beginning of June’s call, we’ll offer you an opportunity to share your experiences with these practices or anything else you realized after our gathering.

  • Connect with others consciously over the next month to discover how you and people you meet randomly are like folded maps in terms of location, age, race, ethnicity, sex, religion, politics, etc.
    • Practice meeting each person as a human being, even if it’s a simple transaction
    • Exchange information, perspectives, history, desires, concerns from your perspective and listen with open curiosity to the others
    • Consciously note what that’s like for you and how your perspectives and behavior shift

 

4/3/19: Imaginal Transformation; Using Community to Create the New World

Tim Kelley
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On this call, Tim shared some really cool information and perspectives. Using biology as a map for large-scale change and caterpillar transforming to a butterfly as a metaphor, we explored some really mind-shifting perspective and pivotal questions including:

  • What imaginal forces are at play when transformation is activated?
  • How can change agents navigate and evolve purposeful potentiality?
  • Which imaginal discs do we need to create a new system?
  • What is the role of community in creating a new paradigm?
  • What is YOUR role as an imaginal cell?

The metaphor of the caterpillar transforming to a butterfly is used often and… the way Tim was describing it gave it a whole new twist that is amazingly relevant to our year 7 topic “Creating Agile and Sustainable Change that Matters” and to the push-pull in society that we see as change agents re-imagine society and work to create a better world.

Here are some of the key points Tim explored with us:

  • What biology teaches us about how to create Heaven on Earth
  • How to navigate the forces that are trying to defend the current paradigm
  • The critical role communities of change agents play in forming the new paradigm
  • Which specific types of communities will need to be created in order to manifest Heaven on Earth
  • And much more!

Tim Kelley is a global change agent and internationally renowned expert on higher purpose. He works with top leaders in many fields and countries to transform human institutions and evolve society to its new form. Tim’s methodology, True Purpose, has been featured internationally in magazines, newspapers, and on television. Tim has trained over 1000 consultants, therapists, and coaches in his methods and taught Voice Dialogue on three continents. He has worked with hundreds of CEOs, including top leaders and executive teams from such companies as Nabisco, ING, Oracle, Lexmark, and AOL. He formerly worked as a leader at Oracle, two levels below the CEO. He’s the author of True Purpose and the bestselling co-author of three other books. Tim has commanded military organizations, including an amphibious assault craft unit, and is a retired Naval Reserve officer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from MIT.

The role of communities in creating the new paradigm is paramount. Right now more and more change agents are getting together to be in the company of other change agents, much like the clumping of the imaginal cells that create the butterfly. We need to add more and more imaginal cells and at the same time, we need the old paradigm structures to keep doing their job until we’re ready to fly.

Here are some Resources that Tim and others recommended to go deeper with this topic:

  • Norie Huddle’s
book – “Butterfly”
  • “Realigning The Ego” – a 12 week video telecourse taught by Tim Kelley and Beth Scanzani starting April 30th. How do you design your own imaginal disc based on new paradigm structure? This course is for change agents who are ready to replace wound –driven motivational patterns with more purposeful and consciously created fuel sources and psychological structures to optimize purposeful impact. Learn more here
  • “Hope For the Flowers”
  • “Imaginal Hubs” and their collection of essays https://www.rebootthefuture.org/
  • “Theory U: Leading From the Future as it Emerges”, by Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge

As promised, we’ve suggested some reflections/practices/field work for this month to help you expand and integrate your understanding and move into inspired action between calls. At the beginning of May’s call, we’ll check in with your experiences of these practices:

  • Which imaginal discs do we need in order to create new paradigm; a world that works for everyone?
  • What can I do to bolster an imaginal disc or create a new one?
  • What abilities do we need to develop now in order for that to be true later?
  • What’s my role as an imaginal cell in this model of imaginal discs?

3/6/19: Co-Creating Sustainable Community

Gale West
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We cannot create sustainable and agile change that matters without community.

Last Wednesday’s Gathering call was a compelling invitation to deepen our understanding and appreciation for what it means to be sustained by community and how we can co-create such a community here, in our Gathering for Change Agents. Led by our guest speaker and moderator, Gale West, we explored what it means to be inspired, sustained and supported by community as we are individually and collectively nurturing the emergence of a new paradigm of humanity.

In community, we can create generous and collaborative systems to shift the emergence of the collective. What better place to start, than here… co-creating our own Gathering community, as a way to demonstrate, support and inspire changemakers to create and expand purposeful communities that will amplify the transformation you are here to catalyze and actualize. Together, we can create our own customized learning lab! As we expand our capacity to create sustainable and agile change that matters, we will also learn how to build sustainable and agile communities that matters!

During Wednesday’s call, Gale led us on a powerful visioning exercise to see, hear and feel into our highest vision for this community. What is your highest vision for this Gathering as an agile, supportive and sustainable collective that will support your fullest expression of purposeful being and doing in this world? What must you become and what must you release to co-create this community? What must you embrace or be willing to accept or do?

Gale West, MA, MFA, is an internationally-known speaker, consultant, coach and business intuitive. She helps conscious entrepreneurs, creatives, and executives align the soul of their work to the path of their soul, so they can experience the joy, adventure and financial expansion from of having a greater impact in the world.
Gale brings a variety of modalities to her work, ranging from traditional coaching tools to therapeutic modalities to visual, sonic, and artistic means of expression. She recently created an online interview series,, entitled Success with Soul, inviting transformational thought leaders to begin a conversation around the question: How do we collectively redefine success as that which feeds our souls, aligns money with meaning and supports generous and collaborative systems?

Gale earned her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and New Media from Columbia College Chicago, and holds certifications in Internal Family Systems, Hakomi Mind-Body Therapy, Myers Briggs, and Clinical Hypnotherapy. She is currently completing a book exploring a new paradigm for money entitled, “Money, Come Dance with Me.”

We engaged in a lively discussion and heard even more voices emerge from our community to enrich the quality and depth of our collective wisdom. Here are a few highlights from the interactive discussion:

  • We each ache for connection in our hearts and yet it’s not always easy to enter into deep connection in community
  • It’s not about eliminating or overcoming fear, but letting go of our attachment to fear
  • This period of evolution and transition is requires us to let go of “knowing” what is going to happen
  • How will we plant and nurture our seeds for optimal growth?
  • We are all bright stars and important pieces of the puzzle
  • Let’s leave the light on for each other!

As promised, we’ve suggested some practices/field work for this month to help you expand your understanding and integrate new learning between calls. At the beginning of each call, we’ll check in with your experiences of these practices:

  • Reach out to one person in this community to see how you can support each other.
    • You can do this via our private Facebook group in a private message or in the discussion chat.
    • And, ongoing, you can use the opportunities in small groups or the after party to connect with others and exchange contact information.
    • And, of course, there’s Google : ) as a way to find someone’s website if they have one.
  • Notice how you show up in community. What upgrades could you learn and practice in our own Gathering community?
    • How would you want to show up…in service to yourself and others?
    • How would you like to feel?
    • What fears do you need to release your attachment to?
    • What needs to be true for you to feel safe and at home in this community?

Here are some Resources that Gale recommended about looking at this period of change from an evolutionary standpoint, along with her website:

Gale’s Website: sacredmoneymastery.com

Books:
“The New Reality” by Jonas Salk/Jonathan Salk
https://www.anewrealitybook.com/

“Factfulness” by Hans Rossling
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250107817

“Big Potential” by Shawn Achor
http://www.shawnachor.com/the-books/big-potential/

2/6/19: Coming Together to Build The Gathering Community with Purpose

Beth Scanzani & Andy Swindler
Download call audio

We’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on, and asking for feedback and suggestions about The Gathering for Change Agents: What’s The Gathering’s purpose? How has it been going? How we can evolve our purpose, platforms and member support in ways that create more engagement, enthusiasm, participation and value? What theme would be most useful and compelling for 2019?

Some of the highlights of this call include:

  • Revealed our new theme for 2019 – CREATING AGILE and SUSTAINABLE CHANGE THAT MATTERS (more below)
  • Expanded ideas for relevant and useful theme-based topics and speakers
  •  Shared highlights of our feedback we received about why you’re here and what could make your experience even more valuable and compelling
  • Identified preliminary plans to make our Gathering and irresistibly valuable and engaging…with more to come
  • Suggested some action plans to build even more clarity and momentum as we move forward

CREATING AGILE and SUSTAINABLE CHANGE THAT MATTERS – Whether you work with individuals, organizations, communities and/or your inner world, how can you develop more agility, resilience and ease in the face of ongoing complexity, change and uncertainty? How can we use ambiguity and chaos as a bridge to creating and navigating essential change? Increase your effectiveness as transformational change maker.

Listen in to hear the evolution of The Gathering from the voices of our community.

 

About Beth Scanzani

Beth Scanzani is a highly respected and multi-faceted transformational coach and teacher. A lifelong student and curious soul, she has enjoyed exploring and integrating a wealth of knowledge, resources, and strategies that draw upon a wide range of psychological, scientific, and spiritual teachings.

People who work with Beth value her insightful, strategic, fun and results-oriented coaching which helps them to achieve breakthrough results on short-term goals while simultaneously creating fundamental shifts that build a strong foundation for ongoing success and fulfillment, personally and professionally. Her eclectic approach and natural agility enable her to customize her coaching style, strategies and processes to help clients create a clear vision, navigate their way out of uncertainly and restrained momentum, and successfully achieve their desired outcomes.

Prior to her transition into teaching and coaching in support of evolving consciousness, Beth enjoyed a successful career as a human resources executive in the high tech and health care industries.

As a trusted teacher and group facilitator, Beth has co-developed and/or co-taught many tele-seminars for the True Purpose® Institute, The Shift Network™ and with other purposeful partners. These courses include: Purposeful Coach Training, Blessing Yourself, Inner Harmony, Opening to Sacred Guidance, Divine Guidance on Purpose Inner Harmony Practitioner Training, Higher Guidance Advanced Intensive, Purposeful Marketing and Voice Dialogue Mastery. Beth also serves as a valued guide for those who wish to explore deeper meaning, insight and guidance through their sleeping dreams and waking life stories. She co-developed and teaches an NASW CEU eligible seminar for therapists, coaches and other practitioners who want to increase their competence and confidence in accessing the treasures buried in sleeping dreams.

Beth has numerous coaching certifications including True Purpose® Coach, Master Career Coach, Dream Coach™, iPEC Empowerment Coach™, Energy Leadership Mastery™ and Theoretical Foundations of Coaching with David Rock. Beth is currently enrolled in Jeffrey VanDyk’s Tribal Marketing™ certification program, as well as iPEC’s Master CO.R.E Dynamics Leadership certification program. Beth is also a trained and devoted practitioner for Voice Dialogue™ who has studied with Miriam Dyak, Tim Kelley and Carole Kammen, as well as a certified practitioner for Lion Goodman’s Belief Closet™ process.

Through her work as a teacher and coach, Beth demonstrates her dedication to providing transformative workshops and coaching in service to those who are ready to reclaim their inner wisdom, life purpose and true nature so they may wholly offer their unique gifts to others…and to the world we all share. She is deeply honored to have the privilege of connecting, at deep and meaningful levels, with individuals and groups across the globe to facilitate purposeful transformation.

 

About Andy Swindler

Andy Swindler envisions a world that embraces healthy tensions to nurture dignity and agency for every person. He takes the hands of changemakers who are confronting the disruptive truths of the world to show them how love can be applied to every relationship in their lives, starting with themselves. Andy’s Chicago-based practice, Lead From Love, connects conscious leaders and organizations with their purpose and values to build foundational pillars of this vision.

Andy began his entrepreneurial journey at age 24. He owned and operated a boutique digital agency & software development shop for 14 years until selling at the end of 2016. This kicked off his full commitment to his own purposeful leadership journey, which includes guiding other conscious leaders and companies to embrace their deepest truths. Andy is a Certified True Purpose® Coach, Practicing True Purpose® Consultant, Barrett Values Centre Practitioner and Voice Dialogue Practitioner.