Change Agents in the Portland Rain Forest

Last month, I travelled to Portland OR for the inaugural meeting of the new Portland Women for a Sustainable Future (WNSF) chapter.  It was truly inspiring to see the 30+ vibrant, new faces and collective power of business women who are  focusing on building a sustainable future.

To kick off WNSF’s shared determination to focus on positive change in 2012, I  led a discussion on “A Systems View of Personal Sustainability:  Flourishing While Making a Difference”.   Positive change in the world first begins with the wise use of energy that each of us brings to our lives and work.  How many of us apply a management lens to the energy flows that come from our uniquely personal resources such as intellect, use of time, money, relationships, intellect and personal health?  Taking a systems view requires that we consider each of these resources as dynamic energy flows, capable of being diminished and replenished.  How do you value each of these resources?  Are you using each efficiently and replenishing each wisely according to your values and goals?  Bringing about the future that each of us desires invites applying this rigor to our personal sustainability.  I walked the group through the elements of doing a personal sustainability audit — taking each of your personal resources one by one and applying the above three questions to each.

On Friday, I led a smaller group of women leaders for a day’s immersion in nature-based leadership development at the Portland Audubon Center.  The day was designed around our collective mission here at the Corner of Main and Wild to cultivate change agents to take leadership roles in creating, reshaping and/or enhancing the systems in which business operates.  A quote by Albert Einstein also led the design of the day:

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination & marks a real advance in science.

Another advance, this time in management, rather than science is in my definition of a leader as “one who guides towards a desired future by evoking the gifts of self and others”.  Notice how this moves us away from traditional, hierarchical notions of leadership  towards more nuanced and networked possibilities of what can be accomplished by each and every one of us as leaders in our own worlds.  Nature-based leadership development (NBLD) is a unique combination of leadership competency development, ecopsychology, and mindfulness practice brought to bear on typical leadership questions and organizational challenges that we face as individuals. The emphasis of NBLD is on cultivating the four ways of knowing: sensing, thinking, feeling and imagination through guided individual and group work to cultivate break-thru leadership ideas and action.

During that wonderful rainy day in Portland at the largest urban forest in the US,  participants brought a personal or organizational leadership question on which they sought new insight.  They went on individual walks outdoors with specific tasks designed to build new perceptual and imaginative skills guided by the rain forest and me, engaged in individual and group dialogue and even found time to journal a bit.  Here’s some feedback from the day:

“As sustainability practitioners we are usually connected to a vision of  what a better world looks like and the outcomes that we want to see happen, but we often get very disconnected from that vision by the day to day pressures and activities of our jobs. I think the value of nature based leadership development is that it roots what we are trying to accomplish in the power and inspiration that comes from being in wild places.”

“I got new insight into my role with my organization and the work that is uniquely mine to do… like a tree… to provide structure and shelter and nutrients for a diverse community to grow together.”

“I would say key takeaways are the importance of using nature as a source of information and inspiration, and taking time to be in a reflective and open mode, as well as the chance to reflect with others who are engaged in similar work.”

By day’s end, participants emerged with a new focus and creativity.   Most importantly, they left the day more clearly committed to their personal leadership & stewardship of self, community, organization and/or place.  That’s the way we roll at the Institute of Nature & Leadership!  And Einstein gets the last word today….

 “Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.”

The New Real World – Coming Alive for Me and New College Grads

Guest blogger and Institute for Nature & Leadership partner, Tess Barton,  comments on her fearless step into her future as a servant leader of new college grads and learns something that serves us all!  Happy Holidays everyone!

This fall I had the pleasure of returning to the cozy campus of my alma mater as an outsider looking in.  I was there to speak with students interested in social and environmental change about the topic of authentic career paths.  Why?  It wasn’t just about empowering the students; it was also about exploring my own passion.  There’s a Howard Thurman quote that really speaks to me:

  “Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask yourself what brings you most alive and then do that, for what the world needs is people who are fully alive.”

I often reflect on my time facilitating personal development in backcountry settings for this same campus community as the gig that enabled me to have the greatest impact.  So five years later, I was back on campus exploring an evolution of that work that I suspected might be a way that I could make a similar difference today.

I knew that student attendance would be pretty strong due to the efforts of the campus career center, but I questioned my own abilities.  Why was I qualified to speak on this topic?  This was my first time presenting on this and I’d had no formal career coach training.  What if the students were totally disengaged or knew everything I was about to tell them?  My fears vanished after a few students told me that it was great to hear someone who is young enough to know what it’s like to make the transition and also in the workforce so in touch with the current dynamics of the real world.  And while they didn’t always appear fully engaged during the presentation – students, ya know!!, -  subsequent conversations calmed my nerves and proved that the topic really got them thinking.

During several small group discussions I was surprised to hear how few of these students had done a deep dive on their real passions and interests.  Hardly any had taken advantage of the resources and tools available to them – for free – right on campus!  I sensed in these students a fear of the unknown but a genuine excitement for change.  Without knowing how to make the type of change they truly want, they were defaulting to thoughts of traditional paths (paths that people they knew have taken), or ones that might be more familiar (a graduate program), and rule out the dreaming that will ultimately allow them to discover their right path.  They’re thirsting for the tools and nurturing that will enable them to explore an authentic path.  They need to know how to get started – and once they do, I have confidence they’ll be on track in no time.

These soon-to-be grads need to spend some time on the Wild side.  Now, I’m not talking about them letting their inner wild child out during their last few months of college.  What I am talking about is them envisioning their ideal future.  Getting lost in their own imaginations about possibilities would do them good.  I know that our conversations at least got them thinking about authenticity, but I fear it’s a blip on their radar of normalcy – papers, exams, and pressure from parents.

How can I continue to support them in this way without being part of their day to day?  They’re all inclined to be pragmatic idealists but seem to be getting too much influence in the way of pragmatism and not enough in the idealism.  Their parents and professors – the very folks who should be encouraging them to discover their true calling – tend to (understandably) reinforce suggestions of what they themselves are familiar with, along with concerns of job security and a tough economy.  The transition from college to career isn’t an easy one.  It takes effort and, more importantly, intention.

Getting started doesn’t require a head first dive into deep, dark waters, but rather just a safe wade out along the shoreline.  Once they get waist-deep, the dive doesn’t seem so frightening.  My intention is to point to the trail which leads to the lake and keep them exploring until they find their own dream island destination.  Their struggle is that they just can’t find the trailhead.  But once they’re on the trail, it unfolds rather naturally.  Our universities have taught these students very well how to use their heads; it’s now a matter of helping them realize that their right brain is also an important tool in the process of embarking on their career path.  How else can we change the paradigm of unhappy employees that clock in and clock out, misaligned with the work they do?  We need to empower this newest generation of passionate young men and women to be the change in order build a healthier society and natural world.  It’s time to build a new “real world”!!!

In guiding the students, I helped guide myself.  I walked away from the experience with clarity on my mission and confidence in my abilities.  More to come from me on this front as I dig deeper, so check back for additional posts.

Stay tuned for more by following the Corner of Main and Wild blog by email, subscribing to INL’s newsletter at the top of our homepage,  emailing me at tess@natureleadership.org, or submitting a post below.

Check out INL’s newest program offering tailored for this audience that I’ll be guiding along with Beverly.  The Reality Trek is a 4 day immersion in the natural world and into career empowerment tools dedicated to helping recent grads discover their purpose and prepare for their career search upon their return home.  We’re offering a holiday discount of $100 off the price thru Jan. 2, 2012, so spread the word!

Finding myself learning at the corner of Main and Wild

Guest blogger, Brian Schwartz, makes two leadership discoveries learning from nature while working with the New York City Restoration Project.

A bit of background

Standing on a Bronx Street muddied and soaked with a cold rain, I glanced at the trees I just planted and caught the sun behind wayward clouds.  Feeling the perfect synergy between physical exhaustion and mental contentment, I was compelled to share two simple lessons I have gleaned from spending my days tending the natural in the great city called New York.

The wild has always called to me since my first solo adventures into the Pennsylvania woods.  I have been blessed to live nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and among the gentleness of Green Mountain Summers.  The last several years the unexpected happened, I fell deeply in love and moved to New Jersey to live with my fiancée.

Discovering a bleak job market I spent time volunteering for a Buddhist non-profit and searched for that perfect job befitting my MBA in Sustainability and my Master’s in Buddhist Studies.  As winter moved to spring I read about an opportunity to perform a six month AmeriCorps’ term of service with the New York Restoration Project.

Guided by the motivation “to ensure that every New York City resident, family and neighborhood has access to vibrant, green spaces”, the New York Restoration Project  (NYRP) is engaged in restoring underserved parks, creating community gardens from vacant lots, and educating the citizens of New York about their city’s environmental sustainability.

I was excited about the prospect of spending time outdoors restoring and revitalizing green havens in the urban jungle where people could sit and sense the wonder of the natural.  Suffice to say I am benefiting from my term of service and want to share two lessons I have learned from planting trees that can nourish our understanding of leadership and personal growth.

Lesson One: Need for Rootedness

A tree, like a human being, grows its roots located to place.  Nestled by soil the roots become accustomed to a certain pressure, a certain atmosphere of feeling.  When transplanting a tree it is essential to honor this by packing soil around the roots.  If the soil is packed either too tightly or too loosely, the roots will go into shock and lose the vitality needed to assist the tree in its growth.

There is a stunning simplicity to a tree’s need for a certain density of soil, and so too for us humans.  When rushed from home, to car, to office, to bustling market places, and the millions other physical, emotionally, and mental spaces we must ask ourselves, “what roots of ours are falling or have fallen into shock and no longer support our growth?”

Like trees we need a certain atmosphere to reach our potential, though ours be of a more ethereal nature.  In Buddhist culture there is a principle called Maitri.  Meaning self-love, matiri is the ground; soil if you will, from which our positive qualities are nurtured.

This self-love is not smugness or a feeling of superiority, but a gentle and accepting awareness that allows us to perceive our hang-ups, obstacles, and the conditions that cause self and other’s suffering.  Our negative thoughts, emotions, and situations are like rocks obstructing root growth.  The obstacles must be acknowledged for what they are and a way around must found.  Eventually these obstacles entwine with our roots creating a firmer foundation than we would ever have had without them.

A tree’s roots will go into shock if they are not properly nestled, likewise our minds will not nourish our higher goals if our thoughts, emotions, and concerns are not rooted in self-love.  We need the strength to move out past obstacles and for that we must not let our roots go into shock and lose the foundation for our growth.

Lesson Two:  Need for Vision

The second lesson I have gleaned from trees is the need for vision in one’s life.  When transplanting a tree it is common practice to create a circular mound of soil around the tree.  This is done to create a water basin to ensure the tree’s roots get the water they need.

If the mound is to low the roots may not receive the water they need; however, if the mound is to high the roots will become accustomed to where they are and begin to spiral in upon themselves slowly strangling the potential inherent in the tree.

A way to help inspire a transplanted tree’s growth beyond its protected new home is to place fertilizer in a circle away from the trunk.  The nutrients in the soil will cause the trees roots to reach beyond its comfort zone: thereby preventing the potential strangulation of self-entwinement.

Like a tree we need the nourishment of vision to reach into the beyond.  It is true that we need to be rooted, but we also must strive to grow.  The obstacles of environmental destruction, social and economic injustice, and the commoditization of so much that we should hold dear are obstacles we must move around guided by a broader vision.  A vision of new ground that can support a fuller version of what ourselves and the world around us can be.

Lessons Abound

I hope I continue to learn from that special intersection between Main and Wild.  There is a special learning that can occur in the wild.  This wild need not be deep in inner solitude or physically far away from others, but can be found in a neighborhood tree lush with life or the play of insects between sidewalk slabs of cement.

Like a long neglected vacant lot in a big city made vibrant by its transformation to an urban garden oasis, the Earth and we are capable of being restored in a healthy, vibrant, and dynamic manner.  Let’s commit to learning from nature in our great work of global restoration.

I hope you will attend your roots and expand your vision as we continue to learn from our natural world.  From the corner of Main and Wild, I wish you much growth.

Brian

A Village Gathers at the Corner of Main and Wild

Been standing on the corner of Main and Wild with my personal megaphone (surely, you’ve heard?) and over the past few weeks a few talented, creative folks have come by to create a village  – well, let’s call it a small tribe right now.  Nope, I’m not talking about a movement  like “Occupy Main and Wild.”  At least, not just yet -

But get ready Main Street Leadership, HERE WE COME.

The momentum is starting to gather towards a new vision of inhabiting our personal leadership fearlessly, and witnessing the effects our authentic leadership can have on the world which needs our unique skills, personal efficacy and creativity NOW.  From time to time, other guest bloggers will come by, perhaps you…..and we’ll recognize each other as like-minded leadership souls, who gift each of us with their commentary, unique vision and brilliance in bringing the world we wish to see into fruition.  I am honored to present these wise souls to you, dear readers of the Corner of Main and Wild.  May you be as inspired by them as I am.

Tess Barton, based in Brooklyn, NY, is an experienced renewable energy marketer and facilitator of personal development in backcountry settings.  She has a BA in Environmental Studies from Gettysburg College and is an MBA in Managing for Sustainability candidate at Marlboro Graduate School.  Tess recently launched The New Real World, an initiative that inspires authentic career paths for recent college grads to discover and succeed in making their difference in the world.  She aims to change the paradigm of the traditional working world experience for the newest generation entering the workforce.   She is thrilled to be working with INL.

You’ll meet Tess in her blog posts here and at INL’s “Reality Trek: Mapping Your Authentic Future”, a gathering for recent college grads to be held at the end of May, 2012 at the Teton Science School’s Kelly Campus in the Grand Tetons National Park.  Interested?  Please pass this info on to appropriate folks…almost-grads, parents, etc. 

And amen to her vision of “changing the paradigm of the traditional working world experience for the newest generation entering the workforce.”  But Tess, do tell,  what the heck does that clarion phrase mean anyways?  What’s the paradigm and what work experience do you want to change?  

Brian Schwartz is committed to retaining his curiosity about  being a human being on earth.  He has a Master’s Degree in Buddhist Studies from Naropa University and was a member  of the first graduating class of Marlboro College’s MBA: Managing for Sustainability program.  He is an ordained Celtic Buddhist Priest and is currently working in the Bronx learning the ways of plants.

Don’t let Brian’s self-description above fool you.  I met Brian in a bar in Brattleboro, Vermont, and was fascinated by his jewelry.  How shallow of me, right?  Once I got over that, I couldn’t stop noticing his humble and fearless self-reflections on being a human being on earth.   What does this have to do with day-to day radical leadership, you might be thinking?  Good question…… I was his leadership mentor at the time.  And what dawned on me as I witnessed Brian growing into his leadership was something terribly simple and complicated at the same time — if one has fierce curiosity about being a human being on earth, that person has the potential of being an incredible leader of self and others.  Why?  Three words:  Humility, Fearlessness, Self-Knowledge.  How many people do you know with that leadership trifecta?   Check out his blog post tomorrow – you’ll see what I mean.  But Brian, what other human leadership secrets are the plants of the Bronx revealing to you?    I’ll be truly blasphemous now and ask you why we current and post-corporate leaders should care anyways? 

Jen Burkhardt is a logistics wank by day. Bioecopsycho, community architect, entrepreneur & explorer of the Platonic fold by night.  I am a current day renaissance woman fascinated by the interrelationships between the human organism and its environment.  A passionate advocate for leveling up and life hacking, I leverage technology to create connections to wild genius and create safe harbor for our natural voice.

I’ll be honest.  Jen will take us to the leadership edge in her posts – I have no doubt……must be the coffee she’s drinking in her pix – at least I think it’s coffee.  This woman lives and breathes Main and she lives and breathes Wild.   Just wait for nature and leadership to speak through her.  

Where is the Corner of Main and Wild?

Since this blog launched a few months ago, a few of you have asked about the name.  “Where in the heck, is the Corner of Main and Wild anyways?”, you say. “ What does this name have to do with Nature-based Leadership?”

The true story is that one day in the MBA leadership course that I run, I told the students about the blog, and asked them to offer up a few names if they wanted.  The winning name would get some free, on-the-side coaching.  “After all”, I said, “You guys know me and what I’m trying to do here best, especially within the context of cultivating leaders who can manage for sustainability.  And, best of all, you are the guinea pigs…er….my customers!”

They bought.  And the names came.  Nothing clicked.  Then one day I was talking with a fellow who just graduated and works in Manhattan.  “You know, Beverly, you’re at the Corner of Main St. and Wild.  What you encourage us to do is transcend, break barriers, take risks, yet be precise, know our stuff, bring people along –  ya know….you guide us to live and lead at the Corner of Main and Wild.”   You know what happened next.  The clouds parted, the sun shone down, the angels sang.  The guy got free coaching on the side.

But then there’s the Wild side.  People get very confused & fearful about that word, ever since we stopped being hunter-gathers and discovered agriculture and permanent villages.  Also, conjurs up days from your adolescence which you’d rather forget or probably have already, like when you woke up the next day.  WRONG!  Wild is something entirely different, and incredibly needed in our lives, in our families and communities, and in the creative solutions that we collectively come up with for the world’s largest and smallest pressing problems.

The world needs leaders who can excel, thrive, and bring others along in both terrains.  We’ve been spending too much time on Main Street and have become lost to Wild by losing some of our innate skill in sensing and navigating (and preserving!) our natural and built terrain, our inner and outer landscapes.  This is a critical leadership skill, as critical as balance sheets and strategic plans, and a core component of nature-based leadership.

So I offer you some terrain to discover Main and Wild.  Anything look familiar here?  Intriguing, perhaps?

MAIN:  To-do lists, projects & goals

WILD:  Imagining & envisioning a better future

MAIN:  Making progress every day

WILD:   Getting lost, wandering &  peripheral vision

MAIN:  Getting your ducks in a row

WILD:    Recognizing what ducks are in the 1st place and why they matter in the first place

MAIN:  Building your network of key stakeholders

WILD:    Announcing your place in the family of things

MAIN:   Single-minded focus & personal conviction

WILD:   Compromise & negotiation

MAIN:  Facts to power you forward

WILD:  Sourcing energy to power you forward

MAIN:  I

WILD:  Thou

MAIN:  Confidence

WILD:  Fear

MAIN:  Servant Leadership

WILD:  Regenerative Leadership

MAIN:  The hard work of being a change agent…persuading the opposition…speaking their language…using their logic

WILD:  The hard work of being a change agent…welcoming diversity…finding common language…understanding the “Other”

So, if you’re curious…which means your wonder and fascination has set in, and I love it — then come along, let’s explore together the tremendous potential and possibility that’s waiting on the Corner of Main and Wild.

Our communities and your soul depends on it!

Nature-based Leadership Development

Now that’s a great phrase, isn’t it?

Some people hear it, immediately get it and ask “When can we go?”  Others give me a quizzical look and ask ”What the heck are you talking about?   Nature is what I see when I look out my office window!  How could that, out there be something that could help me be a better leader — in here?”

Consider these factoids courtesy of Richard Louv:

Your attention span improves by 20% after only one hour out in Nature.          Fascination…allurement….ability to focus

There’s a positive relationship between mental acuity, creativity and the outdoors.      Senses and sensibilities improved… clear thinking

Immersion in the natural world increases the ability to perceive new connections.    Creative genius = ability to see patterns and the hidden links between what is and what could be….

Squint your eyes a bit… you’d swear you were reading a brochure for a leadership & strategy seminar.  Actually speaking of squinting your eyes to focus, researchers have identified an interesting relationship between attention, fatigue and fascination.  Turns out, many of us who work with lots of information (all of us) have directed attention fatigue– distractability…impulsivity…impatience…  Sound familiar, gang?

Now the neat thing is that the opposite of directed attention fatigue is involuntary attention, or – get this – fascination!!  Translation:

So involuntary attention occurs in settings that transports people away from their daily, routine environments and invite exploration and/or relaxation (think beach: golden sand, turquoise water, gentle breeze, sunshine  OR  think mountain:  jagged snow-capped peaks, deep blue sky, golden aspen leaves shimmering in the breeze, the call of raven carried in the breeze).  Whoa – I digress BIG TIME.  The point is that involuntary attention and fascination occurs to you most easily and most often when you’re immersed in the natural world.

We leaders (DEFINITION: one who guides towards creating a better future by unlocking the potential in self and others) and, oh by the way, that’s all of us some of the time and some of us all of the time — NEED beaucoup inspiration, clarity, and creativity in these times of seismic social and environmental change.

Einstein said that no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.   Nature-based leadership development shifts your consciousness – plain and simple — and enables you to focus on solving what you care most deeply about.

THE SHIFT IS FROM ….yes, really…..:

Rational, info-driven knowledge to the 4 ways of knowing – information, emotion, imagination, intuition

Sole actor to steward for the commons

Ego & self-interest to well-being of community and your unique contribution

Depletion to sustainability

“In-the-box” to “All-of-this-world”

What you do with that shift is up to you.

and the planet and your soul is depending on you.

Welcome to the Corner of Main and Wild

We’ve just come back from a strategy retreat in the northlands of Wisconsin and have brought along with us a new vision — what’s needed in the world is an online gathering place, kind of like sitting around a real campfire – only virtual, where people like us can gather to hatch our great ideas – both big and small, which require effective personal leadership and enable our greatest gifts to the world to emerge in this time of great need.

What we’re talking about here is creating the space and support for our vocations – our calling, if you will — that which is worthy and requires great dedication and perseverance to emerge and get legs.  If you’re lucky, this is the job you wake up to most days.  If not, then pull up a log and sit down.  Either way, we’ll raise issues, we’ll call you out when you need a kick in the keister and beat the drum when (not if) you succeed.

You know what we’re talking about here.  You wake up in the middle of the night from an incredible dream (or not) — regardless, you’re awake –  and you’ve got this nagging thought that you’re not making the best use of your talents and time.  You’re far more talented and have a lot more to offer than how you’re using your time in an average day.     And oh, by the way, the world you see around you is crying out for the aid and healing that only you can give.  Yes, you.   And then it hits you…that cubicle (whether it’s physical or imagined) you work in – IS JUST TOO SMALL FOR YOU.

So, this blog is going to invite you to BREAK OUT.   We’re not shrinks, job counselors or life coaches.  No way.  INL is not going to fix your life, your psyche, or coach you to find a well-paying job.  That’s way too easy.

We’re going to invite you to BREAK OUT in a very special, very rooted and very natural way — by guiding you to learn from a mentor who’s been right in front of you all along (I hear ruby slippers clicking) — Mother Nature.  Huh?   We’re going to guide you to learn from the  “Mutha” herself.  You know, life’s been around for 3.8 billion years – each life form evolving to its highest potential or highest contribution to the well-being of the entire planet.  Wouldn’t it be great for us humans to do that too by learning from the natural ones?    We at INL have been doing this on the land and waters with people just like you for the past seven years.

It’s about time that we at INL opened this work up to a wider audience — to you, wherever you are.   We used to call this nature-based professional development.  Too small.  It’s way larger than this, and oh, by the way, that sounded too much like a job (slaving away for the machine, earning $, buying stuff, throwing stuff away, coming home wiped, waking up and doing it over and over and over and then our life is wasted) – WE’RE TALKING ABOUT SAVING THE WORLD HERE (thanks Jen) in your own unique way.  So what we really mean is nature-based vocational emergence.   So come on, pull up a seat and join the campfire for more — we’ll debate, dialogue and dare you to become your LARGEST SELF – and “Mutha” will bow her head in deep gratitude to you.