Episode 10

Activism in the absence of trust. Why wait?

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Our tenth episode discusses the topic of Activism with an attempt to answer the following question: Is it possible for one person to make a difference in the world?

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Welcoming Our Guests

We were honored to welcome our panel of special guests eager to discuss activism and change-making.

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Dr. Steve Marshall is an academic at Ashridge Executive Education, supervising participants on a radical, action research doctorate in organisational change. Steve is also an organisation consultant and coach, photographer and film-maker using digital media, imagery and dialogue to enable learning, change and creative innovation for individuals, teams and organisations.

Nell Derick Debevoise is the Founder and CEO of Inspiring Capital, which facilitates learning, development and inclusion through impact. By helping people and organizations connect their work to today’s pressing social and environmental challenges, they unlock the resources required to build a more equitable and healthy economy.

Rudy de Waele is a keynote speaker, conscious futurist, personal transformation coach, mentor, and author. He assists global brands, entrepreneurs and start-ups, companies and organizations with cutting-edge, open innovation strategies using new methodologies to re-invent and transform business. Rudy specialises in technology trend forecasts and analysis, transformational methods and insights, and exchanges ideas on how to thrive in the new economy, and how to design a conscious business and meaningful life.

Richard D. Bartlett is the co-founder of Loomio, a digital tool for deliberation and decision-making for groups of 3-300 people. He is the co-founder of The Hum, a consulting company that offers online training & practical guidance for decentralised organisations. Richard writes about how we work together, at any scale, from relationships to organisations, to facilitate social change on Medium.com. He is the author of Patterns for Decentralised Organising, sharing solutions to the most common failure points of collaborative groups.

Reflections

To change the world, we must first accept the idea that the world is crumbling. The harsh reality is that we have no one to trust, but ourselves.

When we make a conscious decision to embrace our own power instead of waiting for permission from leaders or from a larger community, we free ourselves to act. We become activists for ourselves, for others, for our communities.

Therefore, having an impact in the world as an individual starts with authenticity and ends with meaning. By dropping our ego and our fearful, competitive mind, we can unlearn limiting thoughts and behaviors which will trigger us to act.

We don’t need to quit our jobs and join the Peace Corps to change the world.

Rather, we can open our eyes to all the levers we have, individually, in our everyday lives as we make choices about what we buy, what we donate, and what we invest in. From there, a new framework emerges with the upward spiraling notion of impact to meaning to purpose, which sets the stage for new activism to appear through communities.

Finally, the future belongs to those who can, like curious children at play, trust themselves, collaborate beautifully, and allow themselves to dream again.