Consciousness and Culture — Gibrán Rivera

GUIDED JOURNALING

Evolutionary Leaders reflect on challenges, the Self AND the Emerging Self. They reflect on their sense of frustration, their sources of energy and inner resistance. They name their own voices of judgment and fear. And they also reflect on this moment, their community and their future. Together we look at what we need to let go of, at the seeds that are present and at that which can be tested. We look at who is with us and what action needs to be taken.

The 2016 Evolutionary Leadership Workshop launches tonight at Hollyhock, Cortes Island, British Columbia. And we thought we’d give you a taste of what we will be doing together. Our leadership reflection will rely on a great tool for guided journaling that we borrowed from the Presencing Institute. We invite you to answer these for yourself!

Find the questions below.

Gibran RiveraJune 11, 201662-92Comment

COMING TOGETHER

I dropped offline for about 10 days and I’m just making my way back. I find myself in a flow of open hearted gratitude. This morning I woke up to a thread of e-mails of Evolutionary Leaders introducing themselves to each other. Participants in last year’s workshop and those who will be coming together in just about a week. Forgive the dramatic intensity but I literally fell to my knees with gratitude. I was bowled over by the abundance of generosity and mutual care. And I was overcome by a sense of being fully in service of the creative impulse, the evolutionary thrust that propels us forward towards a future that is ceaselessly beckoning, tugging at our hearts, desiring of our participation.

Gibran RiveraJune 5, 201662-92Comment

THE FLOW OF GOOD WORK

Today I launch facilitation of a year-long leadership and network development process for young climate leaders (between 25 and 40 years of age). The process will be anchored by three intensive retreats between now and March 2017. The work aims to build leadership capacity and support the development of trust and authentic collaborative relationships among leaders of this most important of movements.

This sort of year-long development process, with multiple touch points taking place over time, is my preferred method for leadership and network development. I find it to be truly transformational work, it changes lives and has lasting impact. It was during the fall of 2007 that I first participated in a year-long process. Rockwood’s Leading from the Inside Out Fellowship, facilitated by Robert Gass, who would become a most important mentor. I knew right away that this was the work I was here to do.

Gibran RiveraMay 17, 201662-92

BIG CHANGE

A recent client engaged in an ambitious thought process: How do we change the underpinnings of the economy in two decades? The process was launched with a helpful framework. A participant proposed that any time big social change happens - we must have three things in place:

Gibran RiveraMay 13, 201662-92Comment

What Do You Measure

I think it’s important to measure things. I want to know how good I’m doing. I want to know if I’m moving the needle. I want to know if my experiments are working.

I have spent a lot of time in the nonprofit and policy worlds, affected by a philanthropic drive to measure that too often focuses on measuring the wrong thing.

Gibran RiveraMay 12, 201693-123Comment

Actually Seeing Eachother

I’m not shy about my politics. I definitely stand to the left of the average Democrat. I’m clear and passionate about what I believe it will take for humanity to make a just transition to an economy that is good for people and the planet. But even with all this passion and conviction I understand that the only way to make my vision a reality is to include those who don’t see the world as I do.

David Brooks just wrote a phenomenal column on “how to fix politics.” People on my side of the political argument often get appalled when I quote him. And that is precisely the problem.

Gibran RiveraApril 12, 201693-123Comment

Attention is Currency

Your attention is your currency. This is both a spiritual fact and a political fact. We live in a distraction economy. The biggest corporations of our day live and die based on how much of YOUR attention they can get. Advertisement is the backbone of capitalism. Advertisement’s purpose is to capture your attention. Once your attention is captured it seeks a hold on your imagination and once it has your imagination it seeks to shape who and how you choose to be. It promises meaning and purpose, but it leaves you empty instead.

Gibran RiveraApril 11, 201693-123Comment

Day 40: Let's Meditate

Thank you so much for coming together on this journey. Saturday marks our 40th day, the “last” day of our experiment. It will be Day 100 for me. Let’s celebrate together. Let’s meditate.

Gibran RiveraApril 5, 201693-123

Ten Days of Meditation

Our experiment is almost over. Join us for ten more days of meditation!

Maybe you've been with us all along and you are now 30 days into your practice. Or maybe you signed up full of desire and commitment to get into meditation for the first time, or to finally come back to it - but maybe you couldn’t quite do it, you couldn’t quite get those five minutes in every day. Perhaps you didn't sign up for our experiment, but you really thought about it, maybe something struck your curiosity about this practice.

Gibran RiveraMarch 28, 201693-123Comment

Step by Step

Vincent Van Gogh is a huge inspiration for my work - ever since I read “Lust for Life.” And Seth Godin is an important model for approaching it. I appreciated his post today, in “When will you get to Ramsgate?” Seth takes the arch of Van Gogh’s work to illustrate one of his core mantras “drip, drip, drip,” or, you get there step-by-step. He shows Van Gogh’s evocative yet somber painting of Ramsgate. It took skill to get there, it took step after step after step. And Van Gogh was still nowhere near the Van Gogh that we are so moved by today.

Gibran RiveraMarch 24, 201693-123Comment