A reason to live.

For the past year, I’ve filed the poems that have poured out of me into a folder called A reason to live. It’s been a year of many challenges, deep questions, climate grief, wavering self-confidence and discovery of strength. Today, a few of the poems expanded into the below reflection on a time when I was searching for a deep, felt experience of why I choose to, and I am chosen to be here on this magnificent Earth. This piece was prompted by an activity as part of the Small Giants’ Mastery of Business and Empathy leadership course I am lucky to be a part of.

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A reason to live.

It’s Gunumeleng (storm season) on Larrakia Country. It is 42 degrees with 88% humidity and I am having a literal and spiritual meltdown. The air is full of moisture and mosquitoes. The ocean is full of jellyfish and crocodiles. It feels like Mother Nature is raging with intensity. This is a season for Her to unapologetically sweat, sting, sing and purge in harmony with Her natural cycles. This is unceremoniously unharmonious for me.

The humidity is humiliating for my sense of control. I am sweating, shedding, moulding well beyond my comfort zone, and I have become obsessed with the groundcover of fallen frangipani flowers browning with decay and emitting a sweet rotting scent to signify their death. 

I know that this is me; a fallen flower whose sweet childhood ways are dying, and I am spending a lot of time crying – for many reasons that are presenting themselves through this self-initiation into adulthood. Gunumeleng is guiding me through my own internal storm season. I remind myself that death is full of Mystery; and that composting myself is a path to the gifts that can only be found in the unknown.

In the unknown, poetry pours out of me. My ego is all but a thin sweat-covered vale; a shaky decomposing identity that leaves me determinedly searching for my reason to live: a deep, felt experience of why I choose to, and I am chosen to be here on this Earth. A voice guides me:

Tread softly dear one
as you traverse this terrifying path.
Tread softly for yourself, with yourself. 

First-light is sacred time. It brings samples of peace and piecemeal relief from the relentlessness of the internal and external storms. Upon one awakening day, my womb takes me for a walk at dawn.

She speaks to me so clearly, 
sharing her wisdom about the journey
of becoming a Mother -
not the childbearing kind but the maturation
of my innate ability to regenerate
and tend to life with tenderness:
to Mother myself first
and then
to Mother the Earth.
This is my initiation into co-creation
with The Mother Herself.

A fly buzzes around me
and as I go to swat it away
my womb whispers
“she is a mother too”
and the web of life erupts around me
and my tears flow in unison. 

I have a feeling that Mother Ocean welcomes my tears into Her rising seas. With the knowledge that tears hold the medicine of transformation and connection, She will patiently hold my sadness and my grief while I weep over the destruction and pollution of Her. She knows that through release comes realisation and perspective. She knows She will be seen — through teary eyes — in a new light. And, a new darkness. She knows, if She holds me - holds us - gently and fiercely and long enough, we will eventually learn to hold Her in return.

I reflect on my relationship with Mother Earth.
For Her, what about me makes it worth
Her hosting me here?

She diligently feeds me, warms me,
delights and teaches me —
She is at the whim of every need and dream of humanity
yet do we give Her as much in return?
Or are we leaving Her to flood, dry and burn?

My life’s goodness comes from balancing this equation:
to give back more than I take
to recycle and regenerate
to create and follow opportunities
for life to heal and life to thrive.
This, I know
is my reason for being alive.

Leadership: feminine, regenerative and systems-thinking

About two years ago, I was the final candidate to become CEO of a wonderful non-profit with national impact and a turnover of $4M. I’d ‘passed’ interviews with the Chairman of a Big Four firm, prominent lawyers, marketing execs and the outgoing CEO.

In the end, both me and the organisation decided I was not right for the role. Their reasons were financial and risk (my skillset matched their longer-term needs rather than immediate), and my reason was: leadership.

Not their leadership, but my own.

My style of leadership at the time was in a period of transition. I was in the process of unwinding myself from patriarchal, hustle-culture norms that felt a lot like a hierarchy of hamster wheels. I was (and still am) unlearning the colonial mindset of business that sees growth as upwards only and at the expense of human, community and planetary health. And I was also rewiring my communication and relationship skills that felt inauthentic and dismissive of innate human needs.

I was yearning to embody a new way of leading. I was learning to become a leader who:

• Listens deeply: is permeable and shaped by the people, community and environment I am here to guide;

• Plan(t)s in 100-year increments: plan(t)s slow investments for slow and stable returns – in alignment with the Earth’s capacity to regenerate resources (and as a steward in support of this regeneration);

• Encourages growth in all directions: knowing that death and endings are needed for new beginnings, naps and spaciousness are welcome, and plateauing can be peaceful;

• Sees and considers systems; and creates solutions remembering the individual is connected the whole, the organisation is connected to the industry, the beneficiaries are connected to their communities;

• Holds complexity: often the best answer is to not have an answer, to sit in the tension, and acknowledge that multiple and competing truths/emotions/perspectives can co-exist;

• Promotes self-organising: builds structure for physical and psychological safety; so that creativity, freedom and self-leadership can reign.

Would this non-profit have embraced this feminine, regenerative, systems-thinking leadership at the time? My sense is yes, but not without strong conviction and embodiment from me. At the time I knew I was still building the confidence and know-how to live and lead in this way.

In the time since then, I’ve been on a big journey to bring this leadership style into my day-to-day way of living with people and the Earth. It’s woven through my friendships, my consumption habits, my business-for-good coaching, and the content and principles of School for Social Change.

It’s taken time – longer than I expected. And it’s been harder than I expected too – to detach from my old ways of being and leading and allow for this new leadership form to take root and stabilise. I am proud of this journey. I am proud to stand here as a new leader – for myself, within my community and for our Earth.

Defining: Crowdsourcing

It feels edgey and meta to have launched an organisation with the vision to: crowdsource a vision. It's been 8 months since I originally made an unbranded page on my website; announced that I wanted to co-create (crowdsource) an organisational organism called School for Social Change; and opened my doors to whoever came knocking.

And people knocked. AND, they stayed for cups of tea, long conversations, strategy days and emotional support. Daniel Burke sent me his resume – a total stranger, now dear friend. Emeli Paulo reconnected after 10+ years and we began dating as co-founders. And a strong handful (or two) of people honourably reached out with a sense of "I'm not quite sure what you're doing, but I like the vibe and I'm here to support".

I have joyful gratitude for these people who took a chance on me, the name, the concept, and most importantly the future of the society and planet that we are here to serve. Each conversation has been an exchange of ideas, questions and support. It’s been collective stepping towards ‘a feeling of something bigger than ourselves’. And it’s been an uplifting experience to be a part of a community eager to contribute to an equitable, regenerative and just world.

As an outcome of the process to date, my relationship with and understanding of crowdsourcing has deepened.

Today, I define crowdsourcing as:

"A style of collaboration, that brings together people (and their representative communities) to co-create the end result they will receive."

I’m not in love with this definition, it could do with some input from the crowd. It will continue to evolve and change – as I, the School and our community also continues to change.

So far, I’ve learned that curating crowdsourcing requires:

• Practising public vulnerability. This includes: being OK with not having answers, direction or clarity on what I'm doing; and redistributing control when people ask 'How can I help?' by responding with 'How do you want to help?'.

• Being OK on the edge of the unknown. Learning to befriend unanswerable questions, and believing that deep, integral change happens outside of the systems that I seek to innovate.

• Some structure and strategy is important. Even the vague statement: "our vision is to crowdsource a vision for a new society" gives interested parties some context. Not having a strategy is a strategy. And, there is actually way more strategy present than I realised. Writing this post is a strategy. The fact I (sub?)consciously have chosen LinkedIn and Instagram as our channels, and not community boards or University Halls (although, they are important places to go to soon), was a strategic decision I made intuitively.

• Remembering that crowdsourcing is still a pretty new concept - ironically impacted by systemic hierarchy. Some people are excited by the unknown, and they feel confident in forming and sharing their perspectives. And of course: visibility, confidence and value of voice is influenced by systemic privilege and/or systemic disempowerment. Extending safe, accessible and equitable invitations to contribute to crowdsourcing is crucial. The means has a direct impact on the end.

More to come… with more inputs; conversations, societal shifts, environmental needs… I am permeable and influenced by the composition of the crowd, and what we collectively co-create.

An idea: School for Social Change

Guiding a generation of changemakers.

TLDR: I’m starting a social enterprise and you can follow the ins and outs of decision making, brand building, learning and growing in the lead up to launch on IG @schoolforsocialchange.

I’ve been in a ‘business building’ exploration phase for most of 2021 and I feel it's time to share an update on where this is at, what I am learning, and where I am heading.

My intention from the outset has been to do this differently (I actually bought the domain name dobusinessdifferently.com three years years ago and I have since ditched that idea, but kept the sentiment). The typical hustle-culture, capitalism-first, profit-driven, white supremacy nature of business has never sat well with me, yet I’ve always believed that the power of business can be used as a force for good.

The question has been percolating: How to harness this power? How can the intelligence, creativity, distribution systems, networks and drive of the corporate world be used to regenerate the world (instead of destroy it)?

Some people will know that I’ve spent the last 15 years exploring the intersection of wellbeing, technology and social impact. This has gifted me experiences running a non-profit, working in the capitalist hedonism of New York, and facilitating social enterprise and health advocacy around the world. Combine this knowledge with the last 9 months of listening to the world around me, educating myself on the topics that spark interest*, and following my intuition... you/I/we/the world finally has a new entity/being that is ready to be born.

Introducing:

School for Social Change.

What is it? you wonder. Well, I’m right there wondering with you, as it is one big work-in-progress. It’s a name, a concept and a bunch of words, philosophies and skills that are like puzzle pieces that have been tipped out of a box and are now sprawled out on the table. It’s an ongoing (non-hustled, deep listening) creative process to put them all together.

I could launch the School in several months time with a sweet brand, a snazzy website and a clear call to action, but I’m not. I’m here, sharing this with you now because as you know, I like to do business differently. Transparency, vulnerability, learning, sharing and shifting are all values that lead me to choose NOT to position myself as the perfect social-entrepreneur who knows all the answers. Instead I DO choose to share my ongoing, messy, creative process while starting a social enterprise. This is for a few reasons:

This is for a few reasons:

• To keep myself accountable to showing up for myself, this project and the people it’s here to serve;

• To live the values of transparency, vulnerability, learning, sharing and shifting;

• To walk the talk of social change by being open and accountable on this journey;

• I see in this pandemic-fuelled-existential world that many people are interested in starting their own projects or following creative pursuits, and I offer this as an open journey for anyone to follow along and pick up processes and strategies that might resonate with or support them.

Here are the School for Social Change puzzle pieces in place so far:

• School for Social Change exists to guide generation of changemakers;

• It will be set up as a for-profit, for-purpose business (a social enterprise of sorts) that will have a strong focus on giving back, Paying the Rent and revenue sharing;

• The School is here to build the individual and collective capacity needed to step our society through social change;

• It will offer workshops and leadership programs for workplaces and homegrown activists alike;

• Our mission is to teach the skills to positively contribute to the social fabric of society: self-reflection, storytelling and systemic shifts; (*UPDATE: 28/10 systemic shifts as a skill is likely to be updated to collective action)

• Our vision is to contribute to greater purpose, equity and systemic reform.

I’m going to be posting on Instagram @schoolforsocialchange with updates as I go (max. once per 1-2 weeks, I’m drawing strong social media boundaries with this baby). This includes brand building, admin deciphering, ethical considerations and whatever else comes my way. Consider this your invitation to follow along if it piques your interest.

Here’s to the journey ahead.
With gratitude,
Lucy

*Topics that have sparked interest include: (anti-)capitalism, (de)colonisation, eco-psychotherapy, trauma-informed best-practice, birthing and the creative process, somatic intelligence, Buddhism, gender identities, and permaculture.

And finally. If you’ve got this far, thank you, and I’ll also add a short update on my other projects and availability. I am still offering business-for-good coaching if you feel called to work with me. I also have capacity some business-for-good strategy projects, if your organisation is looking for strategic or brand guidance. Poetic musings will continue as usual over on Divine Postal Service and @divinepostalservice.