Thinking differently to those around you is becoming more complex in these times.
Humans naturally seek certainty in a crisis. We hold on to what exists instead of seeking to change. We resist innovative thinking as exhausting even if we know it could create real, long-lasting change. We leave it to ‘others’.
Well, not all of us.
Not you.
If you are reading this, then I have a feeling that you are one of the ‘others’.
Sharing new thoughts with the people around you doesn’t always go down well, it may leave you feeling isolated. Loved ones may tell you your idea has little merit and may even be silly, impossible, or unrealistic. Friends can shut us down from a well-meaning sense of care and protection.
This is especially relevant to your business idea or creative project. They may say it’s not financially viable or sensible, as if that was the only measure of success. Ouch! You were not thinking about the money, you were thinking about how it could really help the world or light you up.
You are prepared to figure out the money part, of course, but the purpose drives you.
It’s hard when our loved ones disagree with our ideas.
The monetary reward has always been the primary measure of business success. Money is essential of course, it’s the income you need. Your business must be viable, but I bet you are driven by much more than money?
Most people put new ideas aside when the money is unclear; it’s easier to feel like you are safe than to keep thinking differently.
I’ve always thought differently.
From a young age, I had to get comfortable with many people not agreeing with my thoughts and reactions.
Ever since I was a toddler, I trusted my feelings and relationships with nature over all other logic, rules and people. I came to learn as an adult that I had strong intuition.
From my late teens, I began to spend a lot of time around campfires, walking deep into the wilderness in Australia and New Zealand. I learned to catch food and live simply. I knew it was a really happy way to be.
I also realised that I could not always live like this. I had to find a way to weave it into the fabric of my life. Spending time in deep nature became non-negotiable. Since that time, I’ve returned to nature for guidance, resilience, and support with all my businesses and personal quests.
I wandered in and out of the wilderness regularly, (or the bush as we call it, in Australia.) Sometimes alone, sometimes in silence, sometimes with others. I eventually found my balance by earning money with nature-centred business models, starting in 1998. I found a way to understand what the trees taught me, along with education, money, family and community.
Trusting my relationship with myself was its own life degree. I also did a few academic degrees to fulfil my desire to understand the world. It led me to a love of communication and passion for human rights. I qualified as a historian, earning first-class honours. I got better at research, curiosity, enquiry and writing.
But my bush degree has been my unique life experience and informs my profound wisdom.
This lifestyle often meant a feeling of distance in my relationships with family.
That was hard.
That’s the isolation I mentioned earlier. It sometimes goes with the territory; finding new communities and wise guides is the only antidote.
Some of us find that a calling to an idea, a place or a person is stronger than the comfort of family and community.
But we live in times when we can no longer ignore the poly-crisis of climate catastrophe, war, nature depletion and mental health epidemic.
You are being ‘called’ to take action
You are being ‘called’ to take action while still managing the daily requirements of education, business operations, and family care.
So even when you opt for a pause on purpose, a return to safety and connection, that deep purpose calling will always reoccur, without fail it must find expression in the world, or you remain unfulfilled or frustrated.
Even if there is a temporary comfort and letting go, it will re-emerge. It’s the nature of deep purpose calling.
So what is there to do?
Simply put, you need to find people, teachers and tribes that will accept, encourage and challenge your thinking and exploring.
You need a safe place to be curious and make mistakes.
I do this every year.
In the past twelve months, I have immersed myself in Wisdom Circles with Kelly Wendorf, Wintering with Becoming Grew and Kincentric Leadership at Findhorn in Scotland. The blend of experiences alongside books, workshops, meditations, and profound nature walks, feed my learning and grows my wisdom.
It’s this confluence of ideas and experiences that has led to the creation of The Growth Experience.
The Growth Experience
It’s a place where your calling, intuition, mad idea and the impact or legacy you seek can be realised. It’s a place I was looking for when I needed to make sense of complexity by engaging in simplicity. It did not exist, so I created a space for business owners who craved something more, something different, something wiser.
The Growth Experience is not a course, but you will learn much, driven by your enquiry and held by the Thirteen Wisdoms.
We meet fortnightly throughout the year, and we meet in person at least once if you can get to the UK in July. This is an extraordinary gathering at AVEBURY STONE CIRCLE in Wiltshire—a powerful day of evolution and realisation. There is also private mentoring for your own unique path to be realised in addition to group support and learning.
My role is to facilitate. I am your leadership coach for personal growth, your mentor for business acumen and your guide for conscious marketing. Most importantly, I help you find your nature mentor as a guide in this experience. That happens early in our journey. This feeds your intuition, deepens your self-awareness, and helps you make good, clear decisions.
I will support you with an inner journey and help you build trust with yourself at a new level of depth. Your external decisions and presence in the world will become clearer and brighter. Your voice will get louder and clearer. This is the path of a Conscious Business Leader. This is the path missing from many purpose-driven businesses that start with external expressions and miss the vital inner journey that lights up this external experience.
There is learning in The Growth Experience, but it is more about frameworks that help you remember and design your unique path.
It’s about you, not me.
You remember what is important to you.
You celebrate a growth mindset, even when it’s challenging.
You leave a stronger sense of self and a clear strategy and belief in your impact mission.
You may call it an instinct. I call it intuition.
Whatever you call it, it’s a line of enquiry that comes from within you and it is seeking expression in the world.
But if you are considering joining us, it’s probably a calling in you that wants to be realised.
That idea, that impact, that business, that project.
You won’t hear the word impossible in The Growth Experience.
You will be asked questions that clarify your path.
You will begin your journey wanting something that will either be realised, or lead to something better.
You will emerge as a Regenerative Leader, or at least feel like you are on the path to becoming one.
So if you want to ‘answer the call’.
If you want a community that thrives with innovative thinking.
If you want support, frameworks and mentoring based on 13 Deep Wisdoms, you are welcome to join us.
The 13 Wisdoms
The 13 Wisdoms informing The Growth Experience and Regenerative Business Mentoring and are multilayered disciplines in themselves, but I hope these short definitions spark excitement.
1. Biomimicry
Emulating biological systems and strategies to solve human challenges.
2. Systems thinking
Making sense of complexity in the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships.
3. Design thinking
Challenging assumptions and redefining problems with new paradigm innovations.
4. Indigenous wisdom
A holistic approach to life that inherently considers the interconnectedness of all living beings linked by stories, values, language and culture.
5. Neuroscience
Understanding how the nervous system influences our behaviour, cognition, and health.
6. Nature’s Wisdom
Evolutionary adaptations, sustainable patterns, and resilient responses to environmental changes.
7. Kincentrism
The belief that all living beings, including humans are equally valuable and deserving of respect and consideration, based on their inherent kinship, otherwise understood as interconnectedness.
8. Intuition
Positive use of unconscious information for better decisions or actions. Developing and realising your relationship with self, deep trust and potential.
9. Academic
Essential for personal and professional growth, understanding emerging technologies and trends, staying informed about global issues and developments. Develops your curiosity. Understand empirical evidence. Fosters critical thinking skills, analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and problem-solving. Increases your knowledge base.
10. Mindfulness
Presencing encourages acceptance and non-reactivity to arise as you develop greater awareness of your thoughts and emotions. You are cultivating calm, self-awareness and inner peace.
11. Regeneration
Renewal and resilience in biology, ecology, community and business. Our inherent ability to adapt, recover, and thrive in the face of change and adversity when learning from living systems.
12. Coaching/Mentoring
Empowers you, sustains a growth mindset and supports the realisation of your unique purpose. Learning from challenges as well as opportunities. Increases self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and effective communication skills. Clarifying your goals, priorities, and aspirations then supporting actionable plans to realise them and providing support, encouragement, and strategies for overcoming obstacles.
13. YOU
You will integrate all these wisdoms through your own very special lens of life and business through reflection, experiences, meaning, and discerning guiding principles. Increasing your capacity to make decisions and adopt behaviors in complete alignment with values internally and externally.
What to do now?
🌱 If you would like to apply to join us or have a follow-up conversation after meeting already, please book a conversation this week to confirm your place in The Growth Experience or assess your readiness for Private Mentoring.
🌱 Read about The Growth Experience here.
🌱 If you like watching short movies, I made one for you here.
