How do we work for change and yet not lose our minds, health, and wellbeing?

How do we reorient our work in change making to be more sustainable? How do we escape the machine-like processes that strip the joy from the work?

What does healthy responsibility look like? How can we take a realistic view of what we can do and what is not ours to do?

When we expect our work to change the world, we put immense pressure and responsibility on ourselves. Funding and other systems around us feed the narrative that we must find the scalable solution to the world’s deepest problems, and we must find it now. The weight of the world settles on our shoulders. How might we think and act differently?

What does sustainability look like? How do we think about sustainability in human terms?

What is human-centered sustainability? Leaders and organizations are trying to adapt to a constantly changing environment. They often feel frayed and isolated. While it’s easy to center contextual sensitivity and leader care rhetorically, this doesn’t remove the daily scramble to find enough funding to make payroll and keep programs functioning. Is there a better way?

How do we gather better in ways that feed our spirit and energy?

A lot of leaders tell me that they often feel like they are performing. When they enter a professional space, they feel the need to prove that they are “good enough” to be there and ready for the scrappy fight for resources to get the job done. What is the cost of this constant performativity? How might we create spaces that are honest, healing, creative, and growth-oriented?

How do we organize ourselves to bring about change? How do our governance structures impede our success and wellbeing?

Governance has been at the center of my career. I’ve explored deeply how non-profit boards work, especially in diverse cultural contexts. But the question of governance transcends just the board. How do we organize more broadly? What are the spoken agreements among us about how we will make decisions and manage power? Perhaps even more important, what are the unspoken agreements that influence how we gather and act together?

How can we lean into a deeper awareness that everyone is struggling with the same things we are? How might we stop spending our best energies on self-promotion and self-protection and show up with greater authenticity?

I spent a lot of my career performing. I never felt quite good enough. This led to my spending a lot of energy seeking approval and validation and a lot of lost energy in self-doubt. How might a more realistic approach to our selves and our struggles and greater levels of vulnerability lead us to deeper happiness and success?