Better World Leaders

This conversation is deep. Existential. Radical. Why? Because Laureline Simon speaks to the root cause of the harm that's impacting on each of us, every community and ecosystem across the breadth of our shared planet. This conversation hits home, in a nurturing, generative way, as Laureline speaks from lived experience striving in global systems and shows meaningful examples of how this harm can be repaired. It's been an honour to cocreate many wonderful conversations on Better World Leaders over the past two years. In that time there's been many a dialogue which has given me cause for reflection, and this conversation with Laureline crests the list of those that have. Her openness to explore deeply personal experiences, the range of her experience working through the United Nations across the globe, and the frankness of her insights speak to the fundamental nature of how we must change if we are truly to become resilient as individuals, societies and as a species once again. Laureline Simon is the Founder Director of One Resilient Earth, a European based Not-for-Profit who partner with numerous global and hyper-local organisations on multi-level, systemic initiatives to enable resilient communities by nurturing shifts in mindset, community connection and ecosystem restoration. This work is as inspirational as it is transformative, and provides a wonderful example to us all of how nurturing conditions for interdependent complexity to thrive is vital for the wellbeing of our beings, and the planetary system that sustains us all. I hope our conversation brings you both contemplation and inspiration. It was a great joy speaking with Laureline and I was both validated and informed by our discussion. We both welcome your thoughts and reflections via the connection links below if you'd like to reach out. Here's a review of the key messages from this episode, based on extracts from the dialogue; Shifting mindsets - It's a big moment when we realise how much we need to unlearn and decentre our worldviews - Is it just industrialisation, or is there a deeper worldview that enables industrial exploitation of the world's resources? - What if we weren't thinking about nature & people as resources? - What if the idea of separation of ourselves from nature, which is a mindset, is the root cause of the crisis? - Climate change is a symptom of the crisis of relationship we have with the world and nature - The ecological crisis is a crisis of relationship - We wouldn't be exploiting people if we didn't consider them to be different from us - We need to build capability to operate on multiple levels at the same time; that's why we work with resilient mindsets, thriving communities and restoring ecosystems - People may not realise that a lot of the decisions which are made in response to climate change are coming from a threat response. - We have one Earth and many worlds Actions for impact - You can have global actions that have little impact, and you can have local actions that have real impact - It's more about coalitions or networks and experimenting with ways of being more radical - It's about addressing the root causes of an issue, otherwise everything you do is cosmetic - There's nothing worse than feeling that you're taking positive action, when in actual fact all that you're doing is reinforcing a system that is causing harm - The actions we need to take are much deeper than reducing greenhouse gases, we have to repair our relationships with ecosystems and people who have been harmed Systemic change - I've been into the systems, and the premises are flawed - We are too resource dependant,...

Of the many new connections I made through the lockdowns of 2020, very few matched the energy and capacity for both vastly expansive and hyper detailed dialogue than today's guest. Ben Newsome is an educator, a Founder and ambassador for progressive educational practice and I'm delighted to welcome him today. Ben Newsome founded Fizzics Education to deliver science education across Australia, having now reached 2 million kids since 2004. He is a qualified science teacher and has a host of accolades to his name, including being a 2013 Churchill Fellow, 2020 AMP Tomorrow Maker, 2015, 2016 & 2018 Australian Small Business Winner for Children's Education Services, 2020 WSABE Outstanding Business Leader of the Year, 2019 Blacktown Business Person of the Year, and receiver of several Pinnacle Awards from the Center for Interactive Learning & Collaboration. Ben is a community leader for the International Society for Technology in Education, a board member for Educating 4 Leadership, is an advisory board member of the Center for Interactive Learning & Collaboration, an Ambassador for the Association of Science Education Technicians NSW and is part of the NSW Churchill Fellows Association committee. He is also the author of 'Be Amazing! How to teach science the way primary kids love' & the host of the FizzicsEd Podcast. In 2012 Ben co-founded the non-profit Virtual Excursions Australia which has now grown to include over 40 major cultural institutions and departmental distance education managers, where together VEA members create collaborative video conference events and share tips and tricks on best practice. In 2015 he co-founded another non-profit called the Pinnacle Education Collaborative, a network of over 30 cultural organisations in North America that deliver virtual excursions to schools, retirement homes, remand centres and more. I hope our conversation brings you energy, cause to pause and reflect on your own educational journey and how you continue to learn today and in to the future. Ben and I look forward to hearing any thoughts, reflections or questions you have in response to our cocreated conversation - reach out or post via your preferred podcast platform or any of the connective links below. Here's a review of the key messages from this episode, based on extracts from the dialogue; Perceptions of reality - We need to consider what actually makes people understand how the world works - There's a disconnect between what people understand is happening and what the reality is . Education - For me it was an equity access problem - Let's be honest, the curriculum is contentious - Are we teaching what to learn or how to learn? Systems thinking - There's an issue when you're dealing with scale, that there's not a one size fits all - There's a real dynamic between local knowledge & systems knowledge, how do you fill the gap? - Think about why you're trying to solve the thing Innovation - If you're saying it's my way or the highway, then you're highway better be pretty good! - You're best thinking 5 years ago is your baggage today - The world is not static, pay attention to what's changing and adjust and adapt accordingly Nurturing conditions for leaders - Ben recommends these specific conditions to nurture i) constructive dialogue ii) diverse teams iii) resilience to the grind of time iv) fearlessness to handle failure - Diversity is vital - The richer the experiences of people the more likely to solve problems - Failure is 100% a marker of success - Empathy is the conductive fluid between dialog...

Of the many new connections I made through the lockdowns of 2020, very few matched the energy and capacity for both vastly expansive and hyper detailed dialogue than today's guest. Ben Newsome is an educator, a Founder and ambassador for progressive educational practice and I'm delighted to welcome him today. Ben Newsome founded Fizzics Education to deliver science education across Australia, having now reached 2 million kids since 2004. He is a qualified science teacher and has a host of accolades to his name, including being a 2013 Churchill Fellow, 2020 AMP Tomorrow Maker, 2015, 2016 & 2018 Australian Small Business Winner for Children's Education Services, 2020 WSABE Outstanding Business Leader of the Year, 2019 Blacktown Business Person of the Year, and receiver of several Pinnacle Awards from the Center for Interactive Learning & Collaboration. Ben is a community leader for the International Society for Technology in Education, a board member for Educating 4 Leadership, is an advisory board member of the Center for Interactive Learning & Collaboration, an Ambassador for the Association of Science Education Technicians NSW and is part of the NSW Churchill Fellows Association committee. He is also the author of 'Be Amazing! How to teach science the way primary kids love' & the host of the FizzicsEd Podcast. In 2012 Ben co-founded the non-profit Virtual Excursions Australia which has now grown to include over 40 major cultural institutions and departmental distance education managers, where together VEA members create collaborative video conference events and share tips and tricks on best practice. In 2015 he co-founded another non-profit called the Pinnacle Education Collaborative, a network of over 30 cultural organisations in North America that deliver virtual excursions to schools, retirement homes, remand centres and more. I hope our conversation brings you energy, cause to pause and reflect on your own educational journey and how you continue to learn today and in to the future. Ben and I look forward to hearing any thoughts, reflections or questions you have in response to our cocreated conversation - reach out or post via your preferred podcast platform or any of the connective links below. Here's a review of the key messages from this episode, based on extracts from the dialogue; Perceptions of reality - We need to consider what actually makes people understand how the world works - There's a disconnect between what people understand is happening and what the reality is . Education - For me it was an equity access problem - Let's be honest, the curriculum is contentious - Are we teaching what to learn or how to learn? Systems thinking - There's an issue when you're dealing with scale, that there's not a one size fits all - There's a real dynamic between local knowledge & systems knowledge, how do you fill the gap? - Think about why you're trying to solve the thing Innovation - If you're saying it's my way or the highway, then you're highway better be pretty good! - You're best thinking 5 years ago is your baggage today - The world is not static, pay attention to what's changing and adjust and adapt accordingly Nurturing conditions for leaders - Ben recommends these specific conditions to nurture i) constructive dialogue ii) diverse teams iii) resilience to the grind of time iv) fearlessness to handle failure - Diversity is vital - The richer the experiences of people the more likely to solve problems - Failure is 100% a marker of success - Empathy is the conductive fluid between dialog...

In the midst of a CoVid lockdown, I discovered a book that it felt like was speaking directly to me, and in doing so, touching my soul. The author and I shared a desire to see a significant shift in the country we both love, and in the wider world. That shift speaks of rediscovery. Of a way of being that all humans know, and many appear to have forgotten. What is called for, the author proposed is in fact nothing short of a revolution. A Kindness Revolution. I was moved to write to him, expressing my deepest gratitude for what I received in reading his work over the years, my appreciation of the shared meaning I discovered in his words, and my shared hope for a future filled with kindness. In that note I invited him to co-create a conversation here, which I am deeply honoured that he accepted. Welcome to the conversation with Hugh Mackay. His latest book, The Kindness Revolution, brings together many of his views shared in previous books based on over 6 decades of work, becoming one of Australia's best known and highly regarded social researchers since the publication of his first book, Australia Reimagined. Hugh's journey as a researcher began before the popularisation of television, and his career has witnessed 3 significant social revolutions, including the most recent rise of social media influence on social interaction. As Hugh says in The Kindness Revolution, he's come to recognise the potential transformative value of kindness, and that in fact what is needed is a more radical, revolutionary brand of kindness. The significance of Hugh's work is profound, a gift to Australia, and the world, and it was a great joy to explore with him the potential meaning of kindness in contributing to creating a better world. I hope our conversation brings you joy and provocation, as well as reflection on the potential for you to bring more kindness into your life, and what you might create in the world, and the change you might activate, as you do. Here's a review of the key messages from this episode, based on extracts from the dialogue; Change - We are the social change. We drive social trends. - These trends are pushing us in a direction which takes us away from our true nature. - No revolution ever started at the top, because the people at the top think everything is terrific. - Do we need memetic evolution or violent revolution? - Change needs to start with us living as though it was the kind of society we want to see. Belonging - We happen to be members of a social species. We need each other. - A sense of belonging is vital to a social species hardwired for collaboration. - Our shared humanity is far more important than a focus on our individual personal identity. - Be more accepting of difference, because we all share a common humanity, any difference is trivial. Prosperity - One thing that's driven us in this dangerous direction is economic prosperity. - We have had leadership celebrating individual prosperity. - We've had the wrong kind of leadership & too much prosperity. Kindness - Make kindness your way of being in the world. - Kindness is anything we do for another person which acknowledges them & their needs. - Ask yourself, does this act pass the kindness test? - As a kindness practice, we need a conscious reflection - was I kind enough today? - We've all been wounded, and are walking with tragedies large or small. The universal balm is kindness. - When I listen to someone, they receive it as a therapeutic gift. - Every act of kindness makes the world a better place. Find...

Have you ever been in a session when someone shows up who you sense you recognise the essence of? You can't place them, you know you've not met them before, yet something connects you that seems somehow familiar. That was my experience the first time I met Lauren Tucker. Part way through a Regenerative Business Summit in which Lauren was Resource for our team, I joined the dots, that I knew of Lauren and her work as Founder of an organisation I had long supported and admired - Kiss the Ground. What I emerged from our brief conversation that day, and germinated in following conversations - most expansively in the conversation shared here - is that Lauren was being called to evolve the the work through which I knew her. She explained that she was now being drawn into another space, a disruptive, systemic transformational space, where in bringing a community together to explore new ways of thinking and enter into new ways of being - deep regeneration would be possible. Welcome to the conversation with Lauren about how we regenerate one of our most vital, connective and nurturing systems - our Food system. What will it take for us to shift away from our embedded industrial capitalist frameworks of food as mere commodified calories, and into something so much more generative...listen on and let's explore together! Here's a review of the key messages from this episode; Disruption - I realised that the system itself wasn't changing very much - We were focused on making things so simple that we weren't bothering to disrupt anything - Something disruptive happens so you see something in a different light, that you can't unsee. - We're setting up a community where we are intentionally creating a disruption Culture - We assume we can only work on one thing at a time. Really we need to work on things in a whole way. - I've been compelled by this sense of wanting to evolve culture - Food is something we all share & is our most direct way to think about our connection to being living beings - It's not education that shifts culture. It's mindset. Then, it's small communities of people creating different conversations through a shifted mindset, that then create actions from a different perspective. - There's enough duration for the integration to occur - What we need is not better function, or more intelligent business plans or better strategies. We have to change our thinking. New ways of being - I really wanted to challenge myself to work in a new way. - How do we work on our thinking first to see new potential? - There's a reflection around what that means in your own life. That often results in a shift in how you want to live, but you only integrate and sustain this shift if you build a new capability. - We're not living multiple lives. You don't have a work life, a home life, a life with your kids, a philanthropic life. You have one life. - What's essential in this community? What does this community want to evolve into? Now how would we create those conditions? - What is living systems thinking? How do living systems work? How do we hold complexity instead of reducing & simplifying things? Regeneration - I realised I had a deep desire to work on how do we hold more complexity and regenerate these systems - I got really excited by disruption and how do we regenerate our systems - What we've been talking about as regeneration is not really the essence of regeneration - What if instead we went back to the original essence of something and regenerated our understanding of it. Then we could see so much more potential. - How do we ...

Rarely do I get the opportunity to welcome a guest with such a wonderful range of frames that have been used to describe their work - especially in combination! Our guest today is Wayne Visser, a professor, a poet, a possibilist and a pracademic. Throughout this season of Better World Leaders, we'll examine the conditions needed to co-create our better world. This conversation with Wayne provides a thorough exploration of the layers of shifting consciousness, discovery of new frameworks and creation of new structures through which we can create not just a better world, but a Thriving one. Wayne has been deeply immersed in the world of sustainability as a corporate advisor and Professorial academic for many years. His revelation is that despite decades of work by millions of well intentioned people, the variety problems we face and the scale of the challenges are greater than ever before - requiring fundamental changes in systems, ethos and beliefs. To usher in Wayne's vision of a Thriving world, we need new leaders to rise, with different capabilities, values and ethics striving to co-create new forms of society, through embracing nature, technologies and practices which in combination provide an opportunity to give life to a world which is far better than me might think. This is an inspiring tale, not only of what's possible in the future, and of what's already here - Wayne's work showcases hundreds of examples of thriving practices that are transforming the world for the better right now! Here's a review of the key messages from this episode; Confronting Reality - Recognising that we're living a contradiction, as we all are in the world of paradox - You have to confront the brutal reality without giving up hope that a better world is possible - What we need is to up the game because so many of the problems have gotten so much worse - We don't need to change the whole world. All we need to do is change our world. Purpose - We see the emergence of purpose in business, not just profit. - Having something to believe in is a powerful force that can get you through anything - Bringing solutions to the worlds biggest problems is the role of business Living Systems - The underlying principles of thriving are living systems. Relationships. Circularity, creativity, coherence, convergence & continuity. - We currently rely on things running perfectly. That's not life. - All of life is about relationships - Creativity comes from diversity, flexibility and permeable boundaries. - Creativity always comes when we have overlapping fields - We need to think about nature as an ally in our search for resilience Leading - What does leadership mean? To be a leader is someone who can take us on a journey - 6 attributes of leaders. Systemic. Inclusive. Strategic. Ethical/Moral. Innovative. Courageous. Thriving - To thrive is to flourish & prosper, to go beyond surviving - We've had a failure of storytelling because we've had a narrative of change that's all about sacrifice - Sustainability has failed because it's boring and not inspiring - The way to up the game is not to scare, blame or shame people. Rather it is to give them something inspiring to go after. That inspiring thing is thriving. - The companies that are going to be winners are those that will invest in thriving. The future - The future will be better than you think - The momentum is unstoppable, the more we spread the solutions, the faster it will occur. - Imagine workspaces full of waterfalls, mini-forests and ...

Welcome to the fifth season of Better World Leaders. Throughout this season we'll be focusing on the theme of conditions, and considering what conditions do we need to nurture for leaders to co-create a better world. I'm delighted and honoured to bring you the first conversation of the season with a man who has devoted his life to creating conditions for people to discover themselves, transition liminal spaces and learn in ways which are much more conducive to life now (and in the world of the future) than our conventional approaches to learning. Welcome to the conversation with David Drake. David is the pioneer of two bodies of work - Narrative Coaching and Integrative Development - which share the same philosophical and pedagogical roots and are mutually generative. I've been aware of David's work in Narrative Coaching for around 5 years since being deeply moved by one of his coaching exercises in a training program. I have gravitated more and more to his work - culminating in enrolling in two of his developmental communities at the beginning of this year. This episode was recorded in December 2021 prior to me joining those spaces. I have been even more inspired now that I am in the programs. I feel deeply privileged to have spent more time with David, and I look forward to doing so for what I hope will be years to come. David is a wonderful activator of powerful learning experiences. His work steeped in a brilliant combination of research and evidence-based frameworks, and applied through constant practice in each individual's context. Here's a review of the key messages from this episode: Systems & Cultures - Most of the drivers of behaviour in a workplace have less to do with the people, and more to do with the cultures & systems in which they are working - The systemic and complex nature of the needs we face requires us to work across multiple disciplines and at multiple levels so we don't keep sending changed people back into unchanged environments. - We need to help people place their individual stories and journey within a broader and more inclusive context so they can make sense and meaning in new ways - Developing people is less about teaching with better curricula and more about facilitating with better conversations Honouring differences - There is a need to create new, larger narratives that will keep us from driving each other further apart - We've over-emphasised our differences and lost much of our sense of the common good and our common humanity - The business models for many of the platforms is based on enraging people, exacerbating differences, and narrowing our focus. Respecting journeys - We need to honour & respect people for who and how they are as the only place to begin - My value is less about telling others what I know and more about coming alongside people and the journey they are already on to help them grow - The big work we need to do is found in from the unknown & the uncertain - The fundamental question in our work is, "What does this person need most right now?" Learning - The need is for more safe places for practice based learning rather than more content - The resolution that someone is seeking is already present - We have to let go of 'we have to study before we do' to free ourselves to learn and adapt faster - We need to free people up for serious play. To play with serious things. Follow David via the links below; www.themomentinstitute.com

Welcome to Season 5 of Better World Leaders! This season we shift our focus to nurturing conditions, following on our past two seasons of catalysing and sustaining change. Let's go a little deeper, into the foundational elements we need to cultivate in ourselves, our communities, societies and institutions in order to bring to life the better world we are striving to create. I've been deeply honoured, energised and inspired to co-create incredibly insightful conversations with our guests this season, and here's a sneak peak at some of the conversations you can look forward to in this season; •David Drake, Phd, pioneer of Narrative Coaching and Integrated Development on nurturing new ways of learning •Professor Wayne Visser, on the range of elements we need to embrace to systemically transform into Thriving societies •Lauren Tucker, on the role of developmental communities for systemic regeneration •Hugh Mackay on why we need a Kindness revolution •Charlotte Connell on climate action through nurturing scalable technologies •Steve Moir on nurturing purpose and values to foster professional networks for collective climate action •Ben Newsome on educating the leaders of tomorrow I'm really looking forward to sharing each and everyone of these conversations, and more, as we move through this season. As always, please join the Better World Leaders community in LinkedIn (link below) and share this and any of our episodes with someone who you believe would benefit from the wisdom contained therein. https://www.linkedin.com/company/better-world-leaders

In this brief review episode, I provide a fly-through of the conversations co-created as part of this season. The broad theme for the season has been sustaining change, how do we do this, what's important to pay attention to, and how do we sustain ourselves as we strive to co-create our better world. We've had an incredible range of conversations in this season, spanning November 2021 to March 2022. If you've not had a chance to review these fully as yet, maybe take a glance at the list below and then scroll through your podcast feed wherever you're reading this and dive in to whatever calls you most; •Claire Marshall, to role of story telling in creating our future (conversation focuses climate change and experiential futures) •Rebecca Huntley, we still have a fighting chance to create a liveable world for everyone (conversation focuses on climate change) •Pedro Aguirre, how to plant seeds deep and grow the next generation of leaders (conversation focus social entrepreneurship) •Betsy Reed, how to embrace discomfort to give birth to great transformations (conversation focus on climate change, personal transformation, diversity and uncomfortable conversations) •Jess Weiss, leaning into your strengths to make the world better (conversation focuses on strengths based approach, personal transformation) •Mickey Kovari, leading through fellowship and community-ship as custodian of regenerative ways of being, knowing and doing (conversation focuses on Aboriginal Australian and international First Nations practices, social entrepreneurship and social justice) •Hernan Haro, investing in those who are in love with our greatest challenges (conversation focuses on diversity, impact investment) •Tracey Eames, on why we need meaningful work (conversation focuses on purpose, meaning in work, team performance and organisational design) •Rebecca Christianson, the path from surviving to thriving (conversation on live changing experiences, cancer survival, leaning into discomfort, diversity and self-transformation) •James McGregor, scalable commercial sustainability (conversation focuses on personal transformation, the role of fear, scaling solutions to our greatest problems, finding the right solutions to the right problems) All in all, it's been an amazing season. I'm so grateful to each of our guests for co-creating such rich, powerful, informative and emotive discussions. Thank you to each and everyone of you who has tuned in from all over the world. The BWL community continues to build as we approach 400 members of our LinkedIn Group (click below to join if you'd like) We ran our first event in late March, and we have our next lined up in June - standby for an update and invite very soon for that. Join the BWL LinkedIn Group here - https://www.linkedin.com/company/better-world-leaders As always, we express our gratitude to Brendan, Cooper and Pat - the team who ensure each episode reaches your ears sounding marvellous! We will taking a rest for a couple of weeks before we launch into Season 5 - Nurturing Conditions to Co-Create our Better World. See you all soon!

In this brief review episode, I provide a fly-through of the conversations co-created as part of this season. The broad theme for the season has been sustaining change, how do we do this, what's important to pay attention to, and how do we sustain ourselves as we strive to co-create our better world. We've had an incredible range of conversations in this season, spanning November 2021 to March 2022. If you've not had a chance to review these fully as yet, maybe take a glance at the list below and then scroll through your podcast feed wherever you're reading this and dive in to whatever calls you most; •Claire Marshall, to role of story telling in creating our future (conversation focuses climate change and experiential futures) •Rebecca Huntley, we still have a fighting chance to create a liveable world for everyone (conversation focuses on climate change) •Pedro Aguirre, how to plant seeds deep and grow the next generation of leaders (conversation focus social entrepreneurship) •Betsy Reed, how to embrace discomfort to give birth to great transformations (conversation focus on climate change, personal transformation, diversity and uncomfortable conversations) •Jess Weiss, leaning into your strengths to make the world better (conversation focuses on strengths based approach, personal transformation) •Mickey Kovari, leading through fellowship and community-ship as custodian of regenerative ways of being, knowing and doing (conversation focuses on Aboriginal Australian and international First Nations practices, social entrepreneurship and social justice) •Hernan Haro, investing in those who are in love with our greatest challenges (conversation focuses on diversity, impact investment) •Tracey Eames, on why we need meaningful work (conversation focuses on purpose, meaning in work, team performance and organisational design) •Rebecca Christianson, the path from surviving to thriving (conversation on live changing experiences, cancer survival, leaning into discomfort, diversity and self-transformation) •James McGregor, scalable commercial sustainability (conversation focuses on personal transformation, the role of fear, scaling solutions to our greatest problems, finding the right solutions to the right problems) All in all, it's been an amazing season. I'm so grateful to each of our guests for co-creating such rich, powerful, informative and emotive discussions. Thank you to each and everyone of you who has tuned in from all over the world. The BWL community continues to build as we approach 400 members of our LinkedIn Group (click below to join if you'd like) We ran our first event in late March, and we have our next lined up in June - standby for an update and invite very soon for that. Join the BWL LinkedIn Group here - https://www.linkedin.com/company/better-world-leaders As always, we express our gratitude to Brendan, Cooper and Pat - the team who ensure each episode reaches your ears sounding marvellous! We will taking a rest for a couple of weeks before we launch into Season 5 - Nurturing Conditions to Co-Create our Better World. See you all soon!