EcoDialogues
A Curated Selection of Files
Why Care?
In a fractured world, why care? This file explores the existential and practical value of compassion, connection, and shared human experience.
Better Governance For Nonprofits: Leadership That Works
Explore how transformative leadership redefines nonprofit governance, fostering collaboration, innovation, and systemic change for greater impact.
Unstorying the Self: Exploring Personal Narratives and Collective Responsibility
Discover the journey of unstorying the self, exploring how personal narratives shape our identity and the ethical responsibility we hold to others, nature, and the world.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey: Rethinking Our Worldview to Address the Ecological Crisis (Part III)
To some extent, the hero’s journey reflects and perpetuates a colonizer mindset, leading to the subjugation of entire cultures.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey: Rethinking Our Worldview to Address the Ecological Crisis (Part II)
Technology, profit, productivity—these are hallmarks of what is often construed as progress within the Western worldview? Progress for whom?
Beyond the Hero’s Journey: Rethinking Our Worldview to Address the Ecological Crisis (Part I)
Floods, wildfires, drought, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution, mass riots, war—this is the world right now in active ecological crisis.
Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part II)
Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired.
Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part I)
In various fields (counseling, education, business, and leadership, etc.), transformation and change are often framed as part of a metaphorical hero’s journey.
To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part III)
If we think in silos, we bring ourselves deeper inside single systems.
To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part II)
What does social purpose mean in the context of my life? How do I apply my belief in a social purpose? How I answer these questions may provide insight into the extent to which I have retained my systemic sensibility.
To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part I)
Is the past really past, and is the future somewhere ahead of us? The realization that past trauma, for instance, has a direct bearing on our mental health lends credence to the notion that yesterday is alive, a consideration that leads to a cybernetic complementarity that the future is equally real today. Can we hold two seemingly disparate ideas?
Wading at the Edges
All my life, I have essentially waded at the edges of the proverbial pools of life–a condition that does not lend itself to transformation, an idea I recently gleaned from Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Best Practices in Organizations
Recently, I had a “conversation” with an individual about next steps related to further developing a nonprofit board. Excited about some of my recent research that touches on new ways to conceptualize the role of nonprofit board development, I indicated that perhaps we could consider new ideas.
Stepping Outside The Shadows Of Myself
Those two boys to my left are my sons when they were much younger and I subscribed to a much different paradigm of life, so different in fact that what I am about to write would have been unthinkable when this photo was taken.
Running To Love
Yesterday, I was on a run near a river and actively pondering the experience of love when I had a profound realization about myself that I think is relevant for others. All my life, love has been an experience for me that has felt so utterly massive, so real, that I have run from it. I went out on my run yesterday with the intent to explore why this is the case, and I unexpectedly ran into an answer.
What is Love?
Sure, I know love. It is a feeling, right? Is it an action, too? Or is it a sequence of actions? Is it formulaic? When I read the last post on love by my associate, I am forcibly reminded that perhaps I do not know what love is it all.
Decisions
In an office, who makes the decisions? Is it the manager? Supervisor? General staff? Do these questions matter? Absolutely, because how this question is answered reveals much about how an individual views reality itself.
The Truth
The truth. It is a fascinating concept and one that supports how many of us go through our everyday lives. There is some sort of ‘truth’ that supports our cultural values, approach to life, or how we build our business(es).
Selfies
There is something unnerving about our reliance on presenting ourselves to “the world” through the use of ‘selfies.’ It is as if our ability to capture an image of ourselves with the use of a phone’s camera indicates something about our inherent power.
The Money
Ever notice that many entrepreneurs in this age bracket often resort to citing their own financial wealth as proof that others should follow their inherent “power” and step into their own proverbial “greatness?”
