"I Believe ..."

E150: What is the impossible you dare to imagine as possible?

What is the “impossible” you dare to imagine as “possible”?
What is the story about the future or an alternate reality your manifesto will tell?
What will help you sustain and thrive throughout this work?
— Jacqueline Novogratz, “Manifesto for a Moral Revolution”

Welcome to my “Why”

Why did I dare make my first dot, press pen to paper, and embark on a journey that has led to Edition 150? It all began with these three questions above 👆. In a moment of frustration I found myself scribbling the manifesto below, desperate to organize my thoughts and inspire hope while maintaining that drum beat sense of urgency. It gave me the courage to apply for a writing course¹ and start a newsletter. These words sustain me and give me the conviction to continue our weekly conversation.

Welcome to Edition 150, Tribe Tilt member. And a big “Thank You” for being on this journey with me over the past three years.

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This is what I believe

– that we are capable of amazing possibility.

The world – in all its glory, dirt and grime – has been handed down to my generation by all the hundreds of previous generations who battled through despair, disease, war, and so much more.

What do we do with it? How do we accept this gift?
Do we tie a ribbon on it, and hand it forward to the generation after us?
Or do we open it, take a hammer to it and offer up the shards?

👆 Watch or listen 🎧 to the podcast episode with the accompanying transcript below 👇

I believe

I believe we are capable of generosity and possibility.
I believe that the generations coming after us are filled with imagination, moral courage and a passion for righting wrongs and that we are here to empower and encourage them.

I believe that we will create a new tomorrow that protects our environment.
(Just) As a society before us challenged the morality of keeping slaves though that had been a tradition for centuries across multiple cultures, we will not accept an economic structure that demands that we pillage the earth’s most precious resources purely to sustain our national economies.
Instead, we will protect all the resources, particularly the water and clean air.

I believe we can invent the technologies that allow us to indulge in the advances of modern science and technology, but make the move to a greener use of energy.
We can feed the Earth’s growing population.
We can find meaningful engagement for each human so they contribute to society as a whole - embracing robotics and AI as our ancestors embraced the plough,
made bigger, not less, by technology.

I believe in nurturing the generation that follows us with compassion, but also charging them with the responsibility to care for Mother Earth, not to squander its resources.

I trust and I know

I trust in the power of connection – families, communities, and cohort-based classes like Acumen & Akimbo, ALLTO, AMP, Build a Second Brain (BASB) & Write of Passage (WoP) that connect like-minded souls to each other so that we are able to foster a mindset of abundance and possibility. I am sustained by my connection to humanity and to nature: to the sunrise, the melting snow, the enduring cycle of tides and daffodils that bloom in the spring. Nature teaches us the resilience of rebirth.

I know that this world can survive past my race. So I believe in the Earth and place my trust in my generation and the generations after me to respect the Earth as a living being that pushes back when hurt but embraces when whole.

I will do what is within my power – stretching that capability to all its might – to make a green and wonderful world available to the next 7 generations, to gift to them as was gifted to me: the wonder, awe and amazement at what Nature can give us.

And in doing so, I honour the memories and sacrifices of the generations before,
as well as the powers that created this beautiful Earth
and bequeath it to the generations that will follow.

I am a dot and I believe are podcast episodes and blog posts first published in December 2020 (the video is recent). After writing these two pieces, I had a revelation: "If not me, then who?" I realized I needed to stop complaining and hiding, gather some skills, and make whatever difference I could.

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Have you tried writing a personal manifesto? You, too, may surprise yourself with the depth of your convictions. Please tag me when you do.

Whether you have been on this journey with me for one edition or 150, what is one tactic I could incorporate to make our weekly conversation more engaging and worthy of your time?

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Milestone Edition 150 seemed an appropriate moment to remind myself why I started. A special callout to

Kathy Karn

and @Lisa Orlick whose leadership and company in that pivotal Acumen class birthed my manifesto.

It has also been a great opportunity to read through many of my previous issues and acknowledge that I would not have gotten here without the support of each of you and editing support from so many friends who are also members of Tribe Tilt. Thank you for the encouragement to post edition 1

Michael Dean

,

Alexandra Allen

and

Charlie Bleecker

. Thanks to my editing posse -

Brooke Smith

and

Emma Dorge

- for their eagle eye on this issue. Their discipline in sharing their own draft docs early each week created a rigour I did not know I needed.

A warm welcome to all our new members. Thank you for joining us in Tribe Tilt. We are a small, powerful group that believes we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us - that we radiate hope and agency within our own lives that ripples through to others. If this describes you, you are in the right place.

See you next week. Till then, dear Tilters, stay healthy and happy.

Karena

Have you enjoyed this edition? If you would like to explore more of my writing either hit the arrow in the 👈🏼 left-hand corner below or try one of the issues on the three core topics that I explore as we “Raise Future-Ready Leaders”:

Future of Work, Raising Future-Ready Leaders, and Climate.
One within the Climate cluster:

1. The next Write of Passage WoP cohort 13 starts August 26, 2024. Enrollment closes on August 16, 2024. If your manifesto leads you to explore your thoughts through writing, I’d recommend it. It is craft and community packaged together.