While life is a magical and mysterious journey, with more questions than answers, I do find ground for my being, and purpose and passion to fuel my doing, in timeless principles, time-tested practices, and in the process of co-creation and collaboration with others.

My intention with this blog is to share experiences and insights into the process of Working for Good. Specifically, I intend to post principles of Working for Good every Monday and to post reflections on the week every weekend. I share these experiences and insights, and those of Elad Levinson and Julie van Amerongen, my colleagues in Working for Good, to stimulate your thinking, support your actions, catalyze conversations that can deepen our understanding, and, ideally, establish new relationships and collaborations.

I will soon publish a free eBook with a collection of Principles of Working for Good and will similarly publish free audio streams of exercises to cultivate the skills of Working for Good, which come from my book, Working for Good: Making a Difference, While Making a Living (Sounds True, September 2009).

I look forward to sharing this conversation with you and to supporting each other in our journey in Working for Good.

Namaste,

Jeff

One of my principal interests and intentions relates to the issue of how we can cultivate and express our humanity in and though our work. By humanity, I refer to the essential human attributes of love, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, and other qualities that foster flow, connection, and generative energy.

Typically, these attributes are not a principle focus of attention in the context of business and work, but they seem to be increasingly relevant and recognized as essential to the success of our businesses, the well-being of our society, and the sustainability of our ecosystem.

Through my work as Executive Director of FLOW, I am fortunate to encounter “conscious entrepreneurs” every day who are bringing humanity into the workplace and into the DNA of their organizations.  This week I learned about Blake Mycoskie of TOMS Shoes, which has donated over 115,000 shoes to children in need around the world through buy-one-give-one-away model. For every pair of shoes he sells, he gives one away. Building a profitable company, while providing a broader service to society, and, in his words proving that “entrepreneurs can focus on being ambassadors of humanity.”

Last weekend I was honored to be a Change Agent in Residence at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute on Bainbridge Island, WA. I was deeply impressed by the well-rounded and rigorous curriculum, the intellectual rigor and emotional intelligence of the staff and students, depth of passion and purpose, and the palpable embodiment and expression of humanity that permeated the community and its culture.

I just returned from a walking meeting with Melinda Kramer and Amira Diamond from the Women’s Earth Alliance, a non-profit that provides capacity-building technical and entrepreneurial training to women in developing communities. While expressing humanity is something we expect non-profits to do, what was exciting for me to find, and which is something I am finding more and more of, is their grounded and balanced humanity, which emanates from a place of wholeness and idealism, rather than scarcity and fear. They understand the essential need for self-care, and for acting in ways that a congruent with their mission.

And this recognition and expression of humanity is not simply the domain of start-up entrepreneurs, sustainable MBA programs, and social entrepreneurs, but is beginning to blossom in substantial companies, even during this time of economic adversity. Companies like Whole Foods Market, REI, the Container Store, and others sustain their commitment to a higher purpose, their recognition of and full engagement of their interdependent stakeholders, and lead from a place of service, rather than greed.

While this is not an easy time for any of us, I think that the extent to which we can reside in our humanity, and conduct ourselves in business and our work from our humanity, we can establish a new, more sustainable fabric for our economy and for the lives that it sustains.

For those of you in the SF Bay area, please join Elad Levinson and me, and the 20 or so people who will be participating in the first Working for Good workshop in Mill Valley on Saturday May 2nd.  You can find more details here.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, and encouraging you to feed your humanity.

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

“We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”  ~ T.S. Eliot

Today is my 51st birthday, another pause for reflection. One way of looking at it, is as the first day of the second half of my life. Pretty encouraging! This feels like a good opportunity to reflect on the principle of Arriving.

I vividly remember one day when my daughter Meryl Fé was 8. As was often the case, I was in somewhat of a hurry, and needed to get her moving, out of the house, to the car, and on the road. The more anxious I was about leaving, the slower she moved. The more I beseeched her, the more belligerent she became. Until she finally said something to the effect of, “Dad, if you want me to move, then connect with me first. Don’t just try to pull me along.” Needless to say, that was like having a bucket of ice cold water dumped on my head. I immediately stopped, took a breath, got down onto my knees so I could be eye to eye with her, apologized, then told her how I was feeling, and that we needed to get going for very specific reasons. I then asked her if she understood and if she had any questions, thoughts, or feelings. She responded that she didn’t, and said, “let’s go!” which we did, with ease, joy, and great flow.

To go somewhere, you’ve got to start from somewhere. The place we start from is always the same. Right here. And the time of our departure is always the same. Right now. We can only start from right here, right now. And while we may be able to fool ourselves that we can begin without arriving here and now first, as my experience with Meryl Fé illustrates, this illusion is easily shattered when we try to do so with others.

Connecting with our breath, our bodies, other people; welcoming, greeting, acknowledging; clearly articulating our intentions, objectives, and agendas can support us to arrive to right here and right now, and prepare the ground for moving with flow.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” ~ Lao Tzu

Wishing you a rich and rewarding journey!

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

www.workingforgood.com