Current e-Journal

Dear friends,

We had planned a different newsletter for this week. But as has happened for so many of us, nothing is as we had planned. Or as we had hoped and worked towards.

I have a whole lot of observations. About race and class. About what fear does to the human brain. Observations about money and power. And a lot more.

But mostly my observations come back to the need for us to create what is possible. And the fact that when we focus so intently on what is wrong instead of what is possible, we end up with – well – what we’ve got.

We are encouraged to believe that reaching for what is possible is a pipe dream, when in fact the only thing that has led to anything amazing – from civil rights to cell phones – is reaching for what is possible.

And yet, we are wired to react, with a culture that then doubles down on that reactivity. We value strong reactions, powerful reactions, justified reactions. Human history is littered with reactionary leaders who have popular followings. We just voted one of those reactionary leaders in as president of the most powerful nation on earth.

Here’s the thing:
We can do better than always playing defense.

That is why Creating the Future focuses on questions that can change those mindsets.

It is why, week after week, we share those questions with you.

And it is why I am writing today to implore you to put those questions to work RIGHT NOW.

As those of you who have supported our work know, we do not intend for Creating the Future to be around forever. In the next few years, we will build a library of resources as our legacy, and leave it to you to share this approach for living into what is possible – this approach for literally creating the future.

But you don’t have to wait until Creating the Future is gone to take this message and these questions into the world. That is why we share all of this with you, week after week, year after year. To encourage you to RIGHT NOW use the questions of Catalytic Thinking to create the joyful, healthy world we all want.

We share these questions, week after week, so that right now you will be able to think more inclusively and act more inclusively. (Who will be affected by what we are doing? What would it take for them to be part of this work? To LEAD this work?).

We share these questions, week after week, so that right now you will be able to think through the lens of creating vs. reacting (What do we want to make possible for all those people who will be affected? What would it take for that potential to be reality?).

We share these questions, week after week, so that right now you will be able to think and work through the lens of enoughness, sharing and holding each other close (What do we have together, to build upon our collective strength?).

If ever there were a time to take these questions into the world, into your work, into your conversations with friends, this is the time.

Our superpower is our power to create what is possible. The lesson of the past week is nothing if not a lesson in what happens when we play defense all day every day. It is an object lesson in the losing proposition of living reactively (How will we react to the problems we face? How will we make sure the other guy doesn’t win?).

If you are reading these words, you have access to a simple set of questions that can change everything. If you have been nervous about trying out these questions, now is the time for you to take that courageous step of asking different questions – questions that will get us so much closer to creating the humane, equitable, joyful, healthy world you want to live in.

Every week we give you the tools. Every week we make our classes “pay what you can” so that everyone can take these tools and not just run with them but fly.

We do this because we firmly believe that we are, all of us collectively, the saviors we have been waiting for.

Now it is your turn.

As you do your work, as you address the problems we will be facing in the next few years, we implore you to move away from playing defense – defense against the problems, defense against the “other side.” We implore you to take the tools and classes we have provided for you, and start asking the questions that will create what is possible, and to let those questions guide your work.

And we implore you to share this message with the people in your life, to encourage others to move beyond defensive reactivity. To provide others with the simple questions that will finally, once and for all, create what we all sense is possible.

That shift in mindsets is our only path to hope. It is the only path to what we humans have the capacity to be for each other and for our planet.

It is the path to creating the future.