Looking back on this year, we’re grateful for you. Whether it was your emails, our conversations, gatherings, or your hand-written cards, your thoughts, words, and acts of support and encouragement inspire us to keep our highest aspirations in sight. We feel blessed to contribute to realizing SoulCo’s vision of a world where people come alive at work and in life supported by the education, connection, and inspiration of learning communities.
Building on the foundation of the SoulCo Learning Lab that we launched earlier this year, we’ve been learning by doing through the ever-expanding power of awareness. Our work began with our own personal mindfulness training prompted by the questions: Who am I? What is my work? As we experienced the results in ourselves, we saw the potential of mindfulness practices to cultivate wellbeing in businesses, and transform the way we work at the organizational level.
From September to December, we participated in the MITx online u.lab course, Leading from the Emerging Future, with Otto Scharmer and his team. That online-to-offline learning experience came at the perfect moment as we were considering the question: “What’s next?” after Jung completed her Search Inside Yourself (SIY) Teacher Certification training to facilitate mindfulness-based emotional intelligence skills-building programs.
She sensed the unlimited potential for these skills to transform beyond individuals and organizations, yet the path hadn't become visible. Coming out of our u.lab experience, we now see the full potential of awareness-based practices applied to systems, and how it could build our collective capacity for leading profound innovation and change.
At the same time, we had repeatedly experienced the power of learning from one-another in community. As the technologist David Weinberger says, “The smartest person in the room is the room,” and we’ve been consistently delighted and inspired by our “rooms” of learners and teachers! Most recently we were inspired by the participants in the room during the 90-minute interactive learning session on “Grow Your Venture: Emotional Intelligence for Entrepreneurs,” which Jung ran as a kick-off event for the WEBOS (Women Entrepreneurs in Boston) Week at District Hall in October. At a similar session for entrepreneurs at the Fairmount Innovation Lab in September, a participant inspired us with her insight: “How could leaders create a psychologically safe environment for their teams when they don’t feel safe in their own hearts and minds?”
We’ve come to appreciate how practical, applicable, and valuable mindfulness and compassion practices are for living on purpose with a sense of wholeness. These words from the Dalai Lama resonate with our intention to contribute our attention and action toward that purpose:
We must conceive of ourselves as part of one community. We must support that one humanity through our own spiritually-based community, and not put our own community ahead of that one humanity. If we want a better world for our grandchildren, we must act now. We can’t continue to just “regret, regret, regret.” Change will come from education, not meditation. A sense of wholeness is a necessity. We must move from “I” to “We.” (Italics added)
So what’s next? We feel pulled to build, cultivate, and sustain more learning communities in 2019 — starting with communities of entrepreneurs and professionals who yearn to make a difference that matters to them and to the world.
As a first step, Jung has joined the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) in Kendall Square. One journalist referred to this Cambridge facility as “the densest collection of cool startups under one roof anywhere in the world.” We feel the energy of the impactful things that people at CIC do, and look forward to connecting, co-creating, and collaborating with leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals in this space and beyond, both locally and globally.
We look forward to making our sincere heart-smart contribution to the world moving from “I” to “We” in the New Year: the co-creation of learning communities by seeding, cultivating, and caring for the collective potential dormant in us, waiting to be awakened to sprout, blossom, and flourish to ensure wellbeing for all.
Thank you for reading. We look forward to staying in touch.
May we all have a happy and healthy start to 2019!
With gratitude and joy, Jung & Charles
Updates on SoulCo
SoulCo and Societal Transformation Lab
SoulCo has been accepted to participate in the Social Transformation Lab (STL) of the Presencing Institute. The STL convenes teams who are working to bridge the environmental, social and spiritual divides of our time. In January 2019, SoulCo will be joining an emerging community of over 300 teams from around the world.
For two decades, the Presencing Institute has explored questions such as: What does it take to redesign societies in ways that address the pressing challenges of our time? What does it take to apply the power of mindfulness to the transformation of the collective system?
STL’s exploration aligns with SoulCo’s mission to co-create learning communities to facilitate a shift of mindset from “I” (self-interest, ego-system) to “We” (wellbeing of the whole system, eco-system). When SoulCo ran an online program for the startup accelerator, muru-D in Australia in the spring, we noticed a learning community forming around the startup founders who chose to participate in the leadership program. Although they each had independent ventures, they connected at a level that wouldn't have been possible if they were not learning about emotional intelligence skills together. Through such connection they were able to support each other outside class time. So we’re curious to see if this kind of learning community would work in a broader entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The goal of our participation in STL is to develop a prototype in response to these questions: Would entrepreneurs benefit from a community where they can learn and practice mindfulness and emotional intelligence skills to connect and support one another? If yes, how can we co-create such a community?If you would like to nominate anyone (including yourself) who might be interested in joining us for this experiment from February to June 2019 as an extended team member, please email us, and we would be happy to provide more details. We currently have 5 seats open in our STL lab. There is no cost to join.
New Video Series
Just as we learn in community, we (Jung and Charles) learn from each other in conversation. Since the start of our daily meditation practices, we’ve noticed that many of our most valued insights have come out of our own sharing, listening, and reflecting with each other. These impromptu conversations happen at home, when driving, or in the office. After saying one too many times, “We should’ve recorded that,” we set the intention to do exactly so.
We’ve begun developing a series of videos with the working title of “Fierce Dialogues.” In these informal conversations, we explore the application of mindfulness, awareness, and compassion practices in everyday life and in being “compassionate messes” as human beings.
We enjoy experimenting with these videos and have discovered that in the process of recording, we learn more about the application of mindfulness practices and the power of awareness we bring to the everyday challenge of being human. We’ll launch the series in early 2019.
Upcoming SoulCo Learning Lab Programs
Our intention in 2019 is to co-create learning communities where participants are supported, and support each other, while learning and practicing emotional intelligence skills that we haven’t been taught in school.
There is a myriad of leadership books, courses, and programs that include mindfulness and emotional intelligence. Yet, what we learn intellectually while reading, viewing, or absorbed in a weekend workshop rarely sticks. When we get back to the office, our old habits return. It’s natural. That’s what habits are. Just like learning a new language, we need to regularly practice and apply what we’ve learned so that we can develop new habits to support our wellbeing and create results that serve the wellbeing of our teams, organizations, and communities.
The good news is that we don’t need special equipment or circumstance to practice these skills and develop healthy habits. Our everyday life presents plenty of opportunities for practice. As we know from the science of neuroplasticity, what we practice grows stronger. We can accelerate the process by learning in community, just like when we learn a new language. Having peers to practice with, to get feedback from, and to share what is working and not working, helps us to keep going, find what works best for us, and get new habits to stick.
Hence our intention to form learning communities around common areas of interest, concern, and aspiration.
The upcoming SoulCo Learning Lab schedule will soon be on our events page. The topics in the first quarter of 2019 will include:
Power of Awareness at Work
This four-week introductory mindfulness course is for you if you give everything you have to your work, only to end up feeling depleted at the end of the day. Are stress, overwhelm, and anxiety getting in the way of your performing up to your full capabilities? Are pressures at work getting between you and your family and friends — a rough day at the office leads to a rough evening at home? Work can be fulfilling, inspiring, and rewarding, yet it can also be demanding, tedious, and challenging.
It’s possible to navigate all these emotions, challenges, and opportunities with more ease and move toward balance. Imagine feeling in tune with your greater purpose and thriving in your work and relationships. With a regular, supported mindfulness practice, all of this becomes increasingly possible.
In this course, we’ll explore how mindfulness can support you to: reduce stress, increase productivity, improve communication, prioritize better, strengthen problem-solving and decision-making skills; and most of all, enjoy work.
Beautiful Emotions for Resilience
Entrepreneurship is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. What would your work and life look like if you could develop the inner resources to sustain your motivation and energy regardless of what comes your way? What is your choice of fuel for your venture?
Back in 2002, we read Tim Sanders’ Love is the Killer App. We felt then, that his book was ahead of the curve. Coming into 2019, we still rarely see “love” as part of business strategy, much less as part of technology.
Yet we know that its opposites: fear, anger, and apathy make us judgmental, inflexible, and brittle. We may respond less effectively and appropriately to what’s happening as it’s happening. We’re not even aware when the voices of judgement, cynicism, and fear seep in, and lead us to collectively create results nobody wants.
There’s another way. We can learn and cultivate aspects of love through a time-tested framework. Over the four one-hour sessions of this program, we’ll explore and practice how four facets of love: goodwill, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity can be applied to grow your capacity to meet opportunities and challenges with resilience, creativity, and joy, all in balance.
From Power of Presence to North Star
We all have minds and emotions, but rarely have we been taught how they work. This exploration begins with a foundation of being aware moment-by-moment of our minds, bodies, emotions, speech, and actions. With this foundation, we then turn to different domains of emotional intelligence: well-being, emotional awareness, managing strong emotions, resilience, empathy, and intention.
In this eight-week course (1 hour/session), participants will have the opportunity to explore a variety of topics together and develop the knowledge and concrete tools to enjoy the benefits of mindfulness and emotional intelligence in everyday work and life.
Week 1: Power of Presence Week 2: Wellbeing Week 3: The Root of Emotions Week 4: Strong Emotions & Resilience Week 5: Having a Practice Week 6: Intention Week 7: Connecting with Others Week 8: North Star
Four Resources We Recommend
Stillness | Courage | Inspiration Light in Darkness: A Letter from Br. David “Once you have experienced simultaneous awareness of light and its arising out of darkness, you have caught a glimpse of The Mystery of Origination. You will be able to find that mystery again and again, whenever you look with the same trustful attention of your heart’s eyes at other things.”
Emotions | Relationships | Community The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2018 “There is plenty of science to convince us that social connection is key to wellbeing. But relationships are complicated, bringing good and bad into our lives. This year’s top insights speak to the practical forces that unite us or divide us—both in intimate relationships and in our communities.”
Ecology | Society | Economics A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow “In a stellar, eye-opening talk, Oxford economist Kate Raworth explains how we can move countries out of the hole — where people are falling short on life’s essentials — and create regenerative, distributive economies that work within the planet’s ecological limits.”
Leadership | Societal Transformation | Awareness Turning the Tide: Living Inside the Axial Shifts by Otto Scharmer “Something has shifted over the past few weeks and months. Not just since the recent US midterm elections or the climate deal in Katowice last week. There’s some real change in the air. In fact, it’s been there for a while. But we might not have noticed it…”
