San Francisco, Feb 26: Traveling on Purpose
All Shapeshifters welcome, originally posted here:
http://tinyurl.com/btvnnn
We all know travel can be transformative. A great stretch of road, a deserted beach, unfamiliar food and customs, that guy or gal in the bar…these have the power to change us.
But what if you used travel on purpose to be transformative? What if you could design an adventure to change your life and the lives of others?
Traveling on purpose is changing the world of travel and personal development. It involves journeying to gain skills and experiences, hiking through landscapes that are different and demanding, working on a big project to increase your contribution to the world, and forming a community to support your growth. The convergence of adventure travel, personal development, and community building doesn’t need to be expensive or take you far away from home. You can design your own big project adventure close to home with friends and family.
Our speakers this month are Elizabeth Becker, principal of Becker & Company Consulting, a go-to-market strategy firm, and leader of The Machu Picchu Leadership Adventure; and Todd Sotkiewicz , general manager of Lonely Planet and a world traveler.
Elizabeth will introduce the concept of traveling on purpose and share the results of a travel adventure involving 10 women who embarked on a 6-month leadership development program that included two weeks of trekking in Peru. You can learn more about Elizabeth’s leadership adventures here.
Todd will share his perspective gained from working at Lonely Planet, a company that has been helping folks design their own adventures for over 30 years with travel guides and community, and his own travel adventures.
Elizabeth will be facilitating. She invites you to be in dialog around this topic using the a new way of “doing meeting” called convening. We will meet in circle and engage in a simultaneously ancient and new conversational structure that focuses on inquiry, listening, allowing all voices to be heard and engaging the collective wisdom of the group.
And she, along with Todd, will aid us in exploring how we can catapult ourselves from our day-to-day existence into a new level of enjoyment and contributing to our world by combining eye-opening travel, physically demanding activities, community building, giving back, and big project intention.
MEETING
When: Thursday, February 26th, 6:00-10:00pm (you can come and go anytime during the meeting)
Where: Ninth House, 465 California Street, 14th floor, San Francisco. Please sign in with security downstairs when you come in the main door and register under Abundance League. Then, come up to the 14th floor.
Learn more about our meetings here. And you’re invited to join our new social networking site which links members from three league chapters here.
AGENDA
6:00 - 7:00 Arrive, mingle, nosh
7:00 - 7:45 Member announcements (your passions, needs and gifts)
7:45 - 8:15 Break - exchange support, mingle, nosh
8:15 - 9:30 Discussion
9:30 - 10:00 Mingle, clean up
10:00 - Optional, take the discussion to a nearby bar
BRING
-Yourself, friends
-Healthy finger food for the potluck
-Shares: books, CDs, DVDs or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting
For more information: http://tinyurl.com/btvnnn
I like this posting!
17 Mar 2009
Neal,
I read your comment several times as it is so packed with insights. I totally agree with you and the other Abundance leaguers, travelling is a transformational personal experience and it has a profound impact on the way we work, our relationships and our worldviews. Journeys have been creating some of the best, most powerful and positive stories that we know. That is for sure. Maybe because travelling is such a great metaphor for life itself. Anyway, the question that came to my mind is: How can we get more people to travel and share their insights in a way that makes a difference. Moving from place A to place B is not travelling as I look at it. There is a Japanese proverb: "Seeing it once with your own eyes means more than hearing a hundred news."
27 Feb 2009
Eric, it exceeded my expectations. We had about 35 people show up, which is big by tAL standards. From the turnout and the discussion, it hinted to me that people are on the hunt for a new set up, something more rewarding and personally sustainable than the system which is failing them in so many ways. This has always been a dynamic at tAL, but was more so last night because of the timing and topic. People openly spoke about the need and opportunity to build something new, and not in a political sense. This was very personal. Attendees were incredibly diverse, more so than usual including an owner of a sailing club, college kids, a TV show host, ravers, seasoned corporate professionals, a South African safari guide and tracker, owner of a sailing magazine, a postdoc protein scientist, the usual creatives that show up, and let's not forget the technomads (a couple who do technology consulting while on a never ending road trip thanks to a kick ass trailer and satellite Internet link).
Another key thing was the speakers talked about traveling on purpose from the perspective of a transformational experience. I see an old pattern at work. When people die in one world and are reborn in another, typically involving a revolution in their world view, it's often the result of a dramatic conversion experience. A conversion experience can trigger a cascade of changes in the lives of the converted from how they think to what they do for a living to new choices about friends.
The conversion at hand today is from the old economic and cultural system to a new one based on the culture of the artist, the citizen, and of networks. And / or from a life without purpose and community, to one with purpose and community. These are conversions into a civic religion where there is no central power or orthodoxy, where the new story is being created collectively.
These conversion stories have power. They inspire others. They're viral. And there's a process of transformation at play which can be mapped.
The implications here are that you can create a program that systematically triggers these conversions, allows the converted to tell their stories to a global audience, and empowers the converted to convert others. Add to this is the fact that these conversions happen in a small group context supported by peers in this process.
This is the same dynamic at work in the evangelical church, the burning man community, and in the seduction community. It's the train the trainer approach. You change someone's life and then give them to tools to set up their own church, transformational event, or pick up school. This can be an intentional strategy (churches), or it can emerge organically like in the seduction and burner community.
Last night's event and my talk with Harald this morning made this pattern clear, and gives me new clarity about what to do with the Gen Y magazine and network.
Thanks for asking while this is all fresh in my mind. Your timing is impeccable brother Eric! And no accident. Gratitude.
17 Mar 2009
How do we get people to make this trip? My sense is that this is a pull process. You attract people based on the higher quality of life that people who've made this transition experience. You give those who've made the switch a place to talk about the change in their lives. In evangelical churches, this is called testifying. It's common to have a part of the Sunday service where a lay person comes up front to talk about their new life with Jesus. The Gen Y version would be to do a 3 minute YouTube video about their transformation into a civic and creative being. And you give people an easy way to enter the process with the support of a small group and a curriculum.