I’ve experienced four decades of adult life. During that time, I pursued the question, “What is my life purpose?”
It’s January 1st, 2050 and Earth is a cooperative place. I’m writing this on February 19th, 2024 to share what I did and how it grew like wildfire. I opened people’s eyes and ears to an alternative means of communicating and collaborating.
After a career in healthcare and higher education where I observed, participated in and led systemic change, I got curious about what I could leave tomorrow’s learners, especially my grandchildren and the world.
In 2018 I received a certificate to establish a 501. (c)(3) nonprofit organization. WebStudy Foundation was established as a solution shop that would engage people with different perspectives to talk and listen to each other. The issue I set out to change was that the ‘right hand’ didn’t talk to the ‘left hand’. This communication phenomena are evident between siblings, parents, spouses, organizations, departments within institutions, communities, cultures and countries etc.
I found numerous writings from people who advocated that humanity embrace the paradox of what seems absurd is actually well founded. For example, how could a victim of genital mutilation forgive the person responsible and live in the same neighborhood? As a society, what if we could re-direct the same energy of what appears wrong as a perspective? It seems like we cannot understand it because it was formed outside of our belief system. My belief system was formed by my culture, family and geographically where I grew up. What if I held the same belief system as a person who grew up in Beijing, China? What do we have in common?
All of humanity shares language. The variation arises in what we think, say and do with language.
We do not have to agree on a topic we disagree with. We can agree to align on a shared commitment such as world peace, love, prosperity and freedom.
The more I learned the more I grew as a person. Most of my adult life was pre-set by childhood incidents where I dominated other people (to avoid being bullied) and I sought to control all circumstances (to repent for making a big mistake). When I realized these attributes were not permanent. I was capable of creating a myriad of other characteristics.
From 2019 to 2024, I created and lived inside a commitment to create a “World Empowered by Learning”. I talked and listened to hundreds of people from all sectors. I was moved by the work of numerous organizational development experts who had designed and facilitated large-scale collaboration in events with 5000 people.
I was so moved by the capacity that a collaborative methodology was proven effective but had not become mainstream practice. This accelerated the kinds of partnerships I formed for WebStudy Foundation to grow from an idea to a reality.
In founding WebStudy Foundation, I packaged the work of Lenny Lind and Karl Danskin, authors of Virtuous Meetings as an alternative solution to how educators and employers communicate and collaborate. This proven methodology can be applied to ANY challenge. My commitment was aimed specifically at educational attainment.
Digital transformation is reshaping what society created in the industrial era. Humankind is being called to educate a greater number of people for different kinds of work. If we achieve mutual understanding, humanity would be capable of accepting paradoxes; not limiting the apparent contradiction as wrong and immovable. When we agree to disagree, we can align on innovative solutions to elevate the quality of a purposeful life.
Our offer began in the United States, then grew to other countries. We offered convenings instead of meetings. Meetings are attended to be told something. Convenings are attended to solve challenges.
People inspired by this process and methodology executed 760 convenings focused on converging education and employment between 2024- 2034. Between 2030 – 2050, the process evolved to be used to impact challenges like preventative health practices, resource abundance, economic growth and peaceful resolutions of power. Between 2030 – 2040, a larger number of facilitators were skilled in these methods being delivered in an additional fifty countries. By 2050, the process of collaboration across humanity became mainstream practice in all 189 countries.
What role do you want to play in this evolutionary process?