Looking Forward into the Future

I had pretty much let go of the idea that I would send out a newsletter this week. I told myself it was no big deal if I missed a week here or there.

In fact, this has been my experience each week for the past two years!

Then this happened this morning.

Recently I have been focused on pulling together a presentation for the Founders Live 99-second pitch competition.

Nick Hughes, CEO and founder is also someone I have interviewed for Forward Thinking workplaces. He has built a hugely successful community of founders that meet and support each other virtually and locally in over 100 cities worldwide.

While researching for the presentation, I came across a post from last year describing my experience in coming up with a new narrative based on the work of Andy Raskin.

It was then that I realized that I wanted to ask myself a new and bigger question for today's world.

Here's a recap of my old story and the new question I am now asking.

We are conditioned to hold on to our old stories

We are conditioned to tell and hold on to our stories that define who we are and how we've always done things.

It's not as easy as it sounds to break out of those patterns.

Asking new questions can help us break those patterns and see ourselves and the world as they are.

Several years ago, I started asking myself this question that I learned from Andy Raskin of the Bigger Narrative to help me look beyond my stories:

What shift has occurred in the world that creates a need for what you do?

I came up with the following narrative (brief version):

The world has shifted, and new rules apply. It used to be you would win by managing change, following best practices, working harder, or even smarter. It was the age of Industrial Thinking and people as profit-producing units.

Now you move forward with new questions, synchronicity, and one mind to allow the collective voice, wisdom, and energy of everyone to emerge for the benefit of all. It's the age of Forward Thinking and allowing people to be themselves.

Looking beyond the workplace

Until two years ago, my attention was largely focused on the workplace through my efforts at Forward Thinking Workplaces.

Then the pandemic triggered me to look more inward, and Space Beyond Boundaries and this blog came into existence.

But more recently, I've started to rethink Raskin's question in this new context of Space Beyond Boundaries.

I believe there is now a bigger question to ask today.

What shifts are occurring in the world that creates a need for me to show up more fully as my authentic self and achieve my highest goal?

Clearly, the challenges we are facing in the world today are significant and seem to press on us more every day.

The challenges are so significant we largely feel helpless to do anything about them. We all hope new leadership will show up and save us and the world.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article that was published in the Cutter Amplify journal.

A prompt from the editors to write an article about teams resulted in an unexpected response from me: The 21st Century Team Member Is a Leader of One: Themselves.

The idea and site of everyone is a leader emerged from that paper and is now forming at LeaderONE.org.

My work at LeaderONE will focus on making what was learned at Forward Thinking Workplaces and SpaceB more valuable and actionable.

My pitch for Founders Live will aim at seeking the help of others to make the mission of helping more people step into their own leadership a reality.

I believe if you are a human, you are a leader.

— Bill

I invite you to share what you found most intriguing in the comments (online) below.

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— Bill Fox, Founder, Space Beyond Boundaries