Why we’re on the midst of a million undeniable breakthroughs and why that’s the most beautiful thing
“Sometimes it takes an overwhelming breakdown to have an undeniable breakthrough.”
So said ‘anonymous,’ and then, on Tuesday, my yoga teacher.
Folks, in case you hadn’t noticed (perhaps you’ve just come back from a silent meditation or, nope, there’s no other reason you’d have missed this) we’re in the middle of an overwhelming breakdown.
While most of the internet is articulating just how fast and how deep this breakdown is going to be, I thought it’d be more interesting to spend a moment on all the incredible breakthroughs we’re seeing and will see.
Because, this moment is MASSIVE. In terms of behavior change, it’s kind of like, well, remember your first day of college? Or your first job? All of a sudden everything was different: the people, the places, all your norms, from the food you ate to the clothes you wore to the language you used. Well, now imagine everyone in the world started college at the very same time.
Here’s the way I’m seeing it: this, humans of the 21st century, is our chance to reform our societies. For good.
What could it look like?
The answers are up to us. We have the opportunity to design our future. But, where do we start?
Early on in the pandemic, I began a daily inspiration standup with some friends from my IDEO alumni group. IDEO is a design consultancy which uses human centered design to create positive change for organizations worldwide. The alumni group is a loose connection of all of the designers and change agents who left IDEO to create impact from directly within the companies they joined or the startups they founded.
As the weeks have gone on and the stories we captured grew, a fellow alumna, Kate Piper, and I noticed something: we were developing a richer, more nuanced, and more optimistic view of the pandemic and post-pandemic world than many trend forecasts and articles we were reading.
So, we decided to extend this collaboration more broadly to share inspiration and invite others into the conversation.
We formed Creative Collisions — a collective of designers looking for inspiration from around the world — and plan to regularly share that inspiration.
Our first share is on the topic of ‘Living Local’ with more themes to come. Check it out, tell us what you think, and sign up here for our Curiosity Club if you’d like to receive regular updates.
Because, while we’re not sure what the future will look like, we’re certain that if we come together as creative leaders and begin with optimism, we can shape it into something beautiful.
Amy Bonsall is the founder and CEO of Nau, a business focused on increasing the humanity in workplaces, building on the principles of design thinking, mindfulness, and behavior change.
Creative Collisions is a collective of designers, founded by Amy Bonsall and Kate Piper, focused on surfacing the beauty in the evolutions the coronavirus pandemic has created.
