Who’s got the power? #PowerLab
Physicians and therapists, activists and academics, politicos and personal development practitioners, there are so many people working on healing things. From the body, to community, to systems and society, millions of us who’ve felt a call to try to help.
But is all our work actually making a difference?
I recently came across the brilliant learning designer Zahra Davidson and her ace project Enrol Yourself. In a moment when it feels like our social consciousness is slowly reawakening, Zahra’s idea is to have crafted an experience that can help small groups of people from diverse fields join up, explore their biggest questions and realise their potential.
When Zahra recently invited me to run a Learning Marathon for Enrol Yourself, I leapt at the chance to dig into some of my nagging questions — personal and professional itches I’ve been wanting to scratch for a while. The genius of the opportunity is that it’s designed to fit around busy lives and work, to bring spaciousness and perspective rather than added stress, and to offer more community, accountability and inspiration than you can get alone.
A chance to explore your own burning questions alongside 10 fellow adventurers, all experts in their own fields, pursuing their own fascinations? Unmissable.
So I’ve decided to organise a Learning Marathon under the title #PowerLab. The aim is to gather 10–12 people who have some sort of real personal or professional interest in questions of power or agency at any level.
Perhaps you work on the mind, the body, even the soul and your focus is on making it tick? Maybe you work in Westminster, an NGO, a think tank and you spend your days obsessing over policy, searching for the next step to unlock social progress?
Or you could be a frontline practitioner — a coach, an entrepreneur, an artist, a journalist — any sort of public servant who’s dedicated to your field and striving to build deeper expertise and mastery?
Together we will embark on a 6 month journey to explore our questions, trade expertise and perspectives, and hopefully grow ourselves in each other’s supportive company.
More structured than a conversation down the pub. More meaningful than just another online course you’ll never complete. Way more accessible — both money and time-wise — than any Masters. It’s like a 21st Century upgrade of the Open University, except here the students set their own agenda, doing is on a par with knowing, and the process matters as much as any line on your CV at the end of it.
Professionally, I keep meeting remarkable people who are working incredibly hard to try to repair our world. Personally, I have my own experience of change-making including trying to come to terms with a chronic disease. In both cases, I sense relentless commitment, endless energy to serve, real power to make a difference- and yet so much continues to appear incurable? In terms of my own learning question, It makes me wonder about wisdom.
Let me be a little more specific:
Imagine having a spine that was slowly fusing. No matter what you tried, living in a body that was relentlessly, endlessly, incurably failing.
Imagine supporting a freedom fighter in a dictatorship. Someone striving to bring dignity to their neighbours despite corruption, limited rule of law and violent reprisal. How does it feel to live with authoritarianism — relentless, endless, incurable?
Imagine a Monday morning commute sat next to a young woman telling a friend how she’d spent her Saturday night tending to a man who’d been shot in the face and a second who’d be stabbed repeatedly. Escalating violent crime in London this year — seemingly relentless, endless, incurable.
Not everyone has to imagine. Through a mix of bad luck and amazing privilege, I’ve recently experienced all three. So I want to explore what can be done? As I look at the world around me, where does the power really lie?
What might you explore?
Are environmentalists wise to warn that ecological armageddon is impending? Or are we, as counselled by those like Steven Pinker and Obama, on a long curve of progress, perhaps soon to emerge into technological utopia?
Is it true that violent crime is not going up proportionately in the UK? Maybe our media has just whipped us into a frenzy? Or is the fact that there are children stabbing each other, further afield helplessly dying at the hands of chemical weapons, portentous of something darker?
Is Pret a Manger and an endless debate about sugar tax really the best we can do about obesity? Are prescription drugs all that we want to bet on for chronic disease? Are sexy instagram six packs far too tantalising for us to waste time worrying about real health or enormous and rising health inequalities?
I have no answers. I’m not sure if it’s even worth asking all of these questions. But I do know that the ability to face up to such challenges (maybe also to fail at them) is what makes us human. So I want to invite you to dare to be curious. Be brave with your explorations of what’s possible. Join me and a group of multidisciplinary peers to look into our power and agency.
If you’re as interested as I am in exploring any of this then come along to our open evening in Westminster on Wednesday 9th May andfind out more. Or write to me via david@enrolyourself.com. I’m enrolling myself. Will you join me?
PS Because all this is about action as much as theory, I’m actually also running an actual marathon this year. But that’s another adventure…
