A roadmap from Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard for the uncharted times ahead

Gina Lazenby with Barbara Marx Hubbard talking on Brexit morning about the bigger picture of what this all means

A small group of women had gathered to listen to Barbara Marx Hubbard, considered the original futurist and a woman who has written many books about conscious evolution. We were brought together on Friday, June 24 by Mirella Sula of Global Woman Magazine. The kind of women who showed up were all passionate about aligning their business interests with their deep commitment to creating change in the world. Barbara Marx Hubbard is definitely a poster girl for understanding how to ride waves of change, and at age 86 she been a leader in this field for over half a century.

I travelled down to the gathering from the north of England especially to meet Barbara. What started out as an interesting and exciting encounter became something a little more urgent as we were all trying to grapple with the surprising news about Brexit … the UK’s unexpected departure from the EU was just announced a couple of hours before we met. Barbara was a perfect mentor for putting all this real and potential chaos into perspective. Barbara was with us for just over an hour and half of that time was for questions. I was very keen to have time for an interview so when I heard that she was leaving immediately for the House of Lords, I asked to join her and ended up doing my video and audio interview in the back of a London taxi cab .. as you do !!

Here is the interview to watch. It’s very insightful and couldn’t be more perfect in its timing to begin to give us a roadmap. We are used to living in uncertain times but the political structures that we have become accustomed to, and we know no longer serve us, are actually dismantling hour by hour. There really is no map for what is ahead and it is crying out for a new kind of leadership, something we have not seen before but have to do envision afresh. I have also Transcript BMH Interview so that you can read it here … there is much to digest.

A few key insights:
This is all meant to happen as part of evolution
In order to have transformation happen, which is what we are seeking in order to fix our systems that no longer work, breakthroughs have to be created but breakthroughs can only come once we’ve had breakdown. This is exactly the space were are in now with our political system and democracy.

It looks fearful because that is all we are focusing on
The media we have is operating in the old paradigm and is only reporting everything that is bad news. The total focus is on what’s not working and we are in such an overload with that this weekend, it puts people in a state of fear, and against each other.  There are plenty of initiatives around the world of things being done differently and successfully that would give us hope but they are not being included in this one-sided news story. It is hard to have a vision for new possibilities when you are ignorant of all the good things that are already being instigated through other people’s creativity. Hope over fear will be a guiding light.

Why there is a big opportunity here for women
New leadership is needed and this is likely to come from the women. It by no means indicates that women would take over, it simply means that the men who created the systems that have now broken are trapped in an old way of working. It’s hard for them to see alternatives. Men are structured into a success syndrome culture but that’s not a natural way for women to work. This is where our creativity will come in and our feminine style of leadership with different values. Compassion, tolerance, intuition, listening, community building .. these are all highly feminine capacities which are being called for at this time.

Connection and community is key
Around the world people are already gathering in small groups, like we did in London on Friday, to discuss new ways forward. We don’t know what we are each doing … there is an urgency for us to connect. As Barbara said, everything that rises has to mobilise. Creating communities of common purpose that can connect to each other will be the way forward. As the big power systems start to collapse, which is quite terrifying to most people, the potential void creates space for the new initiatives to come through. The gaps are always frightening but they give us a chance so we need courage.

Men need our help
This is the time where the evolving woman needs to nurture the evolving man. We have to give men love, support and guidance to enable them to step into different ways of being that they are not familiar with. While stepping forward we also need to step back and provide a space of holding, to enable men to take on the inner exploration that they need to find their own creativity in a way that they have not done before. It is a beautiful and scary journey for all but at the end of it we will be creating different kinds of relationships where both the man and woman will be aligned by the passion that comes from the jointly supporting each others’ purpose.

The Dalai Lama is right about women saving the world …
He has said that the world will be saved by western women. We’ve got the freedom, the education and for those over 50 and the decades beyond, there is much less focus on child care. We know how to love a family and our concept of family has expanded globally. Barbara so elegantly put it: “We have more love in our hearts than we were able to give in the old structures”. We are on the loose with energy and passion and we need to mobilise … !

The Breakfast Event where Barbara had been speaking was organised by Mirela Sula, Founder of Global Woman Magazine. Their next major event is the Global Women’s Summit on July 30-31

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International Yoga Day: listen to the secrets of the world’s oldest yoga teacher (age 97!)

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Today is the second International Yoga Day. It’s the brainchild of the Prime Minister of India and with the backing of the United Nations, June 21st is now the official day to celebrate this ancient art of creating oneness, flexibility and alignment. Today’s Hindustan Times shows photos of thousands of yoga fans practising outside in large venues all over the world. Perhaps the biggest throngs were in India itself. My particular favourites include pictures of the Navy Chief Admiral (not the UK’s, sorry it’s the Indian Navy); the US Ambassador to India in the Bridge position; the Indian Home Minister doing a good Cobra .. and a tweet from the Indian Navy with their sailors on their yoga mats out at sea. Cool! Yoga has arrived it seems … after its 5,000 year history in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that “yoga belongs to the world”.

Yours truly at the Iyengar Studio in San Francisco earlier this year getting over jet lag

Personally I love Yoga but why am I talking about it on a leadership blog? Well I think it’s one of the best skills to have as a new leader. Although in India, the home of yoga, virtually all teachers have historically been male, go outside that country and you’ll now see many female yoga teachers leading the way, in fact most yoga students are women. I attend yoga classes all over the world and the average is 10-20% men participating, rarely more, unless …. it’s in San Francisco …..or the hot Bikram yoga which seems to attract many more men, perhaps because it’s more of an active form of the exercise available in urban centres. Who knows?

So women up and down the land have been taking to yoga for a few decades now (find out on the movie Yogawoman) and what it is doing is helping to cultivate a gentle yet forceful inner strength which is what we need. It helps build resilience and it maintains the body’s ability to be flexible. On the basis that our minds and bodies are connected (is there anyone out there who’s not got that message?) flexibility of thinking is definitely a key leadership trait.

And it keeps you well and living longer. Two years ago I had the good fortune to take a class with the world’s oldest yoga teacher Tao Porchon. I interviewed her afterwards and asked her to share her secrets of not only living well to age 94 but also still traveling and teaching at that age. A short video taken from a longer conversation is available here. It is my most watched video of all the interviews that I have posted. Wait for it …. Tao is now aged 97 and still teaching! She has just launched her autobiography Dancing Light.

In our interview, I asked Tao to share her secrets… her are some:

• Breathe. Breath is our life force and puts us in touch with all the good things in life. Truly, don’t forget to breath. When I was in hospital 25 years ago suffering a stress breakdown the first thing they taught me was how to breath.
• No fear. Tao does not allow fear to come into her life. “I start every day knowing it is going to be my best day”.
• Can do attitude. “I don’t let anyone tell me what I can’t do … I am only interested in what I CAN do, and what I haven’t yet arrived at.”
• Don’t hold tight. Take life seriously but let go.
• Don’t procrastinate. Whatever you want to do in life, see it happening and it will happen.
• Be open. Don’t just say this is the only thing I want … good things come while you are waiting for the good thing!
• Be the student. “I have a lot to learn on this ladder and I have not arrived yet” …. so says the woman who is almost 100!

Check out the video interview that I did with Tao (and see above). Watch a video of her teaching … she has quite a web presence if you search and as soon as I have posted this I am going to order her book … that’s when I have got myself out of Warrior pose … see you in Downward Dog folks !

Doing my tree impression in warm tropical Bali when I was leading a women’s retreat out there.

Jo Cox: the painful loss of a new kind of leader

An unusual combination of MP and activist
Jo Cox MP was exactly the kind of new leader that society and politics needs right now and we didn’t really know what that might look like until the bright media spotlight was thrust on her, sadly for the wrong reasons. She was the first female Member of Parliament to be murdered, and brutally so last Thursday in her home town and constituency while serving her community.  The country was reeling in shock and for the rest of that day and following day… there was no other news.

The more we heard the more we were able to build up a picture of an extraordinary politician and inspiring leader. We listened to work colleagues talk about how wonderful a loving mother she was, with a bright, brilliant intelligence; a ferocious campaigner; a champion for the dispossessed, disadvantaged and vulnerable all over the world with the street cred of having spent most of her adult life working in social justice actually on the ground and working in refugee camps. Not only that but she was effective. People spoke of her energy, passion and practicality and her ability to take on major issues. Apparently she worked with Sarah Brown (wife of ex-PM Gordon) on MDG5, the only Millennium Development goal that by the mid-decade had not had any impact. The issue of maternal health was simply not on the radar of world leaders .. until she put it there. Sarah has since written that the number of deaths of women in childbirth then halved when she championed the issue.

If only we had known all this before, we could have loved her while she lived! And how it would have given us hope that change might be starting to happen. We have got so used to being disillusioned with the whole system that it became easy to forget, or we didn’t see, that a new breed of politician has been coming in to Parliament. I certainly did not know that inspiring individuals like Jo Cox had been motivated to serve the country by standing for election and working inside the House of Commons. Thankfully, she was not alone. On the very night of her death another female MP joined Westminster having been elected to replace the Tooting seat vacated by our new Mayor of London. Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, is another professional, passionate leader who is local born and raised in Tooting and works as an A&E doctor at the local St George’s Hospital.

A new set of values
As people shared their experience of Jo the most commonly quoted traits and values were:

• dedicated,
• passionate,
• loving,
• accessible,
• warm,
• compassionate,
• honest,
• always listening and
• having a huge heart.

Reading through that list one would not normally think that we are talking about a politician, in fact it was this image of a hard-working loving mother and skilled community champion that added to the pain of the tragedy. These are not qualities that are brought so openly to the political arena. Recently, we have seen a huge increase in negativity in the debate between public figures. The appalling personal insults and low quality of dialogue has made many people disengage right when we need to be able to listen and understand how to decide on the future of the country. Our political leaders have not been role models for emotional intelligence and when things get nasty it might be seen to give permission to other people, who may not have full command of their emotions, to express themselves with very inappropriate action … as witnessed last week in an extreme way.

What good can come from this?
BBC new presenter Joanna Gosling asked Jo Cox’ s friend and fellow MP, Stephen Kinnock, if this might mean we could see “a gentler politics?” He replied that there needs to be a reflecting so that the tone of anger is dialed down and that politicians are in fact very good people who need our respect. Jo’s own wish would be for a society of tolerance, hope not hate. Her drive and compassionate approach to all that she did got her noticed by politicians on both sides of the house in the short time she was an MP, just over a year.  Compassion is so rarely brought to bear where big decisions are made in countries and corporations and yet it is exactly what society needs to create change. Only last week I attended a Summit in Berlin called Femme Q where we heard how feminine intelligence will be key to creating change the world with compassion being in the top five traits that leaders need to embrace to create change. Jo Cox was certainly a trail-blazer in feminine leadership.

Jo’s one fault …
Lord Kinnock spoke movingly on live TV, unable to hold back his tears, recalling, as a family friend of twenty years, that he had encouraged her. He was impressed with how she used her high intelligence to solve practical problems and her fight for common sense and fair play. Poignantly, he said “this was a woman who could not be stopped”.  He drew attention to her one fault … in his opinion she was too modest and he advised her to push harder .. for herself, to get heard. This is often the plight for so many women leaders focussing on what is dear to them but unwilling to drew attention to their achievements, letting them speak for themselves. Rather tragically in this case, attention has been drawn to Jo and her work, but a little too late for her to know how highly regarded she was.

Personally I believe there will be a ripple of change. People will absolutely remember the amazing mother and fearless champion who might want day have made it to the top as a party/country leader.  She has set a high benchmark for a new breed of politician who’s loyalty to their community is their priority and who bring new values to play a very different game of politics that actually brings change. That’s my prayer for Jo Cox.