SUSTAINABILITY
Sovereign Magazine
Learn to move Mountains® How you can move mountains too | By Elaine France, founder of Flow In Action | Sponsored by Lemania-Verbier International School. To find out more visit www.lvis.ch for more information.
N
elson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done!”, so how do you learn to move mountains?
Bright ideas to take action in our communities and for the planet don’t just popup already formed. Innovation starts in the soupy unformed mess of everyday life. Designing real and radical solutions is a process that starts with empathy. And I would add, that there is no empathy without love.
The L-word The L-word. Love. That new, old disruptor: the lens we need to start re-looking through with some purpose, urgency and agency to disrupt the fear-mongers, sceptics and cynics making a land-grab on resources and power. I mention the L-word because love as the greatest of our positive emotions, opens up our deepest capacity to create, find new perspectives and step away from fear and scarcity-thinking. Barbara L Fredrickson’s work on this shows how love unlocks your imagination and creativity, out of which ideas for solving seemingly intractable problems start to flow. I have taken to calling it the Tao of Innovation. Love triggers the how of things, how things happen, the process of having ‘ideas of value’ as Sir Ken Robinson calls them; the process leading to real innovation which supports the flourishing of people and planet.
Design around love for the planet Much of the work I have done with young people recently, has been around UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities.
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Elaine has worked for 25 years as a change-maker and understands the challenges of taking action as a global citizen, growing sustainable solutions from within communities, rather than ‘doing it’ them to them. She brings expertise and perspectives from across sectors, with tools and strategies that enable every individual to become an adventurer who dares to dream and has the courage to turn their ideas into reality. She works to create a circle of impact, empowering others so that they share and transfer those skills around the globe wherever they are, so that lasting change happens organically from the inside out
