Friends,

From the Four Directions is committed to growing a global community through helping more people host more circles of conversation. Our goal is not volume. It is connecting human beings in meaningful conversations about life affirming leadership. It is supporting each other in the leadership that we want to offer in our respective communites.

In From the Four Directions circles we are able to both hear and tell our stories. In our circles we strengthen our clarity and courage about the issues that we most want to lead on behalf of.

We welcome all to participate. Please watch for a separate email later this month describing our new Circle Starter Kit, specifically intended to help people get started.

For today, two stories from friends. The first, from Carlos Mota in Mexico. Carlos is a kind and genuine man describing some of the challenges and dreams he sees for Mexico. And second, from Jeannie Patton in Utah. Jeannie is deeply committed to learning about leadership and to experimenting with how to share that learning at broader levels.

With highest regards,

Tenneson Woolf
Lead Weaver, From the Four Directions

A Story of Life Affirming Leadership
Carlos Mota
Organizational Development Consultant
Mexico City, Mexico

Notes from A Conversation Circle in Provo, Utah
Jeannie Patton, Participant
Provo, Utah, USA

An Invitation
Join Us

View this letter online at www.fromthefourdirections.org/tpl/history.tpl.

A Story of Life Affirming Leadership

Carlos Mota
Organizational Development Consultant
Mexico City, Mexico


Being Mexican today is an amazing experience. It is a daily challenge to make sense of our lives and to renew our energy to face a wide variety of life threatening trends such as insecurity due to organized and unorganized crime, corruption, poverty, pollution and, through electronic media, the degradation of human values at the core of society and our families.

Working as an organizational consultant, I have had a chance to contact a wide variety of people of all ages, income, education and occupations, and I perceive in many people a sense of sadness, a sense of loss, almost as if we were losing hope for a bright future, as if we were being defeated by other rich and powerful nations. If my country were a human being, we could say that he (or she) has a low self esteem, that he is losing his sense of identity and that he is under severe depression. In these circumstances it is extremely difficult to face current and future reality.

All this makes me wonder ¿Is it possible for a simple Mexican (me) to do something about it? If so ¿could it help in some real terms although it might not be a massive top-bottom, all-inclusive effort? ¿is it worth the effort?

More than ever before the answer I find inside myself is loud and clear--YES! And although I do not have a well defined action plan, I have a clear intention: to promote a web of small circles of life centered conversations in different parts of the country where ordinary people have the opportunity to listen and to be heard, to express their fears and hopes, their sadness and joy of life, their feeling of hopelessness and yet their sense of responsibility to help make this a better place. I envision these circles as a space where discoveries, choices and life affirming actions can happen. Where we sit as whole human beings and explore what it means to be alive, what it mean to be Mexican and to be a citizen of the world at this time and what each person has to say and do today.

I believe that these small circles need to be linked together in some fashion. They need to be cross pollinated by other circles in order to be an organic movement that can tap the collective wisdom of our Mexican and human soul. The outcome is uncertain, but the voyage might be a valuable life experience for those who would like to participate.

I see this initiative as an experiment; as a laboratory where we can generate some insights and some possibilities to restore the best of "me" and the best of humankind at the same time.

In the following weeks I will convene a small group of friends to start thinking, imagining and acting toward this idea that, not surprisingly, started to take shape in small circle conversations with Juanita Brown, David Issacs, Anne Dosher, Meg Wheatley and other dear friends.

I write these words in the middle of a terrible and painful war. Not knowing what its duration, implications and consequences will bring to the world and to my country, only sensing that it is time to act, that this is the right time to wake up!

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Contact Carlos Mota

Notes from a Conversation Circle -- Provo, Utah

Jeannie's original "notes" were in a very attractive mind map that she created after an early circle that explored life affirming leadership. Though we were not able to preserve her format, the ideas and questions remain powerful.

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Contact Jeannie Patton

An Invitation to Join The From the Four Directions Network

Our network now includes more than 1,800 people in more than 30 countries. We would love to have you join us in this work by:

• starting or participating in a From the Four Directions circle
• telling your story of life-affirming leadership
• sharing your learning
• joining our listserve (for those who had this newsletter forwarded to them or who found it on our website)
• making a financial donation to support this work in this time
• participating in other Berkana Institute initiatives