You feel this call to make the world a better place, but what is truly at the root of that calling?   

This post is about getting to the heart of why it is that you feel this urge to make the world a better place--whether as  a philanthropist, a social entrepreneur, an advocate or a change agent of any kind. 

Why is this important?  Getting in touch with the psychological and cultural roots of your own calling can help you be more effective at connecting with others and bringing people together around new approaches to complex problems where we have gotten stuck in hyper-partisanship and political division.   

The psychological roots of your calling

 Abraham Maslow and many other psychologists have noted that human beings are called to serve something larger than ourselves.    Unfortunately, not all of us are able to clearly hear that calling, or have the resources to respond to it effectively.  That's one of the greatest...

If you want to know what truly makes you tick, it’s key to know your values at a very practical level. 

What feelings do you find most valuable in life, and which ones will you do whatever you can to avoid? 

One of the crucial insights of cognitive behavioral psychology is that even when we don’t realize it, our feelings are the products of our thoughts.   This is both an opportunity and a challenge:

• The challenge: our conscious thinking about our feelings is often not very clear—we typically don’t experience our feelings as “cognitive constructions.” We often associate them much more with external events: “This happened which made me feel sad” etc. Therefore, we often assume that the only way to experience the feelings we want and avoid the feelings we don’t want is to somehow control the external events that impact our lives.
• The opportunity: once we realize that our feelings are the product of our...

When it comes to your personal growth, your unconscious mind is way more powerful than you think.  It can be your ally, or your worst enemy--and the choice is up to you. 

This post is all about harnessing the power of your unconscious mind to build momentum in your personal growth, and in your calling to make the world a better place. 

This might sound like the stuff of Saturday Night Live skits: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me!"  Can you make up whatever you want and have it come true just by repeating it to yourself?  No.  Here's a key distinction.  Whatever you use as your affirmation shouldn't be pure fantasy--it should be aligned with your existing values and your sense of your self at your best.   Sometimes the phrase that really inspires us come to us effortlessly, other times we have to reflect more deeply.  If you're looking for inspiration on an affirmation that really...

What if I told you that deep down, every single person is motivated by instinctive drives to meet the same 7 psychological needs? 

Do you know what they are? 

Do you know which of these needs is most important for you?

Psychology 101 for Change Agents

Session 4--Human Needs Psychology and You

 Human Needs Psychology is at the heart of the psychological model around which this coaching curriculum is centered.  The key idea is that we can understand an incredibly variety of human behavior on the basis of universal psychological needs.  This concept goes back to Abraham Maslow and his “hierarchy of human needs” as well as Alfred Adler and his ideas around our deep drive for fulfillment and self actualization.  More recently Tony Robbins and Cloe Madanes have made a key contribution to the field with  their “6 Human Needs” framework. 

The model we use in this coaching curriculum is built around 7 innate human drives...

So many of us with a vision to change the world are so exhausted we can hardly stay awake. 

Here’s the heart of the dilemma—as human beings our need for a solid 7-8 hours of sleep hasn’t changed, but the world around us has. 

With the advent of smart phones and streaming video  it’s a lot harder to get this kind of restorative sleep for many of us than it was a generation or two ago.  The result has been an outbreak of sleep related health problems and productivity issues. There is a lot of compelling and clear research at this point that with the exception of a rare few, there’s pretty much no way around it—to be on your A-game consistently day in day out, you need 7-8 hours of sleep on average. 

Do you have yourself convinced that there’s no possible way you could truly get enough sleep? 

Think again. 

 The good news is that the world of sleep science has been making significant strides, with...

Psychology 101 for Change Agents: A Self-Guided Coaching Curriculum

A little bit of background 

 These videos are excerpts from group coaching sessions I do as part of a livecast series for the social entrepreneurs who are part of our Joyful Impact Accelerator.  Along with the videos there are worksheets that go with each session.  We wanted to share this material with as many of you as want to make use of it. I hope these sessions can generate some deep insights and breakthroughs for you in your journey to more fully answer your own call to serve.   Additional sessions will be posted every other week to the Joyful Impact blog as the livecast series makes it way through the 12-session curriculum.  To download the worksheet for this session, click here.  And if you missed Session 2 from two weeks ago, you can catch it here.

Session 3: Getting Clarity on Your Purpose

What is your highest expression of your self?  If...

Have you ever been frustrated with the ineffectiveness of so much philanthropy? 

Have you ever looked at the grant-making that's being done on an issue you really know well and thought, "Wow, that's not how I would spend my money..." 

Have you ever wished that you had more of an opportunity to genuinely share what you know about how to really make change in the world with the people who are giving away all that money?   

How much good could you do if you had a straightforward relationship with someone who was giving away resources that could make a real difference on the issues that matter the most to you both?  Imagine a partnership where you both knew that you were on a shared voyage of discovery, and that you trusted each other to learn continuously, and to put impact out in the world above ego driven interests...  

Psychology 101 for Change Agents: A Self-Guided Coaching Curriculum

A little bit of background 

 These videos are excerpts from group coaching sessions I do as part of a livecast series for the social entrepreneurs who are part of our Joyful Impact Accelerator.  Along with the videos there are worksheets that go with each session.  We wanted to share this material with as many of you as want to make use of it. I hope these sessions can generate some deep insights and breakthroughs for you in your journey to more fully answer your own call to serve.   Additional sessions will be posted every other week to the Joyful Impact blog as the livecast series makes it way through the 12-session curriculum.  To download the worksheet for this session, click here.  And if you missed Session 1 from two weeks ago, you can catch it here.

Session 2: Understanding and Taming Your Stress Response

Too many of us have learned to cope with a...

When you feel a deep call to serve others, your personal sense of joy and fulfillment is inescapably linked with your impact out in the world.   You feel called to serve as powerfully as you possibly can--and that call won’t let you alone.  How great would it be if you figured out and “installed” a daily and weekly productivity routine that made sure you were making concrete, substantive steps towards that ultimate vision every day?  

This video and the worksheet that goes along with it is about connecting your ultimate vision for making change in the world with the kind of productive routine that gives you a sense of fulfillment and progress--and yes, joy!-- every day.

 It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by all the competing priorities and demands in your world  that you feel like your work is never done and you’re always a day late and a dollar short across all the areas of your life.  No matter how...

What is your mental operating system and how well is it serving you in your work as a change agent, and in your life overall? 

Are you ready to make some upgrades?

Welcome to Psychology 101 for Change Agents: A Self-Guided Coaching Sequence

With this post I'm sharing  the first segment of a 12-session coaching curriculum called "Understanding and Evolving Your Psychology."  This is a coaching sequence that we use with the social entrepreneurs in the Joyful Impact Accelerator.   It's all  about taking a self-guided journey towards greater insight about what truly makes you tick.  Getting familiar with a working model of human psychology and self development gives you the chance to re-wire yourself to better advance your goals, break negative behavior patterns, and positively engage with other people and world around you. 

This kind of insight can be valuable for anybody, but it's especially important for all of us who feel that deeper...