Calling all instigators, provocateurs, and change agents.
If you are interested in changing the world, and you want help getting your ideas into a format you can share with others, you’re in the right place.
Find your voice. Speak your mind. Catalyze change.
We use a developmental approach to empower organizations and individuals dedicated to catalyzing the evolution of the systems they are embedded in and care deeply about.
This isn’t so much for writers as it is for change agents. Ideas are wonderful—and important. But until you can share them in a way that allows others to join with you, it’s hard to bring a new vision into being. Whether you’re working on a blog, a book, a presentation, a podcast, a speech, a new website, or something else, we invite you to join us.
To affect systemic change, we must start with an unflinching commitment to own development, including continually (re)examining our own ideas, mindset, and energy drains.
We must then be willing to go against conventional wisdom, take unpopular stands, and manage the discomfort of disruption and uncertainty in ourselves and others.
When we remain focused on our ultimate aim of systems actualization, we are better able to manage the inevitable ups and downs and stay the course.
By focusing on three things (self-development, the impact of our work on our immediate audiences, and the potential for evolution in the systems we care about), change makers can catalyze real and lasting change.
Join our 8-session developmental writing workshop beginning July 12, 2024.
Aims:
Fall so in love with your audiences that you simply MUST share your ideas with them
Identify contextual and personal restraints and use them as a source of creativity
Use developmental frameworks based on a living systems paradigm to clarify and deepen your ideas
Use writing as an instrument of self-discovery and expression, thereby building your own capability and evoking a will in others to do the same
The ideas you plan to publish or express could be anything from a blog to a book, from a podcast to a presentation.
We’ll meet every other week on Fridays from 9 - 12 noon PST with a break in the middle. So, meetings are July 12 & 26, August 9 & 23. We break on Sept. 6 and resume Sept. 20, Oct. 4 & 18, and finish on Nov. 1.
The cost for the 8 sessions is $1,295.
Once you complete the 8-session workshop, if you’re interested in ongoing participation in a community of regenerative idea generators and content creators, you can join us for monthly meetings where we support each other in continuing to develop and publish ideas that catalyze development.
Sustainable change is not a short-term endeavor. If you are interested in rolling up your sleeves and figuring out how to move people’s thinking, let’s do this.
Share your name and email in the footer and we’ll reach out!
Let’s Color Outside the Lines
I am increasingly unwilling to color inside the lines. For so much of my life, my goal was to make people feel comfortable with themselves and each other in the hopes that it would allow them to connect with others authentically.
Now, though I remain more committed than ever to fostering connection, I’m starting to see how we have to shake things up, that is, to avoid the comfort I used to seek. Comfort lulls us into complacency, the very opposite of what’s needed if anything is to change.
As part of a developmental community stewarded by Carol Sanford, I’ve been exploring the ways in which I conform to others’ expectations, both real and imagined, and the ways I allow old ideas on who I am and what I stand for to get in the way of who I am becoming and the ripples I want to make in the world.
When I think about the most disruptive moments in my life, I realize those were the precise moments when I was forced to shed my old skin and evolve. As a kid, I was an Air Force Brat. Each time we moved, I had to explore who I was in a whole new context with different social norms and power structures.
As a very young girl, I was cognizant that each of us is defined, in part, by the communities we find ourselves in. We do not exist in bubbles, but nested in groups (e.g., families, friend groups, school cohorts, faith communities, work colleagues). These groups can both support and hinder our development.
If you reflect on the big disruptions in your life, can you see how they changed you? Often the biggest disruptions are related to a break, voluntary or involuntary, from your tribe.
In 2023, I received the biggest, most difficult disruption of my life. After my husband’s cancer recurred, his oncologist told us we’re out of options. I was shattered.
And yet, this news propelled me to think differently about my work (in truth, to reexamine my whole life). I’ve always known time is limited, but I didn’t feel it. Since the diagnosis, each moment feels like a precious and fleeting gift to be honored — not to be wasted. Our happy postscript is this: the terminal diagnosis was in error and we are making the most of every day.
On the work front, I am deepening my commitment to my clients who are fighting the good fight, often in broken systems such as health care and education. I will support them, but I will also push them to push against the limitations of the systems they’re in. Though these systems, often bureaucracies that behave like juggernauts, may feel immovable, I will do my best to encourage people to contemplate how they can contribute to systems change, be it slow and incremental or swift and radical. Transformation, at any pace, is better than stagnation.
Jendi Coursey
Testimonials
Putting my voice out there in writing has often felt like an overwhelming task. The Catalytically Speaking course has been tremendously useful in helping me unlock my creative potential and be a more effective writer. This course is not typical as it aims to be developmental. It is not about learning writing techniques but about developing one’s inner and outer capabilities using systemic frameworks. On the inner side, I had an opportunity to explore my restraints (the disempowering voices in my mind) and ways to overcome them; on the outer side, I was able to clarify who my audience was and the effect that my writing needed to create in my readers to shift them to a higher level of understanding. I have found much value in being part of a community of peers eager to support one another and I greatly benefited from other participants’ insights and resourcing during the breakouts. One insight that will stay with me is the realization that the flow of my article was not conducive to the effect I was trying to create in my audience. By shifting content around, I was able to evolve my article to a completely different level. The pair assignment where we had to read each other’s “sloppy copy” and resource one another was a wonderful process to enable reciprocal contributions. Jendi’s enthusiasm and uplifting energy made the whole process engaging and fun. I’m leaving this course with not only a short article written but, most importantly, a renewed desire and will to continue to write. Jendi’s course is a gift to anyone who seeks to elevate their writing, whatever their level, to the next stage.
~Beatrice Ungard, Ph.D., Soma Integral Consulting
I didn't join this workshop to become a writer, but rather to get something important written--or at least started. My self-appointed task was to get moving on articulating the next evolution of my business offering. I've had thoughts and "shoulds" rattling around in my mind for longer than I care to admit. Catalytically Speaking not only got me moving, but more importantly and unexpectedly, it enabled me to significantly uplevel my thinking beyond what I had already envisioned, while at the same time pulling back the curtain on the writing process itself. I now have more realistic expectations about how effective writing takes shape, and realize that the best way (for me) to keep it moving is in a developmental community such as Catalytically Speaking. I highly recommended this workshop as a potent developmental learning experience on so many levels!
~Heather Paulsen, Heather Paulsen Consulting
Catalytically Speaking was a transformational experience. It embodied a regenerative approach, and the change happened on multiple levels. First, Jendi’s process of using ordering and organizing frameworks helped me to be more disciplined and systematic about the thinking behind what I was trying to express. I found that there were pieces that I had assumed in my head but was not capturing when speaking or writing about it, which weakened my impact. Going through the frameworks highlighted the key points I was missing. The workshop also helped me realize that writing is an instrument to serve my thinking. I had been in a echo chamber with both my thinking and writing, and resourcing with the CS community helped me expand my perspective and bring whole new layers to my work. The interactive sessions gave me a chance to test out my new ideas and see how they resonated with other deep thinkers. Finally, I felt deeply resourced by the group. I am not yet a member of the Change Agent Development community stewarded by Carol Sanford, as many other participants were, and stepping into this way of working together was profound and satisfying. It was a great reminder of how critical working in community is to my thriving.
~Jules Fetherston, Anjuli
For a few years now I have been wrestling with a body of work around the inner evolutions required to cultivate Livelihoods in Service to Life, and I wanted a developmental structure and community to move this out of my head and onto the page. My conundrum was that some of the concepts felt truly ineffable. In the Catalytically Speaking process, I realized that this IS the work for me (and likely many of us) right now: what we are being called to give form to is not yet in existence, so exploring new ways of thinking and then discerning the language for these emergent energies is a core part of the work. Once I realized that, the conundrum moved from a writer's block to an illumination: my job is to give enough word-form to what I sense is emerging, so that we can co-evolve our thinking and understanding of what is in potential around work and livelihoods—and subsequently, economies in service to Life—together. This moved me out of perfectionism. I now have one article published on Medium, and drafts of subsequent ones in this series, as well as a commitment to publish them over next two months. Indeed, the whole experience of Catalytically Speaking required me to root into a whole deeper level of rigor with my thinking and writing, and rituals around both.
~Karryn Olson, Regenpreneurs