What happens when you jump off the treadmill, out the window of the speeding bullet train? Does the brick stay on the accelerator and crash your bus into a brick wall? What happens to the people on board?
Not really. Your assumptions shatter, your stress melts and you breathe. You wake up to the sound of the Atlantic Ocean massaging the shoreline. You watch the beauty of someone sleeping beside you who is dreaming of the beach and the waves, and you breathe.
When I breathe so deeply that it draws unwanted attention, I can sometimes get this feeling like my chest is winning a separatist referendum. Sometimes the stomach butterflies flap their wings at a pace that is in resonance with my heart, and my ribcage unexpectedly becomes the source of hurricanes.
I tend to write here when an external experience triggers a reflection that I filter to be worth sharing with the world. Unconsciously, my filter tended to have a strong preference for village stories that I assumed would meet your expectation of my life in Africa.
Well SURPRISE! I’m in a very different space than the compound in Jana in rural Northern Ghana – physically, mentally, emotionally – but it doesn’t make this blog and this post and these words any less of a Doorway to the Universe. I created this blog to tell personal stories to describe systemic issues, and I’m feeling great about the stories, but ready to push the boundaries on capturing my constant thinking, reflection and learning about what it means to probe, push and try my best to change systems!
I just returned from a week in Sierra Leone with my “wife” (more easily understood label than girlfriend), and I’m loving the 3 ceiling fans in the main room of my new home. My burnt skin may be peeling and falling to the ground, but the freshness of a step away from the daily grind remains.
I’m in a new job – leading EWB’s work in Agriculture Value Chains in Ghana, and part of a 7-person team here spanning businesses small-and-big as well as a range of different donor-funded interventions to try and spark a deeper shift in agriculture that changes the game for farmers. I’m doing more of the things that I love and that I have to contribute to the world: framing, questioning, coaching, encouraging, searching, probing and amplifying! I want to end this post with a quote from my journal (first of its kind since coming to Ghana -it’s been sacrasanct!)) but commit to sharing more systemic issues and more personal stories on a weekly basis, without my village filter.
“How can I capture more of my ongoing reflections and thought evaluations to share with a wider audience? There’s a cool personal goal from now until CAnada: throw down a short blog post each week with a CONCEPT and a STORY that I’m thinking about: What does it feel like to practically manage the tension between strategic planning and emergent change? How do you predcit when an innovation is actually going to work? Change Agent training grounds are unsteady and that’s the point: there are benefits and shortfalls of having your outcomes and actions pre-defined for you. Searching for leverage points on an individual level builds a deep capacity for change that is powerful beyond words…I believe in myself that having a post written and ready to launch upon my landing in Ghana would be enough of a boost to kick things into high GEAR!”
No visual today, but a quote from a book that got my mind gearing up…
“Developmental evaluators can be the storytellers, and that is one important role. But we also contribute by helping those who believe they can make a difference test that belief. Success breeds success. And the ineffective may learn to become effective. But those who do not learn to be effective need the hard-to-hear feedback that they are not effective. Indeed, in some cases they do harm, if in no other way than by diverting resources from more effective alternatives… we also have an obligation to capture and tell the stories of failure. Harder still can be capturing and telling the stories of uncertainty, where the outcomes remain in doubt.”
Hey Mike. Another great post, my friend! The last sentence has me thinking about my own placement. I reflected a lot after this week’s workshop, interviews, and stakeholder meeting about whether the project team (especially the project manager) would continue to use the language AND actually put into practice the principles of market facilitation they had learned earlier in the week. Will they walk the talk? The outcome remains in doubt for me at this point, but I think this quote will inspire some thinking around what action I can take to encourage sustained change over the longer term.
Great to see a new post from you, Mike – and I like the challenge you’ve set yourself for the next few weeks (as it will give all of us more insight into not just what you are doing, but what it means to you – and ultimately, to those you’re working with.) Your capacity for thoughtful reflection is amazing. Thanks for sharing! xxx
“When I breathe so deeply that it draws unwanted attention, I can sometimes get this feeling like my chest is winning a separatist referendum”
What does that mean?
It made me laugh, in a good way.
Hope you are well!
Thanks for the update Mike