When you step out into traffic on a busy road in my neighbourhood with your hand up telling them to stop, you know you are making drivers mad – until they see why. We are escorting a family of geese across the road.
I was folding laundry upstairs this morning when my 13 year old son called to me to come and see the ducks on the sidewalk, walking to school. I thought he meant the kids walking to the school across the street. He called again with more vigour. I couldn’t believe my eyes: two adults and five yellow goslings were making their way down the sidewalk, crossed the road, and started to head down another street.
Now this is usually the time when I head out for a walk to the ravine and the North Saskatchewan river that runs through my city, before I sit down to work. Today, I followed the geese – they seemed to know where they were going.
Their route was taking them directly through a construction area, where city contractors are fixing pipes, sidewalks and roads in our neighbourhood. They stopped between a couple of houses, perhaps because of the noise and bustle of the construction site and heavy machinery. I zipped ahead to tip off one of the workers and instantly, this young man wanted to know where they were, spotted them, then went to talk to his boss. Before I knew it, the contractors stopped their work.
The geese walked right through the construction area.
Being geese, they don’t know that the road is closed, or that the next two roads they need to cross are each four lanes of busy traffic. The young construction worker, an older construction worker and I took it upon ourselves to stop the traffic, allowing a safe crossing.
We did not direct the geese; they knew where they were going. We just stepped out into traffic.
And the drivers of those cars loved it.
_____
Nature is right smack in the middle of our city. And when we least expect it, even when it gets in the way of our schedules and slows us down, we love it.
Maybe in slowing us down, Nature is giving us an opportunity to notice what we love.
Nature is tapping us on the shoulder today, reminding us that we choose what to breathe live into – in others and ourselves.
Those geese knew where they were going. Do you?
_____
And the older construction worker, say 50 years old, walked with them to the ravine to make sure they got there. That was the right thing to do.
After hours and hours of listening to the public – and answering tough questions – during a series of public engagement events, my client took a few moments to hear what they heard. It was powerful.
My client is an organization at the beginning of a multi-year negotiation process with another organization. Caught in the middle are a number of citizens that will be directly affected by how this shakes out. After a series of meetings with the affected citizens, my client pulled together all staff involved in the engagements to debrief. The objective of our debrief was simple – to pause and hear what we heard over the last month.
We took the first 15 minutes of our hour-long meeting to pass a talking piece around the table, allowing each of the 15 of us to notice our response to this question.
With all that you have heard, what is resonating in you?
Here’s what they noticed:
Citizens are searching for a place for their voice to be heard
Citizens are searching for a place in the decision making
Citizens are confused by mixed messages
Citizens want to know how the proposal will affect them personally
There are many voices among citizens – they are not unified
There are varied reactions to the proposal; for some it’s a threat, for others an opportunity
They moved past the information collected, and they moved past the process used to collect the information. They discerned the undercurrents of the work they are doing.
The process underway is complicated and complex and will take years, the result of which is uncertainty and confusion. Most importantly, they recognized that their work affects peoples’ lives in real ways.
Here’s what they noticed about themselves:
We are here to serve citizens
“Us vs. Them” does not serve us – or citizens
As an organization, we need to step up
When threatened, it is hard to listen
We need to demonstrate that we care. Saying it is not enough
We have a lot of work to do internally to ensure we can deliver what we say we will deliver
They learned to take a few steps in others’ shoes, and they let those steps change how they dance with others. Wonderful.
There are citizen superpowers in each of us. We become citizen superheroes when we choose to use them. And after choosing to exercise your citizen superhero muscles, we need to practice, practice, practice…
The more you use your citizen superpowers, the more you will be comfortable with them, and the more you can handle the fight-or-flight parts of your brain that try to sabotage your deeper knowing despite the fact that you face no real threat (see Citizen Superpowers for more).
Here are your citizen superpowers, and they come right from the parts of your brain that are not about fight-or-flight:
Explore with great curiosity and an open mind
Empathize with yourself and others with compassion and understanding to any situation
Innovate and create new perspectives and outside-the-box solutions
Navigate and choose a path that best aligns with your deeper underlying values and mission
Activate and take decisive action without the distress, interference, or distractions of the Saboteurs
Once you choose to practice these powers, then you grow your abilities to be skilful and wise in their application. Your actions will be large and small. Never mind the size – that you use your powers is the most important thing. Practice, practice, practice.
Find what is important to you and work on it. You are not the kind of superhero that swoops in and saves other people. You are the kind of superhero that looks after what you think needs to be worked on. Your passion is what drives you. It comes from the inside of you, not what others need of you.
… your mind is your best friend, but it is also your worst enemy. Positive Intelligence measures the relative strength of those two modes in your mind. High Positive Intelligence means your mind acts as your friend far more than as your enemy. Low Positive Intelligence is the reverse.
In each of us, according to Chamine, is a master saboteur of happiness – the Judge – and nine accomplices. Powered by the fight-or-flight parts of our brain (brain stem and limbic system), they aim for survival and power. They will do whatever it takes to convince you that your survival depends on them. See if you recognize any of them (text below summarized from Chamine):
The Judge compels you to constantly find faults with yourself, others, and your conditions and circumstances. It generates much of your anxiety, stress, anger, disappointment, shame and guilt. Its lie: without tough love, you or others would turn into lazy and unambitious being who would not achieve much.
The Stickler takes perfection, order, and organization too far. It makes you and others around you anxious and uptight. It saps your own or others’ energy on extra measures of perfection that are not necessary. Its lie: perfectionism is always good and that you don’t pay a huge price for it.
The Pleaser compels you to try to gain acceptance and affection by helping, pleasing, rescuing, or flattering others constantly. It causes you to lose sight of your own needs and become resentful of others. Its lie: you are pleasing others because it is a good thing to do, denying that you are really trying to win affection and acceptance indirectly.
The Hyper-Achiever makes you dependent on constant performance and achievement for self-respect and self-validation. It keep you focused mainly on external success rather than on internal criteria for happiness. Its lie: your self-acceptance should be conditional on performance and external validation.
The Victim wants you to feel emotional and temperamental as a way of gaining attention and affection. Its lie: assuming the victim or martyr persona is the best way to attract caring and attention to yourself.
The Hyper-Rational involves an intense and exlcusive foxon on the rational processing of everything, including relationships. It causes you to be impatient with people’s emotions and regard emotions as unworthy of much time or consideration. Its lie: the rational mind is the most important and helpful form of intelligence that your possess.
The Hyper-Vigilant makes you feel intense and continuous anxiety about all the dangers surrounding you and what could go wrong… It results in a great deal of ongoing stress that wears you and others down. Its lie: the dangers around you are bigger than they actually are and that nonstop vigilance is the best way to tackle them.
The Restless is constantly in search of greater excitement in the next activity or through perpetual busyness. It doesn’t allow you to feel much peace or contentment with your current activity. It gives you a neverending stream of distractions that make you los your focus on the things and relationships that truly matter. Its lie: by being so busy you are living life fully, but it ignores the fact that in pursuit of a full life you miss out on your life as it is happening.
The Controller runs on an anxiety-based need to take charge, control situations, and bend people’s actions to one’s own will. Its lie: you need the Controller to generate the best results from the people around you.
The Avoider focuses on the prositive and the pleasuant in an extreme way. It avoids difficult and unpleasant tasks and conflicts. Its lie: you are being positive, not avoiding your problems.
Notice and identify these Saboteurs, for they keep you from reaching your fullest potential. They keep you – and your brain – focused on short-term threats to your short-term survival. Through you and each and every citizen, they keep our cities from serving citizens well.
THE CITIZEN SUPERPOWERS
In contrast to your Saboteurs, the Sage in you is a “deeper and wiser part of you. It is the part that can rise above the fray and resist getting carried away by the drama and tension of the moment or falling victim to the lies of the saboteurs.” The Sage in you uses whole other areas of your brain for an entirely different purpose. Use of the middle prefrontal cortex, what Chabine calls the Empathic Circuitry (mirror neuron system, the insular cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex), and the right brain gives you the ability to see bigger pictures, empathize, and detect invisible things, such as energy and mood.
You and your brain choose how you are going to show up – in defensive survival mode, or as the Sage.
The Sage in you has five powers, enabling you to move “one positive step at a time, regardless of what life throws at you.” I call these your Citizen Superpowers:
Explore with great curiosity and an open mind
Empathize with yourself and others with compassion and understanding to any situation
Innovate and create new perspectives and outside-the-box solutions
Navigate and choose a path that best aligns with your deeper underlying values and mission
Activate and take decisive action without the distress, interference, or distractions of the Saboteurs
These Citizen Superpowers allow you to accept “what is, rather than denying, rejecting or resenting what is. The Sage perspective accepts every outcome and circumstance as a gift and opportunity.” These Citizen Superpowers also allow you to make your cities better all the time.
The Sage moves you into action not out of feeling bad, but out of empathy, inspiration, the joy of exploration, a longing to create, a desire to contribute, and an urge to find meaning in the midst of even the greatest crises… there is no such thing as a bad circumstance or outcome…
Strengthen the Sage in you and you grow your positive intelligence – and your Citizen Superpowers. You strengthen your city.
As I look back at the range of conversations I had with aspiring city planners at the Canadian Association of Planning Students conference in Toronto last week , I noticed 7 recurring messages in what I was saying. Here is a summary of my hot tips for the quest for a job:
Have a sense of the kind of work you’ll enjoy. The more clear you are about what you want to do, or even simply explore to see if you like it, the more likely you’ll find work that will serve your development. This last post might help you figure that out.
Have a sense of the kind of work environment you’d like. Are you most comfortable in a fast-paced environment, or one that is more stable. Do you need a serious place to work, or one that is more fun? Do you want to work in the trenches, or serve in other ways?
Draw on all your work experience – paid and unpaid. All volunteer work counts as work experience. Notice the skills you learned while volunteering and give them prominence along with your paid work.
Say what you can do in your resume. Your resume tells other about your work experience, but what can you do? Are you a good organizer? Do you know how to handle tough customers? Do you know how to resolve workplace conflict? Do you have any stories about how you took initiative?
Tell stories in your interview. Draw on all your experience in your interview and tell a story or two about when something went sideways and you pulled through. These are not stories of vulnerability, but of your strength in seeing when you go wrong and your willingness, and effort, to get things back on track. Be specific. It shows your employer that you know where you have room to improve.
Pick your boss. Is s/he going to invest in your development as a planner? Not just the money your employer may have to send you to conferences, or other professional development, but is s/he going to invest time in you as you learn how to do the work of planning? You want to do well, and if s/he is uncomfortable with the question, or can’t answer, the job might not be a right fit, but…
Learn from every job. You might not get your dream job when you start out, but it will have a lot to teach you. If you don’t get to pick your boss, that’s ok. Show up for work and care about what you do and it will be noticed. You will find other work, or it will find you. You’ll be alright.
As I look back at the range of conversations I had with aspiring city planners at the Canadian Association of Planning Students conference in Toronto last week , I found 5 recurring messages emanating from me. Here is a summary of my hot tips for city organizers everywhere:
Get to know yourself. The more you know about how you work, and what drives you, the better you can serve others. I entertain regular conversations between my ego-self (who is afraid of what people think, judges others, and can get overly competitive) and my highest Self (who, when I choose to listen, always know what to do and how to best do it). I entertain these two aspects of me in a journal and they even talk to each other when I go for a walk. The more you know your Self, the more you…
Notice what is life affirming (for you). When you work in ways and places that are life affirming, you make your city and your world a better place.What we put our attention to is what we get more of, so when you focus on things that don’t work, or things that don’t fill you with joy, you get more of what doesn’t work, more of what fills you with “ick”. Trust that when we all pursue what makes us feel good, the diversity among us ensures that all the bases are covered. Choose work that feels good.
Notice what you and others believe and understand – without judgement. If everyone feels that what they believe and understand is true, and its not the same, then can you find a way to accept that they are all true? Are you able to honour the diversity? This is great subject matter for your self and Self to talk about. To better understand these perspectives, this post on values might help.
Learn to speak multiple languages, then speak theirs, not yours. I’m not talking about Mandarin, Portuguese, or French (though that’s also a good idea). When touring the Steamwhislte Brewery the tour guide asked who we all were and someone replied, “we are practitioners of the planning and orderly development of our urban and rural environments.” That answer didn’t cut it. Someone else said, “city planning,” and our guide understood. It was just enough information in a way the tour guide could receive it.
Figure out what you want to say, then translate it. This applies to anything you do with anyone. Take some time to be clear about what you want to say, in any situation, then make sure that what you say is in a language your audience will understand. The result is you will be more clear.
Journalist Christopher Hume has noticed that we are all terrified of who we are. But we each have to be who we are to ensure along the way that we create the cities and communities we want. Everyone’s work matters, because our work generates and regenerates cities. All together, and terrified, we make our places. Be yourself, well, with others.
You are your own secret weapon.
You are our secret weapon.
_____ _____ _____
This post is a wee bit of the book I am working on, while I am working on it. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City – The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities:
When Pam Moody was elected mayor of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia 15 months ago, she was inundated with demands to fix things: “The town should do this, you should do that.” She could see the difference between a pity party in a struggling town, and a town that stood up to look after what needed to be done. Her response:
YOU ARE THE TOWN
______
Jim Mustard, deputy warden of the County of Inverness, Nova Scotia, is driven by his passion for children. His passion has led to an exploration of early childhood development and how our brains develop because we spend time together. In our communities, he sees lost opportunities for us to grow and develop when we place experts at the front of the room and we remain alone and in silos. We are not creating new structures in our brains to build connections with each other that will allow us to be more resilient – and create communities that serve us in the best ways possible. We don’t talk about what binds us – we sit and listen.
______
Paul McNeil, publisher of Island Press Ltd. followed his passion to create a place for Atlantic Canada’s rural communities to find local solutions. He brought people like Pam and Jim to Georgetown, Prince Edward Island, to tell stories and notice what works. They did not sit and listen to a few experts; they explored the stories in the room and they are changing the face of rural communities.
______
I met Pam, Jim and Paul as moderator for a session at this week’s Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference and Trade Show in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. To replicate the Georgetown Experience, which was all about connecting people and supporting the development of new relationships, we began with their quick story of Georgetown, then we asked everyone in the room to dig into the panel’s stories and tease out the story behind the story.
Our little FCM community built connections with each other they would not have if we would have stayed in the “sage on the stage” pattern. They also proved that there is significant expertise everywhere in the room – in the community.
When citizens are engaging themselves, here’s what’s happening, according to our pop-up community:
Bring your best self – leave the negative at the door
Tell stories
Pursue unusual partnerships
Take action – don’t worry about the specifics
Trust that people want to contribute
Trust that people want to take responsibility
Offer minimal structure
Practice working with each other – commit to meeting more than once
Get together – bust the silos
Pause to look at what’s really going on, the macro
_____
As Pam, Jim and Paul reflected on the session, they all noticed that people are started for leadership, but its not leadership from elected officials thats missing. Its the leadership of people standing up to say:
I CAN. WE CAN.
_____
What work is your community calling to you to do?
Only you hold yourself back.
_____ _____ _____
This post is a wee bit of the book I am working on, while I am working on it. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City – The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities:
Some colleagues and I spent the afternoon exploring resilience in the face of disaster. We noticed that disaster takes place an many scales – the heart attack the demands a new normal in an individual, or a tsunami or fire that rips through a whole city or country. Whenever this happens, we somehow bounce back, stronger and more connected with each other.
Here’s a poem caught as we began our conversation today:
A couple weeks ago, some colleagues and I gathering to begin a conversation about how we could work together around resilience and adaptability in our lives and communities. Here’s a poem that surfaced as a result of that conversation:
