How to talk about the UK riots, designing better phones and cultivating joy
A monthly digest of inspiring projects, useful resources and opportunities to create systemic change.
Hello! For anyone new here, this is my monthly digest. Each month I look out for interesting things to share with you from my travels and conversations with clients and collaborators. We’re talking culture-shifting campaigns, breakthrough technologies, impactful learning resources, funding opportunities, exciting jobs… These digests provide you with a monthly dose of inspiration and support for all the brilliant work you do. They’ll also encourage you to look after yourself and everything you need to thrive whilst you do it. I hope you find something here to fuel your growth and feed your soul.
I love to include what you’re working on, please reach out if you’ve got something to share with us!
Larger Us is a community of change-makers who share the aim of bridging divides rather than deepening them, who want to transform relationships rather than defeat enemies, and who recognise that achieving these things is about psychology as much as politics. Claire Brown, their Head of Development and Impact recently wrote ‘How to talk about the riots’, a great guide on what to say when someone makes it clear they think the recent violence, racism and Islamophobia we’re seeing on UK streets might be justified.
Fellow Substacker and Lisbon friend of mine
is an addiction psychiatrist, Columbia University bioethicist, writer, and person in recovery. He writes the brilliant , exploring what addiction and recovery have to teach us about thriving and flourishing. He’s hosting his first interactive online event From Recovering to Flourishing: A Foundational Workshop on 8th September for anyone interested in the evolving science of recovery research and personal change.David Whyte is a poet, philosopher and speaker. Exploring a new theme each time, his Three Sundays Series combine his unique blend of poetry, storytelling and philosophy. The next series ‘Intimate - the art and practice of working from the inside out’ starts on 8th September. Worth clicking through just to see his beautiful website!
The David Prize is a celebration of New Yorkers with ideas for extraordinary change. Each year they award five $200,000 prizes to New Yorkers with ideas that will make a better, brighter New York City. They believe that the city’s best and biggest resource is its people and that New Yorkers who are proximate to the City’s greatest challenges will build the best solutions. Applications open here in the autumn and are awarded in summer 2025.
The Lakefront Project are looking for co-creators of their new international deliberately developmental community in Stockholm. Their wonderful lakefront property, just 15 minutes south of central Stockholm, will function as a live-in incubator for individuals and projects, offering six-month to three year-long development programs with a rotating live-in faculty. Participants will work full-time on their projects within a supportive community that fosters both personal growth and professional development, where everyone is both a learner and a teacher based on their unique strengths and life paths. It will be a node of emergence in the civilisational shift, where innovative ideas and personal transformation flourish in service of the greater good. Learn more and sign up here.
Thomas Flight is a writer, media critic, and filmmaker whose work examines the artistry of filmmaking and the language of the media that surrounds us. His video ‘Hollywood’s obsession with Ambition’ is a must-watch for anyone who needs to explore their relationship with achievement.
The grassroots movement Smartphone Free Childhood is going mainstream. In response to the growing demand for children's smartphone alternatives from parents across the world, HMD (the makers of Nokia phones) are stepping up to the plate. The Better Phone Project will create a new phone and a possible range of other solutions to tackle the impact of smartphone use on the wellbeing of children and young people around the world. Sign up for updates here.
Hannah Keal is a brilliant independent People and Culture consultant. She’s an experienced startup/scaleup People Leader who builds high support, high performance cultures where people can thrive. I loved her recent piece ‘Holding space for the political and the personal’ which explores the role of both organisations and individual managers in supporting their teams through challenging times.
My former client Lauren Fabianski is the Head of Communications and Campaigns at Pregnant Then Screwed, a multi award-winning UK charity working to end the motherhood penalty. She wrote recently about her journey into system-changing work which started in 2020 when she was pregnant during the pandemic, and feeling furious that no guidance was being given to women in her position. She channeled her experience into more purpose-driven work, leaving her career in advertising to help build Pregnant Then Screwed so she could continue to advocate for parents. Read her inspiring post about her journey from very little political awareness to being invited to Number 10.
Manda Scott is a novelist, smallholder, contemporary shamanic trainer and host of the international chart-topping Accidental Gods, “the podcast where we believe that another world is possible, that if we all work together, there is still time to create a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us.” Her new novel, Any Human Power is a Thrutopian political thriller woven through with Boudica-style dreaming: a new mythos for a new reality.
On Being with Krista Tippett is a Peabody award-winning show exploring spiritual inquiry, science, social healing and the arts. Beginning on public radio in the US, On Being has hosted conversations that really matter for over two decades and is now podcasting special seasons. Krista’s recent guest Ross Gay is a poet, essayist, teacher, and passionate community gardener who is passionate about joy. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he’s a professor of English at Indiana University. Listen to their conversation about the importance of joy when working on the front lines of humanity’s greatest challenges.
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If you’re new here, I’d love you to introduce yourself, what you’re working on and how this resource can be helpful to you. With subscribers based in 60+ countries and leading systemic change in many different fields, System Changers is a diverse community packed full of opportunities to connect and collaborate with others. Let’s get to know each other!