Gone are the days, for most people, when you could sit still in school, get good grades, and have a reasonable expectation of converting your academic achievements into career capital.
Because what kinds of careers promise job security and financial stability in a world that's simultaneously flooding and boiling?
Australian academic, craftsperson, and storyteller Tyson Yunkaporta looks at Western civilization as a self-terminating algorithm, and current events are not proving him wrong.
So given that we've brought economic, environmental, political, and social ruin down upon the planet, with just a tiny percentage of people poised to thrive in some digital metaverse until the food runs out, what are the rest of us to do?
How are today's young people supposed to plan out their lives?
What are the responsibilities upon older generations? Do we in Gen X have to “take one for the team” in order to give our kids a livable future? And what does that even look like?
How can we take care of ourselves and build stability and wealth in the framework of a crumbling system?
To give you a sense of Tyson's assessment of the current state of industrialized civilization, here's a verbatim from our conversation, in which he riffs on Audre Lorde's pronouncement that you can't tear down the master's house using the master's tools:
“So we've finally arrived to dismantle the master's house using the master's tools, but he doesn't live there any more.
“He doesn't live there any more. He's buying up water rights and spearheading land grabs elsewhere. He hopes we'll tear his house down because it's insured for more than he could get for selling the place.
“And his nephew, who's into social justice and deep ecology and philanthropy is using the house now. He’s holding a frat party / spiritual retreat there and he invites us all in for vodka shots and ayahuasca.
“Nah, these new masters have no home, no country. They are super wealthy refugees from the great nations they have guttered and rendered irrelevant, building leaky life rafts from decentralized autonomous organizations, making a crossing to digital realms without Westphalian boundaries in a bid to keep all their shit while the world floods and boils.”
This is dark stuff, but dark stuff that we ignore at our peril.
And part of the mission of Plant Yourself is to help us face reality with open eyes, so we can build a better future in partnership with others.
There are dozens of threads to follow in this conversation, but the one that leaves me with the most hope and resolve is how we can each discover our role in the “thousand year cleanup” that's going to be necessary following the continued collapse.
I'd love to hear your thoughts – just remember, please, to be kind and respectful in the comments. There's room for all of our voices, and in fact they're all necessary, given the uncertainty and ambiguity we're facing.
Links
Sand Talk, by Tyson Yunkaporta
“The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House” – 1984 Audre Lorde essay
Douglas Rushkoff
The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Fritjof Capra
Tikkun Olam
Dr Howie Jacobson
This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).
My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.
Here are three gigs that I do:
1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation
I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.
At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.
My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.
2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance
I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.
We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.
The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.
3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams
I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.
So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.
You CAN Change Other People!
Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.
What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.
Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.
Music
The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.
It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.
You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.
Gratitudes
Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.
Disclosure
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Fantastic episode Howie, really enjoying your conversations with Tyson. Rethinking what Plant Yourself really means is very powerful, it has made me rethink how I plant myself in my own community. Thanks! Sean