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Nicole Schwab is a policy leader, systems change expert and author, with more than 20 years experience in building communities and facilitating processes for collective action. She is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Ostara Collective, an environmental services organization, on a mission to restore relationships to ourselves, each other, and the Earth, building engaged communities of changemakers to reimagine and catalyse the emergence of an economy in service of life. In the past, Nicole has co-headed the Nature Pillar and chaired the Forum of Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum; advised forest and ocean conservation non-profits including National Geographic Society’s Campaign for Nature; and co-founded the EDGE Certified Foundation, a business certification standard for gender equality in the workplace. Nicole has also authored the book, The Heart of the Labyrinth, a spiritual parable offering earth centered wisdom.
Why are we out of balance, not just within our own selves, but collectively as society? What fundamental qualities do we need to cultivate that can lead to breakthrough solutions to humanity’s core problems today? What lessons can we draw from nature’s cycles to inform and advance our own work and life pursuits? What new avenues can we explore to shift us and others to a higher state of consciousness? What is the ROI of inner work? Does extraordinary change only begin through the force of a singular heroic individual or is that a myth? And what does it take to activate group genius?
Find out from Nicole Schwab, exclusively in conversation with Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa on Intersections Podcast.
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Greetings and a warm welcome to everyone in Intersections, where our goal is to find ways to expand our horizons, to broaden our vistas to be able to see things from a much deeper and fuller light. And today, as a path to getting there, we have a very innovative thinker and change-maker in Nicole Schwab.
Nicole is a policy leader, systems change expert and an author with more than 20 years of experience in building communities and facilitating processes for collective action. She's the co-founder and the managing director of Ostara Collective. This is an environmental services organization on a mission to restore relationships to ourselves and to the Earth and to each other, build engaged communities of change-makers to reimagine and catalyze the emergence of an economy that is in service of life.
In her past, Nicole has also co-headed The Nature Pillar and chaired the Forum of Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum. She has advised forest and ocean conservation non-profits, including the National Geographic Society's Campaign for Nature, and she has co-founded the Edge Certified Foundation, which is a business certification standard for gender equality in the workplace. She has also authored the book "The Heart of the Labyrinth", which is a spiritual parable offering Earth centered wisdom.
Delighted to have Nicole with us today. Let us welcome her right here to intersections!
Hello. I'm delighted to be here with you.
Thank you, Nicole! What a joy. As we've been scanning and studying change makers, which I have to be honest, for me, it's been a more recent, interest passion pool over the last few years, as opposed to decades in the making like I know it has for you. My footprint in the past has mostly been in the world of business. As we've been doing that and getting educated as to who are the forerunners of change-making out there, we came across your path and your work. What was really beautiful to me was just how much natural and holistic resonance there was with almost any of the ideas and ideals you put out there. We might wrestle playfully with a couple of thoughts and I hope leave both enriched and certainly be of service to our audience. But there's just so much about the intuitive things that have come to you and how they have shaped you and the experiences you've gone through, which I think would be a real treat for our audience and for me.
So thank you for who you are and the path you've taken. I thought maybe we would start just by having you talk a little bit about Ostara. Who is Ostara? And what are you aspiring to manifest in the world?
Ostara was born last year and really kind of came into force and action this year in January, we co-founded it with my co-founder, Justin Adams, with the vision that it's really time to be bolder in the way that we address the environmental and nature crises in the way that we look for solutions. From both of us having worked for decades in the environmental space and sustainability spaces, we felt that there's an underlying crisis. It's not just the sustainability crisis, the climate crisis, biodiversity that we see, but actually there's also an inner crisis that we could call the crisis of separation, where we have isolated ourselves from others, from nature. We think we are separate. We base most of our understanding on a mechanical model of the world as a system where we are not part of this web of life. So there is this crisis of separation, and there's also what we could call a crisis of imagination. We're going around in circles having the same conversations, the same panels, huge efforts, people are working so hard, and yet we're not really questioning the underlying principles and building blocks. We are to some extent, but not sufficiently of our economy and our society which are really not fit for purpose and are not really built to deliver a system where humans can live in harmony with the planet.
So, we set up Ostara because we saw this gap between the way things are currently addressed and the discourses and what is needed. The aim of Ostara is, as you said, to catalyze the emergence of an economy in service of life, of restoring harmony between humans and all other beings on the planet. And to do that, our role is to curate spaces where people can come together and they can reconnect to themselves. They can reconnect to each other. They can reconnect to nature. But we're not stopping there. We were kind of using those spaces and using that reconnection to also invite a re-imagination of what would be possible, of what are these alternative futures that we know are possible and create communities that are inspired for collective action. So I would say, the key ingredients are these spaces for reconnecting, reimagining, but also for collective action. And that's very important because I believe that we are at a time where we need collective action, and individual efforts are essential, but they're not sufficient. We also need kind of to move away from this myth of the lone hero and the lone genius and just recognize that it's movements that have always affected change, and that will continue to do so when faced with such immense challenges as we're seeing today and such urgent challenges.
These are the ingredients that we have. We are in our first full year of operations and experimenting with bringing people together in different ways around reimagining food value chains, around reimagining nature finance. It's just the beginning, and it's really exciting to see people's responses and reactions to the spaces we're creating.
Wonderful! I really like this lens of the crisis of imagination. For me, the idea of creating spaces, as you said, where we can help alleviate that crisis, address that crisis as you as you're doing, it sparks that idea in me about how sort of we are as people are states, not traits. Something that I've been more and more starting to realize and manifest in my work, this idea that the same person can actually be very imaginative, very creative, very open, very free, but then can also get very constrictive and very limited, very protected or something. It just depends on the mood they're in, the environment they're thrown into, what consciousness in that moment they're able to activate. Sometimes it just happens unconsciously, and sometimes perhaps that can be done intentionally. I'm sensing and seeing a little bit of that in what you're saying.
Have you started to bring collectives together or are you still in the design stage? Have you have you had any experiences where, you've seen the capacity to actually shift people into kind of a higher level of fertile imagination collectively?
What I've been interested in also throughout my career is collective action and community building, but also how do you unlock what some people call group genius? How does the whole become greater than sum of its parts? That's one answer to your questions. There's different parts to it, but one answer is how do we get into a state of flow, and how can we do that collectively? An artist, a musician, and other as a writer, you can get into a state of flow or in sports. But what is kind of this collective process and this has been studied and there's been a lot of experiments since the 70s of what are the prophecies that you can design for a group in a workshop to go through different stages where there will be that potential for this group genius to emerge. That's one of the ingredients that we're drawing upon and one of the sources of practice, knowledge and thinking that we're building into these spaces we're curating. We're kind of merging different fields. That's why it's also quite experimental, because then there's the deeper states that many of the spiritual traditions have been cultivating of mindfulness and the silent mind and what can happen when you can drop into a deeper state of quiet and access other dimensions within you.
So there's kind of that thread and then there's, the kind of a field that we could call nature centric practices, which is at the same time extremely ancient because indigenous peoples all around the world have been so connected to nature and having that relationship with nature, but it's coming, I would say, in a new way, in terms of practices that we can also bring into leadership or into workshops or to spark that connection with nature. I think in answer to what you're saying, what we are building is bringing together these different fields that have a huge track record, and understanding how we can combine them to create these kind of spaces where you have that collective imagination that is being sparked that can open up our minds to what else might be possible and allow us to step out of the conditioning that we are often stuck in. I think that's why we're stuck on many of these challenges, which are so complex and so multifaceted.
First of all, they're already really difficult to tackle. And we are very conditioned in terms of our patterns of thinking and the systems that we believe are the ones that cannot be changed and are the bedrock of our society. So it's basically using methods that can allow us to chip away at all of that and open up these new possibilities. We use the metaphor of imaginal spaces. We call them imaginal studios from the imaginal cells in the body of the butterfly. And I was very inspired when I met Elisabet Sahtouris, who's the late evolutionary biologist who first, I would say, spoke of that on a more global stage. She was talking about this moment in our civilization and our human evolution being like this stage from a juvenile mode of existence of the caterpillar to a more mature state. And that requires the activation of these imaginal cells, which are latent in the body of the caterpillar. They're stem cells, but they're holding the blueprint of the butterfly. They're just waiting until it's the right moment to become active in the chrysalis and build the butterfly. So I believe, as you said, we all have the capacity for this deep imagination and for creating new blueprints for what would a society, a civilization, look like where we truly lived in harmony and reciprocity with nature.
To the other part of your question, we've started, we've hosted our first imaginal studio in June in the UK, focusing on food value chains. That one had a very specific focus, and we found that, there's a real hunger on the part of many sustainability professionals to have these spaces just to pause because everyone is so exhausted and working so hard, and there's so much pressure as well. So just taking this time to pause and reflect with a group of people who are like minded and allowing also for that emergence was very welcome and very valuable. At the same time, I also want to say that obviously in three days with 25 people, we're not going to solve everything and reimagine everything. So it's kind of these little seeds that can keep building upon each other and create that collective movement and collective action that we need.
Beautiful! I love this metaphor of the imaginal cells. I've not known about it. And, just only recently came across it in a conversation somebody was having in Amsterdam actually the other day. I think it's a beautiful metaphor to use in your work. I learned something about that stage where, in the pupa, the caterpillar starts to almost dissolve completely like, it's not that there isn't a linear transformation from the caterpillar. It is almost like this shapeless kind of soup or something, and that's when these cells get activated, I understand. I'm still learning.
Exactly. I think there's another learning there, which is about living systems. I was saying before, we have kind of this mechanistic view of the world, but I think this understanding of living systems that we're part of a living system is also about acknowledging death and endings and these cycles. And so in what you're saying, the soup, the caterpillar is coming to the end of its life, and yet something else is emerging. So I think there's a lot of teachings in there that are the teachings of nature and of these cycles that we need to embrace to find this path through this time that is extremely challenging and so daunting also and producing so much anxiety. But can we kind of embrace this wisdom and find that thread and that path through to a different future?
It's funny we create these educational institutions, You and I have walked on those paths and feel we have to formally learn so much and then you just look around yourself and say like, wow, if we only just advanced our powers of observation, nature itself is a school, and there are just so many lessons to learn from right there. These cycles of birth, sustenance, and death, as you talked about gracefully being able to embrace every stage of those cycles. That's one of the things that really resonated when I was looking at your path and your work and the timeless traditions that you've tapped into because it's been very core to the things I've been pulled by as well like, why is it that the one thing which we are guaranteed to encounter at some point is my own physical demise, the death of my body. And yet, we kind of hide away from it and pretend it doesn't happen until it happens or something. What more of a level of maturity and clarity of purpose and life would we have if we actually made it almost like a friend, every day to live in the conscious awareness that life is a gift and what am I doing with it and all of that.
When did that emerge for you and where did you get sparked with looking at looking at that as a catalyst for change?
I was always very connected to the natural world. I grew up in Switzerland and spent most of my time outdoors in the rivers, the forest, the mountains, the glaciers. I was very fortunate to have a childhood that was very connected to the land in the country I'm in. It was very natural, this relationship with the modern human world, if you want living as part of something much bigger. And I do think the mountains and the glaciers do that to you, because you do feel somewhat insignificant when you're in these spaces with such magnitude, such presence, such beauty. So I do think there's kind of an imprint there from a young age, just by virtue of being surrounded by that environment. I was always very touched also by just in connection with all of life. Human life and also the suffering of humans, but beyond that as well, throughout my journey.
Then in terms of crystallizing, I think it's only more recently that it crystallized in terms of something innate and very profound that I had always known. But then how do you start to articulate that? And how do you start to use language and frames can help to communicate and to raise awareness for where are those blind spots of how we're operating versus the world that we live in, which is this living system? I think that was where it originated. And then it's been cultivated through different experiences throughout my life.
I think what was fascinating to me was when I went to Bolivia in 1999 after my masters, because here I was in a culture that still had rituals to honor the Mother Earth, and this was so unknown to me coming from a very European, studies in the US. I mean, it's very rational approach to life and the mind. And I think just this ritual at the beginning, it could seem like something or maybe just like a tradition that people are perpetuating. For example, at every dinner, people make an offering to the earth before drinking their glass of wine. These little gestures, but actually when you look deep into it, they are a reflection of an understanding of this feeling of reciprocity with the earth that we are taking, but it's kind of this act of giving back. I was very touched when I arrived in Bolivia to see kind of this relationship with the Mother Earth and even a name for the Mother Earth, the Pachamama. People were talking about it and it was very normal. That was such a different lens than what we have here in Europe. It was very refreshing, I think, and I felt very at home to find, oh, actually, there are people all over the world who are still in this kind of relationship that to some extent we've lost here in Europe.
Well, let me make two comments. I come from a little bit of a mathematical sensibility. That was my passion in college, and so sometimes I'm just drawn to looking at life through that lens and what I see in what you're saying is this notion that, we keep collecting these different elements, and then at some point the whole equation starts to come together. That's what I'm sensing and seeing in what you've just shared. There's this crystallization or synthesis that is starting to happen now, and over the course of your life, you've been collecting these experiences or some things you've been pulled by one thing or another. You've talked about synchronicity as something which is very core to some of the experiences you had at Harvard and beyond since and all of that. I don't know if that makes sense. There's a period in life where we are collecting the dots, and then at some point you start connecting the dots.
Yes, it makes a lot of sense. I think it also coincides with a moment in the world where it feels like collectively, we're connecting the dots. In your introduction, even, you're saying, there's these inner journeys that a lot of us have been on and kind of a more personal path of seeking and grappling with some of the more fundamental questions of why are we here? What are we doing? What's our purpose? And then there's the kind of our professional life and systems change. Trying to affect change in the system on the outside. But what I'm seeing more and more is for myself, but for many others, there is this need now to bring these two together because we cannot continue to separate the two and even to have these split personalities. I feel it's almost like the time is ripe for us to connect the dots. So as we do it internally, we can also offer that for others to do and kind of even as a path forward, that we don't need to divorce those things anymore, because actually we need both in order to have the courage and the resilience to lead the changes that are needed today.
Beautiful! By the way, for our listeners, I want to highlight that your website, Ostara, is actually worth going to. We will put that as a link as well in our podcast. The Ostara Collective. You will see an illustration where you talk about the six building blocks of what I imagine are these imaginal spaces that you're creating. What you call the well-established methods of systems thinking, emergence, group genius and innovation and design thinking, but also these emerging methods, inner development and sparking the collective imagination and then doing more concentric leadership, as you call it.
I really want to commend you for that. I have, over the last several years been, part of platforms and initiatives at times in the business world, at times beyond around how do you spark creativity and imagination? And, I've always been a little bit sort of, miffed at how they tend to make it such an act of doing on the outside as opposed to being on the inside. And I'm like, I appreciate that you want all these props there and create play and fun that'll get people all roused up in the more creative side of their mind and all that. But there's also stillness, attunement, intuitive guidance, and an expansion of consciousness and some of the other things which invite you to do the opposite, just actually grow more still and create more silent bonds between yourself and others. I'm seeing that in your framework. I think it's a more complete framework honoring both these outer but also deeper inner ways to catalyze creativity and in a sort of like a loosening up of structures that limit us at times.
Yeah, exactly. I think what you say, yes, absolutely. Many companies have set up innovation labs and are driving and using a lot of these methods that are very effective. But as you're saying, it's where does the creativity come from and how do we cultivate that stillness to access a different knowing within ourselves? What can that spark when we allow for that space to open up? So I agree with you. I think it's absolutely fundamental. And it also connects to an even deeper question, which is, innovation in service to what? And creativity and service to what? What are our deeper values and what's actually our ultimate motivation? I think that's absolutely critical at this time because I think we just need to realign. A lot of people are also feeling this tension between their values and sense of integrity, and sometimes what they're doing and are trying to find that match. I would say we need to stop convincing ourselves that it's okay to continue on these paths, where we're not aligned to a deeper purpose.
Like you said, there is a lot of unrest. There's a lot of initiatives and communities coming together to assert that, "Look, things are not going well. Things are not right. Even in history, we have ignored certain injustices or excesses and humanity and let's fix them. Now's the time. We should have a voice and let's come together and all that". There's a lot of important change quests that are out there. I do distinguish, though, between those that I sometimes find are powered more by a certain just raw unsettlement of the human spirit and expression of that in at times, emotions that are more driven by anger, judgment and pain rather than the molding and channeling of those forces into, if you want to call it like some aspects of higher consciousness where you bring patience, love, grace and strategic insight and acceptance and understanding that humanity is a work in progress. And we are taking the torch from the previous generation, and we have to pass it on to the next generation in a responsible way as stewards of this planet and all of that, right?
So we've had a little bit of time together. I haven't been blessed to have known you in the past as much, Nicole. So this is an action paid from your side to be in this conversation, which I'm super grateful for. But everything I'm sensing and seeing just from your work and the spirit that you bring, there's a sense of warmth and peace and even a level of joy that comes through in just your presence, expressions, the groundedness of your ideas and your tone. And I just want to recognize that in this moment, because I think that's beautiful and something that I deeply feel for those of us who are really feeling a little bit of an angst and a concern and a deep commitment to want to make change happen, but part of that is, cultivation of these inner capacities in us to be able to still not lose, in a sense, the purity of our heart in a sense of optimism and appreciation for the divine spark and humanity and all of that.
Anyway, I want to just ask you, in your journeys in the world, where and when did that become evident to you or was it always just a natural part of who you are that I got to do some inner work and show up in a certain way to do this very difficult and challenging outer work?
It's an interesting question. I'm not sure I formulated like that in the past. I think I've always been really curious about the fundamental questions of why are we here kind of really deep questions, what's my role on this Earth? I think from a young age I was seeking answers to those questions. So it wasn't so much of I need to do inner work. It was more like, where can I find answers? And so I went into. When I was young, I was part of an inter-religious youth platform, just kind of exploring different strands of thinking, philosophy, spiritualities, all of whom have grappled with some of these existential questions of what is humanity's role on the Earth. So I think it's been more a thread that I've just kept exploring and learning from so many traditions, both religious, spiritual, indigenous. Obviously it's difficult to do this work when you're just faced with these news every day of what's happening and especially when you're very sensitive and also empathic to as I said before, not just human suffering, but for what's happening on the planet and all the species that we're losing. And so it can be very overwhelming. And I really understand a lot of people are feeling eco anxiety, a lot of youth are really struggling with this and even thinking they're the last generation, not wanting to have children.
As you say, there's this huge weight when you start to open up and allow yourself to even acknowledge what is happening or even open your heart to it, very capable of opening our heart to that, because it is so huge and it is so challenging to bear from a felt sense. I guess I've been on that journey and I've come to the conclusion that, yes, that life is a gift and there is so much beauty and that actually hope is almost a choice and it's an act of activism that we actually need to continue because we are here and we have a responsibility. Those of us who have actually the capacity to dedicate ourselves to finding that pathway forward, we have the responsibility to do it and to do so in a way that brings joy and love and allows us to cultivate that in ourselves, because otherwise you can't sustain yourself. It's just too depressing doom and gloom and, I've been through a moment where I was in burnout because being an entrepreneur. And just as many entrepreneurs know, it's very hard. You have a lot of pressure and fundraising and pragmatic pressures. But then if you add to that, this more felt sense of what's happening, then it can be very challenging. And I think going through that, it was almost a choice point for me to say, "Okay, this is why I'm here, but I'm going to do this in a way that I can cultivate that light and I can, hopefully share that as well with those around me."
It's lovely to hear how this has been a lifelong quest for you and how eclectic your path has been. And drawing from various, as you were saying, indigenous, religious and spiritual movements across your life then and across those. Can you share a couple of key pillars of what has resonated with you really deeply that you've adopted in your own way of being and way of seeing the world. A couple of things that could be an offering from you to our listeners like, "Hey, you know, I loved what I learned there in Bolivia or, read in that scripture". I'm just curious.
Yes, there's a lot. I think I encountered, I guess, Buddhism first through because I was brought up in Geneva in a very Christian setting. But I was brought up more in a secular family. I encountered through this exploration, Buddhism, but first through martial arts, actually. So it was more kind of the Eastern Zen Buddhist traditions and then, started going on different retreats a little over 20 years ago, meditation retreats and different traditions. Right from Vipassana, Tibetan Buddhism, and then yoga, but more as a deep spiritual practice beyond just the hatha yoga part of it. I think that through all of them, I would say just the core simple practice of meditation, even just focusing on your breath and just allowing to center and find that moment of stillness is something that has accompanied me for 20 years now. I've learned different techniques, but always kind of coming back maybe to something quite simple, because there have been times in my life where I could do one hour a day. Now it's maybe more like ten minutes, right? But it's not losing that thread. And I think that's probably the most sustained one that has accompanied me is kind of a basic meditation practice.
Then the other one is more of a mindset rather than a practice, but that I mentioned Bolivia and this sense of relationality with the Earth and then just coming into contact with different indigenous worldviews, like even animistic beliefs of the consciousness of everything around us. Be it animals, trees or the Earth herself. And I think it's that lens onto the world is also something that I have embraced because it feels so true and so alive for me, and is another thing that is very nurturing because then when you go on a walk, you really feel the life force around you and you feel like you are supported in a different way by the living world and not just kind of humans among themselves, but it kind of broadens your horizon. So I think I would say these are the two things that are very close to my daily life.
Thank you for sharing. The first has been very close to my heart for a long time as well. At the same time, I only got my own meditation practice regularized, after playing with it for many years, about 23 years ago, in my case. So, we've been on a similar journey then. I'm so glad it has taken such a deep root in you. We were having a conversation yesterday in a workshop I was doing with some executives. And you can see, how much intrigue and respect and openness they're starting to have now towards the need to do some tilling of that inner soil and yet how hard it is to pull back from earthly engagements and activities to recognize that actually there's a great, if you want to use business language ROI that you get from doing that inner work. So it's beautiful to see through that perhaps that burnout experience you mentioned you managed to kind of find your path and your approach towards rejuvenation from within. That's beautiful!
The nature part has been, on the one hand, so innate. I grew up in India and it's a little bit like the Bolivia like thing where, you don't take it as an entitlement. You don't take it as something that you have to conquer. If you see a mountain, the first thing you want to do is can I climb it? Can I climb it faster than anybody else or without oxygen or whatever? You think more about, I should just be on my knees and just worship it because, it's an expression of the beauty and grandeur of creation in this form in front of me. Let's name it after one of those dimensions of the divine or whatever it is. And so every mountain, every river in India is named after some aspect of the divine. It's really quite beautiful!
So on the one hand, I had it, but I think I lost it over time, I started to live more in the metropolitan cities of the world and then over the last several years, I started to feel a real pull more, part of it, I give credit to my family, my wife and daughter pulled me to go to Botswana on a safari. My God, that's like God's country. It's so beautiful. Just that unspoiled world that hasn't yet been formally advanced through civilizational activity as much as just raw nature. That was a big opening for me to say, "Wow, Hitendra! There's a conversation you can have right here on planet Earth that you should be really tuning into". I'm so happy to see you being such a core part of you.
I want to ask you one aspect of, as you've been developing your framework for what the inner work is that change-makers need to do, and you've spoken about how there's also a connection we need to have with each other and with nature. Those are aspects from within, but then open your heart, attune yourself, etc. that you may not be really ready for some of the outer change making and the solutions and breakthroughs that have to come. I think that's what I heard from you, right? There's one more part to that that I'm intrigued about, which is, if you want to call it like a connection with your own soul or with your own spirit, what do you think of that? I find sometimes in certain circles that we are not talking about that. We are still talking about connection, as in something that operates from you to other physical entities, other human beings or the planet. But this notion of there being a part of us that is maybe less tangible in the physical sense, but very real in a felt sense. What's your relationship with this idea of your core spirit or your soul? I'm just curious and you might say I've investigated that. It hasn't really had much resonance with me or I find it much more impactful. I'm just curious.
I do believe that there are many dimensions to the human being, and I think I always choose my words carefully because I think it's important that to open up spaces so that people can relate to what you're saying, and so that it doesn't need to have a religious connotation or a spiritual connotation. So I think sometimes the word soul or spirit, like some people might react to it. I do feel it's very important and I think there's different ways we can even conceptualize it in a way to say, well, actually, human beings have multiple dimensions. We are usually engaging only through our intellectual mind, which is extremely powerful, which is extraordinary, which has allowed us to do so many things. But it's not the only tool, even if we call it a tool that we have at our disposal. We can really learn to tap into other dimensions of what it means to be human. And then we can explore what those are. For different people, they may have more ease of access to some of those. So there's a lot of embodied practices nowadays, like embodied knowing and kind of intuitive knowing that can come through doing an embodied practices where suddenly actually you're short circuiting the mind because you are engaged in a different type of activity and you have an insight that drops in, or you understand something suddenly that you weren't understanding before when you were just thinking about it. And I think these are examples that can help people to understand, "Okay, what are we actually talking about here when we're talking about a deeper dimension?" So, I would say that's one of these embodied practices.
Then if we're going more to kind of stillness and sitting meditation. I think more and more people are interested in, whether it's through mindfulness or different meditation practices and what can happen when we sit long enough to still our minds and calm down this kind of thinking. What is that space that emerges and what happens for us? What can we discover there? It's quite obvious, but I think it's worth saying it is that it has to be through a lived experience. And that's how one can make that connection, because otherwise meditation is just an abstract thing. You sit there and you really don't understand the point. So it's like, how do you cultivate these simple experiences? So then actually there is a meaning to even the sense of, yes, there is a deeper dimension, and it does when we kind of try to go into that stillness, it opens up to a different field of knowing or being of that allows for other things to be possible. So that's what I would say to your question.
And maybe one more thing is, this concept of intuition, right? Which is also very interesting, which is being researched more and more. What is intuition? Where does it come from? But there's a lot in there as well of actually to allow us even to be aware of what is coming through our intuition. We need to have that discernment also of, "Okay, now we are fighting the mind, and we can catch these glimpses of intuition that are coming". I know there's different explanations and different theories of what intuition is. But one way to define it is also that it is that deeper knowing that comes from another place within ourselves.
I really appreciate the way you are framing and approaching this question. It is a hard question, and yet such a critical one to really open ourselves up to this deeper discovery of what true identity and self and who knows what breakthroughs lie on the path to these discipline meditation practices and beyond. There is something I relate to in my class at Columbia, for instance, I initially started to teach these ideas about human potential, happiness, fulfillment, success, etc. through the lens of just energies that we can activate like love, purpose and wisdom. But it was actually my students, who would come to me and sometimes over the course of the first five to eight years, they would say, "Professor, you know, I really like this part of the class because it's really like helping me get in touch with my inner core". They would say these words and then I'm like, I think they're right. Yes, it's true that I grew up in a culture like India where it's very natural to talk about the mind, body and soul, and I have not really honored that here in the class because I respect, meeting people where they are and talking about things in a language that will be broadly embraced. And I really wanted to honor that. But now it is they who are coming to me and saying something about it.
So anyway, so when I wrote my book and by the time I was getting to publish it, I felt ready to offer up a singular construct, this notion of an inner core. I still wasn't sort of very comfortable with using the word soul as much as the inner core. That was two and a half years ago. And then even over the last two and a half years, firstly, in America, we have this one sort of very go to kind of authority on research on what Americans' belief systems and practices are around religion and spirituality called Pew Research. And so Pew Research puts out this data. In one of those research studies, I found the statistic which just opened my eyes and it said more than 80% of Americans believe in a higher power. More than 80% of Americans believe that beyond the body, they have something they might call the spirit of soul. A. that finding and B. just a little bit of droppings here and there in conversations, in keynotes or convenings and all of that. Also, especially in conversations with youth, what I'm finding is that we're actually living through a period of very dynamic unfolding, and there's a certain loosening up that is happening. Spaces that are starting to come together. And so who knows, maybe in your path and work in mind, we also have to be work in progress. Keep sensing and tuning in and seeing what language and frameworks humanity's open to you.
I ask that question out of my genuine curiosity to see what you're sensing and seeing, partly because even over the last few years, I'm seeing maybe the potential for that to be almost like a shared construct of something. I don't know what it is, something which, honors in a more tangible way, which you talked about, that we as human beings have more than just a mind, and all of that.
Thank you. It's very interesting. And I agree with you. It's changing quickly. I think youth are in a different place than we were at that age in terms of melting of some of that rigidity around some of these things, as you say. So it's really interesting to hear. I think another word is consciousness. Because there's been so much studying as well. But I guess what I find really interesting in there we go back to the Earth and the concept of humanity and our role and our place in this living system. What I find interesting is also just to understand that journey in terms of recognizing the consciousness of life around us, which, as you say in India is something that was culturally much more natural. But, how is that also evolving in other parts of the world and the consciousness of the Earth, which, I mean, it's not new with the Gaia hypothesis, we've been in the environmental movement, there's been threads of that, but not really at the core. I think that's also part of this separation, right? This kind of mental trying to understand and solve the problem as opposed to saying, no, actually, it goes back to the soul. It goes back to consciousness and to considering the Earth and kind of life as consciousness and beings endowed with consciousness. I think that's connected. So there's not just soul and the human soul that's separate from everything else, but actually there is a life system here that we're part of.
I think the instrument of intuition that you just spoke about, which I thought was a very apt part of lived human experience to help us practically connect to some of these less visible aspects of our being was very appropriate. In what you're just saying about consciousness, just to rip off of you and spontaneously build on what you're saying, it seems to me that, it really begs that question about, is intuition something that allows me to have full and unfettered access to these dots that I've assimilated within me through my readings, my studies and my experiences, which is one way to think about it. There's a lot of psychological studies and creative intuition, or is it also something that allows me to be able to access wisdom, knowledge, insight, breakthroughs that might lie in some collective consciousness that in that moment, I don't have any way or basis to feel there's anything I've lived through in my life so far physiologically or mentally that was actually the basis for that. It came from the outside in kind of thing. As soon as people affirm that and see that, then that's got to be a little bit of a glimpse or a proof that that we're not completely separated in our whatever you might call it, core structures or inner consciousness.
Yes, absolutely. And I think that's something that we can explore for ourselves. I think there's something about that inquisitive approach, even to our own inner process and like, what's happening. So it's not a belief or yes, there are these theories, but it's more about, okay, now how do we experience that and what are we learning as we're noticing what we're picking up through intuition, as you said. And I think that's what's very interesting also in terms of those journeys where you can ask those questions and then kind of open up different possibilities more through your lived experience of them, rather than adopting a theory or another about what it might or might not be.
Beautiful! Switching topics a little bit. I'm curious, you've talked about some traditions and truth seeking communities in Bolivia and Buddhism that have really impacted you. Are there people that have personally been very direct and powerful source of guidance or inspiration for? Who are some of the most formative influences for you in life?
That's a difficult question because, I think I've been more picking up crumbs all along the way rather than having these iconic figures that have influenced me. Obviously, I've from a young age been connected to world with recognized leaders coming through, I've met many of these people, even just very briefly or from afar and kind of been exposed to that.
And actually, if you don't mind before you speak more, for those in the audience who may not be as aware, you do come from a very storied family. Your father and mother have been very formative in setting up the World Economic Forum, which is one of the very storied institutions of the 20th century and over time today. I think in part, you're referring to the natural access and ins and outs that you have had a chance to have to experience through that, in addition to all these very established schools and programs that you've gone through, whether it's in Cambridge or Harvard. I just wanted to quickly jump in and frame that for our listeners.
I want to come back to that because, there's a broader conversation I want to have with you about the storied institutions of our time. And, those in positions of tremendous power and privilege today and your experiences there but let me come back to that. Sorry to interrupt you, but please go on.
Yes. Thank you for adding that. I mean, it goes without saying, but Nelson Mandela is someone that has inspired me incredibly in terms of his resilience, but also because I was studying nonviolent movements at some point because I was also always interested in mediation and kind of nonviolent communication, how do you bring together different worldviews and hold these tensions? And so I think, obviously Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu and kind of this whole movement around forgiveness for some of these atrocious acts. And so just witnessing these people who are capable of providing leadership and showing just a different way of being as a leader that was embracing forgiveness and kindness. I think that was extremely inspiring for me. And obviously, from your part of the world, Gandhi, I've read a lot of his books and been extremely inspired by the nonviolence movement as well, because it kind of breaks this perception that nonviolence is a passive way of being. It's more understanding, actually. It is possible to be kind and to be in integrity and to really chart a path and be a leader in the face of extreme violence atrocities.
So I would say that, those figures have been instrumental in shaping my understanding of different kind of leadership. Yes, I would say, those are the most visible in my journey. And then, I was recently talking because I'm going to Plum Village very soon, which was set up by Thich Nhat Hanh, I'm sure you're familiar with him, some of these people who, as I said, I had a chance to see close up and just be in their presence. I think, again, all these people who emanate a sense of kindness and yet, very sharp, still with a lot of clarity and understanding of the complexity of human existence and the chaos that we are capable of creating. And yet the ability to hold that in a different way. I guess I've always aspired to be able to live up to some of these standards of staying in that gentle and kind state while being able to be very crystal clear, bold and challenging also and some of the things that are not working.
I think this is also the model of leadership we need. Because when we look today at the leaders, we've elevated everything but the model of even humanity that we need. So those two I would name first.
Wonderful. They're definitely on my top ten list as well. I'm so glad to hear that we share a couple of common friends in our inner circle. They may not be with us in physical form, and I certainly wasn't graced to have been blessed to have any direct contact with Mandela. But, he and Gandhi from the past have been deep influences for me as well. So I'm so happy to hear.
Before we get to the institutional question that I was going to raise, I want to turn to your interest in gender, and in particular, the role of the feminine versus the masculine sensibilities, consciousness or energies, or whatever it is we want to call it, in helping to shape a more whole humanity. Can you talk a little bit about when you discovered that that was an important lens through which to actually approach some of these questions of what is lacking in a time today and where the solutions might need to partly come from?
Yes. I think I stumbled into that. Maybe it was a synchronicity, but when I started working in Bolivia, I was working on public health, mainly maternal and child health, and mainly which then became work around reproductive rights. I started working on HIV Aids. And so obviously, women's rights and right to their bodies, sexual rights, like reproductive rights were quite at the center of that health conversation. So I became exposed to a certain field of work and women's rights and got really kind of interested in that for a number of years as I was working on public health. Then when I came back to Switzerland, I was still really touched by that and really thinking about how to do something about that, what I felt was violence done to women, but mostly still from an external perspective. Being back here and starting to observe what do I want to do here? How do I want to tackle this problem? I started to be exposed more to this question of gender equality in the workplace, which is a different take on that. But equal pay, equal opportunities. So we're still looking at areas of discrimination against women because of them being women.
I then really started asking myself, how is it possible that in a country like Switzerland, we're very rational people, where everyone you would talk to would say, of course, men and women have the same rights that we still had at the time and we still have today, but to a lesser extent a huge pay gap, right? So there's just a question of equal pay for equal work. As I was starting to unpack that, then I became interested in our subconscious beliefs and what is conditioning our thinking of why we would pay a woman less for the same job as a man. Not intentionally, but because there is a conditioning actually around the value, how we value people, and how we value what they're doing. Then that led me into this question of different ways, even of leadership.
We were talking about leadership. What are some leadership qualities that in general and of course, this is a very touchy subject because people can get extremely emotional about it, but qualities that are maybe carried more by women. And we were talking about actually kindness, empathy and collaboration versus what has typically been expected as well of male leaders. So there's a question of conditioning. I'm not necessarily saying this is innate, but there is definitely conditioning. It's kind of that thread where I arrived at this point of saying, well, we are undervaluing in our society, this life giving, nurturing quality of women, but also in men. And we're doing this at our detriment. There is a parallel between the ways we are undervaluing that in women. You can see it as much in how we pay caregivers and kind of how we value caregivers in society to leadership qualities in the workplace that are undervalued and all the way to what that means for the gender pay gap, right? It's kind of nuances of the same thing.
Then the other layer, which is looking at the Earth as the life giver for us and the fact that we are in an extractive mindset. I think there's many layers to this journey, but it's all connected and it does all come back to what is this society that we have created, what's the economy that we've created? And it is extractive. We're extracting. We're not allowing for that regeneration and that kind of nurturing, that care, that reciprocity. You could go back and say, okay, well, men and women, we both have these masculine feminine energies, yin yang. You could call it whatever you want. We have different facets within ourselves, and these facets are out of balance because we are valuing some of these aspects more than others. And therefore, not only are we out of balance within ourselves, but as a society and this has consequences also for how we interact with the Earth and how we extract and ultimately, where this has led us because it's not sustainable if we don't honor the nurturing and restorative, regenerating, life giving capacities.
So I'm pulling a lot of things together. But it is at all these different levels. This is like a 15 year journey. So I'm just trying to kind of summarize how I connected all these dots as I was exploring each piece step by step.
I think it's beautiful. And you're also just an incredibly articulate observer and commentator on this. I love the way you talked about it. It's very intuitive to me. I've learned a lot from Yogananda and from his teachings. He basically would offer that there are these two energies in the world, masculine and feminine. One is about reason and the other is about feeling. You as a human being are not complete until you have both of those manifesting in you and, if you can't be complete like that as a human being, then how can you be complete as a business culture or as a dominant thrust in policymaking in your nation or whatever? How can that be complete if it's only being shaped and powered by the super rational mind, but not the sensed feeling, intuitive, nurturing, piece as well. I'm not as articulate as you, but, through what I've learned from there and then sought to map it to what I see happening in society, I think I'm very much resonant with what you're saying is some of these missing elements that need to be amplified or honored. Correct me if I'm wrong in how you're thinking about it as well, which is that it's not that you replace one with another, but you integrate the yin and the yang, right?
Yes, exactly. I think the challenge with talking about these issues is that, first of all, it's highly emotional and people very often then just go back to men versus women. I think the challenge is because there are real issues still in terms of discrimination. It's not that this does not exist, but there's different layers. And as you say, part of it is how kind of these qualities within us, these energies within us, how do we find that balance between being and doing, between thinking and feeling? So it's like one aspect is within, and then there is another dimension which is about, how are we valuing that as a society? And then given that there is a gender that exemplifies more of that than another, then what kind of discrimination is happening there? But very often it all gets lumped in the same bucket, and then people get emotional, and then it's very difficult to talk about it because as you say, it's not about replacing men with women or that's not what this is about. As you say, it's about kind of integrating and transcending actually that opposition and being able to tap into those qualities equally and restore that harmony as well.
It's beautiful. I appreciate very much the multidimensional way of recognizing what needs to be approached differently in the world. I think you said this, but just to sort of bring this into focus as well when we think about these gender disparities, you've talked about what one gender has dominantly been able to do and be paid for it and what the other gender has been able to? I guess, if it makes sense, to think about in terms of role disparities, which is there are certain roles that somehow just get less honored in modern society, if you take time away from work or even quit for a while because you want to raise a family, you want to be a caregiver to an ailing parent or grandparent or something, somehow, those are considered to be lost years from your LinkedIn resume. There was a conversation I was having with Thanuj Kapilashrami, the first time I met her was actually at the World Economic Forum a couple of years ago. She is the chief innovation strategy officer and chief people officer at Standard Chartered. A very attuned soul in terms of a conversation like what we're just having. We were just talking about some of the ways in which she has pioneered, few new practices at Standard Chartered around making parental leave to be something that is appreciated as a gift, not just by women at the time they're expecting to give birth or nurturing a young life, but also by men as paternity, and how so many have come to her since and said how transformational and beautiful that experience has been for them to actually be encouraged to actually go and connect and spend some time nurturing that young life that they've also played some role in bringing to fruition.
I was having a conversation with her about how in addition to just having a shift in business consciousness that gradually is growing of honoring and respecting that commitment we all have and Europe has traditionally been much further and advanced in that than the US. There's also another component there, which I would just want to test with you as an idea as a missed opportunity thus far, which is that, it's one thing to just accommodate that in people's career paths and just kind of make the space in place for it, for people to be able to take six weeks off, six months off, a year of whatever it is they need to, but then the other is also that when they do choose to return to the workplace, rather than merely see it as a moment that needs to be allowed for and they should be in a position to be able to reclaim their career from there, actually the time that they spent away, how can we encourage people to see that as a crucible in which certain capacities were being developed in them, which are incredibly important in the workplace. So you actually come back as a new, improved version of yourself, where you're repurposing those experiences of multitasking and empathetic connection and being able to meet somebody where they are and attune yourself to a different language in all of that. Like, all of those things can be beautiful capacities to make you a more illuminated manager or a leader or what have you.
Yes, absolutely. I truly believe that's the case. It's not being recognized, but it is the case that when people come back from a maternity leave, they have all these new talent, skills, capacities and are often also extremely focused because of kind of juggling all these different priorities and needs. I think this is definitely much undervalued. There is a point though, and then that gets back to maybe more of the beginning of our conversation of meaning. Where I think that coming back from a parental leave, it's almost like, because of the trade-offs that are in front of you, then you do require to have more meaning your work just because of the time that is being dedicated there. And I think, again, that's a good thing because I think we need to push more for building organizations that have a purpose, that is environmentally and socially oriented and where people actually find meaning in what they're doing. I actually even also see a connection there because a lot of people will then prioritize their time differently based on something they may have been doing before, but suddenly there's kind of a new dimension to it and there's a new question of purpose and how you want to spend your time.
That's a beautiful point. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it changes you, right? The act of going through a moment where you are now starting to bring life into existence and be nurturing that life suddenly makes you more feeling like a responsible citizen in the world and taking a longer view of the arc of humanity because you're going to leave something to the next generation, like those kinds of things, I've not thought of it like that, but that's beautiful. I agree with you.
So Nicole, before we start to move ourselves to closure in what's been certainly for me, just such a rich and rewarding conversation. Thank you for all you already covered.
Let's talk about this institutional theme. You have been part of a very storied family and institution. I know it's gone through its own shifts and challenges as well in recent times. But it's been a path breaking institution in the world, and the go to place the, the convening of the movers and shakers, the change-makers and so many of that ilk and beyond in Davos at the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, your father, what has that experience taught you? And what are you sensing and seeing about the capacities for those in storied leadership positions today who have been groomed, so to say, about how to succeed, how to serve, how to protect institutions and build institutions and optimize institutions based on a certain paradigm, a certain model, a certain way of sort of being and thinking? Do you see a lot of promise and possibility in these established institutions of today? The large corporations, the large governments, large economic and policy organizations and beyond, do you see them as being very central to how adaptation, evolution, change, breakthroughs, change making will come, or do you see it being more of a challenge in changing these from within? And therefore most of the change making work needing to happen outside the frame of these institutions?
I think that it is a million dollar question. But, I guess the short answer is both, and the longer answer is, yes. I think that we need a paradigm shift. We need to really allow ourselves to challenge the fundamental assumptions and building blocks of our economy. More and more people are talking about this, right? This illusion of growth, this illusion that we can have a system that is extractive forever, and that's somehow possible. There have been thinkers for decades that have challenged that notion and that have proposed alternatives. And yet, we're still stuck in that mindset, and we're still stuck in corporations that are driving for profit maximization, which is an absurdity. It's actually incredible that we are still in a system that upholds that set of values. I think there's something really fundamental at the core of how we are operating that needs to change. This can change from within, but it requires courageous leadership on the parts of these institutions to say, "Okay, we don't know yet how we're going to get there because it's quite a complex kind of transition pathway. And how are we going to reinvent these systems that are regenerative and restorative and that allow for that cycle of life to restore itself so that actually we have a chance of seeing continuity of humanity into the future."
I would say that only from within is not going to be possible because we need to build these alternatives, and we need those pioneering new ideas and new ways and new models. Some of them already exist, and they exist in pockets here and there of kind of trying to experiment with different ways of governance, of thinking about finance, of thinking about the regeneration. What is a regenerative economy? What does it look like? So I think what I'm saying is there's a whole field of experiments that are happening on the margin, and we need these and we need these to grow and to kind of gain momentum so that it can allow some of these larger institutions to find a pathway for that transition. And they must go hand in hand.
Then, we also go back to the beginning of our conversation about life cycles and death. I think that some even institutions will inevitably have to die and some may transition and some may just need to close a certain cycle so that something new can emerge. This is what I'm seeing. I think that we're not quite at that conversation yet. I think there's obviously, understandably, a lot of resistance and a lot of fear. And I think it does come from fear and anxiety and a recognition that there's so many challenges at once in the world that one has to tackle, especially as a leader. If you have hundreds of thousands of employees, it's extremely difficult. How can you have those conversations about these deeper paradigm shifts when you're dealing with crises on a daily basis and you also feel a responsibility? I don't have the answer by any means. I think this that's what I was talking saying at the beginning, this is kind of a collective process. Everyone in this system has a role to play, to think about, what is that new world that we're aiming towards, where we have that harmony with nature and that reciprocity? And then wherever we are in the system, what is that pathway that we can catalyze or that we can plant the seeds for?
Yeah, it is really a very thoughtful answer. Thank you. A lot of nuance in that, and I appreciate that very much. Sometimes we can get a little impatient, and we want to see the percentage statistics of what percentage of like this a change or that, and all that. And then I think of this other sort of component of the change-makers sort of journey, which is just to look for a proof point. A proof point can be something really singular or small, just in a certain part of the world or something. But it's like a beacon that reveals to us the possibilities for what all communities could do, or all organizations could do or something. These bright spots that might exist out there. I'm certainly feeling that at this stage, maybe it's more important for us to scan for and identify honor and then work towards amplifying those bright spots, rather than seek to bring sweeping macro change tomorrow.
That's a conversation that I hope can be an ongoing one between us, amongst us in amplifying and sharing examples of what those bright spots are. I know a couple of businesses here, for example, in the United States. They're both private. They're multibillion dollars. So they're large, but they're not public companies but they're incredible in terms of the mission orientation, the will and commitment with which the family is comfortable in helping to support the advancement of purpose in addition to profit and serving of their partners or their people. It is so beautiful when you see all these parts of the equation come together in a way that is simultaneously being able to advance the natural economic sort of needs of an organization to be able to support yourself financially, but also do it in a way that is very net positive for society in the world. Anyway, are there any organizations that come to your mind or any people or any leaders in organizations that you want to put a spotlight on for us?
Yeah, I did want to mention something because, my parents created a foundation, The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, 25 years ago to start to spotlight social entrepreneurs. Muhammad Yunus with Grameen Bank was one of the early proponents of that. But now we have a community that we've been supporting with 250 social entrepreneurs from around the world and often serving the most marginalized populations, whether it's through health, education, looking at environmental challenges, I mean, all different parts of the spectrum. And I feel like, we're still talking about social entrepreneurship and upholding that. But that should become the norm because that's when we're moving away from this profit only lens and saying, no, actually, we need to look at this more holistically. So I agree with you. There are many examples. There are incredible leaders all around the world and change makers who are showing that it's possible. As you say, it is like how can we start to shed the light, connect and show like proof points that it is possible? And now we can kind of shift so that this becomes the norm and we have a different pathway that we can use as a reference point.
Excellent. Thank you for highlighting that organization created by your parents. I want to look more into them. But you're right. Grameen Bank was like such a beautiful example of that and spawned so many great microfinance movements around the world. So that that is a tool, right? Once that lacking of imagination can be partly corrected by just finding one example out there and suddenly, in a social media world of today something can get to proliferate very quickly. That is where I would hope that you and I and others can give hope to our youth, who are feeling a little bit hopeless. Actually you just never know what breakthrough win can then proliferate at the speed of light.
Exactly. And youth are so good at doing that. There's many amazing young change-makers and young entrepreneurs who are eager to go into this movement. When I was at the World Economic Forum leading the Trillion Trees Initiative, we were working to support what we call the ecoprenuers, entrepreneurs who are putting regeneration at the heart of their business model. So many young people are eager to say, yeah, I want to start that kind of business. I do think there's hope and I think it's just what do we choose to look at and celebrate so that we can also feed ourselves with those examples and not kind of only look at all the very challenging and negative things that are happening which inevitably are going to drag us down. But we have these examples that we can look at.
So beautiful. I'm going to share a quick story, and then I'm going to ask you to close us out by sharing your big dream in life. What are you most looking forward to personally in manifesting over the next ten years? As you think about that, let me just quickly just offer the story as well to kind of build on what you just said.
I was in conversation with Vicky Phillips. She's a dear friend and in many ways a mentor as well, especially when I think about what work we aspire to do with youth, because she's just so youth attuned. She was the chief learning officer at the National Geographic Foundation. I know you had some work with them as well, and she has been in the public education system for a while, now is the president of an organization called the National Center for Education and the Economy in Washington, D.C. I was talking to her about how we were building this program for training youth to become the tomorrow's Mandelas and Mother Teresa's of the world and others and, at some point when they find themselves in positions of power, they have the right sort of mind frame to bring to change-making. And she said, "Hitendra, what do you mean by at some point, these youth are change-makers today in the teens and the 20s". So I've been on that sort of quest to identify those bright spots.
Recently I came across the work of the gentleman, Neel Ghose. He was 26 when he went to Portugal. Saw how they were just doing some beautiful things of taking the waste food from restaurants before it got spoiled and using it to feed the hungry. He came to India and he basically started to do that a little bit with his friends in New Delhi. And then he found, wow, there are so many hungry people. So let's use social media to see if we can get a few more people involved in that. And let's not just go and offer them the restaurant meal, but let's sit with them and eat with them and then get to know them. Then they found other issues or challenges in the poor communities and started to help them medically or education, or what have you. And 11 years later today, Neel and his team, they built this organization called the Robin Hood Army. They're all considered Robins. They go out and do this stuff, and they have not raised a single rupee or dollar in philanthropic capital. It's all done through volunteerism. He actually has a full time job and he spends 30 hours on this on the side. They have over 200,000 Robins, and they have delivered over the last 11 years, over 100 million meals. And he was 26 at that time. It's so humbling and so beautiful.
Yeah. It's amazing. There's a lot of passion and energy all over the world, right? And imagination in that case of what is possible.
Yeah. So anyway, floor back to you. This has been so beautiful. And I want to end by having us come back to you and your personal quest and looking at the next 10 to 12 years, what is it that you're keen to manifest?
That's a great question. I would say that I would like to see a movement being born that is based on a sense of Earth-centric leadership. So everything that we've discussed that people talk about regenerative leadership but really seeing a movement of people who are doing things from that sense of connection to the Earth as a living system and a sense of reciprocity and that that inspires new models, new ideas, new ways of thinking about organizing, about corporations, about everything. It could spread through anything but that we could kind of have that thread as a new way, even of relating to what it means to be human on this planet, and how can we become stewards for future generations. I think that's my hope. I think we need a new movement. We need a new type of leadership that is celebrated that can also inspire youth to carry this torch towards this new possibility of a world in harmony with nature and in that true sense of reciprocity that goes beyond sustainability or just kind of this more transactional way of relating and seeing ourselves that we have today. I think it's possible because of everything we said, because the examples are there, because social media is there, because movements have formed before. I think also the time is ripe to plant new seeds and kind of spark that transformation.
Well, Nicole, when I look back at everything we've spoken about with this beautiful ending of a vision that inspires me and I think will inspire so many who are listening. I love the idea of making this an intergenerational movement as you shared. It also just makes me wonder and imagine how as you've grown up through the years, whether it's the culture of Switzerland, whether it's the family and its roots and the exposures you've had and of course, the inner inklings of your spirit or soul, any or all of that have been so beautifully molding you into who you are today and we are grateful for that and grateful to all who have played a role in shaping you to who you are and all that you're manifesting. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing where you go in manifesting this beautiful dream in the years ahead.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to have this conversation with you.
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