Paths to Flourishing

Week of May 20, 2023

Cultivating Purpose, Meaning and Action
In these past and present years of immense new challenges, we are asked to reimagine what is possible and called to create new paths forward. How might we compost and catalyze new opportunities from the crises of the past several years and reroot them into possibilities for personal growth and flourishing?

Utilizing lessons from the practices of gardener, we identify what it is we want to grow within ourselves, our communities and the world. This workshop encourages us to develop rigorous practices of intention setting, tending and cultivation to bring our visions into being. Through a series of visualizations, reflections and planning exercises we emerge with a clearer sense of our core purpose and the paths we can (and should) pursue.

This workshop utilizes poetry and meditation to bring about deeper states of seeing and knowing—all within a pragmatic framework that emphasizes a bias for action: How might we seed and grow a culture of vibrant and successful collaboration, advancing us towards our goals of living sustainable, resilient and fulfilled lives? Participants emerge from this session with a clearer sense of personal purpose and direction and the next steps we should take to realize our visions.

Mindful Gardening: Soil to Soul with Sylvia Boorstein
There is ample and growing clinical evidence that spending mindful time in nature is a healing balm for the mind and soul. With uncertainty, danger and anxiety rising in our lives and culture , it’s time to ‘get back to our gardens’—to discover our sanctuaries for healing and well-being.

This workshop offers activities, exercises, and examples of ways we can ‘garden’ health and well-being in our own lives and in those of our parents, children and friends. Participants will learn to establish and maintain a mindful garden practice (both real and metaphorical) that will serve as a source of joy, resilience and encouragement.

Drawing on deep ecology, systems science and Buddhist psychology, participants learn to integrate ancient and cutting-edge garden and mindfulness practices that deliver states of equanimity known to the Greeks as ataraxia. This garden-rooted mindset can boost the immune system, expand courage and open a greater sense of hope and possibility.

Becoming a More Enlightened Eater
What does it mean to be an “enlightened eater”? This workshop, based on a highly popular UC Berkeley course, guides participants to examine their relationship to food and eating as a means of developing “food-systems intelligence”. We examine our personal values and habits and how they manifest in our conscious and unconscious choices and actions—and how these actions collectively impact the greater whole of the food system–climate, health and social justice. We learn about “leverage points” and transparency (or lack thereof) in food systems and ways our own conscious actions can accrue to make a meaningful difference during our lifetimes.

Our work together helps participants make easy and accessible shifts from a “me” orientation around food, to a “we-centric” mindset. Participants develop greater consciousness and a deeper understanding of ways to ethically grow, procure, cook, share and eat our meals. As an output of this workshop, participants will develop a concise and actionable plan for ways we can shift our shopping, cooking and eating habits to create healthier, sustainable and equitable food systems—actions that respond to the most urgent challenges of our time.

Ideagardening: How to Transform Your Idea into a Purpose-Driven Business
Are you thinking about a new calling, business idea or side hustle? What are the steps and paths one takes to turn passion and skills and a new idea into reality? In this workshop, participants learn the best practices of “ideagardening”, a proven process for transforming purpose into possibility. Many people are walking around with seeds of possibility in their minds, but don’t know how to act on them; they find the process of entrepreneurial implementation a complete mystery. Ideagardening draws on nature’s principles and applies lessons in practical terms to entrepreneurial practice, helping creators and innovators find their way through a dynamic, confusing, risky and competitive process. Ideagardening will help you align your passion and purpose with a sizable unmet need in the marketplace. This workshop will also help you discern between an interesting hobby and a viable business—“derisking” your idea in ways that dramatically improve your likelihood of success.

 

Recipient of the 2010 Oslo Business for Peace Award, William Rosenzweig is an internationally recognized entrepreneur, educator, and avid gardener. His acceptance speech for the Business for Peace award explains Will’s philosophy for creating a successful business; it starts with nurturing the conditions and culture that make collaboration and the generation of ideas into goals possible and sustainable. Will has spent over 25 years cultivating thriving startups and mentoring mission-driven entrepreneurs worldwide. Will serves as a Senior Advisor to Generation Investment Management, a public and growth equity practice chaired by Al Gore. Will was founding CEO (and Minister of Progress) of The Republic of Tea and co-author of The Republic of Tea: How an Idea Becomes a Business, named one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Will has served on the professional faculty of the Haas School of Business at UC, Berkeley, since 1999, where he is a Social Impact Fellow and teaches food systems transformation through courses such as Plant Futures, Food Innovation Studio and Edible Education with Alice Waters. He also recently developed an entrepreneurship course for regenerative farmers in collaboration with Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.