Learning what, and to what end?

What does your Personal Learning Ecosystem (PLE) look and feel like?

OK, so yes I just made that up! however a personal learning ecosystem does sum up a realisation I have had over the past 24 hours.

Over the past 6 years, with much coaching, support and guidance, both on a 1-1 basis and from an increasingly global diverse network of peers, combined with boat loads of personal curiosity, intrigue and exploration, I have been developing and co-creating with many awesome humans around the world, a personal development and (start of) decolonisation learning platform aka YouTube channel!

Let me caveat that latter part.

I am NOT saying, nor will I EVER say, I am an expert (cultural pattern) nor leader of decolonial learning, however it is important to name these critical learning experiences as part of my personal learning ecosystem.

An emergent learning spiral

In the West we have whole industries dedicated to Learning and Development, HR and business Transformation, Organisational Design and Development, yet I am curious to what extent is that learning focused on maintaining the Western, more linear, guarantee-seeking, growth at all costs status quo, and to what extent is that learning designed to help us dismantle the status quo, with a view to reimagining anew in more interconnected, healthy, generative ways, with justice including just relations, equity and equality at the centre, with different modes of value exchange in addition and beyond just money.

In fact, I wrote some personal reflections around the topic and provocation of 'how colonised is our thinking in Western business and what may be the impact?'

One of the most important guides for me personally in recent years has been Samantha Suppiah who since Oct 2020 has bravely and awkwardly (for me and probably them!) walked a couple of hundred metres away, at my side, as I have made multiple mistakes developing 'right relationships' with humans in currently oppressed regions of this blue orb, regions where much of our Western so-called comfort originates from and is indeed predicated on.

Alongside this, the Possible Futures crew of which Sam is part and whom Anna Denardin, the regular genius artist behind all of my HEXO branding and all of the recent Community Campfire branding is part, as is Sahana Chattopadhyay, instructional designer, OD leader and storyteller who is also my live show co-host for Community Campfires and Hegemony Revealed, whom have all been major influences on my unlearning and learning in recent years.

I share about these incredible humans intentionally as the Possible Futures crew have their next cohort of the Intro to Decolonial Sustainability course enrolling until 8th Feb 2023 which can be found as below:

Journeying as both participant and a guest coach to the pilot course last year, I can assure you that your thinking, world views and the potentiality for reimagining beyond our conditioned ways in the West will be blown apart, uncomfortably, positively and constructively.

In fact this morning, a previous traveller during the pilot course Marina Schmitz shared the below post, with an invitation to sign up to the next cohort:

Back to my Personal Learning Ecosystem (PLE)

What my YouTube channel has housed on there, completely for FREE if you are curious, to bring my learning spirals over the past 6 years to life, is as follows:?

Learning focusing on and moving towards more decolonial, just and equitable ways of being and organising (more of a root cause focus) - Past 24 months and ongoing

• ?4 x Fish Eye Cafe's with incredible systems thinkers and regeneration leaders Samantha Suppiah and B Lorraine Smith, the wisdom and vision shared by these two is mindblowing as are the insights offered for the curious out there who wish to reflect and imagine beyond our currently conditioned Western ways
• 7 x Community Campfire systemic explorations with my co-host Sahana Chattopadhyay and a number of diverse guests taking in deep, systemically focused topics as we seek to co-create new narratives that serve all of life and not just the now very outdated machine metaphors that 'run the show'
• 2 x Hegemony Revealed, a new deeply systemic live show where Sahana, Trina Casey and I explore the hegemonic narratives and stories that keep us wedded to oppressive and divisive ways of being, underpinned cultural patterns often unseen and unsaid

The next live takes place on LinkedIn and on YouTube next Mon 30th Jan 2023 if interested:

• 13 x Decolonising our minds through generative listening live streams, a new ‘game’ that I created using a blend of Jane Adshead-Grant's The Listening Deck plus Gesturing towards Decolonial Futures With/Out Modernity cards. We have also benefited from a few guests joining me as we explore how we can look beyond our conditioned thinking and structures through slowing down, generative listening and decolonial questioning, exploration and curiosity??

Somewhat of a middle ground for me between more root cause focus and symptomatic – Pretty damn confusing to be honest in this messy in-between space! - the past 4 years-ish learning and ongoing

• 46 x personal VLOG / narrated poetry / articles touching on all manner of deep systemic, leadership, culture, business, mindset, sustainability, disruption and more topics
• 11 x personal systemic reflections constructively interrogating Western sustainability, leadership and my own role within and perpetuation of hegemonic thinking, behaviours and structures
• 70 x Right Here, Right Now Live streams with an incredibly rich, diverse base of perspectives as we explore everything and anything that is on our heart and mind in the moment that we go live, often exploring systems, sustainability, capitalism, business, leadership, culture, mental health, mindset and more. The willingness to go live without an agenda nor prescription is worthy of note here
• 13 x Activating Consciousness podcast/livestream conversations as I personally started to join more interconnected, systemic dots across work, systems and life more widely
• 5 x Inside Out show explorations with my co-host Lucy Bramley as we sought to focus on having more in-depth business and sustainability related conversations

My earliest personal learning journey 'beyond the day job' started ~8 years ago and on reflection was all grounded, unsurprisingly, in more conditioned, Western hegemonic based leadership, organisational and personal development (I would assert that whilst still helpful, these are, generally, more symptomatic explorations rather than getting to the root cause systemic topics)

• 22 x Have Courage summit interviews with leading Western thought leaders (I was not consciously evolved nor aware enough at the time to consider seeking guests beyond my Western conditioning) which do offer some fantastic, deep insights how to step up and into our courage to make the max impact in our short time on this blue orb (today I acknowledge it is not systemically equal for all humans to be courageous and vulnerable, yet the aspiration to co-create those conditions remains)
• 44 x Value through Vulnerability podcast conversations, mainly audio uploads but some video as well as we explore the power of vulnerability, mindset, DEI, leadership, culture and lots more deeply humane topics. The full catalogue is over 130 full episodes

International Speaker and In-Person events

• In addition on my personal learning ecosystem, you can find 27 talks or videos with me as the guest on other platforms or speaking live (yes you can book me as a positively disruptive, vulnerable and deeply authentic international speaker sharing stories from the intersection of International Sales, People and Culture, Equity and Inclusion and Sustainability) #dareyou ??

Below you can find a highlight reel from my speaking at Cornell Thomas's July 2022 New Jersey Positivity Summit:

A note that Cornell will be bringing his incredible Positivity Summit to the UK on Friday 28th April 2023 and I am pleased that the amazing Shelley Fletcher with be partnering with us at the always stunning Hethfelton House, alongside the Jim Cronin Memorial Fund.

?I am sharing all of this for three key reasons:

?1)???My reflection and realisation as to my journey from more conditioned, head-focused only, hegemonic learning and development focus towards a more intentionally just-centered, FELT, decolonial, increasingly whole-body (embodied) learning and development focus, whilst navigating the AND-ness of being in both and more, concurrent contexts, might be helpful to you. I wrote about the importance of embracing AND-ness, and actively challenging our binary conditioning. a while back if curious:

2)???Because there is so much valuable content, great humans for you to meet, to learn about and from

3) The fact that all of the above is available to you for FREE, nada, zero after years of energy and many thousands of hours and my finest colonial British pounds being invested

• Yes, my PLE is still heavily Western focused as of today.
• Yes I continue to learn how to centre those who are too often missing from main discourse.

We are rapidly realising and remembering in the West the interconnectedness of all things and the opportunity for us all to unlearn our deeply conditioned patterns of thinking and behaviour, as I continue to work on these too.

Writing

In addition I also started writing on the medium blogging platform more regularly during the 2nd half of 2022 and it is interesting to me that the three most popular articles during those 6 months were as follows:

?-??????The Fakery of Modernity with 635 views was the most read.

?-??????Decolonising Chemistry with 554 views was the second most read article.

?-??????Ironically, or not in the spirit of this newsletter, Working Out Loud and Learning From The Crowd — An End Of year 2022 reflection was the third most read article with 392 views

What is very clear to me, and has been important to me, is that the ability to practice and remember our more creative energy, whether it be poetry, writing, intuitive live streams, exploratory podcasts coupled with the absence of conforming to fixed, linear, controlled outcomes has opened new worlds of learning, connection, relationships and potential that I never envisioned were available to me or us 5 years ago, and they are worlds well beyond our Western, often comfortable, linear paradigms.

To what end does any of this matter?

For me it matters as we are in a spiritual, economic, workplace and societal collapse in the West, something that we can either embrace, work with and sow seeds for future generations, or we can grab hold tightly to what we think comfort looks and feels like and stick our heads in the sand.

Heather Luna, another one of my coaches specifically helping me review and spot my own cultural, conditioned patterns of behaviour and the same in others, and whom is also a guest coach on the Possible Futures course, stated it powerfully a few months back when they stated "The Global South has been in a state of collapse for hundreds of years." .... directly linked to what we have been conditioned to see as 'normal' Western business as usual.

What we do and who we center during this incredibly potent period that we are alive, at this moment in time, is with each one of us, both individually and collectively.

However, my invitation to you is to get super curious, super creative and to actively seek and look well beyond your and our conditioned patterns of behaviour and thinking.

• Unleash your imagination.
• Embrace slowing down.
• Engage in deeper, more thoughtful dialogues beyond only short-term KPIs
• Actively seek to diversify your personal and workplace networks.
• Prioritise reconnection to yourself, to those around you and to the systems that sustain us. Big work in progress for me this one !
• Develop your own personal learning ecosystem and make it as diverse and complex as possible

There is so much more to see, feel and understand than we have been allowed to even imagine.

Hoping the above serves you and happy week ahead.

Shall we connect?

My name is Garry Turner and I am a Disruption and Innovation Catalyst working at the intersection of International Sales, People and Culture, Equity & Inclusion and Sustainability:

• International business development and authentic relationship building human working within and across a Euro 3bn + corporation?
• International speaker on topics around human-centered design, vulnerability and change is an inside job
• Support senior leaders and mission driven solopreneurs as a Thinking Partner
• Facilitator of people-centered workshops and organisational design
• The co-creator with Jo Hompstead of Human Development Space in-person gatherings which are an emergent and co-creative space for both businesses and open groups

Digital Business Card — https://link.v1ce.co.uk/GarryTurner?

LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/garryturnerthinkingpartner

Linktree — https://linktr.ee/HexoChangeGarryTurner