Faith is better than fear, in times of change
Our Extrapreneurs — we have some sort feedback now, 230 projects in 28 countries, 19 editions — who succeed the best, are quite similar in their qualities:
- Concrete action, moving forward in the field, in real life, instead of blablabla around tables.
- True pragmatic intelligence, on the ground, in concrete projects, instead of intellectualizing everything and writing useless reports;
- An intelligence of efficient use of resources, open to sharing knowledge;
- Able to quickly transform a shock, a challenge into an opportunity to move forward. Live in motion.
- Humble, not showing off, staying under the radar. Continuous progress, learning together, not judging, not being dogmatic, using diversity and collective intelligence, ethical.
- A true intelligence of the heart, empathetic, sensitive, capable of open collaboration, instead of being condescending and egotistical. Having taken a leap of faith to “serve the common good”, sincerely serving their community, willing to leave something of value behind, instead of having short-term personal agendas.
Lets concentrate on the two last ones. Humility, heart, and faith. Faith. They do. Why is FAITH more efficient? Orianne Corman started this question here.
My very simple vision on this:
- Faith as a posture: Faith keeps you in “Radical Acceptance” mode.
- Faith as a connexion to the community, to vitality of the planet with its resources, and to Common thriving: we, humanity, together, are a living “being”. Everyone has a role in the system, like in a beehive or anthill. If we succeed, its gonna be TOGETHER. Not alone.
When do we “get lost” ? When fear takes advantage over love, when stress is higher than the inner peace we need to discern and act smart. When we forget why we are here, what is our deeper role, our excellence. When we loose contact with our larger community, and its functions for survival and thriving. We’ve seen lots of participants “who think they know better”, who are driven by neurotics, by their ego. They think they are better off alone, and too often fail. They got lost on the way, missing the essenials: connexion to self, to others, to nature & planet, to a common exciting goal of thriving.
So.
“‘Radical Acceptance” as the 5th step of mourning or grief.
- Denial: we do not see reality as it is => impossible to act smart
- Anger: often connected to victimisation. We do not see reality as it is, doubled with very negative emotions => impossible to mobilize anybody, and act smart
- Bargaining: trying to avoid the facts => we do not see reality as it is => impossible to act smart. We lie to ourself
- Depression, sadness: very negative emotions, cutting our wings => impossible to mobilize anybody, and act smart
- Acceptance: actually, the only state and attitude which allows smart, engaging, positive action. People of faith accept what is, learn from the difficult things, gratefully and happily surf when thriving, are in a very attractive and sustainable posture.
In short: from fear to love, from blocking to flow. Faith, way beyond any spiritual or metaphysical dimensions, is a much better posture for success in these times of deep change, than victimisation, stress, obligations, manipulations, regulations, or anxiety.
Michel A. de Kemmeter
