Updates to my Substack
I made a major update to my substack yesterday, organizing it into categories. Reason being, that my writing covers a lot of topics and you may not be interested in all of them. From now, you will have an option to unsubscribe from any category.
My primary interest remains the application of we-space practices (including Circling and Authentic Relating) to real-world problems, which includes my development as an AR leader and entrepreneur. This is the topic of this post, which I am putting in category The Business of AR.
The second category I am calling “Stories and Ramblings” which is my creative writing, in my usual funny / vulnerable style. It includes most recent post, When I was a child, I was happy.
I have also categories Marriage and Eros (on my turbulent but deeply connected marriage), Comic Relief, and Relational AI (currently empty, as I am just starting out).
Is Circling and Authentic Relating enough?
There’s the rub (to quote my great predecessor, Shakespeare 😊).
A bit of context on this. As a self-described “Authentic Relating and Circling Evangelist”, my desire is to say “Yes, it’s enough. All problems will surface in the interpersonal we-space, and there is an opportunity to resolve them there”. However, even though that answer is technically correct, the truth is more nuanced.
The keyword here is “opportunity”. Just because opportunity exists, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
And furthermore, just because it’s working for me (or appearing to work), doesn’t mean it will work for everybody.
A few days ago, I had a very interesting talk with my good friend Jason Zwolak, who is one of the founders of Authentic Montreal and its online version, Authentic Relating Go. What he told me absolutely floored me. So much so, that we agreed to make a podcast on this question exactly.
In the meantime, however, I want to say the following:
The direction I am taking currently, the big insight I had in the post Monetizing Authentic Relating, is that once you start to create “I -Thou” relationships with everyone around you [Martin Buber], and solicit feedback from the people around you on how well you are doing this, there is absolutely no way for you to NOT be affected. Even if you do nothing but bring that style of relating into your business networking (as in LinkedIn), you will win, as you will stand out from all the spammy marketers. The key here, is communicating that you actually care (and hope that it’s true). This would be level 1.
But what about level 2 - such as regular attendance at powerfully-held circles, such as S. and I frequently do at Relateful.com circles? And/or leading your own groups?
I - Thou relationships emerge in the we-space, such as inside a skillfully held Circling container. My thesis is the more you do this, the faster will be your development.
Results however, will vary, especially as you gain skill. I have already written about this in Trauma is good for you. I can see, looking back, that I was a bit naive when I had those insights, which was almost a year ago.
What is YOUR opinion on this? Drop me a comment here, if you like.