GUEST COACHES
To support your personal explorations in the Seas of Fires and Dragons, bright gannets with piercing eyes, keen ears and threshold-agnostic accuracy wait in the wings to offer supportive observations, challenging provocations, and embodied grounding, encouraging you to break through the surface of the seas and peer into their depths to know what lies there for you.
specialty areas
HEATHER
Heather was born and raised in Michigan, United States. Her father is a mestizo immigrant from Colombia and her mother’s people colonised what is now the United States in the 1600s from Norfolk, England. Between 2003 and 2020, Heather lived and worked in England. She now lives in a small market town near Bogotá, called Tenjo, in Colombia with her 13-year old daughter-activist.
Heather’s background includes being an economics lecturer, an interfaith minister of spiritual counselling, founder of a refugee and asylum seeker organisation in England, project coordinator for Education for Sustainable Development in UK universities, a hospice volunteer, founder of a Transition Town in England, trainer for Extinction Rebellion International and UK, a volunteer coordinator for an AIDS organisation, and communications coordinator for Deep Adaptation Forum. She considers herself a communitarian-anarchist, having seen that states are not responding appropriately to the unfolding crises over the centuries, and that oppression is at the root.
Colonial Patterns: Recognising common colonial (white supremacy culture) patterns that show up in organisations, movements, relationships – and exploring their antidotes.
Influencing Others: Exploring how to use language and motivation that influences people from where they are now to an attitude of humility and curiosity that leads us to a world where we learn to take care of one another and keep each other as safe as possible. (Possible starting points include people in: multinationals, charities, activist movements… as well as parents, educators, and academics.)
Convergent Facilitation: Learning a tool that allows for better collaborative decisionmaking upfront in a way that finds a solution that works for everyone.
Defining Our Role: How do we best leverage our circles of influence and our own expertise and passion from a place of our own political education and connections in community?
exploring inquiries like...
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How do I interrupt racism and colonialist attitudes in my circles?
How might I introduce more curiosity and humility around me and in me?
What should I do with my life?
How do I inspire others to do the necessary political work?
Why is this work important, when the current crises are so urgent?
How do I respond to this new work strategy in my organisation, when I know it is so off-track?
book a session
Book at least one day in advance with the following information:
any particular topic or question you wish to explore (optional), and
the amount in whichever currency that you wish to donate based on your ability and willingness.
Make payment via Paypal.
Upon receipt of payment, Heather will send across a calendar invite with a Zoom link.
Please attend at the booked time.
LORRAINE
B. Lorraine Smith is a writer and independent industry advisor whose purpose is to contribute to a society that thrives within a healthy biosphere.
Complementing her industry work, she spins yarn, creates textiles, runs ultra-marathon distances through urban spaces, and offers a home in Montreal, Canada to a 3-year old street cat named Joni.
Lorraine has consulted in the area of corporate sustainability strategy, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) transparency, for over 100 companies since 2003, from sectors including energy, mining and metals, forestry, media, technology, food, agriculture, manufacturing, and financial services. Prior to entering the sustainability field, she worked in financial services, graphic design, papermaking, and at an environmental NGO.
In 2022, after a 5-day, 255km running journey along the banks of the St. Lawrence River, she decided to step away from 20 years of corporate consulting to listen more deeply to diverse human and non-human stakeholders, and to dedicate more time to sharing what she hears. Early inklings of those learnings can be found in Matereality.
You can find more of Lorraine’s thinking and doing on Medium, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. Contact Lorraine via her website.
specialty areas
Corporate Sustainability ESG reporting and engagement. Lorraine has deep expertise applying the methodologies companies use to communicate about sustainability with investors and other “key stakeholders”. (ESG reporting is not working, which explains why I am a guest coach with Possible Futures.)
Reframing “possible”. We are asking organizations – whole economies really – to radically shift approach in the near term. What about on an individual level? Being an average non-athlete for most of my life, and then running 5 back-to-back ultramarathons in 5 days at age 50 (with lots more to come), I can offer specific guidance and experience to re-envision and implement your own “possible” so that what might have seemed completely bonkers becomes not only doable, but straight-forward.
Language dexterity. I am fluent in English, Portuguese and French, and have facilitated workshops and coaching sessions in these languages. I enjoy building bridges across languages and cultures and – having often been out of my own linguistic comfort zone – I can appreciate and support people who are working in a language other than their own.
Making cloth. I have been making cloth for over four decades, studying a range of techniques including spinning, weaving, dyeing and embroidery, with every spinnable fibre imaginable - plant, animal and synthetic. Spinning and making cloth is a way to understand history, interconnectedness, culture, colour, comfort, dreams, design, persistence and patience.
Writing. I am a writer and story-teller – it’s how I absorb and pass on information. This includes essays, short stories, white papers, poems, facilitated dialogue, coaching and spoken presentations.
Changing course. I have lived on four continents and worked in a lot of different circumstances (a global NGO, my own artisanal business, a high-end design studio, a massive financial corporation, a boutique consultancy, and as a freelancer, to name a few). I recognize the guardrails we’re offered as contributors to the current mainstream economic model, and I have a lot of experience stepping over them and into more fulfilling, interesting and reality-based lanes.
inquiries to explore
“I’ve been trained and incentivized in an economic culture predicated on harm. I’m having trouble giving myself permission to believe there is an alternative, even though I know there has to be.” Let’s talk about that permission piece.
“I work in an organization where we – in theory– have a strategy and clear goals that sound good to most people, but I don’t think we’re really changing things for the better on a fundamental level.” Let’s look at the recognized tools and methodologies you’ve got at your disposal that are currently reinforcing the old paradigm, and look at how you can turn them into instruments to disassemble harmful constructs.
“I feel like a heretic in my organization. Nothing makes sense and there isn’t really a channel to discuss this.” I hear you. Let’s explore how to open up those channels within your organization (or maybe just within you?).
book sessions
Get in touch with Lorraine via
email at blorrainesmith@gmail.com,
Signal at +1-514-632-4848,
to arrange 90-minute sessions for you and/or your crew.
Please provide context such as what has prompted you to reach out, what you hope to achieve through the sessions, and/or language constraints or other requests.
A minimum of three sessions (versus one-offs) is strongly preferred. Fees to be discussed.
Lorraine will organise calendar invites with a Zoom link.
GARRY
Garry is a husband, step-dad to three grown-up children and proud doggy-daddy to Winnie the (Cocka) Poo. Based in the South East of England, UK, one of the colonial capitals of the world, Garry is increasingly constructively challenging outdated and unhealthy corporate mindsets and systems, both from within and outside of industry.
Having worked for over 20 years in the chemicals sector, i.e. the centre of extractive global supply chains, Garry has extensive global experience of international relationship-building, business development and leading change initiatives around people and culture within a corporate setting. He sees his role as a thinking partner, facilitator & interpersonal guide.
He offers a delicate, brave and expansive space, both within and outside of chemicals, to allow humans to unfold their socialised internal narratives and stories. He models a deeply curious, exploratory and vulnerable approach to all that he does, having navigated and explored his own version of trauma from adolescent bullying and emotional suppression of over 20 years.
Garry’s biggest learning in recent months has come in the form of understanding more deeply about white supremacy culture patterns, the patterns that we have all been taught and conditioned with and which he himself perpetuates.
He has recently been exploring planetary systems collapse and how it shows up within every system and area of life as we know it today. Sitting in a deep, felt sense of what collapse actually is, Garry has developed an active interest in sharing this learning with more people, such that we can foster more conducive spaces to re-imagine for whatever is emerging.
specialty areas
Sensing beyond corporate greenwashing: A space to constructively critique corporate and organisational greenwashing and its relationship to colonial and supremacy thinking patterns
Internal activism and intrapreneurship: Leveraging that spot that you have within an organisational or group setting to maximum effect, within and outside of immediate areas of focus, whilst centring those most impacted by our outdated systems
White supremacy culture patterns: noticing and understanding learned perspectives and behaviours, both within and outside of the corporate space, that reinforce and empower white supremacy while denying and erasing other perspectives
Thinking Partner & Interpersonal Guide: Holding an emergent space for you to express what is on your heart and mind within a brave, confidential setting, free from interruption, supported with strategic narrative as required to help you move past any internal blockers to taking desired action
exploring inquiries like...
How might I learn out loud, modelling vulnerability and curiosity, with my personal learnings from this course and to what potential effect?
How might we create the space to allow for constructive challenge and reimagining of our growth at all costs narrative?
How can I use my awareness of supremacy culture patterns to invite a new sustainability conversation internally?
How do I hold the space for a more complex conversation/dialogue?
How can I find allies within my workplace to help build community / momentum to centre decolonial concerns?
How do I use this new holistic and interconnected awareness
to best effect?
Garry's Post-Pilot Reflections:
book a session
To book a session with Garry, get in touch with him at garryturner0@hotmail.com.
If you are unsure if Garry is the right coach for you, you can book a free 30 min discovery call to find out.