The past two weeks have been astonishingly insightful

Participation at three separate but complimentary events as for content and meaning, made me stronger in my focus on stimulating change through and with other people for a better planet and specifically for our beautiful island of Curaçao.

Peter Senge was an absolute delight to experience in person at the masterclass for compassionate systems change in Stockholm last week. Only now do I realize how much his work - ever since The Fifth Discipline and the following research and publications regarding learning organizations and systems change - has influenced me in my leadership practices. Peter is a humble, kind and profoundly wise person, eager to help others develop insights, and he himself remains curious and thus continously learning along the way. His training with a diverse group of 150 professionals from all across the world accounted for three highly intensive days, full of reflection and interchange of ideas and views. Beautiful bonds between participants have developed that will linger on and grow in the online offspring group that has developed.

The training by Peter Senge and Gustav Böll - a truly good facilitator and funny sidekick to Peter - was followed by the Inner Development Goals Summit, also in Stockholm. At a much larger scale, both on-site and online, but equally awesome, inspiring and intensive. The IDG's started as a small movement, and has developed over the course of a few years into a multifold of international practices, tools and hubs across our globe, all concentrated around the core: the five dimensions (connected to 25 skills) for inner development, needed to be able to create outer change in our complex world.

I am proud to mention that the University of Curaçao was selected in the inaugural cohort of the University Coalition for Student Inner Development. This will assist us in developing even better guidance and coaching for our students in acquiring the skillset they need to become future proof professionals.

Before these events in Stockholm I was able to attend the Planetary Health Conference in Rotterdam.
You could hear a pin drop in the large auditorium when Emma Rawson Te-Patu of indigenous origin from New Zealand emotionally and with authenticity declared about the vulnerability of her people. Indigenous people across the world have managed for many thousands of years to live a balanced life as part of nature, but are now hardest hit by the consequences of the industrial age view regarding human life as separate from nature around us, dominated by 'extractive' (our planet as a resource) views and practices and disregard for the planets bounderies and ecological systems.
The conference was a celebration of hope, research and options to do better, yet also a red flag for lack of urgency and difficulties in changing mindsets, especially in Western cultures.

The deep dive was physically exhausting, yet at the same time recharged my mental battery.