It’s Thursday night in a town hall in Brixton, South London. Hundreds of people mill around, steel drums play, bottles of fizzy ginger are generously given away. In this time of giant banks and an insistently globalised economy, I am here to celebrate the launch of the Brixton Pound: England’s fourth local currency. While most of us assume the future of banking is plastic and online, there is a strong energetic push in the opposite direction. In Brixton, as in Totnes, Lewes and Stroud, you can hold in your hands distinctly unique paper notes; in this case, they convey the area’s identity by way of its key historical characters, local architecture and other familiar sights. Fostering a sense of vibrant interdependence, this is money which, as the slogan states, sticks to the community. Complementary currencies like these are experiments, causing us to perk up our ears and consider the fundamental workings of a system – in this case, our economy.

Earlier in the day, I eat at Tibits, a vegetarian buffet restaurant off Regent Street where you pay according to how much your food weighs. It’s an oasis of delicious, conscious dining in a landscape of frenetic eat-as-much-as-you-want, buy-one-get-one-free cheap offers. Here resources literally count and waste is minimal, unusual in this age where we rarely assess how much a thing truly costs. Someone once said to me: “Only dead fish go with the current”. This day in London, I feel that I move from one interesting undercurrent to another, bypassing the mainstream flow. The true spirit of an age often lives just underneath the radar.

Why do we sometimes get like dead fish? Why do we go unthinkingly with a current? I suspect it’s because we forget about the human capacity to choose. To stop, to be discerning, to say: “Hang on, is this what I want? Is this what makes sense?” To recognise our own significance and know that if we want our life, our world, to go in a certain direction, then we need to turn our eyes that way. No matter how strong a current feels, we have the power of choice, the power of directional, decisive action. As Einstein said, “Any fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction”.

The World Needs Your Passion, So…

1) From what you notice in the news, in conversations, in the environment around you, in adverts, in your own habits, which trends don’t sit well with you?

2) Likewise, which currents do you feel are taking your life and our world in directions you’re delighted about?

3) Crank up the element of choice. If you got to direct the current of your life, where would it take you? If you got to direct the current of our society, where would you take us?

4) Finally, if you were to abandon all deadfishness, what would your role be in all this? How would you claim your power of choice and get into action? Action: Seek out individuals and groups whose undercurrents you want to slip in with and join with them. And, of course, make some powerful undercurrents of your own.

Found this post challenging? Helpful? Inspiring? Irritating? Leave a comment and let us know.

© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009

* Hello! Your Idea Is Needed!

My guess is that you have an idea for a project, product or service that would nudge us in an interesting new direction. Well, it’s time to start that current.

If you want to explore your idea with other inspirational people, join us for the Kickstart Your Venture workshop on Saturday 24th April in Cambridge. If you’d love some one-to-one attention, some time and space just for you and your dreaming, book a free coaching consultation. You also might like to read Emma’s case study; when so many people were clinging on to job security, she took a brave leap against the current and into more fulfilling work. Read her story here.

That first morning, I struggled. I was in entirely foreign territory, overwhelmed by possibilities, painfully aware of my own incompetence in this arena. I didn’t know what to do with these materials in front of me, I didn’t know what to do with myself. In my head ran a mantra: “I am not an artist. Why am I here?!”

I allowed my frustration and my discomfort and I stuck with it. And at some point, I’m not sure when, I became an artist. I felt at home in my overall, I started picking up materials instinctively, and caught glimpses of myself with paint splatters on my face and my nails caked in clay. I walked amongst the other artists and we reflected on each other’s processes and products; I was welcomed onto house boats and enjoyed the background clang of boat-workers welding.

On my return home, I felt alive and more whole. My whole being had been engaged and I felt bigger; there was more of me, because I was now this too.

Someone made this possible for me. My client, Sarah Preece, is a working artist who has just launched MakingSpace, a venture to reconnect us with materials, with making and with innately creative ways of seeing our world. She is passionate about everyone having access to this aspect of the human experience, one which she sees as being so often neglected.

As we go through life, we knock off parts of ourselves. Ignored by our PE teacher? “I’m not sporty”. Don’t organise the way our friends do? “I’m scatty”. Our talents don’t align with the school curriculum? “I’m not clever”.

Now, many of us notice ourselves claiming back these identities. I’m so satisfied when I see this with my clients: one sticks to her daily walking routine and claims back “I am disciplined”; another launches a newsletter and recognises “I am a writer”. Vegan cookbooks have helped me claim “I am a whizz in the kitchen”, Five Rhythms classes have helped me realise “I am a dancer”, meditation teachers have guided me to find “I am peaceful”.

Many of us, like Sarah, have the resources and the generosity to offer others the space to experience different versions of themselves. What might you like to claim? And what might you be able to help others claim?

The World Needs Your Passion, So…

1) Make two lists: Firstly, who you think you are. Secondly, who you think you are not.

2) How might you give yourself a different experience, whereby you claim a part of yourself that has lain dormant?

3) How might you give others a different experience so that they can ‘try on’ an unclaimed aspect of themselves?

4) Found this blog post helpful? Irritating? Challenging? Inspirational? As ever, let us know by leaving a comment….

© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009

** Want An Experience Like Mine? **

Sarah is running her workshop again on 1st & 2nd October 2009. 10am – 5pm, Twickenham, London (20 minutes by train from Central London) Two-day workshop: £100 (£80 concessions) Contact Sarah: makingspace@sarahpreece.net, 07891 662 227

Well okay, not literally, but quantitively. My gym has launched ‘Channel Challenge’ where we sign up and keep tally of our lengths between now and the end of August, aiming to rack up 21 miles in total.

When I first saw it advertised, the idea was intriguing. I asked a lifeguard for more details and he said his team were about to have a meeting to formulate a plan. It turned out to involve tally cards, celebratory drinks at key milestones, conversion tables to calculate mileage in the indoor versus outdoor pool, plus a giant chart representing how far each of us has travelled.

There are some bonuses they hadn’t necessarily planned for. There’s been a buzz by the pools with the lifeguards excited and engaged, suddenly enjoying a role other than merely saving us from drowning. My own fitness is increasing and my partner has started accompanying me, inspired by the personal target setting. I’ve got to know a fellow swimmer: a 62-year old grandmother of eight with some amazing life stories which she shares with me in the jacuzzi, after having put me to shame with her stamina. People are breaking their own personal bests, challenging family members, enjoying the outdoors, losing excess weight.

All this because someone had an idea.

We all have ideas, often a lot of them. Many of them stay merely as ideas without accompanying plans. Sometimes this can be a relief: we get to enjoy the fantasy. Other times this gulf between what’s in our heads and what’s in reality can be overwhelmingly frustrating.

With an idea that could benefit others, whether it’s bringing laughter or insights, sanctuary or motivation, ease or excitement, this idea is not just for us. We receive it, with no input on our part, into our consciousness and it is our choice whether we delve deeper. Whether we share it with others. Whether we take it from idea to clearer idea. To compelling idea. To plan. To action. To reality.

Had any ideas lately?

The World Needs Your Passion, So….

1) Action: Make a list of all those ideas you have that just will not go away.

2) Inquiry: What do your personal idea-full, plan-less places feel like? Are you quite comfortable there with no action required, or do they feel frustrating?

3) Found this blog helpful? Irritating? Inspiring? Challenging? Let us know by leaving a comment below….

© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009

* A Place To Go With The Idea That Won’t Go Away *

If it’s time to take the first step towards turning it into reality, the Kickstart Your Venture workshop has been designed for you. Click here for more information. Pre-booking essential. Date: Sat 10th October 2009 (Cambridge)

I was the columnist in The London Paper last week, suggesting that the recession is a good thing. Readers vote on whether they want more of you… and 96% did. I also had many comments calling this point of view “refreshing” and “inspiring”. In this, I hear a whispered hope for a move away from ‘business as usual’ to a more enjoyable and equitable way of running our economy.

At its best, this shake-up wake-up call will prompt us to re-prioritise and re-allocate resources. It will make us more aware of where we use money as an excuse to see ourselves as separate from others. Instead of this isolation, we will find ways of leaning in to human energy as our most precious resource and recognise our interdependence.

A great example of this is liftshare – an organisation that works to bring about sustainable change by encouraging individuals to do things together. There are now 290,000+ people registered and several inspirational stories have emerged.

Sandra from Clacton-on-Sea started car-sharing as a way of saving petrol and impact on the environment and found that “two people who led separate lives have now become great friends, with all the benefits and opportunities that new friendships offer”. They socialise regularly, found they had tons in common, and get to chat, laugh and sing along to 60s and 70s music on the way to and from work.

Similarly with Emma from Swindon, her initial motivations were financial and environmental and says “I have benefited in ways I never imagined, including socially. The company is great, we share ideas, and we exchange knowledge about the local area – where the best markets are, what’s on at the theatre. As I know we have to rely on each other at a particular time of day, I’m much more efficient at work. I can no longer stay late to get things finished so I don’t faff about any more, I just get it done.

And there are wider community benefits, as Clare from Herefordshire describes: “We also pick up and drop off a regular prescription for a friend who has retired and finds it difficult to get to the doctors”.

With liftshare, we see the Triple Bottom Line of a solid, sustainable venture – intending to bring about economic, environmental and societal/inter-personal benefits through its activities. As we tighten our belts and make changes economically, perhaps we’ll also tighten our belts as a community, finding afresh how fulfilling it is to need each other.

The World Needs Your Passion, So…

1) If you had 50% of your current income, what would you do differently? Make a list. Then assess: in what ways would any of this be preferable? What could you gain as side-effects of these changes? Plato said “Necessity is the mother of invention”. In which ways would your decreased income increase your creativity and innovation?

2) Now return to your current level of income – but keep those new ways in place. What would you do with all that extra money?? Which deeply fulfilling lifestyle benefits would all that abundance bring you?

© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2008

* Why The Recession Is A Good Thing *

Read the article here.