How we are organised has brought us far. However, times have changed and the way we organise ourselves has not.
Our siloed systems limit our capability to adapt, to accelerate, and to address complexity proactively. Current systems limit our collective human potential. Change does not begin with technical or system innovations.
It begins with human beings. By noticing what is alive in people and places. When we start with feelings, focus, and action, we ignite the limitless potential already present in us all.
So, what if we ask ourselves and the people around us three questions:
How do you feel?
What is keeping you busy?
And what are you doing about it?
To catalyse intrinsic drive, to explore yourself and your world, together.
1. Jeroen Geurts
How do you feel?
What I feel sometimes is a little bit of desperation.
What is keeping you busy?
What keeps me busy is the fact that the world is increasingly complex. There’s a lot of strife, conflict, and war, and people are losing touch with each other. I see that also on our university campus my own company in the future. With my background in IT and business, I’m excited to learn from the program and from my peers, and to grow into a more strategic and entrepreneurial thim and from my peers, and to grow into a more strategic and entrepreneurial thinker.
What are you doing about it?
What I’m going to do about it is build an educational program for all the students of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. To teach them to reflect on themselves, connect with other people, and then, together, build a better world.
2.
Marcus Carlbom
How do you feel?
I feel pretty alright. Satisfied.
What is keeping you busy?
What keeps me busy is thinking about how to keep people in more of a collective or in a sense of community. I feel, due to moving to the Netherlands, like I’ve been a little bit lost. So, my goal is to make myself feel included and to make all like me feel included.
What are you doing about it?
I would like to go volunteering for groups. Help out at where I live, as a residential assistant or association.
3. Jacqueline Bel
How do you feel?
I feel happy. But nevertheless, I also realise that we live in a world that has to deal with many problems.
What is keeping you busy?
I would like to find bridges between people by reading literature. Via literature, you can learn about other worlds, other people, so it improves your empathy.
What are you doing about it?
I am trying to focus on literature to give it a bigger place, not only at schools, but also in our personal lives.
4. Bart Bossink
How do you feel?
I’m feeling excited and very busy.
What is keeping you busy?
What keeps me busy is that I have several projects at the same time. One in the beginning, one at the end, and in the meantime all kinds of teaching stuff, lectures, students that do the final project, so enough to do
What are you doing about it?
I’m a good planner. Each week, I know what really needs to be done. I have a planning per day and I’m very structured in my work. That’s the way I organise my being busy. It’s never overwhelming. It’s always that I, in addition to feeling busy and excited, feel good!
5. Meike Bartels
How do you feel?
Generally, I feel very optimistic. But I also feel a bit restless with a sense of responsibility to make the world as good for everybody as it could be.
What is keeping you busy?
What is keeping me busy is that we have organised a societal framework that lacks the freedom to explore and to explore yourself. The one-size-fits-all society that we have created is limiting people in who they want to be, who they are, limiting intrinsic drive and potential and with that the power of wellbeing.
What are you doing about it?
I try to combine my strong interest in academic research with acting. Translating what we find in research on wellbeing and individual differences by trying to explore how we can facilitate people in exploring themselves. Facilitating bringing together the collective potential of those people, to make the world a better place.
6. Nhu Nguyen
How do you feel?
I just came to Amsterdam just 3 days ago, so I feel a little bit nervous, a little bit lonely. But I also feel very excited to welcome all new experiences, especially in academic environments.
What is keeping you busy?
What keeps my busy, is focus on my improvements . Every day I wake up, enjoy my cup of coffee, start planning my day following everything that I noted down.
What are you doing about it?
I like to clearly divide what I’m going to do in the morning, afternoon, and evening and be just very disciplined.
7.
Kibwka Bbossa
How do you feel?
I’m feeling well. All is well with me and I’m feeling really okay.
What is keeping you busy?
What is keeping me busy is exploiting new ways of farming. When I moved to the Netherlands, I found out that it is mostly an agricultural country, so I’ve discovered a lot as far as farming is concerned. For example, new methods of farming and improving on the way things can be done.
What are you doing about it?
I am originally from Uganda and I can share some knowledge on farming with my colleagues back home. I’m learning new ways of farming which helps me to improve my and their productivity.
8. Marcel Langeveld
How do you feel?
I’m actually feeling pretty good. Busy day. I just got back from a week-long vacation. I’m going home soon, so I’ll see my family again and wonder if they had a nice day.
What is keeping you busy?
What I think about when I fall asleep at night, is when I come back from a Southern European country and then back to the Netherlands, I wonder why there’s so little solidarity in the Netherlands. That’s something I sometimes worry about.
What are you doing about it?
I worry sometimes, but I mainly try to avoid LinkedIn because these days, I see LinkedIn becoming more of a discussion forum about what’s happening in the world. But to me it is more about “Keep it small and do things that are important, but maybe less visible.”
9. Philipp Pattberg
How do you feel?
Honestly, I feel torn. I have a natural inclination to be content, to be happy, to be positive about the world. But I also see, of course, that the world isn’t okay. So, I feel torn between the natural feeling that it is okay and the knowledge that it is not.
What is keeping you busy?
What’s keeping me busy is the state of the world. I know the world doesn’t really need us to save it, but I still think there are many things that could be improved. Many things are not going as we know they could.
What are you doing about it?
I feel that a lot of my career was about trying to be a good scientist, which means breaking everything down and advising other people on what to do based on this compartmentalised and fragmented knowledge. The last couple of years, I had a feeling that I could turn it around and start with myself and look deeper into myself. This has helped me also to deal with the world that is disintegrating, that is fragmented, that is torn.
10. Max Smit
How do you feel?
I’m feeling pretty good.
What is keeping you busy?
What I’m mainly thinking about is the insects in the world. What I’ve noticed a lot in the Netherlands is that the insect population is really declining.
What are you doing about it?
I can’t do much about it, unfortunately. But we can all do more. For example, buy more insect houses, or get to know insects better, what they are like, how they live, what they can do, and things like that. That would make a huge difference.
11. Wonu Akingbuwa
How do you feel?
At this moment in my life, I feel generally nervous but also excited. I’ve recently bought a new home, so a big change in my life.
What is keeping you busy?
What I am busy thinking about is community and integration. I am going to move to a new neighbourhood, and I am thinking a lot about connecting with new people and feeling connected to the new environment I am in.
What are you doing about it?
Committing to going back to Dutch lessons. Learning the language and hoping that that is one way I can use it to connect with people that I will spend a lot of time with, in my new life and neighbourhood.
12. Berend van de Kraats
How do you feel?
If you ask me how I am feeling, I’m anxious but also dedicated. I have a feeling that I can contribute.
What is keeping you busy?
That the way I want to contribute is in a role that doesn’t exist yet. It is not policy, it is not political, it is not consultancy, it is not technical, it is a very enabling role.
What are you doing about it?
A couple of years ago, together with other co-founders, I started a foundation. That foundation explores a new societal framework, in which that role is respected. Organising our commons to unleash our collective potential for impact. For accelerated impact. Start exploring yourself, your world, and our future. Are you joining?
