In celebration of Kerry’s book publication, we asked Kerry to share some of her joys and inspiration related to the good works and difference she is making in the world:

1.  What do you do?
I am a Leadership Coach.  I work with executives and business people and help them to animate their vision — make it come alive and deepen it, so that they can inspire action that makes a difference to them, to their teams.  I also coach teams of people, so that the team becomes more than just a collection of people.  Instead, the team forms an alliance to create shared outcomes, and designs ways to promote positivity AND productivity, to flourish and create intended impact.  I am deeply engaged and transformed daily by the work of leadership, and I believe we are all leaders, when we choose to claim our leadership boldly.

2.  Why do you do it?
I do this work because I am a junky for human potential.  I see it everywhere, in everyone.  It makes me sing when I work with someone who engages in a meaningful challenge, perhaps something that they never thought they could accomplish — AND THEN accomplishes that and more.  And it whets their appetite for taking on bigger challenges, things that line up superbly with their values, things that make a powerful difference in the world. I know that there is always more to learn in leadership and in creating what is next and that the journey of it is the point, not the destination.

3.  How does “what you do” and your approach to life nourish you?
What I do constantly inspires me.  Often I will find that the subject that a client is working on applies to me as well.  As coach, I am  focusing entirely on my client’s positive outcome.  And later, on my own time, I might reflect on what meaning that issue has for me.  I am constantly learning about myself in the context of my coaching. Life-long learning is a very strong value for me — so my work and approach nourish me continually because I am in a continual learning mode.  One of my favorite motto’s is ‘Teach what you want to learn.’  If we learn along with our ’students’ we create a resonant learning environment that is more powerful than if we were to stand in the perspective of ‘expert.’  I am also really inspired when I hear from a client’s boss or colleagues about the transformation that this person has affected for those around them.

4.  In what ways do others find what you do nourishing?
My clients transform their lives through coaching.  And by ‘transform’ I mean change for good.  Change is something that is easily reversible, transformation is change forever and for the better.  Helping one person transform can have a huge ripple effect — people around them, work colleagues, families, see the change and they too experience transformation.  It’s catching in the most refreshing and lively way!

5.  What would you say is your biggest source of inspiration?
Nature is my biggest source of inspiration.  Nothing makes me vibrate more than getting into the outside world.  And looking, really seeing the trees, the sky, the way the breezes flutter the leaves.  I watch the birds feed outside my kitchen window, or swoop across my windshield when I am driving, and I know that I have just seen a tear in the veil of the universe.  Also, meditation inspires me.  And I get some of my grandest inspirations in the shower!  Laughing with friends is a great inspiration to me as well.  Laughter loosens my grip, so that I can relax and receive more easily.

6.  Where can I learn more?

You can learn more about me by going to www.kerryhamiltonllc.com.
Or my blog www.kerryh-blog.typepad.com.  Here you will find out a lot about the way the world unfolds for me.
Also, my book, The Leadership River: Translating Vision into Action, is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions.

1.  What do you do?

I’m an advocate for the environment. I’m always thinking of ways to educate, make changes in behaviors, to spread the word. Ideas pop into my head – ideas of how to reduce carbon emissions. Then I begin to think of ways to turn those ideas into a reality.

In the summer of 2004, I attended a speaker training for global warming education and did public speaking. I loved doing this. It was a good way to let off steam and I learned more about global warming and climate change preparing the talks.

One idea that came to fruition was as simple as suggesting to my 50th College Reunion Committee that we become a “Green Reunion.” They said “yes!” We had the Reunion and then created Green Fund for sustainable projects. A group of us are still prodding our alma mater to improve their practices.

Another similar idea was establishing a Green Committee at the hospital where I work. A colleague who was captivated with the information in a talk I gave, never gave up his e-mailing a VP until there was a Green Committee established in the hospital. There was no recycling and so I took all of the paper from the department to my local recycling center until the hospital instituted paper recycling. One of my colleagues continues to take plastic bottles home to her recycling center. On my to do list is conservation in many areas, shutting down computers, plastic recycling, fewer lights on at night. All will save dollars as well as carbon.

In 2006, I called five folks to see if they would be interested in forming a group to work on global warming education in our community. It was the beginning of the Weston Climate Group. For the past two years we have had of eight folks who run the Group. We have done film series, educational speakers, town wide competition on home electricity saving. One of our members writes columns for our local newspaper and two of them attend every meeting of the Permanent Building Committee to help improving the energy efficiency of town buildings.

In 2006, I purchased a 1970’s ranch on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. My dream was to have a year round vacation home for my family and to have a net zero home. Net zero meant no fossil fuels and running the year round home on the electricity it produced. The dream came true!

The net-zero home was built due to the design builder and the people he gathered to work on the renovation. During the building and after its completion we have used the house to show interested home owners and builders all of the components — insulation, ground source heat system, solar hot water, photovoltaic panels, triple glazed windows and all of the sustainable products. We participate in the October National Solar Open House Day. We have open houses in conjunction with the local Science Center. The Science Center’s Lake Tours included a description of the Net Zero home, too. Spreading the word about the possibilities of sustainable components has been a fun way to meet new folks and learns about their projects and dreams.

Recently, my condominium building in downtown Boston has hired a firm to assess if they can become a LEED Certified Existing Building. The Board voted to replace 700 light bulbs with LED bulbs in the common areas of this high rise. (They use 90% less electricity than an incandescent light and the investment of will be paid back in three years.) Our building administrator is determined to improve the building. I am right there beside her and so is our Board. She has led the way. I am Chairman of our Green Committee. It creates an exciting atmosphere in the building.

2. Why do you do it?

I started working with these carbon reduction ideas after I heard Ross Gelbspan speak in March of 2004. I considered myself to environmentally up-to-date and well read in current events. It was part of my heart and soul. My college botany major introduced me to the fragile and beautiful interdependence of all of God’s creatures including ourselves. Ross’s lecture changed my life. I knew nothing about Global Warming and the resultant, Climate Change. Why was I so ignorant? Ross answered that question, too.

Here are just a few of the facts he presented that evening way back six years ago. They are also found in his 2004 book, Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled the Climate Crisis – And What we Can Do to Avert Disaster and on his website.

• In 1995,a community of the world’s climate scientists declared they had detected a human influence on the climate.
• In 2001, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comprised of 2,000 scientists from 100 countries participating in the largest and most rigorously peer reviewed collaboration in history, reported to the U.N. that brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet will intensify because emissions from Humanity’s burning of coal and oil is driving up temperatures. The report concluded that poor countries in Africa, Asia and South America with limited resources would bear the brunt of the most severe climate change.

These two facts were like getting hit by a ton of bricks. There were many others that stood out to me as well that evening and I encourage readers of this interview to visit Ross’s website and glean new information that will inform and inspire thoughtful action.

4 . How does “what you do” and your approach to life nourish you? In what ways do others find what you do nourishing?
Everything I have worked on over the past six years has been enormously rewarding and stimulating. Why? Everything depended upon working with other people. Nothing was done or achieved without the energy and knowledge of the other folks. We worked together. That is the nourishment for me and I suspect for them, too!

5. What would you say is your biggest source of inspiration?
My biggest source of inspiration are the veterans who have given of themselves for the past decade and more — Ross Gelbspan, Bill McKibben, Eban Goodstein, Ian Bowles, and Lieth Sharp. They are tireless. They are the doers, teachers and leaders. Thank God for them.

6. Where can we learn more?

To read about the net-zero home Jane built in NH — www.regreenprogram.org

To read about the home Jane recycled in MA – www.metrowestdailynews.com

To explore the activities of the Weston Climate Group – www.westonclimategroup.org

To learn more about Ross Gelbspan and his work — www.heatisonline.org

We asked Connie to share some of her joys and inspiration related to the good works and difference she is making
in the world:

1.  What do you do?

As author, speaker and practitioner of spiritual healing, I devote my life to helping others find lasting solutions to obesity and other issues.

2.  Why do you do it?

I look at why I am devoting my life to helping others through the lens of my own experiences.  It is the lessons I continue to learn in my own life that give me the impetus to respond to others.  People who know me agree that I have always had an innate desire to help people in a variety of ways, i.e. supporting and caring for the young and elderly, and prayerfully helping people think more deeply about their relationship to God.  Most recently my focus is the obesity crisis in this country.  Having dealt with obesity for most of my life, I feel that I have firsthand experience and insight that allow me to help others find a solution to this problem.

3.  How does “what you do” and your approach to life nourish you?

My work nourishes, inspires and brings me great joy when someone is helped.  And subsequently my approach to life continually grows.  One recent epiphany from my work with the obesity issue is the vital importance of looking within and making changes that will make me a better person.  I am discovering that my desire to see a better world, have more respect for our environment and pave a more responsible path for future generations has to start at home.  It goes back to being honest with ourselves and it is through self-examination that we grow.  All of this contributes to my commitment to a life of service.

4.  In what ways do others find what you do nourishing?

Most tell me that my approach allows them to feel “safe.”   They don’t feel judged or criticized, but supported and loved.   I am also strong in my convictions and like one reader of my book indicated, I didn’t give up on myself and I don’t give up on others.

From my perspective what helps people most is helping them realize that they aren’t alone with their problems and that there is a solution and/or resolution to whatever is causing them despair, fear or concern.

5.  What would you say is your biggest source of inspiration?

My biggest source of inspiration is my deep belief and faith in God.  It is also the personal experiences of those who are benefited.

6.  Where can we learn more?

My website:  www.reallifeweightloss.org

We asked Abby to share some of her joys and inspiration related to the good works and difference she is making in the world:

1.  What do you do?

I help women create sanctuaries for themselves in the midst of their busy lives. I am an advocate of slowing down, doing one thing at a time, paying attention and remembering what matters. And laughter.

2.  Why do you do it?

Because I know from experience what gets lost when I don’t pay attention, do too many things at once, forget to laugh (especially at myself!), and don’t slow down enough to allow the deeper currents within me to flow through my daily life. And I know there are a lot of women (and men) out there like me.

3.  How does what you do & your approach to life nourish you?

The principles and practices in my book are gleaned from many years of experience with many different teachings on psychological well-being and spiritual growth. So, every time I teach the Deep River process, I am reminding myself and reinforcing some of the “best practices” that have been helpful to me over time, and that nourishes me.

I also love working with women––I am nourished when I sit with a circle of women who are engaged in learning and growing and touching their depth and witnessing one another in that process.

4.  In what ways do others find what you do nourishing?

Here’s a sample: (This is what keeps me going)

“With each chapter I read and hearing you yesterday I am reminded of what is most important for us to do first and foremost…”

“This book gave me great tools for slowing down and finding my way back from all the busyness, to ME!”

“In this volatile, scary world, you offer a way to stay grounded, serene and calm.”

“[Your book] has helped me to understand and come to grips with my obsessive list making and the constant sense that it is never ‘enough.’  I have been watching my life pass me by for many years, even as I have tried to slow it down and somehow have more of a feeling for it.  Your book has helped me to see that the answer to  “feeling” my own life as I live it, is NOT to make even more lists of things to do.  Doing less=feeling more.  Your concrete advice has helped me to get back in touch with myself and this in turn is helping my life to slow down…”

“As soon as I began to read your book, I just knew that you had been inside my brain for the last few years (just joking).  You were DEAD ON…you had me pegged.  And the immense relief I felt at being understood, at finding out it’s the culture of speed, the unrealistic expectations placed on women, that has pushed me where I am, is indescribable.”

“I am a changed person since reading your book!”

5.  What’s your biggest source of inspiration?

Inner inspiration: meditation and journaling.  Outer inspiration: My readers and the women in my groups, and all my teachers over the years (including, among many others, Pema Chodron, Michelle McDonald, my husband and my kids.)

6.  Where can we learn more?

• My website: http://www.deepriverwithin.com The site has a button to click for adding your name to my e-mail list. I send e-letters approximately once a month, with info about my offerings, plus other relevant content—links, articles, poems, etc.
• My Deep River Facebook Page, where I post regularly
• My book, available at booksellers, and signed/inscribed through my website.

Watch Abby’s television interview on 5/10/2008

We asked Larry to share some of his joys and inspiration related to the good works and difference he is making in the world:

1.  What do you do?
I am a change artist. And I don’t say that in any way facetiously. I am an artist in transition–emerging from a life doing other creative things–and trying to find the path that will take me to being able to contribute fully as a working artist, subcategory: pastelist. So while I may take on a variety of assignments in what I used to do, career-wise, to float the boat, I take as much time as my other obligations allow…and I paint. And frame. And observe. And take workshops. And immerse myself in local art associations. And do the ‘marketing’ part. And take photos. And then paint some more.

2.  Why do you do it?

I suppose I am driven to learn and to teach myself new things. For 30 years or so, that was partly fulfilled by learning to run a business and oversee a creative process focused on promoting innovations in science and medicine. But now it means figuring a way to master the nuances of those finicky sticks of pigment called dry pastels, and capturing with them discreet stories of the world around us. Stories of beauty, and of intricate and delicate natural balance. The images I try to create, while frozen in time, are attempts to speak to an ongoing relationship between us and our earth home, and to the need to tread lightly on a planet whose health we literally hold in our hands.

3.  How does “what you do” & your approach to life nourish you?

‘Nourish’ is a great word, and this is an excellent question. In a way, I feel that committing even a part of one’s life to creating art gives one ‘permission’ to take the time to stop, and look…really look. My ‘looking’ heretofore has been largely like a rapid data-acquisition process, if you will. Quick photo images, quick mental pictures. Thousands of them. Now, I look and take things in in a more belabored, but much richer-for-the-effort process. I see the light change, the subject cool and warm as the hours progress. And though I’ve always connected, visually speaking, this is for me a new way of touching the life force around and within us. When I’m lucky, the impression rendered exudes a little bit of that mood and atmosphere.

4.  In what ways do others find what you do nourishing?

OK, so two things here. First, I have been doing this long enough now to sense that some view my journey, as imperfect for me as the actual course is, as inspiration for their own transition thinking. It’s both tempting and timely to want to do something that matters–and something that one really wants to do. I see it all around me, especially in my own generation. And if my trip inspires, even just a tad, without making it seem easier than it really is, then I’m pleased to provide that little bit of spark.

Second, and even more immediately gratifying, is the way pastels seem to make people want to talk about, well….pastels. I get a ton of questions about the medium, and how it’s done, and what papers are used, and about framing…and for me this is a two-way street. It’s very rewarding to hear the interest, and very rewarding to be able to teach what I know and am learning.

5.  What would you say is your biggest source of inspiration?

Renowned Canadian environmentalist and long-time earth activist, Dr. David Suzuki, wrote a book called The Sacred Balance. For me, this opened my eyes to interconnectedness of it all (which I had long suspected but never truly appreciated) and fueled my attempts to work to raise what I call eConsciousness…through my art, and through my weblog called theunlikelyactivist.com. Artistically, I am inspired by the California impressionist landscape painters, by the marvelous Canadian ‘group of seven’ painters of the north, by Swiss alpine painters Hodler and Segantini, and by the numerous working artists with whom I’ve had the privilege of taking workshops of late.

6.  Where can we learn more?

Readers may want to browse theunlikelyactivist.com. Albeit a little thin in new content the last few months, there is much there to inform about the challenges and opportunities of sustainability.

Several art albums can be viewed on Facebook at the following links (am still working on a full artist’s web site):

Pastel landscapes

Land’s Sake Farm images

We asked Susan to share some of her joys and inspiration related to the good works and difference she is making in the world:

1.  What do you do?

Six months ago I would have answered, “I’m writing a book.” Six hours ago, I would have said, “I’m marketing a book – and thinking about the next one.” This morning I had breakfast with a friend, and we had one of those mutually inspirational exchanges where we both took notes and went away mulling over what the other said. So here’s my new answer: “I educate and enable by publishing and being present.”

I use the word educate as “to lead forth, to make fit for a calling,” and the word publish as “to make [something] known by openly declaring its character or status.”

2.  Why do you do it?

It’s what I’ve always done. It just looked like I had different jobs while I was doing it. Looking back, educating and enabling was what I was about when I taught school, wrote grant applications, helped run a landscape nursery, acted as a real estate agent, counseled inmates as a jail chaplain, set up a Christian Science healing practice, and traveled nationally and internationally as an inspirational speaker. It’s not my second nature, it’s my first nature to look for and lead forth the best in others and openly declare their true character and status.

I lost sight of the best in me for a while. That was when my husband and I sold everything we owned in the States and moved to Mexico. For a while I licked what I perceived to be grave emotional and psychic wounds, stuck my lower lip out and glowered northward. Thank heaven there are others who educate and enable. They not only openly declared the character and status of the real me, they were there for me. My memoir, Virgin Territory: How I Found My Inner Guadalupe is largely the story of my own education, re-discovering and leading forth a spiritual ideal I thought I’d lost.

I use The Virgin of Guadalupe as a metaphor for a number of reasons. First of all, she’s there. In fact her image is everywhere in Mexico. Being present, when someone needs you, whether you know what to do or not, is first and foremost the most important thing. It can be your actual physical presence, but it can also be on the phone or through correspondence. It’s just important for the person in need to know you’re available and thinking of them.

Second, “La Lupita” bears a striking resemblance to the description found in Revelation 12, of “a woman clothed in the sun,” described by Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as “the spiritual ideal.” I began taking a fresh look at those passages so familiar to me, which had frankly seemed far removed from any practical daily application. But the qualities ascribed to the Virgin of Guadalupe by my Mexican neighbors put me to thinking that it sure couldn’t hurt if I started incorporating a few of those “virgin” qualities into my own character! As I did that I began to recognize that I had always had those qualities – patience, forgiveness, endurance, strength, innocence and so many more.

Third, the Virgin of Guadalupe is distinctly feminine, and I think the world could use a more feminine spiritual ideal. More on that below.

3.  How does “what you do” & your approach to life nourish you?

I was raised with Mary Baker Eddy’s “Children’s Prayer,” which begins “Father-Mother God, loving me,” so the concept of God as having a “mother” side, was never foreign to me, but it always seemed to be the model of a primarily Father God with a sweet soft side. I do realize that in many cases, the “sweet soft side” of parenting can just as often come from the male figure as from the feminine, but we’re talking nourishment here, aren’t we? That image of God is not one I was taught in Sunday school.

However my exploration into an essential identity, the “ideal” me that I sincerely trust will be sticking around for eternity, being modeled on an exclusively feminine model has been transformational. No more does it even occur to me to think of “woman” as a few ticks away from the “norm” brought to thought by that so-called generic term “man.” Oh, how I wish there was another term!

But Mrs. Eddy writes, “The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man…” Well I love symbols. Finding visible symbols for what is physically invisible feeds my soul. So I’m always looking around for stand-ins for the “spiritual ideal.” That’s what I did in Virgin Territory, drawing on feminine icons found in popular Mexican culture, and then riffing from them to the “virgin” qualities they represent. There is, of course, the Virgin of Guadalupe and all she stands for, but there is also La Abuelita (a gray-haired granny brand of chocolate used for making cocoa.  Say no more, right? We’re talking comfort here.) There is also La Michoacana (symbol of omnipresent ice cream of infinite variety), Catrina (skeletal fashion diva who parties in the graveyard and laughs at death), and Coatlicue (a formidable nurturer of over four hundred children who wears a skirt made of snakes).  Keeping my eye out for icons like these is as satisfying as a bag of Cheetos on a road trip – and a lot more nourishing.

4.  In what ways do others find what you do nourishing?

Well, first of all, my Mexican friend Lupita (short for Guadalupe) tells me that for the first time in her life she’s happy with her name. That’s pretty nourishing, isn’t it? Think of it, to be comfortable, at last, with what you are called. Wouldn’t that make you ready to respond to your calling?

Struggling with what we’re called seems to be a common thread through much of the correspondence I’ve received in regard to Virgin Territory. Most writers say something to the effect that they’re grateful that I’ve put into words what they’ve felt for a long time, that they can “identify” with me. For example, many have struggled with a church/culture to which they’ve belonged. I wrote Virgin Territory from the perspective of someone long conversant with Christian Science, so I hear a lot from people who have been called that. But I also hear from people who were raised Catholic or Southern Baptist. I’ve had long conversations with a former Mormon and a former Lutheran. I’ve heard very little anger expressed. Most look at their former denomination more as a window than the light itself.

“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” counseled a “recovered Catholic,” to a group having a conversation inspired by Virgin Territory. Around that table I found each diner reluctant to claim affiliation with any denomination, and hesitant to use, when referring to their own spiritual ideal or identity, language that might smack of overt Christianity or New Age vernacular.  Just because words were inadequate, does that mean that these people could not have cared less for “things of the spirit?” No, on the contrary, I think they care very deeply. Using the term “inner Guadalupe” provides, for now, a tongue-in-cheek way of referring to that that is most deep and precious, the authentic core of each individual’s spiritual being that is difficult to define in human terms. It allows people to talk.

5.  What would you say is your biggest source of inspiration?

I like hearing people’s stories. Virgin Territory is the kind of book that inspires people to share with me not only accounts of life-changing events, but stories that illustrate the life-shaping attitudes that have made them who they are today. That’s very inspirational.

6. Where can we learn more?

My website is www.susanjcobb.com. Contact me there about getting a group discount for your book club. Download the discussion guide and start a conversation with each other. Let’s educate (lead forth) the best in each other, and publish (declare openly) the true nature and character of what we really are.

My book, Virgin Territory, is available in an electronic format from amazon.com and in paperback on my site.