Video Q&A with Stephen Dinan, President & CEO of The Shift Network

 
Welcome, Stephen.
Thank you for having me.

This is a new monthly feature of video Q&A with Stephen Dinan, the president and CEO of The Shift Network. This is your opportunity to ask Stephen questions that are relevant to the challenges we're currently facing and how we can shift ourselves and the world. You can send your question to editor@theshiftnetwork.com.

Stephen, we just experienced a groundbreaking wave of women into office. How does that connect with the larger shift of our times?
Part of the deepest level of the shift on the planet is really a shift from the patriarchal pattern — which is really about the predominance of masculine energy in decision making — to the sacred balance between masculine and feminine. It's a deep equality ground of being. That's why one of our principles at The Shift Network is that we are committed to gender equality, because that's the source out of which we can create the world that we want, that we truly want, and that fulfills our highest spiritual aspirations.

So the huge wave of women into office in groundbreaking categories like Native American women and Muslim women is all very auspicious for this, because what I think the Trump administration has prompted by being somewhat of a strong version of the patriarchal pattern is the upwelling of the new pattern, which is the balance, a more holistic balance.

And so more women into office is going to shift the culture of politics and the culture of decision making away from a more individualistic, nation-centered, tribal-centered decision making to a more collective and collaborative decision making, which women tend to do when they help to create the culture.

So one of the most important things we can do to shift the political culture at all levels — not only in the United States but within the world as a whole — is to elect more women. In fact, I'm laying the groundwork and planting the seeds in different places to really have 2020 be by far the biggest wave of women into office in history worldwide to really make a marker point between one era, in which we've had this exaggerated masculine into a sacred balance between masculine and feminine, and I really believe that is what's going to create the kind of decision making that is healing and whole, and leads to peace on this planet.

We've recently had some devastating news about climate change with the fires in California. How do you see that we as a “shift movement” can play a role in addressing this major challenge?
Well, the first principle I think is that we have to see disasters both as something tragic that needs to be addressed, but also as opportunities for us to go still further. So instead of shrinking down in fear to say, "Can we take the destruction of Paradise and recommit to global leadership on climate change? Can we rebuild Paradise as an example of the eco-civilization we want to create?" In a way, disaster can be like a cattle prod for us to go further in our growth, further in our commitment. It’s like we're like saying, "Okay. This is a call to step up further and bring more."

So we see this with cities... we've been in working with Mayor Harmon in San Luis Obispo, which has the boldest climate-change goal in the country of net-zero carbon contribution by 2035... and designing with her how to take her message to scale and influence more mayors. I was just in China talking with some of the leading climate-change pioneers over there and how they're going to be using Hainan as a demonstration island, which is 10 million people in the south of China to demonstrate this eco-civilization.

So I think it's beholden on all of us to, first of all, take very seriously that the conscious movement needs to be engaged with climate change. It's not an issue we can avoid, but can we do so in a way that's building the higher bridges that connect people, that's thinking strategically, that's calling more of our potential for it rather than shrinking back into just self-protection and fear? It's really a call for all of us to come together as a global family and address the biggest challenge that we collectively have.

You've noted that it's important to empower more leaders of the shift. How do you see that happening?
Something became really clear for me... when I got the inner guidance to take on the President title and focus more of my attention on that... is that what I need to do is not just to be growing The Shift Network — as beautiful and important that the work we've been doing is — but one company can only do so much to shift the larger world. It's really going to take all of us bringing forward our gifts. And so we need not just one Shift Network. We need dozens and hundreds and thousands of organizations that are shifting different areas of our society.

I see that we have about a hundred slots next year for different kinds of empowerment work — from in-depth mentorship programs to visionary strategy work to just individual obsessions — where we're going to be opening up more possibilities for people to come to us, harvest the best of what we know, and the skills that we have, and the advantage we have to empower your work, from working on holistic pain management to global peace builders to somebody who's running a camp for children and embodying the hero's journey curriculum in that.

So there's a lot of different sectors in society, and we want to get behind leaders who are committed to lead in this new way that's sourced from our highest consciousness, that's heart-centered, that's collaborative, that really is bold, but also, really unifies us. So we want to help empower more of that next year with various programs. And so if you're called, do let us know and send us information at editor@theshiftnetwork.com, and let us know you'd like to be involved.

	Shift's new property in Nevada City, California

The Shift Network recently acquired a property in Nevada City, California. What's your vision for this property?
So my wife and I, Devaa, have long had this feeling that we needed to create a nexus point for smaller groups that could really change the world. So it connects with the last question about leadership. We feel that the solo kind of leadership has some value, but it's going to be more limited than collaborative groups that have a high level of synergy that can work together to shift whole domains. So rather than just one leader around climate change, what if we had 12 of the top people working together?

So we acquired this property that's in a beautiful 30 acres of pristine forest. You can actually got for a 30-minute hike on the property, and the house is just absolutely gorgeous. We're designing it around groups of 12, so we're going to be opening more and more slots for people who would like to apply to use this for special gatherings that are very intentional, spiritually based, change-the-world-focused, and that really can be high-leverage, high-impact areas.

So we're excited to be using it for our leadership programs, and we're also going to be opening it to other people for their leadership work, couples work, and management-team strategy groups as a way to unplug from the matrix of other responsibilities, to really be in a pristine environment where you can't see or hear anyone else. It's just pristine forest, and to then open the collaborative connections to really access a new pattern for humanity and really come up with breakthrough ideas and solutions.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today, Stephen. We appreciate it.
You're welcome. It's a pleasure. I look forward to more, so do send in your questions for next month.

If you'd like Stephen to address your concerns in his next monthly Q&A video in Catalyst, send your questions to editor@theshiftnetwork.com.