Happy New Year, Update from James @ IS
Hello, friends. James here.
I almost wrote "...from Intentional Society" in the title of this email, but then I noticed that felt disembodied to write as if I were an abstract/collective entity. "Intentional Society is made of people," as the IS website proclaims sooo... Hi! 👋
Happy New Year to you! 🎉🎈🎊
As the new year dawns on us, my salutations come with an invitation to you: to step into the fullness of your calling this year, unfold your leadership, collaborate with allies, and to own/source your piece/part of IS! (Or call it whatever you like, wherever you/we do it.) What is your source (of truth/meaning/purpose) calling you into?
This invitation is connected to my personal intention (or resolution, 'tis the season) for 2025. I intend to spend the year nurturing and promoting more "sourceship" throughout (and beyond) IS via collaboration, invitations, and mentorship. I'm doing this with the aim of giving away more and more of IS (wisely, see below), for the benefit of all.
Call to action: If you are curious and/or new, come to this intro call on Saturday, January 4th at 1:00-1:55pm Pacific Time (4pm Eastern, 9pm UTC). If you are a current or former member, look for your Season 17 invitation in your inbox shortly and come to Sunday's 2025 kickoff call.
Giving away? What am I giving away, and why? More context follows for the curious...
I've never planned on holding long-term control over IS as if it were a personal fiefdom — four years ago, I was already envisioning an evolutionary process from founder catalyzation to community self-ownership. I recognize that I have played a unique role as the founding "source" of IS, holding and stewarding a flow-of-creation for the last four years. IS was started with a pile of hunches and unknowns, and has been evolving and maturing into a community (the real kind, made of personal relationships) and as a collective process of culture creation.
I have generally retained strong directive authority so far, in following the scent of aliveness inside the sandbox in which we've been playing. Continuing to follow that scent, I feel called to shift my grip, my role, more strongly and clearly as the edges of my creative flow continue to expand. The edges of my growth keep moving — and I think that's a good thing for everyone involved!
For me, 2025 looks like a year of collaboration, of weaving interdependence, and of increasing ambition while simultaneously letting go of control. This will allow me to keep chasing my learning edges into new creative territory: further pieces of this ecosystem keep calling out to be born as our network/scene/movement expands!
So what am I giving away? I'm giving away control, power, authority, ultimately full source-ship of spaces so that more people can benefit. I can't do it all, nor would it even be good for me to keep doing everything that I have in the prior four years. Yes, I'm frequently told that I'm skilled at doing a lot of core convening and facilitating and organizing functions — and I absolutely care that the pieces of IS are all led and served skillfully. Beyond skill, there's also a social power dimension, and succession (contribution through collaboration through partnership through sourceship) takes time.
There are 3 spaces inside IS currently. The Community (Hub?) has collaborators who would step in tomorrow if I were to get hit by a bus, and I'm looking forward to really leaning into an "open space" laboratory mindset this next season. I'm also ready to take the Practice Dojo into a succession process, though it seems earlier on the freedom ladder and with some particular skill requirements. Intentional Ventures was founded in a spirit of partnership, and I still have "source" energy to contribute there as that partnership evolves.
There is (though subtly so far!) an abstract umbrella of "Intentional Society" as a whole, and I still actively inhabit (guided by my sense of integrity) a continuing source role at that scope (which translates to something like, "which things/spaces count as IS?") though I'm interested in defining enough clarity to collaborate on that layer as soon as it makes sense.
In past organizational experiences, I've seen Founder-departure, Founder-eviction, CEO-transitions, and countless reorgs. There are best practices, and I also want to innovate on doing even better than known patterns. I think we can do better with higher trust and more relational intimacy. I'll be aiming for high flexibility accompanied by high clarity over time, as we travel through many degrees of shifting roles and responsibilities.
Looking farther out... My dream for IS at the end of 2026 is (something in a vague shape where) it spans 5-10 spaces/structures, <=50% of which are sourced by me, including a few started by other people! Why? Well, I'll write more in future newsletters about the "stack, onion, and mesh" (roughly: breadth, depth, and scale) vision of the complexification and increasing capacity of this developmental ecosystem.
Again, if you're excited to play any part of this (waves hand in general direction of IS and surroundings), come Saturday, or to the Sunday community call, or hit me up with any other ideas by replying to this email!
Cheers,
James