To create lasting social change, many innovators take great care to develop strategies driven by data, partnerships, and proximate voices. Throughout history, social change leaders have shown us that love is also a crucial element for transformation.
Four changemakers and innovators who center love in their leadership recently came together at the 2024 Skoll World Forum to share their insights. Panel moderator Tulaine Montgomery, a student of bell hooks’ writing on love and CEO of New Profit, kicked off the session with a powerful question: How do we make love the engine behind our efforts, and not an afterthought?
Montgomery was joined by Brianna Fruean of Pacific Climate Warriors, Fernando Travesí from the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), and Christine Schuler Deschryver of V-DAY and City of Joy. Watch this inspiring session and read the transcript below to learn more about compassionate strategies to create enduring social change.
Transcript from “Leading with Love in Social Impact,” filmed on April 10, 2024 at the Skoll World Forum:
Tulaine Montgomery: It’s just such a pleasure to be with you. Thank you to the Skoll community for inviting all of us to be in the community about this timely and important topic. I’m Tulaine Montgomery, and I’m the CEO of New Profit.
Just quickly, New Profit is a venture philanthropy, and we have been in the business of doing our best to learn how to get better at leading with love, supporting social impact leaders. We are focused in the US, and work in partnership with people from around the world, just to really target and focus on systems change. We’ve been in existence for – this is our 26th year. So we’ve been around for a while.
And I’m excited to be in conversation with these three exceptional leaders because they are embodiments of the methodology, and the importance, and the power of leading with love. And so, we’re going to get into our flow for today.
We’re going to, first, get to a common shared definition of what we’re talking about when we use the word love. I think that’s important because love is one of those words that can mean a lot of different things. If I were to survey the room and ask you for your definition of love, I’d imagine we’d get many different definitions. And so, we’re going to spend some time defining what we mean when we talk about love in the social impact realm.
We’re going to talk about examples of love being the engine, not an afterthought, the keystone, the heartbeat of social impact and systems change. And then we’re going to talk about methods. So that’s where we’ll go and then we’ll open it up for Q&A and conversation. And we have a healthy amount of time for conversation. And our hope is that as you’re listening to these incredible colleagues to my left, that you will take notes, think about what resonates, think about what you find irksome or irritating or dissonant for you, take note of all of it, and then we’ll have a conversation together.
Because what I know about the people in this room, even if I don’t know you personally, I know that all of you are doing work that’s about making things better for others. And you’re doing your best to do it in a way where you do no harm and actually uplift all parties. That is your aspiration. I know that. Even though most of you are like, “Tulaine, I’ve never seen you before in my life,” I do know that much. I know that much. So, let’s get into it.
I’m really excited to introduce to you Brianna Fruean, climate activist and Leader of the Pacific Climate Warriors. Welcome, it’s wonderful to see you here. Absolutely. Christine Schuler, Director of the DR Congo V-DAY, and Director and Co-Founder of City of Joy. Welcome, it’s wonderful to have you here with us. And to my immediate left, Fernando Travesí, Executive Director of the International Center for Transitional Justice. Welcome.
Fernando Travesí: Thank you.
Tulaine Montgomery: So one of the things that I’m sure you noticed, and this was not pre-planned, is that there is so much beauty to my left, right? And I say that not being frivolous, though I am a fan of beauty, I do believe that beauty is a way that we can find ways to savor what’s around us, but there’s colors, there’s themes, there’s colorways. And there’s something about the fact that, when we decide to lead with love, we give ourselves permission to express ourselves fully. That is not unimportant and we’re going to come back to that. There’s something to that.
So, why am I talking about love? I wrote a piece not too long ago called “What’s Love Got to Do with it?: The Role of Love in Social Impact.” And the thesis is that, you know, when we talk about philanthropy, which is one of the spaces that I’m in, the etymology of the word philanthropy, I love etymology, I love learning about how the words we use, how they came about, the origin story of words, and the etymology of the word philanthropy is to love humankind, and that’s fascinating to consider.
The idea that we would not only care for those with whom we shared a household or care only for ourselves, but that we would find ways to proactively show love and care for others who may have no direct connection to us in our day-to-day lives, who may be able to do nothing for us, that that is actually the core intention of philanthropy.
And I would say, I would offer, this won’t shock you, that as a sector, philanthropy has in many ways moved away from that core intention. Charity has kind of made its way in, this idea of separation and pity for people, this blindness to the assets, and the genius, and the resourcefulness, and creativity of community. That those blind spots that have been kind of built into the infrastructure of philanthropy, that they have made it harder for us to really step into love. So we’re going to dig into the ways that my colleagues here are counteracting that.
I’m a student of bell hooks. With a show of hands, how many of you are students of bell hooks too? So we’re in the same class, and that’s a beautiful thing. bell hooks talks a lot about the love ethic, right? And, as you know, the late bell hooks was a real advocate and champion for social justice, and she says that love is a practice. We’ve all heard the term love is a verb. She says, “Love is a practice that seeks to utilize, care, commitment, trust, responsibility, knowledge, and respect.” Care, commitment, trust, responsibility, knowledge, and respect. We’re going to talk a little bit about the myths about love. One of them is that love is just about, it’s okay, that love is passivity. There’s nothing passive about those tenets. And we’ll get into that and hear more about that.
So first, let’s define what we’re talking about with love. I talked about how bell hooks defines it. I wonder, panelists, if we can hear from you, when you hear the word love, especially in the social impact space, what does it mean to you? And let’s start, Brianna, with you.
Brianna Fruean: Yeah, thank you very much, Tulaine. Good morning, everyone. It’s so lovely to be in space with you all. I think the best way I can describe love is a way that it was explained to me by my cousin, by translating it into Samoan, and his theory on the origin of the word love in Samoan. So, the translation to love in Samoan is alofa. So, alofa means love. And if you break down those two words, alo has multiple meanings. It could mean sun, it could mean descendant, and it can also mean the very front of you, your presence. So this space in front of you is your alo. And fa means four.
And so, when we think about our village setting, one of the most important places in our villages is our council meeting room. So, our Fale Samoa or Fale Fono. And if you can picture that this is our Fale Samoa, Fale Fono, and picture that the main post of this room is where the four doors are. And so, where those four doors are in that room is where the High Chiefs sit. So four High Chiefs sit in each post, and in front of them is where the alo is, and where the discussion is had. So alofa is not a love letter, or a bouquet of flowers, or something tangible. Alofa is a village council meeting. It is how you unpack very hard conversations in the village. It’s where all the problems sit in the middle, and you have that conversation between you four people, and how do we really get to the heart of that? How do we discuss, and unpack, and untie difficulty? And that is truly in Samoan culture, love in service. Love is service similarly to bell hooks. It’s a verb. It’s something that you do. And that was the way in which love was taught to me, that the best thing I could do, if I love my island and I love my village, is serve her. And that’s what brought me here today.
Tulaine Montgomery: Thank you so much, Brianna. Christine, I wonder if in hearing from, we’ve heard from bell hooks, we’ve heard from Brianna, we want to hear from you. How do you define love? What resonates with what you heard? What do you define differently?
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Yeah, good morning. Good morning, everybody. It is very difficult, you know, to describe love. I think love is to be totally at the service of other people, and maybe that’s also a mistake that we do when you give so much love that you forget yourself. And as Brianna said, working in a war zone with the, I don’t know, where the woman survived the worst violence, I think the young Congolese woman, who survived the atrocities and rape, shows me what love is. And every single day I learn from them. I do give a lot of love to them, but they give more to me, and they made me a better person.
And I have to say that also talking about love, we have to uplift each other. It’s not about yourself. And you have to go and see the very, I’m sorry for my English, you know, your inner, you know, to discover. Because I think in every single person there is something good, and if you give love to this person, you can make it, you know, open like the most beautiful flower.
Tulaine Montgomery: That resonates, Christine, this idea that if we engage, and see, and bear witness to the good, that that’s what will grow. This idea, that what we put attention on is what grows. Fernando, how about you? How do you think about love?
Fernando Travesí: Yes, thank you and good morning. I’m delighted to be here. I would add that I understand love as a value of the work that we do, and also as a source of energy. And I also like very much dictionaries, and going into the different languages and definitions, and everything. And then just preparing this, I went to the dictionary because I’m a fan of dictionaries. And there are more than a dozen entries for love. And they talk about, you know, sexual passion, family relationships. There are many. Passionate affections and personal bond, or personal attachment.
But there is one that is like, ah, this is the one I use in my mind, that says, “Affectionate concern for the wellbeing of others.” And that is exactly what I think it represents the value and the source of energy. And it relates to the idea of compassion, but not a compassion that feel in pity for someone else’s misfortune. It’s a different thing. That, going again to the dictionary, there are many entries for compassion, as well. I love dictionaries because they expand your thinking immediately. It’s a very cheap way of like thinking.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s right.
Fernando Travesí: And then, just speaking different languages, it’s like, I just love them. But there is this definition of compassion that says, “A strong desire to alleviate the suffering of others.” And I think that gives a very strong idea of agency, and action, and not a positive thing. So in brief, for me, the love we are talking about here is a North Star that guides the personal behavior, the institutional behavior, and should be leading the institutional culture and the personal actions.
Tulaine Montgomery: Thank you so much. Thank you. And I see people taking notes and nodding. And so, we are again going to have time for a conversation. So we talked about love, it is active, it is dynamic, it engages, and it involves service. It needs to include the self, Christine, to your point and we’ll talk a little bit about this love including self, and boundaries, and the role that plays.
Love does get a pretty bad rap though, I would say, right? Love is often used interchangeably with passivity. Love is often, I think, weaponized as a way to bypass accountability. We’re going to talk a bit about how you all have seen that in your work. And we’re going to get into the examples and the ways you work and where you work and how love is not the automatic choice in the spaces that the three of you are in. But I think we should talk about kind of the bad rap that love gets.
So one thing, you know, I’m going to quote my teacher, bell hooks again: “The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk being acted upon by forces outside of our control.” And how I understand that is, love doesn’t mean that we all sort of get to the joyful part. You talked, Brianna, about the Council and where there is an untangling of difficult problems.
So one of the kind of bad raps about love that I see is this idea that it’s passive, but what I know is that people who love me often will snatch me up if I’m doing something that is outside of the good of myself or others. But somehow people think love means soft, easy, passive. What are some of the other things that you’ve heard or seen about love that you would believe are kind of bad raps about love? Fernando, would you like to go?
Fernando Travesí: Should I go?
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah.
Fernando Travesí: Yeah, I think two things. I think the general conception of love is limited to be very self-centric, it’s what love gives me. And I think this idea of the romantic love, understanding love from the romantic perspective of family relations and stopping there, very individualistic, more than the community and collective aspect of it. And I think that needs to be deconstructed when we talk about love in this setting, and working on social work. So I think that individual approach to love needs to be questioned.
It’s very difficult in places where people will say like, “You know, I work in conflict countries,” and people are like, “There is so much violence.” And yes, there is. On the other side, there is so much love, and ability to help, and solidarity, that it is astonishing. Because we usually divide that and to, well, be able to say that better than me, Christine, it’s like it’s not binary. It’s like, yes, there is violence, there is suffering, there is horror violations.
On the other hand, we were saying this before last night when we were chit-chatting about this. I’ve been in conflict zones for 25 years and I’ve been in difficult situations. I’ve always experienced situations where I had problems and someone came to help me, knowing nothing about me and being absolutely a stranger. And the reactions that I get from people were just helping me. So it is like, yeah, so there is the other side of the coin that usually gets overshadowed. So I think that it’s something that we need to make an effort to put the spotlight on just to balance, you know, the horrors and the violence.
And I can talk more about accountability, but I cannot agree more that in the work that we do looking at reconciliation processes or reparation processes, there is always this temptation that people say like, even well-intentioned sometimes it’s like, oh, let’s turn the page, let’s not talk about this. Let’s move forward, and then let’s forget and forgive. And that is sometimes it’s a call that is made in the name of love and reconciliation. And it’s like, it cannot be wrongest. I mean, it’s the wrongest possible approach, because the love if it’s mutual respect, it comes with a very big share of accountability and responsibility.
So it’s not a possibility to call love as free pass of accountability and responsibility to say like, “Oh, we love each other, let’s hug each other. Let’s shake hands and let’s move forward.” That is actually not love because that’s always been blind to someone else’s dignity. So that is an exercise that needs to be done very carefully based on mutual respect, but it has to be the entry point for that conversation about accountability, acknowledgement and repair the injustices or the violations that having happened.
Tulaine Montgomery: So, you know, Fernando, you mentioned that in your work you’ve worked in many active conflict zones and so you have seen violence, and you have seen suffering and you have seen injury. And I know that’s true, Christine, also for you. I saw you nodding quite a bit when Fernando was speaking. So, you know, talk a little bit about the space you’re in and even with that, what you see are misconceptions about love, please.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: You know, first of all, love is a word that was misused and it’s a word that scares people. And I really recognized myself in what Fernando just said because living in a war zone for so long, most of the time people think that we just talk about violence and blood and tears, but not at all. I will give you this example. For example, this example. You know, I have an African mom, or a Congolese mom, so our mom is not, you know, the one hugging you every day and telling you how they love you. So when I have the girls, who survive the worst atrocities, come to City of Joy, the only time they touch them was to rape them or to beat them. So every time you take them and you just hug them, they started just weeping.
And most of them, because I’m so tall, they think that I have magic arms because they say, “Oh, now I’m feeling–” But that’s the power of love. You know, when you give something, you also make some sacrifices. And I think that’s also the reason it scares people because you have to leave your ego on the side and give the best you have, you know, to– Sometimes it’s just a hand with no talking, but she can feel my energy, she can feel my love. And like I said before, I do receive, like every morning when you go to the office, they come and hug you. It’s like, it’s love. And when I have, for example, also like just saying, “Oh, my God, today I have a headache.” “You’re not allowed to be sick. Give me your headache. I will carry it for you.” So how can you give love more than that?
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: And also, excuse me, I also want to add something. To compare our African countries with your Western countries is really totally individual. Sometimes, when I’m here, I’m so shocked. You don’t even know your neighbors. You don’t even greet them. And sometimes you greet people they say, “Oh, my God, do I know you?” And in Africa, so we have value you are losing, and I think you have a lot to learn from this country that you call an underdeveloped country, like this human relation, this, just this.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s right. That’s right. Thank you. So Brianna, how would you say, what would you say are the misconceptions about love? You spoke to some of it when you talked about The Council, but what would you say are kind of false beliefs that you encounter about love?
Brianna Fruean: Yeah, I think love can be tricky when you come from Indigenous communities, where love has been used against you. And something that I hear a lot from young Indigenous people, that I get to work with is, “Why is the love always for them and never for us?”
Tulaine Montgomery: Exactly. That’s right, yeah.
Brianna Fruean: And that is something very valid and something that we have to hold. And that’s why I believe the greatest act of love, and my background is in climate change work, in climate work, is figuring out how we got there. And it’s a difficult past. A lot of the countries that colonized the Pacific Islands are the same ones that are feeding the climate crisis, the same ones that took our land and then we gained independence.
We were happy, now we have our islands. And now, our islands are being taken away again. So it’s always giving love in a place where you’re not receiving love. And in the climate space, Pacific Island, there’s also expected to be the ones to be the beacons of hope. Come to our climate conferences and tell us how your islands are drowning, but how you still have hope and love for us.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes.
Brianna Fruean: And so, that’s a difficult thing to hold, as well, and I will always stand on the belief that love is hard. Hope is hard. It’s easy to pick despair and say, “I hate all of this. This is over, it’s the end of the world,” but to actually stand up and say, “I choose love, I choose hope,” it means that you need to do something about that for the world that you’re trying to build.
And when I think of love being painful, I think of the traditional tattoos I have. So I have traditional tattoos on my leg, and the healing process was one of the hardest things I ever went through in my life. But traditionally, you have to massage out the ink because the ink is done traditionally. And so, they say you have to massage out the infection. And so my mom, and my sister and my best friend, every four hours, massage it out. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, but it was a true act of love because we needed to get out the infection. And that’s what I believe we’re trying to do in this climate work.
We can’t get to the bottom of it and we can’t get to healing unless we truly address the root cause of the climate crisis, how we got here so we don’t repeat it again, because that’s another danger of this all is, we could repeat the same systems that cause the climate crisis with renewables.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s right. That’s right. So clearly what you’re saying is resonating. I want to dig into this, the ‘why bother,’ because your point is so well taken. I know that, when I talk about love in the US, in the Black communities, the same premise, right? So you want me to keep loving you despite, and you want me to inspire you, and entertain you, and all of this. And it is a fair, as you said, it is a fair critique.
There’s something, though, that continues to tell me that love is still the way out of this. That, if we’re looking for a way to build something completely different, and re-imagined and free, that love is the path. But I want to hear from you, all, how do you — I mean, with young women who have experienced atrocities that are almost unspeakable, love is still the way. In conflict zones around the world, love is still the way.
But why? I think we need to spend some time talking about ‘why bother’ centering love in the face of so much injustice and atrocity. Can you speak to that? You spoke to that some, Brianna. Christine, I’d love to hear from you.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: I think it’s something really, really important, because if we don’t, if we don’t, I don’t know how to express it in English. For example, when you arrive at City of Joy, the first thing, every single person who arrives there, it’s like by the time they open the gate, it’s like love is there. Like, the staff will come and hug you, girls will come and hug you. And this is something we have to live with. We have to– I would like also to share it, you know, with the world because love is the key. You can make miracles, you know, with love.
For example, I have an example of a girl who came, she thought she was too black, that means she was too ugly, et cetera. So by the time you started slowly, slowly to show how beautiful, and by the way, they say black is beautiful, not white, not brown. And at the end, she was convinced that she was this beauty, and she kept watching herself in the mirror. And things you also have to do, it’s to, like to care about others.
For example, if you come to my office, “Oh, my God, you have red eyes, you didn’t sleep. What happened to you?” But today you don’t even look at people, you see them. You don’t watch them. You don’t, I don’t know how to explain.
The world is completely changing, and unfortunately, we are changing in a bad way with the world, like this speedy, speedy world you live in. And thanks God, we don’t live in, yet. Sometimes, not sometimes, I always feel so blessed, you know, to live in, I know it’s a war zone, the worst part of the world to live in, but I feel very blessed, you know, to live there, and to feel useful like, and to live with the real values.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And, Fernando, talk about why bother with this love ethic. There’s so much injustice. The repair hasn’t yet been done. Why is it important to you and your work?
Fernando Travesí: We were having a conversation before this morning, at the breakfast, about this. And I was saying there is medical evidence that shows the benefit and the impact of showing love. And in the resilience theory with victims, I mean, I’m talking about conflict victims, but I guess it happens in other domains, but the resilience theory always underlines the importance of the act of kindness. And when victims are storytelling about their life, there is always a bright point of people who have showed love or kindness to them and how that has impacted them positively in their lives.
And it’s very interesting because most of the times, that act of kindness comes from a stranger, not from family, not from networks, from a stranger that doesn’t know you and shows you some love. And that’s so powerful that I get even emotional with it because I’ve experienced that even in the feedback that I’ve seen in the circles, when you exercise that. And you practice and you exercise it more, right? Because you get used to do that. But I feel sometimes, and I feel that at many different levels, that love is a way of making know the other person that their existence is not unnoticed. And when people are suffering violations in conflict zones, you feel insignificant. We are all insignificant, right?
I think we get married to each other just to feel that we have someone that is noticing us, right? That is like, yeah, is love, is like, oh, you know, I matter for someone, you know? There’s someone here, there’s someone in New York waiting for me. Yeah, that’s important. So I think that’s love. So it is like your life matter to someone. And I think that, showing that love, showing that, it’s been very meaningful for me. And I’ve seen a recognition, not to me, but the recognition of that gesture in a way that has been amazing.
And just, I finish with that, there’s been sometimes people are giving feedback that it’s like, oh, my God, I don’t know who this person is, but I love to think that I’ve been that stranger who was kind in some people’s timeline as I have others who have kind to me in my timeline. So I think that’s when I meant the source of energy, that it gives you energy and it’s like gives you feedback, I think that’s why it matters.
Tulaine Montgomery: All of those responses resonate with me. I mean, I’ll share the why bother with love. For me, it’s a combination of what you’ve all said. You talked about the physical impact. And I have a podcast called “Say More” and talked just last week with this gentleman named Richie Davidson. And he’s a neuroscientist, like, lab coat wearing certified, you know, neuroscientist.
And he talked about how there is a growing body of evidence in the neuroscience world that we are physiologically wired as humans to be pro-social. That we are physiologically wired to connect, not only to people who are of our clan, but also to people who have markers of difference. And that that’s actually how we’re made. And that’s why people who are in community are physically healthier and have longevity. And that’s why people can be moved out of depression and trauma response with physical touch that’s loving and gentle, right?
It’s not just magic, it’s literally how we are wired. It’s how these brains of ours, regardless of our identity or cultural context are designed. And so, when I heard this neuroscientist say this to me, I said, “Listen, I love that. No pun intended. “It sounds lovely to my ears. But there is such abundant evidence throughout history and across the globe that as humans when given a choice will choose violence, fragmentation, scarcity.” And what the neuroscientist, he’s not an organizer, he’s not a spiritualist, he is a scientist, he said, “What is true is that we have built systems that require us to act outside of who we truly are,” which I found really, one, hopeful and sad at the same time. But hopeful in that, why love, why bother leading with love and having love and social impact?
Because if we are going to both imagine and then create a new world, a new system, a way of using resources that doesn’t deplete the planet, a way of negotiating difference that doesn’t result in conflict and violence, if we’re going to build that world, we need access to who we truly are. We need all of our minds, we need all of our relationships. If we’re depleted and enraged and solely responding to injustice without love, then we’re simply participating instead of a recirculation of the same mentality, the same energy, and the same practices. So for me, the why bother is because we are charged, all of us, with building an evolved world and evolution requires love, so. How we doing on time?
Unknown Speaker: We’re good.
Tulaine Montgomery: Okay. All right. So I want to, before we go into dialogue, which I’m really excited about, here’s some examples, right? Because these brains of ours, in addition to being wired for connection, are also wired to internalize ideas when they are attached to story, right? And so, all of you are in spaces that wouldn’t necessarily lend themselves to love as the engine, and yet you do. Can you talk about a time, a moment, where love as the engine enabled impact that you were wanting to see? Fernando speak.
Fernando Travesí: I just spoke so I don’t want to-
Tulaine Montgomery: Brianna, why don’t you kick us off.
Brianna Fruean: Yeah, I’ll go. So I’m really lucky to come from a network of young Pacific Climate Activists. And when we are lucky enough to be in the same room and gather together, the first things we do is, we set out a day for what we call culture building. So culture over structure. So a lot of Western places will think that that’s a waste of time to spend a whole day, if you have a three-day workshop, you’re spending a whole day just talking about things you love. But it’s so important for us because it’s more important for us to be in community with like-hearted people than like-minded.
Because as people who are on a ticking clock, love is a currency in which we can pay so that we can move at the speed of trust. And that’s so important for young people with hardly any resources and who are running out of time for our islands. And so, we spend that day to learn where all our hearts are. So you don’t have to love me, but I know that you, my sister in the room, she’s from Tonga, so she’s one of these young climate activists as well. When me and Mia first met, we didn’t have to know that we love each other, but she knows I love Samoa in the same way that I know she loves Tonga. And so, we know now where our hearts lie.
So as organizers, as people who are in our community trying to bring about social impact, we may make mistakes and we can get over those mistakes, because we know where our hearts are. And I can say, “I’m sorry, Mia, I made a mistake. I didn’t mean to say that at that conference,” and she can say, “That’s okay, let’s move on. How can we get through this?” And that’s because we’re like-hearted. And I think that’s a method in which we found is very helpful for young people in our region, and something that we will stand on, and we know we need to build on.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s very helpful, yeah. And it resonates with you. That’s your truth too.
Mia: Yeah.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Christine.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Yeah, in Congo, we used to, like every Friday, we also gather together to talk about, first of all, what we have in our hearts and to empty. Because, as I said, if you talk about, about love, you take a lot. And you have to know that every single day we are in contact with those girls who suffer the worst atrocities so we have to find ways. So we go together first with the social workers, social workers, and talk about what we have in our hearts and how to take everything out of it. And then also with the girls, what we did right, what’s not right, what they want us to change and not to change. And I have to say, if you don’t do that, you can’t survive, you can’t survive.
And I lived it myself in 2015. I did this severe burnout. I almost died. I had to be repatriated in Belgium, because, you know, I took too much and I thought because I was tall I could, but it was just impossible. And I did this severe burnout with terrible anxiety and panic attack. And then I went to Belgium for two months at the hospital and being followed by psychologist, in psychiatric. I went to psychiatric. And at a certain time I was like, I can’t stay in Belgium and I don’t want to be slave of medicine. So I decided to take some correspondence classes on nutritherapy, because I believe in nutrition and in exercise, and that’s how I survived.
And everything, I think I had to go through this, you know, to understand what the girls lived like with these terrible anxiety, panic, couldn’t sleep anymore. So now I’m more effective and I can really, I’m helping so many people. Even my friends, we studied together in Belgium, when they have problems, like, “I’m calling Christine in Congo. What can we do?” Sometimes I wonder how I survive this. And this is something I can share, and this is also love because I couldn’t have done it for myself. But if there’s a god or a goddess, whoever is up there, it is like, “Christine, you need to go through this for you to continue to help,” and that’s how I survive. And today I have to say, I’m very well and I exercise every day.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s part of love, because loving self.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: I’m taking care. That’s the reason, you know, love is for self-love.
Tulaine Montgomery: To love yourself.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: To take care of yourself.
Tulaine Montgomery: Absolutely. And that is worthy, that is important. That’s powerful.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Absolutely.
Tulaine Montgomery: And going through something difficult is not an ending, it was an evolution, because you even deepened, you had empathy, but you’ve deepened it even further. And I know that that’s made you even more-
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Absolutely.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: And when you’re surrounded, I have to say I work not for V-DAY, but I work with V-DAY. And V-DAY is a movement, like it’s about you, about the human. We are in the center of the work. It’s not the work. It’s like you. And when you are surrounded by so much love and by movement who really take care of you the way V-DAY did, like calling me like every day, “How are you? What do you need?” I don’t need to look for something because they are there for me, and I’m also blessed to have an amazing husband, and children and our grandchildren. So I’m surrounded by so much love and that’s what keeps me surviving and I can go on.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s wonderful. Thank you, Christine. And some examples, Fernando, in your space.
Fernando Travesí: Yeah, building on, bringing to a completely different field, but building also on what Christine said, I also had a burnout, a horrible burnout out 20 years ago after a very intense period of work in Sierra Leon during the war. And it took me a year to recover from that, but also, you know, medical leaves so, very, very tough. That made me very much aware of the risk undertaken.
And then I just want to put an example that perhaps is less, you know? But as a leader of an organization, I pay a lot of attention to build a healthy working environment. And I always, I mean, it’s mandatory that everyone contributes actively to create a healthy working environment that is not only one’s responsibility, it’s a collective responsibility, so.
And then there are different ways of doing that from, you know, opening the space for hybrid arrangements, you know, the work-life balance of colleagues, and also accommodating everything, what happens in our lives when you are part of an organization. I have colleagues that their family is in Ukraine, or in Haiti, or in Palestine, for God’s sake. I cannot pretend that that doesn’t happen. And then I need to incorporate that and I sit down and we need to recalibrate workloads, responsibilities, timelines, task, because you’re concentration is not there. And then you have to make that call. You know, or if you get divorced or if you have someone in the hospital. I mean, there are so much going on in our lives. That cannot be in a separate dimension of the individual when they go to the office or when they do this part of the work.
So for me, it’s part of the conversation. And I try to put that as an example, but also the different managers of the organization with their teams, that needs to be part of the loving for each other, the self-loving, taking care and the wellbeing, but also being very much aware about what’s going on in other people’s life. It doesn’t mean that, you know, you are a friend of everybody and it doesn’t mean that you don’t address problems because you have to. But always, you know, half with the problems solved with people and trying to find a loving way of solving that problems and accommodating people requirements.
Tulaine Montgomery: When you put these practices in place in your organization of making sure that people were known, seen and cared for while working towards some very difficult goals, because there’s a lot of work to do and the work is difficult and the resources are limited, how did your team respond to that? Was it welcomed? Was it questioned? What was it like to build an organizational culture that centers the humanity of its members?
Fernando Travesí: It’s tough. I think there was an internal demand, a very clear demand. So it wasn’t only my initiative, it was responding a need that it was identified and demanded. There is sometimes difficulties to balance all the conflicting priorities that an organization has. But I think everyone contributes to that at their level. And I think, I mean, I tell my Board, we have a very low staff turnover and, you know, there is a lot of competition, and salaries, and benefits, and everything in the United States. We have long-standing staff that have been in the organization for long years. That must be, there must be a reason for that, right? So I think, and again, I try to be the leader or I am the leader, but I don’t have the only responsibility. It’s a shared responsibility.
Tulaine Montgomery: I really appreciate that because I’d imagine, as folks are listening or watching, that a question of like, how do you, sounds nice, sounds great, but that would be hard in my space because, insert reasons. And so, I think the more we can, and even wrestle with this in the conversation, get into what’s coming up as you hear this, that you think might be a barrier, you know. What’s coming up that makes it sound difficult to, not only lead with love as an individual, which you all have modeled so beautifully, but to also build, lead and support institutions that center love. Because that can be tricky.
Fernando Travesí: Right.
Tulaine Montgomery: That can be tricky, yeah. I wonder when I say that, I mean, Brianna, I saw you nodding and amening a bit, I wonder what have you done and what have you encountered in your work of bringing this love ethic into the organization that you help lead?
Brianna Fruean: Yeah, I think something that I was very lucky to learn like young was that, similarly to kind of what Christine was saying around, in some of our countries and places where we’re from, we’re not self-made. There’s no such thing as a self-made Samoan. Any successful Samoan would go up and speak about their success, and say that they’re village-made. They are the product of many people. And so, to practice self-love is to practice love for your village. My mother told me that.
When I started watching TV and getting into like western ways of thinking about self-love, she said, “If you want to learn self-love, you go back to your village, and you learn the people that molded you. And if you want to love them, you love yourself.” And that’s a lesson that we’ve had to teach our young climate activists coming into the space, as well, where the space is very demanding of them, demanding of their voice and their story. In a world that believes they are entitled to frontline stories and frontline truths, it’s so important for our young people to know where love is and to know when is the time to set a boundary. And I learned this from you, Tulaine, as well. Boundaries is a way that you love yourself and love them.
Tulaine Montgomery: Absolutely.
Brianna Fruean: And that has been something we’ve had to incorporate into passing on to our young people is, when you’re saying no, think of it, not you’re saying no for yourself, but you’re saying no for your village. You’re not just protecting you, you’re protecting your stories and the stories of those you’ve been called to tell.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s powerful. I want us to move into really wrestling with this because there’s not a word certainly that I’ve heard that I don’t agree with and that doesn’t resonate with me. And what I know is important for all of us is that, you are in some way impacted and even perhaps changed as a result of this discussion. And so, that means that if there’s something coming up that makes this sound difficult, if there’s something you want to explore further, if there’s an example, you need to hear, that we need to get into that so that this can be more than simply a pleasant experience this morning, right?
So I want to open it up for questions and conversation. And again, what we’ve done is we’ve defined what we mean when we’re talking about love in this space. We’ve heard some examples of love as an engine, not an afterthought. We’ve heard about some of the myths and misunderstandings about love. And so, now here we are where we can open it up to this room of people who chose love this morning. And let’s get into it. I’d love to hear what’s resonating. Questions, please.
Unknown Speaker: Hi.
Tulaine Montgomery: Hi.
Unknown Speaker: So one of my favorite quotes is Cornel West, “You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people.” And also leading with love is like one of my mottos. I’m wondering about not just — you started getting into it a little bit in the end here, about incorporating love into how you lead your organizations. But I believe in love as a politic, not just a value. And I think, when you are doing work in social justice or social impact, it has to be deeper than a value. Like we have to — I don’t think you can have a politic of liberation without a politic of grace or love.
And I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about how love is embedded into your leadership. Meaning, specifically when you are doing your planning work, right? Like when you’re thinking about how you are going to do the work of climate change, or how you’re going to disrupt sexual violence. And, you know, how you are incorporating love? And I mean, I agree with what you said earlier about people thinking of love as sort of a weakness when you say words like love and hope, they’re like throw-away words to people now as opposed to, you know, strategic.
And I think of them as strategic, I think of love as a strategy. And so, I really came here to hear about people who are like-hearted. Thank you for that also, for that framing. I really love that. To hear from people who are like-hearted in that because I really do believe in love as a strategy. And so, I would love to hear some more conversation, even from anybody else about, when we talk about, when I sit down and do strategic planning, when I sit down and think about how we are going to move forward in the work in our organization, but also in our movement, it’s about how we incorporate love and grace into that. And I would love, pun intended, to hear from other folks who think like that because I want to find my folks, also.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So let’s spend a few beats on, again, we were doing some of that, you offered some examples, on sort of the tactics and practices as organizational leaders of love as a strategy. And that resonates I think, with all of us. I’ll offer one as we’re sort of warming up and then do also want to invite others in the room to share.
One is around time. One of the ways that I’ve observed that love is most immediately and consistently sacrificed is because we create plans and timelines that mean that there’s room for nothing, but what we already decided to do. And so, anything that we learn or anything that emerges as we’re implementing a work plan is experienced as a problem, an obstacle, you know, a challenge as opposed to input, learning, wisdom, advancement, evolution.
So one just very tactical, practical, operational thing that I do and that our team does at New Profit is we think about, what are timelines that welcome and include space to hear from each other, from our partners, from constituents? If you have a timeline that is valuing efficiency and expediency over all things, then you, I believe, are at risk of having no room for the active expression of love as a strategy. So one is timelines that may seem overly expansive to the untrained eye, but that at each key milestone in point, there is dedicated time to hear from people and actually listen. It’s very simple, but it’s interesting how quickly, especially in a Western context, we build these timelines and methodologies that make any input at all, nothing but a problem. So that’s one. Would love to hear others.
Brianna Fruean: Yeah.
Fernando Travesí: No, go ahead.
Brianna Fruean: I think one of the ways that, similarly to time, is taking time to look at what we are presenting as young climate activists and who are we doing that for, who is the love for? Is there love for us in that action or is it all love for them? And I love the word practice because that’s something we’ve had to learn as well as Pacific Islanders is, what is practice and what is performance?
So when a lot of people think of Pacific Islanders, you think of like a Hawaiian hula dancer. And the way we see dancing, because we love dancing, we love incorporating that in our climate actions, but is the dancing for them or is it for us? Because when it’s for them, it’s performance. But if it’s for us, it’s practice, it’s love of culture in practice. And so, that’s a check that we try to do in all of our actions and all of our strategies and tactics of our forward-facing work is, is this a performance or is this a practice? And sometimes you have to choose the performance just to get the word out there. Ideally, you don’t want it all to be performance, but I think the heart of our work, we really try for it to be practice.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, yeah. And even when you choose performance, you’re choosing it eyes wide open, clear about the why, clear about why it’s a trade-off worth engaging versus performing because you think it’s the only option you have to stay in the game. So there’s something very different about it. What would you say, Christine, about this question of what does it look like practically to have love in your organization?
Christine Schuler Deschryver: You know, I think working in Africa, it’s maybe different than working in Western countries because time, we don’t have the same value of time. For example, of course we have operational plans, we cannot just work like this, but we put the human in the center of everything. So if you have your operation plan and then you have the results, we didn’t reach the result, we sit down together because we do everything in community and why didn’t it happen?
And then right away we find new solution and new timeline. We don’t press people to be done. But if you live in Western countries and you work in non-profit or for-profit, you just see the goal, but you don’t see all the challenges, you know, all the way to reach your goal. And most of the time when you don’t reach your goal, then you start to make a depression or something. So just try to evaluate in the middle, but always in community, not like yourself in the office and say, “Oh, my God, I didn’t reach that, why, why?” And then you can find solution. And why not put the timeline a little bit longer instead of taking all the stress on your shoulder?
Tulaine Montgomery: So evaluate as you go, but in community. That’s important.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Absolutely, in community.
Tulaine Montgomery: Because then that’s learning as opposed to simply judgment.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: We hate individual.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fernando Travesí: I would add very quickly to, I agree with that and I perceive the question to problemize a little bit more. I was thinking like, maybe I sound like I’m leading a yoga studio or something. It’s like, it’s way more difficult and it becomes with a lot of challenges in the work that we do. But something that I like to talk about is how at work, we accompany partners on the ground. And I love the word accompany because it means just walking side by side. And that translates into participatory planning, a lot of active listening, a lot of, you know, cultural adjustment.
And then we are getting better and better and better, I hope, on introducing mental health and psychosocial support as a lens to our work. And I want to emphasize that, you know, because now mental health is everywhere. And I think it’s like, but not understanding that as a service that is delivered, understanding that as a lens by which you do your strategy. I think it’s the same path that we did with the gender mainstreaming.
Do you remember that years ago when it’s like everything is gender focused, and organizations had gender advisors and gender focus and just to mainstream. So that evolution is the same that we have to do with mental health, through a tact and a word to have it as the lens by which you do your strategy, you do your planning, you evaluate and you consider the work of the organization. I think that is a way of also this idea of love, of noticing the other, the partner, the victims or the organizations you work with.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s excellent. I do– Oh, wonderful. I think we have some additional responses and questions and so let’s do our best to practice the discipline of concise communication of powerful ideas, okay? So start here please.
Unknown Speaker: Thank you all so much. And I just want to go a little bit deeper in where we’ve started to pick up on your point, Fernando, that you have to be tough on the problem and soft on the people. I would like to consider myself a very loving person, but when you’re in a leadership role, you do have to hold people accountable. And Christine, you talked about, you know, the pressure to deliver results. So I’d love to zero in specifically on how do you hold people accountable with love when they’re not delivering results? Because I think that’s where the rubber hits the road, to be frank.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so let’s hear a couple voices on that. We have a saying at New Prophet, “Clarity is kindness.” And what we mean when we say that, it applies really to almost to any interaction. But what we mean when we say that internally is that the most loving thing to do is be explicitly clear and precise about what success looks like, what quality looks like, what an interaction needs to leave people with.
Being precise to the point of, you know, maybe even excess, but to recognize that while I know that we’re all brilliant people, we have so much coming at us, that part of what we have to do is be really precise and clear about success. Oh, that’s noise. Here’s what we’re focused on. Yeah, mm-hm, but this is what we’re focused on.
So something about, you know, in terms of accountability, one of the key measures of loving accountability that we believe at New Profit is being clear and precise about what success, and excellence, and impact and care look like. And that is, it includes what’s the infrastructure, what’s the timing, what’s the quality of the feeling a person has, you know, and really breaking that down and spending perhaps more time on the front end on that then may seem even comfortable. But when you do that investment on the front end, I think it’s a pay now or pay later situation.
When you do that investment on the front end, when things go awry, when someone doesn’t deliver, when somebody creates another definition of success that’s completely unrelated to the one you all agreed on, you have something to go back to if there’s a need for some sort of a consequence or follow up around a particular individual’s choices. So that’s one thought, but what are others?
Fernando Travesí: I would quickly say that it goes back to the question about erasing responsibility and accountability that comes into the internal management of an organization. It’s not easy. I do invest a lot of my time on conversations with my colleagues, to understand the reasons of, you know, under-performance or under-delivered, and not as a moment, but as a process. So as I said, if there is someone, and actually there are problems all the time, let’s face it. But if there is, but through that open communication channel that I, I was about to say, I pretend to have no, I do have, and everyone working with me, they know that it’s an open channel of communication, but also depending on who is the direct supervisor, why you come to me instead of. There are a lot of things that have to be backed on those situations before making the judgment decision that this is under-performance or under-deliver. I think you need to unpack that.
You might get to the conclusion that was under-performance, which it was justified or not, and then make up some determination or some decisions. But I always make it part of a communication process. So the other person might disagree at the end, but it would understand the reasons why we are getting to that point. It couldn’t be a surprise, so.
Tulaine Montgomery: Right. And let’s just acknowledge, that is not the most quick process.
Fernando Travesí: Oh, no.
Tulaine Montgomery: Like, I think one of the things that we have to just accept and make peace with is that, if we mean that we are leading with love and building organizations that are aligned with that commitment, that there are some things that will take longer than if we made a different choice. So I think that’s just worth naming. It’s one of the, if we want to use that language, trade-offs, if you consider it that. I think that’s just important to name. But taking more time is not synonymous with weakness or unwillingness to do the hard thing.
It’s doing the hard thing with much deeper understanding of what’s even going on. Which, I think sometimes when we do this sort of overly expedient approach, we make a decision based on a quick assessment and limited data. And what I hear described from the panelists is something that allows us to, as leaders, make much wiser decisions because we have much more understanding of what’s taking place in our organization. But would love to hear other thoughts on this, yeah.
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Yeah, communication, I’m sorry, communication is extremely important. At City of Joy, like every Monday we have a meeting, you know, to evaluate what we did, what is not done. And I think from my side, I’m very lucky to have a great team. So I don’t really have problems like, you know, with the management or the work, the work is not done. But like Fernando said, communication is extremely important. When something is not done, like I work with, 82% of our staff are female. So we do have our problems. You know, you have period every month, or you have a baby or breastfeed, you know, we do have more problems than men.
So just with this communication, try to understand why it is not done and how can we find a solution again together for things to go on. But without communication, and there is nothing you can do. And the work, I don’t know the expression in English. It’s like — maybe you speak French — [foreign language: 01:00:55 – 01:01:00]. You know, the work is done. It’s not because we lead with love, that we are all day long, “Oh, my God, love. Oh, my God, everything is so beautiful.” No, the work is done. We lead with love, but as leaders in the community.
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s right. That’s right. That’s exactly right. Brianna, did you want to add anything?
Brianna Fruean: No, I think they answered it beautifully.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, yeah, agreed. All right. Lots of hands. Enthusiastic. Sir, and yeah.
Joel: Thank you very much. My name is Joel. I’m a queer academic activist from Southeast Asia. And I’m very lucky and blessed to be standing on the shoulders of people who have done their work out of their own desire to touch people’s lives. I work in the human rights space. And I believe that, I think it, it’s really building a culture of shepherding where again, there’s that desire to build a new generation of ancestors-in-training in human rights. But having said that, I think in this space, it’s also ridden with people who I believe are, for lack of a better term, narcissist.
Tulaine Montgomery: Sure, absolutely.
Joel: Who sort of take advantage of other people suffering for their own advantage. How do you deal with that? I think my question really is, can you infect these people with a love that you have been inspired for a long time? Can love be taught?
Tulaine Montgomery: That’s a great question.
Joel: And can love be taught, particularly in human rights where people die every day where you need to change people’s mindsets and character? So I just want to know because it’s very, I mean, back in Southeast Asia, I normally interact with them on a daily basis. Thank you very much.
Tulaine Montgomery: Thank you.
Unknown Speaker: Can I just say I love that question?
Fernando Travesí: Yeah.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, yeah. It’s a wonderful question. Let’s talk about it.
Fernando Travesí: Let’s talk about it.
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah. Can love be caught? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fernando Travesí: Well, it’s a fantastic question. You know what? I mean, I don’t want to go super personal, but-
Unknown Speaker: So do.
Fernando Travesí: Yeah. It is, and I’ve gone through those questions for more than 25 years working in different continents in Asia, Africa, Latin America, different cultures and languages. Just, it’s like, this is about me, it’s about them. Why do I do this? You know, I have the white savior complex that, you know, this kind of– I felt guilt to an insurmountable level in the situations, being aware of the privileges I had in countries where I’ve lived. And one of the most horrible experiences that I’ve had a couple of times is being evacuated from a war zone because you are taken out and your colleagues aren’t. And it breaks my heart even thinking about it.
And it made me wonder why, you know? I have all this system taking care of me and just picking me out and all my networks and friends and people I love, they stay here. And some of them make it through, some of them didn’t. And it broke my heart. In Afghanistan. It’s been before. So that fracture of living standards is making me very much aware of my privileges and how I benefited from them in order to do my work.
I did a lot of therapy about this just to understand whether those privileges, I don’t want to judge others, but I see in the field many people attached to those privileges very much. And to be the cornerstone for the workday too, I’m not one of them. I can say that genuinely and sincerely, I am not one of them. And I think that goes through the, and it goes back, you know, all these conflicting ideas and therapy years and everything, it goes down at the end to understand, you know, it’s a principle of human dignity. And it’s actually these human rights speeches that I make. And everything is not that I give lectures, I do. It is not my performance. It’s also really what I believe and I strongly made the reason of my lifelong commitment to bring some justice and equity.
So it’s a personal, I think everyone has to go through that personal journey of understanding that and solve it in the way. I think I’m old enough to feel confident to say that I’m not using love in that sense at this point.
Tulaine Montgomery: Brianna, do you think love can be caught?
Brianna Fruean: I think it’s such a great question, thank you, because it’s something that I often think about, is what is the cost of my village’s love, and is the cost of that love my success? Being here in Oxford. I’m from a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and when I go back home, people, they say, “Oh, my gosh, you went to Oxford,” and show so much love for me, right? Is like a girl who was born the same year as me, from the same village as me in the village, is she being shown that same love in our village? In a village where there’s many problems, there’s many social issues for women, for young women.
And I think something that I felt that I’ve always had to carry, is my privilege as someone that my chief will listen to is, how do I look out for her, right? If they’re not giving her the funding she needs to create her sea wall project, how do I say, “Well, I’m not going to go to the government and ask for this funding if it’s not going to the person that really needs it,”? And using that privilege of love, because sometimes love can be a privilege in our communities where not everyone is loved equally.
And so, I don’t know if love can be taught to those chiefs that aren’t showing love to anyone, but I know it can be taught to my village, and I know it can be spread to my cousins and say, “Okay, let’s band behind her. Let’s get behind her and make sure she gets the funding for her project.” And that is our love in practice. And if that chief doesn’t want to listen, then how do we go further and show that love and really believe in the power of people and multiple people showing up and showing their love as a verb as opposed to just trying to get this one person to listen to this one other person, but how can we get him or her to listen to all of us as a collective of people who will show up in love for this person that’s not receiving love?
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So managing the construct of time, and that in many ways it feels like we’re even just getting started and getting into, right, a set of things. And so we’ll figure out, you know, we’ll be here together for some time and we’ll figure out how to continue to be in dialogue with each other as like-hearted people, because I agree we are that.
So, let me actually see if, is Aria in the room? Yeah. So, my friend Aria, who runs Liberation Adventures, has a perspective around ‘if love can be caught.’ I believe you talked yesterday about — I told you I might do this — you talked yesterday about ways that you’re thinking about love in the work you’re doing, in the US, around repair and reparations. You want to share that with us? I think that’s one answer to this question.
Aria: Thank you. Thank you for your question. Thanks, Tulaine. I also loved your question, Tarana. So Liberation Ventures, we do work supporting the movement for reparations for Black Americans in the US. And we have a framework for how to think about repair. Because when we started the work, I thought of repair as this really abstract concept that is actually pretty hard to operationalize if you don’t kind of break it down into its component parts.
So we created this framework called, our framework, reckoning, acknowledgement, accountability and redress. Those are our four parts of repair in a continual cycle. And so, I was connecting with what you said, Fernando, about part of love being really about accountability. Like if we love each other then we are accountable to each other. And that framework is embedded in everything we do at LV, both in sort of what we do, but also how we do it.
And I think one of the things that makes it easier, to your point, Tulaine, about to negotiate difference, to hold difference with love, is to create a culture of such, such deep belonging that no one can be sort of kicked out. That we are all actually accountable for each other’s transformation. And so, just a really tactical thing that we do that I’ll connect back to your question, which is sort of like maybe how you teach it through modeling it is, right? No, yeah, I mean I think that’s how you do it. You show people how it feels to be–
Tulaine Montgomery: Yeah, that’s it.
Aria: In that love. One thing that I’ve been, okay, I’m going to talk about my love framework now. So similar to repair, love is an abstract concept, right? And so, how do we break it down into its component parts and in order to operationalize it? And I recently had an unlock about this. Just more personally for me I created just sort of a personal love framework and I just took a James Baldwin quote, so it’s all James Baldwin. But he says, you know, “The longer I live, the more that I realize that love is just the act of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”
And so, I thought, okay, number one, mirroring; number two, magnifying; and then number three, what you all talked about, and I loved what you said about self-love and about the self-love that comes from a village. So that’s my framework: mirroring, magnifying, and self-love.
And then you can actually go back and say, “Okay, well, what are the daily actions that I’m going to do?” And for me, this has shown up really specifically in how I engage on social media. I think there is an incredible opportunity to use social media as a tool, but I had been scared of it and I had been deeply operating out of fear for a dozen reasons. But I decided to actually think about what it looked like to move from like if all of my posts are magnifying other people’s light, and if all of my posts are mirroring people’s light back to them, things like that. And I think you can do that internally with teams. I think you can figure out how to embed that into your strategy, et cetera.
Tulaine Montgomery: Thank you so much, Aria. So, we are at time. And what I want to be able to do, first of all, is thank our incredible panelists. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Skoll, for creating a space for us to begin this conversation. It’s not done. Your answer and response I think is also mine. Let’s worry less about the behavior of narcissists and let’s figure out how to consistently embody the love that we believe is essential for the work. And we heard some tools. And let’s find each other and continue this conversation. Thank you all so much. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time.
