Are you ready to co-create a new exciting Paradigm for a world where people, planet and profit collectively thrive? A regenerative world where Nature, Eco-systems, People, Creativity and Business flourish? Then welcome to the kick-start of the Cracks of Light Podcast series with your host Laura Storm. Laura breaks down her views on the root cause of our current broken systems and structures, why we need a radical paradigm shift and what some of the key ingredients are in a new thriving paradigm. She addresses the need for the sustainability movement to reinvent itself, the importance of our connection with nature, why we must re-design for regeneration, learn to slow down, make head space for creativity and create balance between masculine and feminine qualities. She's also advocating for the need to let go of our desire to fit in - as a new thriving paradigm will never succeed if we play by the rulebook of the current status quo. We need to put forward the positive, and inspiring ideas and people. The trailblazers. The Cracks of Light.   WHAT WE WILL COVER: Why we need a paradigm shift and an open discussion on what a new thriving paradigm entails  Laura’s personal journey as a young leader in the field of sustainable development – and what has led her to focus on the inspiring, positive solutions and ideas What the sustainability movement needs to succeed and reinvent itself Why we need a holistic approach to solving the current challenges in our world - and why that has to include a strong inner connection  The importance of leaders learning to tap into a greater magnificent potential we all have inside of us if we dare to slow down and listen instead of losing ourselves in a high-paced hectic lifestyle The healing powers of nature and how it increases productivity and well-being How the medieval witch hunts and oppression of women and nature has led to our current hyper-masculine society How a traumatic brain injury changed Laura’s perception on where we need to focus to transform and create sustainable societies.   SELECTED QUOTES FROM LAURA'S EPISODE: "We need to start a discussion where we have permission to talk about how we feel and realize that we can never succeed building thriving, vibrant, sustainable societies if the people that are leading the efforts are in a constant state of stress.  If we are to create a regenerative society – we need to create a regenerative lifestyle. They go hand in hand"  "The sustainability movement has been way too focused on the technologies, the solutions, the political agreements, the financial schemes etc. And, although they are INCREDIBLY important, we have forgotten that this is also an emotional issue. It’s about how we feel and are on this planet. "   RESOURCES: About Sustainia Laura Storm's TEDx-talk: "How silence can lead us to a sustainable world"   ABOUT LAURA STORM - THE HOST OF THE CRACKS OF LIGHT Laura Storm is an experienced thought-leader in the field of sustainability. She has dedicated her entire professional career to making global companies and organizations aware of the benefits of improved sustainability practice, helping global sustainable solutions succeed, and making the sustainability agenda more attractive. She is driven by a strong passion for improving the state of our societies and consciousness and helping in the push for a sustainable transition. Laura is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and in 2013 Laura was awarded the Global Greenbiz’ “Worldchanger” Award. She has also been selected to join the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network as an expert in sustainable development and climate change and serves as an Advisory Board member on the WEF 'Shaping the Future of Urban Development and Services Initiative'.  Among projects and organizations that Laura has headed and helped initiate are the Copenhagen Climate Council, the World Business Summit on Climate Change, Project Green Light, and Sustainia. All with a strong commitment to combat climate change and transform our societies towards sustainability. Laura’s results are a testament to how her work is making a real difference for millions all over the world. 

Cracks of Light: Leadership for a Thriving World

001: The Dawn of a New Paradigm, with Laura Storm

Peta is a paradigm-shifting leader that truly believes we can eradicate poverty and redesign for sustainability as all the solutions are there. The money is there. The wisdom and intelligence is there. Peta brings the energized optimism we all need to dare blaze the new needed trails towards a thriving paradigm.  Peta teaches the new way to live, lead, earn and give and what excites her the most is bringing her brilliant, badass generation together as one team and one family so that we can gift our planet and our kiddies an environment where they can thrive. Peta is an angel gifter and a silent investor, and thrives on expanding the cycle of abundance and contribution, especially when it allows young people to kick ass in their endeavours. In this episode we explore how we can all take small steps to help bring forth a new thriving paradigm, how to live in alignment with your souls calling, why play is so powerful, what is so special about the millennial generation, why your vibration is key, what success really means and so much more. Don’t miss the voice of this game-changing millennial leader.  WHAT WE COVER:  What is the most efficient way of saving the planet?  Why are your energy, compassion, vibration relevant for the new generation of change makers?  Why is play such a powerful component of a thriving life?  How do you live in alignment with your souls true calling? How are we truly thriving? Why is a successful life not all about the action and the doing?  How do you get into alignment? When do you know when you’re in misalignment?  How can you access your creativity and life force?  What is so special about the millennial generation and why are they so often misunderstood?  What are the small but essential steps to build a thriving sustainable world?  What are the benefits of slowing down when you’re eager to make change happen quickly?  QUOTES:  "We often prioritize what we think is success rather than the feeling of success…. Regardless of what the world is telling you about success what is in alignment with me, my heart, my mission, my soul? And how can I honour that even when the world is requesting, demanding and expecting and projecting on to you their own idea of success? When we take responsibility for that and move from there we become successful out here as well. It’s soul vs ego." RESOURCES: www.petakelly.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeaniius/ Instagram: petajean_/jeaniius Twitter: @petajean_  About Peta Kelly    Peta Kelly's most favourite title is HUMAN AF. She is a conscious entrepreneur, author, speaker and philanthropist. She was recently featured in Forbes Magazine and was just ranked by Inc Magazine in the Top 10 Female Entrepreneurs changing the world.  She’s is an unbridled soul and barefoot bandit on a mission to unleash the jeaniius of GenY’s globally. She dropped being a PhD science nerd at the age of 22 and went on the pursuit of that ‘thing’ that was calling her higher. That's when she found her first business pursuit in network marketing and she became a 7 figure a year earner in Isagenix by the age of 26. Her network marketing journey led her to her bigger, more global, soul work and now she’s building a global enterprise, Jeaniius - a global hub of nakedly brilliant people, mobilized to create change for our planet through conscious enterprise and magical collaborations.  Peta speaks on global stages, barefoot, to tens of thousands of people, and to millions through her various platforms, sharing visionary messages of conscious living to move hearts and minds to what’s possible.  Self-described as an alien, a “vessel” for what needs to flow through her, Peta is the creator of The New Way Live, Jeaniius and The Supercharged and she’s got her first book on the way in early 2018.Peta was recently featured on The Rise Up movie with Michael Bernard Beckwith, Jack Canfield, Danielle LaPorte, Gabby Bernstein, Marie Forleo, Tony Robbins, The Dalai Lama and more.  She's a new Mum to her beautiful daughter Sol and has now found a new supersized passion for empowering women to create a beautiful pregnancy and birth experience.   

007 Radical Alignment is Success 2.0, with Peta Kelly

It's time for a new breed of entrepreneurs. In this episode we talk about the rise of conscious entrepreneurs, the B-corp movement, the systemic challenges we’re facing, how to re-evaluate profits, the role of the ego, the #MEtoo movement and the rise of feminine leadership – with one of the most seasoned and experienced social entrepreneurs in the world: Marcello Palazzi. Marcello is a progressive economist, entrepreneur and leader. Marcello began his career as a young entrepreneur in his 20s, he has 2 MBAs and degrees from LSE, London Business School, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. But as he said he: " had the shivers thinking of having to wear a grey suit and join the army of executives". He is the founder of Progressio Foundation, that is dedicated to help develop the "civic economy", an economy focused on citizens' interests, as opposed to one serving private or public interests alone.  Marcello has always been guided by a desire to transform entrepreneurship to be a force for good. So when talking about how we see the rise of a new breed of entrepreneurs - I couldn’t think of a better man than Marcello. RESOURCES: B-Corporation: https://www.bcorporation.net B-Lab: https://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps/about-b-lab Be the change movement: https://bthechange.com Progressio Foundation: https://www.progressiofoundation.org About Marcello Palazzi   Marcello is a serial entrepreneur for human progress.  Following 11 years as co-head of his international family business in environmental technologies from Italy and the UK in the 80s and early 90s, he founded Progressio Foundation, which has completed 300 projects in 30 countries with dozens of partners under his leadership, in pursuit of the ‘civic economy’, ‘civic enterprise’ and ‘civic innovation', which Palazzi wrote about in 1990 in a book which has proved prescient, predicting the rise of CSR, sustainability, public-private partnerships, ethical investments, social enterprise and other forms of a more ‘integrative’ economy and enterprise. From 2014 to 2017, Marcello has been leading the B Corp movement in continental Europe from Amsterdam. He is currently the B Corps’ Global Ambassador, Chairman of SIX, the worldwide social innovation exchange | www.socialinnovationexchange.org, Member of the Advisory Committee to the board at DanoneWave in the USA | www.dannon.com and remains President of Progressio Foundation.       WHAT WE COVER: The B-corp movement (B for benefit + positive impact) The systemic challenges we’re facing How to re-evaluate the concept of profits to a more holistic concept A new definition of success The role of the ego The #metoo movement and how that helps to change the perception of how to act as a leader the rise of feminine leadership and feminine leadership traits How corporates are waking up to a new reality How investment bankers are parasitic How we have allowed the financial system to be the ruler of society A new financial system How we today need to go back to ancient values The rise of conscious enterprise and leaders How to reinvent the educations system to nurture the individual talents SOME OF THE GOLD FROM THIS EPISODE:     “You have to make a profit to survive and to prove you’re delivering value but it all depends on how you make the profit and then what you do with that profit and who earns that profit. These are questions that every society, every enterprise has to address” “ We are out of balance. We have to strive for balance in our companies. Of course it’s not OK to take money away from the planet the way have been doing in terms of nature and the environment. We have basically been sucking all these resources out of the planet and we haven’t been putting them back….if you’re screwing the planet and killing people you can make profit but what kind of profit is it?” A person who is disrespecting women is also the same person who is disrespecting people in general and not acting out of collaboration, compassion, respect or generosity towards others. These are the same traits we see in all primitive leaders compared to an enlightened leader. “Life isn’t only about what you achieve externally. It’s also about your inner peace, your inner journey, the legacy you leave behind and the wisdom that comes from the ages - hundreds of thousands years ago. Look for that wisdom or you’re missing out. “We are not a wise society. We are an immature society. We are acting like  small  school boys. Who has the most toys? Who can be the loudest or the strongest? That’s very primitive” 

006 A New Breed of Entrepreneurs, with Marcello Palazzi

Is peace really possible? Is there a business plan for peace? How can we all help reduce conflict in our workplace, community, home and even inside ourselves? What is the role of our ego in conflict-situations and arguments? How can I find my true path in life and reconnect with my own inner guidance system? These are some of the questions we will answer in Episode 5 with three-times Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Dr. Scilla Elworthy. Scilla has spent her entire life building peace and working with leaders in high-pressure conflict zones all around the world. In this Episode, she shares her wisdom from a lifetime of preventing war and violence and offers fascinating stories from the frontlines that we can all learn from. Scilla offers concrete tools to help us all identify who we really are, become better leaders, connect with our own inner wisdom and combat the desire for revenge we may all have experienced.    This episode will bring you hope, concrete tools, inspiration and… goosebumps.    WHAT WE WILL COVER: What you can do to build peace and reduce conflict everywhere Tools for communicating with people whom you violently disagree with – a conflict resolution tool successfully taught to CEOs as well as children How to nourish empathy and enable understanding between people to dissolve conflict Why the root cause of all violence and conflict is humiliation and how to better acknowledge your own role in conflicts How to turn a tense meeting or negotiation around and create a more constructive and pleasant atmosphere If we succeed in building peace, what’s in it for the companies who are currently benefitting massively from war? How to become aware of your own ego, when it’s in charge in an unhealthy way and its role in all conflicts How to find your life path and connect with your inner guidance system Creating efficient and pleasant meetings and negotiations through meeting human to human – not ego to ego How can we tell the difference between the voice of intuition and the ego’s desire? How to inspire leaders to live a life with purpose and compassion    SELECTED QUOTES   “One of the root causes of war and conflict is humiliation. Respect is the fastest antidote to humiliation. To show someone a gesture of respect, immediately diffuses a war between you.” “You’re clearly a gifted leader but what is it really you want to accomplish in the world? What is it that really makes you feel when you’re older you have given a great gift to your country, your community – what would you be really proud of? What’s the closest thing to your heart’s fulfillment that you can imagine you could do? It’s these questions that most leaders don’t have time or the inclination to ask themselves.”   RESOURCES: Scilla Elworthy homepage The Business Plan for Peace The Peace Talks Webinars open for all Scillas TEDx talk on nonviolence   ABOUT SCILLA ELWORTHY Three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics. She founded Peace Direct (2002) to fund, promote and learn from local peace- builders in conflict areas and co-founded Rising Women Rising World (2013), and FemmeQ (2016). Scilla was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003 and was adviser to Peter Gabriel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Sir Richard Branson in setting up ‘The Elders’. Her latest book The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World Without War (2017) and her book Pioneering the Possible: awakened leadership for a world that works (North Atlantic Books, 2014) received critical acclaim from experts in the field. Her TED talk on nonviolence has been viewed by over 1,130,000 people.       

005 The Business Plan for Peace, with Scilla Elworthy

Design is amazing! It truly has the ability to radically improve life on this planet but, also the opposite, destroy this planet. Dr. Leyla Acaroglu is a millennial on a mission to challenge the status-quo of the design world. She’s dead-set on helping people realize they don’t need to accept the way things work – we all have the agency to rescript the future by taking the right actions today. She is a highly intelligent, modern day super hero, an anti-establishment, creative boundary pusher and thinker. In this episode, we explore how to radically change the education system to correspond to the world we live in, how to mobilize people to change the status-quo, nourish curiosity, see all things as interconnected, embrace failure, create space for creativity to flourish and how living a life of purpose influences your brain and well-being. We talk all things change and how to shift our collective capacity to become regenerators who spend our lives adding value instead of just extracting, consuming and exploiting. This episode is nothing short of exhilarating!   WHAT WE WILL COVER:   The defining moment which led Leyla to commit her life to making designers and product-makers aware of how their choices impact the well-being of people and planet Leyla’s approach to curiosity, how she never pretends to know it all and how she constantly fills her own knowledge gaps What is a good first step towards becoming a regenerator – a disruptive designer that makes this planet better The disruptive design-method, key elements of problem-solving and how your brain tricks you in these processes The tools you need in order to make effective change through your creative practice Why she has bought a 2000-year-old farm she calls “a crazy project” – the co-project (CO standing for Creative Optimism) How she spends time in nature to admire the intelligence of nature design and to create the space for generating new ideas and nurturing curiosity Her personal reflections on dealing with success, stress, anxiety and burnout as a passionate change-maker who had no idea how to stop and rest   SELECTED QUOTES:   “I wanted to solve the problem that I experienced in Academia which I was constantly feeling extremely oppressed creatively. I was very frustrated with the type of pedagogy in knowledge transfer that Academia has so I got very much into critical pedagogy and the idea of the educator being the guide through knowledge and not the dictator of knowledge.”   “Many people wake up one morning and go: “Hey hang on a second. Deep down inside me I have this sense of purpose and belonging that I should do something more meaningful with my life and now I’m stuck in this system…and I’m unhappy. It’s a sad state of affairs that we don’t have businesses that can accommodate the needs of their people and that we’re still stuck in an industrial mindset when it comes to education and the relationship between work, purpose, production and society at large.”   “Each human has the agency to affect a positive change in the world and we don’t need to believe what is perceived to be the status quo… you have to know that the future is NOT defined. It’s based on the actions we take today and every minute of our lives.”   “You have to remember that life is a magical wonderland. It’s absolutely phenomenal that life exists on this planet. Physicists have never found anything anywhere in the cosmos even remotely as magical as this planet.”   “We need to shift to being producers. We are all interconnected with the planet, we cannot deny that. You have to breathe, you have to eat, you have to drink water – free resources provided by this earth to us – but, as a species, what we have done is we keep extracting resources, we keep polluting. We are being extremely selfish teenagers essentially.”   “How can we quickly grow up and become regenerators? Instead of just degenerate the natural systems that we are a part of. This to me is the ultimate design challenge.”   “If you are an organization that prides itself by being an innovator and you are not at the absolute forefront pioneering sustainable change and circularity within your industry and meeting the needs of your employees in a more harmonious way with purpose and fulfilling opportunities, then you are FOR SURE going to be disrupted in a way that you are NOT going to like. For sure.”   “I truly believe that creativity brings hope and, in this current narrative of dystopian futures, the one thing we need to be reminded of is we built this world – and we can rebuild it in a way that helps make it more equitable and ethical and constructive.”   “The little people are going to inherit a legacy of our inaction unless we start to work together to really re-imagine the future.”   “I’m super excited about failing well. I really like it when I screw up. Once I get over the sting – cause there is always a little sting especially when you’re a high-achiever – I’m focused on what I can learn from this.”   RESOURCES: Leyla's website UnSchool of Disruptive Design  Disrupt Design  Portugal Project - the CoProject    ABOUT LEYLA ACAROGLU  Sustainability provocateur and cultural protagonist Dr. Leyla Acaroglu challenges people to think differently about how the world works. As an award winning designer, UNEP Champion of the Earth, sociologist, and entrepreneur, she developed the Disruptive Design Method and designs cerebrally activating experiences, gamified toolkits, and unique educational experiences that help people make the status quo obsolete. Her mainstage TED talk on sustainability has been viewed over a million times, and she leads presentations around the world on activating positive social change through creative interventions and systems thinking.  

004: Disruptive Design and Systems Thinking, with Leyla Acaroglu

Peggy is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and was born and raised in the US. She graduated from MIT, started one of the earliest ecommerce companies in Silicon Valley and a venture capital firm in Shanghai. A decade ago a new calling led her to start a Chinese NGO named JUCCCE. JUCCE works with business leaders and government officials at the heart of the greening of China. Peggy is a kick-ass female leader who dares show up in the world to speak her truth. Buckle up for a fascinating conversation on everything from behavior-change, the power of story-telling and visualizing, the environmental progress in China, women empowerment, her own personal transformation, love, ego, the concept of Qi ….and so much more.   WHAT WE WILL COVER: ·  The positive developments in the environmental movement in China and how Peggy helped introduce the concept of smart grids and how she trains Mayors to build eco-cities ·  Using intuition in decision-making and using visual story-telling to create change and manifest concepts into reality ·  A radical new concept of life-force-design combining wisdom from Traditional Chinese Medicine with Western design ·  A revolutionary insight into the power QI and how Peggy has recently started sharing her knowledge as a 20th generation Qi master in her keynotes and interviews ·  How to raise consciousness in regular dialogue and meetings ·  Her thoughts on how the entire planet is currently awakening and people are stepping up in unusual ways ·  Why women are uniquely suited to manage disruption and lead the transformation of humanity   SELECTED QUOTES: “Making change is super addictive. It’s essentially a dopamine hit. It’s like drugs. So when you do it once you’re like “I gotta do this again””.  “What I’ve learnt is that the highest level of personal happiness, personal fulfillment, is to be of service to others”  “People are awakening all around the world at the same time. Especially in the last year. Because something is happening. The entire Earth is awakening”.   RESOURCES: • Peggy's organization JUCCCE • Peggy's professional Facebook page • Food Heroes- low-impact healthy diet education for young families • Rife music healing page • Opening dialogue on sexual violence   ABOUT PEGGY LIU Peggy is a Distinguished Professor at China Academy of Governance, a lecturer at China Executive Leadership Academy of Pudong, and the National Academy for Mayors of China. She is a board member or on non-exec advisory committees of Project Drawdown, EAT Forum, Hillary Institute, FTSE Environmental Markets Committee. She previously served on advisory committees for Marks & Spencer, HP, World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils on Sustainable Consumption, WEF GAC on New Energy Architecture, Clinton Global Initiative. She is a recurring judge for The Circulars at Davos (circular economy) and the Hult Prize (social entrepreneurship at college level). She is a consultant on market entry into China to companies such as Duke Energy and governments such as New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and consults on sustainable market innovation for companies such as Unilever and Danone. Peggy has been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Foreign Policy's shaper of US-China relations, the Hillary Step for climate change solutions, a Time Magazine Hero of the Environment, one of China’s top 50 innovative business leaders by China Business News Weekly.  Prior to JUCCCE, she was a venture capitalist, an Internet pioneer in Silicon Valley heading one of the earliest e-commerce companies, a management consultant at McKinsey, a software product manager and a developer. She is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. 

003: Dare to Bring your Magic, with Peggy Liu

Giles is the businessman of the future we've all been waiting for. His approach to life and work is truly a crack of light in today’s world and therefore he had to be the first guest on the Cracks of Light Podcast. Reading his books resonated with me on such a deep level I was often in tears. His thoughts represent the courageous new ideas we need on our quest to change the current paradigm from hurting both the people and our planet to instead optimize and regenerate. Giles was very successful in the corporate world, working as a management consultant for KPMG. But he always wondered: "How can I apply these learnings to the things I really care about and when?" Listen to his fascinating journey from a high-paced, rational business-career in London to a heart-filled, rich life close to nature in the countryside of Devon. I promise you'll be inspired, motivated and excited about the future.   WHAT WE WILL COVER: • Why he left a successful career to follow the whispers of his heart, surrendering to uncertainty • What humans and corporations can learn from nature • How Shamanic and indigenous approaches to life are relevant in today's business world • How corporations can become thriving, resilient, vibrant and future-fit • The role of spiritual intelligence and intuition in the business world • How we have become separate from nature and ourselves and how to re-establish that connection • How we can open up to who we truly are and bring this into the business world • How nature affects our psychology • How to incorporate wellbeing into the leadership narrative • How to embrace uncertainty and vulnerability • Key Leadership traits of the future   SELECTED QUOTES:  "When he (David Attenborough) said: "The Time is Now" it really spoke to me because I was kind of waiting. I was kind of thinking: "How long do I wait? How long do I learn? Do I wait until I become CEO of an organization? What do I do?" When he spoke it felt like NOW IS THE TIME. And so I started to change." "This is essentially about good business sense. Corporations with a living systems approach consistently outperform their mechanistic counterparts. This isn't about being soft and fluffy - this is about opening up to how life really is and becoming wiser and more effective as a result".   RESOURCES: • Giles Hutchins website  • The books of Giles Hutchins • B-corp movement • Richard Barrett Values Center • The Tedx-talk I gave that we refer to: "How silence can lead us to a sustainable world"   ABOUT GILES HUTCHINS Giles Hutchins is a visionary thought leader, speaker and adviser on the future of business. Previously, Global Sustainability Director for Atos, and business transformation specialist with KPMG, he has helped transform a wide range of organizations (corporate, third sector, public sector and start-up) and is author of the books The Nature of Business and The Illusion of Separation. He advises many forward-thinking organisations, has been interviewed by the BBC, and writes for a number of global networks. His latest book is Future Fit, watch a short 3 minute video about it here. Giles Hutchins blogs at www.thenatureofbusiness.org and is Chairman of The Future Fit Leadership Academy www.ffla.co 

002: Bringing Heart, Soul and Nature into the Business World, with Giles Hutchins

The Cracks of Light Podcast uncovers ideas for a new thriving paradigm from some of the world's leading thinkers. New leadership. New ideas. New business models. New systems. All stories represent the cracks of light of a new and better world where people, planet and profit collectively thrive. Find out more on www.laura-storm.com.