Jean-Philippe Steeger
on Wildness and Love
“I think there is a force in each and every one of us that seeks integration, healing and reconciliation. We have, however, learned to silence that voice. It’s a never-ending journey of listening to our deeper purpose and passion for having an impact.”
What if you embraced the vulnerable power of your wild and natural essence?
Jean-Philippe Steeger believes it’s time for bringing wildness back. It’s time to let your craving heart speak and embrace a language of living systems. It's time to "heal our broken relationship to nature, the feminine, indigenous wisdom, community and our inner truths.” He helps people and companies discover their authenticity and purpose for sustainable potential to flourish. How? Through pioneering what it means to bring back meaning, healing and aliveness through communications.
We met through CEC European Managers and that's when I discovered that his #inspirator was his Romanian grandmother: her generosity and her ability to share her love and faith in the beauty of the human soul, a generosity that knew no borders, despite the depressing reality of a totalitarian nightmare regime.
As a realistic dreamer, he dares you to follow your passion and never stop asking questions about your role and potential. Because when you find your purpose, everything will flow much easier. And that’s exactly what he did, too.
Perspectivist is grounded in a dream of a world where everyone can have a place and thrive, where everyone is being listened to. It has been birthed to shine a light on the perspectives that have been forgotten, on each one’s unique beauty when speaking from the heart and on our collective potential of living in tune with nature.
Jean-Philippe stands against the “action fetish”. The only thing we need to do "now" is to be. To learn to become present again: “to make space for new potential; to attune ourselves to the simple beauties to discover.” Focus on the “conscious and creative, wild and wise, caring and courageous practice of listening to and expressing our greater potential.” On the conscious practice of redirecting our attention towards “the thrivability of inner, outer and ecosystemic relationships.”
A trend we must keep an eye on, from his perspective, is Love. He thinks there is an exponential growth in people directing their attention towards regeneration, healing and love, which is actually natural human intelligence in practice.
Thank you, Jean-Philippe for being a Perspectivist!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Jean-Philippe Steeger
Company / Institution: Perspectivist and CEC European Mangers
Title: Founder / Policy and Project officer
Website: www.perspectivist.net, www.sustainableleaders.eu and www.cec-managers.org
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jean-philippe-steeger-602a7269/
Country of birth: Germany
Country you currently live in: Belgium
Your personal definition of Sustainability: I would refer to the “traditional” definition of sustainability as maintaining the carrying capacities of places to ensure the livelihoods of current and future generations. It was about managing stocks and flows. However, sustainability has become a polluted buzzword that is being used for almost everything, from aviation fuels to soft drinks in plastic bottles.
In my view, the regenerative approach feels more adequate for dealing with the systemic challenges we are facing. More fundamentally, it invites us to reflect upon the root causes of the omnipresent destructivity of the global extractive and industrial economy. I believe it’s high time for embracing a mindset, practice, and language of living systems. We need to heal our broken relationship to nature, the feminine, indigenous wisdom, community and our inner truths.
Main business challenge you face: Bullshit-as-usual. Excuse the language, but I believe we need to name it for what it is. We – privileged Westerners - have come to make ourselves believe that our modern lifestyles have anything to do with rationality, happiness, or sustainability. This illusion has been kept alive artificially by a restless and polluting communications, marketing and PR landscape. We’re literally bullshitting ourselves into extinction.
I see the challenges of today’s extractive attention economy however as an opportunity to ask more powerful questions. Why have we ignored the life support systems, whether natural or social, that make our own health, our lives and jobs possible? If we want more than merely to survive, but thrive instead, the answer may inform how we can create local conditions in which truthfulness, integrity and love are possible.
Main driver that keeps you going: Love for life. Love for my friends, for my family, for all the beautiful species we don’t even know exist on our wonderful home planet.
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: The courage to speak up for what I believe is right. And by that, I mean with truthfulness and love.
The trait you most value in others: Generosity. I am always impressed by the stories of my Romanian grandmother who shared her love, faith in the beauty of the human soul and cooked food for the local community. She was generous despite harsh conditions: a depressing reality of a totalitarian nightmare regime where you had to queue for hours to get food and where your neighbor could be a spy.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: I love performing – living - arts and have played theatre for many years. Now, I am dancing, do circus as well as drag performances. I also enjoy forest walks and travelling regeneratively.
The #inspirators who determined you to take the sustainability path: There are many #inspirators, but the earliest ones were probably my father and grandmother. I was also interested quite early in Buddhist teachings, which remain relevant now that mindfulness and compassion are becoming scarce. Later I was inspired by authors including Félix Guattari, Vandana Shiva and Laura Storm.
More deeply, I think there is a force in each and every one of us that seeks integration, healing and reconciliation. We have, however, learned to silence that voice. Personally, I also had to learn to listen to this wisdom again, especially when the automatisms of (blind) modern life prevented it from unfolding. It’s a never-ending journey of listening to our deeper purpose and passion for having an impact.
A hint or starting point for companies or professionals that are taking the first steps in the sustainability journey: Follow your passion and never stop asking questions about your role and potential. When you find your purpose and passion, everything will flow much easier. It can also help to get support through coaching or mentorship.
When you’re working in an organization, it’s sometimes more difficult to relate your passion and purpose to what you are developing and offering. But it can help to see the bigger picture. For instance, water pump producer Grundfos shifted its purpose from producing high quality pumps to providing clean water for millions of people worldwide, also disadvantaged ones. This is what makes people want to work for such a company.
Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you: That you must measure everything and collect loads of data to be sustainable. Although awareness is important, I think the argument often just delays responsibility and removes agency from people for having an impact.
Furthermore, I think that too many working in sustainability promote blind techno-optimism for future technologies – “clean tech for 2050”. Since the technosphere now outweighs the biosphere, I think this is just more of the same in the logic of today’s extractive economy. It’s simply not sustainable to replace the global tsunami of cars with e-cars mined by children in Kongo. We need to learn to design systemically.
Secondly, the permanent “action fetish” with catchphrases like “we must act now”, “decade of action” or “fly greener”. No, I think what’s most needed now is to stop destroying and stop bullshitting ourselves by pretending we are not.
We need to learn to become present again to make space for new potential. To attune ourselves to the simple beauties to discover. That would make us more relaxed and massively contribute to healthier and happier lives. The outer restless destruction is mirrored by our inner realities of stress, burnout and decreasing well-being.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope: You may not realize it, but what you say and do have an impact. If you stay true to yourself and follow your path, even in hard times, you’ll encounter good people and places. And that alone will create ripple effects, which will come back positively to you.
Or, in the words of Vandana Shiva:
“I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential."
Books that had a major impact on you:
The Art of Communicating by Thich Nhat Hanh
Hilma Af Klint by Julia Voss
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Velvet Rage by Alan Downs
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Must-reads for any Sustainability professional:
Regenerative Leadership by Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm
Natural Intelligence by Leen Gorissen
Regenerative Business by Carol Sanford
Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth
Biomimicry by Janine Benyus
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again:
Kiss the ground
Fantastic Funghi
The Sacred Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Blogs / Websites / Podcasts etc. you visit frequently: Right now, I’m reducing the amount of information I have to digest to focus on what wants to emerge and what is important to me.
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: Paolo Nutini, Dominik Eulberg or Raffaela Carrà – depending on the mood.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: The wilderness of Laos and Bolivia.
Global Sustainability Voices you recommend us to follow:
Laura Storm
Michelle Holliday
Daniel-Christian Wahl
Vanessa Nakate
Vandana Shiva
Trends in Sustainability we should keep an eye on:
Regenerative communications and regenerative business models
Warm data and living systems design
Biomimicry and nature-based innovation
Greenwashing clean tech, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, new mining projects, giga meat factories, GMOs, pesticides, supply chain slavery or precision agriculture
EU Green Deal, including the upcoming Green Deal Industrial Plan
Events we should attend:
Sustainable Leaders’ Summit by CEC European Managers
Enchanted Festival at Selgars, UK
Your local and regional events on sustainability and regeneration
Associations, business clubs, tribes you belong to – and why:
Regenerators’ Collective and Regenerative Communications Collective: pioneering regenerative communications to dream into being the regenerative era;
Queer movement: reconnecting to our lost sense of spirituality, sensuality and sexuality;
ManagersForFuture (as former coordinator): to promote the shift to sustainable and regenerative leadership among managers.
Sustainable Development courses / trainings / certifications that really teach us how to have an impact:
Regenerative Communications Journey with Perspectivist
Regenerative Leadership Journey with Laura Storm
Courses that connect you to your local and regional communities and ecosystems
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030:
Creating thriving conditions for the places and communities you we will be part of in 2030 already today.
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030:
Even in the worst-case scenario, it’s nicer to be around friendly people, and to live in a place with greater biodiversity that promotes local resilience.
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: Radical honesty, capacity to deeply listen to the heart, weaving regenerative communication ecosystems
Quote that inspires you:
“True innovation comes from reaching for the potential in something: its possible manifestations that don’t yet exist.”
(Carol Sanford)
Your own quote that will inspire us:
