This week, my family and I organized a stay-cation with a mandatory digital detox. (Yes, that's why I am late with this article).

It's going well for all of us, including Lila, my 16-year old, who is learning new baking secrets and teaching her dad how to skateboard ;))).

It's going well for me, too.

I am learning to slow down, to hear myself and the world better, to trust (as our team is putting together the final touches on our new book - a special insert with a full set of 25 business model reinvention cards you cut out and use with your team immediately!!!)

I am learning to honor time, to celebrate the achievements and failures of the past, to get the full benefit, rather than rush onto the next shiny object.


Among such special experiences of my life are the 4 TEDx talks I've delivered over the course of the past 11 years.

These talks came out of the place of pain and hope, of the desire to do something better, to become a better version of what we all can be.

And that's...

Last week I asked you whether or not we should host another free virtual Reinvention Summit - to come together at one point in time, to share energy, and to get ready for an unpredictable fall.

The answer from the community was a strong and clear YES, so big thanks for responding and sharing your ideas.

We'll work on making this happen in the coming weeks, but until then, I have a special gift for you.

Our Spring 2020 Reinvention Summit spanned over 2 weeks to explore a deep question: How can we use COVID-19 as an invitation to reflect, rethink, and reinvent?

The program spanned over many sessions, but we were not able to share the last day replays as Zoom was having technical issues and the final day recordings got "corrupted."


Surprise: We now have the final videos, and today I want to share the insights from the amazing leadership master and author of "Helping People Change" Dr. Ellen Van Oosten...

Can you believe we are about to enter August?

Nearly 5 months ago I was on my way from San Francisco to Columbus when the news broke that our state, like many others, will enter into "stay at home" quarantine.

During my layover in Colorado, I posted a question in our private Facebook group, Reinvention Society, on whether we should organize a free online Reinvention Summit to offer tools and resources to survive this incredibly different and demanding disruption.

In the following two weeks, over 1,200 people from all over the world came together on Zoom to share solutions, strategies, yoga poses, and more.

We had amazing speakers from all over the world.

We shared worksheets, coaching protocols, and simple down-to-earth steps to reinvent our way out of disaster.

We cried a little. And laughed a lot.

We discussed Nassim Nicholas Taleb's idea of "black swans" (those huge unpredictable disruptive events that shake up the world) and also listened to the...

July is in full swing, 2020 keeps bringing more and more surprises, and chances are you or some of your team members are running low on energy.

This is absolutely normal.

We are in the middle of a marathon - not sprint - a remarkably complex period of massive change. We don't know exactly what will unfold next, but we know that COVID-19 has started a chain reaction that will impact many aspects of our lives.

How do we survive - and even thrive?
How do we learn to live in chaos?
How do we build resilience?


To answer these questions, together with UNDP and the Sustainable Development Goals initiative, we've organized an hour-long free training session:

Key lessons for this session include:

1. Don’t be quick to blame external factors if your business is struggling – data shows that almost 90% of factors contributing to businesses’ demise were within management control.
   
   
2. Change is not a one-time project. Change is here to stay - so build businesses that are...

It's Friday - which means I am a day late with my weekly reinvention article. 

It was marked in my planner and mapped out in my notes, but I finished the workday past mid-night and simply did not have anything left in me to say.

In just 10 days we have to send my new book, The Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook: How to Thrive in Chaos, to the printer.

We also have the new class of the Certified Reinvention Practitioner program working on projects - reinventing their companies, their families, their community non-profits - and with COVID-19 still marching through our lives, that work takes priority.

Plus, there is cooking and cleaning and tending to the family. 


I have plenty of excuses. Still, I am late and feel horrible.

This is not the first time.

Just this past December I was on location with a client and pulled a few all-nighters, ending up in a local hospital missing my plane and getting home late for the holidays.

There were years with vacations missed, birthdays...

I am with you. 


My plans, like yours, are out of the window and not coming back.

In fact, the entire planet seems to be in the same boat.

So, how can we navigate the chaos of this year? 
How can we better guide ourselves and our teams in times of change?
Where do all the opportunities lie in the face of uncertainty?

To answer these questions, I sat down with Dr. Patrick Leddin, host of the remarkable Leadership Lab podcast for 30 minutes packed the latest data and insights on how to survive and thrive in chaos:

During this conversation, we went deep - looking at the history of management thought, asking ourselves a fundamental question: what still serves us today, and what must be reinvented if we want to be successful tomorrow?

I would love to hear your answer to this question. What theory, approach, or methodology you'd like to let go moving forward - and what would you like to keep?

What should we hold on to - and what should we let...

It sounds too good to be true. 


A scientific method to reinventing yourself - with no work required. 

But yes, the research is in, all in this 5-minute video:

After you watch it, let me know if you decided to trust science - and tried the trick.

————

Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva helps companies such as Coca-Cola, Kohler, and IBM turn change and disruption into an opportunity.

Want to join our amazing reinvention community? Grab one of our free resources and you are in: https://www.learn2reinvent.com/freetools

Summer has finally arrived - but what a special summer it is. 

COVID-19 is still here, the fight for equality is still unfolding, and the International Monetary Fund's World Uncertainty Index has reached it's highest point of the past 60 years.

What are we to do?

My answer? Educate ourselves!


So today I want to share 3 books that are on my desk (nightstand, terrace table) this summer - and invite you to share yours:

Book #1: "Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism" by the amazing John Elkington

Written by the godfather of the sustainability movement and one of my personal heroes, "Green Swans" is a book for pragmatic optimists looking for great examples of capitalism, reinvented.

Building on the concept of "black swans," John Elkington puts forward a beautiful agenda: "If Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Black Swans" are problems that take us exponentially toward breakdown, then "Green Swans" are solutions that take us exponentially...

As the world continues to go through major turbulence, I keep wondering how can we get better at adapting to and managing change.

To help us find the answer to this question, for the last few years, we’ve been conducting a regular global survey.


In 2018, out of over 2,000 participants, 47% reported that in order to survive, they needed to reinvent their businesses every three years or less.

Data from 2020 is still coming in, but the first 500 respondents show that the number has jumped to 58%!

(You can still participate in this SUPER important survey - and I promise to provide fresh data with even more insights.}


That should come as no surprise, given the deep interconnections that come with participating in a global economy.

The World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global Risk Report has mapped out 30 critical risks across five categories — economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological — and showed...

In January we presented you a 2020 reinvention calendar with pragmatic research-driven ideas for using the power of reinvention every single month:

How could we've possibly imagined what 2020 had in store for all of us? 

Nobody could.

Yet, here we are, finding ourselves halfway into the year, wondering how can we make it better. 

Safer. Stronger. More hopeful. More just.


How can we find a new and better version of ourselves - even in the middle of the pandemic, confusion, chaos, and pain?

I don't have an easy answer.

But I still believe those 12 science-based pragmatic non-nonsense reinvention solutions can still serve you, your team, your clients, your community - as you can turn them into strategy sessions, coaching moment, or reinvention labs in no time.

So, we made sure to include links to the background research and free instructional videos to make it work better - and I can't wait to hear what you do with these tools.


What was on the calendar for the...