Practice Community as a Way 

On this Sunday, I would like to share a personal story with you and invite you to join in building Dreamfish. My call to share of myself is inspired from a heartful group conversation the other night after my Ignite presentation of the  Humanifesto, reflecting with Lisa Chu, Eugene Kim, Van Riper of Community Leadership Summit. Thank you to all of you for reminding me of what matters.

If you heard the Ignite presentation, this story gives you where I am coming from. This particular story today is inspired by an article that Peter Kaminski just shared with me about Learning from the Trappist Monks about business. Reading the article a reminded me of my own love for building Dreamfish as a practice community.

Once upon a time …

… I lived a life as a NY socialite, a marketer in a media startup, a model and an actor, with over 1,000 performances under my belt, mentored by Sandy Meisner.  And, I was 19 yrs old. I had what appeared to be everything society teaches us is valuable to a young American woman. My “friends” were rockstars, and I was engaged to a prominent heir in an American oil and steel family. But, really, what I was becoming aware of was a deep sense of alienation. Participating in the power games of the office during the day, the stage at night, drunken polo games at country mansions, posturing in night club backrooms, and wasting fuel and energy on private jet trips and a closet of designer clothes, my life was poor. Having grown up early on from a hard-working family of garage entrepreneurs, then rapidly impacted by my mother’s whirlwind l success in advertising, I came as an outsider into the old money world. Because I was an outsider, I could see the water we were swimming in.   I saw I was drowning, but I kept drinking the water.

One day, as I was getting off stage, staring at a crowd of people, I had an epiphany moment. Time stopped still and a sense of awe filled me as I really took the people in. I became aware of emptiness in me and the distance I felt from the people in front of me. This moment was a disorienting dilemma (in the language of transformative learning). In the midst of so much affluence, I felt poor. I had been seeking ways to shore up my sense of self, seeking to achieve, seeking to be loved. I was seeking connection through a paradigm of dominance, not a paradigm of relationship. I had forgotten where I had come from. I had been acting out the dominant stories our society has given us about being human.

The next day, I began to seek a new life and a new model for work. I was walking into the unknown, and had no idea what I would do. In high heels and a Norma Kamali dress, I walked off a New York City street into a dojo. As I walked in the door of the dojo, a man dressed in a white martial arts outfit made me a cup of tea and offered it to me.  He bowed and said, “Thank you”.

I had just met Wataru Ohashi, who had brought Shiatsu from Japan to the West. Ohashi became my mentor for years to come. More significantly, I entered a practice community. In the community, I practiced being of service to each person I met. I practiced being present with myself and another. At the end of each Shiatsu session, the giver bows and says to the receiver, “thank you”,  because of the value received in giving.

It didn’t matter what kind of work I did. We sometimes worked in a Zen monastery, surrounded by nature. Whether I taught a class or I cleaned the bathroom or I meditated, I was practicing service, presence, and ethical standards of quality. In this practice, I encountered myself – my judgments and insecurities, where I held tight and where I grasped. I discovered that when I experienced presence with another or task, I found the joy in myself.  As I practiced in community, I let go of old patterns, and sought out simplicity – growing a big community garden, living with less, sharing what I had. One weekend, my old friends visited me on their way to a hunt. Waving to them from an old tractor, in overalls, covered in manure, I felt happy.

As I practiced in community, I discovered the earth beneath my feet, for I knew I was part of life. And, as I learned, I began teaching. My students were often mid-life executives, seeking to be generative in the second half of life. And as I taught and coached for the next ten years, I learned more about myself. When I practiced, I culitivated fullness in the knowing of not knowing. I became full in practicing connection. Connected, I felt free.

As I practiced service in community, my mental models shifted to network thinking. As an entrepreneur, my ideas about marketing and business models shifted from pushing things at people to building value communities.

Dreamfish is a practice community, where through showing up with faith, being of service, crafting quality work, mentoring and learning, we cultivate that which we seek. We have formed Dreamfish as a cooperative, a work cooperative with a business model fundamentally grounded in relationship. We craft every day work in this ground of relationship – relationship to ourselves, each other, the earth and our relations.  As we practice, our basic needs can be met, while we embrace our humanity and move our world.  We truly can create the work we want.

If you feel called in this story, please consider to join with me  in building the Dreamfish cooperative. Let’s build a work community that serves us all.

Please, take the moment to sign up. While a “profile” online has turned into commodity, I ask you to consider crafting your profile as a practice of presence. Consider to share from your heart what matters to you, and how you would like to join with others in the community.

Yes, creating a human way to work is a practice of walking into the unknown. Let’s walk in together, light the fire and put on a pot of tea :-)   http://dreamfish.com/beta

If you wish to share this with friends and invite them to join us, please do.

Thank you,

Tiff