Purpose Inspired by Wayne Visser - October 2024

After the summer break - which included a 6,300 km road trip with my Tesla EV from the UK across Europe to Kosovo and back - work and writing is once again filling my days. Here are some highlights I think you will find interesting and useful.

What I've been writing (from the depths of my tHrIVE Mind)

For those who haven't yet discovered Substack, it is a wonderful blogging platform to follow those whose writing you enjoy. For example, I am following Rewilding Markets (John Elkington), The Crucial Years (Bill McKibben), Sustainability by Numbers (Hannah Ritchie). Mine is called tHrIVE Mind and you can read and/or subscribe (free) here. This is a sample of recent posts, to give you a flavour:

• Enough with the greenhushing already - Why we should celebrate Forbes new Sustainability Leaders list
• Hope not hate: A battle for the middle ground - My response to the UK riots
• Everything that surrounds and connects us - A reflection on the nested nature of living systems

What I've been saying on sustainability commitments

I was recently interviewed by small business CEO Matt Portt as a feature piece to launch his new services on carbon accounting. I've been sharing extracts from the interview on tHrIVE Mind. Below are a few of these short pieces, but if you'd prefer to read the whole interview in one go, it is available here.

• Are companies backtracking on sustainability? - Part 1 of the interview
• Is net zero too ambitious for business? - Part 2 of the interview
• How do we deal with the AI curve ball? - Part 3 of the interview (available here from 1 October)

What I've been teaching on sustainable innovation

While in Antwerp last week – teaching two days on the AMS Masters in Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship – I posted a poll on LinkedIn. Here are the results:

As I reflected in a recent blog - Do Humanity's Best Days Lie Ahead? - my question was similar to one debated by Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Alain de Botton and Malcolm Gladwell in 2015. The debate is captured in a little booklet that I finished reading. The pre-debate audience vote was 71% in favour (“yes they do”) and 29% against (“no they don’t). Post debate, it was 73% “yes” and 27% “no”. But more interesting was the range of arguments. Read my favourite quotes from the debate here.

What I've been reading (and what I thought of the books)

I'm a multi-book reader, meaning that I've always got four to six books on the go at any one moment. Right now, for example, I'm reading Nexus (Yuval Noah Harari), An African History of Africa (Zeinab Badawi), Chess (Stefan Zweig), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke) and The Complete Fairy Stories of Oscar Wilde. Here are a few I completed recently:

• Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future, by Stuart L. Hart - see my review
• Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, by Hannah Ritchie - see my review
• Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business on Sustainability, by John Elkington - see my review

Where I'll be speaking in the coming months

I have a number of speaking engagements in the pipeline (see below), where I hope to see some of you.

• Sustenlandia CEO Forum, Bucharest, Romania, 9 October 2024
• Global CSR Forum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 28-29 October 2024
• 4th INSURE.hub International Conference on Innovation, Sustainability and Regeneration, Porto, Portugal, 29-30 October 2024.

For those who are interested in booking me for a keynote, here is my speaker's bio and speaker's reel:

What the muse has been whispering in my ear

For those who enjoy my prose and poetry - I know there are some from the Cambridge Business Sustainability Management course that I co-lead who always appreciate these creative words) - I have also started to share on tHrIVE Mind. Here are a few of the newer poems:

• Book of Changes - This is the time of transition, the rhyme of revision …
• Rewilding - Our living world may be under threat, but we’re not giving up, no not just yet …
• The Call of the Wild - I hear the howl of the wolf, mourning …

How the thriving movement continues to grow

I am ever grateful that - despite considerable sustainability headwinds - the thriving message continues to resonate, and the movement continues to grow. In fact, I am surprised and delighted that my book, Thriving: The Breakthrough Movement to Regenerate Nature, Society, and the Economy, two and half-years since publication, is still on the Amazon bestseller lists in Brazil, France, Germany and Sweden. Thank you to all those who have supported it and shared it among friends and colleagues.

In addition, in 2024 so far, there have been 6 cohorts of new Thriving Ambassadors who have completed the Thriving Facilitators Training. If you're interested to attend a future course, feel free to message me on LinkedIn or contact me via my website. You can also join the Thriving Movement group on LinkedIn. And don't forget that there are 2 seasons. of the Thriving podcast, where I speak to thriving pioneers and practitioners, and the Purpose Inspired podcast, where you can access all my audiobooks for free.

My wish for you: Keep shining, keep thriving

Wishing you all the very best for October. May you shine your light in the darkness, and always strive to thrive!

Prof. dr Wayne Visser