In this mini-episode, hosts Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch introduce the Practicing Connection in a Complex World podcast and invite participants to join them in practicing connection.
Bob: Welcome to “Practicing Connection in a Complex World,” an exploration of personal and collective practices that empower us to work together to help each other, our families, and our communities improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world. I’m Bob Bertsch.
Jessica: And I’m Jessica Beckendorf.
Bob: And we’re the Network Literacy team from OneOp. And we’re so excited to be talking with you about our upcoming podcast. Episode 1 is on the way as we launch in July of 2020. Jessica, what are you most excited about sharing as part of the Practicing Connection in a Complex World podcast?
Jessica: I’m just really excited about exploring these concepts. They’re something that I explore regularly, but I’m really excited about exploring the concepts with other people who are also interested in learning about connection, and about all the different ways that we can build connection and do it in ways that really supports ourselves and supports other people, and not just kind of leave it all to chance.
Bob: Yeah, I mean I think we’re really focused on working together, you know, trying to co-create with other people, and I’m really interested as we go on this journey with everyone who’s listening, in working with other people and co-creating with them as we practice connection together. Because I think the more voices that we have involved in the podcast, it really reflects how we feel about this work, which is we’re connecting with each other, you know, to build diverse networks that can start to address some of the complex challenges that we all face.
Jessica: At one point we even talked about calling the people who are interested in listening to this podcast, participants, because that’s what we’re hoping for. We’re really hoping that anyone who listens will become a participant in the community of people who are… who are practicing connection.
Bob: I’m glad you brought that up because I think that’s how I feel, and I think we both feel about this podcast. You know, when we talk about practicing connection, we’re not telling people how to practice connection, we’re practicing it. We’re works in progress as well. We want to do that together with everybody, all the participants, and…and build a community around that. And you know one of the ways I hope we could do that is by sharing what we have learned and what we are currently learning, and also sharing our own practices, you know, to give people permission and ideas and energy to practice themselves, right? Practice working and thinking differently in ways that are going to increase their connections with people and hopefully lead to, you know, shared work of some kind.
Jessica: When you keep bringing up the word “practice” and…and how we are in this also practicing with everyone else, we aren’t experts in connection. We are on a journey just like everyone else is, learning together. We have done a lot of work and a lot of reading and a lot of a lot of thinking about connection and a lot of thinking about connecting with each other and connecting with our world, but we aren’t necessarily experts. Which is why we’re looking to practice with others.
Bob: Doing it together is…it not only fits the theme of what we’re talking about, you know. It’s going to make the podcast better, and it, and hopefully it’s going to make the…the community around this idea practicing connection in a complex world even better as well. So I hope that, you know, if you are listening to this, you’ll make sure to take the chance to subscribe to the podcast. The first episode, which focuses on transformational relationships, will come out in July 2020. We’ll be talking about collaboration and community resilience and so many more topics related to this idea of connecting with each other, collaborating with each other, and working together to make a better, more fair, more just world. So join us for Practicing Connection in a Complex World. We’ll talk to you soon.
Jessica: Can’t wait!
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