Aviv: Okay, you just articulated a very important principle. Let me slow it down and say it back to you in my words. A community can be, in this case, an intentional residential community can be an ecology that will support many interests, many endeavors, many inclinations. But for the community to actually thrive, there has to be some kind of a unifying idea, or theme, or impulse, that brings people together, all while it enables those various interests, and pursuits, and desires, and hopes to have a space to be integrated. Because if there isn't a unifying principle, then why on earth are you trying to build a community?
Well, this is a potent inquiry. So, what would you say now a few years later, is some of the learning that joined you as you
proceeded in this journey? Because I imagine there were ups and downs and struggles and moments of breakthrough. But it's a journey that never ends. It's a journey where you're forever on the edge of discovery of what the next chapter is going to be about, I imagine.
Jane: Exactly, that's how I was going to say it. Just as your life is a journey, never ending until your last breath, so is a community.
And you can say that for 20 years this community has been on its journey, almost 18 years being on the land. And so many different things have been learned. I'd start from more of the external, moving to a place you haven't been before. And everyone coming from somewhere else to a town no one lived in. It takes time for you to acclimate to the ways of the culture that you have brought yourself to. And it takes time for the people who are resident in that larger community, because you're foreign to them. And it takes time for those who come to live in the community, the residential community, because not only, again, are the locals are foreign to you, as well the land, the essences that radiate out from the land, need to get to know you - and you them.
I would say is for something to be successful it needs to be greater than oneself. So it's the service aspect. And then the development happens from that, because it's not development - human development, personal development - for development’s sake. It's because I want to serve a greater purpose as a life.
Jane Goodman
From the time of childhood I've been driven to understand how the human was meant to be.
This has guided me in knowing how to interact in this world. The inroads I continue to explore are through the sciences of behaviors and ways of giving service to others, which build filaments of qualities that nourish the tree of humanity rooted in the purpose of life.
Some of the branches that have been nurtured are community, leadership and meaningful communication.
Aviv Shahar
Aviv is the Founder of Aviv Consulting, helping leaders unleash strategic innovation, and is the author of Create New Futures: How Leaders Produce Breakthroughs and Transform the World Through Conversation.
