“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you. They are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” -Wade Davis
Sensory Perception – Diversity – Culture – Leadership
Indigenous wisdom in volatile change is an unlikely source of inspiration I’ll admit. After reading the book The Wayfinders by anthropologist, ethnobotanist, writer, photographer, filmmaker and explorer Wade Davis the relevance was obvious. National Geographic named Wade Davis as one of the explorers of the Millennium. Described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity”, Wade’s work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia,
Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University. In this conversation with Dawna Jones, Wade explains the mind-blowing (Dawna’s words) sophistication of indigenous skills to navigating across open seas without the instruments we rely on today.
We talk about:
- Perception: Is a mountain a hunk of rock or a deity that directs destiny?
- Science: Why race is a fiction and how we are all brothers and sisters
- Empathy: The secret skill to working with different and diverse world views
- Diversity: A more elegant definition of diversity from an anthropologist viewpoint that HR can use to replace targets and quotas
- Descartes: How we became separate in our relationship with Nature, the high cost to all life and what we can do about it
- Psychedelics: The contribution of mind expanding adventures to seeing reality in a different light
- Culture: How cultural myopia prevents us from seeing and hearing others
- The Great Hope for what lies ahead
- The Great Lie Trump sold the middle class
- What leaders and entrepreneurs can learn from ancient Polynesian Wayfinding skills
- Why Wayfinding in complex environments is more accurate than navigating from Point A to B.
The whole conversation was sparked by Dawna’s read of The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World published in 2009.
Also in this episode is an artist-owned track from pop-punk band @ChaseYourWords. Track is called ‘Here to Stay’. Www.chaseyourwords.com
Intro music is from www.markromeromusic.com. Mark is the former CEO of a semi-conductor firm. His music generates coherence in listeners.
I’m the host of the Insight to Action podcast.
I (Dawna Jones) specialize in co-creating personal-organizational-systemic leadership and decision making transformation by detecting the subtle forces blocking expression of potential. Dawna is the author of Decision Making for Dummies, on Steve Denning’s (Forbes) list of 8 noteworthy books for 2014. In addition to hosting the Insight to Action podcast she contributes to the Great Workplace Culture blog on the Huffington Post.
