Many of us are being called to steward work in these times, when we aren't sure what that work actually is. Who else is stewarding a mystery? Who else feels called to hold space and bring work to life yet that work is still an unknown?
If that is you, we want to connect. Together we'll ask question about what stewardship means in a moment of collapse or rapid change, when systems are changing and collapsing all around us, yet many of us feel called to bring in the new. What does it take to steward that newness that is wanting to emerge without folding it into old linear constructs?
Who has done this and what stories do the want to share? Who is in it and what questions are we holding?
Join us if this is you. Let's learn how to hold and birth a question mark, together.
Co-hosted by
Michael Kass Daniela Papi-Thornton
Story & Spirit. Systems. Change. Educators. Unite. (SCEU)
About the speakers
Michael Kass is a leadership coach, facilitator, storyteller and creator of Vibrational Intelligence (VQ), a five-part framework for developing the capacity to attune to, discern between and act from layers of information that live beyond analytical thought. His work grows from a simple premise: human beings have not lost intuition, embodied knowing or sensitivity to the energy of people and places — modern culture has trained us not to trust them.
His work is especially timely as AI accelerates the cognitive capacities Western culture already overvalues and forces a deeper question: what forms of intelligence do humans need to remember in order to meet and navigate this moment?
For years, Michael lived the split he now challenges. His professional life moved through storytelling, organizational and financial strategy, executive coaching and facilitation while, in parallel, he practiced breathwork, energy work and other forms of transformational practice. He often felt he had to translate, hide or separate those worlds to remain credible. VQ emerged as the bridge: a shared language for bringing soul, intuition, non-ordinary reality, embodiment, relationship and strategy into the same conversation without requiring a particular religion or cosmology.
Today, Michael works with leaders and teams to strengthen five trainable capacities — Attunement, Range, Discernment, Trust & Action, and Tending — so they can sense more of what is happening, distinguish signal from projection, and act from a wider field of intelligence.
Daniela Papi-Thornton is a founder of Systems. Change. Educators. Unite. (SCEU) a global organization bringing together people who work at intersections of education, systems change, and social innovation to bring systems and complexity understanding into the mainstream as a means of helping unite in these divided times. Daniela is an educator, facilitator, and author whose work focuses on systems-led leadership: an approach to social innovation that centers on systems understanding. She has served as a Lecturer at a range of global institutions including Yale School of Management, University of Colorado Boulder, and Oxford’s Saïd Business School where she was also the Deputy Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. She designed an educational tool called the Impact Gaps Canvas used at accelerator programs and social impact education initiatives around the world and launched Map the System, a contest now running at over 75 global institutions, culminating with a final event in Oxford each year.
Daniela’s work builds upon six years of emerging market entrepreneurial experience in Cambodia, running a hybrid social enterprise educational organization. She co-authored a book called "Learning Service" on rethinking volunteer travel, a resource guide for exploring systems understanding tools called “The 55 Minutes,” and an influential report on "Tackling Heropreneurship.” Her TEDx talk on Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship highlights some of her thinking.