Michael-Shaun Conaway’s mission is to move, inspire and impact people to liberate their greatness, by telling stories that connect people’s heads to their hearts. He has created a transformational approach to entertainment, expressed in films, online websites & in transformational games.

His newly established Ncite Factory creates games that drive cultural change, develop leaders, drive personal growth, and are widely used at schools, by corporate talent development leaders at Fortune 500 companies, by personal growth and development companies, and results oriented non-profit organizations.

Before being introduced to GIFEW and the principles behind it, I had a view of life in which all of the distinctions and principles needed to transform the world were out there. So all we needed to do is find the best way to get them to the people so they could use them.

And it was a massive surprise to me that GIFEW actually started to work with these very distinctions that we call the new collaborative culture.

I discovered in fact that there are even more ideas that hadn’t been brought out yet.

And that there are some new things that hadn’t been manifested before that are inside the work of GIFEW. I became very, very excited by the opportunity to open up a new space for such collaboration.

Not to say that the ideas behind GIFEW we hadn’t talked about before – of course we’ve talked about the power of collaboration, the power of sharing, working together – team work, resilience, stability.

But talking about them inside the notion of a culture and what happens when a large number of people or community or culture starts to move these materials through, and move them together under one framework became really exciting to me. And then laying upon that, the way that these principles work together to form a tapestry that really supports each other and another such that the whole community becomes something greater. That honestly just blew me away. So, that’s why I am here and I am contributing to bring these materials to these people.

The new culture is something that is also called the new collaboration culture. It is something I want to distinguish as being very different from what we have right now.

Right now, we live in a very competitive, resource ownership world. So, we compete for resources or natural resources, we compete for time, we compete for success. My success sometimes comes at the cost of other people’s success. My good life and my life and my family comes at a cost of other people.

The new culture has at its core this notion of balance. The highest good for all is part of the culture.

It’s no longer what can I get for myself, it’s about how can I raise everybody and everything together. It’s completely inclusive culture. There is no one or no thing left behind.

It is a culture that aims at the highest expression of life on the planet. And that highest expression being that of the stewardship of the planet, stewarding the biodiversity, the earth itself, stewarding our communities and our relationships.

The new culture values diversity. And the reason the diversity is important is because we need lots of opinions, lots of views on things, to come together to figure out what is the best most suitable solution for any situation.

So this notion of diversity stars to create inside this culture this resilience, so that things start to move and there are many, many solutions and many many ways to learn things.

This is very different from the old model of Darwinian of ‘who has the best idea and let us fight it out.’ It’s more about how is there a field of ideas and a field of thinking and field of people to support that. So that when the challenges come up, solutions come with the challenge.

In stewardship of the planet, one of things that is part of the new culture is comes up is for us being able to survive on this planet with using fewer resources.

So, how can we actually have a better life and use less? That’s a really big part of the concerns of the new culture.

And finally this notion of making a break away from the paternal thinking and the paternal way which is a very survival oriented level of thinking. Which served us species well, it got us this far but it is really going to start to limit us in what we are able to achieve as a culture and as species on this planet.

We do not want our time to be up on this planet, we actually want to be entering this new era where we are good stewards of the planet in collaboration with the rest of the species.

This is what we talk about when we talk about the new culture.

Inside this new culture there are several different ways to look at it.

What would the planet look like if there was a new culture operating? Just take a minute and think about it.

  • ‘What would it look like on my community level? Maybe on my country level?’
  • ‘How it would actually function, how are the politics, how does the business work inside of this new framework?’

And then look at a closer level.

  • ‘How does our family work? How we are acting in collaboration, honoring diverse opinions?’

And then ultimately..

  • ‘How would my life look?’
  • ‘What would the world look like if the culture were operating on new level?’

There is a one thing that that is important and took me a while to understand – and that is that in this new culture we really see that women hold it in their hands.

They are the carriers. There is a natural feminine expression within a lot of these things we are talking about.

And we see that it is very important to educate women so that they can carry this message into their communities and their families.

But one thing that is really keeping me involved – this isn’t about women, this is about people.

And all of these things, all these materials, benefit men and women – and men l have a place in this conversation as well. The reason that GIFEW is about women is because they can carry this message easily. Women get this and they go out and ask ‘how do I put this into work?’. And that is a much different conversation. ‘Well is this ok for me?’ ‘Is this right for me?’…This is a kind of male perspective that might be coming in.

So, we are relying on you to bring these materials and things to your community and share them with your men – like me – so that they can grow and experience this culture as well. This is a culture for everybody ultimately.

The vision and promise of GIFEW is: We exist is for everyone, this is the new collaboration culture, where everyone benefits.

We are establishing fundamental connections for humanity, that include enhanced collaboration, mutual support, increased well-being and happiness on both personal and global levels, increased responsibility, and the transformation of negative competition into positive action that makes a difference.

Lets imagine for a second, on a very personal level:

  • ‘What is possible for you and for your family?’
  • ‘What things and problems might disappear when this new culture becomes functional and operating in your family?’
  • ‘What would the world look like if the culture were operating on all levels?’
  • ‘What do you see as possible for you, your family and your community by being part of the new culture?’

 

This text is an excerpt from the recent GIFEW global webinar. To watch this amazing webinar in full click here>> http://www.gifew.org/webinar/