Posts tagged superpower

Three years ago, we started something amazing with a small group of incredible people. There were five of us, all either at risk of redundancy, wanting a change, wanting something different. So, we came together once a month over a shared meal and called ourselves the Change the World Gang. We had big ambitions but we didn’t start with the world. We started small, with each other – supporting each other through a time of transition. Since then, we co-founded this very out of the ordinary not-for-profit.

If you know The You Can Hub, you know that we’re not your usual not-for-profit. That last year our first birthday involved making superhero capes. That most of us are overly fond of ginger beer, we share our secrets and our meetings often involve talk of The Hulk and Mission Impossible. That our registered address is the local community pub where the villagers came together to save it from closure and are now the shareholders – and where my husband and I held the music festival part of our wedding last year (and got shares in the pub as a wedding gift). You’ll know that we have passion and purpose and that we’re working out how to live a life we love while helping you figure it out too. That we include people who are excluded elsewhere and emphasize the power of community, connections and ‘doing’ together. That we look for the impossible and work out how to make it possible.

This Spring, I have been offered an incredible opportunity. I have been invited to join 29 other people who think like we do and to gain a whole host of new knowledge and skills at the Misfits Conference in Fargo. It’s ‘a tiny conference about making a huge dent in the universe’. With topics like The Economics of Crazy and Writing Your Own Revolution, I’m fairly sure I’m going to come back a changed person – revealing my inner super hero, Danger Lou. Check out my successful application here: Lou Misfits Conf Application 

This is where I get to be vulnerable. To make it there, I need your help. This is my impossible – I can’t do it without you. Think of it like enabling a huge amount of inspiration that will come back to you through post-event blog and video posts, in person socials and so much more.

Will you help me to reveal my inner superhero, and come back from Fargo dangerous and contagious? If you read my application, you’ll know that 30 seems to be a pretty important number to me right now. So I’m looking for 30 people to back this Misfit-Adventure by donating just £50. I want to be able to know you all by name and either physically / virtually give you a hand shake.

Will you be one of the thirty? Contact us as soon as possible if you want to be one of the 30 – use our contact form (scroll down) and put “Hell yeah Danger Lou!” at the start of your comment or tweet us @youcanhub with the hashtags #dangerlou #imin. I can’t wait to hear from you! Check out the full low down on the Misfit Conference here: http://aj-leon.com/misfit-conf/ Oh, and thanks to Danger Mouse for the inspiration! Watch out for more posts from me on revealing my inner super hero coming soon…

What would it mean to reveal your inner super hero?

**Update** There is now a donation link available here for you to make your donation directly. And if you’re a UK taxpayer, you have the added benefit of Giftaid! Click the button… and make sure to include the message “Hell Yeah Danger Lou” with your donation!

My long-time partner / newly wed husband joined an album club. This seems like a pretty old-fashioned idea; you pay a subscription, and you get sent a CD every month.  It’s also a pretty neat idea – you end up listening to music that you just might not otherwise come across. One CD that came was called Europe, by the band Allo Darlin. There is a particular lyric that is resonating with me at the moment:

“These days it’s hard not to measure by what you’ve lost,

            But what you can find”

The Letter – Allo Darlin’

• Getting married to the love of my life, my childhood sweetheart, and having the most fun it is possible to have in one day with amazing contributions from family and friends
• Music, music, music – whether it’s all the amazing new music I found at Green Man (Tuneyards, King Charles, Treetop Flyers) or seeing my new husband jamming on funk bass with his new band, the Africelts
• Resilience – my Gran had an old-fashioned, grin-and-bear-it type of resilience. My resilience is a little bit different… but there are some times when you just have to keep on going, and I found this from my Gran
• Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability – the message that courage is not about not feeling vulnerable, but that vulnerability is where your courage comes from. And the title of her blog, Ordinary Courage. This year I have really found my own vulnerability, and not run away from it
• My superpower, which is exploring opportunities, asking questions to help others gain clarity in their thinking, and see a clear way through that meets with their values and belief. How cool that I can name this now, thanks to my fab colleagues from The You Can Hub. I can’t wait to get on with the important business of sharing this strength with others, with greater awareness!
  

In these times of economic uncertainty, it’s hard not to focus on the loss – loss of jobs, loss of funding, loss of services for vulnerable groups. What do you do to counter this? What have you found lately?