Gamechanging Insights No. 4:
Julie Hanna in Conversation with Candice Faktor
Julie Hanna, Executive Chair of the Board at Kiva.org and venture partner of Obvious Ventures, provided insights with Gamechanger at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic on how blending Eastern philosophy and Western business can help us. Julie has spent her career working with purpose-driven technology companies to solve humanity’s greatest challenges, which has been a tremendous inspiration to the Gamechanger community.
1. Lessons from War-Torn Environments for COVID-19
Julie grew up in war-torn Jordan and shared her thoughts comparing war to COVID-19.
Julie emphasized that the uncertainty of the situation has caused each one of us to be thrust into a state of existence where you realize nothing is guaranteed.
2. Eastern Philosophy and Western Business in Times of Uncertainty
Julie shared lessons with us on blending Eastern philosophy and Western business through her work with the Esalen Institute and how it helps individuals manage uncertainty and fear.
Julie reminded us that when we experience the emotions of fear or anxiety, our mind is often artificially triggered to tell us that it’s a permanent state. When we panic, we create even more fear, and it results in a self-reinforcing cycle that can be difficult to break.
In Eastern traditions, Julie emphasized that there is a beautiful concept of temporariness. Nothing is permanent and everything is constantly moving — especially our emotions. This idea of temporariness is important to remind ourselves of when we’re in this state of fear. We can be freed by the mindset that the feeling will eventually pass. Temporariness teaches us to let go, be patient, and not be fixated on our current circumstances.
Illusion of Control is another important mental model that frees us from the brutal construct of thinking that we can control our externalities. Instead, this thinking blinds us from the fact that there are much bigger forces at play that we should be working to harmonize with. Julie emphasized that the very antidote to fear and anxiety, and the need to control, comes from finding grace and harmonizing with what is, letting go and recognizing what we can and can’t control.
3. COVID-19 as a Mirror for Our Society’s Hidden Gifts and Shortcomings
Julie emphasized that moving into our curiosity and looking for the hidden gifts is a powerful antidote to the fear and anxiety we can experience in extreme uncertainty.
We’re all part of a highly interdependent ecosystem.
“Our pre-COVID life was not normal — other than the fact that we normalized things like greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. Now we are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment — one that cohesively fits all of humanity and nature.” - Sonya Renee Taylor
An act of self-preservation and an act of compassion are one in the same. Sheltering a place isn’t just about our own survival. It’s about contributing to the survival of others. Our singular effects can have an exponential effect for better and for worse--one person that’s infected can infect 2.3 people and so on. In the same way, acts of kindness can also multiply exponentially.
4. Supporting Those In Need During COVID-19
Not only do we see market failures in resource poor countries, but we are grappling with some of the failure of markets and government in the US moving forward.
We often we fail to recognize that broken circumstances do not imply broken people.
Where has our system failed people who are vulnerable? We must be able to have these conversations without immediately accusing this exploration as a socialist or communist ideology
5. Tech and Business: How We Can Create a New Society
Julie highlighted that tech has an unprecedented power to effect change with its ability to reach mass scale at an unprecedented speed. She pointed to the fact that many systemic problems can be solved by promoting fair access.
Technology has the equalizing power to democratize access. For example, Google has put the world’s information into everybody’s hands rather in the hands of a privileged few. Google X, which seeks to solve problems that affect a billion people or more, has the potential to build the most enduring and successful business and institution for humanity.
Julie emphasizes that nationalistic tensions at borders can be constraining, but there are still ways to ensure network effects between Sillicon Valley and Toronto’s tech ecosystems.
With the internet, we can overcome existing circumstances by adopting the mindset that we live in this global digital village and we are all, in fact, very interconnected. This continues to strengthen with time. If you look at open source movement, it shows us that we have the ability to continue evolving in how to cooperate and coordinate across time and distance using tech
6. The Importance of Enabling Access to the Pillars of Dignity
Julie believes that we must create a great harmony between purpose and profit and recognize that these motives aren’t dualistic opposites.
The pillars of dignity, according to Julie, are:
Education
Health
Access to capital
Access to information.
If we get fair access to all four pillars, we can really build a foundation to a dignified life. While talent is universal, opportunity isn’t, and fair access solves many of these problems. Julie believes that tech is the great enabler for the pillars of dignity--it has the untapped potential to effect change, en masse, at an exponential rate. Systemic problems are often symptomatic of unequal access and technology itself has the very power to democratize access. We hope you enjoyed these insights from our session with Julie Hanna.
Bonus - Julie shared recommended reads on thriving in uncertainty:
Viktor Frankl’s Search for Meaning. Frankl shows us that the greatest freedom lies within and our ability to choose.
The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck.
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Chodron unpacks her own journey of discovering the hidden gifts in moments when things fall apart.
Happiness by Matthieu Ricard. Ricard is a Buddhist monk and he observes happiness from a Western scientific perspective and an Eastern philosophical perspective. He shows us the tangible crossroads between our left (analytical) and right brains (spiritual).