What Is An Architect of Liberatory Change?

I loathe LinkedIn.

It’s where watercooler talk meets tenth-grade English class.

If I read one more post that starts with, “It was an honor to read at Ms. Jenkins’ third-grade class” or “I’m thrilled to announce I survived Tuesday’s all-staff meeting,” I’m going to lose my mind (insert DMX song here).

One of the most intimidating things about LinkedIn is having to summarize my entire professional career in neat boxes. I live in the Mexican jungle and deal with scorpions and jaguars regularly. I don’t do boxes. My life and career are more like squiggly lines.

Throughout my career, I’ve been a journalist, film and television producer, political operative, news radio announcer, education nonprofit executive, public relations and governmental affairs consultant, executive coach, freelance writer and journalist, creative director, author, and filmmaker. How do I smash that into a 500-character soundbite that makes people want to hire me?

The solution came in a wonderful newsletter by Pam Slim.

Hailing from Mesa, Arizona, Pam has helped thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide (including me) start, sustain, and scale their businesses for over two decades. Pam is an award-winning business coach, speaker, and author of Body of Work, Escape from Cubicle Nation, and The Widest Net. Attending Pam’s business retreat in 2016 inspired me to move to Mexico.

Pam devised the term “Architect of Liberatory Change.”

Architects of Liberatory Change build a body of work that guides clients on a transformational journey while building a more just, inclusive, and sustainable world for future generations.

“Oh my god!” I wrote Pam after reading her newsletter. “That’s me!”

Pam responded, “Do you know you were LITERALLY the reader I had in mind today when I wrote this?”

“Well, glitter my tits,” I thought. “That’s awesome.”

So, what does this have to do with you?

My creative output on Substack and across social media seems incongruent to many. One minute, I’m making dance videos and posting provocative self-portraits. The next minute, I’m offering a “Creating With the Ancestors” class. An hour later, I’m planning a Caribbean retreat for women in career transition.

Yes.

Here’s the deal: I don’t want to live, work, or create along the dictates of an algorithm. On the one hand, algorithms aid and abet our human tendency to categorize people and ideas. Categorization helps the brain organize information and process the world. However, too much shelving of people and ideas into boxes erodes culture and human dignity.

Instead, let’s cleave to the idea that more than one thing can be true at once.

For example, I can create and share sexy dance videos and be an architect of liberatory change. I can use my multi-hyphenate knowledge to help women navigate career transitions. I can explore the impact of AI on traditional photography while preferring black-and-white photography as my primary medium.

In that vein, I’m exploring a few things this week:

1)    My friend and bestie, Jordan Rosenfeld, offers writing workshops and self-paced classes. Click here for more information.

2)    Fellow Substack writer Anna Elizabeth Howard “uncovers faith for the common good, unpacks poison texts of Scripture, and discovers how reclaiming ourselves as nature is the key to future thriving.”

3)    Known in Mexico as “Abuela Fugitiva” (Fugive Grandma), my friend Teri Bayus has a writing space on Substack (You’re Making This Up) that shares writing tips and prompts.

4)    I’m offering a “Creating With the Ancestors” course starting soon. I’ll include a video about it below.

5)    Substack subscribers get a 20% discount. It includes a library of over a dozen e-books containing strategies and tools to help you research family history, create an heirloom to give your family during the year-end holidays and establish the foundation for an entrepreneurial venture or long-term creative project.

6) Here’s a video discussing why I’m so excited about the “Creating With the Ancestors” course and what you can get from it: