What I’m doing now
As 2025 gears up, long-term writing projects are coming to fruition as my coaching / facilitation practice continues.
Finding Clarity
I’ve been doing similar things for a long time now under a lot of labels. Part of my work last year, as I returned to private practice, was to frame this in a coherent way. Here comes the latest version of my professional introduction. You can read about this in My Approach.
I help people find personal and professional clarity. I do this in three main roles. I work as a coach or mentor, mainly to help personal clients reach greater levels of maturity. I work as a facilitator, mainly to help founders and C-suite foster meaningful organisations. And I work as an editor or co-writer, to help authors and visionaries bring original texts to publication.
I’ve had a beautiful string of small gigs in the past six months, all of which fell under that umbrella. I worked on white papers, personal coaching, cultural alignment workshops, strategy sessions, pitch reviews, grant writing, PhD development, education design and board observation, with a range of clients across regenerative finance, international education, alternative medicine, transformative system change, secondary education, AI training, open-source technology, HR, organisational psychology, environmental law, and the arts.
Equally important, I’ve upgraded my ways of working, to find balance as an independent. Those things are elusive, but worth celebrating. Shout out to the Commons for creating great work spaces, the people who reached out and invited me to work with them, my past self for learning the art of independent motivation, and my partner and close friends for their staunch support.
A word on community: one of the best things that I did in 2024 was probably joining Enspiral, a global group operating as a radically decentralised community, and exploring ways of creating meaningful work. Immense gratitude to Jessamie who first invited me in, and the rest of the Kumara node people. I’ll be part of a small crew putting together a Victorian midwinter retreat in 2025 – please reach out if it strikes your curiosity!
I’m always happy to explore potential new gigs, small to medium. I will have about one day per week available in March, and more after Easter. If you think my skills and experience could be useful to you or someone you know – please reach out!
My Writing is going public
In parallel to my practice – with similar goals and philosophy – I develop models and methods that I hope can help us navigate the present times with greater clarity. Typically, they come out in text form. I’ve had a few projects in that lane, which are beginning to come out.
In 2025, I will return to cardinal virtues – the basic framework defining the good life in the Stoic, Aristotelian and Catholic traditions. I set up a substack at http://julienleyre.substack.com where I share a weekly reflective post, with a total of 13 cycles exploring wisdom, moderation, justice and courage. I’d love for you to subscribe, and share your thoughts or reflections.
In late 2024, I got together with Alpine genius Think Tank founder Michaela Emch to write a series called Beyond Butterflies. We looked at innovation with a biomimicry lens, focusing on ecotones: the spaces where ecosystems overlap, and unexpected new combinations occur. And then we published it as a short book. Whether you’re working across sectors and might benefit from the trickster approach of foxes and ravens, or you would like to learn from gels and mucus about the art of goo-vernance, you might enjoy this read!
I’m always doing something with Patrick Laudon these days. Starting February 14, you will be able to read How Things Happen, a series of essays we wrote on Organizational Change seen through an East Asian lens on the Change Management Review – courtesy of the wonderful Helen Palmer. Look out for side-notes coming up on my personal blog, together with a few associated posts on system change and working on systems. We’ve got a new project in the works offering a dictionary of organizational dark patterns – with reflections on localisation, consensus building, and fraud. Stay tuned.
I co-edited a book on the Foundations of Systems Sensing, in a project led by Luea Ritter and Nancy Zamierowski from Collective Transitions. The book offers a general introduction to the methodology, as well as 20 case studies. As part of the book, I contributed one case study: a piece titled Landscape your Life, inspired by a program I designed, on embodied techniques to sense into your own emerging futures. Check out the book – and reach out if you would like to discuss a set of landscape your life sessions!
In 2018, I co-founded FOGA - the Future of Governance Agency. We’ve been doing work in the dark for years, and it’s now coming to light. My co-founders Corin Ism & Markus Amalthea Magnusson recently published the Slow Internet Manifesto, for which I wrote a French Translation. I’ve been working with Corin on a series of op-eds to drive public engagement, and two upcoming book on rule making and positive visions of the future, both attempts at re-igniting our political and social imagination.
On the horizon
For about a year, I’ve been working with Luea Ritter on a book exploring ecosystem stewardship. Based on our practice and experience, we’re looking to demystify the work that happens in-between – from energetic aspects of facilitation to the role of inner work in transformative change, and other ways of increasing coherence in social groups. We’ve got a full draft currently in revision, and hope to share it with the world by the end of the year.
My first published book was a queer rom-com. On and off, I’ve been returning to the genre. There’s a new novel draft in my files – blockchain bro meets climate bro, romance ensues. That may take a while to be ready, but there’s a few things closer to it. Rom coms are about love, love is the art of peace: surely we can learn something from them. Last year, I had a series of sessions with my old friend Liu Yan-Uphekka to reflect on rom-coms as an alternative model to think about innovation. Essentially that was film club for social change nerds with a romantic twist. We’re not sure yet where to share the notes of our conversations, or in what form - but that will be coming. In 2025, we’re starting something else, more broadly exploring ways to manifest love in contexts broader than the domestic, crossing the views of a French-Australian queer man influenced by Ignatian spirituality, and a Chinese-Dutch female Buddhist practitioner. Something to look forward to!
Finally, I’ve got one long-term personal project incubating that I’d like to bring to life. Under the label ‘First Followers’, I’m looking to create both language and a pilot leadership program for people who work around ‘innovative’ environments, but not as founders. It’s a role I’ve found myself in, and see lots of friends take ‘on-the-job’ – but often on the backfoot. I see limited funding and formal recognition, yet a lot of informal interest. If this resonates – I’d love to speak more!
That’s it. This page is in part to connect with people, and in part to keep my own brain in order. Working across a broad range of things, it’s easy to feel like my days are idle and empty. Putting things in order, as I do here, is a way to counter this dangerous illusion. Thanks for being with me on this journey!