Paradigm-shifters in our midst--Part 1
Some of the people who help me keep my perspective and sanity now.
“You can’t see the picture when you’re inside the frame.” Many years ago I came up with that statement because I saw that we’re all inside our own frames (including me!).
I also saw that helping people “pop their frame” and step outside their usual box(es) of understanding was a critical part of the process for people to open up for real growth and transformation.
Our paradigms, belief systems, perspectives, perceptions, and narratives are how we create our lives and our world. As our culture is unraveling, fortunately we have more and more paradigm-shifters offering authentic wisdom (not artificial “intelligence”) to help us pop our collective frames and step outside our usual boxes of understanding.
As Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine said, “When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.”
Paradigm-shifters are small islands of coherence, and—just like with the imaginal cells in a caterpillar dissolving in the chrysalis -- it’s necessary that they connect for transformation to happen. That’s part of what the Cultural Butterfly Project is about.
As I see it, paradigm shifting is a key part of what we need in order to:
~ navigate the challenges of this challenging cultural transformation passage,
~ allow our inner transformation to occur (not just external changes), and
~ have a better chance of creating the world we want to live in and leave for future
generations.
I’ve curated my email feed to create my personal ecosystem of paradigm-shifters whom I read and engage with regularly. Their perspectives and wisdom help me stay grounded, sane, alive and well, and connected with the All That Is/Life Itself during these times.
I wake up in the morning with a sense of anticipation, wondering “what life-aligned, regenerative, inspiring wisdom will I find today?” It’s always there.
I’m offering my personal list here as possible nourishment for you. These paradigm-shifters are just some of the ones I’m aware of now, and new ones keep showing up regularly.
My entire list (40+ at last count) is too much to share all at once, so this is just the first part. These are in random order, not in any order of importance.
“Regenerative Designer: Writer, filmmaker, Visionary entrepreneur, and thought leader. Founder of The Seva Institute and former Director of the Regenerative Economics Innovation Lab at the Capital Institute.”
~ How to Avoid Collapse: Designing vessels of life for the Great Simplification
~ How Do You Create Systemic Change? How a new way of thinking takes hold in the decisions and institutions that shape our lives.
~ Seeing Through the Paradigm: Understanding the Living Architecture of Belief
~ Beyond Systemic Capital: When Finance Learns to Behave Like a Forest
For the past 40 years, Jeff Goebel has been doing groundbreaking work helping groups and communities resolve serious conflicts, restore land, and create new realities in situations that seemed totally impossible.
He does this through building consensus—that is 100% agreement (not compromise, not meditation, and not negotiation)—in a radically different, more effective way than
anything else I’ve ever come across. I see his approach as an antidote to the cultural
unraveling we’re going through.
He has more than 50 stories of his breakthrough work with “beyond the impossible”
results with a wide variety of groups and communities. These stories have just been
recorded as the first step to getting this information out into the world. Here are just a
few specific examples:
On the Colville Reservation, Washington State, Jeff helped Tribal Council members
reach 100% agreement to reduce the annual budget by 29% without cutting jobs or
salaries. The Natural Resource Department doubled its annual land treatment to increase
fire resilience and address insect and disease problems, while reducing their budget by 6%.
In Mali, West Africa, seven ethnic groups speaking four languages had a history of
severe food insecurity and violent conflict. With Jeff’s help they increased food production
by 78% in 18 months. Later research showed that the violent conflict completely
disappeared from the region based on a study two years after Jeff’s work.
On Hana Ranch, Maui, Hawaiʻi, the paniolos (Hawaiʻian cowboys) were frustrated,
the community was angry, the land was deteriorating, and the ranch was losing
$750,000/year. With Jeff’s help, within 15 months the paniolos built a strong team,
community relationships healed, finances were solid, and land, water, and animal health
was restored.
I have been a catalyst and thought partner in this process. If you’re curious, please see
the GoFundMe campaign “Help Us Do the Impossible! Heal the Earth & Our
Communities” or contact me elaine@culturalbutterflyproject.com or Jeff at
He has published his new book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All.
The Ecocivilization Coalition is a worldwide alliance of changemakers coming
together to act as a focused transformation catalyst. Our aim is to foster an alternative
cohering narrative and act as connective tissue to help catalyze the movement for
change—to find the most skillful ways to cohere, serve, and amplify groups already
actively engaged, and to try to bring the movement itself to a new level of effectiveness and empowerment.
In his recent Substack article AI and Ecocivilization: The Unexpected Opportunity
he says “AI is accelerating the extractive powers of capitalism—but the earthquake it’s
setting off may crack open pathways toward a transformation that once seemed
decades away.”
“A pioneer in systems transformation, awareness-based leadership, and regenerative innovation.
MIT action researcher, founding chair of the Presencing Institute, author of Theory U, and co-
author of Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business.”
Otto Scharmer: Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business He says that small “islands of coherence” are emerging, localized pockets of pioneering
thought leaders taking action to begin to catalyze what he calls multi-system
transformation. He has produced a holistic guide, “7 Practices for Transforming Self,
Society, and Business” with actions he says can elevate our civilization: becoming
aware, generative listening, dialogue and co-sensing, presenting, ecosystem leadership,
co-creating across boundaries, and building unity.
As part of a movement for awareness-based systems change, on September 24,, 2026
they gathered for the first Global Live Session of u-lab 2026: Leading from the
Emerging Future. With more than 5,000 people enrolled, this is a global moment of
connection and co-initiation. Learners, change-makers and innovators from every
region [came] together to sense into the emerging future and begin this shared journey
of transformation. As part of “Cultivating the Social Soil for Regenerative Futures”,
participants self-organized through Open Space methodology into 80+ breakout
dialogues across multiple languages, creating what one participant called "islands of
peace" where weak signals could become visible and collective agency could emerge.
“It is not a matter of whether it’s possible or not, it’s a matter of whether we want a
system like this or not.”
“I am a teacher, coach, guide, and master facilitator deeply rooted in the social movements of
our era. Disheartened by the current discourse, and driven by a hunger for better ways of being
human together upon this sacred earth.”
¨ A Taste of What Is Possible: Transformational spaces and the worlds we seed
together. “Transformational spaces matter because they give us more than insight. They give
us a lived experience of another way of being together. And once we have touched that
possibility, we begin carrying it into our relationships, our work, our communities, and the
worlds we want to build.”
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