In a short interview with i-genius, Stuart Taylor talks of his inspirations, his passions, and his experiences. He briefly explains his latest research Project on ‘Kyoseido’, or how to live mindfully through experiential learning, and goes on to explain why he regards social enterprise as ‘the ultimate odyssey’…
Editor: What has inspired you in your life and your career? How do the two overlap?
Stuart: I have been inspired by a wide range of experiences and individuals in my life. First and foremost are my parents. In the early 1960’s as White British, working class people in South Devon, UK, they chose to raise me – a mixed-race British / African-Caribbean boy. This act alone to me, demonstrates courage, vision, compassion and bloody-mindedness in the light of the casual-but-deep racism and bigotry of those times in British culture. For me it’s this ability to walk an independent path, to express the courage to live by ones (life-giving / life-enhancing) convictions that is the most inspiring trait we have as people. The other principal inspiration for me, as someone that was raised in a seaside rural environment, is nature (gaia) herself; awesome, beautiful, infinitely diverse and creative, generous – the ultimate mystery, who could fail to be inspired by her.
Editor: How can alternative therapies help people fulfil their potential?
Stuart: I think the term alternative therapies is a misnomer. Better to say complimentary practices, as opposed to therapies. For me the term therapeutic has connotations of illness or deficit, someone needing to be ‘mended or corrected’. For me the idea of complimentary practices opens up a much more interesting and beneficial space. In such a space, the possibility of a person-centred responsive domain can be embraced, where individuals can undertake a more exploratory process of self-discovery and definition. Whereby they become the pilot, the expert in understanding more keenly approaches to health-care, self-development and growth.
I am passionate about moving away from the conventional medical business of pathologising people, their individuality and personal / cultural / ethnic frames of reference. I am deeply interested in facilitating, enabling and encouraging individuals to create their own well-being and learning resources, that enable them to develop potent agency, choice and self-determination in terms of how they lead their lives and focus on well-being and life-enabling practices in as holistic a way as possible. These practices are necessarily flexible, responsive and fluid, recombinant if you like; they properly take into account the physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual aspects of being human in this world.
Editor: Can you explain more about the research you are currently undertaking?
Stuart: The research I am currently undertaking flows directly form my professional, education and personal experiences of the last twenty years or so. To be more precise, I am in the process of preparing a five month Action Research project in order to complete the last year of a three year MSc programme in Systemic Leadership with the KCC Foundation in London. My working title is Kyoseido: Towards a Synthesis of Somatic, Appreciative and Discursive Learning Practices.
The simplest way to explain what I am focusing on is to say that I believe there are important lessons, discoveries and benefits to be drawn from different forms of appreciative experiential learning. As humans we exist in social relationship to one another, at the same time we are also in relationship with ourselves and the environment through our bodies. We are able to share our experiences through communication. We live in communication, expressed through language; this language itself is realised as speech, action, gesture and the written word.
The term Kyosei is Japanese and means:
To live mindfully and cooperatively in interdependence with all beings.
The term Do is also Japanese and means:
Path or way.
So for me Kyoseido means:
“The way of learning to live mindfully and cooperatively in interdependence with all beings”
Editor: How do you think that leadership and personal development are related? Do you believe that to be a leader it is first essential to focus on yourself?
Stuart: I believe there is an intimate relationship between leadership and personal development. Leadership to me is about having a highly developed appreciation of oneself, the dynamics of interpersonal and organisational relationships and how these systemic relationships can play out in the world for optimal collective benefit, or for narrow, selfish short-term gain. The metaphor might be something like the difference between a ‘Fordist’ mechanistic view of life and the Sustainable Development paradigm; where deeper and farther reaching consideration is given to the whole living system, and the limits of human growth and consumption when thinking and acting into the world.
So, in terms of do I believe that to be a leader is it first essential to focus on oneself? No, I don’t think that it is. However, experience has shown me that if one does have a commitment to progressively deepening, challenging and reflecting on ones orientation to the world as a profoundly interrelated social and physical experience, ones quality of leadership necessarily moves towards service, facilitation and encouraging the best in those one is honoured to be in a leadership relationship with. Leadership becomes an ethically informed process.
Editor: What would your advice be for young people interested in personal development?
Stuart: Be curious. Look at what pioneering artists, poets, musicians, writers, philosophers, industrialists, psychologists, scientists and civil rights / environmental leaders have said and done in the historical and contemporary eras. Ask yourself four questions:
- What is most inspiring about how this person has lived their life?
- What aspects of their life journey are most resonant for me?
- How can I usefully enact this behaviour in my own life?
- What is behind the ‘official story’ – how can I discover a more nuanced story?
Be compassionate and honest with yourself and the people you encounter on your journey of self discovery. Be sceptical. Respect your instinct and your own best teacher – your direct experience. Remember that humour is the universal lubricant in social life. Meditate on what it means to be humble. Be patient and persistent in your inquiry.
Editor: What are your future plans and goals?
Stuart: To continue developing the Kyoseido Learning System, and open the first of what I hope will become an international network of learning centres. To deepen my own creative practice as a writer. To be responsive, supportive and loving to my partner and a good parent to my children; a good brother to my sisters and to care well for my parents. To remain open to learning. To improve my aikido practice and become more compassionate. To remain someone who is happy in their own skin – knowing I tread as lightly as possible through this life.
Editor: What does being a social entrepreneur mean to you?
Stuart: Freedom to create my own path and invent solutions to some of the pressing challenges we face in contemporary life. Embracing personal responsibility towards my self, society and the planet. Enjoying the space for self-expression on my own terms. Connecting, sharing and being equally amazed and inspired by the energy and generosity of other people. Creating situations through which I can make a positive social, economic and environmental contribution. A process of continual learning and discovery – The ultimate odyssey!
I found this quote from Einstein recently in a book by another very inspiring writer and philosopher called John Shotter, and think it’s a good way to conclude this interview:
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed”
