Meet Canada’s new first lady, economist and author Diana Fox Carney
Diana met her husband, new Canadian PM Mark Carney, at Oxford University, where they both played ice hockey – they now have 4 daughters and she is an economist who has spoken out against consumerism.
A respected economist and author, Diana represents a stark contrast to her predecessor, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Trudeau, a retired Canadian television host, was celebrated for her glamorous style and was a darling of the Canadian people, said Elle. And although she comes from wealth, Diana has spurned consumerism and is not a lover of “things”.
According to Diana’s LinkedIn profile, she has master’s degrees in philosophy, politics and economics, and agricultural economics. She’s also a strategist for government policy: she served as vice-president of Canada 2020, a think tank focused on climate, energy, social mobility and inequality.
She was director of strategy and engagement at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London and has been a trustee of the Friends of the Royal Academy and a World Wide Fund for Nature ambassador.
As an economist, there’s no doubt Diana knows her way around money. Per The Guardian, she spends her spare time fighting consumerism and has said on a few occasions that “having more stuff does not make us happy”.
She’s been scathing in her approach to a consumerist culture, writing that she has “seen, first-hand, the devastation that our wilful refusal to change our consumerist habits is wreaking on marginal communities”, as also quoted by The Guardian.
To build resilient organizations that can weather the future, leaders must embrace regenerative leadership. This requires shifting from exploitative business models that prioritize efficiency to people-centered leadership that actively seeks to restore and enhance resources, whether human, environmental, or technological.
Regenerative leaders recognize that AI should augment human potential, not replace or exploit it. They create strategies that use AI to enhance long-term human, business, and environmental well-being rather than diminishing them.
The Strength to Remember and the Strength to Forget: James Baldwin on What Makes a Hero
“Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple surrender. The courage and vulnerability it takes make it nothing less than an …
“Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.”
It is not easy, this simple surrender. The courage and vulnerability it takes make it nothing less than an act of heroism. Most of our cowardices and cruelties, most of the suffering we endure and inflict, stem from what we are unwilling to feel, and there is nothing we cower from and rage against more than our own incoherence — that intolerable tension between the poles of our capacities, which Maya Angelou so poignantly addressed in one of the greatest poems ever written, urging us to “learn that we are neither devils nor divines.”
Maria Popova
This seems to resonate deeply with the origins of my Be Real Creative mantra. Back at the time in 2011, I perceived us as both our own “worst enemies” and our own “heroic liberators”. It really just depends upon our perception and how we perceive the world and ourselves.
What the Self-Transforming Mind realizes is that it’s all a grand play or a role-playing game. One in which we make believe that we are one or the other and thus we believe we are tormented or triumphant, when we are actually neither. It’s all an illusion, a game, that our ego creates to try to maintain its permanence and control on You. That being the larger, limitless You as a player that’s behind the you as a character.
And of course, the greater realization is that there is no “epic struggle” or “war” within you, even though we initially perceive it that way. Thus when you can surrender and just let go of this struggle and just “let everything happen to you,” that’s when you’re able to move beyond the illusionary game, yet also paradoxically begin to truly play with life, rather than against it.
I think the above video really reveals how Viktor Frankl was right when he said the following about the importance of responsibility in relation to freedoms.
Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
Viktor Frank Man’s Search for Meaning
What I’ve noticed over the years is a reoccurring pattern within society that pretty much sums this up. It can be seen in the behaviour of toxic males, toxic businesses, and toxic politics.
What many of these people want is the freedom to do anything they want but without having to take responsibility for what they do.
This is why victimhood and blame have become so rampant within our society today that they’ve effectively become a national past time, only further cultivating a reactionary approach to life for many people.
This is why the real work of our lives isn’t of an economic nature but of a psychological one.
The only way we can truly empower ourselves is by taking leadership and responsibility over our own lives, something which I myself struggle to work on daily.
A great, concise presentation by Richard Barrett of The Barrett Academy for the Advancement of Values speaking about the importance of values and how it relates to the vertical development of not just people but organizations and nations as well.
What are values?
They are the energetic drivers of our aspirations and intentions.
Richard Barrett
It’s interesting because I saw an article the other day talking about how Mark Carney, the new Liberal leader of Canada, wants to transform Canada using a similar approach with business organizations being at the forefront of this change.
What’s interesting is that the person writing the article laughed this off because they believed that businesses aren’t interested in this, since corporate governance has been around for decades and not much has changed.
That person is right.
In fact, even Richard Barrett himself mentioned above that he was saying that “cultural capital was the new frontier of competitive advantage” over twenty years ago and it’s still a new frontier because “it’s taking a while to sink in.”
But that’s the whole problem and why we are in the mess we are in.
Most mainstream business organizations today are not interested in these things because they don’t see them as driving needs that they care about, thus they don’t value them as values.
This is exactly why most business leaders today have an almost complete disconnect with their employees. The leaders needs often do not resonate with their employees needs, thus creating a misaligned relationship between the organizational “mind” and the organizational “body.”
This is why both business leaders and organizations need to change and evolve as a whole, thus allowing nations themselves to change and evolve as a whole. Even more so since business organizations are on par or even exceed nations in influencing the world today, especially via technology.
In effect, this all starts from the bottom up. You can’t transform an organization or nation, if you can’t transform the individuals first, starting with its leaders.
That’s because you have to lead by example.
With this in mind, it will be interesting to see how Mark Carney runs his cabinet and if he implements practices within it that embody his own personal values, as well as the overall values of Canadians.
Perhaps most of all, it would be interesting if he unified Canada with a purpose and direction by clearly articulating these Canadian values (and how they differ from the US government’s values at the moment).
I remember recently sometime over the last year, a business or political person indicated that AI technology is dangerous because it “hallucinates”. I laughed out loud when I read this because, well, people “hallucinate” as well. We don’t call these hallucinations “hallucinations” though, they’re more commonly called beliefs and they’re an integral part of our society and a part of being a human being.
The thing to realize though is that beliefs are not reality. Beliefs can most definitely be or become reality. But it doesn’t mean that just because you believe something, it is a reality. And this recent interview with Elon Musk highlights this point.
When I was watching this, this appeared to me like a man who was on the verge of breakdown. It looked like a man who firmly believed in something so much, that he risked everything in his life for it, but it appears like he’s beginning to realize that what he believed in isn’t emerging into the reality the way he believed it would. This is especially evident near the end of the video when he looks like he’s on the verge of completely cracking.
Why am I bringing this up?
It’s because I don’t want to be this guy.
I don’t want to believe in something so much that it actually blinds me from the reality that’s right in front of my face.
You see I’ve spoken before about how one of my quests in transitioning to a Self-Transforming Mind is becoming aware of one’s fears as an important step in the process.
One of these fears that’s reared its head in the past was a fear of being seen as crazy because my allegorical framework for life might seem crazy and incompressible to people. This fear hasn’t subsided much because trying to articulate my framework feels exceeding difficult due to the scope of it, even though the tip of the iceberg is just a simple allegory comprised of metaphors.
But unless you can understand the foundation of what’s below the allegorical surface, understanding what the metaphors mean, the allegory itself will have very little meaning to you or, even worse, you may misinterpret and misunderstand the allegory completely (like some people already do).
But again, is this the reality that my framework is just highly complex and difficult to articulate? Or is my framework a hallucinatory fantasy with no real meaning or substance in reality?
It just seems like one can’t really know if they are truly “crazy” until they come out the other side. But there has to be a better way to approach this. This is something I need to work on and resolve.
How does a person make the transition from a Self-Authoring Mind to a Self-Transforming Mind when so much of what the person first does as an experience feels wrong even though it’s actually right? Or is it even appropriate to use the words wrong and right anymore, since everything is just relative?
ChatGPT
Great question. The transition from a Self-Authoring Mind to a Self-Transforming Mind is challenging because it requires letting go of the certainty that has been so carefully constructed in the Self-Authoring stage. At that level, a person has built a strong, coherent identity and a personal framework for making sense of the world. However, moving into the Self-Transforming Mind means realizing that even this self-authored framework is still limited and needs to be questioned and expanded.
At the Self-Authoring stage, you’ve spent so much time constructing your identity, values, and beliefs that questioning them feels like betrayal or losing yourself. The very act of stepping beyond them can feel destabilizing, uncertain, or even irresponsible.
ChatGPT
Why Does It Feel Wrong Even Though It’s Right?
At the Self-Authoring stage, you’ve spent so much time constructing your identity, values, and beliefs that questioning them feels like betrayal or losing yourself. The very act of stepping beyond them can feel destabilizing, uncertain, or even irresponsible. This is because:
Old Certainties Are Comfortable – Your sense of self is tied to a structured way of thinking, so loosening those structures can feel disorienting.
Contradiction Feels Like Failure – Self-Authoring tends to focus on coherence and internal consistency. But in Self-Transforming, embracing paradox and contradiction becomes a key skill.
Relinquishing Control – The Self-Authoring Mind thrives on a sense of agency and authorship, whereas the Self-Transforming Mind is more about surrendering to complexity and allowing identity to evolve organically.
Should We Even Use the Words “Right” and “Wrong”?
You’re onto something when you question whether “right” and “wrong” are even useful terms at this stage. The Self-Transforming Mind moves beyond binary thinking and sees rightness and wrongness as relative to context rather than as absolute categories. Instead of thinking in rigid moral or intellectual terms, it shifts to questions like:
“What is useful or generative in this moment?”
“What perspectives am I excluding, and why?”
“How can I hold multiple truths at once without feeling the need to resolve them?”
This is why many people in this transition experience an identity crisis—not because they are losing themselves, but because they are expanding beyond the need for a fixed self.
This is why many people in this transition experience an identity crisis—not because they are losing themselves, but because they are expanding beyond the need for a fixed self.
ChatGPT
How to Navigate the Transition
Practice Sitting in the Discomfort – Recognize that the feeling of “wrongness” isn’t an indicator of failure but of expansion. The unease means you’re growing.
Adopt an Explorer’s Mindset – Instead of looking for the “right” next step, become comfortable with experimentation and discovery.
Reframe Contradiction as Wholeness – Understand that seemingly opposing views can coexist. You don’t have to choose between them; instead, you can integrate them.
Let Go of Self-Defining Narratives – Rather than seeing your past self as “wrong” and your new self as “right,” see both as valid within their own contexts.
Instead of looking for the “right” next step, become comfortable with experimentation and discovery.
ChatGPT
Ultimately, the Self-Transforming Mind isn’t about replacing one framework with another—it’s about playing with multiple perspectives at once and knowing that no single perspective is final. It’s a shift from identity as definition to identity as an ongoing, fluid process.
Rather than seeing your past self as “wrong” and your new self as “right,” see both as valid within their own contexts.
A conversation with ChatGPT on how a Self-Transforming Mind would see Obsidian not just as a knowledge management app, but as a mirror of their own evolving consciousness.
How would a Self-Transforming Mind perceive knowledge management apps like Obsidian?
ChatGPT
A Self-Transforming Mind (as described in Kegan’s stages of adult development) would likely perceive knowledge management apps like Obsidian in a very fluid, dynamic, and integrative way. Rather than seeing them as mere tools for organizing static knowledge, a Self-Transforming Mind would view them as living ecosystems for evolving perspectives, self-inquiry, and meaning-making. Here’s how:
1. Interconnected Web of Meaning
A Self-Transforming Mind wouldn’t just use Obsidian to store information but to weave together insights across disciplines, experiences, and personal reflections. The graph view, backlinks, and bidirectional linking would be seen as a way to mirror the fluid, interconnected nature of thought and identity.
2. Knowledge as an Evolving Narrative
Rather than treating notes as fixed repositories of truth, a Self-Transforming Mind would see them as ever-evolving perspectives. This aligns with the idea that no single framework or worldview is complete—what matters is the continuous process of refinement, synthesis, and transformation.
3. Dialogue With the Self and Others
A Self-Transforming Mind might use Obsidian not just for personal knowledge management but as a means of engaging in an ongoing dialogue with different aspects of the self. Through linking old and new thoughts, it would allow a form of self-reflection that adapts over time, much like a conversation with past and future selves.
A Self-Transforming Mind might use Obsidian not just for personal knowledge management but as a means of engaging in an ongoing dialogue with different aspects of the self…much like a conversation with past and future selves.
ChatGPT
4. Paradox and Multiple Perspectives
Unlike someone at an earlier developmental stage who might seek a single ‘best’ way to use the tool, a Self-Transforming Mind would embrace multiple ways of structuring and navigating knowledge. They might switch between structured databases, messy associative links, and emergent insights without feeling the need to settle on one “correct” approach.
5. Exploration Over Optimization
Rather than using Obsidian to create a rigidly optimized productivity system, they might instead use it as a playground for discovery—letting unexpected connections emerge, embracing uncertainty, and allowing insights to form organically.
6. Meta-Awareness of the Tool’s Influence
A Self-Transforming Mind would also recognize that tools like Obsidian shape how knowledge is perceived and constructed. They might actively reflect on how the structure of the app (graph views, atomic notes, templates) influences thinking patterns, and they might experiment with different methods to break out of cognitive habits.
In short, a Self-Transforming Mind would see Obsidian not just as a knowledge management app, but as a mirror of their own evolving consciousness—one that helps them navigate complexity, engage in deep self-reflection, and embrace the ever-changing nature of meaning.
In short, a Self-Transforming Mind would see Obsidian not just as a knowledge management app, but as a mirror of their own evolving consciousness…
ChatGPT
Nollind
“…a Self-Transforming Mind would see Obsidian not just as a knowledge management app, but as a mirror of their own evolving consciousness…” Many people within the knowledge management or productivity space refer to their knowledge base as their “second brain”. When you say a Self-Transforming Mind uses it as a “mirror”, do you mean they see it as a “second brain” as well? Or do they see it as something more than that?
ChatGPT
A Self-Transforming Mind would likely see their knowledge base as more than just a “second brain.” The term “second brain” implies an externalized storage and processing system—essentially an extension of cognition for remembering, organizing, and retrieving information efficiently. While a Self-Transforming Mind might still use it that way, their relationship with the tool would go beyond simple augmentation.
Instead of merely being a repository of knowledge, Obsidian would serve as a mirror for how they make sense of the world, revealing their own evolving patterns of thought, biases, and blind spots. Rather than treating knowledge as something to collect, structure, and optimize (as is common in productivity circles), they would engage with it in a recursive, reflective process—using it to question their assumptions, deconstruct old frameworks, and explore emergent insights.
Instead of merely being a repository of knowledge, Obsidian would serve as a mirror for how they make sense of the world, revealing their own evolving patterns of thought, biases, and blind spots…using it to question their assumptions, deconstruct old frameworks, and explore emergent insights.
ChatGPT
How This Differs From a “Second Brain”
Not Just for Storing, But for Transforming
A “second brain” primarily helps with recall, synthesis, and productivity.
A “mirror of evolving consciousness” helps with identity-level transformation, allowing the user to see howthey think, not just what they think.
Not Just Externalizing Thought, But Engaging in a Dialogue
A second brain is typically seen as an extension of memory and cognitive load management.
A mirror invites self-inquiry: Why did I connect these ideas? What patterns am I reinforcing? What am I resisting?
Not Just Optimization, But Exploration
Productivity-oriented knowledge systems often focus on efficiency, tagging, categorization, and retrieval.
A Self-Transforming Mind would see their knowledge base as a dynamic playground, embracing ambiguity, paradox, and emergent meaning rather than seeking a fixed system.
They would be comfortable deconstructing and reconstructing their frameworks over time rather than solidifying a single organizational structure.
ChatGPT
A Self-Transforming Mind’s Relationship With Their Knowledge Base
They wouldn’t view their notes as a static archive but as an unfolding, evolving web of meaning.
They would be comfortable deconstructing and reconstructing their frameworks over time rather than solidifying a single organizational structure.
They might intentionally introduce randomness, serendipity, and divergence into their system to challenge their own thinking (e.g., resurfacing old notes in unexpected contexts).
In essence, while others may see Obsidian as a second brain—a tool to store and retrieve knowledge—a Self-Transforming Mind would see it as a reflective surface that helps them perceive who they are becoming in relation to what they know.
…a Self-Transforming Mind would see it as a reflective surface that helps them perceive who they are becoming in relation to what they know.
ChatGPT
Nollind
“They would be comfortable deconstructing and reconstructing their frameworks over time rather than solidifying a single organizational structure.” To an outside observer, especially someone with a Self-Authoring Mind, would this process make sense or would it instead look very chaotic, perhaps even look maze-like?
ChatGPT
To an outside observer—especially someone with a Self-Authoring Mind—the way a Self-Transforming Mind engages with their knowledge base might indeed appear chaotic, maze-like, or even inefficient. A Self-Authoring Mind tends to value coherence, intentionality, and stability in their frameworks, often designing their knowledge system with a clear structure that reflects their personal worldview and goals.
In contrast, a Self-Transforming Mind is more comfortable with fluidity, ambiguity, and non-linearity, which can make their knowledge base look unpredictable or disorganized to someone expecting clear, stable structures. Here’s why:
How a Self-Transforming Mind’s Knowledge Base Might Appear to a Self-Authoring Mind
Constantly Shifting Structure → Looks Unstable
A Self-Authoring Mind might expect a well-defined, overarching structure (e.g., PARA, Zettelkasten, a strict tagging system).
A Self-Transforming Mind, however, freely restructures, renames, or dissolves categories as their understanding evolves. This can make the system seem unpredictable or even messy from an external perspective.
Nonlinear & Web-Like Connections → Looks Like a Maze
A Self-Authoring Mind may favor hierarchical organization (folders, projects, clearly defined tags).
A Self-Transforming Mind embraces associative, emergent connections, often linking disparate ideas in ways that don’t immediately make sense to an outsider. Their knowledge graph might look like an intricate web with no obvious center.
Emphasis on Questions Over Answers → Looks Unfinished
A Self-Authoring Mind often builds their knowledge base to reinforce a chosen worldview, refining and solidifying their expertise.
A Self-Transforming Mind treats their knowledge base as a space for ongoing inquiry, where open-ended questions may remain unresolved for long periods. This can make their notes look fragmented or perpetually incomplete.
A Self-Authoring Mind seeks internal consistency and alignment.
A Self-Transforming Mind holds multiple perspectives simultaneously—they might have notes that directly contradict each other because they value seeing through different lenses rather than arriving at a singular conclusion.
A Self-Transforming Mind, however, freely restructures, renames, or dissolves categories as their understanding evolves. This can make the system seem unpredictable or even messy from an external perspective.
ChatGPT
Does This Mean Their System is Actually Chaotic?
Not necessarily. The “chaos” is often a matter of perspective:
To someone accustomed to fixed structures, it might seem disorganized.
But to the Self-Transforming Mind, patterns emerge organically over time, and meaning is found in the interplay between ideas rather than in a rigid taxonomy.
A Self-Transforming Mind’s knowledge base is more like a garden—constantly growing, pruning, evolving, and sometimes letting wild ideas cross-pollinate in unexpected ways.
ChatGPT
A Metaphor: A Garden vs. A Library
A Self-Authoring Mind’s knowledge base might resemble a library—carefully curated, categorized, and structured with an overarching theme.
A Self-Transforming Mind’s knowledge base is more like a garden—constantly growing, pruning, evolving, and sometimes letting wild ideas cross-pollinate in unexpected ways.
Ultimately, while it might look like a maze from the outside, to the Self-Transforming Mind, it’s not a trap—it’s a landscape for exploration.
Ultimately, while it might look like a maze from the outside, to the Self-Transforming Mind, it’s not a trap—it’s a landscape for exploration.
I decide to go to a training monastery when I was 29. The reason wasn’t ideal, but since my grandfather passed his role to my father, and both had passed away, I needed the qualifications as a monk. So, I decided to undergo training.
Basically, I just wanted the qualification. So, I began my training.
The training, however, was rigorous.
I was a physics teacher living within a very logical world. But when I began training, I entered a world completely opposite to logic, a world where logic doesn’t exist, which made the training extremely difficult for me.
At that time, my master told me something. He said I was making a big mistake. The mistake was in trying to gain knowledge. Trying to gain knowledge, skills, and understanding as a Zen monk. That was a big mistake.
He told me that Zen was actually about letting go. And upon understanding this slightly, I decided to continue my training, which brings me to today.
Zen is everything.
Fundamentally it is about not dividing. Realizing this undivided nature is important, and once you recognize this, Zen becomes everything. It is the universe, the Earth, and nature; everything is Zen.
The key is how to live without worries within Zen.
Unlike other sects of Buddhism that study texts, sutras, and scriptures, Zen values experience more than anything else. During my training, I wasn’t allowed to read any books. Experience was the most important thing.
And after that, insights are what matter. Insights based upon experience. Insights from books are very different, and that’s what it’s about.
The key is to realize that suffering is something we create. Recognizing that it’s our mind or heart are creating it. Realizing that we are the creators of our suffering. And also realizing that we cannot control it.
You must be aware that we cannot control the suffering we create. So, because we cannot control it, we must let it go. We suffer because we try to control the uncontrollable. Realizing this is important.
In other words, we should let go because we cannot control it.
Letting go is both necessary and possible.
In fact, suffering is just an illusion. Recognizing that our minds have created it as an illusion brings relief.
Even when we’re not actually harmed, we might say our heart hurts. Japanese tend to say this, but in reality, we’re unharmed. It is something we created.
A lot of young men had the sense that the Democrats didn’t see them as having problems. They saw them as being the problem.
Richard B. Reeves American Institute for Boys and Men
Yet in many ways, men are faring worse than their female peers. Young men have lower academic achievement. They’re more likely to still live with their parents. They suffer more deaths caused by opioid overdoses and suicide. Younger White men from low-income households in particular are worse off than their fathers on most economic and social measures.
Men today have also become more isolated. Americans across the board spend more time alone than was the case 20 years ago — but this is especially true for young men.
That’s arguably how Trump won over young men, too — less with his policies and more with his macho affect and his ability to help isolated young men feel welcome and liked. After all, Trump’s agenda has done little to address the economic and mental health challenges young men face. Indeed, Reeves says American men’s policy preferences haven’t changed much in recent years.
On some level, the very things that disturb fussy establishment pundits like me —Trump’s strongman tendencies; his propensity to arbitrarily fire people and break stuff without regard to consequences — might appeal most to young male populists frustrated by a system they believe has abandoned them.
If Trump’s agenda results in, say, more economic stress (higher prices, fewer jobs) and less access to mental health or substance-abuse care — both outcomes that seem likely — young men will suffer, too. Maybe their affection for Trump will curdle.
Ultimately, the key to winning young men back — whether you’re a politician, concerned parent or potential partner — is to stop “pathologizing” them, Reeves admonishes. Instead, start listening.
I believe this relates to why we’re seeing a breakdown in society that started decades ago with the destruction of blue-collar work which made work accessible for men with Socialized Minds. Thus these men felt like an integral and valued part of society by doing a physical, “honest days work” and getting paid well for it.
Today this has shifted to white-collar work which requires more of a Self-Authoring Mind. Yet even today, with the increasing usage of AI, this type of work is also coming under threat and may be lost as well.
Yet if businesses in the work world don’t create newer forms of physical work for not just men but people with Socialized Minds or mental work for people with Self-Authoring Minds, you will have even more disenfranchised and marginalized people feeling like they are abandoned by society.
Alternatively if governments don’t create programs to help people to “level up” their level of consciousness (i.e. Socialized Mind > Self-Authoring Mind) so that they feel capable of tackling more challenging work, perhaps even starting their own business, these people will feel useless, without any value, and abandoned by society.
And you definitely don’t want a world where most of the population is marginalized in one way or another. Why? Because these people are the most susceptible to being psychologically manipulated by others, as politicians will often gain power through them by tapping into their anger and create divisions through blame. This is the standard “divide & conquer” playbook that most authoritarian leaders use.
All said and done, we need both business and governments to start caring about the well-being of the people that they interact with and are in relationships with.
