CENTER FOR GROWTH
When everything is changing, how do we turn fear into excitement and action?
CENTER FOR GROWTH
When everything is changing, how do we turn fear into excitement and action?
AI and constant disruption are testing everyone and every organization.
We can turn uncertainty into excitement, action and impact.
Fear often underlies inaction.
See what John Hagel means by "fear of the future" and how we can turn that into positive results at work and in life.
The Center for Growth helps leaders and their teams move beyond fear-based inertia to opportunity-driven action and offers individuals the same journey toward growing impact.
Led by John Hagel, advisor to leaders of the world’s largest institutions for four decades, and author of The Journey Beyond Fear.
We can help you, your team and your organization.
For Organizations
Leaders & Teams Take Home
Leaders & Teams Take Home
Improve ROI & Team Engagement on Strategic Initiatives and Reduce Risk.
Your people are facing more change than ever, and fear is quietly slowing decisions, narrowing thinking, and draining energy.
We help teams and leaders turn that fear into the excitement for new opportunities through keynotes, working retreats, consulting engagements, and team programs.
Leaders & Teams Take Home
Leaders & Teams Take Home
Leaders & Teams Take Home
- Teams move forward with an explorer's approach to major change initiatives like AI
- A shared language and framework that aids in navigating disruption together
- Leaders frame change as opportunity and excite curiosity in their people
- Architecture and methods for building the Impact Groups that accelerate learning through concrete action and experimentation
- Proven practices for driving results
- Continued support through coaching and community
For Individuals
Individuals Take Home
Individuals Take Home
Achieve the Impact You desire in Your Work, Life or Community.
Our programs help you uncover and evolve the inner narratives that might be holding you back, tap into your innate passion to fuel your commitment toward impact, and connect with others on the same path to accelerate learning on your path toward action and growing impact.
Individuals Take Home
Individuals Take Home
Individuals Take Home
- New clarity on the narrative that's been quietly driving your decisions, and a method for evolving it
- New understanding for your own innate resource for fueling your focus and commitment and how to connect with others to achieve the impact you desire
- Architecture and methods for building your Impact Group to accelerate learning through concrete action and experimentation toward your targeted goal
- Proven practices for sustaining momentum and progress
- Continued support through coaching and community
What are past participants saying?
Check out recent video testimonials here:
"Want to Be More Successful? Think Like an Explorer"
See John Hagel's recent article in Time Magazine
When you desire meaningful impact, talk alone is not enough.
We are an Activation Center
Catalyzing Exponential Impact
Catalyzing Exponential Impact
We’re an activation center, not a research center
- We help spark what fuels you toward opportunity.
- We connect you with like-minded/hearted people so that you can define action and learn more quickly together.
- We stay with you through coaching, programs, and a community platform built for sustained momentum as your impact grows.
Catalyzing Exponential Impact
Catalyzing Exponential Impact
Catalyzing Exponential Impact
Why the Center exists
We are living through a period of extraordinary change. Exponential technologies are opening opportunities that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Yet for most people the dominant feeling isn’t excitement, it’s fear. Fear of being left behind. Fear of change. Fear of what AI means for our work and our future.
Fear is a natural response, but left unexamined it makes us cautious, defensive, and isolated exactly when the moment calls for the opposite.
The Center for Growth exists to help people make a different move: to recognize that fear, understand the opportunity in front of them, and find the passion and the partners to act on it.
That shift from threat to opportunity, from holding on to reaching forward is the most powerful lever we have, as individuals, as teams, and as a society.
Introduction to The Journey Beyond Fear
What are leaders saying about The Journey Beyond Fear?
BYRON AUGUSTE, CEO of Opportunity@Work, former National Economic Council Deputy Director and economic advisor to President Obama
“The global viral pandemic is mirrored by an epidemic of ‘zero-sum’ fears, false narratives, and plummeting social trust. In The Journey Beyond Fear, John Hagel offers an antidote: cultivating our passions within narratives engaging us with people, platforms, and purpose beyond ourselves. It’s full of inspiring ideas for those feeling isolated in their working lives, and practical tips for those already tackling complex ecosystem challenges that our societies face.”
NICHOL BRADFORD, Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Transformative Technology Lab and Lecturer at Stanford University
“In this brilliant book, John Hagel clearly proves that the greatest challenge facing us is fear. But more importantly, he shows that there is a way out of that fear by harnessing the passion of the explorer. While other books have described growth mindsets and other upward-looking approaches, John’s book goes much further than that. By laying out the path to harness the power of narrative, John empowers us not just to describe the journey in a way that brings others, but to help motivate ourselves deeply, and in doing so unlock the explorer in us all. I am an explorer and I find myself excited and at times challenged by my nature. For explorers who have ever asked, “Why am I doing this?” you’ll find John’s book to be both vulnerable and insightful as you transmute pressure into opportunity for all.”
ARTHUR C. BROOKS, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and New York Times bestselling author
“In The Journey Beyond Fear, John Hagel masterfully draws on insights from his dynamic career in Silicon Valley and global consulting to demonstrate how institutions and individuals can beat fear and leverage optimism to create thoughtful social innovation. You will be glad you read this book.”
ED CATMULL, Co-Founder of Pixar and retired President of Walt Disney Animation Studios
“The growing challenges in our world are very real, but we need to resist the tendency to become overwhelmed by them. Don’t pass up the opportunity to read this inspiring book—it can help all of us to craft an exciting and richly rewarding journey.”
BETH COMSTOCK, author of Imagine It Forward and former Vice Chair, General Electric
“Fear often disrupts the potential to move people forward. John Hagel brilliantly shows us how to use the power of a good narrative to get over the fears that hold too many individuals and business teams back and prevent them from achieving more impact. This thoughtfully rich book is sure to be essential reading for anyone trying to lead forward.”
PETER H. DIAMANDIS, MD; Founder, Singularity University and XPRIZE, as well as New York Times bestselling author of Abundance, BOLD, and The Future is Faster Than You Think
“Our mindsets are the most important tool we have as entrepreneurs and leaders, and they are powerfully shaped by the emotions within us. John Hagel’s brilliant book The Journey Beyond Fear urges us to focus on our emotions and to recognize that fear is becoming a growing obstacle for many of us. Hagel masterfully guides us to shift our emotional energy into an Abundance Mindset, one that empowers us to solve problems and see them as opportunities rather than fear them.”
ROGER FERGUSON, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
“John Hagel has spent decades discovering new opportunities at the edges of organizations and markets. Drawing lessons from psychology, social movements, gaming platforms, innovative companies, and more, Hagel shows us how we can identify the passions that will motivate us to venture into new territory, overcome fear and self-limitations, and inspire others to join us in transforming institutions and society.”
JEAN HOUSTON, PhD, author of 30+ books in human development, Chancellor of Meridian University, and Chairman of the United Palace of Spiritual Arts in New York City
“John Hagel has done it again! From the depths and breath of his own experience, he gives us keys to a psychology that activates needed growth in self and society. This book is on the frontier of a conceptual evolution that brooks no whiney nay saying, but creates the ground for a dynamic transition into a Renaissance in thought and enterprise.”
SCOTT BARRY KAUFMAN, Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and author of many best-selling books on psychology, including Transcend
“It’s easy to retreat with fear, but this timely book persuasively suggests there’s another option: we can cultivate our excitement about exploration and learning to pursue the opportunities that are all around us. This book will help you realize far more of your potential and adapt to a rapidly changing world.”
TOM KELLEY, author of Creative Confidence and Partner in the design consultancy IDEO
“Reading this thought-provoking book is like having John Hagel as our own personal executive coach, helping us move beyond our fears, craft a new personal narrative, and pursue the passions that enable us to have more positive impact. Part call to action, part cause for deep reflection, the book is one you’ll be thinking about long after finishing the final chapter.”
ALISON LEVINE, Team Captain, first American Women’s Everest Expedition and author of New York Times bestseller On the Edge
“Fear can either paralyze you or propel you forward. This book shows you how to push through it, and serves as a reminder that it doesn’t take big moves to make big impact.”
JOHN MACKEY, Founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market and author of Conscious Capitalism
“This is a must-read book for those who are seeking to increase their impact in the world around them. Sharing lessons from his own per- sonal journey and broader research, John Hagel urges us to recognize the expanding opportunities that can be addressed once we find ways to overcome fear.”
VIVIENNE MING, theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author; Co-Founder of Socos Labs, an independent institute exploring the future of human potential
“The Journey Beyond Fear demonstrates that our success is more than strategic rationality—our passion and our fear are measurable, concrete determinants of life outcomes. Importantly, John moves beyond myths of ‘you’ve got it or you don’t’ and presents an extensive vision for how to learn passion.”
DEAN ORNISH, MD, Founder & President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and author of UnDo It!
“Fear is visceral but not sustainable. Joy, community, and love provide lasting motivation, passion, and success in all areas of life and are essential to our survival. In this brilliant book, John Hagel describes why, and how—which have never been more timely or needed.”
DANIEL H. PINK, author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human
“John Hagel draws on his considerable experience and intellect to tackle a topic most organizations never confront: fear. With sharp insights and compelling cases, he shows how to move past fear to improve performance and deepen meaning. In a business world that often resists talking about emotions, this book is badly-needed guide to enlisting psychology in the service of your strategy.”
ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, CEO of New America, contributing editor of the Financial Times, and author of numerous bestselling books
“John Hagel sets himself a near-impossible task in offering to guide his readers ‘beyond fear,’ yet he delivers. The book pulls together many themes and insights that readers may think they already know, but will suddenly see in a new and useful light. Most important, Hagel’s emphasis on the critical importance of ‘learning platforms’ is spot on, a dimension of how personal journeys can become collective journeys that is only beginning to be appreciated.”
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