Embracing the Art of Hosting: Cultivating Community, Growth, and Change

 

September 1, 2025 Regenerate Your World  Build the future you want to live in. I know these times aren't the easiest for all of us, but I am an optimist - I see the glass as refillable instead of half-full or half-empty. To brighten up your days, I publish the Regenerate Your World newsletter coming to your inbox on a bi-weekly basis. Let's Get Empowered!

Embracing the Art of Hosting: Cultivating Community, Growth, and Change Art of Hosting "Catepillar". The learnings from our day.  Dear Empowered Reader, This summer, I’ve been engaged with the Art of Hosting Community of Practice, a global network of practitioners dedicated to creating conversations that matter. Over more than 25 years, this community has nurtured an open-source approach to participatory leadership and group facilitation that invites us all to co-create and harvest collective wisdom in our personal and professional lives. I was first introduced to the practice in 2021 and welcomed the opportunity to further develop my Art of Hosting skills in 2025. What is the Art of Hosting? At its core, the Art of Hosting is an art, the art of hosting meaningful conversations using practices like World Café and Open Space Technology. These methods help groups harness collective intelligence, self-organize, and respond creatively to complex challenges. Guided by the Four-Fold Practice, Host Yourself, Be Hosted, Co-create, and Host & Harvest Conversations that Matter, it offers a framework rooted in presence, participatory engagement, shared purpose, and ongoing reflection. World Café and Open Space: Engaging Art of Hosting & Tools for Connection World Café: Facilitates deep, rotating conversations in small groups, creating inclusive dialogue that surfaces new insights and connections. Open Space Technology: Provides a flexible, self-organizing format where participants propose and lead conversations on what matters most to them. Together, these tools cultivate environments where professional and personal growth flourish, enabling us to listen, learn, and lead with authenticity. Reflecting on Growth: Then and Now Comparing my experiences with the Art of Hosting from 2021 to 2025, I see incredible evolution. Initially, the focus was heavily on understanding the foundations and practicing the facilitation techniques. Today, the emphasis is equally on inner work, hosting ourselves with mindfulness and care, as well as integrating these practices into broader wellness and change strategies. This blend supports not only more effective gatherings but transformational journeys for participants, including myself. Reflection Questions for You This Season What personal growth did you experience this summer? How can you carry the summer's energy into the upcoming fall season? What seeds of change are you ready to nurture within yourself and your community? Affirmation for Transformation “I embrace the changing seasons as opportunities for personal transformation.” EMPOWER Possible Connection: Mindset and Seasonal Transitions The "M" in EMPOWER stands for Meaning—our sense of meaning can influence how we approach life and change. Cultivating a sense of meaning can help us navigate the transitions from summer to fall with resilience and openness, seeing each season as a chance to regenerate and renew. By hosting ourselves with intention and empathy, we align with the natural cycles that support both personal well-being and collective flourishing. As always, I encourage you to explore these ideas in your own life and communities.  Take care, Dear reader, Julie Zaruba Fountaine Founder, EMPOWER Possible https://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/what-is-the-art-of-hosting/ Facilitating an Art of Hosting, Open Space Technology session. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Click here to get your own subscription. The Four-Fold Practice by Chris Corrigan The four fold practice was the first pattern that gave rise to the Art of Hosting.  It is simply an observation that great conversations happen when people are present, when they participate, when they are hosted well and when they co-create something.  Some of the originators of the Art of Hosting, people like Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen and Jan Hein Nielsen began asking the question, what if these patterns became practices?  And in that moment the decades long inquiry that is the Art of Hosting was born. Our Beyond the Basics offering refers to these practices, but only now have I seen what we are doing.  Toke has always called the four fold practice “The Basics” and I have no need to creat new basics.  But I can see now how deeply rooted we are in extending and deepening them. Be present. For all hosts, personal practice is essential.  Whatever you can do to bring yourself to be present with a group serves the group.  In the Beyond the Basics offering, Caitlin is a deep practitioner of The Work of Byron Katie, which is a powerful personal practice that we all use to get at what keeps us stuck, to address what we are afraid of, and to help us become resilient and quality hosts of uncertainty, complexity and confusion.  The first clarity we need to address is our own, and we do that with the Work. Participate. It is impossible to be a part of a participatory process without participating.  And it is impossible to affect a complex system from the outside.  Understanding how systems works helps us to be more effective participants in the strategic work we are called on to lead and host.  Using theory from the science and sociology of complex adaptive systems creates a more powerful way to see and understand and leverage people’s participation in their own work.  Through teaching Cynefin and working with harvesting methods that are sense-making based, we extend the practice of participation to move beyond the acts of listening, speaking and learning and into the realms of sensing, interpreting and decision making. Be a host, so everyone can make a contribution.  Tim’s work with his Collaborative Advantage model extends this practice of hosting beyond the methods that for the core of the Art of Hosting practice. While we are deep practitioners of World Cafe, Circle, Pro-Action Cafe and Open Space, we know these methods alone are not enough to host large scale strategic change work.  We need a framework to understand the levels of transformation that need to be hosted and the key design pieces (such as power, results and capacity) that need to be addressed so long term change can continue to be hosted from within systems and organizations. Co-create.  It is one thing to say “just work together” and quite another thing to do it when our communities and organizations are soaked in differences.  Where power, privilege, race, economic opportunity and all kinds of other differences are at play we need a set of practices that can bring us to deeply transformative shared work.  Tuesday has been developing this framework for many years now and it is taking form in a way that has fundamentally changed my own approach to co-creation.  Moving to a place of shared work is taking co-creation beyond the basic level of just doing things together.

Kind Words from a Coaching Client A special thanks to one of my coaching clients for sharing a few kind words about her coaching experience. In The Media Where can you find EMPOWER Possible? Besides posting on my own social media I also collaborate with other entrepreneurs.  Thank you to Jessica Osborn for hosting me on your podcast in April. Below is the episode description.  Feeling the burden of non-stop hustle? We've all been there—caught in the to-dos, trying to keep the burnout at bay while chasing success the way we've been told you have to - working longer and harder than anyone else. Well, what if you DON'T have to do it that way? For every story of hard work and grind ... there's another story of reaching success by working LESS! Why do we seem to tune into the ones that tell you success is the result of sleeping very little and spending all your time chasing goals? Even if you take a moment to think about this, it makes no sense at all! You already know you're much more productive when you're energized and highly focused. That means your brains need sleep, rest and space. Short bursts of work where you can focus on the important things. So... it's time to talk boundaries, joy, and finding your stride in the rush of work-life challenges. By pressing play on this episode, you'll discover: - Why we often find ourselves struggling to utter the simple word "no," and how it impacts our path to joyful success - What signs scream "it's time to move on" from your job and craft the role that truly aligns with you? - The absolute value of self-awareness in writing your own story of personal and professional triumph. - How can setting boundaries revolutionize the way you work, live, and maintain a sense of self? Click HERE to check out the podcast Interested in catching up on our previous podcast episodes? We invite you to explore our library of past recordings, where we delve into a diverse range of topics related to happiness and well-being. https://empowerpossible.com/podcasts/  Embark on an extraordinary journey of growth and possibility by joining the upcoming EMPOWER Possible events!  ​ Should you have any burning questions or want more details, don't hesitate to drop me an email at info@EmpowerPossible.com  Mountain 10 Workshop sign up for the waitlist, please click HERE to complete the form    She Leads Conference, Rochester, MN, September 26 Join us for a transformative day where women from all walks of life come together to empower, inspire, and grow in a supportive community. For more information, go to: https://www.downtownrochestermn.com/do/she-leads-conference St. Louis County Health and Human Services Conference, Duluth, MN, October 8 and 9 The St. Louis County Health and Human Services Conference is celebrating 43 years! Their theme for 2025 is Courageous Connections: The Human in Humanity. What does the “Human in Humanity” mean to you? How do you see people? The people you serve, people you work with or maybe the person at the check-out counter? How do you bring Humanity into these spaces? We work in a tough industry that has great purpose. Strengthening ourselves and our community sometimes requires reflection, understanding the human condition, and embracing ourselves. For more information, go to: https://minnesotachildrensalliance.org/training/43rd-annual-st-louis-county-health-human-services-conference/ Active Bodies, Motivational Interviewing Seminar, Northfield, MN, November 1 Sharing the techniques and structures for creating effective engagement and support for a diversity of individuals involved in active body pursuits.  Using culturally and physically sensitive language, and physically embodying activities designed for diverse groups.

Connect with me on social media! Copyright © EMPOWER Possible  Northfield, United States EMPOWER Possible is dedicated to empowering individuals, organizations, and communities to organize and act together to regenerate our world through Self, Social, and Systems transformation.  info@empowerpossible.com \ Website \ Mission You are receiving this email because you expressed an interest in my work—thank you! You can change your email preferences or unsubscribe at any time.  Disclaimer: This newsletter contains content that has been modified and inspired by ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI. While we use ChatGPT to enhance our content, it should not be considered professional advice. For specific concerns or decisions, please consult with a qualified professional or trusted source. The newsletter authors are not responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided by or inspired by ChatGPT.