Zachary Towne-Smith
Hey, I'm Zach, a passionate connector. My innate creativity, flexible perspective, and quick smile makes me a natural leader, inspiring participation and thoughtful consensus in the wide array of groups I work with. I have dedicated my life to the study and development of intercultural relations and the facilitation of innovative solutions for sustainable well-being.
My Cum Laude B.A. from Harvard College led him to explore issues of privilege and work for justice from my hometown of Philadelphia to the Guatemala City garbage dump. This work has taken me throughout the Americas engaging diverse stakeholders in strategic planning through the development of creative and critical thinking in fields such as education, public health, business, creative industries, and entrepreneurship.
I am passionate about awakening others to discovering their own creative potential. After years of working for social justice within the formal education system, I have shifted my focus to social enterprise. Together with my wife and family, I am creating a permaculture centered retreat center at my home in Tennessee. I see my artistic pursuits as ways to inspire social innovation and embody the change we wish to see in the world!
Watch my TedX talk here. See my full bio here.
Receive a FREE PDF of your Personal Flow Design!
Personal Flow Design is designed to be a process that you will take individual responsibility for, with Zach’s coaching available!
FLOW is something that has been talked about all of humanity’s history; when everything comes effortlessly. Flow is using the essential concept of zen, the concept of not resisting anything and manifesting everything that we truly believe and truly call into our lives. Flow is an effortless state that athletes, artists and scientists get into when they are creating effortlessly without a sense of time. This state happens out of practice and dedication. Another way of looking at flow is flow consciousness. Flow consciousness is something we can slip into and STAY in, through consciousness adaptation of the mind and through following our instincts and highest excitement.
They are unique ways to design your flow and thinking. Scientific method uses research design to disprove a hypothesis by first creating a solution then disproving or proving that hypothesis, which isn’t usually very useful in our own lives. Backwards Design requires us to take out of our mind any idea of a solution and to not allow it to be present until LATER ON in the design process.
We have lots of ideas and ways to solve things in our lives, but with personal flow design we are asking you to step back from the solutions. To ask the right questions, we need to step back from our solutions and understand the context of what is going on. We need to tap into creativity and learn to be wired to be comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of doubt and the unknown.
This is inherently a creative process and a creative problem solving technique.
We are leveraging two ways of thinking:
Divergent (LUNAR) thinking - this is training, playing and being absurd and allowing subconscious mind to bubble up and come to the surface because we are loosing control of what is being expressed.
Convergent (SOLAR) thinking - when use our logical brains or prefrontal cortex to judge and make decisions to discover what the best choice looks like.
The central idea is to separate both types of thinking and not allowing ourselves to judge what ideas are flowing! We separate the ideas to generate multiple possibilities before cutting them down with the realistic approach of the convergent thinking. We are used to SOLAR thinking, as we are trained to do this at an early age, but we don’t have much of a chance to practice lunar thinking.
Through the personal flow design, we will use games to tap into our subconscious because it already knows what our flow looks like and what we need to thrive as our best selves. It helps to lead us and pairing it with our minds to strategically design a solution to a challenge in your life.
Personal Flow Design can help you tap into your meaning and purpose in your life and leverage the impact that you are capable of! Discover your dharma, the path that is explicitly and uniquely your own with this design! We provide the tools that you can continue to practice over and over again in your daily life to continue to solve problems and conquer challenges.
This strategy has action steps and clear indications so you are able to monitor and track your progress. If you aren’t reaching your expected goals, the personal flow design allows you to uncover why and can show you how to move forward in reaching your dharma or life path.
Claim your FREE Flow Design:
Sign up for our Facilitation Intensive ONLINE!
We are offering our facilitation intensive course online for only $88. Dive deeper into creative facilitation and expand your toolkit of helping others through their growth process.
And check out our upcoming Facilitation Intensives with Zach:
Listen to Remolacha Beets!
Upcoming Offering with Zach...
Check out ZACH'S BLOG POSTS!
By: Zachary Townesmith
"As part of the teatrical process, participants in this school will learn acting, dance, vocalization, narrative construction, the creation and use of traditional instruments, research skills into ancestral heritage as well as the creation of masks, props, scenery and other supporting art."