The World Feels More Divided Than Ever: Why This Podcast Is Expanding

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Hello to you.

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If you're tuning in today, it's just me this time.

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And the reason for this extra episode, because I normally publish an episode every other week and this is the week in between.

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But the reason for that is that I wanted to take a moment to talk about a slight change that I'm making.

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It's something that has been evolving in my mind for a while now, and if you've been listening for a bit, you know that Stories for the Future has always been about exploring change, how we build meaningful careers, how we navigate transitions, and how we create a better future in general.

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For this last season, the energy transition has been a big focus for this podcast, and it's still an important part of what I do.

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And this is given my own background from oil and gas and having kind of.

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asily put myself back into my: 201415

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And I want to get that through to people that everything is not black and white.

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So that will still be a very important part of the podcast and of my work.

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But the more conversations I have, whether it's with oil and gas professionals, sustainability advocates, or people completely outside of these industries, the more I realized that we're dealing with something much bigger than just an industry shift.

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We're dealing with a world that is becoming more and more divided.

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I think we all see it in politics between generations, genders, climate and sustainability conversations turning into battles instead of trying to find the solutions.

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And even in my own journey, I've seen how easy it is to fall into the us versus them thinking.

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So I started asking myself, what if the real work isn't just about transitioning energy systems becoming more sustainable and changing what we do for a living, but it's more about transitioning how we think.

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So that's why I'm expanding Stories for the Future beyond just energy, climate and purposeful work.

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This is now a podcast about breaking out of echo chambers, finding common ground, and figuring out how we move forward together.

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If you listen to my previous episode, number 77 with Jardine de Vries, you might have noticed that she talked about the Earthling identity.

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And that episode and the conversation I had with her really got me to think about how we can, instead of staying so kind of fixed and set in our bubble or our identity, if we widen our perspectives, and instead of thinking about ourselves as either this or that.

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Either you're in oil and gas or you're in climate.

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Either you're a Democrat or you're a Republican, and so on and so on.

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If we instead widen our identities and as she said, think of ourselves as earthlings, we are people living on Earth, and that is our common identity.

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That is a really, really powerful way to think.

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And that is really what I want to explore more going forward.

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So what does this mean then?

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It means we'll still be talking about careers, the future, and how we navigate change, but with a bigger lens.

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We'll be diving into stories that challenge our temptation to put people into boxes and stick to stereotypes.

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As an example, I can tell you that I'm really eager to share stories about all the fantastic American people I know who are doing amazing work and who are really, really frustrated and sad about the direction that their administration is taking their country.

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So with that, I also say I noticed that I will not give any airtime to people fronting ideologies and values that I think are really harmful to our world.

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So where do I draw the line then?

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You might ask.

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And yes, I see this as a real challenge.

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It's about listening and trying to understand people with different perspectives.

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But I still need to align the podcast to what I think can contribute to a good future.

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It's a very delicate balance, but I I will do my best to stick with facts giving space to many different people, but they do have to have the best interests of the planet and the whole world at heart.

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So if this shift excites you, I'm so happy to have you along for the ride and I'd love to hear from you as well.

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What are the big us versus Them narratives in your world?

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What conversations do you feel stuck in?

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Please let me know and let's explore it together.

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I have started using Substack as a place where I also share the podcast episodes along with additional writing.

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And this is actually also a place where I realized that the topics I was drawn to write about was a bit outside of my usual focus area.

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You can take a look and subscribe@vcloveness social substech.com that is V K L A V E N E S I will of course share the link in the episode description.

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It's always a little bit difficult with these Norwegian names, so thanks again for being here and for tuning in.

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I'm really looking forward to the journey ahead.

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There will be a lot of episodes coming also related to energy, climate, sustainability, but as I said with a slightly wider lens, so looking forward to that.

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And I will see you in the next episode.