Hello Leader,

Where have you disappeared, Aviv?

This is the subject line of several emails I have received in recent months, asking what’s up with me.

I started writing the monthly newsletter The Key in August 2007 and continued through to December 2021. For 173 months, I produced mostly original evergreen content without ever missing my monthly letter, and then I stopped. Some on this list have worked with me since the early 2000s and followed my work since, so it was natural to ask if I had disappeared. The truth is I did not disappear; instead, I migrated my creative endeavor to Portals of Perception, my 501(c)3 not-for profit endeavor.

I have just written the most personal and disclosing letter about my journey, in which I recount my improbable professional career. I also openly describe the two parallel lives I have been leading: the high-end strategy consultant and the life of a mystic. The letter narrates how the Portals project, where we publish weekly fascinating video conversations, created for me an opportunity to integrate these different voices inside a greater whole.

In several ways I feel like I have lived 10 years of creative development in just the last year. It has been exhilarating. For more than 20 years I have worked with smart and inspiring executives from whom I’ve learned immensely, and who paid me handsomely because I asked them questions no one else asked. I’ve been saying for years, I get paid not for my answers but for the questions I ask. Now on Portals, I get to do both. I ask far-reaching questions about the future, and share the fruits of my journey.

I am still working with leadership teams and evolving the Create New Futures methodology. In fact, I have found that since I liberated and integrated these two parts of my life, I am even more effective with leadership teams. At the same time, I feel called to invest in the next generations of leaders and their future. Portals enables me to approach this endeavor with a global network of brilliant and creative people who, like me, feel a sense of urgency about the bigger questions of this time.

I’d love to stay in touch with you through our Portals updates and events. To stay connected with my work and thinking, please add your email to the distribution list at the bottom of the homepage and come join our public events.

You can also follow Portals on YouTube. 

Now it's your turn. Turn the key and enter the Portals.

Wishing you a vibrantly healthy and fulfilling new year.

Aviv

© Aviv Shahar