By now, you understand systems – and how our system interconnects with the natural systems that sustain us all.

You get the importance of context and why it matters to go beyond your first question and find the better question.

And you know now that decision-making isn’t easy, but that creative problem solving can uncover solutions that endure.

But what process helps an entrepreneur launch an idea? What process helps an intrapreneur find the right project to propel?

Good question!

Karen Kun is a change-maker who has excelled as both a systems intrapreneur and as a social enterprise entrepreneur. We asked Karen to share with us her process – from inspiration to impact.

“The real starting point for me was a curiosity and a connection to what I didn’t know.”

Karen was the publisher of Corporate Knights Magazine and is the founder of Waterlution. But before she started helping rising leaders around the globe develop their own processes to advance water sustainability, Karen realized “I needed to figure out what inspired me, and to come to peace with the fact that I wasn’t a water expert.”

What inspired Karen, of course, was water and what she learned about water “made me realize that the beauty of water is that it connects all of us. And that was the starting off point. It became my life’s work. I didn’t know that at the time, but it became my life’s work.”

To pursue her passion, Karen realized she needed to become an expert in her chosen field.

“Becoming a subject matter expert, I think, is really important. While it’s really valuable for people to hold knowledge across a variety of subjects, you have to hone in. This goes back to thinking about what you’re passionate about and what elevates you when you learn more about it. That’s the cue to go deeper.”

The process that enabled Karen to become one of Canada’s leading water experts?

“An intense year of reading and doing research. And the more I read, the more I wanted to know.”

That’s why, Karen argues, expertise is a choice. We can choose to become experts if we’re willing to accept the process.

“Read, read, read. Full things coming out of what I was learning, like, ‘now I need to learn more about this; I need to learn more about that.’”

Which might not sound like much fun, but Karen adds “going deeper is the only way that we are going to be able to amass a body of knowledge (that can help us work) with diverse people to solve complex problems.”

Indeed, complex problems are complex for a reason.

What Karen’s learned with time is that “every solution leads to new problems because you reconfigure something, and then new problems are going to seep in. It’s why we need to have enough knowledge, so that if something else comes at you, you can adapt.”

That knowledge is built through skill development and work experience, of course, but we often assume that the learning process only happens once in our lives, when we’re young.

Not true! It’s a life-long endeavour.

It’s why Karen urges us to always seek “to have unusual, interesting, sometimes uncomfortable conversations.”

All of that can seem overwhelming, but only if we’re focused on the totality of the journey. And we don’t need to. Journeys never happen overnight or with one step.

Karen believes that to avoid being overwhelmed and to keep our focus on the goal, we need to look to nature for inspiration.

“Find your own parallel stories with animals, wildlife, geography, waterscapes. Connect them to parts of your own personality. Not only do I think that’s an amazing process, but I think that’s something that can build one’s resiliency.”

Diz Glithero says this helps too: “Find your allies.”

Diz is also a change-maker, focused on ocean literacy, having advanced her career through intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship as well.

No matter the path we take, Diz says we all need support.

“If you’re someone who’s driven or goal oriented, it’s easy to sometimes just do it on your own. As I went on through life, (I saw value in) just building that community, that professional learning community, those allies.”

Which might seem intuitive, but Diz says, “Allies appear in all shapes and forms and places. And by building that network – building that community of people who are doing things that really fire you up and are engaging with the issues in a way that you can relate to? That’s kind of your way in. You can’t eat the whole elephant, so choose your bite and then together you can start to really drive that bigger change.”

Niki Wilson has chosen her bite: she’s a freelance journalist who deploys her entrepreneurial skills to help tell the stories she believes will inspire others to act.

Niki tells us that her ability to succeed in this type of gig economy has only been possible because she’s built a network of support.

“I made a great, full network of connections. I met some really good mentors and was able to get their advice on how to develop story ideas and pitches, who to talk to about them, how to handle rejection.”

Niki adds that as important as building a support network is, “I also think it’s important to continue to grow that network – to go to conferences and meet up with your professional colleagues because, inevitably, this is how you meet editors, or how someone passes your name along.”

In other words, networking is relationship building. It can help evolve our idea and our thinking – as well as expand our social circle, our reach and our potential. That means networking is about more than creating career opportunities, it’s also about laying the foundation for collaboration with others – now and in the future.

After all, as former politician and non-profit entrepreneur Fin Donnelly tells us, “Collaboration is key.”

Why? As philanthropy champion Ian Bird explains, it’s the easiest way of addressing skill, resource or credibility gaps.

“You’re in a container, you’re on a platform, you’ll have colleagues that will exchange ideas. You can get the support you need. You don’t have to know how to do everything.”

It’s for this reason youth researcher and advocate Ilona Dougherty tells us, “We need to create more spaces where we’re not segregated by age – where it’s not just a bunch of young people together, or a bunch of older people together. We need to bring generations together. And we know from our research that when you put generations together, amazing things happen and we amplify the social and environmental impact we’re all having.”

But as important as collaboration is, Waterlution’s Karen Kun argues that it’s important to recognize there can be drawbacks.

“There’s so many nuanced parts to people’s personalities. There’s so many things you might not know. You might not know if that person communicates and lays all their cards on the table.”

Indeed, though there are many helpful tools that help drive better processes and, in turn, create better results, no tool is one-size-fits-all and nothing is perfect. For this reason, Karen says, “I think we live in a day and age where groups of people are more important than the individual, but the group can’t function if the individuals aren’t strong.”

Diz Glithero understands the point and thinks that’s why successful collaboration comes down to trust-building.

“Part of it is, it’s hard to build trust and foster those relationships and explore those really tough questions without having some kind of shared experience.”

That’s not only true of collaboration, but experiences also can propel research, amplify stories and build careers.

“The most powerful thing is when it’s the most personal. You can learn the science and the facts, but until you have a personal relationship with the issue, or the ideas, or the topic, it’s not as relevant.”

Diz’s advice?

“It’s less about going to find that structured program or that structured agency to work with, but to spend time (having experiences and learning). We don’t do that a lot in today’s society. It’s go-go-go and it’s on to the next thing. I think to create space to just explore and create and share and learn with someone that’s in a medium or a space that resonates with them – it’s key. Because whether it’s through art, whether it’s through science, whether it’s through storytelling – whatever the medium is – there’s no one silver bullet. So, find other people who are involved in a space that ignites excitement for you.”

In seeing what others are doing, we can find inspiration; we can uncover ideas and processes to mimic and build on; we can identify partners and collaborators.

That’s how Brandon Nguyen went from using environmental research to increase awareness about biodiversity in his high school to uncovering an underused network of environmental clubs across Toronto that he felt could be repurposed to scale his impact.

“Rather than starting something completely new, I just thought that there was a way to improve on the current system, which is creating this platform for students to collaborate.”

And, yet, in seeking input and in attempting to learn from recognized experts, youth leader and innovator Zeel Patel struggled to stay true to his vision that a new approach to medical science was needed to complement existing services.

“When it comes to creating start-ups and trying to find the funding and trying to really create real world change, there comes a point where there’s too many cooks in the kitchen. All of those cooks add various different perspectives, and sometimes those perspectives are contrary to what the original vision was. And I think it’s very scary if you concede to those perspectives and, in effect, dilute the vision you originally had.”

Good point.

There will be times when allies or collaborators will, without malice, mislead us. There will be times when we need to embrace processes that have been proven to work, and times when we need to create new ones that fit our ideas and our chosen path, whether it’s worn or not. And that’s why we need to heed this advice from Karen Kun:

“You can’t work as a team if you don’t know who you are.”

That’s not just central to good teamwork, it’s critical to every aspect of career and life.

Indeed, building careers of meaning, as you now know, really begins with knowing ourselves, our skills and our dreams.