Today we’re joined by Patrick Cook-Deegan, founder of Project Wayfinder. Patrick started his career focused on human rights - traveling through North Korea, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a specific focus on atrocities in Burma. Meanwhile, he launched the Social Innovation Initiative at Brown University. And soon after, he started a mindfulness in Oakwood. Now, Patrick has founded and leads Project Wayfinder, founded at Stanford’s d. school - an organization which supplies schools with a year-long purpose-driven education curriculum.

You can learn more about Patrick and the work he’s doing, as well as potentially meet to seek out their services, on Project Wayfinder’s website. Project Wayfinder’s work is based off of studies by Dr. Cotton Bronk and Dr. Bill Damon, who study how purpose develops and the ensuing effect. In Purpose Rising: A Global Movement of Transformation and Meaning (in which Patrick’s autobiography is found), this graph can be analyzed to see how (sadly) our schools misalign with the search for purpose:

Full disclosure: We’re in the process of adopting Project Wayfinder (potentially) at our school - but I thought the product was so well designed, it was worth sharing!

In this podcast, we talk about:

• A “Purpose-Driven” Education and how much impact having a purpose change’s one life.

• The beginning of - and overall goals - of Project Wayfinder and how you can get involved.

• Equity and impact of purpose-driven programs.

• Integrating purpose and relationships into schools (with or without this curriculum)

• Graphic design and its impact on validity/purpose.