Nuggets From Oscar Perez Marcos's Call
ServiceSpace
--David Bullón
3 minute read
Feb 28, 2021

 

Last Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting Awakin Call with Oscar Perez Marcos.

Several years ago, Óscar Pérez Marcos was not satisfied with the successes and failures of his life. Born in Spain, he had begun working at the age of 16 and became an entrepreneur (with mixed results) at age 21. Searching for more, he embarked on a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, and experienced a critical awakening. He discovered what didn’t matter to him, as well as what did: helping others. He undertook a new journey of unconditional surrender to others and the discovery of himself through volunteering and service. This journey took him to Ghana, India, Colombia and Mexico. Now a citizen of the world dedicated to social entrepreneurship, Oscar seeks to design social experiences to develop human potential. His goal is to reach 1 million people. To that end, he has developed and co-designed The SOCIAL MBA, oriented to the development of entrepreneurs and conscious social leaders for a new paradigm.

It was really a privilege to hear Oscar’ heart-centered journey. A central pilar of his path has been solitude as a source for renewal and growth, which he initially experienced on a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, and which has since become a two-hour essential ritual with which he begins his day. This pilgrimage led him out of his successful but unfulfilling career to Ghana, where he discovered a world in which material poverty was being resolved with other sources of wealth - through projects that were truly soulful. Watching joyful community leaders co-create solutions to further wellbeing and volunteering with small acts of love, such as singing lullabies to a small child, moved him to share the multiple forms of wealth that he found in Ghana, with people in parts of the world in which there is an epidemic of “soul poverty”.

His life since then has been an ascending spiral of initiatives to bring the transformational value of the gift of human connection to the world. A couple of stories really stood out:

The power of listening: After landing in Colombia, and trying to pitch his ideas to others, he rapidly realized that he could be more effective by listening, and then offering to help. He now has a coffee every weekday with someone, in the spirit of gifting. The soul abundance from which he started to give is in many ways the source from which so many valuable connections have since emerged, that have been essential in furthering his work.

Learning through co-creation: After almost a decade of dreaming of creating an MBA inspired by human connection, the pandemic offered Oscar an opportunity to co-create with so many people that he has had coffee with over the years to create the Social MBA. This MBA offers participants a truly transformational experience that involves head, heart and hands through micro-learning in a way that exemplifies the kind of leadership that social innovators need today. An experience of co-creating the curriculum and engaging in service is in and of itself a powerful way to facilitate a shift in the way we show up in the world as leaders.

It will be exciting to see what comes as the Oscar's loving work ripples out one coffee at a time :)

Lots of gratitude to all the behind-the-scenes volunteers that made this call happen!

 

Posted by David Bullón on Feb 28, 2021