Our local volunteer community made of many young people (aka the “French Gang”) often holds "Big Talk" circles to get to know each other and deepen our relationships.

As an extension of our experiment, we invited an inspiring speaker from ServiceSpace: Audrey Lin! She generously accepted our invitation and thus we decided to shift our usual “Big Talk” circles into an intimate interview, a "Deep Talk" of candid questions :-) Our initial plan was to hold a circle with 12 people, and somehow we ended up with 133 RSVP's!

It was an unforgettable call, and here's the video for you to also enjoy:




Now, the back story. :)

This online event has radically transformed many of us!

It has been the fruit of emergence (also maybe the fruits of many other invisible hands from ServiceSpace!!). At this point there was no turning back for us; my fellow friends and I spent time and hearts to organize this beautiful event in honor of Audrey and the community (aka Audrey’s fan club!!!)

While we planned nearly every detail of the call (cooperating with French Gang is a real gift), we did not expect to overshoot our Zoom limitation of 99 participants. As we were seeing the amount of RSVP’s increasing to 100+, we started to sweat… like a lot!!. Thus we took the decision to swap our plan one hour before the call and send a new link with an increased capacity of seats. This created some confusion, but we apologized for this incident and took it as a learning for the future. :-)

At 8:30am (PST), as we opened the doors of the call, it was a pure joy to discover all the faces of our participants! Our relaxed and relieved posture at that moment really contrasted with some - now funny - bloopers behind the scenes.

Indeed, as sometimes misfortune does not come alone, the fifteen minutes before the call went really chaotic. The initial plan was to reunite the "French Gang" to settle down, relax and review the roll-out together. But it didn't turn out that way (at all!). As we were using the Service Space Zoom account, all of our previous settings (breakout sessions, co-hosting, recording...) were reset. The design of our call would have fallen apart so we had to redo them urgently. But the interface was different, the language was different (yes we are French!), the stress was at its peak while observing Jasky and Caroline still figuring out the issue a few minutes before the start of the call. However it was such a blessing to witness the rest of the gang keeping their calm and helping to look for solutions. Supporting and observing in silence, without expressing any stress nor panic is a real help to our teammates. Through collective intelligence (and prayers haha), we ended up fixing everything only 2 minutes before our call! What a relief!

Then the call started, we have been deeply inspired by the simple presence of so many friends and anchors from all over the world! Audrey's fan club is huge! From Yuko, who offered us her presence by staying up until 2:30AM in Japan, to Sallyann in London, to Komnieve, who shared a moving tribute to Audrey. But it was without counting her massive fans in India and in the USA! To foster the dynamic during the call, we invited our French Gang members to engage with Audrey.

Since it was our very first time organizing such a big event, we were quite nervous, but it ended up being a moving memorable call!
Thanks to our amazing audience, we managed to glean the gems of Audrey's rich journey. It was beautiful to celebrate someone who truly walks her talk! To thank her for her untiring mind of service and generosity, we invited listeners to write on a LoveBook for Audrey

Olivier has been driving 1200kms back and forth this weekend to help her friend moving out to her new flat. In spite of that, he managed to run all way long an incredible interview with Audrey. His makeshift desk of cardboard boxes reflects the humbleness of our beginner's mind, but nonetheless already makes Olivier a great journalist !



Our talented French gang's singer Thea offered her sweet voice and guitar melody « La Valse des Souvenirs » as a gift for Audrey and the community. We feel so blessed to receive Thea's music! For those who will fall in awe you can find her at thekomusic.com



With that context, perhaps you might enjoy the video recording in a different light. And below the video are timestamps for specific parts:



A cheat sheet of various bookmarks throughout the call ...

00:00:00 - Olivier’s general Introduction
00:01:45 - Komnieve shares inspiring stories of Audrey

Q&A - Part 1: Audrey’s early years
00:09:51 - Jasky trying to fathom Audrey’s mind
00:11:36 - Audrey’s story of drawing hearts at the age of 3
00:14:30 - Frank’s question: What was Audrey’s childhood dream? - Audrey shares that she wanted to be an artist then a hermit.
00:17:03 - Anne-France’s question: « What is the job of being happy? Is there a school for that? » - Audrey shares her definition of happiness
00:20:02 - Patrick’s inviting Audrey to offer a question for Breakout session.
00:21:33 - Audrey’s offering: « What is your definition for happiness and how it evolves for you from childhood till now? »
00:22:37 - Back from the Breakout session
00:23:49 - Patrick shares about the collective reflections in his Breakout group and invites participants to share
00:26:32 - Anne-France shares what emerged in her group : « happiness is more to be than to have »
00:28:13 - Guri shares about lightness and the present moment

00:30:44 - Guri shares about Audrey’s innocence and her « very deep wisdom » and their relationship

00:33:11 - Sallyann shares that Audrey personnifies happiness for her

00:34:40 - Pankaj shares that Audrey is like the hummingbird and reflects on Audrey’s authenticity

00:36:54 - Catherine recalls her first meeting with Audrey in Grasse (France) and shares about Audrey’s genuine heart

Q&A - Part 2: Audrey’s heart of service
00:38:25 - Olivier’s introduction to Part 2 and offers his question to Audrey: « How did Audrey end up with this sense of service? »
00:40:00 - Audrey shares about inner cultivation as a sense of service
00:41:04 - Audrey reflects on her experience in India where she realized that being fully present during ordinary activities can be a form of service
00:43:58 - Olivier wonders how Audrey runs so many activities
00:44:52 - Caroline reflects on her journey in organization and invites Audrey to reflect on volunteer engagement

00:44:52 - Audrey shares about the natural pattern and the do-nothing approach

00:49:45 - Audrey reflects on the social field - how do we unlock our innate potentials - how do we see the nature of people that are with us?

00:53:53 - Fatimata wonders how Audrey manages to keep being humble and keep choosing happiness everyday?

00:54:56 - Audrey shares about her experience looking at the night-sky without any light pollution

00:54:56 - Pankaj’s question to Audrey: « About your authenticity — do you have moments when you sense a gap between who you are and what is projected? And if so, what practice helps you notice that? And how do you close that gap? »

00:59:54 - Audrey reflects on inauthenticity - when she has to respond to an expectation.

01:01:05 - Audrey shares about the joy of service and reflects on how she shifts thinking of the collective instead of herself?

01:04:09 - Guri invites Audrey to reflect on her background and the radical choices she made to live a life of service

01:06:25 - Audrey reflects on spirituality, inspiration, purpose, living a meaningful life…

01:11:25 - Théa offering her song « La Valse des Souvenirs »

01:15:41 - Patrick offers the opportunity to write some words for Audrey

01:16:22 - Jasky invites for minutes of silence as a form of practicing service

BONUS Q&A

01:18:35 - Helen’ s question: « Do you have daily practices that keep you grounded? »

01:21:38 - Rohit invites Audrey to reflect on detachment from external outcomes of community. Reflections on values.

01:30:08 - Swara questioning Audrey on her « farming work » - Audrey reflects on emergence, the difference between focusing on context vs content.

1:36:35 - Conclusion of the call