Who inspires me to start Humanist Learning Systems?

I sometimes joke that I fell into my business backwards – screaming – NOOOO!!!!   But I’m glad I did.

I have an online learning company – do personal and professional training in humanistic management and behavior based approaches to things like harassment.  I also do groups and just got my first government contract. In the past few months, I’ve spoken to groups in India and been invited to speak at several conferences.

Who inspires me? This is going to seem odd – but Eleanor Roosevelt. Specifically her book – You Learn by Living. Her philosophy is humanistic and her book covers a wide array of topics, family, business, relationships. All business is relationships. And you do have to balance family and work.

Her approach, to be genuinely interested in the people you are working with and meeting, I love. It helps me get through everything.  And it also helps to remind myself that what I want to do can be done and I don’t have to sacrifice my values or my essential nature to do it.  Very inspiring.

I decided to start my business because I have knowledge to share that people need to know. Young people are committing suicide! If you know how to get unwanted behavior – like bullying to stop – then you have a moral obligation to share that. The challenge is – you can’t share it if you can’t feed and house yourself. I finally figured out how to a) make money while b) making sure that my content is free to parents and kids.  That was my big aha moment!  I want to teach parents what they need to know to help their kids. Where are the parents? In the workplace, being subjected to sexual harassment training that doesn’t really tell them anything useful.  If I can use that training to teach them how to actually stop bullying and harassment, I’m not only improving the workplace, I’m helping parents learn what they need to teach their kids! 

I resisted this for a bit though, as my passion is the promotion of philosophic humanism. But a member of the humanist community told me that teaching people how to stop bullying was the teaching of humanism.  Humanists use science and compassion to change the world and that is what I was doing. That was and is my approach to stopping bullies. That is when I came to terms with what my customers were asking for. 

But what really pushed me over the edge was a female friend. A woman I met in a women’s entrepreneur networking group. Terri Kelly ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrikelly/). She suggested I reach out to HR professionals to teach them about the science based approach to stopping bullying and harassment in the workplace. It was that little seed that helped me come up with a business plan that I REALLY like implementing and feel good about implementing.

Has it been a tough road? Yes. Businesses always seem to grow slower than you want them to and need them to. I bootstrapped myself. And during the middle of startup, my husband lost his job. I considered giving up on the business and getting a “real” job, but my husband wouldn’t let me. He told me that what I was doing was too important to stop.  If he hadn’t believed not only in me, but in the changes I hope to create in the world – I would have given up. 

Being on a mission to use business to change the world helps get through the tough times. My work isn’t simply a job and it’s not simply a way to make money.  I really am on a mission to create positive social change through humanistic science based education.  It is the mission that keeps me going when the going gets tough. It’s the mission that led my husband and family to support me to the point they won’t let me quit when I think about quitting.

Is what I teach really that important? Take a course and find out for yourself: https://humanistlearning.com/

Consider Humanism

I was asked recently about labels.  The person, a woman, considers herself to be a feminist. But, she also was dealing with the reality that some people view feminism as being somehow misandrist, meaning, anti-male.

Obviously, being pro-equality for women is not the same as being anti-male but that doesn’t stop the comparison from being made. She was wondering if it might be better to label herself as an egalitarian or a Humanist.

Feminism as activism can express itself in many ways - but at it’s core is the idea that women should have equal rights. Now, there are some women who use the word feminism to describe female superiority - which is not what I consider feminism to be. To me that is misandry not feminism.

Humanists are feminists and if they aren’t, then they aren’t doing a very good job at being humanists.

So what is Humanism? Humanism is the applied study of what it means to be a good human being without supernatural guidance. In other words, it’s a-religious, or without religion or ghosts or anything.

Egalitarians are also feminists and if they aren’t, they aren’t very egalitarians. What egalitarianism provides as a term that feminism doesn’t is feminism focuses specifically on gender equality where egalitarians are concerned about all people. Which sounds nice, and it is. But the reason we still need feminism is the same as the reason why we need the black lives matter movement. There are some forms of oppression that uniquely effect women. And there are some forms of oppression that uniquely effect people of color. Or nationalities, or sexual expression or whatever.

If you are currently considering how to label yourself, please don’t spend a lot of time debating these things. Most people are multiple things and use multiple labels to define themselves. We aren’t just one thing. For me, my humanism (philosophy) leads me to be an egalitarian and a feminist and an activist, etc. Which is a way to say - one label will never be sufficient to define your views. When confronting oppression of women, I am a feminist. When discussing my philosophy, I am a Humanist.

But seriously – if you are concerned about equality – consider learning more about Humanism – because – it may be the philosophy driving your concerns and understanding humanism better will help you articulate your beliefs to others regardless of the labels you choose.

To learn more get my book: Jen Hancock’s Handy Humanism Handbook – or check out my online course about living fully as a Humanist – Living Made Simpler – which is a 6 hour exploration of philosophy, critical thinking, compassion, activism and coping.

Choice, Feminism and Humanism

Why having a choice in life matters.

I have a friend. This friend is a woman who chose not to have children. Her choice was not to be child free, just to not have children of her own. Her choice wasn’t even to have an abortion; it was a choice to not get pregnant in the first place. For some reason that choice was and is still considered radical. It’s one thing if you can’t have children of your own. That makes you an object of pity, but to choose to not have your own children ever? Well, that just isn’t normal. Is it?

And this gets to the heart of the matter and why choice, feminism and Humanism are so important even now. I am a mom. I love being a mom, but that is a role I chose for myself. I choose a lot of things for myself, like what I will eat and wear. Where I want to live, who I want to live with and what sort of work I want to do. Every day I make a slew of choices. Most are mundane, but sometimes, they are life altering, like the decision to get married and another decision to become a parent.

My friend took the decision to be a biological parent seriously. After all, it’s a big choice and it has a huge impact on your life and so of course you should have the right to choose it.  Except that when it became publically known she had chosen not to be pregnant, not because she couldn’t, but because she didn’t want to, she lost her job as a teacher and ended up becoming an advocate for a woman’s right to choose to be childfree.

I take my ability to make these choices for granted because I grew up in a household where I was given autonomy.  I was not indoctrinated in religion because what I choose to believe is just that, my choice. So it shocks me when I meet people whose choices, that impact them and them alone, are not accepted by others, like the reaction my friend still gets as a result of making her choice public.

Her story is a fascinating one and I highly recommend you read her book: Confessions of a Childfree Woman: A Life Spent Swimming Against the Mainstream