19 People around the World Share How They Prepare for a Post-COVID-19 World
Since its founding in 2015, impactmania always turns to the people who drive cultural, social, and economic impact. We need their inspiration now more than ever. We asked 19 impact makers how they are preparing for the new realities of a post-COVID-19 world.
Carl Hildebrand led diverse initiatives that strengthened community awareness and involvement. These include The Art Butler, an innovative concierge art host and tour management service, and PechaKucha Miami, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to sharing knowledge on social issues through grassroots public speaking engagements.
Hildebrand submitted a winning grant proposal to the prestigious Knight Foundation to create Miami Soup, a micro-grant organization dedicated to supporting social innovation programs in South Florida. He is a founding member of the SingularityU Miami Chapter, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bridging the creative and technology community and empowering an economy of exponential thinkers and doers. Carl is currently studying at Sivananda to become a Yoga Health Educator.
April 6, 2020
Paksy Plackis-Cheng in Berlin, Germany emailed Carl Hildebrand in Florida, U.S.
What is your advice for people to prepare themselves for post-COVID?
COVID-19 is a great global equalizer in terms of gender, class, race, sexual-orientation and global motivator—science, technology, and education—to work together, share knowledge and best practices. I believe our capitalist-based society will move into a spiritual-based one. We will move from outward validation to inward wholeness. All unresolved fears and traumas—validation, rejection, abuse, and addiction—will have to be thoroughly healed and the world will move toward oneness.
How is this crisis changing you?
I’m possibly one of those people that unknowingly had the virus back in December-January. However, in the early part of March, I found myself practicing fear and even surrounding myself in a community mindset that reinforced what I went through a few months prior. Then in mid-March, I began educating myself about COVID-19 and emotionally distancing myself from my “lower” feelings. Now, late March-early April, I turned that early fear into respect for the virus. I am taking the necessary precautions to keep myself and others safe. I have personally chosen not to practice/worship fear despite the national/global sentiments. I have found a new peace and happiness in stillness, trusting in something greater than myself, God.
What will our story be post-COVID?
I have found new hope and new resilience. In solitude—social isolation/distancing—I have doubled my workouts, meditation, and time with family and friends, all the while Zooming to places I have never been before. COVID helped me define what I truly COVET.
impactmania’s past interviews and programs have been featured in international media, a number of universities, US Consulates, the UN, and have been cited by Harvard Business School, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and Duke University Press. impactmania’s Women of Impact program was awarded the U.S. Embassy Public Diplomacy grant (2019).