Discover, design and live the work you were born to do.

We help people discover and realize the work of their future, turning their true nature and gifts into Radical Callings: bold, life-giving work designed for a world in need. 

This is not theory or self-help in disguise. Our work takes shape in the real world for each of our participants—as new roles, organizations, businesses, products, services, projects, and systemic, cultural or civic change initiatives. It is the practical, creative act of translating inner truth into outer form, and of bringing regenerative ideas out of imagination and into motion. This is how new futures are made: by people who have the courage to go from “what is” to “what if.”

Whether you’re aching to use your work as a force for good or carrying a radical idea you can’t ignore, your calling begins when your work becomes a vow rooted in who you truly are, guided by your beliefs and values, and aimed at what the world can no longer overlook.

What Makes a Calling Radical?

The word “radical” comes from radix, meaning root. To be radical is to return to your origin. Your core. The place before systems, titles, and expectations. But it’s also to rebel. To challenge. To reimagine what no longer serves. The world doesn’t need more compliance. It needs your gifted disobedience.

From Inner Truth to Systemic Shift.

A Radical Calling is:

• Deep alignment with your true nature.

• Bold disruption of the status quo.

• Rooted enough to be unshakable.

• Unorthodox enough to shake things up.

• Trading comfort for clarity.

• Planting seeds for new systems.

• Resisting extraction and indifference

• Becoming a living signal of what’s possible.

• A quiet rebellion others can follow.

• A spark that multiplies.

Calling All Free Radicals

This is for the rebels with a cause. The mavericks who once felt the spark of purpose but lost sight of the flame. It’s for those who’ve always sensed their work could be a force for good but never had the map, the guide, or the right companions for the journey.

Here, you throw out the rulebook that never fit. This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about burning away the noise and numbness that’s smothered your calling. It’s about reconnecting to the untamed, unshakable thread that’s always pulled you forward no matter how far off-course you’ve wandered.

This is where it all clicks. Where purpose finds its voice. Where the quiet ache becomes a vow, and your soul’s work starts to move in the world.

Together, we give shape to the gifts, ideas, and ambitions that have been simmering under the surface, turning passion into momentum, desire into movement.

This isn’t about doing what’s expected. Or finding “balance.” It’s about reclaiming your role as someone who doesn’t just exist but ignites. Someone who moves with purpose. Who uses their work as a force for good on their terms, in their way.

If you’re ambitious, intentional, frustrated, or simply tired of being anything less than your full self, this is your invitation.

Let’s find your thread, light your fire, and build the momentum to turn it all into something extraordinary.

The time for waiting is over.

It’s time to move.

The Center for Radical Calling exists to design the designers of a more beautiful and regenerative future. Our work is rooted not in a simple “theory of change” — which often focuses on interventions, outputs, and measurable improvements — but in a theory of shift: a deeper realignment of identity, imagination, and systems. Change adjusts what exists. A shift transforms the underlying pattern. We help people discover, design, and live their Radical Calling — a form of work that aligns their gifts, values, and beliefs with the urgent needs of the world. When individuals realign with their true nature and begin shaping their work from that place, the systems they inhabit begin to reorganize around life, not extraction.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

—Margaret Mead

To be fully human is to be both rooted and restless, rooted in our essence, restless in our desire to help the world thrive in a way only we can.

Institutions, governments, and businesses cannot change fast enough. Real transformation begins with individuals, those mavericks who long to use their work for good but often lack a pathway, form or collaborators.

“Don’t just try to tackle what seems most wrong out there; develop the unique potential within yourself and then, through indirect work and in everything you do, be a resource to others and help them see theirs. This is an iterative process and both an age-old and a brand-new way of bringing about transformation.

Nearly every philosophical and spiritual wisdom tradition teaches that profound and enduring change can only come from transforming who we are and how we experience and understand the world. We must stop modifying what we do without modifying who we are.”

—Carol Sanford

What is a Radical Calling?

A Radical Calling is the form your work takes when driven by gifts, commitment, sacrifice, and urgency to make radical change. It breaks norms, challenges the status quo, and inspires others to do the same.

It answers yes to these questions:

• Is it guided by your soul and inherent gifts, principles, values and beliefs?

• Is it mission, purpose, systems and life-centered?

• Will it help people, communities and the planet thrive?

• Is it inspired by how real change happens, challenging conventions, norms and existing paradigms?

• Is it original, sharp and inspiring in its form?

• Are you making commitments and sacrifices in order to do this work?

• Is it necessary now, and will its impact be real, visible, and accountable?

Our Work

We guide people through three stages:

1. Discover — Rediscover your 8 Truths and shape a guiding Red Thread.

2. Design — Imagine and design the form your Radical Calling takes, whether a role, project, venture, or movement.

3. Live — Sustain and grow your calling within a collective of “free radicals” through community, learning, mentoring, and activism.

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

—Rumi

A Work/Life Blend, Not a Balance

We believe your “work” is how you show up, not just at your job, your home or in your relationships, but everywhere. To live a Radical Calling is to have the confidence and power of knowing who you truly are and what you are supposed to be doing when you get up in the morning, go to sleep at night, and throughout your days.

“If you make your living by your calling, if you use your skills well and to a good purpose and therefore are happy or satisfied in your work, why should you necessarily do less of it? More importantly, why should you think of your life as distinct from it?”

—Wendell Berry

The Center for Radical Calling is a mission-driven business building a new kind of economy, one rooted in purpose, access, and radical generosity. We use our creative, financial, and human resources to make our offerings as accessible as possible. Through earned revenue, sponsorships, grants, donations, and community support, we lower the financial barrier for those called to do meaningful, world-shifting work.

Our ecosystem is made of three living parts:

1. The Fellowship, Shift Agent program and Radical Sabbatical which help individuals design the radical work of their future

2. The Idea Lab, an incubator for launching bold, transformative ideas

3. The Radical Calling Collective, an ecosystem of ongoing learning, mentorship, activism, and co-creation for our “free radicals” 

Revenue from the Idea Lab, along with content subscriptions, books, grants and partnerships, helps fund our individual work and keep fees as low as possible.

We believe our work should be available to people because they feel called to the work, not simply because they can afford it.

Right now, participant fees help make the Center for Radical Calling possible. We offer full-ride scholarships, partial scholarships, sliding-scale fees, and sponsorships to make our programs accessible to as many people as we can.

Our larger ambition is to make this work freely available to those who need it, supported by individual benefactors, foundations, and organizations that believe in its value. We’re not there yet, but we’re working toward it.

If you feel called to this work but cost is standing in the way, please reach out. We never want the price alone to be the reason you don’t apply.

For more information about the Center for Radical Calling, our offerings, and our fee structure, see our Programs PDF.