This episode of the One Humanity Lab Podcast is a must-listen for anyone curious about the intersection of leadership, inner growth, and collective transformation, and how the One Humanity Lab is cultivating leaders for a world in transition.
In this special episode kicking off Season 3, guest hosts Pauline de Castelnau and Mia Cellucci turn the tables on the usual hosts, Dr. Ina Gjikondi and Dr. Bonnie Buckner, to explore the deeper story behind the One Humanity Lab — a global hub for innovation and learning at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. Together, they discuss what it means to lead from a place of connection, cultivate wholeness-based leadership, and awaken a sense of shared humanity.
This episode features:
- The story of how Ina and Bonnie met and began collaborating.
- How dreaming, intuition, and creative collaboration became the foundation of the One Humanity Leadership Coaching Program.
- What it means to lead from wholeness, connectedness, and healing in a time of rapid global change and transition.
- The One Humanity Lab’s vision of collaborative elevation rooted in inner transformation and collective action.
- The Lab’s latest initiatives, including a fellowship for executives seeking a strategic pause and an accelerator for changemakers leading community-based projects.
Dr. Ina Gjikondi and Dr. Bonnie Buckner share how they support leaders who want to make a positive impact in the world through wholeness, inner work, and dreaming.
Resources & Links
Learn more about the One Humanity Lab and sign up for updates: https://leadershipcoaching.cepl.gwu.edu/onehumanitylab/
Discover the One Humanity Leadership Coaching Program and learn how to apply for the next cohort: https://leadershipcoaching.cepl.gwu.edu/program/onehumanitycoachingcertification/
Learn more about the One Humanity Accelerator and upcoming calls for applications:
https://leadershipcoaching.cepl.gwu.edu/program/onehumanityaccelerator/
Explore the One Humanity Executive Fellows Program and request an invitation: https://leadershipcoaching.cepl.gwu.edu/program/onehumanityexecutivefellowsprogram/
Learn more about the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery: https://institutefordreamingandimagery.com/
Follow the One Humanity Lab on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/one-humanity-lab-at-gwu
Connect with Dr. Ina Gjikondi on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inagjikondi/
Connect with Dr. Bonnie Buckner on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonniebuckner/
Follow the One Humanity Lab Podcast: https://leadershipcoaching.cepl.gwu.edu/podcast/
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Listen to the podcast here
Wholeness-Based Leadership: The Origins And Vision Of The One Humanity Lab
Welcome To Season 3: Guest Hosts Take The Helm
Welcome back to the show.
This is Pauline de Castelnau joining from Rabat, Morocco.
This is Mia Cellucci joining from just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States.
We are so excited to be guest hosts for season three of the show. We start with a very special episode. We switch sides with the two hosts of the podcast, Dr. Ina Gjikondi and Dr. Bonnie Buckner. If you have been tuning in to the show for a while, they might feel like old friends already.
For Pauline and me, they were our teachers and mentors in the One Humanity Leadership Coaching Program at George Washington University. That experience profoundly shaped the direction of both of our lives and work as executive coaches. It’s truly an honor to be interviewing them as we kick off season three.
For those of you who are tuning in and are new to the show, we’ll put their full extended bios in the show notes. Just to say a little bit about them. Dr. Ina Gjikondi is the Director of Learning, Innovation, and Strategic Growth at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership and also the founder and director of the One Humanity Lab.
Dr. Bonnie Buckner is the founder and CEO of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery and author of The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life. Her work includes a collaboration with George Washington University, where she serves as senior fellow and program lead in the One Humanity Leadership Coaching Program.
As you may know or not, this podcast is a project of the One Humanity Lab, also at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. The lab itself is a global hub for innovation and learning, which started from and is growing from a vision of a world where leadership is rooted in wholeness, healing, and connectedness. In this episode, we really want to discuss with Ina and Bonnie about the lab’s work and why that work is so important at this particular moment in history.
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Welcome, Ina and Bonnie. It’s so great to be here with you both and to have you on the other side of the table. We’re excited to hear more about what you two are working on this season.
Thanks for having us.
It’s so great to be with the two of you, the four of us in the room. It’s definitely a pleasure.
The Genesis Of Collaboration: A Dreamy Beginning
Likewise, to start, we’re hoping that you’ll just tell us a story about how you two met and started collaborating.
Bonnie has told this story many times, so I’m going to toss it to her. She may be able to get it started, and I’ll build on it.
Why I tell this story so frequently is because it underscores the work we do at the program, because it’s about listening to the inside and inner intuition. It’s a dreamy story. Someone that Ina and I know mutually said to me, “You need to meet Ina.” Said the same to Ina. We meet, and with no agenda, or I don’t know why we’re meeting. I don’t know why I’m meeting this person. It moved into dreaming. We talked about dreams, and then we met again. Ina said, “I’ve been dreaming of a coaching program.”
I knew when we began to talk about dreams that we spoke the same language and that there was going to be a whole lot of things that we were going to do together, even though I didn’t know specifically what or how this was a kindred spirit. It was really important to move with that energy because again, I still didn’t know. Are we talking about a thing, or are we just talking, or are we just going to be friends? It’s really right to do this.
The ability to hold a vision and move fully towards it is remarkable. It keeps things expanding into possibility, not collapsing in.
I do remember when we met, and I took one of Bonnie’s dream opening classes because I wanted to get a feeling and experience. Before even that, Bonnie helped me open one of the dreams that I had been having at that time. I thought, “That’s a really interesting way of really digging in.” That was totally my language. I just hadn’t seen it from that perspective of dream work or dreaming.
That got my attention. Of course, I was in this creative space, which is interesting because some of the programs were talking and will be maybe talking a little bit more about the lab is I was the right person or if that would have been me for some of the programs that were now being offered at the lab. I had a ripe idea, I was going, I was playing with something that really moved me, there was a deep passion inside of me. I was doing my own inner work.
I was discovering myself and sensing what the direction is, and that underscoring or connecting with that inner life through the dream work and other avenues really helped me to move this coaching program forward. With Bonnie, I thought, “That’s exactly the ingredients. You know, when you’re scouting out there and you’re wanting to build this very unique dish, and then you’re looking for these unique ingredients and you’re harvesting in the wild. I was like, “That’s a very unique herb that we have here. I must see where that takes us.”
Literally, that became a signature component of the dish, if you will, of the offering of the coaching program. I had been talking to a lot of people at that time, very similar to what I’m doing now, as I am working with a lab, and as the four of us have been working, it’s just a different level. She really brought that signature of felt sense, and dream work actually has been really important for the program, and it’s just moved very easily.
In both of your answers, you didn’t use this word, but I’ve heard you use it to describe your collaboration, which is easy. I hear that in this story. I also hear fun. You’ve been having a lot of fun, and it’s been a creative partnership.
I did the workshop yesterday on leadership presence. One of the questions that I started the session with was what makes you deeply unmistakably alive, that feeling that you want to get up in the morning and just do something. If Bonnie calls me or if I have to talk to Bonnie, I’ll get up from my bed, like literally, because is that energy?
I mean, we’re doing this podcast at 8:00 AM partly because my schedule aligned that way, but Bonnie knows that I am not an early riser. It takes me some time to get myself up and going, but just the idea that I would be here with her and the two of you has been a lot of fun to work on our accelerator project. That matters. I think that ease or that energy really matters to me.
To me also, but I want to say one more thing about that. I’ve done a lot of things with a lot of people and entrepreneurial projects and companies and things like this. Everybody has a different way of having a vision, holding a vision, and going. I have truly never worked with anybody in the capacity that Ina has, where it’s just all green lights.
Even if there are things we have to figure out, the ability to hold onto a vision and just move fully towards it is a remarkable thing. It’s what keeps things expanding into possibility and not collapsing in. That’s part of why it’s so easy, because there’s not the friction of pessimism or doubting or things like that. It’s simply, “Look, we’ve got a challenge. Let’s figure this out. Cool and keep going.”
That elevates the I’m in the dish mode here. I’ve been watching Next-Gen Chef. Pardon me. It’s a really great show by the way, but it’s like they talk about the simplicity and how if you have just a carrot, how are you going to work with a carrot? If you have just carrot and apple, you have to elevate those two Signature dishes, and I think that’s what I feel our relationship has been.
It’s like the carrot and the apple in the plate, meaning if I’m going to be fully a carrot, I’m just going to embrace it, and that elevates the dish. Bonnie’s going to be fully an apple, and that elevates it, and it becomes a signature part of the dish. They also have to go together. That togetherness has come as part of this collaborative elevation because what she brings, I don’t always do, but it’s just a good mix.
The One Humanity Lab: A Savory Dish Of Human Technology
I don’t know if you would hear, but exactly. From where I speak, it’s lunchtime and I’m French. I’ve been salivating since you brought this dish cooking image. Thank you. Building on that to focus our exchange also on the lab itself, and as one of the projects you’ve been collaborating on that started from a vision and is now anchored in reality, with many initiatives, many projects. What could you tell us about this very rich, complex, savory dish?
What are the ingredients? What are we talking about? Maybe something that struck me when I heard you speak is the balance between the togetherness of the carrots and the apples. Two very different ingredients meet to create something new. I heard you both say at the beginning, we spoke the same language. There was something about speaking the same language. Is that something we could link to the One Humanity name for the lab?
Speaking of the same language, this is how it’s coming to me as I link it to the lab. It wasn’t the words that we were speaking that helped connect the dots, but it was the felt sense. It was the energy that was brought into the conversation. Bonnie might have used the word dreaming, for me, it was maybe intuition. I know intuition is part of that, too, but that was my linking word. I had been doing a lot of work with healing and approaches to healing, and learning for my own self.
Dreaming was another word that I didn’t necessarily have. I had lots of dreams during that particular time in my life, and dream work is essential to my own vitality, also because Bonnie will tell you we dream all the time. There’s dreaming at night and there’s dreaming during the day. We’re dreaming a story right now as we speak. That felt sense was the connected tissue. I think that’s really the direct link to the lab because our bodies are electric.
We’re made of more than we actually capitalize on. When I think of the context, let’s use AI just for a second, which is this big emerging field right now. Everybody is studying it, and it’s shifting the industry, and it’s changing radically the way we’re doing things, and this thought of the human technology, which I think is totally not explored and underutilized, which is our human body. I think that comes to the forefront of what the lab is trying to bring to the world, that there is also another perspective.
This perspective has been here. It’s very ancient, it really remembers our humanness and our humanity, and brings that to the forefront. It’s not new. AI is newer, in fact. It’s part of that evolution, and it’s part of the evolution that has built on human curiosity. There are like two different paths. This is where human curiosity can take us in one direction, but there’s another path for human curiosity, which is connecting us back to our source, to our core, to our breath.
Why aren’t we using breath? That’s the most powerful technology. I remember Pauline, one thing you had mentioned to me is, “I don’t breathe life into anyone.” Think of that. This breath is so powerful. How are we thinking of breath in this AI context? I don’t even want to go there. The point is that’s what the lab really brings forth.
It brings to the forefront the human technology. It activates a new frequency that builds on who you are, what you bring, and takes that into a leadership context. Who you are as a leader, getting very deeply grounded in that, and then knowing and making very clear choices from that place because you have a different awareness of yourself. This goes back to simplicity.
This is a simple dish, like it would be an omelet, Pauline, but as we know, an omelet with two simple ingredients is the pinnacle of French cuisine. If you don’t know how to make an omelet, you cannot make it to any cooking school. I’m talking about the foundational basics. The lab is doing that is let’s go back to the basics that we have missed. Have forgotten. Let’s take that into leadership more intentionally. Those are my thoughts for now.
We’ve talked a bit about the word vision, and I know you both speak with a lot of ease in images. Can you describe to us the vision that the One Humanity Lab has? What is the vision that you’re working towards?
I think I just had an experience with that vision. Say it.
What did you hear, Bonnie? Let’s mirror. I said a few things that truly were coming from this question in this moment, and how things are articulating, because this is an evolving space, and then there is a core to it. Bonnie, as a dreamer, how did you hear my dream?
I cannot say your dream without bringing in mine, which is a very intricately woven, extremely colorful tapestry that has a lot of different images on it. Ina has been talking about this inner space capacities like intuition, creativity, the human ability to see beyond simple words, and the very simple story that presents at the surface, and see beyond it to see what potentials are lurking behind it, what blocks are lurking behind it, make that sorting process, bringing certain things forward.
That’s human potential and human capacity. In the large sense, that’s one of the things that the lab does. Another word that Ina speaks about a lot is connection. That’s where this tapestry comes in for me, because when we start to move beyond story and start to understand deeper meanings of things, then it brings new colors and new threads into something that, as a human collaborative, we’re weaving together.
I see it in that way, and I see it as it continues to unfold. That’s what’s so interesting to me about the tapestry image as well, because within the lab, while that is the ground, as with any tapestry, there are also specific scenes that show up on it. There are very specific programs within the lab that have come forward as ways to apply and contain either the development of or the production of projects from that ground of human potential.
Stepping In: Initiatives And Opportunities At The Lab
We’ll share in the show notes for people to go and discover all those initiatives. If someone is listening right now and is curious to explore a few of the scenes you’re talking about that are on the tapestry so far, and like, “I’ve been resonating with what I’m hearing, how can I step in or connect or maybe join?” I don’t know if you could speak to a few initiatives that are going on where the door is wide open for people to connect and or join.
I can start building on that tapestry. In fact, the two of you could talk a little bit more because you’re part of that tapestry. We have a core team, which includes the founding fellows of the lab. This is one part of the tapestry. In fact, all of you here are part of that team. This is the team that’s holding the vision, it’s holding the space, and it’s taking the lead and leadership and growing and envisioning the new initiatives and opportunities that the lab brings.
There are different spaces for that. The coaching program, the One Humanity Leadership Coaching Program, is one of those. This is a program we’ve been playing with for some time now. It’s a wonderful space for those who want to become professional coaches, who really care about developing this inner landscape and inner life, and who do it deeply. Also who want to build a community that connectedness is really the thread connection with self, with others, with the earth, with the greater web of life.
That’s like really core to the lab’s experience being a space of learning and innovation. I want to capitalize on innovation because the founding fellows are one of the ways. Besides the innovation, the programs that we are building, we’re experimenting, we’re growing, and we’re doing it fast. That is important because it gives you a flavor for how we’re moving. The other thing is the executive fellows program.
This is for senior leaders and CEOs who are craving a strategic pause. There might be a place where they’re like, “I’ve done all I can here. I’ve made all the money I could, but something is just not moving. It just feels draining.” This is not a new stance, but we’re living in a very new context. Things are moving fast and quickly. I think there’s something about catching the moment about this that I feel critical, and then not just me saying, “It’s me talking to people.”
They’re like, “Yeah, but there’s just something about this time that it feels like it wants to move me.” It’s truly almost like a cosmic ecosystem effort that it’s happening everywhere, the people I’m talking with. The fellows come in not only to go deeper with themselves and clarify that next step, but also to focus on developing their scholarly voice by writing and really cultivating their thought leadership. That’s just another vehicle, the other one, which in fact I’d love for any of you to take on is the accelerator, which is a new program, super exciting, and the three of you have been working together. Maybe one of you can share a little bit about that.
Ladies, do one of y’all want to take that on?
The Accelerator is a new program of the lab. It’s really for people who are leading transformative community-based projects that are rooted in the lab’s vision, which Ina spoke to very eloquently and Bonnie did as well, of really healing and connecting our communities so that we can weave this beautiful tapestry and move forward to a more connected future. It’s a cohort-based program where leaders from all over the world will be honing projects. They’ll come in with an idea and throughout the seven-month program, they’ll hone their idea and project and bring it into the world.
Bonnie, because we’ve been going through this process of developing and growing. I think that is a unique way of building on that ease that we talked about. Everything has to be relational. This is part of the connectedness. I think part of the signature is also, going back to my food analogy, whatever the chef is preparing, it’s brought through into the food.
That’s the energy. It’s not just about what you do, but how you do it. I feel this team and the other fellows in the lab are people who are coming with a very clear intention from a place of connection and a place of love to really bring the best, but also to help meet people where people are. Remember that it’s not about the words, but it’s about the felt sense, the energy we want to put into it.
It is really about unlocking your inner capacity, but also, therefore, unlocking the true meaning or the true source of your project, because this is a very action-oriented program, meaning you are going to come up with an idea. By the end of the accelerator, for seven months, you are going to have something either ready to execute or in a place of clarity that there’s going to be very concrete action taken. This is like linking the inner with the outer, for lack of a better word, not to divide the greater polarity in the language now, but really it’s being that bridge.
From Dream To Manifestation: The Accelerator Program’s Impact
I’ll say it if I can. In using the dreaming language, one of the things that I always say about dreaming is that it’s really two steps. It’s looking inside. It’s receiving that inner vision or that inner impulse and the image of that, of what we want to fulfill in ourselves or fulfill in the world. We have to wake up, and we have to then be responsive to that.
The second step of dreaming is to bring that into tangible manifestation. What this accelerator program does is it really moves through those stages, and it helps people to dream more deeply about their project. Maybe everybody’s going to have an idea that they bring into it. How do we dream that idea so that it expands and can unfold into a much bigger and clearer vision? How to bring that to fruition.
It’s not just about what you do, but how you do it.
I want to build on one last thing. We are continuing to bring in other programs and projects as the lab grows. An important component is also the journal, The One Humanity Journal, which will really support the thought leadership development of the lab. It will be a linking hub. A connector hub for all the programs, but also for collaborations with leaders and companies and organizations and communities who really want to continue to craft their thought leadership voice, but also continue to do action research.
We are a university, and we are looking at knowledge from a broader, multiple perspective because there are so many ways to develop thought leadership that are not always in a very precise scholarly, practical way, and ways of knowledge are shaping and changing, and we want to meet that need at this time.
Thank you so much.
I hear you speak about all of these initiatives and more room for more initiatives to sprout from the lab. I hear this common image of this rooting down, this like really going inward inside of oneself as a person who is a leader in any context, and then this outward reach. It reminds me of an image I think I’ve shared with you all before, of a definition of leadership that I’ve read, which is of a leader being the first shoot on a plant.
I just keep seeing this image as I hear you speak of a little plant, a little seed lying rooting down inward and becoming very strong and very grounded and then shooting out these little sprouts as a way of reaching out into the world and offering something new, sprouting something new and continuing. I hear that in all of the labs’ initiatives.
The second step of dreaming is to bring that into tangible manifestation.
That also has a very organic feel to it, because that’s how it is moving. It’s not like a map with arrows. It’s very much a dandelion seed moving on. Part of that is also the not knowing, but also not knowing. Allowing room for that uncertainty but building on that energy because uncertainty is a tremendous creativity booster.
A Call To Leaders: Embrace Your Human Technology
Thank you so much, ladies. Ina and Bonnie, to give you the last words, what would be one word, or maybe like Mia, one image you would like to share with the people who are tuning in who feel called to be leaders, or to keep leading, or to lead wherever they are? What would be one word or one image that would encapsulate the felt sense or the energy you would like to convey?
The word sense is exactly what I was going to build on Pauline, and you said it, see this. The field has spoken for itself. My call to leaders is that if something hasn’t been working for a very long time and you keep bumping into the same place over and over, maybe the time has come for you to come to your senses in a good way, in a literal way. Come to your senses, like use and tap on this human technology, this human being, as that you are, and bring that more intentionally into leadership, and the lab is a great place for you to come and do that.
If there are needs or demands that we haven’t thought about and that you want to envision or imagine, please come as well. If you are someone who loves what we’re doing and you’re a funder or somebody who is doing other things in there in your own organization, you see a synergy, come and let’s collaborate. Collaboration is the way this space is going to grow and and I look forward to continuing to do that.
For me, just to tag onto what Ina is saying, there are a lot of different threads that can find their way into the tapestry. Just think about the thread that you have and you want to contribute to, and see how that thread, when it gets interwoven with some of these other threads, begins to create an image beyond what one of us can do by ourselves.
Thank you. It’s so beautiful and hopeful to hear you speak about this vision of the future, and really the fact that we each have our own capacity to deepen in that way and to reach out and to weave together. This has been such an inspiring conversation and such a pleasure. Bonnie, Ina, thank you so much for being our guests and joining us to kick off season three of the show.
Thank you, ladies.
Thank you.
If our listeners feel inspired to join any of these initiatives, to reach out, and to follow along with the lab’s work, how can they do that?
There are different ways you can find us on LinkedIn, like our page. It’s very simple, One Humanity Lab. I know in the show notes, you’ll have the website there. Please sign up. Also, we have a sign-up for news and updates. Do those so that we can keep in touch. I’m very active on personally very active on LinkedIn. Reach me there. Even if you have an idea, or if you’d like to contribute to the lab, or if you want to join one of the initiatives, I’m very open to collaborating. As I believe our whole team, find one member of our team and reach out to them. This is the most human way of acting. Find the most human way you feel right and connect.
DM me. I’m on LinkedIn, and people have already sent me some DMs to talk about some of the projects, and I’m super happy to talk with you.
Thank you so much to the three of you. Thank you so much to our audience for tuning in. If you enjoyed our episode, please share it with someone who would benefit from hearing this conversation. Leave a review or subscribe wherever you’re listening to your show, and we hope you’ll join us for the next episode of the One Humanity Lab podcast. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Important Links
- Dr. Ina Gjikondi on LinkedIn
- Dr. Bonnie Buckner on LinkedIn
- The Secret Mind. Unlock The Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life
- One Humanity Lab
- One Humanity Lab on LinkedIn
- One Humanity Leadership Coaching Program
- One Humanity Accelerator
- One Humanity Executive Fellows Program
- International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery
- One Humanity Lab Podcast
About Bonnie Buckner
Bonnie Buckner, PhD is the Founder and CEO of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery® and author of The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life. A creative dreamwork expert, Buckner has been teaching leaders and creatives across the globe for over two decades how to harness the power of their dreams.
Buckner’s work at the Institute brings dreamwork to individuals and organizations, helping leaders and creative professionals to enhance their creativity, learn problem-solving tools, and to discover and bring to fruition their Great Dream of Self. That work includes an extensive collaboration with George Washington University where Buckner serves as Senior Fellow and Program Lead in their One Humanity Leadership Coaching program, and where she is a co-host for the One Humanity Lab podcast.
Bonnie holds a PhD in psychology, with an emphasis in media, from Fielding Graduate University, where she also formerly served as adjunct lecturer in their Media Psychology degree program. She is a PCC-level ICF credentialed coach. Bonnie has spoken internationally on various topics including dreaming, creativity, imagination, cognition, and role of images in media and society.
About Ina Gjikondi
Dr. Ina Gjikondi is the Director of Learning Innovation & Strategic Growth at the George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Public Leadership (GW CEPL) and Founder and Director of the One Humanity Lab, a global learning and innovation hub advancing wholeness-based leadership, inner development, social impact, and cross-sector collaboration. A leadership educator, coach, and innovator, Dr. Gjikondi has spent two decades crafting transformative learning experiences that awaken leaders’ inner power, spark profound change, and help them remember their energetic wholeness, the wisdom of the Earth, and the field of Being.
At GW, she leads flagship programs including the DC Executive Leadership Program, the Youth Development Professional Certification, and the One Humanity Leadership Coaching Certification. Through the One Humanity Lab, she brings together leaders, coaches, educators, artists, and changemakers to cultivate whole-person, whole-being, and whole-system leadership; activate inner development through deep personal growth and self-awareness; elevate global consciousness for positive worldwide impact; and awaken connection to self, others, Earth, and the greater web of life. She also co-hosts the One Humanity Lab Podcast, amplifying these conversations globally.
Dr. Gjikondi holds an EdD in Human and Organizational Learning from George Washington University, along with master’s degrees in Human Resource Development and Political Management. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and has spoken internationally on leadership, transformation, intuition, and the integration of multiple ways of knowing in leadership and learning — the focus of her research.
Originally from Albania, where she worked as a lawyer, political consultant, and nonprofit founder, she continues to draw inspiration from her son, Hadrian, and shares weekly reflections in her Leadership Apothecary newsletter.