Thomas Clark Durant
“I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
― John O'Donohue
As a musician, I've created Thomas Sparks and the Fire
I write and sing the songs, supported by Anna Surento and Griff Roberts. We are currently working on our first album: “Let grief open you.” Here are three songs from that album.
As an entrepreneur, I've created Thrive Circle
Thrive Circle helps you ask yourself life-changing questions every day. And then live out the answers, step by step. Here are a few questions that are helping me change the trajectory of my life right now:
The app will be available for beta-testing this summer, and on the app stores this fall.
As a peace scientist, I designed a turn-taking institution to amplify empathy between two opposing leaders
Fostering personal trust is a foundation for improving the quality of government, which impacts many things in our world, for better and for worse. I believe that there is hope for our world to be better governed - that there are ways to build more creative, collaborative, self-regulating governments - if we do it “two by two.” These are some of my papers related to this topic:
And here’s a short video about this approach:
As a strategy consultant and executive coach, I help my clients improve their businesses
I partner with other leaders to clarify vision, diagnose challenges, design strategies and tactics, and develop other team-members by working through the challenges that arise along the way. I am fascinated by organizations that embed “two by two” leadership as their core leadership model: in particular, Toyota, the Mayo Clinic, and the Armed Forces. I apprenticed at McKinsey & Company in the DC office, from the end of 2010 to the beginning of 2016. I started my own shop, Noble Partners Consulting, in 2016.
As a teacher, I help my students learn problem-solving methodologies
I teach a class at the University of Florida called “Structuring and Solving Business Problems.” I help students learn problem-solving methodologies (or what Mike Rother calls the improvement kata) to be able to solve business problems across functions and disciplines “in the wild.”
As a father, I tumble back
and forth between shaping my kids and being shaped by them
I have two beautiful children, Pepper and Kirk. Here are some recordings of us improvising together.