Coming 4 February 2027.
You want to make a difference. But what is yours to do?
My debut book is a guided journal that helps you uncover your unique contribution to a more just and regenerative world.
“This book is an invitation to begin. Nora asks the questions I have been asking every morning for sixty years – who are you, what is your gift, what will you do with it – and she gives you the space and the time to answer them properly. I encourage you to read it slowly. Sit with it, garden with it, walk with it. And then go and sow your seed of change. The world will be better for it.”
From the foreword by Satish Kumar – peace pilgrim, ecologist, founder of Schumacher College
From overwhelm to clarity
Climate breakdown, rising inequality, a news cycle that never lets up. Caring about the world is hard. Knowing what to do with all that care is even harder – too many causes, too little time, and the nagging fear of getting it wrong.
In this guided journal, I take you step by step through clarifying your values, strengths and skills, identifying the cause you are best placed to serve, and understanding the system that keeps the problem in place. From there, you design a strategy and role that fits both a real need in the world and who you actually are – and that you can sustain without burning out.
I know that last part matters, because I did not manage it. In 2021, I was diagnosed with burnout, and had to unlearn putting myself at the end of my own to-do list. This book is shaped as much by that as by any framework.
Inside the book
Through reflections, prompts and practical exercises, the book helps you:
Build self-awaareness – clarify the values, strengths, skills and passions that determine where you will do your best work, and be able to keep doing it
See the system – understand what keeps the problem in place, and where change is actually possible
Find your place in the wider ecosystem – identify the gap you can fill, rather than duplicating what others already do well
Design your next steps – not just a role that fits a real need and who you are, but the concrete steps to get there from where you stand today
Build the resilience to sustain it – because the work is long, and burning out helps no one
It is practical, systems-informed, and sometimes confronting in its commitment to your growth – but it encourages you every step of the way.
Praise for the book
“We don’t need superheroes. We need a million ordinary people, each taking one step outside their comfort zone, and then another.”
Luisa Neubauer, Climate Activist and Author
“The questions are asked gently, asked seriously, and asked of the reader rather than answered for them.”
Carlos Álvarez Pereira, Secretary General, Club of Rome
“Nora’s gift is to bridge the inner journey of finding meaning with the outer journey of transforming our world.”
Prof. Alexander Schieffer and Dr Rama Mani, Co-founders, Home for Humanity Movement
Choose your adventure
-
A beautiful guided journal designed for you to comfortably write into, with coloured pages.
49€ -
Black and white and lighter. Travels well – good for notes, if not for long writing sessions.
29€
-
Full colour PDF, to use on a tablet or to print. Perfect if you enjoy digital writing or on printouts.
19€
-
Read the ebook and write in your own journal, using our free online templates.
9€
Explore the different options available to you depending on where you live and get full details on editions, shipping, the signed edition and frequently asked questions are on the Parayma site.
Over 25 changeworkers, five continents
The book is not only mine. Over 25 changeworkers from five continents share a glimpse of their world in its pages – artists, academics, educators, front-line climate defenders, social entrepreneurs, consultants, government workers and more.
Discover their stories in these pages.
Don’t feel like doing it alone?
Pre-order before X INSERT DATE X to receive free access to our exclusive online gathering on X INSERT DATE X! You’ll get to meet others who are on this journey too and leave more energised for the path ahead.
Upcoming events
In early 2027, I am taking the book on a launch tour to Zürich, Geneva, Paris, London, Cambridge, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lucerne, Lausanne, Bern and St Gallen.
Each event is a little different, but you can always expect inspiring changeworkers and great energy.
Would you like to host an event?
Would you like me to host a launch event, facilitate a workshop or give a talk at your venue? I am open to adding tour dates – this works particularly well for universities, co-working spaces and member organisations.
Thinking about this for more than yourself?
If you run a team, a cohort, a programme or a conference, there are three ways to bring this work to your people – and the book makes a good follow-through for all of them.
Talks · Workshops · Copies for your organisation
Three ways to work together
A talk
Twenty to sixty minutes, in person or online, adapted to your audience. Good for conferences, all-staff gatherings, lecture series and leadership offsites. I always recommend pairing a talk with at least a panel or Q&A, so people can ask questions. Pairing a talk with a workshop is ideal for integration and going deeper.
A workshop
Half or full day. Where a talk gets people thinking, a workshop gets them working – on their own context, with their own material, leaving with something written down. Best for teams, cohorts, fellowship programmes and student groups.
Either, with the book
People leave with something to continue in, rather than a good feeling that fades by next Thursday. I discount copies significantly when they accompany an engagement. A bulk order can also be placed as a gift for your team or an event without me.
What I am most often asked to speak about
-
An introduction to systems change for people who have not met it before, or who have met the words without the substance. Why so much well-intentioned work changes so little, what sits beneath the surface of any persistent problem, and how to tell which level you are actually working at. To make it actionable for everyone, I recommend reserving some time to go into how to find your own place and role within this movement. Works as a talk or as a half-day introductory workshop.
Best for: teams new to systems thinking, funders reviewing their approach, mixed audiences at conferences.
-
Most people who are informed and able to process that information right now are worried. Rightly so. But an overload of negative information can lead to overwhelm, or even despair – leaving us unable to act. Knowing what is yours to do in this Great Transition is transformative. This talk lays out a systems-informed way of clarifying that, supporting participants in reclaiming their power, and, with it, their future.
Best for: universities, graduate programmes, fellowship cohorts, employee development.
-
Not optimism, and not the kind of hope that waits. This sits in the creative tension between present reality and future potential – where things genuinely stand, what is already moving, and why despair is a worse strategy than it feels.
Best for: closing keynotes, teams running on empty, events where the programme has been heavy.
Six further talks on systems change, collaboration, inner work and agency. See them all on my speaking page.
Every talk is adapted to your audience. No two are the same.
On what this costs
I do not publish a rate, because I do not have one.
I work with the budget you have. Corporate and institutional clients pay a full fee, and that is what makes it possible for me to work with grassroots organisations for very little or nothing at all. If you have a budget, tell me what it is, and I will tell you honestly whether I can work within it. If you have almost nothing and the work matters, say so – if it would have a deep impact on your community and I can make it work, I will be there.
Copies for your team, your cohort, your delegates
A book in everyone's hands changes what a talk can do. Instead of an hour that people enjoyed, you get something they work through over the following months.
I supply copies directly for:
Teams and away days – a shared language for where you are actually trying to intervene
Conferences and summits – every delegate leaves with the continued reflection, not just the memory
Fellowship and leadership programmes – the book maps onto a ten-week arc almost exactly
Universities – as a course text, or for a whole cohort
Foundations – for grantees and community members
Discounts apply from ten copies and increase with quantity. Organisations are invoiced rather than paying by card. Tell me how many and by when, and I will send a quote.
Copies are printed to order, so please allow at least four weeks – particularly for events with fixed dates.
More praise for the book
“Nora Wilhelm offers a powerful guide to finding your path on this journey where inner transformation is inseparable from systems change.”
Nicole Schwab, Co-founder of Ostara and Author
“At a time when many people feel tired, frustrated or close to losing hope, this book offers a pathway to hope in action.”
Nolita Thina Mvunelo, Principal for Cultural Transformation at the Club of Rome
“Movements are built by countless people, each doing what is theirs to do. Finding Purpose, Seeding Change helps you find yours.”
Daniel Hires, Impact Entrepreneur and Systems Change Advisor
“I hope it gets into the hands of everyone who cares but isn’t sure what to do next.”
Daniela Papi-Thornton, Systems-led Leadership Educator and Catalyst of Systems. Change. Educators. Unite. (SCEU)
Seen on stage at
About me
Nora Wilhelm is a social entrepreneur, systems change advocate and artist from Switzerland, and has been a changemaker since her teens. Her path has taken her through activism, the Red Cross, international NGOs and the European Youth Parliament.
In 2017, she co-founded collaboratio helvetica, which she led until 2023, and she later founded the well • change atelier and Parayma, where she has helped hundreds of people find their place in building a better world.
She holds an MSt in Social Innovation from the University of Cambridge, and her work has been recognised by the UN, Forbes 30 Under 30 and the Dalai Lama Fellowship.
Finding Purpose, Seeding Change is her debut book.
This work lives and breathes from community. If you would like to pass it on, you are warmly invited to.