Ideals in Motion

Soul of Business with Blaine Bartlett - Episode 4

What if I told you that the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world? And, what if I told you there is a fashion company that is profitably changing this daily? Join me on "Soul of Business with Blaine Bartlett" as I talk with two incredible entrepreneurs that are addressing this sobering fact head-on in industry changing ways that are inspiring, innovative and profitable! Subscribe at blainebartlett.com/podcast

As it Is Within So It Is Without...

In my meditation today I focused on the following offering from Fr. Richard Rohr. It fully captures the perennial philosophy as the constant thread weaving wisdom and what we call reality together into the tapestry of our lives.

"Jesus clearly believed in change. In fact, the first public word out of his mouth was later translated into the Greek imperative verb metanoeite, which literally means “change your mind” or “go beyond your mind” (see Matthew 4:17 and Mark 1:15). Unfortunately, in the fourth century, St. Jerome translated the word into Latin as paenitentia (“repent” or “do penance”), initiating a host of moralistic connotations that have colored Christians’ understanding of the Gospels ever since. The word metanoeite referred to a primal change of mind, worldview, or way of processing and perceiving—and only by corollary about a specific change in behavior. This common misunderstanding puts the cart before the horse; we think we can change a few externals while our underlying worldview often remains narcissistic and self-referential.

This misunderstanding contributed to a puritanical, externalized, and largely static notion of the Christian message that has followed us to this day. Faith became about external requirements that could be enforced, punished, and rewarded, much more than an actual change of heart and mind, which Jesus described as something that largely happens “in secret, where your Father who sees in secret can reward you” (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18).

Jesus invariably emphasized inner motivation and intention. For example, he taught: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). Jesus made religion about interior change and “purity of heart” (Matthew 5:8) more than visible behaviors or rituals or anything that would have a social payoff or punishment.

Jesus didn’t focus on individual sin outside or over there, where we can point to it, punish it, and try to change it. That is too easy and mostly ineffective. Without making light of evil, he showed how to actually overcome and heal it. Sin, for Jesus, was the very act of accusing (Satan means “the accuser”). Whenever we try to expel and accuse others, and somehow leave ourselves or our group out of the equation, we end up “sinning.” We must first recognize our own complicity in evil before we can transform it. We see this pattern when Jesus himself was faced with three temptations to power (Matthew 4:1-11). Until we face our own demons, none of us are prepared to fight evil elsewhere.

Jesus thus stood in solidarity with individuals who were excluded, deemed unworthy, or demonized. Why? Because the excluded from any group always reveal the unquestioned idolatries of that group! He even partied with sinners and tax collectors, and the “pure” hated him for it (see Luke 15:2). The way Jesus tried to change people was by loving and healing them, accusing only their accusers. Why did we not notice that? His harshest words of judgment were reserved for those who perpetuated systems of inequality and oppression and who, through religion itself, thought they were sinless and untouchable. Jesus did not so much love people once they changed, but he loved people so that they could change."

Habit Interuptus...

We're all familiar with the adage "practice makes perfect." In fact practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes habits!

 

When I consider the ideals of my life I look at the ideals I have for me as a person, my career, my health...in short my ideals that represent all that I desire. In many areas my ideals are not manifested in ways that I would like. And, I know that the circumstances of my life are not the reason. The habits of my life are deeply embodied and many (most?) of the practices that reinforce them are out of my awareness.

 

In her book The Places that Scare You, Pema Chödrön tells us about a practice she calls “doing something different.” She writes: “Acknowledging that we are all churned up is the first and most difficult step in any practice. Without compassionate recognition that we are stuck, it’s impossible to liberate ourselves from confusion. ‘Doing something different’ is anything that interrupts our ancient habit of indulging in our emotions. We do anything to cut the strong tendency to spin out… Anything that’s non-habitual will do—even sing and dance or run around the block. We do anything that doesn’t reinforce our crippling habits. The third most difficult practice is to then remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.”

 

As I enter the new year I invite myself and you to examine our habits. What would we be well served to let go of? What would we be best served to do more of? What new habits would more elegantly move our ideals into form?

 

May this New Year be filled with your ideals coming into form and with each of our lives being expressions of excellence born of thoughtful habits that inform and give life to our most cherished ideals.

The Source of Action

Part of my morning ritual includes reading a daily meditation that is offered each morning by Fr. Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Today's meditation is very much in alignment with my work with Compassionate Capitalism and the Soul of Business and is worth sharing with you.

The Source of Action
Sunday, December 16, 2018

 

The effectiveness of action depends on the source from which it springs. If it is coming out of the false self with its shadow side, it is severely limited. If it is coming out of a person who is immersed in God, it is extremely effective. The contemplative state, like the vocation of Our Lady, brings Christ into the world. —Thomas Keating [1]

I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because I saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. Over the years, I met many social activists who were doing excellent social analysis and advocating for crucial justice issues, but they were not working from an energy of love. They were still living out of their false self with the need to win, the need to look good—attached to a superior, politically correct self-image.

They might have the answer, but they are not themselves the answer. In fact, they are often part of the problem. That’s one reason that most revolutions fail and too many reformers self-destruct from within. For that very reason, I believe, Jesus and great spiritual teachers first emphasize transformation of consciousness and soul. Without inner transformation, there is no grounded or lasting reform or revolution. When subjugated people rise to power, they often become as dominating as their oppressors because the same demon of power hasn’t been exorcised in them.

We are easily allured by the next new thing, a new agenda that looks like enlightenment. And then we discover it’s run by unenlightened people who, in fact, love themselves first of all but do not love God or others. They do not really love the Big Truth, but they often love control. Too often, they do not love freedom for everybody but just freedom for their own ideas.

Untransformed liberals often lack the ability to sacrifice the self or create foundations that last. They can’t let go of their own need for change and cannot stand still in a patient, compassionate, and humble way. It is no surprise that Jesus prayed not just for fruit, but “fruit that will last” (John 15:16). Untransformed conservatives, on the other hand, tend to idolize anything that lasts, but then avoid the question, “Is it actually bearing any fruit?” This is the perennial battle between idealism and pragmatism, or romanticism and rationalism.

If we are going to have truly prophetic people who go beyond the categories of liberal and conservative, we have to teach them some way to integrate their needed activism with a truly contemplative mind and heart. I’m convinced that once you learn how to look out at life from the contemplative eyes of the True Self, your politics and economics are going to change on their own. I don’t need to teach you what your politics should or shouldn’t be. Once you see things contemplatively, you’ll begin to seek the bias from the bottom instead of the top, you’ll be free to embrace your shadow, and you can live at peace with those who are different. From a contemplative stance, you’ll know what action is yours to do—and what is not yours to do—almost naturally.

Join me on this inaugural episode of the Soul of Business podcast. I sit with Doland White, CEO of Rapid Crush, a digital sales and marketing services firm with over a century of combined marketing & business management expertise. Their founding principle was to create a Customer First business that "puts you at the center of everything we do." They exist to "power your ambitions" and staying connected to that ethos has become the essence of Rapid Crush's success.

Glyphosate Herbicide Will Cause Half Of All Children To Have Autism By 2025

 

MIT researcher: Glyphosate herbicide will cause half of all children to have autism by 2025

 

Why? Evidence points to glyphosate toxicity from the overuse of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide on our food.

For over three decades, Stephanie Seneff, PhD, has researched biology and technology, over the years publishing over 170 scholarly peer-reviewed articles. In recent years she has concentrated on the relationship between nutrition and health, tackling such topics as Alzheimer’s, autism, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as the impact of nutritional deficiencies and environmental toxins on human health.

At a conference last Thursday, in a special panel discussion about GMOs, she took the audience by surprise when she declared, “At today’s rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic.” She noted that the side effects of autism closely mimic those of glyphosate toxicity, and presented data showing a remarkably consistent correlation between the use of Roundup on crops (and the creation of Roundup-ready GMO crop seeds) with rising rates of autism. Children with autism have biomarkers indicative of excessive glyphosate, including zinc and iron deficiency, low serum sulfate, seizures, and mitochondrial disorder.

A fellow panelist reported that after Dr. Seneff’s presentation, “All of the 70 or so people in attendance were squirming, likely because they now had serious misgivings about serving their kids, or themselves, anything with corn or soy, which are nearly all genetically modified and thus tainted with Roundup and its glyphosate.”

Dr. Seneff noted the ubiquity of glyphosate’s use. Because it is used on corn and soy, all soft drinks and candies sweetened with corn syrup and all chips and cereals that contain soy fillers have small amounts of glyphosate in them, as do our beef and poultry since cattle and chicken are fed GMO corn or soy. Wheat is often sprayed with Roundup just prior to being harvested, which means that all non-organic bread and wheat products would also be sources of glyphosate toxicity. The amount of glyphosate in each product may not be large, but the cumulative effect (especially with as much processed food as Americans eat) could be devastating. A recent study shows that pregnant women living near farms where pesticides are applied have a 60% increased risk of children having an autism spectrum disorder.

Other toxic substances may also be autism-inducing. You may recall our story on the CDC whistleblower who revealed the government’s deliberate concealment of the link between the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps, and rubella) and a sharply increased risk of autism, particularly in African American boys. Other studies now show a link between children’s exposure to pesticides and autism. Children who live in homes with vinyl floors, which can emit phthalate chemicals, are more likely to have autism. Children whose mothers smoked were also twice as likely to have autism. Research now acknowledges that environmental contaminants such as PCBs, PBDEs, and mercury can alter brain neuron functioning even before a child is born.

This month, the USDA released a study finding that although there were detectable levels of pesticide residue in more than half of food tested by the agency, 99% of samples taken were found to be within levels the government deems safe, and 40% were found to have no detectable trace of pesticides at all. The USDA added, however, that due to “cost concerns,” it did not test for residues of glyphosate. Let’s repeat that: they never tested for the active ingredient in the most widely used herbicide in the world. “Cost concerns”? How absurd—unless they mean it will cost them too much in terms of the special relationship between the USDA and Monsanto. You may recall the revolving door between Monsanto and the federal government, with agency officials becoming high-paying executives—and vice versa! Money, power, prestige: it’s all there. Monsanto and the USDA love to scratch each others’ backs. Clearly this omission was purposeful.

In addition, as we have previously reported, the number of adverse reactions from vaccines can be correlated as well with autism, though Seneff says it doesn’t correlate quite as closely as with Roundup. The same correlations between applications of glyphosate and autism show up in deaths from senility.

Of course, autism is a complex problem with many potential causes. Dr. Seneff’s data, however, is particularly important considering how close the correlation is—and because it is coming from a scientist with impeccable credentials. Earlier this year, she spoke at the Autism One conference and presented many of the same facts; that presentation is available on YouTube.

Monsanto claims that Roundup is harmless to humans. Bacteria, fungi, algae, parasites, and plants use a seven-step metabolic route known as the shikimate pathway for the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids; glyphosate inhibits this pathway, causing the plant to die, which is why it’s so effective as an herbicide. Monsanto says humans don’t have this shikimate pathway, so it’s perfectly safe.

Dr. Seneff points out, however, that our gut bacteria do have this pathway, and that’s crucial because these bacteria supply our body with crucial amino acids. Roundup thus kills beneficial gut bacteria, allowing pathogens to grow; interferes with the synthesis of amino acids including methionine, which leads to shortages in critical neurotransmitters and folate; chelates (removes) important minerals like iron, cobalt and manganese; and much more.

Even worse, she notes, additional chemicals in Roundup are untested because they’re classified as“inert,” yet according to a 2014 study in BioMed Research International, these chemicals are capable of amplifying the toxic effects of Roundup hundreds of times over.

Glyphosate is present in unusually high quantities in the breast milk of American mothers, at anywhere from 760 to 1,600 times the allowable limits in European drinking water. Urine testing shows Americans have ten times the glyphosate accumulation as Europeans.

“In my view, the situation is almost beyond repair,” Dr. Seneff said after her presentation. “We need to do something drastic.”

Link to original article: http://bit.ly/2PSfJzE

I Am....Consciousness

I AM the believer limited by my beliefs, the knower defined by the known.

The world is my conditioned consciousness objectified. That which I feel and believe to be true of myself is now projected in space as my world. The world, my mirrored self, ever bears witness of the state of consciousness in which I live.

There is no chance or accident responsible for the things that happen to me or the environment in which I find myself. Nor is predestined fate the author of my fortunes or misfortunes. Innocence and guilt are mere words with no meaning to the law of consciousness, except as they reflect the state of consciousness itself.

The consciousness of guilt calls forth condemnation. The consciousness of lack produces poverty. Man everlastingly objectifies the state of consciousness in which he abides but he has somehow or other become confused in the interpretation of the law of cause and effect.

He has forgotten that it is the inner state which is the cause of the outer manifestation!

~ Neville

It's ALL About Relationship

I have long said that the success of any organization, whether it’s a family, a society, or a business, is going to be predicated on how functionally successful the relationships that comprise the organization actually are.

Join me as I speak with my good friend Adam Markel on his Conscious PIVOT Podcast.

Avoiding Perfection

“Done is better than perfect.” ~ Anne Mollegen Smith

As a manager, one of the more typical causes of problems encountered is the all too common human desire to be perfect or to perform perfectly. Defaulting to this desire to be and do perfect will encumber the manager, their direct reports, and the organization. It’s my position that the manager is far better off (and far more effective) focusing on striving for doing and being excellent in their and other's performance rather than being perfect. There is more than just a semantic difference between the words perfect and excellent – there is also an energetically experienced difference that can either compel greater performance or stop it altogether.

When striving for perfection there is no room for error. The outcome is black or white. The performance, project, result or objective was either delivered according to specification or it wasn’t. Significantly, none of the traditional measures of perfection will typically include the question “does it work or not” as a major consideration. Rather, the question is implied on the front end and it is then assumed that what we are doing will work if it is perfect. The focus becomes perfection of design, process and/or outcome and not workability.

Functionally speaking, excellence refers to workability. Something is excellent when it performs (it works) in a way that creates minimal unintended consequences. It’s not perfect, yet is functions extremely well – it gets the job done.

The advantage to focusing on excellence is that it keeps the action moving forward – a major concern in most organizations and most definitely a focus of managements activities. Essentially, what we are doing when focusing on excellence is creating an environment for our people to live into their outcome rather than live up to an arbitrary standard of what the elements creating that outcome should be. As a manager it is useful to be familiar with some of the qualitative differences between these two performance standards.

Perfection has some extremely strong dynamics associated with it. Some are so strong that they can literally shift the focus away from performance and can stop movement altogether. Chief amongst these are the following:

• Focus on protection of a valued self image where there is no room for error
• A lifestyle that operates out of fear (i.e., not being good enough, not measuring up, being “found out”, etc.)
• Major risks are either avoided or highly calculated
• Obsession with a need to control and be “right”
• Critical judgment of self and others
• Scarcity of choices … do it by “the book” or do it “my way and to my standards”
• Focus on protecting what I’ve already got – playing not to lose vs. playing to win
• Focus on mechanism vs. creativity (although creativity is often given as the rationale)
• Primarily concerned about “looking good” … a “me” focus
• Single minded focus on the outcome only (is it perfect)
• Classic win/lose approach to relationships (i.e., “I’m right and you’re wrong”)

As an alternative, a focus on excellence is experienced as having the following attributes:

• Willingness (even a desire) to learn from mistakes. Mistakes, while maybe not welcome, are also not seen as something to be avoided…they are recognized as part of the learning process
• Action based on excitement, energy, fun, enthusiasm
• Willingness to take challenging risks
• People operate from clarity of purpose and empowerment
• Readily operating from acceptance and appreciation of differences
• Utilizing creativity and acknowledging the abundance of choice
• Dual focus on the journey as well as the results (“how” we do is as important as “what” we do)
• Concern for the greater good … an inclusionary “we” focus
• Establishes win/win based outcomes

The question for the manager is which of the two approaches is likely to be more generative? It is my position that anything the manager can do to encourage an excellence based approach to work, to the organization’s movement toward its outcomes and to living in general will ultimately produce results faster and results that are far more sustainable and welcome. For a manager to be able to draw their organization’s attention to the differences between the two approaches opens the door to far richer conversations and performance than may otherwise be possible.

Remembering the Future

“Imagination is the only weapon against reality.” ~ Lewis Carroll

“The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.” ~ Carl Jung

You can’t realize your dreams by remembering where you came from. Yet, this is what most organizations and most people habitually do when trying to change or create something new.

Very simply stated, it’s far easier to remember than it is to imagine. This distinction is important due to a phenomenon with which most are familiar. It’s a phenomenon that I call the “law of least resistance” in which a body in motion will always default to the path that offers up the least resistance. Memory and the act of remembering provides such a path.

The mind is far more than a place where rational thought, planning, abstraction and cognition occurs. Our minds are holographic repositories of a sea of experiences that are all flavored with emotions steeped in a neurochemical stew of hormones, synaptic linkages, embodied emotions, and well-traveled and robust neural pathways. As a consequence, the act of remembering can best be described as a habituated neurochemical phenomenon that occurs mostly out of our awareness. I say mostly out of our awareness because voluminous research suggests that 0nly 5% of our behavior is consciously self-regulated (see “The Unbearable Automaticity of Being”, John A Bargh & Tanya L Chartrand, American Psychologist, July 1999).

Imagination, for most adults, is a seriously atrophied faculty. Many of my clients report great difficulty in imagining a future state for themselves or their organizations that is significantly different from that with which they are already familiar. As a consequence, their futures are often only incremental improvements on what has gone before. The net of this is that their futures are uninspiring, boring, rote and devoid of true joy. They have futures that don’t make a difference! Their organizations have futures that are uninspiring and in no way compel active engagement.

What if we could imagine with the same fidelity that we experience when we remember? What if we could remember our future with the same richness of emotion, thought, hormone secretion, and synaptic linkages? This is what the effective use of imagination makes possible…it literally recalibrates the holographic mind so that a different reality – a different memory – is experienced.

Remembering the future is not a fantasy – it is a skill that is absolutely required of entrepreneurs and effective leaders. It requires discipline, practice and a willingness to make big shifts in paradigms that, for many, define and constrain what we think of as possible. It requires suspension of belief and an ability to quiet the mind in a way that makes room for the unexpected to emerge. Remembering the future is about moving an imagined possibility to an experienced probability.

Here’s a quick and simple primer…what is your 1,000 year vision – for your company and for yourself? Notice your initial reaction, your first thoughts to this question.

In Lewis Carroll’s classic Through the Looking Glass Alice and the Queen have this interchange: “I can’t believe that!” said Alice. “Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.” Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Your future and the future of your organization is in your imagination. To see, hear, taste, smell and feel it as a reality today is the challenge. Doing so positions you as a leader that can legitimately and congruently insist that the people around you behave as if that future already exists. This was the essence of Steve Jobs’ infamous “reality distortion field”. To borrow another quote from Carroll – “it’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

Random Reflections On A Sunday Afternoon...

If people can't control their own emotions then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior.

Saying something is "different" always diminishes its intrinsic value...even if the difference being described is "better". IT simply is what it is with its unique beingness having value just because of its existence.

If I think "I bought it so I must use/consume all of it." it owns me. If I bought it so that I can use/consume only what I want then I own it. Oh, the ensnaring legacy of "clean your plate"!

We can't travel back in time because time doesn't exist.

Translating the symbols of our lives into what they represent is how we approach "truth". The root of all errors of humankind is the inability to do this...believing that the "symbols" we encounter are a finite reality that have nothing behind them.

Every exterior has an interior. It's the quality of a superficial mind to be willing to be content with the outside only. As long as this remains the case it is impossible to grock the relationship to the universal. And, its the relationship to the universal that is represented by the word "truth".

Become aware that expansion from the universal center is the principle upon which the mystery is life is built and this is the key to seeing the interior of every exterior!

Life becomes richer, fuller and more harmonious in proportion to how much "inner" we make visible.

 

 

Fully Committed and Totally Detached

The difference between being committed to something and being a commitment are profound. Most people, when speaking and thinking of commitments think in terms of something outside of themselves. "I'm committed to achieving that goal" or "I'm committed to our relationship" are common examples of this. An alternative is to think and live from the context of "I AM a commitment to xxxx." This sets me up to live, act, breath, think and exist as if what I want already exists. I AM what I want!

This is a far more generative and joyful approach to life. It's an approach to living that is steeped in the recognition of the simple truth that everything that has ever existed or will ever exist already "exists". That we're not currently experiencing "it" is not an indication that "it" doesn't exist! Experiencing anything in this world is a function of my beingness. How I am being is what allows me to experience what I have in my life. When my beingness is in alignment with what I desire is when I experience "it" being manifested. My experiences today are simply the way life is organizing itself around my beingness.

Now, here's the paradox that attachment creates. My conscious desire for something is born out of the experience that it doesn't currently exist - it's missing from my experience of living! In fact, it does "exist". However, my current state of being is such that I am not experiencing it in what I think of as the present. My attachment to the form of what I want (which is reinforced by my senses saying it doesn't now exist) is what's keeping me from experiencing it as a current part of my reality. Everything about my current reality tells me that it's not here now and I "know" this because I "desire" it.  It's outside of me and as long as I remain focused on and attached to having "it" I experience my self being in lack of what I want. I am not being that one who has everything I desire!

This way of approaching life is truly a spiritual practice. It is about being rather than doing or having. It's an approach that opens me to living and acting in the present in a qualitatively different manner. It's a recognition that I have the power to manifest anything. It's simply a question of who I am committed to being rather than what I'm committed to having. Putting this ideal into practice is not something I commit to doing...it's who I commit to being.

A Man of Knowledge...

As related by Don Juan to Carlos Castaneda...

A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it;
and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows.

He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon;
he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere;
he knows, because he sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly.

Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control.

Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him.

His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern.

A Mission With A Business or A Business With A Mission?

Patagonia famously ran this advertisement in the New York Times on Black Friday 2011 as a way of encouraging its customers (and others) to question their "need" to buy something new. This was not an isolated publicity stunt. It has on numerous occasions made decisions steeped in and informed by its mission of environmental sustainability that many in the business community thought were actually detrimental to the business. To quote from their company blog: "It would be hypocritical for us to work for environmental change without encouraging customers to think before they buy."

Starbuck’s closed 7,100 of their domestic U.S. stores in 2008 at a cost by some accounts of almost $10 million to reconnect their store partners (as their employees are called) with the company’s value proposition. The investor and business communities were extremely critical of this move. However, as CEO Howard Schultz explained in a video played to launch the session in each store, “This is not about training. This is about the love and compassion and commitment that we all need to have for the customer.” It was the opening move in a long term process of recapturing the company's founding spirit - its link to its mission.

I cite these two examples of very well-known large businesses to illustrate a point – they are by far the exception rather than the rule for how businesses mature. Almost every business begin with a founder’s idea to bring something to market that they believe will benefit life on this planet in some way small or large. They begin with a mission fueled by passion and spirit and then a business is developed to further that mission. If their mission strikes a chord and finds a receptive welcome in the marketplace the business begins to generate revenue and then, if managed well, will begin to show a profit. So far so good. And…in this success, hidden from the awareness of almost everyone, the seeds of their eventual demise have begun to take root.

At some point the leaders, the founders, the managers, the employees, the investors, really almost everyone, begins to pay attention to the business. How is it doing? Are we making our numbers? Are our margins holding up? What are the comps telling us? Are our investors happy? What is the competition doing? How about our share price? Are we well positioned for an IPO (or other liquidity event)?

These questions are all organized around a paradigm that is concerned almost exclusively with insuring that the life and well-being of the business is paramount in everyone’s mind. Notice that the questions that are less and less frequently asked as these organization mature are questions that invite examination of the delivery of the original mission of the organization. Rather than being a mission with a business, the organization has morphed into a business with a mission.

The consequences of this evolution are not to be dismissed as simply a distinction of linguistics. When the organization’s attention shifts from the honoring and delivery of the mission as the ultimate test of the organization’s viability to one of a focus on the care and feeding of the organization itself things change.  What is given priority shifts. Resources are allocated differently. The result is evidenced in what we see every day in most organizations – the building of silos, breakdowns in communication, distrust of other's motives, disengagement of employees, strategies and tactics designed to “maximize profits”, diminishing morale and short term (quarterly) thinking. The catalyzing, passion producing sense of spirit that is informed by and connected to the founding mission is missing!

Most “fixes” that are entertained to address these issues do nothing to reconnect the organization, its people, it’s stakeholders or the consumers of its products or services to the original spirit of the mission that was the raison d’etre for the organization’s founding in the first place. As a matter of fact, this founding spirit or mission has been missing for so long for many organizations that it may be almost impossible to rediscover or recover.

Leadership that is expressed as a co-creative process steeped in Spirit can reconnect stakeholders to this spirit. Doing so requires approaching both the activity of leadership and the activity of business with very different mindsets. First, it’s a mindset that declares business to be a spiritual discipline, the purpose of which is to enhance the quality of being alive for all that encounter it. The purpose of business is not to make a profit! The purpose of business is to express the founding mission! And this mission is always life enhancing – otherwise it would never have achieved any traction in the marketplace. Secondly, it's a mindset that looks to leaders that are exemplars of what it means to be merchant priests! These are leaders that hold space for a higher ideal to emerge. They question differently, they invite engagement differently, they frame possibilities differently, they prioritize differently and, ultimately, they keep the spirit of the founding mission foremost in the collective mind of the organization.

The Co-Creative Nature of Leadership

When stripped of the behavioral characteristics, the personality distinctions, and the situational competencies typically used to describe a leader, what one is left with is movement – leaders cause movement, they cause change. Leadership is defined for the purposes of this brief paper as being the activity of co-creating the movement necessary to generate the actions required in order to produce desired results. The activity of co-creation is central to this definition and is important because nothing is ever created absent a relationship of some type. Leaders can never unilaterally cause movement. Change only occurs when something has moved in relation to what was before. It requires two (or more) to be part of the process.

It is in this sense that leadership must be seen as being foremost a relational activity. It is not an exaggeration to assert that the quality of the myriad relationships found in organizations is an accurate litmus of the likelihood of the organization’s long term success. These relationships include the obvious interpersonal relationships that are readily and objectively visible. Perhaps more importantly, they also include the subjective relationships that are not so visible – the relationships that individuals have with such things as values, work processes, goals and objectives, vision, mission, self, spirit, parking places and office layouts. To the degree that all these varied relationships that are present in any system are working well, the system has a pretty good chance of being successful. Being unaware of and consequently not attending to these objective and subjective relationships will limit any leader’s effectiveness dramatically.

In today’s rapidly changing world it must be understood that the difficulty people and organizations have with change is seldom with the change itself. The true difficulty is with the difficulty people have in dealing with the disruption to the myriad relationships that the change causes. Learning to lead within this context requires a fundamentally different educational approach. It’s not enough to simply teach to a set of situational or generic leadership competencies. Relationships are much too fluid and complex to be held hostage to such a competency framework. Rather, leaders today need to learn what it means to co-create. They and their organizations need to disabuse themselves of the legacy paradigm of the leader as the one “in charge”.

Co-creation requires a different paradigm – a paradigm organized around connection and which includes skills steeped in Awareness, Communication Mastery, Trust, Ownership, and Context. This new skill set is informed by the domains of Spirit, Time/Space, Mind, and Personal Mastery as its core.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of tomorrow’s leader will be measured not only by the results they produce but by the beauty and elegance by which those results are co-created and delivered. Beauty in this model is linked to the Platonic virtue of Beauty as being the result of a spiritual co-creation. It becomes the measure of relationships that are designed to thrive rather than merely survive. Wherever we find Beauty there is an enormous reserve of power behind it.

For a deeper exploration of this model please join me on February 17-19 in Los Angeles as I deliver Fourth Dimensional Leadership live with my good friend Bob Proctor!

Our Ideals Are At Enormous Risk...

The rallies and protests occurring in the wake of Trump’s election victory are understandable...the aspirational future of the millennial generation has been shaken to its core.

Electoral Map based on voters 18-25 of age.

 

In this Presidential election the following happened:

• The Democratic party sacrificed its legitimacy by looking to create a future based on the past and by selecting a candidate that, however much she was qualified, did not connect the present to a future that was inspirationally different for those that needed to hear it.
• The Republican party embarrassed and immolated itself by aligning behind rhetoric and ideas that were designed to appeal to the lowest emotional denominator (fear, loss, and anger) and by “aspiring” to maintain a rigid ideology based on exclusion, control, retention of power, and dominance.
• Trump sacrificed the country’s ideals and its standing in the world by claiming the ability to recreate a future based on aspects of the past that are not only not sustainable but are also no longer tenable.
• The disenfranchised rural white voter who made Trump’s election possible sacrificed their children’s future by looking to create a future based on elements of a past that is not retrievable and that, if achieved, would doom their children and grandchildren.
• The millennial generation (18-25) put its future at risk by allowing it's future to be defined by the past (Make America Great Again). Clinton’s message, while in many ways aligned with Bernie Sanders’ message, was not inspirational or even appealing.
• The 4^th and 5^th Estates (the media – both traditional and social) lost their legitimacy by abdicating their roles as a check and balance to political pandering. They have essentially becoming unabashed propaganda tools.

The country is in great danger of losing its connection to the ideals that truly make us great by allowing its future to be defined by others using hoary platitudes about its great past. What makes this country great – what’s always made this country great – is its forward looking aspirational ideals of inclusion, innovation and the possibility that anyone can realize their dreams. We are a nation of immigrants and sons and daughters of immigrants who aspire to greatness. We aspire to greatness by dreaming of futures that don’t currently exist. We don’t aspire to greatness by looking backwards.

The “past” has had its time. The “past”, while creating much that is positive, has screwed up far too much in the last 75 years to be a place to which we return. A return to what was ensures a continued slide towards the eventual annihilation of ourselves as well as many other species. Current estimates are that 50 percent of all species on the planet are possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century unless something is done immediately. I’m mindful of something Eihei Dogen, the founder of Japanese Soto Zen, said. To paraphrase…we are living out “one continuous mistake.”

Today, there are four major trends that are in play and that we need to become acutely aware of:

1) For the first time in 500 years being born white no longer confers privilege

2) Gender equality is here and males, particularly white males are no longer the default dominants

3) Western culture no longer dictates world affairs

4) The locus of real power has essentially moved from nation states to multi-national corporate states

Without doubt, these trends have evoked great fear, anger and resentment. One of the hallmarks of all change is that it’s far easier to identify with what is being lost than with what may be gained. It is precisely why white rural males feel they have the most to lose. And, not just them. These trends directly affect how we answer fundamental questions of identity – “who am I?” and “where do I belong?”.

The brain process information in very specific ways, sorting for indications of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. When the answers to these questions of identity are in doubt behavior is often reactive. The biology of the organism is always defaulting toward survival and away from perceived threat. BREXIT is a British version of the same processes, as is France’s Le Pen and the rise of the Identitarian movement.

In the words of futurist Stephan Schwartz, “the only thing that will diffuse these trends is for group consciousness to recognize that we must make wellbeing our social priority, and each of us must consistently take the life-affirming compassionate option in the quotidian choices of our day.”

I take encouragement from knowing that almost 50 million Americans embraced the message of moving forward together, seeing the importance of equality, inclusion, dreams and fairness. More people voted for that message than voted for Trump’s message of fear, regression and division. The challenge ahead of us is to ensure that wellbeing for all is our social and political priority. March and protest if we must. Our collective futures are at stake. While doing so, we must find ways to bring the hard edge of compassion to bear in our defense of the ideals that make us great. This requires inclusion and heartful listening. It’s difficult to be inclusive and to find common ground with those that seem and behave so fearfully – and this applies to be both sides of the issue. It’s here that a Sufi saying makes great sense…"a master finds great excitement in great disappointment." We need to become excited masters of our ideals and not victims of what we think is wrong.

The Governor asked a teacher:  I have read in the scripture the following and I do not know what it means. “A boat driven by unfavorable winds drifts towards the land of the demons.”  Please explain it to me.

The teacher responded: What kind of ninny asks such a stupid question!

The Governor visibly stiffened and turned red with rage.

The teacher said:  A boat driven by unfavorable winds drifts towards the land of the demons. The Governor’s demeanor suddenly changed as he got some understanding.

I’ll conclude this blog post with an invitation to take a moment and listen to this old 1973 song from my favorite singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen who died on November 10…

 

Language and "Reality" Creation...

"My obligation right now is to do well for (1)myself, (2)my family, (3)my employees, (4)for my companies. And that's what I do." ~ Donald Trump, Presidential Debate, 9/26/16. (Emphasis and highlighted numbers are mine)

 

Leaders create “reality” in a lot of different ways. Primary amongst these is by their use of language. Language is used by individuals to both to communicate ideas and to signal to others what’s important to them at the level of values. A very simple way to consider the relationship between language and reality is that language is a reflector of as well as a creator of reality.

Language is a reflector of reality in so much as it provides a window into the value structure of the individual speaking. The values one aligns with internally are reflected in the outer world in words that are consistently used, habituated behaviors, and in the way priorities are delineated. Language also sends signals to the speaker’s unconscious mind about what fits or doesn't fit with their internal way of organizing information. Information that matches their paradigm of who they are and where they “belong” in the world is allowed in and that which doesn’t match is filtered out and/or assigned a much lower priority of significance or relevance. In this way language is also a creator of reality because the resulting behaviors and priorities one subsequently exhibits are the building blocks used in the creation of their explicitly manifested external reality.

Because of the collaborative nature of leadership, highly effective leaders need to be altruistic to a significant degree. This is particularly true of those that aspire to public office. This means they subjugate the natural human urge to take care of #1 first. Models of this type of leader are Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Churchill, and Lincoln. This is a learned trait and those aligning behind a presumed leader would do well to observe that leaders historical use of language as well as their historical behavior in this light.

Consider the above quote by Donald Trump – which is typical of almost everything he has ever publicly said or represented. At 70 years of age he is extremely unlikely to change this view of his reality – it is a “go to” orientation in which he is well practiced. It is so well practiced that it is habitual and ingrained in who he is. As a consequence, the Republic could well be in danger. Substitute “country” for companies and “citizens” for employees and you will recognize a disturbing personal reality – the welfare of both are relegated to positions behind self and family. Contrast his words with those of Kennedy in 1961 “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” or Franklin Roosevelt saying in 1932 “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” and the difference is as starkly visible as night is from day. He comes first. To expect a different reality would be foolish.

Reflective of his internal reality also is his consistent and aggrandizing self-referencing through the use of the personal pronoun “I”. It is not a stretch in any way to assert that, from his perspective and in his reality, the world revolves around him. Sacrifice, if and when it is required, will be prioritized in reverse order insuring that “myself” is the last to have to give up anything. There is ample evidence in his history to ground this assertion in fact.

When we consider the egalitarian ideals upon which this country was founded the potential for egregious conflicts of interest are manifold were he to become President. We saw this with Richard Nixon in the 1960’s, we saw this with Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister of Italy in the 1990’s and, perhaps most glaringly, we saw this with Hitler in the 1930’s and 40’s. With all of these examples the consequences of their leadership ranged from consequential to catastrophic.

The adroit use of the language of fear and loss as a rallying cry is explicitly designed to tap into the base survival emotions that all of us possess. The problem with using fear and loss as organizing principles is that they are contractive emotions that make it difficult for reason and logic to overcome. We pull back to defend, we exclude and raise barriers that fence us in while we hope to keep imaginary adversaries at bay. From this contractive and defensive position it is difficult if not impossible to move forward; it is difficult if not impossible to collaborate and cooperate effectively; it is difficult if not impossible to be creative, idealistic or generous.

There is a well-known aphorism that states that energy follows attention. Our energy and spirit as a nation is being misdirected and sapped by leaders that aspire to do what is good for them or their party (family) at the expense of the common weal. The increasing lack of civility in our public discourse is not accidental. It reflects how we are being spoken to by those we are allowing to stake out positions of leadership. This acceptance is creating a reality that is at odds with who we aspire to be – as a nation and as individuals. We, all of us, need to demand to be spoken to and about with respect. There is a leadership “law” I’ve coined that states that “people will give you what you settle for.” Reality is ours to create. We can’t afford to settle for less than the ideals we aspire to.

Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business

I am absolutely THRILLED to let you know that my new book Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business has just been released. We are “launching” the book in two phases – a soft launch designed to promote visibility followed by a more traditional hard launch near the end of July.

In support of our soft launch I would love and greatly value your support…

The book is initially available on Amazon during this soft launch as an e-book (hard copy comes later). Our publisher has reduced the book’s price to 99 cents for a limited time during this phase because we want to get as many “paid” reviews as possible. These types of reviews are crucially important in the “Amazon world” in order to raise the books visibility.

It would mean a lot to me if you could take a moment to download the book and leave a review.  The book will only be available at this reduced price for the duration of this soft launch, so if you could download it within the next two weeks (for vacation reading!), that would be great.

Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GOUOWFS

Thanks for considering this favor…I truly think you’ll love the book. I do, and early endorsements have been amazing!

Capitalism Is Dead; Long Live Capitalism

On April 26, 2016 an article titled “A Majority of Millennials Now Reject Capitalism, Poll Shows” appeared in the Washington Post. The article cited a Harvard University survey which polled young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 – the Millennials. The survey found that 51 percent do not support capitalism while only 42 percent supported it. This suggests that today’s youngest voters are more focused on the flaws of the world’s most dominant economic model and of free markets in general. A subsequent survey comprising people of all ages found that older Americans are also skeptical of the benefits of capitalism. The only age group with a majority supporting capitalism were those 50 years old or older. Clearly, something is afoot.

A second data set worth noting is focused on global demographic trends and comes primarily from a lengthy U.S Census Bureau report titled “An Aging World: 2015.” Here are just three of the findings that I think are most relevant:

• The world will by the end of this decade have more people over the age of 65 than it has children under the age of 5. This is unprecedented in human history!
• By 2050, for every 100 working-age (20-64) people, there will be almost 80 children and retirees who will require support. The problem with this is most of the children are going to be in Africa and the arc around the Indian Ocean while most of the retirees will live in the developed world and China.
• China will be the first nation to grow old before it grows rich, a phenomenon that has serious destabilizing implications.

The economic implications of these data are significant and sobering. Economics is the study of scarcity and how it is managed. Since humans first appeared on the scene we’ve managed scarcity by having more children and putting them to work. That is ending. Current world wide fertility trends suggest that most of the world will soon be reproducing at below replacement rates. With shrinking numbers of consumers (the elderly don’t buy and the young are fewer and fewer) and a static amount of goods and services available due to accelerating depletion of finite resources for production the “natural” economic response will be falling prices – deflation. For a global economic model – capitalism – based on and driven by ever increasing consumption and in which success is measured by profit and shareholder return this is a looming catastrophe of epic proportions.

Capitalism as it is currently practiced has to change. Curious about what was behind his initial polling results John Della Volpe, the polling director for the Harvard study cited above subsequently interviewed additional young people to learn more about their antipathy toward capitalism. The findings he said indicated that “They’re not rejecting the concept (of capitalism). The way in which capitalism is practiced today in the minds of young people – that’s what they’re rejecting.”

In my new book Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business I and my co-author David Meltzer outline a cogent plan for a different way to practice capitalism. And we do so without throwing the baby out with the bath water. The book chronicles the undeniable benefits of capitalism in a very compelling manner. We also mince no words in detailing where it has gone catastrophically wrong.

What’s exciting to me is the call to action embedded in the book. The linking of an alternative economic model –  Compassionate Capitalism – to a life force that pervades the universe takes us back to the original intent behind Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand. It’s a call to action that speaks to the best of who we are as a species – it speaks to the soul that Aristotelian philosophy considered to be the animating or vital force inherent in all living things. It’s a call to action that, if heeded, may just be the antidote to a cancerous malaise that threatens not only our world but us as a species.

The book is due out in late June…be one of the first to get a copy!

The "Invisible Hand" Revisited

Capitalism was, as are all such ideas, sourced from an ideal – in this case the “Invisible Hand” of enlightened self interest espoused by Adam Smith. It was an ideal that, in part, considered self to be connected to a greater whole. Capitalism’s growth, because it was subject to relatively few restrictions, was immediate and spectacular. Over time the ideal that was at its core became more and more hidden. Its “purpose” was hijacked by forces that found it could be used and leveraged for more personal, more selfish ends…a rational self interest championed by Ayn Rand and others that considered self to be wholly autonomous and separate.

When we begin to explore the nature of unity steeped in a secular world view of separation questions are unavoidably evoked. What place does the notion that all on this planet – indeed all in the Universe – are fundamentally and irrevocably connected potentially occupy? What is the discourse, the narrative, that will invite those with a vested interest in maintaining the illusion of separation to step into a conversation of another possibility? What are the costs of not having such conversations? Answering these questions requires us to move beyond a very real conflict between divergent world views.

As a way to approach answering these question one would do well to consider that in conflict there is no connection. Rather than searching for ways to cease conflict a more workable approach is to explore how connection can be recognized and leveraged. Considering connection as an outcome vs. peace as an outcome opens us to other possibilities. Acting “as if” we are connected prior to discovering the ground for connection may actually cause our connections to become viably visible.

We can look at this way of being as an experiment in ontological design. By organizing our ways of interacting around a presumption of connection we design ourselves to be connected. We creatively and intentionally develop our environments in ways that design us as the highest expression of a consciousness of abundance and connection. This is the “Invisible Hand” in action.

The "True" Purpose of Business

Today, the default focus for almost every business in operation on the planet is the creation of profits. This focus is so pervasive in the paradigm that defines business that it has become gospel that the purpose of business is to make a profit (a tip of the hat to Milton Friedman). Ever increasing quarterly returns are the metric by which success is assessed; ROI is a sacred litmus test for any activity; company “value” as measured by both market cap and price to earning (P/E) ratios has become for many the default ways by which investment quality and the quality of the business itself is measured. This has created a destructive reinforcing cycle that compromises – even negates – what I believe is the true purpose of business.

The true purpose of business is to uplift the experience of existing. It is not to make owners wealthy, it is not to produce ever cheaper goods and services, it is not to keep an avaricious and toxic economic model afloat, and it is certainly not (with no apology to Milton Friedman) to make a profit.

Business is the most pervasive and influential force on the planet today. Its activities transcend national and international borders. Its activities are not unduly constrained by financial, political, cultural, ethnic or religious concerns. The net of this is that business, as the most pervasive and influential force on the planet, has a moral responsibility to husband, enhance, value, and nourish the existence of all that it encounters. Today the absolute opposite of this occurs. Business today seldom assesses the efficacy of its activities through the lens of anything but profit.

Because it touches literally everything on the planet the activity of business rises to a level approaching that of a spiritual undertaking. I mean this not in any woo-woo sense however. Rather, I mean this in the very pragmatic sense that acknowledges that everything on this planet – organic/inorganic, sentient/non-sentient – is connected in subtle but profound ways that can only be fully appreciated through a lens of spiritual compassion. Harmful acts or ennobling acts undertaken by business affects everything and everyone on the planet in some fashion. Nothing we encounter is separate and isolated from the whole. We live in and on a closed system that is fully and symbiotically integrated. Consequently we and everything else on this planet we call home are dependent on the viability of each constituent part.

Because business is nothing less than a spiritual discipline it requires the same integrity, commitment, intentionality, courage, discipline and compassion as any other spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines honor life in all of its forms as having innate and intrinsic value simply because it exists. It's the honoring of this intrinsic value – the ennobling of this value – that is called forth when we approach business as a spiritual undertaking. To do less with such a powerful force dooms all of us.

(Excerpted from my upcoming book Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business)

 

Your Goals Are Keeping You Stuck!

All businesses set goals – financial goals, productivity goals, expansion goals, sales goals. Most people set individual goals – weight loss, income increases, new and/or better “things”. And, as we approach every New Year many of us also set New Year’s resolutions. Here’s the problem with this…most people don’t have a clue what the purpose of a goal truly is. It’s not, as many think, to obtain anything. Yet most businesses and individuals continue to set goals under the misguided notion that doing so enables them to have more and that having more is desirable. In actuality, most goal setting activities keep businesses and individuals stuck in versions of an existing status quo and are instrumental in preventing them from truly achieving anything of note.

The true purpose of a goal is to grow not to get!

When examined honestly most of the goals we set today – whether business or personal – are set within a context of already knowing how to achieve them. They are set with a strong reference to past achievements or progress and, often times, are set in response to other’s urging – shareholder’s expectation for returns on their investment or cultural criteria for attractiveness being great examples. Goals set in this manner ensure that, at best, we achieve only incremental improvement over what we had before. Indeed, using our past as a primary reference for goal setting creates a future that is tied to that past.

If you already know how you’re going to achieve your goal there is no growth involved. At best all you’re doing is exercising and further developing a known competency. There are no new competencies being developed or capacities being expanded. The unknown is where learning and growth occurs. The unknown is uncomfortable and it’s only outside of the comfort zone that growth is possible. Goals should make you feel uncomfortable and they will if they involve growth. Goals set in this manner should be a break from what was and, done well, the goal setter will have no clue about how to achieve this kind of goal.

Setting goals in the way most people and organizations go about it keeps us stuck in a way that ensures life and work become mundane and rote. When we look at the causes of employee disengagement in the workplace (upwards of 90% according to latest Gallup surveys) lack of meaningful work ranks near the top. Human beings want to grow. We want to excel, we want to contribute in ways that allow us to feel unique and valued, we want the ways we spend our life’s energy to be meaningful. We want to have our breath taken away! Ultimately, we all want to feel exhilarated at the prospect of living inside our own skins. Well designed goals make this possible – goals that are designed to foster growth as opposed goals that are designed to acquire.

Goals designed for growth are formulated from different questions than are typically used from goals designed for acquisition. Instead of “what do I want?” being the starting point we begin with questions such as “what problem needs to be solved that would best utilize who I am?”; “how do I need to be different in order to be fully alive?”; “how do I want the world to be in 1,000 years and how do I need to be in order to have that happen?”. We don’t know how to achieve the answers to these questions because there is no single “right” answer. Knowing the answer to “how?” is a sure sign that the goal isn’t this type of goal. We grow as we attempt to come to grips with the implications of the questions – parts of me that have been under utilized begin to be relevant and I become uncomfortable. What a great way to live!

An Antidote To Insanity...

A definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing you’ve always done and expecting to achieve different results. Looking around the world today it strikes me that the human race is acting as if it is certifiably insane.

The response to the perceived upsurge in terrorism is to bomb the shit out of “them”. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

The response of politicians to an increase in immigration is to close the borders to keep “them” out. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

The response of business leaders to shareholder demands for ever increasing returns is to squeeze the most from the most vulnerable while ignoring the social and environmental costs. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

The response to followers of almost all religions is to exorcise and damn the “unfaithful”. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

The response to anybody that dares be different by challenging the sacred status quo is to pillory and shame. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

The response to any challenge to the presumed absolute rightness our cherished (and always made up) beliefs is to condemn, name call, castigate, marginalize, ostracize, punish, imprison and sometimes kill the transgressor. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

The response to the problems facing humankind and life is to blame and say it’s “their” responsibility. How is that different from what humankind has done since the dawn of time?

What if we did…what if you did, what if I did…something different? What if we “pretended” that everything and everyone were connected…not metaphorically but as a matter of fact.

What if embraced the scientific fact that there are no races within human beings? What if we reached out to all with compassion and love?

What if we let go of fear? What if we knew in our heart that fear, not hate, is the opposite of love?

What if we accepted that all viewpoints – truly, all viewpoints – have some basis for validity? What if we taught our children based on science and not on political or religious dogma?

What if we truly tried to live the core values the great masters have taught for millennia when confronted with difficult decisions.

What if we decided that being naïve had merit and that there was nothing and no one we needed protection from.

What if we acted as if we were enough? What if we pretended there was no heaven or hell to aspire to or to avoid?

What if we stopped imposing our values and beliefs on others? What if we actually behaved as if we weren’t being “victimized” by anyone or anything?

What if we embraced the notion that all life matters? What if we pretended we - you and me - mattered? What if "I AM" is all that there is or ever will be?

What if we pretended to be not insane?

The Buddhist Priest Who Became a Billionaire Snubbing Investors

This is a great example of Compassionate Capitalism in pragmatic action!

If this 83-year-old billionaire is right, one of the most important lessons of business school is pretty much wrong. He’s used his philosophy to establish electronics giant Kyocera Corp. more than five decades ago, create the $64 billion phone carrier now known as KDDI Corp., and rescue Japan Airlines Co. from its 2010 bankruptcy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-04/the-no-1-business-rule-of-this-billionaire-and-buddhist-priest

Don't Do Anything...Just Stand There!

How does stillness generate activity?

I'm reminded of what Michael, the protagonist in Robert Heinlein's classic science fiction book Stranger in a Strange Land would say – “waiting is full”.

Stillness is a containment vessel that quickens what is held. Paradoxically, stillness is also a very mindful activity. In one sense, stillness can be seen as similar to the pause between inhalation and exhalation in the breathing cycle. Without the stillness of the pause, no action in either direction is possible. Without the pause newness does not emerge.

The notion of stillness generating creativity and activity has import personally as well as organizationally. In today’s business world the maxim of “he who hesitates is lost” has been fully integrated into exhortations to be first to market, to be constantly vigilant (Intel's Andy Grove’s notion that "only the paranoid survive") and to swim like sharks (which will drown if they stop moving). Trying to get a manager, a leader or a team to take a full day to become still enough to examine where they are, who they’ve become and where they are going is increasingly difficult. It takes courage, discipline and intention to become still when there are so many stimuli demanding our attention. Yet, without periodically and intentionally becoming still in order to examine these questions we run a very great risk of losing connection with that which gives meaning to what we are doing. And, without meaning we invite burnout, disease and emotional disengagement – the number one cause of lost productivity and employee turnover in the world.

Stillness invites and encourages reconnection. It is necessary to the process of sustainability. Stillness is a meaning filling activity.

Where Is Culture?

 

Peter Drucker famously said that “…culture will eat strategy for lunch.” And, indeed it will. As a consequence, much of the leadership development and change management work in organizations is oriented toward the changing or development and subsequent care and feeding of “culture”. Unfortunately, many if not most, culture change initiatives bear little to no tangible fruit. Why is this so?

I believe the reason culture change is difficult is that most leaders – and most of the consultants that advise them – don't understand what culture is or where it comes from. Consequently, a lot of change activities that are undertaken are focused on areas that have little to nothing to do with the emergence and presence of a specific culture. 

Culture exists as a phenomenon of relationship. Culture is not a “thing” that can be seen, touched, smelled or tasted yet it is very real. It is the defining context that provides meaning to every encounter and every activity individuals undertake in an organization.

To fully appreciate what I mean when I say that culture is a phenomenon of relationship we need to acknowledge a simple truth. Despite what the Supreme Court says, organizations (companies) don’t actually exist! Oh sure, there are buildings, contracts, legal documents, brochures, desks and logos and all manner of other physical “things” that can be pointed to as evidence of a company’s existence. One can even cite the intangibles (good will and brand). But these don’t constitute a company. And, certainly none of these things are the source of an organization’s culture.

Organizations are nothing more (and nothing less) than a collection of individuals who are in relationship. They are in relationship with other individuals, with vendors and customers, with work process, with compensation packages, with rules and regulations, with notions of fairness and success, with ideas such as vision, value and mission, with goals and titles and roles, and with desks, parking spots and computers. They are in relationship with literally anything and everything they encounter within the domain of the organization.

It is the aggregate nature and quality of all of these myriad relationships that give birth to culture. It is these varied relationships that form the culture that determines what behaviors are appropriate and tolerated, how work is done, who “owns” results, how much accountability and responsibility is taken or shared or avoided, and what it “feels” like in the organization.

In order to transform a culture the focus needs to be on shifting the nature of the relationships that individuals have with what and who they encounter in the organizational domain. This is where the true work is done. This is where the challenge is. And, this is where leaders need to develop the competency of creating and maintaining high quality relationships. Relationships that give rise to cultures that value the kind of coordinated movement needed to produce the actions necessary to get desired results.

Culture is a phenomenon of relationship...and treating it as such provides fertile ground for truly causing meaningful change.

Success...Turns Out It Isn't What We Thought It Would Be

Earl Nightingale once said that "success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal." With this simple definition great possibilities are made manifest. Unfortunately, many people don't ever take the time to develop a worthy goal or ideal for which to strive - they default to wanting what those around them have achieved. As such, their "success" in life is limited to what they observe others having, doing or being. This is true of individuals as well as organizations. Success for these individuals and organizations is externally not internally defined.

If we find ourselves striving for goals that others have decided are important we lose ourselves...we lose our dreams...and we lose the ideals that would have made our life an extraordinarily meaningful experience.

With all due respect to Mr. Nightingale I would like add to his definition by saying that success in life is based on developing the capacity to continuously start over. What is it that I need to let go of? What would be valuable to hold on to? What do I need to learn?

Letting go is extremely difficult for most people and almost all organizations. For many, the way success is thought of is that it's about discovering the "right way" to achieve and then repeating versions of that "right way" over and over again. Letting go of what we have come to believe is the "right way" to do or achieve is truly difficult. Our identities are tied up in these behaviors and deliberately letting go leaves us with the experience of having nothing to count on. That's an experience that most will avoid at all costs.

Let's take a look at a real life example...our modern capitalist economic model. There is no denying that capitalism has been successful.

• wealth has been created
• standards of living uplifted
• education has been provided
• technology has flourished
• levels of violence are at historic lows

It would seem foolish to let go of what has made all of this progress possible. However, there is a toxic and ugly underbelly that is becoming increasingly more visible.

• the environment is being despoiled at an alarming and possibly irreversable rate
• climate change is more and more obvious and destructive
• wealth disparity is creating social unrest
• the ever increasing consumption needed to fuel economic growth is not sustainable
• short term economic objectives are creating increasingly dangerous long term results

In his recent Encyclical Laudato Si' Pope Francis says: "It is not enough to balance the protection of nature with financial gain, or the preservation of the environment with progress. Halfway measures simply delay the inevitable disaster. Put simply, it is a matter of redefining our notion of progress. A technological and economic development which does not leave in its wake a better world and an integrally higher quality of life cannot be considered progress."

We need to redefine a "worthy goal or ideal" for which to strive in ways that include all life on this planet. We need to exercise our capacity to "start over" by letting go of what's not working and learning new ways of conducting ourselves as a species. Success has always been ours to achieve. Unfortunately, for many it's not what we thought it would be. We need to be intelligent and mindful in our defining of what success is.

Authenticity As A Conversation

Literature is full of references to speaking from the heart. Mystics, philosophers and religious leaders have all referenced for millennia the importance of linking our words to that which we deeply value; to that which is core to our being.

We call this being authentic. It's about being true to your dreams and your ideals when you invoke declarations that call the future into being. All of this is thought of as merely an act of communication. What if it were more? What if there was a biological link that the ancient sages drew upon that makes “speaking from the heart” more than an aphorism?

The heart and tongue muscles are the same in their physical makeup. Our ancestors noted this when consuming game. Both were held out as prized pieces of the kill. Embryologists long ago documented what occurs developmentally as the fetus matures over time. The heart is the first organ to form (it is beating by the 23rd day); immediately following is the development of the mouth and tongue (by the 28th day). Tellingly, the tongue develops directly from cells that come from the heart. Both are inordinately endowed with strength – the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body and the heart is capable of feats of stamina that are truly awe inspiring.

When we lose (or forget about) this connection our lives are impoverished. We sacrifice our heart's desires by not speaking our truth. Truly, in today's fast paced world with all of its distractions, temptation and demands we risk much when we allow our heart to lose its voice.

My heart and tongue were twins at once conceived,
Th'eldest was my heart, born dumb by Destiny,
The last my tongue, of all sweet thoughts bereaved:
Yet strung and tun'd to play heart's harmony.
Both knit in one and yet asunder placed:
What heart would speak the tongue doth still discover.

What tongue doth speak is of the heart embraced,
And both are one to make a new found lover
New found, and only found in gods and kings,
Whose words are deeds, but words nor deeds regarded.
Chaste thoughts do mount and fly with swiftest wings,

My love with pain, my pain with loss rewarded. Then this be sure, since it is true perfection, that neither men nor gods can force affection.

~ John Dowland (composer 1562-1626)

I Am My Conversation.

My conversation determines my actions in the world. Conversations are the catalyst; they are the filters; they are the raw ingredients of all I have in my life and of all that I do in and with my life. My conversations show up in my body, show up in my emotions, and show up in my spirit. My conversation gives me access to life and aliveness...it also age me and jaundices my view of the wonders of the world. My conversation connects or, more likely, it separates...it has the power to be inclusive and it is often exclusive.

How often have I really stepped back and listened to the conversation(s) that are my life? To the conversation that is me? How do I move through the world as a conversation? What is the story my conversation generates in others? What are the implications when I start looking at and for the core conversation that lives within? What is the 3:00 a.m. conversation I hold with myself that no one else listens in on? This is the conversation that everyone in my life runs into.

When I leave a physical conversation I was having did "I" leave? I don't think so. Part of me remained with the other person as a conversational memory – perhaps even as an emotion experienced by the other party. Who am "I" then? For most of us our sense of self is, in large part, informed by and limited to what our physical senses tell us about who we are – I am my body, my feelings and my thoughts. These artifacts of self go with "me" wherever "I" go and where "I" am is where they are. But what if I thought of myself as moving through the world in another way. What if "I" occupied time and space in a different way? What would be my approach to interacting with others if I thought of myself moving through the world as a conversation?

As a conversation I become the stories others have about me. I become the internal conversations they have about the meaning of my behaviors, my actions, my mood, my words and my spirit. I become the internal conversation they feel about me – and, as a consequence, how they in part define themselves. These conversations contain me and they are the raw building blocks used to co-create our futures together. How congruent with the ideals I hold as valuable are these "conversations that I am"?

In the beginning there was the "word" and from the word conversations began that created what we have and who we are today. It is not in any way an exaggeration to suggest that conversation is relationship.

Conversation Creates (and Reflects) Culture

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a very good friend. He related a story of a chance meeting he had shortly after the Vietnam War with someone during a long airplane trip back from Asia. The individual that he sat next to was in the military and was involved with biological research. My friend eventually asked a question pertaining to how the effectiveness of biological weapons was determined. The answer surprised him. It wasn’t the mortality rate that his seatmate cited. It was the receptivity of the environment to the particular pathogen that would be introduced. The environment’s ability to support and grow the pathogen was the key to determining the pathogen’s effectiveness.

Results in an organization emerge in direct correlation to the aspects of the environment that most nurture them – conversations are the medium for this. Similar to my friend’s airplane conversation, think in terms of disease resulting from bacteria or virus growth in an organism. If the “environment” within the organism (the health of the relationships amongst the various organs, systems, and bodily functions) is not conducive to a noxious bacteria or virus taking root and growing the organism will remain free of the disease – which may be thought of as the “result” called good health (or profitability for a company or authenticity in relationships). Similarly, disease can be thought of as simply a result that is directly correlated to the receptivity of the organism’s “environment” to support the growth of a particularly noxious bacteria or virus (think of a disengaged workforce where fear is a chief motivational tool and authenticity in communication is stifled. You’ll almost always find poor product or service quality is the diseased result). In nature bacteria and viruses of all kinds are always present – and they don’t always take root and grow. The receptivity (or not) of the environment is the key.

Looked at this way, leadership is an outward facing activity. It is “outward facing” in the sense that an effective leader is continuously attending to the health and receptivity of their environment – the “space” that they and their organization occupy that makes certain results likely. This space is defined by the quality of the conversations that facilitate the interaction between the relationships that make up the organization’s culture.

As a leader, I need to attend to defining the space in which I move and the environments on which I most want to have influence. I do this not by managing tasks but by focusing on the type and quality of the conversations that inform the interconnected relationship required to produce the results I desire. Leadership is about defining and caretaking this space; management is about the execution of tasks within this space.

This gives rise to two unorthodox claims: To effectively look outward an effective leader cannot be preoccupied with task accomplishment. For that matter, it is also unwise for leadership (as an activity) to be unduly focused on the achievement of any particular result. Results are simply a metric that indicates what the environment is designed to produce. Therefore, if I as a leader am not getting the results I want the place to look is to the environment (culture) and the quality of the myriad interconnected relationship that typify it. Specifically, the question to consider is “are the conversations that are these relationships built on authenticity? Are they fertile seedbeds that allow for the growth of the results we want to create?”

Post-Materialistic Science: A Rebellion About The True Nature of Reality

"Eye of God:" Hubble Telescope image of the Helix Nebula.

Scientific knowledge is expanding every day at an exponential rate, and the implications of new developments, particularly those that challenge the current models regarding the true nature of reality, are rattling more than a few cages.

One area that continues to be a focus of study for many physicians and neuroscientists is the relationship between mind, brain, and consciousness. From where does consciousness arise...or is it simply "here" without needing a source or a vehicle?

Huff Post contributor Dave Pruett, former NASA researcher and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at James Madison University has penned an intriguing article commenting on the latest issue of Explore -- the Journal of Science and Healing -- which contains a bombshell of an essay. It's titled "Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science," and it could be to science what Luther's 95 Theses were to religion.

Human Nature...You May Have The Disease But You Don't Need To Have The Symptoms!

We live lives of separation and it's killing us.

We are experientially separated from our ideals, our dreams and our humanity in ever more publicized ways. We see religious, political, racial and societal differences polarizing peoples around the world. Comparison, criticism, and condemnation are the default for many of our interactions with each other.

It's human nature to think that others are the problem. It's human nature to act as if we are the center of the universe and that our personal opinions are the "truth." It's human nature to want to be right about everything we believe. As a consequence, it's human nature to unthinkingly project present circumstances, people, and feelings into the future. As a consequence, it's human nature to have our future look so much like our past and to have fear be the dominant motivation for action.

Our "mind" defines what we believe to be real. It does so by utilizing our senses to observe and experience. All of our observations and experiences are filtered through our interpreting brain in ways that form beliefs and hardwired attitudes and assumptions. Research shows that 95% of who we are by the age of 35 is the result of habit and conditioning. By definition then, what is observed via our senses is experienced as being separate from the observer...it's out there. This leads to the "sense" that we are separate from the reality of our existence. As such, human nature is actually an unnatural state. It is a condition that has resulted in a world view rooted in separateness, not connection. Human nature is defined by a theology of separateness which has given rise to a separation based cosmology, a separation based psychology, a separation based society and a separation based pathology.

How do we not experience the symptoms of such a pandemic dis-ease? Fortunately, it's also human nature to have the ability to make different choices...to literally change our mind.

The human brain is unique from all other life forms on this planet. We have the capacity and ability to consciously change how our brains are "wired." Rewiring the circuitry of the brain has the potential to change what we experience as "mind." When we change the mind new possibilities begin to form. We diminish the influence of the 95% on our ability to act with consciousness. We begin to act in ways that are generative, holistic and honoring.

Mind is changed with intention, repetition and dedication. Mind is changed by becoming aware of how we think and examining the source of our feelings. Mind is changed by recognizing that creation is quantum entanglement with a new future. Mind is changed by acting as if we are connected via a field of energy with all that is around us. Mind is changed by an overwhelming desire for a new future that allows us to truly experience what it means to be human. Not human in the ways we have been taught. Human in a way that is consistent with the notion that we - all of us - were created in god's image. If we acted as if there were no one and no thing "out there" but ourselves we would act differently; we would not exhibit the symptoms of separation that falsely pose as the "human condition."

I Can't Breathe...

I saw a CNN headline on Dec. 8 that said "Does speaking out hurt an athlete's brand?".

The question begs an answer that addresses a far larger problem than that being focused on by the "I can't breathe" meme currently galvanizing protests.

By asking about potential damage to a "brand" when taking a position on a social injustice the question points to a problem rooted in values. To even be able to equate the tragic loss of a man's life (Eric Garner) with marketing and financial concerns, the question needs to be sourced from a presumption that value is measured by money. It's a presumption rooted in a business philosophy of scarcity that devalues integrity and that fosters the poverty of meaning that is so prevalent in today's society. It's this presumption that contributed, in large part, to the death of Mr. Garner who was simply, albeit unlawfully, selling cigarettes. We can't continue to conduct "business as usual"...it's killing us.

"I can't breathe" says the planet as CO2 chokes it.

"I can't breathe" says the family that requires two incomes to barely stay afloat.

"I can't breathe" says the single parent working for a "minimum wage" that is below the poverty line.

"I can't breathe" says the oceans as they heat up and become more acidic.

"I can't breathe" says the giraffe as it slowly becomes extinct.

"I can't breathe" says the immigrant who is told who they are is a problem.

"I can't breathe" says the college graduate buried by student loans.

"I can't breathe" says the Wall Street banker whose life is empty.

"I can't breathe" says the disinfranchised voter.

"I can't breathe" says the safe energy entrepreneur constrained by regulations imposed by legislators conspiring with oil and gas interests.

"I can't breathe" says the family that lost their home to predatory lending practices.

"I can't breathe" is not a way to live.

The "Truth" About Creation...

For most of us the future (and what we "have" in it) is a construct of our past. I'm an X kind of person with an X personality and that's why I have X types of results. This is where the notion of cause/effect comes from and this notion is no more "true" than saying the moon is made of cheese.

 

What each of us experiences as "reality" is nothing more than our consciousness made manifest. This flies in the face of the Descartian idea of a material world separate from a spiritual source. And, this also presences the question "what is consciousness?"

To Goddard, Emerson, Thoreau, Wattles, Hill and other philosophers from the American Transcendentalist period as well as mystics from all major religions, consciousness is the "first cause" of everything...consciousness is akin to Source, God, Shiva, Yahweh. And, if we can accept the idea of a first cause, it follow that the evolution of that cause could never result in anything foreign to itself. Everything that we observe and experience are higher or lower forms or variations of the same thing - consciousness. Consequently, what appears as conditions, circumstances and material objects are really only the product of your own consciousness. You and what you deem as "not you" cannot be regarded as existing separately. You and your world are one.

When we think of creating anything it's important to realize that "it" already exists in consciousness...it just hasn't yet been expressed (made manifest) in material form. And, it won't be until the appropriate vibrational state is realized. The future is created when the present expresses it's form - your "present" is your "future". We create through thought (consciousness) that is vibrationally aligned (in emotional frequency) with what is desired. When we begin to live, think, breathe, emote and behave as if our desired future were here today we have literally created it...as an expression of our consciousness!

Creation or Manifestation...

“Let us forget the lapse of time; let us forget the conflict of opinions.
Let us make our appeal to the infinite, and take up our positions there."
~ Chauang Tzu (399 - 295 B.C.)

Leonardo da Vinci is generally credited with "inventing" the helicopter. The design for his helicopter was drawn in 1493, 450 years earlier than an actual helicopter would take to the air. Of course what was missing at the time was the means by which his idea could take form. Today's helicopter had to wait for material science to produce metal (aluminum) that is both strong yet lightweight. It also waited for the development of engines that would have a high power to weight ratio. They also had to be efficient enough to allow for a manageable amount of fuel to be carried while yielding enough energy out of the fuel to power it. From idea to form - 450 years!

My question here is did Leonardo truly invent the helicopter? Is anything ever truly "invented?"

Leonardo's helicopter is a great example that illustrates the notion that everything that has ever existed or will ever exist already exists in the Universe...as probabilities awaiting observation. Therefore, everything that has ever been or will ever be invented has been and will be invented twice! First as an idea and then, again, when it actually manifests into physical form. Another way of saying this is that everything already exists NOW...it just hasn't manifested.

This is the difference between creation and manifestation. Not understanding this difference is the cause of much of the stress and angst experienced in life - both personally and organizationally. World peace already exists, as does total global annihilation. You being as wealthy as Croesus and being the poorest of beggars also already exists. Neither has manifested and the cause of whatever particular reality you are experiencing is a direct result of your creation process.

What is creation? It's not what most people assume. Far from being the act of invention, creation is actually the activity of generating coordinated movement in such a way that what is caused are the actions required for the manifestation of what already exists! Creation is never a solitary act. It requires coordinated movement. At the social/organizational level the presence or absence of coordination is most obvious. At the personal level the coordination required is one of aligning one's construct of "reality" (a world view comprised in part of beliefs, attitudes and assumptions) with what is desired. When alignment with what we desire occurs (mindful creation) we experience being in "flow" and life is experienced as working...desired results seemingly appear without any noticable effort. The truth is that we are continuously experiencing manifested outcomes that are aligned with our creative efforts. If what we have isn't what we want the question that needs answering is "how am I creating?"

Understanding creation in this way has the potential to bring us (individuals and organizations) into a conscious and deliberate State of Being whereby what is desired can manifest...knowing that it already exists is key. It's not magic, it's not wishful thinking and it's not woo-woo. It's simply how the Universe works.

Watch for upcomong posts that explore and suggest ways in which you can become more effectively creative.

4th Dimensional Leadership

I’m on currently on a private jet (a Citation X…the fastest private jet in the sky!) on my way to Toronto from Seattle. I’m travelling with my amazing good friend Bob Proctor and we are in the middle of designing a new leadership program that we believe is absolutely transformational. Bob and I have a combined 90 years of living life from the leadership framework that is the basis of this program (we are two of the true seniors in this industry!). And you will soon have access to what will literally be the most transformational leadership program in existence today.

I love the question “what if...?”!

The possibilities that are awakened when I look at what is and consider “what if…?” are profound. The magic of the question is that it has the potential to move my experience of current reality into another dimension…the dimension of the ideal.

Possibilities don't exist in reality. If they did they would be examples! As a leader, I want to be in the position to manifest examples of my ideals…in my life and in my organization. When I look around I see examples of ideal possibilities existing in the lives of others. How do I manifest them into my life and my organization so that they are tangible examples of my dreams in reality?

The secret to this from a leadership perspective begins when I approach the future “as if” it already existed. I literally need to learn to live the future as if it existed today!

And, it actually does. This is 4^th Dimensional Leadership. It’s not a form of magical thinking. It is the intentional act of living today as if the future were already here! The power of this is transformational…it moves me out of the paradigm from which I habitually live my life and into a different dimensional reality.

Let’s look at the phenomenon of time. It’s a paradigm that everyone lives within. Typically, when we think of time most of us think of it in a linear way…it has a past, a present, and a future. What’s useful to consider is what constitutes our experience of the present and ultimately creates our future? For all of us it’s a combination of the past and the future converging in this moment we call the present. For the overwhelming majority of people on the planet this combination is hugely dominated by the past. Most people live out their lives behaving in the present as if it was a continuation of their past. And, most people believe their futures to be the natural development of what has transpired in the past. In fact, most people view reality and interact with what they assume is reality with a mind and a body steeped in the past. Consequently, if a different future is desired it’s typically and quickly reduced to wishful thinking or futile day dreaming.

Time is the 4^th dimension. It’s perhaps the most powerful dimension in which we exist because it contains all possibilities! Creation is finished...the entire content of all space and time actually coexists as possibilities in an infinite now. Instead of a horizontal line composed of a past, a present and a future, imagine a vertical line that is composed only of NOW. Imagine time as a vertical dimension in which all possibilities – all things that ever were and all things that ever could be – exist now. What if you could position yourself and your organization in this "vertical dimension" so that the possibilities you desire were manifested now? What would be required? The answer to this question is the focus of 4^th Dimensional Leadership.

Stay tuned...there is more to come!

You were on your way home when you died...

This is a wonderful piece titled "The Egg" by Andrew Weil...enjoy the way it makes you think!

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

Built NOT To Last...

If you're a business owner, executive or manager I'd like you to stop for a moment and think about why you may want to consider building your business NOT to last.

With a tip of the hat to Jim Collins, built to last may be the last thing we want to do with our organizations. To be sure, built to last implies solidity, endurance, longevity, and stability. So, how could this possibly be "bad"? Well, let's take a look at some of the possible reasons...

1. Nothing in nature lasts forever. Building something with the intention that it will last is fundamentally unnatural and leads to unsustainable choices.
2. Attempting to build to last is a great expression of hubris. It assumes the builder(s) have special knowledge or insight about the future. Such an assumption can blind decision makers to the local, short term (and often cumulative) consequences of their decisions.
3. By definition, building to last is ultimately toxic to all involved - it eventually assumes a superior and entitled access to resources.
4. Because of the inherent default to stability and predictability, built to last eventually devalues creativity and originality and, over time, can result in viewing either or both as a heretical threat to the status quo.
5. Building to last reinforces a false duality of separation from nature and the natural ebb and flow of all life.

To be clear, building not to last does NOT necessarily mean to build with a "use by" date in mind. What I'm suggesting is that approaching the development, leading and management of any organization take into primary account the evolving way the founding ideals of the organization can and need to be continuously expressed. This is a difference that is crucial. And it is a difference that can lead to renewal and transformation.

In some way every organization that becomes viable has as part of its original reason d'etre making a positive difference in the quality and experience of life on the planet. What typically happens over time as organizations become more successful is that the organization's owners and managers become concerned about the wealth they are beginning to accumulate as a result of the organization's success. This not so subtle shift of focus is a slippery slope. It is the slope that defines built to last. It is the slope that leads away from the creation of value through the expression of the organization's founding ideals. It is the slope that eventually results in toxic work environments where short term fiscal returns are the core metric of success and increasingly mindless consumerism fueled by ever expanding debt is the economy's driver.

Building NOT to last can be an extraordinarily exhilarating, creative and, ultimately, spiritual approach to creating a world that works for all life. It can be the way business discovers how to take responsibility for the whole. It can be the way running a business becomes a spiritual discipline!

Compassionate Capitalism: A Return to the Soul of Business

Here is the Introduction to my latest book Compassionate Capitalism: A Return to the Soul of Business. Look for the book to come out in 2015.

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Toxic.

Toxic to the environment; toxic to employees; toxic to families; toxic to society; toxic to the long-term vibrancy and health of human kind and, ultimately, all life on this planet.

What else can you say? Most organizations on the planet today are toxic to both the human spirit and the human condition. The results produced and positions espoused by capitalism, socialism, communism, theism, or any “ism” that you care to orient around are all supported and expressed through their organizations. The focus on short-term goals, the drive to produce results at any cost, the slavish deference to shareholder interest, profits, or philosophical ideology above all else, and the view that employees, natural resources and time are disposable components intended to be used in the relentless drive to ever increasing success contribute greatly to this malaise. All organizations that exist or have ever existed are failing, have failed or will eventually fail. While much good has been produced by many organizations, it's also true that what many leave behind as their legacy can take decades or centuries to undo. This isn’t cynicism this is fact.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE business! Organizations fascinate me professionally. We are social beings and who we are and how we live and work is in large part defined by how we organize. AND, the way that most businesses and organizations have evolved their way of conducting their business has gone seriously off the rails.

What went wrong? That’s the focus of this book. What will set things back on track is what I will propose. This proposal is nothing short of a revolution in both thinking about what the business of business is…it’s also a revolution in thinking about what a leader is.

Any organization is complex. Even something as "simple" as an individual or a couple are potentially exhibiting the complex organizational dynamics of large global enterprises. There are hierarchies that inform who does what; there are values and rules that guide both decision making and behavior; goals are determined within the context of the purpose for being together; results are evaluated and rewarded or punished; and communication “problems” are ever present. There is an old Organizational Development joke that says “we designed the perfect organization and then screwed it up when we put people in it”. The human spirit doesn’t take kindly to captivity.

People – you and I – are infinitely complex. Each of us potentially represents the proto-organization. When all of our organizational “systems” are working in coherence and when all of the various “parts” that make me me are coordinating well the organization that I call “me” is healthy, vibrant, at ease, creative, growing, and generally just working well.

Which brings us to a question of leadership and how organizations are led. What is the responsibility of leadership and who is the leader that is ultimately responsible for how any organization produces its results?

Here’s a thought…there is NO leadership position to be had in any organization. There are however positions of ever increasing authority. These are NOT the same!

I’ve studied leadership and humans in organizations for almost forty years and it’s led me to the conclusion that leadership is embodied in every individual and is exerted at every level in every organization by every person in an organization. Everyone is a leader!

Let's look at this assertion a bit...

When all is said and done leaders simply cause movement. Yes, they do it in a variety of ways...personalities vary, situations call for different approaches, yelling is a favorite of many, command and control is often valued, empowerment is offered, and threats are made and rewards are offered. To paraphrase a bit, some of these ways work some of the time but none of them work all of the time. And, again, all of these are simply ways by which movement is caused. The logical implication being that they are not necessarily ways that a leader can count on to produce the movement necessary to cause the desired results...movement and results are different animals!

I define leadership as the activity of causing coordinated movement that produces actions that generate desired results. Therefore, when it comes to the issue of leadership development, the question needing to be addressed is really one of leadership effectiveness. Is the movement being caused effective in creating the coordinated movement necessary to cause the actions necessary to get the results we want? Coordinated movement is the measure of effectiveness. In it's highest form coordinated movement calls forth a compassionate engagement with other stakeholders.

Referring to leadership as a position or role that is to be occupied or taken on implies that one is or isn't a leader depending on whether they occupy or hold a certain position or title. This is why most leadership development activities are reserved for certain people and levels in organizations. This is also why focusing on specific roles or positions for leadership development has a very limited ROI when compared to what would be possible if a broader approach were taken.

Linking leadership to roles and positions separates the activity of leadership from the holistic and legitimate being-ness of an individual. We are all always causing movement in our lives. Therefore, we are all leaders. However, most of us are likely not as effective with our leadership activities as we could be.

Linking leadership to roles and positions excludes the development of leadership effectiveness as a universally legitimate aspiration for all in an organization (and in life). It very specifically tends to limit conversations about and explorations of leadership development to only the "deserving", the anointed, the hi-potential. It disempowers entire populations. De-linking leadership from roles and positions creates the possibility of tapping enormous creative potential in almost every organization on the planet.

If we all came to look at the movement we are causing in life as an explicit reflection of our leadership effectiveness how might we relate to each other, to life, and to the planet differently? How might we expect our capitalistic organizations, our governments and our institutions to behave? Would we be – and insist our organizations be – more compassionate? We are, each of us individually and collectively, leading us to our future. Make no mistake, the results we see "out there" are our results. Yours and mine. It's not "them" in positions of authority that have control. "They" are not the leaders we need to be different.

There Is NO Leadership Position To Be Had In Any Organization...

...there are positions of ever increasing authority. These are NOT the same!

Leadership is embodied in every individual and is exerted at every level in every organization by every person in an organization. Everyone is a leader.

Let's look at this assertion a bit...

When all is said and done leaders simply cause movement. Yes, they do it in a variety of ways...personalities vary, situations call for different approaches, yelling is a favorite of many, command and control is often valued, empowerment is offered, and threats are made. To paraphrase a bit, some of these ways work some of the time but none of them work all of the time. And, again, all of these are simply ways by which movement is caused. The logical implication being that they are not necessarily ways by which results are produced...movement and results are different animals!

I define leadership as the activity of causing coordinated movement that produce actions that generate desired results. Therefore, when it comes to the issue of leadership development, the question needing to be addressed is really one of leadership effectiveness. Is the movement being caused effective in creating the coordination necessary to get the results we want?

Referring to leadership as a position or role that is to be occupied or taken on implies that one is or isn't a leader depending on whether they occupy or hold position or title. It is why most leadership development activities are reserved for certain people and levels in organizations. This is also why focusing on specific roles or positions for leadership development has a very limited ROI when compared to what would be possible if a broader approach were taken.

Linking leadership to roles and positions separates the activity of leadership from the holistic and legitimate being-ness of an individual. We are all always causing movement in our lives. Therefore, we are all leaders. However, most of us are likely not as effective with our leadership activities as we could be.

Linking leadership to roles and positions excludes the development of leadership effectiveness as a universally legitimate aspiration for all in an organization (and in life). It very specifically tends to limit conversations and explorations of leadership development to only the "deserving", the annoited, the hi-potential. It disempowers entire populations. De-linking  leadership from roles and positions creates the possibility of tapping enormous creative potential in almost every organization on the planet.

If we all came to look at the movement we are causing in life as an explicit reflection of our leadership effectiveness how might we relate to each other, life, and the planet differently? We are, each of us individually and collectively, leading us to our future. The results we see "out there" are our results. It's not "them" in positions of authority that have control..."they" are not the leaders we need to be different.

What Is A Focus On Well-Being Worth?

In the aftermath of the Seattle Seahawks wonderful Super Bowl victory, exploring this question may lead you to some interesting conclusions about how to "run" both your life and your business.

Here's a link to a fascinating article to get you started: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9581925/seattle-seahawks-use-unusual-techniques-practice-espn-magazine

What Is An Organization Really?

All organizations - big or small, corporation or family - are essentially just a collection of people that are in relationship. Duh, you might think. But let's really take a look at this definition.

Relationships can be the obvious interpersonal relationship I have with another person. However, I also have a relationship with my job and with my work process. I have relationships with where I sit, where my parking place is, and the time that I take lunch. I also have a relationship with my sense of identity as a member of the organization that includes my "place" as well as what I and others deem as appropriate behaviors that I can exhibit. EVERYTHING that I encounter in an organization is defined by my relationship with it.

Where this gets interesting is when we begin to look at the impact of change on an organization. The difficulty with change is NOT the obvious disruption that change often causes. The problem with change is the impact it has on relationships. Far too much time is spent by managers and leaders trying to "manage change." Change just is...and it can't be managed!

What can be managed are the relationships I have that are impacted by change. What I can't manage are someone else's relationships! People don't resist change. They resist the consequences of the change to their relationships and they rightfully resent any attempt by others to manage those relationships for them. They resist not being allowed to come to terms with the change to their relationships.

What can be managed by managers and leaders is how change is positioned and presented - how it is communicated. As the psychologist Virginia Satir once said, "...communication is simply the ways we work out common meaning with one another." Communication is a relational activity that requires all parties be engaged in working out common meaning. It's a process of attending to existing relationships and helping to create new relationships.

An organization is simply a collection of people in relationship. If we can learn to pay attention to this fact, and learn to be compassionate in the face of the loss of one relationship as a new one is being born, we create the opportunity to thrive and we create the likelihood of ongoing success.

Compassionate Capitalism - A Video Interview with Lilou Mace

Here is a video of an interview I recently gave to Lilou Mace. Her Juicy Living Tour videos on YouTube (which this interview is part of) have received over 23 million views!

 

Compassionate Capitalism

Here's a view of a Prezi that is used for my keynote on Compassionate Capitalism.

 

Compassion and Suffering - Two VERY Misunderstood Words

The source of the word compassion derives from passion, which is from the Ancient Greek verb πάσχω (paskho), which means to suffer. Simply put, compassion is the act of being with suffering.

Unbundling and coming to understand and appreciate the relationship between passion and suffering is well worth our investment. Coming to understand the implications of this relationship can profoundly impact how we live our lives and how we organize some of society's most fundamental institutions.

Dr. Will Schutz once said to me, “…we connect through our vulnerabilities.”  I’ve come to think that this profound observation needs to be expanded to to include “…and we disconnect through our certainties.” It's our certainty about the world and our place in it that contributes to our insulating ourselves from experiences that would challenge what we "know".

Being vulnerable exposes us to the world; being vulnerable is about being raw, uncertain and exposed. And this point of rawness or exposure is the exact point at which I am most alive...it’s also at this point of “rawness” that we suffer.

Contrary to what is typically assumed, suffering does not automatically include pain. That suffering is to be experienced as pain is a grand misconception that keeps the vast majority of mankind trapped from the possibility of living a life filled with aliveness!!! The truth is that what is typically feared is simply the “suffering” of being exposed and without defense.

Suffer is defined in the dictionary as to “feel keenly; to undergo or experience”. Think about this! For almost all of mankind's existence on this planet, suffering has had a negative connotation associated with pain...yet the willingness to intentionally “feel keenly, to undergo and experience” does not automatically confer pain. Pain can be demonstrated to be a consequence of attitude and context.

What we want most as human beings is a profoundly pleasurable experience of being alive. The fascinating paradox is that my being willing to vulnerably expose myself and to be available to “suffering” is the exact point at which I avail myself of this possibility. It is at this exact point of exposure that I surrender to suffering and experience aliveness! Joining another at this point is where true joy is possible.

Yet, most of us typically live lives that are  designed to shield and numb us from direct experience. Awakening to the reality of this realization is what, for most people, causes one to suffer in the more traditonal, painful, sense of the word. Moving into aliveness causes one to suffer - it causes one to "feel keenly."And, it is the way we become abidingly awake and alive!

Compassion is about meeting at that exquisite point of rawness. It is the act of literally and intentionally choosing to join with another at the place that they are most alive. It is because of this that compassion is regarded as a fundamental part of human love, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — it is foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.

In Part 2 of this thread I will explore what compassion has to do with ideals in motion and with capitalism specifically. I'll also explore how compassion has the potential to transform business into a tool that generatively impacts the way all of us live on this planet...stay tuned for more on Compassionate Capitalism.

Coordinated Movement!

Here is a phenomenal example of a leader causing "coordinated movement that creates the action necessary to produce a truly magical result". I filmed this at Vivaldi's church in Venice in October 2011. It is the encore by a jaw dropping group of musicians that performed an amazing presentation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

 

Amazing Gratitude: Celebrating Ideals

Gratitude has power...it has the power to transform your experience of life, living and of yourself. Take a moment today to watch this video and "be" grateful for the ideal that you are and the ideals you can't not create!

 

The Happy Secret to Better Work (and Living!)

 

Moving Forward or Moving On - Two VERY Different Approaches to Life and Living

I've been asked a number of times how I've been able to deal with the death of Pam my wife of almost 20 years and with the grief associated with this unimaginable loss. It's a great question that has caused me to explore the grieving process and the broad impact of losing someone who had such a significant and profound impact - not only on me and my life but on the lives of so many other people that were graced to know her.

As of this writing it's been more than a year and a quarter since Pam died. Despite other's view of my process this time has not been easy. And, paradoxically, I've laughed more and felt more joyful during this time than at any time in recent memory. How to account for this? Two things have seemed to enable my healthy integration of the loss of her and of the inescapable fact of her death into my life.

CFEEB

This is an acronym for a process of Center/Face/Extend/Enter/Blend. I've written about this in previous blog entries. The process has its roots in the martial art of Aikido and I used the process to help me productively engage my grief following Pam's death. The default for many people when faced with loss seems to be one of wanting to avoid the natural grief that accompanies loss because of the emotional pain it evokes. Grief deferred is grief prolonged. Using the process of CFEEB, whenever and wherever I began to grieve I would pause, take a breath and deliberately center myself. I would then face into the grief rather than try to avoid it; I would extend into and literally enter the experience as fully and as openly as I could. Grief would wash over me and through me, tears would flow, emotions would cascade and I would sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and out of control. I let it be - it was what it was. And it would eventually pass leaving me in a strange place of feeling exhausted and at the same time renewed. I hadn't been consumed or lost; I blended and didn't lose myself in the process. Over time, when sadness or grief appeared I could simply acknowledge it, let it be present and not feel captured by it. Over time, the intensity diminished. This is the value of surrendering fully to the inescapable fact that she's gone. I still feel grief today, I think of Pam every day, I am sometimes sad, AND the thoughts are for the most part very uplifting. They are thoughts of gratitude for what we had and for what I'm bringing forward into my life today as a consequence of the wonderfully rich time we had together. The process involved with CFEEB has allowed me to flow with the loss that is part of the river of my life rather than be caught behind a dam of avoided feelings.

Moving Forward

Moving forward is a very different approach to loss and life than moving on. The difference is far more than linguistic - it's an attitude and come from that is generative.

Moving on evokes thoughts of leaving things behind. In others that are experiencing the same loss moving on can be experienced as being left behind - even abandoned. Moving on can leave resources behind because part of what is intended in moving on is avoiding or diminishing pain. Unfortunately, this can also create a sense of not caring where I go - as long as it's away from the pain. This is not necessarily what's intended but the pain of grief is something that many would like to leave behind.

Coming to terms with the concept of fairness is also part of moving forward. With any loss - especially one of this magnitude - thoughts of "it's not fair" are almost unavoidable. The problem with this is that these sort of thoughts keep me any place but in the present. In order to be able to move forward I have to be in a position to accept what is. Notions of fairness are almost always rooted in the past or are projections into the future. Life isn't fair only to the degree that I think it "should" be different than it is...and it is what it is. This notion is more than philosophical/exestential musing. Accepting what is is the only way in which I can become free to move forward.

Moving forward is directional and aspirational. It is intentional. And it can take a while to get your feet back under you after a devastating loss. I've taken about the last two years "off" as I went through the motions of doing as little work as possible and allowing myself to grieve. Today, I am moving forward. I have a sense of future that includes and is very much informed by what Pam and I created together. I have an incredibly loving family and a most wondrous network of friends. I'd be crazy to move on from this. Moving forward - as an attitude - allows me to stay intimately connected. It also requires communicating what's going on with me with those who are important to me. They see me moving and communication is the only mechanism I know of that keeps us connected. I don't claim to do this well and they don't always understand of course. However, as long as I'm as clear as I can be with them that I'm not going anywhere while I'm moving forward we seem to be ok.

Moving forward is inclusive. It brings my history with me. It allows me access to a lifetime of resources - people, love, wisdom, memories. I don't want to leave any of this behind by moving on.

The "Fruit Fly's" Life....

It's well known that the life span of the typical fruit fly is approximately only 24 hours - this is partly why they are such excellent research subjects. What if this was our life span as well?

This question has given rise to a very provocative new practice for me. I approach each morning's awakening as if I were being newly born into a life. The end of the day as I drift off towards sleep marks my "dying". The question that arises is how was this life?

My morning meditation and my evening's reflections are addressing this question. Some initial thoughts and noticings that have been making appearances include:

• karma (if there is such a thing) likely does not require an eternity to discharge (at 60 a person has already lived 21,900 lifetimes)
• awareness is essential to develop
• anything can be stopped
• anything can be started
• it's all made up
• I'm the maker uper
• fear is an illusion (as is almost everything else)
• love is also made up
• consciousness/awareness just is
• none of the above makes experiencing anything feel less real
• experience fully and "it" has no hold
• it all truly is all good
• I am always choosing
• who is choosing can get confusing
• an objective reality that is undeniably "true" doesn't exist

This has the makings of a most profound lifelong practice - give it a try. I'll be very interested in learning of your experiences!

Here's a little help to get you started:

 

I May Not Be Much But I'm All I Think About!

What a pithy way to sum up the human condition.

My extraordinarily good friend Stewart Emery provided me with the above quote the other night over a great dinner of grilled salmon, asparagus and a lovely 2003 Cotes du Rhone. The dinner was a backdrop for one of the more fascinating conversations we've had over the years.

How do you view and experience your world? My experience of most people is that life is taken far too seriously. As a species we have an unswerving bias to identifying everything we encounter in terms of its impact on us. As a consequence most people seem to experience life as something that happens to them.

What if we approached life as if it were all good - no matter what "it" was? What if we approached life as if everything was a creation of our consciousness - not our egoic self's consciousness, but of pure consciousness itself. A consciousness that is perfect. A consciousness that is using our sensory ability to uniquely experience this reality.

How we define "I" is important! To the degree that my definition of who "I" am is experienced as someone distinct and unique in the world that "I" will be at effect of what goes on in the world. We will come to experience separation from the totality of life as the normal human condition. If, on the other hand, we can awaken to the experience being intimately connected to all of life - to each other, to trees, to fish, to earth - we can come to experience all of life as an energetic field that is extending itself through us and us through it. No separation - only being with life!

The World's First Depressant Drug...

This is great fun!!!