John Renesch: Exploring the Better Future

Recognizing Our Uniqueness

In my latest book, The Great Growing Up, I write about holons and how everything and everyone is part of something larger and a whole for something smaller. In a seeming paradox, each holon is also unique. Even “identical twins” are not 100% identical.

I am presently reading Your Unique Self in which the author deftly addresses this parts/whole conundrum for us. Before I continue I want to be clear about one distinction: while our uniqueness is factual, saying we are each “special” arouses the egoic mind and can reactivate the separation paradigm that ranks me versus others, not as unique parts of a larger whole but as my being better or worse than you. Now back to Marc Gafni’s book.

In a section he calls “The Puzzle-Piece Teachings,” Gafni writes: "You are a puzzle-piece. If you try to round out the unique curves of your puzzle piece through meditation or any other spiritual oneness practice, the puzzle piece that is you will simply not fit into the divine oneness. The part fits into the whole through its unique part nature. You are not interchangeable with any other part. Only the puzzle piece that is your authentic Unique Self can seamlessly connect you to the divine one. Similarly, Unique Self is not absorbed in the whole. Unique Self is integrated into the whole, meaning that the part does not lose its integrity as it merges." 

Gafni makes one of the clearest distinctions about how our uniqueness is our gift – even our gift to God – so long as it is not confused with “the skin-encapsulated ego” or separate self. As he writes, “The puzzle piece becomes part of the whole only through its unique puzzle-piece nature…. if you are identified exclusively with your ego-separate self, then you think that your puzzle piece is the whole puzzle."

This is where extremism gets loose in the world, when the partial truth becomes the one and only truth and violence results. Discussing this fine line between ego-specialness and our Unique Self is challenging yet Gafni does an admirable job applying his writing skill and brilliance to the task.                 

Crisis of Discernment: Living in Truth or Living Lies?

Prompted by a lot of what I see in social media, it appears that we as a society are blurring the lines between what is real and what is illusion. If we are intentionally entering into this fantasy, such as playing “Second Life” or other virtual games, or attending a “Harry Potter” movie, then fine.  We are consciously choosing to spend time in a mystical, magical alternative reality as a relief from the real world, as pure entertainment or even escapism.

But when we start accepting fantasy as reality simply because it is labeled as if real, we are entering a dangerous world of self delusion. This is when escapism gets dangerous, in my view.

As we have all witnessed in our government leaders, there is a common practice of repeating an assertion over and over again so that eventually enough people believe the assertion is a truth. Paraphrasing Nazi Joseph Goebbels, “Tell a lie long enough and it becomes the truth.” Failing to distinguish between fact-based reality and a frequently-expressed ideology is dangerous because we start confusing the two and begin living lies!

Allowing lies (fantasy) to shape how we live and relate to one another is a disservice to the soul, completely out of integrity with our world. It means living in a falsified reality rather than living in the world as it is. We are culpable by subjecting ourselves to influence by a system we know to be false.

Another example from Facebook: Total strangers invite us to be their “Friends” – not “Connections” as LinkedIn called our virtual assemblage of contacts before Facebook came on the scene, but “Friends”! I don’t know about you but I have pretty clear criteria for who my friends will be.

Another newly emerging example from LinkedIn: People I do not know are endorsing me for skills I don’t think I have. In other words, these “endorsements” are more likely given in order to prompt a reciprocal response, making LinkedIn endorsements totally meaningless, not to be relied upon by any thinking person.
I’m reminded of an earlier confusion with what was true shortly after the printing press made it so easy to publish. One of the phenomena that came to the surface was that people started confusing the truth with what had been printed – as in if they saw it in print it was fact. To some degree that may also apply today.

Confusing the truth with an untruth has already impacted our quality of life. Keep in mind that all of us don’t need to be living lies as long as some of us are. This confuses the issues and restricts progress on matters important for the masses. As long as there is any confusion about any of our global crises, corrective measures are hijacked at worst or delayed at a minimum. Matters such as bank regulation, healthcare and campaign reform, environmental protections and gun control are only five crises that have gotten confused enough to prevent meaningful interventions in the U.S. In some of these cases, delays brought on by confusion can be just as deadly as a out-and-out  hijacking.

I am reminded of Rebecca Costa’s conclusions, in her book The Watchman’s Rattle, (see my earlier article on this) as she researched failed empires throughout history. Each empire she studied failed after two changes occurred; first, when collaboration and cooperation turned into gridlock (see Washington as a glaring example of gridlock) and, second, when ideology replaced facts. It seems we passed both these phases some time ago. So can collapse be far behind?

Straddling Paradigms Can Make You Crazy

I recently reviewed Dancing at the Edge: Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century, by Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester, for Amazon.com and a short story in the book caught my attention. The story’s punch line points to a conundrum many people are facing today. First the story:

In his book Radical Hope the philosopher Jonathan Lear tells the story of …Plenty Coups, chief of the Crow nation at the end of the 19th century. His tribe [was] coming under pressure from the white man to give up their way of life and enter the reservation. The culture that had supported and defined the Crow nation’s world was threatened with collapse.

Plenty Coups described the transition many years later as follows: “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again.” As one Crow woman put it, in terms that many would echo today: “I am trying to live a life I do not understand.”

How many people today are trying to live lives they do not understand?

I contend that anyone with any awareness knows the old ways are losing ground, credibility, even usefulness while nothing seems to be rising to take their place. We are living in a world where one paradigm is falling away while the new one isn’t fully formed.

Using a physical metaphor, it is like having one foot on the dock and the other on a tiny dingy which isn’t tied to the dock. If you have ever been in that position your know that at some point you either have to put all your weight on one or the other, the boat or the dock, or you will most certainly get very wet.

Paradigm straddling can be that way too. If you remain loyal and invested in the old, you will have trouble with anything that challenges that worldview, precluding acceptance of anything that doesn’t make sense from that perspective. If you try to live in both worlds, it can drive you crazy.

My suggestion is to invest yourself in the new paradigm, even if it hasn’t been fully formed or accepted. Start living from that place and let the rest of the world catch up with you. Remember, the old paradigm of thought doesn’t replace the old one, it simply absorbs it, continues using the bits that are still useful and releases what no longer fits.

The FutureShapers Covenant: A Sacred Commitment (Part B)

[Last month I posted Part A of this two-part article and failed to mention that FutureShapers, LLC is a new company I am starting. We will be forming executive peer groups that we are calling Roundtables and members will be asked to make major commitments to living and working more consciously – what we are calling “The FutureShapers Covenant.” This article has been adapted from FutureShapers online material. Now I will continue where I left off last month.]

    “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your     intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is     none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff     character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over     skepticism.” - Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s idea is that one’s character is made up by how one lives up to one’s commitments. As an antidote to this withering of our social fabric, FutureShapers offers this model for encouraging true commitment from its members.

FutureShapers has set a standard for commitment that instills character, consciousness and meaning into one’s life and one’s work. Members in FutureShapers Roundtables are encouraged to aspire to unconventional levels of awareness in what they say, how they say it and what they mean by what they say. They become aware of distinctions such as the difference between an opinion and knowing, a belief and a fact, a promise and an indication of interest, a desire and a preference, to name  a few. Here are aspirations to which FutureShapers Roundtable Members are asked to commit:

•    Seek self transcendence, deepening self-examination/exploration, increasing my experience of equanimity and serenity;

•    Be authentic; integrate my mind, body, heart and soul; be consistent with my walk and my talk;

•    Continuously examine myself - personality traits I can improve upon, my stories and my beliefs that limit me, and my attitudes and actions that negatively impact others;

•    Do no harm; whenever I am wrong, promptly admit it and make amends for any harm I’ve done to anyone;

•    Treat others as I would like to be treated (“The Golden Rule”);

•    Seek out ways to be in relationship with a power greater than my own egoic mind;

•    Spend at least 20 minutes each day in meditation/quiet time;

•    Do the right thing always; whenever there is a question, follow my heart and my conscience, not my head;

•    Be more compassionate about others and reverent about life, honoring my interconnectedness with all living things;

•    Accept my leadership responsibilities as an honor and a gift, not an obligation or cause for self-importance;

•    Consciously be a role model for others; and

•    Create workplace cultures where these aspirations are honored and respected.

Until one can truly commit oneself to something larger than oneself, one is destined to a life of mediocrity. Explorer William H. Murray said it most succinctly in his 1951 book, The Scottish Himalaya Expedition. He writes, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.”

The FutureShapers Covenant: A Sacred Commitment, Part A

Individual and collective commitment to a cause has been at the backbone of all major social transformation – from the founding of the U.S.A. to getting a man on the moon, from changing the public attitude about drinking and driving to the ending of apartheid in South Africa.

Much of our history as human beings was the result of true commitment. However, true commitment is one of the scarcest human qualities today. People say “yes” or make agreements every day that they hold as tentative in their minds, subject to whim and convenience. As a result, we live in a world of empty promises which leads to social cynicism which, in turn, leads to lowered expectations. What people say is often quite different from what people do. As an old saying goes, “We judge ourselves by our intentions while judging others by their actions.” If we judge ourselves with the same criteria – our actions not our words – then we may start to see how culpable we may be in this weakening of our social fabric.

It is so easy to give lip service to doing the right thing, stating the moral high ground, saying what people want to hear, but an entirely different moral toughness is required to keep our word – to do what we say we are going to do. After years of these tentative “commitments” the rest of us have gotten used to people reneging on their promises and not keeping their word. The worst if it? It has become “socially acceptable.”

The dictionary calls a commitment “an agreement or pledge” to do something in the future. A pledge is defined as “a binding promise” or “guaranty.” These hardly sound like casual, half-hearted promises. When one guarantees something they stand to lose something of value. When they make a promise they have given their word. Implied in giving one’s word is a certain sacredness, similar to a sacred oath. This is what FutureShapers asks of Roundtable members: to hold their Roundtable commitment and aspirations as a covenant, a sacred pledge to oneself and the other members.

Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said, “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism.”

Olympic legend Bruce Jenner states, “Abolish your fears and raise your commitment level to the point of no return, and I guarantee you that the Champion Within will burst forth to propel you toward victory.”

Do either of these quotes sound like idle “indications of interest” subject to the big “if” – if something better doesn’t some along; if I still feel like it when the time comes; if it feels comfortable; if events align so as to make it easy; or if it isn’t too inconvenient? These are all tentative, conditional, and provisional – nowhere near “the power to change the face of things” as Lincoln suggested.

Next month I will finish this thought and include the list of aspirations we ask people to commit to. Check back around January 10th.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Jim Carrey and Eckart Tolle Team Up to Bring Consciousness to Media

Over the last couple of decades I have been part of many, many discussions, dialogues and debates about how the Great Turning, the “new paradigm,” the Age of Consciousness. They have all been directed toward a shift from a social paradigm based on separation, fear and scarcity to one based on connection, love and sufficiency. In each of these conversations, both private and public ones, the final “yeah but” comes by way of this discourse stopper: “How will we ever get the media to change, after all they are driving much of what is unwanted in our culture?” or something to that effect.

Well, three years ago, an organization was birthed with a mission to transform the entertainment and media industry that has so much influence on so many people. It was formally inaugurated on June 4th, 2009, at the Zanuck Theater on the Fox Studios lot in Los Angeles. It seeks to empower entertainment and media professionals and companies to produce and distribute content that inspires new consciousness-based worldviews for global audiences by providing information in three primary arenas: 1. education, 2. collaboration and 3. advocacy.

1.    Education
It plans to provide resources and guidance supporting its members’ personal, inner education thereby assisting them in deepening their fundamental connection with themselves which, once achieved, results in the desire to express that essential sense of self and personal transformation in and through their work; to bring to members’ awareness the need for responsibility for the ideas, issues and events that they are shaping the world we live in – for both “good and ill;” and provide mentorship,  giving back and supporting the next generation of industry professionals.

2.    Collaboration
It will provide resources and services to help its members in the entertainment and media businesses, who are living a transformational lifestyle, to connect with their like-spirited peers; its offerings will encourage collaboration to create content that expresses transformational intentions and values.

3.    Advocacy
Within the trade, it will support the larger media and entertainment communities in understanding transformation and its importance in a cultural and global context, and to help them become comfortable with the reality of transformation; In the public arena, it plans to help legitimize the genre of transformational entertainment and of transformational content in the media.

Pretty ambitious. you say? Pie in the sky, you say?

Over the decades I have seen hundreds of well-intended initiatives fizzle out within a few years or even months. Could this be another?

Well, it might if it lacked credibility. In this case, there is credibility. The founder, John Raatz, who has introduced many transformational films and books into the world through his public relations firm Visioneering, brought in superstar actor Jim Carrey and bestselling author and spiritual leader Eckhart Tolle as his co-founders.

Here is a video of Carrey talking about the initiative and introducing Tolle at one of the inaugural events:

                                                                 Jim Carrey introduces Eckhart Tolle (13 mins)

The name of this membership organization in the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (or “GATE”) which describes itself as a global movement to Transform the World by Transforming Entertainment and Media. Still evolving, GATE has just morphed its legal structure to a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in the U.S.

GATE is now accepting memberships, so I urge you to join me as a member and, even better, forward this article to anyone you know in media or entertainment. This is the best initiative I have seen to dramatically transform an industry that, for better or worse, possesses so much influence in the world, for better or worse.

The Power of a Vulnerably-Shared Story

After World War II thousands of young U.S. veterans flooded the job market and, thanks to the G.I. Bill, purchased homes in newly-built neighborhoods. Frequently, the men and their brides would come together and share stories of their experience in the Pacific, Europe or Africa. One man shared that he landed on the Normandy beach on D-Day and was four miles inland before he was able to pry his fingers loose of his rifle. Others shared their harrowing experiences that their wives had never heard from their husbands privately. These young couples experienced a deep bonding and developed a community of friends that, in many cases, lasted a lifetime.
 

Post WWII family getting started

Groups of people stranded together by some unexpected situation such as a snowstorm or power outage often facilitates strangers getting to know one another. This is especially true when people aren’t sure they are going to survive or be rescued. Many people open up so much that they inspire reciprocal shares and sometimes lifetime bonds are formed. As collective intelligence theorist Tom Atlee says:

    Story is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and exploring and co-creating     shared realities…..every person, every being, everything has a story and contains stories -- and, in     fact, is a story -- and that all of these stories interconnect, that we are, in fact, surrounded by     stories, embedded in stories and made of stories.

    Lived stories are those real-life, actual stories that are happening in the real world all around us all     the time. The actual unfolding events relating to any one actual entity or subject comprise that     entity's or subject's lived story…..become sensitive to lived stories... to learn about the lived stories     of people, places, things... to share our own lived stories... to discover how all these stories     intersect, who or what is in the foreground and background of each other's lived stories. Ultimately,     this provides the guidance we need to find our own most meaningful place in the universal story.

    While analysis is good for control and prediction, story-sensibility is good for understanding meaning     and role.

Vulnerably shared stories evoke trust, inspire even greater vulnerability, and can build bonds that last forever. These are the seeds of community that people used to have and now miss. We have forgotten how to tell our stories vulnerably. We are socially conditioned to “play it safe” and not reveal too much of ourselves. Then we wonder why we miss community so badly.

Naturally, there is something to be said about “appropriate vulnerability.” With some people you may not feel entirely safe sharing deeply personal matters. This requires discernment on your part. But when you do feel safe and trust the people you are with, and desire a deeper connection, it may help to allow yourself some discomfort by opening up. Then, when you are asked to tell your story, share yourself from your heart, not your head. Recall life-defining moments and share those. What shaped you to be the person you are today?

If you feel stuck and can only think of your standard check-in, your “elevator speech,” look for something you have never shared about yourself and share that. This could start a flow of additional disclosures that people would like to know about you and you would like to know about them.

Doing Business with Boiled Frogs

The degree to which I hear reports of growing cynicism in today's workplace reminds me of the parable of the boiled frog. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this analogy, imagine an experiment involving a frog, a pan of water and a stove.

As the parable goes, the frog is placed in the pan which contains room temperature water. The frog is content to sit there, especially if it has been out of water for a long time. It has no compelling reason to move. When the heat under the pan of water is warmed ever so gradually, the frog slowly adjusts to the warming water and, in the absence of any sudden change in temperature, eventually doses off and is boiled to death.

    photo by Peter Turla

On the other hand, goes the parable, if you were to heat the water in the pan before the frog is placed in it, it will immediately sense the danger and leap from the pan to a place of presumed greater safety.

The purpose of the parable is to show how unaware we can be about insidious threats to our well-being. It graphically illustrates how easily humans can adapt to incremental changes, even changes which threaten their health and spirit, if these changes are slow and gradual enough.

In this parable, the frog represents people. The water represents the system - the places where we work and live. The pan represents the container, the larger system - society - which includes our workplaces, the market, entire nations, nature and the environment. The heat under the pan represents the energy that is threatening to destroy everything in the pan, albeit very gradually. The frog - people in this parable - slowly gets drowsy to the point of asphyxiation, as can happen when one spends too much time in a sauna or hot tub where the temperature is constantly increasing. Finally, it’s too late and the frog gets boiled, just to finish things off. Mercifully, the frog is by then oblivious to its eventual fate!  

Like the frog, people don't notice the small incremental changes in their environments, at work or in society in general. They become insensitive because they've adapted; they have done what their ancestors did to survive - adapt or perish. In adapting, they have learned to ignore creeping degradations in the quality of their lives and their work experiences. They have become desensitized to situations that would have caused previous generations to "leap from the pan."

An important distinction between people and frogs: frogs don't think. Frogs react. Frogs don't make choices. They respond by instinct. People think and can make choices. They can awaken from their complacency and choose different outcomes for themselves. They can respond to critical choice points when they become aware of them.

Who would you want on your team - a group of highly-adaptive cynics who had mastered coping in a spiritually hostile environment (like the boiled frog) or a group of people who are fully awake and alive, and bring their entire beings - their whole selves - to the job? For me, there's no way I'd want to depend upon a team of boiled frogs.

Bribery vs Lobbying: One is Illegal and Wrong; the Other is Legal, but Is It Right?

Thanks to the federal and state politicians who don’t possess the will to reform our campaign finance laws, the endless amounts of money that special interests are willing to spend to gain special advantages and a U.S. Supreme Court who thinks corporations are people, millions of anonymous dollars are pouring into political advertising and influence peddling without any accountability or transparency. Let’s look at the similarities between illegal bribery and legal influence peddling:

    •    Both buy favors.

    •    Both are anonymous or faceless.

    •    Both tilt the playing field of fairness.

    •    Both disenfranchise those who can’t afford to purchase favorable treatment. 

    •    Both compromise the politicians.

    •    And both subvert the system.

Bribery is illegal and frowned on by society. Lobbying is legal and thereby tacitly condoned by our society.
Who made campaign financing and lobbying legal? The beneficiaries are the ones who made the laws. The issue of morality versus legality I shall leave to you the reader.

This query was prompted by two recent media pieces. One was a June online piece by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor: see http://robertreich.org/post/24472398883?632ecf88

The other was a segment on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on July 8th where Lesley Stahl interviewed Jack Abramoff, one of the most notorious U.S. lobbyists of our time, who served more than three years in prison for his crimes – one of only a few lobbyists who ever served time. You can watch the interview here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57319068-10391709/jack-abramoff-inside-capitol-corruption/?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1

Please read the former and watch the latter. Then see if you have the same reaction that Stahl had during the interview: "I think the public's going to be furious watching this," she said after expressing her anger at what he’d done. I hope people do get angry. I hope you do. We need to get mad as hell and stop taking this anymore!!

Another Facet for the Conscious Organization

As I have written many times over the years, you cannot enter a dialogue about human consciousness without including the ego.  Well, you could, but you’d be avoiding a primary actor in the process. For all its darkness and lightness, the ego exists in us all – not as a thing to be exorcised, or be rid of, but to master, transcending the negative and utilizing the positive.

In my writings over the past 25 to 30 years on Conscious Leadership and The Conscious Organization, I have covered various facets of consciousness whereby the negative aspects of ego, or shadow, are minimalized, allowing the positive traits of the ego to better contribute.

I just finished reading the book Egonomics where the authors make an elegant case for three principles that not only require us to do things differently but they require us to be different. These three principles are humility, curiosity and veracity. 

      
It occurred to me that while the authors of the book are largely discussing ego in the individual context, as in a leader, I started thinking of it in the organizational context as in the corporate culture.  Here’s how they describe the first of these principles:

        "…humility is intelligent self-respect that keeps us from thinking too much or too little of         ourselves. It reminds us how far we have come while at the same time helping us see how far         short we are of what we can be."

Imagine an organization having this as a cornerstone to their culture. In his book  Beyond Ego: Influential Leadership Starts Within, Canadian consultant Art Horn  defines what I would call “negative ego” as “the part of you that sees yourself as above, below or against other people or circumstances.” This might be the most succinct definition I have come across for the dark side of human ego.

The second Egonomics principle is curiosity:

        "The highest concentration of curiosity isn’t created by adding an ounce of order to a pound of         openness, or vice versa. Trait curiosity requires equal parts of both."

What the authors call “trait curiosity” is built-in, intrinsic, always there - as opposed to episodic curiosity.

Imagine an organizational culture possessing trait curiosity, always curious, always exploring, asking questions. This reminds me of the “learning organization” that became so popular in the early 1990s after the publication of Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline. At the time, it was a departure from the “know it all” cultures that were so dominant, like the U.S. auto makers’ cultures until the 1980s when Japanese manufacturers started kicking Detroit’s butt. This arrogant Detroit culture could be seen as “organizational ego” run rampant.

The third principle for this conscious dominion over ego is veracity, a word we don’t hear much about these days. Here’s part of what the Egonomics authors have to say about it:

        "Fused with humility and curiosity, veracity…. keeps the capital of the ego working for us rather         than  against us. Veracity means truth. Truth refers to facts or reality; it implies accuracy and         honesty.  Truth is a destination. Veracity doesn’t differ from truth in its destination, but it         differs in action.  Veracity implies the habitual pursuit of and adherence to truth. Both pursuit         and adherence matter immensely; pursuit in arriving at truth, and adherence in making a         change once truth is discovered."

Now imagine all three of these principles embedded in an organizational culture where individuals expressing these characteristics are rewarded, respected and admired for their dominion over ego allowing the organization as a whole to exude that same dominion. After all, if one is alive one has an ego. But a healthy functioning ego takes dominion and mastery so it stays clear of those darker sides – like arrogance, defensiveness and bravado to name a few - that do so much damage.

I find these principles to be a great fit for my model of a conscious organization, where people are encouraged to seek out any darkness and shine light on any dysfunction. Thanks to Egonomics, we have more content on which to build.

Conscious leaders who adopt these principles are leaders who have dominion over their egos  and offer hope to all who work in the public or private sectors.


                                                                   * * * * * *
NOTES:

Egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Our Most Expensive Liability), by David Marcum and Steven Smith, Fireside/Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007

Beyond Ego: Influential Leadership Starts Within, by Art Horn, ECW Press, Toronto, 2008

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge, Doubleday Currency, New York, 1990

What If Stephen Stills Had It Right?

Folk-rock legend Stephen Stills wrote and recorded a 1970s single entitled “Love the one you’re with” which went on to be recorded by many artists over the years. The thought conveyed in this popular song was, to paraphrase, if you can’t be with the one you love then love the one you are with.

Stephen Stills, songwriter, folk-rock legend, member, Crosby, Stills & Nash

It seems this message could be applied to all of humanity today, not just for a lover. Following the same common sense logic Stills expresses in his song, if we are all living on this Earth and there is no place else to go, why not love the ones who share our Spaceship Earth with us rather than squabbling, persecuting or hating them?

This planet Earth which we call home is getting smaller and smaller as we grow in population, communications speeds up and travel time continues to shrink. We possess the ability to destroy people half way around the world in an instant as we sit on fuses that could bring about humankind’s extinction. What if we simply loved the ones we’re with?

What would it cost us? Our egos? Our pride? Our righteousness? Our airs of superiority?

And what would we gain? Security? Serenity? Fellowship? Community? Additional friends?

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

Standing for an Adult Society

In my latest book – The Great Growing Up - I attempt to make a case for the urgent need for our species to grow into full adulthood, to voluntarily evolve, and to cease our adolescent indulgences that are creating such havoc in the world. Ceasing this immature behavior involves recognizing it, pointing it out and saying enough! Let us stop legitimizing this behavior and insist on adult responses to our challenges as a species. Remaining silent is to condone it. Worse yet, remaining silent gives it legitimacy!

My recent interest in Vaclav Havel’s work and, specifically, his 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless” has revealed this pearl of wisdom (amongst many others):

    You have to begin with the imperative that you’re responsible for the whole world. And if young     people take that kind of position, there’s a lot of hope. In fact, it is the only hope there is.

This “position,” as Havel calls it, is the ultimate adult stand for humankind’s future – each of us needs to be responsible for “the whole world.”

The good news here is it won’t be necessary for everyone in the world to grow up. But it will take a critical mass to shift the culture so that adolescent behavior is frowned upon, where it is not only unfashionable but socially unacceptable. This requires taking a firm stand for something that is wanted, nay demanded, not a position against something that is unwanted.

Changes of this scale have occurred in our lifetimes so we know we can do it, if we have the collective will to do it.

Women’s right to vote, civil rights, and the environmental movement are all outcomes of mental models that have undergone large scale cultural shifts in the past century here in the U.S.  More recently we’ve seen this in the mass demonstrations against tyranny and oppression in the. Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement.

In closing, I quote Lynne Twist who writes about the distinction between a stand and a position:

    Taking a position does not create an environment of inclusiveness and tolerance; instead, it creates     even greater levels of entrenchment, often by insisting that for me to be right, you must be wrong.

    Taking a stand does not preclude you from taking a position. One needs to take a position from time     to time to get things done or to make a point. But when a stand is taken it inspires everyone. It     elevates the quality of the dialogue and engenders integrity, alignment, and deep trust.

When you find yourself in the midst of it, speak out against silly “acting outs” by politicians, the media you consume and any other places where you observe it. You may have to muster up some courage and risk some criticism but I guarantee you will feel better.


[To see my editorial on Havel – “The Myth of Powerlessness” - from my March newsletter click here]

Evolutionary Architects Wanted

The other day, I had a most unusual conversation with long time friend and colleague Bill Veltrop and a more recent colleague Max Shkud. Max has joined Bill in an extraordinary visionary endeavor – forming a guild of “evolutionary architects” that will bring about what they describe as a “societal metamorphosis, an irreversible transformation of our organizing forms, a shift in beliefs and culture unlike anything seen in our short history as a species.” This is how they show it in a diagram:

[Note: the hot links included in the text below will take you to the website where Bill and Max have embedded definitions of these terms. To return to this blog simply back up on your browser.]

Bill and Max assert that a metamorphosis of our social systems can become as natural for us as it is in nature. They further assert that the emergence of the Information Age within the last half century has set the stage for this “Age of Conscious Evolution.” They envision that we humans will design our social systems to serve the well-being of all life — for all time! This requires a rethinking of our social architecture or what they are calling “evolutionary architecture.”

I had been aware of the phrase “social architects” as people who design and redesign social systems but I had not heard the term evolutionary architect until Bill and Max invited me into the conversation. 

Here is their definition of an evolutionary architect:

        ….a social architect who:
        1.    Is committed to free humanity from the tyranny of unconscious social design — to make the         shift from “mechanistic” to “generative design principles.”
        2.    Sees humans and their social systems as having the potential to consciously evolve to         ever-higher levels of well-being — and is committed to that quest.
        3.    Strives to achieve the same level of design excellence for our social forms as is present         throughout the rest of nature.
        4.    Is concerned with the interplay of whole ecosystems — natural, social, economic, etc., in the         service of maximizing the contribution of these systems to the well-being of all life — for all time.
        5.    Is committed to master the emerging field of generative design as it applies to all systems at         all levels of system.

        While an individual evolutionary architect can have a powerful influence, we see the “evolutionary         architect” needing to take the form of a unique kind of community — generative action-learning         organism.

This community or “organism” they talk about is one they envision as a guild - a community of allies who help grow generative alliances with pioneering leaders, providers and organizational entities “who are ready and able to step up to this great evolutionary challenge and opportunity.” The name of this community is Global Guild of Evolutionary Architects (or “GlobalGEA” for short).

Who will be these allies, these leaders and providers, these organizations who will step up? They will be visionaries – able to see the real possibility of bringing this kind of future about. They will be entrepreneurs – able to launch this initiative, take it from vision to reality. They will be system thinkers who can see the relational dynamics amongst and between everything and everyone. They will be critical thinkers - very skilled at how they think. They will be talented – very skilled in what they do and how they do it. They will be transformational thinkers – familiar with taking huge leaps in worldviews, frame changing, and comfortable in the midst of paradigm shifts. And they will be collaborators – people who can be part of generative alliances, leaving their egos at the door. Instead of asking “what’s in it for me?” these people will ask “what’s in it for the world?”

Make no mistake here: while this is a huge undertaking it simply means we must work together. A societal metamorphosis on this scale, an irreversible transformation of our social systems, a paradigm shift in our collective beliefs and cultural norms unlike anything seen in human history is beyond the ability of one person or one organization. But, together we can do it.

If you or anyone you know could be a candidate, as an ally, leader, service provider or organizational partner in this global metamorphosis, check out www.GlobalGEA.net and immerse yourself in the content. Dive deep – don’t stay in the shadows. When you feel you have integrated the scope and vision there, you will be directed to the initiative’s Offer, Request and Promise, then to contact Bill or Max. 

They Have It Upside Down: We the People Get the Short Stick

 
Scene from “Network”

When we elect politicians, we expect them to serve their constituents – “we the people” - first and foremost. It is the basis for a modern democracy, that “we the people” are represented by those we elect, those who ask us to trust them.

Given the predominately two-party system we have in place in this democracy, we might expect our elected representatives to remain loyal to the platform on which they ran their campaign, regardless of their party. After all, they can assume their electors are likely members of the same party and that the platform or the promises made to the voters are important to them.

It is natural, we suppose, that once elected, these people who represent us may wish to get re-elected and remain in office. So their second priority might be to get re-elected next time an election rolls around. Thus their constituency becomes the people and corporations who pay for their campaigns to get re-elected.

But our present day politicians seem to have these priorities upside down!

Their first loyalty is to get themselves re-elected, raising money so they can buy votes. Their party loyalty comes next and, finally, last on the list, is serving the people who elected them in the first place.

There is no wonder why gridlock is so pervasive in our politics today given these upside down priorities. We are paying politicians to work for us and all they give us is gridlock and excuses, blaming the other party for their failures. Their first loyalty is to themselves and to the lobbyists and their clients who finance their campaigns. This assures their reelection. Their second loyalty is to their party, which shows up so conspicuously when they stand united in their explanations for their failures to govern. Finally, the last priority in the queue, is “we the people” – the ones whose interests they solemnly swear to represent  – but only after they have achieved their first two priorities.

The Occupy Movement is evidence that many people are “mad as hell and don’t want to take this anymore” as was so powerfully portrayed in the movie “Network” (see six minute video clip). Maybe our politicians will respond, get their priorities straight and start serving the people they claim to represent.

Paradise on Earth: Why Not?

   As regular readers of this blog know, I rarely feature the work of others here as I usually have something to say myself. But in late December, a colleague published a video on YouTube about a project he has been working on for 35 years. He calls it “Mission: Paradise”.  I think it is worth it to postpone one more stand on my soapbox. First a few words about the creator/architect of this vision.

His name is Jim Channon, a genius and a visionary in my view. Jim was an officer in the U.S. Army and founded the “First Earth Battalion.” I first met Jim when I was Managing Director and a Founding Trustee of the World Business Academy (WBA) in 1990. He lives in Hawaii where he facilitated a retreat for the WBA in 1991. He also contributed to my first anthology – New Traditions in Business: Spirit and Leadership in the 21st Century.

Jim’s powerful vision for the future reminds me of another colleague’s idea for a transformed humanity, Martin Rutte, who talks and writes about “Heaven on Earth”. Of course both these visions are aligned with the one I put forth in my new book – The Great Growing Up – which I call the “New Great Dream.“ But you can’t beat video for a compelling presentation!

I suggest you watch the first 15 minutes of Jim’s presentation. The last 10 minutes you can watch at your leisure but plan on the first 15 as a minimum.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GsUKSBqYhg4

Watch this with an open mind and notice any cynicism that may rear its head from time to time. Notice also that Jim has been having this conversation with thousands of pragmatic people in the world , including corporate leaders, political and military leaders, and knows his way around these communities. Of course these conversations are private as most high-profile people won’t want to acknowledge these exchanges publicly. 

As always, I’d appreciate any feedback you’d like to share here after you watch the video.

Occupy This! Taking On Oppression No Matter What It Is Called

Typically we think of dictators as power hungry people, usually men, like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Cambodia’s Pol Pot, and Libya’s Muammar Kaddafi. Sometimes they were once popular rulers but became more and more corrupted by the power like perhaps Egypt’s Mubarak and many others past and present. 

But do dictatorships need to be flesh and bone human beings? Can an oppressive autocracy be created by a power-hungry system that dominates and operates similarly to a Kaddafi or a Hussein? I think so.

Let’s take three classes in one of these oppressive systems, as a simplified breakdown of the primary actors. Let’s call them the Elites, on top of the pyramid, the Enforcers in the middle row and the Exploited at the bottom, carrying the weight of the two levels above (see cheerleaders pyramid below).

The Elites are the privileged, the group who continues to gain wealth and power by making sure the system continues to function for their convenience, occasionally slanting the playing field even more to their advantage. They aren’t prone to giving up any of their advantage and often become insensitive to their excesses.

The Enforcers make sure the system is maintained and do the bidding of the Elite. They enjoy some power but just enough to remain loyal to the Elites.

The Exploited are the majority who have the least power, wealth and influence.

The Arab Spring movement has been fueled by growing injustices as seen by the Exploited (the masses) and even some of the Enforcers (military and police). The movement has been led by many educated professionals who are willing to risk physical harm to take their stand against oppression. In so doing, some of the Enforcers have been sympathetic, finding it difficult to harm fellow citizens with whom they empathize. 

Now let’s look at the United States and the Occupy Movement. Obviously masses of people are feeling exploited and oppressed, giving rise to Occupy. Let us look at the similarities.

Many Americans are feeling oppressed by the economic system and powerless in making any change happen to improve things. They feel exploited even though they may not have a personal dictator to point to as the identified oppressor. Fear, financially insecurity, and gridlocked political leaders acting like teenage brats incapable of doing anything to rectify the situation make matters worse.  The status quo is oppressive. By most definitions the common people are the Exploited.

The Enforcers in the U.S. are similar to the Enforcers in the Arab world. They consist of the courts, the prison system, local, state and national governments, the military and police. They keep the Exploited in line by maintaining order and squelching disorder. When the Elite see their hold on power threatened, they will subdue and suppress. In this regard, the Elite reactions to the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement are somewhat similar.

The U.S. Elite are not despots living in sumptuous palaces with harems and surrounded by personal militias. But they live in extravagance, often have flamboyant personalities and flaunt their wealth and power and maintain their power base. They may not imprison or execute anyone whom they see as a threat to them, but there are similarities!

The ruling Elite in the U.S. is largely hiding behind very powerful and wealthy corporations. They purchase political favor much like people bribe officials in other countries. And now the courts have removed all restrictions on them to purchase even more political power, which has helped to paralyze  our legislators who sit in “special interest gridlock.”

To use an old expression, we have put the foxes in charge of the hen house. The changes that are desperately needed in our systems will not be made by the people who are currently benefiting from those systems.  Campaign finance reform, tax reform or election reform will never come about unless some force outside the existing system takes responsibility for making reforms happen. The foxes are very happy with the status quo! Why would they change something that benefits them so much? They may put on a good show at trying to change things but there is no incentive to actually lessen their perks as things stand. The status quo is good for them!

Perhaps it is time for a new constitutional convention where “we the people” take back our country much like the courageous Arab people are attempting to do. If we can oust our corporatocractic dictators we will face similar challenges as those in the Middle East and North Africa. Once you succeed in ousting the source of oppression, a system that has been in place for a couple of generations that has maintained stability, even though oppressive, things can get unstable pretty fast. Recreating a true democracy from the tenets of a constitution can be challenging and not for the faint of heart. It is a task for the stand-takers, the collaborators who put the well being of all ahead of any special interest or ideology they hold privately.  Our founders had the chutzpah and made it happen - so can we. However, we have to don the cloaks of our colonist founders and summon that historic degree of personal responsibility to make the new system work as our founders envisioned, not as it has devolved after centuries of special interest skewing.

Do we have the moxie, the chutzpah, the spiritual courage to pull it off? Do we possess the ability to recreate a system that serves the people instead of the privileged few? Do we have the will to stop energizing the existing system in all its dysfunction and work together to form “a more perfect union”? I think we do.

*******
[My editorial in this month’s issue of my free newsletter is titled “The Human Species Grows Up:
Transcending Our Adolescent Stuckness” (see link here)]

Occupy Movement in the U.S. Predicted Last April

The other day a reader reminded me that my April blog from earlier this year – what has now been named “the Arab Spring” - predicted the Occupy Movement here in the U.S. With that in mind, here it is again:

April 1, 2011

Growing Income Gap Could Spark Our Own Tahrir Square

Watching the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo several weeks back followed by the storming of the Wisconsin state capitol building by crowds upset over the prospects of being disenfranchised here in the U.S., I wondered when there might be pro-democracy  demonstrations popping up all over the United States. After all, one of the major factors of the leaderless demonstrations in the Arab world is the oppressive economic disparities between rich and poor. As can be seen from the graph below, the gap between the richest one percent of Americans and the rest of us continues to widen. Eventually this gap will reach a breaking point. No society can sustain this rising disparity before the other 99% figures out the system is rigged against them.

 
John Perkins, former “economic hit man” who has inside experience of the power of corporate appetites, calls this result “corporatocracy.” Wikipedia defines corporatocracy, in part, as a governing system where “corporations, to a significant extent ‘own’ or have massive power over governments, including those governments nominally elected by the people, and that they exercise such power not by back-room conspiracies but by their enormous, concentrated economic power, and by legal in-the-open mechanisms (lobbyists, campaign contributions to office holders and candidates, threats to leave the state or country for another with less oversight and more subsidies, etc).”

In many respects, corporatocracy causes this growing disparity. By its nature it continues to drive economic wealth to the rich while leaving the lower and middle classes pretty much stagnated. This becomes especially notable when you adjust for inflation. Some argue that 99% of us are actually worse off now, in terms of spendable income, than we were thirty years ago!

As I was drafting this article, the popular CBS News TV show “60 Minutes” featured a shocking story which included, in part:
    American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers….One of the     consequences of the recession that you don't hear a lot about is the record number of children     descending into poverty….it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25     percent. (see entire report here)

Here’s a TED talk by Wael Ghonim, which was recorded last month at TED 2011. Ghonim is the Google executive who helped jumpstart Egypt's democratic revolution. He tells the inside story of everyday Egyptians showing that "the power of the people is stronger than the people in power." When enough people get fed up enough being victims of unfairness they will stand up for themselves.

Remember the parable of the boiled frog? Like the slowly-boiled frog we can get sleepy, then become unconscious and eventually die if the process is slow and gradual enough. The temperature rises so gradually that we acclimatize to the heat without triggering our life-threatening -danger responses. The disappearing middle class and the lower classes have been lulled into near-oblivion over the past thirty years as the gap continues to widen between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert opined a few days ago, “There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.”

Where is that tipping point for organizing our own Tahrir Square vigil? Like the people in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain who have been willing to risk their lives for liberty, perhaps Americans can emulate what the protestors in Cairo bravely declared on television, “This isn’t fair!” and “We want our country back.”

Fortunately we are not frogs. We possess consciousness which, when awakened, allows us to make dramatic changes in our responses to situations. A dear friend recently reminded me of a pertinent quote to share here. It comes from Scottish psychiatrist, Ronald Laing: "The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change, until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds."

 

NOTE: My December 2011 newsletter features an editorial titled “Bad People or Bad Systems? A Crisis of Social Conscience.” To read it click here.

Having Larger Conversations: Beyond Meaningful to Transcendent

Have you ever wondered if the debate, discussion and general conversations that occupy our collective consciousness most of the time – climate change, population growth, terrorism, sustainability, etc. – are all essentially “small talk” when it comes to what’s really important? Have you had a nagging feeling that these issues – as serious as they are – are simply symptoms of some larger crisis?

To put it into popular colloquialism, are we all passengers on the Titanic arguing over the deck chairs? 

Each one of these crises is the result of human behavior driven by an immature consciousness  - a consciousness that once was sufficient for us but we have now outgrown. The consciousness that created all these problems has been either uncaring or lacking in awareness of the long -term impact we will have on future generations. This consciousness is adolescent and, like modern day teenagers, we often pretend to be mature.

And like most unchecked adolescent behavior there are consequences, often showing up as surprises to the unaware or uncaring. The crises we face today are the consequences we didn’t think about before. It is time to grow up, clean up our messes and start having “the larger conversations” about consciously evolving to a level of collective maturity that is capable of generating a sustainable, just and fulfilling human presence on this planet.

It isn’t just about solving problems, although many problems still need to be solved. It’s about generating a future we can bring into being consciously – a future we actually want for our descendants instead of a default future that will devolve from the wreckage of our past actions and inactions.

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management theory, once said that the best way to predict the future was to create it. So let’s create it!

But how? you may ask.

That’s a fair question but does it come from a place of hopelessness, powerlessness and victimhood? Does the future occur to you as unchangeable, set on a course of degeneration? Or does it seem to you as something to be created – on a course of generation and renewal?

Larger conversations require people who see real possibility for a better future – not incrementally improved but one generated from an entirely different worldview or paradigm. They see a possibility even if they don’t see exactly how to bring it about. They have a deep intuitive knowing that the reality in which we all find ourselves is not the ultimate destiny for human beings. They know something very different is within our grasp if we can shift our consciousness from one that generates scarcity, hyper-consumption and fear to a consciousness grounded in connection, sufficiency and caring for all.

Those of us who are engaging in the larger conversations - who see possibility where others may not, who feel hope rather than despair, interconnectedness instead of separation and isolation - are risking being seen as “the crazy ones.” Cynics may see us as a bunch Pollyannas, idealists just wasting everyone’s  time. They once tried idealism and really got burned. So they pulled the blanket of cynicism over their heads and swore never again to dream, to aspire for higher ideals. They are hardly going to be attracted to these larger conversations any time soon.

But those of us in the larger conversations can evoke possibility for a world we dream of, a reality based on what we want, not on the past. Future-based language will replace past-based thinking and the language which follows.

Would you like to be part of one of these larger conversations? The cost of entry is low – simply a willingness to see a world that works for everyone, a world that is environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling for al human beings. Conversations of this kind are going on all over the world, maybe not in the mainstream, but they do exist. They begin whenever two or more people are willing to engage in such unfettered explorations. They are going on in small coffee houses, retreat centers, people’s homes and certainly on the Internet.

Are you engaged in one of these larger conversations? If not, locate one and introduce yourself. You may be surprised by the welcome you receive! Once you are engaged in the exploration set aside all the reasons your “rational” mind might dismiss as pure folly. Tell your mind to leave you be, with strong emphasis if necessary. Disengage the egoic rationale that tells you such a conversation is a waste of time. Instead, allow yourself to dream without restraint about what is truly possible for an awakened human society having transcended the crises and circumstances we are facing today.

What better conversation is worth having at this time?

Too Many Causes; Too Little Bandwidth: The Challenge of the Progressives

  Last week I was reminded as to why some political ideologies gather more traction than others, when they seemingly have less support amongst the population. This has puzzled me for many years.

Allow me to admit that I am a fiscal conservative, more liberal when it comes to providing a safety net for the disadvantaged, an advocate for small but effective government, pro-government regulation on matters where the public well-being is at stake (such as the FAA, infrastructure and parks) and pro-entrepreneur having been one since I was 18. I have voted for numerous Republicans but probably more Democrats in my lifetime and backed Ross Perot out of frustration back in 1992.

At present, I don’t feel much loyalty to either of the two main political parties here in the U.S.  I was excited when Obama replaced Bush in 2008 but have since witnessed the greatest dysfunction in both parties, to the point of feeling significant embarrassment for my government.

This leaves me as somewhat of an objective observer of Washington without any strong loyalty. In this context I offer the following opinion.

It is safe to say that I have more Liberal friends than Conservative, quite largely due to living in San Francisco, which like many coastal cities is a largely-Liberal community.

One of the frustrations I hear from my Liberal friends is their inability to strategize and implement changes like Conservatives do. It appears that a few Conservatives can focus on issues they feel strongly about and make lots of progress politically in a short time, as has the recent Tea Party movement in the U.S. which was unheard of a couple of years ago.

My Liberal friends care passionately about a whole range of social ills and they want to see them all fixed. They are puzzled by their Democratic leaders’ inability to compete with Republicans who, in their opinion, have less to do with social good and more to do with ideology.

The Right seems to be able to rally massive support for a few issues and maintain consistent talking points amongst its spokespersons, even to the point of exposing themselves to ridicule by the satirists who compare them to robots or playback machines. They pick their issues, gather support for those issues amongst their leadership and orchestrate consistent narratives around those issues. They are laser focused on what they have chosen as their primary issues.

The Left, by contrast, seems to have no end of issues they care about. This leaves them with many leaders of various causes attempting to rally support for a wide-ranging myriad of issues – from climate change to rainforest protection, from human rights to poverty prevention, from campaign reform to closing tax loopholes. As a result, the Left’s agenda is scattered and diffused, sometimes confusing to those who observe the clear focus of the Right.

Is this a matter of strategy then? Or is it culture? Perhaps it is both.

From a strategy perspective, the Left and Right certainly employ very different means to bring about the change they are seeking. From an effectiveness point-of-view, the Right seems better at getting their issues on the table, presenting a more united front and bringing them to the fore of the public narrative. There is significantly more alignment amongst their politicians on these issues, as if there’s been “a meeting of the minds” about each issue. Even the same catch phrases are used by their advocates.

How long has this distinction been obvious? My earliest memory of U.S. politics was watching the Republican Convention in 1952 when Eisenhower was nominated. Reagan was the first President in my memory to focus on just a few major issues and champion them consistently, rallying his constituency around those same views and issues. “Reaganomics” still lives loudly despite the thirty years that have passed since he took office. Some might say it live louder now than it did in the 1980s when he introduced Art Laffer’s version of supply-side economics.

Not only was Reagan successful in implanting this economic philosophy into Americana, it has become embedded in the Right’s many arguments for lower taxes, smaller government and less regulation. This ideology manages to remain strong and compelling for many despite glaring evidence that tax cuts do not necessarily create jobs nor are they good for the economy at large. The Bush tax cuts, extended by the Obama Administration, and the present state of employment and the economy should be ample evidence that this cause–effect relationship is mythical. Nonetheless, the idea retains a fervent championing by the Right who have been successful in taking any increase in revenue or taxes off the table even in these times of historic budget crises.

So what does all this mean? For me, the lesson is that focus and unification on a few key issues gains public support more effectively than trying to promote many issues no matter how compelling they may be.  The latter engenders “cause fatigue” where people feel somewhat overwhelmed by so many issues they should care about. 

What does all this mean to you? Let me hear from any of you with thoughts to share, comments to make.  Whether Liberal or Conservative, I welcome your responses. Even you cynics who may feel like reengaging, your comments are most welcome.

New Book Finally Here! The Great Growing Up Debuts in October

 
Next month is the officially launch month for my new book – The Great Growing Up: Being Responsible for Humanity’s Future.  While my 14^th book, this one feels like my magnum opus – “my baby” – but then I suppose every new book is like a newborn child to an author. I have certainly heard this before from experienced authors.

The Great Growing Up is about an urgent collective choice: to opt for responsible adulthood over the largely adolescent ways we have been relating to one another and our planet Earth. I have tried to demonstrate that it is not too late to create the future we all say we want for our children and our children's children--a future that is environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just.  It is about a change of thinking that supports a paradigm shift-from adolescent self-centeredness to adult responsibility for all life forms.

I call for any readers who are willing to genuinely "grow up” to make this necessary choice. Ever-increasing numbers of individuals today are already seeking self-actualization, growing in consciousness, and willing to take on leadership roles in bringing about the first conscious evolution of our species. This represents a somewhat invisible global movement of historic proportions. The Great Growing Up invites anyone concerned with humanity's future to participate in this new thinking. The work of growing up is about a change of mind; we simply need to begin acting like mature adults.

The book has been blessed with much advance praise from many of my peers and mentors. In the near future I will have a website for the book, which will include these endorsements as well as a blog where I can exchange notes with readers. I shall look forward to connecting with many of you there.

You can advance purchase the book from Amazon.com as well as Barnes & Noble at substantial discounts.

Third Thursdays Call Series: New Choice for American Voters

The other day I got an email from a friend forwarding New York Times columnist Tom Freidman’s syndicated column in a local newspaper, the Press Democrat, published in Santa Rosa, just north of me in California. The title of the article was “Make way for America's radical center.”

This was the first time I had heard of Americans Elect which is “the first-ever open nominating process.” According to their website, “We're using the Internet to give every single voter—Democrat, Republican or independent—the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012. The people will choose the issues. The people will choose the candidates. And in a secure, online convention next June, the people will make history by putting their choice on the ballot in every state.”

Apparently, two out of three Americans say they would like another choice in our elections.  According to Timothy Garton Ash in the UK’s The Guardian, “American politics have become so hopeless that I begin to be hopeful…. In a CNN poll, 77% of Americans say elected officials in Washington have behaved like ‘spoiled children’ in the crisis over the debt ceiling; 84% disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job.” In what seemed to be an appropriate follow-on from last month’s blog subject of my Third Thursday conference calls, here’s what I discovered.

Apparently motivated by the shameful game of “chicken” that was played out in Washington in the last days of July and early August, Freidman admits to signing a pledge, as I have done since reading his column. He writes about “a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket” that will be elected by an Internet convention and will emerge next year. He writes, “I know it sounds gimmicky — an Internet convention — but an impressive group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and Independents, called Americans Elect, is really serious, and they have thought out this process well.” As of this writing, over 1.7 million of us have signed this pledge.

In late July, Americans Elect reported they were “submitting a record 1.6 million signatures to gain access to the Californian ballot in 2012….this is the largest number of signatures ever collected in California for any one initiative. More importantly, the signatures were gathered in all 58 counties, making this a truly state-wide effort.”

As Freidman writes, this initiative may “take a presidential nominating process now monopolized by the Republican and Democratic parties, which are beholden to their special interests, and blow it wide open — guaranteeing that a credible third choice, nominated independently, will not only be on the ballot in every state but be able to take part in every presidential debate and challenge both parties from the middle…”

This initiative is not quite new governing system we have envisioned in the Third Thursday phone calls, but it does offer some hope that the old system might be salvageable. If so, our political leaders could be liberated from special interests and extreme ideas – radical left or right.

Third Thursday Explorations: Hospicing Our Decrepit, Dysfunctional and Obsolete Organizations

Last Summer, I started hosting a special conference call each month in conjunction with the Heartland Network, a social network hosted by the same people who host the Thought Leader Gatherings in Minnesota and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The intended purpose of this call was to explore with colleagues around the world how it would be to stop investing in the social institutions on which we depend for governance, regionally and internationally.  By “investing” we mean the emotional capital and the high hopes we embrace for changes we may make, such as bringing in new leaders, funding dysfunctional systems, spending time in debate or conversing about better candidates and planning reforms.

Our existing institutions may have served us well in the past but it seems that their time may be over given how dysfunctional, in some cases, even harmful, they have become. If their time is over and the time has arrived for them to retire, let us treat them as we do our dying – hospice with respect and compassion – honoring their service. Simultaneously, let us midwife what wants to be born, the yet-to-be-revealed  replacement organizations to serve our 21st Century globalized, diverse adult society.

Every third Thursday, unless I’m traveling, I host an open conference call to explore alternative systems and structures that might be more deserving of our energies - our hopes and our dreams for change which most of our existing institutions are squandering. The calls are open to anyone who wishes to engage in such an exploration. I ask people to email me at john@renesch.com to reserve a space. Once I know who will be on the call, I send prospective callers the call-in information. The calls take place for one hour, on the third Thursday of each month at 10 AM Pacific time.

Here’s an interview I did with a local cable show on this subject:

Link to TV show

The next call is August 18th. Let me know if you’d like to join it.

The New Responsibility Revolution

Those of us who are veterans of the human potential movement in the 1970s may well remember one of the popular mantras of the day urging us to “be willing to be totally responsible for creating our reality.” Remember that?

If I look around today and scan the horizon for who are amongst the most socially responsible people in the world, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone putting “more skin in the game” than the people who are risking their lives each day standing for democracy.  These people – most notably those in the Middle East and North Africa - not only include those who are demonstrating in the squares and circles, marching peacefully against totalitarianism, and showing their faces to the cameras publicly, they also include the many ex-patriots who could afford to flee their countries who are now returning to their homelands to be part of this pro-democracy revolution. They know they are at risk doing what they are doing and they are doing it anyway. They are standing on their values and willing to risk their lives in their stand.

Who would have thought we could find so many models for the courage of responsibility we are seeing in our media today? People from Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan are serving as models for leadership from the rank and file.

Map of Northern Africa and Middle East: Revolutions       Civil war       Sustained civil disorder and governmental changes       Protests and governmental changes       Major protests       Minor protests       Map source: Wikipedia

 

The paradigm of leadership is changing. We are shifting from a paradigm of a leader in an elevated position of authority with a following, a parental model you might say, to an emerging paradigm of universal responsibility – we are all responsible! Stated more poetically perhaps – It is time to stop looking for leaders “out there” and start looking leadership within ourselves. Said another way, it is time to stop looking outside and start looking inside.

This is the revolution we wrote and talked about years ago – no charismatic leaders, no Churchill’s or Roosevelt’s leading the charge. Just ordinary people willing to say, “No – that’s enough. We aren’t going to take this anymore.”

The Arab Spring is a collective stand by our fellow brothers and sisters putting their lives on the line, reminiscent of a collective stand taken over 230 years ago here in North America.

The founders of these United States of America were willing to pay a price to stand for freedom and liberty in the 1776 version of a pro–democracy movement. It might be worth a brief review of what it cost them to fully appreciate what risk really means. This summary is courtesy of Rush Limbaugh (you can read his entire essay – “The Americans Who Lost Everything” here):

    Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the     war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons     or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were, at one time or     another, the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes     completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his     pledged word. Their honor and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

Now that’s putting your butt on the line. That’s putting your money where your mouth is. That’s putting skin in the game!

 

Who Are We and What Do We Want?

[Excerpted from Chapter One (“The New Great Dream”) of John’s forthcoming book, The Great Growing Up: Being Responsible for Humanity’s Future] 

  Some years back, before voicemail, a friend of mine recorded a memorable message on his answering machine. As I recall, it went something like this: “Hi, this is Gary. At the sound of the beep please tell me who you are and what you want. If you think these are trivial questions, be reminded most of us have been trying to figure this out all our lives.”

These kinds of questions have been the focus of philosophers, mystics, clergy and teachers of all varieties. Anyone who has embarked upon some level of self examination, personal development, vision quest, or other inner exploration has most likely ventured into this inquiry as well.
 
When Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Smith stepped onto the moon in 1971 and proclaimed, “…there’s a fundamental truth to our nature; man must explore,” he was affirming a deep-seated need of human beings. Once we have satisfied our basicl needs like food, sex, shelter, relationship and safety, we human beings are compelled to explore the unknown. We have wondered about everything, searched the Earth, are still exploring space (the macro) and the world of subatomic particles (the micro). Wherever there is a frontier, a horizon beyond which we cannot see, humans need to check it out. Indeed, we must explore!

We have made huge technological advances in recent years. We have gained vast wisdom from sages throughout the ages. Yet some of us wonder why we haven’t achieved the peaceful and secure existence here on Earth that we claim to want. Who are we and what do we really want?

In the past century we have seen breakthroughs of all kinds that allow us to create the kind of world we want for ourselves. So it isn’t a matter of the conditions being right. We have the wherewithal.

The cynic’s cry, “It will always be the way it has been.” This a disillusioned perspective, resigned to the present reality being as good as it gets. This is hardly the song of an adventurous human eager to explore the unknown, setting out on the quest for what lies over the horizon. The cynic has lost the spirit of adventure, spirit of exploration and, perhaps, the spirit of being human.

Let us re-engage that inner explorer in us and leave space to NASA and other outer space experts. Let us leave the oceans to the people already engaged in those explorations and leave the study of subatomic particles to the world’s scientists. With all these people and organizations fully engaged in their adventures into these uncharted territories, there are still at least five billion of us who could start exploring who we are and what we want.

We have everything we need to pull it off. The first step is to choose. We must decide that the promise of humanity is important enough to stand for it . . . and stand tall for it with all our might. Then we may get closer to answering the question of who we are and start acting more consistently with what we want.

 

Are We Nuts, Hypocrites or Just Plain Scared?

The title of this blog series is “Exploring the Better Future.” In this post I would like to explore why people fail to do what we know would be best for all of us.

Each of us is completely unique. Even twins are different. So why do we try so hard to be the same as everyone else and conform to some standard we made up?

We yearn for love and companionship yet hold ourselves back when it comes to expressing our affections and emotions with people we care about.

So many of us complain, publicly or inwardly, about the very same things we enable and empower through our silence or apathy.

We say we want relief from the hectic, stress-filled lifestyle yet we are quick to fill in each empty moment with something, maintaining the very busy-ness we claim to detest.

Many of us say we want community, yet we avoid contact with people as they walk by or avoid talking to anyone we don’t know. We choose to communicate through technology rather than in-person.

We claim to want people to be authentic and real yet do our part in protecting our sacred images of ourselves, withholding our vulnerabilities and private secrets.

Look at all the ways we say one thing yet do another, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unconsciously. This is co-opting ourselves, forcing ourselves into lives of wheel-spinning double-mindedness and energy-sapping inner-conflictedness.

Why do we do this? Are we so afraid of being who we are, so afraid of living the lives we say we want to live?

Could it be we trust more in our mind and all its manufactured opinions and beliefs than we do in our heartfelt values and deeper yearnings? Could it be we have allowed our minds, our egoistic “thought machines,” to become the slave masters of our lives while subjugating our hearts to the prisoner life of unrequited happiness?

How about breaking the chains we have placed on our own hearts and demoting our minds from master to servant?  How do we do that? It just might be a time to turn things over to a Higher Power, a power greater than ourselves - call it Nature, Providence (as the founders of the U.S. did), or God, however we might imagine that God to be.

And it always helps to get unreasonable. My favorite quote in this regard comes from George Bernard Shaw, adapted to modern language: “The reasonable person adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person.”