perspectives

If I were PRESIDENT...

If I were President of the United States, one of my priorities would be re-evaluate our policies, laws and practices for removing presidential incompetence in a timely manner. Our Founding Fathers obviously couldn't have imagined that we would have allowed our country to be disgraced by poor performance, greed, and disregard for the Constitution and the people of the United States in the way we have all experienced. In a company or corporation, the Bush Administration would have long ago been fired.

Today, I read an Editor's Letter in Vanity Fair by Graydon Carter. He summed up the issues at hand this way:

GRAYDON CARTER - Editor's Letter, Vanity Fair
"It can fairly y be said that politics brings out the worst in people. And at times simply the world people. ...In less than a year, the Bush administration will strut out of office, leaving the country in roughly the same condition a toddler leaves a diaper. The report card on this White House will be a series of F's.

• An optional war that has cost the country dearly
  in lives and resources? --- F
• Our reputation, military, and economy in tatters? --- F
• Wall Street an unregulated disaster? --- F
• Banks in crisis and airlines in bankruptcy? --- F
• A national debt that is through the roof? --- F
• Oil at more than $113 a barrel? --- F
• A tax system that favors the rich over the poor?
• A generation of environmental protections shot? --- F
• Five-year record low in consumer confidence and new lows in "Are we headed in the right direction? polls? --- F
• The loss of a great American city? --- F"

I would have to add to the list an --- F for the heartbreak of watching the disgrace of the Office of the Presidency in ways one could not foresee. The whole thing makes me sad. I would love to blame it solely on BUSH. This would be easy, but each of us seems to bear the responsibility in part for standing by paralyzed, helpless to change anything with a system unprepared for this kind of leadership failure.

If I were President, it would be a TOP priority to make sure this never happened again.

What would you do to change our policies, laws and practices?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business

BEGINNER'S MIND: We need a new approach!

In every direction, it is clear we need a new approach in how we think and behave and interact with each other, our country, our world, and the planet. Some days I ache, don't you? The more you take-in and ponder, the more you see the mess we've created for ourselves by our biases, our inaction, our indifference, our busyness, our closed-minds to anything new and different.

When I watch the highest leaders in the land tearing down each other with violent tongues, lashing out, making fun, doing anything to divide and conquer to win vs. reaching for a new approach. I admit Hillary has been deeply disappointing to me. Not because I would love to see a woman in the White House some day, but because of her approach, her divisive rhetoric that violates all I thought she so whole-heartedly believed in at one time, has taken me by surprise. This is more of the same. More of what we don't need. Imagine what our children are taking in when they watch adult leaders have at it this way --- and we wonder why some are disrespectful, violent, and mean. They are watching us.

My hope is going with Obama. Not just the man and the message, but I'm hooked on gathering of people demonstrating their desire for change, to be part, to take back, to reach for more --- I am willing to work for it, are you? It seems to start here.

I learned one time that Shoshin in Japanese means "beginners mind."
It doesn't mean a closed mind.
But an empty and ready mind.
If one's mind is empty, it is always ready for anything.
It is open to new thinking, new questions, new points of view, new people.
In a beginners mind there are many possibilities.
In the expert's mind there are few.

May this be a day of renewal
A clearing out...an opening up
Each of us in our own right
Unique and different
Beginner's minds.
Hearts beating.
For a moment
All in One.

Hold that thought.

What will renewal mean to you today?
What will it mean to all of us in the months ahead?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business

Lessons from JOHNNY APPLESEED

These are sobbering times --- yet, there signs of hope, new possibilities and opportunities standing right in front of us. A new and different path for mankind must be forged, don't you think? A new global consciousness among all people would be a big start.

Where do we begin?

A while back, I happened on an amazing read =====A copy of the original story of the real Johnny Appleseed, an American pioneer hero written in Harper's Magazine - November 1871.

I always thought he was just a guy that planted apple trees and wore a funny tin hat. He was much more...

---- as a matter of conscience he never purchased a pair of shoes. When given a pair, he passed them off to a boy in a needy family moving westward who he felt needed them more.

---- he purchased animals that he saw were being abused and found them good homes.

---- he wore the tin pan he used to cook his meals as his hat, adding an innovative pasteboard visor to shield his eyes.

---- he was loved by moms, dads, grandma's, the Indians because of his kindness and interest in them.

---- he believed in eating only food from the ground and was a strenuous opponent to wasting it because it was a Gift.

---- he was well educated and took time to read to others in such a way that he created pictures for others to understand.

---- he respected all forms of life.

---- he was trusted by all...and courageously warned his neighbors of British and Indian attacks saving many lives with his prophetic message.

---- he gave his money away.

He lived a good life as a loving neighbor and friend.
When he was near death, it his recorded that his features were all aglow with a supernatural light.

If we could just live our lives with a little more care for our neighbors and our world ---- a little more like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, the world would be much different.

What do you think?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com