The myth of Pandora and her box is as relevant today as ever before. Pandora and her mate Epimethius, lived in a world of bliss. There was only happiness and ease. No disease, no trouble. The archetype of Adam and Eve in the garden before they ate from the tree of knowledge. Life was rich and plentiful, full of wine, women and song. Just like it has been for the last 10 years. Buying stuff, bigger houses, TV’s, toys, dining out…drunk with the ease of it.
When Jupiter’s messenger, Mercury, was spotted one day, carrying a large box, Pandora could not contain her curiosity. What was inside was not a question, but an insane desire that could not be sated. She wanted to know and she wanted to know now! Instant gratification. No patience, no reward for effort. Just reward for wanting. “I deserve to know!” (As if deserving was a supreme right.) So she opened the box, without a second thought to any consequence. After all, we can worry about what happens later, after we get what we want and have a good time.
Knowing it was wrong, she took a quick peak. Out flew all the vile and nasty creatures and thoughts that had not lived on earth until this time. The plague, the crash in the economy, greed, strife, corruption, pain, death. Pandora was horrified. What had she done? What had her thoughtless and callous actions unleashed on the world? It was the first time she had to really suffer the effects of her actions-and the first time she got to taste consequence that really hurt.
In agony and despair, she and all the people suffered as if for the very first time.
Yet all of the time, calling from the box, was a small and musical voice–begging to be released. Wild with grief and pain, at first Pandora did not hear this voice. The world was being consumed by nastiness. Finally, at the depths of her despair, Pandora sat in front of the box, the place of her crime, seeking some relief from the guilt that racked her. Finally, when her sobs had exhausted her and it was quiet, she heard the whisper. “Let me out, let me out!” Terrified, least it be more trouble, but wondering if it were possible that there could be anything worse than was already unleashed, Pandora considered carefully the consequences. She decided that there was no where deeper or darker to go, so she opened the box.
In a rush of light and music, out flew a tiny silver winged creature called Hope. Hope was the antithesis to all of the other evil and nasty creatures that had inhabited the box. She was beauty and light, laughter and song. And in her presence, the world was restored-with beauty and love, time with family and friends, music, poetry, laughter and song finding a place to dance amongst the shadows. Hope is the counter to the evils of the world. Hope is not some bland sentiment, but alights within us the question of possibility. Hope opens our minds and our creativity, has us ask questions, seek answers, challenge assumptions.
Is it strange that in this time we have elected a President who wrote a book called the Audacity of Hope? Or is it, from the level of Universe, no coincidence at all? I think the latter. (I write we, for although I am Australian and could not vote, the real truth is that Obama is a leader for the world. Finally, I get that the USA is waking up to the fact that their actions are not in isolation-that what they do affects everyone. The world needed Obama to be elected. In our prayers we voted for him. I feel he is my leader as much as he is the leader of the USA. I pray for his wisdom and leadership, and his safety, and I would gladly support his success in any way I am able to.) Indeed, now more than ever, we need to look at the world from the place of UNIVERSE. We need to take the highest altitude perspective possible. For the story we are living is clearly written on the walls. Everything is perfect. From the ashes will rise the phoenix.
In my own life, the last few months have been emotionally fraught. My only child graduated from high school. For 18 years I have felt the burden to raise a child as a single parent, to do this while building my own career, self employed. At times, it has been very challenging. Fortunately my daughter is an angel in every way, so the challenge has been the juggling, and the burden of responsibility. I know I am not alone in this. I know also that many men feel this burden to provide as part of their role. Knowing that my life was to change, I have been focused on the creation of my life without this feeling of burden, which includes learning about how to use the internet to build a web site that attracts people interested in my work. Attraction based on high integrity, offering quality material, and being of service.
However, my business has suffered very badly. I took my eye off the ball, something I know better not to do. And then, with the recession, clients lost their jobs, business expenses were cut…and here I am…holding it all together with a piece of string.
However, if I look at what we have each contributed to in the world that we see now, I too have been asleep at the wheel. I too got caught in the spending frenzy. Credit card debt. Low savings. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow!” the mantra on our lips.
Internally, I knew that I needed to make some major changes. I needed to create a new operating system. A new set of beliefs, and new disciplines.
My journal entries for the last few months has been absent of hope. Having spent the last two years leaning all I could about the global economy, money systems, banking, finance-because I discovered that I was almost completely ignorant of exactly how it works-now with my educated lens, I could only see more trouble, more despair. I knew that the economic breakdown was good in the higher scheme of things. I knew that it was the wake up call I needed- we needed. I knew that the outcome would create more thoughtfulness, awareness, more positive action to support eternally regenerative Universe, and LESS greed, blind spending, obscene salary packets, and flagrant disregard to our environment, and all living things. I just couldn’t see my way out, given all of this. I had lost hope. And I was lost.
However, even while working on my inner world almost daily, I couldn’t find the key. It evaded me. I had moments of terror, interspersed with high activity.
Timing is everything. It stuns me how immaculate is timing. There are no accidents, there is a connection to a field of all creation. I had forgotten that.
I had shut my door to possibility. I could see possibility for the world. I simply couldn’t see if for myself. I had reduced my world to simple cause and effect. I had removed the possibility of the miraculous and mysterious. I had denied myself any access to a world where anything is possible. Where a perfect stranger walks up to you in the street and smiles- at the very time you most need it.
Pandora’s box is wide open. The world is being tormented by the shadow of our excess. It always was unsustainable. We know now that we have to find better ways. We have to tackle the issues we have been avoiding. The ones we have tried to keep in the box. Not just the environment, or peak oil, or the economy, but population growth, our money systems, education, creating peace, our own integrity…
However, at the bottom of the box lies Hope. Ever present, ready to be released. Hope lives in the world of the non linear, non rational. The miraculous. She defies explanation.
Hope asks us to follow our inner whisper, the truth inside that speaks with aeons of wisdom, way beyond our mortal selves. Hope is the connection to that very field-the source of all creation. Hope knows that it will be touch and go, because that is the nature of man. Yet Hope asks of us to make the changes in our inner and outer world because Hope knows everything is possible.
In my world today, having rediscovered Hope, my new beliefs are that the world is a wonderful, miraculous place, where anything and everything is possible. That if I take on as my partner, God, or in another language, the connection to Universal truth that is always available to me, I enter the world of the mysterious and miraculous. That Grace is the biggest force operating in the world. And that I have never been alone, and never will be.
That is my prayer for you for Christmas. May you find Hope in the darkness and may she bring you and your loved ones Grace.
Emerge through Emergency- the words are my constant companions of late, flickering thoughts trying to chase fear away.
(The following is an extract with additions from a letter to a friend written on Saturday 22nd November 2008.)
My daughter Nat’s very last ever school function was last night and it has been a very emotional week for both of us. I am exhausted. Doing the single parent thing has been a big task for me, and I am really glad that part is over..at the same time sad for we have such a beautiful and close relationship. (Much of my emotion is because of the huge burden I have felt raising a child solo-managing a career as a self-employed person.)
My business has been very badly affected by this global burp. I have been planning for my new life for the last 6 months, doing much more virtual based work, building a powerful web presence, writing more; however, with my focus on this and the universe pushing me to let go, I have been watching in almost morbid fascination as long term clients leave, and new ones are not materialising like they always have. My bank account is getting very skinny. Terrifyingly so. Emerge though emergency ..I hear whispering in my head.
So my days seem almost manic depressive…tinges of outright fear, followed by intense action and overall optimism. Emerge though emergency. The core of me knows all is well and this is all so fabulous for me. The daily reality can be scary. I have really recognised just how solo this journey for me has felt- I look at people like you who have such great partnerships and I really wonder how nice that would be. Yet at the same time, I have known at some core place of my being, that that was not my path. My path is to find the resourcefulness within myself, to not need a man to provide for me in the physical world. To really accept fully that I can create and survive. However it is nearing time for me to be able to accept emotional support and partnership in my life. I have been reading the poems of the great mystics every day, and gasp at their ecstatic love for God. I want that, either for God, or a mortal man. Quite truthfully I would prefer it with a mortal man, because I also want the physical side. But I am not willing to settle for less. I have travelled too far for too long–now does not seem the time to compromise. I feel quite certain it is possible, because I have loved like that before. Now to have that matched in return? Wow! Dare I think it? The time is not quite right, I need to find myself apart from the person who is responsible for a child. But it is soon. Or not.
I have been getting 3-6 hrs sleep a night, most uncharacteristic for me…simply waking knowing that any attempt at further sleep is useless. I don’t feel tired. However, the good side is that I am still fit, maybe a bit skinny, and have finally admitted that I have not got a clue how to have fun. Nat of course only knows how to have fun. Work is an anathema to her. I need to re-learn how to have fun. I love my work, and feel grateful for my days of work, and…I work pretty much seven days a week, with an occasional movie thrown in.
My gleeful fun this last two weeks has been to read the Twilight series. The tragedy of it is that I have fallen in love with a vampire. Ah…the folly of being human. Sad, so sad..but true. I can only laugh!
Thursday November 27th 2008- Emerge through emergency….
During this time I have felt more awake and conscious than I have in years, if at all. It is a truthful experience of emergence through emergency. There is quite literally a birthing taking place. For a very long time I have felt asleep. Drifting. While it is quite a nice feeling, there is no tingling aliveness to it. (Even though people constantly tell me I am so energetic.)
I am also aware that I do not want to become addicted to the adrenalin rush of this experience. But the sense of urgency has been so loud..completely stimulated by the need to emerge through emergency.
A part of me is also filled with doubt. Will I be able to pull this off? Will I be able to create? Thinking about that brings in the fear. So I either return to massive action, or I find a place to surrender. Mostly I try to do both. Let go, let God, and stay in action. Emerge through emergency….
In the early days of my single parenting I can remember when the fear of survival financially was so overwhelming I had difficulty breathing, and the only way out of it was to lie naked on the floor with my arms and legs spread, the single most vulnerable physical position I could find, and breath through it. Emerge through emergency. To this day there are times that I do the same action in my mind.
I think often of my mentor and guide, and the person who inspired this blog, and coined the phrase, “emerge through emergency”, Buckminster Fuller. He set the example. I wonder if he lived in complete trust and faith, or if he doubted like I do? I feel so weak in my faith when the doubt is that strong.
My constant prayer is to be used- for my skills and gifts to be used in the most valuable way possible. Of course, in exchange I would like a really hot salary! I know that true surrender is giving any expectation up, including that!
So its back to create, create, create. And emerge through emergency.
Why Massive Action Now? If you are like most people, you are feeling the earth shifting under your feet, unsure about your next step and whether it will land on solid ground. Having a sense of security is becoming an elusive memory. Uncertainty rules the day. Even if you are in a very secure situation, you cannot but help feel the whisper of the winds of big change. It will touch us all, in some way.
This present time is offering a new experience that makes most of us feel uncomfortable. What will tomorrow bring is a question that is on the lips of many.
All of this, no matter what your circumstances.
*For those who have a solid foundation of wealth, you will certainly have seen some diminishment in your asset base. Depending on your outlook, this is either mildly alarming, or very worrying. You worked hard for those assets.
*For those who hold employment, you watch as people around you are made redundant, and you wonder just how safe is your job? The fear in the corporate culture is very loud. Some of you are already on the sidelines, seeking new opportunity.
*For those small business owners and entrepreneurs, you are either in a business that is thriving, and you are feeling extremely grateful, or you are watching with morbid fascination as your business shrinks before your eyes.
No matter where you are placed, now is the time for re-evaluation. To ignore re-evaluation is to put your head in the sand and pretend that it will all return to the previous place where you felt safe and certain. Massive Action Now is needed.
Life rarely goes back. While we may go back to the horse and buggy, it will only be temporary and the roads and infrastructure are very different from previous times. The sudden rise in the cost of fuel had one great aspect to it. It raised our awareness that the future of an oil based economy is going along the path of the dinosaurs. In our lifetime, probably.
The only thing we can count on right now, is the uncertainty. Imagine living with massive uncertainty as a familiar? Part of the everyday fabric of life? What adjustments would you need to make?
Life rarely goes back. The future does not look like the present. We have a confluence of events that guarantees massive change. The breakdown in the financial system is only one of the events. The extreme stress our thoughtless actions have placed on the environment is another event that cannot be ignored. No matter how far or near we are to peak oil, the way we travel from place to place has to change. How we live our lives has to change. Where we place our value has to change. The vast difference in rich and poor is creating fault lines that will not be placated by mere diplomacy and revised boundary lines. This has to change.
From the place of the symbolic, everything is perfect. The earth is screaming to be heard. No longer content with a whisper, her song is enraged. Humanity has for too long been raping and pillaging in a greedy frenzy. We have come far, and yet are now at the epi-centre of our rebellious teens– self-centred, narcissistic and ravenous for more stuff. It is time to grow up. To take the mantle of the adult, responsible, considerate, desiring to invest in the future.
No matter who you are, it is time for Massive Action Now.
1. We must each of us start with a radical review of self. What is the truth about us now, in this moment? What exactly is our current circumstance?
Are we healthy?
Are we vital?
Do we have any self regulation around consumption of everything-food, alcohol, shopping, TV?
How are our finances?
What is our reputation and brand?
Are our relationships in order?
What mess are we ignoring in our own lives?
How do we imprint on our environment?
How educated are we? Enough? Too much?
Our career…have we adapted ourselves to the future?
Do we offer value that meets the future?
Have we branded ourselves so that people who need to know, know?
Do we have resilience built into our systems? Our selves?
Are we buried in patterns that keep up asleep at the wheel? Too much TV, trashy magazine’s, food and alcohol?
Do we lie to ourselves and others?
What are we not telling the truth about?
Have we seen a drop in business, not too serious but going down?
Or are we in serious trouble, be it financially, health wise, in our relationships, or at work?
2. Starting with the NOW, and looking ourselves clearly in the eye, we move to consider our assets.
What are our assets-both physical and non physical? Bricks and mortar, debts. Plus our knowledge, experience and abilities? Our energy, and health?
What is our value to the world, and how do we express that uniquely?
Does our value offering meet the needs of now and the future? Are we actually redundant? Extraneous- doing work that contributes either little value or is no longer valued, or rapidly loosing value?
What assets do we have that we cannot see have value? Ask others.
What are people constantly acknowledging you for?
What if you could offer your assets to 10 times the people you do so now? 100 times? 1000 times?
How would you do this? Would your systems cope with the increase? Do you have that level of adaptability and flexibility?
How are you leveraging technology?
What changes have you made in the last 5 years? Low to medium change probably means you are likely to be left behind sooner than later.
3. And looking to the future. There are incredible opportunities, whole new industries about to be birthed, new tools and technology to be created, implemented and supported.
How engaged are you in the conversation of the future? Are you even looking? And if so, is your view clean and clear? Do you constantly look at the future and your current value offering and ask if one needs the other? How much time do you send with friends and colleagues discussing future scenario’s?
What opportunities are you not seeing?
Marrying your highest value offering with the needs of the future will ensure you have a vital future! That you will be sort out, and paid well.
Whether you are an employee, or self employed, you simply cannot afford to NOT look at these questions. If you do not take Massive Action Now and re-evaluate your own life, immediately, you will be lost in the turmoil of uncertainty. You will be left behind, you will be redundant.
Indeed, taking Massive Action Now is the only way to get things moving.
“Nothing happens until something moves- quoted Albert Einstein.”
Taking Massive Action Now can look like;
*rebranding yourself in your career
*moving home to a more sustainable environment
*learning a new skill
*creating a new business product
*finding an employer who matched your values
*re-tooling your home to be more green
*selling your car for a more economical one
*getting out of debt quickly
*getting into health
*getting into community work
*using technology in a smarter way
*volunteering to causes that speak to you
*getting fully into the game
*learning what happens in the full circle of the products you buy and use, and taking responsibility for that
*researching the future trends and adapting yourself to meet the future head on
Ask yourself “Do you want to be left behind, or are you up for the future and all the opportunity it holds?” Can I afford not to take Massive Action Now?
Just imagine for a moment that what we have today, at the close of 2008, is going to get 4 to 5 times worse in the next 8 months.
If you were certain about this, what would you do differently today? (And even if this bleak outlook didn’t happen, and you did take massive action now, you would be better off.)
This is the question behind taking Massive Action Now. Not to leave you paralyzed in fear, but to provoke you to look and respond. Today!
Christine McDougall is offering a very unique package around taking Massive Action Now.
Email Christine Christine@syzergy.biz for more information or visit
What is the Future of Business and why is Leadership Development important? Well, since I am not a psychic nor of divine providence, I, like you, can only guess. However, there are some clear writings on the multitude of walls around the world. Here are some of the writings I am seeing clearly written.
1. BIG changes are in place. We are not rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, not this time. No amount of tinkering will allow a return to the status quo. We are in process of seismic shifts.
2. Seismic shifts require a NEW mindset. However, is is not about ejecting the old in entirety, but taking from the old and transcending to the new. In order to do this we need to reconnect with the very purpose of business. What is it there for? Is it just a venue to create big money for a small group of people? Is it to take advantage of times, events and circumstances-to rape and pillage? Why was business created? For what reason? Does the model we have now work? Is it good for us for tomorrow? How committed is our company to leadership development and why?
Show me the leaders with the new mindset? Certainly they are not the ex CEO of Lehman Brothers. Maybe we could look at some of the young guys behind Google, MySpace? And how is their mindset different? Do they thirst for leadership development that builds not just growth, but perspective and width?
3. The business model we have now is flawed and the flaws are finally showing cracks. How do I know this. Well, here are a few of the cracks.
The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider every day. Plus, less people are in the wealthy group. What is good about this model? Not much, unless you are one of those 3-5% of the wealthy.
We are going through accelerated acceleration, where our technology is changing each second. However, the business of business has not really changed in 400 years. Show me one other institution that could say the same? Marriage, Monarchy, the Democratic process? Our leadership model has also largely stayed the same. The system is designed around a hierarchy, which is not bad but could be far more integrative, moving to a holarchical system-similar to complex biological systems. (The human body does do a pretty good job in managing complex functions)
Making money from money without any contribution of any kind in the form of work-be it physical, mental, or spiritual, is a sham. Multiply zero by zero and we get zero. Nothing comes from nothing. However, this little game has been in play for many years, and now we are beginning to see the truth of it. The future of business is about creating real value, value that adds too and has meaning.
Paying people to do nothing else but to show an increase in shareholder value is an extremely narrow perspective of worth. What about how they did this, who and what was stepped on or over to do this, and what are the costs-today, tomorrow, in 20 years and in 200 years? Surely at the least the CEO’s of large companies should be measured through an integrated lens that assesses profitability AND happy, fulfilled, engaged people, AND the long term effects on the environment AND the level of input to the local and greater community AND the value of overall contribution to society that their companies product adds? If the CEO’s score well on all aspects, then pay them well. But don’t pay them obscene salaries for only making money. On this note the demand for leadership development is HIGH.
Endless growth, year in an year out, is unsustainable. No where in nature, with the exception of cancer, does endless growth exist. And even cancer has its use-by date, when the host is consumed by the cancer. To every spring comes an autumn and winter, enabling a new spring. Keep farming the same land over and over and it will fail. This is not rocket science. We need to take time to consolidate, breath, rest. And we need to build this into our businesses consciously. Show me the business that has an integrated model that assumes growth, followed by consolidation and recovery, followed by the next level of growth. And would we, the shareholder, be happy with this? Would you be accepting of your superannuation portfolio going through growth, then a platform stage, then growth? What would you require as the shareholder to be satisfied with this model?
Our system for measuring success and performance is a dud. It is mostly based on endless growth, and increasing shareholder return (whether that share holder is you bank, your investments, your spouse, or the shareholders). We need more integral methods to measure success.
And by the way, who said that the work of a teacher of our children is worth so much less (extremely less) than the work of some guy who knows how to make money for the shareholder? No, I am not a socialist (for lack of a better description I would say I am a conscious capitalist)- I just question our values. The value of caring for others is rated as low. Yet if you have ever needed care you know how much you would pay to get the best. And you know just how much a good carer gives above and beyond the norm. Are they really worth so much less that the Fuld’s of the world (ex CEO of Lehman Bros.) One of the biggest questions on the table now is what are our values and do they serve us? For until we reassess our values around our measure of success we will all be caught in the same old merry-go-round of growth and greed, and the desire for more stuff. Money is NOT the measure of success. It is only a fraction of the measure. Ask anyone who has a lot of money.
4. The environment demands change. Yep, its true, whether you believe in the extremes of environmental catastrophe or not, the elephant in the room is that we must have more awareness of our every action and its effects on everything else.(Cradle to Cradle) And yes, increasing our global population is not going to help. The earth does not need one more baby. Increasing the population may be good for the short term, to keep the eternal growth engine going, but is surely is stuffing our future. We need to get creative and figure another way to take care of our elderly, keep the new jobs going, and all the other goods and services ever increasing numbers of new babies create. (I am not advocating no children, but we really don’t need more than two children per couple-unless of course you adopt one of the many children who need love and care.)
I could write more about any one of these topics. And I am sure I could find more writings on more walls indicating that the times they are a changing.
Change is a messy process. Humans usually find it mildly scary to frankly terrifying. At best we don’t like it.
Companies right now are slashing budgets. Trimming fat. There is a lot of fat that is good to trim. For example- executive perks like limousine services, first class,and fat bonus’s. Only recently I heard about the CEO who insisted that the very staff who had tied themselves in knots to meet target had had their Christmas Party budget slashed to the price of a cheap meal and a glass of wine, while he refused to take a taxi to the airport and insisted on waiting for a limousine. The CEO of JAL (Japanese Airlines) took a different track. He slashed his own salary, in line with other staff and took away all of his entitlements. He wants the company and its people to all pull through. So he started with himself. Which company would you prefer to work with?
In 1992 Bill Gates quoted in Forbes magazine “Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft will become an unimportant company.”
What separates Microsoft from other companies is not its product, but its people.
And it times of massive change people need support, development and input on their NEW mindset. They need leadership development and not just any kind, but the kind that speaks to the future of business.
Slashing the leadership development budget shows that the company is operating in the old world of business, where value is placed on the share holder return and growth and the CEO’s continued bonus scheme. In these companies at these times, the issue of people again goes to the bottom of the pile of priorities. People…people? Who are they?
Quotes Rupert Murdoch in the second of his series of Boyer Lectures this past weekend, November 2008, in the midst of the worst global economic crisis is 100 years.
“If you want to keep your company in the lead, you need to invest in your people.”
After years of working in the world of coaching and personal/team development I have finally clarified who I really add value to. There is even a new category for these people. They are called Positive Deviants. Check this out and see if you are a Positive Deviant. (This is my interpretation of who a Positive Deviant is)
Who are Positive Deviants?
A deviant is someone who departs from the norm. They don’t do things the usual way. A positive deviant is someone who departs from the norm in a way that adds value versus creates pain.
Characteristics of a Positive Deviant.
Very open, curious and willing to explore ideas. A positive deviant knows that staying in the question will, with time, provide an answer. They are always looking for better, faster, less costly in time, energy and money- ways, to do things. Their minds are like eternal antenna’s, tuned frequencies that most people miss. They surrender their own way/idea/process in a heart beat if offered something that will work better, faster, cheaper and for the greater advantage to all.
Daring, courageous, motivated by adventure, what’s next? A positive deviant is bold enough to initiate new idea’s. They don’t need the idea to be perfect first. They will continue to work with the prototype until they get the major kinks out. Their motivation is about giving it a go, versus being afraid of failure.
Receptive to feedback. Positive deviants want feedback, from others and from the environment. Feedback is their altimeter, allowing for subtle or overt corrections as they move forwards. If the feedback is delivered in an ego attacking way, they move through their ego issues far more quickly than most, and take the personal out of it, asking if the feedback has use and/or truth.
Intrinsically motivated to do extrinsic “value to society” activities. The positive deviant has a very strong intrinsic motivator that is about service to others, the environment, community. They no longer work for a living. They work for the love of their work and the value it adds to others. They have a comprehensive perspective of their place and part in the world. They are plugged into a far greater game than the game of work for money, status and stuff. They have their egoic self on a tight leash because of their highly developed self awareness.
Passionate, energetic, vibrant, enthusiastic, dynamic. Positive deviants seems to have a well of energy that explodes into everything they do. Their view is about what is possible, how can we do this, what can I do, what do I need to see that I am not? Speed bumps and road blocks are perceived as opportunities to make course corrections and keep going.
High cognitive development. Most positive deviants have a quick and agile mind, and can see the META meta perspective. Because perspective is relative, positive deviants are able to go to the highest altitude perspective with ease. They grasp complex issues, integrating them and staying within the issue until they have found the simplicity on the other side. They like to be challenged in their thinking, and to practice daily, mind expanding activities, such as dialogue, learning and practical experimentation.
High morals and ethics. By nature of the word positive in the positive deviant title, positive deviants have a very sharply tuned integrous compass. They have an awareness of the affect of their actions, thoughts, and words, and seek to only contribute in a positive way. Integrity is their code. They are constantly practicing Integrity, on an ever increasing basis.
A Sixth Sense. Positive deviants have a high degree of self esteem, universal trust, and intuitive respect. Therefore, they seem to be tuned in to a extra sensory compass. This shows up in different ways for different people. For some it is a highly tuned ability to read people, for others it is a very agile grasp of structure, form and systems. Others have a very highly evolved sense of time and space. Whatever the skill, it is based on an ability to tune into the intuitive and have the courage and grace to act from this, with humility, not righteousness.
You will know from reading the above list if you are either a positive deviant or moving towards being a positive deviant. Positive Deviants can be found in all walks of live. Generally they tend to keep a fairly low profile. They want their actions to do the talking. In Integral Theory, you could describe positive deviance as being second tier, integral thinkers and operators.
There is also such a thing as a company or team within a company who chooses to operate as a Positive Deviant organisation. For example- Google, Apple, Virgin all demonstrate signs of positive deviant behaviour.
My work is to teach/coach/facilitate positive deviants in support of their comprehensive Integrity.
These are trying times and likely to get more so from a financial market sense. While I do not claim to be an expert on what is going on, I have spent the last 6 months studying the whole system and its demise for several hours every day. This plus my every day ongoing reading from Buckminster Fuller, who talked about money/banking/business structure and its flaws 70 years ago until his death in the 80’s. I always thought in regards to Bucky’s financial work, he was a bit of a crack pot conspiracy theorist, but, no, in his usual quite genius, he studied the history, systems and structures with his usual rigor, and he is pretty much been ~on the money~:)
I can feel confident in saying that at core, this is an INTEGRITY issue. To date, unless you are God, something does not come from nothing. (The Haldon Collider in Switzerland is attempting to explore what happened at the BIg Bang-but even then, they start with an energetic something). And yet this is exactly how our economic system seems to be built. We have created enormous something from nothing. People who knew how to play this game, have become ~rich~ from this strategy. (I put rich in brackets with purpose-for how real is this wealth?) It has had nothing to do with work, or legitimate exchange of energy. Just the opposite, it has had to do with non energy-or non stuff- big black holes of non stuff. Monopoly money. The shadow side of real capital, (something that has intrinsic VALUE). While it is possible to argue that the players have had every right to play this game, and they have because it has been the prevailing game, like the mess we have made with the environment, the game has been very short term focused, very narcissistic, and built on greed and fear, with complete disregard to consequences, and long term affects, or truth.
I have been floored to discover just how the system works. I feel pretty sure most people don’t know. We assume that the deposits we make go towards other people’s loans etc..and on it goes. But no. That is not how it works. My deposit enables up to 30 times the deposited amount to be CREATED. From where you might well ask? From thin air. Something from nothing. Please check out the link below to the video clip that explains this. And send it on…people need to know this. How come I have spent a lifetime on ongoing education, and in my mid forties, didn’t know this? I feel like a fool.
While the current situation goes well and truly beyond this level of complexity, and is a fascinating study in greed, plus what I call ~little atrocities~ saying yes to small seemingly innocuous actions that are borderline in integrity, that pave the way for another little atrocity, that in its accumulative affects takes the perpetrator into full blown criminal activity (the cooked frog syndrome-place a frog into a pot of cold water and gradually turn up the heat and the frog goes to sleep as he gets cooked), its essence is built on a lack of Integrity. Lack of personal integrity, lack of systems integrity, lack of perspective integrity. As Bucky said, we either make money or we make sense, and I have struggled to understand just what he meant, and in what context he was speaking. Now it seems clear. For those of you who want to really get Bucky’s perspective of this, check out his book, Critical Path, especially Part 1.
If we add Integral Theory on top of Bucky’s work, with the Western World centred at Orange-which is all about keeping score, the achiever self, stuff accumulation, better than the Jones’s etc, we really begin to see the game at play. Orange is breaking down to green. (which has its own unique problems)
The good news is- and in truth I am excited about the events, even though I don’t expect to come out unscathed financially- that in order for there to be change of any note, we need to see the old structure disintegrate. We need Atlas to shrug and for it to be a decent shrug. For most of the somethings out of nothings to go back to nothings, which is in truth where they always where.
In the mean time..what can we do? What can I do? What can you do?
1. Get educated if you are not already. The world has shifted and we all need to be awake and alert.
2. Get your own house in order- and I mean really in order. To this purpose I have attached a Personal Inventory-a little check list of things to clean up. Some of these things may seem a long way from the bigger topic at hand. How can cleaning out your garage help? We are talking about foundational work. Integrity means wholeness, and wholeness doesn’t exclude anything. The more in Integrity you are, the better able to weather the storms, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and in relationship. This is our work right now. To go into all the dark places, in your own life, in your environment, in your work, and clean up and out, and get back into the highest form of Integrity you can summon.
3. Recognise that this process is the pulling of the shadow out of the closet, and that once the shadow is out, and in the light, it does go away. What we do not want though is for the shadow to jump back into another closet, but for it to be dealt with squarely. RIP and move on. Therefore, this is a great time, with incredible opportunities.
Out of EMERGEncy, we EMERGE. Humans become incredibly creative when the chips are down. New opportunities are everywhere. Focus on this after your house is in order.
As always, I welcome any feedback, response, etc.
The link is below,plus a little quote pulled from todays News Dissector, www.mediachannel.org (made me laugh)
In other economic news, President Bush announced another massive bailout today, saying that he had completed a deal for China to buy the United States in its entirety.
“This was a difficult deal to pull off,” Mr. Bush acknowledged. “The hard part was identifying the parts of the U.S. that China didn’t already own.”
Today in the local paper- (to put this in context, I live in a beach resort community of 450,000 people, in a country with only 21 million people), the headline was “Rescuing Freddy and Fanny May Save our Jimmy’s”.
Our little town as a premier tourist destination for local Australian’s depends on development of high rise resorts and hotels for its healthy survival. Our “Jimmy’s” are in reference to one of our most well known developers, who is in serious trouble, because of the credit crisis birthed to a large degree in the USA and built on greed of the rankest kind.
I do follow daily the changing landscape of the USA political and financial sector. I am watching with bated breath the presidential election. I only wished I could vote. The truth of the matter is, that who ever the US people do vote for, will affect me, my community on the other side of the world, and everyone else in the world. I only wished the USA people as a whole woke up to that fact.
So yes, I do get mad when many of the US population don’t show up to vote. They demonstrate by their very negligent action, that they have zero to no awareness of the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world is truly affected by their voting actions and inactions. They continue to show their parochial, narrow minded, grossly ignorant and extremely arrogant attitude. It is exactly the part of the USA that the rest of the world has come to loathe.
That is not to say that all American’s are like this. Most of my best friends are Americans. They are well aware of the implications. They travel, read world news, and are open to the larger context of global everythings. They have for the last 8 years, held their heads in shame.
The biggest risk is that on November 4, the USA will once again elect idiocracy. Scary even still, that we could have a fundamentalist creationist, book burning, gun toting, only last year passport issued person in the White House, even if she is in the second room. If that does happen, then on the good side, the slide into US oblivion will be fast. Then we, the rest of the world, and those more awake people in the US, can get on with building better things, the phoenix from the ashes.
There are many programs available that deal with similar concepts around having the difficult, critical, crucial, fierce, non-violent conversations.
We in wealthy nations live in a post modern, pluralistic world, where the unwritten code is non judgement, non violence, happiness, and all things sugar and nice. I am not anti these things, I just know that all of these things come through wearing a monological lens.
I have known since I was very young, that this world is not the way it is. There are times that we need judgment, we need sorrow, and we may also need violence. At core I believe in the good in people, and have been aware of my naiveté in this area at times.
However, after one incident where I was stalked for several weeks, and then three home invasions whilst my infant daughter and I slept, I decided it was time I learnt to defend myself. I took private classes in self defense. My wonderful instructor was passionate about supporting people in becoming able to take care of their physical safety. He insisted that I go beyond the hurting stage of infliction, and get into the maim and kill stage. Why? Because if I didn’t, I would never really ~get~ self defense. If someone attacks me with intent to do extreme violence, unless I am able to respond quickly and to the extent my opponent is seriously hurt, or worse, then I am not defending myself. In the process of crossing this threshold and looking into my own ability (or not) to inflict serious harm, or to kill, I had to look at the part of myself that can do this, or is afraid of doing this. I had to make friends with my shadow. To the extent that we deny the shadow aspect in ourselves is the extent that we live a half life with fear as our ruler.
I know I am able to kill and I know I would if it was a life or death situation. Heavy words. Heavy topic. The paradox is that because I am no longer a victim around my own self defense, it is unlikely I will ever be attacked. I do not project weakness or fear of any form in this way. I have looked my shadow in the eye and integrated that part of me.
(Just to be very clear, I would use violence as the very last resort, and only in extreme situations.)
Gandhi was a great role model for modern society. One of the few. The question is- would his methods of non violence have worked in Nazi Germany?
Using the Integral model and exploring stages of development, the Amber ethnocentric stage of Nazi Germany’s development was not the same as the stage India under British rule was at when Gandhi practiced non violence. The British were at a more pluralistic Green stage, which afforded a very different response. Under the rule of tyrants of the level of Hitler, Mugabe et al, I am not so sure that Gandhi’s non violence would have been the best strategy. Idealistically, I would like to believe that he would have been able to turn the situation around through non violence, however, he would have been more likely to end up a statistic.
Dare to Care recognises that people are at many stages of development, neither right nor wrong, good or bad. That as a master communicator, we must adapt our communication to suit the stage we are communicating to. Even further, that we must adapt the way we are present in our thinking and being according to the stage we are speaking to. There is no one right way. There is only the way to speak and respond depending on the audience and the environment.
Judgement is not bad. I need to make judgements for my safety and survival. If a large man is showing malicious intent towards me I better make a very quick judgment about my situation. It is when I judge for the sake of my ego-for feeling better than, right, etc, that I could well do to examine my judgements.
Being nice is not always the best way to serve people. If you have someone who can’t sing to save themselves and you tell them they are OK at singing because you don’t want to hurt them, or knock them in any way, that is not being of service to them. That is colluding with them in denial. Yes, there are ways to tell them, some better than others, which is exactly what we teach in Dare to Care.
I need to care enough about you, to not care about what you think of me. That is a great act of service. And serving the other is exactly what Dare to Care is about.
It requires us to speak what is true, and to know the difference between truth and our ego. And to do so with exquisite care and compassion, willing to step into the domains of passion, sadness, anger, and even violence. If I am unable to say NO to someone, with complete alignment, and using the maximum force of my character, then I am going to remain a push over, indecisive, without back bone.
Learning to speak truth from an Integral frame is what Dare to Care is all about. As people begin to move from the post modern, pluralistic world, into the post post modern integral world, discovering along the way that at times violence, judgement, strong opinions, criticism and sorrow have their place, they will need to learn to speak with clarity, heart and an absence of ego, from that place, relevant to the audience and environment, and in the spirit of service. They will need to Dare to Care.
The past few weeks I have been feeling very restless, looking for and finding distractions, not able to focus for any period of time.
I am an avid and committed observer of the world news, current affairs, plus have been studying history, and daily read from my greatest teacher, R Buckminster Fuller. Bucky talked about prognostication, that in order to predict the future, one had to draw the string of the arrow very far back into history. And that he did. He studied history and kept records, covering many areas, from energy use, discovery of new elements, technology advancement. In the 30’s he made over 50 predictions, of which 47 have occurred. (Including man on the moon).
Bucky also started to talk about our ill conceived use of oil and its costs, way back in the 1930’s. He asked a renowned oil geologist, Francois de Chadenedes, to work out how much in energy, from start to finish over the life time of the creation of oil, would it cost nature to make one gallon of oil. In the currency of the early 1980’s that price was over $1 million per gallon.(see note below for the details of this)
Bucky always based his working premise on the principle of Synergy. That the behaviour of the parts taken separately could not predict the behaviour of the whole, that you could not predict a butterfly from studying a caterpillar, and therefore you had to start, without exception, with the whole. That if we are going to study energy, we had to start with cosmic accounting, and reduce it to local accounting, and not the other way around, which is what we have done. That in cosmic accounting terms the use of petroleum to provide energy was always far far too expensive.
That our energy input from natural resources has always been in far more abundance that we would ever need-sun, wind, waves-and that the only problem with using them as energy source is that big business has not found a way to put a meter between the energy source and the user. (Plus to date our technology around this has been in lag, and the price has been much higher than the use of fossil fuels, although this is changing rapidly)
And that the nearest nuclear reactor we need is perfectly positioned 152 million kms away, and is called the Sun.
Bucky considered our fossil fuels to be natures own savings account, an Earth Bank, not to be stolen by exploiters. Everyone knows that we should live on our energy income and not our savings account. In our case on earth, our energy income far far exceeds our energy spend. Everyday. There is no scarcity of energy, we simply have been exploiting the wrong form.
It has always been apparent that oil would run out. We have all been living in a delusional world where this would not happen soon. Now we know that it is happening, faster than we thought.
The bad news is that our lives have already changed. The shift has already occurred. The use of cars, planes, trucks and other oil consumers as they currently exist, is the dinosaur in the room. Petrol prices are not going down, food prices and transport costs likewise are not going down. Not until we create solutions. Which we will do. But not before the situation gets worse for everyone.
I realised today that my sense of restlessness and discombobulation is because the shift has happened, and that I am frustrated that people are going about their business as if it hasn’t, as if the world will go on as we have known it. It can’t and won’t. Everything and everyone is affected. No one escapes this. Travel as we know it, driving to work, school, driving anywhere, how we consume food, how we work, where we live and work, what has value, who has wealth. It all is changing. Fast. The Middle East will lose its power (because of its total dependance on oil).
The good news. Well the environment is going to be happy. We simply have to stop our use of fossil fuels. It was always a short sighted strategy. We have all been asleep at the wheel, literally, on that one. In complete denial.
We must emerge through emergency, which we will do, in the nick of time. Creativity will increase as people are forced by necessity to invent new ways of transport, lifestyle, and all the countless other uses of petroleum.
There will be a massive redistribution of wealth. This too will be a good thing, as there is opportunity for an exploration of our money systems, which are in serious need of systems change of the highest degree. And, there will be an opportunity for the gap between the rich and the poor to be re-calibrated.
We will, at least for the briefest moment, consider the long term effects of our next actions. We will start with the whole, and work from there.
More people will challenge solutions and ask more questions, there will be an automatic raising of consciousness. The environment will make that essential. We will not be able to get away with our shortsighted lack of personal responsibility. There will be no sand to stick our head into, no away to go to.
There will be tremendous opportunities. Our lives will be radically different. We will simply have to move towards natures economy. Either that, or not make it. And there will be very big losses. No one will walk away without being affected in some way.
In Bucky’s words
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
We have the opportunity to build the new model. Indeed, many of the new models already exist, and have existed for a long time.
It is an exciting time. People will need support to wrap their heads and hearts around the change. They will go through stress, loss, grief, fear. We will endure. It is our human way, to emerge through emergency.
I write this to urge you to wake up. The shift has happened, and what is occurring now is the lag between the shift and the realisation and daily implication.
Everything has changed. Everything. Yield to it, as nature does, or fight, resist, deny.
The world is in our hands.
Blessings,
Christine
Note. “The script of Francois de Chardenedes “Scenario of Petroleum Production” makes it clear that, with all that cosmic-energy processing (as rain, wind, and gravitational pressure) and the processing time (paid for at rtes you and I pay for household electrical energy), it costs nature well over a million dollars to produce each gallon of petroleum.” Critical Path, page xxxv.
