Challenging our Ways of Thinking about Work, Leadership & the Future
Year: 2017
Dec 2017 In early November, I attended the annual shaman event sponsored by The Pachamama Alliance, the primary charity I support. The theme this year was “Coming Into Right Relations” and featured several “wisdom keepers” including Pat McCabe (aka “Woman Stands Shining”), a Native American shaman, Manari Ushigua, an Ecuadorian shaman of the Saparo tribe, […]
Read MoreThere is an old fable that I have been reminded of these past couple of years centered around a Chinese farmer. Here’s part of a version told by British philosopher Alan Watts (1915-1973), considered by many to be one of the godfathers of the human potential movement: Once upon a time there was a […]
Read More
November 2017 After drafting the rather short piece on “apparency” for last month’s newsletter, I did some reflecting on how our individual perspectives of any event or development are so distorted not only by the place from where we stand – our physical position in relationship to whatever occurs – but our mental and emotional […]
Read Moreby John Renesch and Thomas Eddington Co-founders, FutureShapers LLC Throughout the world, nations, organizations, families and individuals are reacting to the seemingly ever-increasing pace of change. Shifts in demographics and a rapid increase in technological advances is resulting in the collapse of the social systems previously designed and implemented throughout our societies, organizations and lives. […]
Read More
October 2017 While most of us know that each of us has a different perspective of anything we observe we often act as if we have exactly the same experience. If there are 500 people in a room watching a performance, there are 500 differing perspectives or experiences. No two people are sitting in the […]
Read More
I recently submitted an article to a respected leadership journal about the crisis I see negatively affecting leadership in all sectors. It comes in the form of true commitment and what it has come to mean. I see this crisis as a global epidemic. Much of the positive developments in our history as human […]
Read More
Sep 2017 [In late July I moderated a panel at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) that remembered the work and life of a man who was a tremendous influence in my life – Willis Harman. Below is an updated short piece I did on Willis for the Global Dialogue Center four years ago. […]
Read MoreMost of the beliefs we have buried in our psyche were installed many years ago, mostly when we were as young as two to five years old. Early on, we decided we were separate from everyone and everything else. Soon after, because we saw ourselves as separate, many of us took on some version of […]
Read More
August 2017 A futurist colleague of mine in Iran recently reminded me that individualism and the American “brand” of capitalism are no longer exclusive products of my country; they have now become globally ubiquitous. Victor Vahidi Motti (pictured right), Director – Secretariat of the World Futures Studies Federation, serves on a team of volunteers who […]
Read MoreAlbert Einstein said it well: “Nationalism is an infantile disease.” Nationalism is simply a more formalized form of tribalism and they are both forms of “special interests” – the enemy of the common good. Special interests are playing a zero-sum game where fear of losing out and grabbing all they can overshadows the well-being […]
Read More