The Great Growing Up Blog

  There 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 […]

by 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. […]

  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 […]

Most 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 […]

  Albert 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 […]

  When I was in the real estate securities business I was pretty full of myself. The company I had co-founded was making double digit returns on investors’ capital and we actually thought we were pretty clever, that we had something to do with getting our investors such high returns. Never mind that double-digit inflation […]

Most of us have heard that one of the most valuable resources for a magician is the ability to misdirect the audience’s attention so the illusion will appear even more magical. Here’s what Wikipedia says about misdirection: Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing […]

  Those holding elected office frequently refer to being “in public service,” implying that their chosen careers are quite noble. I concur entirely that public service is a noble choice but so few elected politicians are really serving the public. By all appearances, U.S. politicians subordinate the public good to a couple of other priorities. […]

One of the most succinct definitions of conscious leadership that I’ve seen comes from the Conscious Leadership Group (CLG). It was made clearer to me in a recent email exchange with Jim Dethmer, one of the three principals of CLG. He writes: “We define leadership as taking responsibility for the influence you are having in […]

[This article was adopted from a previously published blog for FutureShapers.com in August 2013 – JR] When we humans come together and organize ourselves for some purpose, we tend to agree about the context or mental framework for that purpose. While in the best cases this agreement is explicit and conscious, agreement is often implicit […]