It has been a thought-provoking week, jump-started last Saturday by settling in for a cozy night at home to watch The Age of Stupid. The new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong, it tells the story of a man living alone in the devasted world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? It spurred my husband and I into a deep dialogue on our own denial of the seriousness of the current environmental status of our planet. While we readily agree that climate change is happening and is a key issue of our time, when we honestly looked at our behaviour we had to admit that we could be doing more – lots more – to ensure that our son will have the opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of our world in the same way we can.

The dialogue has continued, leaving us with more questions than answers. We renewed our commitment to vegetarianism – something that had slipped while I was pregnant due to carnivorous cravings, and continued to slide once our son was born because I was just too exhausted to put in the effort. Raised on meat and potatoes, vegetarianism – not just eating pasta and processed soy products, but proper vegetarian eating where you get all of the nutrients your body needs – is not second nature and takes much more effort for me. The first few days of the week went well, but by Friday night I found myself already sweeping this internal dialogue under the carpet, reaching for the emergency frozen pizza stash, and heading back to my comfort zone to engage in another of our favorite Friday night activities – watching TED Talks.

First on the agenda was Bill Gates’ vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for an all out effort to create “miracles” to reach zero carbon emissions globally by 2050 – the goal he says is necessary to avoid planetary catastrophe. WHAM! – no room for complacency (let alone packaged, processed frozen pizza) in our generation. How are we going to achieve this monumental goal, and how can I, as a non-scientist, even begin to make a contribution that matters? Furthermore, with such huge shifts needed, aren’t my minor changes in eating habits insignificant?

Next on the agenda, Jamie Oliver’s passionate speech about the obesity-related health epidemic in North America and Europe. Double WHAM! My pizza stuck in my throat. Just to be clear, my husband and I are nowhere near obese and eat quite healthfully overall. This talk, however, brought back all of the information that I have – the stuff that I bury when I want to have pizza and coke – on just how damaging it is not only to our bodies but to our environment to eat “mindlessly” from the highly-processed, highly-transported, and highly-chemical-infused products that are now standard in most people’s diets.

Then on Saturday morning I opened my e-mail to read the latest post from a good friend of mine, Laura Mack, on honesty as a core issue in parenting her teenage son. She provided some very sobering statistics about the state of honesty – or lack thereof – with our youth. The thing that was perhaps the most troubling, was that despite the fact that they admit to a high degree of dishonesty the youth in the survey still saw themselves as being ethical and more honest than a majority of their peers.

It would be easy to be shocked at “today’s youth”, but I had to question how different I really am. While I do not lie, cheat and steal in some of the obvious ways these surveys are asking about, like a majority of our society, I lie to myself. While this might seem far less harmful, I am struggling with the dawning realization that this type of lying is perhaps the most harmful of all. It is harmful because the lies I tell myself – or the information I conveniently choose not to see or understand – are what keep me doing what is easy, what is comfortable, what I have always done, and what everyone else is doing. But it is clear from the sources above and many many more that we need to change – that I need to change. Like the woman in The Age of Stupid, (who, after winning the fight AGAINST having wind turbines put in her rural British community because they would ruin the view, enthusiastically proclaimed,  ”of course we must do all we can to reduce global warming!”) I am often unwilling to see my own hypocrisy. She wants to avoid global warming, but not if it ruins her view. I want to help preserve our planet for future generations, but not if it means I have to put more effort into what I cook for dinner.

Perhaps the biggest lie I tell myself is that I don’t know what to do. This is an easy one for abdicating responsibility. I see it in my coaching clients all of the time. When they say “I don’t know”, it is a flag that somewhere, underneath their denial, and buried deep within their fears of change and their desire to stay in their comfort zone, there is a dawning awareness of what they do want and what they do need to do. Saying they don’t know keeps them safe because it gives them an excuse not to act. If they are busy trying to figure out what they want or what they “should” do, they can preserve the illusion of productive action without really engaging in any. So despite my internal voice screaming loudly that I don’t know what to do, that my non-scientist talents are not really going to make a difference, and that the actions of my non-famous self can have nowhere near the impact of Jamie and Bill, I cannot hide beneath the “I don’t know” comfort blanket and still feel good about myself.

So what can I do? One thing I can do is write about it. This, at least, is a start. Maybe, in the same way that this information has inspired me to question myself and renew my commitment to being part of the solution, it will inspire others to do the same. We can’t all be Bill Gates or Jamie Oliver, but we can all do our part. Maybe your part is to find that solution that can take us to zero carbon emissions by 2055. Maybe you will send this link to someone you know and it will give them that little extra bit of insight they needed for the breakthrough. While I am not going to be personally responsible for solving the energy crisis, I can take responsibility for solving my own energy crisis. I can start having the courage to stop burying the truth beneath my comfort zone. I can plug the energy leaks that occur when my actions are not in integrity with who I want to be and what I know I need to do.

This kind of honesty can be hard and sometimes painful on all sides, but what I do know from experience, is that when I have faced the truth, spoken my truth, and been willing to look openly at the truths others are presenting to me, it has paved the way for increased energy, aliveness, creativity, and abundance for everyone involved. I also know that seemingly insignificant actions can spark massive change. Just as Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on the bus became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement, everything that I say and do, no matter how small, has the power to provide the spark or the tipping point for massive change. As Margaret Mead is famous for saying, ”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

I would love to have you join me in my quest to live with eyes wide open and head out of the sand and, ultimately to create the “miracles” we need to build a world where we all can thrive. I hope that in sharing our stories – both the challenges and the triumphs – that we will give each other the strength, hope and the inspiration to continue doing our part.

At my writer’s group last week I had an epiphany. I’ve been holding out on you. I have been censoring what I allow myself to blog about. I have been sticking to topics that I think are most likely to be seen as professional, credible, and useful by the business community and staying away from anything too personal or spiritual that might be deemed flaky. Yet the journey to practice kyosei – to build our capacity to live and work together for the common good – is at it’s heart deeply personal and spiritual. This being the case, if I am to fulfill my purpose of being a catalyst for realizing the potential of people and organizations to thrive on the common good, I must be willing to risk being seen as flaky by some in order to be a model for others of how to practice kyosei.

The time has come to unshackle myself from the past. My fears of being misunderstood, of being seen as flaky, of having to struggle to get my message out – these are all in the past. What’s more, I can now see that these challenges were rooted in others’ limitations, not in my own. They could not or did not want to hear my message. “Getting it” would have meant reframing their universe and transforming profoundly their ways of being, doing and having in the world. Those who are ready, willing and eager to be transformed are thirsting for messages and living models of having the courage to be personal, spiritual and fully authentic – the only true source of lasting personal, business and planetary sustainability. It is time to stop being “secretly me” and to begin sharing my work – both the work I do at a personal level and the work I do with businesses – on a wider scale.

It occurs to me that perhaps an even more important question to ask myself is how ready, willing, able and eager I am to be transformed by my own work. What is stopping me from fully engaging in my own work to profoundly shift my ways of doing, being and having in the world?

There are two pieces.

One is my fear of being misunderstood. The other is the reality that I am far from being a perfect example of practicing the principles of kyosei and life-work integrity™ that I teach. These two fears work together most obviously in my writing to block me. My fear of being misunderstood fuels my drive for perfection in my writing. This drive for perfection saps my energy as I scramble to try to figure out how to do it right the first time. It stops me from releasing my message out into the world. (Case in point – the three books I have in the wings – 75% written but languishing in electronic purgatory while I attempt to “figure out” the best way to position them in the market.) If I can release my fear of being misunderstood, I can let go of the need for perfection, thus freeing up enormous reservoirs of energy and passion that I have buried in trying to figure out how to get it right.

Of course this is all tied into the need to strive for achievement, recognition, power and status that is the dominant modus operandi of our society. Because we are so ingrained with this belief that more and faster is better, we live in a constant state of not enough (or not good enough) despite the abundance that surrounds us and, in reality, is threatening to bury us. I know from experience that when I manage to step out of this dominant ethic that drives me to push myself to do more, be more and have more I am more at peace. I begin to allow myself the time to re-connect with myself, with nature, and with the wisdom of the universe that is wanting to flow through me to heal people, business and the planet. I let go of my belief that this work is something I “must” do, and open up to it as something that is being done through me. Not only does this drive productivity (as it makes it easier to step into the flow of actions and priorities in each and every moment), it creates more of the results I was seeking (power, recognition, achievement and yes, money) without all the negative side effects.

So, fellow travellers on the path to fostering lifestyles and businesses that offer sustainable health, vitality and prosperity for all, henceforth you shall find on my blog a more balanced mix of my personal/spiritual musings posted alongside the more “professional” ones. I look forward with curiosity to witness the results in my life and my business of no longer being “secretly me”.

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments about the above, and would especially like to hear any success stories (and challenges!) you have had regarding your own journey of expressing your authentic self in your life and work.

As kyosei is both the name of our company and the fundamental philosophy on which all of our work is based, I thought I would use my next few posts to blog more specifically about kyosei, its meaning, origin, and the way that it can and is being used in business and life today.

With roots in (more…)

I received a link to this video on youtube this morning from a friend. It reminded me how much power we have to create our world the way we want it through simply making choices about the story we choose to tell ourselves and others. Creating a kyosei world where people are thriving on living and working together for the common good depends on more people choosing inspiration vs. cynicism. As you watch the video, pay attention to how you feel listening to each version of the “poem”. I hope this link inspires you to rescript the stories you are telling yourself and others in your life and work. One day post-inauguration of Obama, this video is a powerful reminder of our capacity to be part of leaving the doom and gloom of the past and creating a vibrant future for us all.