The 4th American Revolution

There are so many things wrong with the world today from economic turmoil, poor education, mass poverty, etc., but we also are living at a great time in history in which we can make a difference.  Today we can ride the waves of change.  And if we are willing to surf the energy of the storm we can enjoy the power of the ever-changing ocean rather than fear it.

Luckily there are plenty of surfers already in the water.  When you see unexpected people do unexpected things, or unexpected organizations behave in new ways, or new institutions begin to blossom, you can be sure change is accelerating.  Let’s look at five areas:

Popular Culture

We see it in our popular culture.  We are not surprised when Oprah calls out for greater social justice and personal integrity.  We are amazed, though, when rock star Bono does it not only with passion but also with intelligent action.  Or when playboy actor George Clooney travels to Darfur or bad boy Brad Pitt and over-the-edge Angelina Jolie adopt orphans and choose to live part-time in Africa.  Whether you believe these are sincere expressions or publicity stunts is beside the point.  Popular culture is shifting.

Philanthropy

We see it in philanthropy.  When Bill Gates resigns from business and convinces Warren Buffet to give his fortune to solve society’s problems or when Bill Clinton’s Foundation brings together a community of global leaders, university students, and private citizens to identify and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, including poverty alleviation, climate change, global health, and education. And when large-scale giving is built into the core business models of corporations such as Google and eBay, something is up.

Business

We see it in business.  When eco-conscious Patagonia clothing company pioneers the use of organic cotton in tee-shirts, it’s cool.  When they teach Wal-Mart how to do it, it’s jaw dropping.  When the largest for-profit company in the world transforms itself into the largest seller of organic food, fair trade coffee and organic clothing in the globe, when it converts part of its truck fleet to alternative fuel and mandates recycling, we must sit up and take note.

Countries

When countries like Denmark get much of their power from the wind, we are not impressed.  Most macho Americans think Europeans are eco-weenies.  But when big box stores like Circuit City and Target are putting solar panels on their stores and warehouses to cut their energy costs, we take notice.  New companies like SunEdison have created a brand new business by installing the solar panels for free in exchange for a 10-year contract to buy the generated electricity.  Yes, when mainstream entrepreneurs and venture capital firms begin to scale large businesses using new solutions that are better for everyone, something is happening.

Globalism

We see it in globalism.  Fifteen years ago the quality movement took off.  Standards of manufacturing quality were accelerated when international manufacturing standards were adopted.  Soon, large manufacturers and retailers were demanding parts and products built in factories that were certified.  What’s happened is a revolution in quality.  Our expectations of the things we buy, how they work and how long they should last have been dramatically raised because our worldwide manufacturing standards have.

Guess what?  In 2008, SA 8000, which are social accountability standards are being adopted in countries around the world.  They set standards for fair labor practices, overtime and child labor.  What started 10 years ago as protests against Gap and Nike for using sweatshops is now going mainstream.  Of course, there will always be cheaters and outlaws; that’s not the point.  The point is there is a rising tide of change that we can all participate in, that we can all help to accelerate.

Most of all we see it in our personal lives.  When our high school and college-age kids start volunteering more than Americans have in a century, it’s inspiring. When millions of Boomers begin seeking redemption from self-focused lives, it’s downright revolutionary.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?

Join the Revolution…Are you going to join the revolution?  Why or why not?

Voting for the American Dream

This election has the promise to be truly future changing.  But only if the winner seeks a dramatic new course from the wrong-headed assumptions both parties have been operating under for a very long time.  Our nation is the first in human history founded on the ideals of a government designed to constantly promote life and liberty so that all our citizens could pursue genuine happiness.  This is the root of the real American Dream.

I was raised on a ranch where the ideals of rugged individualism and personal responsibility were emphasized.  Those principles are the engine of a strong productive society.  But it’s not all there is to it.  As I’ve spent the past three decades helping leaders and organizations link fundamental values to their decisions it has become clear to me that the questions of the purpose of life and society must be answered or our unbridled individualism will degrade into selfishness and yes, greed.

The idea that our society exists only to enable its strongest individuals to amass power and wealth is a new spin on history’s oldest story.  It’s always told by the people in power.  The higher ideal our founders fought for is a society in which our common responsibility is to help people we aren’t related to, don’t even know, or more importantly the unborn next generation.  It was based on the inspired belief that the best society is one in which all of us help ensure that the most people have a full opportunity to achieve security, dignity and contentment.  This is the vision that inspires me.

I believe that the American Dream has little to do with money.  The dream is not so much materialistic as it is spiritual.  By that I mean the promise of America is the promise of an equal chance to make something of our lives.  The freedom and responsibility to give our gifts and express our most noble desires.  If that sounds corny, maybe it’s because we’ve become so cynical.  That’s a shame.  Our founders were anything but cynical.  They were perhaps the greatest group of practical-idealists in history.

I was reminded of that when I read Dean Calbreath’s column in the San Diego Union Tribune titled “Spreading the Wealth.” Calbreath reminds us that Jefferson and Madison were insistent that significant financial inequality not become life-as-usual in America.  They were escaping a smothering aristocracy in Europe and England and they knew that if the wealthy interests controlled the government, the banks, and the land a new aristocracy would pass laws to insulate themselves from competition and protect their wealth and their children’s wealth in a thousand different ways that would cripple opportunity for the rest of us.  Neither Jefferson nor Madison were socialists but as Calbreath reminds us, Jefferson proposed “taxes could be used to reduce enormous inequality,” and Madison proposed policies to limit “extreme wealth” and promote a broad middle class.  Calbreath also points out that none other than Abraham Lincoln instituted America’s first income tax.  It only taxed the more prosperous.  And Teddy Roosevelt proposed a graduated income tax and inheritance tax.  The motivation of these great presidents was not to punish the hard working, inventive risk-takers and reward the slackers; rather it was to use the taxes raised to create a civil society where the infrastructure of universal education, roads, bridges, and later power, water, and communication would reinforce the force of liberty for all of us to pursue our own dreams.

Our great presidents were trying to create a society that presented the greatest opportunity for happiness and least avoidable suffering possible.  They realized that liberty is not simply an absence of laws and regulations, but rather it is a system of laws and regulations that promotes the common good for us.

Today, those who believe that the opportunities for a well-educated suburban high school student whose parents can help him pay for college, buy a car or a down payment on the his first home and the opportunities for a fatherless inner city girl attending a violence-drenched high school are anywhere near the same are simply ignoring another inconvenient truth.  And any self-made millionaire that thinks they achieved their wealth and advantage solely through their own hard work is as deluded as Donald Trump.

To create our best society those of us who are blessed to have had responsible and loving parents, good teachers and a dose of good fortune have the responsibility to use our considerable resources and innovative minds to provide an infrastructure of education and opportunity for those who aren’t so lucky.  We all know direct handouts weaken and embitter the recipients of no-strings-attached charity.  But that’s not what the real American Dream’s promise is.

Our real dream is based on a mutual promise to give everyone an honest chance at a decent life.  But our pursuit of the common good has been lost in a chorus of “tough luck—it’s your own damn fault” social and economic policies.  I am not proposing we bailout irresponsible behavior of anyone, rich or poor.  Everyone should be responsible to clean up his or her own messes.  But the self-serving belief that wealth is a sign of virtue and that financial struggles are proof of laziness is obscenely wrong.  What kind of a society have we created?  For me what I see is a society that has parachutes and bailout plans for the rich and well connected while everyone else gets pushed out of the airplane and told to roll when they hit the ground.  This is not the best we can do.  We need wisdom, morality, fairness and dignity rather than slogans, selfishness, self-righteousness and nastiness.   To get it we’re going to have to vote for it, from the President to your City Council candidates.

When I look at the example of some of our best presidents, I am inspired.  Inspired by their belief that the best society is one in which those with the most advantages and resources help strengthen the means to rise up the opportunities of all.  For me that’s a renaissance of practical-idealism.  Isn’t our best society one in which the most citizens are empowered to do their best and be their best?  It’s time we vote for the American Dream.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do? So what do you think?  What is the point of society?  Were Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln wrong?  How do we avoid turning a commitment to the common good into a welfare state?  What mutual obligations should we embrace? What can we do as individuals for each other right now?

The American Dream and the Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness is the third pillar of the American Dream.  It’s the payoff for a secure Life and the benefits of Liberty.   Until recently, the “pursuit of happiness” sounded a little airy-fairy.  A little “let’s hold hands and sing from sea to shining sea.”

That’s because the idea of happiness has always been subjective.  It has meant different things to different people.  No more.  The past twenty years have produced mountains of worldwide research on human happiness.  Over 500 studies in the past five years alone.  We have also conducted our own research at American Dream Project. Now we actually know what happiness is and what produces it.  Understanding happiness is one of the great breakthroughs of the last decade.

Happiness is measurable, observable, and verifiable.  Through brain scans we now know that feelings of wellbeing occur when our left frontal lobes, found above our left eye, are stimulated  (Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard When we are anxious or unhappy, our right frontal lobes have their lights on and we are mentally “pacing our cage.”

Happiness is a persistent feeling of wellbeing, despite the challenges and the ups and downs.  Happy people remain generally content and optimistic.  Happiness also requires an absence of anxiety, stress and depression.

We also know that personal happiness has two drivers: inner and outer.  The most powerful is our own inner landscape.  How we think, approach problems, and bounce back from troubles.  But we don’t live in bubbles, so we are greatly affected by the outer “weather” as well.  Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison had it right; society and government have a big impact on how we pursue happiness.  It turns out the societies that have the greatest equality of access to health care, education, and economic opportunities are the happiest.

But, that’s not all.  Societies that have sticky social glue, meaning high family solidarity, low divorce rates, and broad membership in social and civic groups tend to be much happier. Belief in God, participation in religious organizations, and high optimism are also strongly tied to happiness  (Authentic Happiness and Martin Seligman).

The research comes at just the right time because, as a nation, with all our advantages, wealth, technology and power, we seem to stink at the Happiness game.  We’re not even in the top 20 on the first ever World Map of Happiness.

It turns out two of the greatest causes of unhappiness are divorce and job loss.  We are world class at that.  We’ve come to expect regular turnover in our jobs and marriages.  In fact, we now lead the world in those categories. We’ve been led to believe “creative destruction” is a good thing.  Evidently we’ve gotten a little carried away.  Trust, the measure of how much we can count on each other to keep commitments, is half of what it was in 1950. We don’t trust our leaders, our bosses, our government, our schools, our religions, our neighbors, our spouses, our kids, our working colleagues, or the evening news.  When trust in society is shot, social friction slows everything down, makes everything cost more and puts us on guard.  Distrust is the dance music for unrelenting stress.

We’ve been lulled into measuring happiness with a dollar symbol.  The quality of our society is now equated with the activity of our economy.  Our national policy makers worship at the altar of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP); our nation’s health is determined by dividing the total amount paid for all goods and services by the number of citizens.

As an indicator, though, the GDP is both amoral and illogical.  All expenditures are counted as good.  So all the costs of lawsuits, divorces, pollution and disaster clean up, car wrecks, crime, prisons, cigarettes, and even the price rise in health care, college tuition and gasoline add to our GDP.  Does that make any sense to you?  Or is the Gross Domestic Product as Robert F. Kennedy challanged just gross?

According to economists, our standard of living may be rising on paper, but our real standard of life is falling.  When we account for the true economic costs of environmental destruction, urban sprawl, depletion of resources, crime, poverty, illness and education failure, we find our per capita standard of living is declining.  That’s why we somehow feel poorer and more vulnerable even though our house prices have risen and we can buy SUVs with zero percent financing.  Our garages are full, but our souls are empty.

So, what’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?  Everything.  Happiness is personal at its core.  So in spite of our stress-crazed society, we can all make individual choices that matter.  And these choices, our choices, will change the world.

Four Qualities of a Great Elected Leader

As we look out across the panorama of world events, it is easy to feel that the world is out of control like a derelict ship with no one at the helm. In such times as these it is easy to look around and focus on what is wrong. It is time to ask, what kind of leader do we really need? Who can take the helm and successfully lead us through the storm of human events?

Listed here are four of the qualities that I believe to be hallmarks of a great elected leader.

1. They see leadership as a position of responsibility, not entitlement.
   Great leaders understand that they are one piece of a greater whole and are careful not to put their needs ahead of those of the community they serve. They understand that the greatest benefit to the individual comes from the success of the group and are willing to make personal sacrifice towards that end. I recently ran across a quote from Ken Blanchard that expresses this concept beautifully.

   “Too many leaders act as if the sheep, their people, are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.” –Ken Blanchard
   

2. They have a vision based on the needs, dreams, and desires of their constituents.
   Great leaders understand the needs, dreams, and desires of the people they lead. They also understand that these things do not create themselves. Great things may be inspired by one man or women, but they are created through cooperation, and cooperation requires a blueprint. They envision the goal and surround themselves with the types of visionaries and experts that can help to create that blueprint.
   
3. They inspire people to adopt the vision.
   Although great leaders follow the will of the people, they are not passive. They understand that each man and woman represents the energy to accomplish great things. If that energy is left untapped it can become stagnant or even destructive. They avoid stagnation by capturing the attention of the people and focusing it on their shared greater potential. Because the leader is unafraid to sacrifice, he or she can ask for sacrifice in return. The leader does not ask the people to follow his or her personal agenda but to reach for their own shared dreams, and he has a plan to guide them in that quest. By communicating his vision with passion he breeds confidence and lights the fires of inspiration.
   
4. They adapt, improvise, and overcome.
   “Adapt, improvise, and overcome” is a long held mantra of the U.S. Marine Corp, but it is also a quality of the great leader. They understand the types of obstacles that can arise in the pursuit of great things. They are not inflexible, listen to advice, and adjust their strategy as necessary, while keeping focused on the goals of the people whom they serve. They create an environment in which challenges can be met with innovative solutions. Innovation is encouraged, allowed to progress with minimal interference, and rewarded. The great leader is not constrained by the status quo but seeks to transcend it, and society benefits as a result.

We need such leaders today. Just as they must have the courage to lead us boldly, we must have the courage to choose boldly and to insist upon the kind of leadership we need and deserve.

What is the greatest thing we can do to get the kind of leaders we deserve?

Lighten Up with Energy Star Bulbs

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an Energy Star qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.  Just imagine if every light bulb in America were an Energy Star bulb!

Energy Star qualified Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs have many benefits:

• Use about 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer.
• Save about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb’s lifetime.
• Produce about 75 percent less heat, so they’re safer to operate and can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.
• Are available in different sizes and shapes to fit in almost any fixture, for indoors and outdoors.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?

CFLs lighten your house, your wallet, and your energy use.  So what are you waiting for?  Are all of the light bulbs in your house CFLs?

Business Model for Corporate Social Responsibility

There is a growing realization that business-as-usual will lead us to the end of our world.  What the leaders of the future want to learn is how they can build businesses that build a better world.  Now.   The movement away from short term, self-interest is taking hold in the most unlikely places.  Suddenly, business gurus like Harvard’s Michael Porter are holding up socially strategic companies like Whole Foods as a new model for business strategy.  It’s nothing short of a re-definition of capitalism.

Raw, financially driven capitalism rewards anything that reduces cost and increases price.  Anything.  Even Adam Smith, capitalism’s philosopher, knew that.  Before he wrote Wealth of Nations he wrote Moral Sentiments, which makes the case that virtue is at the core of all enlightened self-interest.  He never intended for butchers to cheat or bakers to poison their customers for a few shillings and then leave town.  We live in an age that was unimagined by 18th century economic philosophers.  The size and scope of power of global businesses tied to constant advances in technology have become the most potent force on our planet.  Whether it’s a force for good or is a force simply to amass more wealth and power without regard to the world we are creating is simply a leadership choice.

Good Capitalism

Good Capitalism is a bigger idea than industrial or financial capitalism of the 20th century.  It challenges us to think about free enterprise as a means to be free to create as much real value as we can.  It’s not the freedom to exploit, pollute, and poison.  Rather, it’s the freedom to create a more just, sustainable, and empowering world.  Academic journals and now the traditional business press are flooding us with a steady stream of articles on the social and environmental good forward-thinking leaders can wield through business enterprise.  This is not turning business into non-profits or even semi-profits.  You can make a fortune using innovation to benefit humanity.  It’s simply “Good Fortune” for all concerned.

This is not simply bringing social responsibility to business.  That is a small idea.  Social responsibility asks business leaders to reduce pollution, ensure fair labor practices, give to local charities and use local suppliers.  All that’s good, but wholly insufficient to save the world.  It’s giving aspirin to a cancer victim. Good Capitalism is based entirely on a new leadership model.

What is needed today is a new form of capitalism.  I call this Socially Strategic Enterprise.  The imperative is to create your core business model, the way you make money as a “Socially Strategic Enterprise.”  This means your products or services will cause 1) human wellbeing and 2) save our planet.  To make money by saving the future.  It demands a whole new way of thinking of how to produce your product or service and how it is used or consumed.  It starts with the challenge of creating infinite, one-of-a-kind value and zero waste. Social Strategic Enterprise is scalable.  It isn’t limited to woodsy, mom and pop, organic enterprise. Socially Strategic leaders seek to enrich billions of lives and solve huge challenges.  They don’t seek to limit ecological damage; they seek to heal our planet.  You get the idea?

The four ideals of Socially Strategic Leadership is what I call the REALeadership Model:

1. Be Responsible…for everything you do. The fact is, we are responsible.  A leader’s impact is long.  Their decisions weigh more than others.  So they must be wise enough to constantly see the big picture, to carefully consider the impact of their decisions on employees, customers, suppliers, the environment, the community, and the generations of unborn.
2. Be Ethical. To be ethical is to be moral.  The highest level of morality is beyond the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have done to you.  The moral standard is do as much good as you can.  Create the Greatest Total Value you can.  For everyone, all the time.  Why else lead?
3. Create Abundance. Abundance requires more than innovation.  It demands invention.  It requires creating something with unique value and constantly recreating more unique value.  Unique value puts in an “uncontested marketspace”  that enables you to also enjoy a unique margin advantage.
4. Create a Legacy. A leader’s legacy is his or her impact on the future.  The world needs saving.  We need new solutions we can implement as fast as possible.  If you aren’t going to save the world then get out of the way.  Make room for someone who is.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?

Adopt the Realeadership Model for Our Businesses, Our Work and Our Personal Lives.

Everything Matters

The past three days of surfing have been amazing.  San Diego in October is often mind-blowing.  All week temperatures have been in the low 80’s.  The ocean has been completely glassy, water transparent.  On days like this I surf until my arms turn to noodles because I am not sure when another day like it will come along.  The ocean is my gym.  Surfing and walking with Debbie are all I do for exercise.  Obviously I can’t surf everyday, but I try to everyday I am home because I find the rhythm of it keeps vibrating in my being and that rhythm seems to have nature’s wisdom in it.

Last night at 1:30 am one of my sons and his wife and my three grandchildren arrived for a week that will include Disneyland on Halloween.  Whenever I see my grandchildren my resolve to do what I can to create a sustainable future deepens.  In many ways my nine grandchildren are the music of the vibrating wisdom I feel from surfing.  I often feel there is a silent harmony underneath the chaos of our apparent life that is “real reality.”  Today was one of those days.  Everything matters, just not in the way we think it does.  It’s much more important.

Slaves to Debt

Making money with money, that’s where the real money is. The banks of today are mammoth multinational financial machines.  Interest rate restraints vanished in the ‘90’s and America’s debt soared.  Since our wages stalled years ago, we’ve financed our lifestyle with debt.  Americans have lived on our home equity lines and credit cards.  Our home equity has paid for exotic trips and new cars.  We stripped the value of an appreciating asset to buy depreciating assets.  Then our appreciated assets suddenly depreciated themselves.  We are now paying the price for such greed and irresponsibility with what’s been called by many including the Wall St. Journal as the

“worst crisis since the 1930’s.”

Yes the greed of Wall Street and deregulation is to blame, but so is the excessive American lifestyle that is supported by debt.  In “A Silver Lining to the Financial Crisis” Morgan Housel states,

“The larger picture is that it wasn’t just Wall Street gorging on more debt than they could handle and taking excessive risks. It was nearly everybody. By 2005, over a quarter of Americans’ income went toward revolving debt payments. Debt was the lifeblood of the economy, and the chickens have come to roost.”

The average American household owes $9200 in credit card debt.  Half of cardholders pay only the minimum payment each month.  Creditors send out statements within seven days of the due date, and then suddenly, oops, you’re late - you now pay penalty fees and jump to a 27% interest rate.  Banks make more on penalty payments than on interest. What a business! (See also Credit Card Industry Facts (2006-2007)

You see, when maximizing shareholder value became gospel, everything legal became ethical.  The taboo against predatory lending was labeled old-fashioned.  Predatory lending lures unsophisticated people into borrowing money they have no reasonable hope of paying back quickly.  There used to be laws against it.  Not anymore.  Today there are more strip-mall paycheck loan stores than McDonald’s.  They charge an average 300% interest and their customers take out an average of 13 “loans” per year.   They make Junior Soprano look like Mother Theresa.  Many loans charge interests and fees of over 1000%.

Five billion “pre-approved” credit card offers a year now flood our homes, and lots of them are going to our teenage children.  Our nation’s largest 100 universities make over $300 million a year selling our children’s data to banks for credit solicitation Why would anyone offer credit to impulsive, inexperienced, desire-crazed teenagers before they’ve ever held a job? Simply to create a life-long relationship.

There is current proposed credit card legislation, the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights, but it faces an “uphill climb on Capitol Hill” and apposed lobbying by the banking industry.  “Credit Card ‘Bill of Rights’ Inches Forward” discusses how the legislation has provisions such as credit card companies are required to give cardholders 45 days notice of any interest rate increases, retroactive rate increases are prohibited unless the card holder is more than 30 days late, and billing statements must be sent 25 calendar days before the due date under the legislation. The article also states that Barack Obama has proposed his own credit card bill of rights as part of his economy plan that would among other things apply interest rate increases only to future debt, prohibit interest on fees, and ban unilateral charges. We could find no specified credit card rules from McCain’s camp.

Regulations may help, if they ever come to be, but the problem is moneylenders are eager to sell us “priceless” experiences followed by years of debt slavery and too many of us are too eager to take the bait.  For moneylenders, the best thing that could happen is that we spend a lifetime in debt.  Our job is just to keep the interest current.  In fact, if we could pass on our debts to our children, they all like that even better.  Want proof?  Watch for 50 and 100-year mortgages.  They are coming.  Eternal, endless balances earning daily interest.  Have you seen the T.V. commercials to buy furniture and TV’s today with no payment for five years?  That’s modern America.  It’s the reverse of delayed gratification.  It’s delayed responsibility.  We start paying for stuff after it’s old, broken, or used up.

It used to be we borrowed to build factories and do research.  We borrowed to invest in our future.  Now we simply borrow our future.

Today, most Americans, maybe 80%, are slaves to debt, the price of oil, and the costs of education.  But increasingly, the top 20% who run business, government and the media tell us it’s our own fault.  If life is stressful, it’s because we made it that way.  The free market is sacred, and it’s what makes America great.  The selfish, lucky and advantaged have always said that, but what if free markets don’t really exist?  What if government favors the big public companies and harms and restrains smaller businesses that actually create jobs, growth and innovation?  What if free trade is not fair trade at all?  What if we allow foreign piracy of our intellectual ideas and encourage the “dumping” of under priced foreign-made goods on our shores to keep consumer prices low?  What if we foster an economy that creates millions of low paying jobs that only a poor immigrant would do because it allows our big employers to avoid investing in the development of their employees’ skills, safety, health insurance, and working conditions?

America’s economic genius has come from public policy that allowed ordinary, hard working, responsible folks to become extraordinary. Unfortunately, the business sector has gotten so concentrated, powerful, and wealthy from the results of technology and globalism it has become the patron of our government, corrupting the very system that originally made them succeed.  And that problem is unlikely to end no matter whose elected.  The financial bailout is causing mergers that will only make the concentration of power, wealth, and corruption worse.

The problem with unrestrained capitalism is that it rewards monopolies, which promotes bureaucracy and exploitation, losing innovation and efficiency in the process.  Using government to tame capitalism’s abuses is a losing battle because government itself is so vulnerable to corruption.  The private business and the public sector have become locked in a lethal partnership that is burning up our trust, our hope, and our natural resources.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?

We must create our own “Citizen” Economy, which means:

1.  Spend less than we earn.

2.  Create career capabilities that will enable us to earn money until we’re 80 or beyond.

3.  Develop a personal relationship with a banker at a local commuity bank or local credit union.  Most small banks and credit unions do not play the Wall St. game.  Most are responsibly managed by local people.  Often their interest rates are lower, fees lower, and value your relationship.  By supporting local financial institutions, you are making a statement of resistance against money-center banks who play financial casino games an make most of their profit from charging you fees for your mistakes.

Discovering YOUR Talents

In my recent post, Elect Yourself President, I made the statement that,

“Whatever we do just for the money we do poorly.  Life is simply not just about money. Doing what you love will not guarantee you riches.  But doing things you don’t intrinsically care about will surely put your business or your career at greater risk.”

There were many inspiring comments, and one comment in particular that stood out.  It was from Lili who commented,

“What if you don’t have any skills or interests? What are you supposed to do then? You speak like it is so natural for anyone to just go out and apply these supposed “talents” that we all have and just start a business with them. Some of us don’t have any talents, that is why we end up slipping into menial jobs for huge companies that barely know we exist. That is why we end up unhappy, poor and dependent on them for mere survival. It is not possible for anyone to go out and start a business. Not everyone has marketable talents and not everyone has something they love to do. What are WE supposed to do?”

I believe that each of us has a one-of-a-kind “spiritual DNA.”  Our inner dreams and longings are the urgings of this spiritual DNA trying to fulfill its patterns.  You cannot live a fulfilling life UNTIL YOU DISCOVER YOUR AUTHENTIC INNER DESIGN.  How is this accomplished?  You discover it by becoming aware of your persistent traits, talents, and track record.  Your “Design” is the intersection of traits and talents that you bring with you into the world.  Your track record is the expression of your traits and talents in action.

TALENTS

A talent is simply a natural skill.  Don’t think you’ve got a talent the world wants…neither did Paul Potts, a mobile phone salesman in Britain, who nearly gave up on his talent because of circumstances in his life.

And Potts’ competition, Connie Talbot, six years old, who doesn’t mind if she becomes a famous singer…just wants to sing, inspired millions with her sweet spirit and voice.

How about mathemagician Arthur Benjamin, who combines his talent of mathematics with magic to create an amazing display of the human mind.

Each of us has talents.  Talents are externally geared; they reveal themselves in our interactions with other people and the world.  Some of us are talented at building things or solving logical problems.  Others may be talented at communicating with children, motivating others, cleaning and organizing, impersonating famous people, telling jokes.  Some talents have clear economic value; others do not.  Not all talents need to be turned into jobs, but nearly all can be expressed in one.

Not sure what your talents are?

Use this simple exercise, “Your Talent Inventory,” from my upcoming book “Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner,” which will be published in early 2009, to get you started.

And you won’t want to miss the next LIFE category post on Discovering Your Traits.

Will Marre
founder, American Dream Project and ThoughtRocket

Oil Dependence and the Energy Crisis

Oil. Oil. Oil. According to Oil Industry Profit Review 2007, “in 2007 the oil industry recorded revenues of approximately $1.9 trillion, of which 78% was accounted for by the five major integrated oil companies. Profits for the industry totaled over $155 billion, 75% of which were earned by the five major oil companies, with the largest, ExxonMobil, earning over 25% of the total profit.” Isn’t it outrageous that they’re making billions – record profits – while our monthly gasoline bill has doubled?  You’ll be comforted to know that a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute has stated that the oil companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make as much money as possible.  And they take that responsibility very seriously.  Nearly five hundred billion oil soaked profit dollars over the past five years.  Wow, I feel better already.

Why are we dependent on foreign oil when we had a major energy crisis in 1973?  Why does our economy still run on oil?  How could we allow ourselves to be so dependent on Middle Eastern oil when we have to worry about who is running those countries?

Because there is money to be made.  Our continued dependence on fossil fuel is the single greatest leadership failure of the past three decades.  Almost no progress has been made in our country.  And yet, wind energy supplies nearly a quarter of many European countries’ energy and within a decade will supply half.  There is enough wind blowing in Texas and South Dakota to supply all U.S. energy needs at a current cost of 4 cents per Kilowatt-hour.

Why don’t we change?  Are we really afraid the short-term costs of change are greater than the long-term benefits of fossil fuel free renewable energy?  Is our current stumbling and bumbling really the best we can do?

How can such leadership blunders happen?  Are we really too stupid to see that a reliance on oil and building bad cars is going to hurt all of us?  No.  Corporate and government leaders are smart people.  But we can never underestimate the capacity of smart people to act stupidly if money is to be made.

Who’s really crazy?  We are.  We created this poison and continue to drink it.  We all know the answer and have for a long time.   Some of us are taking matters into our own hands.  A friend of mine, just a regular guy with a small chemical business, just started Pirate Oil.  It is a bio-fuels company supplied with used vegetable oil by In-and-Out Burger and Taco Bell.  It gives a whole new meaning to “trans-fats.”  He already has contacts with local truck fleets for thousands of gallons a week.

But we need more than just wringing oil out of french fries to solve our problems.  We need a full-tilt, no-holds barred national commitment to convert our civilization to renewable energy.   Our current effort is a joke.  Small window dressing.  All we really have are PR announcements and pleas for conservation.  In reality, we have done nothing in decades.  It is time for bold, big action.

So what do the presidential candidates propose?  Here is a brief overview of Obama’s plan.

• Enact a windfall tax on Big Oil, and use money to provide an Energy Rebate to Americans
• Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015, and provide a tax credit for buying these cars
• Ensure 25% of our energy comes from clean, renewable sources by 2025
• Implement cap programs aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions 80% by 2050

Here is a brief overview of McCain’s energy plan.

• Expand domestic oil and natural gas exploration and production
• Focus on wholesale reform of the transportation sector, and enforce current CAFE standards
• Expand “clean coal” programs, and build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030
• Implement programs aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions by 66% by 2050

So what do you think?  Is it enough?  Can it be implemented?  The imperative for this commitment is beyond question.  Anyone with children knows this.  Of course there are a million “hows” to be answered.  But the “what,” the conversion of our civilization from bad energy to good, is an outrageous emergency.  The only thing at stake is everything we value.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?  Yes, we must conserve, but also we must make noise.  We must demand our leaders do something real, do something big.  Now.  It’s time to end the energy crisis.

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