“In Defense of Food”

A trend that is sweeping the nation, particularly in college campuses, is the thinking behind Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food. The book is an overwhelming incitement of the manufactured food industry, and how we ingest all of these chemicals that our bodies cannot recognize or process. Are they doing damage? Well we know they make us fat. Do they help foster chronic disease? Well, we’re not sure.  But, we only have one body so why take a chance? The demand for organic food, natural food, is the fastest growing segment of the food industry. Classes ranging from journalism to science are using Michael Pollan’s book as a guide to the food of the future. That is the irony; the food of the future is the food of the past. This is the food that our bodies recognize, process, and the food that wont make us fat, but will make us healthy. The faster that we demand this food, the more large companies will begin to try to produce more of it. Once financially-driven people understand that there are markets for health, they will give us more healthy products.

It may be sad, but self-interest is a powerful motivator. When it’s in the self-interest of people to make us healthy they will help become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Now is the time for consumers to insist on healthy food and make all the noise in the market place we can!

Green Has Won

Recently at the Green Expo in Chicago I made the point that in terms of business, there is no debate on whether “Green” is the new business model. That debate is over, and “Green” has won. The carbon-neutral bullet train has left the station. Those who are confused about what to do will probably have their businesses disappear. This is true because our biggest businesses are moving the fastest. Companies like Clorox, which was a prime mover in bringing hazardous chemicals to that space right below our kitchen sink is now the fastest growing new product line in Green Works. These are all natural cleaners with no toxic chemicals. Clorox has expanded the whole “Green Cleaner” market to over $250 million dollars on which they have a $100 million dollar market share. The Clorox product line is cheaper than the initial cleaners, and it’s closing the gap on the cost of costly chemicals and natural cleaners that will do the job just as well.

Exxon is investing $600 million dollars in algae-based bio fuels, and FedEx has a new business model where they are trying to bring value to customers without freight.  Just think of what they’ve done with Kinko’s (now FedExOffice) where you can digitally send your files to the FedEx Office nearest you.  We use this service all the time to avoid freight cost!

Overall the “Green” evolution is winning. It is taking the high ground, the low ground, and all the ground in between. The reason I’m so sure of this is when I talk to young leaders that are below the age of 40, and students in our college campuses, whose combined numbers now exceed the Boomers by 20 million, there is absolutely no question that everything needs to be made in a responsible and sustainable way. Large companies who have kept their pulse on trends are winning. New buildings are far more energy efficient than any buildings built in the history of the world. The products that we are making are far more responsible than ever, and are getting more that way. There is a whole new world to create–a sustainable one–and people who become an expert in doing this will be in high demand.

Planet Good Radio Interview with Will Marre

In all of my experience I have found that most people have a motive inside of them driving them to do good. Why they don’t pursue it is because they’re afraid. Fear can be a dangerous thing. Fear drives airplanes into buildings. Fear drives us to work 80 hours a week. Fear keeps us in our status quo. Whether it’s fear of being broke, being fired, or not being successful, fear keeps us from doing what we really want to do, what we were meant to do.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak on Planet Good Radio.

What I shared is that we must have the courage to act despite our fears. Let’s face it. I don’t think our fears will ever completely disappear and we can always come up with excuses of why we shouldn’t act, but the real rewards come from acting anyway. Once we release ourselves from our fears and become driven by service, our imaginations will explode. In my book, Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner, I tell numerous stories of people who have done just that. None of the people I write about have any formal power or resources. Take for example:

• Chris who, though he couldn’t afford to build a school for all the Sudanese Lost Boys and support his own family, nurtured and paid for one Lost Boy’s U.S. college education.
• Martin, a global executive of a multi-billion dollar company, who reinvented himself as a revolutionary leader of environmental sustainability throughout North and South America turning his knowledge of business into a force for change.
• Kim who saved her struggling training school by enlisting the help of every employee and transformed the company into a powerhouse within eighteen months––without a single lay-off.

What these individuals have is courage, will and imagination.

Towards the end of the interview with Tea Silvestre, the question that I always ask others was turned on me. “What’s the best thing you can imagine doing?” It got me thinking. What’s the best thing I can imagine doing?

For me, I think it comes down to one thing. All of my speaking, writing, leadership development, consulting, and business works culminate to this…

Change the purpose of business. I think this is the fastest way to save the world.

So, what’s the best thing you can imagine doing? What can you do to transform your job, business or life to help create a sustainable future for all? If we all will stop waiting for the world to change and start changing it…if we turn the power of enterprise into the power of good, imagine the world we will create together.

Will Marre

The Real Pursuit of Happiness

Have you heard the news?  It was reported recently that marriage is working again (“Is Secularism Saving Marriage?” USA Today).  Maybe better than ever.  The divorce rate is down to 36%.  Divorce is tragic, but the often-quoted rate of 50% of marriages failing is now history.  Of course what everyone wants is to know why.

The truth is we don’t really know.  But it’s not just because we can’t afford divorce.  In fact, some social researchers have some encouraging ideas based on trends of timing, commitment and counseling.  One cause of stronger marriage bonds may be related to the fact that couples are tying the knot at older ages.  The average age for first marriages is over 27 for men and hovers close to 25 for women.  It turns out the older a person is the more likely they will marry someone they have much in common with.  Important things like values, goals, religious beliefs, attitudes about raising children and spending money.  It’s also more likely they’ll share hobbies and recreational interests.  All these things in common create a platform of shared positive experiences and less value and lifestyle conflict.  On the other hand, people who marry young tend to be more attracted to their opposite.  A sort of odd-couple fascination with the neat attracted to the messy, the responsible saver is dreamy over the spontaneous spender…you get the idea.

And other forces also seem to be at work.  When I was recently speaking on colleges and alumni groups for the American Dream Project, our research revealed that one of the things Gen Y age (18-32) Americans most wanted to avoid was divorce.  This is because so many of them were the victims of their Boomer parents’ domestic wars and family split-ups.  Many divorcing boomers said to themselves, “The kids will be fine.  It’s better they don’t hear all the fighting.”  Well kids definitely wish their parents didn’t fight, but for millions the trauma of divorce didn’t leave them feeling fine.  Far from it.  So these same children are more committed to marriage than their parents were.  We think this is because young couples seek counseling far sooner when things get rough than their parents did.  Young Americans also say they value relationships, friendship, and social intimacy more than money, toys or even exotic experiences.  And as one researcher said, we all seem to be getting better at being married.  Wow, that is certainly good new in a society whose media is obsessed with conflict and bizarre personal behavior.

The positive embrace of marriage is maybe just the beginning.  In our American Dream Project research we found both Gen Yers and Boomers agree that genuine happiness and positive relationships go together.  Humans are emotionally wired to connect with one another.  We are intensely social beings who long to love and be loved.  In almost all end-of-life research the dying report that relationships, marriage, family and friendships are the greatest sources of life happiness.  Maybe more of us are waking up to the fact that investing in deep, mutually supportive relationships has life’s biggest pay-off.

But many of us are not great at friendship or choosing friends.  In my book (Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner) I write about research that says friends fall into two groups.

Level One friends are superficial, the drinking buddy kind of friend. These friendships are driven by you-scratch-my-back and I’ll-scratch-yours.  We’re friends because we get some extrinsic benefit like companionship or favors.

Level Two relationships are based on intrinsic respect. These friendships are based on mutual respect, genuine compassion and caring.  These kinds of relationships affirm our higher selves, our noble aspirations, and our virtues.  These kinds of friends (or spouses) make us feel enthusiastic about life, optimistic about the future and are a source of resilience in tough times.  Mainly these kinds of friends are personal advocates, and who among us doesn’t need that?

Returning to marriage, it’s Level Two friendship that makes marriages great.  When we fall in love it’s passion first.  Passion ignites a volatile pool of brain chemicals.  But as the fire burns lower, friendship becomes most important.  Friendship that is affirming, compassionate and drenched in mutual advocacy.  Wonderfully, it’s friendship that becomes the pilot light of constantly renewable passion igniting the flames of intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.  All the best of what it means to be human.

So what’s the greatest thing we can do? Be the best friend we can be to the people we love the most.  Look for ways to be a genuine advocate.  As the “Little Prince” said, enthusiastically “waste time” with those you love.  Often it’s in this wasted time that the most genuine love is experienced.  Take a vacation from the troubles of our world and be fully present today with someone who values you.  Call that person you’ve been meaning to call.

So, what’s your experience?  Have you been blessed by genuine loving friendship?  Tell us how.  This is the real “pursuit of happiness.”

If you would enjoyed this post, you might like to visit my older post, What is Life?

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The Gifts of Facebook

Facebook is magical! A long lost friend reconnected with me this week. His name is Robert. I hired him when he was 23 and I was 42. I needed some help in launching a new company, and he seemed like a very bright, young, energetic, and ambitious man. Boy was I right! We only worked together for about a year, and then he began his real life adventure. Now, he is 40 and the CEO of a five billion dollar health care company. At 36 he was one of the youngest chief executives of a billion dollar publicly traded company in the world. A reconnection 20 years later was very gratifying. He’s exactly the kind of leader that I would have hoped he would become.

How is he so successful?

How has he become so successful so quickly?

Well, he has a secret. He didn’t tell me what it was, but after spending three hours with him it was obvious. He is a visionary who sees what is missing. He has a knack for understanding all the steps and missing pieces between vision and reality. That may be one of the rarest skills of all…and when he sees he’s not afraid to act. What’s most amazing to me is he’s not full of himself. In most of my experiences people who have had extraordinary success at young ages tend to think they’re so much more special than everyone else. They make themselves obnoxious. Well, not Robert. He’s confident, yet humble. I think most of all, he’s a hungry learner. He’s constantly paying attention to what he doesn’t know, and seeking ways to fill in the blanks.

On a side note…as a health care executive, he agrees that insurance companies are not well suited to provide insurance. That is not a miss print.  What we both believe is that insurance companies are designed to make money, not pay for medical care. Insurance is just a means to an end for most of these companies, and so you get the kind of behavior that everyone talks about. I still believe that a national non-profit citizen co-op is the ultimate answer, with private insurance providing companies for people wealthy enough to want to have a custom program. I guess we will see!

We Value Jobs That Create Value

I’m preparing for the Green Manufacturing Conference. One of the things that I’ve observed over the last several years is that “Green Thinking” is rapidly taking over enterprise, especially global enterprise. Companies like GE, Cisco, Toyota, Wal-Mart, Nike, and FedEx are all doing amazing things to help create a more sustainable future. One of the things I tell people is that “Green” is no longer a competitive advantage because the carbon-neutral bullet train has already left the station. Someday, within our lifetime, nearly all products will be non-toxic, energy efficient, reusable, and sustainably manufactured. The reason for this is it’s simply good for business. It lowers costs, it creates competitive differences, it makes people notice your brand, and it attracts top talent. You don’t have to be a professional human resource person to understand that people would rather work for a company that’s intent is making the world a better place, and creating a new future that works for everyone rather than just business-as-usual. People may act like they really value any job right now because we’re all afraid of being broke, but the truth is, we don’t. We value jobs that create value, not jobs that exploit. If you get on the right side of this equation, either as an individual or as a business you’re likely to prosper.

“It Will All Work Out in the End”

This is one of my favorite times of year now that Labor Day is over and fall is beginning. Labor Day reminds me that many people ask me for career advice. I always tell them the same thing, “You must make yourself, in someway, indispensable, and the best way to do this is to develop your talent, and fuel your passion.” Your talent is developed by learning and practice, very mindful practice that will bring you to higher plateaus of knowledge and ability. You should also fuel your passion, and make sure it is coming from your soul rather than your insecurities, your mind, or the popular culture. Not everyone really wants to be a Rock Star or a Professional Athlete. We just get caught up in the glamor. Our real passions are the ones that come from deep inside and that are persistent. They are those that can bring tears to our eyes, and that simply feel natural to us. These are things that we would pursue with passion even if we were invisible. We wouldn’t have to be famous to feel like we were being significant, and that is what’s most important.

I saw a movie last night called, “My One and Only,” starring Renee Zellweger. The movie actually makes this same point. The story is about a shallow woman in 1953 with deep convictions. As she searched for a new future, she kept telling her two boys, “It will all work out in the end.” It turns out of course, it does, but not in the way she expected. That is the way it is for all of us it seems. Things do work out in the end, but not in the way we expect. Most often, it is better, but sometimes not in the way we measure better. I once read this advice I thought was perfect; “It will all work out in the end, if it hasn’t worked out, it’s not the end.”

Save the World and Still be Home for Dinner

• What if we could live a pace and enjoy a quality of life that constantly renewed our energy?
• What if all we really wanted in life was to make a positive impact and enjoy our lives?
• What if we understood our own gifts and developed them so we actually made a unique difference?
• What if we could do this no matter what our life circumstances in virtually any job, any time, anywhere?
• What if we didn’t need permission, power or position to do the best thing we can imagine?
• What if we could just start…now?

We can.

Five years ago I founded the American Dream Project to discover what the American Dream is for the 21st century.  I crossed the country giving speeches and hosting town hall meetings to college and alumni clubs, business leaders and community groups.  The Project interviewed and surveyed over 20,000 Americans ages ranging from 8 to 80.  What I discovered was that vast numbers of us are exhausted and drained by the way we work and how we live. What I also found was a shared persistent concern for our future.  We are awakening to the reality that the world needs saving and that it’s up to us to do something.

The bottom line; what nearly all of us really want for our lives is to matter. Our research confirms that today there is a voracious appetite for meaningful work.  At the same time we want to enjoy life, especially our relationships.  We also want to pursue our personal interests and reignite the pilot light of our inner zest.  As one hard working business founder and mother put it,

“I just want to save the world and still be home for dinner.”

What I found on my search for the modern American Dream were many, many people doing exactly that.  They hadn’t quit their jobs; they transformed them.

Of course, no one of us will save the world.  But as one inspired teacher put it,

“When we change our world, the world changes.”

My recent journey into the lives of real people ignited my energy to write a new book, Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner (Capital Books) that’s going to be released September 30.  It has some themes and elements I developed in my first book, Dreams on Fire, which I wrote for the PBS show Reclaiming Your American Dream.   In Save the World I take those themes into the wider arena of creating a world of sustainable abundance.  Sustainable Abundance is the ideal of uniting human ingenuity and moral values to give every human being an opportunity for a decent life.

Even though this is a grand idea, it doesn’t require huge earth-shattering change to bring it about.  It doesn’t require a magic charismatic leader or even the aristocrats of the status quo to respond to a wake-up call.  Rather, I discovered, it is already happening because individuals are changing the way they think, act and communicate.  It is happening everywhere with people of all ages who are making an individual difference that is creating a “tipping point” of positive change.

What I learned from my interviews and experiences is that this positive revolution for sustainable abundance is happening because people whoever they are, wherever they are, are making it happen in their lives, their work and their communities.  Sure, resistance from the voices of the old way of seeing the world only through the lens of greed and self-interest is noisy.  But the tidal wave of change is already drowning their voices through the millions and millions of positive choices we make every day.

We live and work in a time of disruptive transformation.  The convergence of continuous technological breakthroughs, a generational values shift and worldwide entrepreneurialism is radically changing everything.

So how exactly do we participate and accelerate the new future?  That’s the question I address in my book.  There is a common formula people are using to live a life they most value and enjoy.
The book focuses on the idea that we need to “be who we are and do what we came to do.” Here’s how:

1. We all have a Promise to keep. A Promise to live both joyfully and make a difference that only we can make.
2. Do not be afraid. In times like these where we are losing our homes, our jobs or our peace-of-mind, it’s essential that we don’t abandon our Promise because we’re afraid.  Fear will keep us from both happiness and fulfillment.  If we know what our Promise is, we can keep it in any circumstance.  And yes, your Promise matters to all of us.
3. You can bring your life and your work to a higher level right now. By examining the stories of people just like you and me who are living game-changing lives and relishing their relationships we begin to see a formula for breaking through.  By understanding our Design we “see” our calling.  By becoming clear on our soul’s Desire we focus on a unique life-altering passion.  By responding to our noble Drive we bust down doors of opportunity.

This is not trivial.  Or simply inspirational.  I do my best to paint a vivid picture of people who are transforming their careers, personal relationships and individual place in the world. This book tells the stories of how dozens of ordinary people are living the most extraordinary lives.  It reveals the uncommon habits of how these people think, decide and act.  They teach us how we can transform any circumstance into a fulfilling, exciting and contented life. From these stories I lay out the essential steps and ingredients necessary to help us transform our lives by creating a sustainable abundance of all that is truly important in life, both material and spiritual.

I believes the only way to achieve personal sustainable abundance is to help invent it for everyone.  We have two choices.  The first is what happens if we do nothing.  This choice will create a future fundamentally driven by increasing scarcity and competition characterized by economic and military wars and immense suffering.  The second choice is positive adaptation driven by entrepreneurial invention that amplifies our standard of life as we increase human health, human rights and human opportunity.  The second choice is not automatic, but making the right choice during the next 10 years is maybe the most important choice in human history.

By “Save the World,” I ask you to stand up for something that really matters to you.  To make your unique contribution to a sustainable future and add value to the lives of others.  By “Still Be Home for Dinner” I mean our ability to enact these changes in our own way – a way that fulfills our heart and satisfies our soul.

As I hope you can tell, I am deeply motivated by this message.  As loyal advocates of the American Dream Project I wanted to make Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner available to you for free before it is published.  So, if you sign up, we will email you a (short) chapter every day for the next 30 days.

I now have a favor to ask you.  As you know in today’s media circus it’s very difficult to get and sustain anyone’s attention on any message or ideal.  So if you like what you read, it would be very helpful if you would send us a review.  Also send the chapters on to friends and family who you think might benefit.  (If you don’t like what you read please send me an email with your ideas.  I don’t mind being challenged to think in broader, bigger ways.)

And finally, if you have any ideas or opportunities to better promote the book, please let us know.  Believe me when I say I am much more interested in the message than the money I might earn from royalties.  (In fact, I am donating $1 per book to the Grameen Foundation to help end poverty through micro-credit.)  So I am interested in book giveaways, using books as fundraisers for charities or a zillion other ideas you might have.  Most of all, let me know what you think.  I look forward to hearing from you!

SIGN UP FOR THE 30 DAY DOWNLOAD

The Majestic Beauty of the Sequoias

After spending two days hiking through the greatest Redwood groves in the world, my family and I decided to head to the Sequoias. That’s right, we drove 500 miles to Yosemite to see the miracles that grow. The Sequoias are cousins to the Redwoods. There has never been a Sequoia tree that has been known to die of old age. They laugh at fire, disease, and bugs. There is nothing that has killed a Sequoia tree. Many are over 2,000 years old. They are not quite as tall as Redwoods, but they are as much as twice or even as much as four times as big around than the Redwood trees are. They are the largest living plant in the world. The trees used to cover all of North America, but now they just grow in a little pocket in the California Sierras. They were discovered only in the 1850’s, but their beauty, majesty, and power is so remarkable that they became the prime motive for the National Park movement. In fact, the first movement to protect land was by Abraham Lincoln, who in 1864 protected Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove of the Sequoia trees. That’s why if you look at the badge of the U.S. Forest Service, a Sequoia tree is the symbol. People tried to make money off of Sequoias by cutting them up and turning them into super hard lumber, but wiser minds decided to keep them safe. I don’t know why any of us think we have to turn everything we can find into money. The Sequoias and the Redwoods connect me to something so much larger than myself. It makes nature sacred, and gives me a reverence for life I can’t find in almost any other way. It was a great trip, but now I’m heading back home.

Health Care Dominated by Financial Interests - No Leadership in Politics

Recently, my children and I spoke about our President’s evident failure to lead. One of the first rules of leadership is that leaders need to describe the “what.” If a leader cannot adequately describe the benefits of going to the promised land, no one will follow. Great leaders also allow others to decide “how” or at least to input in, “the how” so that there can be wide agreement that the way we are going to get to the promise land is sustainable. Instead we see our politics as usual…the politics of compromise.

How can compromise work when health care is so dominated by financial interests? Health insurers and drug companies are spending a reported $1.6 million dollars a day. They have hired over 1,000 new lobbyists, most who have been former congressmen or former staff members of congressmen and senators, to work their old colleagues into compromising what should be a moral imperative into an expensive trick. We have a habit of doing this in our country when it’s evident that things need to be done, the forces that make the most money from the status quo push compromise.

We had a real chance to end slavery when our constitution was drafted but we let the economic forces in the south sustain slavery, so our country continued with it for over 100 years. After the Civil War, we could have really installed civil rights laws; making it possible for everyone to vote, but we didn’t. It took another 100 years of civil rights laws to give every citizen in this country the same rights, and still we live with its aftermath. This is not a way to build a society. There are some things that we cannot compromise. In today’s world, we simply cannot be the only developed country in the world that doesn’t provide basic health care to all its citizens. The truth is, it is affordable; it just isn’t affordable in the way that people are presenting it, and that’s on purpose.

When we combine profit and overhead from the top seven biggest health insurance companies in America, it’s $400 billion dollars a year…or $4 trillion that is spent every decade. Only eighty cents of our premium dollars spent with private insurance companies are actually spent on health care. Medicare spends 97% of our tax dollars, but Medicare in its current form isn’t the answer either. It is far to subject to the failings of political bureaucracies. Medicare is loaded with waste and inefficiency.

There are solutions! A national citizen co-op could also work on a very high level of efficiency limiting what is spent to somewhere south of three percent. Also, if every individual agreed to spend up to three percent of their income on health care out of their own pocket we would be much more careful on our purchases of health care, using the Internet to find out what is best, and by following doctor and hospital ratings. This is truly within our grasp, but we are letting it all go because of old style thinking. If people want private health care, they can get it; just like some people send their children to expensive private schools, people could hire private doctors and have private hospitals. There are excellent universities ran by the public. The University of California Berkeley, and UCLA are examples of schools that provide educations that are certainly equal to the Ivy League schools. So the idea that private and public solution can’t exist at the same time is just simply not true.

But, rarely do we hear of this from our President or his leaders. Instead we hear what is absolutely necessary, and what is willing to be given up, and what is likely to be a Frankenstein version of a public and private health care that is full of corruption, just like our defense procurement processes are. Hopefully, my assessment of our new President’s leadership capabilities or intent is premature.  If not, we’re going to be in for a long slog of the same.

FOR MORE ON HEALTH CARE, SEE MY OTHER POSTS:

Outraged at the Politics of Healthcare

Will Marre’s Radical Solution to Health Care

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