Visionary entrepreneurs and enterprising visionary individuals (like YOU) are the change we’ve been looking for. Government can no more force us to have high moral character than they can force us to be creative. What powers our future, a world that works, is YOU.

Texas Billionaire, T. Boone Pickens, has a vision and a plan to have Americans lose their dependence on foreign oil. It’s simple. And none of it involves forcing anyone to do anything. Here he is showing his plan.

They’ve both been doing a lot of trash talk about each other recently (admittedly, they both get paid to entertain). Jon’s used his comedian skills to shame Cramer and CNBC, and when news came out the Cramer was to appear on Stewart’s The Daily Show, Cramer was obviously nervous.

It was obvious that Stewart could have used his position and charisma to humiliate or attack Cramer in front of millions, which is typically how such conflicts go (such is the positionary style of a Bill O’Reilly, an Ann Coulter, a Michael Moore, a Sean Hannity, a Rush Limbaugh, etc.). Instead, Stewart called Jim Cramer to rise to a higher level of responsibility, and no doubt, Cramer felt honored, even if embarrassed.

Here’s the exchange:

My point is not who is right or wrong. My point is the manner in which Jon Stewart used his power, and the result, which is the kind of result that few of his peers tend to create. Many talking heads take a position in a way that results in their “adversary” only becoming more adversarial, more positionary, more reactive, more entrenched. A skillful demonstration by Stewart of honor, courage and compassion.

News networks tend to dramaticize (my word) conflict in a positionary way: this person one, and this person lost (Example from CNN), which doesn’t help us to move forward to create a world that really works. Instead, it leads viewers to take positions and get caught up in the positionary drama of fighting against, rather than the visionary drama of standing for. In my view, Stewart was an example for pundits around the world. And Cramer, for his part had the courage to look at himself honestly and step up. That’s not “losing” in my book. Kudos to Cramer. Let’s see how he evolves his show as a result.

Shawn Madden attended the VisionForce Boot Camp, aka, iStand Experience in March 2007. He came with his guitar and serenaded us with his uplifting music. Later that year he moved to Austin, joined the VisionForce team, and has been preparing the launch of his grand vision for transforming the world through song and dance.

Check out my audio interview of him and his One Prosperous World Music Tour.

Imagine this…

THE TWELVE BREAK-THRU’S OF THE NEXT DECADE
Opportunities on the event horizon

* 1. Oil companies realize they are liquid transportation companies and start to move fresh water to needy places on the planet.
* 2. Major engineering companies respond to rising seas and create canals that take the excess water into barren lowlands inside the continents where it is needed.
* 3. The national military forces of the planet merge to form natural security teams and restore their respective parts of the earth�s forests, plant life, watersheds, wildlife and the biosphere above all that.
* 4. That schools recognize that content is already available on line and change their courses to life skills, learning based pursuits, and a new partnership with nature.
* 5. That Universities build upon the science of conscious evolution, a visionary mindset, and life force living intelligence and then structure their experience based curricula to that end.
* 6. That government decentralizes into bioregions and organizes military units, school kids, fire departments and others to generate food foraging forests in all available sites for complete global food security.
* 7. That neighborhoods take on a wide variety of energy producing solutions to become fully independent but not totally separate from the power grid.
* 8. That web-based democracies attend to their regionally based constituents and use the global web intelligence system to optimize local living. 9. That railheads, airports, and warehouses converge to be able to launch global air rescue missions that deliver major emergency living villages to all peoples globally within hours of a disaster.
* 10. That the global public achieves a clear unifying identity and the pre-emptive political power to defang the nuclear arsenal and its fear based factions while offering alternative product lines for the military industrial complex.
* 11. That we accept the notion that life is more likely to exist in the galaxy than not and prepare for the real benefits of new connections.
* 12. That we embrace a new level of profound simplicity and reintroduce creativity as a replacement for things and mindless entertainment.

The film left me questioning my choice to be so “practical” for the last five years, building VisionForce as a business. Funny, my business advisers would say I’ve been anything but practical, and that I’ve been far too idealistic. It seems that either path might have been much more effective than the middle road. Had I gone for profit, and built the business to be much more financially successful, we might have the muscle to reach many more people now. Had I been in revolutionary action mode at the expense of the finances, we might have already reached so many more people.

So, what, I wonder, does it look like for me to STAND FORWARD and be the change at the next level? And what does it look like for you?

The training I attended was for those who are eager to facilitate Awaken The Dreamer, Changing The Dream symposiums, which invite people of all backgrounds to inquire into a conversation about the crises and opportunities of our time. It’s an invitation to stand for the sustainability of life itself by calling upon and honoring both the brilliance of the modern world and the ancient wisdom of indigenous peoples.

These symposiums are about 4 hours long and worthy of anyone committed to creating a better world.

Keith’s impromptu lyrics were his way of honoring everyone with whom he had shared the Boot Camp. He starts singing to individuals towards the end of this first video. (Oh, and those are bottles of sparkling cider on the tables, as this is an alcohol-free event!) We seem to have some incredible, visionary musicians at every Boot Camp. Of course, artists are, after all, visionaries.

Keith, we’ll cherish this memory forever, and we hope to have you on our Training Assistant team for November… bring the guitar!

An excerpt:

Bent over by osteoporosis, 85-year-old Promita Das meticulously and slowly sweeps the floor just outside her door and then carefully cleans her dishes. “I came here when I couldn’t work anymore. I used to clean houses,” she says. “Nobody looked after me, nobody loved me. I survived on my own.” She married at 12 and was widowed at 15. Seventy years later, she finds herself at Amar Bari. “I used to live in front of a temple, but then I came here,” she says. She carries with her not only the pain of a life without love, but also the loss of her only child. She gave birth at 14; her baby lived a year.

Another visionary woman, Deepa Mehta has taken a bold stand to draw attention to this issue with her incredibly inspiring movie, Water. Films such as this one are recommended preparation material for our 5-day VisionForce intensive, the iStand Experience (also, VisionForce Boot Camp). The world is in need of visionaries–people who can stand for a better world in a way that calls even their adversaries to stand with them. That’s why VisionForce exists.