Happy Holiday Season!

Everyone wants long term success. But it is elusive for most.

Long term success is dependent on knowing where you are now and where you are headed. Then closing the gap. Frequently. Continuously.  Whether it’s your business, your career or your life at home., it’s easy to get off track, lose touch or get buried under. Without a true sense of where you are in the moment, it is impossible to realize your dreams or be a leader in your field.

Re-calibrate your profound knowledge

The only way we can take 100% responsibility for sustaining our success is to keep re-calibrating-in every aspect of our lives and organizations.

Key to successful recalibration is to acquire what my dear departed mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, coined as Profound Knowledge. This umbrella phrase emphasizes understanding change and how to measure it, being aware of emerging trends and shifts, and learning how to apply this knowledge to leading and sustaining long term success.

Bottom line: If we don’t acquire Profound Knowledge we cannot know how to prepare for and leverage coming change, thus how to sustain our success long term.

Understanding change means understanding shifts in our personal world as well as tracking trends that capsize us, overtake us, or cause us to flounder.

Learning the Hard Way

Unfortunately one of my Gen X male clients learned this the hard way. A rising star in his field and recently married, he was planning far a great future for his kids, tons of time for fun and all the trappings of success. As if out of the blue, the rug got pulled out from under him. His “Happy Homemaker” wife fled, saying I’m out of here!

Somewhere along the way there was a breakdown or perhaps many small fissures below the surface. Had they been recalibrating an checking in with each other, communicating the truth of what was so for each of them…perhaps they could have saved their marriage…or at least ended it with love, grace, and forgiveness.

Even in the most secure relationships, unexpected change happens to ruffle our plans. A recently returned to work mother of teenage kids reported that her new career is now going gangbusters and she no longer worries about the empty-nest . But, the new ripple in her life is that her once very successful husband, in his late 40’s, now faces an unknown future. Surprised by the shifts in his industry, “suddenly” he and his business partner are facing the probability of closing their doors. What once appeared to be the sure path to their dreams, is no crumbling beneath them.

Change is inevitable. If you can learn what Profound Knowledge is and apply it you can avoid these same pitfalls and NOT LEARN THE HARD WAY!

What steps are you going to take to future cast your long term success?

Many of us are waiting. We’re playing it safe, not taking any risks, putting off our next big steps, the transformations we long to make in our lives and work, until the winds of global economic change die down. We’ve locked the doors, boarded up the windows, and headed down into the basement.

But the problem is that boarded-up windows not only keep the winds from coming in, they keep us from seeing out—we close off our perspective, our ability to see the big picture. The problem is that sometimes playing it safe and sticking with the status quo is the most unsafe choice we can make.

When we finally venture out from our basements and tentatively open our doors, we are likely to see a different world out there, one created and reshaped by the people who didn’t hide away, who instead realized that the only way to survive was to start planning the rebuilding process before the structure collapsed, not after.

We are likely to find that the place we held in the old world, that we so desperately tried to protect, no longer exists. And because we weren’t part of creating the new world, we also weren’t part of creating and ensuring our place in it.

Now I’m not suggesting that you just abandon everything and throw yourself out into the storm. If you are an executive or business owner, you need to start preparing to lead change by figuring out exactly what that means and how you can stay ahead of the curve of change without abandoning what already works in your organization.

If you are not financially ready to start that new business you’ve been longing to start, quitting your job today isn’t the answer. But as I’ve said before, the choice isn’t either/or. It isn’t either you stay at an unfulfilling job or you risk everything and start your business. The choice is both/and.

Stay at the job while you take concrete steps toward starting your business, going beyond just dreaming about it. Commit to taking action every day to build it, and taking into account the bigger world picture as you do: The world is undergoing an epochal shift. Build your business based on what the world needs and will need, based on likely trends as well as the changes you want to see in the world. If you build your future assuming it will look like the past, your business will be obsolete before you even open its doors. In fact, the business of the future might not even have doors, not the way we’ve always thought of them anyway.

Waiting on the world to change is the riskiest move we could ever make—not because it won’t, but because it will.

In a visionary, humility is paired with compassion and empathy, an understanding of how we are all interconnected in the flow of life, nature, the universe, much as I described in Friday’s post. The resulting humanility enables us to see what the world needs while being acutely aware of how our unique talents, knowledge, and knowing can meet those needs, as well as what we still need to learn.

Humanility is key in a visionary leader, particularly. As Jim Collins found in his research of companies who have managed sustainable success, “The most powerfully transformative executives possess a paradoxical mixture of personal humility and professional will.” Making a difference in this world requires collaboration, leaders with vision who can help the people they lead and serve to bring out their visionary voices as they together move toward meaningful, sustainable success—as individuals, as a team, and as a planet.

But this attribute is essential for all of us, not just those at the helm, for ultimately we are all leaders of ourselves, and we are all part of various teams and networks of people, at work, in our families, in our communities, both online and in person. Even the solopreneur with no employees does not live and work in isolation. Humanility can help us get in touch on a deeper level with everyone we are connected with, from our colleagues and clients to our family and friends, and these deeper connections are the path to reinventing our world together.

At one WFS meeting, Dennis Bushnell, a chief research scientist at NASA, discussed seven major and simultaneous societal issues, any one of which will greatly change society as we know it. “The impacts of all seven,” he said, “including potential synergisms, is approaching the unfathomable.” Number one on his list: climate change and energy shifts. Number three, very much linked with number one: water and food shortages and environmental issues.

He discussed several climate change impacts on our future:

• The arrival of ice in summer waters
• A greater projected rise in CO2
• The ocean rising faster and acidifying faster
• Fossil methane being release from tundra and ocean
• A reduced ocean CO2 uptake, which causes temperature increases, acidification, and algae reductions
• Offshore and near shore methane “burps” caused by ocean warming inciting undersea landslides, causing great tidal waves, which would lead to millions and millions of deaths
• Rapid glacial melting leading to many of the world’s rivers, which are glacially fed, to dry up, affecting 1/6 of the planet’s humans—soon

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates, based on solid science, that by 2100, world temperatures will be 5 to 6 degrees centigrade higher and that the sea level will rise a meter to 2.6 meters. The IPCC is cautious, even, because its conclusions are drawn from thousands of scientists. It’s possible that the situation will be much worse by 2100, with temps as much as 12 to 14 degrees centigrade higher. This would melt ALL ice, cause the ocean to rise about 75 meters, and directly affect over 2 billion people.

Gaia is self-correcting. The question is, How big a catastrophe, and how many, will it take for us to reach our tipping point, to emerge from emergency and save our planet, our future, ourselves?

Even as the evidence of climate change and its effects has continued to mount, often tragically, and as an unprecedented number of scientists agree that climate change is a real, human-caused problem, naysayers continue to reject the science and our responsibility to act. A small number of vocal, politically and financially (not scientifically) motivated people claim that climate change doesn’t exist, or that it’s natural and not caused by humans, or that the Earth is actually cooling. They trot out the same long-debunked “evidence” and use scientists to support them, even though these scientists have no expertise in climate change, kind of like asking your vet to diagnose and treat your heart condition.

Yet here we are, still in denial, as the damage accelerates and grows. The latest in the long line of global-warming impacts is the increased chance of severe flooding occurring every few years along our coastlines, east and west, as a result of rising sea levels (“Rising Sea Levels Seen as Threat to Coastal U.S.”). We can even plug in our ZIP code at http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/ and assess the likelihood of flooding in our current or future dream location. But still, upon hearing this, many people are blowing it off: “Oh, well, we have to die sometime,” or “We can move again before it happens.”

These statements come from smart folks in their 50s and 60s who are planning to move as a part of downsizing. Yet anyone pouncing on the “deals” in the Hamptons, the shoreline of the Carolinas, Florida, California, . . . are going to be in deep trouble in the next few decades, before most boomers will pass on. This is a very real threat. To Coasters, it threatens their homes, financial security, and very lives. Why take the chance of having to rebuild your home and your life? Even having to sell and move again seems like a waste of time, in the years when we could be realizing our greatest visions yet.

In fact, this threat would hit all of us in the pocketbook, as taxpayers, not to mention the effects on the family members of those hit by disaster. Even those inland are likely to be cut off from services if a flood knocks out the coast, not to mention the effects a flood would have on food and water availability, and the ripple effect on the environment.

So what now? It’s time to reassess what truly matters. As you figure out what’s next for you, make a list of MUST HAVE criteria, then look at your options to see which ones intersect with your list. Of these options, use all tools and information available to you (like the ZIP code search above if your “what’s next” involves moving) to narrow down your list realistically.

Consider also how you can integrate your vision for the future with ways to work in your local community to improve the future for all of us. We are on the front lines. It is our responsibility to protect the future for the next seven generations. Even though places like New York are taking steps to protect the shoreline, just imagine what happens to the financial solidity of the world if Manhattan is deluged. We have to do more than just build a wall to cower behind. We have to do everything we can to stop, prevent, or reverse the causes of these floods and other natural disasters.

If we keep our heads buried in the sand, we won’t even notice when our future gets washed away—until it’s too late.

The future of our economy lies in our ability to innovate, connect, and work together in new ways: “When everyone has a laptop and connection to the world, then everyone owns a factory. Instead of coming together physically, we have the ability to come together virtually, to earn attention, to connect labor and resources, to deliver value.”

Seth is right. The Industrial Age is over. In its place is the potential for us to create a new age, what I call the Age of Greatness. In this new economy, we can reinvent ourselves and how we work and play so that we do well while doing good for others. We have the opportunity to be forerunners in the new way of working, to create businesses, lives—futures—that combine profit with purpose, creativity with cooperation, consumer value with our core values.

With every momentous change in our lives as individuals and as a society comes the opportunity for us to answer the call to Greatness, to listen to that visionary voice inside us that will not only lead us into the new age but will enable us to lead the new age. But the future won’t wait for any of us. Now is the time to map out how you plan to reinvent yourself and your world. You don’t have to go it alone. This new future will depend on developing connections and working together like never before. Start now by finding like-minded members of your “tribe.”

The more voices joined in answering the call to Greatness, the louder our voice for change.

Seeking a Firecracker Keynote?
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Clearly Global Warming is not a hoax. Even current POTUS finally admits, sort of, suggesting on 60 Minutes that we may actually have a BIG problem on our hands all around the globe!

Clearly his is not a dress rehearsal.

A Science (STEM) educator in my youth, I railed about “Greenhouse Gases”.  Now we find ourselves here. We are almost out of time to reverse. 10 yrs is a best case scenario before its catastrophically too late to reverse significantly?

Tell then why all this push to invest in fossil fuels (coal, fracking, drilling in National Lands, etc.) Only answer that makes any sense in light of science and

Human observation, is unadulterated greed and corruption.

It would cost us a lot less to retrain all our fossil fuel related workers to Green Energy related opportunities instead. Clearly a win-win-win for us all…around the world.

How about we plan for everyone’s greater future by investing in retraining our workers in tech and other higher skilled work, as well as repurpose those who

Are needed but need basic retraining from shop floor to a new use of their talents

And the best of the best we can tap and provide leadership development programs, plus ongoing professional development. Doing this will make us great again as a Nation (and the world) even in our tumultuous times.

I’ve always been an optimist. But when it comes to Global Warming, I am an educated pessimist.

A systemic breakdown does not automatically become a breakthrough. Only you and I must choose to ensure that out of these chaotic fast-paced times that we will not dissipate into the ethers. Rather that our whole system will evolve to a higher level of development into in to a coherent whole. What I coned as CoHERency.

Here in America our Mid-term elections have started, which will determine the fate of our democracy for a long time…for generations to come.

The new reports coming out recently and topped by this one today, tell of the drastic current and future impact of Climate Change – reads like straight out of a Cinemax horror documentary.

So for anyone to blow off, try to skirt around and outright cover their prior words about Climate Change being made up is denial and avoidance for green, power or both.  So the totally slim possibility that the severe weather striking worldwide isn’t caused by humans, per Marco Rubio, is absolute insanity mixed in with saying anything to hold onto his seat.

Trusting politicians is deadly. Trusting science in this case is our only real savior!

Whatever party affiliations you have, on this one issue of planetary survival, we must all agree to VOTE to turn out those uneducated Climate Deniers and/or those Deniers who know better.

Our current raft of Carpetbagger deniers in the GOP and with DJL leading the White House, EPA and Dept. of Interior clearly must want to party it out before its their end time. I guess they don’t worry about their legacy to ensure their kids, and grandkids have a planet to call home.  Why else then are they pursuing in earnest to accelerate the destruction of our planet?

VOTE like your life matters, cause it does! Vote like our Mother Earth matters, cause it does!

Our current leadership prefers seeking out other planets or other solar systems and galaxies to live on. All the super powers are now in a race to conquer yet again.  I ask, but for whom? Most of these old white conservative guys are too old to benefit from further space exploration!  Yet off theses carpetbaggers go, like some evil enterprise threatening the StarShip in a Star Wars megawar of the world!

Let’s replace these old white conservative guys who clearly have an axe to grind and are are hell bent on the destruction of what was great about America.  Distrubtion is great for technolocy and innovation, but it appears to suck royally when applied to governance. What we need now is new leaders who know that we are at a planetary turning point on every plane of our very existence.

So let’s put all we’ve got into retrieving our own planet first!

If beer is going to guide you when you VOTE , then so be it! 

Let’s raise our beer bottles to toast on this!

When we look at women’s power in the workforce, whether running their own businesses or working as executives or on boards in the corporate world and academia, we can view the situation as negative or positive depending on our focus.

Obviously, women are still underpaid and vastly underrepresented in positions of power, although this is changing (glacially). Silicon Valley just added another woman to its top executive list, with Marissa Mayer as the new CEO of Yahoo (joining Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard, Virginia Rometty of IBM, and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook).

Yet the fact that this is news only shows how far we have to go.

Another positive development is the recent rather dramatic shift in employment among women and men over 55. According to a study by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, reported in Fortune, people over 55 have been awarded nearly 70% of the jobs created in the United States since 2010. Companies are looking for managers and professionals in particular who have the experience and demonstrated ability to weather storms like the economic chaos of recent years.

Many more women are bypassing the entire question of whether the glass is half empty or half full by starting their own firms. As I’ve written about before (e.g., “How Being Successful Can Save the Planet”), women-owned businesses are growing at an ever-increasing rate. The recent State of Women-Owned Businesses Report cites an amazing 54% growth rate in the past 15 years! This translates to annual revenue of $1.3 trillion dollars.

Add this to the spending power of women, especially women over 50, and one thing is clear—one glass isn’t even close to big enough for the tidal wave of women who will lead the way into the future for all of us.

What can we do to move these trends along even faster? Here are just a few ideas:

• Coach and mentor women to step up and out as visionaries, creating opportunities that match their gifts with what the world needs now
• Support funding efforts (including grassroots organizations like kickstarter.com) that bring women’s visionary ideas into fruition.
• Build more and strengthen existing networks of women, online and off, connecting professionals, executives, business owners, and visionaries-in-the-making of all generations.
• Recognize (and spread the word about) the measurable impact on all of us of helping women in particular to create money-making futures that matter (as detailed, again, in “How Being Successful Can Save the Planet”).

What are your ideas for supporting each other in bringing our visions to the world?

Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way

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Calling for expert guests?
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When we resonate with our visionary voice in everything we do, our presence is palpable yet effortless. We are in the zone, going with the flow, yet able to move that flow in subtle directions simply by moving through it toward our clear vision. The flow moves with us, and the people around us shift as well, often imperceptibly, for we are all interconnected. The more others get into their zone, moving with the natural flow of nature and life, they more they too will be able to gently shift the flow toward their vision.

As more and more of us awaken our visionary voice, these gentle shifts in flow become a tidal wave of change.

Science is discovering the power of invisibility and presence in quantum mechanics. According to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the act of observing alone changes what is being observed. We do not need to be the visible bulls in the china shop to effect real change. Several small, subtle changes—many of them carried out through collaboration—can make a monumental difference in our lives, our work, and our world.

The word “presence” itself hints at multiple meanings. Within the word phonetically is both essence and sense. Presence is about getting to the core of your essence, discovering what really matters to you and stripping away the mental, emotional, and physical clutter in your life to get at what you are really about.

When you have this clarity of focus, you will find that your senses also sharpen. Without the clutter of our mistaken, self-limiting beliefs, our preconceptions, our commitments of time and energy to things that just don’t matter to us, we clear the way for our senses to perceive what is truth—a necessary element of that other visionary attribute we’ve discussed, truth telling.

With our senses sharpened, with presence, we even gain the ability to “pre-sense,” as first described by Peter Senge, to be so in tune with others, with the world, with the natural flow of things that we begin to expand our senses into the future, to sense the alternative futures we can create, the trends that we can use as tools in this creation, and the ripple effects of our possible actions. I’m not talking about fortune telling but keen perception that we can all develop in a way that makes all of us not only visionaries but Everyday Futurists.

As you focus on how to use invisibility to empower you to make change, I recommend that you also take the time to reflect and make conscious choices about what really matters to you. If you start clearing away the clutter from your life today, the boulders in the stream interrupting your flow, you will be that much more empowered to change your world tomorrow.

What mental, emotional, and physical clutter is obscuring your essence, what you are about?

•  Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way 
• Seeking a Firecracker Keynote 
• Calling for expert guests?
• Let’s Rock Your AGE, come pick my brain!
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Ageless Way Explorers Coalition.”
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Greatness Challenge.” 

• Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way 
• Seeking a Firecracker Keynote 
• Calling for expert guests?
• Let’s Rock Your AGE, come pick my brain!
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Ageless Way Explorers Coalition.”
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Greatness Challenge.”