A First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army has taken a stand. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, faces a court martial next month and up to 6 years in prison. He is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq.

Here’s the link to the blog and audio. Overy 100,000 people have commented on this man’s stand. Many of his peers call him a traitor and a coward. Others think he’s anything but that. (leave your comments below)

It’s easy to take a position on this young man’s decision, and that’s one of the fundamental problems with the world we live in. Actually, the problem lies within our methods of thinking, our consciousness. Yesterday’s consciousness is insufficient for the world we face today with all of it’s accelerating change, globalization, the advancement of technology, etc.

Someone thinking with yesterday’s consciousness, the “positionary mind of the past,” rushes to judgment without much honest inquiry. Rather than look to understand the person or organization they judge, they simply attack. It’s usually in defense of a position they formed long ago.

This is a very emotional issue, especially for those who chose to stand for their country by risking their lives by fighting at war–even if they objected to the war. To be inspired by this man’s stand, it’s assumed they’d have to turn on their own stand. They are proud of the stand they took to fight, and feel that those who stand for their country by not fighting are invalidating or dishonoring them.

Some soldiers, in going to war, might judge those who don’t as cowardly. This affords them more pride and confidence in their decision, but the judgment itself is what devolves their stand into a position.

In our eagerness to stand for something, we too easily form a righteous position, from which we can no longer think honestly about the situation.

Isn’t honesty the quality of not refusing to look at or think about something, when forming one’s thoughts, words or opinions? Yet, when we form our thoughts and opinions with yesterday’s positionary thinking, those very opinions become walls beyond which we cannot see. Beyond the walls of our position, we can not see the humanity, the courage, the stand taken by “the other side.” And then we treat and speak to them as less than human.

Is it any wonder the world is in such a state of crisis?

What we’re lacking is a new form of consciousness. A visionary consciousness, the likes of which have been rare throughout history. Gandhi is a great example of someone with a visionary consciousness. What we’ll need going forward, however, and what I see is fast approaching, is a much more sophisticated and developed visionary consciousness–higher level thinking methods that facilitate visionary thinking and make it much easier and more common place.

Eventually, evolution to a new kind of thinking will occur. Indeed, it must if we are to survive and thrive in this world.

Some are courageously undertaking the quest to evolve their consciousness even now, and are seeking out training for living as a visionary. Of course, that’s why VisionForce exists–to facilitate this conscious evolution of consciousness.

And right now, we’re looking for 30. We’re looking for those willing to live their lives standing for humanity, including men and women who are standing for peace and freedom even now in Iraq–at war.

If you are willing to live your life as a visionary, as someone who stands, as a hero for mankind, we’re looking for you. We need parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, politicians, activists, artists–we need you. Are you willing?

We tell our children to dream, but what the world today and tomorrow needs is much more than children with dreams.  We need children with vision.  Just the same, our children need more than good parents with dreams.  Today’s and tomorrow’s children need great parents with vision.

A dream, like a dangling carrot in front of a donkey, can be enough to have a visionless person keep moving forward, obeying orders and following the system from one moment to the next.

But what if the systems we’re following are not working?  And what if the leaders we’re following have little vision?

Shall we just keep dreaming and being “good,” comforming to the prevailing systems?

Shall we just keep dreaming and being “good,” while blaming the system’s failure on those who are not being “good” and conforming, assuming that we just need to give our non-conforming children ( or students, citizens, employees, etc.) more Ritalin or more punishment?

Shall we just keep “dreaming” and conforming to the system, while blaming the “leaders” for not fixing the system?

Shall we each just keep pretending we have “the answer,” know “the truth” of a situation or see “the solution?”  Everyone has an opinion (and in a free system everyone has a voice), but few with an opinion have vision.

Democracy for visionless people of different blind faiths is a formula for civil war and destruction.  For a free society to function now and in the future, it needs free thinkers, not blind followers.

Consider that it is no longer enough for us to tolerate each others’ faiths.  Instead it is time for each of us to rise to the level of vision.  Every person of faith can rise to the level of vision, and at the level of vision a person of faith only becomes more virtuous, conscious, humane, tolerant, peaceful, prosperous and integrous at the level of vision.

Without vision, the good person of faith in a free society can only tolerate others and compromise with them.  Those who object to compromise on principle or in faith, resort to forming a self-righteous position with respect to others.

“If only everyone would see things my way and comform to the solutions I can clearly see would work.”  Such is the thinking of a person, who lacking vision, must cling self-righteously to his position (conclusions about what is true, what is right and what to do).

The world needs more than good followers with dreams and more than tolerant people with faith, we need each person to rise to the level of vision–to be great leaders of themselves, who think freely, honestly and openly, and who easily co-create with others.
Goodness has long been interpreted as that behavior which fits within the “good” or prevailing system or that which follows the “great” visionary leader of the time.  But what happens when the systems are failing and our leaders lack the vision to revolutionize those systems?  Is goodness good enough?
Radical change and evolution is the way of the future, and surviving in that future is going to require that we all shift our thinking and evolve from conforming to become “good,” “responsible” citizens, parents, children, employees, etc., to evolving to become great visionary leaders.  Each of us?  Each of us.

Every mother can be a visionary mother.  Every teacher can be a visionary teacher.  Every person can function at the level of vision, develop their natural visionary mind and live a visionary life.
This shift from dreams to vision, from goodness to greatness, is a shift in consciousness.  It’s time for each of us to make the shift, and for those who are ready to leap–apply to attend this event.

What does it mean to live your life from a stand?  How do people who try to stand for something fall into the trap of forming a position, from which they lose their vision, passion, compassion and power to cause the kind of change they intended?  What does it mean to live a visionary life–to think, speak and operate from a place of authentic power?

Embark on this journey inside of our Visionary Mind Shifts program, and continue it with the Visionary Mind home study program, an experiential program of self-inquiry and visionary thinking.
Then if you’re ready to be the visionary change agent that the future requires, then go learn how you can be part of the emerging One Million Visionary Campaign and possibly be one of 30 visionaries to lead the way in 2007.

Time selected YOU as the person of the year for 2006 for your participation in the next generation of cyberspace, Web 2.0.  It was a Web 2.0 site (Zaadz) that facilitated a young visionary in Uganda bringing vision force training to his university and communities, and has thrust VisionForce into a new mode of operating.  We’re looking at how we can use emerging web technologies to train one million visionaries around the world over the next few years.

Unlike any or most seminars, workshops or trainings in human development you may have attended, the powerful VisionForce methodologies are such logical processes that simulating them on-line and delivering high-level transformational training via the web is not only possible now, it’s what shall be.  We envision creating many highly interactive tools and processes and offering them for free on-line in the coming years.  We see ourselves being a leader in human development for the 21st century.
We’re seeking passionate programmers and others who can help make this vision a reality this year.  Contact us if that might be you.

What if One Million Visionaries took a stand for humanity? And what if they each had the wisdom, power and skills to create a world that worked for everyone?

Several Vision Force Boot Camp graduates have been asking these questions after experiencing the power of the Vision Force methods. The result? A non-profit initiative called the One Million Visionaries campaign.

It’s being launched this spring in conjunction with the next Vision Force Boot Camp. If you’d like to receive more info about how you can be one of 30 impassioned change agents in attendance, get on this list.

Just recently I mentioned the formation of a campaign to find, unite and train one million visionaries, each of whom are dedicating their lives to stand for all of humanity and create a world that really works for everyone.

When we speak of “visionaries,” we are not speaking of people with a special “gift” for thinking big, thinking creatively, etc. We are speaking of people who choose a certain kind of path in life. Most people do not choose the visionary path (at least not at present).

Many people focus on achieving “success,” “financial freedom,” etc.; however this is easy to do without living a visionary life.

Many people also focus on “making a difference,” “leaving a legacy,” and “doing my small part” to “change the world;” yet this is easily done without living a visionary life.

Further, people focus on attaining “salvation,” “enlightenment” or “transformation.” Once again, pursuing these objectives is quite easily done without living a visionary life.

You can live a visionary life while pursuing any of the above objectives, however most people dare not tread in the realm where the visionary lives. The visionary life is anything but “easy.” Indeed, it is a road less traveled.

What we tend to do in life is seek noble goals, values and ideals, while staying safely within the realm of our psychological/intellectual position. We could say this is living a “positionary life.” Or living beneath the level of vision.

If this is so for you, then you’d be content with actions and solutions that compromise your highest values and ideals, and your path of conscious/spiritual/intellectual growth/evolution. You might not act like you like such actions and solutions, but you’d tolerate those actions in your life, as if there is no other practical alternative.

Thus, in various areas of your life you’d see 1) a great disparity between what you say you value and how you act, OR 2) that you’ve come to accept very low values, dreams and ideals OR 3) that you are not consciously evolving both your values and your actions to higher levels as you could be (more about this later).

Here’s the kicker… Living beneath the level of vision, one can often not even see much evidence for 1, 2 or 3 above (Unbridled self-honesty is more accessible and prevalent at the level of vision). Thus we cannot see how much we cannot see, and so we think there’s not much that we don’t see.

Look around at the world today, and what do we see? People who are perfectly content with compromise solutions, as if we as human beings are not capable of rising to new levels where compromise is not necessary. As evidence of positionary thinking, I’d point to the acceptance of compromise as a valid, worthwhile and even noble approach–in life, in marriage, in international relations, in politics, in business, etc.

Visionaries in general do not espouse compromise. Visionaries face what few do. Visionaries are more like warriors than dreamers, in that they walk the path, they face what there is to face, and as a result a vision that others cannot see emerges. In the same way that the man who does not climb the mountain cannot see what’s on the other side, those who do not walk a visionary path cannot see what the visionary can.

I am eager to share more about the One Million Visionaries campaign and how Vision Force will be partnering to recruit and train the one million visionaries… watch for some exciting announcements… soon!

Behind the scenes over here in the world of VisionForce, we’ve been quietly planning a movement called, One Million Visionaries. The idea was born and began to grow as we watched Clovis Ategeka, a blooming young Ugandan visionary promptly set out to change the world after simply downloading our Vision Force 101 program.

Imagine, one million Clovises, or one million gandhis, stepping forward with vision and in unison as they take a stand for all of humanity! Through this campaign we envision training one million visionaries in high-level visionary leadership skills over the internet–and for free. It’s much bigger than that and we are going to share the bigger vision and plan on a private conference call next Wednesday evening at 8pm Eastern. You’re invited to listen in live! If you want to be on the call, listening in, go mark that date and time on your calendar right away. Then we’ll send you an invite with the specific call in number (if you’re on our Visionary Mind Shifts list)! Stay tuned…