OK, so you’re a visionary in the 21st century. You have a new idea or see a new way to make the world a better place. You see what others don’t see in a way that inspires you to action, and you know that if others could only see what you see, they’d be inspired to new courses of action that would make an incredible difference.

I find myself in this predicament currently, and I’d like to speak to two fundamental challenges that someone in such a position faces. I invite you think about these challenges for your own situation.

2 Challenges for the 21st Century World-Changer:

1) How do you share your idea or vision in a way that has people understanding it, without oversimplifying such that they don’t see it’s novelty and genius? Many people are often all too eager to file your idea away into the category of something they already know.

2) How do you share your new idea or vision in a way that does not offend those who are attached to the way they currently view the world? Many people are often all too eager to erect a wall between you and them, if your idea somehow threatens their current reality–or more specifically, their image. From behind their wall, they cannot see what you are saying.

The first challenge is similar to the prospect of sharing a complex theory with someone who barely understands your language. Sure, you can describe it with very simplistic vocabulary and grammar, so that they think they “get it;” but you know that they don’t. Certainly, they don’t “get it” on a level that would inspire them into heroic action in the service of your vision.

I find this to be a growing challenge in my blogging and newsletter/autoresponder writing. Am I speaking to those who share a deep, rich context, or am I speaking to those who are finding this site for the first time? Sometimes I find myself writing in a very simplistic manner, so as to reach people emotionally. Readers will then have the experience of “getting it” or “getting me;” however what I am sharing can easily sound like it’s nothing new to them, because I am using such familiar language.

At other times, I start writing on a more intellectual level, only to realize that a lot of groundwork needs to be laid in my article or blog post, before people would grasp what I was intending to communicate. I begin laying the groundwork in the blog or article, and then before I know it, I am out of time. The article, blog or email does not get produced that day, and it sits awaiting a future completion date.

While there may be many simple approaches to resolve this dilemma, what I’d like to point out is how this problem lies in the domain of BUSINESS. What is business? A business is a system that comes into existence by virtue of solving problems–or of creating value for people. Business, can then be said to be the range of activities that a person or organization (the “business”) engages in for the purpose of ongoingly providing more and more value to others. A business, at least in a free environment, only exists to the extent that it provides greater value by virtue of it’s existence. Marketing is the realm of activities through which the system communicates with it’s environment, such that value exchanges take place.

Thus, my dilemma in communicating my vision with the world is a marketing problem. As I find solutions to this problem, our organization can more easily and ongoingly (profitably) solve more and more of the world’s problems. I invite you, if you self-identify as a world-changer, to self-identify also as an entrepreneur–if you haven’t already. Whether you are up to creating a better marriage, family, life, community, organization, country, ecosystem, world, etc.–you are an entrepreneur. You are an entrepreneur, and the range of activities you engage in to bring about change are your BUSINESS. So, from a business perspective, how well are you succeeding in bringing about the positive change you seek?

Most of us, who self-identify as “world-changers,” have hobbies at best.

Volunteering some of our time, donating to causes we care about, signing petitions, writing our political leaders and voting on election day are mostly the failing busy-ness priorities of YESTERDAY’s “world-changers.” Those who want to bring about great positive change in today’s world, yet who are engaging in the largely impotent strategies of yesterday’s world-changers are becoming less and less relevant.

Those of us who want to bring about serious change in today’s world, will embrace entrepreneurship as not just a vehicle for great and lasting change, but as a paradigm to operate from. You want to own your power to change the world? Look around you at the world out there… your laptop computer screen, your blackberry, the coffee shop you’re sitting in, the buildings outside and the cars traveling down the street… where did they come from? The power of big government, big religion or big business? NO. They came from the new ideas and visions of individuals such as yourself–from entrepreneurs who owned their entrepreneurial power.

More and more so, the power to bring about change in today’s world is in the hands of the individual. More and more technology only means more and more freedom and power for YOU to change the world.

Political Force? Military Force? Measure these against the natural force of your own vision. Vision is the power of the creator, the one who creates what did not exist before. Own your power to change the world around you. Own your Vision Force. Claim the title of entrepreneur.

Stay at home mother of six? Starving artist? Student activist? Employee? OWN that your power to change the world lies in *your* systems for keeping your vision alive, for sharing it with others, for inspiring the world to stand with you, for marketing your ideas, for implementing your solutions, for creating the better world you envision!

Own that whatever your current methods of thinking, communicating, creating and resolving conflicts are–they are generating the results you see in your life and organizations now. The world around you is a result of your business.

That’s where VisionForce comes in.

Only to the extent that you fully own your current and potential freedom, power and responsibility to create a better world will you see cause to invest in next-level methods for manifesting the world you envision. If you’re ready to learn new methods for bringing about the world you envision, check out our Boot Camps for visionaries here.

It’s not training to follow someone else’s vision… just the opposite. Consider it Navy Seal training to follow your own vision to the ends of the earth, standing for a better world in the face of all the inner and outer obstacles that arise in such an “impossible” yet worthwhile journey!

I was just watching a YouTube video of Sam Keen talking about his interview with Ernest Becker, author of Denial of Death. Towards the end of the video, Keen is noting how Becker did not exhibit the kind of removed intellectualism that one might expect from such a thinker. Keen, who has become visibly moved by this point, remarks in admiration, “He thought with his life.”

Ayn Rand proposed that man needs a philosophy from which to live his life, and that one’s ideas are integral to who a person is. As someone creating ideas, my primary motivation in creating ideas as tools has always been a personal one… who should i be? how should i live my life! The “should” arising not from a context of ultimate right and wrong, but from an Ayn Rand-inspired context: if I am to have a life of profound happiness, joy and exaltation, I must live true to my deepest values and honest convictions–even if the world stands in judgment. So then, how do I go about living such a visionary life?

As visionaries–as people who highly value independent thought, action and the creative expression and contribution of our values and vision in the world–as people who are not compromising to conform to the pressures of society–then don’t we each need some sort of philosophy from which to live our lives? Some sort of idea system or paradigm, which validates our individual visionary paths? In a sense, we each have an idea system that guides us, or that at least justifies our choices. What I aim to bring through the VisionForce ideas and tools is *not* an all-encompassing idea system for “visionaries” to subscribe to, but ideas as tools and models, which visionaries can apply in the formation of their own self-guiding philosophies and paradigms. The visionary, in my view, is not simply one who thinks new or radical thoughts, but one who does so in an effort to bring a new vision into existence (and vice versa). The ideas support the creation of a new reality.

Ultimately, the power of the tools VisionForce offers are to be judged through their effectiveness in the hands of visionaries. The tools we offer through our programs are nothing but that which I use in my own life. My investment in these concepts and tools is total. My life, the life of someone very conscious of his mortality, rests on the efficacy of these ideas. I’d consider it a very high acknowledgment, if at the end of my life, someone said of me, “He thought with his life.”

23-year-old Ugandan, Clovis Ategeka, and his Vision Cafe are thriving, and he is making plans to come to Austin for an upcoming VisionForce Boot Camp, possibly this November!

Clovis downloaded our VisionForce 101 program about a year ago from Uganda. Since then, he has been teaching VisionForce workshops, building business, speaking publicly on the radio about a new vision for his country and lots more. Recently he inspired a team led by Michael Blomsterberg from LA to make the voyage to Uganda, where they donated new computers and helped Clovis redesign his Vision Cafe. See Clovis’ new web site, Vision Force Uganda.

Congratulations Clovis! One day, hopefully in 2008, VisionForce will make the voyage to Uganda and Kenya to hold a Boot Camp.

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I just read this article about a visionary Iraqi woman who has taken a stand for women in her country and the world over. Very inspiring. She sees change happening by starting a youth movement. Change… is gonna come.

Here is a CNN news story that speaks to the crises of widows in India, whose tradition shuns women of all ages once their husband dies, and a visionary widow named Dr. Mohini Giri, who is working for change.

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.

Last fall I shot several hours of video in the studio, in part as a footage for an introductory DVD, and in part to generate some clips for the web. Incredibly bright lights, no script and no audience made the footage best for some short web clips, which we intend to integrate into our Visionary Mind Shifts Course. Here’s a short clip below.