Moderates in the Middle East are standing for peace with the OneVoice Movement. Watch the video.

Rather than OV just uniting moderates to stand together, I imagine they are also reaching out to individuals in extremist movements. The VisionForce work is especially applicable in situations that call for strategies beyond compromise, and this is one such situation.

So deeply are we inspired by the OneVoice movement, that VisionForce has committed to make 12 VisionForce Boot Camp Scholarships available to active OneVoice participants from Israel and Palestine over the course of the next year.

The VisionForce trainings are perfect for individuals and groups looking for the expanded levels of courage, compassion and vision needed to create a world that works for everyone. VisionForce’s simple, powerful diagrams and processes provide access to the levels of vision that make deep communication, collaboration and creation possible.

Many visionary Zaadzsters showed up to our March 2007 Vision Force Boot Camp for visionary change agents to kick start our One Million Visionaries campaign!  Pictured above are some of the crew.  (notice the Zaadz Tees being sported by Keith, Mary and Ronin. 

Other Zaadzsters pictured are Deborah, Joseph, Jordan, Shawn, Audrey, Carl, Brandi, Michael, John, Jim, Tom, Koray, Margalo, OT, myself, and… who am I missing?

Zaadzsters in attendance not pictured include Michael, …

For more photos from this Boot Camp, go here.

There is so much to share from this most recent VisionForce Boot Camp, which we’ve used to jumpstart the One Million Visionaries campaign. We’ll start with a press release written by one of the 28 visionaries in attendance:

Healing Divisiveness: The Birth of a New Culture based on Honor and Vision, from the Heart of Texas.

Could a Born-Again Christian and a non-Christian embrace each other as brothers and sisters? Could a U.S. Soldier and a Peace Activist recognize one another as their most powerful and committed allies in life? Is it possible for a Liberal Environmentalist and a Conservative, Capitalist Republican to not only come to honor each other, but also each other’s values?

In a world increasingly divided by viewpoints emphasizing what we are against, the above question seem almost as absurd as expecting oil and water to just blend together, yet they may be the questions which determine our survival. Increasingly, we ask ourselves what kind of future awaits our children in a world of growing conflicts between groups armed with nuclear bombs, depleted uranium, altered genomes, viruses, etc. What could possibly heal, for example, the rifts between evangelical Christians and people who outrightly profess to earth-based “pagan” beliefs, much less have them actually relishing each other’s company? Could anything inspire a conservative Republican and a super-liberal environmentalist to see each other not only as “having some things in common,” but as intimate friends who profoundly trust each other to gaze deeply into each other’s heart, knowing full well that the other loves and cares deeply for them and their vision!?

“Impossible!,” you say? It’s happening right now in the heart of Texas and spreading to the world. This weekend, Michael Skye, an Austin cultural visionary and educator called 28 visionaries from around the world to show them the steps to building a new global culture based on honorable relationship and vision. Participants were selected for their desire to make a significant difference in other people’s lives and their firm commitment to facing everything, avoiding nothing and standing to BE the full, living manifestation of the vision they honor. Those accepted into the 4-day Vision Force Boot Camp experience came from a broad spectrum of religions, political persuasions, and ethnicities from around the world.

Michael Skye, founder of the Vision Force process and www.visionforce.com, leads a 4-day intensive that could be the seed of a global cultural transformation. With a profound understanding of our relationship to self and other, Michael Skye shows people how to use simple, powerful relationship models, to understand the process by which we create suffering in ourselves and separation from others, starting with those closest to us. Michael Skye shows visionaries how to transform the very process which generates pain and divisiveness in our personal and collective lives as the key to powerfully transforming, healing and empowering our vision and values in the world. How many of us have a tremendous vision for how to bring our gifts to humanity, yet have loved ones with whom a misunderstanding has festered for years? The Vision Force process leads to profound relationship healing and empowerment, starting with our relationship to ourselves and the inspiration that so many of us have turned our backs on, considering them the follies of youth, unrealistic, or unachievable.

In Kampala, Uganda, a young man named Clovis Ategeka overcame the apathy that leads to despair for so many young people worldwide after he and his family made tremendous sacrifices for him to complete university studies, only to face political and economic realities where opportunities are reserved for those in the power structure, and not for those most gifted to bring their talents to play. Clovis credits the Vision Force work in empowering him to transform his local economy by showing young people how to embrace their honor and vision first, and then to make it real. Ugandan visionaries are now embracing their life’s adventure boldly and linking to the world. The deep wounds that fester in many countries where corruption and economic exclusion shred the social fabric and generate endless wars are now being healed thanks to the power of vision. In Uganda, Clovis is weaving the threads of a colorful cloth of human culture. He credits Vision Force for showing him how.

The effectiveness of the Vision Force model derives from the simplicity and elegance of the tools which Michael Skye has evolved. There is no doctrine to subscribe to, no leader to follow. Only powerful robust models for understanding the pain we face in our homes, workplaces and for facing the challenges of our current planetary and cultural situation one relationship at a time. Vision Force imparts a living understanding which awakens the leader within and inspires us to rise in the morning nourished and inspired by vision, treating every human being we encounter with profound honor and dignity, while standing for the full actualization of our noblest human potential. What if people and communities who have defined themselves as standing at odds to one another could be totally transformed and freed from their enmity through a powerful 4-day educational process? What if we could learn how to heal wounds carried in our hearts for years, generations and even centuries?

Could learning how to face and understand ourselves really show us how to understand and honor others?

It’s happening now in Austin, Texas and moving out into the world. www.visionforce.com

Another TEDtalks visionary presents his ideas.

Aubrey de Grey, British biogerontologist and founder of SENS, controversially claims to have created a roadmap to defeat biological aging. In this talk, he argues that aging – like other diseases – can be cured, and that humans can live for centuries, if only we approach the aging process as “an engineering problem.”

Watch the video. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 23:31)

MP3 File

I sat down with local visionary entrepreneur and founder of the Bootstrap Network, Bijoy Goswami, to discuss his revolutionary ideas about starting a venture. The insights revealed in this audio are valuable for the entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, non-profit leader and more.

He boils down the entrepreneurial process to get at the essence of what great entrepreneurs have been doing–whether they realize it or not.

You'll want to give yourself time to listen to the full thing. It's about an hour.

Bijoy has an on-line bootcamp for bootstrappers that you can check out here. I think it's invaluable and it's the next best thing to living here in Austin and getting him to consult with you in person. I recommend it to anyone starting or building a business or organization.

What an incredible tribute to those who took a stand for peace.

Here at Vision Force, we also salute the soldiers who fought, and in doing so stood for peace. The more we can all see the stand even in our adversaries, the more we can call them to stand with us in a way that works.

This video on TEDtalks got me thinking…

As people who care so deeply and are committed to so much, it’s easy to try to force change in ourselves and others. The high standards we place upon ourselves are often at the expense of compassion for ourselves and others. And without compassion, we and others tend not to evolve consciously. We can force behavior from ourselves and others in the short-run, but consider that the fastest way to achieve lasting positive change or conscious evolution in ourselves as individuals and groups is actually by slowing down–at least slowing down enough to honor the whole being, the whole system.

Many of today’s methods for parenting, educating and governing are based on models which seem to equate human consciousness with animal consciousness–as if we as humans are little more than smart animals. With such an assumption, authoritarian guidance seems quite appropriate. Punish the behavior you don’t want, reward the behavior you do want, educate the person to know which ideas are “the right” ones, and which ideas are “the wrong” ones. Such training happens at the expense of the trainee’s ability to think independently, honestly and creatively. Those trainees who conform may behave in a way that the authority deems right or responsible, but it’s usually at the expense of the trainees’ ability to make conscious, responsible choices on one’s own.

In these uncertain times of accelerating change, the notion that we can create truly happy individuals or a just society by training children to be our version of what is “good” is a very dangerous one. Such positionary goodness limits our children’s degree of moral courage, compassion and vision as adults. What their survival and happiness requires going forward and what the world needs now is visionary children who are responsible for the future of the world–not visionless followers who are responsible for obeying whoever the leader happens to be.

I invite you to slow down today and invest some of your time in an inquiry worthy of your life and your children’s lives:

Trained Goodness vs. Natural Greatness pt 1
Trained Goodness vs. Natural Greatness pt 2
Goodness vs. Greatness

So many of us are so eager to learn the next tip or trick for happiness, success or leadership skill, that we fail to create lasting change, develop real mastery or much conscious evolution.