Some interesting questions are raised and claims made inside this video:

The next evolution of education is being explored inside VisionForce’s emerging ExploreForce, inside of our Visionary Learning Environment. What does it take to nurture the growth of your child into a visionary being, who is powerfully innovative, self-reliant and part of a collaborative honoring community and economy.

Your thoughts?

A woman courageously leaves her job. She chooses entrepreneurship, because she wants to be free. She works hard to liberate herself from limiting thinking and conditioning, because she wants to be free. And she then chooses to step into the role of liberator, so she can help others be free.

She hears a guru tell her that she can be a guru too. Why not? He’s offering a free video course. Before long she’s run up her credit cards, and is heavily financially and emotionally invested in the dream of staking her own claim in the American Guru Rush! She learns how to promote her guruness–how to present herself in a way that others will pay her for her knowledge.

She buys some coaching courses, tries to build her own web site, does some Google Advertising. No results yet, but she’s almost there! She’s out of credit on her card, but she can’t give up now. A true American Guru never quits, never admits failure. A coach tells her she’s focusing too much on the “negative.” She just needs to “act” successful, and present an image of success so that people will believe that she’s successful and want to buy her product! She doesn’t feel so comfortable with this. Isn’t it dishonest? “No,” her guru says, “Not if you have a money-back guarantee.”

The Guru-Maker Industry: Those who are helping people to position themselves as experts, package their wisdom and promote it to many.

Hey, I am a part of this industry in a sense. I desire to help other people provide for themselves and their families by helping other people with my tools.

It’s a bit like being a real estate broker during the housing bubble. Times were good then. Real estate brokers were helping people become home owners. The real estate brokers were getting rich, and the home owners too, as the value of their homes rose. Good times for all. Right up until the bubble burst of course.

(Personally, I feel we have a lot more pain to face in the housing market, as the government is trying to re-inflate the bubble instead of allowing for a correction, but that’s another issue entirely!)

As the housing industry collapsed, many people lost their homes. It triggered the financial collapse, and people lost their jobs. People who lost their homes and jobs often lost their marriages too. And then their sanity.

Reaching this pain point can be a great opportunity. It can come with excruciating grief, humiliation, anger, etc., but if the culture itself is unsustainable… best to WAKE UP sooner rather than later, right?

Well there’s a bubble in the Guru-Maker Industry, and there are indeed many profiting from the bubble, and many legal and illegal rackets going on inside the bubble. As with any bubble, everyone’s getting drunk with the temporary excesses).

And like any unfair system where some are taking advantage, others learn to hustle to not be taken advantage of and to get their piece of the pie. A lot of internet marketing gurus are hustlers like this–gaming a system that might otherwise game them. By “hustle,” I just mean using street smarts to survive and get ahead. Then there are the dating gurus, who lead “boot camps” in streets and bars for guys looking to overcome their fears with women. These guys are hustlers too, providing value for a fee.

Entrepreneurs in general, one could say, are hustlers too. The system is failing lots of people these days, and so we learn to do what we need to do to survive. Masses of people became mortgage “gurus” during the housing bubble. They became part of the grand financial-housing-mortgage racket .

(By the way, I recently watched a great documentary that shows the rackets and hustles going on in Brazil from many different perspectives. The film is banned here in Brazil, but I was able to watch it on YouTube.)

In a system that’s hustling you, what will you do? Some learn to hustle! “OK, I just bought a $2,000 program that’s going to tell me how to make money online. I kind of feel ripped off, but hey, if I can learn to hustle people by selling my own $2,000 programs the way this guy does–why not?! Everyone’s doing it.”

There are also structural things about our culture and our economy, which feed and perpetuate the Guru-Maker industry bubble, but as is the case with any bubble, people don’t like to FACE reality until AFTER the bubble collapses. In the housing industry, for example, few people wanted to FACE the signs, and FACE the dynamics that perpetuated the bubble–and contrary to what Ben Bernanke said, some people DID see it coming!

Maybe you’ve seen the videos of this man, warning everyone well ahead of the collapse? No one listened. They were drunk on the good times. He even spoke directly to the mortgage bankers industry very bluntly before the collapse (fascinating!). Few listened.

Let’s turn our attention back to the Guru-Maker Industry Bubble.

There’s a great demand for entrepreneurship these days. People want to learn how to start a business, and are willing to pay for this education. You can buy businesses that have practically been all set up for you–franchises, network marketing distributorships, and plenty of other biz opps offer us a “business in a box.”

Beyond entrepreneurship, though, there’s an ever growing demand for “enlightened entrepreneurship.” People want to make money while making a difference. And why not? It’s a beautiful thing.

The Guru-Maker Industry sells products that meet this demand. It tells people, “Yes you too can be a well-paid expert, and I will show you how!” In many ways we can lump network marketing into this Guru-Maker Industry, as the standard strategy is to position one’s self as successful in the network marketing business and then make money by enrolling others who you will mentor.

Again–in many ways it is a fabulous thing–people in this Guru-Maker industry are out to help individuals rise into their own power and confidence, attain “freedom” and impact the lives of others too.

But there’s a big bubble building, and it’s bound to change the way the industry operates. So what? So, the people spending thousands on the next course to teach them how to do what the Guru did, are investing in something that I believe is fundamentally unsustainable, something that MUST collapse upon itself.

This post is not to convince those who are drunk on Gurus and Guruship. It’s merely food for thought for those who dare to face what’s happening, and prepare accordingly.

My concern here is for the Rising Visionaries. Those individuals who are courageously facing the crises in our world, and are taking initiative to create a world beyond the unsustainable bubble world we live in today. These well-intentioned folks are being sold American Guruship as “The Way” to make the difference they wish to make in the world.

The American Guru way comes with pitfalls that the Gurus won’t talk about, trust risks, reputation risks, stress risks, financial risks, etc. To face the truth and speak the truth in this industry is to risk your “expert status,” the respect of your peers, the inclusion amongst your peers, your income and your livelihood. And the nature of the industry is very pyramid-scheme-like. It’s based on selling folks on the idea that they can sell other folks on becoming well paid experts, and those folks and those folks, ad infinitum.

In this kind of a situation, truth tellers better keep their mouths shut. Because no one wants to ruin it for everyone. In fact, it’s best that we all stay positive, keep hoping audaciously, and BELIEVE! YES WE CAN! This is so American. And it’s beautiful. Except when you’re on the titanic.

No one likes the whistle blower, the truth-teller. At least not the people at the party!

Americans (and people in other cultures who are idolizing and emulating American Culture) are particularly vulnerable to this (legal) racket. Now, to be clear, I believe most people who are selling you things to help you become a “well paid expert” have good intentions. And in many ways, they’re simply doing the same things that their mentors do. It’s the way the game works, and it’s there’s nothing inherently illegal about it.

I could spend a lot of time and words here defending those who are teaching others how to be teachers, those who are coaching others how to be coaches, promoting to others how to be promoters, etc. (Hey, I am entering this industry as well, of teaching folks how to make a living by using my methods.). But let’s just get on to the business at hand.

However, I’d like to focus on protecting YOU, as someone who is probably involved in this industry one way or another. I’d like to point towards the iceberg, which may be in front of you, and then you can do what you like about it.

So, the Guru-Maker Industry sells the dream: You too can be a guru. You can be a well-paid author, speaker, coach, consultant. It’s a beautiful thing. But just like the stock market in the 90′s, the housing market in the 2000′s, it’s a bubble that capitalizes on the American’s desperate hope for freedom and status.

I’m going to present the bubble more clearly below.

- Fed by debt
- Fed by American Dream ideals
- Dependent on illusion
- Fundamentally unsustainable
- The illusion is propped up by those profiting from it, who are also those desiring to protect it
- The illusion is kept in place by the desire of the people at the bottom to believe it can continue forever
- Bound to result in lots of suffering for many
- There people at the bottom are taught to copy the dishonesties of the people at the top, and keep the illusion alive
- As things get worse for an individual or the industry, there’s an incentive to present an illusion that everything’s OK

Now I’m using the term, “Guru,” very loosely. By it I mean someone who is viewed as an expert in a certain industry. America, in particular, loves them some experts! As much as we like to rebel against authoritarian regimes (The British King for example), we like to have our own resident gurus, and we love the idea of becoming revered as an expert ourselves.

In part it’s how the culture functions. Our lives are so complex these days that we’ve become dependent on experts. We’ve grown dependent on “experts” to tell us how to do even the simplest and most instinctual acts, such as breastfeeding. We are naturally expert breast sucklers from birth (I for example, have NEVER needed a course on that!), and our mothers are natural infant feeders. But so estranged we’ve become from ourselves and our natural guidance that we fear trusting ourselves.

It’s a dangerous role–to put yourself out as an authority figure in cultures that have been traumatized by and subjugated to the will of external authorities, who themselves have been traumatized by the culture.

This conversion created for VisionForce’s emerging ExploreForce. Details at http://www.visionforce.com/explore

(to be continued)

Visionary Woman, let me stand with you!

Let’s amplify the volume, clarity and power of your big dream or idea. Let’s turn it into a POWERFUL VISION that speaks to your heart, and the hearts of all who hear your voice, with this powerful Vision Exercise:

MP3 File

Imagine if the world had been wired and Gandhi had a laptop 100 years ago.

Imagine if the world could have seen the abuses of the British LIVE on YOUtube…

And if he could have created his own YOUtube videos, so that all of India and all the world could have heard his speeches? And if he could have used MeetUp to unite and activated people all across his country? What if he could have raised donations for his cause from around the world, and received his money through PayPal?

Of course, we revere him all the more, because he didn’t have access to these modern technologies. Nor did Bill Gates have the internet when he started out. But guess who does…

That’s right, we do. YOU do.

You’re connected to the internet, and you’ve got a vision or at least a dream. But how powerful is your connection?
Not your internet connection, but your vision connection!

How connected is your vision to your heart?

When the tough times come and everything seems impossible, do your eyes well up with a deep, overflowing wave of love and passion that carries you through?

When your best friends and family lose faith and hope down the road, will you stand strong with your heart wide open and your vision clear, inspiring them to stand with you again until the end?

You want to change the world? Inspire the world or create a better world? Or create a better world?

If you’ve got vision, and an internet connection, you’ve got a good shot. Now there’s only one thing left to do. Let’s wire your vision to heart right now.

Go to this page and sign up for our Free vision demo this week, if you haven’t already.

Just hours from now, Michael Skye will personally be leading a LIVE, Free demonstration of a potent 3-step method to plug your vision straight into your heart. Join us LIVE on the phone and then watch in the coming weeks as you find yourself easily rising above old doubts and fears to stand powerfully for what matters most!

To join us, please follow this link and sign up:

–> http://www.visionforce.com/teleseminar/ve-opt-in.html

You’ll be taken to a page where you can download the materials you need for the course, as well as the phone number and schedule. We look forward to hearing your voice on the call! Let’s change the world!

What follows is an excerpt from a very early draft of my upcoming book, i Stand (sub-title yet to be determined). Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Judgment Walls As A Tool of the Positionary Mind

The young child is adored by her parents. In their eyes she can do no wrong. She is precious, perfect. Even when she messes her diaper, she’s a little miracle.

Her parents seem to be all powerful. They can get the cookies down from the top shelf. And they’re all knowing too. They know how to tie shoes and count to 20. Her parents are her grasp on reality—what’s what, who’s who, and why things do what they do.

Then one day, mom comes home after being stuck in traffic and sees the house a mess. She hasn’t had any time to herself in a long time. She’s been giving so much, working so hard, and now the house is a mess again.

Around the corner comes the adorable little girl, so happy to see mommy, and in that instant she sees the glare in her mom’s eyes, hears the shriek of her voice and her towering presence over her. The little one is petrified.

She cries out, her whole world is upside down. The one who knows everything, the one who gave her life, the one to takes care of her, the one who she depends on for love and survival is suddenly a threat to her existence—or so it seems.

What is she to do? What can she do?

As the child grows older, she learns a few basic strategies to deal with this pain.

She learns ways of finding separation from her parents’ eyes and voice, so she’s not hurt by their looks of disapproval, or the subtle mockery in their voices. Eventually, as she begins to form her own identity among her peers, she becomes more self-conscious and the extra shaming from her parents only adds fuel to the fire.

She stays in her room a lot. She puts on her headphones and listens to music. She spends a lot of time with friends, who understand her and approve of her. She leaves the house a lot, finds other things to do. She covers her ears and runs out of the room, when necessary.

And there’s another way she finds separation. She erects walls of judgment. If mom is a psycho basket case, then when mom’s yelling at her, it sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Waa Waa Waa Waa Waa Waa Waa Waa. And, it doesn’t hurt as much that mom disapproves.

Any kind of judgment works. Maybe mom is too old, too conservative, too tight, too out of touch, too controlling, too manipulative, too mean, too ___________________.

What works is that mom’s looks and words of disapproval don’t hurt as much anymore.

Then, when she’s in school and the cool group of girls laugh at her, she learns to look down on them. They’re stupid, or preppy, or arrogant. Again, any judgments will do the trick. It works for the girl’s mind, because it’s less painful to be in their presence or to think of them.

As the girl dates, and is rejected by the guy she adores. It hurts. Judgments help give her the strength to let go and move on.

But over time, the girl has erected a set of emotional and mental walls that begin to keep her separate and alone, a virtual prisoner in a self-made jail. And she’s getting really good at it. She knows how to shame someone just with a roll of her eyes. Inside, though, she’s hurting. She just may not know how much she’s hurting. Others may not know. Until she starts to find ways to medicate herself or find approval among peers, who are also hurting.

By this time, her parents have little influence. It hurts them that their daughter won’t open up to them fully. It hurts that she says mean things to them. They raised her, supported her, sacrificed so much for her, loved her through it all—and now she’s so distant, and sometimes as cold as ice.

They don’t know what to do. They too are hurting deeply. To be rejected, even hated by their flesh and blood, by the little precious baby they gave birth to. What could hurt more deeply? Silently her parents blame themselves, and each other. And, of course, when their daughter looks at them or speaks to them in a disrespectful way, they sometimes lash out—further fueling their daughter’s pain, and justifying her fears that they don’t love her, don’t see her, and don’t understand her.

Sometimes the young girl may try to open up and explain. And her parents, assuming they understand and wanting to help, offer her advice–from behind their own judgment walls. And she feels it. She can’t hear their words, because she senses their disapproval. They think they’re listening. She knows they’re not.

And so the separation grows ever wider. At some point, a comfortable distance of separation is reached, and everyone comes to accept each other. “Such is life,” they say. And they give up on the impassioned dreams and desires for deeply intimate, loving family bonds. Sure, they laugh together, visit each other, talk to one another, and everything’s fine.

But there’s no vision for it being any other way.

Their Judgment Walls keep them from being able to see and speak to the heart of the other.

Judgment Walls are an integral tool of the Positionary Mind. Judgment Walls limit our vision, but they keep us protected from being hurt—or at least it appears that way.

Over the years, the separation caused by the walls brings far more suffering than the pain of being judged in the moment.

Judgments, however, can be a powerful way to force yourself and your views on others. They can be used to have people do what you want, because they fear you, or fear being judged by you. Whether we realize it or not, most of us are judgment Jedi’s! We can swing our sword of our judgment in the blink of an eye.

Many people have become very successful in today’s Positionary World using Judgments as tools and weapons. It’s obvious to see in those who walk all over others to get their way, but most of those they walk over, no doubt stand in judgment of them.

So, how do we protect ourselves from our parents’ and other authorities’ judgments of us? By building our own walls of judgment, which in turn hurt them. Of course, they then make their walls even thicker which hurts us more. And, on and on it goes….

Why are our parents and other authorities in our lives often so incapable of really seeing us and speaking to our hearts? Why do they use fear, guilt and shame to enforce their views on us? Why are they so distant? Or, so intrusive? Or, so insensitive? Or ______________?

Consider that they grew up in the same crazy world we’re living in now. They faced the judgments of the world, to be who they have become. Inside each adult is a wounded child, longing to be seen and honored for who they truly are.

If you’re ready to end the craziness of the Positionary Mind, and collapse the walls of judgment that keep you separated from the ones you love, I invite you to take an application for the iStand Experience, formerly the VisionForce Boot Camp. NOTE: The application deadline for the Spring Session is tonight, Monday February 4th at 11:59pm.

Please leave your comments below:

As the VisionForce team prepares for a summit in Hawaii with corporate visioning expert and futurist visionary, Jim Channon (YOUtube) in February 2008, we find ourselves naturally dancing with Jim’s vision.

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.

Changing the world–WHY? This post may ramble, as I intend to freely journal–with radical transparency…

I know for myself that life has transpired inside of a very serious context. The choices I make in this lifetime, I was told, have eternal consequences. I am proud that the mission I’ve chosen in my life is not one that was given to me, but one that I’ve freely created–born of my own vision. However, the intensity and seriousness with which I often find myself approaching my “mission” is in part a by-product of painful experiences and the serious life context I had as a young man. And while the power of the VisionForce tools is also a by-product of that same pain-inspired intensity and seriousness, what I am ever rediscovering is the extent to which fun and enjoyment can be a source and/or an integral part of much more productive strategies for achieving the mission.

Isn’t a visionary life, by definition, one in which a person faces the judgment and ridicule of authorities and the majority, who do not share the same vision and are often not following their own vision? Such a life can quite naturally be experienced as a lonely, serious battle or a path of martyrdom. However, to the extent that one can live freely from one’s vision, life can be an experience of play, peace and freedom. The VisionForce tools give one access to live so powerfully from one’s own vision and so liberated from the judgments and conditioned constraints of society that others can’t help but look to see what you’re seeing, and feel inspired to stand with you.

So much so does the VF technology liberate a person, that it can be quite challenging then to know where to draw the line–and succeed inside a society of conformity–when you are marching to your own drum.

I am currently entering a phase in my life, where I am exploring how much more productive I can be while operating from a place of play, full self-expression and simplicity. This has been a challenge thus far, because I have so many preconceptions about who I should be as a leader, a teacher, etc. Gandhi, Jesus, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Howard Roarke, John Galt–men such as these have been my role models. Thus, hard work, sacrifice, austere living, etc. are what I’ve been modeling. I’ve found it difficult to balance such ways of life with my propensity and desire for childlike play, teasing, silliness and wild abandon.

I watched some very old home movies the other day and found it very interesting that for one Halloween as a child I was a clown, and for the other I was a pirate. That pretty much sums up who I was as a child: the rebel loner who never took anything too seriously and was always joking and teasing. Even for all the seriousness that I bring to my work, especially when leading events for people, those who know me well, know that privately I am often anything but serious.

I quite unconsciously and often consciously buck the norms of society, and often times I show up as ignorant, rude, selfish and even immature–kind of like the kid who just says and does whatever is on his mind to do. I’ve found it a challenge to know where to draw the line. On the one hand, wanting to be an example of an ever-inspiring, high-minded leader (many regard me even as a spiritual teacher), and at the same time a visionary who operates free from the conditioning of a society that worships image and comfort. Finding the balance here has been a challenge, and has led to many awkward situations–many times when I’ve had to clean up the mess I inadvertently made.

Posting this to my blog is what many might consider an “unprofessional” move, but what I am standing for is being a creator of a new era, a new culture and a new vision for business and entrepreneurship–rather than support the old culture of business that so highly values image. We spend so much of our lives working–why should we spend it compromising our self-expression?

I’m finding it worthwhile to verbalize for myself that I value self-expression, fun and play far more highly than image… and I don’t want to try to fit myself into the mold of yesterday’s leaders, trying to manage all my choices to maintain an appearance that no one can judge. Yes, I do wish to protect the image of the company I am building, and I do wish to separate my personal life choices from the work and products we offer–and yet, for me, the business and the mission is not the end-all. This is my life. I want to live. To live fully. To be alive. To be free. AND, I suspect such an approach may just be what empowers and liberates me to even more powerfully attain the mission and generate the success for which I am aiming.

I am working hard to change the world and evolve myself to “be the change”–why? Cuz it’s hella fun! Who’s game?