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.

I just returned from the theatre, after having watched Lions For Lambs… forget what the film critics say, as this was not meant to entertain the masses. It’s a clarion call to all those, and especially the young, who feel inside that they can be more, do more at this time of mounting global crises. It’s a call to all those who’ve learned, or are being conditioned, to compromise. It’s a call to all who would have their voice be heard. It’s a call to those who would live the fullest expression of human life with mind, body and spirit. It’s a call to all those, and especially Americans, who would dare to own the title “visionary,” in a day and age when the most “enlightened” of us are so afraid of looking egotistic or narcissistic. Do we dare to be the change now?

The film left me questioning my choice to be so “practical” for the last five years, building VisionForce as a business. Funny, my business advisers would say I’ve been anything but practical, and that I’ve been far too idealistic. It seems that either path might have been much more effective than the middle road. Had I gone for profit, and built the business to be much more financially successful, we might have the muscle to reach many more people now. Had I been in revolutionary action mode at the expense of the finances, we might have already reached so many more people.

So, what, I wonder, does it look like for me to STAND FORWARD and be the change at the next level? And what does it look like for you?

I think one of the most beneficial things we can do as visionaries, who are risking so much and working so hard to create a better world, is to get plugged into what other visionaries are up to.

FLOW is an organization that is undertaking some very visionary projects, which, if successful, will change the world in which we live.

I invite you to listen to this interview I recorded earlier this week with Michael Strong, Chief Visionary Officer of FLOW, and allow yourself to explore the depth and scope of the FLOW vision. Michael founded FLOW with Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, right here in Austin. Michael and his team travel the world, sharing their vision and building bridges to a future all of us would be excited to raise our children in.

Closer to the end of the 60-minute audio are suggested actions you can take to get involved in the FLOW community.

MP3 File

Visit the FLOW web site and get involved with this inspiring organization that is hard at work putting structures in place to support all of us who are working hard to make this world a better place!

VisionForce has offered to do something special for those who contribute $50 or more to FLOW’s Peace Through Commerce initiative. Send an email to us at support [at] visionforce [dot] com after contributing and we will email you our Vision Force 101 download with over 14 hours of MP3 audios with live coaching in some of the VisionForce concepts and processes. Those who choose to donate $10,000 or more receive a special invitation from FLOW to participate with FLOW at a higher level. (listen to the audio for more details)

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!

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.

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.