What does mind/body wellness have to do with environmental concern? What is the glue that holds the broad Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability umbrella together? What do the practices of yoga and meditation have to do with environmental awareness? Systems thinking shows the folly of disembodied mind, disconnected individuals and deracinated culture, while providing glue that cements together the disparate LOHAS threads. 

First off, what is, systems thinking? Systems thinking goes beyond linear thinking and a mechanical view of the world that does not recognize connecting linkages. Linear thinking reflects a simple cause/effect relationship, for example measuring the independent variable’s effect upon the dependent variable. A system is an ecology of relationships all interacting with unpredictable results. Systems thinking describes emergence; which means the collective properties of the whole are not found in the parts. There is no discrete cause and effect between two isolated variables. Everything is connected within the ecological system. Whole systems are driven by the logic that when you remove particular parts, the system falls apart and you lose explanatory power.

Recognition of three systems; the mind/body system, the self/society system and the culture/nature system shows how systems thinking forms the foundation of the Lohas philosophy. It reinforces the importance of yoga and meditation for harmonizing body and mind, the importance of social relationships in forming our individual identity and the importance of nature in the formation of culture.

Beyond the fact that nature is a prerequisite for our survival, humanity has spiritual needs to connect with the environment on a deeper level. Throughout history and throughout the world, we see the human urge to connect to something greater than themselves is universal. Rather than projecting our religious impulse skyward, now, we see the need to project that impulse to the world around us. Our connection to nature is not just a biological fact; it is a spiritual principal that colors the world with meaning. Life has meaning because we are connected to the world around us. The meaning lies in that connection and with the environmental peril we face, the meaning requires political engagement along with spiritual and social engagement because facing the environmental crisis will require policy change, policy choices and collective action on unprecedented levels. Facing this environmental crisis could provide an engine for spiritual renewal. Sustainability could become the new religion, a religion rooted in scientific fact and a religion formed in response to environmental challenges.

Three systems, body-mind system, the self-society system and the culture-nature system move our consciousness outward from our mind, to our self, to our community and finally to the natural system. This forward movement in consciousness will hopefully spur on evolutionary adaptation that will increase human nature’s capacity to deal with the growing environmental crisis. The LOHAS market is a tool for moving this evolutionary adaptation forward.

After reviewing the numerous trend articles out there and considering my own perspectives I have put together some that I think are relevant to LOHAS. Here are a few that I feel are relevant for the coming year:

1. Whiskey is for Drinking, Water Is for Fighting Over
The famous Mark Twain quote will become more prevalent in society as new realities of its scarify will become better known to an ever growing global thirst.  Everyone will talk about it but few will do anything. Sadly, it may only start to take off if humanitarian crises hit.  A focus on water use is an admission that climate change is our new reality and it's time to start managing its effects. The material risks associated with increased droughts and flooding will be among the most poignant effects of climate change. You may already be talking about this with the lack of snowfall around the country during the early part of this year.

2. Capitalism as We Know is Changing and it Should
Since the Industrial Age, businesses have built their wealth off of the extraction of natural resources. Unless businesses start to value and protect these resources, this cycle will have a devastating impact on the lives of our children and grandchildren.  Richard Branson echoes this sentiment and also believes it cannot survive in its current model. This can also cause possible ecoflation that was identified in 2008.  Many people are beginning to realize that business as usual is no longer an option. What is an option is to reinvent capitalism to truly be a force for good in the world. Certification groups such as FairTrade and Benefit Corporation are working to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.  The current changing economic scene provides unique opportunity for innovation and success in unconventional settings. The sky is the limit as new ways to do better business are taking root everyday.

3. Blurring the Differences Between “For-Profits” and “Non-Profits”
There has been a surge of entrepreneurs providing innovative business solutions with the purpose of “doing good”.   In these tumultuous times where unemployment is high many are turning their backs on the job fairs and putting their efforts into creating new businesses that fill needs such as TaskRabbit, and Viatask.   Non-profits will incorporate more for-profit business models into their programs. There is a strong growth in social entrepreneurialism globally and this will increase with the emergence of new solutions for world issues. Groups like the Social Venture Network, Sansori and Unreasonable Institute will increase to provide resources for start ups. Social enterprises will encompass the very definition of business and 2012 will be an important year.

4. Gamificating Your life
Expect and increase in the game addiction methods to make a world a better place this next year. Game and point system rewards programs such as My Recycle Bank , My Energy and Greenopolis will see newcomers such as Ecobonus that rewards points to green and organic shoppers. More smart apps will be provided for LOHAS shoppers and energy efficiencies for homes and automobiles. 

5. Evidence Based Sustainability
Proof of sustainability will be emphasized more than ever as businesses will seek cost effective measure to reduce bills and be a good environmental citizen. Purchasing departments will be requiring vendors to document how they address sustainability issues within their own businesses will become more commonplace. As facilities and businesses increasingly operate in a more sustainable manner, they will turn to "dashboard" systems to help measure, manage and report progress.

6. We'll All Want to Plug in to Plug-in Hybrids
Hybrids are not new but the latest improvements in technology will allow them to be more affordable to the average consumer. If electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt are the trail-blazers, plug-in hybrids could be the game-changer the auto industry has been looking for. The prospect of a car than can travel distances of up to 40 miles using electric power before switching to a gas engine for longer journeys promises to overcome the biggest objection to electric cars: the fear the battery will run out mid-journey.  Design also looks exciting. We only need to look into BMW i8 roadster concept and visualize where this might take the car industry in near future. The high profile Vauxhall Ampera and Toyota Plug-in hybrid will create a lot of buzz this year and assuming the cars offer reasonable performance they could quickly become the default option for green-minded motorists and cost-conscious fleet operators

7. More Fun with Sharing Stuff
Sharing will not only be a part of social media but of reality. Considerations of downscaling due to financial, lifestyle reasons or social pressures will increase in sharing the excesses of the past decade as we become more conscious of what we have that we don’t use that others can borrow. Rent Stuff, Loanables andRent Stuff Easy allow you to do exactly what they say to others online.  A while back Sharable listed eight ways to share your stuff. That's about few of those thousands of ways of giving your stuff (or money) away for charity. Couchsurfing connects travelers with people who offer their homes as an economical place to stay. Rising oil costs will put pressure on transportation and the demand for shared and public transportation. Transportation share programs such as Zipcar, Bixi or Bcycle will increase. In four years the number of registered users have gone up from less than one million to more than four million. By Carpooling shared trips have gone up from less than three million to almost eight million.
 
8. Responsible Profitability Attracts Attention
Responsibility has been strongly associated with greater profitability, equity and asset returns, and shareholder value creation. But that’s no longer good enough. Today, the bar is being raised; success is itself changing. Companies are beginning to be judged against a whole new set of criteria by customers, governments, communities, employees, and investors. They’re already saying, so you made a profit. Yawn. Did you actually have an impact? Did what you do have a positive, lasting consequence that was meaningful in human terms? Several studies have provided evidence suggesting that betterness yields greater equity returns, asset returns, and profitability. This not only makes sense for those who are mission oriented but also for risk management.  One recent study found Firms that score strongly in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) find that their cost of equity capital financing is consistently lower than firms with weaker CSR track records. Responsibility fuels outperformance because it is risk management: better insurance against adverse future events.

9. Emphasis on Corporate Culture
Successful startup companies such as Method, Zappos and New Belgium Brewery are all preachers of their unique culture developed around their workplace. They preach not to chase the profits but to chase the dream. Engaging employees as a collective of ideas and not compartmentalization is a new form of corporate structure. It is not just about the fun office parties and surroundings but understanding the larger mission of the company and empowering employees. Creative agencies and culture builders have seen the need to train and educate companies on these emerging traits that are attractive for the young new work force.

10. Natural Disasters Will Continue
Expect your homeowners insurance rate to rise in 2012 as weather related damages cost $70 billion in U.S. economic losses in 2011.  All the indicators on climate risk are pointing the wrong way.  The financial and human cost of extreme weather and climate-related disasters is on an unmistakably upward trend. Meanwhile, our energy infrastructure remains as risky as ever with the Fukushima disaster following the BP oil spill in highlighting how fragile our energy supplies really are. It is a safe bet that 2012 will again be marred by a large-scale environmental tragedy of one form or another. Meanwhile, sensible businesses and policymakers will start taking climate adaptation more seriously.

References for these trends are:
Ecopreneurist.com
Taombo.com
Greenbiz.com
Huffington Post
PR Newswire

Are there any missing? Let me know what others trends you forsee for 2012 and LOHAS.

I recently attended a conference where the keynote speaker was successful entrepreneur Tony Hsieh, CEO of the successful online apparel shop Zappos.com. In 1999, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined us as an advisor and investor, and eventually became CEO, where he helped us grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazines annual Best Companies to Work For list. In November 2009, Zappos.com, Inc. was acquired by Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing. I was very interested to know what makes Zappos so unique.

Tony shared with the audience that he views things differently than most. He perceives Zappos as not a shoe company but rather a service company that happens to sell shoes. One of the key things I heard Tony say was that they take funds that are typically set aside for advertising and apply it to customer service. In 2008 over $1 billion of sales was done with repeating customers and word of mouth. What was it that makes people come back to buy things at Zappos? Tony stated it was because they consider customer service as the number one priority. This is nothing new to sales and marketing.  I think we have all heard this before but what Zappos does differently is apply it to their corporate culture. Instead of viewing customer service as what the customer receives they view it as to what the customer experiences. Because Zappos is an online store their phone service is vital for success. They have their number in big numbers on every page of their website so people can easily find it and call. They recognize that the customer service must be good. But the people who call don’t often result in a sale and this is not the focus of the call center. Instead Zappos uses the call center as a branding opportunity. Yes sales do happen through the call center but that is not the call center’s primary focus. This is a very different way of looking at a call service center. They also provide overnight shipping anywhere in the U.S. They recognize this is expensive but it adds to the customer experience and out paces competitors. Zappos considers the extra costs as a marketing cost rather than an additional expense.

You would think the mantra in the company is all about customer service. It is a strong component of what Zappos is all about but the larger priority is creating a strong corporate culture and they work on maintaining, nurturing and protecting it. Zappos human resources department has an interview on culture for new employees to see if they are a good fit. Once they are accepted by Zappos the new hires go through a 5 week training course and once the training is complete they are given a choice to either join the company or be given $3,000 on the spot to leave. This process weeds out those who are focusing on the paycheck and not committed to the Zappos culture. Internal annual performance reviews value 50% based on culture and growth within the company. They want employees to contribute to the success of the Zappos culture with recommendations and initiatives.  All new hire training covers history of the Zappos culture and experience in their call center.  Customer service is not just a department but part of the whole company. All have to answer calls and understand the skills it takes which include executives, accountants, IT and other non-customer service related departments. When customers get the perfect fit of all of these it equals happiness. If customers get what they want and have a tremendous experience they feel happy. Therefore Zappos believes they are delivering happiness.

Zappos created 10 core values for their company. Tony stressed that it is important to not make these values meaningless. They must be committable core values. At Zappos they are used for hiring and firing people.

Here are Zappos 10 Core Values:
1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

This results in every employee living the brand alignment of value and in doing this it equates to long term sustainable growth. Zappos is now educating other companies on culture with online tools and seminars. Recently a refrigerator company has gone through the training and have seen their sales increase.

Another ingredient for success is to focus on a higher purpose beyond profit. It is important to think bigger than money and focus on what motivates you? Create that vision and chase the vision not the dollar. Perhaps it is being a good parent or good citizen. Tony stated in his talk, “Don’t chase the paper, chase the dream.”

He also pointed out the difference between motivation and inspiration. Motivation can be used to a point and makes up a large part of how leaders relate to their teams. But there also needs to be elements of inspiration that tap into the deeper and stronger soul energies of a person.

With today’s technology and digital aspects of sales there is a difference with high touch compared to high tech. High tech provides broader and faster access to customers and is a good tool. But it is only a tool. High touch provides an emotional connection with people to ensure their experience with a company is top notch. Zappos focuses on the high touch because it believes it makes customers happier. An example of a company that does this well is Cirque de Soleil. They are not in the circus business they are into the experience and emotions business.

Zappos is currently creating a new community building imitative in Las Vegas where they are based. Rather than go the Nike and Google campus model Zappos will integrate their main headquarters into the existing local community and use existing buildings. They plan to build residential businesses and use existing areas to build other business opportunities around Zappos with the Zappos mission. They offer daily tours of their headquarters to anyone interested. They will pick you up from the airport and share their story with anyone willing to listen.

Tony said according to happiness research we are really bad at predicting what will make us happy. For example most think that winning the lottery will provide happiness. But studies have shown that many winners are not happier than they were before. In fact in some instances it has caused more problems than benefits.

Why is happiness so mysterious to attain? It is because our current society messaging values perceived control and progress which are to demonstrate accomplishment which we are told will make us happy. Instead we should focus on connectedness and meaning which give us a sense of community, well being and contentment.

There are three types of happiness:  1. The Rock Star lifestyle with riches and fame where everyone loves you and what you do. This is very rare.  2.  Flow which is when someone is in synch with their challenges. Athletes talk about this when they are in the zone. This is not as rare but more sporadic and based on the correct circumstances. 3. A clear understanding of meaning and higher purpose. This is something that can be called upon from an individual at all times and anywhere. This is much more long lasting and sustaining.  

But people always aim for rock star.  We should reverse our efforts – meaning, flow, rock star. Once we do this happiness will ultimately follow.

Written by Jean Houston

As I travel around the globe speaking and training, I have consistently found that most people ask me the same question, ‘how do I discover my purpose in life?’  In the past, who you became was determined by your family and circumstances. You didn't have much choice. But now there is an open moment in history where you have the chance to tap into the soul of your purpose. 
 Millions of people right now are experiencing a yearning and desire to awaken to their unique gifts and offer them in service to the world—while living a life of joy and fulfillment. It's a surging of the human spirit, a virtual global awakening, at a scale that no one has ever seen before. Simply put, people are longing to finally feel fully alive and to fulfill their unique purpose in life.
So then why is living a life of meaning and purpose so difficult? It is because our current social systems have not been set up to prepare us to live a life of true purpose. That's because today's culture exists not to nurture our highest aspirations, but to ensure our basic survival.

Our educational system is designed to create good workers who will slot into jobs and careers later in life—not to empower fiery, creative people who are forging the path ahead together.

Our social contracts exist to perpetuate the status quo—not to encourage our highest potentials to blossom. Is it any wonder why so many people's best attempts to evolve themselves and our culture fall short of the goal? We simply haven't been trained in how to bring the possible future into the present.

It's not that they don't have the talent or interest to live purposeful, meaningful life. The issue is far simpler. People struggle to activate their "purpose code" because they haven't woken up to--or are only partially awake to--our situation as a human race. Most people hold on to old, limiting beliefs of themselves and our human story. Overwhelmed by all the changes in the world around them, most people live their lives within a "small story," and therefore confine themselves to a "small self." That's why so many people feel that they don't have a purpose, or that they aren't able to actually *live* the life they were born to live.

     There is a saying that “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” I believe that it is butterfly time.  Just as the guidance cells in the mush that is the caterpillar in its cocoon suddenly begin to activate the transformation of mush into butterfly, so too this is the time when we realize that the guidance or imaginal cells of our bodies, our communities, and, yes, even of the cells of our planet are calling us to come together in all our parts to form something gorgeous, interdependent, living lightly on the Earth, cross pollinating cultures, ideas, spiritual forms, glowing with the light that suffuses us, becoming transparent  to transcendence.  And to rise out of the mush we have been caught in these many hundreds of years and to take flight in the air of the new story which is emerging in our time. 

 For the fields we traverse, the many flowers of mind states and soul knowings we now enter are those that belong to the whole, earth, to many cultures, to what I am calling PanGaia. And as the butterfly pollinates and cross pollinates from place to place, flower to flower, so do we also if we have the will and the willingness to discover our purpose and  be part of this extraordinary moment in time.

Three Keys to Empowering New Beliefs

 The first key to activating your life's purpose is to hold new beliefs about yourself and about your role in the Great Story of where humanity is headed.

       Living a great life, requires that you understand the challenges and opportunities of our moment in history. To understand this for myself, I've gathered information from my work in over 100 countries and 40 different cultures and what I've discovered has served as a sure guide on my path. Specifically, I have found five great shifts in our understanding of the story of our time that are affecting everything we do today.  I believe that awakening to the power of these shifts will help you cultivate your sense of compassion and of the infinite possibilities of this moment.

The five shifts are:
• Our understanding of who and what we are and what we need to become in order to be able to deal with the complexity of our time is evolving.

• Human societies are in the process of re-patterning. Social constructs are dissolving and whole new stories are trying to emerge, such as the rise of women to a full partnership with men across the globe, and many others.

• How we conduct business and governance is shifting in the midst of vast ecological and financial changes.  This is perhaps the most important social event of the last five thousand years, because these issues  impact almost everything in our lives.

• The rise and fusion of different cultures--we are swiftly moving towards a planetary civilization that accentuates the uniqueness of each culture while blending them together. Think of the great fusions of food and of music and of beliefs.

• Whole new orders of spirituality are emerging that are not about religion. The new cosmologies are giving us a view of ourselves that we never had before. For the first time ever, we find that we don't just live in the universe, but that the universe lives in us.
      

This journey begins by letting go of old beliefs and patterns to make room for the new beliefs and capacities that will empower you to awaken to and live your higher purpose.

 The Second key allows you to discover and realize the vast field of inner intelligences—using multiple means of knowing and being in order to gain insight into life at a level to which that most people rarely have access.  These skills are to be found on four levels of your human capacity, sensory-physical, psychological-emotional, mythic-symbolic, and unitive-spiritual. As you learn how to utilize the extraordinary capacities to be found at each of these levels you literally move into new ways of being.  For example, you will learn how to play with time in such a way as to take five minutes and experience it internally as hours—these are "hours" you can use to develop a skill or move a project forward.

You will learn to access "inner experts", willing helpers or personas that will help you navigate the complexity of life with elegance and confidence.
 
The third key gives you the means to break free from unconscious, habitual ways of reacting to life that were born thousands of years ago, and embrace higher ways of being for a new era.You will discover ways to move through life with ebullience in your bones and an appetite for celebration—seeing everything as an expression of the Creator. You will move through life, motivated not by guilt or obligation, but by gratitude and an abiding zest for doing the things that are called forth by living out of your higher purpose.

Dr. Jean Houston is presenting a FREE 75 minute downloadable audio seminar entitled 3 Keys to Discovering and Living Your True Purpose Available Now at www.DestinyandYou.com .

Dr. Jean Houston is a Scholar, Philosopher and one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our time. She is considered one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement. A powerful and dynamic speaker she has served as consultant to several agencies of United Nations including UNICEF and the UNDP. She has worked in over 100 countries training leadership at every level to enhance skills and purpose so as to bring a new mind to bear upon challenging issues. A prolific writer and author of 26 books including A Passion for the Possible and The Mythic Life, Dr. Houston has recently joined the faculty of Evolving Wisdom, today's fastest growing global e-learning company specializing in transformative education, to provide her wisdom online in a cutting edge format.
www.DestinyandYou.com

Written by Scott James

This month I sat down with John Perkins, the author of the New York Times bestseller,  Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and many other titles, and former chief economist at a major international consulting firm.

Scott: Tell me about your work with business students around the US, particularly as it relates to Corporate Social Responsibility.

John: We talk about what’s really important for any business leader to understand today. We have moved into a new era where people understand we’ve created a failed system.  When less than 5 percent of the world’s population live in the United States and consume more than 25 percent of the world’s resources, while roughly half the world is either starving or on the verge of starvation — the only way you can define that system is as a failure.

It’s not a model that we can sell to Africa or Latin America or India.  It’s not something we want to pass onto our children.  And an awful lot of business people are beginning to understand this.  Young people are getting it, including young MBA students. Those who are going to be running our companies in the future years are waking up to these facts. I’m very familiar with this, because I’m going out and meeting with them, speaking to them in large assemblies and at much smaller gatherings, going to classes with them, and teaching classes for them.

Any responsible executive today of any corporation needs to understand that this is the future.  And let’s face it: people who stay with the status quo have never been the really successful ones in history.  The ones who understand future trends have always been the ones to prosper most.

When city-states became nations, very few people understood the implications, but the Medici did. They knew that their bank wasn’t any longer just about Florence. They needed to go to Venice. They needed to go all over Europe. They got it, and as a result were very successful.

We’re in a stage like that today where things are changing radically.  We’re moving from this time that was defined, when I was a young person in the ’50s and ’60s, as the time to just continually expand materialism, produce things that seemed to make life easier – vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, mass-produced food, etc.  Now we’re moving into a time when people are really getting the fact that we have to be sustainable, that that has to be the driving force.

And sustainability includes social justice. So we can’t be sustainable if people in the world are starving and being exploited. That’s not working. It seeds the roots of turmoil, even terrorism, and it creates tremendous problems for our children. We’re now finally beginning to understand these new facts of life, and our young people are waking up the fastest.

Corporate executives who understand these new trends and steer their companies in directions that recognize(s) that they are not just about making profits regardless of the social and environmental costs will thrive.

When I went to business school in the late ‘60s we were taught that a good CEO is like a good soldier – he protects the long-term interests of his employees and the communities where they live and work, as well as looking out for the interests of his stockholders. That all changed in the ‘70s and 80’s with the adoption of what we now think of as the theories of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. They said that the sole responsibility of business is to maximize profits regardless of everything else. They said: to hell with the long term and the idea of being socially and environmentally responsible! But today we are understanding that profits are not the sole responsibility of business.

We recognize – as our grandparents did – that to be responsible and successful, businesses are going to have to pay decent rates of return to their investors while taking into account the creation of a world that we want to pass onto our children; a sustainable world, a just world, a world where everybody can thrive on some level.

All executives – even executives of corporations that today appear extremely successful and profitable – need to understand that their corporations are very vulnerable to these future trends. They need to get on the sustainability bandwagon; the ones who do so are going to be successful in this new era.

But many business leaders who are already CEOs and CFOs, who graduated with my generation – 30 or more years ago, often take the attitude that this is their system, and that as far as they’re concerned, everything’s working just fine. They are wrong and ultimately they – or their companies – will pay a very high price for these outdated attitudes.

Scott: What does a world look like without CSR…where corporations are all simply responsible enough that we don’t need to tack a CSR department onto them?

John: We have a precedent in this country for that.  For the first hundred years that the United States was a nation, no corporation could get a charter unless it proved that it was going to serve a public interest.  Charters lasted on average for ten years.  There were exceptions – such as building a highway or a bridge –  but on average ten years.  Then the corporation had to go back and prove that IT had met the public interest and would continue to do so, in order to renew its charter.

That all changed in the 1880s when the Supreme Court decided that corporations had the rights of individuals but not the responsibilities, and we’ve been moving further and further in that direction ever since.  “Citizens United” is the most recent example.

There’s a backlash today. The general population – despite the recent Supreme Court rulings that seem to favor corporations – are really beginning to get it.  that backlash is going to increase as people decide they only want to support corporations that really are committed to creating a better future, to serving a public interest.

Scott: As this backlash is happening people are not only reacting against the negative but also moving towards the positive. What are the positive aspects within CSR that you’re seeing abroad from which the North American CSR community could benefit?

John: In the last decade, we’ve witnessed a revolution in Latin America against the form of capitalism that I call “predatory capitalism,” the Milton Friedman form of capitalism.  We’ve seen ten countries which represent roughly 80 percent of the population of South America vote during democratic elections for presidents who campaigned with the promise of reigning in the corporations.

These countries are not getting rid of the corporations, not nationalizing them, not driving them out – because they recognize that they need them – but saying to these corporations, “If you’re going to drill for oil here in Ecuador, or if you’re going to drill for gas here in Bolivia, or grow bananas in El Salvador, that’s okay, but you must share a larger percentage of the profits with our people.  You’ve got to pay higher taxes, and you’ve got to pay higher wage rates.  You must make sure that the people working on these projects are adequately compensated and that they’re not working as slaves to you. And you have to offer the same protections for our environment as those required in alaska and other states.”

The old model used to be that when a foreign corporation went into another country, it would set up a contract whereby it got about 80 percent of the profits, and the country got 20 percent. The new leaders are changing this. For example, Rafael Correa who’s president of Ecuador and has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois understands the system, he’s a capitalist. He’s not trying to get rid of corporations, but he is asking the corporations to stop externalizing the costs associate with destroying the local environment and exploiting local populations. Correa, like other latin leaders, is demanding that corporations internalize those costs and that they return a much larger percentage of the profits to the people. These presidents are not asking for a reversal of the 80-20 formula but they are asking for something that is fairer for their people.

Every one of these countries, for most of my lifetime, was run by brutal dictators often put into power by our own CIA. Now, in peaceful, democratic elections all that has changed. I want to point out that these countries are not opposed to the United States.  They’re not anti-American.  They’re not anti-corporation.  They’re just trying to say, “Listen, you’ve got to be socially and environmentally responsible if you want to work on our lands.”  And the interesting thing is that many of the corporations – the ones that will truly thrive – are getting it.

I recently was a keynote speaker at a conference which was held in Panama which was primarily CEOs and CFOs of extractive industries in Latin America, mostly Canadian companies.

Before I accepted the invitation, I asked them, “Why me?  What do you think I’m going to offer you?”

They said that policies in Latin America have changed. These elections have proven that business is not “as usual.” They told me, “We still want the minerals, and we understand we have to be good neighbors. We hear what they’re saying, and we want to cooperate.” these are very forward-looking senior business leaders saying they get it, and that they want to move forward. They want to be at the top of the curve, to continue to innovate and be the pioneers in this new and changing business environment.

That’s the real message today from all over the world – what I find in China and Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. People understand that capitalism is a very effective system to channel human and natural resources and to apply creativity in areas that result in very productive activities. Now it simply needs to redefine its objectives. Capitalism must accept a goal not just of making profits but also of serving a public interest. When it does that, we arrive at a win-win, a true partnership. Those who understand this will become leaders in this new era. They will thrive, prosper, profit, and create beneficial environments for themselves, their customers, their suppliers, their employees, and the communities in which they work. And for their progeny.

Scott: Yes, definitely a more equitable and respectful relationship, one that can be sustained indefinitely. Any parting words of wisdom?

John: Simply this – that any truly responsible businessperson has to look to the long term. Bonuses may be measured by the quarterly profit statements but true success has to be long-term. As a society, as a species, it is imperative that we understand the importance of creating a world our grandchildren will want to inherit.

elephant journal is proud to be the official new media partner with LOHAS Forum. Click here for our ongoing LOHAS coverage, and be sure to follow our live coverage on Twitter. [Our editor Waylon Lewis is honored to serve on two panels during this event.]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDkT3fPRn3U[/youtube]

elephant journal:  Tell me about your experience with LOHAS.

Marc Barasch:  I’ve been around since almost the beginning.  New age business had been bifurcated, and suddenly people were beginning to figure out how to put their spiritual ideas into business.  It started with good ol’ tofu companies, small granola businesses just beginning to advertise and act like real businesses.

elej: How have you seen it change over the years?

MB: It’s been a mixed blessing. You lose some of the authenticity of the core intent as companies sell to larger conglomerates.  It’s wonderful thatit propagates the meme and distributes the products at a scale that a small company never could have done.  There are tremendous benefits to that.  But from my somewhat outside observation, you also lose some of the integrity. For example, if you look at Ben and Jerry’s, when they were acquired by Unilever, I believe they intended to keep a very progressive business model, including a fixed ratio of how much top executives were paid. However, that model was not kept.

So the LOHAS community needs to ask:  how can LOHAS not replicate some of the disparities and discontinuities of the prevailing system that are collectively driving us off a cliff?  I think it’s time for companies to not just look at the sustainability and humanity of their organizational development, not just as a CSR add-on or a laudable afterthought, but something that’s included in the raison d’être of the company itself?  I think that’s the question that we need to be asking. What does the company do?  What is the product?  How can we ensure that it’s not increasing consumerism?

How does this push forward a new emergent model, without pushing forward the parameters of a dysfunctional system?  How does it value and push forward what needs to be done in the world?  And quickly?  We need to step out of the matrix and look at this from some zero point and reverse engineer it.  What does the world need, and how do these entities—businesses and corporations—directly serve that need?

In an era where money is de-realized into nothing but bits and bites, a fictive system based on number magic, the priests of the numerate have always worked abstract magic on the masses, and become the elite through magical hand gestures—in this case, tapping on keyboards.

I’m very personally interested in complementary currencies.  Look at Switzerland, for example.  One reason that they’ve been so stable economically is not just because they are neutral, but because they have some very sophisticated complementary currencies to meet social needs, as well.

elej: What do you think we need now?

MB: I think it’s time for radical experimentation, we need hybrid or fusion companies, with nonprofits using the profit system and businesses founded with a social mission first, such as Patagonia.

How do we take on the really large social mission of true transformation, and not just nibble around the edges of real change?  I think that’s not just grandiosity.  It’s necessity.

How do we model as organizations that meet emergent civilization?

elej:  How are you modeling an organization that meets the emergent civilization?

MB: This might sound pretentious, but I really took a cue from something Thomas Keating once said, something to the effect of, “I get up every morning, and I decide what will do the most good.  This simplifies things tremendously.”

6 years ago, when Field Notes on the Compassionate Life came out, I thought, “If I’m talking about compassion, I need to enact it.”  So I stopped my entire career trajectory from that point forward, and asked how I could do the most good and accept whatever answer I was given.  I asked myself, "what does the universe want?" And I’ve followed that question pretty loyally for these last 5 years.

That lead to a lot of coincidences, that eventually led me to planting trees in Ethiopia, to start.  I started the Green World Campaign, and watched it grow into a mostly volunteer-driven organization that’s now operating in 5 countries (Kenya, Ethiopia, Mexico, Philippines, India).  We’ve planted close to 500,000 trees.  We’re involved in regenerating communities.  We’re restoring the economy and ecology of the world’s poorest places, doing work that serves people and planet.  In the model of agroforestry that humans and nature have been co-creating since the beginning.

The idea that our relationship to the natural world is to avoid keeping our own destructive hands off it, is inadequate, completely. We’re supposed to work in an integral way together. Renew communities as we renew the environment.

How do we take the holistic model that we all ascribe to philosophically and apply it in the real world, particularly at the bottom of the pyramid, with the people and places that our collective fate is inextricably entwined?  Collective enactment of the global village.

As a critique, we’re very good at created “enlightened, green-gated communities”.  But how does this affect the poorest of the poor?  Trickle down economics.  Everything is connected.  Everything should be seen as interactive parts of a whole.

Reforestation is a quantifiable healing strategy.  We are using interactive new media and new technologies.  It’s part of the DNA of GWC.  We have an alliance with Digital Globe, the largest satellite imaging company, to be able to show donors over time degraded areas turning green.

A tree is a deeply embedded meme in the human psyche.  We’re a tree-planting species.  We always have been.

We’re operating in many domains, whether it’s carbon credits for eco-stoves, creating social enterprises by sourcing commodities like herbs and teas, non-timber forest products, how to partner with indigenous communities in a way that empowers them and also introduces appropriate technology and new agronomic strategies that are harmonious with their traditional agricultural practices.

We are not only providing environmental education, but also working on linking that up with schools in the US, so kids can get a sense of the global village.  I’m big on creating positive feedback loops in a way that empowers global citizens. Doing good doesn’t have to be only through large corporations and large environmental groups.  How do we self-aggregate and do something that we can see that benefits all of us?

How do we all learn from each other?  I’m taking pains to pick and search partners that are mission-aligned and have a real global citizen mindset.  Some sort of understanding of the spiritual underpinnings of human existence, if you will. We’re not aiming to be USAID.  We want to work with the LOHAS community.  We’re propagating ideals in the context of the developing world that are really building global community that includes the poorest of the poor.

Our model is infinitely scalable.  With proper funding, we could scale this up almost immediately.

I call this work Green Compassion.  And the movie “I Am” also relates to this.

elej: Tell me about I Am.

MB: I got a call from Tom Shadyac, who wanted to make a film about the book.  A large part of the film is based on the book.  Here’s a guy who had earned about $2.1B dollars gross for the studios thru his Jim Carey and Eddie Murphy movies.  As much as possible, I want Green World Campaign to be congruent with the ideals presented in the movie and the book. Everything I do is informed by my own healing work and experience, and my background in Buddhism.  It all stems out from that.

Interviewer's note:  And that's what it's all about.

The awesome energy and vision of Jean Houston was evident in her passionate presentation today at the LOHAS conference in Boulder, Colorado.  Her capacity to express herself in cosmic metaphors staggers the mind.  As Ted Ning, the LOHAS conference director, commented, "listening to Jean is like attempting to take a sip from a fire hose."

Her challenge to all of us is to step into the fullness of our biological and spiritual design as human beings. 

"These are mythic times of transformation on Planet Earth and we are the mything (sic) link. It is up to humans to embrace our creative capacity to bring balance and harmony back into our communities and our way of being in the world. Jean Houston has researched creative change makers for decades and found that they all embody the ability to "marinate" in their own imaginations, pondering the possible. She went on to say: "They are excellent spelunkers of their own creativity." Her enthusiasm and passion launches her into many rapid fire quotes, practically jumping across the universe from Goethe to Joseph Campbell.  


Of course, she took issue with Joseph Campbell's insistence that there are no Heroine Journeys', only the Heroes Journey, which was very popular with the women in the audience. She went on to share some fascinating research from 107 countries. It is women who are on the forefront of making things work in their communities. In fact, it is a specific subset of women. She called this phenomenon as "Post-Menapausal Zing." These findings are consistent with research from the Micro Finance world, unfortunately for men, they have found that money given to men in the developing world is often squandered on alcohol or consumer goods that have nothing to do with the sustainability of their communities. In Jean's research 70 to 80% of all activity that sustains a community is being done by women. She reassured the men in the audience that the clarity of masculine energy can be engaged to restore the biosphere in partnership with women.  She emphasized it is not about the "rise of women," it is about designing a whole new culture of kindness.

www.youtube.com/watch Here Jean Houston speaks briefly about the Possible Human.

She touched a resonant nerve with Marc Barasch, a LOHAS Forum attendee, who launched his own Green World Campaign, based upon his dreams. The Axis Mundi image of the Tree of Life connecting Heaven and Earth awakening a passion for manifesting and bringing forth into the world our most cherished ideals. 



Her parting words inspired the audience to a standing ovation when she encouraged everyone to allow our personal liberation to embrace our inventiveness. She believes the Earth is desperately needing the "possible human" to emerge into the "possible society" and create an entirely new civilization. Everyone alive today is born for these times.



Let's step up to the challenge, the Earth is eager for all of us to wake up.

Onward with Courage.

Bud Wilson was a student-athlete-activist during the tumultuous era at Harvard University and emerged with an interdisciplinary degree combining, child development, innovative education and urban social policy.  He the Global Director of Bio-Regional Leadership and an awareness instructor and wilderness guide for Sacred Passage and The Way of Nature. Bud has devoted his passion and energy to raising awareness (including his own) and shifting human consciousness to appreciate that we are all living in an interdependent, interconnected world where there is more than enough for all of humanity to live in peace and harmony. A proud dad of 2 wonderful grown children! 

The below article is brought to you as part of elephant journal’s ongoing coverage of LOHAS Forum. For our complete coverage, be sure to follow elephant on Twitter and Facebook.

Dr. Jean Houston's presence is warm and familar like your second grade teacher. Adorned in a long velvet sparkeling coat she emmenates an air of majesty. 

Dr. Houston echoed my own thoughts and feelings, but from an angle of extensive research and experience. She says, we've lived the good times...we're living the great times. To reach a fully realized society we must first actualize our individual human potential. As the most importzant people to have lived we are choosing the fate of everything— to die or to grow.

What qualites of the mind/body/spirit must we cultivate to achieve a planetary society?

We need passion, deep listening, music, women, and vision.

by Fred Haberman

What if five percent of the $500 billion in global ad spending was instead
invested in making this a better world.

Each year, companies worldwide spend $500 billion in advertising. Corporations enlist talented advertising agencies and brilliant marketers to present their products as boldly and creatively as possible – often at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars per second.

It’s an astounding amount of money. $1.7 million per 30-second spot for the Academy Awards. $3 billion spent on political ads. $12 billion spent by U.S. tobacco companies. $3 million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad – many of which are violent, degrading, or sexist.

As a marketer and parent, it’s given me pause to ask, what does all this money really do to add to our society?

What if these brands could redirect some of these ad spends for for good causes? Could a fast food brand unleash its best creative marketing minds to raise awareness that many Americans have no access to fresh produce? Why can’t an athletic apparel brand run an entire ad encouraging us to donate shoes to the citizens of Haiti?

It’s not just charity, it’s smart marketing. Research suggests consumers want this type of commitment. According to Cone Communications, 79% of consumers say they would be likely to switch from one brand to another, when price and quality are about equal – if the other brand is associated with a good cause. This means that campaigns that add value to our world can also add value for a brand, resulting in the same (or better) increase in sales that an advertising  campaign may offer. Two iconic examples are Pepsi’s Refresh Project and Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.

It’s time to begin a deeper dialogue about where and how the companies whose products and services we support spend their marketing dollars. My company is seeding this conversation with a grassroots program we call “ADD or DELETE” that asks fellow marketers, “Could the $500 billion projected to be spent on advertising in 2011 be put to better use?” We hope that ADD or DELETE inspires chief marketing officers at Fortune 500 companies, creative directors at global advertising agencies, designers toiling at boutique shops and struggling copywriters entering the workforce to consider their legacies: do we want to be known for lavish ad shoots or for creating campaigns that positively impact our world?

We’ve created a website, www.ADDorDELETE.com, to provide a forum for all consumers to identify advertisements that ADD value to society vs. merely being “ads” that consumers would rather DELETE. Our video shows why. Please follow us on Facebook to join the conversation.

Our vision is that consumers will inspire business to leverage at least five percent of their advertising or marketing assets to solve social issues. If all were to agree, that would equate to $25 billion the greatest minds on Madison Avenue and creative shops worldwide could devote to stemming the rise in diabetes, fighting cancer, curbing unwanted teen pregnancies, eradicating food deserts and so much more.

Don’t get me wrong. I love humor in marketing, in the workplace and in life. I love ads. But when customers demand better from the companies they patronize, it’s an opportunity for all of us to use our influence, power and resources to help those in need. So, let’s start ADDing more to society.

If you know me you are well aware that I have a bit of a hectic travel schedule and go to a variety of conferences oriented around green business, social enterprises, health and wellness and everything in between. Yes I am an admitted conference junkie. But there is a reason for my addiction and I will try to explain them rationally as any junkie in denial will do. For me, my reasons are to keep on the edge of what is happening in the various spaces that comprise LOHAS. I enjoy attending conferences not so much to hear about what someone is saying on stage but rather what is being said in the hallways. I feel that getting into the candid conversations at dinners or over drinks really gives me an up close and personal view point into various market sectors with various market leaders. The presentations on stage are an added bonus and if I am lucky they are indeed worth listening to. But I am a critique on a variety of levels. My preference is someone who not only provides a picture of the problem but also presents a vision and solutions to it. If I want gloom and doom I can just watch the news. No need to tell me more about it. I think we are all aware that we are all in deep s#!@ and in it for a long while. I want inspiration and something that speaks to me at a deeper level. I also don’t want a sales pitch. I know that corporate presentations tend to have specific parameters on what they can and cannot say. But getting those people off the stage and into a conversation in the hall is great. That is when you can get to the heart of burning questions and have them give you more in depth answers that they can’t when in front of an audience. I also need imagery. I’m a visual person and a visual learner. If someone presents something with multiple bullet points and is reading them off – that immediately sends me to checking my email on my smartphone. Yawn! But is someone has a well thought out presentation and integrates examples and lead ins using images it is magic. Presenters don’t always need to have images behind them on a large screen. They can take the audience on a wild ride just with a compelling story that has colorful detail and elements that the audience can relate to. After all we are a society of storytellers. They also must have that connection with the audience that a few have and others do not. Hard one to teach but when it is there you can feel it. I also run into some of the most interesting people I would not expect and allow myself to do so by being open to whomever or whatever manifests in front of me. By attending various conferences and hearing different thoughts and ideas both on stage and off I begin to weave together trends and similarities I hear repeated in various LOHAS sectors. I also try to integrate new ideas and concepts that may be fresh to LOHAS. This process constantly reminds me of the fable of Stone Soup. The fable goes like this:
Some travellers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travellers. The travellers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with just a little bit of carrot to help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travellers again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.
This is in essence how the core content of the LOHAS Forum is developed. We then add additional speaker applications into it from those who submit presentations and we adjust a bit here and there but that is how it is contrived. It may not be perfect but the mix is a work in progress and I hope that you are able to enjoy some of the nourishment that the LOHAS soup provides by attending the LOHAS Forum, attending LOHAS regional events, subscribing to our e-newsletter or our various social media groups such as Facebook, Twiiter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

LAGUNA BEACH, CA – “FORTUNE Brainstorm Green” is probably the number one environmental business conference in the world. A host of top CEOs, heads of NGOs, and a variety of consultants, private equity investors, venture capitalists and journalists descend upon the spectacular Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel each April — this was my third annual event — to examine the state of green biz.

There was still optimism in the room on April 4-6, but with a strong dash of reality check. As in, many of these guys are not making the returns they expected by now, and a lot of them have tens if not hundreds of millions invested in “Greentech” companies. That said, they still seem confident that their investments will ultimately pan out, even without federal energy legislation.

Many of the firms represented are major, well-established corporations who seem to be making sincere and in many cases effective efforts to operate sustainably. It is impressive that more and more major companies are adding the title “Chief Sustainability Officer” to the C-Suite, as CSOs from dozens of firms were on the attendee roster.

Not surprisingly, a dominant underlying theme was that unless they’re good business, sustainable policies won’t pass muster with management or shareholders. “The key is cheaper. Sustainability is nice but it’s not the driver,” observed Bill Joy, a founder of Sun Microsystems, now a partner and leading greentech investor with the ubiquitous Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins. This sentiment was echoed throughout the conference by various speakers in sessions ranging from “The Future of Climate Policy,” with Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp and James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy; to “Sustainable Seafood, It’s Not A Fish Story” featuring Greenpeace USA Executive Director Phil Radford and Bumble Bee Foods CEO Chris Lischewski, among many more over two and a half days of speeches, round table discussions, networking and even entertainment.

None other than the Allman Brothers and Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell performed with his band, although he was not just the musical interlude. Leavell has written no less than four significant books about the environment, his latest being Growing A Better America, which examines how we can balance population and business growth with the need to offer everybody clean air, water, plentiful food and adequate natural, open land.

A session of particular interest to me was “Urban Green,” which aired out the tremendous population explosion expected in major cities by 2050 and what we can do to keep some semblance of green in the face of crowding and gridlock. “We expect 80 percent of the world’s population to be city dwellers by 2050,” said legendary architect, urban planner and sustainability expert William McDonough. “Beijing will double in size within five years from 20 to 40 million. How do we provide sewage plants? How do we give everyone the basics of clean air, fresh water and adequate food?”

Laura Turner Seydel, Trustee of the Turner Foundation and yes, daughter of Ted, said Atlanta has become a model of the sustainable city. “It takes a concerted effort from government, business and non-profits. Atlanta received matching funds from Coca-Cola and the Turner Foundation, got Atlanta airport to recycle, now the whole city recycles.” This was echoed by Cindy Ortega, Senior Vice President of Energy and Environmental Services for MGM Resorts, developer of Las Vegas’ City Center, the country’s largest LEED-certified development. “Green is being embraced by corporate America, because waste of natural resources is not good for the bottom line.” The overall thrust was that with skyrocketing urban population growth, only a true partnership of city government, NGOs and local corporations will be able to maintain a sustainable way of life.

Security was tight at this green conference, and rightly so, as luminaries such as Richard Branson, former Siebel Systems founder/CEO Tom Siebel (who is now doing a green startup, C3), Wal-Mart EVP Leslie Dach and NRDC President Frances Beinecke, among many others, appeared as speakers and panelists. Even Theodore Roosevelt IV (yes he does look like his great great grandfather) was on hand, he is Chairman of Barclays Capital Cleantech Initiative.

The conference closed with motivational words from pro surfer, fitness expert and all-around-athlete Laird Hamilton, who is otherwise known as the “Force of Nature,” also the title of his book, which chronicles the way to a truly healthy lifestyle (no you won’t look like Laird even if you follow the diet and exercise plan). When asked how the average person can follow his program and achieve true fitness, Hamilton reminded us that the old tenet, “no pain, no gain” is really the answer. “My food often tastes like crap, the workouts are hard, they hurt. But you have to push yourself to the next level if you want to improve your results. Potato chips in, potato chips out … you need to eat jet fuel to do these workouts.”

Indeed, our path to a truly sustainable future will also follow his edict: no pain, no gain. It won’t be easy, it won’t be cheap, and it will take sacrifice on everyone’s part. The conference left me with a feeling that we do have the talent, capital, entrepreneurship, science and dedication necessary to make our society — and the developing world — a sustainable environment with adequate natural resources and energy to meet the needs of all citizens.

Here’s hoping I’m right…

If there is one yoga that that leads to Self-Realization it is non-injury or ahimsa. Yoga Master Swami Satchidananda

 Imagine, as John Lennon said, what a world it would be if there were no wars and no suffering. How cool it would be if we could set just one day aside each year when we all stop causing pain and focus on harmlessness. A day when peace is more important than all our differences.

‘Make love not war’ may be the key to a better life but if we look around that isn’t what’s happening in today’s world. Yet there is nothing that could be more significant, helpful, or honoring of human existence and decency than non-injury, called ahimsa in yoga. If we were to practice this we would be aware not to think ill of others, not to use words that are hurtful or aggressive, or commit actions that can be destructive and cause pain.

This may sound so simple, but ahimsa actually requires a complete shift in attitude. Few of us get through life without causing harm, whether by ignoring someone’s feelings, by using more of the earth’s resources than we need, or by buying products made by underage and underpaid workers. What to do when insects invade the kitchen or slugs eat away at the vegetable garden, yet we don’t want to harm them? And how often do we do things that are hurtful or harmful to ourselves?

How many times a day, consciously or otherwise, do we put ourselves down, reaffirm our hopelessness, dislike our appearance, or see ourselves as incompetent or unworthy? How much resentment, guilt, or shame do we hold on to, thus perpetuating negativity? 

In a world where selfishness and self-interest are the norm, it takes great courage not to react with greed or anger, which can so easily lead to violence. Yoga teaches us to be honest, respectful, to take care of ourselves and others. Ahimsa is integral to these fundamental yoga teachings. Simply through the intent to cause less pain each of us can bring greater dignity to our world, so that harm is replaced with harmlessness and disrespect with respect.

Gandhi, one of India’s greatest yogis, was the champion of ahimsa. He changed the course of history in India by showing how harmlessness is more powerful than violence, inspiring millions of others to follow his lead. Both Nobel Peace Prize winners, the Dalai Lama and Ang San Suu Kyi, are long-term meditation practitioners and activists devoted to peacefully reclaiming the freedom of their countries. All three have used the power of meditation and harmlessness to show that human dignity through non-injury is the essence of human decency.

For instance, while the Dalai Lama is known for his pacifist attitude toward the Chinese, it is less well known that he rises at four a.m. each day to meditate for at least two hours – he is a true yogi!

Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, and Martin Luther King, Jr., have all being fearlessly dedicated to non-violence, often in the face of tremendous opposition, as have numerous other lesser-known figures who, motivated by their meditation, faith, and belief in non-injury, have added their voices and sometimes even their lives. President Clinton asked Nelson Mandela if he was angry at his imprisonment and he answered, “If I were I would be still in prison.”

By developing a sense of respect for others and a concern for their welfare we reduce our own selfishness, which is the source of all problems, and enhance our sense of kindness, which is a natural source of goodness. The Dalai Lama

Practicing mindful yoga, sitting in quiet reflection, meditation or prayer has an immediately calming and peaceful effect. When we get off the cushion that peace stays with us, highlighting any tendency to cause harm and making such behavior far less likely. It becomes even more improbable as we deepen in awareness of our fundamental interconnectedness, for then violence toward another is the same as causing harm to ourselves.

Try this: Throughout the day, whether practicing yoga or meditation or wherever you are, silently repeat: “May I be well, May others be well, May I practice harmlessness to myself and to all others.”

Ed and Deb Shapiro are featured bloggers at Oprah.com and HuffingtonPost.com. See their award-winning book: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jane Fonda, Ram Dass, Byron Katie, and many others. They also have 3 meditation CD's: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation; which are available at: EdandDebShapiro.com