Eco-labels are an excellent way to enhance credibility for green marketing claims, but they are not without risk. While 28% of consumers look to green certification seals or labels to confirm that a product adheres to claims, these labels can also confuse. Happily there’s enough method within the madness for marketers to pave a way forward.
 
Eco-labeling challenges
More than 400 different eco-labels or green certification systems are now on the market. Questions such as which label is better, which product is safer for the environment and what does a label even mean are common questions that well-intended green shoppers may find themselves asking when trying to make an environmentally responsible purchase.
 
Confusion can arise from labels that certify too much or too little information. Some eco-labels focus on a single product attribute (e.g., recycled content), which keeps things simple but can inadvertently mislead consumers into thinking the product is green overall. Other labels look at several characteristics of a product or even a product’s entire life cycle; such multi-attribute certifications may raise questions about the credibility of a single-attribute certified product while also preventing easy comparisons.
 
Some products, such as electrical appliances, have a number of labels and certifications, while others, such as mattresses or flatware, have none. Another common reason for confusion is the discrepancy in the levels of rigor applied to some eco-labeling—some require independent, third-party verifications while others allow self-certification.
 
Here are some important criteria to consider when seeking the labeling most relevant to your brand:
 
Single-attribute labels
 Single-attribute seals focus on one environmental issue, e.g., energy efficiency or sustainable-wood harvesting. Before certification, an independent third-party auditor is typically required to verify that the product meets a publicly available standard.
 
Many single-attribute labels are sponsored by industry associations looking to defend or capture new markets. Others are sponsored by environmental groups or NGOs that want to protect a natural resource or further a cause. Two single-attribute labels with a global presence are the Forest Stewardship Council (or FSC) label, ensuring the sustainable harvesting of wood and paper, and Fair Trade Certified, ensuring that strict economic, social and environmental criteria were met in the production and trade of such agricultural products as coffee.
 
Voluntary U.S. government labels
Unlike in some countries, such as Canada, Japan and South Korea, the U.S. government has opted for voluntary single- rather than multi-attribute labels. (The private sector and not-for-profit groups hold sway in the area of multiattribute eco-labeling.) Outside of those associated with independent testing, the government-backed labels don’t involve fees. One of the most visible and influential labels is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR (for which we at J. Ottman Consulting were proud to advise over many years).
 
ENERGY STAR promotes energy efficiency in more than 60 product categories, and almost 3,000 manufactured products now feature the ENERGY STAR label. In fact, according to the Natural Marketing Institute, in 2009, 93% of the American public recognized the ENERGY STAR label and 73% said they would be more likely to purchase products that carried that label.
 
Other EPA labels include WaterSense, SmartWay (transportation) and Design for Environment (safer chemicals). The USDA stewards the USDA Organic and USDA Certified Biobased labels (another J. Ottman Consulting client).
 
Multi-attribute labels
As the name suggests, multi-attribute labels examine two or more environmental impacts. Founded in 1989, Green Seal is the granddaddy of them all. It provides a seal of approval for a variety of products that meet specific criteria on a category-by-category basis. Products are reviewed annually for a fee. A few of the organizations whose products now bear the Green Seal certification include Wausau Paper, Clorox, Kimberly-Clark and Hilton.

If your green ads showcase the now tiresome images of babies, daisies, and planets, your messages will likely be irrelevant to mainstream consumers. Eco-imagery may have tugged at the purse-strings of “deep green” consumers, but their lighter green counterparts, who make up the bulk of the market, want to know how even the greenest of products benefit them personally. While the environment may be the underlying reason a product was created or upgraded, it will likely not be the primary motivation for consumers to choose your brand over those of competitors.
 
Avoid green marketing myopia
In other words, don’t commit the fatal sin of “green marketing myopia”. As my colleagues, Ed Stafford and Cathy Hartman of the Huntsman Business School of Utah State, and I point out in our much-quoted article, “Avoiding Green Marketing Myopia,” remember that consumers buy products to meet basic needs - not altruism.
When consumers enter a store, they don their consumer, not citizen caps. They are looking to find the products that will get their clothes clean, that will taste great, that will save them money or that will make themselves appear attractive to others. Environmental and social benefits are best positioned as an important plus that can help sway purchase decisions, particularly between two otherwise comparable products.
 
Quiet Green Marketing
Underscoring the primary reasons why consumers purchase your brand - sometimes referred to as “quiet green” - can broaden the appeal of your greener products and services way beyond the niche of deepest green consumers. Quiet green might also help overcome a premium price hurdle. So, focus communication for greener products on how consumers can protect their health, save money, or keep their home and community safe and clean. Show busy consumers how some environmentally inclined behaviors can save time and effort.
 
To be clear, this does not mean focusing exclusively on such benefits - to do so would be to go back to conventional marketing altogether. But focusing too heavily on environmental benefits at the expense of primary benefits will put your product in the green graveyard, buried under good intentions. Happily, thanks to advances in technology, many greener products these days do provide added value in the form of enhanced benefits.

Does your green product improve health?
Keep in mind that the number one reason why consumers buy greener products is not to “save the planet” but to protect their own health. Categories most closely aligned with health are growing the fastest and tend to command the highest premiums. Health messages can apply to a wide variety of product categories. Consider, for instance, a print ad for AFM Safecoat (that ran here in the U.S.) featuring 16 buckets of paint; 15 of the buckets are painted red and bear labels such as “Gorgeous Paints,” “100% Pure,” “Low Odor,” and “Sustainable.” However, the last bucket stands out in green and announces “The Only Paint that is Doctor Recommended.”
 
Does your product appeal to the style-conscious?
American Apparel was created as a brand that provides excellent working conditions for its employees and uses organic cotton. But, in 2004, when its “sweatshop free” label did not bring in the numbers that CEO Dov Charney was hoping for, he switched to promoting a sexy, youthful image for his company - complete with racy, controversial ads with young women. Three years later, the company has 180 stores and revenue estimated at $380 million. Sounds heretical? Keep in mind that the same sustainably responsible clothing is still being sold to consumers, together with all the same benefits to society and the environment.
 
Does your product save consumers money?
Many brands find that their green benefits neatly translate into something direct and meaningful to the customer, such as energy savings translating into cost savings. Ads for Sears’ Kenmore’s HE5t steamwasher state that it uses 77% less water and 81% less energy than older models. The headline grabs readers with the compelling promise, “You pay for the washer. It pays for the dryer.” In New Jersey, Marcal’s Small Steps campaign positioned the use of 100% recycled household paper products as an easy measure to take for the environment and save money.
 
Today’s consumers want to know the back-story about products and packages, so focus on primary benefits in the context of a full story that incorporates the environment as a desirable extra benefit. Better yet, integrate relevant environmental and social benefits within your brand’s already established market positioning, and you’ve got the stuff for a meaningful sale.

******
Jacquelyn Ottman is the founder and principal of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc., an expert advisers on green marketing to consumer product marketers and U.S. government labeling programs. She is the author of four books on green marketing, including the recently released The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler, 2011).
Download a free chapter and get more information here.

Excerpted from The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler 2011) by Jacquelyn A. Ottman.
 

Originally published in The Guardian, September 23, 2011.

The plastic bag has become the poster child of our wasteful consumerist society: after its short use, we throw it ‘away’ where it pollutes the environment and takes decades to degrade.

Different approaches have been used to eliminate plastic bag use. In the UK, it is left to the voluntary action of consumers and retailers. Ireland and Denmark prefer a tax. Other countries, such as parts of the U.S., South Africa, Bangladesh and India have installed bag bans. In the U.S. there are 24 communities with plastic bag bans, most of them in California. In Bangladesh and India bags were banned out of necessity: bags were clogging the sewer systems and exacerbating floods.

However, these campaigns are focused on large grocery bags. They leave out an important type of bag use: the single use HDPE bag. More simply put: those little bags you use to put your veggies and fruits in at the supermarket, or the bags that are wrapped around your favorite Thai takeaway dinner.

These bags are such a blind spot for municipalities that it is nearly impossible to find data about their use. Only Australians seem to record this information:

“In 2007, Australians used 3.9 billion lightweight single use high density polyethylene (HDPE) bags. 2.96 billion of these came from supermarkets” and “In 2005, Australians used 192 HDPE bags per capita.”

If these are the numbers for Australia, can you imagine the numbers for the US?

Not so long ago it was impossible to think that plastic grocery bags wouldn’t be a part of the supermarket scene. Currently many customers bring their own bags – and have fun doing it. The bag has become a fashion statement of a consious lifestyle.

If you can bring your own grocery bags to the supermarket, how about taking the small but revolutionary step of bringing reusable bags for fresh produce too?

….”[earth] has, or had, a problem which was this: Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper… which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy…”
— Douglas Adams

The recent financial crisis has been a credit crisis, and in response the government and the Federal Reserve have taken an active role in increasing the money supply to manipulate business cycles. The surges and contractions of the business cycles cause fluctuations in the economy, and thus in employment. In this way these fluctuations are felt in every aspect of society. We take these cycles as a given. However, in Ecological Economics Herman Daly and Joshua Farley (2008) put forward an interesting idea: the fluctuations in the economy are caused by the design of the monetary system, and not by law of necessity. By decoupling business cycles from the circulation of money these ups and downs can be avoided.

Currently the worldwide money supply is tightly linked to investment cycles. Business has its natural cycles, but the linkage of these cycles to the money supply by means of lending and borrowing causes a self-reinforcing feedback loop: when investment goes down, spending goes down, causing a decrease in the money supply, which will further decrease investments, and so on. Daly and Farley have a novel proposition: ‘there is no reason why the monetary system must be linked with the private commercial activity of lending and borrowing’.

Let’s imagine a world where the monetary system is decoupled from the activity of lending and borrowing. Money will be treated as a public good that facilitates exchanges within the economy. The government can match the supply based on for instance, consumer price indexes. A beneficial side effect is that inflation will be easier to control. The reserve requirements of banks will be 100%. Banks will make money by charging for services they provide and by borrowing and lending real money instead of by creating it.

What effects will such a decoupling have? Currently, the financial sector has a disproportionate size compared to the real sector: the size of the real sector is roughly $30 trillion per year, whereas the trade in money, with no intervening commodity is almost $2 trillion per day. The financial sector should be in service of the real economy, and a decoupling of the money supply from investments will support this.

With investments recoupled to the real economy – making economic profit based on increased production capacity by means of investments- the focus on how to make economic rents will shift.  Currently profits are made by moving paper around. With the financial sector recoupled to the economic sector it will become more important to make profits in the real economy. Introduction of a 100% reserve requirement will bring investors closer to their investments. It is only make-believe, but it is interesting to think of what implications this will have for business. With rents primarily to be made in the real sector instead of the financial, how will this affect the organization and management of business?

The current design of the economy and its institutions, banks and business, make up a system that is unstable, unpredictable and uncontrollable. After the crisis in 2008 most agreed that things needed to change. Yet most has returned to business as usual. The necessity for change has not eroded. Exploring this possibility of decoupling the monetary system from private lending may be a perfect solution to many of our economic problems.

Based on:

Daly, H., & Farley, J. (2007). Ecological Economics. Principles and Applications. Dehli: Island Press.

One of my most favorite talks from last year's LOHAS Forum was from futurist John Petersen. I had met John in Shanghai at a Chinese LOHAS Forum and was quite impressed with what he has to say. I asked him what exactly makes up a futurist and he told me his job is to look at all kinds of things - galactic movements, cultural shifts, sublte energies, economics - pretty much everything, and see if there are patterns and relationships. Past patterns are also indications of what is to be expected in the future and to be a successful futurist one cannot rule out anything that the general public may dismiss. Sounds like an interesting job description. I asked him how he uses his skills for employment and he told me that a variety of governments use his findings for a variety of things such as defense planning or disaster preparation. Singapore hired him to develop a 'Suprise Anticpation' project for thier country so they would be prepared for everything ranging from an invasion to upprising to even aliens landing. Because of his broad scope and perspective we thought it would be great to have him present at LOHAS. Here is a clip on part of his talk.

He brings into the climate change conversation a much larger perspective that cosmic rays which bombard the planet are the main reason for the shifts in climate and that we should expect more as sun spots are on the rise. He also states that the cosmic rays are causing mutations through subtle radiation. This can raise alarms or it can also explain the lift in consciousness throughout global society. Are we to become superheros or toxic avengers? Only time will tell.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

There is a new phenomenon occurring in our modern culture, known officially as the quantified-self movement.  Whether it be daily calories eaten, steps walked or even hours slept… we are becoming scientists within the "self" universe.
There are new findings about what shifts behavior change and so much of it focuses on the old adage of, what you measure matters.  Plus there are new modern tools to help us track and measure the data from our daily experiences. It allows us to plan, reflect and thus... change.  

 

Health and Fitness
We are beginning to witness the futuristic adoption of wearing body monitors to help us collect information. Products like the FitBit and Nike's new Fuel Band, can even tell you how much you are sleeping at night (due to a lack of movement activity).  The FitBit not only has wireless sync capability, but is now linked to Foursquare the largest mobile "check-in" site in the country.  Consider this, now you can track how many steps you took to walk to your local farmers market, and then share what you bought there with millions of people.  We are becoming data aggregators and sponsoring companies love us for it.  Partner companies can see our patterns to find new ways to incentivize us.  These new devices allow us insight into our own habit patterns and hold the promise of personal evolution.   

Lifestyle Goals
Have you played with your kids today, done yoga, walked your dog or simply felt compassionate today?  Well, Daily Feats, a new startup company based out of NYC (of all places), can help you track it all.  Their website and related mobile app allows you to set specific goals to meet a variety of personal lifestyle activities. Based on your personal preferences you can select hundreds of activities called "Feats" to track your lifestyle goals all in one place.  This model then provides you with a life score from 0-5, with 5 being a perfect superhuman-enlightened being (sadly I am only at 1.6, but just getting starting). With the ability to sign-in to this service via Facebook, Foursquare, email and now SMS text you can even link your "Feats" with friends online.  The SMS option is most powerful since over 97% of people read their texts (only 4% read emails now)… it is a proven new communication tool.

Conscious Living
This new trend gets into us … literally, it tracks what we eating daily and how it relates to our overall health. Start-up's like Dan's Plan use the motto, "Helping you achieve optimal health in a modern world"… with the emphasis on optimal and modern.  This platform allows you to collect data from a variety of new devices for capturing your ideal eating, restorative sleeping and enduring movement goals to reach an ideal.  Since, "our modern world fosters a lifestyle that leads to poor health," we have to take responsibility for it in our daily activities.   Real Mealz (currently in Beta) is another SF startup company that has realized if you simply cook more, you could be healthier. They have collected a spectrum of great organic recipes that help you include existing kitchen items and even take photos of your meals for nutritional analysis later on. All of this promises a life of greater awareness for the changes we seek within ourselves, our families and our greater impact on the world around us.  

Now is the time, as there are few valid excuses not to take action around your personal goals.  With the assistance of mobile apps, tracking websites, wi-fi devices and personalized support structures all around us I ask… so what will you measure?  

About the author: Jared Brick is an MBA business student from the Presidio Graduate School in SF.  He is currently developing a business model to track and incentivize reusables in the retail environment.  To learn more please email him at jared (at) traxactions.com or follow him on twitter: jaredbrick Thanks for sharing this article.

What is the link between personal health and environmental sustainability? How do we link up our personal care with care for the larger world? Could the impetus for personal care have an effect on our perspective on the wider world? Within LOHAS, could we see this personal care, not as selfishness, but as the first step in reaching something larger than ourselves? Is personal care the first step in environmental consciousness? 

Only when we approach our selves with care and compassion, can we direct that care and compassion to the larger world. This is the essence of the LOHAS philosophy. How do we go about personal care with the right attitude, that it is not purely selfish? By perceiving our personal care as something intrinsically connected the wider world, our personal care is no longer a selfish concern, but instead the beginnings of environmental consciousness. When caring for ourselves personally, we see how this person is not something separate, but nature itself and so the compassion we direct to ourselves is directed to nature itself.

When we meditate, when we do yoga, which we give or receive massage, we are engaging with our natural surroundings, getting out of our heads and into bodies, which channel our attention to the natural world. When we follow the breath, the obsessions of the mind and naturally disconnected culture begin to fall away. Through the breath, we see how the mind is connected to the body, how our self is connected to a larger society and how the fate of our culture is closely tied the fate of nature.

As we observe the the care and compassion we expend on ourselves, we can see that same care and compassion leaving the permeable boundaries of the self and entering the larger world. Since everything is connected, the decision we make about whether to enhance our personal health has implications for the wider world.

Recently I was asked to present a compelling "business case for sustainability."  It is a common question innovative business students are attempting to answer inside the Presidio MBA program for Sustainable Management.  At first, I thought I would bring up all the great evidence and case studies that already exist for proving why businesses need to move in this direction… then something occurred.   

I started to think about all the grand evidence that exists in the world and how little it actually impacts our decisions.  Consider the overwhelming "evidence" out there on the following topics.  Cigarette smoking, global warming, alcohol abuse, fast food health impacts, obesity, exercise and fossil fuels for energy … the list goes on and on.  There are mountains of data that "prove" the case for or against these societal issues and thus "prove" the case for a better way. Yet in the end, some people simply refuse to believe strong data, clear evidence or compelling arguments and continue their old ways.   

But this post is not about them, it is really celebrating you, the online LOHAS community.  It is about how you should be applauded and hailed as the "embracers" of sustainability and health.  The way you live, shop and support new markets is your achievement, hopefully to be imitated, as it is the highest form of flattery.  

A recent study by MITSloan shows that "embracers" are leading their industry and not waiting for  a core of sustainability to be included sometime in the future … they know the future is now.   This thinking is paying off and the "laggards" or cautious adopters are thus falling even further behind.

There are many others out there that are not working as hard as we are, to find the best sustainable solutions for our modern living and in business.  They can be considered "laggards", the people we feel we have to "prove" that sustainability works and that they should adopt it.   Now I am certainly a believer of sharing best practices, but proving that health and sustainability are important … really?  Mother nature designed us to think and find the best solutions for our own survival, we are in the process of our own evolution now and I am not sure proving our case is the best use of our time and energy.  

Clearly, you are the innovators and early adopters, the people on the front lines of our very evolution, pushing for change, not waiting for it arrive or be handed to us.  You are seeking out solutions every day to the very ills of our way of life and not willing to settle for conventional thinking, standard products or disconnected living.  Each time you spend money, you are considering larger impacts, each time you vote you are planning our collective future, each time you invest you are creating a new markets.  

The best part is that the world is finally listening, societies are paying attention, communities are shifting.  Your innovative thinking and bold actions are getting noticed all the world over.  You are bucking the trends, you are going against the grain and you are the exception to the rules.  Forget having to "prove the case", continue to live your lives your way and let that be your shining evidence to the world.  

The MITSloan report identifies seven best practices that "embracers" share:
    1.    Move early
    2.    Balance long-term vision with short-term impact
    3.    Drive sustainability philosophy from both the top-down and the bottom-up
    4.    Don’t make sustainability a silo
    5.    Measure in whatever way you can
    6.    Remember the intangible benefits
    7.    Communicate your expectations

I congratulate you for listening to your true gut instincts, your breakthrough mind and most importantly your compassionate heart. I look forward to shaking your hand at the June 2012 LOHAS conference in Boulder.   

Jared Brick is a current student at the Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. 

You can follow him here:
http://twitter.com/jaredbrick
 

After scanning health and wellness trends for 2012 here are a few that caught my eye along with my own perspectices that are LOHAS related.

1. Yoga & Meditation as Mainstream Treatment: Interest in alternative treatments will experience a second surge. Even though interest in alternative treatments is already high, more people, practitioners and patients will be willing to experiment with new remedies, activities and lifestyle changes to avoid these kinds of medications. A study[10] finds that of the 41 million Americans that use mind-body therapies like yoga or tai chi, 6.4 million are now doing them because they were “prescribed” by their medical provider.  Yoga, tai chi, qigong, Feldenkrais, guided imagery, acupuncture and other practices will continue to gain attention due to their ability to calm, soothe and attend to medical situations such as chronic pain, hypertension, obesity and stress. With returning PTSD suffering Iraqi war veterans and stress brought upon with tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes there will be a greater interest in how trauma affects us both personally and in our institutions, including our workplaces and schools and how to respond in effective ways.

2. Awareness & Prevention Will Have a Renewed Focus: As chronic diseases account for many of our healthcare issues and costs there will be a revitalized focus on preventative medicine. Anticipate the integration of wellness programs into businesses by employers and provide resources programs to encourage better health and prevention. This was predicted in our 2011 wellness trends but anticipate stronger campaigns on all fronts as health becomes a larger issue for society.

3. The Empowered Consumer Continues to Rise: The DYI trend among consumers will continue in 2012. And technology plays a large role here. Research shows that 80% of U.S. Internet users claim to have used the web to search for health-related information and answers. And that is just search. Many platforms from interactive healthcare kiosks to social media to personalized health sites are allowing consumers to empower themselves. As consumers increasingly turn to self-service technologies and channels, the entire healthcare industry has a tremendous opportunity to reach, engage and interactive with today’s empowered consumer. And that will yield some powerful results from consumers to doctors to advertisers.

4. Family Wellness Travel: The boom in solo travellers continues to rise for wellness holidays but more families are now searching for these types of getaways. Parents want their children to be healthy on holiday and also keep busy with plenty of activities so they don’t get bored. More resorts are also introducing healthy children’s menus so they can learn good habits early. Parents also want to be able to enjoy holistic activities and spa treatments, whilst their children are staying active.

5. Retail Plays an Increased Role: In response to the DYI demand from consumers in-store clinics and healthcare kiosks will play vital roles to connect with consumers for better healthcare access, awareness and treatments. Consumers are still frequenting brick-n-mortar stores; connecting with them while they are there offers great opportunities for healthcare providers, advertisers and the retail locations.

6. Holidaying with Health Gurus: Top health and fitness experts now work at some of the leading resorts around the world. More people want to receive dedicated support and guidance from the best in the industry; wellness retreats are bringing in the top yoga teachers, nutritionists, doctors, personal trainers and more health gurus to raise their game. Clients want to be inspired and informed so that they can lead a healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle when they return home. Expect more tailored programs to be developed such as ones provided at Tao Inspired Living or Rancho La Puerta.

7. Obesity Awareness: Losing weight will continue to be the primary reason consumers seek personal training support as the public responds to the expanded messaging concerning the dangers of physical inactivity and obesity. The recently released Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index report that showed a modest improvement in the nation’s obesity rates for the first time in more than three years is a very encouraging sign. However, the fact remains that three out of five Americans are still overweight or obese, requiring more work to be done. 

8. Whole-life training: Lifestyle/ Wellness coaching will become a bigger trend with more personal trainers, fitness centers and spas looking to holistically improve client lifestyle and expanding their education and training to include this skill set. There are efforts to clearly define the parameters of coaching and help distinguish coaching (which is future-focused) from other professional services like counseling (which delve into a person’s past). The medical industry and academic groups are examining the value of wellness coaching. Harvard Medical School (www.harvardcoaching.org) now underwrites an annual conference on coaching’s role in healthcare. One of the many research initiatives being analyzed by the International Coaching Research Forum (U.K.) is developing coaching as a global, academic profession. Companies like Wellpeople.com (U.S.) offer certified on-site or virtual wellness coaches for spas, hospitals and businesses. Anticipate fitness facilities to hire nutritionists and other allied healthcare professionals such as physical therapists and psychologists to serve the expanding needs of their health-conscious members including wellness, nutrition, and stress-management programs.

9. Community Collaboration: Access to fitness services and education will continue to expand in local communities including activities in gyms, parks, and recreation centers. Local leaders are taking a more active role to address health issues in their communities. This includes proactive measures through school-based education programs and engagement with low-income and at-risk families. The Canyon Ranch Institute provides Life Enhancement Programs in underserved communities of the South Bronx, Cleveland, and Tuscon to prevent, diagnose, and address chronic diseases.

10. Healthy Fast Food: There will be a greater push to keep students and employees healthy. This will mean a closer examination of cafeteria food in schools and on-site vending machines in work places, including information on how eating patterns create stress, obesity and health and behavior problems. As more people recognize the failings of fast food and food processing companies expect vendors to upgrade their product offerings to develop and market products that are not only healthy but actually promote health.

11. Clean Eating Focus: The food-health connection will be very important. As we learn more about "clean eating" -- consuming foods without preservatives, chemicals, sugars and other additives -- our habits will change as we read labels even more carefully and appreciate the rewards of more energy and fewer chronic illnesses. Along with clean eating, we will also become aware of the problems associated with GMO crops that have been over-hybridized by corporations for fast growth and easy harvest. The Non GMO project, The Institute for Responsible Technology and others are working on raising awareness for consumers on the hazards of GMO foods on the environment and health.

12. Evidence based Spa Therapies: There has been a significant amount of efforts put forth by skincare companies and alternative therapy groups to provide research backing the results of treatments. SpaEvidence is a web resource that gives the world easy access to the “evidence-based medicine” databases that doctors use, so they can search thousands of studies evaluating which spa modalities are proven to work, and for which exact conditions.

Feel free to add any that I may have missed.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

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 water scarcity 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 close to home.  As we focus on our societal water use, it is an admission that climate change is our new reality and it is time to start managing the 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 is Changing as We Know 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 potential ecoflation identified in 2008.  Many people have begun to realize that business as usual is no longer an option. What is an option is to reinvent capitalism and 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 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 when 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 provide 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 seeking. The prospect of a car that 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 and Rent Stuff Easy allow you to do exactly what they say.  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.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

India is an extraordinary country where you get to meet all sorts of unusual people. On a recent visit we had tea with Mary and Don, a fascinating couple, who were born-again Christians from Texas. For over twenty-five years they had been running a clinic for disabled and handicapped children, caring for the poorest of the poor in Chennai, South India. We found their sincerity and commitment to the suffering that surrounded them powerfully moving.

But we couldn't help wondering how they had coped when confronted with the very different cultures and attitudes of India when they first arrived in the early 1970’s, especially as they and their four small children were living in a small hut with no running water.                                                      

“During our early days I was visiting a hill station when I word that I was needed back in Madras, a bus and train journey away,” Don told us. “The next morning, riding the bus down the mountain from the station, we unexpectedly came to a halt. A long line of traffic revealed an accident between a truck and a bus, which was now blocking the road.

"I was concerned about catching my train so I began to try and organize a way through, unfortunately forgetting the legacy the English had left in India: a great reverence of authority. There were buses stopped on both sides of the accident. ‘Could they not,’ I asked, ‘exchange their passengers, turn around and go back to where they had come from, taking the passengers that needed to get there?’        

"‘Oh no, sir,’ came the answer, ‘the buses are from different companies and so they would not be able to sort out the money for the tickets and we have no permission for this.’       

"Then I discovered that the bus on each side was from the same company! ‘Could they not exchange passengers?’ I tried again.        

"‘But no, sir,’ said the drivers, ‘for then each driver would end up at a destination where they were not meant to be, and there is no permission for this to happen.’     

"By now I had joined forces with a Swedish man who had a jeep. Together we worked out that if we could fill in the ditch beside the road then the bus could be moved back off the road on to the bank and there would be enough room for the cars to get past. ‘Oh no, sir,’ came the reply, ‘this is not possible. To fill in the ditch we would need permission and we do not have the permission to do this.’       

"While all this had been going on, the various occupants of the many buses and cars now waiting on each side of the accident had spread their dhotis (long pieces of cloth like a sarong) and were sitting or resting quietly in the shade under the trees. Eric and I, getting extremely hot and irritated in the midday sun, were the only ones trying to get anything done. Everyone else was quite happy to let events unfold by themselves.      

"By now it was 1pm. We decided that if nothing had happened by 2pm then we would fill in the ditch and move the truck ourselves. At 1.30 pm the police arrived, assessed the situation, and gave the long awaited permission to have the ditch filled in and the truck moved and by 2.pm we were on our way down the hill. I caught my train with a few minutes to spare.”          

“So how has India changed you?” we asked.

Don laughed. “If presented with the same circumstances now I would simply spread my dhoti in the shade like everyone else and let the situation take care of itself!”

We are reminded of this story whenever we find ourselves getting worked up about something. It helps us let go and be present in this world of chaos and confusion. Just spread your dhoti is like saying, Breathe in, breathe out, and just chill. As the Holiday Season can, ironically, be one of the most stressful times going, this is the perfect time to spread your dhoti. Happy Chilled Holidays!



******

See our award-winning book: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Jack Kabat-Zinn, Byrone Katie, Jane Fonda, Marianne Williamson, and many others.

If there is one book you read about meditation Be The Change should be the one. Hear about some of the cool people who are doing it and why you should do it too. -- Sharon Gannon, founder Jivamukti Yoga.

Deb is the author of the award-winning YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, Decoding the Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual Messages That Underlie Illness.

Our 3 meditation CD's: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation, are available at: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

This editorial was originally published on CSRwire's Talkback blog.

As an investment advisor, I (Jim) am often asked to sit on nonprofit boards. I have grown uncomfortable with the term not-for-profit to describe these organizations, which often embrace business principles in their operations. For example, DC Greenworks generates income from government contracts and fees for green roof installations.

In 2002 I (Alicia) had difficulty finding graduate courses that blended business and social values. At a 2009 Net Impact conference, I was overwhelmed by the presence of over 2,000 MBA students interested in the common good.  When a conference attendee told me his girlfriend had complained of being assigned my father’s book When Corporations Rule the World, a tome on pitfalls of global corporations, yet again as part of her MBA program, I knew the world was changing.

A new sector is being born that blurs the lines between for-profit and not-for-profit worlds.  Business used to be about jobs and profit. Civil society organizations were the avenues to give back beyond job creation and products.  

Today an increasing number of businesses are building healthy communities, living wages and sustainable products into their corporate DNA. And more civil society organizations are embracing business values.

The Private Sector Has a Broader Mission

476 companies with $2.27 billion in annual revenue are certified now as B corporations, a designation given to businesses that meet environmental, governance and social criteria by the not-for-profit B Lab.

Certification has been followed by a tidal wave of state legislation giving such businesses legal jurisdiction.  Maryland, Vermont, New Jersey, California, Hawaii, New York and Virginia are front runners. In 2012 Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and DC will likely follow.

This legislation is significant. It supersedes a body of law legally interpreted to mean corporations must consider shareholder value before taking into account other stakeholders—including communities, employees and the planet.

Jim, who played a major role in passing two of these laws, co-founded a company that will become a B corporation called Blue Ridge Produce. The company aggregates locally grown food for sale to grocery stores and institutional buyers in the Washington DC area.  With the common good built into its corporate DNA, Blue Ridge Produce aims to maintain a healthy farming community in the region and will:

• provide secure markets for local farmer
• reduce the carbon footprint by keeping food closer to home
• convert conventional growers to organic producers

 Business networking organizations like the Social Venture Network (SVN), B Lab, Social Enterprise Alliance, Investors’ Circle and the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) are further helping the trend become a global movement.

While the Nonprofit Sector is Adopting Business Principles

Change is also happening within civil society organizations, motivated in part by technology entrepreneurs grounding their philanthropy in business values. The Skoll Foundation funded by eBay mogul Jeffrey Skoll provides grantees funding to develop engines of growth.  Called resource engines, some grantees are using funds to build business principles into their non-profit structures.

Created in 2009, the civil society organization Practice Greenhealth receives over half of its annual budget from membership dues paid by health providers like Kaiser Permanent in exchange for services aimed at greening their hospitals. Founder Gary Cohen built this resource engine after talking to entrepreneurs at the Skoll World Forum.

Language Is Powerful

Nothing captures an emerging trend like a name.

A name can in fact determine whether an idea or product popularizes or stays relegated to a small group of believers.  Just look at the dolphin fish. Only when restaurants began using its Hawaiian name Mahi-Mahi did this fish, which has no relation to the dolphin, begin to gain popularity in the United States.  After all, who wants to eat Flipper with an apricot glaze?  

Social enterprise, mission-driven business and for benefit corporations are a few of the descriptors for organizations blending business principles with common good aims.

We believe the movement can better communicate the power and purpose of this emerging field.

A New Operating System: The Common Good Enterprise

In our search for better lexicon, Jim came across a neglected phrase we would like to bring center stage: “the common good enterprise.” Here’s our definition:

A for-profit or not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to promote the well-being of people and/or the planet.  The organization generates at least a percentage of its revenue through the sale of goods and services (adapted from Kevin Lynch; Advertising on Higher Ground).

Why “common good enterprise”?

Its power is its clarity.

Common comes from the word “commons,” which describes a relationship to the community as a whole. Common good intuitively includes a regard for the planet, respect for individuals’ human rights, and support of communities.

The word “enterprise” is also self-explanatory—and speaks to revenue generated from the sale of goods and services.

 Common good enterprise is clearer than other terms such as its more popular sibling “social enterprise.”  Does “social enterprise” exclusively describe businesses? Or non-profits? Does “social” include the planet? Only leaps of the imagination can make the connection.

Conclusion

The labels we use for this new field matter.  Easy to grasp language provides a framework to help the public co-create this emerging sector.

Clear terms can translate into financial benefit. Why not pass legislation providing government procurement advantages to common good enterprises—whether companies or civil society organizations?  Could such language catalyze new capital pools?

It’s time to embrace “common good enterprise”—a term for organizations using business principles in support of the common good that will help mainstream the movement and make opportunities this field opens up a reality. 

Jim Epstein

Jim is the founder and Chairman of EFO Capital Management Inc., a family investment firm based in Washington D.C.  Jim is the developer of Belmont Bay, a mixed-use, pedestrian friendly community on the Occoquan River near Woodbridge, Virginia and is finalizing plans for a village development at the north end of Culpeper County, Virginia. Early in 2011 he founded Blue Ridge Produce, a local food aggregation operation that sources food from Virginia and the eastern seaboard for sale to grocery stores and wholesale and institution buyers in the Washington Metropolitan area.  Jim is a member of the Congress of New Urbanism and Social Venture Network.  His wide- ranging interests have led him to serve as Chairman of Dance Place and DC Greenworks, as a Board member at Trickles Foundation, and as an Emeritus member at Pathfinder International. 

Alicia Epstein Korten  Be Your Brand

"Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast" Peter Drucker

An award winning author, keynote speaker and culture consultant for ReNual, Alicia has led corporate culture transformation initiatives that have set offices on fire with new ideas, engaged employees, produced loyal, happy customers and increased profits.  Clients include Levis, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Mary’s Gone Crackers, Longfellow Sports Club, the Ford Foundation and the United Nations.  Her latest book Change Philanthropy is the winner of an Axiom Business Book Award gold medal.  She is a contributing author to Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over:  How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results, an affiliate of the Social Ventures Network, a Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of Brown University. 3 facts about her: she motorcycled across Bali, lived on a garbage dump in the Philippines for a week and recently fulfilled her life long dream of swimming with dolphins.

Contact Alicia for a complimentary consultation: (703) 875 – 9139 or email her
Follow on Twitter: Search “Alicia Korten” or try @beyorbrand (may change as we are rebranding)
Renual YouTube Videos
Sign up for ReNual’s culture-zine at: www.renual.com

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.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

For many years I have thought that there needs to be a book outlining the principles of LOHAS. A book that gives the origins of the concept and history on its evolution, the various sects that comprise the LOHAS concept and how they intersect and overlap and provides the different angle that LOHAS takes in as it relates not only to sustainability and health but also the spiritual aspect that I find many books on sustainability lack. I thought of writing one myself but realized it would take a lot of research and time to give the proper depth and understanding that I feel is needed to fully express the scope and scale of LOHAS.

It appears that Monica Emerich author of The Gospel of Sustainability: Media, Market and LOHAS has beaten me to the punch and with good measure. Monica was on the original team that conducted the first research in developing LOHAS and is a research affiliate at the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado and president of Groundwork Research and Communications.  Her book is the first comprehensive look at the development of the LOHAS marketplace and discourse of the natural blending of sustainability with self awareness in society and natural worlds. Emerich draws on a myriad of sources including previous LOHAS Forums, LOHAS Journal articles and top leaders in the LOHAS world that are business, political, academic and philosophical. The book points out that LOHAS is not just about being with mindful consumption of values-based products and services but explains that there is a message about personal and planetary health that is reforming capitalism by making consumers more conscious.

Prior to this book I always had to refer to Paul Ray's book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World which was the inital book that identified the conscious consumer base that is now known as LOHAS. His book is great but was done in 2000. Monica's book is much more up to date and takes in current events of the last decade. I find the book a great read and the best source out there that fully explains what LOHAS is and has the potential to become.  Anyone who wants to better understand the LOHAS marketplace has to put this on their must read list.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

This last week I had a chance to listen in on a discussion with some of the leaders of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration happening in New York. Unlike many of my Facebook friends who have been quite vocal on the demonstrations, I have been a bit of a quite bystander on the sidelines not really understanding what to make the protests nor clear on who is exactly leading the viral movement or what it really stands for. Furthermore, I did not see how the Occupy Wall Street movement and the LOHAS intersect. By being a part of this conversation with those who not only were sleeping in the park but actually leaders of the NY Occupy group I hoped would bring some answers to these burning questions. The first thing that struck me about the representatives of the demonstration was how young, energetic and passionate they were for their cause. All were in their twenties and full of zeal. Each of them wore several hats of responsibility ranging from tactical to basic services. One was part of the kitchen/comfort team that provided infrastructure needs. Another was a recent grad who has large student loans and was on the communications team for outreach and press. Another was a facilitator of meetings and responsible for damage control. They gave the ground rules of how there were going to interact with the business audience that I was a part of and did so in an untypical way. For example if you liked something you waved your fingers up. If you didn’t, you waived them down. The business group asked them what their demands were and they replied that there were no demands right now as they recognized that this movement/demonstration was still evolving and they did not want to be compartmentalized to specific demands yet. They explained that the movement is open source movement that focuses on equality and sharing for all involved. They said they had been mentored by those involved in the recent Egyptian movement and recognized revolution theory and practice must work in parallel and not one after the other. I think this is one of the most difficult things to understand from the outside looking in. The fact that this movement is being created on a completely seperate set of standards and rules are a bit perplexing. This certainly is a fluid movement that we are witnessing ebb and flow before our eyes. The Occupy Wall Street representatives spoke of a new breed of activism they were creating and were preparing for a long haul. One interesting thing I noticed is that they were not seeking money from the business audience which I would expect they want. This was the SVN conference with many investors and socially responsible entrepreneurs who were already active participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement. I couldn't think of a better place to ask for cash. But they didn't see it that way. They said they had $500K in a fund and were afraid it would get too large and unruly to manage. Instead they were asking for gifts of service and hard goods rather than money. One said ‘Giving money does not provide control by the giver once the check is passed. This is the mode of the traditional economy which we are protesting against.’ They want to promote and develop a new form of economy - a gift economy. What they said they needed most were the gifts of hard goods like strong and warm tents for the winter, food and supplies, educational training and more action oriented people to join them. They also want a gift economy website and a new open source web that was not draconian dominated by large search engines like Google. I found this discussion to be quite informative and gave me a better understanding of the thinking of the leadership. The open source and evolving platform is definitely new and challenging for institutions to understand since there are no demands. It is also challenging to hear what they are for rather than see what is reported on the news and see the hand made signs of what they are against. Listening to this meeting helped me understand their thinking a bit more. For those who want more information The Occupy Wall Street general assembly has a call to action document online at www.nycga.net.
 
Save the dates
On November 5th Occupy Wall Street asking everyone to move their money from the large banks to credit unions and community banks. The large banks continue to thrive while many are starving. Everyone has a credit union near them even if they don’t know it. For a list of national credit unions visit - www.thecommunitybanker.com/cu_links

Another option is a community bank which is one that supports investments locally. www.findabetterbank.com/community_banks_credit_unions.html

On November 17th they are planning a large scale demonstration. They want to disrupt all the bridges in the U.S. This is meant to have the 1% feel the pain of disconnection and cut off as the other 99% feel. People feel like their lives are falling apart and they want others to get a taste of that.

What The Occupy Wall Street Movement is Asking
The representatives were clear that you don’t need to spend the night in the park although you are welcome to do so.  This is not about just occupying a square but also occupying hearts and minds of people. They ask all who support their cause to be visible! The Occupy platform in new and is a new way to approach the current economic problems that is open source – use it! Participate!
 
To learn what events are happening and where go to www.occupytogether.org

To promote an event and needs of demonstrators go to www.occupywishlist.org/tos.html 
 
One person in the business group asked about the potential anger and backlash from the Nov. 17th planned protest and disruption by those who are not part of the 1% yet are affected and caught off guard and in the crossfire. Their response was that the demonstrations need to be adjusted to various situations and reminded everyone that this is a work in progress and is open source. Another asked if there are there concerns with infiltrators. The Occupy representatives recognized that security is a challenge but also pointed out that it is difficult to penetrate a horizontal model with no top down leadership. If there were people planning to undermine initiatives it is easier to see who they are and point them out to everyone involved. A question was raised on the relations with the NYPD union and if they are backing the Occupy movement and the concerns with police brutality. The Occupy representatives replied that the union publicly does not support them but police individually do. However the New York correctional facility union is publicly backing Occupy and is providing food for those camping out. This is probably putting some pressure and scrutiny on the NYPD union for their position. The question of police brutality came up and what they are doing about it. They also acknowledged that both sides have been the facilitators of abuse and that educating protestors on how to behave was a high priority.
 
So how does LOHAS fit into this? A challenging question to say the least. LOHAS is not only about healthy living and environmentalism but also social justice. When someone sees injustices they are typically inclined to act whether it be fair labor practices with coffee, child labor, blood diamonds, animal testing and all other forms of injustice that so many LOHAS products promote that they are against. Clearly there are a lot of people in pain and there is a feeling of imbalance and pain which has people seeking answers to the very complex process that got us to where we are.  LOHAS can help shape this movement and direct it. LOHAS is not just about the sale of products and services to the Whole Foods shopper. It can be used as an agent of change. Because this is open source movement it can be whatever we want it to be. I think we all agree that there is something quite interesting happening here and we are watching something happen in our country that we have not seen for a long time. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. There is something going on. Those who believe in LOHAS principles needs to speak out but do so in a way that maintains balance in a situation that is ripe for polarity. If we do not we risk falling into the quarrels of black and white when everything is really grey. We must work on maintaining a voice to ensure there is a balance with in the movement. We must integrate both the qualities of defiance and protest with those qualities of bridging process and nurturing. It is easy to get caught up in our differences and overlook our similarities. We have become a country of residence instead of citizens who are active in our community and ensuring it improves for all.  Our power must serve our purpose not the other way around. We aspire for that perfect life where all are equal, the environment is clean and we are at peace. But to have that happen we need to get involved. We must expand our way of thinking since our old methods of structure clearly need an upgrade. This is what I believe the Occupy Wall Street is demanding. So is this what we have been waiting for? I ask for those out there to participate in some form to help shape this in a LOHAS way. Initially it looks a bit fragmented and dysfunctional and perhaps it will dissipate as time goes one. But that is what they said in Egypt. Stay informed on the matters, talk about it with others and educate them on the details. If you choose to get involved more by moving your money or donate gifts of goods and services to the cause or camping out and being an active demonstrator I applaud you. Being active in a LOHAS way can assist in the transformation of our world into one that provides healthy living and sustainability for everyone.

Here is MSNBCs Ryan Ratigan losing his cool but he does have a point. 
 

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

I recently had the opportunity to present at Naropa University in Boulder with Google’s Chade Meng Tan who has a job that I wish I had. He gave me his business card and his job title is Google’ Jolly Good Fellow (which nobody can deny). Really! He is one of the earliest engineers hired by Google and his job description is "Enlighten minds, open hearts, create world peace". I had a chance to speak with him about his role and his goals. The guy is a real gem - funny, unassuming and very approachable.

How did you come up with your job description?
One of the unique work policies at Google is the ‘20 percent time’. This means that throughout your work time at Google they allow employees to work 20 percent on anything that they want. One day I went on a walk and decided that I want to work on world peace through compassion.

That is great. Many people have dedicated their lives to this cause. How does yours differ?
My approach is a little different since I am an engineer and hardwired in logic and practicality. I want compassion to be a part of modern day living in the U.S. I believe that in order for this to take root it needs to have proven positive results.

Wouldn’t we all? Do you have an example of this?
In 1927 Harvard created the fatigue lab and wanted to study exercise to prove exercise is healthy. At the time this was thought of as nonscientific and no one would support the funding of the research. The only support they got was from the Army. The study had some amazing results and found that a fit person is a fit person is physiologically different from an unfit person. Today health is universal and everyone knows the following: 1. Everyone knows health is good. 2. All know how to get fit and information is available and accessible. 3. People can do it at work. 4. It is completely integrated into society. My goal is to apply the same principles to meditation.

That would be great! There are plenty of people who are stressed at work don’t you agree?
Yes indeed. At Google people wear stress as a badge of honor to show how strong they are and how much they can endure. I want to change the concept of stress reduction to a model of success. I want to create this to be customer focused and the by product will be world peace.

So world peace is a bi product and not the focus?
Yes mindfulness leads to emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, if properly trained, leads to inner peace, inner joy and compassion.  All 3 are  needed. Inner peace alone will not do it. You must have all 3 at a global scale.

How do we implement this?
At Google we have the motto launch early and launch often. Some other engineers and I sat in the room trying to figure this out. We created the ‘Search Inside Yourself’ initiative and a building authentic relationship course and empathy course. This helped create the Google University.

Impressive! What does the ‘search inside yourself initiative’ teach?
The search inside yourself initiative focuses on attention. A calm and clear mind creates the foundation. How this is done is through mindfulness. Moment to moment non judging attention. A study was done on the brain. The amygdala is part of the brain that contains our emotions. If you perceive a threat your amygdala takes over. People with mindfulness training can downgrade the amygdala take over. When meditating we are calm and joyful. This joy is non energetic, is highly sustainable and subtle therefore takes a quite mind. This inner joy can be called on demand. Happiness is not what we pursue but what we allow.

And what do we do with our attention?
We create what I call ‘high resolution perception’. This causes subtle changes in process of emotional perception. We can experience the detection of emotion and create the option of choice. This leads to emotional mastery and develops confidence. Body emotional awareness increases empathy. Empathy reflects others emotions in and on my body and therefore I can view the emotional process. Emotions are physiological processes, and recognizing that allow us to change from ‘I am angry’ to ‘I am experiencing anger in my body’. The emotion is not a part of being. Kindness and goodness are mental habits. Compassion fosters habit of helping others. These are trainable. If you want to be happy change your interactions with others. What you think you will become.

How do you bring this to the corporate world?
We must bring science and statistics to it. We need to own the knowledge and be customer oriented and meet people where they are in order to have it be applied to daily life easily.

How can it be communicated in business to those who don’t believe in the theory or think it is too strange?
There are 3 things that need to be implemented to be affective. The first thing is the correct language. Language is extremely important. We cannot go beyond the current level of expertise of people or it will be over their heads. At Google ‘deeper awareness’ training has been reworded to ‘high resolution perception’ training. This is much more acceptable to employees and human resources department. Remember human resources is coming from a place of caution and risk prevention for the company. Therefore you need to have empathy for their point of view in order for them to support a companywide initiative. Secondly, we need to use the minimum affective dose. If we overdose we will push people away. We teach people a simple 2 minute meditation exercise. This is about the same amount of attention time that my 12 year old daughter has for this so I think it is a short enough time for people to practice. Thirdly, is to get an appropriate instructor. You need someone with a deep practice who owns the science and provides credibility and speaks the language of the audience. Saving the world will fail as a goal. But if you work on mindfulness and compassion it will be a byproduct of the end results.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

Earlier this year I attended the Urban Green Summit. This was an event that focused on the inner city citizens of Denver to promote better awareness of green and sustainable business opportunities. It was definitely a crowd that I wanted to connect with and peaked my curiosity to know if LOHAS aspects penetrate different cultures and economic circumstances. I was not disappointed. The event was developed by CURE-T’s Dr. H. Malcolm who received federal funding to promote green jobs and education in Colorado. Dr. Malcolm is a mover and a shaker and you can’t help but be magnetized to his presence and his message. He is always deflecting praise and bringing in others to highlight. This is a sign of a great leader in my book. He also echoed a concern that I have myself: Why is it that the urban communities of color always appear absent in green initiatives, conferences and activities? The LOHAS market tends to target the largely affluent caucasian market. But there is plenty of opportunity unseen and untouched in the minority dominant urban markets as well.

The summit had a star studded panel that included Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Green For All, environmentalist and author, John Francis III and founder of Green for All and current president of Rebuild a Dream, Van Jones. These heavy hitters were mixed with other local movers and shakers in the green movement. Unfortunately I was hoping that there would be more people in attendance at the event. I was told from an insider that having an event on a Saturday morning early is not so PC in the African American communities. There were indeed more people who were there as the day progressed.  I found it to be a very interesting event and demonstrated that green needs to be connected to the urban community by education and clear benefits. The best presentation for me came from Van Jones.

Here is what Van had to say to the urban based audience. See if it resonates with you:

“These days people are gathering in unusual groups. Not large groups but different ones. They are the ones who grew were the sensitive children. These are the ones that wanted to save the polar bears and save the world and were disturbed by the mistreatment of others. This tribe is just beginning to find each other. There are more people entering life who are sensitive. Something happening where humanity is being tested and if we don’t pass nothing will be left. Will humanity prove to be a blessing or a curse. This the first time technology and size make up a force of nature. The creator could have made us as robots he did not. We are something more interesting. We have free will, choice and decision making abilities. All other species are set in process.

Will we be locusts or honey bees? Both work hard but one is destructive and one is constructive. Locusts wipe out everything in its path. Destroy habitat until there is none at which point they die. Bees work is a blessing. It makes life of others possible. This movement is deeper than just solar panels and part of interest is the growing sense of peril. I cannot believe that only one race cares for the earth. The U.S. colonization was just as much about land as it was about labor. Land is sacred. We need to remember to view it as such instead of a commodity. We need to remember the difference between a tree and lumber, an animal vs. a pelt, a person vs. a slave. These sacred beliefs were considered paganism. Indigenous peoples of the world have this wisdom and are outcasts in modern society. They are called witches, druids, and pagans. It turns out they are quite wise. They are also known as the highest ecological wisdom. It is only now after 500 years of colonization that the children of the colonizers are coming around to honoring this wisdom.

Do we belong to the earth or does the earth belong to us? An economy that is run by fossil fuels equals trouble in the future. We run a civilization that runs on death. Coal is 40 million years old. Oil is 60 million years old. Both are made up of dead materials. We burn death in our cars and as electricity but are shocked when death shows up as asthma and global warming. We are much better when we have a living economy. One that runs on life such as the sun, wind and water.

So how do we get there? We need to change our ways. Change has 4 drivers. There are the mystics. They see the vision of what we are to become. Then there are the artists who popularize the vision. The entrepreneurs who create the technologies and then the politicians who create the rules.  The current culture is not ready for change. The Tea Party is a buzz saw. And yet the biosphere is so small that we need change. We are a soap bubble in the universe.  What can we do? The last economy had 3 mistakes: 1. Consumptions 2. Credit 3.Ecological destruction

Production has moved overseas and our economy was based on spending. Kill it, shrink wrap it, sell it, trash it was the method. The past 18 months has seen the most wacky weather and environmental changes. Mother earth is telling us something. We need to adopt a strategy of green growth, restoration and conservation. Create local consumption that respects the earth. If I had talked to you all in 08’ it would have been very different. You would have all been smiling. Obama will take care of us. Now everyone is looking gloomy. This was only 2 ½ years ago. Do you remember where you were when he was elected? When he was sworn into office? How you felt? We forgot how we got to that moment. Obama was not the author for hope. The movement for hope didn’t start with Obama it started in 03’. When Bush went to war you stood up. More people mobilized in the 1st week than Vietnam did in 6 years. We lost but we didn’t quit. In 06’ Kerry ran and was only 100K votes short of an Indiana win and lost but we didn’t quit. In 05’ Katrina hit as did the Huffington Post and YouTube. We had the 1st speaker of the house. Obama was out there as an unknown Senator selling a book and ran into the movement and found us. Don’t insult yourself. Obama inspired us but we inspired him first. Now it is time for the movement of hope and change. This can’t be about things we are against but things we are for. We need to be willing to connect people with work that needs to be done. Soldiers are coming home to nothing. Nation building needs to be done here too. There is a saying – bankers get rich in good times, the people go broke in bad times. We need to praise and support our public employees – teachers, fire fighters, nurses and police. Now rich people don’t pay tax and communities are abandoning them when they never have abandoned us.

You were born for a reason. You are sensitive for a reason. Depression is terrible. It clouds you so you can’t see the opportunity. They tried to kill hope in 68’ when Kennedy was assassinated. We are throwing away our efforts because FOX TV is mean. We have been through much more than the tea party. In 1906 no woman could vote, no paid holidays, no weekend, no child labor laws. People fought year after year until today. You fought when they had clubs and guns. We didn’t have social media and yet we mobilized. Are you going to be locusts or honey bees to make the next century ordinary or extraordinary and beautiful.”

Love to hear what you think of what Van Jones has said and if you feel LOHAS can be intergrated into urban markets is a better way.

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com

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

Ted Ning is renowned for leading the annual LOHAS Forum, LOHAS.com and LOHAS Journal the past 9 years Ted Ning is widely regarded as the epicenter of all things LOHAS leading many to affectionately refer to him as ‘Mr. LOHAS’. He is a change agent, trend spotter and principal of the LOHAS Group, which advises large and small corporations on accessing and profiting from the +$300 billion lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.  The LOHAS Group is a strategy firm focusing on helping companies discover, create, nurture and develop their unique brand assets.  For more information on Ted visit  www.tedning.com