I believe that an epidemic of propaganda has taken hold at never-before seen levels, not only because technologies have been hijacked by the intentions and actions of arrogant narcissistic propagandists, but because citizens have not received sufficient training in critical thinking and propaganda-proofing. I view mindjacking as the biggest evil of our time. I fiercely oppose ends-justifies-the-means strategies, tactics and propaganda, because I see them as profoundly manipulative and coercive. It is therefore part of my mission to call it out wherever I see it, regardless of whether the propaganda supports or opposes my beliefs about issues and individuals. The ends don’t justify the means and I am dedicated to calling out this kind of manipulative unethical coercive opportunism whenever I see it and by whomever is using it.

I believe in the vital importance of treating everyone with respect regardless of whether or not they treat me that way. I view this as civility. I believe in the vital importance of honesty. I oppose disrespect, bullying and character assassination. I view those forms of incivility as dishonesty, not honesty. I believe that incivility exacerbates divisiveness and polarization, and thereby sabotages problem-solving. For this reason, I believe that people who are disrespectful (uncivil) need to be called out on their negative impacts.

I believe in the line from Paul Simon’s song, Tenderness: “You don’t have to lie to me. Just give me some tenderness beneath your honesty.” I believe in blessing people for the wisdom I see within their perspectives — no matter how small that wisdom might be — and in letting people know what I see differently than they do, without demeaning them in order to do that. To me, this is what civility is about.

In contrast, I oppose political correctness because I view this as an attempt to coerce people into saying things the way one group wants them said, no matter how much that censors honesty. I oppose political correctness because it lets perpetrators hide behind using mandated words and lets targets off the hook in dealing with their triggerability. I view political correctness is a form of incivility that’s pretending to be civility. I also oppose political correctness because I believe that when healthy comedy is censored by political correctness requirements (in contrast to civility), we diminish our ability to compassionately laugh at our blindspots and foibles. 

I view those who don’t care about how their words impact others as being uncivil, irresponsible, self-centered, and divisive. I also view those who need others to speak in specific ways so they don’t get triggered as being irresponsible, self-centered, and divisive. 

In contrast, I have two beliefs about reconciliation.

The first is about when someone’s words trigger me. When I feel like an “ouch” my responsibility is to: 

1. Inform them about this without attacking them or being attached to them changing
2. Get myself to where I am no longer triggered by those words, so in the future I can speak up in clearer more empowered and more connective ways about their impact.

The second is about when my words have triggered someone. When they react in a way that lets me know they experience an “ouch” my responsibility is to:

1. Apologize for having “ouched” them
2. Offer to learn what the “ouch” was — and to compassionately accept what they say about their own experience
3. Let them know what I have learned from this and how that will inform how I will, in the future, communicate what’s in me to say in a more aware way
4. Offer to clarify what I had been intending to say (especially my noble intentions and concerns) with that new awareness in mind — and to compassionately re-name my truth in ways that reflect what I have learned from them

Impact is impact, whether intended or unintended. My commitment is to be willing to learn how to speak my truth in ways that can have the greatest positive impact on those to whom I am speaking.

 I believe that collaboration is a FAR superior problem-solving strategy to coercion or compromise. Most people are at least somewhat familiar with the tactics of coercion and compromise. However, very few people — including most who authentically believe in collaboration — have received adequate training in the skills that turn collaboration from a good intention into effective results.

I believe that our social and environmental challenges are far more complex than most people want to admit. I reject over-simplified explanations, polarized positions, and either-or solutions. I don’t believe that any one person or group sees the entire big picture on any of these issues, and I don’t believe that any one person or group holds the one and only solution to any of these challenges. I believe that the big picture and comprehensive integrated root cause solutions can only emerge when we combine our respective pictures at the level of our noble concerns and intentions, not at the level of our ideological positions or our attachment to specific solutions.

I also don’t believe that any one person or group has the time, energy, money or wisdom to solve all of the challenges we face. I believe that each of us has our own unique calling to have positive impact in only one or some of the many challenges that exist, and with whatever spheres of influence we’re called to impact. I believe we need to honor ourselves for the parts we’re called to play and to bless others for the parts they’re called to play.

The bottom line is that I believe that nothing short of high levels of collaboration literacy will adequately address the many challenges we face today. That’s why I dearly love training people in collaboration literacy skills.

My dream is to live in a world in which everyone is productive to the best of their ability because they are following their calling, and one in which no one needs to worry about how they’ll afford being healthy, having food, having a place to live, being clothed, and enjoying some measure of comfort in life. I doubt that this world will come about in my lifetime. I believe that the best economic system that’s currently available for propelling us toward this world is socially responsible capitalism.

I believe that people have profoundly distorted understandings of what money and capitalism are.

I believe that money is portions of my life energy in a converted form. Nothing more and nothing less. I believe that people deserve to learn how to discover which portions of their life energy they’re most passionate about converting into money, how to do this in the most efficient least time consuming ways, and how to differentiate between enoughness and excess.

Regarding excess, I believe that greed is what gives money and power a bad name. Greed comes in two main forms: money greed and power greed. My perspective is that money is not inherently evil, power doesn’t inherently corrupt, and greed is a symptom not a cause. Money greed and power greed are symptoms of what I call a Faulty Happiness Formula.

The road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions nearly as much as it’s paved with the massively destructive belief that the more money or power one has, the happier one will be. My perspective is that happiness is an inside job and that it is a natural outgrowth of being who we are (authenticity), feeling bonded with others and Source (connection), and having positive influence in the world (impact). That’s the Sustainable Happiness Formula. My belief as well is that the only self-development that’s truly worthwhile strategically focuses on efficiently elevating and integrating authenticity, connection and impact.

About capitalism, the only version of it that many people know about is sociopathic capitalism. Many others confuse capitalism with debtism, which is borrowing against an uncertain future in order to prop up the illusion of a lifestyle in the present. I believe that government needs to regulate sociopathic capitalism and debtism far more tightly regulated than they currently are. (I also believe that education needs to focus far more on replacing the Faulty Happiness Formula with the Original Happiness Formula.

I also believe that the roots of the sustainable happiness formula and socially responsible capitalism were built into the original and utterly brilliant architecture of the United States.

• The Original Happiness Formula: Embedded in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution is an implicit understanding that the pursuit of happiness requires the freedom to be who we authentically are, the freedom to love others feel bonded with Source, and the responsibility to have positive impact on the world around us. This formula creates a healthy relationship with money and power. I believe it was a disastrous decision to replace the original happiness formula with the one that was embedded in the 1950s and misnamed The American Dream. It’s turned into The American Nightmare.
• Socially Responsible Capitalism: The original incorporation framework in the United States was that when a company’s incorporation papers were found by their state to be in order, they received a corporate charter for a limited number of years. They could renew that charter indefinitely, but each time they renewed they needed to demonstrate that they were profitable (that is, not in irresponsible forms of debt) and that they were not generating profits in ways that harmed the common good. I believe that it was a disastrous decision for our country to abandon this corporate chartering system.

In my experience, very few people know what socially responsible capitalism is, in part because they don’t understand what money is. For me, the heart of socially responsible capitalism is agreements in which I choose to acquire something that is being sold for an amount of money that I’ve self-responsibly decided is highly worthwhile for me to devote that amount of my converted life energy to acquire. I also wholeheartedly subscribe to the triple bottom line of corporate social responsibility (profits, people, planet): a company is only profitable in a socially responsible way when it makes money in ways that honor people and respect the planet. I believe that socially responsible capitalism can have immensely positive impacts on individuals and the fabric of society.

I am neither a Never-Trumper nor an Always-Trumper, just as I’ve always been neither a Never-Republican or Never-Democrat. This is NOT because I refuse to take stands. I take them all the time. It’s because I refuse to become ensnared in immature either-or thinking.

I voted for neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. I viewed a vote for Trump as a vote for disrupting the status quo at a high cost and a vote for Clinton as a vote for maintaining the status quo at a high cost. Because I do not support the status quo I didn’t vote for Clinton. Because I didn’t and don’t respect the voice for “cleaning the swamp” that Trump brings, I didn’t vote for him either. 

I would like to see the Republicans select an ethical status quo disruptor, and a consummate collaborator, as their nominee in the 2020 elections instead of President Trump. I would like to see the Democrats select an ethical status quo disruptor, and a consummate collaborator, as their nominee in the 2020 elections as well. This way, voters can choose between two versions of ethical status quo disruption while trusting that either candidate is equipped to help usher a new age of collaboration in the federal government. While I have virtually no faith that either party will make their selection based on these criteria, that is nonetheless what I would support.

Back to Trump, there are things that have happened during his presidency that I am pleased with, the main ones being unemployment continuing to decrease and portions of the economy continue to grow. Whether this is because of his policies, or because of the momentum that was already underway when he came into office, or because of a combination of both, I know the limits of my expertise well enough to know that I don’t have the wisdom to determine this.  I am also pleased that his Presidency seems to have awakened at least a portion of today’s Silent Majority into speaking up again. I believe reactivation of the center-leaning electorate has been long overdue, and I believe that Trump has been far more successful at doing this than Clinton would have been. I have not decided whether I believe his ways of dealing with rogue leaders of other countries will do more harm than good over the long run.

On the other hand, I deeply oppose his ends-justifies-the-means tactics, his relentless lying, and the impacts of his words and actions on further polarizing and dividing our country. While I am delighted that he is overthrowing the status quo, I am disgusted by some of the ways he is doing this. What I view as his consistent lack of ethics is particularly repulsive to me. I question the extent to which he understands and supports the Constitution. I view President Trump as a toxic narcissist who is doing more damage than good and who weighs his own self-interests more heavily than any other consideration. I view him as serving ideological extremists and his own self-interests far more than serving the Constitution and everyday citizens. However, I remain unclear about whether he is doing this because of deeply held beliefs on his part, or because he’s being manipulated while imagining he is doing these things for the good of the country.

I believe that hidden forces manipulate societal dynamics, economic conditions, and government policy AND I don’t believe that there’s a conspiracy lurking around every corner. I do believe that some elected officials, some media pundits, and some members of the intelligence, diplomatic, banking,  communities, are part of the deep state AND I do believe that the majority are well-intended people who authentically want to do the right thing on behalf of We the People. I also believe that it’s wisest to look into the possibility of conspiracies only when all of the more obvious potential causes of a particular problem have authentically been eliminated.

My focus is on underlying dynamics not specific issues. My mission is to focus on what I believe ties all of today’s issues together, through my core values, which center on love, equality, respect for all, collaboration among all, integrity, freedom, responsibility, and universal spiritual principles. I have therefore been transparent in this document specifically about my beliefs related to the positive impacts that I am called to have in the world.

That’s why this document mostly does not address specific hot button issues such as climate change, poverty, immigration, abortion, etc., or issues related to gender, race, culture, religion, and political ideology. However, I want to be clear that I passionately embrace multicultural diversity and collaboration, and I abhor racism, sexism, and all the other isms.

If specific issues are important to you, I am delighted for you to speak up in the world in the ways that call to you regarding those issues AND I ask you to understand that my focus is on what I believe is the root of the hyper-discord about specific issues, and how to move from discord to collaboration.