The sensible are never free — N. Mailer We are engaged today in a war on two fronts. One front is well known: Trump, the Koch brothers, giant global corporations, lobbyists, the super rich and the Deep State are singularly committed to a highly coordinated strategy in service to the…

(In 2014 I was asked to give a TED X talk in Sacramento California. I have never been a fan of TED, and was hesitant to say the least. But nonetheless, after much wrangling, I agreed to bring something that “challenged the TED audience.” I had four weeks to prepare…

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, nothing more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “who is to be master, that’s all.” -Alice in Wonderland — In today’s world, as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow, those that define reality with their language, narratives and symbols are the masters. In my more than two decades of work with leaders and innovators in spaces as diverse as maximum security prisons, billion-dollar corporate c-suites, non-profits…

In nature, the poison and its antidote are always in very close proximity to each other. In certain clans and tribes of the Americas, a high-level rite of passage for a healer was what was called a Snake Dance Ceremony. At the heart of the experience was a supreme test…

When I was midway through my training period, at a time when I had developed a deep love and affection for the women that were training me, my teacher gave me this. She said, “At some point, when everyone has gone from here and a time comes for you to stand alone, you will stand alone. There will be no choice.” I reflect upon this teaching often, particularly these days. There is confusion everywhere. Of course, it…

With the almost infinite amount of material out there in the world talking about leadership it would seem that some of it, even a very small percentage, would actually be useful. Alas, this is not really the case. If we boil down to the fundamental error undermining almost everyone that…

We are living through an astonishing transitional phase. History is moving away from a 5000 year era of empire that viewed efficiency, extraction and the consolidation of wealth as the way to power. On one level this shift is obvious: it is becoming harder and harder to extract natural resources…

Nicolas Raymond (www.freestock.ca)(CC BY 3.0) As I read the current claims and counterclaims, defenses and attacks circling Amazon and pointing towards their working conditions, I can’t help but notice that a line of reasoning as obvious as it is decisive is missing; decisive in the sense that if we were…

End of Babylon There was a Native young man who went to serve in the Second World War. Towards the end of the war he was captured, and then somehow ended up in a Russian prisoner of war camp. When he was finally released, nobody could tell who he was and where he…