Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Posted: 20 Apr 2009 12:01 AM PDT

Received wisdom is not always all that wise.

One particular piece of received wisdom is that people don't like change.

I think this is rubbish.

My experience is that people are desperate for change in all sorts of areas. What they don't like is imposed change that they don't really understand.

I have asked thousands of people what they are angry about it terms of the way that we run our society. Although some claim "not to be angry people" almost all do experience genuine anger at some of the choices that are made: war, homelessness, abuse of children, exploitation and damage to nature, especially.

As a famous piece of Clerkenwell graffiti puts it: "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."

Anger is not necessarily a negative thing. Anger has energy. Anger shows that we care. The key thing is to direct our anger positively, productively and passionately.

There are, perhaps, four categories of response to anger:

1- Grumbling - we all know this. Whether it is "water cooler whining", "pub protest" or "mate moaning". The key is to complain to someone who both agrees with you and is equally likely to do nothing about it.

2 - Protest - This is a more public version of grumbling. Protest has some positive aspects, in that it raises awareness of an issue and may connect with someone who is prepared to do something about it. The less positive aspect is that protest inevitably involves blame and most of us resist being blamed.

3 - Conflict/competition - This takes protest to the next level, often by adding aggression. While this is often disastrous, it is not always. Competition is a softer form of conflict, the new generation of electric cars are a competitive response to climate change - for example. However conflict/competition is always a bet on one version of the future over another.

4 - Complement - perhaps the highest level of change strategy that we currently understand. Adding in a complementary tool or approach actually strengthens the very thing causing the anger, but in a positive way AND adds an element that transforms the outcome.

Of course all of these categories have their place and their role. The questions are always - which is most suitable? And can it be taken to a higher level?

www.amentorforeverychild.com is an example of a complementary strategy.

The anger is that children invest so much time in education and yet too many come out of 14 or 15 years of school with no idea of who they are, what they are great at or what their contribution is to society.

Education and schooling, to learn various modes of communication and skill is essential, and in itself transformative. And today many societies have evolved to a level where there is a further element required to enable the greatest potential in people.

That further element is to take the necessarily generic and communal value or schooling and make it personal and individual. To give every individual the clarity of identity and purpose that will enable them to add value to society. Mentoring can provide that value.

Look at it this way: Virtually every challenge we face, as a society, is the result of human decisions. This would indicate that there is a problem with our decision making processes.

If you examine the decisions that cause these challenges, you can see that the problem lies in a too narrow approach. Perhaps some mixture of short sight, fear based, greed based and over rational.

To move beyond these narrow approaches to decision making people need self confidence, they need to trust not just the left side of their brain, but the right side and their body intuition too.

I saw an interview with a man who was described as the most successful bond trader in the world - he was asked what made him so successful. He explained that it was all down to trusting his intuition. He said that the rational stuff was just the minimum benchmark to be in the game. What made the difference was intuition.

If the next generation leave school truly knowing who they are, truly believing in themselves, truly trusting their intuition, with confidence both in their strengths and their weaknesses the world will be transformed.

In fact it is our only chance.

If you would like help in bringing complementary transformation to a challenge that you face - give me a call.

If you would like to help us change the world - visit:
www.amentorforeverychild.com and help us make it happen.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com