Jeff KleinI had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Jeff Klein at the recent Innovation and Humanities Conference in Orange, CA.  It was an inspiring to hear him speak,  and I was very impressed by his message and passionate delivery.  I subsequently have had several deep dialogues with Jeff and feel honored to know a man who’s mission is to help shift how we think about our work.

Jeff starts the preface of his book with a wonderful quote from Kahlil Gibran, “Work is love made visible”, and there could be nothing more true.   “Working for Good” has been written to support any conscious entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, leaders, and change agents at work who truly want to make a difference while making a living.

Jeff refers to as the essential skills of working for good as 1) awareness 2) embodiment 3) connection 4) collaboration 5) integration.  The combination of these five skills forms an integrated Working for Good system.

While each skill is connected and informs the other, there is a progression of development and application from awareness to embodiment, connection, collaboration and integration.  Awareness asks questions that seek to penetrate, to get behind facades and into the depth.  What’s going on here?

Connection begins with cultivation awareness–connecting with ourselves and working with our minds and hearts–and emerges as we carry awareness into embodiment, into action with our bodies.

Collaboration leads to integration and completes the full circle of the Working for Good system.  Integration is the dynamic process of combining various elements into a new whole that has its own presence and integrity.

Jeff Klein is truly a thought leader with a unique message, attempting people to understand that they have the abilities to apply new skills and passion to do good, and make a big difference through the work that they choose to do, no matter what the work.   As Jeff says,  “Awareness is the first step to becoming a more conscious leader, and with this first step we can all create work with a purpose focused in doing good in and for the world”.

I encourage everyone to not only read Jeff’s new book, “Working for Good“,  but to practice the exercises at the end of each chapter.  Jeff’s website is awesome and loaded with content, videos and downloads.  I highly recommend that you download the  26 principles of working for good.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this great podcast with truly a wonderful thought leader, then go to his website by clicking here and watch a couple of his video’s.  Enjoy this podcast–and start your practice of Working for Good.

Alan BriskinThis is a wonderful interview with my good friend and author Alan Briskin.  We discuss the subject of his new book entitled “The Power of Collective Wisdom, and The Trap of Collective Folly“; the formation of community and the insights gained from groups.

From the perspective of the authors, collective wisdom refers to knowledge and insight gained through group and community interaction.  At a deeper level, however it is about our living connection to each other and the interdependence we share in our neighborhoods, organizations and world community.

Ultimately, this book emerges from a deep conviction that we all have a stake in each other and that what binds us together can be greater than what drives us apart.  Stories and historical examples illustrate how collective wisdom has emerged in a range of cultures, settings, and traditions, and the authors offer a set of practices to help the reader realize the key lessons of the book.

The phrase wise leadership seems like an oxymoron.  This book is so important, because it corrects a basic misconception that wisdom is not develop able.  It shows how wisdom can be cultivated through continual reflection, through silence and through connecting with the highest in yourself and others.  Second is that wisdom is not about just a few wise people but about the capacity of human communities to make wise choices and to orient themselves around a living sense of the future that truly matters to them.  Wisdom is about connection, connection to one another and to a larger whole.

I encourage you to take a journey with author Alan Briskin as we explore, “The Power of Collective Wisdom“, and how it can make a difference in your community and your life.

If you would like to learn more about his new book, please visit the Collective Wisdom website by clicking here.

Will Marre I have been a fan of Will Marrè’s for a long time.  His workshops and writings are fantastic!!! He is a joy to listen to and  dialogue with.

His new book entitled, “Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner“,  is designed to enlighten and move his readers to action.  All of us can admit that we live in a world that is constantly changing.  Our lives have been moving at a faster pace, and we are looking for more meaning and purpose in our personal and professional lives.

Will’s new book ” Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner” is written to get you thinking about your personal promise.  What is is that you would do to make a difference in the world?  What is your personal promise to yourself and your family?

Will asks you to “change how you think about change.”  To create a world of sustainable abundance which means to find the pulse of life we can maintain that doesn’t burn us out or exhaust us but enables us to be fully present in each moment filled with both gratitude and new solutions.

If we are to live lives filled with sustainable abundance, then as leaders we need to be Real Leaders.  We need to be responsible, ethical, create abundance and a legacy.  When we look at our world from a real leadership perspective our challenges become opportunities, and our decisions are made with the whole world in mind.

Will encourages individuals to know themselves, to dig deep within themselves and do some soul searching.  Why are you here?  What is your promise, and how can you fulfill it?

As the author articulates,  soul as I mean the word is not some poetic spiritual abstraction or article of religious dogma, but the core essence of who we are as living breathing, feeling, thinking human beings.  Our soul is the deepest dimension of our awareness, as silent intelligence that underlies all of our mental and emotional functions.  Our soul is not the object of our thinking.  It is the thinker.  The “me” before the thoughts.  is is the sacred essence of our individual identity.

So if you are looking to search your soul, and find a place within yourself that resonates with the essence of your being and from this place be moved to take action and make a difference in this world, then I not only highly recommend “Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner” I also recommend that you watch some of Will’s great video’s on Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner by clicking here.

You are going to love this interview with Will Marrè, and I know you will want to read this book more than once to really dig into the essence of the message.