(excerpts from the book,  Evolutional Consciousness of Being and Business)

 

Preface and Introduction

As most of us now recognize, with the advent and significance of the recent global financial crisis, we're living in a time where we need some profoundly complex and far-reaching responses to some profoundly complex challenges.  We're dealing with a level and degree of uncertainty that we have, arguably, never encountered before on such an enveloping global scale.  As the reach of our global community grows larger and our world seems to get smaller we need ways and means to better coexist and conduct our affairs of business, not to mention as an advanced planetary species.  We need evolved understandings, more particularly we need to co-evolve new understandings with each other, to help us determine and generate these ways and means. Consider that dogmas and other forms of already-existing knowledge and outside-in over-lay solutions might not contain the answers we're hoping and looking for.

Here's something I've come to accept after 30 years of extensive innerworks and depthwork in human development: as human beings our consciousness is still evolving, terminology aside.  It is the nature of human consciousness and mentality to evolve, create, and develop in a progressing and ongoing fashion.  The factuality of this is easily observable in hindsight.  And, fortunately,  it's also able to be demonstrated going forward. 

At first, this might not sound like any big deal to some.  But it's an incredibly huge and life-enhancing deal once sufficiently understood and the information in this book is proficiently engaged and actualized. 

To know this about human consciousness, and to know what to do with such knowledge, can have vast benefits for us in life, and particularly in business, the focus of this book.  And, likewise, there are consequences for not knowing, as will become more evident as you read. 

In case it needs saying, this isn't about moralizing, nor about political agendas.  And definitely it isn't about satisfying any gratuitous constraints of "political correctness".  It's an attempt to describe "what is" and "what seems to be" regarding the integrally evolutional/creational nature [1] of human consciousness, and the benefits of that knowing and its application—emerging greater competencies, higher advantages, and deeper wellbeing, particularly in business.  

It is also an envisioning for a healthier world of business and living, providing a body of experience and knowledge for that purpose, particularly as it can apply to our business lives, where it seems, arguably, needed these last few decades, and especially in 2009. 

Virtually all of us are unaware of the integrally evolutional/creational nature of human consciousness, and of how to intentionally garner the benefits of knowing about its amazingly engageable qualities and dynamics.  This book can change that, and will for many who are ready for it.

Consider this, and it's larger implications for business: our human ancestors who became more physically and mentally evolved, developed, or advanced, by whatever term (again, philosophical and religious biases aside), than any of their predecessors before them, became more advanced, increasingly competent, in their capacities and capabilities to adapt to, master, and create their environs than those segments of the population who didn't.  In short, our consciousness capacity-and-capability-progression, by whatever terms, has benefits that occur as greater competence, advantage/addvantage [2], and wellbeing over previous stages of human progression. 

The notion of such benefits, which can be derived from this evolutional/creational progress, is especially relevant to present-day living and business since we live in such complexly challenging times.  As such, our having an interest in these kinds of benefits should not be much of a surprise to most of us.  

Going forward, such benefits might not be readily evidenced by further physical changes in ourselves, like evolving larger brain mass—which eventuated in designing and manipulating progressively more sophisticated tools and an improved ability to think and communicate—which yielded definite benefits like advantage over previous stages of evolution.  However, an "evolutional" opportunity for more advantageous benefits is the case in the realm of human consciousness, in our mental awareness and acuity, where as a species we are still "advancing", by whatever term!  Human consciousness is still "evolving"[3] in its capacities and capabilities, be it as thinking, learning, or functioning in general, in how we engage our environs, each other, and even how we engage our own self in how we think about ourselves, who and what we are. 

Again, our evolving in capacity and capability of consciousness affords us opportunity not only for significantly greater competence and higher addvantage—or increased capability from "adding vantage" of perspective—for competitive applications or otherwise, but also for deeper wellbeing, as compared to previous stages and states of our evolutional developments, both of and in consciousness.[4] 

Additionally, and this is mega-huge, as a derivative capability we've also emerged the meta-capability of having meta-understandings about these evolutional, creational, and developmental dynamics themselves!  That is, our consciousness not only evolves as a species, but we have learned to evolve our understanding of our evolving.  This includes our understanding where the notion of the "creational" dynamic of life fits within the more all-encompassing "evolutional" dynamic of life, beyond being merely evolutional, or creational.  This "meta-perspectiving" of life and living also includes how to leverage this understanding.  This generates an amazing spiral of endless possibilities for greater competence, higher advantage, and deeper wellbeing.

In light of this, it's vitally essential to realize how we can become not only more willful, but more intentionally willful[5] and actively mindful in personally advancing not only our capacities and capabilities of consciousness, but, more so, our developmental capacities and capabilities of consciousness!  This is a life-changing realization once we grasp its significance, particularly in the arena of business, which is the virtual maypole of our daily lives and the central playground for our many "appetites", including competitiveness, which we all have to some degree or  form of expression[6]. 

Some of us are now opening to our capacity to consciously intentionally engage our evolutional processes of consciousness.  We need only step into our learning curve for developing capabilities within this capacity for ourselves, the central thesis and pivotal focus of this book.  We'll come back to the seminal nature of  these dynamics in a bit.

Finding ways to have and experience greater competence with advantage over previous stages of functioning is a recognizable concern with business leaders, as well as, say, for anyone who still simply wants to eat.  In addition to this, as if this is not a big enough concern, in our present era of business we are also noticing an increasing desire to experience more personal wellbeing, regardless of how business is going for us or how well we're eating. 

For most of us, pursuing the first two was typically at the expense of wellbeing.  For example, we might have business success, but often at the expense of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.  Probably also at the expense of our integrity or our family life.

With the increasing complexities and accelerating pace of life, having greater competence, advantage, and wellbeing seems to be more elusive than ever, and ever more desirable.  We're especially learning, if we're honestly paying attention, that increased competence and advantage doesn't necessarily equal increased wellbeing. 

When we find the time to reflect and take notice, we realize we want better, more comprehensive answers, ones that are not merely short-term, quick-fix, add-on, overlay solutions—the latest fad-as-fix stop-gap approaches.  We want sustainable results from our well-intentioned, time-consuming endeavors.

This book is about providing those answers, of the outside-the-nine-dots-and-off-the-page variety;[7] yet wholly practical, and deeply satisfying, and not to suggest it's necessarily easy or simple.  It includes not only how to engage consciousness dynamics to raise our level of competence and advantage in life to a higher level of existence and expression—not just of the bigger-faster-newer variety—but also how to have truer and deeper wellbeing at the same time.  All. 

For example, one form of enhanced competence, advantage, and wellbeing might be our increased ability to grasp greater complexities and diversity, and also how to integrate it meaningfully, and do so in a more timely fashion.  Or, better yet, even how to see its pre-existent integrality from higher/deeper perspectives of consciousness, including what to do about what we see!  Likewise, how to make sense of our fragmented life, a seemingly fragmented world, how to develop and grow more effortlessly, how to experience more ease, how to be and feel more whole, how to repress and hide less and free-up more whole-self expression into life and our living of it. 

And, this isn't about becoming free from the world, but becoming free for the world.  Perhaps, ultimately, we can even open into an elegance of being as a person, and into an elegance of exchange in business.  There's no glass ceiling here, no ceiling of any kind.

* * *

As you've probably noticed, I'm using a bit of redundancy in how I'm fleshing out these various ideas as I bring in new ones.  That's because of the relative newness, complexity and scope of this subject matter in the business world.  I'm not assuming it's easy to quickly "get it", especially for the many left-brain dominant thinkers among us, prevalent in business.  If you're at a point in your development where it seems like "too much with the redundancy already", feel free to jump ahead to wherever, and only come back when it seems useful.

Also, realize that the present accounts of the subject matters in this book, due to their nature and scope, is a constant work in progress of discovery and development.  The content of this book is a journey into finding understanding and capability in the terrains of complex macro and micro human change and transformation dynamics, much beyond the scope of considerations commensurate with merely re-arranging the "chairs on the deck of the Titanic", or the "ship" known as "our life".  It specifically deals with change at the level of consciousness, and not just in consciousness.  That is, not just of our mental content, emotions, and behavior.  It presumes that consciousness is a paradigmatic "background" or "foundational" influence on the forms and contents generated in our mental activities (e.g., its assumptions, beliefs, values, preferences, needs, understandings, attitudes, and such).

This work is based on over 30 years of my own personal experiences as well as observations in working with others regarding producing their own developmental changes, and my facilitation of that when that's been the case, as relevant to their individual propensities and aspirations.  This is about more than making various isolated, piece-meal, un-integrated changes in ourselves.  It's about opening up to allowing evolutional-scale shifts in and of our consciousness, and the subsequent means that go beyond just considerations of mind-set (i.e., our mental "container" with its beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, mental constructs…) to levels of change that will also shape these smaller-scale dynamics.  It's also about understanding the complexities of consciousness-change and how to more effectively engage in this complexity to effectively work in it to produce the sustainable changes we want, inclusive of generating both higher and more dynamic competence, advantage, and deeper wellbeing.

As you can imagine from the foregoing, this book center-stages some very large phenomenological subjects[8], which are also engageable as domains of human learning and development: "evolution", "transformation", "consciousness", "nascence-awareness", "ontology of mind", "authenticity", "conflict", "chaos", "change dynamics", "paradigm", "spirituality", "communication, "ego", "self", "productivity", and their quintessential relevance to sourcing higher advantage and wellbeing[9] in living and business.  It's especially about getting beyond having just the first two at the expense of wellbeing, as has been a typical either-or scenario for us. 

There are examples that might convey this last point, about it usually being an either-or trade off.  Most of us have had the experience of trading off some aspect of our integrity or quality of mental and emotional wellbeing in order to close a deal, get that promotion, or generally maintain some seeming advantage in the workplace.  Or, at the other end of the pendulum's swing, we drop out of Corporate America with its hyper pace, complexity, inauthenticity, stress, life style, etcetera, to find our wellbeing in some form of a "simpler" and "slower" life.  That is, perhaps, for example, if you are at the leading edge of competency in your field of business, functioning at the top of your game, you might possibly live and work in New York City (certainly dependent upon your "game", and with no disrespect for the rest of the world).  On the other hand, if you wanted to have wellbeing, you might "scale back", move to upstate New York, open up that small shop you've always wanted to, maybe as some minimalist version still in your field of expertise, plant a garden in the back yard, take up yoga and meditation, eat better, take time to smell the flowers...you get the point.

But we are now coming into a new dawn in human development, learning to evolutionally/creationally emerge a more integrated expression of "both ends" of this pendulum of advantage and wellbeing.  And this is not some anemic mid-point expression that is half-way between the two, but the best of each.

So, to emphasize the point, though historically we might have had one or the other, this is changing for those of us who are ready to find a more evolved, integral way—which includes "having all", and at an evolved level of experience and expression.[10]  As our consciousness and its appetites evolve, we discover ways and means to all.  For example, we might still live in the city, perhaps a different city (and perhaps not, doesn't matter), executing our role and its functions expertly in ways that satisfy deep needs in us for wellbeing, including at a slower-yet-more-efficient pace.  And not doing it all merely for the sake of increasing our consumption of possessions, but for expressing ourselves more masterfully as we engage others, fulfilling us even beyond our present imagination for doing so.  We discover a way of seeing our work, even our industry, and its relationship to and in larger contexts of life and living (certainly including business), in ways that cause us to perform with more clarity and potency, yet with less pressure and less pace, and even with more heart, love, peace, capacity and competency, satisfying us more deeply and meaningfully, even spiritually, in everything we do. 

The capability of this expression doesn't get manifested overnight, or even necessarily quickly or soon, but it opens to us and emerges in us as we open to our understanding of consciousness dynamics, and into our knowing of who and what we are as individual beings, learning to evolve/create[11] in time and space one moment at a time.  It's particularly easier when engaging the assistance of someone who's scouted out this territory of consciousness before us, so we don't have to do it alone, which would take even longer, in my experience.

And, no, this emergence of "wanting better" is not the "selfish I want it all" mentality of the 80s, although that philosophical emergence is, from my perspective, a preliminary symptom of evolution's impact on us at that period of time, as you'll understand better as you read. 

* * *

The information in this book also attempts to show the relevance, of our learning to gain mastery in these areas, for our effectiveness in any emerging new and/or derivative economies and sub-economies of the Information economy that are presently well into the creation and growth stages, developmentally speaking.  Examples of a burgeoning (sub)economy might be the Service economy, the Mobile/Internet/Wireless economy (by whatever term), and the illusive up-and-coming Experience economy, by whatever terms, all being expressions of evolving "appetites"[12] in us. 

Again, certainly, these subjects are far from being simple ones, or ones that are easy to simply "do" something about, especially as in "just do it".  I don't mean to make this sound easy, which I don't think I do, nor unduly difficult, either.  For example, pop-culture approaches to this can't recognize, engage, nor penetrate the authentic nature that is conveyed by the ideas in this book.  As such, these are not "fast changes" that we can simply agree on, and then go "make it happen".  These developmental dynamics won't be learned in a couple weeks or months nor quickly "installed" into a company's culture, nor in your own life.  Likewise, due to the scope and scale of these kinds of capabilities—being transformationally creational/evolutional in their essence—they will realistically take many months to several years, at least, to sufficiently actualize, if not more, to adequately understand, assimilate, and functionally enact into a daily living dynamic as harnessable competencies of expression.  It largely depends on how "tightly" you like to hold onto the status quo of your life, and particularly your living of it.

However, and here's some good news, because this is a long learning curve, the sooner we open to and respond to an understanding of the eventual inevitability of these natural evolutional/creational growth-dynamics of consciousness, and recognize the momentous advantages they will afford us in business and life, the further down the road we'll be ahead of "the competition" when they inevitably, predictably, get around to also "waking up" to these highly beneficial capabilities, which are to our benefit by "natural design"—the benefits of our evolutional/creational nature as human beings.

Also, this book is not, and can't be by the nature of its subject matters, a nicely succinct presentation of this information.  Our collective human consciousness is not yet far enough along in its collective learning curve regarding these subject matters to make that functionally do-able just yet, at least by yours truly.  That being said, it is meant to make available to us the ways and means for generating an opening in our states of mind and consciousness to make evolutionally transformative phenomena and dynamics more practically accessible and effectively engageable in our life, and certainly including in the business arena. 

Now for a couple parameter considerations about how the material in this book is presented.  Even though subject matters of this scale or magnitude have been addressed here in "a book", it certainly doesn't mean to suggest that a book can completely capture or fully convey the essence and all particulars of these phenomena or in any way exhaust the topic. 

However, to benefit from any awakenings we must learn to accept, cultivate, and sufficiently actuate it beyond its present condition of virtual latency and impotency.  And, while endeavoring along these lines, know up front that the reality, truth, and essence of the phenomena of this subject matter does not easily lend itself to left-brain-note-pad-compatibility, nor to being new fodder for party conversation, not that that will stop many of us from initially wanting to hold and use it that way.  It can not easily be presented by the conventional means of horizontally-linear themes, nicely distinct content parameters, high-profile examples, tips and techniques, topic covered—bang!—you're transformed and evolved.  The scope, complexity, and outside-the-nine-dots-and-off-the-page nature of this subject matter dictate that it can not be wholly portrayed, conveyed, or captured in this, or probably any, writing.  At least not by this author, or at least not at this point in time. 

The phenomena of this subject matter requires, at least, an inside-out approach and orientation to our experience and understanding, processes that most of us are generally not sufficiently familiar with, nor experienced in, and certainly not masterful in.  Yet. 

And in case I need to be really adamant about this point, let me emphasize that those of us who work almost exclusively with our left brain might have a difficult time awakening in themselves the subject matters of this book.  That's not to say this is about wanting to avoid our left-brain propensities, but just to stretch us to use more of our whole brain and mind.  As such, endeavor to learn to trust that we have right-brain, as well as subconscious, capacities that are not only waiting to be better awakened, but are ready to enhance and more greatly empower our life once we start functioning there as well.  For what it's worth, keep in mind that our corpus callosum (that thick transverse bundle of nerve fibers that connects the right and left halves of our whole brain, thus enabling them to work together) is a vital brain structure to increasing our overall competence and wellbeing in life, as well as for increasing our advantage over having not leveraged this connection.  It's there for a reason.  Look at this as a new kind of workout, an inner workout.  Ultimately, it's a good thing.

These challenges notwithstanding, you will find value and utility in what is presented here regarding your own endeavors at finding and sourcing the domains of consciousness, paradigms, mindsets, thinking, attitudes, and actions that eventuate in both greater wellbeing and advantage, competitive or otherwise, quintessentially both without having to sacrifice either for the other. 

Here's another new notion to get your brain-muscle working.  The primacy of what is before us as humans requires nothing less than responding to the naturally transformative "evolutional currents"[13] that are now more accessibly "within and among" us—becoming progressively more evident the last few decades—particularly for the arena of business because business consciousness often lags behind the consciousness advancements of the consciousness explorers among us. 

And since everything human and human-related has a progressive, developmental, and evolutional, by whatever term, quality or dynamic to it, it's very helpful to think of humans as being prone to evolving, even wanting to evolve.  This is also supported by the fact that the default-state of the human brain is neuro-plasticity, meaning it is ready and able, even "wanting",  to change to enable and support our minds wanting to change! 

Also, to further contextualize this body of knowledge and thinking, see that there is a difference between what might be called "conscious business" and that of "evolutional-consciousness in business".  That is, we can be more conscious of how we conduct business, taking pains to be ethical, honorable, being mindful or our actions, and the like.  That's conducting a "conscious business", as the term is typically used, having and using conscious-business practices.  But to be "evolutional in our consciousness" in business, to have an "evolutional-consciousness", by being an "evolutional-being", is about learning to discover and function from an ontological, by whatever term, presence-state of consciousness awareness and mental-state functioning, that just happens to also be regeneratively seminal, fresh, immediate, dynamically alive, evolutionally developmental, in the moment, in any moment of our functioning.

* * *

An integrally viable notion that I want to advance in this work is that transformationally "evolutional currents" are ever‑present and organically, naturally, and ontologically[14] available in us, at least as latent potential, as a mental state-dynamic for enhanced awareness.  Think of it metaphorically as not unlike a grand seed that was "planted" eons ago in the human species and has been slowly germinating and now emerging into the light from the soil of the Beings we are, now that the conditions are right, which it arguably is, however described[15].  These currents impel us as a magnetic‑like pull by the "spiritual-evolutional circuits of our Being", being one way to put, and very figuratively speaking.  Whatever we call this "causal phenomenon" of our "evolutional progression", it's discernable in us Homo sapiens. 

Put another way, "evolutional currents", by whatever name[16], could be viewed metaphorically to function like the handmaiden of emergent God/Source[17], the source of life, by whatever term and religious connotations aside, as the seed of our Source, of the Spirit of Life that dwells within us all, that the Eros of us impels ever onward in our capacities of consciousness.  God, as it were, continues to create in us higher capacities of being, that can occur not unlike as Darwin's evolution.  But they're not simply only an evolutional urge, as in some "survival of the fittest", and such.  I contend that they are supra-subtle "currents" that impel and pull the capacities of our consciousness forward into the evolutional/creational development of our lives, well, to the extent that we don't try to resist them with our free will, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.  As will be explained, as freewill beings we can either respond to or resist these currents—well, at least for an "evolutional-while" of sorts.  How, and why, it is that we are able to resist such natural phenomena of this scope and magnitude is also explained later after some context and groundwork is laid. 

And, of course, if a critical mass of all peoples were already responding to these currents there would no longer be a pull to write this kind of book, as we'd be past the need for that.  As well, if there weren't a sufficient critical mass of human consciousness "calling" for this material, there wouldn't be a pull by any of us authors to write about the various aspects of such phenomena, as there is today.[18] 

And now a moment for some significant good news/bad news: the good news is, as individuals and as a species we are capable of addressing and grappling with this level and scope of challenge and change.  We do possess the requisite capacities for the intention[19] and attention[20] needed to address and assimilate and actualize the realities that comprise these subjects.  More importantly, the time is right, and ripe.  As free-will beings we do in fact, and in truth, have choice in these areas, though not necessarily from the everyday-business left-brain tack.  More on that later. 

The bad news is, as humans we can be rather narrow or micro-oriented in our considerations and attention in and on life, not unlike the captain (designated expert) of the Titanic preoccupying himself with "making good time", and keeping everything shiny and in place, while unwittingly disregarding the probabilities of encountering an iceberg, as compared with the capability of the crew and the ship itself to maneuver around an iceberg once spotted at the speed they were going.  Or, more recently in history, going about our morning business as Americans while naively assuming we are safe from novel, even sophisticated, terrorist attacks within our nation's borders.  Many of us won't become aware of the large-scale "surprises" life has unless we not only acknowledge but also assimilate and actualize a response to our evolutional currents as a species, regardless of any nation-state or religion we identify with.  Clever concepts, good intentions, mantras, and focusing-techniques won't create deep wellbeing.  In short, we must remove our evolutional/creational blinders of consciousness so we can open into and free up our capacities of observation and knowing.  Emerging our "evolutional/creational consciousness" is key, as we will see in Part II.

This book is also a justification and motivation for those of us who want reasons more compelling than moral platitudes or "shoulds"—maxims that support the "we-should-grow‑in‑order-to‑be-nicer-people" kinds of stuff[21]—as to why it is in our best, our highest, interests as Homo sapiens to engage more fully in the evolutionally transformative opportunities in consciousness and the subsequent prototypical mindsets and capacities that are latently available to us. 

Also, to further contextualize the information in this book, perhaps you will appreciate that many of the ideas presented herein will not easily be "formulated and proven" using the scientific method as such.  That said, I think they could eventually be formulated as injunctions to follow for anyone to "verify" on their own, as so inclined.  These ideas are not intended to be presented either as scientific theories, on the one hand, nor as "dogmatic" conclusions or presumptions, on the other.  But as experiential discoveries of knowable and experienceable realities of both the evolutional stage-like and developmental state-like nature and dynamics of human consciousness.  These realizations are supported by several in-depth east and west studies of awarenesses and experiences of meditators world wide, including by me[22].  

Generally, with the foregoing exception in the footnote, the information in this book won't be cross-referenced with other authors’ thinking as an attempt to lend validity to what is here.  Leading-edge insight and cognizance of reality goes beyond any current Zeitgeist understandings of provable science and popular culture, just as the earth being "round" did when others could "prove" it was flat.  These ideas will be recognizable and experienceable realities, "provable" to those who are "ready" to experience and know them, or they won't (this comment will become more valid to you as you engage this material).  Look for yourself.  Trust yourself to authentically "know", for yourself, not based on what others say, including me.  Have your own experiences, draw your own conclusions.  And anticipate that present world beliefs will try to sideswipe, if not pummel, your thinking and understanding in this journey.

Likewise, since "politically correct" considerations are neither here nor there in this writing, being superseded by the scope of the context of these ideas, I will say that not all of us are "ready" (currently willing and able) to understand or accept the manifest implications of these subject matters as regards our wellbeing, just as not everyone is ready to understand or actualize the potential implications of quantum physics, nanotechnology, or even of "loving one's enemy", for that matter.  We don't all have the same capacities, abilities, or interests.  It's just the way human life and consciousness occurs, in stages, levels, waves, phases, by whatever terms, of development.  It's not good or bad in the higher and larger scheme of things, just the way it is; just like gravity isn't good or bad, just a natural dynamic that we learn to give consideration and respect to once we've functioned in a way that isn't aligned with it.[23] 

As such, this book is oriented particularly toward growth-oriented individuals, those business executives, leadership teams, business and personal coaches, and company cultures who intrinsically understand the benefits of functioning at the leading edge of effective human development dynamics that support optimal means for functioning both independently and interactively, for engaging all aspects of business dynamics, including increasing both the ease and efficiency of work-flow—from input through to output--in the workplace.  By the way, this doesn't mean working at a faster pace in any moment, every moment, but in engaging business interpersonally with others in ways that ultimately save tremendous amounts of time, particularly regarding interpersonal dynamics around conflict and confusion[24].  It is for those of us who live, or want to live, at the ermergent edge of personal and professional growth-as-transformation, wanting to discover our "evolvingadvantedge", functioning in our "sweet spot" of progressive creational/evolutional development in the game of constant-change business.  It is certainly for those of us who are ready to realize the opportunities that are before us, who are impelled toward greater competence, higher advantage, and deeper wellbeing in business and living.

I submit that if you look closely enough, deeply enough, long enough, you will eventually find and experience these phenomenological realities yourself—because your consciousness is evolving too.  It will, however, require a outside-the-box-outside-the-nine-dots-and-off-the-page, kind of looking, at least as a start.  But the alternatives to doing so—status quo, or more same old same-old—are neither interesting, satisfying, nor beneficial to us in the long run.  "Ignorance is bliss" is an experiential "fact of reality".  Until it isn't.  Then we wish we weren't so attached to ignorance-based forms of bliss. 

Yet another point is important to make in this Introduction.  It is expected, as you may already be experiencing, though not intended as such, that some of the ideas presented here might be controversial from a conventional, and definitely pre-conventional, perspective.  But realize that their being controversial is irrelevant to their validity.  Remember, again, the earth not being the center of the universe was once not only controversial, but also a life threatening assertion to make in that era.  In this vein, an intent of this book is to get you past trying to simply conceptually "grasp" these ideas, to a point of also learning to wholly open up to them within yourself, where truth can be known.  This is a very different learning process; the former involves trying to fit data into your existing understandings, but this involves learning to open and transform your existing capabilities for understanding to empower you to know something more as it is[25]. 

 It is hoped that business leaders, thought leaders, and growth leaders, regardless of their formal role in their organization, will find particular poignancy and relevance in these pages for both their business and personal lives, if for no other reason than learning how to enhance their advantages in the sea of complexity of confusion, conflict, chaos, and competition that we all now live and work in.  But, then, if you've read this far you're possibly wanting more than just "competitive advantage" over others, perhaps opening to having "collaborative advantage" with others.  If not, perhaps you'll find compelling reasons to do so in reading further.

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© 2008-13 Larry Kiehl.  All rights reserved.