Rigorous Intention

Do you remember a teacher or a mentor who changed your life? I recently found a study that demonstrated how one caring adult can change the entire future for a young person and the topic had me wondering if we can take that same sentiment and apply it to embracing better goals in education.

In fact, all this interest in things like mindfulness and “leaning in” has me wondering if it isn’t time for all of us to start nurturing the kind of thoughtfulness it takes to change someone’s day, be it a child, a customer or a stranger!

What if we stopped rewarding the smartest, the fastest, the strongest, and started rewarding something that starts on a level playing field. I’m calling it Rigorous Intention? A simple definition might be: the impulse to go the extra mile.

Let’s start with a thought experiment. Take a moment to reflect on the people you may recognize in the following questions:

Have you ever had a bad meal in a restaurant, but given the wait staff a nice big tip anyway, because you knew they were going the extra mile to do their very best in a bad situation?

What about a doctor or dentist office that so wildly exceeded your expectations that you run around telling everyone they must go to that office?

Have you ever been delightfully surprised by the friendliness of a TSA agent or toll booth attendant?

Do you drive a long way, or pay more than you need to, for the services of a hairdresser, fitness instructor or auto mechanic?

Have you ever watched a child take fall after fall while learning to ride a bike, but they keep getting back on for another try?

There’s a quality of character that all those people are exhibiting. What they all have in common is something I like to call Rigorous Intention.

It’s like good intention on overdrive!

When someone is acting with Rigorous Intention, we can spot it a mile away. In fact, I suspect we are hard wired to recognize it and follow. That may be one of the key ingredients to progress throughout human history: we could recognize someone paying way more attention to detail, and they were a safer bet if one were going to choose who to follow.

Need a bit more clarity? Rigorous Intention is the opposite of “going through the motions”. I define “rigorous intention” as a quality and magnitude of effort that is immediately obvious to others. Best of all, I suspect it’s an internal drive. Sure, there are work and family cultures that create fertile soil for rigorous intention to take root and thrive. But if you see someone acting with rigorous intention, you can often look around and it seems obvious that they are motivated by an internal compass.

We get so excited by people who are doing things with Rigorous Intention because they are such a refreshing surprise!

As I write, I’m on an airplane with a flight attendant who hasn’t cracked a smile yet. She is taking drink orders with all the pep of a zombie, and oh, she just carelessly pushed the drink cart into the leg of a sleeping baby who lit the cabin up with a shriek at 6:40 am. And for an added touch of cheer, she then carelessly pitched the snacks she was holding into a bin with a roll of the eyes for everyone in rows 10 through 35 to see. Lovely.

This is not Rigorous Intention. She’s a “flight attendant” not the least bit focused on the attending to the details of anything. She’s making the motions needed to check a box, without committing one more neuron than necessary.

Sadly, I suspect we can find people working with this same laissez-faire in every field, but the “thought leaders”, well, they are the people who we all love to work with. They set the bar high for an organization’s standards and create cultures where people take pride in their work. They are the people who are truly present with the task at hand. They can even fail with grace and we rarely fault them because we have so much confidence in the fact that they tried their best.

SUCCESS CONSISTS OF GOING FROM FAILURE TO FAILURE WITHOUT LOSS OF ENTHUSIASM.

– CHURCHHILL

There are nurses who calmly make us feel like we are the only patient they are caring for, and then as the door closes behind them, we hear their footsteps quicken because they are sprinting to the next patient’s bedside. There are car detailers who get into the corners with a toothbrush, and salespeople who will point you to a competitor if they don’t have exactly what you need. There are TSA agents who call you “hun” and apologize profusely as they take that pocket knife you’ve had since earning your Eagle Scout badge.

People are practicing Rigorous Intention when their focus is not just completing a task, but finding joy and pride in the process.

Now, to the real questions: How do we encourage this mindset, make it more the norm than the exception in society?

I suspect we could have the biggest impact on the future if we started at the source: by updating our education system.

It's safe to assume that if teachers were not forced to "teach to the test", many of them would have goals that would dwarf the short-term usefulness of standardized testing.

I know a lot of dedicated teachers who would jump at the chance to work in a system that rewards the long game of creating life-long learners and helping students to discover and embrace their unique gifts of interest and aptitudes. But that's not what's happening now.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with people in education from cultures as diverse as India, Kenya and Japan, and the consensus appears to be that around the globe, the end game of many education systems has gone very wrong. Now almost every education system in the world is “teaching to the test.”

I’m beginning to suspect the current challenge that employers have in finding employees who really care about the quality of their work may have started in our education system, when students were taught to care about the wrong things. Successful test-taking skills are no predictor of success for accountants, dental hygienists, electricians, city managers, administrative assistants, and almost any other job.

In fact, if you pause to think about the people who you’ve needed help from in the last few weeks, almost all the professions that impact our daily lives require qualities that are absent in the “teaching to the test” model.

Perhaps it’s time to teach and reward the skills that have always carried humanity forward: attention to detail, the ability to focus intensely, creative problem-solving and collaboration with others. Those are the hallmarks of working with Rigorous Intention.

Hmmm… if we got better at those skills, we might solve a lot of the world’s most vexing problems!

Contact me if you’d like to start a dialogue about using Rigorous Intention in your field. It’s a conversation worth starting!

Why we should not turn off the news, and what to do instead!

One lovely fall day I was standing at a college tailgate party, pontificating about how I had created “the antidote to the daily news” to a woman I barely knew. She was the mother of another player on my son’s new basketball team there and I would be seeing her regularly for the next three years. (That will be cringingly important after a few more paragraphs.)

Prior to that day, I saw our project at Ever Widening Circles as the antithesis of what contemporary news had become and I had developed a kind of soft rant that tended to diss “the news” as an out-of-touch, failing model of sensationalism over balance. (Yikes! Looking back now, that sounds excruciatingly familiar. What was I thinking!?)

Anyway, there I stood blathering on to this nice woman about how irresponsible it was for news agencies to relentlessly bombard us with all the negative parts of our world, when there was so much to celebrate in the way of progress. I had my points on all this down pat.

Given any encouraging body language from my listeners (or even if they just failed to interrupt me), I would hop on my soapbox. My recommendation was that people should just turn their backs on the whole news industry as long as it continued to follow the “if it bleeds, it leads” format. And I always finished off my little diatribe with a rousing admonishment of the entire industry as a bit daft for not seeing how hungry we all were for good news!  

(Sighing now.) When I finally stopped yammering, she made a very slight grimace of objection and told me that she and her husband were journalists, and she was a top editor for one of the most respected news agencies in the world. (Cringe here.)

Well, folks, I’m not sure what planet I was coming from for so long on this topic, but my very kind new friend pulled me back to earth.

I believe she saved the future of Ever Widening Circles (EWC) by transforming my way of thinking with no more than a few polite comments. She gracefully pointed out that if people turn off the news then everyone is essentially in the dark and nothing good can come of that: an important point since helping people know more about the world was at the core of my thesis for Ever Widening Circles in the first place!

And, to put an exclamation point on my metamorphosis, she pointed out that the press is no longer the best check on power if no one knows what’s happening day to day.

I felt like Dorothy, spiraling out of The Land of Oz and landing with a thud back in Kansas.

The movie is black and white again.

Think back to every scandal ever brought to light and consider that at the epicenter of that tempest were journalists who simply refused to stop pulling on the threads where deceit appeared to be going unchallenged.

I know it’s painful, but think where we would be if the work of journalists hadn’t exposed the abuse of children in the Catholic Church, hadn’t forced the disclosures in the Watergate Tapes, and now compelled Facebook to make major admissions and course corrections on misdeeds that may actually prove to have changed the course of history, etc.. etc...  

Every one of those scandals - and countless others - when given the full light of day, began a transformation in society as a whole that eventually improved business, politics and culture.

We have a new social contract with each other after scandals are brought to light by professionals in the press.

Yes, there seems to be a reason why freedom of the press is part of the FIRST amendment to our constitution.

A Solution to the Bad News Dilemma

So, now I have a new problem: people tell me almost every day that their strategy for coping with the overwhelm of the negative news cycle is to simply tune it out, turn it off. And now that’s precisely what makes me worried. It’s not much of a leap to suspect that what little news does make it through our filters, may only be the loudest, most outraged voices. And their language of extremes is exactly what rubs us the wrong way.

That said, this is too important to go the heads in the sand route. I suspect it’s time for all of us to find the courage to stay informed, toughen up, and put some markers down on trusting someone for the facts.

I’ve been reformed. Now I encourage people to find one or two news outlets that display the least bias they can find and then pop in on them once a day to stay informed 10 minutes a day.

And here’s my litmus test for “unbiased reporting”: if a news outlet includes a lot of talking heads with negative emotions like outrage, fear or astonishment. Pro tip #1: if you turn off the sound while watching “the news” on the outlet you usually choose and you can tell the emotions they are expressing - body language, facial expressions, etc. Then count them out. They are not doing the news as much as giving you their opinions of events.

“News” doesn’t come with subjective, personal reactions. It’s just cold, hard facts.

Pro tip #2: I’m suspicious of people who spend more time playing to my emotions than they do just laying out the facts. The minute people try to convince me of their position by using fearful examples, I assume it is because they don’t have the facts.

Keep in mind that we’ve lost sight of what qualifies for ”facts” these days. If you listen carefully, you will find that more and more, people confuse the facts with one-off, personal stories and anecdotes.

My take on “facts” is this: Most of us are good at using “common sense” to solve problems. If you lay out the facts in front of me (maybe you’ll need to have done your homework) and if your argument makes perfect sense, in light of the facts, then I’ll be with you all the way! You don’t have to tell me scary stories to win me over. Just line up the facts and I’m with you if it makes sense.

Another good way to look for reporting that is unbiased is to find an outlet that rubs you the wrong way from time to time, especially in the beginning. After all, if you seek news that feels too comfortable, somewhere you just nod a lot and feel like your team is winning, then you are not expanding your worldview. We need to be left scratching our heads often. We don’t know the whole picture. Well-intending, non-emotional journalists often do.

The best journalism for our times might be the kind that leaves us feeling like there is more to the story and we are curious to know more. We will always find our most courageous insights out on our growing edges.

News Fast versus a News Diet

Here are some suggestions:

If you’ve tuned out the news completely, I’d call that a “news fast”, and you know how fasting leaves one in the end: dazed and confused.

To stay healthy and go bare minimum on this, maybe try a “news diet”.

Here’s what my smart millennial daughter and I are doing these days: On our way to work we listen to a 5-minute broadcast of NPR News Now , or UpFirst, which is a 10-minute version of the each day’s news. We know just enough about the world to stay savvy, and if we get curious we head to the BBC International.

Some mornings while we are futzing around or the commute is longer, we listen to The Daily; a New York Times broadcast that, for 20 minutes, dives into the backstory of something that’s in the news. For instance, when the burning of the rain forest was in the news constantly, they did an amazing job laying out the backstory of that problem and I understood it in a whole new way!

No one is perfect, but the rigor is there with those three sources.

And one major heads up: Keep in mind that if you trust social media for your news, you are definitely going to be asking for bias. Media that is “social” has an implicit bias because we rarely socialize outside our tribes. In that model, our algorithms are feeding us what we are comfy with. With social media, we are getting news that fits our views, because that’s the essence of how things get shared.

You could be successful at getting unbiased information on social media, but it’s a slippery slope. How will you know? I always go back to that old adage: a worm in horseradish thinks the whole world is horseradish.

If you are not hyper vigilant, getting your news from social media is like getting all the food you consume at a hardware store. You can do it, but there will be something wrong with your ability to think critically, eventually.

So yes, I’m transformed and I’m encouraging you to take a leadership role on this in your circles, too.

In every conversation and in the public speaking I do, I’m talking about all the possibility in the world and I actually encourage people to avoid the impulse to “tune out” the daily news. I now tell them to use Ever Widening Circles as an extension of their knowledge base: for the rest of the story.

And we have launched the amazing initiative called #ConspiracyOfGoodness! Check it out if you would like some good news, insight and a spring in your step daily.

Our work at Ever Widening Circles is shining a light on the amazing things that haven’t found their way to the surface of public knowledge, yet, but should. And we hope to start our visitors on a journey of discovery.

Bottom line: It’s important to know who the outliers are every day; the social misfits who are holding back human potential, and then contrast that knowledge with insights about those that are making the world a better place.

It helps calibrate your own compass to be both a savvy citizen and a part of a mindset of progress.

Remember, the ostrich with their head in the sand is easily taken by the jackal.

We haven’t changed our course at Ever Widening Circles a bit! We just look at our role as additive.

BE WISE. STAY INFORMED AND HOPEFUL. THERE ARE COUNTLESS INGENIOUS PEOPLE PROVING IT IS STILL AN AMAZING WORLD. AND WE ARE POINTING YOU TO THEM EVERY DAY AT EVER WIDENING CIRCLES!

Shining Eyes

ARE PEOPLE LOOKING AT YOU WITH SHINING EYES?

Most of us experience conversations that represent a downward spiral from time to time. 

You know the dialogue: Nobody cares anymore. All the positive efforts are pointless. The world is going to hell in a handbasket anyway.  People are just so lazy or uninformed that they are ruining our future. Etc., etc. 

Of course, the key to these mantras is in that last one: everyone in that “uninformed” category are the people who don’t think like us. They just don’t have our superior facts. 

And down we go on the spiral.

These conversations can happen in social media, or in person, among friends or colleagues, and it can be the start of a disastrous friction at family gatherings (depending on the tribes we choose to label as uninformed). 

And worse yet, we don’t even have to have a co-conspirator in the downward spiral! We can go down the toboggan run all alone, in the privacy of our thoughts. Have you noticed that certain scenarios tip us over into these “all is lost” mindsets? They happen after seeing something horrific online or after watching the news for only a few minutes. 

Check out your own triggers. 

I started paying attention to these runaway trains of thought when I came across Ben Zander’s timeless talk given at the 2008 Poptech conference. I can’t describe Zander better than the PopTech team did in his introduction: “The only conductor to ever lead the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Zander is a prophet of human potential and an unrivaled champion of joie de vivre” (a joy for life).

He emits an infectious brand of joy when he proposes that any of us can live with a sense of radiating possibility and refuse to keep these downward spiral conversations going. 

IT’S A CHOICE. 

Since I first heard Zander describe a new way of looking at the world, I have launched EverWideningCircles.com where my team and I have published over a thousand articles about the insight and innovation going uncelebrated in the mass media. Here’s something I’ve learned from all that goodness: the more I know about this amazing world of ours, the more I understand that the downward spiral dialogue depends on how we define “success” in our lives. 

If being a successful human is measured in possessions and status, then the downward spiral gives us a convenient way to blame the world around us for any place our dreams are falling short. But, Zander suggests a better measure of success. He recommends asking ourselves, “How many shining eyes are around me right now?”

The concept of shining eyes is best explained by Zander himself in Zander’s famous TED Talk. 

He says, "The conductor of an orchestra doesn't make a sound... he depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful... I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people... And you know how you find out if you're doing that? You look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you're doing it... And if they're not doing it you get to ask a question: who am I being that my player's eyes are not shining?"

Remove all the references to being a conductor and we’ve each got a recipe for a deeply meaningful success that takes everyone with us!

No matter our job description - teacher, doctor, librarian, consultant, parent, salesman, editor, (insert your own) -  you can think of your work in terms of awakening a sense of new possibility in other people. And while you work, if their eyes are shining back at you, you know you are doing it. If they're not, you get to ask a question: “who am I being that the person I’m working with does not have shining?"

STILL CONFUSED? 

You’ll have to go to the maestro’s talk to see the most amazing case made for this shining eyes concept. There’s a reason why Zander’s famous TED Talk now has more than 13 million views. 

Here’s a pro-tip: Both the PopTech Talk and the TED Talk have been billed as inspiring explanations of why we should all love classical music, but that description suffers from a great poverty of understanding.  Make no mistake, the talks are about so much more than that. In the PopTech Talk, Zander shows us the difference between living life with the downward spiral as your default, versus us choosing a mindset of “radiation possibility” as our baseline.

He gives a music lesson to a young cellist right before our eyes, that is a perfect metaphor for how we might improve whatever we are playing at each day. 

He teaches us how to create shining eyes for others, no matter our medium.

In that same (very funny) talk, he sends us soaring with a completely novel way of responding to the mistakes we make; with getting the best from others; with the concept of working in a way he calls “one-buttock playing”. The list of ah-ha moments in that video is a long one, if you look for the metaphors outside classical music, in your own life.

I recommend you take less than an hour and watch both, the Poptech Talk first, and then the TED Talk. I’m sorry, there’s no short course on this. I’ve found that understanding the life-changing insights of masters is impossible without an investment of time. 

How many shining eyes have you had looking back at you today?

Ben Zander has a gift for awakening possibility in other people. Accept the gift.

In fact, if the PopTech and TED talks resonate with you, I’ll recommend a book next, and you will never look back. One of the most dog-eared and annotated books living permanently on my bedside table is a book by Zander and his wife, Rosamund Zander, called The Art of Possibility. 

Unbreakable Women

One week after seeing the new short film Stories I Told My Mother by Nusrat Durrani, founder of MTV World, I was moved to make the 18-hour drive to visit my own mom, who is age 80 and still a model of courage. 

Nusrat’s beautiful film debuted at the end of the second day of the remarkable 2018 PopTech Conference where, for two days, we listened to Nobel Prize winners, amazing scientists, conservation heroes, and a dozen other global thought leaders speaking about their valiant efforts in the pursuit of progress.

 And for me, Nusrat’s film was the thread that tethered all that courage to a common source.

Now I understand that the origin of almost everything that is good may be an unbreakable woman. 

Think about it. Where does “original courage” come from across human history, if not for a woman who—even in the bleakest circumstances and against the worst physical odds—would find a way to succeed for the sake of her children until her last breath was drawn?

Maybe it wasn’t a mother. Maybe it was an aunt, a neighbor, or a family friend, who taught you the true meaning of courage and took you unconditionally under their caring wing. We will call them your “mother” for the purposes of this blog post, because they are the mother of your access to your best self.

The film, Stories I Told My Mother, made me think about all the people we’ve featured on Ever Widening Circles: extraordinary innovators and thought leaders who persevere even in the face of dispiriting odds. Here is a link to some of the best Ever Widening Circles articles about women who changed history in ingenious ways. 

After thinking about all the thought leaders we have written about - women and men - I was left asking myself, "Where do these 'warriors for possibility' come from, if not from an amazing woman in their lives (or genes) who modeled all the courage, grace, and resilience they would need on their journeys to change the world?" 

How about you?

When you let go of all the quirks that make you roll your eyes about your mother (and even giggle a bit) and excuse the things said that make you bristle, are you left with a woman who is a survivor and a warrior in some ways: the source of some of your best character assets?

Would she have walked over hot coals for you and others? Did she successfully and humbly beat the odds stacked against women of her era and make it look easy?

I will probably never know anyone as courageous as my own mother. After both her parents died, she survived crossing the entire United States alone, on a bus, at the age of eleven, and the rest of her life mirrored the elements that made that journey successful.

Even in her 80s, my mother, Janet, still makes a point to get that platinum-blond hair done every Friday and her makeup is always just right. (Somehow she’s always been able to rock her signature orange lipstick!) If the fog of her many pain meds for a collapsed spine has dimmed her former beaming smile, her once boundless gratitude for life is indelibly etched in me.

I will remember her as an uncomplaining, female chieftain who could entertain 20 people for dinner, balancing her Maker's Mark and cigarette in one hand while loading the dishwasher with the other. 

And the very next morning might find her packing up the station wagon for a family outing of impossible scale, while making sure my father’s shoes matched, frying chicken the old-fashioned way, making bread and butter sandwiches cut in perfectly geometric triangles, AND uncomplainingly supervising one of my many creative escapades.

I’d be willing to bet that you have an unbreakable woman in your past; one with her own remarkable story of courage, good humor, and resilience.

It’s time that we ditch our trivial, fault-finding habits and see these unbreakable women for who they are: women who have sacrificed their needs unconditionally to make a better life for others. Let’s love them up with all we have in us.

Here’s a quote that reminds me of the kind of moxy that many of us have inherited from an unbreakable woman’s example, somewhere through the generations: 

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Give a good woman you know a hug today and tell her how much you appreciate her indomitable spirit, for it is probably the source of yours! 

The "Joyful Ones" Among Us!

Think about it for a minute... Is there some special person in your life who always cares about everyone else's happiness, more than they do their own? 

Do you know anyone who always hums or sings to themselves while they do the worst jobs?

Here’s my sister-in-law, Katie, spraying some atrocious thing to ward off mosquitoes around our campground: happy as a clam! She had the same look on her face while pressure washing my deck for 9 hours.  These people don’t seek joy, they bring it to every situation.

They are the same people who sit quietly when others are complaining, and then chime in at the end with a comment about the bright spot in the situation.

Not long ago I was reading a great book about happiness and the author, Matthieu Ricard, referred to these people as "the joyful ones among us."

I was rooted where I sat.

That term so perfectly explains my sentiment towards a few people I know who have an indomitable, happy spirit. And yet, most of us barely stop to notice that these important and very rare people in our lives are often the heroes in very tough moments.

Have I got you thinking about the joyful ones in your life?

First, let’s sort out who belongs in this category of “heroes.”

They are not necessarily all the really nice people in our lives.

Nice people can be high or low right along with the rest of us. They are just easier to get along with in the low points. They are nice! They will indicate they agree with us, even when they don't. They can take on too many responsibilities in order to be well-liked. They can be the ones with all the ideas, organizing everyone and everything; they make life easier. But that’s not the same as these joyful ones. 

Here’s the difference: if you ask a true joyful one, “how are you?”, they’ll almost always redirect their answer into how you are!

If you ask them what they want to do, or what they need, they’ll always work things out so you are happy.

They forgive and forget really easily, almost to a fault. 

Their joy comes from the joy of others.

And when a situation is going off the rails, all the while they are smiling and negotiating everyone’s needs. The joyful ones dance around a room as fast as they can to keep the peace.

Think for a minute… are you lucky enough to know a few “joyful ones in your life?”

Are you one of the joyful ones?

One of the reasons this term “the joyful ones” stopped me dead in my tracks was that I realized I was not one of them: I am really nice but I have my mood swings and can be demanding about having the details done exactly right.

I care if others are happy, but I assume far too much about what should make them happy, so I tend to make all the decisions in that direction.

I forgive really easily, but I rarely forget the transgressions of others.

I also realize that the rest of us take the joyful ones for granted at best and, at worst, we push their good nature to the limits sometimes.

If someone has set me off, I’m not going to be humming while cleaning the bathroom,.. I’m going to be going over and over the situation in my head while I work.

If you are really honest about yourself, does any of that sound a little familiar?

Becoming more like a Joyful One

Since realizing who the joyful ones are in my life – in my life I have two, true “joyful ones” –  I’ve been trying to be better around them: I’m quick to celebrate their gift and I tell them frequently that I’m trying to model their unique brand of grace.  I’m trying to consciously avoid taking advantage of their tendency to forgive and forget. I’m trying to care about their happiness before my own more often.

And most important of all, I have told them I think they are a “joyful one” and I have thanked them profusely for including me in their life, such as I am.

In the photo above, you see my sister-in-law, Katie (a  joyful one extraordinaire) working hard to keep everyone fed and happy, and I’m the one with the pirate patch over my eye. Funny, huh? It’s a telling photo because it points to the roles that each of us plays on the family farm that we share.

Many of us can be like pirates, stealing the joy of others when we are not our best selves.

While I am trying to do MUCH better these days, Katie is a joyful one.

I'm a "joyful one wanna-be".

Let's thank those humble, almost always happy people in our lives. They keep the ship afloat for everyone, much of the time!

People Who Are Wonder-Full

One stormy evening in September, more than 300 people gathered in an old Vermont town hall to celebrate the life and legacy of one of the most wonder-full and courageous people one could ever meet.  And I do mean Wonder-Full. With this man, almost every day was a wonder, every person he saw was a wonder, everything he heard was a wonder, every problem a wonder,.. All of it just waiting to be revealed. 

He greeted every person as if they were the most important person he’d seen all day. He moved through his day with a radiant bounce. 

My friend looked at almost everyone with shining eyes, full of possibility, and almost everyone looked back at him that same way.

There was no room for the petty or trivial in his way of living. He threw himself into every moment and took others along for a wonder-full ride. 

WHAT IF THE WORTH OF EACH OF OUR LIVES WAS MEASURED IN THE NUMBER OF SMILES THAT WOULD BREAK OUT AT THE MERE MENTION OF OUR NAME? 

In that tally, Dr. Barrett Peterson’s name would be hard to beat. 

As sad as we all were at his memorial ceremony - he passed at age 58, after battling a rare cancer -  there were countless smiles that evening as we all swapped wonder-full Barrett stories.

Then, that night we went home and tried to make sense of it all. 

Here’s a quote that summed up that evening: 

Nothing that happens has any meaning until we decide how it changes who we are and how we live. 

- Richard Bach // Jonathan Livingston Seagull

With the rest of my comments, I’d like to ponder that quote, because people like this - the Wonder-full Ones - teach us all how to live the rest of our own day's much better, no matter the count.

When these “Wonder-full Ones” pass too early, more people will live with a greater measure of truly joyful exuberance the rest of their days. Because of them, more roses will be smelled, more moments with family savored, more sunsets and northern lights celebrated for the wonders they truly are. 

When the Wonder-full Ones pass, I suspect that more vacations are taken, more petty arguments are avoided, more people help each other with projects, and there are more occasions when "the other cheek is turned". 

The Wonder-full Ones remind us to laugh harder at our own foibles and focus less on the flaws in others. Their memory strikes a new chord of generosity in us and most inspiringly, the Wonder-full ones leave us with the urge to spring out of our own routines to help someone else. 

Masters of those better angels - the Wonder-full Ones - have walked among us all then gone somehow. And when they pass, they seem to squared their shoulders and walk through that door to whatever is next with a legacy that feels like a comet’s tail.

If one person, with whatever time they had, can leave us with all those remarkably good impulses, then it was a great life and they have changed the future immeasurably.

Not a bad go around on this spinning blue ball! When one considers all that in the scope of eternity, the Wonder-full Ones leave legacies that could change everything as they spiral outward. 

Hmmm… I'm pausing to imagine a world where my friend Barrett’s example was the norm. 

Maybe that's the world the Wonder-full Ones will find on the other side of that door they walked through? 

Maybe we all walk this earth for a time - always too short to accomplish all we want - and then the world we step into is the one where our best selves are realized. 

THE WONDER-FULL ONES CHANGE WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE LIVE IF WE LET THEM, AND IN SO DOING, THEY WILL ALWAYS BE WALKING BESIDE US. 

We can catch glimpses of them constantly, in the gestures, voices, and faces of really kind people we run into; the people who always seem to see the bright side and find possibility in the most challenging situations. 

And we can draw a wry smile in funny and challenging situations, when we know exactly what these Wonder-full Ones would say or do. 

Let’s do that more often. Instead of following our impulses over a cliff (as we all tend to do too frequently) let’s make sure the memory of these wonder-full people takes us on journeys every day that we could not have gone on without them. 

BE WONDER-FULL FOR OTHERS.

[This is an adaptation of the eulogy I gave for my husband’s best friend  whose birthday was yesterday. His memorial service was in a 150 year old, classic Vermont Grange (like a church but used as a town meeting hall.)  300+ people packed into the hall that should have held only 200. And that night an east wind was howling outside,.. Vermont never gets an east wind.  Occasionally, while I was speaking, the windows would suddenly rattle like they were almost to burst, the whole building shuddered, or the lights would flicker. The Wonder-Full Ones have their ways of staying right beside us,.. don’t they?]

The Light Web

To my brilliant, millennial daughter and business partner, I was once the woman in the tin foil hat whenever I got a chance to speak about the chaos and missed potential of the internet. I liked to say that we are using the internet like a child running with scissors and we should really move on now, to a more productive way of using this remarkable tool.

But now when I speak about it to thought leaders, they are anxious to add their input to the dialogue, and my daughter is helping me push the idea into a global conversation.

You see, I’ve had this notion that if there is a “dark web”, then there is no reason someone can’t create “the light web”: an innovation that would allow us to use the internet at its most positive potential. (The “dark web” is a place that's generally harder to get to and has some super sketchy, terrifying happenings. If you haven’t heard of it, Gaud Bless you.  Don’t go there. Moving on.)

Here’s the question I am posing: What if there was a portion of the web that was curated for qualities like good intention, trustworthiness and progress for all?

One of the things I’ve learned from publishing over a thousand articles about insight and innovation is that the internet has evolved into a pure “attention economy”. In other words, qualities like merit, mastery, foresight, usefulness and ingenuity are not rewarded in our current system. Instead, the loudest voices win: the most shrill, exaggerated, and polarizing content gets propagated.

Maybe a better question is: What would have to happen for us to be able to create a corner of the web that rewards qualities that have stood the test of time, like kindness, honesty, respect, good humor, and the rigorous intention it takes to offer something you have truly put in the time to master?

I can imagine a part of the web where one could find the most conscientious, trusted information sources and places where we would be proud to spend our money: businesses who are earnestly finding a way to have sustainable profits while also making the world a better place.

The Light Web

In the light web, we would start with a framework that could largely eliminate the ability for advertisers and content creators to appeal to our primitive impulses (fear, anger, ego, etc.). Instead, the foundations for an innovation in the internet landscape might be to very purposefully nurture our most helpful instincts (generosity, creativity, curiosity, perseverance, empathy, etc).

What if, when we shopped online or searched for information, we had a choice: we could stay in the scrum that is our current internet search, or we could drop into some new place on the web where organizations were vetted for their social responsibility, their trustworthiness.

Our Clicks Are Votes

Another important thing I’ve learned from becoming a digital publisher (with no previous experience in that field) is that every single click we make is being counted by someone who is keenly interested in what gets our attention. The internet we have today is based almost solely on that one principle.

Every single click is like a vote that says, “Yes, please. Definitely give me more of this!”

That said, it is time we all pull back on our impulses to click without consideration. Clicking on anything that catches our eye is giving some bad players all the wind in their sails and leaving some amazing innovations to vanish in obscurity.

Bottom line: what we click on, we get more of, both personally and as a global internet collective. I believe this is at the heart of our hyper divisive and necessarily suspicious era.

7 Billion Versions of “Reality”

Additionally, our clicks are informing the unique algorithms serving us all our content. Whether we’re on our favorite search engine, Facebook, or anywhere else on the web, these algorithms are taking us on an utterly personal journey into an utterly personal version of “reality.”

This is why you may think some of your friends and family (the ones who voted the opposite way you did) have lost their marbles. Because every click they made, and every click you made—often out of pure curiosity—has led you both on a divergent train of thought and therefore, left you both with vastly different worldviews.

I often think now that most people have access to some part of the internet, there are probably over 7 Billion versions of “reality.”

Each of us is now staking our relationships and hopes on a unique and narrow worldview of what is possible. Now, that just might lead to some confusion, division, and fear.

And if we zoom out to the 10,000 foot view, this is all astoundingly limiting when we consider the potential of the internet to bring us together and be the ultimate multiplier for the best in human nature.

An Alternative Future

Here’s a possible future for all of us: The Light Web could be the first place to go—no matter your politics, culture or generation—if you want a better world for everyone.

There, you could search for everything from responsibly sourced chocolate to luggage made with a sustainable supply chain.

You could buy your glasses, shoes, and socks from businesses that give a free pair to someone in need for every pair you buy. You could find an amazing place to send your old cell phone, and they will use it to save rain forests all over the planet. You can set your computer to be working in the background all the time on a project to help find planets outside our galaxy. You could find jewelry made by homeless teens or from unexploded landmines.  

And it would be a place where a search for information for a homework assignment could be unsupervised by parents (just say’in... nothing is impossible.)

BTW: All those projects already exist!

But you may not have known that, because even with the best intentions, they are getting lost in the chaos of our current “attention economy” on the internet.

Maybe you have seen this for yourself: there is a movement well underway that will soon be demanding a better internet.

There are countless thought leaders taking up an almost radical commitment to “Social Responsibility” in business and there are many others who are simply nose-to-the-grindstone, solving the most vexing problems in the world. All the biggest players in the business world are developing their CSR programs (Corporate Social Responsibility.) This would all be very refreshing, if we only knew about it and were easily directed to it!

Granted, we can be cynical and say some of those efforts are for show only. But I’ve spoken to many thought leaders with responsible mindsets and there is no lack of courage or authentic commitment from most of them. They are making it happen.

The Light Web would be a start at making their efforts findable and supportable! Just imagine how that might change the next generation’s vision of what is possible.

What if there was a portion of the internet—the light web—that we could count on to lead us forward?

We need some leaders in the digital world to step up.

It’s time for a new day that puts what we are going through now in the rear-view mirror, and I am ill-equipped to start the journey alone. I’ll tell you what: I’ll be the representative for the “ordinary person”, since I still feel more like that person every day, and I’ll keep their interest at the forefront.

But we’ll need industry leaders with great vision, character and intention to help people like my daughter, a Harvard grad who has that millennial zeal and savvy to improve the course we are on. We will need an unusual mix of talents and experience to champion this change.

I’m officially opening this concept for creative and well-meaning input and development.  Contact me if you have some thoughts on how we bring the internet to the next, socially responsible level.

I realize we won’t get it just right, but we can definitely make it better. Help me point to possibility and progress on an “Internet 2.0”, an innovation that could change everything.

My goal is to change the negative dialogue about our times. Maybe we can create a concrete place where people can see their best impulses validated. I believe in the past as a teacher, the present as a harbinger and the future as a landscape of possibility.

A “Gratitude Economy” is Coming

The most commonly asked question I get about Ever Widening Circles is some version of, “How does it pay for itself if you have no ads?”

The tone is often a bit incredulous, both because most people see the site as such a breath of fresh air, and most know that funding is the first problem facing every web-based concept.

For the first 5 years, the short answer was that I was underwriting Ever Widening Circles (EWC) personally while we worked to make it worthy of a something I’m calling the beginning of a “Gratitude Economy.”  

This is a wave of responsibility and goodwill that is starting to replace the “attention economy” that currently dominates how the internet works. (EWC is now supported by Amazing World Media, our wonderful effort to vastly improve what’s on the screens in hospitals and healthcare waiting rooms around the world.)

You see, back when all my idea bubbles for EWC were coalescing, I noticed that more and more corporations were wanting to be seen as socially responsible and I suspected the internet would eventually become an exciting, crowded space filled with pioneers who would find the current “attention economy” of the web a mismatch with their values. To most in this new breed of business owners, being responsible means making the world a better place while still being profitable, and there is almost no correlation between that goal and the current chaos on the web which is singularly based on who can get our attention.  

One of the many things I’ve learned from writing or editing over a thousand articles on insights and innovations for Ever Widening Circles, is that every single click we make is being counted by someone who is keenly interested in what gets our attention. I’m not referring to some sort of diabolical conspiracy. It’s just how the web evolved. In fact, we are all a part of the fundamental engine of the web which is “counting clicks.”

Think about what we all do after we make a social media post: we start counting how many clicks, likes and shares we are getting!

That’s at the core of almost all web content. No one, even you and I, goes to the trouble of putting things on the web that won’t get clicked on.

If it were just a matter of getting more people to learn about our new baby, a fabulous charity event, or the great Zumba instructor we just met, we would not be in our current state of overwhelm. But sadly, many have found a way to entice us to click on things that appeal to our impulses—no matter how disturbing—and then advertisers get more eyeballs on what they are offering to humanity, good or bad. Makes no difference.

How did we get here?

Some of you know that I have come to the digital publishing world as a complete outsider, having spent my professional life as a dentist and world traveler. I vividly remember the day I realized that the web is essentially an “attention economy” and every single click is a vote that says, “Yes, please. Definitely give me more of this!”, regardless of the fact that we might be clicking on things out of nothing more than boredom or curiosity.

Success in our current attention economy has almost nothing to do with merit.

Think of it this way: Let’s say you’ve found a proven way to save the rain forest using old cell phones, or maybe you have found an amazing way to end malaria for millions of people. Well, once you put that big idea on the internet, then you are in head-to-head competition for our attention with this guy who has a super-duper male enhancement potion, made from the horns of the last rhinos on our planet.

Now, this is the way that battle for attention goes: he uses a clickbait photo or headline that is wildly more compelling than yours, and he wins in an “attention economy.” Your projects remain in obscurity and will eventually disappear. His project gets funded by people who see how much attention he got. And then advertisers and search engines continue to amplify his “success.” That’s it.

Currently, if you are trying to sell a product, service or idea that could change the world for everyone, there is only one playing field. Put simply: great ideas live or die on the vine based not on their merit these days, but on how good they are at getting our attention in the scrum that we call the web.

And as we all know from our current climate of acrimony and distrust, there is not much chance for a bright future if that’s our only recipe for paying for the internet.

It’s this simple: What we click on, we get more of. That’s why we all think that people who don’t vote like us are crazy. Each of our algorithms, serving us content, are utterly unique and there are now 7.3 billion versions of “reality.” That would naturally lead to a lot of arguing and negative impulses flying.

The coming “Gratitude Economy”

I’m proposing that both a short-term and a long-term pivot is badly needed and very possible.

A “quick fix” for the overwhelming negativity of the web would begin the wave of change and it’s almost as simple as the problem!

What if we spread the word that a click is like a vote? What if people understood that clicking out of boredom, curiosity and anger actually brings us all more unhelpful content? I suspect that notion would inspire many people to start getting more selective with their clicks.

And then, what if we started purposefully sharing content that points to a brighter shared future?

Change what we give our attention to, and the internet and the negative news cycle would change. We have been teaching content creators what we want more of and that can work in our favor, too!

Eventually, I can imagine the long-term fix would evolve from all that more conscientious clicking. A new model would emerge that creates a win/win/win situation for everyone: consumers, advertisers, and the beneficiaries of their socially responsible projects. In a Gratitude Economy, many consumers would be grateful for the opportunity to participate in making the world a better place for everyone and they would be, or already are, inspired, even happy, to pay a little more for products or service that involve progress for all.

As this Gratitude Economy grows, there will be a tipping point where the bad actors will start to fall away by attrition because they will look glaringly out of step with a new social contract on the web. Remember, the power of our clicks can spawn an awful lot of good, too! I’ve started referring to this as the coming of a Gratitude Economy.  

I think it’s already well underway and we just haven’t named it yet!

Many millennials I know show their gratitude for people solving problems by voting with their wallets! They have been supporting the pioneers in this space for quite some time if you count the way they are willing to spend more than necessary for a pair of shoes when they know their money will also go on to donating a pair to a needy person. Models like that are popping up in every genre and they are making headway!

I suspect we are at the beginning of a climb out of the toddler running with scissors phase of the internet, and we’re already finding the best way to use the web is for the common good.

In fact, I give uplifting talks to business leaders and other organizations on how we can all thrive from the trends we are seeing.

Bottom line: The Gratitude Economy that I’m pointing to is rewarding people who are creating projects, businesses, information and trustworthy content that moves us all into a better shared future.

Good intention is good for business and creative thought leaders.

Here’s an amazing infographic that points to the growing willingness of consumers to pay more for brands that are making the world a better place:

Source: Mashable via Statista

Keep in mind, that growth is just over a 3 year period and the data is now over 5 years old! Goodness knows what those stats would look like now.

Yes, people are embracing a new social contract that is finding its way on the internet all around the world, and it goes something like this:

“An organisation should be accountable for its own impacts on society, the economy and the environment.” (Harris 2016)

For my part, back in 2014, I thought the web could use some curation to get the ball rolling, so I resolved to create a place that people of all walks could trust for insight and innovation, with no political or commercial agenda. In other words, the nicest place on the internet.

Let’s face it, the current model of interruption-based advertising is not nice. It is often aggravating at best, deceptive and even dangerous at its worst.

It’s time to turn our backs on the negative players who thrive in that model and look for a way to give goodwill an advantage.

Our Ever Widening Circles journey has taught us there is no end to the people and projects aimed specifically at improving the future, and when you learn about these efforts you can’t help but feel grateful that someone has the know-how and courage to see a problem and solve it.

There is a Conspiracy of Goodness well underway.

Think that change is impossible? Here is a real number!

It would be easy to look at the challenge of changing the dialogue on the web as hopeless and far too big for any of us to tackle, but we’ve discovered an inspiring statistic. Turns out, we don’t need everyone to be on board. In fact, we don’t even need a majority to help bring about change! The World Economic Forum recently published an eye-opening study in the journal Science wherein they calculated that there is a “tipping point” for major social change—a specific number of people needed to push a belief from the fringes into the mainstream—and it appears to be 25%. 

That’s a doable number! There are at least that many people around the planet who want to see a brighter future for everyone. 

Imagine a future when a Gratitude Economy is the engine of the web: a system where thoughtful consumers and seekers of information could quickly and easily connect with businesses, organizations, and individuals who subscribe to a code of conduct that is uplifting and sustainable. Connections, relationships and transactions would be made with a glad heart on both sides.

It’s on the horizon, folks. We can already see signs of it all around us: a place where many are committed to a higher standard of being responsible for their neighbors, their fellow humans and every aspect of the planet we are all sharing.

There is even a way to couch the problem of the negative news cycle in all this possiblility. Here’s the link to what we’ve learned about that: Why We Should Not Turn Off the Negative News, and What to Do Instead

This is a “gratitude economy” because we are all thankful for the others we find there - businesses and individuals - a network of people who want a better world for everyone.

What the Love of a Good Dog can Teach us

It was about midnight when we walked in the door from our office holiday party. I kicked off my high-heels and collapsed on the couch where our cheerful, husky-mix dog named Luna was laying on the many multicolored pillows: the ones that I finally gave up trying to spare from a coating of dog hair.

I patted her head and furrowed my brow. “Hey,... What’s wrong with Luna? She didn’t even raise her head when we came in the door just now?” Her belly was tight and distended. We tried offering her a piece of roast beef to get her off the couch and got only a sniff and a sorrowful look in response.

Our dogs Franny and Luna with my nephew.

THIS was bad. My arms got goosebumps and I held her face in my hands, stroking her soft cheeks with my thumbs. I kissed her head. She licked my face, and I knew it would be our last kisses. Chuck grabbed his coat and headed out the door with her in his arms, heading to the emergency veterinary clinic. Luna did not come home.

What is it about the lovely connections we make with some dogs?

In our family, we’ve had “dog dogs” - regular, pleasant, loyal companions -  and then we’ve had these very rare creatures in our lives that seem to be posing as dogs. They are – somehow – otherworldly.

It’s not like we don’t love the “dog dogs” in our lives, but they have cars to chase, rabbits to kill, and garbage to strewn before they respond to our frantic calls.  The otherworldly dogs… Now THEY know how to be a friend.

In their eyes, we can see ourselves as the center of somebody’s universe.  

No matter our flaws, they greet us like we are Rock-Stars.

No matter our cold-shoulders, they lavish us with kisses and hang on our every word.  

They are perhaps the best role models on the planet for qualities like unconditional love, gratitude, and how to prioritize family and friends.

Our last dog like that was named Franny. She was a big shepherd mix from the pound who graced our lives for 13 years. On a lovely afternoon one spring, I was sitting on the bleachers watching my young son’s basketball game when my phone chirped, and it was our youngest daughter Louisa, age 14, who had stayed home to read under a tree. My phone rang…

LOUISA: “Mom!... Mom!... Franny is not breathing!”

ME: “Where is she Louisa?”

LOUISA: “She’s laying here with her head in my lap! And she’s not breathing!”

ME: “Honey, take a deep breath and get peaceful.  Stroke her head and wish her well. Breath slowly and quietly yourself, hun. This will be ok. Franny’s had an amazing, long life. As bad as this moment feels to you now, remember that no feeling lasts forever and I think someday we will feel that she honored you by choosing to go on from this world with her head in your lap. You are a special person. Beings like you recognize each other.”

Franny – our big ol’ buddy - had a malignant tumor removed the previous week.  She seemed fine but it was inevitable that she would suffer for months, so this kind of passing was a lovely blessing.

Our dog Franny

The next day we buried Franny in a place in the yard that we pass every day. The most astonishing cherry tomato plant grew there accidentally that summer, the size of a small car. Every time I walk by that spot I can feel Fran’s thick tail wagging, banging on the floor.  That was always her response to the slightest acknowledgment.

Franny was the kind of dog whose soulful ginger eyes met yours and you knew you were in the presence of a mystery. Have you had that experience? Do these experiences mean that dogs (and other animals for that matter) have souls? Dogs may be the animals that make us contemplate that question the most.

Franny was a constant reminder of what the world would look like if we could emulate our dogs’ graceful decency.

Luna died about two years later, and we were a dogless household for the first time in 32 years.

When Chuck came home without Luna from the emergency vet clinic, we sobbed together for an hour and then there was an empty stillness in the house. It was more than just one less breathing being. I was struck by how loud the silence of a void could be.

What if the criteria for having a soul is that in your passing you leave a “palpable absence”? Then I guess we have an answer to our question: Do animals have souls?

I think it was that great philosopher - Rosanne Cash – (smiley emoji - she’s a famous country western singer) who said:

“What survives us is love.”

And there is nothing quite like the love of a good dog.

Living Well versus Loving Well

I was recently heading home to the family farm in Illinois for Thanksgiving, hurtling through the night sky with the 30,000-foot view. It was a gorgeous, clear evening above the heartland of the U.S. As I looked down on a grid of sparkling lights below, I imagined each as a completely unique iteration of a human life in the 21st Century: Some lucky, some tragic, some delightful, some thorny, some ordinary, some peculiar.

Every life is whizzing through time like a photon of light on its own fickle trajectory: some colliding with others in horrendous ways, others enhancing the lives of others with every breath they take, many just going through the motions, for now, hoping for a time when they can do more for others. It seems so random, and yet sometimes I get comfortable and egocentric enough to think that I can personally add something that will make the world a better place for many.

Just when I think I’ve got my arms around the uncertainty, feeling like I’m on the verge of finding my calling, I am often up-ended by some event that reminds me of the obvious fragile nature of our existence, and I hunker back down to just go about my business quietly. (But I’m in that group that hopes to do more for the world someday.)

Recent events in Newtown Connecticut, when Adam Lanza shot 20 six and seven-year-olds at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, have reminded us all of how much our focus on “living well” is like trusting a house of cards to shelter us from the elements.

I had this thought last night: OK... We all go day to day worrying about living well - being comfortable, pursuing physical perfections, chasing career goals, frightened of scarcity, on guard for any threat to our egos, opportunities, or turf – but I’m asking myself what it would look like if more people worried instead about loving well: being kind when the impulse is to be harsh, rejecting closed minds even when they are on your side, listening to understand (not to respond), and trading our angry fears for fierce compassion.

What if the appraisal of a “good life”, well spent, was measured in how many smiles would break out when our name was mentioned, 5 years after we were gone?

I suspect that L. Frank Baum said it best in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: “A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.

What if more of us had the presence of mind to step outside our personal goals of living well, and loving well became the game of life?

Could someone have loved Adam Lanza better?

I don’t know? Should we all be spending hours every day working out, getting our nails done, in long commutes, and heads buried in our cell phones, zooming past people whose words and deeds point to the need for help?

How do all these living well distractions add up when our time here with the people we love is so utterly unforeseeable?

With all the random chaos that we see around us, maybe it is not the amount of time we have here that matters. I’m beginning to think we are doomed to have our expectations dashed if we focus on Living well – its status being 100% unpredictable and 100% fleeting. I’m asking myself instead, what it would look like if we focused on Loving well – its status being 100% reliable and 100% renewable.

My children, Louisa, Jens, and Liesl on our annual a backcountry family canoe-camping trip.

Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but instead of walking around quick to anger and feeling victimized, we might just make a conscious choice to move along through our days all buoyed and infectiously contented. We might be great teachers, dentists, pilots, students, business people, parents, and secretaries now, but the possibilities of going around with Loving well as the goal (instead of Living well) might bring along a personal peace-of-mind that would change the world. One courageous, little, composed, kind person at a time.

Just some thoughts to reflect on coming into the holidays, with often contentious family dynamics, and the New Year, with the possibility of resolutions right around the corner!

I sometimes feel like I’m stuck in that episode where Winnie the Pooh and Piglet go hunting and nearly catch a Woozle, but eventually realize that they have been following their own tracks in the snow around and around the tree, and there never were any Woozles (or Wizzles for that matter) at all.

There was only their increasing tracks, the erroneous scary stories they repeatedly told themselves, and the anxiety they invented in the process.   

Love your children, love your family, love your neighbor and most importantly, love the person who doesn’t deserve it.