DareBooster

Green to Go !

Green is the signal to proceed, permission to go ahead with a project. Take off, Launch, Create, Inspire, Change, Develop. (Source : Oxford Dictionary)

Or as in Funky Business Forever: How to Enjoy Capitalism (Financial Times):"...technology is changing and will continue to change faster than any government can issue regulations to control it."

Every day I hear Business Owners say : "What will be the next step? How can I stay on track? What will happen if we can't control it?"

This is fear, there are no rules anymore, you have to find out how to get along.  With your clients, customers, employees.  But also with your students, family and children. That's it.

Ridderstrale & Nordström mention 3 drivers  moving us forward into the unknown, naming changes in technology, institutions and values.
This means that we all have to find out for ourselves how we will manage our lives and businesses.

A good question asked by Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61) : "What about turning choosing from being chosen to do something?"  You have to serve your soul. What is your mission?  If you think about your children's future, are you helping to build a better place for them?" Making this place healthier can be an inspiring guidance.

Look for the green light, with your eyes open to the future... three, two, one GO!!!

"Being mindful can save your life !"

"Stay calm, it will save your life !" is what my grandmother used to say on the many occasion where I was going for it at 180 km/h !
And then she told me the story of her first walk in the Alps in Austria .

Me and my grandma, we both are very much like a muscle car, we hit the pedal to the metal from the start and then ... pain and disappointment when we find ourselves stuck in the first traffic jam.
And so it happened somewhere in the early sixties one morning she took of for a hike in the Alps.  After a couple of hours she came by an old man which she passed over in her youthful enthusiasm.  Another two hours later she had not jet reached the summit but, completely out of breath, she had to stop to rest for a while.
There she was, huffing and puffing for oxygen in the thin mountain air.
Just at the point where desperation made her consider to go down again, the old man arrived.  He gave her a friendly smile and said in a calm voice : "You see, this is the way you have to do this." and continued his path in a slow but steady pace ...

She followed his wise advice and reached the refuge on the summit.  And if I want to see my grandma shine, I just have to ask her to tell me this wonderful story once again ...

Are Negative Thoughts Stronger then Positive Thoughts ?

Very often ways for spiritual development are presented to you as if they are as easy as pie : Think positive and your life will change for the better.  The images you create in your mind will materialize themselves for you.  Think good of others and goodness will flow back to you.
This is all undeniably true but ... what is very often left out is the fact that making changes in your life demands loads of energy, insight and persistence.
How often do you feel you theoretically know how to deal with negativity but in practice things automatically go the other way ?

In spite of all good intentions we catch ourselves often on not having such positive thoughts at all.   We want to help other people by having positive images about them but prejudice and critics tend to come so much easier.  We feel hurt or annoyed by people.  This happens so effortlessly that it seems as if we are not in control.  But is this really true ?

Very often ways for spiritual development are presented to you as if they are as easy as pie : Think positive and your life will change for the better.  The images you create in your mind will materialize themselves for you.  Think good of others and goodness will flow back to you.
This is all undeniably true but ... what is very often left out is the fact that making changes in your life demands loads of energy, insight and persistence.
How often do you feel you theoretically know how to deal with negativity but in practice things automatically go the other way ?

Faking Green can become painful

An example how not knowing where to go with green marketing can cause some troubles.

A few days ago I received a mail from an employee who has to drive a Toyota Prius from now on. The way I wrote it you can imagine what she felt. Yep, unhappy!!! She wrote something like: "this is really a downgrade, you know, from a sport Mini to a Prius? Damn, this is not what I like. If you only know... I'm the kind of sportive type... the Mini was my car, the Mini was me."

What went wrong here?

I asked her to consider a positive contribution to the world, seeing it from a different perspective. She was very willing to do this if not her boss was driving a huge pimped Land Rover. And to make it even worse, he ordered an other Prius and added very friendly that the 2 Hybrids will be parked left and right from the Land Rover, to cover the monster up.  Now we're talking about leading by example!!! Is this the way of the mindful leader?

Come on, there are plenty of opportunities and if we want to live on a healthier planet, somebody has to make the first move. I truly believe only the entrepreneur has the power and energy to create the change. The free of spirit, the adventurous, people who prefer action, investment and return instead of talking until we'll all drawn.

If you're thinking of cars, what about the BMW Concept X6 ActiveHybrid,   this years they were winner of the new award “Grünes Lenkrad”

New Year's Resolutions have a bad reputation !

Keeping promises is a hard thing to do. And New year's resolutions have a bad reputation. The month January everybody is buying books about weight loss, but in 3 weeks everything will be back to 'normal', or as bad as it was before.
We are used to see an obstacle in our life as a reason not to change. By now you're probably wondering what has this post to do with going green, Web2 or green-marketing? Nothing... and everything or as T.Harv Eker says : "How you do anything is how you do everything."

Well...New Year's Resolutions have a bad reputation for lacking in true resolve. But they do show what's on people's minds.  And occasionally they can be the life-changing new leaf their owners had long-intended to turn over.
That's why the results of a GfK Roper phone-poll (commissioned by advocacy group Tiller LLC) on New Year's resolutions are so astonishing: a full 49% of respondents said they intend to make a green resolution for 2008.
Given a list of environmentally responsible lifestyle changes, reducing household energy usage was cited as the most likely to be undertaken in 2008, cited by 75% of respondents.   It was followed by recycling more (74%) and reducing the use of harmful household chemicals (66%).
Carrying fabric bags to the supermarket (42%) and reducing one's "carbon footprint" (43%) were the least frequently cited. If 2007 is anything to go by, 2008 is going to be an iconic year in bright green progress.

For massive change, the rate of adaptation seen in 2007 will need to increase, but the Tiller poll's indications of people's willingness to embrace green progress this year is welcome news indeed.

Mindfulness in the Western World

“Research in the UK has proven that our wealth has increased about four times in 50 years, but we don’t feel any happier. In the Western world we’ve worked to solve problems in healthcare and science. We neglected what is happening in our minds. We have been successful on the physical level of life but what about the spiritual part? Now researchers found out that happiness makes us healthy and negative thoughts make us sick.” Dalai Lama (picture from Wikipedia)

Can blogging and web2 technology make people more happy??

What happens in our mind? Do we stuff it with fear and negative thoughts or -and that's the way I love it- focus on funny and happy things. I call it mental self-defense.
Like in martial arts it is important to learn how to protect yourself... Blocking the attacker. But the most important is blocking the negative thoughts, because they are as powerful as a trained little girl ;-).

Be empty and in a state of openness, ready to move gently into the next step. Or as my sensei always repeats it is not about blocking your opponent, it is about blocking the thoughts in your mind.