venerable Lynne Twist has traversed the world speaking about finances, leadership, and social justice.  She has inspired thousands to rethink their relationship with money and will be one of the many brilliant speakers featured at the Success 3.0 Summit this October 31st. You have talked to over 100,000 people all over the world about creating a healthy relationship around money. What common obstacles do we all share? People are caught in what I call the lie of scarcity. By that, I mean an unconscious unexamined set of assumptions that come even before beliefs, that there’s not enough to go around and that all resources are scarce. This perception of the wo... posted on May 12 2018 (6,836 reads)

by Laura M. Brown, Desert Elephant Conservation Beneath the arid surface of northern Namibia run hidden veins of water that rise through a network of dry river beds during brief periods of rain. This austere landscape, the most ancient of all the world’s deserts, is home to a small number of elephant families, who have learned to survive on its sparse resources. They bring the underground water sources seeping to the surface by digging in the sand river beds with their tusks and trunk, and feed on the trees and bushes that grow along the banks. Despite human persecution and the increasing fragmentation of their habitat, these elephants endure through their steadfast love ... posted on Mar 25 2018 (16,697 reads)

Wheatley is a writer and management consultant who draws upon systems analysis, chaos theory, and other diverse fields of study to inform her work. She is the author of Leadership and the New Science and Who Do We Choose to Be?, among others. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon talks with Margaret about the cycles of life and history, especially as they apply to the chaotic contemporary world. Margaret emphasizes that we need to see our present moment with clear eyes, even if doing so might court despair. Tami and Margaret speak on the need to create "islands of sanity" within our communities and what it means to become a warrior for the... posted on Mar 29 2018 (27,459 reads)

the Journal for Strategic Performance Measurement, April/May 1998 Margaret J. Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers After so many years of defending ourselves against life and searching for better controls, we sit exhausted in the unyielding structures of organization we've created, wondering what happened. What happened to effectiveness, to creativity, to meaning? What happened to us? Trying to get these structures to change becomes the challenge of our lives. We draw their futures and design them into clearly better forms. We push them, we prod them. We try fear, we try enticement,. We collect tools, we study techniques. We use ... posted on Apr 11 2018 (13,974 reads)

Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas are pioneers in the field of animal writing, New York Times bestselling authors, and best friends. The following excerpt is from their book Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017)—an engaging collection of essays that offer extraordinary insights into the minds, lives, and mysteries of animals. It is reprinted with permission from the publisher. They flash in front of flowers and feeders for seconds, wings a blur, and then whiz away. Next they’re back — but before you can gasp at the beauty, they’re off again. A glittering fragment of a rainbow; a flamingo comet... posted on Feb 19 2018 (13,722 reads)

a small town in the Italian Alps said “Yes!” to a pesticide-free future. The following excerpt is adapted from A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved Its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. For hundreds of years, the people of Mals — a tiny village in the South Tyrol province of northern Italy — had cherished their traditional foodways and kept their local agriculture organic. Yet the town is located high up in the Alps, and the conventional apple producers, heavily dependent on pesticides, were steadily overtaking the valley below. Aid... posted on Mar 2 2018 (13,691 reads)

at NeXT Computer — we went back to try to get all the emails and memos. He couldn’t get them out of his machine. The operating system couldn’t retrieve them anymore. But paper is a really good technology for the storage of information. I asked Simon & Schuster, the publisher who did Leonardo da Vinci, to “do it all on art paper and not one of these things where you put the things in the center.” I want it throughout to be that heavy quality, coated, color images because I wanted to show that paper is actually sometimes good for transmitting information. Grant: You’ve picked a lot of original thinkers throughout history. Why da Vinci? Isaacs... posted on Apr 6 2018 (12,638 reads)

world without poverty, unemployment or environmental devastation seems like a utopian dream. But it doesn’t have to be. In his new book, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus shares his vision for a kinder, gentler planet. It starts with recognizing what he describes as the inherent cruelty of capitalism, the need to value the abilities of every human being and understanding that saving the environment must be a collective effort. Yunus, who won the Nobel for his work in microfinance, encourages us to see the world not through the lens of profit, but of social impact. He spoke about his book, A World of Three Zeroes: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment... posted on May 5 2018 (9,873 reads)

makes a good writer? Is writing an expression of self, or, as TS Eliot argued, 'an escape from personality'? Do novelists have a duty? Do readers? Why are there so few truly great novels? Zadie Smith on literature's legacy of honourable failure January 13, 2007: 1. The tale of Clive I want you to think of a young man called Clive. Clive is on a familiar literary mission: he wants to write the perfect novel. Clive has a lot going for him: he's intelligent and well read; he's made a study of contemporary fiction and can see clearly where his peers have gone wrong; he has read a good deal of rigorous literary theory - those elegant bluepri... posted on Mar 14 2018 (11,958 reads)

Ag Assarid (MAA): I don’t know my age. I was born in the Sahara desert, with no papers. I was born in a nomadic camp of Touaregs, between Timbuktu and Gao, in the north of Mali. [...] J: What do they do for a living? MAA: We shepherd camels, goats, sheep, cows and donkeys in a kingdom of infinite and of silence… J: Is the desert really so silent? (MAA): If you are on your own in that silence you hear your heart beat. There is no better place to meet yourself. J: What memories do you have of your childhood in the desert? MAA: I wake up with the Sun. The goats of my father are there. They give us milk and meat, and we take them were there is water and ... posted on Mar 22 2018 (11,521 reads)

wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of... posted on Mar 19 2018 (10,948 reads)

Pilgrim’s Last Interview: WKVI in Knox, IN July 6, 1981 Conducted by Ted Hayes, manager of radio station WKVI in Knox, Indiana, the day before she was killed in an automobile accident. This interview can be found at the end of the Campbell House audio tape and in Appendix V of the Peace Pilgrim Book. Ted Hayes: Peace, let's talk a little bit about this wandering that you have done for peace. How did it all come about? Peace Pilgrim: Well, it started January 1, l953 from Los Angeles, California. That year I set out to walk across the country, which I did: zig-zag across 5,000 continuous miles. And then I just continued. I'm on my seventh pilgrimage route now whi... posted on Oct 15 2023 (18,166 reads)

I was 14 years old, I boarded a plane for a weeklong backpacking trip in the Rocky Mountains. I had already been to the Rockies a few times with my parents, but this time I was headed out to a “primitive skills week,” run by the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. For a week, we were to live as close to the land as possible. We crafted our own bowls and knives, made fires with bow drills, caught fish with our own hands, and stalked elk for hours. I remember coming over a mountain pass and looking down at what looked like hundreds of ants moving around in a beautiful open meadow. As we started coming down the hill I realized they were elk—hundreds of elk sca... posted on Feb 16 2018 (268,255 reads)

I heard about Anne Firth Murray through a close friend, I was immediately intrigued. She’s a professor at Stanford University who teaches courses on international women’s health as well as a course entitled “Love as a Force for Social Justice,” the Founding President of the philanthropic organization, the Global Fund for Women, and a warm individual known for her tea gatherings and unusually exotic pets at her home in Palo Alto. I’ve been interested in women’s empowerment issues for quite some time, but to learn about someone who brings love into the field really piqued my interest.       Through this interview, I wanted to l... posted on Apr 4 2018 (13,165 reads)

flashes across the nursing home lobby when I enter. By degrees the brightness dims as the door swings shut. My eyes adjust to a line of wheelchairs, their occupants so still they might be in deep meditation. One woman rouses, her brown eyes searching me out. “Feet don’t work a’tall,” she says politely. “Not a lick of good.” I walk down the hall past living koans. A man is held in a chair with padded restraints resembling a life jacket. His arms extend forward as if he is about to swim, but he doesn’t move. He repeats over and over, “I, I, I, I.” An aide explains in a loud, cheerful tones to a w... posted on Feb 20 2018 (16,420 reads)

Caregivers, This piece isn’t dainty. Because healthcare is never dainty. Earlier this year, my mother was hospitalized for the sudden rupture of an aneurysm in her brain. You can read about an aspect of that experience here. Last week, she came home. Just two days after she was home, I found her out of the bed and sitting on the ground. She had wet herself. And the feeding tube that was supposed to stay in her stomach while she relearned how to swallow safely? It was next to her pillow. My father had stepped away to the bathroom for two minutes before this happened. Fortunately, she was okay - and as a gastroenterologist, I knew what to do about the feeding t... posted on Mar 20 2018 (18,760 reads)

you ever wondered what makes it easier for some to bounce back after a tragedy than others? Or why hundreds facing the same life-changing event wind up on drastically different paths? Imagine a young woman whose childhood was rife with trauma: perhaps she grew up in impoverished conditions, where she experienced chronic abuse, and lacked a proper support system. Now imagine this same young woman went on to earn an advanced degree and developed a nonprofit organization to help youth living in poverty. Though not often so cut and dried, stories like this are not uncommon. But unfortunately, neither are their counterparts. Imagine this woman had a sister, who began using drugs at an... posted on Mar 1 2018 (39,463 reads)

E. F. SCHUMACHER LECTURES OCTOBER 2004, STOCKBRIDGE, MA EDITED BY HILDEGARDE HANNUM Judy Wicks is one of my heroes. She is a single woman who built and runs a financially successful business, which at the same time is socially responsible and ecologically accountable. The White Dog Cafe not only serves regionally grown organic food but actively supports the network of farmers who grow that food. Staff share in profits and decision-making. The White Dog Cafe hosts community discussions around global issues of peace, renewable energy, rights of workers in countries around the world, hab... posted on Apr 17 2018 (7,735 reads)

progress, society doesn't need 'leaders' anymore.  This doesn't mean that we won't have great men amidst us.  I think great men will come and they will be vital for progress of humanity, but they will be so great that they will refuse to take up this position of leadership.   People will not follow the great men, but will listen to their thoughts, philosophies and views and through their sharing, society will find its way forward. Take a look at the Bhoodan (Land Gift) Movement, for example. Because it was entirely executed while walking, there was never any centralized leadership. If you think about it, the Buddha too, walked on foot for thousands of... posted on May 2 2018 (5,671 reads)

me present a logic that has immersed me ever since I became aware of the state of the planet as a teenager: The world has some big problems right now. The crisis is urgent. There is no time to indulge in small, insignificant solutions that will be swept away by the tsunami of climate change, economic meltdown, nuclear holocaust, resource-scarcity fueled wars, and so forth. We need big solutions to big problems. Therefore, whatever you do on a local level, you’d better make sure it is scalable. You’d better make sure it can go viral, because otherwise its impact will be trivial. Contained within this logic is an implicit hierarchy that values the contributions of some peop... posted on Apr 7 2018 (23,598 reads)