In the Old Testament God creates Eve as a helpmate for Adam. God also creates a custodial relationship with Adam whereby he is charged with the awesome responsibility of overseeing all of creation in tandem with God.
I am generally reluctant to quote any religious doctrine in my blogs and make any reference to God for two reasons.
The first is because of how emotionally charged the whole topic of God and religion is and the second is because of good old gender bias - God as a male or female character.
I open with the "God in partnership" quote because it resonates for me that the creation story begins with the idea of partnership and duality. From nothing, something was created and therein lies the very spark of creation and the world coming into being.
It is no secret that at the core of the evolution philosophy is this idea of community and specifically the 'sustaining of community'
Community is born from partnership and so underpins everything we do.
So how do we create it ? Quite simple really. We illustrate to all stakeholders that the power of 2 is far greater than the power of 1 provided that the two are in alignment and agreement. If they are not, conflict will ensue and this will be followed by chaos.
I surround myself with this idea of partnership. It exists with personal and business coaches, with my friends, with my children and their mother/s, with the community projects that I am involved with, with my evolution business partners and with our clients.
As such, nothing that I do occurs in isolation and this leads to a richer, deeper, more accountable way of living life.
Let me elaborate from both a personal and professional perspective.
My best mate (as he is fondly known) Brett and I set up a collaborative life purpose structure. It is called the 100's list and is composed of the following:
I have a goal to have 100 KLIK's (evolution groups) by 2019. He and I aim to create 100 mens groups ( a social project we are involved in) by 2021. I am going to hold 100 courses for married couples by 2023. We have a list 100 projects that we want to do before we die from creating a veggie patch where I live now to owning an Audi R8.
We have listed 100 adventures from renting a Villa in Tuscany, working on Kibbutz with the kids to diving with with whale sharks. We love and collect watches and presently buy one new watch a year which we share. Our goal is to have 100 before we die. So some of those 100's overlap, some we will do together and some we will do seperately. What we do together is inspire each other in their creation and their fulfillment .
Evolution is run with a similar ethos of partnership. Each evolutionary (KLIK/Group owner) is a business partner in their group. The highs and low's of each group success is experienced directly as we partner in creating a business with them that is rewarding both personally and professionally.
This refreshing way of doing business makes each evolutionary totally accountable for getting the most out of themselves and for inspiring each person in their care to do the same.
Within an evolutionite context (clients who attend our groups) we create the same ethos. Wherever possible we buddy people up - from carpooling to performing exercises together. We encourage people to get to know each other so that they can consciously and unconsciously support each other inn their individual commitments to creating an exercise habit at sunrise.
And the same can be said of my family (of which evolution is a part). I have learned with my sons moms to work in partnership. To collaborate and share and support so that we all live in harmony with one another and focus our energy on creating lives that we love rather then on trying to fix personal discord.
This same sense of partnership was evident last weekend when i attended the "awaken the dreamer" symposium. It is a symposium designed to alert us to what is occurring in he world from an environmental perspective and what we can do as partners in creation to intervene and support. One of the videos they the played was called four years GO. It is a totally inspiring 3 minute video campaign created by one of the symposium attendees in 2010.
If this Blog has inspired you in any way please watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmOFSEB-xNI (if the link does not work for any reason go to you tube and search "four years go movement")
And today, take a moment and consider where an opportunity exists for you to create a partnership (in any area of your life) that will get you one step closer to creating a more fulfilling, enriching and community oriented existence.
Upward and Onward
And yours in partnership
Mike
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
What does it mean to belong
I often sit in full movie houses and wonder to myself whether the experience is indicative of community experiences in the 21st century.
People, surrounded by people all of whom are craving connection but who sit there in silence. We do not acknowledge our neighbour, offer them some popcorn, share a laugh, a tear, a shoulder or a tissue. Yet in those moments where everybody laughs or cries all who are present light up and the energy erupts like a charge through the audience
Then the curtain closes, the lights go up and everybody shuffles out in silence looking neither right nor left , just staring at the floor and avoiding the possibility of eye contact with one another.
This past Saturday night I went to movies for the very first time ever on my lonesome. I would like to say it was liberating. The only positive was that I managed to escape the summer heat.
It was confronting because I feel so clear that human beings are not meant to exist in isolation. We are community creatures. We crave connection, we crave like, we crave touch, we crave belonging.
So what is it that is creating this community of people who are able to facebook anyone, anywhere, anytime yet are unable to connect with the person sitting right next to them ? And what is it that sustains us in this crazy world of ours.
That question has been my passion for the past 17 years and the primary motivator behind creating evolution group training now known as KLIK's. The original idea was this:
' to create a context in which a group of people could authenitcally engage with each other in the pursuit of their own (and the groups) betterment.
he second layer of that community was the community of trainers (evolutionaries) who would become a group of people empowering others to create, nurture and sustain these communities.
These communities would then go out into their world, their greater communities and spread this sense of community.
To an extent i feel we have achieved that. We have an amazing sense of community within each an every ne of our groups. And each group seems to reflect the unique nature of it's leader.
So far as the evolutionaries go i am not sure. I am not sure how deeply the commitment goes to creating and leading lives that make a difference. And I am not sure how much of that is about me or whether I just push to hard instead of allowing things to flower in their own good time. I push the evolutionaroes hard. I can see there potential and the potenital of what evolution can mean to them from a personal and fincaial perspective. And i don't settle for less then the actualisation of that potential n the process. Perhaps I drive some of htem mad in that but I only take on people who I feel have it in them to actualise that potential. IAnd sometimes I see them as much greater then they see themselves.
How does that relate to community ? I am not totally sure. I guess I se part o their potential as creating this amazing sense of community around each other. Deep meaningful friendships, a corproate culture that is unique in its authenticity, and vulnerability, a group of people who liv hanging out with each other. who recharge when they are together as they share their highs and lows, their dreams and ambitions. A group of people who truly learn and grow together and absolutely support one another in creating lives that they love.
Thats the vision. I am not sure how close I am to achieving it.
People, surrounded by people all of whom are craving connection but who sit there in silence. We do not acknowledge our neighbour, offer them some popcorn, share a laugh, a tear, a shoulder or a tissue. Yet in those moments where everybody laughs or cries all who are present light up and the energy erupts like a charge through the audience
Then the curtain closes, the lights go up and everybody shuffles out in silence looking neither right nor left , just staring at the floor and avoiding the possibility of eye contact with one another.
This past Saturday night I went to movies for the very first time ever on my lonesome. I would like to say it was liberating. The only positive was that I managed to escape the summer heat.
It was confronting because I feel so clear that human beings are not meant to exist in isolation. We are community creatures. We crave connection, we crave like, we crave touch, we crave belonging.
So what is it that is creating this community of people who are able to facebook anyone, anywhere, anytime yet are unable to connect with the person sitting right next to them ? And what is it that sustains us in this crazy world of ours.
That question has been my passion for the past 17 years and the primary motivator behind creating evolution group training now known as KLIK's. The original idea was this:
' to create a context in which a group of people could authenitcally engage with each other in the pursuit of their own (and the groups) betterment.
he second layer of that community was the community of trainers (evolutionaries) who would become a group of people empowering others to create, nurture and sustain these communities.
These communities would then go out into their world, their greater communities and spread this sense of community.
To an extent i feel we have achieved that. We have an amazing sense of community within each an every ne of our groups. And each group seems to reflect the unique nature of it's leader.
So far as the evolutionaries go i am not sure. I am not sure how deeply the commitment goes to creating and leading lives that make a difference. And I am not sure how much of that is about me or whether I just push to hard instead of allowing things to flower in their own good time. I push the evolutionaroes hard. I can see there potential and the potenital of what evolution can mean to them from a personal and fincaial perspective. And i don't settle for less then the actualisation of that potential n the process. Perhaps I drive some of htem mad in that but I only take on people who I feel have it in them to actualise that potential. IAnd sometimes I see them as much greater then they see themselves.
How does that relate to community ? I am not totally sure. I guess I se part o their potential as creating this amazing sense of community around each other. Deep meaningful friendships, a corproate culture that is unique in its authenticity, and vulnerability, a group of people who liv hanging out with each other. who recharge when they are together as they share their highs and lows, their dreams and ambitions. A group of people who truly learn and grow together and absolutely support one another in creating lives that they love.
Thats the vision. I am not sure how close I am to achieving it.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Cleanse Wrap up
We have just completed our first cleanse of 2011 and it was suggested that I compose an email for all our current active evolution clients and provide a bit of a wrap up of the past 10 days.
For those who participated - May it strengthen what you have learned.
For those who have not done it - You will get another two opportunities this year. Alternately you might be totally inspired to go and do it right now, in which case all the information you need is on the evolution website.
The cleanse is about two things
1/ Eating with awareness and paying attention to what you are putting into your body
2/ Learning that things that control you are called addictions (and they are not your friends)
From eating with awareness and putting whole foods into your system you get to feel a complete shift in energy. What surprises most people is how little needs to change for them to feel vastly different. By day 4 once the caffeine headache has receded and the grumpiness is gone they start to feel lighter, clearer and more in tune. Bloating and heaviness diminish and by day 10 they feel positively great.
From learning to let go of an addiction comes a whole new lesson. For most it is coffee, alcohol or sugar. Those are the three demons. And for the smokers amongst us there is also the good old cigarettes.
And in the letting go of addiction lies the profound lesson of the cleanse.
The evolutionaries (trainers) know how much I love my gadgets and my reading so for my birthday they bought me my first Kindle - which I am loving. last night i download a book called the Slap.
Here's a quote from the book " he and Aisha had a graceful morning of slow delightful sex, and he'd wrapped his arms around her and whispered, you are my greatest commitment. She'd turned around with a sardonic smile and replied, No I'm not, cigarettes are your true love, cigarettes are your true commitment........she had wounded him, shattered his pride. and he was mortified to realize that it was only his feverish sucking on cigarettes that allowed him any measure of self control in the argument"
Such a poignant reflection on the insidious nature of addiction. Addiction can be a subtle little monster because it parades itself as our friend but always it contains both the high and the low and that is why the cleanse can be such a powerful tool to start to reclaim your own power, step by step, slowly slowly.
And here you were thinking that evolution was just about getting your butt kicked by a trainer by 6am.
And that is the beauty of doing the cleanse as a group. Sharing the victories and disappointments and feeding off each other as we take one step after another on the road to leading an optimal and meaningful life.
What was great about the cleanse this year was that all the evolutionaries took on doing it (that is an evolution first) and from that they started to make a difference in their lives and the lives of their evolutionites (you)
Tomorrow you will wake up and relish that you can have that first coffee. Relish it I say, enjoy it, enjoy the ritual and the aroma but do not let it be your crutch or your sustenance.
Do not let sugar or alcohol be that. Do not let cigarettes be that.
Take your sustenance from laughter with friends and family, the sun rising over the horizon, a shared moment with your partner as you pour every ounce of yourself into an exercise, a private victory as you climb to the top of a hill for the first time, a beautiful book, a great movie, shared intimacy and vulnerability.
Those are things that will fill your cup. I hope the cleanse has been another brick in that wall
Onward and upward
Mike and the evo team
For those who participated - May it strengthen what you have learned.
For those who have not done it - You will get another two opportunities this year. Alternately you might be totally inspired to go and do it right now, in which case all the information you need is on the evolution website.
The cleanse is about two things
1/ Eating with awareness and paying attention to what you are putting into your body
2/ Learning that things that control you are called addictions (and they are not your friends)
From eating with awareness and putting whole foods into your system you get to feel a complete shift in energy. What surprises most people is how little needs to change for them to feel vastly different. By day 4 once the caffeine headache has receded and the grumpiness is gone they start to feel lighter, clearer and more in tune. Bloating and heaviness diminish and by day 10 they feel positively great.
From learning to let go of an addiction comes a whole new lesson. For most it is coffee, alcohol or sugar. Those are the three demons. And for the smokers amongst us there is also the good old cigarettes.
And in the letting go of addiction lies the profound lesson of the cleanse.
The evolutionaries (trainers) know how much I love my gadgets and my reading so for my birthday they bought me my first Kindle - which I am loving. last night i download a book called the Slap.
Here's a quote from the book " he and Aisha had a graceful morning of slow delightful sex, and he'd wrapped his arms around her and whispered, you are my greatest commitment. She'd turned around with a sardonic smile and replied, No I'm not, cigarettes are your true love, cigarettes are your true commitment........she had wounded him, shattered his pride. and he was mortified to realize that it was only his feverish sucking on cigarettes that allowed him any measure of self control in the argument"
Such a poignant reflection on the insidious nature of addiction. Addiction can be a subtle little monster because it parades itself as our friend but always it contains both the high and the low and that is why the cleanse can be such a powerful tool to start to reclaim your own power, step by step, slowly slowly.
And here you were thinking that evolution was just about getting your butt kicked by a trainer by 6am.
And that is the beauty of doing the cleanse as a group. Sharing the victories and disappointments and feeding off each other as we take one step after another on the road to leading an optimal and meaningful life.
What was great about the cleanse this year was that all the evolutionaries took on doing it (that is an evolution first) and from that they started to make a difference in their lives and the lives of their evolutionites (you)
Tomorrow you will wake up and relish that you can have that first coffee. Relish it I say, enjoy it, enjoy the ritual and the aroma but do not let it be your crutch or your sustenance.
Do not let sugar or alcohol be that. Do not let cigarettes be that.
Take your sustenance from laughter with friends and family, the sun rising over the horizon, a shared moment with your partner as you pour every ounce of yourself into an exercise, a private victory as you climb to the top of a hill for the first time, a beautiful book, a great movie, shared intimacy and vulnerability.
Those are things that will fill your cup. I hope the cleanse has been another brick in that wall
Onward and upward
Mike and the evo team
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