Where You Spend Your Time Determines Your Future

There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will. — Albert Einstein

With all the bad news this week about the economy, war in the Middle East, America's declining reputation as a global super power, it's easy to become fearful. All the smart pundits feed into into our fears with their shouldn't pay attention to reality and consider our options, but we should also never lose sight that we have the power to design a future we'd prefer when we are open to the possibilities around us and fear blinds us to what we can do. Fear breeds more fear and other dysfunctions.

The truth is that no one can predict the future, but we can design it, and lots of other smart people are doing just that. So where do you spend your time?

America and indeed the rest of the world is, in fact, likely at a crossroads and so the opportunities exist that we could design the world we want or get the world others design for us. We can still design a much better place. We can design a new civic life that resembles the shining city on a hill to which our founding fathers aspired. Its ecology might be freshly repaired and newly sustainable, its economy rejuvenated, its politics functional and fair, its media elevated in tone, its culture creative and uplifting, its gender and race relations improved, its commonalities embraced and differences accepted, its institutions free of the corruptions that today seem entrenched beyond correction. People might enjoy new realms of personal, family, community, and national connection and fulfillment. America’s borders might be redrawn around an altered but more cogent geography of public community. Its influence on world peace could be more potent and more uplifting on world culture. All of this is achievable if we design for that future.

How can you help? Speak out for what you want to our public and corporate leaders. Ask them to create incentives for us to invest our time, money and resources in a cleaner environment, more educational opportunities for children and adults, creativity and innovation, physical and mental wellness, nutrition, affordable housing and care-taking professions for the least able. It's all possible.

What Makes Good Leaders, Makes Good Followers

What Makes High Performnig Teams?

• Participative leadership - creating an interdependence by empowering, freeing up and serving others.
• Shared responsibility - establishing an environment in which all team members feel responsibility as the manager for the performance team.
• Aligned on purpose - having a sense of common purpose about why the team exists and the function it serves.
• High communication - creating a climate of trust and open, honest communication.
• Future focused - seeing change as an opportunity for growth.
• Focused on task - keeping meetings and interactions focused on results.
• Creative talents - applying individual talents and creativity.
• Rapid response - identifying and acting on opportunities.